The current prevailing "virtue" is not being a Nazi, and not advocating genocide. I'm okay with that.

This is me, as well (though I'm not retired). I always hated having to store and curate hundreds/thousands of books/DVDs/CDs - I'm interested in the message, not the medium. All my old stuff got ripped/scanned/uploaded, backed up, and I got rid of the physical media. For new stuff, all-you-can-eat services are perfect for me. For the few pieces of media I want to own, I get a digital version, and I'm done. No extra piece of plastic in my house, nothing had to be manufactured or transported, and I still get to enjoy it.

The state spelled out exactly what Charter had to do in order to be allowed to purchase Time Warner. Charter agreed to the conditions. Now, Charter is being punished for not adhering to the specific details of the agreement (and for lying and saying that they had). The state tells them to GTFO and sell back the property, per their agreement

This is exactly how this should work, and good on New York for following through.

I don't really understand why anyone still uses big banks instead of credit unions for their everyday banking needs. Better customer service, FAR fewer fees, almost all the same options.

Yeah, I mean, who wants the world's 5th largest economy, anyway?

Apple's catalog is as big as any of the other services, and except for a few obscure comedy albums, there's never been something I've looked for and not found on the service.

As for access, I live in the suburbs. I commute to a bigger city nearby. 98% of my vacationing is to northern California, Nevada, and Arizona, and there's cell coverage/internet access everywhere but inside the national parks. Regardless, Apple lets you download music from its service to your device, and I do have a few thousand songs from my CD collection available as well for those rare off-the-grid times. I'm never lacking for music.

You're welcome to purchase and modify your few hundred songs if you have an issue with these services. I'll enjoy my 30,000,000+, whenever I want them.

With Apple Music (or Spotify, or Pandora), I could listen to 10 new albums every single day for that $180/year - more than 3,500 albums. Or I can listen to any given specific song, anytime I want - new stuff, old stuff, obscure stuff. I don't feel like I need to own music anymore, given how many other places there are to listen.

If Pluto is a planet, aren't a large number of other bodies in the solar system also planets?

ANYTHING you can do to help your case, you should do

I would recommend NOT drinking and driving. There's zero excuse. Of course you could be pulled over or arrested for seeming drunk, but if you're not drinking, you're not going to be busted after the test.

You don't just get to delay until you're sober - they have a formula for determining your BAC at the time of your arrest, even if you take the blood test hours later.

Learning to read cursive without writing it would be like just learning to understand German without being able to speak it.

Not at all. Learning to read cursive involves knowing what English letters look like in what's effectively a different font. The syntax, words, letter groupings, meaning, and grammar are all identical to printed/typed text. This is nothing like learning a new language.

1. You can read cursive without having to write it.

2. A signature doesn't have to be written in cursive. It doesn't have to be your name. It doesn't have to be anything - no one checks or compares them in 99.99% of transactions.

Anyone habitually using a typewriter (and there are still quite a few who do)

Citation please. How many people still habitually use a typewriter for writing sentences and paragraphs (instead of labels or forms, which I do see them used for)?

What the hell does anyone need cursive writing for anymore? It existed entirely because inkwell-dipped pens function better if the point stays on the paper. Somewhere along the way people decided it was fancy and proper, for no real reason.

If you want real protection, you're gonna have to change the way records are made and kept public. FB is an easy target (and Slashdot stories in the past few months show how obsessed people are with FB, but not anyone else), but it's not as big of a deal as large aggregating data companies like LexisNexis. And where do they get the bulk of their data? Public records.

Mortgage records, public housing data, court records, public directories, etc. They've got other stuff, of course, but the public stuff are all the things that can really screw with you (compared to your advertising preferences, which is the bulk of what FB, Twitter and others deal in). But anyone interested can do the same as those companies do, with just a visit to the local courthouse or library.

The problem here, however, is that public records are important for everyone. It's good and important to know who owns property. It's good to know who's involved in a court case, who's been sued, and who owns a business. So do we limit this information? Or somehow limit how it's collected? Are there free speech issues involved if individuals are allowed to access public information, but companies can't? Does the answer to that question change when it's the private companies that make the data useful to the public (because otherwise, it's hard to get at, all in one place)?

There are a lot of questions, and the answers are never as easy as "just stop sharing things" or "Make Facebook stop". Living in a large society necessitates having public records easily available, for the sake of all of us. And feeling high and mighty because you don't use Facebook is just fooling yourself. This is a complex issue, and we'll need to decide what we want to give up for the sake of the privacy we think we need/deserve.