But... But... they held hacking competitions to find the best hackers to hire. How can their security be bad?

It depends on where you live.
In most places, Peak usage happens from 2-6pm.
If you are in Massachusetts, you only get about 3.5 hours of peak sun per day. (~11am-2:30pm)
If you live in Texas, you might get 6 hours of peak sun per day. (10am-4pm,)

So it's not too far off from matching peak production and usage, but where you live does make a difference in how well it matches.

" In the test, Google showed each shade to one per cent of its users, and found that users were more likely to click on a slightly more purple shade. "
This seems like a classic example of how to misuse statistics.
I'm 100% more likely to click on a link that's relevant to me, I don't give a flying fuck about what color the link is. And neither does anyone else.

Make the links Black, who gives a shit.
But when you do that, you better dam well make previously visited sites a different color so that we don't lose functionality.
This sounds like the lollipop volume control debacle all over again where functionality takes a back seat to some pompous overarching design philosophy.

If I were to make a list of what's most important in UI design, the first 2 spots would both be "functionality". How it looks is tertiary at best.

Indeed.
Companies aren't going to suddenly make more money to pay the difference.
And they sure as hell aren't going to reduce executive pay or report lower profits (which could affect investors).
They're just going to find a different way to screw the chronically underpaid.

But what about those exempt employees who didn't have to work much overtime and were under the salary threshhold in states where the cost of living is extremely low? Some really sweet gigs are going to get forced into hourly positions, ruining the flexibility of hours and stability of their pay.

Indeed. Obama ran on "Hope and Change". Trump is running on "Make 'em Change". Hell, even Bernie's running an anti-establishment campaign in most respects. Unfortunately; Washington is so incredibly polarized that one person has no chance of effecting change, even if that person is the President. Any time they try, their efforts are poisoned by the opposition and then blamed for the outcome. Obama's been learning this for the past 8 years, and you can bet it would be no different if Trump were to win. People need to concentrate on Congressional races if we want to see any real change. We need to vote out the "do nothing's" and the "hardliners" and vote in some players who understand the importance of compromise. Then as we vote in these anti-establishment candidates to the Presidency, they might actually have a slim chance of delivering.

"FTC has hand in Asus plugging hole in exploited router firmware." Better?