Not only does marriage pre-date your religion, who do you think gives you the marriage certificate/license (hint, it's not your religion)? Since society dictates religion, it's society that defines marriage. If you doubt that, ask yourself when was the last time you stoned anyone. Many things listed in the bible and right by religion are illegal, including selling your daughter and slavery. Why is that? Because society decided to change it.
More importantly though, Prop 8 was NOT about granting gay marriage, it was phrased as gay marriage so opponents could push it easier, most of whom were from out of state. Prop 8 was about removing gay's right to a civil union, which they were already allowed to do. That's oppression, which what Eich supported and why the court struck it down. There is also word that this may not be what broke the camels back anyhow. He also supported anti-Semitic candidates, and they knew if that broke, the sh*tstorm would have been even worse.
And contrary to what many think, gay marriage foes are not celebrating, this wasn't good for anyone, but how would you feel about someone in power who actively tried to take away your rights? My guess is that you wouldn't exactly welcome them with open arms now would you? This wasn't ancient history, and this fight is still ongoing.
Wrong, Prop 8 did not maintain the status quo, it took away civil marriage from gays.
A.K.A. oppression, which is why it was struck down in the courts.
As for Obama, he wasn't for it, but he wasn't actively trying to take it away from those who had it, which is what Republicans were after. And while they scream states rights, just about every Pub candidate called for a federal amendment to stop it when pushed.
Brendan Eich have all right to exercise his freedom of speech and freedom of believes by his donation to Prop 8. But you have also give the same right to the employees of Mozilla who opposes his bigotry.
No, this is exactly what anti-gays are using as a foundation lately to stop gay legislation, and the basis for "religious freedom" laws bills going up around the country. It's wrong, stop playing into it.
If you don't like something, you have a right to that opinion. You can say you hate me, my family, religion, this country, whatever... I'm okay with that. That is your opinion and that is me being tolerant.
He didn't express an opinion, nor did he spend money to announce that he disliked it, this man spent money to help take away someone's already given rights. Gays were allowed civil unions at the time of Prop 8, the goal of Prop 8 was to deny them that right. When you try to actively participate in taking away someones rights, you have crossed over from opinion, to oppression. That is why Prop 8 was shot down every time it went to court and that is what this man supported, publicly.
Now if there were a service that let people upload their designs and charge a fee whenever they're downloaded that service would have an interest in applying DRM to their files, and printer manufactures may want to include the ability to read that DRM-ed file format. But we aren't there yet.
Shapeways does this, however they don't use DRM, because the file formats used in printing is/are standardized and usually open source formats. You could DRM an Autocad file, but how do you drm an STL file anyone can generate? They simply try and not allow for IP protected items to be uploaded or printed. Which is about all they can do.
Another issue is that anyone with a camera can now clone parts with some software. So while you may DRM the files, people can make their own files. It's similar to the RIAA trying to stop garage bands from playing protected songs. Technology has reached a point where anyone can create, and therefore, created content will have less and less value.
Yes, people have proposed it, and it will work about as well as it has for stopping movie piracy by putting DRM in Windows (probably a lot worse in fact).
Many fail to realize that there is a TON of home built 3d printers that use only open source parts/plans/software/hardware and common hardware used in other applications. In fact, there is a HUGE segment of the 3d printer community dedicated to building (only) open source designs that can be printed on open source printers (Reprap). In other words, you can build one from things found around the house/shop and an electronics lab/hackerspace/Radio Shack/Ebay/Amazon, so where exactly do you put this DRM? If there is no part that is specifically tailored to 3d printing, there's little you can do to regulate it.
My printers were each built for about $500 with parts easily scavenged or bought, using only open source and common hardware items. You may be able to tell me what I can print, but as far as installing DRM on it, good luck convincing the open source community on that. 2d printers are controlled by a small cartel of manufacturers and easily controlled, that isn't the case for 3d printing, which is still very much in it's infancy and heavily open source at the hobby/home level.
While I won't argue with the Blacks, they work great and I like them (they are not the same as other WD drives), but I don't agree with buying more expensive drives specifically for a longer warranty.
A drive doesn't drop dead upon warranty expiration. Taking this and the fact that prices drop so fast (ignoring the flood), you are doing the same as buying an in store, extended warranty, which have been shown time and time again to be a bad choice. If the drive survives the warranty period, odds are it will go a bit longer, by which point, you destroy any advantage you gained by a longer warranty. Besides, by the time that drive does fail, out of warranty, you can buy newer, faster, bigger, for less.
