Actually, my editor uses spaces for everything. Pressing TAB moves to the next indent guide or code alignment hint (and creates code alignment hints). For instance, to get your first line I type: [TAB]int[TAB]a;[TAB]//_Hello
This produces: [INDENT]int_a;__//_Hello
Then I press [ENTER] and I get an automatic indent to match the previous line's indent (backspace to [UNINDENT] from there). So then I type this: float[TAB]whatever;[TAB]//_Yeah
Which actually produces this result: [INDENT]int___a;________//_Hello [INDENT]float_whatever;_//_Yeah
Note the alignement of the var names and type names and comments. Typenames can be quite long in many languages, adding another line will reflow all of the code above the current line until the first blank line or non aligned hints. (or overridden via SHIFT+SPACE). The default save settings turn the indents into tabs, and the alignment into spaces (as you prefer), and saves the code alignment hints in my project's settings; However, I can select to save with tabs wherever possible, or only spaces, or even embed the alignment hints into a comment block at the end of the file. Furthermore, I can import your crappy "single space after typenames" format and tell it to reflow into my desired style guide -- I can even export my preferred style back into your crappy one, to appease maintainers without sacrificing my superior style preferences.
We have the technology. Your preference is irrelevant, I have my own.
"Linus Torvalds did not write a whole operating system, he only wrote the last missing piece, a kernel"
Yeah, sure, completely gloss over the fact that the kernel is by far the most important piece.
The compiler is the most important piece. Without it you don't make kernels... I know, I've tried making one in machine code by entering hex. I gave up and wrote an assembler in machine code instead to develop the kernel with -- Linus just used the existing FLOSS compiler. Once you've got a compiler and Kernel running it doesn't do anything. You need at least a great shell program, some window managers if you're the GUI type, lots of command line tools, hell, even a file system before all that! The portion Linus contributed truly was a fraction of the work -- I've tried doing all of it myself from scratch (I have a crazy security related itch to scratch [separate stacks for data and instruction pointers] that means no C -- at first), and in doing so I gained a lot more respect for GNU and a lot less for Linus. That's when I started calling it GNU/Linux, and yes the GNU should come first.
Additionally, the kernel design of Linux is sort of dumb. It's the same insecure monolithic methodology that's applied in Windows. The fastest route, not the most secure, but hey, he was going for the fastest and easiest route. I don't discount what Linus did, but as someone who sometimes makes kernels for embedded systems, I can tell you that many people grossly overestimate the role a kernel plays. People make kernels all the time, it's not that hard to make them, just hard to be in the right place at the right time. Linus could have built his kernel on Windows, but I know from experience it wouldn't have attracted any users unless it had that awesome POSIX compliant GNU userland.
Let me explain something: SECURITY MUST BE PROVEN. You can't just claim the product secure, we look back and then determine how secure it has been. Additionally: NEW SOFTWARE HAS NEW BUGS, and these bugs are what makes security exploits possible.
Considering that Windows8 is not just Windows7 in a different box, that it actually comes with more and newer code than Windows7 or XP, I think it's safe to say that it more likely than not that it contains more bugs than these already released and hammered on systems... In laymen's terms: Windows8 is less secure.
the FSF's approved list of completely free distributions. It's basically Ubuntu with a free kernel and without the option of installing Flash.
There goes my irony quota for the day.
"without the option" wasn't exactly correct. Of course you can install whatever software from whatever repository you want once it's installed, or even compile the sources-- Oh, Flash, well, no source for proprietary stuff like that, but you can still install it. Windows XP comes "without the option" of installing Flash. Last I checked you get Flash from Adobe's website after installing Windows. Some Linux distros make it easy to stay up to date by putting Adobe's Flash in their repository. However, now that Adobe will no longer release updates for Flash on Linux I can't blame some folks for not including the buggy product in their distros...
I wonder if you'll be able to add 3rd party markets to Windows 8's app store, like on most Android and Linux distributions, or if it'll actually be "without the option" like Apple's app store?
Especially when they're pushing a distro nobody's ever heard of and which does a terrible job of promoting itself. I looked on both Trisquel's home page and its Wikipedia entry, and the only justification I could find for its existence was that it had Gallician support.
[...] Do Linux zealots actually work at being marginal?
> implying that variety isn't the spice of life.
Oh, you.;-)
The browsers used to pop up a dialog on fresh installs when a site tried to set a cookie asking you if you wanted YOUR BROWSER to accept (save and re-send) the cookie.
