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If Comcast is your ISP, you can get HBO Go unbundled through a package they call internet plus. Not ideal but a step in the right direction.
Internet Plus

apparently at 2.58 million
http://consumerist.com/2013/08...

Also consider the horrendous difficulty of getting through automated HR scanner processes. You have to win Buzzword Bingo, and then you have to be matched to a position the company is actively looking to fill.

That's a nerve-wracking experience in the best of times; however, if you've got somebody inside the company actively tracking your application status and staying on the HR people not to let it fall through the cracks, that's a big benefit to your sanity and your chances of successfully landing a new employer.

Nope, the basic service is actually free. The streaming plan initially free but will be charged at 9/hr later. Here is their pamplet and a news source talking about this

Sure, DexterIsADog.

Some of these are security videos. Some are just videos people shot. They all involve civil cases.

Question answered by lawyers about release of security footage

Texting Woman Who Fell Into Fountain May Sue Mall . The video in the story has been removed, probably as part of a preemptive agreement.

Kanye West suing YouTube co-founder for uploading footage of his proposal

Peninsula card room sues over violent YouTube videos

Couple sues subway over YouTube post

NJTA sues YouTube over the posting of a video that had been shot with an NJTA camera.

And this link may provide you with lots and lots of articles to read on the subject.

http://consumerist.com/2011/02/11/hp-pretends-linux-voids-netbook-hardware-warranty/

What about people who don't have bank accounts?

The oligarchs have accounted for this, which is why many large corporations are now replacing non-direct-deposit paychecks with what are essentially pre-paid VISA cards.

See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/business/as-pay-cards-replace-paychecks-bank-fees-hurt-workers.html?_r=0
http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2013/07/23/are-hourly-workers-being-short-changed-the-truth-about-payroll-cards/
http://consumerist.com/2013/07/01/here-is-why-employers-and-banks-love-putting-wages-on-prepaid-debit-cards-and-why-employees-are-keeping-their-money-in-shoeboxes/

You might not be able to get blood from a turnip, but that little fact won't stop those in power from trying.

Shit has hit the fan.

As much as I hate to admit it, you're probably right. It's like food manufacturers have been taking lessons from Linksys and Netgear (release a kick-ass product with top-notch components, rack up 5-star reviews, then quietly replace it with an inferior and crippled second version so you can rake in the sales for a few months before people catch on and start neutralizing the early 5-star reviews with angry 1-star reviews).

Example: ConAgra replacing HFCS with sugar in Hunt's ketchup, advertising it heavily for a few months, then quietly eliminating the proclamation from the label, ceasing the ads, coasting for another year and a half, then quietly replacing the sugar with HFCS & hoping nobody will notice. http://consumerist.com/2013/01/30/hunts-manages-to-sneak-high-fructose-corn-syrup-back-into-its-ketchup-after-2-years-without/

They have been building up an impressive amount of awards to match.

Being an old geezer, I take a bit of exception to this. In addition, the fatal crash that started Toyota's problems had no old geezers.. You can listen to the rather horrifying 911 call here.

As an aside, agism is just as bad as sexism, racism, homophobism, etc. Oh, and by the way, you'll be one, too.

Of course, many people pirated "the final season" of Breaking Bad after they purchased the full Season 5 then the retailers (Amazon, iTunes,.. ) turned the second half of the 5th season in "the final season" and charged users a second time... Source: http://consumerist.com/2013/08/12/apple-demands-another-23-because-5th-season-of-breaking-bad-was-split-in-half/

I wonder how much of the piracy has to do with bullshit like Apple pulling a bait-and-switch on Apple TV subscribers. The entertainment industry thinks that they can string people along as much as they like, and then they wonder why things get pirated.