There was a whole line of Deskstar drives over many years, many of them were fantastic. It was one specific model using a new technology was bad/completely defective and that is where it got the reputation, but the others were great.
Agreed
Excluding Raptor and Black lines (which aren't entirely consumer grade drives), I've seen and had nothing but trouble from WD drives, and very few failures from Seagate, including my handful of 2 TB drives. When a customer loses a drive, it gets a Seagate, it's been that way for well over a decade. Even when I buy a new notebook, if it has a common WD, I swap it out as soon as I can (I repurpose them for non-mission critical external drives).
Something people need to remember,
These guys are using consumer drives in a corporate backup environment with a heavy, heavy duty cycle of nearly all writes, their results are pointless to pretty much anyone but them. Run an SSD in this environment and it would be very short lived. So while WD may work great in their environment, that doesn't mean it will in any other environment.
Hopefully things are better, but years ago, Toms was under a lot of scrutiny for false reviews, test scores and bullying smaller sites.
Much of which they accused Intel of doing to them just a few years earlier. I haven't relied on them for much since.
While I trust a few sites for the most part, after working at a dotcom and seeing the bosses pay for reviews as well as work at a review site getting paid for such reviews, I take them all with a bit of hesitation. There is a LOT of money and free product flying around. As for Newegg and such... As mentioned, you have to read the reviews in some cases as many people shopping there are idiots.
Most of the sites mentioned are good, none really rate long term reliability, which comes with experience more than anything. Watching what those who have been doing it a while use in long term machines is a good indicator. There are a few companies, I simply won't buy from, no matter how great the reviews or even their support staff are (not needing to RMA is the best RMA).
Agreed, though there are cheaper ways to do it
Find a friend/business within driving distance, but at least half a mile.
You need to be far enough from fire, tornados and lightening to be usefull. While this won't save you from a hurricane or earthquake, if either of those destroy everything, your data will be the least of your concerns. Offer to host their backups in exchange.
I use a multi-stage approach.
Things I can get back easily (installers, movies, music and such), I backup to a local external, if I lose this, it's not a problem. I have it set to update by simply connecting the drive.
My large, important data is offsite, and is about an hours drive away with 24/7 access. The initial backup was done over LAN, and then moved to the new location, only updates are handled over WAN, which are incremental and done automatically through Crashplan Free. If things go severely south, an hours drive and I have my data back. I could even do a redundant backup with Google Drive or Dropbox for the absolute necessities. I have it set to back up my web server as well. Most of this was spare hardware, and since I split the data into necessity and disposable, I could use smaller, spare drives I had sitting around rather than a large drive matching my storage capacity.
One concession I make is I do a single drive image, at most, then do selective folder backups. Windows Vista/7/8 (and WINE) can easily top 20gigs of unnecessary data so stripping that out saves a lot of space. Yes, I need to reimage/re-install then restore but I don't have a problem with that, I prefer a clean system and you may no longer have a system or even that system to restore to. On Windows, that can make an image pointless anyhow. I not only don't have to worry about it not booting (because I know it won't) but it's also easier to determine if it is a working backup as it's clear what is and isn't there. It's just how I do it, to each their own and this may not be practical on a mission critical server, but works fine for home/small business use.
Above all...
As Raymorris and Fencepost (below) have said, it needs to be automatic, and Crashplan does this well. Crashplan will also inform you by email as to status of backups and alert you if one was missed. It has been the best, most reliable backup system I have used yet.
I'm surprised ANYONE is still supporting 2.1, 2.2, or 2.3 out there.
Some carriers are still selling phones with 2.2, and some are barely over a year old, some cheap tablets out of China are still coming with it as well.
You realize what you are saying is equivalent to saying a new windows app needs to be test on every version of windows, and on every machine combination, right?
Actually, in a way, yes.
Windows and Linux are a generic operating system designed to run on many devices and be easy for developers to make it and it's applications work across many machines. It's designed to compensate for different screen resolutions, processors, memory, and more.
Android isn't.
While people think of Android as being similar to Windows or Linux, it's not KDE versus Gnome or Win7 versus Xp either. Android is more like a very specialized motherboard bios/operating system/custom interface and each is hand made for that particular circuit board with little or no overhead for compatibility. It's a specialized embedded system, not a generic operating system. It's compiled not just on a per phone model basis, it's compiled and customized specifically for each carrier and frequency band as well, and it even goes beyond that. Android can't settle on how to handle storage, wants to boot, or even how to update itself. Then you have manufacturers trying to distinguish their phones from others... I like to tell people, take the worst parts of Windows (security), Linux (usability) and Apple computers (upgradability) and you get Android. It's too many people arguing about where to go, but with no one actually steering the ship.