Much like UAC, the users click whatever to get rid of the annoyance: This site wants to set a cookie.
[OK] ----- [Cancel]
[x] Remember this setting.
There is no need for legislation -- Folks, our browsers have the power to put an end to any and all cookies, don't make devs re-invent the wheel on every damn website for a feature that you have always had all along. RTFM.
If "First Sale" does not apply then how the hell can a Store who bought the property sell it to consumers? Hmm? Oh, sure some stores have direct permission from the manufacturers, but What about Amazon? What about the mom-and pop corner store that buys many of their goods from big-box stores and sells at a higher price in trade for convenience? Garage sales?
IMO, The "ownership" of any matter or idea or other energy configuration is terminated when it leaves your possession or head. If you don't want folks re-selling, don't sell. If you don't want folks using your idea, don't share it. If you don't want folks copying your movie, don't publish it. If you don't want folks using the repairs to the car, don't fix it. Don't work for free then extort money from us to recoup costs. Instead, only do the work (game, movie, car repair, home building, etc) after you've got a contract to be paid for it. Afterwards, the fruits of your labor belongs to those who paid you for it.
You can only control your own actions, not the actions of others. Everyone knows this, but we still let others control our actions while they do what we are forbidden? It's an essential misunderstanding of the Universe: Any fool can see that ownership does not extend beyond their immediate possession.
If you want to continue to own the thing I've purchased then I'm renting it, and the price should reflect this -- Also, I'd like a replacement for your item that I'm using breaks. Oh, you want me to deal with stuff like breakage and wear and tear? Then I guess it's mine to do with as I please.
If you outlaw sales, only outlaws will have sales!
Arcade cabinets were single game systems with dedicated hardware -- Then the hardware became more general purpose and support more games, but you still had one game per box. Game consoles allowed you to swap games and re-use the hardware, but the hardware wasn't as good as the Arcades, so arcades flourished...
Then, consoles took over as the primary game systems -- Their graphics eventually reached and surpassed that of the arcade cabinet graphics, and were far cheaper both in time and money to play. They were smaller, more approachable by the masses. Consoles were still limited by the selection of games you could play on them though. The Personal Computer was evolving in much the same ways as the consoles, more general purpose (you could run different OSs not just different games), but much of the hardware wasn't as good as a dedicated game console, so game consoles flourished...
Soon, personal computers will take over as the primary game systems -- Their graphics have reached and surpassed that of the dedicated game console, and are smaller (mobile) and more approachable by the masses; Indeed, most folks already have one (even feature phones run games), and will continue to need some form of general purpose computer -- Why buy an Arcade full of cabinets when you can buy 3 or 5 game consoles? Why buy 4 game consoles when you can buy one Personal Computer.
What's interesting to me is that the OS is next in line for obsolescence. Game developers don't want to be locked in to one platform or the other -- Ignoring market segments is throwing away money needlessly. Cross platform games are only marginally more effort (in testing) than single platform games. Face it: Few studios make engines, and engine devs are under pressure from publishers to increase market share via multi-platform support.
It's not so much the death of a "game console" it's the death of dedicated hardware. A Calculator? A Document Viewer? A Watch? A Web Browser? A Game Console? General purpose hardware is the future -- OS choice shouldn't limit your selection of applications... MS and Apple don't want true OS agnostic cross platform software (they want THEIR software to run on different hardware, but they don't want end user programs to have the same benefit in regards to OS platforms). This is why ensuring we can run whatever software we want on our hardware is essential...
The Death of Game Consoles is the Death of Vendor-Locked-in Applications. It's only a matter of time. Those complaints console fanbois have about controllers, screens, or hardware support will eventually be ironed out (they largely are already). I can hook my wireless controller to my Nexus7, and my Nexus 7 to my TV -- I do the same with my PC. Is it a "Game Console" when I use it like one, or do you think they really mean, "Death of the Dedicated Game Console"?
You're limited as to what you can do on the hardware side by an OS you don't control.
WTF are you even talking about? The MFGs control the OS -- It's open sourced and even re-skinned quite frequently. Hell, you could create a whole new chipset and instruction besides x86 or ARM -- Completely change the hardware, and still put Android on it. That's why C compilers exist. Apple has the same luxury...
...Oh, I see, by control you mean control the users via restrictions in the OS. Ah, yep. It's harder to abuse users and charge over priced rates, Like Apple; Hell, it's hard doing that even if you are Apple.
