Sadly, I have to agree. I've been a frequent visitor to the site since 1999, and in that time, I've seen lots of ups and downs. I think things really culminated in a fever during the iOS vs. Android arguments three or four years ago when every article was clickbait to get the masses to chew each other up. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the "old guard" packed up and left during that time.

Since things have calmed down, Slashdot seems to be slowly sinking into irrelevance. I'm seeing a lot more conversation that almost mimics the comments of any CNN political article. I'm also seeing some terrible moderation -- flamebait being labeled as insightful and so forth.

From 2000-2010, I probably only modded down five posts. In the past couple years, I feel like I'm moddng down all the time. It's sad but this place used to feature high quality discussion. It just doesn't anymore. It's running on pure inertia. The only thing that keeps me coming back is habit, but I rarely read stories anymore. I just skim the frontpage like it were a news aggregator, then move on.

I'll keep doing so because of habit, but once the beta becomes the defacto version, I'll bow out. It was a great site with some good memories, but all good things must come to an end.

If it works when you bought it, then it's your fault if you change the OS and it no longer works. You should have thought about that before changing your OS. On the other hand, if a manufacturer doesn't provide you with all the drivers that you want, then don't keep buying from that manufacturer.
----
This message was brought to you by the invisible hand of the free market, except in this case, it wasn't so much a hand but more of a finger.

me: Hi Jibo
It spins and spins.
me: Over here. Over here. I'm standing here. Jibo. Stop spinning.
jibo: would you like take out.
me: no.
jibo: how about sushi. Your favorite food.
me:That's Lizzie's favorite.
jibo: Ordering. Unable to comply. Please check your network settings.
me: Cancel
jibo: Please say that again. I did not understand.
me: Reset. Stop.
jibo: Want me to take a picture.
me: No.
jibo: Cheese. Hard drive full. Please delete some of your pictures.
me: Stop taking pictures.
jibo: taking picture. Cheese. Hard drive full. Please delete some of your pictures.
me: Why did I buy this friggin thing?

Seriously, compare the Kinnect promo videos to how it actually turned out. That's Jibo, except from an extremely well funded company. This is just snake-oil.

I like Conan the Barbarian's answer (minus the hint of racism):

"Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."

- Queen of the Black Coast, Robert E. Howard

It solves a problem ... not your problem, but Apple's problem. I think Apple created Swift to be a common language throughout all their frameworks. I believe Python was originally filling this role, but Apple doesn't control Python. I believe they intend to use this in the server as well, that way, you have one language used throughout the entire stack - app, server, and even in the debugger.

Considering Grassley investigated NASA last year about some viking photo, my guess this has little to do with governmental accounting, and more about someone in NASA pissing in his Cheerios.

China holds a huge amount of our debt.

Our debt is around 17 trillion dollars. Of that 17 trillion, China owns around 1.2 trillion. A large number for sure, but not something I'd say is a rather small percentage of the total debt. The debt owned by the public equates to 12 trillion which is something I'd call huge.

National debt of the United States

If we are going to be even more honest, Olympia Snowe, a republican senator from Maine, voted for the bill to leave committee. And of course, Republican Anh Cao voted for a competing bill in the House of Representatives. Neither voted on the bill's final passage.

I actually have a few fond memories of Blockbuster. My first memory was when my mom drove us thirty minutes to a Blockbuster and I remember being blown away but the sheer amount of movies. All of our local mom and pop stores had pretty poor selections. They also charged a yearly membership fee while Blockbuster was free.

Years later, I would visit this Blockbuster in college where I bought Night of the Living Dead for five bucks which completely rocked my world. This same Blockbuster had a section called "Le Bad Cinema". It was a collection of the worst movies ever made. There were movies that made Plan 9 from Outer Space look like an art house flick. Do a google search for "Moron Movies". Classic stuff. My friends and I watched all of the movies in that section.

That said, Blockbuster was a pretty nasty company. I believe they required objectionable movies to be edited and I don't think they rented unrated movies for a long period time. (MInd you, not porn but movies that were not submitted to the MPAA for a rating). Ultimately, they started focusing purely on new releases so it was downright impossible to rent a quality flick that was over five years old. Once I discovered Netflix, there was no going back. (And this was before the streaming service started).

Fun story ... I used to work at Mom and Pop vide store in college in the mid-ninties. I grew to be good friends with the owner and he confided with me that he knew the industry was a dead end. He predicted that the internet would ultimately dominate. So, in 2002, he sold all his video stores to West Coast video for a killing. People called him crazy since his stores were pretty popular but a few years later, West Coast Video went out of business.

So no ... I don't miss Blockbuster but I will miss the video store.

It's a unique problem combined with poor assumptions on the part administration. Had the majority of states agreed to run their own exchanges, this problem wouldn't be so exaggerated. Instead, thirty five states opted to let the federal government run the show. The administration did not plan for this.

So in essence, the federal government had to build a site that not only takes federal guideline but individual state guidelines into consideration while building a high traffic infrastructure that is essentially accessing systems not designed for such load. Mind you, last year states were given a November 15th deadline to setup their exchange with some states given an extension. That's less than a year to build this system, overseen by some legislators who are doing everything possible to prevent the law from moving forward.

