My point exactly; there's nothing there that benefits me, the one who has to use his time, data, and limited storage for an app. It's a pretty rotten arrangement.

First there was the web, then everything had to be moved to apps. Now that everyone is finally comfortable with apps, they're admitting that web-based interaction is superior, and starting the gradual migration back that direction.
Apps have a time and place (projects that rely on phone-specific hardware, such as tilt sensors, touch screens, or GPS), but there is absolutely no reason I should have to load an app to shop on Amazon or Ebay, order more paperclips from Office Depot, or download coupons from Burger King. These are apps simply for the sake of having apps, and they do nothing to enhance the user experience over a website's capabilities.

I second this. While we're not a third-world country, we aren't the pinnacle of luxury either, and work very hard for what we have. Look at European countries; very few have labor forces that work as many hours/week, and most have substantially more vacation time. Most have substantially lower healthcare costs than Americans, and many luxury things are substantially less expensive (for instance, airfare. I can't fly anywhere from any airport in my home state for less than $700 round trip (Cheyenne, WY to Vegas, NV). I'm too poor to fly anywhere; it would cost two month's wages to fly my family of three somewhere for vacation. According to Bing, a round-trip flight from London to Paris with the same dates is only $140.)
I can't remember the last time I had a vacation that was more than a weekend away. It's been about a decade.
Do we have cheap electronics? Sure, I only paid $100 for my smartphone second-hand on eBay. Walmart sells laptops for under $200. But do we have a luxurious lifestyle? I dunno, my pantry has lots of Mac & Cheese in it. And no, it's not the name brand. My food budget is about $300/month for our family of 3.
Don't tell me American's don't deserve a higher standard of living than we have. I work very hard, live very frugally, and I'm only one missed paycheck away from financial collapse. Life is hard everywhere; it's only the wealthy who think otherwise.

You're telling me.
Trust me, I speak only from experience. CPS ruined my life. And that's even considering that the judge ruled us 'not guilty' and sealed the legal record of the whole thing. It's a really long story, but I have zero faith in the guilty-until-proven-innocent 'family services' regime in this country.

I had always heard that they were worse, but that was all second-hand. I know that a lot of states are worse than Wyoming. In Nebraska, for instance, the policy in all cases of alleged abuse (bar-none) is to remove the child from the home for 6 months without any parental contact, just in case the child has been intimidated into not testifying against them. If they can't find evidence of abuse within those 6 months, and the child doesn't admit to anything, the child is returned and the case closed; in other words, even though the family was innocent, they still were split up for 6 months. NE is no place I would ever live.

Source: I had heard it second-hand for years, but within the last 2 years I've had it confirmed by two personal acquaintances; one was a victim of that process, and the other was a former caseworker, who left because of the emotional strain and guilt for the trauma she put families through.

I suppose that's probably the reasoning there, but here, they put my child in a hospital room (on the state's dime, of course) for a couple weeks after she entered state custody, even though nothing was wrong with her, because they didn't have an available foster home. If all of the hospitals were full, they might start easing back, but at least here, that's their fallback option.

Where I'm from, those children would be wards of the state; any parents "not providing adequate food, medical care, or shelter" get their kids taken away, and are charged with Neglect. As to the 'shelter' part, that's entirely up to the CPS caseworker, and if they don't feel that it's adequate to have two siblings sharing a room, that's enough probable cause to take the children and open an investigation (in that order.) A whole family in one room? Never.
Go ahead, ask me how I know. I had no idea Cali was more lax on stuff like that than Wyoming.

First, it says that wifi and bluetooth have been removed, then it says they can get onto the DPRK 'Internet', and watch local TV(!) How? I could understand if they have a GSM connection that supplies the networking (although if that is so, why remove the wifi?), but how does it access TV? I highly doubt their GSM infrastructure can support IPTV, although perhaps I'm wrong. If they do, in fact, have IPTV, I hope someone here in the states gets (and shares) access to it; I'd be fascinated to see their live feed.
Or maybe I'm overthinking it; the price listed for the wholesale parts is pretty high. It probably has an integrated NIC and hardware-based tuner with coax and Ethernet jacks across the back. Which would be hilarious.

RIP. While I don't know much about his life, that one brilliant idea has saved so many lives. That makes him a hero in my books -- and I don't bandie that term about casually.

I actually canceled my Netflix streaming account a couple years ago, and went DVD-only. Then about 6 months ago, I realized that I was spending about $3/movie that way. I switched to VidAngel at that time, and have been thrilled with the service. $1 rentals, streamed, and with a full selection of all the latest studio hits. Only drawback is that the first movie cost $20.
And yeah, this is a slashvertisement; if you access via this link, I get a free movie if you sign up. If you don't want to give me a free movie, use this link instead.

You're not the only one who feels that way. It drives me up the wall.
It's got to be some psychological thing; "if I say 'more than,' it'll seem more substantial than if I just say 'ten.'"

This is an interesting situation, from my limited knowledge of it. It's the first time I'm aware of that something with no monetary value was taken from the issuer with no actual deprivation of services (i.e. it's not a limited resource; nobody was deprived of these coins), yet the criminals were able to literally receive millions of dollars selling them. It's as if someone was selling pirated Mp3s, except in this case, the coins aren't purchased in the first place; they're won through playing a game (which doesn't have a cost per match, meaning they're actually free after you purchase the game & xbox live membership or whatever platform this is.)
So, basically, we have a victimless* crime that made real money. Seems quite unusual.

*The victims here are the other players who didn't cheat, and now have an unfair disadvantage.

This sounds like another reason to be glad Trump won. How else were we going to spur digital companies to behave a little better with our data?

I have no idea if it's related or not, but Centurylink's email servers were down yesterday; customers were unable to check for messages via POP3, and inbound messages would be bounced as undeliverable with unreachable servers. Not sure if it's related, or just sympathy pains.

This is really fantastic news. One of the environmental problems the world is facing relates to all the miles of empty travel back to China, for exporters. More export from the USA to China means planes & ships with cargo going both ways; it costs the shippers next to nothing, and it puts the fuel to better use. The other benefit that stands out to me, is the fact that this could help with the USA's trade deficit. Every dollar of goods Amazon exports is a dollar into our economy that wouldn't be here otherwise. I hope this does well.