Part of the problem is that the current supply/demand situation prevents any reasonable negotiation over the price of a Tesla.

There is a months-long waiting list. If you want to try and haggle over the sticker price, Tesla can just say "next" and have another 1000 customers lined up for the vehicle you passed over. And personally, this is 100% fine by me. I'd rather know the price, evaluate the cost and benefits on my own terms and buy a car without trying to talk down some greasy salesman.

If we ever reach a point where a hundred Teslas are sitting on a showroom floor collecting dust, then MAYBE we'll need some dealers to help us haggle out a price... but until then, Tesla has a simple "take it or leave it" price.

True, there are other options aplenty... but we're living in a time when email is too slow for a lot of people and thoughts don't break the 140 character limit. A time when the convenience of one-click purchases trumps the obvious security issue therein.

Everything is getting more online, more interconnected, more convenient ... it makes more sense to embrace the change and work to make it smooth and safe, instead of fighting back against it.

Because convenience and optimization.

You can lower your energy bill by setting your thermostat to a more relaxed temperature while you're at work (hotter or colder, depending on your climate) and then remotely set it back to a more comfortable temp as you leave the office. You can fire off your dishwasher or laundry at a certain time, when energy is cheaper. If you have kids who leave the house after you, you might want to make sure they locked up, or check how many times they hit snooze after you left. The list goes on.

Of course, there's the security to consider, as you and TFS point out ... but to ask why someone would want this ability is intentionally naive.

Worst.

Post.

Ever.

[/comicbookguy]

Well technically Patch 2.0 was a start. RoS is next ...

Patch 2.0 introduced all of the changes to loot and leveling and the difficulty system about a month ago. Those changes are available without the expansion. If you only have the original game, you can log on and play through the original levels with the new system.

Amusing that a post full of blatant lies can get +5 Interesting, if it just uses a bit of proper grammar and a tab indented list.

1. You list "always online" as a problem, then immediately compare it to the other main platform that requires (nearly) Always Online: Steam. Battle.net chatting has pros and cons v Steam. You don't actually have to pause the game or bring up an overlay to use it, but it's harder to keep multiple conversations separate
2. Grindfest? Compared to D2? Clearly you've never played either game. Leveling in Diablo 2 took an absolutely absurd amount of time. Less than 1% of players (by Blizzards metrics, so grain of salt) ever made it to the cap of 99 in D2. You can reach the level cap in D3 within a week, easily. Of course, then there are innumerable Paragon Levels after that (tiny little buffs, but they stack up over time) Blizzard's official intent was to create an equivalent level of difficulty to reach maximum Paragon level in D3 as to reach level 99 in D2 Either way, you certainly didn't reach the cap "somewhere in your 3rd play-through"
3. The maps are random enough. Sure Zone 1 always connects to Zone 2, but beyond that, how they connect is random, which hallways leads to the stairs is random, which sidequests spawn is random. Speaking of Sidequests, D3 has many MANY more non-plot related events. Some are simple, some are more involved. Some are scripted events, some are just random dungeons full of monsters... but any way you slice it, there is WAY more side-tracking in D3. The expansion even introduced entire optional quests lines (relatively short ones, but still) for all 3 of your hirelings, the Blacksmith, Jeweler, etc.
4. Loot has been completely revamped, and the AH is gone. Sure, the AH was a spectacular failure, and maybe it was just a blatant moneygrab, but at least it was something new. Blizz tried a new thing, it didn't work, they removed the thing. I can't say that it was ever abused, at least not any more than any market can be abused. Sure, people probably tried to corner markets or bot for loot, but I dno't know if that counts as abuse of the sales system
5. Dev teams always change. Some people stick around, some people leave. Doesn't mean the game will be better or worse. One definite improvement was the story line. I suppose that you're claim of "it sounds like..." should be a clue that you're just making shit up, but the characters in D3 are much more realized, backstories much more fleshed out. Part of that is simply time and tech. We can support beautifully rendered cut scenes these days, which helps. But the story doesn't just exist in those cut scenes. Characters will tag along with you and occasionally chatter a bit. Not a lot, just enough to get to know them... so that we feel a little investment later when we're called upon to rescue them.

