"Security audits are only worthwhile if the company being audited is actually serious about security in the first place".

  I guess what matters is who holds the 'purse strings". When I observe a non-compliant issue and report it to my client, most of the time my client calls for a secondary audit. It's rare to see the same issue on the secondary. The audits I've done where I observe the same non-compliance are rarely retained by my clients.

  My clients hold the "purse strings" and will accept an "anomaly", "error" or an explainable exception, but they won't deviate from agreed compliance with their clients.

Why would you say something like that? Whereas, I don't have high confidence in any governmental organization to ratify legislation that works well with tech matters, California has lead the way for many in the past that are now national standards.

  Off the top of my head, there was a time where you could buy a new car without a catalytic converter, and without any emission standard requirements in every state besides California. Same thing can be said about safety equipment or specification (bumper heights, crash standards). Currently, all the requirements that had to be met for California are nationally required.

  I expect we will see the same adoption nationally for small motorized and two-stroke motors in the future. Also, the Junior College system that CA has had since (at least) 1978 (sans tuition for residents) recently had national mention.

  All in all, although many protest and resist change, it seems that California legislators are more intuitive than most and they seem to have lead the nation on many other models aside from the aforementioned.

And it sure isn't the case in California where junior colleges have been free since 1978 and to this day are of minimal expense (like $46 a unit).

"And why does everything need to have "growth"?"

Because without growth, there's no investment. Sometime look at the security pricing data after the most stable, profitable company reports flat earnings. Investors will keep a security of a company that reports huge losses but shows growth. Fear and greed drives the market.

Someone still makes buggy whips. If an infrastructure and supply line is established to fill the current market demand, that's where it ends. There's no growth here..

  The fact is that given the same source content, high quality digital copies are by far higher quality, have better SN ratios and dynamic range than vinyl is capable of delivering, with a media that doesn't degrade the minute it's used.

  It's not realistic to compare a highly compressed MP3 to vinyl. Compare a lossless audio file to vinyl and you'll find it to be significantly higher quality. Even if you don't believe the math.

Who's "they"? Google? I'm going to have to call BS here. Please provide a reference. If your email is ever looked at by a human, it would never have any identifying information and the only reason a human would look at it is to assure the ads are relevant or results from an algorithm return are useful and of high quality. These uses are expressly disclosed in the TOS you agreed to when you opted to use their services.

  The times Google has screwed up (street view issues and WIFI mapping) they've admitted the error and provided their corrective actions transparently.

The Palin Syndrome

Wasn't Galileo sufficient enough an example?

A perfect example of why connectivity should be controlled by the PUC (and considered a public utility). I don't want providers shoving locked, altered OS's with applications they deem necessary or recommended. I don't want to be told what type of device I can use to access bandwidth running RFC spec communication protocols. I don't want your DNS servers shoved down my throat, providing compensated landing pages in lieu of the address I requested. I don't want them believing they have a right to profit off of any data I care to view.

  Venturing even further, you can take your POTS system
separation from my bandwidth and the double income you have been earning for the past 15 years and put it where the sun doesn't shine.

I feel better now..

I call it "The Patriot Act".

Those communication lines weren't twisted pair to twisted pair. Termination, possibly. Guaranteed, those lines weren't passed over analogue copper. your response while valid, is equal to the FCC license requiring the ability to copy morse code without the requirement to have any knowledge of how analogue to digital conversion is accomplished, nor oscillated.

  The fact that IP based communication failed during the aforementioned emergency was only due to the carriers terminations services. It's a given the long haul was packetized.

"I don't think this is going to be a popular platform with the carriers"

  Isn't it time for the POTS (and it's younger brother cellular) system to die? Stateside termination is more fragmented than Android. One of the largest stateside carries uses termination that's not compatible with the rest of the world, designed to control income and users, not to provide quality services to it's clients. Available termination devices are designed to increase income for providers, not to provide the cutting edge of technology.

  Project ARA is a big threat to the proprietary hold communication carriers have on the stateside voice communication market.

  Whereas Joe Sixpac doesn't know it, anyone with little
technical ability can have a dialup number without any service plan from ANY carrier.

  The separation between "data plans" and "phone plans" is ridiculous, but every carrier likes to make differentiations between the receiving device and the price they charge.

  At the very least, project ARA is being supported by a company that clearly discloses it's participation in the services it provides, provides clear notifications to it's users when it changes those terms, and is a strong enough player to take on the legislated inequities the current players in the communication market are benefiting from.