No phone comes anywhere near even a mediocre real camera.
That's true but I'm pretty happy with the camera on my iPhone 6 Plus. It's optically stabilized and makes pretty good pics as long as there's enough light.
While I have been pretty tough on smartphone cameras, and while it's true that they fall short in many ways compared to a DSLR, they are a marked improvement over the 110 cameras that used to be the mainstay of the regular consumers.
Considering the US has the highest recidivism rate, around 76%, in the world, the EU countries by definition are doing better. Norway, as an example, has the lowest recidivism rate, around 20%, in the world.
Hey! We pour the most money into our prison system, so it must be the best.
Sad to say, the get tough on crime crowd in conjunction with the war on drugs, has turned the US Prison system into insanity. Then there is the aspect of money, which in some cases gets you three months for sexual assault rape, http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/02/... versus getting 50 years for stealing a rack of ribs. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
And yet, the people who think that what amounts to a life sentence for stealing food is a fine idea, almost universally don't want to pay for that incarceration.
And like I said, this limitation of liability applies to nearly everyone in the modern world. Debt slavery is gone. Debts are not passed to others. So we are all being subsidized by your logic, which is illogical.
Are you having some issues this evening? What would be the difference between a company paying for 12 billion dollars of insurance coverage, and one paying for 10 or 20 times that? Because in the disasters we've had so far, it is crediible that would be the amount of damage incurred. After that, the government picks up the tab. I would like that setup for say, my house insurance. Since we bought our place, it has trebled in value, and I have had to pay more every time it gets re-assessed. I would love to be paying the premiums I paid back in 1994, and if damages exceed that, the Government would write me out a check for the difference. But I can't. I could insure my place for the same amount as in 1994, but if it were wrecked, I'd get a check for a third of the present day replacement costs. And as it turns out, there is a federal flood insurance program that does similarly to the Nuc industry exemption from liabilit,. But I live on top of a hill, so am not eligible But I would indeed have about 20 thousand dollars sitting around that I would have not had to pay out over time if I could have been covered in the same way the nuc plants are covered.
Hey a homeless guy could start a fire in a big city and cause millions of dollars of damage. And he wouldn't have to pay a dime. So the government is subsidizing homeless guys to start fires!!!
And a hurricane could come through and wipe the town out. Or an earthquake. They might be considered Acts of God Your amusing homeless pyromaniac is a criminal act. Presumably the buildings that were destroyed had insurance that they had to pay for based on actual risk assessment tables, and the homeless guy is in prison. Your concept is a non sequitur.
Tyying to get my mind around the apparent fact that you equate the nuclear power industry with a homeless guy. Then again, you are the logical one, eh?
If you even think for one moment that that is what I have suggested, or if your amusing cliff drop version of the slippery slope is reasonable, you might reconsider your attacks on other people's logic.
You want to have this discussion? Or are you just going to stick your fingers in your ears and go "neener neener neener!"
I'm not going to argue with people who cannot understand that dollars are dollars, what you spend is gone, and what you keep you keep or share with the stakeholders, and if you think that it isn't every bit the equal of handing over cash, well, we can't fix that can we. Ciao, me chachalaca!
A drone is simply capable of being a new kind of bomb, in addition to the other things that it can be. With clever communications (cellular?) it can put your explosive exactly where you want it, without exposing the person who's placing it.
Well between us chachalacas, I really, really, want an enemy of mine to use a lot of those sort of drones.
I perhaps lack imagination, but one thing I do with engines of destruction is consider the countermeasures to use against them. And the countermearsures for cheap drones are something that I can personally enact, with no need for highly technological solutions or much capital outlay.
Good point - Americans still kill far more people than terrorists.
And? Killing other humans is a core competency of humans, and one which humans enjoy greatly, and have enjoyed the practice pretty much since we've been humans. And your acting as if teh evilz 'murrdericans are somehow the only people on earth that kill other humans is just indicitive of some jealousy or need for you to allowyourself a little bit of that other core competency of humans, hatred.
