Ah yes, "Pong - The next Level" I love that version, still play the original disk thanks to emulation (and a BIOS dumper). Each board was a different variation of pong. There were themed worlds. The first level even had Penguins.
Well... things like Ligers and Tigons exist... if Lions and Tigers can mix, why not mammoths and elephants? They are just as close. (relatively speaking)
Not to mention Mules (donkey + horse)
To say nothing of the even more obvious combination: Humans (Homo sapiens + Neanderthals). ... or, as I like to call them, Apes with Nukes.
Next we'll need to genetically engineer giants to herd these mammoths...
No, before that we'll need to reverse global warming to make our climate habitable for them -- I feel sorry for the big shaggy beasts having to cope in today's environment. There's a reason Elephants don't have thick hair: The ice-age is over.
Shedding Light, Casting Light, or Bringing to Light -- but Throwing Light on something? Is this a thing? I mean, you can Throw a Switch, but Light?
That said, unless you're encrypting the datastore
However, the risk is quite low even without considering the issue of short (six or fewer characters, including letters, numbers, and punctuation) or solely numeric passwords. For starters, access to the app’s data store is required — either via an iTunes backup or an iOS device containing the app and its data — and any iOS security controls must be bypassed first. The flaws that Elcomsoft has identified cannot be exploited (as far as is currently known) over the Internet, which further limits exposure.
I wouldn't be too concerned if this were desktop PCs, but these are devices you carry around with you and may leave laying somewhere while you go to the bathroom, or have stolen. You shouldn't keep all your important passwords as plain-text in your wallet or purse... A weak password store is not much better than this.
There's a much higher chance of physical access to a portable device, especially one you carry with you everywhere in public, than there is to the desktop PC. This is why physical access is less of a concern for PCs than having it remotely exploited: You don't drag it around in public.
Physical access to the device means game over unless the data-store is strongly encrypted. Data Extraction Devices Exist, and police have been using them without a warrant. To my knowledge these devices don't work on iPhones, yet, but anything in plain-text or enciphered weakly would still be a concern if physical access to the device is gained.
Having a password store with a weak password is a bit alarming. If you're going to have a central point of failure in your pocket, out on your desk, in your hand on a cab, then the security of that single point of failure is very important. I know an unscrupulous cab driver who gets $50 for handing your forgotten phones over to street thugs. They pay $75 if the device hasn't been locked. The thugs actually use Faraday cages to prevent remote wipes. The point is: They're already interested in your data. It's only a matter of time until they have tools to brute force your password stores, they may have them already. With a weak password that can be brute-forced in one or two days, this is an issue that would cause me concern. That is: I'd want a stronger password and a manager that requires re-auth after standby mode is entered -- Laymen, like my brother, actually think 4-6 character pass-code is adequate to protect their bank credentials.
IMHO, the fact that they allow such weak passwords for such an important single point of failure is a serious design flaw. If a weak password is used there should be some minimal end user education, perhaps via big splash screen saying: "Your Password is Very Weak -- Do Not Store Important Passwords in this Password Store"
The way that a lot of websites blacked out their sites in protest of the SOPA bill was very powerful.
1. They Protested a particular thing.
2. People knew what they are protesting against.
3. The Protest was done at the risk of the protesters. Blacking out your site for a day could loose customers.
The way that Anonymous (aka Someone) protests is equally as powerful.
1. They are merely diverse individuals, so it takes many like minded individuals having the same opinion of a particular thing.
2. Nobody know WTF the SOPA protests were about -- Average folk questioned the hell out of me on that day, despite links to the bill... Protip: Big Media is responsible for informing our masses. Guess what? They ALWAYS fail to fill in Joe Sixpack as to the specifics.
3. Anonymous Protests are done at the risk of the protesters. They use the LOIC software which broadcasts your IP address to the site. It's ACTUALLY, equivalent to visiting a page in your browser and putting a weight on your F5 key YES, IT'S REALLY JUST LIKE THAT.
Anonymous on the other hand is Stupid protesting.
