The only problem here being is this requires you to bank with B of A. Anecdotal evidence (as in everyone I know who has any experience with them) strongly suggests you avoid them, and I'll bet there's plenty of quantitative customer surveys to back it up.

I'd be totally OK with facebook subsidizing some the cost of new phone; just because they intend it for use on facebook doesn't mean a lot of clever folks won't find ways to repurpose it.

And yeah, this seems about as newsworthy as the TV they keep advertising that allows you to tweet and post to FB from your sofa and has dedicated buttons on the remote. BFD.

...hysterical much? Sure Google and Facebook have issues, and the potential to be truly evil, the only reason they are even ever referred to as 'scandalous' is because their misbehavior has been an exception to the rule of generally decent behavior.

What 'purveyor of communication' would you prefer? J Randolf Hearst's 'yellow journalism', or Fox News, getting us into wars that actually kill people?

Jack Parsons, one of the founders of the JPL, was heavily involved with sex magick and other weirdness with L Ron Hubbard & Aliester Crowley. It's pretty hard to imagine him passing a thorough background check. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons

Historically, Apple has done a good job of getting their products in schools. I still remember how annoyed I was at having to learn MS-DOS after using nothing but Apples in school during the late 80's. My attitude then was, and still is to a lesser extent, why teach me on this device when the people doing actual work and making money are much more likely to be using something else?

It's been my experience that racism runs deeper in the Pacific Northwest, whereas in other parts of the country it runs broader. The vast majority of people in the NW are anti-racist, and casual racism is relatively uncommon, but there are many insulated pockets of far right racists that are very committed. I'm glad you haven't met any but there are quite a few nazi skinheads in Portland.

Gin Rummy(voiced by Samuel L Jackson): Basically, nigga technology is asomething that doesn't plug into a printer. Does that plug into a printer?

Ed Wuncler(voiced by Charlie Murphy): No

Gin Rummy: Wanna know why?

Ed Wuncler: Why?

Gin Rummy: 'Cause niggas never have nothin' to print.

- The Boondocks

and before you call me racist, an earlier quote from the same exchange "...and dont start trippin callin me a racist and shit because I mean nigga as a general term for ignorant mothafuckas."

That is way too over simplified. A truck is still carrying 10K items from the factory 99% (or at least the vast majority) of the distance to your house whether it's to a shipping center or a store. From there, maybe 10K relatively fuel efficient personal vehicles driving to the store is preferable to 10K commercial truck deliveries.

60 WPM on a mobile device 'keyboard'? Impressive, *if* true.

you don't buy many groceries at one time do you? How many items can you list in 140 characters?

Did anyone else find the bit about y8.com having connections to a porn site ridiculous and hysterical? I mean, so what? The magazine rack where I bought my comics as a kid had adult magazines on the top shelf, the local video store had a back room with adult videos, etc. As long as kids aren't being directed to adult content, whats the big deal?

Advance warning of storms are just like antibiotics in that they only help those who receive them when needed. Which is not everyone. But the more who do receive help, the greater the benefit to humanity. Which was kind of the point of my original pointed question, so this is getting tedious.

Once again, how many people need to be helped before you consider it a benefit to humanity? All of them? There's people who have never had antibiotics so you would not call antibiotics benefit to humanity?

giving someone advance warning of an oncoming storm qualifies as kindness. I'm sincerely sorry if that is not clear to you.