So when Americans and only Americans and no other humans go around and kill each other in an organized fashion, I will agree totally with you.
Otherwise, welcome to your hatred based hypocrisy. Do you have an issue with Germans, Jewish, Muslim, Serbians, Irish, British, Scottish, Chinese, Japanese. Russians, Afghans, Italians, Africans, Indians, the list goes on and on. Tell us about those poor peaceful people who never hurt a soul., and hand out some of that good old fashioned hatred for them, and write it up to show us that you at least, are consistent.
Well now - did you see that mighty "drone" they make? A freaking cheap RC model airplane. Hard to imagine a simple mortar not being a lot more effective.
Can you steer a mortar shell as it falls? Perhaps you lack imagination.
Perhaps I do lack imagination. What my idea of how one preosecutes this sort of thing do is send a lot of mortar bombs to to visit your friends. I mean, I looked at the "drones", and it was a really cheap radio controlled airplane, another is a commercial quadcopter. And dropping the equivalent of a hand grenade. Like World War One biplanes tossing bomblets over the side by hand.
As Americans with nubile teenage daughters who sunbathe in the back yard, and are bothered by drones can tell us, taking out a quadcopter isn't all that hard. Hell, a wideband RF jammer can bring them down. Simple nets around your position will deny them ingress. I surely don't want to see them using trained eagles, but eagles seem to have a inbred hatred for drones.
I'll take a 60 mm high explosive mortar any day over what is essentially a silly but dangerous toy. Not a lot of defense against mortars, other than armor.
And it definitely didn't. This is a mighty violent place, irrespective of which desert deity one prays too. Their god is a psychotic mental infant who loves to kill his creation. This is because man makes God in his own image.
Islam is only 1437. Like Christianity is 2016 years old
So a multi thousand year warranty is wrong.
You figure that they only warred with each other after Islam was created? Don't confuse current religions with the ongoing fighting in the middle east.
From the multiple Byzantine-Sassanid wars. The third Century AD was constant warfare in southern Arabia going back further to pre Christian times, we have the Kingdom of Hadhramaut conqured by the Himyarites (somewhere around 300 BCE Anyhow, I don't want to bore you to death with the names and places - I'd suggest looking up the history of the middle east outside of the political screeds. It's a rather violent place, has been for a long time, and if they didn't enjoy the violence, they wouldn't do it.
Killing people with remote control aircraft, I wonder where they got that idea.
They're getting almost as good at killing people as Americans.
Well now - did you see that mighty "drone" they make? A freaking cheap RC model airplane. Hard to imagine a simple mortar not being a lot more effective. A lot more firepower, longer range, more reliable. This is silly season FUD, designed to make it look like ISIS has learned something from the US.
Seems unfair to let the people who want nothing to do with such extremists suffer at the hands of them.
Sure is. Lot's of things are unfair. The people who want nothing to do with the extremists need to rise up against them. It'll be bloody for certain, but all a third intervening country will do is gain new enemies.
I'm too lazy to look up when the US sent sizable forces back to Iraq, but it was only on request and permission of the Iraqi government.
So you figure tha twe have to be th epolice there in perpetuity? Because they aren't going to behave themselves unless a much superior force is there to enforce a martial law.
We could be there a hundred years, and as soon as we left, they'd be at it again. We'd just have delayed it by 100 years, and both sides would consider us their enemy. The only real hope - and it isn't much of one - is to let them kill each other off to the point of mutual exhaustion.
The majority US troops pulled out in 2010 per Iraqi agreements.
These people are fighting a many thousands of years old war with each other. 2010? Might as well be the present. I personally believe that they should be allowed to kill each other off without our intervention. I think it is a genetic predisposition, a sort of ability to forever hold a grudge, coupled with humanitie's love for killing other humans. Let 'em have their fun - not our business unless they get ouside their borders.
this was only a matter of time, with IMU's and position sensors so widespread and cheap today, all we can do is to try and restrict export to these countries, but sooner or later it will get out there too.