1. Their protest is sparse and could be about a lot of things possible contradictory.
2. People usually can only guess what they are protesting about.
3. Protesters are hiding under the vale of anonymity so they will not loose their jobs/reputation the next day.
Both protesting methods are stupid, IMHO.
1. Anonymous AKA Someone's protests are necessarily sparse and could be about a lot of things especially contradictory -- Someone's motives are always disparate. Google and Wikipedia's protests were so damn short and ineffectual as to be laughably ignored and forgotten by EVERY ONE of my associates except the small yet vocal group of my "online" buddies -- Let's have a reality check here folks.
2. People usually can only guess what Someone is protesting about (what Anonymous is protesting) since the individuals who aren't protesting DON'T CARE enough to find out. Many people guessed about what Google and Wikipedia et al were protesting about because they honestly didn't know to click the black banner on Google's site, or give a damn to read Wikipedia's statements (They're not the only source of info on the web -- back buttons exist)
3. Anonymous Protesters are NOT hiding under the vale of anonymity because their IP addresses are being distributed to the endpoints they attack (LOIC does not use a reflective DDOS -- it's distributed denial only because there are so many individuals participating) so they CAN loose their jobs/reputation the next day. All it takes is a reverse DNS lookup, and a phone call to their ISP.
I do agree that there are just too many stupid protests out there. However, I don't think any form of protesting is the answer. It's not clear that voting is the answer either since Lobbyists get their way no matter what. What really needs to happen is that the system gets so fucked and restrictive up that the average person begins to chafe. For example: Music DRM.
FYI: Every time you see the term: Anonymous with relation to the distributed group of online protesters, just replace the name "Anonymous" with "Someone" or "Average Joes" -- That's who they are. It's just random Internet users, Common Folk if you will. When you see "Common Folk" banding together for brief moments to throw a wooden shoe in the gear -- That's social disobedience, Sabotage if there ever was one. Using the topology of the Internet in their favour.
There's no organisation to the protests because that's the nature of the beast. They're so disenfranchised they lash out the only way they actually can. I don't blame them, even if I don't agree with their methods. However, If Google and Wikipedia, and other sites REALLY wanted to put their money where their mouth is they'd start up a collection for a Lobby fund so that we could buy a few congress critters too.
The licensing agreements are so labyrinthine that you practically need a team of lawyers in charge of licensing software.
Wow, Why would anyone use software that has such a high maintenance cost? If the license isn't one of the OSA approved licenses, I don't agree. Simple enough.
You can't get it right. The best you can hope for is to get it as close as possible to being right and using words like "to the best of my knowledge" to cover the rest.
As a software author myself I try to get the license as understandable as possible; Even going so far as to create a layman's license with the disclaimer that this is just the gist, and list the detailed license on another page (ala Creative Commons). This way, it reduces confusion about what can and can't be done.
Wouldn't you rather do business with non-hostile companies? I mean... we do exist. In addition to complaining, why not also try doing something to fix the issue?
If Sony told my OS vendor they have to cripple the OS to play bluray, then I would expect them to say: "Fuck off then" -- It's the part where they simple acquiesce instead of standing up for my right to bear technology that makes such crippleware vendors worthy of scorn.
technically at least, a contract can't really say "we reserve the right to change the terms of this contract". Because then there is no informed consent, and to the extent there is no informed consent, there is no contract.
I was following you, until you omitted this part:
"By continuing to use our services after such a change in contract terms, you agree with said changes. You agree that you will be responsible for informing yourself of changes. The current contract can be viewed at any time by visiting this web page."
So, you have the power to review the contract before every use of their service, and discontinue your use of the service. I'm not sure if this means viewing the contract itself is a "continued use", or if you must check the contract between each packet. Most such contracts have terms such as these, which put the onus on you for not remaining informed, and take your continued usage as implied consent.
It's difficult to use the Internet at large without agreeing to several of these contracts per minute...
If you try to take drugs through a border checkpoint, you're going to get caught. Should this surprise anyone?