Over the years there have been stores of getting big pron PPV / VOD bills for shows they did not see how likely was it that some hacked the box so they where able to get free pron?

http://consumerist.com/2008/06/21/listen-time-warner-the-60-year-old-english-teacher-didnt-order-1400-of-porn/

I'd never really followed other similar news aggregators before, but I've been following Consumerist for a few months, and indeed, that blog tends to post interesting news a couple days before it ends up here. In fact, it just posted a followup story, that apparently when paypal heard that upon seeing the windfall, even though he the guy knew it wasn't real, he felt compelled to donate 30 dollars to a local charity, paypal offered the guy the chance to donate an unspecified but supposedly substantial amount to the charity of his choice as compensation for the mistake.

not when you are a 1099 fedex does the same BS

FedEx package after the FedEx delivery driver had a neighbor I didn’t know in my building in [redacted] sign for a package from Apple.

and then make the driver be on the hook for it even when they don't have all day to wait and it common to give stuff / leave stuff to neighbor or drop it your door when you are not home.

http://consumerist.com/2011/08/19/report-your-iphone-stolen-get-a-visit-from-the-fedex-thugs/

Except they're not intended to be used on an annualized basis. If a loan of $100 is made for 30 days, what is the proper fee to charge? 240% would be $20.

Ideally, they wouldn't. But a lot of these people aren't in great financial health anyways: http://consumerist.com/2013/04/26/the-average-payday-loan-borrower-spends-more-than-half-the-year-in-debt-to-lender/

I can understand that these lenders are providing a service that some people apparently need. But it seems like there's something structurally wrong with the whole checking system if it's that prone to check fraud.

This one makes the point well.

http://consumerist.com/2013/06/17/ex-mcdonalds-employee-sues-because-she-doesnt-want-her-paycheck-on-a-prepaid-debit-card/

You do know Peter Moore ( COO of EA ) is from Microsoft...right?

and the drivers sends goons if you report any thing stolen

http://consumerist.com/2011/08/19/report-your-iphone-stolen-get-a-visit-from-the-fedex-thugs/

Just out of curiosity, which of the other 3 providers isn't evil? Seriously, I'm really curious.

T-Mobile and Sprint didn't even get nominated for the Consumerist's Worst Company in America tournament this year. AT&T and Verizon both were nominated -- AT&T went all the way to the "Elite Eight" before being defeated by 2-time Tournament Champion EA.

Obviously unscientific, but the contestants were nominated and voted on by disgruntled consumers, so they are representative of "how bad" these companies are.

From a "who's best?" standpoint, in 2012 Consumer Reports ranked the majors in order: Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T. A JD Power report based on "network quality" also put Verizon at the top of the list in most regions. As far as I can tell, the Power report doesn't reflect overall satisfaction, just voice and data performance.

And do tell, exactly how are you going to play offline when every developer is going to claim that their game has to offload some of its processing to the "cloud" now (you know, the way EA did with SimCity)?

Maybe if you pray hard enough, Jesus will miracle your game to work.

Ants in Weird/Odd Places:

Bugs in the computer: Sun
Microsystems, Inc. knows why Brazil is known to its native inhabitants as the kingdom of the ants.

Ants in yer... Pants? NOT!
(Toshiba notebook/laptop); Ants
Invade Apple iBook; "Yep, those are ants in that laptop".

(Tele)phones: Panasonic Cordless Phone and Ants In My Nokia Mobile Phone (A Yahoo! account is required).

Ants in Omniview switchboxes: An e-mail story of ants invading a network
switchbox.

Argentine ants invade a network hub.

Computerworld on "Ants had taken up residence in a guy's external hard drive. Seen on /.).

A photograph showing ants nesting in a guy's phone box, affecting his
digital subscriber line (DSL) connection and phone system.

A 38 seconds YouTube video showing crazy ants in a computer mouse.

One minute and 19 seconds Break video, from VideoSift: "Creepy Surprise. -- Wife asked me to try to get the printer to work, since she was having some problems with it. Imagine my surprise when I looked inside..."

Help,
A Colony Of Ants Attacked My Enterprise Rental Car And Ruined My
Vacation!

This seemed fishy considering the market, so I did some poking around and, surprise!: not only does the summary totally mangle the facts of the rumor - Youtube is supposedly going to start offering premium CHANNELS for 1.99/month EACH, not a Hulu or Netflix-type broad subscription - but it's only a rumor that google has neither confirmed nor denied.

http://consumerist.com/2013/05/06/report-youtube-introducing-paid-subscription-channels-soon/

Good job.

