He is saying "For every bubble that bursts, only one prediction of it's demise will have been the correct one- and it won't have been the first prediction". It's a variant on "it's always in the last place you look" (because once you find it, you stop looking).
His point is, people have been predicting China's bubble will burst since the '90s. So far they've always been wrong- but it only takes one prediction to be correct.
You're probably right. Question does stand, though, as to what Microsoft intend to do with Nokia's low-end phone market. S40 as an OS definitely feels end-of-life compared to low-end Android, and lord knows Windows Phone isn't up to the task on low-end hardware. So do Microsoft: a) Keep S40 alive and continue development on it to keep up with the competition b) Attempt to engineer their own Windows-based entry level phone c) Do an Apple and abandon the entry-level of the market entirely
My money is on c) personally, but seeing as the S40 line makes Nokia a lot of money, that would mean Microsoft purposefully throwing away a large part of what they're paying a lot of money for.
Well, I just learned something new today. Even though TFA is BBC, and I am UK, I'm actually region-blocked from viewing it!
BBC Future (international version)
We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.
If you are looking for health, technology, science and environment news in the UK, please visit: Health, Technology, Science and Environment.
You'd think they would just show me the page alongside whatever advertising they deem to be appropriate for their commercial service, but I guess there must be some arcane rule in their charter which prevents that.
1) Pick any Android tablet you like the look of. They all have Wifi. 2) Got to Settings > Display > Font Size = Large or Huge. 3) There is no third step.
I don't have first hand experience, but I bet iPads and Windows tablets have exactly the same settings. Probably best to get a larger-screened tablet if you're going to jack the font size right up- so Nexus 10 / iPad-not-mini or similar.
Other than that- honestly, take your pick. The interfaces are all pretty idiot proof. I have first hand experience of my Gran getting an iPhone and she seemed to pick it up quickly enough, while my Dad owns a Samsung Android phone and an elderly uncle owns a Kindle Fire HD, and they both seem happy. Normal selection criteria also apply- if you get "cheap as you can find" you'll probably find responsiveness etc. is poorer; and if you're catering to a tech dunce, best to keep extra barriers to acceptance to a minimum. But then again, if he doesn't intend to use it for anything more than a little web browsing, it wouldn't be worth spending a king's ransom on it.
For what it's worth, my Google+/Drive/whatever apps all seem to have "sync only when on WifI" options (as far I remember). And my home Wifi is near enough "free" (in that I'd be paying for it anyway and don't pay extra to use it).
Not that I'm really arguing with you. I hate being forced to use "cloud services". Give me an SD card every time.
I've heard of it (UK citizen), and I'm not exactly a legal expert.
Just because you've not heard of something, it doesn't mean it isn't public knowledge. Sometimes it's easy for smart people to forget that there are some things they just haven't learned yet:)
Because it is near-as-damn-it universally supported. You plug a FAT USB stick into any machine, whether it be Windows XP, Windows 8, Ubuntu, OSX, FreeBSD...you can be pretty sure it will work right out of the box. On a minority of niche systems which don't support FAT out of the box, you can be sure that a driver exists and is stable and easy to install.
Yes that's true of a few other file systems too (UDF I'm looking at you), but that's still the reason why FAT remains so popular over other common formats.
One more time: I was mentioning it in the context of "even the boggling idiocy of the old Testament thinks you're going too far"- that even the brutal justice of desert dwelling nomads several millennia ago is less brutal than the the tripe some people spout on the internet. Which particular band of ancient desert dwellers said it first really wasn't germane to my point.
As to why I said Bible rather than Torah, Hammurabi Code, or anything else. 1) Most people will be familiar with it in the Christian context rather than the ancient Babylonian context. 2) I really wasn't willing to put in the effort of research for such a throwaway point on the internet.
The fact that the Babylonians said it first is an interesting historical nugget. But it sounds like you have some serious hangups about the religion, my friend. If you don't believe it really is the divine utterings of angels and accept that it's all just the collective myths and fictions of various cultures, I really don't see why you're getting so upset about who said something first. It was a nonsense the first time round, and a nonsense on all subsequent repetitions...
The Bible is a muddled and contradictory beast. It also says:
16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.
17 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.
18 And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast.
19 And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him;
20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
21 And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.
22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.
