Fox claims that giving viewers the ability to skip commercials on recorded television shows demonstrates the "clear goal of violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem."

Good! Let's tear down that century-old ecosystem, including the business models of those leeches. They're dying anyway. Let's start over from scratch and figure out how we can do it again, this time in ways that don't require stunting technological innovation.

If that's the case, then yeah, that would make them culpable. The news story I had read earlier just said that the bank hadn't disclosed the information, not Facebook (or Zuckerberg) itself. I'll read up on it a little more when I get home from work.

I'd agree with this when it comes to the bank, but how is this Facebook's or Mark Zuckerberg's fault?

The guy was making a lot of money off of his theft. Kleptomaniacs typically don't sell stuff on Ebay at high mark-up, they keep, give away, or even donate the stuff the take. Precisely because profit isn't the motive of kleptomaniacs, I believe this guy was just doing it for the cash. Sad, given his apparently position and likely social stature, but he needs to go to jail, not a mental hospital.

I'm leaning towards believing that this wasn't just a mental illness or thrill-seeking. The reason why is because he was selling the stuff on Ebay for a significant profit.

Had it just been thrill-seeking or an illness, the money wouldn't matter, and most people for whom this is a motive don't want to be caught selling "hot" merchandise. (I know, a bit ironic that they're willing to risk stealing it to begin with, but such is the nature of these things.) He likely would have just given the stuff away to friends, relatives, or even charity.

The fact that he was selling it for such a profit pretty much says to me that it was purely about money. I don't know (and I don't care) how much the guy makes, apparently he wanted more.

P.S. This is why I have such high hopes for Google. They do tend to be quite open with their products, arguably too open in some respects. Still, if they get to the level of design expertise, polish, and outright raw power in small form factors that Apple has gotten to, all the while keeping their thriving corporate culture intact, there's no telling how much it can achieve, changing the industry in ways we (or they, for that matter) haven't even dreamed of yet.

It's a shame that Apple and Google seem to be such mortal enemies. If they could learn from each other and take the best aspects of each other, that would be pretty much an ideal company.

Lord knows I'm not a fan of Apple, and there is much to criticize the company for--setting up walled gardens, trying to lock consumers into their product lines, patent shenanigans, etc. Say what you want, though, but criticisms that their "black brick" is "barely working" are way off-base. Two things I do admire Apple for are 1) the aesthetic design of their products, and 2) the out-of-the-box tech polish they give everything, including brand newly launched products.

As fun as it is to make fun of the "cult of Apple," there are nuggets of truth to what their consumers espouse. Their stuff does work well and their products are good products. If only they would adopt a more open philosophy, they really could be the best tech company out there.

Which part of "selling the same bus tickets" did you not understand? We're not talking about Amazon buying a bus pass and some other company just riding once a week. If Amazon rents some space, the city charges them $X. If some other company rents it, the city charges them $Y. Same space, different rents based on company. That should be illegal.

It is rigged. How do you think it got that way? Because people didn't care.

Is it beyond all hope? Depends. What are you going to do to change it?

Oh, right. Nothing.

As it is now, if City A foregoes the sweetheart deal and Amazon picks City B instead, the net effect is that all that stuff you just mentioned will still happen, except that now, instead of City A either slicing money spent on infrastructure or directly taxing its citizens, City B is actually getting a fair and reasonable deal for the rent. In other words, City B will have more money to spend on infrastructure services than City A.

Now imagine what would happen if every city were prohibited by law from offering these kinds of sweetheart deals to companies? Two things: 1) it doesn't matter where Amazon goes, they're not going to get out of paying rent or taxes, thus making City A able to compete fairly for companies without having to sell its soul, and 2) if I'm a competitor to Amazon, I don't have to worry about them being able to undercut me on price because government is cherry picking them to receive these discounts that it won't offer me.