It should if the people in question are driving from one part of the US to another part of the US. Why the FUCK do we have "border checkpoints" on roads that don't CROSS THE BORDER?
Because 2/3rds of the populous lives within 100 miles of any border or airport, which is considered the "Constitution Free Zone".
The inconsistency are factors which you have to factor for in your design. Kind of like how in life nothing is truly consistent.
I deal with issues such as these on a regular basis. You want your physics to run at discrete increments, so if too much time has passed between updates, you don't just process the time delta in one pass, you execute multiple physics steps eg:
while( playingTheGame ) {
ProcessInput();
for ( timeAccum += getElapsedMillsec(); timeAccum >= stepSize; timeAccum -= stepSize )
UpdatePhysics( stepSize );
Render();
}
This will only update the physics in consistent discrete steps such that the simulation runs the same on slow or fast machines.
If necessary, you can UpdatePhysics( someFractionOfStep ) to get interpolation between physic tics.
However, only use these values as temporary for rendering purposes because UpdatePhysics( 20 ); UpdatePhysics( 20 ); is not always equivalent to UpdatePhysics( 40 );
In short, everyone who's ever had to write physics code for game logic knows what to do. Otherwise your multi-player game or your recorded game demo desynchronises.
Either HTML5 and JS are too slow on the average hardware to run the logic correctly (in which case they should tell you so or not release as complex a product), or someone failed Main Game Loops 101. Stick to your map-reduce, Google; Let us high-school drop-outs handle the basic math.
Imagine the day that Anonymous DDOS's the database used to authorize fuel dispensing.
You're correct. That's the day we realise the implementation is broken, but not for the reasons you think. You see, that's the day the petrol station sells out of portable fuel containers, and we simply carry the fuel from the pump to our cars.
0. Don't observe it but say you did.
1. Observe Pi Day by calling in sick, then running the most Pi-utilising software you have all day long (games).
2. Troll your favourite fora with ludicrous suggestions of how to observe Pi Day.
3. Derive the constant via measuring the circumference of a peni--
Well, even if you could it'll be a $2 DRMed copy. You can keep the bits, your player software will just refuse to play it after the DRM servers go down. The Pirates are the only ones that offer non-DRMed copies that you can transcode and format-shift -- I wouldn't recommend doing business with them though: Pirates are known to rape, plunder and party.
You wouldn't want to end up in a Pirate Party now would you?
Hi, I'm User, from the Internet, and I'd just like you to know that I tried to keep my accounts separate so that getting banned from one of your services doesn't ban me from other services. During your Google+ Name Rage (where you banned people for not using their REAL NAME), my youtube account that I use to post Videos of my game studio's content (Which has a REAL name, just not an INDIVIDUAL's name) was somehow linked to my Google+ service -- I suspect I accidentally clicked a link to Google+ while using the Internet and signed into Youtube or Google+... Point being, I wasn't presented a page with a giant: "LINK THESE ACCOUNTS TOGETHER" button (which I never would have clicked, and such a thing should require re-authorisation).
The aforementioned ridiculous ACCOUNT BANNING you did for Google+ caused me to lose access to Youtube, Gmail and Docs services. Way to fail being business friendly.... Now that Google has shown us the unpredictable and dangerous LIGHTNING that lives in their "cloud" I'm scared to even recommend your services to anyone.
FYI: The sooner you STOP UNDERMINING OUR TRUST, the better.
I can't believe anyone at MS seriously believes that whats a good UI for a handheld keyboard free tablet with touch interface is a good UI for a desktop corporate PC with a mouse. Sure, the old XP/7 style UI can be used but why should you have to dig around for it, why isn't it the default and why should app developers have to decide whether to develop for Metro or "Legacy" Windows?
Because, walled gardens are the next big thing. Metro apps run on the.NET VM and can be distributed via their new app store. Since they completely control that distribution channel and the VM, they completely control what programs can do. Is it really that tough of a question? Think back to MS's embrace extend extinguish methodology. Now, ask yourself again: Why would MS embrace a default that's more friendly to the new application distribution platform they're embracing?
