I'm sure there's definitely a measure of marketing going on here on the part of the smaller folks. Any chance they have to score some points against Comcast/Tier-1 is an opportunity they'll take. However, I don't think the math supports that as the primary motivator.

Comcast, in it's wireline business has to support both ends: backhaul and last mile. The smaller providers support last mile and pay a tier 1ish provider for the backhaul. Tier 1s are going to charge the small guy for bandwidth whatever their cost is plus a magin, so unless the smaller provider is completely skimping out on their last mile (a distinct possibility for CLECs) there'd be no way for them to undercut the large players by the margins that they are and still be profitable. This is even more clear in the case of MVNOs, who pay Verizon for everything, but still undercut big red by a considerable margin.

The simple answer is that the smaller players are willing to accept a lower profit margin than the large players are. Whether that rises to the level of gouging or not is a different conversation, but when the smaller players tell you that they don't worry about transit (backhaul) costs when they accept thinner margins than tier 1, it's likely the truth. Or they're lying and will be driven out of business by the backhaul costs. Time will tell.

That's a fair point - I should probably have stuck to the MVNOs.

Given that these "tiny no-name" (and Frontier is anything but tiny) providers are all using the tier-1 providers, just as MVNOs are using Verizon and T-Mobile's networks, they're actually great proxies for how much maintaining that infrastructure actually costs. Think about it - they're renting time/space/bandwidth/whatever from the "big boys". Those "big boys" are charging the MVNOs/small providers market rates which give the "big boys" a profit for doing so. If the MVNOs' costs are dropping, when they're effectively actual cost + Verizon/T-Mobile's profit margin, then the can tell us lot about how much it actually costs. Or are you saying that the smaller guys are somehow paying less than it costs Verizon/T-Mobile to maintain it?

I think it's even odds that the complete destruction of world-wide manufacturing capacity after WW2 (aside from the United States) is by far a bigger contributor. Japan has a similarly stringent (if not even more so) work ethic, and I think we've all seen what it's gotten them over the past decade or two.

That's about as much a "call to prosecute 'deniers'" as Sarah Palin is still a governor. On a related note, when you resign your job before finishing your term, you also cease to have the right to be called "governor".

... that this will be secured in a fashion consistent with the auto industry's stellar record on vehicle security.

I know how much you ACs love to hate on the president, but at least get your facts straight. The last time a president had as few executive orders per year (over the term of his presidency) as Obama was when Grover Cleveland was president. So if you're going to bitch and moan about Obama exercising his presidential authority, remember that presidents like Reagan did a lot more "ram rodding their way down everyone's throats" than Obama has (to the tune of 50% more).
source: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu...

... when the government has master keys. The most damning part of the article:

The TSA-approved luggage locks were never very high security devices to begin with. “I’m not sure anyone relied on these kinds of locks for serious security purposes,” he says. “I find it’s actually quicker to pick the TSA’s locks than to look for my key sometimes.”

Given how the government does "security" for us (IRS, OPM hacks), I don't want them anywhere near access to my phone.

Your definition of "heavy user" is definitely different from mine. 12 Mbps is just enough to have a single download from steam while not being able to do anything else. I was on 12 Mbps for a long time, so I speak from experience. When I upgraded to 105 Mbps, the difference was night and day.

Agreed - USB-C is definitely superior to micro B.
The one part of the lightning connector that Apple has right is the physical design. USB-C and USB in general has always had the problem of the male connector being in the device. With USB-C, that little tab inside the port on your device is smaller (and more brittle) than ever. Break that and you're screwed. The lightning connector has the male portion on the the cable, with all the pins around the outside of what you insert into the device. Superior design, in my mind. I'm curious as to why USB didn't do that originally - although, I guess it didn't much matter with the original USB connector sizes.

The point obviously being that it's not even close to an apples to apples comparison. How about we compare 14nm ARM to 14nm Intel?

Apparently you missed the GOP debate last night. Ben Carson's idea for the department of education is to have them " monitor our institutions of higher education for extreme political bias and deny federal funding if it exists". If that's not attempting to restrict free speech, I don't know what is.

Tesla deserves some scrutiny, but I'd be very interested in the driving habits of those surveyed. With the rotors reportedly "tending to warp" I'd be interested in knowing whether the rotors are insufficiently thick (it's a pretty heavy vehicle at 4800 lbs/2100 kg) or if the drivers tend to have a lead foot.

Too many repubs conveniently gloss over the facts with their vaunted Reagan. Someone with his record would be considered the worst kind of RINO by the repub base today. If could, I'd be +1'ing this.

It flies very well... provided it doesn't have to turn. Every military analyst says the J-31 is overweight and vastly underpowered. Just take a look at the airshow videos for it and you'll see the same. Afterburners required to turn and it still lost a ton of altitude.
That's not to say that the F-35 doesn't have it's problems, but the J-31 isn't even the same league as the F-22.