Dan Jones

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company and home Internet service provider, has a lot of angry customers. And instead of just privately fuming, thousands of them have complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The deluge of angry customers is so big that the FCC gets more Internet service complaints about Comcast than it does for AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable (TWC) combined.

Further Reading

We’ve written about complaints filed against Comcast before, but we also wanted to find out how those complaints compared to Comcast’s top rivals. So we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FCC, seeking information on three major types of Internet provider complaints: availability, billing, and speed.

In those categories, Comcast received 11,812 complaints so far this year (from January 1 to November 9). AT&T got 3,896 such complaints, Verizon got 1,588, and TWC had 1,240. In total, AT&T, Verizon, and TWC received 6,724 such complaints—5,000 fewer than Comcast alone.

Comcast gets complaints about many things, but frustration with its 300GB-per-month data cap and its overage charges appear to drive much of the most recent outrage. (AT&T also imposes data caps, ranging from 150GB to 1TB a month, while Verizon and TWC don't limit data usage as strictly as Comcast.)

The “300GB data cap that Comcast is placing on households is ridiculous and they know it,” one Acworth, Georgia resident wrote to the FCC in a complaint echoed by many others. “I haven't gone a single week without going over the limit and I need the bandwidth for my job as a video editor.”

It isn’t surprising that Comcast received the most complaints, since it’s the largest ISP in the US and has regularly ranked at or near the bottom of its industry in customer satisfaction. Comcast also is the subject of much negative media coverage and attention from consumer advocacy groups, which may encourage more customers to file complaints.

Whatever the reason, it’s clear Comcast receives far more complaints on a per-customer basis than do other top ISPs. Comcast has 22.9 million broadband subscribers, compared to 15.8 million for AT&T, 13 million for TWC, and 9.2 million for Verizon, Leichtman Research Group reports.

For wireline broadband, that means AT&T, TWC, and Verizon have a combined 38 million customers—about 15 million more than Comcast, even though the three firms together receive far fewer complaints.

Moreover, the AT&T complaint data is inflated a bit because the telco offers mobile broadband in addition to home Internet service. Consumers can file complaints against cellular carriers under a separate category that’s just for phone companies, but some choose to file their mobile complaints through the Internet service category. Complaints about AT&T’s throttling of unlimited mobile data plans and other problems with wireless service have thus added to AT&T’s total complaint numbers. (Verizon’s mobile complaint numbers aren’t inflated as much as AT&T’s because Verizon's cellular service is sold through its Verizon Wireless subsidiary. There were 559 complaints against Verizon Wireless in our data set, separate from the 1,588 filed against Verizon’s FiOS and DSL home Internet services).

No matter how you slice it, Comcast gets more complaints than you would expect based on its subscriber numbers alone. Despite the added complication of its mobile subscribers, AT&T still received just one-third as many Internet service availability, billing, and speed complaints as Comcast.

In addition to overall complaint numbers, Ars obtained the text of complaints over a five-week period from September 24 to October 30. Let’s take a look at some of them. (You can find the entire data set here.)

Out of the 11,812 complaints against Comcast, 2,886 related to availability, a category that in theory is for people who don't have access to Internet service or to all the options they want. (Customers suffering outages may also be filing complaints under "availability.") Another 1,769 complaints were in the speed category, but the most common complaints were filed under billing, with 7,157.

Billing complaints are where data caps come in. Lots of people are mad that they had unlimited data when they first subscribed to Comcast Internet service, only to later be limited to 300GB a month. Customers must pay $10 overage fees for each additional 50GB or $30 extra each month for unlimited data.

Comcast hopes to prevent people from using alternatives to cable TV like Netflix, and it wields too much power over consumers because it's often the only viable broadband choice, numerous complaints say. Some customers say they now closely monitor their Internet usage and restrict big downloads and online streaming in order to stay under their caps.

Many complaints also questioned the accuracy of Comcast’s data meters. We recently wrote about a different customer who proved that Comcast had inaccurately accused him of going over his data cap. Comcast admitted the mistake, but the company still maintains that its meters are accurate overall.

While most complaints only suspected that the metering was wrong, some customers claimed to have proof.