Ask yourself this, how many updates a week does your computer get? Several a week? How about an iphone? Iphone 3's can upgrade all the way to IOS 5 (possibly IOS6). Now how about Android? Many Android phones are lucky to get a single security update before being end of life'd, much less an OS update, and if you do, there is a very real chance the update breaks something. Why is that? Manufacturers cannot write an update to all of their phones like Apple can, each has to be made for every specific model and carrier, which is expensive. This was a known issue with Android from the very beginning, but Google chose to ignore it (they have only recently started to address it), and don't even get me started on Android security (which is attrocious). While Blackberry understood modularity and looked professional on top and underneath, and Apple builds their phones from a traditional computer OS perspective (a generic system to cover many models), Android is pure anarchy, anything goes and ultimately users suffer, even if they don't know it.
So why is it popular?
Well that's easy, it's cheap. You can buy (without subsidies) an Iphone for $500 or an Android for $50 and let's be honest, they do the same things.
Before you start saying I'm biased, I'm actually an Android Developer (I work on roms mostly) and I use Android on a daily basis. I know several app developers, and one of their biggest complaints is compatibility.
Exactly, I had to explain yesterday to a customer why her "Windows" tablet couldn't run Outlook and, oh, was she angry.
Microsoft has done a pathetic job getting the public to understand the difference between the models. Many of those who bought them, feel as though they were caught in a bait and switch operation, which means not only does MS have few people wanting them, but they have a bunch of people angry over it as well.
Yes, 8.1 corrects this "oversight", that does nothing for those who spent all that beforehand.
Agreed, my systems (combined) are hit every 3 seconds by spammers and hackers.
While people may hate Captcha, webmasters do as well, until we have something that works at least as good, it stays, along with my other levels of fighting spam. It's imperfect, troublesome, and a hassle at times, but it's still one of the more effective anti-spam systems out.
And no, I will not let you login from Twitter or Facebook or any other junk, that opens up a whole new host of issues.
It doesn't work that way.
The cost of the printed parts is only a fraction of the cost to build a printer, fully self replicating is a massive stretch of the imagination. You cannot print a pcb, motors, wires, nuts and bolts, rods, print head, belts, pulleys, power supplies... I spent less than $100 on the plastic bits made on a printer and around $800 on everything else.
And before you say just print off a dozen kits... Printing the parts for a printer can take a VERY long time. A single part can easily exceed 3 hours and 24 hour print jobs aren't unusual. A whole printer can take several days worth of work to print and one mistake, on yours or the printers fault (both of which are easy to do), and you start all over. You also need buyers, and a movement is starting where people give away the plastic parts.
Absolutely, 110%
I have one, and there is no way the average person could use, much less build or find it useful on a regular basis. This article reminds me of the Linux on the desktop evangelism from 15 (or so) years ago.
Until you can plug it in and press print and get a working item 90+ percent of the time, like you can on a modern 2d printer, and not take 8 hours before breaking on the first use, it's not ready for the average home.
There is no simple one step answer to all of this (and iron fertilization is certainly not as simple or safe as it seems), regardless of any method we take, we still have to lower emissions before anything we do will even start to make a dent.
That may be the case now (and it wouldn't surprise me), but much of the initial drop was blamed on sexism.
I hate using social stereotypes that conform to gender roles, but the women do place more emphasis on being there and caring for the family and less about the monetary aspect of it. We typically get home from work and still have to take care of the house and home, long hours simply don't mesh with that.
I would also place some blame on what has happened in I.T. as a whole. At one time it was considered a fast track to a good paying job, and as usual colleges loaded up classrooms and flooded the market. Pay rates in I.T. are not what they once were, and yet all the excesses (such as hours) that came with that pay are still there.
Most women I see in I.T. these days are doing it themselves, they develop apps, run websites, etc... So there are women in I.T. they just take a different path in how they get there and what they do once there. Not only can it be done at your own pace and without a classroom but it also allows us to make our own hours. This is/was exactly how I did it. I did the 70hours a week thing during the dotcom boom and it was horrid. Never again.
Geeks are less likely... You must be joking.