Far be it for me to tell you how best to spend your time and money, but you might want to actually give it a shot before pontificating

I can't blame you for being wary, but they're definitely working in the correct direction. Can't really say if they're "there" yet ... that's a bit subjective, but it's a drastic improvement over D3's original release

Determining whether or not it's worth the full price (main game + expansion) is an exercise for the end user ... but for my money, it's $40 well spent (p.s. that's 66% of the price of a full game these days. Just sayin)

The very existence of Netflix has revealed the truth of the Emperor's new Clothes : ISPs have been promising bandwidth MASSIVELY above their actual capacity. Now that ISPs are feeling the pinch of customers demanding what was promised to them, they're lashing out at the perceived cause of this pain

It would be as though a city metro system sold million and millions of tickets MORE than what they could actually handle, but it was never a big deal because no one really used the metro all that often. But when a reason to use the metro comes up, the whole system is clogged, not functioning properly and basically ceases to function at all. Would you expect the Metro to take the blame? "Yep, our fault, we'll fix it" ... or blame whatever sparked sudden interest. Even if that impetus, whatever it was, only existed to aggravate the metro's over-sold lines, the metro is still ultimately at fault for overselling.

ISPs have been massively overselling their lines for years. Making billions of dollars on the promise of speed and throughput that they KNEW was nonexistent and completely untenable if anyone actually tried to use it. And now people are using it. So who do you blame: Netflix for being popular? Or the ISPs for selling you empty promises and lies, with full knowledge.

The solution seems simple. Separate the bandwidth providers and content providers. Neither CNN nor Bob in Tuscaloosa provide any connectivity, so they wouldn't be a part of network peering agreements and would have to pay some ISP for that connectivity. If they wanted to get into the ISP business and start providing connectivity, it would have to be an entirely separate entity from their current offerings.

Of course, this would mean splitting up a lot of the current ISPs that are having their cake and eating it too (selling you bandwidth, and then selling you content along that bandwidth) but it's the best option in the long run.

Or even simpler, just kill the geographical monopolies. Where I live, there is exactly 1 (one) option for High Speed Internet. They've been adding fees and charges by the boatload for the last several years, while happily pointing out their monopoly when I call. Most recently they added a modem rental to my bill, for absolutely no reason. I have only ever used my own modem. Even better, the addition of a modem rental negated the automatic payment that I'd setup, so I stumbled into a bevvy of late fees which were never refunded, despite the ISPs admission that the original rental fee was in error. I also incurred a fee for speaking with a person, and another for not using their automated phone system to pay the bill (which only accepts check routing numbers as payment method, no credit cards, debit cards, etc.) There was a fee to reestablish the automated payments, and to "reactivate" the account, even though service hadn't been interrupted... The best part though, I was charged a "restocking fee" on the modem.

So you'll forgive me if I don't see the need for a deeper view quite yet. The ISPs are enjoying their status as de facto monopolies, and are more than willing to piss off (or piss on) their customers to squeeze out a few bucks. I can only imagine the lengths to which they'd go, if they thought they could shake down Reed Hastings near 1,000,000,000 net worth.

Why are we so focused on making life as miserable as possible?

Why not use these drugs to shorten actual sentences while still serving justice. If someone is supposed to serve 50 years in jail, why not have them serve 2 years under the effects of this drug (or whatever is required to achieve the proper effect.) Then we can start a rehabilitation process, lower jail populations, and hopefully get this person back into society.

But no ... we, as a society, are too consumed by PUNISH. PUNISH THE BAD PERSON, despite a warped vision of what evils have actually transpired.

Are you sure about that?

NASA is one potential solution to the crisis

At least, that's their pitch

Either we get off this rock or we start collecting resources from off-world... else the collapse consumes us

There's nothing particularly "techy" about kids starting rumors. And removing one messaging app is certainly not going to stop bullying at schools.

It's just a symptom, with dozens of core issues that should be treated instead. From better parenting, to accountability, to a better teacher:student ratio ... plenty of ways to address the problem. Deleting an app really isn't one of them, be it from an single student or an entire school.