I blame education for this.

One one hand you tell students they will be sucessful if they get a college degree (any college degree).
On the other hand you have colleges marketing easy-and-fun degree programs with very low market demand for those degrees.

The net result is a crop of students with a pile of debt and a Masters degree in Basket-Weaving which isn't necessary in the real world.

Funny, I make about double what my manager does. It is nearly impossible to find folks in my particular specialization.

Make supply and demand work to your advantage. Just like a business has to sell what is in demand to succeed you need to make yourself into a product which is in demand.

The original quote is from Star Wars.

Obiwan /= Guinan

Surprisingly it got modded "Informative"?

Between actions like this and things such as bandwidth caps it appears that the major ISP's are looking to alienate their customer base. In the mean time, figure it will be possible to DOS someone by placing some complaints against them? How about businesses placing complaints against their competitors? Maybe I should go apply for a business process patent on doing this....

Now that the gloves are off and they can mine data to their hearts content, what is to prevent them from using the data for more than just advertising? I think some people will start seeing letters like this in the future from their insurance companies: "Dear Sir/Madam, due to the number of your relatives receiving (cancer/alzheimers/diabetes/etc) treatment, we are electing to no longer cover you due."

Makes me wonder if these judges have heard of things such as maybe HIPA? Whatever happened to that whole privacy of medical records idea?

So don't set it yourself, but let your golfing buddies set it for you. Then you turn around and return the favor for them at their companies where you sit on the board. Many individuals sit on the board of multiple corporations. Its a "you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours" business world.

The old saying still holds true today: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

It never was about getting the artist paid. Nice to see that dirty little secret proven. It was all about the DISTRIBUTORS getting paid, regardless if the artist sees a dime. Crying that the artist were suffering was just a PR stunt on their part. The RIAA has driven more artists/singers/song-writers into brankruptcy than all the file sharers in the world will ever do.

Nobody does, which is whole point.

If more people had been paying attention it never would have gotten this far.

Its all about return on investment. You get much more bang for your buck in buying a Senator of Congressman and then having the full weight of the US government behind you than trying to hire a private army of thugs and lawyers to do it yourself.
Makes perfect business sense. What doesn't make sense is why we don't call out our politicians for this behavior.

I'd rather have this than a website putting up a paywall to support themselves.
I'd rather click a button to end the ad and tell someone their ad sucked, then pay for a subscription. Especially considering some videos on youtube aren't worth the bits they are stored on.

Besides, this might actually lead to halfway interesting advertisements.

Doesn't entering the said letter into court records (making it a matter of public record and public interest) count?

It is becoming increasingly obvious we have the best government money can buy.
For example look at the healthcare bill. In that case the lobbyists got a bill passed which was not written by any legislator, and was so lengthy that nobody had time to read it all before passing it.
Heck, nearly a year after the fact most of the legislators who voted on it couldn't tell you everything in it.

Add onto this is the added fact that corporations can make any contributions that they like. You see complicity in this by the company shareholders because there is a return on investment. More clearly put is that the dollars they invest in buying a Senator or Congressman translates into real-world gains for the company.
What we will see coming is a perfectly legal financially driven swatting. Instead of a lone hacker sending a swat-team to someones house, you will instead see a lone company buying the political influence to outlaw any behaviour they find undesireable (IE contrary to their business model) and the swat team will then show itself the way where they want it to go.
The best part is, for the companies involved it is far cheaper than hiring their own private thugs to do their dirty work and all perfectly legal under todays laws.