“As of writing this they currently place us at 271GB of 300GB (according to their online meter) used for the month of September,” wrote a customer in Richmond Hill, Georgia. “However, our FreeBSD router tracks the total data used (outgoing or incoming) on WAN and only reports a total of ~147.054GB (139.93GB DL / 7.12GB UL) consumed in the same time period. There appears to be a huge discrepancy between what Comcast reports and what is actually being consumed.”

Here are a few more Comcast customer complaints about data caps (names redacted, customer locations in bold):

Doral, Florida: "Comcast is now introducing a data cap for Internet services which I believe is a punishment for customers who solely choose Comcast as an Internet service provider and not as a cable TV or telephone service provider. They are trying to discourage users who prefer streaming their television shows through services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc…. Comcast already has an awful reputation with providing inconsistent service at questionable rates, and for most people (myself included), we are limited in our choices for internet service providers."

Knoxville, Tennessee: "We are a family of 2 adults and 1 toddler. We ordered the 75Mbps speed Xfinity Internet from Comcast. In one month, we have already exceeded the 300GB cap. In this day and age of gaming, news via the Web, family time, business, online school, having a data cap that low for an Internet speed of 75Mbps is ridiculous. It seems like I cannot even watch a video of my son without blowing through the cap and without my service going out. Caps this low should be illegal especially with no competition.

There is no competition in our neighborhood in Knoxville (a suburb, not rural) that provides cable service so we are stuck with Comcast."

Parkland, Florida: "Comcast has recently imposed a data cap of 300GB per month for my account. They have been showing data usage over 300GB per month over the past few months. This is incorrect. I have logs set up on my own router which monitors all traffic in and out of the house. My own monitoring shows that I am always 80-100GB lower per month than what Comcast reports. Comcast website does not provide any details of how they come up with this usage data."

Nashville, Tennessee: "Comcast just surprised me with a bill that shows that I owed $180 for over cap surcharges. I called the same day I got the bill, and they also let me know that I owe another $220 for over cap surcharges. (That's right, a surprise $400). All I have been doing for the most part is watching Netflix, so it appears there was some kind of data problem going on that I was entirely aware of."

Cumming, Georgia: "On 9/30 around 9:00 PM EDT I checked my Xfinity data usage meter. I had 268GB of 300GB left, so I decided to start a 22GB download to get it in before the meter reset for October. I finished my download and went to bed only to find the next day my October meter said I had used 22GB already. This is impossible for me to have done from midnight until 8 AM EDT while asleep, so I contacted chat support… [The customer service agent] informed me that Comcast operates at Universal Time. He struggled to explain what time it is compared to my own time zone, but that's their time… I use a lot of data, I've already scaled back Netflix to medium quality streaming to control my data. Starting 22GB in the hole, when I thought I had everything under control based on the tools and information provided, is very frustrating."

White House, Tennessee: "I have called Comcast multiple times in regards to my very low Internet speeds. I pay for 75Mbps download, and on a good day I am lucky to receive an average of 10Mbps. Somehow with these very low speeds I have also managed to 'exceed my monthly data cap' of 300GB. My normal $60/month bill has now turned into $90 for an additional 150GB... If there was another broadband option in my area, I would gladly switch in a heartbeat... but currently there are none."

Further Reading

Complaining to the FCC can help customers get a lower bill or prod an Internet provider into solving the problem. The FCC forwards complaints to Internet service providers, which are required to respond to the commission and to the customer within 30 days.

Complaints can sometimes lead to FCC investigations, but in most cases they are simply a way for customers to pressure ISPs when they believe a problem isn’t being addressed properly.

In response to the data cap complaints, Comcast issued the following statement to Ars:

"We are conducting data trials in select markets around the country, covering a small percentage of our customers. We designed the various plans we are trialing with a minimum 300GB/month data plan because more than 90 percent of our customers use less data than that and are not affected. The trials are providing us with invaluable consumer feedback. For example, we surveyed our heavy data users and 80 percent thought our data trials were fairer than our past approach, which was a 250GB/month static cap. It’s important to note that 10 percent of our customers are consuming nearly 50 percent of all the data on our network. As a result, these trials are based on the principle that those who use more, pay more and those who use less, pay less.”

Fiction's Greatest Fiction

 

myprint247.co.uk put together this wonderful infographic list of the greatest works of fiction within fiction...

Books are for the most part the beginning of storytelling, allowing us to record our imaginations in written form and bringing fantastic worlds, characters and creatures to life. While this medium might have evolved over the years into new forms such as films, TV and games, books can still play an integral role within a story.

