Complete government deregulation of the market is what has lead to tons of incompatible chargers that require you to install an app on your phone to use them.

Most of the time the government screws everything up is because the biggest corporations own the government and can buy whatever regulations will force their competitors out of business. Rather than whining that the government can't do anything right, perhaps we should start breaking up all the corporate monopolies and refuse to allow 50+ billion-dollar mergers.

Sorry, but in my experience electric anything is far less reliable. Over the last 25 years I've had exactly one gas lawn mower, one gas snowblower, and one gas trimmer. If you can't be bothered to change oil and a spark plug every few years, that's your problem.

I can't even count how many battery-operated cordless tools I've had to throw away because their fully-sealed battery packs have been discontinued. Except for power drills, I only buy corded tools these days.

Every battery pack I come across today is glued shut, even if there are standard cells inside. Good luck rebuilding that. Are you still living in the 90's?

So it took nearly 20 years to settle on a 0.04 percent reduction that is only temporary. Sounds legit.

Think about how much money it costs to develop a game. Now consider that the 30% retail equivalence fee is probably as high as the entire game development budget.

Bandwidth and sales arbitration does not cost that much.

I like using old floppy drives because they make interesting noises, and it's cool that you tell how they work and what they're doing by listening to them. It's a novelty.

Fuck CDs. They just suck.

This is the USA. We can politicize anything, including medicine.

I noticed this once a couple weeks ago. While I was viewing in private mode, the page flashed the usual page of recommendations, and then promptly removed them all with the message "Search to get started!"

YouTube is just taking a page from all the social media giants, and heading in the direction of a gated community. For some idiotic reason, more and more sites on the web are blocking you from accessing content unless you sign up. Gone are the days when you needed an account to participate, now you need one just to observer. Yeah, you might think I'm overreacting as usual, but we really are heading towards a society where there is no public access to content, despite everything being available on free accounts paid for with advertisements. I shouldn't need to have 200+ accounts all over the web just to "surf".

I see this as a very bad thing, as it implies that the only content you can see is the stuff that's been "tailored" just for your preferences. Sometimes, I want to see the same content that everyone else does, just for a bit of perspective. I don't want to be trapped in a bubble, and certainly not the bubble the marketeers want. I think it's kind of sad how people say this is a good thing, whether they're being sarcastic or not. It is NOT good to build an infrastructure so that everybody is treated differently by default, and you're not allowed to know what kind of content other people are watching. It should always be possible to view baseline content. But, again, we don't live in that world anymore. So much for the information superhighway and the accessibility of information to everyone.

Not sure if it's a conspiracy or just laziness. It can be hard to tell the difference.

I've noticed there's been a strong push to eliminate standard browser navigation controls, particularly so the "Back" button doesn't work and you can't open links in new windows. Hmm... I wonder why an advertising company would want to take navigation controls away?

Just make sure you run the "right" web browser.

I am sick to death of web sites telling me my web browser is "not supported".

I'm an artist, and I'm completely unable to visualize things in my head. I've always had to rely on a very technical method of drawing, carefully measuring my layout and composition before I start fleshing out detail. I can do it, but it's very time consuming and frustrating, which is why I decided against becoming a professional artist, and instead went into computer science with a minor in graphic design.

A small percentage of the population is unable to create mental imagery, a condition called Aphantasia. Apparently, you can't train your brain to do this -- you're either born with it or you're not.

• 1) If you're afraid of malware, you don't have to sideload.
• 2) "Vetted" apps are full of malware anyway, because that's essentially the whole business model.
• 3) Security is a joke on modern computers in general, gated community or not.

Pizza costs more on the weekend than it does during weekdays. My local buffet also changes prices depending on the day and time of day.

So the company just confirmed there's some kind of DRM or killswitch built into their $2,000 lawn mower. Another expensive toy that I can't own? No thanks.