Indeed I do. Nowhere in the constitution is the federal government given the power to mandate or provide health care. That falls in to the jurisdiction of the state according to the Constitution, making the healthcare debate in this Presidential election cycle legally moot. Of course, regardless of what the constitution said, the Supreme court ruled Obamacare is legal so all bets are off...
NO damage was done to the Linux desktop. Both camps have different ideas on how things should be done. Both camps tailor their project to a specific set of users. One combined project would likely alienate even more users since neither camp would be happy with the end result.
Competition is also helpful for spurring innovation. Without competition, stagnation occurs because there is nothing driving progress forward. Look at how long IE6 stuck around until Firefox provided enough market pressure to force Microsoft to innovate again. Other OS's would provide some competition but from the looks of Metro I'm not entirely sure that will be the case.
There are lots of free and open source monitoring tools that can help determine if something is out of alignment. SmokePing would probably be incredibly helpful you your situation. Nagios is another popular monitoring tool. Netdisco could help with inventory and topology mapping. It's worth spending a little time getting a good monitoring solution set up so you can be fixing the problem before the phone starts ringing.
If your browser/flash player/some other legit app has a zero day that allows the execution or arbitrary code you are just as screwed as if you install a malicious app.
Awesome that this will lead to easier root access on Android devices. On the flip side I'm sure Android vendors won't get around to patching this for a while and our devices will be vulnerable.
What happens if a similar service, like Dropbox, gets shut down?
One of the reasons I prefer Dropbox for storing my non-essential files to some of the other cloud file storage services is the syncing feature. I keep the files on my local drive (all of my computers local drives, actually.) If Dropbox were to go down for any reason, I a copy of that file on every machine.
We are moving down that road with movies. Instead of paying $20 for a DVD you can now watch 100 movies on Netflix all month long for $8. This means the cost (or value) of the movie isn't really much more than $0.08 instead of $20. Between Netflix and piracy, all we are waiting for is the last bit to go away and we will see movies have $0 value.
You are confusing the concept of owning and renting. When you watch a movie on Netflix, you don't get to keep it. Before netflix, movie rentals were a couple bucks tops, so the difference isn't nearly what you are making it out to be.
With Movie tickets right around $12 before popcorn or soda, I'd say the worth of watching a movie 1 time is still $12. I doubt the major movie studios would be pulling in record profits if a movie had a $0 value.
Ebooks are going to be going that way soon as well. You can now find poor copies of newly released books downloadable within days. Better quality content is coming, just as it did with music and movies. The revenue from ebooks will be destroyed just as certainly as it was for other digital items.
Do you know what pirates did before the invention of ebooks? They went to their local library, checked out the book they wanted to read, walked outside, and shouted "ARRRR!"
Using your logic, the value of a book is zero because anyone with a library card can check them out for free.
No, it hasn't. Intel heatsinks are attached by plastic clips that go through holes in the motherboard. AMD heat sinks are clipped to a bracket that is bolted through the motherboard to a backing plate behind the CPU socket. They use a cam-style locking mechanism to provide tension and keep the heatsink tight while eliminating the prying that was needed on socket 370 and socket A heatsinks.
Traction control systems can typically be turned off if driving in mud or sand or whatnot.
I have seen plenty of cars where it could not. 4x4s and sports cars usually allow for this. Cheaper cars sometimes do not.
Stopping fast on gravel by locking your brakes? What a joke. The difference would be so marginal that it would be covered by the extra effort it took you to stomp on your brakes.
Care to back that up with a fact or two? With anti-lock brakes you are supposed to stomp on the pedal as well.
And why are you driving so fast on gravel in the first place? Because you live in bumfuck nowhere?
How fast is "So fast?" 20MPH, 50MPH or 100MPH all require the use of brakes. A panic stop to avoid a wild animal crossing the road will lock or engage the anti-lock brakes at any of those speeds. As far as bumfuck nowhere, pretty much. None the less I still have better internet speeds than half of the US so it's not that far out there.
And your defense of carburetors is basically "I don't understand them thar electronical fuel jetson thingies and my mechanic don't neither.