Welcome to capitalism, If you do nothing but make shitty games and piss people off until you get voted worst company in America two years running, you are going to suffer losses, or go bankrupt. (Personally, I keep my fingers crossed)

I do feel really bad for the people who work there though :(

>>In reality, EA is just the worst corporation according to people who read The Consumerist.

I’d argue that this is proof that EA is one of the *best* companies in America according to people who read The Consumerist. Or mot popular if not best. Disclaimer: I read that site. I'm an old man who gets to the articles through an ancient technology called RSS using a service on its death bed called Google Reader.

Look at the original brackets: http://consumerist.com/2013/03/27/meet-your-worst-company-in-america-no-so-sweet-16/ -- it’s a popularity contest.

Chase has more customers than Wells-Fargo, so Chase wins its first round. Apple versus Microsoft: more front-facing customers. Dish vs. DirectTV.

The contest result is bullshit, because the design of the contest is bullshit.

The consumerist has already debunked EA's attempt to spin this. The link should have been included with the story to prevent EA from blaming this on homophobes or people who didn't like the athlete on the jacket of one of their games.

I'm voting for Ticketmaster, at least EA makes stuff.

I'm with you, and am glad that someone else posted this first. I can't stand Ticketbastard, and they have exclusivity agreements with most of the venues in my country. This means that they will receive a fee for ever live performance that I want to attend, regardless of whether or not I want to use them. Fees on top of fees on top of fees that are already included in the ticket price. They haven't done much to curb the secondary market; there is no incentive for them to do so.

They add absolutely no value, and have done little to bring ticket sales into the digital age. Thanks for nothing, Ticketmaster. You guys suck more than any other company in the country.

I'm voting for Ticketmaster, at least EA makes stuff.

Not according to the people that bought SimCity.

I'm voting for Ticketmaster, at least EA makes stuff.

Sue Lowden is that you?!

After all, we're talking about people who buy $1,000 Monster cables, even though in a blind test, they can't tell the difference between those and wire coat hangers.

What they're really trying to prevent is someone from taking videos of them in their backyards sunbathing in the nude or doing something with the neighbor's daughter.

The problem is ... there's already laws against that.

[Talking more about the proposed Texas legislation here than the New Hampshire one, as I'm in Texas.]

I think they're more worried about stuff like this where a guy just flying his R/C plane around with a camera found that a slaughterhouse was illegally leaking blood into a creek. He interfered with a business by reporting this, and legislators don't like that sort of stuff here, even though the business was breaking the law by doing so and the guy wasn't doing anything illegal.

And there's also the fear that the police/military/whatever will park a bird sized drone over your house just to watch whatever you do. Not that this happens, but it's the thought. (And really, if the police needed to do that, they'd just use their manned helicopter for $1000/hr.) And of course when people think "drone" they think "armed Predator drone", which further mucks with the issue.

It would sure be nice to avoid this.

Here are two links that support my statements. There are lots more. The stats for out-of-wedlock birth and STDs are easy to find.

http://consumerist.com/2009/03/05/which-state-consumes-the-most-online-porn/

Now go look at the gallup poll about which states are the most religious, just published this week:

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/15/nations_most_religious_are_also_the_most_depressed_partner

PopeRatzo - Some evidence of either of your claims?

Here you go:

http://consumerist.com/2009/03/05/which-state-consumes-the-most-online-porn/

Now go look at the gallup poll about which states are the most religious, just published this week:

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/15/nations_most_religious_are_also_the_most_depressed_partner

For future reference, all this information can be found via google. You just type in what you're looking for.

myself for years (with and without a little 'extra').....pepsico just finally catching on

mixed-up in store at taco bell for breakfast since at least last spring....

http://consumerist.com/2012/05/29/taco-bell-where-mountain-dew-am-is-a-breakfast-drink/

mention of it (as kickstart) going retail here...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/mtn-dew-am-taco-bell-breakfast_n_1847250.html

if these are priced as "energy drinks" (i.e. expensive as hell) and not regular soda pop, I'M NOT BUYING. i miss the orange dew they had awhile back but i won't pay three bucks a can for this.

subcontracted work out this is the issue as well the main supplier / contractors should get fined as well.

In usa cable co's do this some times it ends up very bad.

http://consumerist.com/2011/10/05/couple-sues-cox-after-cable-guy-kills-their-son/

Not yet, because nobody wants them.

