Unfortunately, just because you do "the research", that doesn't always result in certainty of service. Sometimes, like at my own address, the ISP will show they provide service only to reject the actual order. Until recently, both ISPs which provide land-based solutions in my area showed service at my address. Now, eight years later, one will show there's no service available, yet the other will still accept orders to only later cancel them. The reality is that my home is a few hundred feet from where service for both companies currently terminate services. Short of ordering Internet service *prior to closing*, there was no way to know that information beforehand; both companies claimed to service the address, and to this day the FCC's broadband map lists unavailable services for my address.

I wish ignorant reporters would do a little fact checking and stop going on about Android phones blatantly copying the iPhone X notch. The Essential phone (an Android device) was released with a notch (albeit a smaller one) six months before the iPhone X, so it's not exactly an original "Apple" idea. As for the other aesthetics of the devices, there's not much variation you can do on a flat rectangular device that's mostly/all screen on one side and mostly flat on the other.

I live 1.1 miles outside of the city limits of an Austin, Texas metro suburb. AT&T only provides 1.5Mb DSL (1.5Mb down, 384Kb up) here - too slow for my regular video conferencing/presentations (I often work out of my home office). The local cable company won't provide service at my address. I have to settle for line of site Internet access at 9Mb down, 1Mb up - it works okay for me, but it also costs a fairly steep $106/mo. I'd love to have "broadband" service at 25/3, but that's probably another 10 years away from me...if I'm lucky.

We've seen an increase in drunk driving incidents since Uber and Lyft left Austin a couple of months ago. http://keyetv.com/news/local/d...

This is brilliant! All the kids will want one so they, too, may brag about how long they've been able to keep their pet^H^H^H cell phone healthy and alive.

I did not RTA, but from the summary it sounds as if AT&T's proposal would allow AT&T to instead charge customers extra based on the applications they wish to use. No, thank you. AT&T, you already charge too much for broadband services which are far below the performance of broadband offered in much of the developed world. Charging consumers even more is an insult to the consumer, and an abuse of your government-granted utility monopolies (at least in may areas of the US).

And, yes, I do understand the original poster's call for a "virtual DVD checkout" plan, and would welcome such a service as bandwidth, traffic prioritization , and data usage will allow.

As long as ISPs continue to implement bandwidth metering, and the use of network traffic shaping to decrease the speed at which streams from streaming media providers who have not paid additional tolls to said ISPs to have prioritized speeds for delivery of content to their customers, physical media such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs will be a virtual necessity to deliver new content to folks afflicted by ISPs which impose artificial limits on traffic priority, bandwidth, and data usage. On a personal level, While I do use streaming services with frequency, I do have to keep an eye on my data usage. To help keep data usage lower, I find the use of services such as Netflix and Redbox fulfill my requirements for new content in a relatively convenient manner. I will likely continue to use physical media as a primary alternative to 'easy' streaming solutions as long as ISPs continue to practice consumer unfriendly practices.

You, sir, are correct. My reply, while informative, was indeed lacking in oomph. Perhaps next time.

Ahem... from wikipedia: "The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975." ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Ahem... from wikipedia: "The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975." ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

As I understand it... and I could be wrong... you are both sort of right... The updates for Nexus devices are pushed out by Google. Google keeps updating Nexus devices until they deem the devices as unable to adequately run the latest updates to Android. Google has already worked their magic and has available, right now, updates for most of the Nexus phones using GSM networks. However, due to the nature of CDMA networks, Google has to wait for the CDMA carriers to provide APKs containing the core telephony functionality and requisite platform keys for each respective carrier's CDMA networks. Once the said APKs are available, Google will work their magic on the device image and push out an update notification to your device. And if you are ever in doubt as to whether or not a new Android version is available for your Nexus device, you can always check here for the latest factory images for Nexus devices: https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images

Battlefield 3 and Diablo 3 would be on my short list. I already play Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) on Linux. I will even sometimes run two instances of LotRO simultaneously, which I can also do on Windows, but Linux runs two LotRO clients much more smoothly on Linux than it does on Windows.

I "converted" my desk to a standing desk by using old flat surfaced printer stands to effectively raise my desk surface. I placed my monitor on one stand towards the back of my desk; keyboard and mouse on another towards the front. I've used this configuration for over a year and a half and now have an extreme distaste for having to do my work sitting down (when not at my desk, that is). One of the nicer benefits, too, is that I can keep items which would have previously been on my desk surface within easy reach by placing said items below the keyboard/mouse stand...such as my coffee+warmer! More effective horizontal surface to use! Woot!

If the laptop has eSATA (many do), I'd take it a step further and boot off an external hard drive or SSD. That way, after selecting your external drive as the temporary boot device, you'd be able to use whatever OS you choose without having to sacrifice performance. I strongly encourage you to not modify the operating system and software of your company's laptop. It's not worth the potential headaches of termination and/or diminished professional reputation.