This is FUD.
I read that as the US buying every single part that might be made into a copter drone, or a Model airplane, then burning them or something. We are not the only country in the world, we might as well ban lead, iron, and brass - the basic materials of firearms and their ammunition.
We can hardly ban the export when it is other countries that have them to export. Unless we plan on Fighting the entire world, a remarkably bad idea since we are in the middle of the longest war in US history, after being in another one. One cannot fight infinitely.
Because the democrats and Obama love science so much that the space shuttle program was ended during their reign with no viable replacement in the near future.
From G.W. Bush's "Vision for Space exploration speech, January 14, 2004:
The Shuttle's chief purpose over the next several years will be to help finish assembly of the International Space Station. In 2010, the Space Shuttle — after nearly 30 years of duty — will be retired from service.
DSLRs are basically for hipsters and professions now compared to every typical consumer desiring them.
And? You are saying the same misinformed/underinformed pap that the prognosticators are doing. Single lens reflex cameras are actual instruments that allow the user some control over the images. Things you do not get in a smartphone camera. Small sensor are requires ultra short focal length lenses which in turn makes for images that look one way, even when fake zoomed. The limitations are so severe that some manufacturers make fake depth of field simulators that look like a Photoshop effect, not the dof circles of confusion effect (yep, it's called circles of confusion, and a difficult thing to imitate.
The smartphone camera is a wonderful replacement for the old 110 cameras that it replaced. And if it is good enough for you, that's fine. Some people like Toyota Corollas, some people like Corvettes.
Tablets will replace PCs for consumers. PCs will too go to hipsters and workstation users (power users).
These Hipsters you hate - stop obsessing about them - it makes you look jealous. Jes sayin'.
If anyone says a tablet can't--well, it powers my drone, which can fly autonomously on it too.... PCs can't really do that. Well it can, but in a very clumsy manner.
Sure. I fly my drone using either my Tablet or my phone. Good use for a tablet. The tablet at other times sits in the living room as something to browse the internet, or use as a remote control for my Television, or to play games on.
Doctors misuse and improperly prescribe everything and get away with it. I know a urologist who hands out methadone and oxy like its halloween candy. Why the fuck is a urologist even able to prescribe methadone? Is someones bladder having withdrawal?
Someone needs a kidney stone to find out the answer .
Just that computer cost me almost 3 thousand dollars. I didn't blink either - it was a cost of doing business.
Key word: "business". If you're not using a $2000 to $3000 machine as part of a for-profit venture or registered charity, it becomes cost-prohibitive.
Depends on what it is worth to you. Computer people have been pretty well trained to be as absolutely dirt chep as possible. I saw a fistfight almost break out over a 5 cent difference in RAM price, with plenty of crazy on both sides. But the guy who went nuts about how the seller was fscking people over with his criminal pricing felt quite justified in his rage.
My only cheap computers are an old Netbook I didn't have the heart to get rid of, and a Chromebook I take to breakfast. Those are cheap and I don't care if they are lost or get stolen. Otherwise, I'll spend what I need to spend. These days, it's generally one on the upper side, but not top end. But if I needed them, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
The limitation on liabilities isn't even "money that you don't have to pay." It's money that some groups (like Energy Fair) *wish* you had to pay. Otherwise, the maximum liability would be capped at the assets of the company anyway.
I mean I guess you consider that a subsidy, so actually everybody is being subsidized due to bankruptcy laws. That doesn't seem like a useful definition. It's worthless in fact.
Let us take say, the Chernobyl disaster, direct loss estimated at 15 billion dollars. Estimates over 30 years are 235 billion for th eUkraine, and 201 Billion for Belarus.
So now, allow us to look at say, the Indian Nuclear Liability act. - The maximum liability for a nuclear accident for the operator is US 74 million.
