I can't tell if you are trolling or serious.

In the two states I have lived in, both Driver Licenses and State IDs cost money. Also, you have to go, on a weekday, to a government office and do it. Not everyone has the 13 bucks, and not everyone has a flexible job that affords them the opportunity to take a half a day off without significant hardship. The bullshit here is your lack of perspective for people that are not just like you.

No internet needed for the Ecobee (at least the model that I have) to function. If you don't have power, your furnace won't work anyway. (ecobee unit draws power from the furnace wires, just like any other thermostat)
So your internet going out only limits your ability to control it with alexa/smartphone-app.

Bank error in your favor - Collect $200
We were, all of us, deceived.

Wait, there are people that don't live in California? Every time I see the brown road-snow-shit on my car in the winter, I get a little chuckle out of how great these fancy systems are going to work once they are out of beta in CA.

Right. Giving 6 car lengths while stopped at a red light sounds completely reasonable.

I believe that we have made the point enough times that copyright infringement does not equal theft. Please try to remember.

On Tuesday afternoon, GMT-6, I could do exactly zero of my job functions, as none of my remote server connections would stay up for longer than 5-7 seconds. Not knowing what was happening, I did hours of troubleshooting on my own connection, before finally just calling it quits for the day.

I was about ready to just walk away out of frustration before things just seemed to magically fix themselves the following morning. So yes, I think this did affect parts of the internet as a whole, and not others. I am not surprised by this.

That sounds like a debit card, and not a credit card. Don't send money to the credit card company for fraudulent transactions. They are liable, not you, other than a few hundred bucks, which most CC companies waive for customers.

Apple isn't a private company. It is subject to its shareholders. Though I suppose it is private in the "private vs. government" sense...
They have always gone the route of killing off anything that I, personally, might find useful to purchase. Looks like they are keeping the streak alive.

I am a huge fan of online automatic backups. Things like Backblaze, Crashplan, etc are neat. If, in many years, technology is changing to make your file types obsolete, you will have everything available to convert during that time. If your backup company of choice goes out of business, then choose a new one. As long as you keep something current, you will be set. I bought backblaze for all of my family members for Christmas last year. It sure does feel good to not have to worry about grabbing my PC if my house is on fire....just my wife.

"a 17" macbook"
..."so I don't buy a piece of garbage."
Too late!

So I have read through a lot of the decision, and I have come out of it with some video game "recommendations" from the Supreme Court:

Not Safe For Work, most likely:

15 Lah, “RapeLay” Video Game Goes Viral Amid Outrage, CNN (Mar. 30, 2010), http://articles.cnn.com/2010-03-30/world/japan.video. game.rape_1_game-teenage-girl-japanese-government?_s=PM:WORLD.
16 Graham, Custer May be Shot Down Again in a Battle of the Sexes Over X-Rated Video Games, People, Nov. 15, 1982, pp. 110, 115.
17 Scheeres, Games Elevate Hate to Next Level, Wired (Feb. 20, 2002), http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2002/02/50523.
18 Thompson, A View to a Kill: JFK Reloaded is Just Plain Creepy, Slate (Nov. 22, 2004), http://www.slate.com/id/2110034

Have fun!