Well the team at myprint247.co.uk took a look through our favourite fictitious books that never existed or in other words the greatest fiction within fiction. From the Handbook for the Recently Deceased in Beetlejuice to Alan Partridges very own autobiography or perhaps a survival guide to the Wasteland in Fallout, some may be there to help or guide the protagonist('s) while others are purely to make the landscape more immersive.

So take a look at the infographic bellow and let us know which book you would like to read (although chances are you never can).

[Click the infographic for a larger view...]


Source: myprint247.co.uk

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December 29 2015

Grandma's Festive Tradition

 

Mwahaha, here's another hilarious Christmas comic from Kelly Angel of Anything about Nothing...



Artist: Kelly Angel of Anything about Nothing

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December 24 2015

20 Geeky Facts About the Making of The Nightmare Before Christmas

 

Check out these 20 interesting facts about the making of Tim Burton's whimsical The Nightmare Before Christmas movie...



Source: TechEBlog

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December 22 2015

Slate may have declared 2014 “the year of outrage,” but if you thought online discourse would mellow from that point — well, you were wildly mistaken. Scarcely a month went by in 2015 without the christening of some new “most hated” person: whether “pharmabro” Martin Shrelki or cancer-faking blogger Belle Gibson. The people change, but the rage cycle remains pretty standard: indignant news coverage, petitions, a tidal wave of online shaming … and then — at last, eventually — nothing.

[10 Internet moments of 2015 that we wish we could forget]

The Internet’s rages are passionate and deeply felt, but very quickly forgotten. Which is why, as the year wraps up, it seems important to recount them. Where are these people now? What changed, if anything? And does that tell us anything at all about how we should express ourselves and our grievances in a year that promises to be ripe for outrage?

Probably not, but: We can dream! Below, an admittedly subjective ranking of 15 figures that incited the Internet’s outrage in 2015 — and what happened to them since, if anything.

15. Ellen Pao

The villain: The former interim CEO of Reddit, the “front page of the Internet.”

The offense: Closed three subreddits, or forums, for violating the site’s anti-harassment policies — a move that Reddit has taken only rarely in the past. While Pao was not solely responsible for shuttering the subreddits, and while many users agreed with the decision, thousands of others began demonizing Pao as a dictator and demanding her resignation. One petition to remove her as CEO racked up more than 200,000 signatures.

Where she is now: Pao did indeed resign from Reddit in early July — though since then, it’s become increasingly clear that she shouldn’t have had to. Most mainstream commentators and Redditors now agree that the anti-harassment rules were good; in fact, Reddit has taken them further since Steve Hoffman became CEO. On top of that, more details have emerged about the severity of the threats and harassment Pao received during that time — details that make Pao look less like a villain than a victim. She’s been writing about harassment and women in tech, and has said she may eventually write a book.

[Read more: Inside the  ‘Reddit revolt': How Reddit became the Alamo of the Internet’s ongoing culture war]

14. Sam Rader

The villain: One half of the popular Christian vlogging duo “Sam and Nia.”

The offense: Posted, in quick succession, a viral pregnancy announcement and an equally viral miscarriage vid. The timing and set-up of the clips, as well as the fact that the couple ran ads on both of them, fueled suspicion that the pregnancy had been made up for profit. As if that weren’t controversial enough, Gawker dug up Sam’s Ashley Madison account in late August. Days later, he was kicked out of a vlogging conference for “threatening violence,” at which point the couple’s channel took a long hiatus.

Where he is now: Against all odds, Sam is still married, still on YouTube, and still making viral pregnancy videos. The couple announced a new pregnancy on YouTube on Oct. 23. Since then, they’ve returned to their daily vlogging schedule, though they average far fewer daily views now than before controversy struck.

13. Kevin and Crystal O’Connor

The villains: The father-and-daughter owners of Memories Pizza, a small pizzeria in the one-stoplight town of Walkerton, Ind.

The offense: Appeared on ABC57, a local TV station, and proclaimed their support for a so-called “Religious Freedom Restoration” bill. The pair said that Memories Pizza was a “Christian establishment,” and would thus refuse to cater a gay wedding if asked to. The comments, which went nationally viral, were taken as symbols of intolerance and discrimination.

