just don't try this in Italy.

Vacuum tubes! You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down to the mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt in front of a window so our brothers and sisters would have something to watch.

That's 12,857,426 double-density 3.5" floppies, or 73,336 years' worth of free AOL

They rely on outside organizations to purchase the results of their efforts. What you're citing as a counterexample is simply a loosely formed variation of a corporation.

so far, there have been no implementations of the Communist ideology *without* suppression of free people to the extreme of mass murdering the dissenters.

so then I can expect the same out of my Surface Pro 1 after I upgrade to 8.1? Cool, now I don't have to buy a Pro 2 and ebay this one.

As a native Arizonan now living in Texas for the past 8 years, I still am not accustomed to the time changes, and am quite annoyed at the completely unnecessary practice.

Actually, it was originally "seasonal time", but the British now call it "Summer Time" and the Americans (along with Australians, most Russians, Canadians, Israelis, etc.) call it something equivalent to "Daylight Saving Time". The French call it "Advanced Time".

http://rsnz.natlib.govt.nz/volume/rsnz_31/rsnz_31_00_008570.html
http://www.timeanddate.com/library/abbreviations/timezones/

Team Amerophobia loses the point.

Except for that pesky fact that "no, that won't happen."

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=139735.msg1494135#msg1494135

Exactly. The free market produced an alternative that broke the "planned obsolescence", just as I stated. Scorekeepers, please make sure to note AC for the assist.

yawn.

The obvious counter to your sentiment is that any one entity can come along with a product that lasts longer and does not have some phantom "planned future incompatibility" and will generate a ton of sales, disrupting any so-called market stranglehold. Many people buy reliable, long-lasting cars based on exactly this principle - "I want it to last, and I'm willing to pay more for that." Honda did this with their more reliable cars (and cheaper, too, which REALLY upset the market), and while it took 20-30 years for the sea change in the US (bankrupting a few domestic manufacturers in the process), ALL mainstream auto manufacturers now employ similar techniques to ensure longevity of their cars. Because that's what the market wants.

What you claim as a "must" for capitalism is simply a result of making devices cheaper and more accessible to as many people as possible. Here's a hint: companies make what people want. If people want little flimsy connectors in order to make their devices smaller and lighter, manufacturers will make them, and people will buy them. If someone invents a better quality connector that doesn't give up on size or weight, people will demand that better connector - that is, unless there is no competition... but luckily for you, our good ol' consumer capitalistic system allows for a lot of competition. The fact that you believe that cellphone RAM is not expandable is due to planned obsolescence shows you have not thought about the simple relationship between the cost of making removable/upgradable RAM versus the demand for the feature. It would cost more and would make for bigger, heavier phones to allow end users to swap out RAM on their phones, and there's so little demand for that feature, someone made a tactical business decision that it wasn't in the best interest of the company to offer such a device for the mass market. It's not a big conspiracy. Look at MicroSD cards - there is a demand for removable slow storage memory, so most phones do have removable MicroSD cards for storage - again, because the market demands it.

Just because your favorite device isn't available over the counter today with all the things you want for the price you want to pay doesn't mean that capitalism requires planned obsolescence - it simply means that you're unwilling to pay what it takes to get everything you want today. Wait a little while, pay more, or go into business yourself and make it happen the way you want. With "consumer capitalism", it's your choice.

NSA doesn't stop at the US border. They are responsible for GLOBALLY monitoring communications that might be harmful to the United States.

You'll get over it. /famous last words

so far, this ^ is the only comment worth reading :)

That's not racist.