Why should you force business to operate in a certain way? Because, weirdly enough, the profit motive isn't always sufficient to make sure that business operate for the benefit of consumers, or more broadly, society.

Antitrust laws, environmental laws etc. all force businesses to "operate in a certain way". You can argue for more or less regulation, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone to argue for no regulation.

Also, the issue is many people don't have a choice between ISPs, or if they do, it's between two major ISPs. If a Time Warner / Comcast juggernaut implements a fast lane, do you think that Verizon or whoever else won't?

Clearly you aren't living in the United States. My choices are Comcast, Comcast, and Comcast.

I'm really starting to think mesh networks are going to be the only solution.

Same here. There is literally no other option for broadband. Not even DSL. My other option is satellite?

You forgot about Comcast. :)

Are there no smaller, 'independent' ISPs which aren't part of conglomerates that are unlikely to remain net-neutral?

Again, you clearly aren't from around here.

To be less facetious, I could also choose AT&T DSL, but they don't offer competitive bandwidth. And they aren't exactly a small independent ISP. There might be ISPs that offer "business class" service, but their prices probably start at least 3x what I currently pay. I'm not even sure they would offer service in an apartment complex either.

Here's the thing about smaller, 'independent' ISPs: they're small. That means they don't have very large coverage, and the US is a very large country. So even though there are SOME smaller, independent ISPs which are likely to remain net-neutral, they can only service a very tiny portion of the population. That doesn't help everybody else.

I live in Santa Clara, in the South Bay. It's pretty close to the heart of Silicon Valley. My only option for an ISP is Comcast; my choices are literally, in the true definition of literally, use Comcast or don't get internet. And that's not really a choice, is it?

Not in most areas of the US.

In the vast, vaaaast majority of cases, "no".

Especially in apartment complexes, you'll have a single carrier lock down entire areas in a no-compete way.

'They're not breaking any laws' is an empty argument when the current debate is about 'what laws should we write to curb behavior that is bad for society'.

It also a slippery slope. If ISP A is making $$$ from not treating everyon the same, ISP B-Z will follow eventually....

In many markets you cannot in fact switch.

This is hardly "inadvertently" revealing your location: (1) they've told you where they are (extra from the actual Tweets, not the photos) and (2) these places are all near well-known landscapes.

I mean good job on taking the time to actually do it but I doubt this could be done for the vast majority of photos like this.

What's the average age here? I feel like I'm in a no fun allowed zone.

I've had jokes upvoted here. The ingredients, as far as I can tell, were that they were original, topical, and required a bit of thought about the subject. In other words, the opposite of memes, or generic jokes that are probably retellings from somewhere else. Here's one from yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7500889

If only there were other places on the internet to get your kicks off.

Indeed - I think accepting some degree of silly humour, even if it is lame, is important, as otherwise even when you consider yourself to be not taking yourself seriously, you are in fact maintaining some degree of elitism.

An example of something similar that actually happened: tax in the UK was temporarily lowered from 17.5% to 15% or something and it cost more to reprogram cash registers and computers than the 2.5% savings.

I think during the 70s LSD was being used to rehab alcoholics, it's a shame such practices and psychedelics in general are all illegal now.. but ignoring the law, from what I've read and personal experience, LSD works well too.

Research has started up again:

LOS ANGELES — For the first time in more than four decades, the drug lysergic acid diethylamide – better known as LSD – has been the experimental adjunct to psychotherapy in a controlled clinical trial approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.[1]

[1]http://www.pressherald.com/news/First_clinical_trial_of_LSD_...

Major props to the MAPS guys for navigating the mess that currently exists to try and get to a more positive outcome for us all.

Perhaps you're already aware of Eclim, if not, check it out. Really useful for doing Android/Java in Vim.

Part of why Android development is so frustrating for me is the tools we have to use. If I'm not bashing my head trying to understand fragments and layouts, I'm battling with Eclipse -- constantly closing/refreshing project -- and that incredibly slow emulator.

Android Studio is way better in every conceivable way the old Eclipse-based ADT and I haven't had speed problems with the Android emulator since they released the x86 images. Have you actually developed for Android in the last year?

I never used Android Studio, only Eclipse, since it was what everybody else was using. This was my experience from around 2012/13 sorry for sharing it but it put me off Android.

Things have drastically improved. You should give the new toolchain another try. It's far from perfect, but a huge improvement.

I've emailed for the Matasano challenges three times from two different email address and never received anything.

Is it okay if I ask somebody here to send me a copy?

Here's the problem summarized by an old-time female hacker:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software

Whenever gender and software appears in a discussion, the same bs comes out every time. It's so predictable now you can just skip these sort of thread.

I wonder how much input Will.i.am has as the "director of creative innovation" at Intel.

In general, are these just extended marketing schemes or do they think bringing actors/musicians in will be of any benefit to the products?

It could be that actors and musicians are creative and innovative people.

Or you could be right and it could all be schmarketing.