A major test case is underway in Ohio, where a utility company is trying to undo deregulation in an attempt to keep expensive and aging coal and nuclear plants on-line. FirstEnergy pushed hard for deregulation back in 2008 and got a $6 billion payout from consumers to cover its stranded assets. Now, the company says it wants to be guaranteed revenues from expensive coal and nuclear power generation. Critics of the plan say this amounts to a public subsidy for FirstEnergy. In fact, Barrett says, "calculations have been done that say over a 15-year [period], consumers of electricity might end up subsidizing FirstEnergy to the tune of some $3 billion." In essence, FirstEnergy now believes the deregulation it once fought for should be scrapped.

It is an ironic turn of events for FirstEnergy. In the early 2000s the company had substantial holdings in coal-fired generating plants, which at the time were by far the cheapest way to generate electricity. But now the marketplace has changed. Plentiful and low-price natural gas has begun to undercut all other energy sources. And solar and wind are becoming more cost-efficient pretty steadily over time. Coal-fired plants that had been generating healthy profit margins are no longer economical to run. FirstEnergy argues that coal-fired plants should be preserved, and updated, because "they can provide a steady reliable base-load source of energy." FirstEnergy also warns that natural gas prices will not remain low forever. Years from now, they say, their coal plants and nuclear operations will be more economical and consumers will be thanking them for keeping them open.

On September 15, 1995, Hackers was released in the theaters to a relative thud, recovering less than half its production budget at the box office. But the tale of a group of high school hackers-with cool-sounding hacker handles like "Zero Cool" and "Acid Burn"-stumbling upon a grand corporate conspiracy found a second life on home video, becoming a cult classic two decades later.

Directed by Iain Softley the film is all sorts of dated. There's some unknown punk named Angelina Jolie, the nebulously famous Fisher Stevens. Matthew Lillard's in it, and so is Marc Anthony. Everyone rollerblades or skateboards. Visually dazzling and oddly optimistic, Hackers is more than a cheesy techno-thriller from the mid '90s, it's a smart, energetic story about teenage rebellion with a genuine interest in what was once a small but thriving subculture.

The Internet and technology have changed greatly since Hackers' release, yet even with 20 years of technological progress, code still doesn't float around your screen as mathematical functions in 3D. And the prominently featured payphones, floppy disks, acoustic coupled modems, techno-arcades and pagers are becoming a bit difficult to find for today's aspiring hackers.