Exactly. In my town (Cambridge, MA) you have two choices: Comcast or Verizon. Other comments about the (in)ability to shame these companies notwithstanding, the only control available in a monopoly is Gov't regulation. Congress should make Net Neutrality law of the land.

What is it about the human condition that the more venal one is and more badly one behaves, the more one is rewarded?

Introducing new commands is great, but they shouldn't 'replace' the existing tools, they should just be added to the tool suite. My two cents worth...

so heart patients with pacemakers should 'look out' for lightening strikes. What the hell does THAT mean??? Does somebody carry a cheap 'predictive lightening strike detector' that I haven't heard about?!?!

"Buried deep in the report is mention of a new program in its infancy which would provide an AI based network that will eventually control ALL US weapons systems and networks. Code name: Skynet."

Just kidding, but this sounds about as reputable to me. I'm not going to attempt to dissect this, but the first thing that's glaringly obvious to anyone with any experience in the field that there's a BIG difference between being a long haul trucker and delivering for FedEx.

'Relief'
Synopsis: A large, bottomless sinkhole swallows every building that contains a gov't official along with the officials themselves.

I don't think that at the time of his death Jobs thought his 'digital hub' concept would lead to Apple's becoming a huge, overfunded cell phone company that would let its computer business die a horrible death. But I think that's exactly what's happening.

I assume that Intel will be offering their flawed processors for 10% LESS across the board?

Exactly! People always jump to the conclusion that UFO means 'aliens'. Are these aliens? Don't know, but I also don't know if they are advanced systems that either the US or another country is developing, weather anomolies, optical illusions, or something else. I think that what Elizondo is talking about is the few examples of UFOs where they have clear data (photographic) of an object doing something that we don't currently know how to do. I happen to believe that there must be life on other planets, if for no other reason that pure statistical probability. But whenever this discussion comes up I tend to ask the same questions:

- why would aliens not approach our 'authorities' or just attack us. Why all of the skulking around. If it's to scout us out, isn't 60 years kind of overkill?
- If they are aliens with this impressive technology, see the bullet just above this one
- why would we not hear about these aliens actually DOING anything other than flying around
- does this explain Trump

Must be interesting to work for the government. Can you imagine on your job if you wanted to tell your customers "hey, the site will be down for 2-3 weeks for maintenance. Check back with us then...." Really?!?!?

Agreed. I'll probably muck this up, but "The sky above Chiba was the color of an untuned television..." absolutely FLOORED me the first time I read it. The book just has such a great plot. I'm REALLY surprised someone hasn't done a film of it yet, though if they ever do, I PRAY they do it right!!!

I once worked for a small company that built custom crates and rigged out heavy equipment for overseas shipment. This is back in the 70s. We got a commission to build a few hundred boxes to transport electronic equipment. This was for a local facility of Westinghouse Corp. The specs were very detailed for these -- marine grade plywood, certain types of nails, certain fittings, and there were a variety of dimension and such. Upon completion, and before delivery they were all to be spray painted with 'Westinghouse Blue'. I don't know if it was trademarked (I'm guessing it was) but it was an 'official' color. We literally went to our paint guy and there was a published formula for 'Westinghouse Blue'. If you've ever seen a package of Westinghouse light bulbs they used this blue...it's a deep blue with an almost lavender component. Anyway, this kind of thing has been going on forever....

Additionally there are non-user facing network infrastructures that can track you -- akamai, limewire, etc. Akamai in particular has software all over the internet that is VERY good at gleaning information from network traffic.

There's absolutely no reason to assume that technologically advanced races eventually extinguish themselves. Who knows? There's no data (right....I don't trust the one data point is the average thing) to even make an intelligent hypothesis about it.
Why haven't we heard from them?
-maybe nobody else has figured out a way to travel fast enough yet either
-maybe they've heard from US! And are just watching and waiting...