This isn't news. They made the same argument in 1979, with the "Susan B. Anthony" which nobody used; and in 2000 with the "Sacagawea dollar", which nobody used.

http://consumerist.com/2012/11/30/if-no-one-likes-the-dollar-coin-why-is-the-u-s-government-trying-to-push-it-so-hard/

http://consumerist.com/2012/11/26/bank-of-america-is-really-good-at-losing-documents-really-bad-at-believing-my-mother-is-dead/

They're talking about $4/gallon gas. NJ's 'price gouging' laws stipulate a limit of 10% increases over 'normal' prices.

"New Jersey law prohibits excessive price increases during a declared state of emergency and for 30 days after the termination of the state of emergency. An excessive price increase is defined as more than 10% higher than the price at which merchandise was sold during the normal course of business prior to the state of emergency"

Or are you implying that hurricane conditions are unlikely to increase availability costs by more than 10%? This is a *stupid* law, which is unsurprising because generally politicians have no training in math or economics.

In the wake of the Italian seismologists who were recently convicted of manslaughter, Mann could easily be accused of scientific misconduct if his predictions turn out to be wrong. Personally, I find people's panic over the hockey stick graph to be akin to people getting excited over Facebook's recent stock jump. http://consumerist.com/2012/10/24/facebook-stock-price-soars-to-about-half-of-what-it-was-worth-at-ipo/ That graph says a lot about having tunnel vision. But let's assume that Mann turns out to be not just a little bit wrong but a whole lot wrong. How many billions of dollars were wasted on schemes like carbon trading? Can the people and businesses who got screwed as a result potentially sue for damages? Who would they sue?

The Consumerist has links to template letters for eBay (by November 9) and PayPal (by Dec. 1). You need to fill out, print and mail them by the deadline to opt out. That's physical, actual paper, snail mail. No online forms, no emails, no calls.

More info and speculation on whether you'll be deemed a troublemaker, persona non grata, communist, vegetarian, etc., etc. if you opt-out.

The Consumerist has links to template letters for eBay (by November 9) and PayPal (by Dec. 1). You need to fill out, print and mail them by the deadline to opt out. That's physical, actual paper, snail mail. No online forms, no emails, no calls.

More info and speculation on whether you'll be deemed a troublemaker, persona non grata, communist, vegetarian, etc., etc. if you opt-out.

The Consumerist has links to template letters for eBay (by November 9) and PayPal (by Dec. 1). You need to fill out, print and mail them by the deadline to opt out. That's physical, actual paper, snail mail. No online forms, no emails, no calls.

More info and speculation on whether you'll be deemed a troublemaker, persona non grata, communist, vegetarian, etc., etc. if you opt-out.

The Consumerist has links to template letters for eBay (by November 9) and PayPal (by Dec. 1). You need to fill out, print and mail them by the deadline to opt out. That's physical, actual paper, snail mail. No online forms, no emails, no calls.

More info and speculation on whether you'll be deemed a troublemaker, persona non grata, communist, vegetarian, etc., etc. if you opt-out.

They also own Woot. ([citation provided] http://consumerist.com/2010/06/amazon-buys-woot.html)

In fact, I'm surprised there haven't be MORE Kindles sold on Woot.

the ink is so expensive because that's where they're actually making money.

It's not just expensive, printer ink is more expensive than human blood.

With almost 7 billion factories making the stuff, I'm not surprised blood is cheaper than ink.
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world+population

the ink is so expensive because that's where they're actually making money.

It's not just expensive, printer ink is more expensive than human blood.

Computer related items would be better served if we had more info, so here's a few suggestions otherwise. Have your dad (or you) monitor his credit reports to keep an eye out for new accounts that open and charges to his credit card/bank accounts/etcetera. If you feel that something might have been opened against his will, make sure he gets his credit frozen (How to) and closes the affected account if there is one. I've never taken stock in monitoring services personally, but this may not be a bad situation to hire one.

Also watch his mail for anything that looks suspicious, such as credit card informationals. The worst thing that can happen is somebody running up a criminal record using his info. It's not common and somewhat hard to pull off, but it could be painful.

The Consumerist (liked above) also has tons of other info you can use about this stuff.