A typical register will have something like $50 in change sitting in there

Not in today's day of Cash Back on debit cards, they don't.

CC transactions often take just as long, if not longer than cash.

On what, dialup terminals? CC transactions can be nearly instant, and many retailers (Walmart, for one) notify you to swipe your credit card while the clerk scans your items, not afterwards.

I imagine there isn't a single carrier that offers an SLA for residential customers.

Become a business customer, however, and they'll offer an SLA - over those very same cables delivering your formerly-residential account (I know, I used to have Road Runner Business Class with the same frequent outages).

In other words, you get what you pay for. Just like you can buy a First Class ticket with all the amenities of the 'glory days' of flying; every industry is embracing (or exploring) tiers of service.

The real reason the desktop pc is on the decline is that it can be upgraded and made to last a very long time. Contrast that with a laptop, ultrabook, tablet or phone which are all disposable devices.

Well, no kidding. I know you didn't mean for this, but rather meant for an anti-corporate screed, but did you ever think that you are several years into this "decline," and the reason for the decline is exactly what you said? That is, the desktops people currently own have been made to last a very long time, thus don't need to be upgraded, and therefore, the desktop market has declined?

It's not because of "corporate desires" or "evil shareholders," it's because a desktop from 2009, for nearly all casual users of computers, works just as fine as one built today.

Tampa hasn't been directly hit by a hurricane since 1921. Not to say it couldn't happen, but I just don't get the 'weather' argument. I remember the reassurances from Amazon Web Services last year when the 'Frankenstorm' headed for Virginia.

I think they have people in India reading scripts.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Neither Verizon nor Verizon Wireless have any call centers outside America.

I think you misunderstood my explanation as attacking the rich. Far from it. I am NOT advocating a wealth tax. I agree with everything you said.

I am attacking the wealthy who propose raising the rates because they know they won't be paying them. Warren Buffett is misrepresenting the debate and he knows it. Too many people listen to him and think, "he's right, Buffett shouldn't have a lower tax rate than his secretary" without actually looking at the situation and asking why.

What was it that Mitt Romney said he paid? 15%? Their tax rate might be 35% but they're not paying 35%

You are confusing income tax with capital gains taxes. Both parties have set up a tax code that does not tax the rich, but taxes those who are becoming rich. If Mitt Romney makes $0 in income and $0 in capital gains, but still has $500+ million in the bank, guess what his tax rate is? 0%.

If an entrepreneur who is putting his blood, sweat and tears into a company trying to become rich, and earns $1m last year, he's paying the highest rate.

The already-rich love this. That's why you hear Warren Buffet, et. al., saying tax rates should be higher - to make sure others don't get to the same level of wealth (and therefore, power) they are. They don't earn income.

I know this isn't what you were looking for based on the summary, but you never know, sometimes there are options you've never thought about, so I'll posit it anyway:

Verizon Wireless offers HomeFusion Broadband for a professionally-installed, rooftop-mounted 4G home broadband service. It sounds like it's ideally suited to your parents, and for $6.99/mo, you get the peace of mind knowing that they will send a technician out to fix any issues that may arise.

I don't know if it's in your parents' price range (it starts higher than a Jetpack, but with a higher monthly bandwidth limit), but it's a fantastic option for those currently struggling with satellite or dial-up and have access to 4G LTE.

When will that be installed in, anywhere else, exactly?

My bad, I thought we were discussing Verizon as an ISP on this thread, I apologize for bringing in facts about Verizon as an ISP.

Verizon doesn't want to upgrade their network and supply the bandwidth they actually sold. Overselling is lucrative -- hence the data caps

What? You mean the same Verizon that unveiled FiOS Quantum, a 300/65 connection, earlier this year?

In fact, they've invested anywhere from $23 to $30 billion dollars in FiOS. To say they didn't upgrade their network is the height of ignorance.

But hey, I guess this one didn't exactly fit into your "X does Y because of Z, always, no exceptions" template.

Under the law, these dealers are absolutely right. Chrysler was forced to sell a company owned Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram store in LA for this exact reason.

If Tesla doesn't like it, then lobby to change the laws. You can't just ignore them.

They wanted to have branding so people would see that app X was pulling google data. Doesn't seem to be all that unreasonable of a request.

Yet the world was up in arms over Verizon Wireless' suggestion, when news of the AT&T-only iPhone was revealed, that one of the reasons they passed on it was that they wanted carrier branding as they've enjoyed on every device in the past.

Apple doesn't promote other brands. You won't find an Intel sticker on a MacBook Pro, you won't find a Verizon/AT&T/Sprint sticker on an iPhone, and you won't find a Google logo on the Maps app. Period.

They'll get rid of those other apps at the same time as they let you use an unlocked CDMA + LTE phone on their network

So, you mean, now?

What's the price? We have higher state taxes in NY, well worth it in many cases.

And an unemployment rate a full percent higher than in PA.

Where are all the good end-user tools for S3 now?

As others have mentioned, Dropbox and SugarSync are consumer interfaces to S3. I think the fact that Amazon references "objects" and "buckets" in S3 terminology is directly because they didn't really build S3 to be an "online file system" type service (though s3fuse provides it). They intended to be merely the backend for the consumer services you mentioned.

That being said, clients aren't always strictly downloadable software. My most-used S3 client is built into my Synology DiskStation NAS and provides nightly backups to S3 (hopefully they add support for Glacier). Also, I frequently use Panic Transmit for Mac OS X, which is an FTP client that also has support for S3.