You're saying "well it doesn't have to be like that," and gstrickler is saying, "it is like that." You're talking past him.

They're just emulating US Police.

http://www.theagitator.com/?s=puppycide

Nah, it's only the lower classes who get such checkups, sometimes middle-class'ers. Sandwich makers get drug tested, bus drivers get FBI background checks, it totally makes sense in a certain light.

This is exactly it. The FBI aren't the ones responsible for reinstalling the machine into the rack. They took it on themselves for some reason, and avoiding attention was evidently part of it.

It charges no money for its services.

It most certainly does charge for job and/or real estate ads in many cities.

Comments are throttled to fight spammers and trolls.

No kidding. I think that was the state of the art around 2004, i.e. before this redesign.

Considering how user-hostile the design is, only a fool would be so conceited as to think their comments hold any weight.

Here's a beginner's list, though: http://meta.slashdot.org/story/11/01/25/163257/slashdot-launches-re-design

If Slashdot is only at the "let's see if we can get a simple text field to display properly" level of development, I'm definitely pissing in the wind about any other usability issues. Sad.

And who decided that Slashdot has so many comments that they need to be throttled so severely, even from logged-in users? SRSLY.

And you know what? Screw your passive engineering with "hey, send an email!" UI/UX isn't just an email away. It's not enough to "look great," when the site is 5x harder to use than any other. Did the designer previously work for GoDaddy?

And just as I post that: http://imgur.com/KQsuW

Is there any action besides sitting quietly that I can do properly on the site?

Oh look, a comment interval (is it up to 4 hours yet?) masquerading as a proxy warning. Comment-free is spam-free, right?

It's all terrible, that's the thing. It has been years since I've gotten anything but frustration from trying to read beyond RSS headlines.

It's not going to stay "power adapter with password," that's just the simplest and most abstract (read: absent real hints of product plans) example they came up with for the purposes of the patent.

I predict that eventually the communications will go elsewhere, for a push-button support system like OnStar for AppleCare. Subscription fees FTW!

Last time I had a comcast tech out to fix my cable modem, I had to show them how to use ping.

I've got news for you: he knows how. He was just being lazy and padding his hours with a play-dumb work slowdown.

Funny, I try to make calls go long when I don't think the rep is being as helpful as they should be. I'll start talking slower, asking open-ended questions, and basically dragging it out and re-asking the question I called about. That's fine, 20 minutes on the phone looks much worse on their back than mine.