He that caused blemish to a man shall have it done to him. He that kills a man shall be put to death.
Seems like a pretty clear instruction to we humans to carry out punishments (and not wait for god to do it) to me. And of course, the New Testament goes off in a different direction on the matter entirely.
I pity anyone who actually tries to live by that nonsense...
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
FYI, I'm not a Christian. I'm a big old atheist. I give not one flying fig who came up with what first or whether religion A took idea from religion B. I'm 100% certain that you are correct that the whole gist of the above comes from Hammurabi.
However, you said
As far as I know, the Code of Hammurabi [wikipedia.org] is not one of the books found in the Old Testament.
And I said- that "eye-for-an-eye" is in the Old Testament. Which it is.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Darwinistic irony of this story. I'm not trying to come across all bleeding-heart-liberal here.
What I take issue with is people saying "They're scum, they deserved to die for their crimes, I hope it was slow and painful!". Let me put it another way- if someone put their head into a crocodile enclosure and were promptly decapitated, no-one (including me) would say that they weren't responsible for their own fate- and I think we'd probably have a bit of a chuckle at some people's foolishness. That's completely different to saying "I'm glad they died, people who put their heads into zoo enclosures deserve slow and painful death!".
For the record, I'm not religious. I only quoted scripture because that passage is a notoriously brutal and oft-derided example of ancient justice- which is considerably less brutal than some of the attitudes being espoused on the internet.
17 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.
18 And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast.
19 And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him;
20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
21 And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.
22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.
Unless the King James Version Bible isn't Christian enough for you?
Not, of course, that it impacts my point. The New Testament specifically disowns this sentiment ("turn the other cheek" etc.) because it's way too brutal. And my point was, even that "way too brutal" sentiment is less brutal than what some of our internet tough-guy friends are spouting off.
This was a violent hijacking by two sadistic individuals whose actions will have lasting effects on their unfortunate victims.
Do you have a reason to say that they were "violent and sadistic", or are you just saying that because you want to be good and angry about it?
The Daily Telegraph described the situation like this:
The driver told authorities he was sleeping in the truck when two men with a gun approached him. They made him get out, tied his hands and feet and left him in a vacant lot nearby.
Neither the original Slashdot post (which linked to the BBC) nor TFA (Washington Post) in this post imply that this was anything more than a common-or-garden theft. Maybe you've heard something I haven't.
My sister has been mugged before. I've had friends be mugged. It's horrible, but it's a long way from "sadism" or "torture". Just opportunistic thugs looking to make a little bit of money, who absolutely could be rehabilitated.
If you think stealing a van and hitting someone warrants death, you are an unhinged individual (or more likely, an internet tough guy). Even the Old Testament said "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"- that is, the punishment should match the crime. If someone takes your eye out, you're entitled to take up to one eye- not the whole head.
And I don't think there are many people who would argue that the Old Testament was too lenient...
To a given value of "small percentage". StatCounter tells me that XP is still ~20% of web users putting it in the #2 slot; that's more than Win8, more than Mac, more than any of the Mobile OSs. And more than Windows 98, for the record.
And if you think XP usage correlates with poverty, I suspect I can find a stronger one- I suspect it correlates very strongly (and negatively) with computer literacy. People on XP will be people who aren't very web savvy, wouldn't know a virus if it bit them on the crotch, and are probably more prone to social engineering scams ("You''re infected with a virus! Click here and enter your credit card details to fix it!"). I'm thinking botnet heaven.
And do you know what else it will correlate with? Very expensive equipment. XP is notoriously entrenched in industrial control equipment, and in medical equipment. And that's areas where you aren't going to just buy a new one because the software is old.
Or would it do something else, like stabilize at a closer orbit or slingshot or something?
That's it exactly. If you were to fire your gun in the perfect direction to maximise the likelihood of getting the bullet to the Sun, all you will do is reduce the bullet's orbital velocity by 0.5 km/s. That is, instead of orbiting the Sun at 29.8 km/s, it will now be orbiting the Sun at 29.3 km/s. The upshot of which, it will still be a completely stable orbit, only marginally closer to the Sun than the shooter is.
Short answer is "no". Orbital mechanics don't work like that. (Big disclaimer- I'm not an expert, and while what I'm about to type should be basically correct, I can't guarantee (at this time in the morning) that I haven't made some mistakes).