Hint: It's the "tyranny of the default" as they say -- E.g, XP had a firewall that was off by default. All you had to to was turn it on to prevent the spread of most worms, but not everyone who should have would enable it. XP-SP1, they enabled the FW by default... Soon there was a huge reduction in worms. The default is default because that's what people will use. If they made the "legacy" i.e. native code API the default, desktop devs would have little reason to write metro UI apps, thus MS would have no way to control exactly what new programs can do...
Good riddance. More room for me. I'm not so greedy that I need to milk my code and try to get it running on every single platform. That's what's great about creating things out of thin-air via wiggling your fingers -- Some Wizards just move on and continue to create new magic.
I came to terms with the fact that I can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of them all of the time...
I'll leave you with these words of wisdom: No present platform meets all future Minimum System Requirements.
I agree to an extent. However, 1st world tech also enriches the 3rd world. Cell phones used to be a solution to a "First world problem"... Now SMS is an important technology used by 2nd and 3rd world peoples regularly. Mobile computers used to solve a first world problem, and are now being used to teach school children in non 1st world nations.
I've not figured out a use case for these "presence" robots outside of the "first world"; However, I'm not arrogant enough to say there isn't one...
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes, "Pong - The next Level" I love that version, still play the original disk thanks to emulation (and a BIOS dumper). Each board was a different variation of pong. There were themed worlds. The first level even had Penguins.
Spoiler alert! After you beat the game you could play the original Pong game in the stars... The last level on the side of the Atari Symbol was a bit frustrating and NOT very pong like.
Just out of curiosity, what's your take of the wording of:
These Terms of Use provide that all disputes between you and Netflix will be resolved by BINDING ARBITRATION.
Does this not also mean Netflix can't sue its customers in court either?
Well... things like Ligers and Tigons exist... if Lions and Tigers can mix, why not mammoths and elephants? They are just as close. (relatively speaking)
Not to mention Mules (donkey + horse)
To say nothing of the even more obvious combination: Humans (Homo sapiens + Neanderthals).
... or, as I like to call them, Apes with Nukes.
Next we'll need to genetically engineer giants to herd these mammoths...
No, before that we'll need to reverse global warming to make our climate habitable for them -- I feel sorry for the big shaggy beasts having to cope in today's environment. There's a reason Elephants don't have thick hair: The ice-age is over.
Shedding Light, Casting Light, or Bringing to Light -- but Throwing Light on something? Is this a thing? I mean, you can Throw a Switch, but Light?
That said, unless you're encrypting the datastore
However, the risk is quite low even without considering the issue of short (six or fewer characters, including letters, numbers, and punctuation) or solely numeric passwords. For starters, access to the app’s data store is required — either via an iTunes backup or an iOS device containing the app and its data — and any iOS security controls must be bypassed first. The flaws that Elcomsoft has identified cannot be exploited (as far as is currently known) over the Internet, which further limits exposure.
I wouldn't be too concerned if this were desktop PCs, but these are devices you carry around with you and may leave laying somewhere while you go to the bathroom, or have stolen. You shouldn't keep all your important passwords as plain-text in your wallet or purse... A weak password store is not much better than this.
There's a much higher chance of physical access to a portable device, especially one you carry with you everywhere in public, than there is to the desktop PC. This is why physical access is less of a concern for PCs than having it remotely exploited: You don't drag it around in public.
Physical access to the device means game over unless the data-store is strongly encrypted. Data Extraction Devices Exist, and police have been using them without a warrant. To my knowledge these devices don't work on iPhones, yet, but anything in plain-text or enciphered weakly would still be a concern if physical access to the device is gained.