Now just between us chachalacas, Perhaps you could price out say a paltry 25 billion dollar liability policy. Is that magic money that rains down like manna form heaven? Or is it money that you do not have to pay out. I don't know about economics where you live, but if I do not have to spend a certain amount of money because the government allows me to purchase a insurance policty that is a tiny percentage of historical accidents in my industry, well then that is money I keep.
I used India's government assuming most of the liability indemnity as a rather dramatic example. In the US, the Price-Anderson is at present set at 12.6 Billion. Still who exactly do you think is going to cover the excess?
The only thing I can see changing here is that the majority of the code we write will not be written to run on the local machine. I fully expect that all future projects are going to be cross-compiled for cell phones and more cellphones and even more cellphones. Laptops may eventually have across-the-board cellphone emulation to support it and it should become a defacto part of every developer toolset and IDE....but you can't create an app or website from a phone. Technically, yes. Practically, no. The most someone is going to try and do is hook up a cellphone to a 32" monitor but I'm not sure how well that can work (and it's basically turning a phone into a PC, which doesn't seem like a terrible idea).
I think that you and many others are caught up in the idea that smartphones are going to rule forever. Even with the high threshold for boredom that the consumers have, they are going to eventually lose that addiction. Tablets were the wave of the future, the device that was going to take over the computing world, and yes, they were going to kill the desktop. Now and even then - smartphones. And it isn't for trying, we've had abortive attempts to plug your smartphone into laptop like things. But they just don't work all that well for it.
Desktops will decline in use, I mean we have to face it that we aren't going to text while we drive or walk across the street without looking with a desktop. Desktops will probably go up somewhat in price. But dead? Probably not at all.
Slashdot Mirror
No phone comes anywhere near even a mediocre real camera.
That's true but I'm pretty happy with the camera on my iPhone 6 Plus. It's optically stabilized and makes pretty good pics as long as there's enough light.
While I have been pretty tough on smartphone cameras, and while it's true that they fall short in many ways compared to a DSLR, they are a marked improvement over the 110 cameras that used to be the mainstay of the regular consumers.
Why do they continue to call these people hackers?
I hear Xanax is now being prescribed for Pedantic Anxiety Syndrome. Ask your Doctor if Xanax is right for you!
Because nobody here can pronounce it.
Hmmm, not sure if +1 funny, or +1 insightful........
Considering the US has the highest recidivism rate, around 76%, in the world, the EU countries by definition are doing better. Norway, as an example, has the lowest recidivism rate, around 20%, in the world.
Hey! We pour the most money into our prison system, so it must be the best.
Sad to say, the get tough on crime crowd in conjunction with the war on drugs, has turned the US Prison system into insanity. Then there is the aspect of money, which in some cases gets you three months for sexual assault rape, http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/02/... versus getting 50 years for stealing a rack of ribs. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
And yet, the people who think that what amounts to a life sentence for stealing food is a fine idea, almost universally don't want to pay for that incarceration.
We're Kookoo for Cocoa-Puffs some times.
You are mistaken.
Candygram. :-)
Candygram, my foot! You get out of here before I call the police! You're the drone, and you know it!
And like I said, this limitation of liability applies to nearly everyone in the modern world. Debt slavery is gone. Debts are not passed to others. So we are all being subsidized by your logic, which is illogical.
Are you having some issues this evening? What would be the difference between a company paying for 12 billion dollars of insurance coverage, and one paying for 10 or 20 times that? Because in the disasters we've had so far, it is crediible that would be the amount of damage incurred. After that, the government picks up the tab. I would like that setup for say, my house insurance. Since we bought our place, it has trebled in value, and I have had to pay more every time it gets re-assessed. I would love to be paying the premiums I paid back in 1994, and if damages exceed that, the Government would write me out a check for the difference. But I can't. I could insure my place for the same amount as in 1994, but if it were wrecked, I'd get a check for a third of the present day replacement costs. And as it turns out, there is a federal flood insurance program that does similarly to the Nuc industry exemption from liabilit,. But I live on top of a hill, so am not eligible But I would indeed have about 20 thousand dollars sitting around that I would have not had to pay out over time if I could have been covered in the same way the nuc plants are covered.
