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User: Quarters

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  1. Quick Answer on Open Source C++ ClanLib SDK Refreshed For 2015 · · Score: 2

    Will ClanLib turn around the tides and finally challenge SDL?

    No.

  2. Re:See it before on Ask Slashdot: What's the Future of Desktop Applications? · · Score: 1

    If you let the code generate the UI you'll get what only a programmer thinks is a good UI (for reference, property grid controls). It's akin to thinking the content of a magazine can dictate a pleasing layout. It can't. Without writing code (or using a tool that writes code based on a graphical layout tool) to specify what is important, what needs emphasis, how the user should progress through the UI, you'll just get a mess. As soon as you go down the path of tagging items in the source code to help a system determine those things you're back at the starting point, you're having to "write text" (horrors!) to get a workable UI. Yes, just workable. You'll never get a stellar UI without a proper person designing it.

  3. Re:Hypocrites on Windows 10 Can Run Reworked Android and iOS Apps · · Score: 1

    Would you care to provide some links to support your claim? I mean what I assume is your claim that Microsoft wrote an amicus brief supporting Oracle in the lawsuit. There is no such thing as being 'an amicus'.

    I can find many supports showing Microsoft in support of an appeal of the case, including a posted story right here on Slashdot
    http://developers.slashdot.org...

    I can find zero stories about them being in support of Oracle.

  4. So about 8' from my front door? on USPS Shortlists 'HorseFly' Octocopter Drone Delivery Service · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That thing is freaking huge. Each copter arm has to be at least 4' - 5' long. Factor in the roof overhang over my front door, and the landscaping, and the closest this thing could get a package to my doorstep would be about 8' away, but that puts it right into another landscaped area. So, my packages will either be somewhere in my front yard or on my driveway. All of this just so a postal worker doesn't have to get up out of a seat and walk the package all the way to my door?

    PROGRESS!

  5. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... on Microsoft Open Sources CoreCLR, the .NET Execution Engine · · Score: 2

    Given that you haven't stopped using the tired $ = S replacement in "Microsoft" almost 12 1/2 years after it was summarily called out as being childish and stupid (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/22/m) I seriously doubt your "5 years after" claim.

  6. Re:mod parent up on Microsoft Open Sources CoreCLR, the .NET Execution Engine · · Score: 1

    But but but, it doesn't matter if Microsoft NEVER went through with the vague and veiled threat StormReaver came up with, IT'S STILL A FRIGGIN TRAP!!! And if you didn't see it the fault is on you and a pox on your family for all eternity....or something, I guess...

  7. Re:Let's glorify genius when incompetence is to bl on How, and Why, Apple Overtook Microsoft · · Score: 1

    Ineptness? While he is large, boisterous, and a bit of a buffoon, you have to give Balmer credit for greatly increasing Microsoft's market value over the length of his tenure as CEO and for starting many of the initiatives that are coming to fruition under Nadella.

    Apple hasn't really overtaken Microsoft. Apple focuses on consumer tech. That takes large R&D budgets, large design budgets, and a lot of risk. It is also a segment where you have to continually invent new markets or else you will become irrelevant very quickly. Microsoft has always focused on the enterprise. There are large dollars there without the huge risk of being a consumer oriented tech company. Sure, Apple has more cash on hand and a larger market cap than Microsoft. That's not at all the same as Microsoft being on the ropes. One or two major flops or missed opportunities and Apple's fortunes will turn quickly. The enterprise isn't going anywhere. Both companies have their market segments identified and are doing just fine in them.

  8. Re: Not Great on Microsoft Launches Outlook For Android and iOS · · Score: 1
  9. Re:Not Great on Microsoft Launches Outlook For Android and iOS · · Score: 1

    There is no Office suite bundle. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote are all separate downloads on the Google Play store.

  10. Re:Quoting fixed? on Microsoft Launches Outlook For Android and iOS · · Score: 1

    Because.

    And why would you answer before the question?

  11. Re:Is it really new? on Microsoft Launches Outlook For Android and iOS · · Score: 2

    No, and yes.

    It is Acompli, rebranded, but it's not the OWA app to which you are probably referring.

  12. Re:Not Great on Microsoft Launches Outlook For Android and iOS · · Score: 2

    This isn't about the OWA app. It's a full Outlook app. Actually, it's just the phenomenal Acompli email client rebranded, as Microsoft bought Acompli about six months ago. OWA is bad, as you have stated, but you're not looking at the correct (new) app.

  13. Cannot WAIT for the Greece Summer Sale! on Valve's Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Greece's Finance Minister · · Score: 0

    I've been wanting to buy a good bunch of grappa. But, the reviews have been iffy so I've been waiting for it to be marked down.

  14. Re:Lollipop killed my Nexus 7 on Is Kitkat Killing Lollipop Uptake? · · Score: 1

    Yes. Go into Developer Options and set the Window Animation, Transition Animation, and Animator Duration scale to Off

  15. Not too worried about this on Wireless Keylogger Masquerades as USB Phone Charger · · Score: 1

    The receiver for my Microsoft wireless keyboard has to be 1' away from the keyboard or else I drop keystrokes pretty regularly. So unless this thing is laid right across the home-key row I'm not worried that it will pick anything useful up.