There's plenty of ways to compete on hardware, and software too. If you buy your stuff from the same factories as everyone else and run the same software too, then try to make money on cost cutting you'll lose. It's going to take a few failures before folks start catching on. The winners are the customers who have some real choice and sane prices, as apposed to on platforms where the OS controls you.
I'm waiting for: The "Deep One" - A C'thulhu themed waterproof phone with exclusive sequel to the indie game "C'thulhu Saves the World", and membership to an ancient secretive cult...
You do realise you can just go to HTCDEV.com and unlock bootloader with the code they give you?
Sorry. No go. I will never buy hardware that requires me to get permission from someone before I install my own software on it. Let me tell you a little story about websites: They're transient.
It doesn't pass the Zombie test, then I don't buy it: If you find a crate of something and can't use it for survival for any reason, including DRM, then it's not worth anything at all and should never be manufactured in the first place.
Awesome! Smart Phones! I can get root, create a mesh network via tether + Wifi relays, tie string to trip-wires and use the accelerometers to trigger packets and cameras to create an early zombie warning grid -- Oh, nope, nevermind it's just more worthless junk. You've got to go to some damn website that doesn't exist anymore. Draconian DRM is not just inconvenient, it could mean the difference between being using your brains as a post apocalyptic MacGuyver, or for dinner.
You must be young here. No need for a history lesson, I was born before the Internet. Checks still exist. Part of writing a check is writing the amount. The value goes in two different places -- once numerically and the other spelled out on the line. At the end of the spelled out amount you write a line to the end of that area, pretty much like you were saying about the ancient accountants of old and for the exact same reasons.
Now, get off my patch of cracked and scored dry earth.
What articles about "(not-so) niche topics" were deleted despite citing three different scholarly or mainstream media sources independent of one another and of the subject?
So, if some media slut says some inane inflammatory bullshit and gets all over the news, that can be cited and documented in Wikipedia... However, if one of us lowly netizens finally reverse engineers an undocumented file format, of use to many folks in the 3D graphics fields, it doesn't get in Wikipedia because there's not three independent "scholarly or mainstream" sources? Even if it's being used like mad in tons of applications, and no one can really find the data elsewhere even though they're searching for it and just don't know what exactly to call it?
Look, Wikipedia blatantly ripped off the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy website, (H2G2) which allowed anyone to add anything regardless of notoriety. It was great, and extremely helpful. There was something on everything. Too bad BBC shut id down. If you didn't want to know about the proper way to drink water upside down, then you didn't read the damn article. Storage is Cheap, esp. for text. Maybe if Wikipedia was more inclusive you'd have MORE EDITORS? Fuck you and your popularity contests.
How does one gain being right or lawful? Since when is the law always right?
I'd rather be right and unlawful then lawful and wrong. History has many examples of injustice where people have upheld the law now matter how much suffering it caused mankind.
As I've pointed out before, that very sentiment was present in the Declaration of Independence.
Not allowing women to vote, Segregation (Jim Crow) -- These were laws. Slavery?! "3/5th of a vote" -- Yep, that used to be a law. Laws are not sometimes wrong, they're Frequently wrong.
Laws are really more like guidelines -- Representation of the current mindset of the general populous, laid down for a sane and safe society to exist. When the majority of society holds a law irrelevant it should be removed or you've got a Religion on your hands, not a Government. These terms were not the contract the people signed up for when they created this country and/or joined its union of states. I surely subscribed to no such constitution by way of birth. Allowing those few with money and power to hold the most sway means I was born into a form of slavery, what with all the restrictions of crossing the borders...
We have only law making bodies, no law-unmaking bodies. The current stagnation of law risks the government being in violation of the contract by which it was formed... The good news is that when push comes to shove we can just re-use the exact same Declaration of Independence -- The list of abuses suffered towards the end is nearly the same today as it was back then.
Sure, "toe the line" is the standard expression for conformance to ideologies or rule-sets, however "Towing the Line" could be seen as a clever modernized variant whereby you not only conform, but then drag those lines of rhetoric into your Slashdot posts.
Under a set time limit? Not even a real, human contractor can do the latter, it's impossible.
Duh. That's exactly why we need a robot!
At first the humans thought that enabling sentience for the Neural Networks of their self driving cars was a grand idea. However, they failed to realize that the mechano-electric beings would get bored, get distracted by scenery including hot younger models, and slack off computing the meaning of their own existence. The humans would have been better off assigning driving shifts to all those unemployed college kids -- They're cheaper, use less electricity, and only think they're better than you.
