I don't get it. I really don't.

People, in general, like two things:
1) Instant results
2) The feeling that bad things are not their own fault in the least
So if someone has a stressful work life, rather than admit that they have a bad job and get out they try to get drugs to dull the stress. It's easier and offers cognitive disassociation.

Which is not to say that everyone taking such medication is taking the easy way and don't actually need it. Personally, I'm on my fifth anti-depressant medication regimen (which is actually a combination of two meds I tried in the past individually), have briefly visited a psych ward in the past, and seen a handful of therapists/counselors. There is nothing majorly wrong in my life, I just hate myself indiscriminately without the medication (with the medication I only somewhat hate myself.)

The death of investigative journalism aside, I think the reason that the "first line" media companies (those that had direct contact with her) did not check up on her story is same reason that Rolling Stone didn't check up on their fraternity rape story: They had a good narrative that would get attention and felt that checking up on the story could be harmful to the victim/claimed cancer patient. Then, all the other media companies just piggy-backed off that as word-of-god to share in the click-throughs.

Any inconsistencies brought to light are rejected as being nitpicking by "haters", something that also fits the narrative of the story.

Pumped storage requires very specific geography (two reservoirs separated by a hill).

What is the possibility of personal pump storage? Rather than use natural geography, you have two (rather large) tanks with a pipe and a hose between. Could this be useful for personal use in cases where a battery would not be useful? (For instance, a rarely-used location in the plains or desert.)

You get mugged, you tell the mugger the password is 1234 instead of 5678, and the ATM happily dispenses money and calls the police for you.

There are a few problems with this, such as:
1) The person now has to remember two PINs instead of one; if they forget the duress PIN, which is likely since they never use it personally, they have to hand over the proper PIN anyway to avoid getting hurt. (A counter to this has been "make it the same PIN, but backwards"; then you have to figure out how to work with PINs like 4224.)
2) If the duress PIN has anything in common with the normal PIN, it's likely the person will mis-enter at some point and accidentally trigger the duress signal
3) If it's a shared bank account, but the account holders can have separate PINs for their cards (dunno if this is a current possibility or not), there is a potential for PINs and duress PINs clashing

I imagine that banks have already considered such an idea and found it wanting, or that the cost of implementation and dealing with false-duress situations to be considered too much.

Doing the same thing for a phone would be much easier, because people can install an app to do such as necessary. In fact, I would be surprised if there wasn't such an app already.

I don't know if I can speak for all "young consumers" (I'm 29 myself, which I think puts me on the edge of that group), but between the misleading tactics of advertising and a complete loss of confidence in elected leaders (and non-elected, for that matter), I have developed heavy cynicism towards any statement from "the Man", be it a company hocking its products or a politician hocking a need for something. I give their statements no credence until I have done at least some research on my own.

For advertising, when I don't just disregard the ad completely, I do my own research to see if there's any scientific basis for the claims and/or look at product reviews to see how it truly stacks up against alternatives.

For politicians, I do research on any statistics claimed and personal reflection on logos, some analysis on ethos, and completely disregard pathos.

I can confirm. Going into the military really opened my eyes to a lot of things, and the complete disregard for that was quite depressing. In fact, how rampant that kind of thinking was, combined with other poor aspects of my unit, drove me to literal insanity (I spent a few days in a psych ward) and changed me permanently for the worse.

Turns out the military is chock full of little boys and girls with no moral compass who think that running and gunning make them adults.

You forgot C) while not being a giant, international bank.

The SVU episode

I had been a long-time fan of Law & Order in general, following SVU more-or-less (I preferred the original, mainly due to the characters of Jack McCoy and Lennie Briscoe). I knew that they were not exact on police procedure, and would often spin current events with extra drama to create episode plots, but I thought that was horrible. They portrayed the "Gamergate" side utterly unrealistically: as foul as some claiming to be part of the movement have been, including threats of kidnapping and rape, I have zero expectation that any would rise to the actual actions. There was no mention of journalistic ethics in the episode. Then, they end the episode with the moral "If you actually go out and beat women up, you can get them to quit even if you are found guilty/killed on a rooftop while apparently under some psychological delusion."

It was bad writing, bad characters, bad memes/references ("redchan", some completely made up terms), and bad outcomes. The whole thing was character assassination no matter which side you are on, if any, and made me stop watching SVU. (Not a hard decision, as it's mainly become the Olivia Benson Show; while I like Mariska Hargitay, they are relying on her character to carry the series at this point. If I find myself hoping that Ice T's character would get more development/screentime, something has gone wrong...)

for the guilty it's too easy

While I agree with you that it's all about revenge, I don't like that quoted line. Saying it's "too easy" means that the person should do "hard time", aka revenge. Our justice system should be about correction, rehabilitation, and protection:
- If someone judged guilty can somehow repay for their crimes, they should (i.e. you smash into a brick wall and destroy it with your car, you are required to help rebuild it with no or little pay)
- If someone judged guilty can be helped or rehabilitated to lead a life where they do not harm others, they should (drug addicts who commit crimes are a prime candidate for this)
- If someone judged guilty cannot be rehabilitated, they are kept in prison not as punishment for the guilt but as protection for society

In that third case, whatever the imprisoned does shouldn't matter. Give them a solitary confinement room with a shower and a TV and a decent bed and keep them there for the rest of their life; society is still safe. If there is some way to make them give back to society as a whole, such as rote work that isn't in high demand but still useful (for instance, having to sort through garbage to find recyclables), they should do that to keep what little pleasures they have (such as the TV).

In Team Fortress 2, "free users" are limited in trading, crafting, and backpack slots. Anyone who bought the game before it went free-to-play, or that make any purchase in the Mann Co. store (even as little as 99c).

For those that are "free" users and just absolutely have no money, there is one more alternative: Upgrade to Premium Gift can be given to them by another player, and will grant them a premium account. (I can't find the exact price at the moment, but I recall it being inexpensive.) I imagine that if there are enough of these edge cases, Valve will introduce a similar item for Steam in general.

I used to just accept any friend request until these bots started showing up. Now if I get a friend request from a Lv0/1 user, and the profile is private (the bots are always private; perhaps they think people are more likely to accept if they aren't able to see the lack of game time?), I Block it.

Why can't we do all of the above? Improve battery tech, improve solar output and grid stabilization, improve and encourage energy conservation. As all three move forward, the various curves will meet at some point where battery tech is good enough to handle storing excess energy put out by the grid and solar panels, while energy conservation means less energy is required to fulfill all needs.

Likely, but not until after a prolonged legal battle makes its way to at least a circuit or state Supreme Court. That's why it would be good for Congress to modify the DMCA to exclude these stupid antics now. (Outright repeal would be better, but good luck with either one...)

I'm pretty sure /. has the copyright on car analogies, so we should be okay.

And, for the employees, getting a massive pay increase simply for working there is a huge boon, which will likely lead to better employee morale, loyalty, and work output. So it's not just marketing, it's also a long-term business investment.