Where they are now: As infamous as the O’Connors became in liberal circles, they were quickly crowned heroes by many in the conservative movement. A crowdfunding campaign for the restaurant raised more than $840,000 in 48 hours, which the O’Connors said they would use, in part, to make improvements to the restaurant. While Memories Pizza still suffers from bad Yelp reviews, it reopened to crowds on April 9.

[Read more: A call for sanity in the matter of Memories Pizza vs. the Internet]

12. Josh “The Fat Jew” Ostrovsky

The villain: A 33-year-old Instagram comic, author and self-proclaimed “Z-list celebrity.”

The offense: Plagiarized jokes from a number of other writers and comedians, most of them significantly less well-known than he is. While the accusations of joke-stealing had circulated since 2014, they came to a head in August, when Ostrovsky signed to the Creative Artists Agency. Outraged comedians took to Twitter and Facebook en masse, encouraging fans to drop him and calling him a “thief.”

Where he is now: Ostrovsky remains a fixture on Instagram and Twitter, where he has a combined 7.5 million followers. He’s apologized for plagiarizing and promised to credit recycled jokes going forward. In November, he released an autobiography — “Money, Pizza, Respect” — which does not appear to have sold terribly well. But he’s still got a side hustle in the wine business AND a plus-sized modelling contract.

11. Sam Pepper

The villain: A perennially controversial British YouTuber and former contestant on the reality show “Big Brother.”

The offense: Published a “prank” video in which he pretends to shoot and kill a man’s best friend in front of him. The genuinely violent and disturbing prank earned quick condemnation from YouTube commenters and from one branch of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, who, in late November, told Pepper to take down the video lest they “unleash f***ing hell.” Instead, Pepper — already infamous for a string of sexual assault “pranks” last year — posted a video promising to take the murder prank down if viewers gave him $1.5 million. A petition on Change.org with more than 214,000 signatures demands that YouTube disable his channel.

Where he is now: Both Pepper and his channel appear unscathed; in fact, there are currently almost 8.7 million views on the murder prank. “I’m off out to live my life!” He tweeted triumphantly on December 12. “Keep doing your Internet s***!”

[Read more: Over 100,000 people want YouTube to ban Sam Pepper for staging a prank murder]

10. Belle Gibson

The villain: The 24-year-old Australian blogger and entrepreneur behind “The Whole Pantry” app.

The offense: Rose to fame, in large part, by claiming that a healthy diet and alternative medicine had cured her metastatic cancer — when, in fact, she’d never been ill. Gibson also repeatedly said that a portion of the sales from her app, The Whole Pantry, and its accompanying cookbook went to charity, though later investigations suggested that she’d pocketed those funds. Gibson’s fan base imploded almost overnight, and both her former fans and outside observers began demanding explanations.

Where she is now: Since March, Gibson has been under investigation by a regional Consumer Affairs department, which, per the Herald Sun, is looking into claims about her fraudulent fundraising practices. Gibson’s publisher has withdrawn her cookbook and Whole Pantry is gone from the app store. In a June interview, she told 60 Minutes she had “lost everything” — an admission for which she was reportedly paid $45,000 AUS.

9. Josh Duggar

The villain: The eldest son of the Duggar clan, (in)famous for TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” and the executive director of FRC Action, a conservative PAC.

The offense: Molested five underage girls, including four of his sisters, when he was 14 and 15 — roughly a decade ago. The abuse came out in May after In Touch acquired a series of police reports on the incidents, and instantly cast doubt on Duggar’s reputation as a crusader for family values. That reputation suffered further in August, when Duggar’s name surfaced in the Ashley Madison leak. Site records suggest he’d been a paying member of the infidelity site since 2013.

Where he is now: Duggar resigned his position at FRC Action in May and entered a “long-term treatment center” in late August, according to the Duggar family. At the time, he apologized for being “the biggest hypocrite ever” and said he was “ashamed of the double life I have been living.” In a recent interview with TLC, his wife Anna said the couple was not planning to divorce. She is caring for four young children while Duggar completes treatment.

8. Julia Cordray

The villain: A Calgary-based HR executive and tech entrepreneur.

The offense: Developed an app called “Peeple,” the so-called “Yelp for people,” which would allow anyone to publicly rate anyone else on a one- to five-star scale. After the Intersect flagged several of the concept’s problems — including the inability to opt-out and a lack of planning around harassment and moderation — the app went internationally viral, with thousands of petitioners and social media users demanding Cordray shut it down. Cordray, for her part, complained on social media about the harassment she herself was receiving, and deleted negative comments from Peeple’s Facebook page — two acts of apparent hypocrisy that only seemed to fuel online outrage.

