Big difference. In linux-space, for instance, the vast majority of vulnerabilities reported and patched (virtually instantly) are found not by black hat exploiters, but by white hats working to help secure the system from attacks.
In the windoze world, the majority of vulnerabilities are exploited and reported as a result. The reason is the closed source of M$. They don't have a bazillion code hackers chipping away at it for the benefit of us all. They try to hide the flaws and then only belatedly fix a problem AFTER it is being exploited.
For linux/BSD, the reports are proactive, the Windoze vulnerabilities are reported/fixed AFTER they are exploited - as that is the main way people come to find them. There are easily as many (likely MORE) as yet unknown vulnerabilities in Windoze code right now than exist in Linux/BSD because 1) the Windoze code-base is overly huge and thus MUST contain many more mistakes, and 2) Windoze is not as thoroughly vetted by code hackers BEFORE an exploit is produced in the wild as is the case with open source systems. There are MANY more eyes going over linux kernel source than there are going over closed M$ code. That is just a fact.
Give the same number of prying eyes to both systems and I assure you that there would fall out many more vulnerabilities in the M$ code than the OSS code...because it is so frickin' huge, created by a lumbering buearacracy, and by nature restricted to a limited number of eyes. They CAN'T go over it with the same fine-toothed comb that linux/BSD gets.
And I'm not talkin' space rovers and asteroid piggy-backers, though for space-interested folks like me, that stuff is AMAZING. No, I'm talking cheap one-person missions out to farther and farther orbital points. "Test pilot Bucky Bergstrom today orbited the earth farther than any human ever has!"
...and was fried and dead within 3 hours of entering and orbiting within the Van Allen belts.
One element: Helium 3. Nuff said. Helium 3 is/would be valuable and is plentiful on the moon. It would be useful for fusion reactors. Of course, we just need to create a working fusion reactor...
No one is likely to come up with a "better" desktop design than the desktop. If that were really possible given the PC, then it would have happened...at Apple, M$, Linux, IBM, Sun, etc, etc. ALL desktops are similar because there are only so many ways to do it and do it RIGHT.
Fancy-shmancy-new-innovative GUI is crap if no one "gets it" right off. THE main thing people want from their PC is usability out of the chocks. The desktop as we know it is the end-all-be-all of keyboard and mouse GUI. Sorry, but that's a fact. We are ALL used to desktops (REAL desktops), file cabinets, trashcans, etc. They were extended to the PC screen because that is the easiest and most intuitive way to do it. You COPY the real world within the limits of a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, you do not come up with something different than what people know from the real world. If you do, you have turned using the device (the computer) into a major learning chore that goes against the very nature of our existence.
Sheesh. There are only so many ways to implement the PROVEN desktop model. People know it, people are comfortable with it, people LIKE it, people can use it from time 0.
Quit complaining about how the desktop model is soooooo non-innovative, derivative, and old-fashioned. If there was something better, it would EXIST. It doesn't. EVERY option to the desktop familiar to ALL of us requires much more RAM, many more CPU cycles, and has a LARGE learning curve. That wont do at all. Such is destined to failure because students, parents, business people, etc, want to get on their system and do useful stuff NOW. Not a week or so from now after they've retrained themselves to a new GUI/interface paradigm just to do the most rudimentary functions.
You are missing the point. You cannot avoid power struggles nor someone gaining power - it comes AUTOMATICALLY when groups of people get together to do anything at all. Even if a group is unstructured by design, it is inevitable that to accomplish goal A, someone WILL come out of the dominance hierarchy on top and the others will follow. It is just the way it is.
A country/society isn't just a gathering of people, it is an active group that absolutely requires a chain of command so that people know what to do and when to do it so that there is no nonsense working at cross purposes (and contrary purposes can be squelched...SOMEONE or SOME means/end HAS to come out on top or you get nothing at all but spun wheels and more conflict).
Social groups have leaders. If they aren't put there from the start, they will be put there as a matter of course and as a result of inevitable power plays/dominance hierarchy dynamics.
ALL people want power to some extent. It's part of evolution. There is a natural and inevitable dominance hierarchy that cannot be erased by utopian idealism. There is ALWAYS a person in any group who takes a leading role, regardless of the purpose of the group. There are always those who will chaffe against this to some extent, seeking themselves to be that person or obtain a favorable position in the overall hierarchy.
It is all part of acquiring mates and resources. EVERYTHING ultimately stems from these most basic drives. Power is not automatically "corrupt". It just is. What one does with power is what is corrupt or not. It is a value judgement you place on it, not something intrinsic to itself.
to control their women. They want to make sure they can identify the women who are going to Great Britain to get an abortion so they can slap 'em in jail and force them to have a baby.
