By "desktop" I mean an environment where I can have more than one application displaying on the screen at once. Use cases include splitting the screen down the middle between the document I'm writing and the document I'm referring to, or having a calculator that appears on top of the application I'm running.

Why must high tech and growing the food that you eat be mutually exclusive? Perhaps the real problem is overzealous zoning enforcement, where cities have been known to fine people for growing vegetables in what used to be called victory gardens.

A lot of video games aren't available on disc. Usually only the bigger publishers do discs anymore; the rest are download-only.

Some ISPs have an interesting way to shift heavy use away from prime time. Satellite ISP Exede, for example, turns off the meter between midnight and 5 AM local time. This encourages subscribers to run bulk downloads, such as Steam purchases or service pack downloads, during the wee hours when the bird is less congested. This is similar to how long distance companies and cellular voice carriers offered free nights and weekends.

Because national governments raise money by auctioning exclusive rights to radio frequency spectrum, and the cellular carriers have to bid higher than competing carriers.

What I did was install Flashblock. That blocks high-data-volume ads while allowing low-data-volume text ads and still image ads. Ad networks would ideally recognize that I'm not seeing SWF ads and send me still ads instead, but it amazes me how many ad networks fail to do this. That way I have a good excuse: "I'm not blocking your ads, just a file format. If I wanted Flash, I'd go to Newgrounds. Get some less-Flashy advertisers, and I might even click through."

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Satellite caps customers at 10 GB per month (source: exede.com). A single purchased video game or purchased high-definition movie can meet or exceed that size.

Now I'm confused. I thought you just said "get a fucking life", that is, become a swinger. Should people lay off the fucking or start the fucking? :p

Depending on the ISP, you may need to get your house rezoned for business use.

You can always choose to "go elsewhere" during the last month of the lease on your rented house or apartment.

Switching to a business rate may help some people who live within range of wired broadband, but it's not for everyone. Some ISPs refuse to provide business-class service to addresses zoned residential. And with all the other people who choose where to live based on broadband availability, the asking price for properties with no access to wired broadband has fallen. This means an affordable place to live may be affordable only because there's no wired broadband. For those in this situation, switching to a business plan won't kill the cap. Verizon and AT&T, for example, advertise business plans where multiple devices access a shared pool of monthly data transfer allowance.

Apparently, move. Some people think moving for better broadband is practical (1 2); others disagree (3 4).

150 GB/mo? Luxury. In some areas, all people can get is satellite and cellular, and those tend to run 10 GB/mo or less on affordable plans. I'm glad I happen not to live in such areas at the moment.

I think you hit upon how it'd happen: "modify the Constitution". Three-fourths of state legislatures can go after the feds. They can call a convention, propose an amendment, and ratify it.

Dr Pepper Ten has less than one-tenth of that. I drink diet soda because it's cheaper than prescription stimulant or NRI medication.

For enough money, hell, I'd release the software under a copyleft license. Then people can hack and crack on it to their heart's content. Compare to how the Free version of Blender was crowdfunded.