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the current mobile ecosystem is a mess, so we badly need an alternative

Good idea. There's too many competing platforms that try to be the standard, so we need a new one that will really be the standard.

https://xkcd.com/927/

You jest, but that's the exact purpose of many "How strong is your password?" websites.
They get a nice dictionnary of real-life uncommon passwords.
On a related note :
https://xkcd.com/792/

https://xkcd.com/585/

Captcha: absurd

Yeah, I don't normally get feed back either. But it is kind of suspicious when I do get feedback...

I think it's a lot related to the xkcd comic: https://xkcd.com/385/

If I spend a bunch of time rewriting code (which everyone does), as a man they might think "oh, well, he's just refactoring, or having a bad day." But when I do it, they think "wow, women can't code..." and then reject me out of hand without attempting to rationalize an explanation for why it should be overlooked...

Not that I'm particularly complaining here... this is just life as a woman in the tech industry... that and "oh wow, what does your boyfriend do at Google?" Actually, he's a literature teacher, I'm the genius programmer troubleshooter who knows almost everything about computers...

This XKCD sums it up rather well actually...

People are quick to assign characteristics of an individual to a group to whom the individual belongs. Look at how often an individual with a characteristic that isn't of the majority is aked their opinion as if it represents that of the minority to whom they are a part. Unfortunately it's also inaccurate. If Mike asks Johnny, who's a nerd, if he likes pizza, and Johnny replies no, he doesn't like pizza, Mike might draw the conclusion that nerds don't like pizza, even when it may only be Mike that doesn't like pizza, or even something as simple as Mike can't process dairy, so he can't eat the stuff even if he wants to.

I think you're also misusing Social Justice Warrior, which I think means someone otherwise-unaffected by the injustice that acts as a self-appointed mercenary and doesn't coordinate their efforts with those who actually are affected by the injustice either. They think they're doing good, and for all we know many may actually be doing good, but at the same time if they're not consulting those affected by the injustice and acting in-concert with those people's movements and leadership then they might actually cause more harm than good if they make the movement itself visibly look bad.

As to your other point, about, "neckbeards and mouthbreathers that are programmers you would know that they're hostile to everybody," this is actually more true than a lot of people realize. There are cases where women have perceived behavior in the workplace to be hostile toward them, when in reality they're actually being treated the same as the men are treating each other; in-effect they have been accepted as, "just one of the guys," but they don't realize that the guys treat each other like crap and now they're just getting the same as everyone else gets. Certainly that's not all cases of workplace harassment, but I have seen it first-hand and usually it's the result of the entire workplace degenerating, and companies end up cracking down on it in strange ways, like with uniforms, work-area inspections, and other things that simply keep employees too busy to harang each other. Sometimes it works, and sometimes the employer structurally reorganizes instead.

And what is it like to give up all the apps you use on a daily basis and replace them with links to mobile versions of that app's website?

Some would consider this an advantage. I'm quite happy to use the web versions of e.g. Facebook and Twitter on my smartphone, and not their apps.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1174/

Obligatory https://xkcd.com/1490/

Obligatory XKCD

I'll go out of my way to not buy a smart watch. It's uncomfortable to have something around your wrist, especially while typing. What the heck are you doing all day that you constantly need to know what time it is, or what the stock prices are, or what the weather is? A smartphone is accessed just as quickly as a pocket watch and will notify you when your appointments are coming up. Telling me what time it is before I need to know just makes me worry about what's coming up instead of focusing on what's going on right now.

Nuts to that. Less is more. Even once we have augmented reality, it shouldn't be popping up useless numbers and text - it should be seamless and unobtrusive, with the "killer apps" removing useless information like billboards from the world.

obligatory

In a weird opposite meaning, https://xkcd.com/651/

Sounds like the XKCD Significant test.

XKCD disagrees with you.

Dunno why it's necessary to remind you of this: https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ .

If AI gets "out of hand," just pull the frakking plug. Stop thinking it'll have some magic way of staying powered. This is why sieges worked in the medaevil days: sooner or later the castle runs out of food, or water, or batteries for their cellphones.

Oblig XKCD: https://xkcd.com/386/

Nah, like this.

My counterargument takes the form of the obligatory relevant comic strip: https://xkcd.com/1379/

Only, it's a 3d-printed model of the dwarf planet, screenshotted in the Oculus Rift and saved as a lowly jpg for sharing on Facebook, which explains the jpeg plumes. Oh, so yeah, it was faked.

Obligatory xkcd

Yes, definitely photoshopped :)

https://xkcd.com/1523/

Mandatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/915/

How hard is it to turn hubble around and snap som pics of earth?

This page answers that question.... turns out that it's not very hard at all, but not generally very useful either.

You've all probably seen it before, but in case you haven't, here it is: http://xkcd.com/1357/
It's about free speech, and how some idiots think free speech means you can say whatever you want without any repercussions. Of course that's not true, as Randall points out, the first amendment just means that the government can't persecute you for simply having an opinion, people however are free to react to you however they want.
However I've noticed this comic being posted by people solely as justification for censorship or as a simple reply to a complaint about censorship. Instead of making an actual argument for censorship specific to the situation at hand they post this... but what does the comic say then? That the most compelling thing you can say for censoring is that it's not illegal to censor? Ironically this is a mirror image of what the title text of the comic says about defending your argument with free speech, only you're defending your censorship with the lack of free speech.
Picture this:
Person A censors Person B
B: "Freedom of speech! It's literally not illegal to say something so I should be able to say what I want without repercussions."
A: "XKCD comic! It's literally not illegal to censor you so I'm going to censor you."
And no one gives any legitimate arguments for justifying their actions or opinions.

http://www.xkcd.com/538/

There's a photo on xkcd.