The guys who couldn't get a date in school are now in a position of power and you don't think they will abuse that or bear a slight grudge?... Right, and I have a bridge to sell you. Have you even looked at female characters in games, particularly their "armor", it usually looks more like a stripper outfit than any form of actual protection. There is your first indication.
You would probably be surprised how many players around you in games are women playing as men. Some so they get less hassle, others because they don't want to look like a stripper. I know a few who even go so far as having their BF handle voice (when they can) while they play just to hide that much better. Personally, I play openly as female, but most of the time, it's only with people I play with on a regular basis and know I can trust, otherwise it can be too much trouble.
At one time it women in I.T. classrooms was at 35%and projected to reach 43% within a few years, instead, the number plunged to 20%, and the reasons given were sexism in the industry.
Actually, a lot of fully clothed women ARE being groped at random and treated like booth babes, and it's being done by men.
E3 is making an effort to curb this behavior because there is quite an underground protest that started a couple years ago because of it. Women were being actively encouraged not to go by other women for their own protection.
Just because you are above this level of behavior doesn't mean others there are. Women are groped, treated as though they are only there with their boyfriend, and pretty much only treated as eye candy the whole time they are there by not just attendees, but by the vendors as well.
I know I will get crap for this and but here it is from a woman's perspective...
Women actually used to be a larger part of I.T. in general and classrooms at one time were on track to reach an expected 45%. Instead of climbing, those numbers are falling.
You can blame it on parents not giving girls tech toys, and yes that may be part of it, but considering how many female gamers there are (nearly half of gamers are female), that doesn't explain it completely. Remember, the average age of gamers these days (30's) have kids in high school and college, that means these kids likely grew up on video games. There is obvious interest, and there was an interest, they just don't have an interest in a career in those fields any longer.
So the real question is why don't they want a career in I.T.?
The answer is men. Male geeks as it turns out are quite sexist (and geeks develop a minor god complex to boot). E3 has a spectacularly bad reputation among women and there is/was an actually boycott because of repeatedly being groped, talked down to and generally treated bad. Look at how things are marketed there... Booth babes? How much more sexist can you get. Other tech trade shows aren't any better.
In online gaming, there are a TON of women playing games online, you guys act like they don't play FPS or anything hardcore, yes, we do, you just don't see them because most of them hide their gender. Xbox players are the worst, however even on PC, which is better it can still be pretty bad. Personally, I don't hide my gender, however I won't play before 8pm, and I won't play long unless it's with other friends. All it takes is one guys to ask "are you really a girl", and the entire game will change and go downhill. If it's not "you got killed by a girl", it's a guy trying to talk smack to me. If I stay quiet, he will get more aggressive as it goes, if I talk back, he will instantly go ballistic, there is no middle ground, it usually only stops if a 3rd person steps in, I leave or someone gets booted. Then your have the games themselves, IF there is a female character, her clothes get skimpier the more "armor" she gets... By the time she is "armored up" she looks more like a sex slave than a warrior. Which only reinforces the males view of women only being good for eye candy. Try playing as a girl for a week or more and you will begin to see what women really go through when playing online and you will begin to see why they hide.
This is why the classrooms are emptying out. I know not all guys are this way, and as they grow up they grow out of this (some more than others), however the worst of it happens right at the age where we are choosing our careers (teens). Why would a woman pick a career where she's not only objectified, she's verbally abused on a daily basis?
I own a drone (an RC helicopter with wifi and a camera). Eric, you can take my drone when you peel the controller from my cold dead fingers.
People have no idea that hobbyists have been flying what amounts to home built drones for years, they would be even more shocked if they knew just how advanced they are, with many flying with complete autonomy.
And who do you think is working with and paying those government officials behind closed doors?
The RIAA, MPAA, Wall Street and NRA have all had their hands directly involved with writing new laws, some people want Congress to wear Nascar style sponsor jackets just so we know exactly who is pulling their strings. You can throw out an abusive government, what do you do with an abusive corporation? How many Enron, BP, and Wall Street Execs went to jail over their scandals?
Yes, you should be wary of government, but pay attention to the guys behind the curtain as well. This is especially true when we have corporations who's profits are nearly as large as our government spending.
People are exposed to both sides quite often, yet it doesn't change them, so catching them off guard and asking them to defend it really doesn't prove much of anything. Even he himself admits it probably won't stick.
It's nothing more than a party trick a magician or hypnotist would use.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only does marriage pre-date your religion, who do you think gives you the marriage certificate/license (hint, it's not your religion)? Since society dictates religion, it's society that defines marriage. If you doubt that, ask yourself when was the last time you stoned anyone. Many things listed in the bible and right by religion are illegal, including selling your daughter and slavery. Why is that? Because society decided to change it.