It's still human controlled and has some rather specialized tasks that could be handled by individual specialized modules. I'm looking for the composite one named Voltron.
I would personally prefer this "humiliation" to losing one of my family members because one woman would rather be free from the pat-downs/security scanning etc.
What about the kid who died in the wheel well of the jet airplane? If he could get in there then anyone could. Hell, just this week I saw a story about a guy who was stranded and hopped the fence into an airport, hoping to be confronted immediately by security (and thus saved). He walked around all the airplanes out on the tarmac, and right up to where the passenger terminals are. So, what good is getting groped or scanned other than to acclimate you to personal intrusions? None. It's the illusion of security. The scanners don't even work. Remember that story about the guy with a pocket on his sleeve? He put a metal cigarette pack in the pocket and since it was off his body, and appeared black as the background, they didn't see it at all on the scanner and he hopped on the plane with it.
Whatever happened to, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death?" Or that bit Ben Franklin said about trading your freedom for security and having neither? You've lost your way somewhere. You've become an irrational fear slut. You're thousands of times MORE likely to be killed in a car wreck and you don't run around spouting BS about how a TSA agent needs to ride with every car load to ensure safety. FUCK YOU. It's fools like you that are letting them turn the US into an oppressive regime, just like the ones we so hated in the 80's.
They don't have a monopoly. Apple sells less than 50% of the smart phones worldwide. Google gets, what, 90% or more of web searches?
Apple sells 100% of the iPhone aps in their App store, and prevents users from installing any other app stores. If that's not anti-competitive "monopoly" of a market I don't know what is. Don't like the iPhone, don't buy it. I could say the same about using Google's search engine. Seriously, your logic is just plain fucked.
It costs nothing to get listed on Bing, Duck Duck Go, Altavista, etc... So, even if Google does 90% of the search market they're not preventing folks from using alternatives at all. It's not like I have to choose between which search engine will list my website, and if I pick Bing, then Google doesn't list me. Ugh, it's the fucking information age people. Get with the times or get left behind. You can't monopolize Search. The Web Exists. That would be like saying 4chan has a monopoly on offensive.GIFs because they proliferate 90% of them... You have a brain. Why aren't you using it?!
you've always been able to go online and download the browser you prefer through Windows
Only after starting Internet Explorer.
I see that you have been misinformed. Although I do not usually go to bat for Microsoft, I am impartial since I use & develop software for all modern OSs regularly. I once thought as you did, but have had my mind changed. Allow me to correct this misconception.
After installing MS Windows XP Pro. I dumped my compiler toolchain into the system and was about to compile Firefox and Chromium when I thought: Wait a minute. There's been a way to get other browsers installed here without using MSIE all along!
I simply hit Towels+R to launch the run dialog, then entered: FTP
To my (un)Amazement the terminal based FTP client that is installed by default was actually installed by default all along! Who Would(n't) have thought!?
From there it was a simple matter of connecting to the Mozilla FTP site: open mozilla.org cd pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/ ls cd (into a version/platform/language/)
get "Firefox Setup 16.0b6.exe"
It was truly (un)remarkable that I could actually use MS's File Transfer Protocol client to Transfer Files without using Internet Explorer at all!
I felt quite silly for wrongly believing the oft spouted drivel about there not being any way to get another browser except through MSIE
I had used the FTP client for years, but I was blinded by my own MS hating nerd rage to the possibility that existed all along.
Why, those MS haters were just newbs who couldn't even use a simple FTP program.
Shortly after downloading the Firefox binaries I had the browser fully installed without having to clone a single Git repository!
IMO, Mozilla should make their releases folders a bit simpler to navigate, maybe an alias for firefox/latest or something. It's no wonder MS includes a browser by default. It's much easier to type "firefox" into a search box and click the mouse a few times to install it -- Mozilla's site even selects the OS, Platform, and Language automatically. At first I also thought it was super silly to integrate the web browser with the file browser, but if you think about it, if you've got a browsing engine capable of displaying FTP archives, why not re-use the code for the file browser too? Isn't that "The Unix Way!"(tm) ? I mean, Konqueror does this too, neh?
P.S. I just love that every key board has a Towel key -- X11 calls this the "super" key. Towels aresuper!