@coldsalmon: Free Speech

Some time ago, before the Ellen Pao controversy, I took a look at Reddit and, after what I saw, dropped out just as quickly. Hosting a user generated forum and then banning people because they disagreed with some moderator. At the same time allowing such shit as the Fappening and 'humorous' posts such as this. All pilots after the German Wings accident ref. I feel soiled by proxy that I once associated with the human garbage that posted the above.

https://xkcd.com/927/

https://xkcd.com/1357/

Well, there's no getting Pluto back to it's old status, now that they spotted those Kuiper Belt Loops...
http://xkcd.com/1551/

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/925/

Note, a multiple of a small number is still a small number. https://xkcd.com/1252/

It's almost ironic, I remember hearing the same complaints when Microsoft introduced the Ribbon into Office 2007.

So they moved your cheese. Find it again. We believe in you. Make your dreams come true. You can do it!

Bumblebees are clearly Communist Ecoterrorists out to destroy our fine, God-fearing Capitalist agricultural industry. We should immediately start executing those evil climatologists. God and the Invisible Hand would never permit massive CO2 emissions to effect humans, and anyone that says so should be taken out and beaten to death.

Well, get ready to start beating, because apparently the (interim) solution is asexual reproduction:
https://xkcd.com/1259/

It is indeed a small state, and because of that, the area taken up by people who live within the environs of Baltimore and DC is a sizable fraction of the state's entire land area. It's not as high a fraction as New Jersey or Rhode Island, but it's not in the same league as Virginia or Pennsylvania.

I still don't know what you mean by "overall sparsely populated." I wouldn't be surprised if you could come up with some formula to divide New England and the Mid-Atlantic into "MA, CT, NJ, RI" and "NY, MD, VA, PA." I do, however, assert that any such formula would be contrived.

And now I feel silly for arguing a bit of worthless pedantry on the internet

PS whoever used comas in a URL should fired.

Back in the old days, when Algol was being created by a committee of the best computing minds in the US and Europe (a new language! That would be the best ever!).........negotiations nearly broke down over whether to use the comma or the period as the decimal point. One participant Frenchperson wailed, "I will never use a period as a decimal point!"

Eventually they solved it by allowing either.

Of course, it's a giant conspiracy to keep reducing the gate width, and making fin-fet transisters, and changing to EUV (and trying to design high power lasers to feed these machines) because that's sooo much easier than changing to a non-capacitive transister. Google must be in on the conspiracy, since a search for "non-capacitive transistor" doesn't return any meaningful results.

Sorry, your post is wrong in so many ways, that I don't know where to start... Maybe this will help: https://xkcd.com/386/

My wife has a common first and last name... her email address is her first name and last name @gmail... She gets everything from electric bills to HOME MORTGAGE CLOSING PAPERS for other people. When she emails back and explains that this is not that person's email address... the idiots become hostile and accuse her of being a hacker.
Now any time she gets a bill for any service, her first step is to recover the password, then schedule service disconnect. Seems harsh, but it is the only way. She has dealt with this for years... Hell if she were malicious, she has the account balance, social security number, bank account numbers, credit history, and/or University staff login credentials for half a dozen people who have targeted her for "reverse identity theft." No matter how much she begs them to stop.


Oh by the way... other woman who lives in NYC, 5 guys burgers emailed and said your order is ready for pick-up.... Maybe eating burgers and fries 6 times a week isn't the best for you though.

Oblig xkcd

Oblig. related https://xkcd.com/512/

https://xkcd.com/727/

slashies!

!@#$^%#@^$ I screwed the lucky 10,000 link up in the post and hit submit too quickly. grrrrrrr

The solution to all drone related problems . . .
https://xkcd.com/1523/
'nuff said.

Since this is slashdot, how about pseudocode?

function handle_fault_on_approach()
{
    if (NOTHING_PARTICULARLY_SPECIAL_GOING_ON)
    {
        tell_nasa about_error();
        go_into_safe_mode();
        wait_for_instructions_from_nasa();
    }
    else if (FLYING_BY_PLUTO_RIGHT_NOW)
    {
          tell_nasa about_error();
          wait_to_hear_back_from_nasa = FALSE;
          handle_error_in_a_reasonable_manner_on_your_own();
          get_back_to_gathering_before_you_miss_the_flyby_goddammit();
    }
    else if (FLYING_BY_EARTH)
    {
        dammit_steve();
    }
}

OK, this is all starting to bug me (ba-dum-bump)!
Or taken another way
https://xkcd.com/1012/

1999 called and wants its...

WHAT??? 1999 called? Did you warn them about 9/11? The Indian Ocean tsunami? The Japan earthquake? I hope you didn't waste such an amazing opportunity chatting about nerd trivia.

https://xkcd.com/908/

There is a lot of caching

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1475/

Roller coasters

https://xkcd.com/221/

Even in TFA, using the term 'reawakened' is so totally mischaracterizing the situation.

It's not like black holes go dormant, or gravity goes to sleep. No, clearly it's been short of significant infall material and has suddenly consumed something substantial, leading to a burst of outflow energy.

It's interesting and fascinating, but really we can do better to inform the general public (who is already woefully scientifically ignorant) than using tabloid-level language to explain it.

Obligatory relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1133/ 'Up goer five'