More importantly though, Prop 8 was NOT about granting gay marriage, it was phrased as gay marriage so opponents could push it easier, most of whom were from out of state. Prop 8 was about removing gay's right to a civil union, which they were already allowed to do. That's oppression, which what Eich supported and why the court struck it down. There is also word that this may not be what broke the camels back anyhow. He also supported anti-Semitic candidates, and they knew if that broke, the sh*tstorm would have been even worse.
And contrary to what many think, gay marriage foes are not celebrating, this wasn't good for anyone, but how would you feel about someone in power who actively tried to take away your rights? My guess is that you wouldn't exactly welcome them with open arms now would you? This wasn't ancient history, and this fight is still ongoing.
Wrong, Prop 8 did not maintain the status quo, it took away civil marriage from gays. A.K.A. oppression, which is why it was struck down in the courts.
As for Obama, he wasn't for it, but he wasn't actively trying to take it away from those who had it, which is what Republicans were after. And while they scream states rights, just about every Pub candidate called for a federal amendment to stop it when pushed.
Brendan Eich have all right to exercise his freedom of speech and freedom of believes by his donation to Prop 8. But you have also give the same right to the employees of Mozilla who opposes his bigotry.
No, this is exactly what anti-gays are using as a foundation lately to stop gay legislation, and the basis for "religious freedom" laws bills going up around the country. It's wrong, stop playing into it.
If you don't like something, you have a right to that opinion. You can say you hate me, my family, religion, this country, whatever... I'm okay with that. That is your opinion and that is me being tolerant.
He didn't express an opinion, nor did he spend money to announce that he disliked it, this man spent money to help take away someone's already given rights. Gays were allowed civil unions at the time of Prop 8, the goal of Prop 8 was to deny them that right. When you try to actively participate in taking away someones rights, you have crossed over from opinion, to oppression. That is why Prop 8 was shot down every time it went to court and that is what this man supported, publicly.
Now if there were a service that let people upload their designs and charge a fee whenever they're downloaded that service would have an interest in applying DRM to their files, and printer manufactures may want to include the ability to read that DRM-ed file format. But we aren't there yet.
Shapeways does this, however they don't use DRM, because the file formats used in printing is/are standardized and usually open source formats. You could DRM an Autocad file, but how do you drm an STL file anyone can generate? They simply try and not allow for IP protected items to be uploaded or printed. Which is about all they can do.
Another issue is that anyone with a camera can now clone parts with some software. So while you may DRM the files, people can make their own files. It's similar to the RIAA trying to stop garage bands from playing protected songs. Technology has reached a point where anyone can create, and therefore, created content will have less and less value.
Yes, people have proposed it, and it will work about as well as it has for stopping movie piracy by putting DRM in Windows (probably a lot worse in fact).
Many fail to realize that there is a TON of home built 3d printers that use only open source parts/plans/software/hardware and common hardware used in other applications. In fact, there is a HUGE segment of the 3d printer community dedicated to building (only) open source designs that can be printed on open source printers (Reprap). In other words, you can build one from things found around the house/shop and an electronics lab/hackerspace/Radio Shack/Ebay/Amazon, so where exactly do you put this DRM? If there is no part that is specifically tailored to 3d printing, there's little you can do to regulate it.
My printers were each built for about $500 with parts easily scavenged or bought, using only open source and common hardware items. You may be able to tell me what I can print, but as far as installing DRM on it, good luck convincing the open source community on that. 2d printers are controlled by a small cartel of manufacturers and easily controlled, that isn't the case for 3d printing, which is still very much in it's infancy and heavily open source at the hobby/home level.
While I won't argue with the Blacks, they work great and I like them (they are not the same as other WD drives), but I don't agree with buying more expensive drives specifically for a longer warranty.
A drive doesn't drop dead upon warranty expiration. Taking this and the fact that prices drop so fast (ignoring the flood), you are doing the same as buying an in store, extended warranty, which have been shown time and time again to be a bad choice. If the drive survives the warranty period, odds are it will go a bit longer, by which point, you destroy any advantage you gained by a longer warranty. Besides, by the time that drive does fail, out of warranty, you can buy newer, faster, bigger, for less.
There was a whole line of Deskstar drives over many years, many of them were fantastic. It was one specific model using a new technology was bad/completely defective and that is where it got the reputation, but the others were great.
