And by iMail I assume you mean the program called "Mail" that ships with Mac OS X?

My dad used to joke about studies done in the 1970s about the viability of capturing methane from cows. I guess those cows showed him...?

Hey Esther -- Bundling and Price Discrimination. Read up on it, and watch all your questions about such fees melt away.

Now let's talk about what "Congress" means. Oh, it's a decision-making body, in which, generally speaking, "it's" decisions are those reached by the majority of voting members.

And how would a majority of the members vote if the clean CR came to the floor, now or before the shutdown? And there you have your problem. The phrase "power of the purse" is not meant to solely apply to John Boehner.

Are we really going to pretend that we want a government where existing laws are subject to a super-minority approval in piecemeal fashion every year?

The Senate caving to accept a process of selectively funding EXISTING LAWS through the strainer of super-minority disapproval is not a precedent either party will enjoy in the long run.

For the record, I worry that the ACA does nothing to curb costs in healthcare (in fact, its primary feature is to make demand for healthcare less elastic by requiring its consumption -- this puts providers in a position to raise rates without market consequence of less quantity demanded). That said, it's a law, and the process through which we change it should not be the hostage-taking of all other government functions through procedural loopholes.

At it's foundation, when a majority speaks in a democracy the government should move with the majority (with minority rights protected. and no, black-balling something you don't like isn't a minority right.)

It's a conspiracy. He's conducting a false flag attack on the shutdown. Any and all evidence will only confirm this fact.

I'm pretty sure it's science that ruins lots of comments on web pages.

If Slashdot would take less than 30 seconds to load up on my iPad 3 that would be just great. This new design, unfortunately, looks more like the mobile version -- and it seems to load slower on my desktop browser.

Hey Slashdot, don't copy crap and paste over good stuff! Or to borrow a headline style from Slate magazine: "You're Doing it Wrong: Web Design"

Yes, but one hopes that debate carries some sort of rhetorical value. When the debate takes the form of "I believe in X and here are blatant falsehoods to support my view and you can't talk me out of claiming they are true," I can understand why Popular Science doesn't want to associate its brand with that.

I'd say that Popular Science isn't trying to silence dissent as much as it is trying to not be party to this type of discussion, which is an affront to the scientific method. It is too bad that the quoted rationale centers around "established facts in science" rather than not wanting to legitimize non-scientific discussion of the sort that crops up in their comments section.

Mod parent up... +1 irony.

I think of "regret" as something you feel over an action you took (direct or indirect). But this town didn't act to close the plant; in fact the residents were quite happy with the economic boom that came with its operation. So, "Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Sadness," perhaps?

Apparently 45% of our dogs are also susceptible to being taken over by robots: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/09/14/1224222/dogs-love-robots-prefer-humans

My accountant says he needs to charge my business's customers too since he keeps track of both debits AND credits for me. Seems legit.

Amen.

When you look at the iPhone, Apple figured out how to make it do stuff people craved to do over and over, but not gadgety stuff that sounds sci-fi cool and you only want to try out once. The Samsung watch has a LOT of cool tech packed into it, but reported lagginess will kill it in the market. Nobody wants to wait to interact with their watch.

To expound on what the right mix of stuff probably is for a watch, the focus should be on things that people will want to do multiple times a day, and things that take less time than the same task on a smartphone (a tall order to be sure). The only way a "smartwatch" gains traction is by adding utility in two areas: 1) you couldn't do something without that specific form factor and 2) you could pull your phone out of your pocket/purse, but it's faster to just use the watch.

That is a tall order of niche to fill with a device that will cost at least a couple of bills. And if it can't do those things reliably (i.e. pairing issues, responsiveness) then nobody cares. I would give Apple the best odds at pulling it off if anyone can in this decade.

I suspect those inept Egyptian security officials failed to follow proper protocol with this bird: he should have been separated from his for local friends, and each should have been interrogated to see if they had a straight story about their business together. Just because the foreign bird didn't crack doesn't mean his local affiliates won't!