My defense of carburetors was factual and valid. I can sum it up for you in a nice list if you would like:
Carburetors are simpler. The simplicity makes troubleshooting easy. There are no sensors to diagnose. Fuel pumps are on the block and can normally be changed in minutes instead of hours like in-tank electric pumps used on EFI cars. Carbureted cars need one wire to run. If your entire electrical system dies on the side of the road you can run one wire to the hot side of the coil, jump the starter solenoid and drive home. This is a handy feature for Jaguar owners.
Carburetors are cheaper to fix. There are no sensors to buy. A rebuild kit probably won't ever cost more than $50. $20 is probably closer to the usual price. Fuel pumps generally cost less than $50 as well vs. the $150+ norm for EFI cars. Since everything is easily accessible labor is cheaper (assuming you don't just do it yourself.)
I am my own mechanic. I understand EFI systems and have done a lot of successful troubleshooting on EFI systems. My experience was very negative. Sensors fail for no apparent reason and often cost hundreds of dollars in parts alone to replace. When an EFI car runs like crap it is often difficult to determine what sensor is faulty without the aid of a diagnostic computer. Sadly, unless you take it back to the dealer, the diagnostic computers give a guess. Almost always you start with the 02 sensor. If it still runs crappy you replace the TPS or whatever sensor the computer finds next. Rinse and repeat until you have found the culprit. That is if you are lucky. The most fun is when the computer says everything is A-OK and the car dies every time you stop at a stop sign. The issue is not a lack of understanding, but a lack of wanting to deal with all of the bullshit involved.
You're basically arguing against superior shit because you understand old shit, and you're using stupid.001% of the time cases to try to justify it.
I understand old and new "shit." As someone who works in IT, Prefer not to trust my life to a computer with little in regards to failsafes. I strongly disagree that "new shit" is superior. The emissions are better but that is the only way they are better for my use. I'm saving more in greenhouse gas emissions by driving the old cars and not melting them down repeatedly (how much greenhouse gas does that emit?) and replacing the steel with plastic made from non-recyclable, non-renewable resources.
A few decades ago you may have had a point. But guess what - an automatic transmission is smarter and better than anything you as a meatbag can do. You may have more direct control over your transmission, but you're shit compared to a machine.
I will concede that automatic transmissions are--within the last 5 years or so--finally approaching the fuel economy manual transmissions have give drivers for decades. However, until my car can read my mind, I prefer to control when my car shifts. Without traction control or the like, you can prevent a car with a manual from slipping on ice by putting it in a higher gear, etc... Traction control has it's uses but in certain situations--muddy, rutted roads for example--it's also a good way to get stuck. The road I live on is crap. It's a sloppy mess every time it rains and it takes the plow several hours to get there after a snow storm. Having the extra control is nice.
It's the same mentality as people who are against anti lock brakes.
Anti-lock brakes are great on the highway or on a paved surface. Compare anti-lock to non-anti-lock on a gravel surface some time. On gravel, assuming it is not too loose, you can stop faster by intentionally locking the brakes.
Or people who hate fuel injectors and want carburetors.
I can replace the entire fuel system in any of my carbureted cars (including the fuel pump) for the price of the fuel pump alone on your fuel injected car. When you have to start diagnosing and replacing sensors on an EFI car using the guess and check method--the diagnostic computers don't work worth a shit. ever.--your repair bill can get out of control very quickly. I'll stick to the simple to troubleshoot and cheap to fix carbureted solution.
And don't tell me how bad my fuel milage is either. My '72 Volkswagen Type 3 automatic gets 35MPG and my full-sized '54 Plymouth with a 3spd manual gets 25.
Or people who demand to crank their engine manually.
[humor]With a crank a dead battery or starter will never leave you stranded.[/humor] Seriously though, sometimes a simple solution--while a little bit more work--is more reliable in the long run.
Any automatic transmission can disconnect the engine from the drive wheels by shifting into neutral or park (go to neutral so you keep power steering). There is no safety issue.
Wrong. Many newer cars use a drive-by-wire system to shift the transmission. I stopped to help a lady whose Prius got stranded a couple of months back. She was having some sort of electrical trouble and it took 20 minutes of fooling around turning the key on and off and pressing buttons to get the damn thing in neutral so we could push it off the road. The owner knew what buttons to press, but the computer refused to shift the transmission.
A manual transmission is by no means more reliable (indeed, it is subject to idiots manually wrecking shit up), and in many cases is not even cheaper any more.
