Back in the early two thousands, we had V.P. level access to Paypal, because a client of ours was kind of a big deal. It was a multi-million dollar deal -- and Paypal HAD to turn it down. Why? They stoned lipped us at the time and didn't tell us why. We got the story from the V.P. after he left the company later.

You see, Paypal once wanted to be a bank. In order to be a bank, they had to be FDIC insured. And therein lies the hitch. You see, back then, the Bush administration frowned on certain adult orientated entertainment. The US government told Paypal, under no uncertain terms, that if they wanted to even be considered for FDIC insurance, they had to give up all monetary benefits from adult orientated entertainment.

I would speculate that this is less bank or Paypal driven (Banks don't have any problem taking porn money, after all, they just charge the porn companies more for taking it) then it does government driven and Paypal having inked a deal with the US government.

Of course, this is pure speculation and heresy and I'm sure if you asked any of the parties involved, everyone would deny it.

Likely, you forgot to adjust for inflation. $350K a year in the 70's was about $2,000,000 a year in todays term. Also, I have no idea where you found that salary and I'd like to see the source.

Bill Gates might had have rich parents, but Steve Jobs certainly didn't. He was adoption child and really poor in his young adult years, even up to the point that he collected money for food by returning empty bottles to a store. He also dropped out of school.

No, but he did have an angel investor named Mike Markkula. Funny how that is also neglected. He didn't just "build it from the ground up in his garage" as is often touted. He received a serious dose of cash from his angel investor.

... those of us who use google apps (and we tend to be early adopters and push new technology and/or high tech business entities) still don't have access to google+.

Essentially, as long as you don't pay google, you'll get google+. If you fork over money to google, you won't. It's really quite bizarre.

When asked, all we hear is "Soon.. no really, SOON!". They also provide this "helpful" hint:

If you already signed up for Google+ with your Google Apps email address, you've created a conflicting account -- essentially a personal Google Account that uses the same email address as your Google Apps account. In the future, you'll be prompted to rename this conflicting account to an email address that is not already associated with an existing Google Account, for example a new Gmail address.

Sigh. So, as much as I would love to join this discussion about the merits or demerits of google+, I can't.

Henry Rollins tells a great and funny story about working with you on a musical project (here and here)

What is your perspective on the story?

Well, that's that then.

That'll do, Taco, that'll do.

Verizon: Verizon launched its FiOS Video service in Keller, Texas on September 22, 2005. FiOS TV[18] uses an optical fiber network to deliver more than 500 total channels, more than 180 digital music channels, more than 95 high-definition channels, and 10,000 video-on-demand titles. Verizon also provides DirecTV service as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon#Video)

AT&T: U-verse TV is delivered via IPTV from the head-end to the consumer's Total Home DVR or standard set-top box.[2] U-verse uses H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) encoding which compresses video more efficiently than the traditional MPEG-2 codec. Broadcast channels are distributed via IP multicast, allowing a single stream (channel) to be sent to any number of recipients. The system is also designed for individual unicasts for video on demand, central time shifting, start-over services and other programs desired by only one home at that particular time. The set-top box does not have a conventional tuner, but is an IP multicast client which requests the stream desired. In the IP multicast model, only the streams the customer uses are sent. The customer's connection need not have the capacity to carry all available channels simultaneously. U-Verse TV, however, only supports up to 4 active streams at once. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-verse#U-verse_TV)

Time Warner: Time Warner (formerly AOL Time Warner) is one of the world's largest media companies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner)

So, how about five out of five?

1) Cisco is naturally the big boy. Most companies come close to emulating ios. Learning it won't hurt.

2) I wouldn't do courses. Based on (admittedly old) experience, they are a joke.

3) Sign up to NANOG, it won't help your knowledge directly, but will keep you updated on the latest trends/concerns/flame wars.

4) If you thought there were "more than one way to do it" in programming, you are going to love networking.

5) A host is a host, From coast to coast And nobody talks to a host that's close, Unless the host that isn't close Is busy, hung, or dead.

blah blah blah, this hurts consumers, blah blah blah, developers are stupid because the put DRM in expecting to end piracy, blah blah blah.

Developers aren't stupid; they know the bottom line. That DRM drives away a certain type of customer. And guess what? That's fine with them. They aren't interested in customers who are gamers. They are interested in customers who put up with their shit and still pay for it. You aren't their target market. Their target market is Grandma who buys whatever little Johnny wants. Or the guy who doesn't care about archiving games because he'll be onto the next one within a week.