Conversely, when a massive real-time update (and you know they're coming, if they aren't already a thing) with defects/bugs go out, EVERY car starts exhibiting said defects... all at once. I am not looking forward to the day a "minor update" for the satellite radio option I'm not even using knocks out the GPS while I'm on the freeway. I know, I'm crazy... Slashdot doesn't have a headline or five a day of terrible software defects...

For those of us who like things "the old fashioned way", we have few brick and mortar stores left that carry DVDs, and many of those have killed their selection.

Local Best Buys, once several rows and giant displays in size, have all been shrinking these. In more than one such store, it's now one half-row, and mostly only near brand new stuff. We have to go further and further to find a decent store with some selection.

What's funny about all this is, MANY people I talk to complain, "There's no place to go to get DVDs anymore". Yet the stores seem to have decided for us that there's no market for them...

Where the hell are you getting 8% growth right now?

Seriously... sign me up!

Secure/guaranteed investments right now seem to be getting closer and closer to 0%, and market volatility makes things like mutual funds a crap shoot. 8% year over year... I dare to dream.

complete fucking insanity is why IoT needs to be stopped. Here's a fucking crazy thought: don't connect complex medical equipment that is involved in keeping people alive during medical procedures to the internet at all. Ever. Under any circumstances. Use AV to pre-screen shit before you install it. While I'm on the table in a hospital in Canada, cut wide open, I am pretty damn sure no one in Finland needs to know what's up with the machine monitoring my heart. And I know my doctor doesn't need to be looking for kitten videos. Jesus Fuck when will these people get a damn clue?! THIS SHIT is why I don't want a self-driving car; it's not because I don't like the idea, it's because I don't trust an auto maker to get it right. They might be flawless for some time, and then... then some fucking moron is going to push an on-air update while I'm up in the mountains with no guardrail and off I go. Let's leave the internet to the stuff that can't kill us, PLEASE.

And how does that work in the context of the so-called democracies we have now? Here in Canada, politics is a shell game. We vote a party out when it collapses under the weight of scandal (how most of our parties lose an election...), and inevitably, most of the party's members end up in some new or other party that gets in 4 to 8 years later. We sure showed them. In the meantime, the new party (same as the old) has fucked us six ways from Sunday. Follow the dollar bill...

In your sales representative analogy, it's like the salesman works at the cable company. If you're real lucky, you have a second one to choose from, but that's about it. Oh and, the two companies are only in theoretical competition. They basically set their prices at the same "screw you consumer" rate to ensure everyone makes a buck. But go ahead, fire that guy. Go see the rep at the other company. Nevermind that you'll get the same crappy service, same crappy rates, same crappy treatment, because hey, you have a CHOICE.

The US doesn't have it any better. Two thoroughly entrenched parties and a bunch of fringe independents. Bush sucked. Obama sucks. And you can bet your ass Romney would have sucked too if he'd won the last election. (have you ever seen a candidate so bad? his own party was ashamed to put him forward...)

I'm finally making the switch to Linux.

Thanks for the push, fuckos!

Unobtainium... Ugh... you just ruined that movie for me all over again.

I wonder if everyone who knows these calls are a scam were to do the following, if it would kill their throughput enough to stop them: "Hold on a minute... my computer is off. It's a little slow to boot. I'm going to put you down for a minute, just hold on, I'll be right back." Then just put the phone down on a table and walk away.

Of course, once enough people were using this exact scam on the scammers, they'd know that anyone giving them this routine was to be hung up on. I'm certainly not willing to invest any time stringing them along to keep them busy.

It's a shame. I'd love to get one over on these jack asses. I get two or three calls "from Microsoft" a year now. I did get a chuckle out of the last one, where the guy told my wife he was calling from Microsoft, she replied only, "No you're not", and they hung up without evening anything else.

Feeling a little envious. Here in BC, the patients running the asylum decided that we have to take all our glass to recycling centers ourselves now. No more pickup. So naturally, our landfills should be getting a generous supply of glass in the mix now.

That might be what it should be on, but I suspect the future of education is about making children into good little consumers. So let's get those iPads into their hands as soon as possible! The earlier the better! Sure, sure, they're more toys than tools, but what good is a school system if we can't monetize it? (and for the record, I'm sick of the word "monetize" too... I'm just trying to sound like the assholes of our time...)

That's some beautiful, high-minded idealism right there. I'm sure that kind of idealism would be a great comfort at the end of every day one spends in his life sentence in any federal pound me in the ass penitentiary. There is no "justice system" for people who do what Snowden did. There IS a prison system for people like him, and there's a system to ensure that's where he ends up.

Ha! And this after they came up with this little gem: socialism = communism = faschism = hitlerism = naziism = OMG they have Universal Healthcare in Canada Stephen Harper is the next Hitler!

Seriously though, something should be done about Harper.

And sadly, the folks who WERE listening heard that part about how a "knowledgeable citizenry can compel" something proper to happen, and they promptly got to work on that "problem".

The next time I see a guy sleeping on the street in a dirty sleeping bag in the dead of winter, I'll stop in and let him know if he doesn't like his situation, he should really just vote with his wallet. And then, I'll say, "Chin up, friend, you're better off than other poor people elsewhere. In fact, you might not know it, but your sleeping bag and that buggy of trash over there? They're an abundance of things you wouldn't have in another country.". At which I'm sure he'll smile, and realize life isn't so bad, and we'll all be happier for the public service I've done with my act of inexpensive (FREE!) kindness...

err... slide-to-UNLOCK