Hey a homeless guy could start a fire in a big city and cause millions of dollars of damage. And he wouldn't have to pay a dime. So the government is subsidizing homeless guys to start fires!!!
And a hurricane could come through and wipe the town out. Or an earthquake. They might be considered Acts of God Your amusing homeless pyromaniac is a criminal act. Presumably the buildings that were destroyed had insurance that they had to pay for based on actual risk assessment tables, and the homeless guy is in prison. Your concept is a non sequitur.
Tyying to get my mind around the apparent fact that you equate the nuclear power industry with a homeless guy. Then again, you are the logical one, eh?
If you even think for one moment that that is what I have suggested, or if your amusing cliff drop version of the slippery slope is reasonable, you might reconsider your attacks on other people's logic.
You want to have this discussion? Or are you just going to stick your fingers in your ears and go "neener neener neener!"
I'm not going to argue with people who cannot understand that dollars are dollars, what you spend is gone, and what you keep you keep or share with the stakeholders, and if you think that it isn't every bit the equal of handing over cash, well, we can't fix that can we. Ciao, me chachalaca!
A drone is simply capable of being a new kind of bomb, in addition to the other things that it can be. With clever communications (cellular?) it can put your explosive exactly where you want it, without exposing the person who's placing it.
Well between us chachalacas, I really, really, want an enemy of mine to use a lot of those sort of drones.
I perhaps lack imagination, but one thing I do with engines of destruction is consider the countermeasures to use against them. And the countermearsures for cheap drones are something that I can personally enact, with no need for highly technological solutions or much capital outlay.
Good point - Americans still kill far more people than terrorists.
And? Killing other humans is a core competency of humans, and one which humans enjoy greatly, and have enjoyed the practice pretty much since we've been humans. And your acting as if teh evilz 'murrdericans are somehow the only people on earth that kill other humans is just indicitive of some jealousy or need for you to allowyourself a little bit of that other core competency of humans, hatred.
So when Americans and only Americans and no other humans go around and kill each other in an organized fashion, I will agree totally with you.
Otherwise, welcome to your hatred based hypocrisy. Do you have an issue with Germans, Jewish, Muslim, Serbians, Irish, British, Scottish, Chinese, Japanese. Russians, Afghans, Italians, Africans, Indians, the list goes on and on. Tell us about those poor peaceful people who never hurt a soul., and hand out some of that good old fashioned hatred for them, and write it up to show us that you at least, are consistent.
Well now - did you see that mighty "drone" they make? A freaking cheap RC model airplane. Hard to imagine a simple mortar not being a lot more effective.
Can you steer a mortar shell as it falls? Perhaps you lack imagination.
Perhaps I do lack imagination. What my idea of how one preosecutes this sort of thing do is send a lot of mortar bombs to to visit your friends. I mean, I looked at the "drones", and it was a really cheap radio controlled airplane, another is a commercial quadcopter. And dropping the equivalent of a hand grenade. Like World War One biplanes tossing bomblets over the side by hand.
As Americans with nubile teenage daughters who sunbathe in the back yard, and are bothered by drones can tell us, taking out a quadcopter isn't all that hard. Hell, a wideband RF jammer can bring them down. Simple nets around your position will deny them ingress. I surely don't want to see them using trained eagles, but eagles seem to have a inbred hatred for drones.
I'll take a 60 mm high explosive mortar any day over what is essentially a silly but dangerous toy. Not a lot of defense against mortars, other than armor.
Is it a weapon of terror if it makes me laugh?
A girl needs a prostate before a girl can understand.
Did you just assume AC's gender?
I think it is a genetic predisposition
It's the food. Have you ever had tabbouleh?
Good point!
Technically, he never said it started with Islam.
And it definitely didn't. This is a mighty violent place, irrespective of which desert deity one prays too. Their god is a psychotic mental infant who loves to kill his creation. This is because man makes God in his own image.
