In a sense, we've always had real-time reporting, since you've always been free to go outside and look at your meter whenever you want.

Probably contravenes typical /. viewpoint, but smart meters are great. I have one and love it. I get a feed of its data and create a daily plot based on that information (see here).

Smart meters allow accurate time of day pricing, which can help reduce overall consumption and reduce costs for everyone, customers included. It allows the utility company to know more about where demand is and how it varies, and have a better sense of the condition of the grid (especially useful in outages).

In theory I could deduce all sorts of things about you based on your energy usage given enough resolution. Yes, maybe the police will order the utility company to produce records for a person they suspect is running a grow operation in their basement (though probably just the total usage would be enough to deduce that).

I don't care for a TV that will record audio all the time, so I won't buy one. Funny that the device I don't have choice over (the meter) actually provides me with real benefits, while other companies are trying to sell me devices that don't offer nearly as much benefit.

When I lived in Virginia, I saw two launches from Wallops - one at night, which was spectacular, and one during the day, which I could barely make out but was still fun to try and spot. Viewed them from Arlington and DC respectively. I've since moved to Connecticut, but I'm going to try and spot it tonight.

You're assuming that sound recordings are treated in the same manner as other copyrighted works. They're not. Read up on pre-1972 sound recordings. They're covered by a messy patchwork of state laws, with the result that probably neither you nor I nor anyone here can know exactly how long those recordings are protected by copyright law.

Welcome to the wacky world of intellectual property.

Too bad they didn't notice OS X is currently at 10.9...

Also, isn't the rule of thumb that it's every other version of Windows that's the good one? By skipping 9, are skipping straight to another bad one?

Can you point to a modern governor's race in which the governor does not run on a platform chock-full of legislative initiatives?

Some people say the same thing about the President - that it's Congress' job to pass laws, so the President shouldn't be proposing legislation. Technically true, but that is not how our government actually works in practice.

Wait, so we reject it because it provides more protections than the bare minimum required by law?

The alternative is a phone filled with either the OEM's additions, or the carrier's crappy branded apps.

The cleanest phone you can buy is probably the Nexus 5.

Those of us who want more control will be smart buyers and purchase hardware that is easy to load with custom ROMs, then we can decide exactly how much of gapps we want.

In Virginia, I forget if it was state or county law, but my local Autozone or Advance has a sign in their parking lot citing an ordnance prohibiting you from doing work on your vehicle.

The GP is referring to the common provision in many rental agreements that specifically states you won't do vehicle repair on the property. They usually exempt changing flat tires. I ignored it and did all the work I wanted on my motorcycles, usually on summer weekends with a beer (literally a shadetree mechanic, did it underneath the shade of a tree). But I suspect they would have objected to serious work on a car.

Thanks, I appreciate the reply. Good to know.

OT, but do you see consulting firms hire social scientists? It's a career path I'd never really considered until another recent PhD from my program told me he was applying to such positions.

In my case, my work is not exclusively quantitative, but does involve some statistics, and I've published work that uses regression. I'd be applying after finishing a postdoc at a top law school.

I'm in a totally different field, but I just finished a PhD, and I'm currently in a two-year postdoc.

Why did you get a PhD? You said you already worked as a software developer before, so it's not like you went straight through school because you didn't know what else to do. You also said your thesis was on a technical topic without practical application, so it doesn't sound like you were aiming for a non-academic job.

What kind of job did you want when you started? An academic job, then changed your mind? If so, you will have to be very intentional about selling yourself to employers. Frame the PhD as giving you experience in how to do research. It's going to be the rare employer who actually cares about what you did specifically.

It sounds like you are just firing off online job applications. Have you networked? Does anyone from your department know folks in industry? Did you apply for postdoctoral positions, research fellowships, etc.? If you are just looking at standard development positions, you are probably going to be rejected as being overqualified.

In your example, the ad showing the elephant would certainly be considered mere puffery and not give you a valid claim in court. See, e.g., Leonard v. Pepsico (in which a plaintiff tried to sue Pepsi for failing to deliver a Harrier jet as the prize in a contest based an a TV ad showing the jet as a prize).

The question is whether "unlimited" is a claim whose truth or falsity can be demonstrated, and what kind of expectations reasonable people have.

Yes. With virtually every other form of electronic communication we have today, we know that it can be (and likely is being) recorded and archived. E-mail, SMS, Facebook messages, video camera footage (without audio), license plate location details through ALPR, credit card usage information, utility usage information through smart meters... heck, even WHO you call and for how long is being recorded by the phone company and shared with law enforcement, no warrant required, since that's "just metadata" recorded by a "pen register" and doesn't fall under wiretap laws.

Now, ask yourself, who benefits from that fact that it's difficult for the average citizen to record their phone calls? And why is it that every entity with any significant power or revenue records their phone calls, and simply informs you of that fact without offering any choice? How exactly does it benefit me that all my interactions with Comcast or AT&T are recorded and kept by them and I have nothing?

Maybe you think there should be more protections for all the other forms of communication and data, but that's not going to happen. And just like it was in the interest of law enforcement for them to be able to record you, but not for you to be able to record them, I think you need to think hard about whether you really want to preserve an illusion of privacy, or actually be able level the playing field.