Disgusted.... Just disgusted.

So I start using a Google facility and then they kill it? I was happy to switch away from my.yahoo (got tired of yahoo constantly trying to add crapware to my machine) once I got iGoogle all set up. I guess I will search for a non-google replacement.

it wastes your time and it annoys the pig

5 years ago Directv shut off my newly acquired HD receiver after I had been with them for 7 years. Was it because I hadn't paid my bill? NO! It was because my phone line was not connected to the receiver so that they could charge me for pay-per-view which I NEVER used. When I called in and asked "What the hell?" and was told that the agreement required me to keep the phone line connected I told them that was fine, disconnect me permanently.

I have no regrets.

My Roku works great and I pay for what I actually want to watch, and if it is worthwhile I will gladly get yet another box to hook to my projector in the form of an Apple TV but I will NEVER go back to satellite or cable for TV.

This is brilliant! China should absolutely pursue this line of thinking in all area. I am projecting a strong recovery in the US labor market....

Find a well visited web site where you can discuss the details of your laptop's disappearance. This will not only enlist the aid of anyone who regularly follows that site but there is also very little risk because the Canadians are well known scofflaws and laptops disappear by the hundreds in Vancouver on a daily basis. There is no way that any Canadian could ever connect their shiny new laptop with your Slashdot post... I mean the odds must be less than like one in something...

And secondly...
      Just admit that that Sharks sticker on your Mac was there to goad any Canucks fan who walked by and that the loss of your laptop is a small price to pay for having escaped Vancouver with your life.

I agree that there are problems with this idea, however one of those problems is not that "the world is running short of fresh water". Firstly this idea would not,in and of itself, consume any fresh water. This idea only works where fresh water is meeting the sea. Secondly fresh water is extremely abundant.... It just isn't always necessarily where we want it to be.

Yeah it's true. I was over reacting a bit to their use of the term "self powered". Also my BS sensors go off whenever anyone talks about using hydrogen as an energy source. First we need to use some kind of power to generate the hydrogen and then we still have the problem of packing it tightly into a fuel tank. The funny thing is that we already know exactly how to do that.... We call them hydrocarbons and they are a very efficient hydrogen transport mechanism. If only it weren't for those pesky carbon atoms polluting the environment.

The freshwater doesn't magically appear and it isn't free. Solar energy create the weather that lofts all that freshwater into the atmosphere so that it can return as rain and enter a river and make its way back to the interface with that saltwater.... where we can create a system to turn it into hydrogen.... or we could just capture the solar energy more directly and turn it into electricity and use it!

...

I had subscribed to Dish network for about 7 years until about 6 years ago. That was when I decided to get my first Dish HD receiver. I hooked up my new receiver and upgraded my subscription and a couple of weeks later my service, which I had always faithfully paid was shut off for some unknown reason. When I called to find out what was going on I was told it was because my phone line was not hooked up to my new receiver. I pointed out that I had never had a phone line hooked up to the receiver and that I NEVER watch pay-per-view and they had some gall to shut my paid up service off. I was so disgusted I told them to shut me off permanently and go to hell.

That was a great day!

Netflix works just fine and what I can't get on Netflix I am happy to pay for from Amazon. I like voting with my dollars for what I actually want to watch instead of subsidizing a bunch of crap. I wish Showtime and HBO would get with the program! I am HAPPY to buy your content, but if I can't, I will get my fix some other way!

Those citing California (and other) "deregulation" attempts as evidence of a need for more regulation are entirely full of it! I live in California and do recall what occurred however this was a result of BAD regulation not DEregulation. In a free market consumers MUST have the choice to say NO. If you install a third party who buys on behalf power of the grid (ISO) and then give them a mandate to buy AT ANY PRICE when conditions warrant then that is NOT A FREE MARKET! And.... it can never work,

Consumers should have had access to whatever power was being produced by their chosen supplier at whatever rates THEY had negotiated with the supplier. If their supplier was not providing sufficient power to service all of their customers then those consumers could take their dollars elsewhere or pay high rates to keep their power on. Either way at each point the consumer must have the choice to say no I will not pay $1000 for this kwh (and who the hell would other than the ISO?)

When deregulation "failed" California threw out the baby with the bathwater. Admittedly the bath water was a fetid stinking slurry of disgust created by the legislature for their energy industry cronies, but the idea of deregulation was a good one.

To say that deregulation did not work is to completely misunderstand what was actually done and how an actual free market actually works.

I've been waiting for this for ages. Found it stunningly stupid that Skype had cut a deal with Verizon which meant that no generic Android based devices (think Archos) could work since Skype wifi was disabled.

At any rate... It worked great this morning, but now:

"We're sorry, but we couldn't sign you in. Please try again later."

WTF?

Can't you just run OS/X in a VM on your Windows 7 Netbook? Or is the school policing licenses also??

Right On! You have hit the nail on the head.

I had a situation in which my insurance had recently lapsed. They requested this absurd amount of money from me. I said "Well, how much would this bill be under my former insurance's negotiated rates?" they quoted me an amount that was less than one third. I said "OK, I'll pay that amount right now, if you agree to waive the remainder". They agreed, and I paid.

I am not saying that this approach will work all the time, but I think that everyone should demand to receive the same "discounts" as the insurance company's are getting. The fact of the matter is that the hospitals never really expect to get the "list" price. It's really just a scam.

These ridiculous bills handed out to uninsured patients are not just high, they are fraudulent!