Islam is only 1437. Like Christianity is 2016 years old
So a multi thousand year warranty is wrong.
You figure that they only warred with each other after Islam was created? Don't confuse current religions with the ongoing fighting in the middle east.
From the multiple Byzantine-Sassanid wars. The third Century AD was constant warfare in southern Arabia going back further to pre Christian times, we have the Kingdom of Hadhramaut conqured by the Himyarites (somewhere around 300 BCE Anyhow, I don't want to bore you to death with the names and places - I'd suggest looking up the history of the middle east outside of the political screeds. It's a rather violent place, has been for a long time, and if they didn't enjoy the violence, they wouldn't do it.
We need to counter with a landshark.
Telegram for Mr Abdulla!
Killing people with remote control aircraft, I wonder where they got that idea. They're getting almost as good at killing people as Americans.
Well now - did you see that mighty "drone" they make? A freaking cheap RC model airplane. Hard to imagine a simple mortar not being a lot more effective. A lot more firepower, longer range, more reliable. This is silly season FUD, designed to make it look like ISIS has learned something from the US.
Seems unfair to let the people who want nothing to do with such extremists suffer at the hands of them.
Sure is. Lot's of things are unfair. The people who want nothing to do with the extremists need to rise up against them. It'll be bloody for certain, but all a third intervening country will do is gain new enemies.
I'm too lazy to look up when the US sent sizable forces back to Iraq, but it was only on request and permission of the Iraqi government.
So you figure tha twe have to be th epolice there in perpetuity? Because they aren't going to behave themselves unless a much superior force is there to enforce a martial law.
We could be there a hundred years, and as soon as we left, they'd be at it again. We'd just have delayed it by 100 years, and both sides would consider us their enemy. The only real hope - and it isn't much of one - is to let them kill each other off to the point of mutual exhaustion.
The majority US troops pulled out in 2010 per Iraqi agreements.
These people are fighting a many thousands of years old war with each other. 2010? Might as well be the present. I personally believe that they should be allowed to kill each other off without our intervention. I think it is a genetic predisposition, a sort of ability to forever hold a grudge, coupled with humanitie's love for killing other humans. Let 'em have their fun - not our business unless they get ouside their borders.
this was only a matter of time, with IMU's and position sensors so widespread and cheap today, all we can do is to try and restrict export to these countries, but sooner or later it will get out there too.
This is FUD.
I read that as the US buying every single part that might be made into a copter drone, or a Model airplane, then burning them or something. We are not the only country in the world, we might as well ban lead, iron, and brass - the basic materials of firearms and their ammunition.
We can hardly ban the export when it is other countries that have them to export. Unless we plan on Fighting the entire world, a remarkably bad idea since we are in the middle of the longest war in US history, after being in another one. One cannot fight infinitely.
Because the democrats and Obama love science so much that the space shuttle program was ended during their reign with no viable replacement in the near future.
From G.W. Bush's "Vision for Space exploration speech, January 14, 2004:
The Shuttle's chief purpose over the next several years will be to help finish assembly of the International Space Station. In 2010, the Space Shuttle — after nearly 30 years of duty — will be retired from service.
— President George W. Bush
January 14, 2004
reference http://spaceksc.blogspot.com/2...
It was extended by a few lights after Bush left office.
DSLRs are basically for hipsters and professions now compared to every typical consumer desiring them.
And? You are saying the same misinformed/underinformed pap that the prognosticators are doing. Single lens reflex cameras are actual instruments that allow the user some control over the images. Things you do not get in a smartphone camera. Small sensor are requires ultra short focal length lenses which in turn makes for images that look one way, even when fake zoomed. The limitations are so severe that some manufacturers make fake depth of field simulators that look like a Photoshop effect, not the dof circles of confusion effect (yep, it's called circles of confusion, and a difficult thing to imitate.
The smartphone camera is a wonderful replacement for the old 110 cameras that it replaced. And if it is good enough for you, that's fine. Some people like Toyota Corollas, some people like Corvettes.