Where she is now: Cordray has repeatedly said she’s still working on Peeple, and that the app is garnering more investor interest than ever before. In light of the public outcry, however, she’s overhauled the app, paring it back to what is, in essence, a variation of LinkedIn’s professional endorsements. (Her personal website now calls it “the next generation of recruitment.”) She recently told Entrepreneur that the new Peeple could launch as early as next month.

[Read more: Everyone you know will be able to rate you on the terrifying ‘Yelp for people’ — whether you want them to or not]

7. William Leonard Dodson

The villain: A 41-year-old South Carolina man.

The offense: Taped the mouth of his 15-month-old pitbull mix for two days, causing serious damage to her lips and tongue that required plastic surgery to repair. The heartbreaking images of the dog, named Caitlyn, sparked national outrage after the Charleston Animal Society posted them to Facebook; a petition demanding legal consequences for Dodson earned more than 440,000 signatures.

Where he is now: As of November, Dodson was in jail awaiting trial on charges of animal cruelty. He had previously waived his right to a preliminary hearing. Caitlyn, meanwhile, has recovered after several surgeries and has since been adopted. Her story has helped the Charleston Animal Society raise thousands in donations.

6. Doug and Carla Alcorn

The villains: The Ohio parents of Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender girl who committed suicide on Dec. 28, 2014.

The offense: Repeatedly refused to accept their daughter’s identity in the weeks before and after her death, leading thousands of onlookers to blame them for it. Alcorn’s suicide became an international media phenomenon after her suicide note went viral on Tumblr; in it, she described her growing sense of isolation and alienation as her socially conservative Christian parents tried to convince her that she “would never truly be a girl.” Despite the note, Alcorn’s mother Carla referred to her daughter as “my sweet … son, Joshua Ryan,” in a Facebook post announcing her death, and later told CNN that “we don’t support that, religiously.” Both parents were subsequently doxed by online vigilantes, and several popular petitions called for them to be legally prosecuted.

Where they are now: The Alcorns, their two dogs and their three remaining children still live in Kings Mills, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, where they’ve kept a low profile since January. In the family’s last remarks to the media, Doug told local TV affiliate WCPO that “we love our son, Joshua, very much and are devastated by his death … We wish to grieve in private.” The family has not participated in any of the subsequent advocacy dedicated to Leelah and other transgender teens. A friend of the family told WCPO that the online reaction had been difficult for the family, who “truly thought they were doing the right thing.” Cincinnati recently passed a law banning gay conversion therapy.

[Read more: Leelah Alcorn’s death was tragic, but harassing her parents is not the answer]

5. Chuck Johnson

The villain: The litigious, inflammatory 26-year-old blogger behind GotNews.com.

The offense: Tweeted a link to a fundraiser to “take out” Deray McKesson, the prominent Black Lives Matter activist. The apparent threat got Johnson suspended from Twitter, and GotNews.com was briefly downed by hackers. Previously, Johnson — a gleeful troll on Twitter and off it — doxed two New York Times reporters, incorrectly claimed that Newark mayor Cory Booker (now a senator) didn’t live in Newark, and blamed homosexuality for the 2015 Amtrak derailment. In October, he also released controversial, secret recordings of Planned Parenthood executives, in violation of a federal court order. Johnson has since been served a deposition by the National Abortion Federation over the incident, which he’s fighting. It’s an odd change of pace for him: Johnson is notoriously litigious, and a countdown clock, chuckcjohnson.info, exists for the sole purpose of tracking his lawsuit threats. (It has been, as of this writing, 24 days, 8 hours and 29 minutes.)

Where he is now: Johnson is still publishing regularly on GotNews.com amidst his “legal fight” with Planned Parenthood and the NAF. (His latest “scoop” is a lengthy statement from George Zimmerman, explaining why he doxed his ex on Twitter.) Johnson himself has not returned to Twitter, though he maintains an active presence on Facebook: “F— these savages,” he posted recently, of Muslims. Johnson is currently crowdfunding a legal defense fund, and has raised $3,622. He lives in Clovis, Calif., with his wife and dog.