Having a password store with a weak password is a bit alarming. If you're going to have a central point of failure in your pocket, out on your desk, in your hand on a cab, then the security of that single point of failure is very important. I know an unscrupulous cab driver who gets $50 for handing your forgotten phones over to street thugs. They pay $75 if the device hasn't been locked. The thugs actually use Faraday cages to prevent remote wipes. The point is: They're already interested in your data. It's only a matter of time until they have tools to brute force your password stores, they may have them already. With a weak password that can be brute-forced in one or two days, this is an issue that would cause me concern. That is: I'd want a stronger password and a manager that requires re-auth after standby mode is entered -- Laymen, like my brother, actually think 4-6 character pass-code is adequate to protect their bank credentials.
IMHO, the fact that they allow such weak passwords for such an important single point of failure is a serious design flaw. If a weak password is used there should be some minimal end user education, perhaps via big splash screen saying: "Your Password is Very Weak -- Do Not Store Important Passwords in this Password Store"
The way that a lot of websites blacked out their sites in protest of the SOPA bill was very powerful.
1. They Protested a particular thing.
2. People knew what they are protesting against.
3. The Protest was done at the risk of the protesters. Blacking out your site for a day could loose customers.
The way that Anonymous (aka Someone) protests is equally as powerful.
1. They are merely diverse individuals, so it takes many like minded individuals having the same opinion of a particular thing.
2. Nobody know WTF the SOPA protests were about -- Average folk questioned the hell out of me on that day, despite links to the bill... Protip: Big Media is responsible for informing our masses. Guess what? They ALWAYS fail to fill in Joe Sixpack as to the specifics.
3. Anonymous Protests are done at the risk of the protesters. They use the LOIC software which broadcasts your IP address to the site. It's ACTUALLY, equivalent to visiting a page in your browser and putting a weight on your F5 key YES, IT'S REALLY JUST LIKE THAT.
Anonymous on the other hand is Stupid protesting.
1. Their protest is sparse and could be about a lot of things possible contradictory.
2. People usually can only guess what they are protesting about.
3. Protesters are hiding under the vale of anonymity so they will not loose their jobs/reputation the next day.
Both protesting methods are stupid, IMHO.
1. Anonymous AKA Someone's protests are necessarily sparse and could be about a lot of things especially contradictory -- Someone's motives are always disparate. Google and Wikipedia's protests were so damn short and ineffectual as to be laughably ignored and forgotten by EVERY ONE of my associates except the small yet vocal group of my "online" buddies -- Let's have a reality check here folks.
2. People usually can only guess what Someone is protesting about (what Anonymous is protesting) since the individuals who aren't protesting DON'T CARE enough to find out. Many people guessed about what Google and Wikipedia et al were protesting about because they honestly didn't know to click the black banner on Google's site, or give a damn to read Wikipedia's statements (They're not the only source of info on the web -- back buttons exist)
3. Anonymous Protesters are NOT hiding under the vale of anonymity because their IP addresses are being distributed to the endpoints they attack (LOIC does not use a reflective DDOS -- it's distributed denial only because there are so many individuals participating) so they CAN loose their jobs/reputation the next day. All it takes is a reverse DNS lookup, and a phone call to their ISP.
I do agree that there are just too many stupid protests out there. However, I don't think any form of protesting is the answer. It's not clear that voting is the answer either since Lobbyists get their way no matter what. What really needs to happen is that the system gets so fucked and restrictive up that the average person begins to chafe. For example: Music DRM.
FYI: Every time you see the term: Anonymous with relation to the distributed group of online protesters, just replace the name "Anonymous" with "Someone" or "Average Joes" -- That's who they are. It's just random Internet users, Common Folk if you will. When you see "Common Folk" banding together for brief moments to throw a wooden shoe in the gear -- That's social disobedience, Sabotage if there ever was one. Using the topology of the Internet in their favour.
There's no organisation to the protests because that's the nature of the beast. They're so disenfranchised they lash out the only way they actually can. I don't blame them, even if I don't agree with their methods. However, If Google and Wikipedia, and other sites REALLY wanted to put their money where their mouth is they'd start up a collection for a Lobby fund so that we could buy a few congress critters too.
I don't actually believe in karma, but if it did exist then this would be a very appropriate example.
Not believing in Evolution doesn't make one impervious to its effects...
