Because if there's one activity in my life that I cannot do without knowing the time and date while doing it, it's showering!

I actually fall more into his camp than yours, and have been using Slashdot in some capacity or another for more than fifteen years.

Learn all that you want about computers and other electronics-based technology. That knowledge will go obsolete very quickly, and those that come after you won't value that you knew it. It's profitable as a job, but for long-term gratification being able to admire one's body of work it's sorely lacking.

Thanks to Bayer and Shell, good luck finding untainted samples...

I'm still not entirely clear what the Apple Watch is supposed to do for me, especially when it's still reliant on a cell phone to function.

A friend put a digital speedometer into a car whose units could be changed. It supported Microfurlongs per picofortnight...

Does that take up a space about the size of Rhode Island?

Or for you Brits, about the size of Wales?

Requiring a restart is a Windows trait. I was hoping that my Linux installations would be better than that.

I don't see how the summary's, 'don't fix what isn't broken,' statement applies in this case.

Unless Comcast acquired NBC/Universal's property, but not the company itself (like a bankruptcy asset purchase) then I don't see them getting out of the NBC obligations. When a company purchases another company outright it keeps those obligations. One of the big banks that absorbed one of the big mortgage lenders still had to deal with billions of dollars in fines from that mortgage lender if I'm remembering correctly, and if the bankers couldn't get out of it, a few media moguls sure as hell aren't going to.

That part kind of got me too, shouldn't all deals subject to regulatory approval be structured where they could walk away? Wouldn't anything else be outright flaunting in the face of regulation?

That's computing's secret, it's all derived from commodity parts now, which is why even the big computers are somewhat affordable. Most of the commercial/industrial processor lines are dead.

...of Microsoft-free Fridays?

Stow-n-go is one of the best vehicle inventions of all time. It allows for one vehicle to work as a seven passenger around-town vehicle, a four or five passenger road trip vehicle with room everyones' stuff, or a two person cargo van. If you don't need to go off-road and don't need to tow a second vehicle on a trailer behind it then those Mopar minivans are just about perfect for families.

A lot of people can't accept this, they think it's some affront to their machismo to drive a minivan.

There are TONS of truck-based SUVs being sold around here, along with Class-1 trucks.

Don't assume that your region is indicative of the rest of the country. I'm well aware that Boston, MA vehicle sales are not the same as Houston, TX vehicle sales.

If people want local recycling, there needs to be a local market for the recycled product. As an example, in my area, even though households are encouraged to put glass into their recycle bins, at the sorting centers the glass is extracted and sent to the landfill, as there's no local demand for used glass. A friend of ours used to manage one of the local landfills, and this came straight from the horses' mouth.

This African site might not be what was hyped, but all kinds of things are sent away or dumped into a landfill if there's no demand. If you want recycling, there has to be a use for the material being recycled.