Wrong. Manual transmissions do not need coolers in the radiator or coolant lines. Loss of coolant from a ruptured line or a damaged radiator can quickly kill any automatic transmission if it is not noticed right away. Automatics are a lot more complicated both electronically and mechanically and simply have more parts to fail. A manual transmission won't stop working because of a broken wire but a modern automatic (made in the last 25 years) will.
Performance and fuel economy benefits are slim at best, and are typically only there because manual transmissions are more finely tuned, and often have an extra gear vs the automatic counterpart, specifically in order to sell to gearheads
Or they have the extra gear because it is not as costly to install as it would be in an automatic and it results in better fuel economy.
I *Really* wanted a webos tablet for the reasons outlined above. I didn't think it was worth $500 for the touchpad. I would have paid $250 for it. Maybe even $300 if the hardware was a little better.
It was within their right to fork KHTML to create Webkit. They have followed the license and have been a good open-source citizen about using it. Te hey also follow other licenses for open source software that they use (BSD, etc...) This isn't a problem. What is a problem is when Apple fanboys point to Webkit and say "Look, Apple is an open company. They created WebKit and generously gave it back to the community." They tend to forget they a) didn't create WebKit from scratch, b) are bound by KHTML's license so they could not close it if they wanted to, and c) Everybody who uses WebKit now could have easily used KHTML instead had Apple not started the WebKit fork.
In fact, why are you annoyed at Apple's open source projects, whether it's called KHTML, WebKit or whatever?
I never said I was annoyed with Apple's open source projects. If you read a little closer I said I was annoyed with people (apple fanboys) who point at webkit and try to say "Look at that, Apple is really an open company. They contributed this giant rendering engine for everyone to use. Where would Chrome be without Apple?"
Among them all, you're singling out Apple because you hate their fans?
I'm an equal opportunity hater. This article happens to be about Apple:-p
Or do you really go out and antagonize all supporters of companies that run open source projects?
I antagonize supporters of Apple who pretend Apple created Webkit from scratch and released it to the open source community. I'm willing to bet if they had written Webkit from scratch there's no way it would be under an open source license.
By that logic Linus too has taken way more than he has ever given back. How many lines of Linux code has he written of the million lines today? The heavy lifting was done by all the other kernel developers.
Right?
WRONG. Your analogy doesn't make any sense. Apple didn't start the project that became Webkit so I can't see how you could compare Apple to Linus or the Linux kernel to KHTML/Webkit.
What you failed to mention is that this closed, anticompetitive, evil Apple has actually facilitated the creation of a browser by a direct competitor called Chrome.
Wrong again. If Apple hadn't forked KHTML and called it Webkit, chrome would have been based on KHTML instead. My annoyance with the whole webkit thing is that Apple fans forget that it is just a KHTML fork that got merged back in to the main tree and the name stuck.
I don't think there are many people out there claiming Apple is a shining example of an open source company -- the likes of Redhat and such. Examples such as Webkit, Clang, CUPS, etc. are used as counter examples to show the absurdity of the haters' claims that the company has an insatiable desire to keep every single byte of their systems closed.
This isn't a dick waving contest to see who "contributed" more to open source than taking away from it (if something like that even exists).
Frankly, I don't give a crap how much code Apple contributes back to the community. They are within their rights to follow the licenses of the projects they use or contribute to. This isn't in question. What bothers me is when people point to Webkit and say "Apple created that. Look at what Apple has done for open source." It's a load of crap.
Does GE make it easy for you to reprogram your microwave?
No, but they don't make it difficult either. I can open it up with a phillips screwdriver. It's not like it's welded shut.
Lookup appliance in a dictionary.
I'm fairly certain you are the one with a screwed-up definition of "appliance." From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
Definition of APPLIANCE
1 : an act of applying 2 a : a piece of equipment for adapting a tool or machine to a special purpose : attachment b : an instrument or device designed for a particular use or function ; specifically : a household or office device (as a stove, fan, or refrigerator) operated by gas or electric current c British : fire engine
Definition 2b is closest to what we are describing here. The critical part is "designed for a particular use or function." By this definition, every smartphone, tablet, MID, whatever is really a general purpose computer with a different interface (touchscreen, accelerometer, etc...) Since this puts most locked-down gadgets into the "general purpose computer" category, how would you react if Dell would only allow you to run the Dell OEM version of Windows on your laptop and wouldn't allow you to uninstall all the bundled crapware without voiding your warranty and jumping through a bunch of hoops. This is the state of the smartphone/tablet/mid market today. It sucks. The closest thing I can think of that comes close to actual "appliance computing" is the chromebook--which is more like a refrigerator with everything welded shut but the ice machine. E-ink e-readers would fit the definition as well. The iPod nano and shuffle are the only apple products that I would classify as an "appliance."