Your basic mistake is assuming that the bullet you're firing is stationary before you fire it, so all you're having to do is propel it towards it's target. It isn't. The bullet (and the gun, and the marksman) are all orbiting the sun at 29.8 km/s (which is the speed that the Earth is orbiting at). By "orbiting at 29.8 km/s", what we mean is "travelling in such a way as to miss the Sun at 29.8 km/s". So if you want your bullet to hit the Sun, you need to cause it to stop doing that- you need it to lose 29.8 km/s of orbital speed. I know you were only using it as a metaphor, but for reference- a bullet from a typical gun travels (i.e. changes velocity) at less than 0.5 km/s.
Counter intuitively, travelling to Alpha Centauri would be much easier (although of course it would take a long time!). Solar escape velocity starting from Earth is only 42.1 km/s, which means that you only need to at ~13 km/s before you're away from the Sun's gravitational grip. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, Earth's orbital velocity is already quite fast, so getting to escape velocity means adding a relatively small amount (albeit to get to an overall high speed). Secondly, gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance- that is, moving 100 km closer to the sun will increase the gravity you experience by more than moving 100 km away from the sun will decrease it. Without getting into the messy details of it, this means that the necessary changes in velocity get sharper the closer you get to the sun- hence why Earth (which seems quite close to the Sun, in the grand scheme of things) is in a stable orbit at 29.8 km/s, but could escape completely for a mere 13 km/s more.
Headline: "Millions of Microsoft Windows XP users vulnerable to thieves and hackers!" Headline: "Hospital equipment and industrial control units running older Microsoft software vulnerable to cyber terrorists!" Headline: "Microsoft users victim of massive organised attack, company does nothing to help!"
Even if Microsoft's position is justified (and considering that they've been supporting the OS for 13+ years, I tend to think it is), there's no way their reputation comes out well from any of those stories. All people hear is "Microsoft software is unsafe". Hell, many (most?) users probably don't even realise what an OS is. My mum certainly didn't- when I asked her a few years ago how she was getting on with her new Windows 7 laptop after years of using XP, the response I got was "Do you mean something was different?".
I wonder idly how many zero-day exploits have been discovered by the bad guys and are being kept in the bank waiting for April. Are we going to see a sudden explosion of exploits mid next year, as everyone makes their move in the knowledge that security updates won't be forthcoming?
If all you're doing is checking email and surfing the web, surely Linux would do? LXDE is lighter weight than standard XP (and I'm sure XFCE isn't far off either). If all you want is to keep hardware alive for pleasure use, there's no reason not to.
Bigger sympathy goes to people who have specific applications which are XP-compatible-only. As much as I love Wine as a project, it can still be a nightmare to get it working for anything both complicated and niche.
Currently it's a race between two- iOS and Android. I don't think two is enough. There are more than two brands of car, more than two types of beer, more than two mobile phone carriers in every country worth talking about. We could do with more than two.
And what's your choice for number three? Blackberry? Windows? Personally, being a Slashdot reader, I'm definitely more in favour of GNU/Linux taking the next slot. Whether that be Jolla, Ubuntu, Tizen, or something else- all fine options. Android could use some Linuxy company up there in the spotlight.
Did anyone say that Wayland was "hard to fit into a mobile device"? Presumably you're digging at Canonical, but I never heard that argument. I thought their line was that they had some requirements in order to get their "seamlessly switch from phone GUI to desktop GUI to TV GUI" features working which were being blocked.
Most smartphones are more powerful than the X11 desktop computers of just a few years ago; I don't think anyone has realistically been claiming that they wouldn't be able to to run a normal display server.
The difference here is that this is a complex moral and legal issue to which we as a society have not yet reached any sort of consensus (and if anything, the historical consensus lies against Scott Adams' view).
I tend to be extremely nervous about the idea of legalising euthanasia; especially in, although not limited to, situations where the patient is unable to voice an opinion on the matter. While there might be occasions (and perhaps Mr Adams' situation was just so) where death is 100% certain, recovery is impossible, and suffering immeasurable, in which case the case might be more clear cut. But as soon as you legalise the possibility of legally killing someone, you open the door to all sorts of injustice. What if the person has dementia, and the family "persuades" them to agree to euthanasia because "they're such a burden, and they're not even themselves anymore"- even though the person is actually still emotionally happy in their reduced state? What about people with seriousness illnesses (like cancer) who get depressed and demand euthanasia- even though there is a possibility of curing the disease and every likelihood that the depression would pass eventually? It is a terrifying minefield.
