Or, if you apply that cynicism in a different direction, they're there to mold and guide your opinions. If they showcase the stories with the content THEY'D like you to read and suppress or make difficult to find stories or videos that don't match up with their slant...then they get to play a role in crafting society in general.

...which is, of course, what they've been doing for quite some time now.

It's WIRED. There isn't a bigger bunch of smarmy, self-important douchebags anywhere than the editors and writers at WIRED.

I was worried we were going to run short of $5/hr software devs...

...between non-IT people making strategic IT decisions AND coming into budgeting discussions with the "they can do it cheaper in India" comeback to everything. Many times those two converge. I worked in an IT shop during the dot com bubble bursting and the guy that ran the IT division was a salesman. 2.5 years of idiocy that I have enough source material inspiration to write at least 10 seasons of a sitcom. No word of a lie...not a single thing that idiot every did was right. I was the lead dev of that careening ship of fools and eventually got fired because I made one too many comments when I pointed out at an "all hands on deck meeting" that not one of the past 12 sentences that exited his mouth failed to contain a buzzword or some other insipid stupidity as opposed to speaking to the rest of us like competent adults. But that lead me to doing mostly contract work since then and I make most of my money from firms that are re-onshoring their previously offshored application development/maintenance. Whenever I'm approached by someone as to my availability I ask fairly quickly if the application they're asking me to take on is or was ever based offshore. If they concede that it was, I automagically tack on $15-$20/hr additional if for no other reason than to afford the inevitable increase in my aspirin and antacid budgets...and to possibly teach them a lesson.

This just in from the News Desk: "No goddamn shit." We now return you to your previously running reality, already in progress.

...they didn't take this court, win the case, and demand not just their fees and costs (which surely totalled more than $10K) but also asked for a punitive damages amount for this bullshit. That right there would have sent a message to these patent trolls that their particular brand of assholism could end up being costly. Would have been a nice PR boost for Kaspersky to be the ones to back down one of these fools.

While that may be a pertinent question to many, it ignores the 800lb gorilla in the room. Forget about the one guy who's better off...what do we do about the guys the employer let go? They're now unemployed. They'll file for UI. Some will get welfare. Some will say they'll shift into other jobs but unless they move to another state where the wages have not increased those jobs are in the same environment where they just lost their job. The same negative effect is happening there too. And it is precisely low wage workers that are least able to move away from that negative effect (to a state who has not ratcheted up the minimum wage). So, while the law has given some workers a slight boost, it has destroyed the jobs of others in the process...and what's worse, made some of those now unemployed workers dependent upon state benefits that are paid for by a now reduced labor pool via employment taxes. Which means, inevitably, that with the simultaneous greater demand for benefits COUPLED with the reduced taxation base...the tax rate will need to rise to cover the shortfall. And that guy who just got his $1/hr raise gets to see even less of it than he did. The over all effect is that you have fewer and fewer low wage workers, a larger and growing dependent class and a cycle where the dependent class votes in their own self interest for politicians who pander to their wants (more and larger benefits). Eventually, the unproductive classes become the political majority and those who actually produce wealth and contribute to society are now, virtually, the political enemy. This is nothing but economic logic that even a child who understands cause and effect can understand. The results of the study are entirely unsurprising. A business owner will not, out of the presumed goodness of their hearts, simply accept a lower standard of living because of a mandate by the state. They will seek to cut their costs and one way is to find a means to acquire production that does not demand wages. This isn't rocket science...it's effing logic. It is the basis of human freakin' rights: that you have the right to do with what you create as you like. Anything else is called slavery...which, ironically, has been tangentially in the news of late...people protesting others who think it wasn't so bad and march to say so.

Ah! The online "expert". Tell me sport...what rate am I paying today? I'll give you a hint your omniscience clearly doesn't need: I modified my mortgage back when HARP came on the scene at a time when the prime lending rate was around 0%. Thanks for the advice but I'm not an idiot. I did mention a recent divorce and my credit has taken a significant whack because of post divorce shenanigans (if that tempts you to pen a response extolling your expertise in dealing with credit reporting agencies, go ahead and shelve it...I've forgotten more about how to deal with them than you'll likely ever know). I could indeed re-fi today but I wouldn't be able to get a rate as good as what I enjoy now. I'm not with Wells because of their sterling servicing of my mortgage.

"which party is MORE likely to do something about such"? Okay, well, clearly you think Democrats are...but I would insist that we discuss actual accomplishment as opposed to election season claims of caring about such things. Neither party does dick "about such". If it comforts you to support the party that tells more plausible lies...go for it.

I'll go ahead and point out that Greed N. Corruption's predecessor, Hopey McChange, also did both jack and shit about the situation. It has nothing to do with the guy at the very top. It has much more to do with how our Department of Justice is no longer apolitical.

Wells Fargo for my mortgage for 10 years, AHS for about 7 years. I'm currently battling Wells against their attempts to foreclose on my home (for the second time) and I dumped AHS 3 years ago after I got a local consumer investigative reporter to contact them regarding fraudulent work their chosen AC contractor told me I HAD to pay for (new pad for a replaced AC unit when the old pad was fine, new wiring harness for same when the old was fine, etc). Wells had been okay with my incremental catch up payments for 6 months (I'm behind due to a recent divorce)...but last month I made the mistake of telling them I'll be current probably within 60-90 days...and 5 days later I got the "pay us now or we accelerate the loan to foreclosure by 8/23". I have the ability to do that so I will...but it pisses me off that a previously agreed upon plan was jettisoned when they understood that the late payment penalties are about to stop and they'll lose any legal chance to steal my home. Effing bastards. I can't recommend more strongly for any and everyone to avoid both these companies as if they were plutonium gonorrhea.

I served on a jury yesterday and one of the fellas in the jury pool was at the same table as me while we all waited in the jury pool room. He was using a Surface and, as I had been looking into them at Best Buy the last time I was there, I asked him how he liked his. In short: he didn't. It was provided by his work and, because he worked on government contract stuff, he was required to use like 3 VPNs and one of those every changing RSA keys to access stuff. He lamented that was constantly having to shut down and power up all the time due to freezes, dropped connections, etc. When I mentioned to him that I wrote software he told me, in no uncertain terms, to pass on the Surface (in his opinion) and go with a Dell (what I'm already using). Anyway, some random guy's learned opinion related to me just 3 days back.

I'm sure you'll take equal comfort in that notion should they decide to stop shipping food to you in whatever city it is that you infest, right? I mean, you decided to live way the heck out in the middle of a city to enjoy the fruits of civilization but now want food? Why? See how that works? That said, the government funding something is the worst way to go. They should encourage the existing electric providers (who already have infrastructure in those areas) to add internet access via BPL/PLC. The technology exists, much of the infrastructure is already there...give them lowered tax rates or whatever. However, at base, the government shouldn't have an interest in providing internet access to citizens. It's not a fundamental need (despite what city folk think would happen to their lives if they were without net access for more than an hour). The government can serve a community purpose but needs to encourage the private sector to step up and do it.