And while you heathens are at it, use the oxford comma.

It may be worth it to keep Facebook around to stay in touch with more distant contacts easily and to be a part of how much of the world works these days with people organizing and planning things - but even so we know it collects insane amounts of data from every nook and cranny it can leach from. Maybe some of us can live with that while accessed from a desktop sitting in a static location, without mics or cameras hooked up for it to have access to.

But on your cell phone? Do that an you are basically surveilling yourself every moment of your day - as opposed to just while using desktop - to large corp that will sell and exploit that data as part of their business plan.

Adding this to my "The unibomber was right" list of proofs.

1st viewing I had a fun time. It was a pop corn flick moment. So I'll say that for it. Didn't hate every second of seeing it. I'll still own this movie on blue ray I'm sure.

That being said - what a sad waste of potential on the story line of the character we all loved so much for those of us growing up in the 70s, 80s. I get that they wanted to kill the character off, ok. I can live with that - but make it glorious. He should have gone down doing something visually stunning. Saving the rebels by pulling a star ship out of orbit with the force. Or thrashing the whole ground attack crew with the force. And certainly shouldn't have been played as a grump old man, without the force, in depressed isolation. He was always a beacon of hope and should have stayed that way. We were robbed of seeing Luke the Jedi Master.

I think you should go the cheap printer route and just keep occasionally using it until it dies. Don't plan on replacing it ever. I know HP has a 2.99 a month (for the smallest 50 page a month or less plan) service that will detect your ink health and send you new cartridges when you need them. Maybe that would be worth considering in this case? Around 36 dollars a year to make sure your ink is good to go used with a cheap HP printer? They call it the HP Instant Ink program.

I'm adding this to my list of happenings with society and technology that prove the unibomber was correct in his assessment of humans + technology.

“The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is the fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but by technical necessity.”

The unibomber was f'ing murderous, but he was also pretty darn smart on seeing this coming.

We have lots of laws to help protect "a few people with addiction problems".

I think they could solve all of this hubub by just removing the option to provide loot boxes with in game purchases. Leave loot boxes as leveling up/achievement rewards. Let the on-line spenders purchase the actual items they want instead of a loot box format.

I think the distinction needs to be made between the mechanic being used as a randomized reward from in game play vs. purchasing them from the developer's on line store.

I have no problem with the 'gambling' of items earned from just playing the game. I know Overwatch throws out plenty of loot boxes just from leveling up your account as you play.

But the type where you spend money for the loot boxes - those do indeed fit exactly into the definition of gambling. ESRB needs to stop being in the pocket of the gaming industry and do what's best for the consumer like it was meant to. How come every entity set up to protect consumers seems to end up just being a hidden hand of the industry it's trying to guard?

Don't get me wrong, I love this service/company. I've seen 13 movies on it since mid September - a bunch I would have never seen otherwise. Which is likely a big plus to film makers and theaters right?

But this scheme kind of makes one wonder if they are trying to maximize cash intake before the company collapses. I hope that's not true and they stay around forever offering this sweet deal.

Really Slashdot? Headline hardly does justice to the complexity and thought of the issue found within the linked article. 1800s yellow news papers would be proud.

If your spare satellite program is being ran in such an utterly inefficient and wasteful way, there is some real sense to shutting the program down. Especially with alternates coming on-line within a few years.

Humanity could fix the CO2 global warming issue as well, faster than expected, if united in focus on changing the current status quo.

Technology is destroying us as a race? This opinion piece just reminds of the ridiculousness of it all from the "what exactly do you do here"? question asked of your life.

In his song "Mission Statement". As long as we have management who literally talk all day within the bounds of the following lyrics corporate America will remain a work from cubicle hell, get the rich boy club richer, establishment.

We must all efficiently
Operationalize our strategies
Invest in world-class technology
And leverage our core competencies
In order to holistically administrate
Exceptional synergy

We'll set a brand trajectory
Using management's philosophy
Advance our market share vis-à-vis
Our proven methodology
With strong commitment to quality
Effectively enhancing corporate synergy
Transitioning our company
By awareness of functionality
Promoting viability
Providing our supply chain with diversity (versity, ooooh)
We will distill our identity
Through client-centric solutions and synergy (oooooh oooh oooh)
(ahhhhhh)

I personally would set a "price goal" to run along with your time goal. Whichever comes first type strategy. That way if it sky rockets to an amount of value you feel meets your value goal quickly, you don't risk it dropping and never returning to that price point.

I get what you are saying, but to think like that in absolute terms is to ignore the billions of positive selfless acts that also happen each day among humanity.

Our civilization could not exist in the complex way it does without MOST members of the race USUALLY behaving in ways that involve friendship, love, kindness, and selflessness.

We all have a selfish animal side existing inside of us. But we also have the thinking side that has allowed humanity as a whole to continue on despite the animal side.

I believe the next 100 years will be absolute critical on if our path as a race leads us as a race toward extinction or some kind of 'beyond physical body' immortality.