The power to TAX something is the power to restrict or destroy it.

Ask why nearly ALL the device makers are so afraid of unencumbered, "untaxed", video and audio codex?

Wikimedia is at that point though. You cannot have h.264 without bowing to the DRM at some level... Even if YOUR CONTENT IS FREE. The PATENT owners around the format don't allow "free"... Fees are "differed" right now as long as you only shoot HOME video with equipment that pays the royalties they've "promised" not to charge you the per-hour/device fees as a CONSUMER of happy devices.

Ask why Apple REFUSES to play along with open and free formats if they are TRULY a company for "creatives"?

Why is it so important only patented MEDIA codec be used all the time as we hit 20 years of The Web? What if IBM still held the patent on .txt? Microsoft on .rtf? Or Unisys still held .gif? OrMOEG still held .jpeg? And they all still demanded a dime per hosted item on the Internet!! Or .html/.css/.svg were NEVER FREE?

It's not politics, its MONEY. The h.264 codec are "free to play" only because Apple, Sony, and Microsoft and a few other big names throw massive coinage in royalties up front.. And they are part of the royalty board. They don't want their device customers to know how locked down the patents really are on basic stuff like taking video on a phone. If Wikipedia puts up videos, they are too big not to get conned into paying somehow.. No matter what the "industry promises" are.

I'm normally an Apple fan, but when it comes to media formats, they're right next to the Devil. They simply refuse to support non-royalty formats, and they make it harder than snot to even use them even on Macs.

Fact is that we need FREE AND OPEN formats for creating digital libraries. That's an ENTIRELY reasonable request and good for the World, but the large media companies use formats on non-upgradable devices for their own little world-building agendas.

Things like this are how "business" makes sure "capitalism" gets its share of worship before "freedom".

The reason artists pull their playlists is that they often get less than zero royalties. While the Federal government RAISED per play royalties, the labels all cut deals for greatly reduced royalties.. And of course bottom line kickbacks from spotty directly that don't count as "royalty". Artist contracts often have clauses that mean the ARTIST has to MAKE UP the difference for the "promotional priced" materials.. Because the Label, Producer, etc get paid THEIR CUT of STATUTORY ROYALTIES before the band... Artists cannot claim the statutory royalties from the clearinghouse, and these contracts almost always have much higher payout levels than the law requires..so the can't even get paid their smaller amount of money because they didn't "sell enough".

I'd bet this is pushing bands not paying attention into NEGATIVE ROYALTIES.

Because they are corporate owned.. Do they BUY SOFTWARE for this PCs?

That is the real metric everybody cares about... That I have a fleet of windows PCs doesn't matter if the only money I spend is on AS400 apps from 15 years ago. There are probably close to the same numbers of Windows 8/8.1 and iOS 6/7 devices out there... And Windows users dont BUY SOFTWARE AND MEDIA, they keep what they bought years ago or pirate. They might give $200 to Microsoft or Adobe, but the shelves of small developer software are pretty bare. LOTS of iOS users buy Apps, games, books, and media thru the App Store. Sure it's $3-5 at a time, but the library of "must have" iOS apps that pry a few bucks from INDIVIDUAL users is greater than the 4-5 "big apps" like Office and Adobe that are the only survivors of the heady Windows "developers, developers, developers" days.

That's important and an even BIGGER issue. I'd be certain those card scanners are "rented" directly from "the bank" and not controlled by the store IT themselves. That means somebody POC certified BETWEEN the store and exchange has a really big PHYSICAL breech where CERTIFIED HARDWARE has been tampered with on their watch.

I'd bet this affects a whole model/serial number batch of devices all across the country, not just the big sellers.

And when the tide goes out, you have Detroit and Flint... Which used to be cornerstones of "middle class" America.

Last one out, please loot the museums and public spaces of anything historical not cemented down!

But you have to look at total hours devoted to "working" versus compensation. First, its more like $75k and $3k per month rent for most of Google's jobs... AND they want you there 10-12 hours a day versus 8. And you have to spend 2 hours each way commuting versus 30 minutes...

Basically most of those people are "wage salves" of the severest kind... With their $3k mortgage being "interest only". They "make" fantastic sums compared to flyover states, but in reality they own nothing.

$500 is like 3 days pay... Or pocket change compared to the cost if wages and benifits.

I see this being super productive for "cloud" administration as well. When I was doing Blade server admin, I'd have one or two windows open for the OS partition(s), one for working with the SAN storage, one for toggling optical/tape media in the media server, and one for the VIO server to manage the hardware... Fitting it all on one screen would be really efficient.

I'd be pretty sure the lawyers are screaming right now. As much as we like to beat up cops, "public shaming" like this is borderline illegal for an employer to do, and certainly grounds for a civil lawsuit, no matter how justified the firing.

Like others have said, a chief you didn't get along with is going to put ONE SIDE if the story of your firing on a public website... That's just open to be nasty and political. This is a lawyer nightmare (or easy paycheck!)

Except the consoles are ALREADY made in China. Why would anybody need NEW factories? This is merely the Chinese government "most graciously allowing" Chinese workers to buy the crap THEY MAKE for export.

This is as not-news as selling cigarettes in the USA. Most of the WORLD's supply is made here but we ban and tax the hell out of them.

The problem is that telcos and cable "shot first". First by creating huge geographic "walked gardens" where "the Internet" is several states away from where the customer resides. So they did collocation... Until real estate got tight so they started charging "mall rent" to try to profit from companies relieving THEIR bandwidth problems.

Then everybody took their collocation to the backbone providers (often literally across the street) where telcos can worry about paying for the extra pipes.

Telcos and cable want to charge businesses MORE than the customers are paying for the same bandwidth and "the invisible hand" pimp slapped them for it. Instead of building a cross-connected "Internet", telcos and cable keep trying to build forced walled gardens... Who's gates account for 3/4 of the consumer Internet traffic... So of course its a traffic jam.

The $5-$10 in "cost recovery fees" most wireless and telco charge to "compensate" basic features of their network says differently.

These guys are triple dipping... Feds gave them tax breaks, local regulators give them recovery fees, and when they finally bring the new service online they change the BUSINESS RULES not just the pricing.

I don't have a problem with data caps vs unlimited... But what they WANT is a percentage of Netflix INCOME... Like a mall takes, not the fair value of the bandwidth (which the customers already pay them for).

But Netflux USED TO cohost AT ISP sites.. To relieve the load. Then somebody decided they could only be in certain sites, then they skyrocketed the price ... Trying to bank off companies that wanted hosting inside the ISP.

So Netflix pulled all their stuff and moved it " across the street" to the "Internet" side of the ISP's pipes forcing the ISP to get more service from their Internet provider.

The ISPs (att, cable) started this in an effort to "monetize" their Internet customers by making "colocating" inside ISPs very expensive for Internet Businesses.

The Great Plains will be really fertile again after that goes boom.

I don't see what the worry in the USA is... They're just "flyover states" they will just be a smoking crater for a few dozen years. The Appilacians and Rockies might keep the coasts from being utterly destroyed... But with no food and no resources because everything built will be knocked over it will be worse on them than the peeps that just go boom. It's like a couple of nuclear wars in a can.

No amount of "bunker" is going to save you because most of North America will be knocked over and/or on fire. Even if you get out (as youll be under feet of hot ash) there will be no place to go, no way to get there, the grounds itself will be baren for a dozen years like Mt St Hellen's.