So, that said, if anyone advocates euthanasia I'd like the chance to debate with them, to get across my views and my worries and try to get them to see beyond the immediate and the obvious (and give them a chance to allay my fears). However the tone of Scott Adam's rhetoric would make it impossible for me to engage with him on the issue. It's aggressive and amounts to bullying on an extremely serious issue. How the hell am I supposed to engage someone in discussion, on a matter which I'm not even 100% confident of my own opinions, if the response I'm going to get is "you're an evil torturing bastard and I wish you death and misery"?
I'd be willing to excuse it for heat-of-the-moment grief-stricken talk. But if he really thinks that way and is prone to repeating the sentiments into the future, then he loses a lot of respect from me.
12.04 LTS isn't outdated- it's the current Long Term Support version (which is the stable version which is supposed to compete with Windows and Mac on the support front). The non-LTS versions are just a politer version of the Debian Testing release.
Next LTS version comes out April 2014, so if they're still flogging 12.04 in 6 months then you'll have cause for complaint.
Oh sure, you can cherry pick hardware and find stuff that works great, but frankly you can install Windows 7 on ANY PC that is less than 8 years old and it will work. You can buy almost ANY computer add-on in the past 8 years and Windows 7 supports it.
No you can't. You can install Windows 7 on any PC which was designed to run Windows (which is most of them), sure. But try sticking it on a Mac or a System 76 PC or one of those Asus touch-screens-with-keyboards that run Android. Oh, you might say, you didn't mean any of those- you just meant the Windows 7 compatible ones! But that's sort of the point.
That's not to say Windows users aren't spoilt for choice, obviously- you can run Windows on a huge variety of commodity hardware. But then the lack universal hardware compatibility doesn't exactly do Apple much harm, and Linux is way freer and easier with hardware than that.
Slashdot Mirror
You misunderstood his clever saying.
He is saying "For every bubble that bursts, only one prediction of it's demise will have been the correct one- and it won't have been the first prediction". It's a variant on "it's always in the last place you look" (because once you find it, you stop looking).
His point is, people have been predicting China's bubble will burst since the '90s. So far they've always been wrong- but it only takes one prediction to be correct.
You're probably right. Question does stand, though, as to what Microsoft intend to do with Nokia's low-end phone market. S40 as an OS definitely feels end-of-life compared to low-end Android, and lord knows Windows Phone isn't up to the task on low-end hardware. So do Microsoft:
a) Keep S40 alive and continue development on it to keep up with the competition
b) Attempt to engineer their own Windows-based entry level phone
c) Do an Apple and abandon the entry-level of the market entirely
My money is on c) personally, but seeing as the S40 line makes Nokia a lot of money, that would mean Microsoft purposefully throwing away a large part of what they're paying a lot of money for.
Well, I just learned something new today. Even though TFA is BBC, and I am UK, I'm actually region-blocked from viewing it!
BBC Future (international version)
We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.
If you are looking for health, technology, science and environment news in the UK, please visit:
Health, Technology, Science and Environment.
You'd think they would just show me the page alongside whatever advertising they deem to be appropriate for their commercial service, but I guess there must be some arcane rule in their charter which prevents that.
Bureaucracy can be a strange beast.
1) Pick any Android tablet you like the look of. They all have Wifi.
2) Got to Settings > Display > Font Size = Large or Huge.
3) There is no third step.
I don't have first hand experience, but I bet iPads and Windows tablets have exactly the same settings. Probably best to get a larger-screened tablet if you're going to jack the font size right up- so Nexus 10 / iPad-not-mini or similar.
Other than that- honestly, take your pick. The interfaces are all pretty idiot proof. I have first hand experience of my Gran getting an iPhone and she seemed to pick it up quickly enough, while my Dad owns a Samsung Android phone and an elderly uncle owns a Kindle Fire HD, and they both seem happy. Normal selection criteria also apply- if you get "cheap as you can find" you'll probably find responsiveness etc. is poorer; and if you're catering to a tech dunce, best to keep extra barriers to acceptance to a minimum. But then again, if he doesn't intend to use it for anything more than a little web browsing, it wouldn't be worth spending a king's ransom on it.