Karma-Bonus Modifier: +1
The licensing agreements are so labyrinthine that you practically need a team of lawyers in charge of licensing software.
Wow, Why would anyone use software that has such a high maintenance cost? If the license isn't one of the OSA approved licenses, I don't agree. Simple enough.
You can't get it right. The best you can hope for is to get it as close as possible to being right and using words like "to the best of my knowledge" to cover the rest.
As a software author myself I try to get the license as understandable as possible; Even going so far as to create a layman's license with the disclaimer that this is just the gist, and list the detailed license on another page (ala Creative Commons). This way, it reduces confusion about what can and can't be done.
Wouldn't you rather do business with non-hostile companies? I mean... we do exist. In addition to complaining, why not also try doing something to fix the issue?
If Sony told my OS vendor they have to cripple the OS to play bluray, then I would expect them to say: "Fuck off then" -- It's the part where they simple acquiesce instead of standing up for my right to bear technology that makes such crippleware vendors worthy of scorn.
technically at least, a contract can't really say "we reserve the right to change the terms of this contract". Because then there is no informed consent, and to the extent there is no informed consent, there is no contract.
I was following you, until you omitted this part:
"By continuing to use our services after such a change in contract terms, you agree with said changes. You agree that you will be responsible for informing yourself of changes. The current contract can be viewed at any time by visiting this web page."
So, you have the power to review the contract before every use of their service, and discontinue your use of the service. I'm not sure if this means viewing the contract itself is a "continued use", or if you must check the contract between each packet. Most such contracts have terms such as these, which put the onus on you for not remaining informed, and take your continued usage as implied consent.
It's difficult to use the Internet at large without agreeing to several of these contracts per minute...
If you try to take drugs through a border checkpoint, you're going to get caught. Should this surprise anyone?
It should if the people in question are driving from one part of the US to another part of the US. Why the FUCK do we have "border checkpoints" on roads that don't CROSS THE BORDER?
Because 2/3rds of the populous lives within 100 miles of any border or airport, which is considered the "Constitution Free Zone".
So... don't put a return address on the damn envelope?
The inconsistency are factors which you have to factor for in your design. Kind of like how in life nothing is truly consistent.
I deal with issues such as these on a regular basis. You want your physics to run at discrete increments, so if too much time has passed between updates, you don't just process the time delta in one pass, you execute multiple physics steps eg:
while( playingTheGame ) {
ProcessInput();
for ( timeAccum += getElapsedMillsec(); timeAccum >= stepSize; timeAccum -= stepSize )
UpdatePhysics( stepSize );
Render();
}
This will only update the physics in consistent discrete steps such that the simulation runs the same on slow or fast machines.
If necessary, you can UpdatePhysics( someFractionOfStep ) to get interpolation between physic tics. However, only use these values as temporary for rendering purposes because
UpdatePhysics( 20 ); UpdatePhysics( 20 ); is not always equivalent to UpdatePhysics( 40 );
In short, everyone who's ever had to write physics code for game logic knows what to do. Otherwise your multi-player game or your recorded game demo desynchronises.
Either HTML5 and JS are too slow on the average hardware to run the logic correctly (in which case they should tell you so or not release as complex a product), or someone failed Main Game Loops 101. Stick to your map-reduce, Google; Let us high-school drop-outs handle the basic math.
Imagine the day that Anonymous DDOS's the database used to authorize fuel dispensing.
You're correct. That's the day we realise the implementation is broken, but not for the reasons you think. You see, that's the day the petrol station sells out of portable fuel containers, and we simply carry the fuel from the pump to our cars.
Happy birthday to you Mederbil, 'tis mine too. It is also Einstein's birthday- and my cat's birthday (approx- exact day unknown- celebrated today)
Happy birthday to you both, and to Schrödinger's cat as well.
Gonna go home tonight, and grill up a few steaks. And then hopefully the wife will give me a hummer... screw pie day, it is Steak & BJ Day!
Ah, you must celebrate the "American Pi" day.
