I have to agree with the other responders here — I'm a small business owner, and have been for the last 15 years. The benefits of accepting credit cards far outweigh the few percentage points we pay. Our cost ends up being a bit over 2%; if we were larger (like, say CVS or Rite Aid), those fees go down. Like…

This is actually one of the first times I've at least attempted to get contact information for various companies and write them an actual note letting them know of my disappointment (I know; I'm a single data point, but hopefully I add to the pile). And yeah, I'm happy to try out their alternate forms like CurrentC…

Well, yes, but remember Hawking's famous prediction: Internet cat videos will always expand to fill the available space.

Yup! It's like deep-frying: there are so few things in this world that can't be improved by deep-frying them.

Yeah, I'm kinda amazed at it as well — we have an original iPad 1, along with each generation since, and they still all get many hours of use per charge (the kids use them on a daily basis).

It really does seem to be a problem of, "the tablet is too good." Since I develop for iOS, I tend to have one of everything. In our house right now (ignoring iPhones), we have an iPad 1, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad Mini (original), and iPad Air. All of them are still in active use, as I tend to grab the newest/hottest, my…

Wow, I must have touched a nerve here. I should mention that in the 10+ years the domain was grabbed, it was never purchased by anyone (boatanchor.org — you can view it today) — it has stayed at the same generic page since it was grabbed. So I'm not sure that saying, "it's clearly worth $5,000" is exactly accurate.

Back in the early days of web comics, my friend used to draw a strip called BoatAnchor (kind of a cross between Dilbert and XKCD, I guess). When he changed credit cards, the automatic domain renewal failed, and a squatter snapped it up and demanded $5,000. Sadly, that was the end — it was cheaper for them to keep it…

Oh, absolutely! That's what I mean with my coffee and ham sandwich comments: I think it's more about moderation (or lack thereof) in these cases. Kind of like that news story from a few years back, when a radio talk show ran a "how much water can you drink?" contest, and had people drink straight-up water, rather…

Nice. :) And yes — sucralose has been the best alternative I can find so far. I can still taste it in my soda (only as aftertaste; it's fine while I'm chugging it), but it's much milder than any of the others, to my palette. I think Coke had a version a couple years ago that was 50% sugar, and 50% sucralose, and…

Yeah, that's the kind of thing I'd be concerned about. :)

<Homer Simpson Voice>Mmmm.... one dozen artificially sweetened ham sandwiches...</hsv>

I tend to love the idea of the artificial sweeteners, while being one of those people who can't abide the aftertaste of most of them (although sucralose works better for me than many of the others).

I've had iPhones for years now (I develop games for them, so I pretty much need each iteration). I was actually one of the people who *didn't* want the longer iPhone 5 profile ... I was happy sticking with my short iPhone 4. I did get used to the 5 eventually, but never loved the size/shape combination.

Fair enough. I'm somewhat in the middle-ground on these debates (I think) — I've accepted that I'm going to be tracked electronically in almost any area of my life, from Target or Amazon to Google or Apple. And I accept that there are many, many areas where I need to shut up and let the government do things that I…

Wow, that's ... that's extreme. Having Apple say, publicly, "We have been requested to send over data about US citizens, and have complied because it's the law," is espionage and helping our national enemies? That seems a rather extreme example of end-justifies-the-means, don't you think?

Along the same lines, I thought that part of the high cost of various medical instruments is that they have been rigorously tested and shown that they don't (for example) leach chemicals into the medicines they are distributing. It's one thing to say, "this plastic piece won't hurt anything," and quite another to…

In that case, color me puzzled. :) While issues like battery life will affect smart watches for a while (switching from "every two years" to "every week" for my Pebble was quite an adjustment!), I don't see the 3DTV comparison for existing watch users. If someone offers me something that does more than my existing…

I think there are at least two different categories of users. You're in the group (I assume) that doesn't wear a watch normally, and finds that using your phone does everything you want — and that's fine. I'm in the group that has worn a watch for 30+ years, and hates having to take my phone out of my pocket just to…

I bought a Camry XLE Hybrid last year, and have been loving it, but my wife watches me drool a little every time a Tesla Model S goes by, and says I have a car crush, and it's true. I'll have a hard time justifying a new car by 2015 (it would replace our older 2001 Camry that was great for its day), but man, I'll be…