You call it "closing everything off" because you want to keep nerd playgrounds like the PC around indefinitely. He would call it making simple products that mere mortals want to use. The public has spoken, and appliance computing is here to stay.
I don't mind appliance computing, but if I pay good money for something, I better be able to use it as I see fit. Having a company or government or anybody else dictate to me what I can or cannot do to or with my property (within reason of course) is unacceptable.
Apple has contributed to open source, from WebKit to Clang.
I love it when Apple fanboys bring up Webkit. KHTML had much of the heavy lifting done before apple re-branded--err I mean forked--it. Yes, they have contributed but they have taken way more than they have ever given back.
The Bitcoin post just looks dumb; phony Bitcoins? doesn't exist; they're cryptographically signed, the whole post is ridiculous.
Actually it is possible. Mt. Gox keeps the amount of bitcoin in a member's database--much like a bank where your account balance is nothing more than a number in a database. If someone compromised Mt. Gox's database they could potentially increase the amount of bitcoin the database says their account contains. Then the malicious user could transfer the bitcoins to their own wallet essentially stealing the the bitcoin from Mt. Gox.
Not really. It's analogous to a drawing. You can put your name in the hat as many times as you want, but the person who put their name in once could get lucky and have their name drawn over the person who has their name in 1000 times.
When encountering the.exe file association thing I usually make a copy of regedit32.exe and name it regedit32.com or regedit32.bat. Since execution is based on the 3 letter extension the program will run fine. Then I can fix the file association problem. You can do this for combofix or whatever as well to get it to run as well.
Sometimes I have to type a name to search/start an app
This is a problem for new users. What happens when they don't know to type "banshee" to find the media player? The hierarchical menu is much more logical if you aren't sure of the name of the application you are looking for.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed I do. Nowhere in the constitution is the federal government given the power to mandate or provide health care. That falls in to the jurisdiction of the state according to the Constitution, making the healthcare debate in this Presidential election cycle legally moot. Of course, regardless of what the constitution said, the Supreme court ruled Obamacare is legal so all bets are off...
You do realize that Obamacare was modeled on Romneycare, right?
What politicians say they will do and what they do are completely different things.
Vote 3rd party. Maybe there will be a choice that people are actually happy with next time (or maybe 2 elections from now.)
NO damage was done to the Linux desktop. Both camps have different ideas on how things should be done. Both camps tailor their project to a specific set of users. One combined project would likely alienate even more users since neither camp would be happy with the end result.
Competition is also helpful for spurring innovation. Without competition, stagnation occurs because there is nothing driving progress forward. Look at how long IE6 stuck around until Firefox provided enough market pressure to force Microsoft to innovate again. Other OS's would provide some competition but from the looks of Metro I'm not entirely sure that will be the case.
There are lots of free and open source monitoring tools that can help determine if something is out of alignment. SmokePing would probably be incredibly helpful you your situation. Nagios is another popular monitoring tool. Netdisco could help with inventory and topology mapping. It's worth spending a little time getting a good monitoring solution set up so you can be fixing the problem before the phone starts ringing.
You are almost right. Sadly, some of us need flash and java to do our jobs. F*** You Cisco!
If your browser/flash player/some other legit app has a zero day that allows the execution or arbitrary code you are just as screwed as if you install a malicious app.
Awesome that this will lead to easier root access on Android devices.
On the flip side I'm sure Android vendors won't get around to patching this for a while and our devices will be vulnerable.
Now, off to patch my Linux boxen.
What happens if a similar service, like Dropbox, gets shut down?
One of the reasons I prefer Dropbox for storing my non-essential files to some of the other cloud file storage services is the syncing feature. I keep the files on my local drive (all of my computers local drives, actually.) If Dropbox were to go down for any reason, I a copy of that file on every machine.
