Win8 is a very different beast. The media has written it off as a simple UI design failure, a clumsy effort to support touchscreens/tablets. But it's not about that at all. Win8 is all about the closure of Windows, and turning at least the consumer versions of the OS into a locked-down signed-code-only, app-store-only, desktop-less closed platform.
To Microsoft, Win8 isn't broken. It's just a difficult step on the path from to 'Closed Windows'
Fleets of small multicopters overhead would get annoyingly noisy, and they'll crash fairly frequently - quadcopters fall out of the sky if any component fails (motor/prop/speed controller/flight controller/battery). And in urban areas, a crash has a fairly high chance of either hitting somebody directly, or causing an accident indirectly by distracting a driver.
Electric multicopters also have very limited range (Most high-end hobbyist setups for aerial photography max out at around 15min flight time) and lifting capability.
The only deliveries that would be worth attempting with drones would be illegal ones - getting drugs or guns across borders, for example...
Although after posting that, I spotted that the 8421 set was available used for around £150 and new for around £300 via www.bricklink.com - so there's some Amazon-related pricing shenanigans pushing those other prices to excessive levels...
As a bit of a Lego fan myself, some discontinued sets, such as some of the older large Technic sets, are very desirable, and *appear* to fetch a high price when sold as a new/sealed set. (Example: http://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-Technic-8421-Mobile-Crane/dp/B00097E4JW/ - 4 sellers wanting over £1000 for what will have been maybe £150 originally)
Not sure how many people are actually paying that price, though, when there's the option of buying used sets for a fraction of the price, or buying modern sets instead. Perhaps they are just being traded between collectors/investors, and sadly never being built and played with as intended!
Quadcopters are great fun, and you can build one quite cheaply these days - but flying/learning to fly one might be a bit much for a 90yr-old? (they do need decent vision and good reactions)
Apple are doing far worse things for computing than Microsoft ever did.
And everyone (particularly MS) is just copying Apple's walled garden approach, with the same 30% 'developer tax' and $99/yr for the privilege of developing for their platforms....
But if you're not doing 'real raids', just LFR, then VP is the about only way to jump the ilvl hurdle and get in. Especially for classes with no affordable crafted gear available (resto druids, unless you lose a +5% int bonus by wearing cloth)
Worse still... your chance of getting LFR loot is tied to grinding dailies, even after hitting exalted, due to the retarded charms system (you can grind dailies for an item that gives you a bonus roll on loot... epic fail!)
So far, It's the worst WoW expansion for endgame yet, by quite some way Very few 5-mans, which are now extremely unrewarding, and for everything else... sodding dailies.
Some of the class updates are cool, though. And Pandaria is a decent enough place to grind out another 5 levels. But for now, it's 'hit 90, say no to dailies, see if they fix things in the next update'...
MSN is completely ad-free if you use a 3rd-party client such as Pidgin.
This is probably why they're shutting it down. With Skype, they control the client, there are no 3rd-party alternatives.
Because they don't control it. They can't force you to use their client and bombard you with ads.
With Skype, the client is a lot more locked-down, and there are no third party (guaranteed-ad-free) options:(
You can't complain about Apple or MS whilst being a Valve fanboy. Yes, the Steam user experience is great. The developer experience isn't so good (Loads of developers aren't allowed in. Greenlight was a bit of a clusterfuck. And if you get in, it'll cost you a large chunk of your revenue)
I really wish Valve would split up into two companies... the awesome company that makes amazing games, and the evil company that's just about managed to turn the PC into a closed platform when it comes to gaming. But their stroke of genius was keeping the 'awesome' attached to the 'evil', so no gamer could ever really dislike them!
If you were earning millions and millions, would you want to give 30%+ away to MS or Valve, for very little beyond a billing system and content hosting?
No. They're shamelessly copying Apple's very successful approach. And as it's Microsoft, with the Windows brand, they've got a fairly decent chance of some success - if just by making people think 'ooh, this tablet runs Windows!', when it's actually the gimped WinRT version.
Take a look at Visual Studio 2012 Express to really see how hard they're going to be pushing their App Store (it only builds 'Windows Store' apps)
We've also got to remember that Android, whilst a fair bit better, is hardly an 'open platform' - when you have to hack/root the devices just to delete the manufacturer-installed junkware, install ad-blockers, and so on.
(And as a developer, it's great news that Android x86 isn't really being supported by AMD+Intel, as Android has horrible fragmentation problems already, even just considering ARM - without dealing with extra CPU architectures - which are 'fragmentation multipliers' for anyone writing native code, e.g. games, for Android)
What about after two years use?
You can easily swap a new battery into the Galaxy. The iPhone is still a right pain for that. And after 2 years, the battery in my iPhone 4 is fairly hopeless.
HTML5 is terrible at the moment if you want to make games, or do any fancy animation type stuff with it.
Even on a high end desktop PC it fairly chugs along, and has a major problem - you need WebGL to get any useful level of graphics performance, and Microsoft have no plans to support that in IE.
Slashdot Mirror
Win8 is a very different beast. The media has written it off as a simple UI design failure, a clumsy effort to support touchscreens/tablets. But it's not about that at all. Win8 is all about the closure of Windows, and turning at least the consumer versions of the OS into a locked-down signed-code-only, app-store-only, desktop-less closed platform.
To Microsoft, Win8 isn't broken. It's just a difficult step on the path from to 'Closed Windows'
No, it ain't going to happen.