  16. Re:Lollipop killed my Nexus 7 on Is Kitkat Killing Lollipop Uptake? · · Score: 2

    You can still swipe away apps to kill them. The new upper-right X is an addition, not a replacement, for that functionality.

  17. Re:Microsoft is not less evil,more companies are E on Microsoft To Open Source .NET and Take It Cross-Platform · · Score: 1

    Monopoly means single, sole supplier. 89.95% (as of 10/14) is not a monopoly. It's exactly 10.15% (as of 10/14) short of being a monopoly. Just because no desktop Linux distribution can market itself out of a paper bag and Apple is happy with high margin low volume machines that doesn't mean Microsoft is a sole supplier.

    "being a monopoly is terrible, because people do not have a choice in using a product"
    So if I go invent some new item/widget/process/service/whatever that the world has never seen before and I end up doing amazingly well because of it I'm terrible? I'm the first and only supplier so I have a monopoly for no other reason than I had a brilliant idea and brought it to market. That doesn't make me terrible it makes me an innovator. Almost every government of the world will let me benefit from that by granting my a patent on my idea to give me a legally protected monopoly position for about a quarter decade. Nothing about any of that makes me or my fictitious company terrible - other than you and your incorrect definition of and views on monopolies.

    Hypothetical situations that refute your ignorant statements aside, Microsoft is not a monopoly. There are competing products and people every day choose to use them. Microsoft is not attempting to stifle the sales of devices that run other operating systems. It even creates markets on those systems; Office for Mac, Office Mobile for iOS & Android, Skype for just about damn everything - and even contributions to Linux, being the largest kernel submitter for 2012 and most of 2013. All of that helps increase the adoption of those platforms. That is not the behavior of an illegal monopolist.

    Communism has nothing to do with monopolies, absolutely nothing. Straw-man arguments are the first and last refuge of someone ill equipped to properly debate the topic at hand. If you believe Soviet era Russia only had one supplier for anything your knowledge of history is woefully small.

    I know about computing history in the 1990s. Again, it is irrelevant to the Build announcements this week. The Microsoft of 2014 is behaving amazingly well; developing good products and embracing the idea of letting developers use their tools to deploy software on a multitude of platforms, not just those that Microsoft owns.

    The only group of people that don't appear to appreciate what was announced at Build are people that just want to have a villain so they can act hurt and repressed. The only villains doing that to them are themselves.

  18. Re:Microsoft is not less evil,more companies are E on Microsoft To Open Source .NET and Take It Cross-Platform · · Score: 1

    Even if your claim of a desktop OS monopoly was true (it isn't), being a monopoly isn't in itself bad or illegal. Using your monopoly position to quash competition in or entering that space is where things go from good to bad. Microsoft's announcement today of opening .NET, providing VS to small teams gratis, and providing an Android emulator within VS (and standalone) all point to the face that Microsoft isn't attempting to stifle competition on desktop, mobile, or anywhere else. They're doing what they've always done best, providing development tools. They're providing tools you can use to deploy software just about anywhere.

  19. Re:When an x86 Android Phone in the US on Android On Intel x86 Tablet Performance Explored: Things Are Improving · · Score: 2

    Why? Why does it matter what CPU is in your phone if it runs the OS you want? I'm honestly curious. How does it materially affect you?

  20. You have to have an inexpensive wedding for 200+ on Statisticians Uncover What Makes For a Stable Marriage · · Score: 1

    The two statements about the more expensive the wedding the greater the chance of divorce and that the larger the ceremony you have the less likely you are to end up divorced seem mutually exclusive to me.

  21. Why is 8M a milestone? on Infinite Browser Universe Manyland Hits 8 Million Placed Blocks · · Score: 1

    Why not 5M or 10.15365M? What makes 8M a number that needs to be announced & celebrated?

  22. Re:Not just iPhone on Users Report Warping of Apple's iPhone 6 Plus · · Score: 1

    Sapphire would not have prevented this. It would have made it worse. Sapphire is much more brittle than glass, which is actually quite flexible. With sapphire people would have bent phones with shattered screens. Luckily you'll probably never see a phone with a sapphire face:

    * It's brittle
    * It has to be milled to shape, increasing costs over glass due to manufacturing and lack of quick scalability in the manufacturing process.
    * It is less transparent than glass, so battery life will suffer due to increased screen brightness requirements to be on par with glass phones

    Apple bought that sapphire factory for the high-end apple watches. Sapphire is common on high end watches and Apple wants to hit all of the checkboxes necessary to be able to sell into that market.

  23. Re:Ugh on An Open Source Pitfall? Mozilla Labs Closed, Quietly · · Score: 1

    For Pete's sake, read and comprehend before being incorrectly righteously indignant!

    September 2013 comes before December 2013 by any reasonable reckoning. If the last post on the blog was December 2013 and the one from September 2013 is referred to as the penultimate post it's a fairly safe assumption that the author is correctly stating that the September 2013 post was the second to last post made.

  24. Cyclical logic much? on You Got Your Windows In My Linux · · Score: 1

    I'm glad the author cites the blog posts he's written against the idea as supporting evidence that there is a groundswell against the idea....

  25. I know some good memes they can study on Indiana University Researchers Get $1 Million Grant To Study Memes · · Score: 2

    Up the road at Purdue University there are always quite a lot of memes about Indiana University. They're all really negative, so that might affect the study results.