For what it's worth, my Google+/Drive/whatever apps all seem to have "sync only when on WifI" options (as far I remember). And my home Wifi is near enough "free" (in that I'd be paying for it anyway and don't pay extra to use it).
Not that I'm really arguing with you. I hate being forced to use "cloud services". Give me an SD card every time.
I've heard of it (UK citizen), and I'm not exactly a legal expert.
Just because you've not heard of something, it doesn't mean it isn't public knowledge. Sometimes it's easy for smart people to forget that there are some things they just haven't learned yet :)
Because it is near-as-damn-it universally supported. You plug a FAT USB stick into any machine, whether it be Windows XP, Windows 8, Ubuntu, OSX, FreeBSD...you can be pretty sure it will work right out of the box. On a minority of niche systems which don't support FAT out of the box, you can be sure that a driver exists and is stable and easy to install.
Yes that's true of a few other file systems too (UDF I'm looking at you), but that's still the reason why FAT remains so popular over other common formats.
One more time: I was mentioning it in the context of "even the boggling idiocy of the old Testament thinks you're going too far"- that even the brutal justice of desert dwelling nomads several millennia ago is less brutal than the the tripe some people spout on the internet. Which particular band of ancient desert dwellers said it first really wasn't germane to my point.
As to why I said Bible rather than Torah, Hammurabi Code, or anything else. 1) Most people will be familiar with it in the Christian context rather than the ancient Babylonian context. 2) I really wasn't willing to put in the effort of research for such a throwaway point on the internet.
The fact that the Babylonians said it first is an interesting historical nugget. But it sounds like you have some serious hangups about the religion, my friend. If you don't believe it really is the divine utterings of angels and accept that it's all just the collective myths and fictions of various cultures, I really don't see why you're getting so upset about who said something first. It was a nonsense the first time round, and a nonsense on all subsequent repetitions...
The Bible is a muddled and contradictory beast. It also says:
16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.
17 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.
18 And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast.
19 And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him;
20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
21 And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.
22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+24&version=KJV
He that caused blemish to a man shall have it done to him. He that kills a man shall be put to death.
Seems like a pretty clear instruction to we humans to carry out punishments (and not wait for god to do it) to me. And of course, the New Testament goes off in a different direction on the matter entirely.
I pity anyone who actually tries to live by that nonsense...
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
FYI, I'm not a Christian. I'm a big old atheist. I give not one flying fig who came up with what first or whether religion A took idea from religion B. I'm 100% certain that you are correct that the whole gist of the above comes from Hammurabi.
However, you said
As far as I know, the Code of Hammurabi [wikipedia.org] is not one of the books found in the Old Testament.
And I said- that "eye-for-an-eye" is in the Old Testament. Which it is.
So what are we arguing about?
Don't get me wrong, I love the Darwinistic irony of this story. I'm not trying to come across all bleeding-heart-liberal here.
What I take issue with is people saying "They're scum, they deserved to die for their crimes, I hope it was slow and painful!". Let me put it another way- if someone put their head into a crocodile enclosure and were promptly decapitated, no-one (including me) would say that they weren't responsible for their own fate- and I think we'd probably have a bit of a chuckle at some people's foolishness. That's completely different to saying "I'm glad they died, people who put their heads into zoo enclosures deserve slow and painful death!".
For the record, I'm not religious. I only quoted scripture because that passage is a notoriously brutal and oft-derided example of ancient justice- which is considerably less brutal than some of the attitudes being espoused on the internet.
Ahem:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus%2024:17-22&version=KJV
17 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.
18 And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast.
19 And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him;
20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
21 And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.
22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.
Unless the King James Version Bible isn't Christian enough for you?
Not, of course, that it impacts my point. The New Testament specifically disowns this sentiment ("turn the other cheek" etc.) because it's way too brutal. And my point was, even that "way too brutal" sentiment is less brutal than what some of our internet tough-guy friends are spouting off.
This was a violent hijacking by two sadistic individuals whose actions will have lasting effects on their unfortunate victims.
Do you have a reason to say that they were "violent and sadistic", or are you just saying that because you want to be good and angry about it?