[Read more: Charles Johnson, one of the Internet’s most infamous trolls, has finally been banned from Twitter]

4. Kim Davis

The villain: A county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky.

The offense: Refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on the grounds that it violated her Pentecostal Christian beliefs. Davis maintained that position even when mandated to issue licenses by both Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and court order, resulting in a six-day jail stint in early September. Davis has since been released from jail on the condition that she not interfere with the work of her deputy clerks, who are issuing same-sex licenses without putting Davis’s name on them, as is typical. In September, she further enraged her critics by meeting privately with Pope Francis.

Where she is now: Davis’s legal saga still hasn’t ended: She has repeatedly appealed a lower court’s decision forcing her office to issue licenses, and both the state of Kentucky and the American Civil Liberties Union have indicated that they’re worried about the validity of the altered certificates that Rowan County has been issuing. Davis, meanwhile, is still basking in the glow of her fame: On Dec. 8, she attended the inaugural events for Kentucky’s new governor, Matt Bevin.

3. Rachel Dolezal

The villain: The former president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP.

The offense: Claimed to be African American — even alleging discrimination and hate crimes based on her race — when she is, in fact, of German and Czech ancestry. Dolezal’s real background came out in June, when a reporter at Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Press first published allegations that Dolezal was white. As more reporters and acquaintances dug into Dolezal’s story, they found further lies: Among other things, the 38-year-old claimed that her parents had abused her, that her father was actually her step-dad, and that her (black) adopted brother Izaiah was her son. It also appeared that she used those lies to maneuver into a number of leadership and teaching positions.

Where she is now: While Dolezal has said she lost most of her friends, as well as her positions at the NAACP and Eastern Washington University, shortly after her story broke, she’s remained in Spokane with her son, Franklin. (Dolezal divorced Franklin’s father in 2004.) Dolezal told the Guardian she’s been unable to get a job, but has been doing braids and weaves out of her home. She’s expecting a baby, to be named “Langston” after Langston Hughes; needless to say, she still identifies as a black woman.

2. Walter Palmer

The villain: A dentist in suburban Minnesota and a recreational big-game hunter.

The offense: Shot, tracked and later killed Cecil, a 13-year-old lion beloved far outside his home in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. Palmer reportedly paid $50,000 to a professional hunting guide, who helped him lure the animal out of a wildlife sanctuary and fatally wound it with a bow and arrow. Though Palmer apologized, claiming he hadn’t known the lion he hunted was the world-famous Cecil, critics called for an investigation into the hunt and sweeping reforms on trophy hunting in general.

Where he is now: Zimbabwean officials chose not to prosecute Palmer for illegal hunting, and in September, he returned to his dental practice. Things have not, however, been smooth sailing since then: In November, Minnesota state officials investigated Palmer for “herding” deer onto his hunting land, and a group of persistent critics have managed to keep his Yelp rating to a mere one star. The website for River Bluff Dental, his practice, is currently offline.

[Read more: A vengeful Internet trashed the Yelp page of the Minnesota dentist who shot Cecil the lion]

1. Martin Shkreli

The villain: A 32-year-old hedge fund manager and pharmaceutical executive.

The offense: Raised the price of Daraprim, a medication used by AIDS patients, from $13 to $750/pill in September. Shkreli affected an infamously smug, unapologetic attitude in interviews, repeatedly saying it was his job to seek “profit” and that he should have raised the price of Daraprim higher. As if that weren’t enough, he then went on to send a series of fantastically trolly tweets (“50-100 date solicitations a day for me, the world’s most eligible bachelor”), get in a well-publicized spat with Bernie Sanders, buy the sole copy of Wu-Tang’s $2 million special edition album, and begin a fantastically self-involved YouTube channel.

Where he is now: Shkreli was arrested on securities fraud charges Dec. 17 and released that same day on $5 million bond. Though he’s pleading not guilty to all charges, he’s since resigned from both the pharmaceutical companies he led prior. Before all that went down, however, Shkreli was actually doing … pretty okay. The stock price of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, his publicly traded company, hit an almost two-year high in late November. And some of his critics — including the HIV blogger and activist Josh Robbins — had begun to rethink their earlier positions.

Update: This story initially said Chuck Johnson was sued by the NAF; in fact, he has been served by the NAF and started a legal defense fund to fight the deposition. The error resulted from a misreading on our end. The Post regrets the error.