Douglas Adams would be proud.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, my editor uses spaces for everything. Pressing TAB moves to the next indent guide or code alignment hint (and creates code alignment hints). For instance, to get your first line I type:
[TAB]int[TAB]a;[TAB]//_Hello
This produces:
[INDENT]int_a;__//_Hello
Then I press [ENTER] and I get an automatic indent to match the previous line's indent (backspace to [UNINDENT] from there). So then I type this:
float[TAB]whatever;[TAB]//_Yeah
Which actually produces this result:
[INDENT]int___a;________//_Hello
[INDENT]float_whatever;_//_Yeah
Note the alignement of the var names and type names and comments. Typenames can be quite long in many languages, adding another line will reflow all of the code above the current line until the first blank line or non aligned hints. (or overridden via SHIFT+SPACE). The default save settings turn the indents into tabs, and the alignment into spaces (as you prefer), and saves the code alignment hints in my project's settings; However, I can select to save with tabs wherever possible, or only spaces, or even embed the alignment hints into a comment block at the end of the file. Furthermore, I can import your crappy "single space after typenames" format and tell it to reflow into my desired style guide -- I can even export my preferred style back into your crappy one, to appease maintainers without sacrificing my superior style preferences.
We have the technology. Your preference is irrelevant, I have my own.
And, why do they hate Linus so much? From the Tresquel web page:
"Linus Torvalds did not write a whole operating system, he only wrote the last missing piece, a kernel"
Yeah, sure, completely gloss over the fact that the kernel is by far the most important piece.
The compiler is the most important piece. Without it you don't make kernels... I know, I've tried making one in machine code by entering hex. I gave up and wrote an assembler in machine code instead to develop the kernel with -- Linus just used the existing FLOSS compiler. Once you've got a compiler and Kernel running it doesn't do anything. You need at least a great shell program, some window managers if you're the GUI type, lots of command line tools, hell, even a file system before all that! The portion Linus contributed truly was a fraction of the work -- I've tried doing all of it myself from scratch (I have a crazy security related itch to scratch [separate stacks for data and instruction pointers] that means no C -- at first), and in doing so I gained a lot more respect for GNU and a lot less for Linus. That's when I started calling it GNU/Linux, and yes the GNU should come first.
Additionally, the kernel design of Linux is sort of dumb. It's the same insecure monolithic methodology that's applied in Windows. The fastest route, not the most secure, but hey, he was going for the fastest and easiest route. I don't discount what Linus did, but as someone who sometimes makes kernels for embedded systems, I can tell you that many people grossly overestimate the role a kernel plays. People make kernels all the time, it's not that hard to make them, just hard to be in the right place at the right time. Linus could have built his kernel on Windows, but I know from experience it wouldn't have attracted any users unless it had that awesome POSIX compliant GNU userland.
TL;DR: Why do think Linus deserves more love?
Let me explain something: SECURITY MUST BE PROVEN. You can't just claim the product secure, we look back and then determine how secure it has been. Additionally: NEW SOFTWARE HAS NEW BUGS, and these bugs are what makes security exploits possible.
Considering that Windows8 is not just Windows7 in a different box, that it actually comes with more and newer code than Windows7 or XP, I think it's safe to say that it more likely than not that it contains more bugs than these already released and hammered on systems... In laymen's terms: Windows8 is less secure.
There goes my irony quota for the day.
"without the option" wasn't exactly correct. Of course you can install whatever software from whatever repository you want once it's installed, or even compile the sources-- Oh, Flash, well, no source for proprietary stuff like that, but you can still install it. Windows XP comes "without the option" of installing Flash. Last I checked you get Flash from Adobe's website after installing Windows. Some Linux distros make it easy to stay up to date by putting Adobe's Flash in their repository. However, now that Adobe will no longer release updates for Flash on Linux I can't blame some folks for not including the buggy product in their distros...
I wonder if you'll be able to add 3rd party markets to Windows 8's app store, like on most Android and Linux distributions, or if it'll actually be "without the option" like Apple's app store?
Especially when they're pushing a distro nobody's ever heard of and which does a terrible job of promoting itself. I looked on both Trisquel's home page and its Wikipedia entry, and the only justification I could find for its existence was that it had Gallician support.
[...]
Do Linux zealots actually work at being marginal?
> implying that variety isn't the spice of life. ;-)
Oh, you.
You fail to control for those who are easily offended by over sexualized displays.
The browsers used to pop up a dialog on fresh installs when a site tried to set a cookie asking you if you wanted YOUR BROWSER to accept (save and re-send) the cookie.