I'm frankly surprised it launched at all.

Now ... I think the jury's out if they can fix this in a month, but good to luck to them on that front. I think the administration is being optimistic that all will be fixed by the end of next month, but regardless, these issues will be forgotten in time.

So, you are happy to pass on the cost of your irresponsibility which made it possible for you to be obese to the rest of us who take better care of ourselves ?

This is actually an interesting statement. Previous to Obmacare, this overweight fella was a "profit danger" thus he was uninsurable.

Now that he will have insurance, it is in the insurance companies benefit to get his weight down because it will cost less in the long run. Whatever you think of the law, it's a real positive thing now that the insurance companies goals are somewhat aligned with our own.

That actually used to be the case and but a law was passed that basically said all hospitals cannot turn away patients. Believe it or not, Regan of all people, was the president who signed it into law. You can read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act

I'm a young healthy guy. What I need is accident insurance. And it gave me that.

You had a junk policy. It might may have made you feel better to be "covered", but it would provide nothing in terms of coverage in case, god forbid, you did come down with anything serious (which, you know, happens all the time).

My niece required over a million dollars of care when she came down with cancer. Would your junk policy have done the same? No. You would have been bankrupted, and I would have to pay for all your additional trips to the emergency room plus any additional social services. Yes, your "freedom" has a cost and I'm tired of footing the bill for it.

I get that you think you are immortal and that there's nothing in the wings that has your name on it, but once you've been around the block a couple of times, you get know that bad things happen to good people. That's why we have insurance.

And yeah... for that, I hate you. You hurt me. You hurt my family. You hurt this country. And you're too dumb to realize it.

Growing up can be painful and your entire discourse shows that you have a lot growing up to do. If you hate me for rationally arguing the facts of the law, actually listening to your arguments, and not returning any of your personal barbs, then you do have a long road to walk, indeed.

One analysis shows that family of 4 will have an increas of $7500 a year, Obama promised a cut of $2500 a year

I've never seen such a study but I would be interested in viewing it if it does indeed exist.

You think the mandate sucks but think universal is good? What is the difference? Let me answer. Mandate = corporations run it, universal = government runs it. You are required to buy it either way, one through premiums with a choice, the other through taxes with no choice.

Incorrect. A mandate has nothing to do with who actually implements health care. All it means is that the action is on you whereas universal means action is not required. Now we can quibble whether a tax is considered "buying something" but the fact remains that health care would far cheaper since there would be no shareholders or profit margins in the equation.

As for the GOP input, give me a SPECIFIC example of what they put in it.

This took me all but two seconds to find. Like I said, I watched all the proceedings:

"Republican Sen. John Ensign scored a victory in his pursuit of healthy lifestyle rewards with passage of his amendment to health care reform legislation that would offer deep discounts to those who quit smoking, lose weight or otherwise meet healthy milestones." -- source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct/01/john-ensign-scores-win-health-care-amendment/

There is ONE section and Obama has decided he will ignore that, and that was the part where Congress was required to be on exchanges and pay for it themselves

From my understanding, this is a popular conservative talking point. I haven't felt the need to research it.

I have health insurance, idiot. My health insurance was deemed illegal by obamacare.

I don't know your situation so I'm only speculating, but it sounds like your policy didn't provide basic coverage. You may not think so, but the law is actually doing you a service in case you end up in a real mess. I would be interested to hear some details about the policy and the process it was deemed illegal.

Premiums around the country are doubling to tripling due to this legislation

The law may have contributed to increased premiums as insurance companies can do no longer discriminate again their customers. But you're not seeing the whole story. Customers have been receiving refunds due to these increases since the law states that 80% of a premium must be used for health care. Over one billion dollars have been refunded in 2012 because of the 80/20 rule. Also, there's also inflation, so there's a whole lot of stuff going on. Just keep in mind that even if the law didn't pass, your premiums would still be going up.

You wanted something. And you didn't care who you hurt to get it. It didn't matter that you were pissing our rights. It didn't matter that it would hurt the economy. Nothing matters to you if you get what you want. I'd call that evil if weren't so oblivious that you didn't even realize it.

We obviously see things differently from one another. I'm interested in why you think expanded health coverage is "evil" and why you see it as a freedom issue. The truth of the matter is that every person will require health care at some point in their lives. By not electing to be covered, I'm paying for your freedom through higher premiums in the worst possible way.

Now as for the mandate ... that sucks. I think we can agree on that. I don't like the idea of government requiring me to purchase a product. I believe in universal coverage. It's the most pragmatic option. We get the most bang for our buck, if we pool our bucks together and buy insurance together as a group. And no one loses coverage.

But here's the thing ... as a nation ... we needed something to address health care spending. Have you looked at the rate of health care spending in our country before the law took effect? It was simply unsustainable. Because of the law, medicare spending is at its lowest in fifty years. That's a huge victory.

I wish Obama had made a push for universal care, then allowed Republicans to negotiate back to Romneycare (which is really what it is) so that Republicans would feel that like "they won" (remember, this is a republican plan once championed by the heritage folks). Now Republicans have nothing to offer outside of high risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions which some states don't even offer.