We are moving down that road with movies. Instead of paying $20 for a DVD you can now watch 100 movies on Netflix all month long for $8. This means the cost (or value) of the movie isn't really much more than $0.08 instead of $20. Between Netflix and piracy, all we are waiting for is the last bit to go away and we will see movies have $0 value.
You are confusing the concept of owning and renting. When you watch a movie on Netflix, you don't get to keep it. Before netflix, movie rentals were a couple bucks tops, so the difference isn't nearly what you are making it out to be.
With Movie tickets right around $12 before popcorn or soda, I'd say the worth of watching a movie 1 time is still $12. I doubt the major movie studios would be pulling in record profits if a movie had a $0 value.
Ebooks are going to be going that way soon as well. You can now find poor copies of newly released books downloadable within days. Better quality content is coming, just as it did with music and movies. The revenue from ebooks will be destroyed just as certainly as it was for other digital items.
Do you know what pirates did before the invention of ebooks? They went to their local library, checked out the book they wanted to read, walked outside, and shouted "ARRRR!"
Using your logic, the value of a book is zero because anyone with a library card can check them out for free.
No, it hasn't. Intel heatsinks are attached by plastic clips that go through holes in the motherboard. AMD heat sinks are clipped to a bracket that is bolted through the motherboard to a backing plate behind the CPU socket. They use a cam-style locking mechanism to provide tension and keep the heatsink tight while eliminating the prying that was needed on socket 370 and socket A heatsinks.
The AMD buyout of ATI happened in 2006. Your 5850 was made by AMD.
Traction control systems can typically be turned off if driving in mud or sand or whatnot.
I have seen plenty of cars where it could not. 4x4s and sports cars usually allow for this. Cheaper cars sometimes do not.
Stopping fast on gravel by locking your brakes? What a joke. The difference would be so marginal that it would be covered by the extra effort it took you to stomp on your brakes.
Care to back that up with a fact or two? With anti-lock brakes you are supposed to stomp on the pedal as well.
And why are you driving so fast on gravel in the first place? Because you live in bumfuck nowhere?
How fast is "So fast?" 20MPH, 50MPH or 100MPH all require the use of brakes. A panic stop to avoid a wild animal crossing the road will lock or engage the anti-lock brakes at any of those speeds. As far as bumfuck nowhere, pretty much. None the less I still have better internet speeds than half of the US so it's not that far out there.
Over 99% of the nation's roads are paved.
Bullshit. It's 65%.
And your defense of carburetors is basically "I don't understand them thar electronical fuel jetson thingies and my mechanic don't neither.
My defense of carburetors was factual and valid. I can sum it up for you in a nice list if you would like:
I am my own mechanic. I understand EFI systems and have done a lot of successful troubleshooting on EFI systems. My experience was very negative. Sensors fail for no apparent reason and often cost hundreds of dollars in parts alone to replace. When an EFI car runs like crap it is often difficult to determine what sensor is faulty without the aid of a diagnostic computer. Sadly, unless you take it back to the dealer, the diagnostic computers give a guess. Almost always you start with the 02 sensor. If it still runs crappy you replace the TPS or whatever sensor the computer finds next. Rinse and repeat until you have found the culprit. That is if you are lucky. The most fun is when the computer says everything is A-OK and the car dies every time you stop at a stop sign. The issue is not a lack of understanding, but a lack of wanting to deal with all of the bullshit involved.
You're basically arguing against superior shit because you understand old shit, and you're using stupid .001% of the time cases to try to justify it.
I understand old and new "shit." As someone who works in IT, Prefer not to trust my life to a computer with little in regards to failsafes. I strongly disagree that "new shit" is superior. The emissions are better but that is the only way they are better for my use. I'm saving more in greenhouse gas emissions by driving the old cars and not melting them down repeatedly (how much greenhouse gas does that emit?) and replacing the steel with plastic made from non-recyclable, non-renewable resources.
Protip: You AREN'T special, you AREN'T a bett
A few decades ago you may have had a point. But guess what - an automatic transmission is smarter and better than anything you as a meatbag can do. You may have more direct control over your transmission, but you're shit compared to a machine.
I will concede that automatic transmissions are--within the last 5 years or so--finally approaching the fuel economy manual transmissions have give drivers for decades. However, until my car can read my mind, I prefer to control when my car shifts. Without traction control or the like, you can prevent a car with a manual from slipping on ice by putting it in a higher gear, etc... Traction control has it's uses but in certain situations--muddy, rutted roads for example--it's also a good way to get stuck. The road I live on is crap. It's a sloppy mess every time it rains and it takes the plow several hours to get there after a snow storm. Having the extra control is nice.