The Daily Telegraph described the situation like this:
The driver told authorities he was sleeping in the truck when two men with a gun approached him. They made him get out, tied his hands and feet and left him in a vacant lot nearby.
Neither the original Slashdot post (which linked to the BBC) nor TFA (Washington Post) in this post imply that this was anything more than a common-or-garden theft. Maybe you've heard something I haven't.
My sister has been mugged before. I've had friends be mugged. It's horrible, but it's a long way from "sadism" or "torture". Just opportunistic thugs looking to make a little bit of money, who absolutely could be rehabilitated.
If you think stealing a van and hitting someone warrants death, you are an unhinged individual (or more likely, an internet tough guy). Even the Old Testament said "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"- that is, the punishment should match the crime. If someone takes your eye out, you're entitled to take up to one eye- not the whole head.
And I don't think there are many people who would argue that the Old Testament was too lenient...
To a given value of "small percentage". StatCounter tells me that XP is still ~20% of web users putting it in the #2 slot; that's more than Win8, more than Mac, more than any of the Mobile OSs. And more than Windows 98, for the record.
And if you think XP usage correlates with poverty, I suspect I can find a stronger one- I suspect it correlates very strongly (and negatively) with computer literacy. People on XP will be people who aren't very web savvy, wouldn't know a virus if it bit them on the crotch, and are probably more prone to social engineering scams ("You''re infected with a virus! Click here and enter your credit card details to fix it!"). I'm thinking botnet heaven.
And do you know what else it will correlate with? Very expensive equipment. XP is notoriously entrenched in industrial control equipment, and in medical equipment. And that's areas where you aren't going to just buy a new one because the software is old.
Or would it do something else, like stabilize at a closer orbit or slingshot or something?
That's it exactly. If you were to fire your gun in the perfect direction to maximise the likelihood of getting the bullet to the Sun, all you will do is reduce the bullet's orbital velocity by 0.5 km/s. That is, instead of orbiting the Sun at 29.8 km/s, it will now be orbiting the Sun at 29.3 km/s. The upshot of which, it will still be a completely stable orbit, only marginally closer to the Sun than the shooter is.
Short answer is "no". Orbital mechanics don't work like that. (Big disclaimer- I'm not an expert, and while what I'm about to type should be basically correct, I can't guarantee (at this time in the morning) that I haven't made some mistakes).
Your basic mistake is assuming that the bullet you're firing is stationary before you fire it, so all you're having to do is propel it towards it's target. It isn't. The bullet (and the gun, and the marksman) are all orbiting the sun at 29.8 km/s (which is the speed that the Earth is orbiting at). By "orbiting at 29.8 km/s", what we mean is "travelling in such a way as to miss the Sun at 29.8 km/s". So if you want your bullet to hit the Sun, you need to cause it to stop doing that- you need it to lose 29.8 km/s of orbital speed. I know you were only using it as a metaphor, but for reference- a bullet from a typical gun travels (i.e. changes velocity) at less than 0.5 km/s.
Counter intuitively, travelling to Alpha Centauri would be much easier (although of course it would take a long time!). Solar escape velocity starting from Earth is only 42.1 km/s, which means that you only need to at ~13 km/s before you're away from the Sun's gravitational grip. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, Earth's orbital velocity is already quite fast, so getting to escape velocity means adding a relatively small amount (albeit to get to an overall high speed). Secondly, gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance- that is, moving 100 km closer to the sun will increase the gravity you experience by more than moving 100 km away from the sun will decrease it. Without getting into the messy details of it, this means that the necessary changes in velocity get sharper the closer you get to the sun- hence why Earth (which seems quite close to the Sun, in the grand scheme of things) is in a stable orbit at 29.8 km/s, but could escape completely for a mere 13 km/s more.
Clear as crystal?
Headline: "Millions of Microsoft Windows XP users vulnerable to thieves and hackers!"
Headline: "Hospital equipment and industrial control units running older Microsoft software vulnerable to cyber terrorists!"
Headline: "Microsoft users victim of massive organised attack, company does nothing to help!"
Even if Microsoft's position is justified (and considering that they've been supporting the OS for 13+ years, I tend to think it is), there's no way their reputation comes out well from any of those stories. All people hear is "Microsoft software is unsafe". Hell, many (most?) users probably don't even realise what an OS is. My mum certainly didn't- when I asked her a few years ago how she was getting on with her new Windows 7 laptop after years of using XP, the response I got was "Do you mean something was different?".