Tablets will replace PCs for consumers. PCs will too go to hipsters and workstation users (power users).
These Hipsters you hate - stop obsessing about them - it makes you look jealous. Jes sayin'.
If anyone says a tablet can't--well, it powers my drone, which can fly autonomously on it too.... PCs can't really do that. Well it can, but in a very clumsy manner.
Sure. I fly my drone using either my Tablet or my phone. Good use for a tablet. The tablet at other times sits in the living room as something to browse the internet, or use as a remote control for my Television, or to play games on.
Doctors misuse and improperly prescribe everything and get away with it. I know a urologist who hands out methadone and oxy like its halloween candy. Why the fuck is a urologist even able to prescribe methadone? Is someones bladder having withdrawal?
Someone needs a kidney stone to find out the answer .
Just that computer cost me almost 3 thousand dollars. I didn't blink either - it was a cost of doing business.
Key word: "business". If you're not using a $2000 to $3000 machine as part of a for-profit venture or registered charity, it becomes cost-prohibitive.
Depends on what it is worth to you. Computer people have been pretty well trained to be as absolutely dirt chep as possible. I saw a fistfight almost break out over a 5 cent difference in RAM price, with plenty of crazy on both sides. But the guy who went nuts about how the seller was fscking people over with his criminal pricing felt quite justified in his rage.
My only cheap computers are an old Netbook I didn't have the heart to get rid of, and a Chromebook I take to breakfast. Those are cheap and I don't care if they are lost or get stolen. Otherwise, I'll spend what I need to spend. These days, it's generally one on the upper side, but not top end. But if I needed them, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
The limitation on liabilities isn't even "money that you don't have to pay." It's money that some groups (like Energy Fair) *wish* you had to pay. Otherwise, the maximum liability would be capped at the assets of the company anyway.
I mean I guess you consider that a subsidy, so actually everybody is being subsidized due to bankruptcy laws. That doesn't seem like a useful definition. It's worthless in fact.
Let us take say, the Chernobyl disaster, direct loss estimated at 15 billion dollars. Estimates over 30 years are 235 billion for th eUkraine, and 201 Billion for Belarus.
So now, allow us to look at say, the Indian Nuclear Liability act. - The maximum liability for a nuclear accident for the operator is US 74 million. Now just between us chachalacas, Perhaps you could price out say a paltry 25 billion dollar liability policy. Is that magic money that rains down like manna form heaven? Or is it money that you do not have to pay out. I don't know about economics where you live, but if I do not have to spend a certain amount of money because the government allows me to purchase a insurance policty that is a tiny percentage of historical accidents in my industry, well then that is money I keep.
I used India's government assuming most of the liability indemnity as a rather dramatic example. In the US, the Price-Anderson is at present set at 12.6 Billion. Still who exactly do you think is going to cover the excess?
That really should not be hard to understand.
The only thing I can see changing here is that the majority of the code we write will not be written to run on the local machine. I fully expect that all future projects are going to be cross-compiled for cell phones and more cellphones and even more cellphones. Laptops may eventually have across-the-board cellphone emulation to support it and it should become a defacto part of every developer toolset and IDE. ...but you can't create an app or website from a phone. Technically, yes. Practically, no. The most someone is going to try and do is hook up a cellphone to a 32" monitor but I'm not sure how well that can work (and it's basically turning a phone into a PC, which doesn't seem like a terrible idea).
I think that you and many others are caught up in the idea that smartphones are going to rule forever. Even with the high threshold for boredom that the consumers have, they are going to eventually lose that addiction. Tablets were the wave of the future, the device that was going to take over the computing world, and yes, they were going to kill the desktop. Now and even then - smartphones. And it isn't for trying, we've had abortive attempts to plug your smartphone into laptop like things. But they just don't work all that well for it.
Desktops will decline in use, I mean we have to face it that we aren't going to text while we drive or walk across the street without looking with a desktop. Desktops will probably go up somewhat in price. But dead? Probably not at all.