My recent Sprint to T-Mobile switch was per the need to replace a failing phone, and Sprint's inability to offer a price comparable to what I'd pay T-Mobile on a new activation. I spoke to two different agents, telling them specifically that I'd leave if they didn't offer me a better deal. In all fairness, I'd previously switched from T-Mobile to Sprint for the same reason. There must be some accounting reason why both carriers would sooner lose a ($99/mth, auto-paid on time every month) customer rather than offer replacement phones at lower cost to retain them. They both got me to switch by discounting the phones anyway.

After LIBOR, it appears that the new big(ger) thing it to manipulate interest rate swaps http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425

I believe "How to Win Friends and Influence People" is where I first ran across

“In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Often when a client says something along the lines of "I couldn't do your job" I'll respond with "I don't know how to do your job either". They usually appreciate that.

In addition to Micheal Lewis' excellent Moneyball, his Liar's Poker and The Big Short are also great reads.

We recently invited the local police department's anti-fraud specialist to speak to our local computer users group about this and similar topics in the wake of this scam robo-dialing it's way across our area. The officer gave an interesting talk, and shared several anecdotes about scam methods that were new to me. If you have a local computer users group, civic organization, seniors group, or the like, a presentation like this is a great way to spread the word on scam prevention.

Real world bandwidth use in our cord cutter household of 3 actively used TVs attached to consoles with netflix and hulu accounts peaks in the mid 250GB range, with most months around 200GB, per the bandwidth meter of our DDWRT equipped router. 40+ usable channels of OTA content with many channels offering beautiful uncompressed HD on the primary TV via a media PC also helps.

The crude oil commodity market (for one) has worked like this for some time, with a "visible" market (NYMEX originally) trading a minority of the futures, and private futures trades dwarfing the volume of the NYMEX.

Our home likely has above average streaming and Internet use- 3 TVs with actively used Netflix and Hulu streaming devices, 4 active PCs, multiple gaming consoles, etc. The ddwrt wan bandwidth monitor in our router reports our monthly downloads over the last 6 months are in the 110-220GB range, with the average below 200GB.

Glad to hear of your success. Agreed that the simulator is flawed. As one who actively tracked caloric intake, improved food quality, and increased activity in the process of losing over 150lbs in the past 5 years, the simulator's assumptions about caloric intake are way off for me. The simulator's suggested "lose weight" calorie level is my personal "maintain weight" calorie level.

Paying apps user here, not working for me. I visit https://drive.google.com/start#home and get "Google Drive is not yet enabled for the XXXX domain." Visit the domain management page> settings> Drive and Docs Settings. "Allow users to install Google Drive for Mac/PC" and "Allow users to install Google Drive apps" were both already checked. Unchecked them, saved, re-checked them, saved. Refreshing https://drive.google.com/start#home still shows "Google Drive is not yet enabled for the XXXX domain." I get the same "Google Drive is not yet enabled for the XXXX domain." from my Android phone. Guess I'll try later, glad it's working for you...

Also, when is Google going to fix Contacts so that non-domain Contacts can be shared between domain users without resorting to third party workarounds?

A client recently had a PC fail under warranty, so I took it in to the local Best Buy where they purchased it for repair, hoping to save them time and the costs of packaging and shipping. It likely needs a new motherboard. Three times they have failed to repair the verifiable, duplicate able issue, eventually telling me there was nothing more they could do. They've emailed me service surveys where I've expressed my dissatisfaction, and asked to be contacted. They have not contacted me. I ended up sending the machine to the manufacturer, and won't make the mistake of taking a machine to BB for repair again.

Many times while teaching how to perform panic stops at http://streetsurvival.org/ schools, we find that the young drivers don't or can't push the brake pedal hard enough to activate ABS. In those cases we'll tell them to use both feet.

Another intriguing new system is the http://schoolofone.org/ pilot program in with multiple teaching modes- group lesson, online independant, online with tutor, etc. Lessons are customized for each student daily by an algorithm that measures progress, and adapts lesson mode based on how well each student does with a given subject and mode. Each lesson module is evaluated for it's effectiveness, and under performing modules are identified and updated. This freakonomics podcast discusses it http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/05/12/freakonomics-radio-how-is-a-bad-radio-station-like-the-public-school-system/

Daniel Suarez writes about this in his excellent novels Daemon and Freedom. Here's a video by him along those lines http://fora.tv/2008/08/08/Daniel_Suarez_Daemon_Bot-Mediated_Reality

"The Asylum: The Renegades Who Hijacked the World's Oil Market" By Leah McGrath Goodman is a good recent history of the NYMEX- which became the futures market for oil and petrol, and how the oil futures markets (dis)function.