Obviously people have already forgotten MCI (Microwave Communications inc.)

I went to RPI. Yes, we had classes with county-high-school valedictorians who were totally shocked to be the least-prepared in the room. Since I had been in an NYC specialized schools (nowadays you'd call it a "magnet" school) it was just another day at the office. Well, maybe a little more painful.

Many moons ago, my senior year at engineering school, the placement office sent me a note (on actual paper!) that a big bank wanted to interview me. I couldn't imagine why, since I hadn't expressed any interest in business IT. A few days later, I met with a close-to-retirement VP who frankly admitted that he knew nothing about technology; his function was to assess people. The bank wanted people for their new IT headquarters in New York City, and I was on their list because I already lived there (or my parents did); they were trying to avoid hiring people who were looking for an excuse to move to NYC. We had a pleasant conversation, in which I freely admitted I didn't expect much technical challenge, and the older gentleman convinced me to put my resume in the queue anyway.

A few weeks later I went to the bank headquarters in NYC for "a technical interview", and it was every disaster on this page. The interview time was a myth, as was the person I was expecting to see; instead an HR person who had been a fresh-out last year, and who had no idea what he was doing in his own area let alone IT, gave up on questions and gave me a "skills test" to fill out (presumably my soon-to-be Computer Science degree from a top engineering school didn't count).

So I went back to school, took out my trusty typewriter and the VP's business card, and wrote him a letter describing my experience (staying polite!), and making clear that while meeting with him had been pleasant, the mismanagement after things left his hands convinced me that there was absolutely no way that I would ever want to work for the bank. I heard nothing for a few weeks, then a brief note of apology.

A few weeks later, my parents called me to tell me to go find a copy of The New York Times for that day. In the business section was an 1/8th page ad for that same bank with two profiles, one with a speech bubble including a dozen or more tech buzzwords, the other with a thought bubble empty but for a question mark. The sub-heading of the ad was: "Is your interviewer qualified to interview you?" I guess that old VP still had some pull . . .

Don't tar everyone with the brush of extremism. I work/worked with people who are about as Muslim as Jon Stewart is Jewish - they know their heritage and some key words, they celebrate some holidays (especially if older generations are around), and mostly it doesn't matter. On the other hand, the good Christian folks who want "faith-based" laws scare me just as much as the guy interviewed on 60 Minutes last week, insisting that it was his democratic right to tell a woman to cover herself with a hijab AND expect her to comply,

People don't deliberately "put their company somewhere where the cost of living is high and there's a shortage of talent"; they start a company where they currently live (maybe even in their current home!), and if they're starting a tech company because they're tech people and previously worked in tech, they probably live in a tech area. And they're going to start by hiring other tech people who already live in the tech area. That's how these things grow (some would say fester) in one neighborhood.

Ford, I guess . . . .

Anything networked has this problem (as multiple posters have pointed out) (cue Battlestar Galactica quotes about the dangers of networking). The only way to get "convenience" - which I conflate with "functionality" for this discussion - while retaining privacy is to use standalone devices. My GPS doesn't tell anyone where I go, because it's never connected to anything else (and because of that design, I'm betting it doesn't even bother trying to store anything for later retrieval). Of course, that means that a device needs all of its information locally, and updating has to be strictly controlled.

Google is offering a service. You're not paying them. As often said, if you're not the seller or the purchaser in a transaction, then you are the thing being sold. Just like broadcast radio & TV, the "entertainment"/"information" is the lure to bring you to view advertising, and in the networked era to encourage you to allow yourself to be followed.

Were you on the debate team? :-)

Not sure where you live, but I wasn't brought up to think it was acceptable to "beat the holy hell" out of anyone. Well, maybe in self-defense.

The television industry isn't about ads being inserted into shows; it's about shows being put on to draw people to the ads. Since there are other ways to watch shows, especially if one is willing to wait, sports has become the only "must-watch-live" item, which is why the networks are willing to pay so much for the rights to broadcast sports.

That goes for Facebook and Youtube and all of the other services, too. They just stumbled on cheaper ways to produce their "shows", namely provide the infrastructure for viewers to entertain each other.

Would you have gone into that bowling alley and used the same bowling ball that the NY doctor used? Probably sweated on? Would you use the same glass that he drank from (if he got a drink), especially if the bar just washes the glasses by hand rather than in a sterilizing dishwasher? And yes, I realize that in the same crowd there was probably someone with a cold or influenza. You can consider the same questions for that person's bowling ball and glass.

Sure, if they aren't symptomatic they aren't contagious, but how can one be sure in the period when someone is sort of starting to feel a little warm, not feverish, I'll be fine after a good night's sleep, no, I don't need to take a day off . . . . You know, the sort of person who can cripple a whole office with a cold or flu? Sure, it's easier to catch the flu, but a lot less likely to die horribly of it.

Covering someone's salary and ensuring their job security - even if that means paying both the quarantinee and a replacement worker for three weeks - is a lot cheaper than cleaning up afterwards if someone *does* turn out to be harboring infection without symptoms *yet*. Especially in densely populated areas where the likelihood of cross-contact is higher. The nurse in Maine can certainly go sit out on her deck, do some yard work, etc.; it's a different story for the doctor in New York City who may have left sweat on the subway handgrip or pole that someone else wound up holding mere minutes afterwards.

The soldiers coming back from Africa who will be quarantined will be paid for that time, which will count towards their enlistment, and will probably be doing PT and other activities during that time. Anyone being quarantined should be treated as being "drafted" for the time. It would be a lot tougher to make that case if the incubation were, say, two or three *months*; but three weeks is an extended business trip. If someone has an event to attend, they just have to plan travel accordingly.

No, you can't. In fact, this is related to one of the strange places where government crosses religion. If you label something as complying with religious standards - like food being kosher or halal - then *civil* law says that you must have, and display, certification from a *religious* authority that you actually comply. The civil law does not set the standard, nor does it verify that the religious authority is valid; it just says that if you claim something you have to be able to verify it.

If they are going out of their way to throttle the bandwidth as a function of the quantity of data, then they're lying. Yes, available bandwidth and throughput vary as a function of system load, so if the whole neighborhood is watching youtube things get slower for everyone; but when they list a "cap" and throttle above it, they're contradicting the original promise of "unlimited".

If they're re-using FTDI's manufacturer ID, then they're counterfeit. I agree that blocking use and announcing why is very different from vandalism.