It's the same mentality as people who are against anti lock brakes.
Anti-lock brakes are great on the highway or on a paved surface. Compare anti-lock to non-anti-lock on a gravel surface some time. On gravel, assuming it is not too loose, you can stop faster by intentionally locking the brakes.
Or people who hate fuel injectors and want carburetors.
I can replace the entire fuel system in any of my carbureted cars (including the fuel pump) for the price of the fuel pump alone on your fuel injected car. When you have to start diagnosing and replacing sensors on an EFI car using the guess and check method--the diagnostic computers don't work worth a shit. ever.--your repair bill can get out of control very quickly. I'll stick to the simple to troubleshoot and cheap to fix carbureted solution.
And don't tell me how bad my fuel milage is either. My '72 Volkswagen Type 3 automatic gets 35MPG and my full-sized '54 Plymouth with a 3spd manual gets 25.
Or people who demand to crank their engine manually.
[humor]With a crank a dead battery or starter will never leave you stranded.[/humor] Seriously though, sometimes a simple solution--while a little bit more work--is more reliable in the long run.
Any automatic transmission can disconnect the engine from the drive wheels by shifting into neutral or park (go to neutral so you keep power steering). There is no safety issue.
Wrong. Many newer cars use a drive-by-wire system to shift the transmission. I stopped to help a lady whose Prius got stranded a couple of months back. She was having some sort of electrical trouble and it took 20 minutes of fooling around turning the key on and off and pressing buttons to get the damn thing in neutral so we could push it off the road. The owner knew what buttons to press, but the computer refused to shift the transmission.
A manual transmission is by no means more reliable (indeed, it is subject to idiots manually wrecking shit up), and in many cases is not even cheaper any more.
Wrong. Manual transmissions do not need coolers in the radiator or coolant lines. Loss of coolant from a ruptured line or a damaged radiator can quickly kill any automatic transmission if it is not noticed right away. Automatics are a lot more complicated both electronically and mechanically and simply have more parts to fail. A manual transmission won't stop working because of a broken wire but a modern automatic (made in the last 25 years) will.
Performance and fuel economy benefits are slim at best, and are typically only there because manual transmissions are more finely tuned, and often have an extra gear vs the automatic counterpart, specifically in order to sell to gearheads
Or they have the extra gear because it is not as costly to install as it would be in an automatic and it results in better fuel economy.
I *Really* wanted a webos tablet for the reasons outlined above. I didn't think it was worth $500 for the touchpad. I would have paid $250 for it. Maybe even $300 if the hardware was a little better.
It was within their right to fork KHTML to create Webkit. They have followed the license and have been a good open-source citizen about using it. Te hey also follow other licenses for open source software that they use (BSD, etc...) This isn't a problem. What is a problem is when Apple fanboys point to Webkit and say "Look, Apple is an open company. They created WebKit and generously gave it back to the community." They tend to forget they a) didn't create WebKit from scratch, b) are bound by KHTML's license so they could not close it if they wanted to, and c) Everybody who uses WebKit now could have easily used KHTML instead had Apple not started the WebKit fork.
In fact, why are you annoyed at Apple's open source projects, whether it's called KHTML, WebKit or whatever?
I never said I was annoyed with Apple's open source projects. If you read a little closer I said I was annoyed with people (apple fanboys) who point at webkit and try to say "Look at that, Apple is really an open company. They contributed this giant rendering engine for everyone to use. Where would Chrome be without Apple?"
Among them all, you're singling out Apple because you hate their fans?
I'm an equal opportunity hater. This article happens to be about Apple :-p
Or do you really go out and antagonize all supporters of companies that run open source projects?
I antagonize supporters of Apple who pretend Apple created Webkit from scratch and released it to the open source community. I'm willing to bet if they had written Webkit from scratch there's no way it would be under an open source license.
By that logic Linus too has taken way more than he has ever given back. How many lines of Linux code has he written of the million lines today? The heavy lifting was done by all the other kernel developers.
Right?
WRONG. Your analogy doesn't make any sense. Apple didn't start the project that became Webkit so I can't see how you could compare Apple to Linus or the Linux kernel to KHTML/Webkit.