I wonder idly how many zero-day exploits have been discovered by the bad guys and are being kept in the bank waiting for April. Are we going to see a sudden explosion of exploits mid next year, as everyone makes their move in the knowledge that security updates won't be forthcoming?
If all you're doing is checking email and surfing the web, surely Linux would do? LXDE is lighter weight than standard XP (and I'm sure XFCE isn't far off either). If all you want is to keep hardware alive for pleasure use, there's no reason not to.
Bigger sympathy goes to people who have specific applications which are XP-compatible-only. As much as I love Wine as a project, it can still be a nightmare to get it working for anything both complicated and niche.
Currently it's a race between two- iOS and Android. I don't think two is enough. There are more than two brands of car, more than two types of beer, more than two mobile phone carriers in every country worth talking about. We could do with more than two.
And what's your choice for number three? Blackberry? Windows? Personally, being a Slashdot reader, I'm definitely more in favour of GNU/Linux taking the next slot. Whether that be Jolla, Ubuntu, Tizen, or something else- all fine options. Android could use some Linuxy company up there in the spotlight.
Did anyone say that Wayland was "hard to fit into a mobile device"? Presumably you're digging at Canonical, but I never heard that argument. I thought their line was that they had some requirements in order to get their "seamlessly switch from phone GUI to desktop GUI to TV GUI" features working which were being blocked.
Most smartphones are more powerful than the X11 desktop computers of just a few years ago; I don't think anyone has realistically been claiming that they wouldn't be able to to run a normal display server.
The difference here is that this is a complex moral and legal issue to which we as a society have not yet reached any sort of consensus (and if anything, the historical consensus lies against Scott Adams' view).
I tend to be extremely nervous about the idea of legalising euthanasia; especially in, although not limited to, situations where the patient is unable to voice an opinion on the matter. While there might be occasions (and perhaps Mr Adams' situation was just so) where death is 100% certain, recovery is impossible, and suffering immeasurable, in which case the case might be more clear cut. But as soon as you legalise the possibility of legally killing someone, you open the door to all sorts of injustice. What if the person has dementia, and the family "persuades" them to agree to euthanasia because "they're such a burden, and they're not even themselves anymore"- even though the person is actually still emotionally happy in their reduced state? What about people with seriousness illnesses (like cancer) who get depressed and demand euthanasia- even though there is a possibility of curing the disease and every likelihood that the depression would pass eventually? It is a terrifying minefield.
So, that said, if anyone advocates euthanasia I'd like the chance to debate with them, to get across my views and my worries and try to get them to see beyond the immediate and the obvious (and give them a chance to allay my fears). However the tone of Scott Adam's rhetoric would make it impossible for me to engage with him on the issue. It's aggressive and amounts to bullying on an extremely serious issue. How the hell am I supposed to engage someone in discussion, on a matter which I'm not even 100% confident of my own opinions, if the response I'm going to get is "you're an evil torturing bastard and I wish you death and misery"?
I'd be willing to excuse it for heat-of-the-moment grief-stricken talk. But if he really thinks that way and is prone to repeating the sentiments into the future, then he loses a lot of respect from me.
12.04 LTS isn't outdated- it's the current Long Term Support version (which is the stable version which is supposed to compete with Windows and Mac on the support front). The non-LTS versions are just a politer version of the Debian Testing release.
Next LTS version comes out April 2014, so if they're still flogging 12.04 in 6 months then you'll have cause for complaint.
Oh sure, you can cherry pick hardware and find stuff that works great, but frankly you can install Windows 7 on ANY PC that is less than 8 years old and it will work. You can buy almost ANY computer add-on in the past 8 years and Windows 7 supports it.
No you can't. You can install Windows 7 on any PC which was designed to run Windows (which is most of them), sure. But try sticking it on a Mac or a System 76 PC or one of those Asus touch-screens-with-keyboards that run Android. Oh, you might say, you didn't mean any of those- you just meant the Windows 7 compatible ones! But that's sort of the point.
That's not to say Windows users aren't spoilt for choice, obviously- you can run Windows on a huge variety of commodity hardware. But then the lack universal hardware compatibility doesn't exactly do Apple much harm, and Linux is way freer and easier with hardware than that.