Much like UAC, the users click whatever to get rid of the annoyance:
This site wants to set a cookie.
[OK] ----- [Cancel]
[x] Remember this setting.
There is no need for legislation -- Folks, our browsers have the power to put an end to any and all cookies, don't make devs re-invent the wheel on every damn website for a feature that you have always had all along. RTFM.
If "First Sale" does not apply then how the hell can a Store who bought the property sell it to consumers? Hmm? Oh, sure some stores have direct permission from the manufacturers, but What about Amazon? What about the mom-and pop corner store that buys many of their goods from big-box stores and sells at a higher price in trade for convenience? Garage sales?
IMO, The "ownership" of any matter or idea or other energy configuration is terminated when it leaves your possession or head. If you don't want folks re-selling, don't sell. If you don't want folks using your idea, don't share it. If you don't want folks copying your movie, don't publish it. If you don't want folks using the repairs to the car, don't fix it. Don't work for free then extort money from us to recoup costs. Instead, only do the work (game, movie, car repair, home building, etc) after you've got a contract to be paid for it. Afterwards, the fruits of your labor belongs to those who paid you for it.
You can only control your own actions, not the actions of others. Everyone knows this, but we still let others control our actions while they do what we are forbidden? It's an essential misunderstanding of the Universe: Any fool can see that ownership does not extend beyond their immediate possession.
If you want to continue to own the thing I've purchased then I'm renting it, and the price should reflect this -- Also, I'd like a replacement for your item that I'm using breaks. Oh, you want me to deal with stuff like breakage and wear and tear? Then I guess it's mine to do with as I please.
If you outlaw sales, only outlaws will have sales!
Arcade cabinets were single game systems with dedicated hardware -- Then the hardware became more general purpose and support more games, but you still had one game per box. Game consoles allowed you to swap games and re-use the hardware, but the hardware wasn't as good as the Arcades, so arcades flourished...
Then, consoles took over as the primary game systems -- Their graphics eventually reached and surpassed that of the arcade cabinet graphics, and were far cheaper both in time and money to play. They were smaller, more approachable by the masses. Consoles were still limited by the selection of games you could play on them though. The Personal Computer was evolving in much the same ways as the consoles, more general purpose (you could run different OSs not just different games), but much of the hardware wasn't as good as a dedicated game console, so game consoles flourished...
Soon, personal computers will take over as the primary game systems -- Their graphics have reached and surpassed that of the dedicated game console, and are smaller (mobile) and more approachable by the masses; Indeed, most folks already have one (even feature phones run games), and will continue to need some form of general purpose computer -- Why buy an Arcade full of cabinets when you can buy 3 or 5 game consoles? Why buy 4 game consoles when you can buy one Personal Computer.
What's interesting to me is that the OS is next in line for obsolescence. Game developers don't want to be locked in to one platform or the other -- Ignoring market segments is throwing away money needlessly. Cross platform games are only marginally more effort (in testing) than single platform games. Face it: Few studios make engines, and engine devs are under pressure from publishers to increase market share via multi-platform support.
It's not so much the death of a "game console" it's the death of dedicated hardware. A Calculator? A Document Viewer? A Watch? A Web Browser? A Game Console? General purpose hardware is the future -- OS choice shouldn't limit your selection of applications... MS and Apple don't want true OS agnostic cross platform software (they want THEIR software to run on different hardware, but they don't want end user programs to have the same benefit in regards to OS platforms). This is why ensuring we can run whatever software we want on our hardware is essential...
The Death of Game Consoles is the Death of Vendor-Locked-in Applications. It's only a matter of time. Those complaints console fanbois have about controllers, screens, or hardware support will eventually be ironed out (they largely are already). I can hook my wireless controller to my Nexus7, and my Nexus 7 to my TV -- I do the same with my PC. Is it a "Game Console" when I use it like one, or do you think they really mean, "Death of the Dedicated Game Console"?
^-- Scare-quotes added for your cyber-chicken-choking pleasure.
You're limited as to what you can do on the hardware side by an OS you don't control.
WTF are you even talking about? The MFGs control the OS -- It's open sourced and even re-skinned quite frequently. Hell, you could create a whole new chipset and instruction besides x86 or ARM -- Completely change the hardware, and still put Android on it. That's why C compilers exist. Apple has the same luxury...
