Marketing usually trumps technology

About the early (like, soldering-things-together-in-their-living-room early) history of Cisco, the internet hardware and software company. Much of the product was software based, and with early networking no one even knew exactly why they needed such stuff.

"Cisco cleverly sold software that plugged into the wall, had a fan and got warm,'' Gorin said. "People had a long history of buying things that plugged into the wall, made noises and got warm.''

Interesting history in general. From here: http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/cisco.html

Airlines beat mobile operators

Its not just the TSA or similar bureaucracies that mess with the public, the airlines themselves are becoming more unfriendly all the time. We just bought the tickets for Alison's yearly migration back to Canada, and every year it's weirder. Disregarding most of the process, here's the additional taxes and fees portion alone: Yup, $84.68 in taxes and fees that were in no way visible when browsing airfare. For the fare we paid at least, that's almost exactly a 50% tax rate (do the math).