It's still almost everywhere. At work we still have VGA monitors and docks. The monitor also has a digital connector of some kind, but never more than two other flavors. My TVs have VGA.

You know what's great about VGA sticking around? Older equipment that was often expensive and built like a tank still works. Projectors, CRTs, and KVMs. I've seen retrocomputer enthusiasts build VGA adapters for all kinds of old systems. It's nice to have something that you can rely on when you're traveling; if you have a VGA dongle you know you can work.

I hope VGA has a couple more decades in it, and with the slow adoption of 4K TVs, it just might.

I wish we could move toward pre-80's tactile controls. There certainly would be a lot more work creating limited interfaces that could work with them. It seems to me that it's less distracting when a function is a distinct control with some good feedback, like a switch or knob, than the controls that seem to line my dash these days.

It's probably not so much worth worrying about anymore. Automatic cruise control and braking are soon going to be the standard, and ease us into nearly automated driving. Computers don't get distracted.

While (I believe) there's been less precipitation then normal here in Pittsburgh, it's been consistently below freezing, so we've had some good snow buildup. And it's not been icy, nor has there been a miserable cold rain. Being a little colder then normal beats the just above freezing cold rain.

I have an old AMC Eagle, an all-wheel drive car designed in 1979 if you haven't seen one and can picture it. It's part car and part Jeep. It drives very well in the snow, and there hasn't been a storm in years where it has had any problems out here.

Once the first few snows get everyone in the mental frame for driving in winter again, it's not so bad driving out there, although I wish a few more people with neither the vehicle nor the skill for driving in the snow would just stay home. Although it often probably is because of our antique labor laws that make them have to go to work for one reason or another.

But, yeah, Cold, snowy and wonderful here.

Bob also gave us that annoying "Search Dog" in XP. It even mocked you when you tried to turn it off!

Price does have a trade off: user productivity.

Some applications, like desktop publishing, graphics, and CAD are still moving fast enough that new hardware and software every few years actually makes enough of an improvement in productivity that it can pay itself back. Someone waiting on a drawing to render on 4 year old hardware is wasting time!

The old London sewer system had a system of gas lamps atop flues that drew the air out of the sewers, and the flame helped reduce the odor of the sewer gases. Most of these sewer problems have been looked at for a couple thousand years now. Electric wires are a new addition, but I'm sure that other ignition sources were problems before.

I'm actually surprised that several hundred gas explosions that rocket 300 pound discs of steel into populated areas is considered so minor, but perhaps the chances of death are much less then I would expect.