There's plenty of ways to compete on hardware, and software too. If you buy your stuff from the same factories as everyone else and run the same software too, then try to make money on cost cutting you'll lose. It's going to take a few failures before folks start catching on. The winners are the customers who have some real choice and sane prices, as apposed to on platforms where the OS controls you.
I'm waiting for: The "Deep One" - A C'thulhu themed waterproof phone with exclusive sequel to the indie game "C'thulhu Saves the World", and membership to an ancient secretive cult...
You do realise you can just go to HTCDEV.com and unlock bootloader with the code they give you?
Sorry. No go. I will never buy hardware that requires me to get permission from someone before I install my own software on it. Let me tell you a little story about websites: They're transient.
It doesn't pass the Zombie test, then I don't buy it: If you find a crate of something and can't use it for survival for any reason, including DRM, then it's not worth anything at all and should never be manufactured in the first place.
Awesome! Smart Phones! I can get root, create a mesh network via tether + Wifi relays, tie string to trip-wires and use the accelerometers to trigger packets and cameras to create an early zombie warning grid -- Oh, nope, nevermind it's just more worthless junk. You've got to go to some damn website that doesn't exist anymore. Draconian DRM is not just inconvenient, it could mean the difference between being using your brains as a post apocalyptic MacGuyver, or for dinner.
You must be young here. No need for a history lesson, I was born before the Internet. Checks still exist. Part of writing a check is writing the amount. The value goes in two different places -- once numerically and the other spelled out on the line. At the end of the spelled out amount you write a line to the end of that area, pretty much like you were saying about the ancient accountants of old and for the exact same reasons.
Now, get off my patch of cracked and scored dry earth.
Work is only valuable because someone needs that work, not because it's what you'd like to do.
I work for myself you Insensitive Clod!
This one's better than another crappy MS slashvertisement though...
And it would be deleted for not having enough references or not being notable.
What articles about "(not-so) niche topics" were deleted despite citing three different scholarly or mainstream media sources independent of one another and of the subject?
So, if some media slut says some inane inflammatory bullshit and gets all over the news, that can be cited and documented in Wikipedia... However, if one of us lowly netizens finally reverse engineers an undocumented file format, of use to many folks in the 3D graphics fields, it doesn't get in Wikipedia because there's not three independent "scholarly or mainstream" sources? Even if it's being used like mad in tons of applications, and no one can really find the data elsewhere even though they're searching for it and just don't know what exactly to call it?
Look, Wikipedia blatantly ripped off the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy website, (H2G2) which allowed anyone to add anything regardless of notoriety. It was great, and extremely helpful. There was something on everything. Too bad BBC shut id down. If you didn't want to know about the proper way to drink water upside down, then you didn't read the damn article. Storage is Cheap, esp. for text. Maybe if Wikipedia was more inclusive you'd have MORE EDITORS? Fuck you and your popularity contests.
How does one gain being right or lawful? Since when is the law always right?
I'd rather be right and unlawful then lawful and wrong. History has many examples of injustice where people have upheld the law now matter how much suffering it caused mankind.
As I've pointed out before, that very sentiment was present in the Declaration of Independence.
Not allowing women to vote, Segregation (Jim Crow) -- These were laws. Slavery?! "3/5th of a vote" -- Yep, that used to be a law. Laws are not sometimes wrong, they're Frequently wrong.
Laws are really more like guidelines -- Representation of the current mindset of the general populous, laid down for a sane and safe society to exist. When the majority of society holds a law irrelevant it should be removed or you've got a Religion on your hands, not a Government. These terms were not the contract the people signed up for when they created this country and/or joined its union of states. I surely subscribed to no such constitution by way of birth. Allowing those few with money and power to hold the most sway means I was born into a form of slavery, what with all the restrictions of crossing the borders...
We have only law making bodies, no law-unmaking bodies. The current stagnation of law risks the government being in violation of the contract by which it was formed... The good news is that when push comes to shove we can just re-use the exact same Declaration of Independence -- The list of abuses suffered towards the end is nearly the same today as it was back then.
Sure, "toe the line" is the standard expression for conformance to ideologies or rule-sets, however "Towing the Line" could be seen as a clever modernized variant whereby you not only conform, but then drag those lines of rhetoric into your Slashdot posts.
Under a set time limit? Not even a real, human contractor can do the latter, it's impossible.
Duh. That's exactly why we need a robot!
At first the humans thought that enabling sentience for the Neural Networks of their self driving cars was a grand idea. However, they failed to realize that the mechano-electric beings would get bored, get distracted by scenery including hot younger models, and slack off computing the meaning of their own existence. The humans would have been better off assigning driving shifts to all those unemployed college kids -- They're cheaper, use less electricity, and only think they're better than you.