So...are you saying that the Itanium2 will be Doom III certified? Now if only the video card guys would come up with a Doom III certified card with dual 1.1 GHz chips we'll be able to actually play the game when it is released.
You can choose to NOT be listed and when you call information, they wont give it out. They will say "that person is unlisted".
Other details like SSN, and various similar items that can be used to steal your identity or wreck your life through manipulation are NOT public knowledge, deserve to not be available to anyone short of law enforcement in possession of a court order.
Privacy IS a right. If there was no right to privacy, there would be no logic to the right protecting you from illegal search and seizure and/or self incrimination. No privacy means you are searched without barriers and automatically incriminate yourself. Privacy IS important and if someone gave out my SSN or unlisted data (I am unlisted), they are culpable in any harm done by giving out that information. I would certainly take personal retribution on someone who engaged in this activity (giving out my SSN, etc).
That sound promising...except. I don't see how one can be killed by "political intrigue" without someone specifically doing the killing. This takes assassins in one form or another.
The problem is trying to balance the game so that it doesn't become a free-for-all deathmatch, but still has definite elements of danger like in real life. If we're talking about "living" a long time ago, then life was brutal and short. Disease, violence, dominance fights (political fighting), fights over resources (women, food, materiel). It isn't and wasn't (and isn't) all a nice get together with everyone happy and nice.
If a ruleset could be devised such that it is possible, though costly, to do ill to others for personal gain, then that would be really interesting (but very difficult). Incorporate game theory into the mix somehow where you can play (and perhaps die) by different strategies, ie, tit-for-tat, 2-tits-for-one-tat, etc.
It has already become highly unethical and a no-no to use chimps and various Great Apes in experiments (mainly those that do potential harm). The reason is due to the fact that they are so close to humans genetically and evolutionarily. They are cousins.
While the experiment I mentioned is elementary to the area of research, it would be cool and is really the only way to test the hypothesis that this one gene is somehow major critical for human speech/communication/creativity. The other obvious experiment is a nonstarter before it is even voiced: knock out the gene in a human fetus and watch the result. Since this wont be done, these types of experiments are typically done in mice where it is trivial and less ethically problematic.
As chimps and gorillas (and perhaps orangutans?) are already capable of learning sign language...and are proven able to pass it on to offspring, enhancing this communication capacity, ostensibly via a gene alteration, isn't going to do them damage, but would potentially make them even less different they they already are (~98% the same on the genetic level for chimps). It COULD even enhance our own ability to communicate with them, bringing all the knowledge gained from that to the fore.
They are already under protection, and deserve even greater protections than they have already. A family of Great Apes that has an enhanced ability to communicate and enhanced creativity (if the gene change REALLY can affect this on its own) would help drive greater protection.
If it does them no harm, then I have no problem with it. If it does them a net "good" then I am all for it. It isn't like we're talking about altering ALL of them in any case.
Not true at all. Some genes are merely part of a larger cascade system such that a change in one gene will only have a relatively minor effect on the final trait. Other genes are practically the end-all, be-all. One mutation and BING! Big change. You are overgeneralizing but are likely somewhat correct in THIS case.
This is news because it appears that one gene can have a major effect on what people might generally consider a complex trait. Not all traits are as complex as people WANT them to be. Humans are animals, little different than any other animal. We do not have magic super genes that makes us "special". Get over it.
I would suspect that it takes more than just this one gene, however, to get creativity and high-level communication skills. Why? Because mutations happen all the time. If this gene is all that it takes to set off a cascade of events leading to technological humans, then it would have happened to other animals in the past many times over.
Cool experiment: give chimpanzees the same Foxp2 gene and study the result. Do the same with mice (which is much easier than chimps). There is likely a set of interrelated genes that must take on the "right" pattern of activity to get the bigger effect. The shorter the path, the more times it has already happened in the past...so where are these supercommunicating/artistic/creative non-homo sapiens?
Depends. If there is already extant life, and terraforming would destroy it, then no terraforming. On the other hand, if there is life and terraforming would not wipe it out, go for it.
Life is largely defined by death. Also, Egypt is not a place of peace, daisies, and cuddly friendship. It is a Middle-Eastern country just a few steps away from falling under the whims of rabid Mullahs and/or a Taliban-style leadership. There are groups there that consider the ancient treasures of Egypt to be evil and an affront to "allah". These groups seek to destroy these treasures much as the Taliban did with the standing buddhas.
There is malaria in Egypt, political intrigue, murderous and backwards religious fanatics. You are not free to simply get along and do whatever. Incorporate the REAL reality and make the game even more interesting.
No prob. Just give me your phone number, and while you're at it, your address. From there I can get just about anything else I want.
