Some organization that I've never even heard of is asking Microsoft to, pretty please, compensate users in some unspecific fashion for an unclear problem. How did this make the news?

It's a much bigger issue than Uber. Binding arbitration basically privatizes the legal system, setting it's own rules and locking you out from join a group of people (class action) to get redress against an organization. Class action suits have been a very effective way of enforcing the rights of the group where an individual does not have the resources to take the matter to court.

I'd be more willing to give money anonymously to a charity because it drives me crazy that I make a donation the junk mail from any organization that is vaguely similar (but which is usually of no interest to me) starts rolling in.

If we have a story about a politician talking reasonably correctly about a technical topic, I have to question the source. I'm fairly sure that Trey Gowdy is not a BleachBit contributor. Who told him all this information and where's the supporting evidence?

I'd go for this in a heartbeat, except that the 40 hour work week is a myth at Amazon (and most large US companies for exempt employees). I suspect that 30hrs would become just a couple of hours less than the full time (60-80 hour) employees for 75% salary. If it was really 30 hours, you could work 30 at Amazon, 30 at Microsoft and get 150% of your salary for working the same number of hours as "full time".

Actually the ride sharing companies should be celebrating the requirement to pay taxes on the rides. Once you have the government hooked on the revenue you're generating they won't outlaw the service and so kill the money stream.

I prefer the observation that Android and Windows Phone accounted for 87% of the market.

It probably did - there are many things you don't know about your Grandma. Like that post she didn't put on the family reunion Facebook page that said: "You're all only here because I fucked Grandpa!".

There seem to be a lot of people call me to say "Low Quality Transcript Received" - they all get deleted...

The obvious solution is voice to text - which is available from most voice mail providers. So long as that can be made to work for voice notes all is well. That way you can get the 10 minute diatribe emailed to you so you can scan it for relevant information in 30 seconds. Maybe also email the mp3 for those 1 in 100 cases where I actually want to listen to the message.

To be fair, the person advocating this was a filmmaker, I can't think of an industry that more enjoys listening to the sounds of their own voice.

Flappy Birds

So, is it now a federal crime to access someone's social media accounts with passwords that you coerced them to share (schools, companies, CBP, etc.)?

I think it's a broader problem than that. A huge number of people in the US don't vote. I would argue that's because there's no candidate that would make any difference to their life. Sick child with no health care? Minimum wage job? No Job (remember it's official US government policy to keep unemployment around 5% so that there's no upward pressure on wages)? Reasonable tax rates for corporations and wealth individuals to cover education, infrastructure, etc.?

This is essentially the Sander's platform and former non-voters have been coming out to support it. Sander's has done well in any state with an open primary, and not so well in states where you had to specify well in advance that you wanted to participate in this particular lizard contest.

I contend that the vast majority of the non-voters are just not interested in spending their time when the outcome is, in their life-circle, the status quo. Whether there would be any change with ANY candidate is open for discussion, but clear the new Sander's voters feel it would be the case.