They didn't name it Nimrod. Or Ultron.
It's still human controlled and has some rather specialized tasks that could be handled by individual specialized modules. I'm looking for the composite one named Voltron.
You don't keep your billions by making fools of the government.
I would personally prefer this "humiliation" to losing one of my family members because one woman would rather be free from the pat-downs/security scanning etc.
What about the kid who died in the wheel well of the jet airplane? If he could get in there then anyone could. Hell, just this week I saw a story about a guy who was stranded and hopped the fence into an airport, hoping to be confronted immediately by security (and thus saved). He walked around all the airplanes out on the tarmac, and right up to where the passenger terminals are. So, what good is getting groped or scanned other than to acclimate you to personal intrusions? None. It's the illusion of security. The scanners don't even work. Remember that story about the guy with a pocket on his sleeve? He put a metal cigarette pack in the pocket and since it was off his body, and appeared black as the background, they didn't see it at all on the scanner and he hopped on the plane with it.
Whatever happened to, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death?" Or that bit Ben Franklin said about trading your freedom for security and having neither? You've lost your way somewhere. You've become an irrational fear slut. You're thousands of times MORE likely to be killed in a car wreck and you don't run around spouting BS about how a TSA agent needs to ride with every car load to ensure safety. FUCK YOU. It's fools like you that are letting them turn the US into an oppressive regime, just like the ones we so hated in the 80's.
They don't have a monopoly. Apple sells less than 50% of the smart phones worldwide. Google gets, what, 90% or more of web searches?
Apple sells 100% of the iPhone aps in their App store, and prevents users from installing any other app stores. If that's not anti-competitive "monopoly" of a market I don't know what is. Don't like the iPhone, don't buy it. I could say the same about using Google's search engine. Seriously, your logic is just plain fucked.
It costs nothing to get listed on Bing, Duck Duck Go, Altavista, etc... So, even if Google does 90% of the search market they're not preventing folks from using alternatives at all. It's not like I have to choose between which search engine will list my website, and if I pick Bing, then Google doesn't list me. Ugh, it's the fucking information age people. Get with the times or get left behind. You can't monopolize Search. The Web Exists. That would be like saying 4chan has a monopoly on offensive .GIFs because they proliferate 90% of them... You have a brain. Why aren't you using it?!
Only after starting Internet Explorer.
I see that you have been misinformed. Although I do not usually go to bat for Microsoft, I am impartial since I use & develop software for all modern OSs regularly. I once thought as you did, but have had my mind changed. Allow me to correct this misconception.
After installing MS Windows XP Pro. I dumped my compiler toolchain into the system and was about to compile Firefox and Chromium when I thought: Wait a minute. There's been a way to get other browsers installed here without using MSIE all along!
I simply hit Towels+R to launch the run dialog, then entered: FTP
To my (un)Amazement the terminal based FTP client that is installed by default was actually installed by default all along! Who Would(n't) have thought!?
From there it was a simple matter of connecting to the Mozilla FTP site:
open mozilla.org
cd pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/
ls
cd (into a version/platform/language/)
get "Firefox Setup 16.0b6.exe"
It was truly (un)remarkable that I could actually use MS's File Transfer Protocol client to Transfer Files without using Internet Explorer at all!
I felt quite silly for wrongly believing the oft spouted drivel about there not being any way to get another browser except through MSIE
I had used the FTP client for years, but I was blinded by my own MS hating nerd rage to the possibility that existed all along.
Why, those MS haters were just newbs who couldn't even use a simple FTP program.
Shortly after downloading the Firefox binaries I had the browser fully installed without having to clone a single Git repository!
IMO, Mozilla should make their releases folders a bit simpler to navigate, maybe an alias for firefox/latest or something. It's no wonder MS includes a browser by default. It's much easier to type "firefox" into a search box and click the mouse a few times to install it -- Mozilla's site even selects the OS, Platform, and Language automatically. At first I also thought it was super silly to integrate the web browser with the file browser, but if you think about it, if you've got a browsing engine capable of displaying FTP archives, why not re-use the code for the file browser too? Isn't that "The Unix Way!"(tm) ? I mean, Konqueror does this too, neh?
P.S. I just love that every key board has a Towel key -- X11 calls this the "super" key. Towels are super!
Douglas Adams would be proud.