You can be pedantic, but come on...I get it, language evolves, but a tech website like slashdot should get the tech vernacular correct, don't you think?

After all, "bus" is not foreign term to "nerds" now, is it? For example, the same term that describes "front side bus" also describes an electrical bus duct.

A fool's drivel repeated often enough will some day end up in the lexicon, especially in the moden age of instant mass communications, but that does not make it correct.

"Buss" is not a word, but because there was an electrical manufacturing company called "Bussman" that makes fuses, and people would often shorten it to "Buss Fuses", other illiterates have created a spurious spelling that uses "buss" instead of "bus". It's still incorrect however, in spite of the illiterates repeating it on the internet.

This holds true within the electrical trade, as many old-timers frequently write (not type!) "buss" -- I often see it on equipment labels, one-line drawings, etc.

That's because @SWA is not SWA's official twitter feed.

https://twitter.com/SouthwestAir

That's what I'm talkin' about.

I don't give a shit about "bad publicity" or either of these two idiots -- the gate agent or the passenger. I have three upcoming flights with SWA. I'm not one step closer to calling to cancel based on this crybaby's poor-me story.

Next time, guy could just try doing as he's told by those in charge of the situation.

It seems simple enough to me: increased customer satisfaction (aka reputation in a captive market) means you can inflate your prices and/or reduce the quality of service with less backlash.

It's not quite that simple. Using PG&E as an example, they cannot just inflate their prices. Rate increases must be approved by the State of California Public Utilities Commission, as must rate increases for every other utility in the state.

And who cares? It's not like you have a choice, particularly with real utilities. You can't just get your power from somewhere else. In the Bay Area, PG&E in constantly running campaigns to improve their reputation, mostly associated with the San Bruno disaster. Why? Shareholder value? If so, I guess I don't quite understand what public reputation of a utility has to do with shareholder value. Perhaps state and municipal permitting related to system construction, rate increases with the PUC to fund said construction... ...thinking outloud here, it seems.

Any modern quartz-controlled watch that costs more than $10 is a status symbol and nothing more.

I don't know about that. My Citizen WR-100 is a very modest watch. My wife bought it for me about 8 years ago. $250. It's my daily driver... the nightstand watch. It's very special to me for many intangible reasons, but it certainly isn't a status symbol.

I get what you're saying, but there's a middle ground somewhere, too.

Only if it's as high tech as they've promised.

Alcohol! Gives me the ability to drown-out/ignore your intrusive cell phone use coupled with the potential to make me more annoying than you to other passengers all the while maintaining my elevated (perhaps evolved?) sense of not giving a fuck about either!

Win-win!

Ain't flying fun!?!?

However, I also strongly believe that I have a right to privacy, which should be especially obvious when I'm innocent.

You're banking on the assumption that your innocence is especially obvious...

You've got yourself a serious set of problems any number of which will kill you, including the heart attack.

That's a bit of a stretch.

That's all a matter of perspective...

With all due respect, you don't know anything about line construction. Do you want this hanging outside your house? While overstated, that is essentially what you'll end up with.

How many ISP's would you say is reasonable to have hanging off those poles outside? There is only a finite amount of space available on those poles and they are rated to handle a specific amount of load. Who should be responsible for engineering this? How many companies do you want climbing up and down them, interfering with existing power and telco infrastructure? Who would pay for the pole change-outs necessary to accommodate all of this? The small ISP who wants to hang a cable or two?

Can the "small" ISP carry a sufficient amount of liability insurance for such an installation?

There are specific requirements for the construction and maintenance of overhead lines. In California, that's the PUC and General Order 95. Who would monitor and inspect for compliance when all these "small" ISPs start hanging stuff on the infrastructure?

I agree with you in principle, but there are a number of practical considerations beyond simply un-fucking the local government, who oftentimes don't even own the poles...the utility does with right-of-way authority granted by the state. Local governments are a small part of the overall problem.