0. Don't observe it but say you did.
1. Observe Pi Day by calling in sick, then running the most Pi-utilising software you have all day long (games).
2. Troll your favourite fora with ludicrous suggestions of how to observe Pi Day.
3. Derive the constant via measuring the circumference of a peni--
There, happy now?
I'd pay $2 for that.
Well, even if you could it'll be a $2 DRMed copy. You can keep the bits, your player software will just refuse to play it after the DRM servers go down. The Pirates are the only ones that offer non-DRMed copies that you can transcode and format-shift -- I wouldn't recommend doing business with them though: Pirates are known to rape, plunder and party.
You wouldn't want to end up in a Pirate Party now would you?
Hi, I'm User, from the Internet, and I'd just like you to know that I tried to keep my accounts separate so that getting banned from one of your services doesn't ban me from other services. During your Google+ Name Rage (where you banned people for not using their REAL NAME), my youtube account that I use to post Videos of my game studio's content (Which has a REAL name, just not an INDIVIDUAL's name) was somehow linked to my Google+ service -- I suspect I accidentally clicked a link to Google+ while using the Internet and signed into Youtube or Google+... Point being, I wasn't presented a page with a giant: "LINK THESE ACCOUNTS TOGETHER" button (which I never would have clicked, and such a thing should require re-authorisation).
The aforementioned ridiculous ACCOUNT BANNING you did for Google+ caused me to lose access to Youtube, Gmail and Docs services. Way to fail being business friendly.... Now that Google has shown us the unpredictable and dangerous LIGHTNING that lives in their "cloud" I'm scared to even recommend your services to anyone.
FYI: The sooner you STOP UNDERMINING OUR TRUST, the better.
Planet. It's a planet. Flash Gordon didn't rock the spandex on "exoplanets". Captain Kirk didn't put the beat-down on that Gorn on an "exoearth".
They've tried to stop it, but have made a compromise... The term was shortened from: Extra-Terrestrial Planets.
Or... Just hook up a PC to the TV as I have. Now I can play games OR netflix on any screen in the house.
I can't believe anyone at MS seriously believes that whats a good UI for a handheld keyboard free tablet with touch interface is a good UI for a desktop corporate PC with a mouse. Sure, the old XP/7 style UI can be used but why should you have to dig around for it, why isn't it the default and why should app developers have to decide whether to develop for Metro or "Legacy" Windows?
Because, walled gardens are the next big thing. Metro apps run on the .NET VM and can be distributed via their new app store. Since they completely control that distribution channel and the VM, they completely control what programs can do. Is it really that tough of a question? Think back to MS's embrace extend extinguish methodology. Now, ask yourself again: Why would MS embrace a default that's more friendly to the new application distribution platform they're embracing?
Hint: It's the "tyranny of the default" as they say -- E.g, XP had a firewall that was off by default. All you had to to was turn it on to prevent the spread of most worms, but not everyone who should have would enable it. XP-SP1, they enabled the FW by default... Soon there was a huge reduction in worms. The default is default because that's what people will use. If they made the "legacy" i.e. native code API the default, desktop devs would have little reason to write metro UI apps, thus MS would have no way to control exactly what new programs can do...
Good riddance. More room for me. I'm not so greedy that I need to milk my code and try to get it running on every single platform. That's what's great about creating things out of thin-air via wiggling your fingers -- Some Wizards just move on and continue to create new magic.
I came to terms with the fact that I can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of them all of the time...
I'll leave you with these words of wisdom: No present platform meets all future Minimum System Requirements.
First world problems.
I agree to an extent. However, 1st world tech also enriches the 3rd world. Cell phones used to be a solution to a "First world problem"... Now SMS is an important technology used by 2nd and 3rd world peoples regularly. Mobile computers used to solve a first world problem, and are now being used to teach school children in non 1st world nations.
I've not figured out a use case for these "presence" robots outside of the "first world"; However, I'm not arrogant enough to say there isn't one...
Good she wasn't there ... she wouldn't have liked people writing all over her face and body!
Clearly you have a different definition of "life of the party" than I.