Agreed
Excluding Raptor and Black lines (which aren't entirely consumer grade drives), I've seen and had nothing but trouble from WD drives, and very few failures from Seagate, including my handful of 2 TB drives. When a customer loses a drive, it gets a Seagate, it's been that way for well over a decade. Even when I buy a new notebook, if it has a common WD, I swap it out as soon as I can (I repurpose them for non-mission critical external drives).
Something people need to remember,
These guys are using consumer drives in a corporate backup environment with a heavy, heavy duty cycle of nearly all writes, their results are pointless to pretty much anyone but them. Run an SSD in this environment and it would be very short lived. So while WD may work great in their environment, that doesn't mean it will in any other environment.
Hopefully things are better, but years ago, Toms was under a lot of scrutiny for false reviews, test scores and bullying smaller sites. Much of which they accused Intel of doing to them just a few years earlier. I haven't relied on them for much since.
While I trust a few sites for the most part, after working at a dotcom and seeing the bosses pay for reviews as well as work at a review site getting paid for such reviews, I take them all with a bit of hesitation. There is a LOT of money and free product flying around. As for Newegg and such... As mentioned, you have to read the reviews in some cases as many people shopping there are idiots.
Most of the sites mentioned are good, none really rate long term reliability, which comes with experience more than anything. Watching what those who have been doing it a while use in long term machines is a good indicator. There are a few companies, I simply won't buy from, no matter how great the reviews or even their support staff are (not needing to RMA is the best RMA).
Agreed, though there are cheaper ways to do it
Find a friend/business within driving distance, but at least half a mile.
You need to be far enough from fire, tornados and lightening to be usefull. While this won't save you from a hurricane or earthquake, if either of those destroy everything, your data will be the least of your concerns. Offer to host their backups in exchange.
I use a multi-stage approach.
Things I can get back easily (installers, movies, music and such), I backup to a local external, if I lose this, it's not a problem. I have it set to update by simply connecting the drive.
My large, important data is offsite, and is about an hours drive away with 24/7 access. The initial backup was done over LAN, and then moved to the new location, only updates are handled over WAN, which are incremental and done automatically through Crashplan Free. If things go severely south, an hours drive and I have my data back. I could even do a redundant backup with Google Drive or Dropbox for the absolute necessities. I have it set to back up my web server as well. Most of this was spare hardware, and since I split the data into necessity and disposable, I could use smaller, spare drives I had sitting around rather than a large drive matching my storage capacity.
One concession I make is I do a single drive image, at most, then do selective folder backups. Windows Vista/7/8 (and WINE) can easily top 20gigs of unnecessary data so stripping that out saves a lot of space. Yes, I need to reimage/re-install then restore but I don't have a problem with that, I prefer a clean system and you may no longer have a system or even that system to restore to. On Windows, that can make an image pointless anyhow. I not only don't have to worry about it not booting (because I know it won't) but it's also easier to determine if it is a working backup as it's clear what is and isn't there. It's just how I do it, to each their own and this may not be practical on a mission critical server, but works fine for home/small business use.
Above all...
As Raymorris and Fencepost (below) have said, it needs to be automatic, and Crashplan does this well. Crashplan will also inform you by email as to status of backups and alert you if one was missed. It has been the best, most reliable backup system I have used yet.
I'm surprised ANYONE is still supporting 2.1, 2.2, or 2.3 out there.
Some carriers are still selling phones with 2.2, and some are barely over a year old, some cheap tablets out of China are still coming with it as well.
You realize what you are saying is equivalent to saying a new windows app needs to be test on every version of windows, and on every machine combination, right?
Actually, in a way, yes.
Windows and Linux are a generic operating system designed to run on many devices and be easy for developers to make it and it's applications work across many machines. It's designed to compensate for different screen resolutions, processors, memory, and more.
Android isn't.
While people think of Android as being similar to Windows or Linux, it's not KDE versus Gnome or Win7 versus Xp either. Android is more like a very specialized motherboard bios/operating system/custom interface and each is hand made for that particular circuit board with little or no overhead for compatibility. It's a specialized embedded system, not a generic operating system. It's compiled not just on a per phone model basis, it's compiled and customized specifically for each carrier and frequency band as well, and it even goes beyond that. Android can't settle on how to handle storage, wants to boot, or even how to update itself. Then you have manufacturers trying to distinguish their phones from others... I like to tell people, take the worst parts of Windows (security), Linux (usability) and Apple computers (upgradability) and you get Android. It's too many people arguing about where to go, but with no one actually steering the ship.