Fleets of small multicopters overhead would get annoyingly noisy, and they'll crash fairly frequently - quadcopters fall out of the sky if any component fails (motor/prop/speed controller/flight controller/battery). And in urban areas, a crash has a fairly high chance of either hitting somebody directly, or causing an accident indirectly by distracting a driver.
Electric multicopters also have very limited range (Most high-end hobbyist setups for aerial photography max out at around 15min flight time) and lifting capability. The only deliveries that would be worth attempting with drones would be illegal ones - getting drugs or guns across borders, for example...
Although after posting that, I spotted that the 8421 set was available used for around £150 and new for around £300 via www.bricklink.com - so there's some Amazon-related pricing shenanigans pushing those other prices to excessive levels...
As a bit of a Lego fan myself, some discontinued sets, such as some of the older large Technic sets, are very desirable, and *appear* to fetch a high price when sold as a new/sealed set. (Example: http://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-Technic-8421-Mobile-Crane/dp/B00097E4JW/ - 4 sellers wanting over £1000 for what will have been maybe £150 originally)
Not sure how many people are actually paying that price, though, when there's the option of buying used sets for a fraction of the price, or buying modern sets instead. Perhaps they are just being traded between collectors/investors, and sadly never being built and played with as intended!
Quadcopters are great fun, and you can build one quite cheaply these days - but flying/learning to fly one might be a bit much for a 90yr-old? (they do need decent vision and good reactions)
That's because of years of conditioning, your brain just accepts '24fps==cinematic', and it'll take a while to get used to change/improvement.
Apple are doing far worse things for computing than Microsoft ever did.
And everyone (particularly MS) is just copying Apple's walled garden approach, with the same 30% 'developer tax' and $99/yr for the privilege of developing for their platforms....
Might be better on consoles, not sure if Sony/MS will let them run the pay2win auction house?....
It take a stronger CPU to lift all those bigger, heavier pixels, obviously...
But if you're not doing 'real raids', just LFR, then VP is the about only way to jump the ilvl hurdle and get in. Especially for classes with no affordable crafted gear available (resto druids, unless you lose a +5% int bonus by wearing cloth)
Worse still... your chance of getting LFR loot is tied to grinding dailies, even after hitting exalted, due to the retarded charms system (you can grind dailies for an item that gives you a bonus roll on loot... epic fail!)
So far, It's the worst WoW expansion for endgame yet, by quite some way Very few 5-mans, which are now extremely unrewarding, and for everything else... sodding dailies.
Some of the class updates are cool, though. And Pandaria is a decent enough place to grind out another 5 levels. But for now, it's 'hit 90, say no to dailies, see if they fix things in the next update'...
MSN is completely ad-free if you use a 3rd-party client such as Pidgin. This is probably why they're shutting it down. With Skype, they control the client, there are no 3rd-party alternatives.
Because they don't control it. They can't force you to use their client and bombard you with ads. With Skype, the client is a lot more locked-down, and there are no third party (guaranteed-ad-free) options :(
"I wonder what sea water flooding implies for the financial district."
Bankers need bailing out again...
If we can't have a single high-power graphics card, can they stop us linking up 4 or more medium-power cards in one system?
The web changes too fast. That QR code could point to a domain squatter with a page full of pron ads in a few years time....
People use Netflix. Netflix uses Silverlight
This.
You can't complain about Apple or MS whilst being a Valve fanboy. Yes, the Steam user experience is great. The developer experience isn't so good (Loads of developers aren't allowed in. Greenlight was a bit of a clusterfuck. And if you get in, it'll cost you a large chunk of your revenue)
I really wish Valve would split up into two companies... the awesome company that makes amazing games, and the evil company that's just about managed to turn the PC into a closed platform when it comes to gaming. But their stroke of genius was keeping the 'awesome' attached to the 'evil', so no gamer could ever really dislike them!
If you were earning millions and millions, would you want to give 30%+ away to MS or Valve, for very little beyond a billing system and content hosting?
Not really greed, just good business sense, IMHO.
No. They're shamelessly copying Apple's very successful approach. And as it's Microsoft, with the Windows brand, they've got a fairly decent chance of some success - if just by making people think 'ooh, this tablet runs Windows!', when it's actually the gimped WinRT version.
Take a look at Visual Studio 2012 Express to really see how hard they're going to be pushing their App Store (it only builds 'Windows Store' apps)
We've also got to remember that Android, whilst a fair bit better, is hardly an 'open platform' - when you have to hack/root the devices just to delete the manufacturer-installed junkware, install ad-blockers, and so on.
(And as a developer, it's great news that Android x86 isn't really being supported by AMD+Intel, as Android has horrible fragmentation problems already, even just considering ARM - without dealing with extra CPU architectures - which are 'fragmentation multipliers' for anyone writing native code, e.g. games, for Android)
What about after two years use? You can easily swap a new battery into the Galaxy. The iPhone is still a right pain for that. And after 2 years, the battery in my iPhone 4 is fairly hopeless.
Nexus 7 got the price right
Kindle Fire is irrelevant due to being US-only for so long.
But you don't 'install AIR'. You install just-another-app, and never know that it's made with Flash (unless you're really looking for it)
'The Silverlight plug-in has crashed'
The most annoying thing about Netflix in a browser...
HTML5 is terrible at the moment if you want to make games, or do any fancy animation type stuff with it. Even on a high end desktop PC it fairly chugs along, and has a major problem - you need WebGL to get any useful level of graphics performance, and Microsoft have no plans to support that in IE.