Meh, again.

For work or play, I'd much more happily buy two 1920x1080 monitors than one 1920x1200 monitor. And with the prices of such kit, that's not far from realistic.

For that matter, I'd rather buy two 1920x1080 monitors and a whole lot of beer than two 1920x1200 monitors.

Your dollars may vary.

Our small (~40k people) city has done a variety of things that seem like they ought to make sense: First, induction loops. Then some hardwired connectivity between traffic lights downtown. Then 900MHz wireless connectivity between all traffic lights in the city. Now they're working on replacing induction loops with cameras that can see/detect vehicles further down the road, allowing for lookahead functions.

Each of these expensive permutations all seemed to work very well when initially implemented: Main roads get priority, while drivers on cross roads find that the a green light is waiting for them by the time they reach the intersection if traffic permits. It's really awesome when it's working well, and easily cuts travel time in half.

After a time, it seems invariable that someone goes and fucks up the system, apparently in an attempt to intentionally slow down traffic by implementing more red lights.

The systems are currently so thoroughly detuned that at night (when making this stuff work optimally is nearly trivial to perform) most of the lights revert to old dumb timer-based operation that causes every driver to experience random red lights even on an otherwise empty road.

Meh. I also have a laptop with a 1920x1200 display.

Somehow, I don't find myself missing the extra 120 vertical pixels when I switch from that to my desktop monitor at 1920x1080.

Allow me to add an anecdote to your speculation.

I have a very nice 4x3 20" 1600x1200 NEC monitor with an IPS LCD panel. It is lovely (and at "20.3" inches, more-or-less the same as your CRT.)

I also have a very inexpensive 1920x1080 24" Asus monitor of a much newer design, with a comparatively-inferior TN LCD panel. It's a good monitor, to be sure, but it's not as pretty (in terms of color space, consistency, viewing angle...) as the NEC.

They're within about 3/4" of being exactly the same image height, with the 1080 Asus being slightly smaller than the 1200 NEC, and accordingly have darn near the same resolution in terms of DPI.

They're located side by side on my desk and connected to the same machine, and it's equally easy to turn my head to center my vision on either of them.

I find myself normally using the 16x9 Asus. Don't know why.

They're equally easy to use and they're adjusted to be appear nearly the same. It is a bit wider than the 4x3 NEC, but I never maximize a window anyway so whatever I'm working on is just using a portion of the screen real estate no matter which monitor I'm staring at.

To this end, I must say that if I have a natural preference, it is for a widescreen display -- even if the widescreen display is demonstrably worse.

Shuddup, private.

Is capitalism only a blind faith that our environment is so stable we can do whatever we want with it?

I think you're really reading too much into it. A proper capitalist will be blind to the environment (or any other concern) unless it is profitable for them to behave differently.

And, well...that's it.

It's just a basic business decision.

If it's more profitable to use lots of "fresh" water than it is to reduce that water usage through different agricultural methods, then a good businessman will continue to use lots of "fresh" water.

If the opposite becomes true, then a good businessman will adjust accordingly.

Welcome to Capitalism.

I sold a domain to a gentleman who wanted it badly (hi Kyle), and had been using it for much of my personal business.

He just forwarded the email from my requested addresses over to my new email address. No big deal on his end -- any mail tosser worth its salt makes this easy.

It was completely informal, and it gave me time to transition to a more permanent (and less contentious) home.

Eventually, I dropped the "new" email address that Kyle was forwarding to, and haven't really missed it.

Just sell the thing (if its worth anything), ask for your email to be forwarded (and make sure it actually is being forwarded -- not everyone is as easy to work with and so adept as Kyle) and leisurely begin changing your email address at the places where it is important to you to do so.

It's a minor pain, but the worst that can happen is that your (presumably honest) buyer drops the ball and the forwarding never works right all, but then your Really Important Personal Stuff is still relatively easy to transfer.

People switch ISPs all the time, and a lot of the time change their email because of it. Banks / creditors / utilities are used to it, and have systems in place to deal with it. A bit of a PITA, but, seriously: It ain't so bad.

And the best case is that the old address(es) work fine for years to come. Your job is to not rely on that continuity, and to just get the hell off of the domain you've sold as soon as it convenes you.

Lawyers and contracts and explicit agreement are useful for times when you don't trust someone.

And if you don't trust your buyer, don't sell to them. Nobody's forcing you to, and a domain name and hosting is very cheap these days (especially for something that you no longer care about) compared to a lawyer or even the time discussing the matter with one.

No, it's not supposed to happen.

Common appliance switches work the same way. Take one apart and have a look if this seems foreign in concept to you.

Arcing is, I dare say, normal operation.

An arc fault circuit interrupter that fails in normal operation is a problem, not a solution.

Must be a lot of miscreants in your town.

I frequent a similar little coffee shop (excellent coffee, wonderful food, and awesome staff) across from campus (which campus doesn't matter), and the faces of the table-loiterers are different every time I go in there. There are outlets and Ethernet jacks at every table in addition to Wifi.

I've never seen anyone kicked out. It's a very laid-back atmosphere.

I've done real work there on occasion (including spreading out blueprints on a table and generally taking up space for six or more hours), but during that time I get hungry and get some food. Most of the time, though, I just get my pour-over Ethiopian and head out after chatting with the variously-hot barista for a few minutes as she makes my coffee.

It's not unusual to see other people doing what I occasionally do, with their books and their umbrella, though I don't think I've ever seen anyone bring in their own lunch or drinks.

What causes the phenomenon that you describe, I wonder? I have also noted that folks at my local coffee joint tend to consolidate "their" space when the place fills up with other people, and are often perfectly willing to share a cozy table with a stranger when things get tight.

(Back to the point: No, fancy outlets aren't the way to do this behavior amongst patrons. Facial recognition, purchase history, dwell time, and MAC filtering is. :) )