Given that much more hidden spy cameras are available for far less than the $1500 cost of Glass, what will it take for general acceptance to finally take hold?

Your question is nonsensical: Those people would likely be even more furious if they knew your clothes were covered in pinhole spy cameras.

The problem is people don't like having creepy strangers record them in public, regardless of whether they have the "right" to do so or not. The issue is the human discomfort and you might get to a point where people won't just kick your ass for looking at them while wearing Google Glass (or similar invasive, idiotic, and useless products) but you'll never in our lifetime get people "comfortable" with some creepy asshole filming them out in public. Nor will you ever get them comfortable with the perception that they're being recorded.

I wonder what the over/under on somebody hacking Google Glass to disable the "recording" light is--assuming such a hack doesn't exist already in the wild and we just haven't heard about it.

The constitutional protections, and by extension US citizens, take in in the ass yet again.

I am not aware of a constitutional right to commit fraud. The project this person agreed to appear in bore zero resemblance to this one, and while it is true--she definitely has no right to control the work product she agreed to appear in, she has every right to sue over this other work that essentially puts her in the crosshairs of terrorists--totally without permission.

Yeah, there aren't enough breaths of air in this world for all of the well-deserved "I told you so"s that will be thrown around...

So: can anyone come up with a cost/benefit analysis, please ?

For the NSA/CIA, the Koch-brother sponsored right wing zealot groups, etc. the cost benefit analysis is quite simple.

Does it benefit the NSA/CIA/Koch Bro groups and their agendas, directly or indirectly, even a little? If so, do it. If not, don't. There is undoubtably a risk analysis component (how likely are we to get caught?) but the general pattern seems to be to do what they like and rely on their ability to destory the reputation of any people of good conscience who stand up against them, much less report their malfeasance.

What is particularly disturbing about this is the lengths to which they are willing to go, the degree of negative-sum activities they are willing to engage in (they don't mind engaging in massively destructive activities against others for very modest, even minor gains, where the negative impact to their oponents, society or the world dwarfs their own miniscule gains), and the degree of silence from otherwise "good persons" who nearly always opt to do (and say) nothing. It reminds me of the old post-WW II adage which concludes "and when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out" (paraphrased).

Why would anybody favor such an expensive and ineffective option (with so many shortcomings) when the carriers could just be required to keep a database of unique identifiers (don't quote me--I think they're called IMEI numbers) of phones reported stolen and simply blacklist those phones from their networks.

Then, a person can report their phone stolen and the carriers make it useless because none of them are allowed to service it while it is in the "stolen" database.

No "kill-switch" required.

Yes, that's what co-location is: Somebody else pays you for physical access to your site for long-term deployment of equipment. So the "physical access" requirement isn't exactly some sort of "evil scheme" netflix invented to screw over Comcast.

This part is nonsensical:

Everything from physical access requirements to the ol' "By the way we may host other, non-Netflix content on these things in the future, and we'll charge people for the privilege, but you'll still have to treat it as Netflix data and not expect any money for carrying it on your network".

1) They already charge people to access their service now, and in a way that apparently harms Comcast/ISPs in general, so we have zero difference from the status quo--the ISPs already have accepted this as "normal" and I don't see how they can ever change that without essentially erasing the entire Internet and starting over.

2) If Netflix hosts other people's data on those systems... so what? It's to Comcast's benefit--the more content that users stream that way (as opposed to over their expensive peering links) the happier their customers will be.

3) Comcast already gets money to carry all of this data--they get it from their subscribers. They're caterwauling for a double-dip opportunity--the right to bill not just for bandwidth to users, but for the same bandwidth again to companies providing content.

Netflix has a program where they'll colocate some servers containing a content cache on a segment of the ISPs network so that their peering connections aren't getting beaten to death--why wouldn't these companies get involved in such a program other than as a means to squeeze more money from Netflix, their subscribers, or both.

But that's just the point: It is extremely rare for somebody outside of the C-suite to get such a privilege.

Outside of c-level executives, such lavish and generous severance packages are occasionally found in situations where the person worked at a place for decades and got laid off in year 25 or something like that. There is no other job category I can name where you can completely just ruin the business, screw the pooch utterly, and still not just get severance, but indeed, be contractually entitled to walk away with a multi-million dollar severance package. Most people fired for cause (i.e. incompetence) are not given fat severance packages--they may get 4-6 weeks pay in exchange for signing something saying they won't sue the company, but that would basically be it. But even if your professional bud gets three whole months salary, so what?

C-suite guys routinely get fired with millions in their pockets.

Not to mention that it also, over time, erodes and eventually destroys the value in these companies as they shed employees and shunt more and more of the profits to the C-suite for disbursement as bonuses, high salaries, and lavish perks. That massive largesse encourages the taking of huge risks to generate the short-term gains required to ring up the eye-popping bonuses.

When they fail, the company gets hurt, maybe goes bankrupt, but the price is payed by working people in the form of layoffs.

Once upon a time these earnings were effectively capped by vigorous oversight from boards of directors, and that didn't seem to create a mass-exodus of talent, nor did it in-any-way slow down innovation or competition.

Plus, if somebody is really so "talented" they have "earned" $100 million per year I would postulate their time would be better spent starting their own business so instead of just getting a "cut" of the company's profits he gets all of them. Certainly if he's actually worth $100 million he's got more than enough talent to make that happen.

If someone is paid too much the market takes care of that with something called a firing.

CEOs aren't "fired" the same way you and I are. You want them gone? Great! You trigger their golden parachute and they're set for life! Such total lack of accountability is what leads to blundering performers walking away richer than an oil tycoon for delivering zero value, or in some cases, erasing millions in value through mismanagement. Sears comes to mind, as the spectacular recent example of some arrogant hedge-fund asshole negotiating an enormous pay package for himself and then nearly putting the company under in just a couple short years.

And the fact that you'd try to conflate such masters of the universe with a salaryman's layoff sort of underscores why your point of view is more than a little half baked. Maybe quarter-baked? But even that's generous.

Everybody else's full-handle is used in their submissions (including people with SPACES and names 3-5x longer than mine) so why am I "Karl C" and not "Karl Cocknozzle?"

Truncating my last name is an insult to generations of Cocknozzles that have come before me.

Eggsasperating!

Whenever I crack an egg, I will imagine I am hearing the sound "Li Ka-shing" for the rest of my life . . .

That's the sound of his cash-register while he's Ka-shing in on his new enterprise...