My grocery store recently (well, a few months ago now) got rid of the loyalty program. You don't need a card to get the advertised prices. Maybe they found out it cost way too much to run?

Question for you: if I have a Linux server and install KDE on it, or X - would you name it a "Desktop"? Or is it still a server? Or both? I'm confused.

How about a sertop? Or deskver?

No, they'd give up waiting for portage to sort out dependencies. It reminds me of Windows XP before Microsoft patched it to not take 45 minutes to search for updates.

When I couldn't find an immediate replacement battery for one of my old cell phones a couple years ago, I ordered one online. It was going to take a week and so I went down to the cell provider store and bought the cheapest phone they had ($90.) Now I always have a spare phone around in case my smartphone craps out. Who needs an insurance plan?

I didn't rant and rave on Slashdot about it then. I didn't think it was a big deal then and I still don't now. Guy sounds completely like an entitlement elitist.

That's not a monopoly. Microsoft was leveraging a huge installed base of Windows (completely separate app/OS space) for Internet Explorer installs - you're comparing apples and oranges.

I'll add one more: Dungeons of Daggorath. I played it on a TRS-80.

They are too cheap to just reimburse you at a flat $50 rate for your cell phone

This is exactly what they do where I currently work, but not for all employees - only ones that require a phone or have a measurable benefit to having one. It works out to about 50% of the bill. I don't have any issues with that as most vendors/etc I deal with very rarely call outside of office hours. Heck, I just got off my cell phone as I was using it for a work related call. (I have unlimited minutes...)

As an extra bonus, I got to put my personal cell phone on a work sponsored plan through our cell phone carrier (the minutes are unlimited to North America, both calls and texting) - this immediately saved me about $45 a month! I still receive and pay the bill personally, and work still reimburses the flat $50. Heck, we were told we could go onto the cell plan even if we didn't need it for work as the bills don't get sent to the company.

I've got no complaints.

Since the 90s, direct broadcast satellite has been an option for the overwhelming majority of people. If you've got any way to put a tiny dish where it'll have a view towards the equator, you can get subscription TV while avoiding your local cable monopoly.

Maybe. Where I am the most popular satellite company (Star Choice) was bought out by the cable company (Shaw.) They even named the satellite company to Shaw Direct.

Can you guess what happened with the service and prices? Yep, prices skyrocketed, the satellite prices are on par with the cable prices now, when they used to be less than half. As for service, good luck trying to talk to someone there. Hold times are atrocious.

Or Tic Tac Toe...

Yeah, nothing like playing a game and having an ad pop up as you are about to make a move... Tic-Tac-DOH!

At this point I agree they'd be better off discontiuing it. Moving forward, they should pick another browser to bundle with Windows, and write a module for it that enables GPO processing on the new browser. AFAIK there's still not another browser that has features for centrally managing installs for large-scale deployments...

Well, it'd be pretty funny to see someone wearing a 25 lb headset attached to an iPhone...

Just think of the bored teenagers that don't want to go on the family vacation. Yep, they'll rig the car to not go anywhere leaving mom and dad scratching their heads...

What good is a get-away car that stops at every red/yellow light and yields to pedestrians?

Well, presumably cop cars would be autonomous as well, liability would be outright insane otherwise. So basically the cop car is going to do the same thing as your car, so the chase will go on infinitely! :-)

Getting something you can fall back on, even temporarily, is a good idea. When I went to college, I learned how to do food prep and work at a grill. This actually proved to be quite invaluable to me now as I still enjoy cooking meals, most of the people I know don't.

There are problems with running individual A/C units. Firstly, I figured out that having 2-3 separate A/C units costs as much as the one big one to cool my place (smaller place, 1100 sq ft.)

Second is eventually you get cool air meeting warm air in the house and you get humidity problems. It sucks.