Ask yourself this, how many updates a week does your computer get? Several a week? How about an iphone? Iphone 3's can upgrade all the way to IOS 5 (possibly IOS6). Now how about Android? Many Android phones are lucky to get a single security update before being end of life'd, much less an OS update, and if you do, there is a very real chance the update breaks something. Why is that? Manufacturers cannot write an update to all of their phones like Apple can, each has to be made for every specific model and carrier, which is expensive. This was a known issue with Android from the very beginning, but Google chose to ignore it (they have only recently started to address it), and don't even get me started on Android security (which is attrocious). While Blackberry understood modularity and looked professional on top and underneath, and Apple builds their phones from a traditional computer OS perspective (a generic system to cover many models), Android is pure anarchy, anything goes and ultimately users suffer, even if they don't know it.
So why is it popular?
Well that's easy, it's cheap. You can buy (without subsidies) an Iphone for $500 or an Android for $50 and let's be honest, they do the same things.
Before you start saying I'm biased, I'm actually an Android Developer (I work on roms mostly) and I use Android on a daily basis. I know several app developers, and one of their biggest complaints is compatibility.
Exactly, I had to explain yesterday to a customer why her "Windows" tablet couldn't run Outlook and, oh, was she angry.
Microsoft has done a pathetic job getting the public to understand the difference between the models. Many of those who bought them, feel as though they were caught in a bait and switch operation, which means not only does MS have few people wanting them, but they have a bunch of people angry over it as well.
Yes, 8.1 corrects this "oversight", that does nothing for those who spent all that beforehand.
Agreed, my systems (combined) are hit every 3 seconds by spammers and hackers.
While people may hate Captcha, webmasters do as well, until we have something that works at least as good, it stays, along with my other levels of fighting spam. It's imperfect, troublesome, and a hassle at times, but it's still one of the more effective anti-spam systems out.
And no, I will not let you login from Twitter or Facebook or any other junk, that opens up a whole new host of issues.
It doesn't work that way.
The cost of the printed parts is only a fraction of the cost to build a printer, fully self replicating is a massive stretch of the imagination. You cannot print a pcb, motors, wires, nuts and bolts, rods, print head, belts, pulleys, power supplies... I spent less than $100 on the plastic bits made on a printer and around $800 on everything else.
And before you say just print off a dozen kits... Printing the parts for a printer can take a VERY long time. A single part can easily exceed 3 hours and 24 hour print jobs aren't unusual. A whole printer can take several days worth of work to print and one mistake, on yours or the printers fault (both of which are easy to do), and you start all over. You also need buyers, and a movement is starting where people give away the plastic parts.
Absolutely, 110%
I have one, and there is no way the average person could use, much less build or find it useful on a regular basis. This article reminds me of the Linux on the desktop evangelism from 15 (or so) years ago.
Until you can plug it in and press print and get a working item 90+ percent of the time, like you can on a modern 2d printer, and not take 8 hours before breaking on the first use, it's not ready for the average home.
There is no simple one step answer to all of this (and iron fertilization is certainly not as simple or safe as it seems), regardless of any method we take, we still have to lower emissions before anything we do will even start to make a dent.
That may be the case now (and it wouldn't surprise me), but much of the initial drop was blamed on sexism.
I hate using social stereotypes that conform to gender roles, but the women do place more emphasis on being there and caring for the family and less about the monetary aspect of it. We typically get home from work and still have to take care of the house and home, long hours simply don't mesh with that.
I would also place some blame on what has happened in I.T. as a whole. At one time it was considered a fast track to a good paying job, and as usual colleges loaded up classrooms and flooded the market. Pay rates in I.T. are not what they once were, and yet all the excesses (such as hours) that came with that pay are still there.
Most women I see in I.T. these days are doing it themselves, they develop apps, run websites, etc... So there are women in I.T. they just take a different path in how they get there and what they do once there. Not only can it be done at your own pace and without a classroom but it also allows us to make our own hours. This is/was exactly how I did it. I did the 70hours a week thing during the dotcom boom and it was horrid. Never again.
Geeks are less likely... You must be joking.
The guys who couldn't get a date in school are now in a position of power and you don't think they will abuse that or bear a slight grudge?... Right, and I have a bridge to sell you. Have you even looked at female characters in games, particularly their "armor", it usually looks more like a stripper outfit than any form of actual protection. There is your first indication.
