Nuff said.

And it always results in an ugly, degraded attempt at a try.

I call BS...

I realize the story is specifically about T-Mobile, but overall it's about the "mysterious" charges that end up on peoples bills across all carriers.

I worked in Sprint's billing department (hell on earth, yes), and I dealt with these calls about 25% of my day. I was personally allotted $15 per call, that's per customer to refund these charges, explain how they got there, personally block them from happening again wherever possible, and then give a long lecture on how to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. And if it was more? "Hey, boss! I need you to approve $50 in refunds for this account!" "Okay, no problem!" Half the time the charges could be traced back to a parent letting their 7 year old play games on their phone without oversight, but we refunded them anyway. There are many different ways for these types of charges to get on a phone bill, and we always happily refunded them, blocked misc. services or whatever ever it took, and cordially thanked them for being diligent when it came to examining their monthly statement. The bottom line is, at least at Sprint, I never saw a charge that someone had to have blindly agreed to, yet we refunded them left and right anyway.

If you had the opposite experience with Sprint, it wasn't within the last 5 years (major reform) or you weren't routed to my department.

It's up to the customer to carefully examine every line item on their bill every single month and that's that.

I get the feeling this will get modded straight to hell, I hope at least one person with sensibility reads it first.

This will be a formidable low-end x86 machine if Windows 10 actual hits before the end of 2015, otherwise it's getting late into the game for these things. Then give anyone who buys one now a free upgrade. I would not want the tile interface unless I could use it like a tablet, and switching between tablet and notebook mode all the time just doesn't sound practical. A simple micro hdmi connector or even MHL compatibility would make this greater.

So is this one of those situations where I have to say, "mod me down all you want.." in ordered to get modded up? Just for the record I have been a huge Linux geek since about 95 with Slackware. Computers, operating systems, and software are tools and I explore all available tools. I've been running the Tech Preview pretty happily. It would make this machine an impulsive buy.

"...and satellite images could also easily have been taken instead,"

I don't think that works quite the way she thinks it does. Oh well, this is the same group that was recently up in arms over over Mario 3 because Mario transforms into the mythical Japanese tanooki.

True and standard practice. However, the extent was not specified.

A voice of reason on Slashdot.

I would have no qualms about this practice if it were completely up front in it's entirety rather than have to read about it in a blog. Microsoft needs this extensive information (well, maybe not quite all of it) to make absolutely damn sure the don't fuck anything up or miss anything in how it's used. I just downloaded the beta and fully intend to go ahead and install it. I have not given a damn about Windows operating systems since Windows 2000. I have even been an outright hater but with this release I am officially excited and looking forward to it.

Hopefully this will not bring new meaning to the term.

"Am I the only person who has a problem with that?"

Far from it. There are three types of people when it comes to this issue: people like us that have a problem with it, people too ignorant to have a problem with it, and law enforcement themselves who I am sure prefer the latter.

I have the pleasure of working with off duty police officers. We used to always get along well. Then one of them started telling stories about pulling people over. They were not flattering. I explained to them my policy of informing police officers, "I know you're just out here doing your job officer, but I don't consent to searches." I further explained that after stepping out of the vehicle (because that line always results in being asked to), that I repeatedly interject, "Am I being detained or am I free to go." Until finally they have to let me go. Despite explaining that I am as polite as can be about it, they chastised me for my approach. They were as upset as the cop that finally has to let me go. I still have to work with them, but they don't hide the fact that they now dislike me quite a bit. It probably didn't help that I combined it with a story about two cops that severely trampled on my civil rights a couple years ago and there was nothing I could do about it.

Your absolutely right. A lot of iPhone users only want an iPhone due to the traditionally tiny form factor. It is somewhat surprising to see Apple alienate this crowd.

The only benefit to such I model is the ability to charge more in licensing fees for the server version. Obviously that makes no sense here. Although I will say this, for any distro the is both frequently used as a server and is eye balling the abomination that is SystemD, they damn well better offer an init.d version.

If the ecosystems can adjust to their demise, then surely they could equally well adjust to their return?
When a species goes extinct, the vacuum it leaves is filled by other species. When a new species is introduced, assuming it is successful, something else has to make way. Historically this is a bad thing. Have you not seen what's going on in Florida right now?

Why not? I'm curious.
Something isn't a good idea just because you are curious.

There 's no way to predict the effect of any given action or inaction. For all you know, reintroducing passenger pigeons could be the best thing ever to happen to the North American environment.
And for all you know? Re-read my first two replies to your comment.

Why is it just as wrong? Something isn't true just because you say it is; try to provide some rationale behind the statement.
And what precisely have you offered in that way in you're comment? Absolutely nothing. If you want to play that game, it works both ways.

If the Passenger Pigeon has been extinct for this long, it's safe to say that ecosystems have adjusted to their demise. Let's not see what the consequences of re-introducing them are. There is no way to predict the effect. If they are planning and engineering these hybrids just to study their work in captivity, well, that is just as wrong.