They did add back non-cloud support a while ago after the cloud forcing didn't go over well, but it is a second-class experience.
The day after I set my UDM Pro up as non-cloud, it corrupted the login somehow and I had to factory reset it and redo all settings (as it hadn't been running long enough to run any automatic backups first). I capitulated and just set it up again as a cloud login to avoid having the same fiasco at some random point in the future again.
I immediately regretted going with the UDM to save (quite) a few bucks over a OPNsense/pfSense appliance to fit my requirement of handling a full 10G of WAN.
I will admit having the app to monitor usage remotely is a somewhat neat trick. I find the firewall configuration in GUI obtuse enough to be next to unusable.
You are saying that the "why" of Apple doing these things is purely "user hostility", which is highly implausible.
A company does not make decisions based on a pure "will to be evil".
They probably think that the reputation hit from not allowing repair is less damaging than the reputation hit from users dissatisfied with repairs. Other design choices can be for cost cutting in design or production.
So sure, it is not nice for the user, but the reason is not a desire to spite users. They likely simply think the additional costs, tangible and intangible, of being repair-friendly are not worth it.
Coinbase can disable your withdrawal/sending ability at any time on a whim.
Their support is email-only and has a backlog of months. Try taking a look at /r/coinbase for examples.
There are some very good reasons to put your crypto somewhere you control. I am in the process of moving everything I had off of Coinbase after they silently disabled my send/sell ability, but not purchase/receive, without ever providing a reason. Others were not so lucky as I was for them to reply to my support ticket after only 6 weeks of this status. None of their FAQs or support emails acknowledged the exact problem correctly or plausibly answered any of my questions as to why.
I host my own email, and I got nothing but huge amounts of spam from .xyz domains, so I manually increased the SpamAssassin score for just .xyz to +4.0, as KAM was only adding 0.75 for it. It's the only TLD I've had to do that for.
Unfortunately for the people with legitimate uses, for email admins it's just a really easy (and arguably necessary) shortcut to block a ton of spam.
I host my own email server, and .xyz is one of the 2 or 3 TLDs I went in the config files and manually blocked since nothing but spam comes from it (and lots of it).
Definitely would not recommend using it for your personal address.
A quick look at the Bragi Dash Kickstarter shows it was started in February 2014 and had raised nearly $3.4MM by March 31, 2014. It looks like it finally shipped in early 2016 (original promise late 2014).
Won't each college having to have their own test lead to many/most colleges, especially smaller ones, finding it easier or more cost effective to purchase their test from a central source, leading to some large College Board-like company making exams and a prep industry for that standard exam?
I verified that the tweets are real.
I checked out the usernames and all of those with locations easily findable (half of them) were in Chicago (where CAH is based) - so it is certainly plausible they only aired in Chicago.
I bought my smart thermostat (Ecobee) for a couple reasons -
1. Economic - it easily paid for itself in one summer by not running the A/C when no one is home. I have geofencing set up to do this automatically.
2. Comfort - my office/bedroom temperature is all I really care about as it's where I spend all my time. My thermostat was not wired to there, and temperatures fluctuated wildly in my office. Ecobee has remote sensors so that I can set the rooms I care about to the correct temperature.
Overall, it has certainly made my life a lot less complicated; I never have to touch the thermostat again to get comfortable in my office, and I save a lot of money too.
The article expects you to know that $125/hr is way below the normal rate for a criminal defense attorney in a major city, which I would expect to start at about $300/hr.
Why are Americans afraid of giving out their bank account numbers? The only thing you can do with an IBAN is send money to it, and that's hardly malicious.
In the US you only need a name and bank account number (and to know which bank it belongs to to find the routing number) to make ACH withdrawals. That's why.
I'm not aware of any reforms in the banking system to change this awful system, so these online services are the next best thing. I am still waiting to find a good opportunity to use Square Cash.
No perfect pitch for other instruments.