Though it requires active cables, which cost quite a bit more. So it might have a place for bleeding edge stuff, but not so much for economy.

Anyone who explodes here in rage probably never worked in support. You get your share of assholes. Actually, you get more than your share of assholes. Because you are in the mind of some people the source and reason of everything that ever befouled them. If you treat the customer support badly, don't expect good service. Your 5 bucks a month are not paying his paycheck, your call is not his reason to exist and you are essentially of no particular interest to said customer service rep. He's there to HELP you. With a problem that may or may not be caused by you, but one that absolutely certainly was not caused by him or her.

I can only guess what happened here. My guess is that Comcast suits forced support to be nice to even the most obnoxious waste of oxygen calling, and this is their only outlet. If you ask me, a very, very tame reaction. I've seen people actually resort to physical violence.

I heard of him and I still think he's nothing but the PR department of his alleged adversary.

What they meant is that they like casual sex. "No Strings Attached", usually abbreviated "nsa", is, at least according to wikipedia, "an expression for casual sex often used in personal ads."

Want to see real change and justice? Talk to the actual owners of Uber and see if you can convince them to make a better company.

Uber is run by libertarian psychopaths. Their thought process - though they would obviously never say it in public - is "nobody made you get into the taxi, tough luck".

Even the slightest voluntary attempt to try and ameliorate the risk involved would be an anathema - "nanny state regulation" or some such bullshit - to them.

Probably better because who can say how many cab drivers make it in via political favors?

Given the life and pay of a taxi driver, I'd go with "sweet fuck all".

People calling in "political favours" to be a *taxi driver* ? Did you even think about that before you wrote it ? Do you think garbage collectors get jobs through "political favours" as well ?

The problems in the taxi industries worldwide have nothing to do with regulations around safety, and everything to do with the regulations around taxi plates (or "medallions" I think they call them in the states).
Uber vehicles should be required to carry the same safety facilities as a taxi, including video/audio recording and driver duress buttons.
This sort of situation and the absurdly trivial solutions for reducing its risk (what's the cost of a few dash cams ?) were entirely predictable and the only reason Uber did not act proactively was because it's a company run by libertarian psychopaths who think rules shouldn't apply to them.

Global Warming is a theory. So is gravity. Are you worried about suddenly flying off into space ?

All the AGW models have failed, miserably.
If that were true it would not be getting hotter (or getting colder).
"It's not getting hotter as quickly as predicted, but it is getting hotter as expected" is not "miserable failure".

of course, its people who dont use X who always want to raise taxes on X
Similarly, the people who can easily afford the things taxes pay for are always in favour of eliminating them

And why I keep saying ALL Taxes are regressive. Please, tell me more about how a taxes that only targets the top 1%, 0.1% and 0.01% would be "regressive".

Can you give a reference to the source for this?

(I'm not disputing your assessment; just want to throw it all up in Excel sheet to see how much we could save per year if we diverted all military spending on Iraq+Afghanistan on social programs like that.)

Mainly for the freedom to not live in a giant anthill?

The first time I've read the series, I waded through God Emperor, and got completely bogged down on Heretics. After that, I had re-read the first three books several times, but each time I tried to go further I'd immediately remember why I stopped last time ...

Fast forward ten years, and I tried re-reading the whole thing again - and found that I actually enjoyed it. I still like the earlier books more, and the later ones are definitely harder and a slower read, but they no longer bore me.

Perhaps it just takes a certain amount of life experiences to appreciate them?

This is exactly why the ending will involve the Others taking over all Westeros, and putting up the reanimated zombie Joffrey on the throne.

JRRM does not write books to make people happy.