You would probably be surprised how many players around you in games are women playing as men. Some so they get less hassle, others because they don't want to look like a stripper. I know a few who even go so far as having their BF handle voice (when they can) while they play just to hide that much better. Personally, I play openly as female, but most of the time, it's only with people I play with on a regular basis and know I can trust, otherwise it can be too much trouble.
Here is a good link to one woman's experience. If I remember right, there was some discussion of boycots in the discussion, but I'm not digging through that mess.
http://kotaku.com/5919386/so-what-if-im-a-woman-let-me-play-the-damn-game
Oh and bee sure to look at this site for the crap we see regularly:
http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
At one time it women in I.T. classrooms was at 35%and projected to reach 43% within a few years, instead, the number plunged to 20%, and the reasons given were sexism in the industry.
Actually, a lot of fully clothed women ARE being groped at random and treated like booth babes, and it's being done by men.
E3 is making an effort to curb this behavior because there is quite an underground protest that started a couple years ago because of it. Women were being actively encouraged not to go by other women for their own protection.
Just because you are above this level of behavior doesn't mean others there are. Women are groped, treated as though they are only there with their boyfriend, and pretty much only treated as eye candy the whole time they are there by not just attendees, but by the vendors as well.
I know I will get crap for this and but here it is from a woman's perspective...
Women actually used to be a larger part of I.T. in general and classrooms at one time were on track to reach an expected 45%. Instead of climbing, those numbers are falling.
You can blame it on parents not giving girls tech toys, and yes that may be part of it, but considering how many female gamers there are (nearly half of gamers are female), that doesn't explain it completely. Remember, the average age of gamers these days (30's) have kids in high school and college, that means these kids likely grew up on video games. There is obvious interest, and there was an interest, they just don't have an interest in a career in those fields any longer.
So the real question is why don't they want a career in I.T.?
The answer is men. Male geeks as it turns out are quite sexist (and geeks develop a minor god complex to boot). E3 has a spectacularly bad reputation among women and there is/was an actually boycott because of repeatedly being groped, talked down to and generally treated bad. Look at how things are marketed there... Booth babes? How much more sexist can you get. Other tech trade shows aren't any better.
In online gaming, there are a TON of women playing games online, you guys act like they don't play FPS or anything hardcore, yes, we do, you just don't see them because most of them hide their gender. Xbox players are the worst, however even on PC, which is better it can still be pretty bad. Personally, I don't hide my gender, however I won't play before 8pm, and I won't play long unless it's with other friends. All it takes is one guys to ask "are you really a girl", and the entire game will change and go downhill. If it's not "you got killed by a girl", it's a guy trying to talk smack to me. If I stay quiet, he will get more aggressive as it goes, if I talk back, he will instantly go ballistic, there is no middle ground, it usually only stops if a 3rd person steps in, I leave or someone gets booted. Then your have the games themselves, IF there is a female character, her clothes get skimpier the more "armor" she gets... By the time she is "armored up" she looks more like a sex slave than a warrior. Which only reinforces the males view of women only being good for eye candy. Try playing as a girl for a week or more and you will begin to see what women really go through when playing online and you will begin to see why they hide.
This is why the classrooms are emptying out. I know not all guys are this way, and as they grow up they grow out of this (some more than others), however the worst of it happens right at the age where we are choosing our careers (teens). Why would a woman pick a career where she's not only objectified, she's verbally abused on a daily basis?
From TFA:
I own a drone (an RC helicopter with wifi and a camera). Eric, you can take my drone when you peel the controller from my cold dead fingers.
People have no idea that hobbyists have been flying what amounts to home built drones for years, they would be even more shocked if they knew just how advanced they are, with many flying with complete autonomy.
And who do you think is working with and paying those government officials behind closed doors?
The RIAA, MPAA, Wall Street and NRA have all had their hands directly involved with writing new laws, some people want Congress to wear Nascar style sponsor jackets just so we know exactly who is pulling their strings. You can throw out an abusive government, what do you do with an abusive corporation? How many Enron, BP, and Wall Street Execs went to jail over their scandals?
Yes, you should be wary of government, but pay attention to the guys behind the curtain as well. This is especially true when we have corporations who's profits are nearly as large as our government spending.
People are exposed to both sides quite often, yet it doesn't change them, so catching them off guard and asking them to defend it really doesn't prove much of anything. Even he himself admits it probably won't stick.
It's nothing more than a party trick a magician or hypnotist would use.