What you failed to mention is that this closed, anticompetitive, evil Apple has actually facilitated the creation of a browser by a direct competitor called Chrome.
Wrong again. If Apple hadn't forked KHTML and called it Webkit, chrome would have been based on KHTML instead. My annoyance with the whole webkit thing is that Apple fans forget that it is just a KHTML fork that got merged back in to the main tree and the name stuck.
I don't think there are many people out there claiming Apple is a shining example of an open source company -- the likes of Redhat and such. Examples such as Webkit, Clang, CUPS, etc. are used as counter examples to show the absurdity of the haters' claims that the company has an insatiable desire to keep every single byte of their systems closed.
This isn't a dick waving contest to see who "contributed" more to open source than taking away from it (if something like that even exists).
Frankly, I don't give a crap how much code Apple contributes back to the community. They are within their rights to follow the licenses of the projects they use or contribute to. This isn't in question. What bothers me is when people point to Webkit and say "Apple created that. Look at what Apple has done for open source." It's a load of crap.
Does GE make it easy for you to reprogram your microwave?
No, but they don't make it difficult either. I can open it up with a phillips screwdriver. It's not like it's welded shut.
Lookup appliance in a dictionary.
I'm fairly certain you are the one with a screwed-up definition of "appliance." From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
Definition of APPLIANCE
1
: an act of applying
2
a : a piece of equipment for adapting a tool or machine to a special purpose : attachment
b : an instrument or device designed for a particular use or function ; specifically : a household or office device (as a stove, fan, or refrigerator) operated by gas or electric current
c British : fire engine
Definition 2b is closest to what we are describing here. The critical part is "designed for a particular use or function." By this definition, every smartphone, tablet, MID, whatever is really a general purpose computer with a different interface (touchscreen, accelerometer, etc...) Since this puts most locked-down gadgets into the "general purpose computer" category, how would you react if Dell would only allow you to run the Dell OEM version of Windows on your laptop and wouldn't allow you to uninstall all the bundled crapware without voiding your warranty and jumping through a bunch of hoops. This is the state of the smartphone/tablet/mid market today. It sucks. The closest thing I can think of that comes close to actual "appliance computing" is the chromebook--which is more like a refrigerator with everything welded shut but the ice machine. E-ink e-readers would fit the definition as well. The iPod nano and shuffle are the only apple products that I would classify as an "appliance."
You call it "closing everything off" because you want to keep nerd playgrounds like the PC around indefinitely. He would call it making simple products that mere mortals want to use. The public has spoken, and appliance computing is here to stay.
I don't mind appliance computing, but if I pay good money for something, I better be able to use it as I see fit. Having a company or government or anybody else dictate to me what I can or cannot do to or with my property (within reason of course) is unacceptable.
Apple has contributed to open source, from WebKit to Clang.
I love it when Apple fanboys bring up Webkit. KHTML had much of the heavy lifting done before apple re-branded--err I mean forked--it. Yes, they have contributed but they have taken way more than they have ever given back.
The Bitcoin post just looks dumb; phony Bitcoins? doesn't exist; they're cryptographically signed, the whole post is ridiculous.
Actually it is possible. Mt. Gox keeps the amount of bitcoin in a member's database--much like a bank where your account balance is nothing more than a number in a database. If someone compromised Mt. Gox's database they could potentially increase the amount of bitcoin the database says their account contains. Then the malicious user could transfer the bitcoins to their own wallet essentially stealing the the bitcoin from Mt. Gox.
Not really. It's analogous to a drawing. You can put your name in the hat as many times as you want, but the person who put their name in once could get lucky and have their name drawn over the person who has their name in 1000 times.
When encountering the .exe file association thing I usually make a copy of regedit32.exe and name it regedit32.com or regedit32.bat. Since execution is based on the 3 letter extension the program will run fine. Then I can fix the file association problem. You can do this for combofix or whatever as well to get it to run as well.
The extension you are looking for is called NotScripts.
Sometimes I have to type a name to search/start an app
This is a problem for new users. What happens when they don't know to type "banshee" to find the media player? The hierarchical menu is much more logical if you aren't sure of the name of the application you are looking for.
fireICEis a rewrite that gets rid of the nag screen and addresses some of the privacy concerns the author had with the original MafiaaFire.