Are you married by the way? Is your wife hot? Or, if you're female, are YOU hot? Are you married and willing to entertain a stalker?
Does the "21st Century" automatically mean no privacy nor even the illusion of privacy? "21st Century" doesn't mean ANYTHING except what you make it mean and thus your comment is without real content. This system of enum is broken at the start. Broken from the privacy standpoint, broken from the standpoint that people's location and phone numbers CHANGE, and broken from the standpoint that many people are unlisted FOR VALID reasons (of course, there is no need to justify being unlisted as that is entirely a choice you are free to make...fortunately).
There are other problems, of course, just read some of the other messages about it.
Point certainly taken and appreciated...however, how do you respond to the NO DEODERANT accusation? Hmmm? Yes or no, do you Frenchies use deoderant?! Answer the question!
Yes, fine. Basically just a phonebook. The problem is that with this new system, a person would have that info to enter at google and get the info. With it as it is now, you enter someone's email address and all you will get are other instances of that email address posting (to usenet, public mailing lists, etc). You wont get anything REAL on that email address.
If you enter my email address at google you wont get anything on me but other posts. Type my phone number, happily provided by this bogus system, and now you know my phone number and address. You have now specifically gained info on me as an individual in ways unavailable from just my semi-anonymous email address.
Re:Settle down, man, it's better than you think.
on
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· Score: 1
You lost me. How would this privacy violation encourage anyone to provide broadband to anyone? What diff does it make what the nature of your identifier is wrt whether or not broadband is made available?
I'd STILL be stuck with dialup, being in a USA rural area (meaning BIG wide open spaces vs the equivalent in the UK where it appears that DSL is doable with just a little goading/support from the guv'mnt)...it would just mean I would have the same old slow 56k connection but broadcast to everyone what my phone number is...and I'm UNLISTED for a reason.
So, if these houses and sh*t have "value" that can be defrauded, can I be arrested if, in the game, my character breaks in and takes stuff? I can then sell what I take. Is this REAL theft?
Of course not. I think I'll give a shot to UO and be a frickin thief...perhaps blend my UO character with that of Thief II's Garrett.
I wont use it, thank you. My phone number is unlisted. I take pains to protect that and I use a relatively anonymous email address that cannot easily be tied to me in the real world.
I will not go for having my phone number pasted all over the net, part of every newsgroup posting, email-based opinion expression, etc. My phone number, address, etc, are not for wide open, general consumption.
You could simply send probes to the Lagrange points. It is highly likely that each L point will contain a mass of rocks...the problem is that they could contain a mix of terrestrial (blown off by meteorite strikes) and extraterrestrial rocks. Theses points are much closer than the asteroid belt.
As for the asteroid belt and collision protection...not a problem. The asteroid belt is NOTHING like what you see on Star Wars movies. It is not a chaotic hoard of roaving rocks. There is a great deal of space between rocks and they are not wildly roaming about in the belt. You can easily (and we have done it every time we send out a deepspace probe to the outer planets) send a craft through the belt without coming anywhere near any rock.
Just pick a rock or two and send a probe. Your chances of finding anything are likely minor as it is doubtful that EVERY space rock is going to contain appreciable amounts of amino acids or their precursors.
Really? Then why is that precisely one of the config settings available in KDE's KControl app? You can associate any file type with any app you want and can easily create new ones or switch them around.
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Big difference. In linux-space, for instance, the vast majority of vulnerabilities reported and patched (virtually instantly) are found not by black hat exploiters, but by white hats working to help secure the system from attacks.
In the windoze world, the majority of vulnerabilities are exploited and reported as a result. The reason is the closed source of M$. They don't have a bazillion code hackers chipping away at it for the benefit of us all. They try to hide the flaws and then only belatedly fix a problem AFTER it is being exploited.
For linux/BSD, the reports are proactive, the Windoze vulnerabilities are reported/fixed AFTER they are exploited - as that is the main way people come to find them. There are easily as many (likely MORE) as yet unknown vulnerabilities in Windoze code right now than exist in Linux/BSD because 1) the Windoze code-base is overly huge and thus MUST contain many more mistakes, and 2) Windoze is not as thoroughly vetted by code hackers BEFORE an exploit is produced in the wild as is the case with open source systems. There are MANY more eyes going over linux kernel source than there are going over closed M$ code. That is just a fact.
Give the same number of prying eyes to both systems and I assure you that there would fall out many more vulnerabilities in the M$ code than the OSS code...because it is so frickin' huge, created by a lumbering buearacracy, and by nature restricted to a limited number of eyes. They CAN'T go over it with the same fine-toothed comb that linux/BSD gets.
And I'm not talkin' space rovers and asteroid piggy-backers, though for space-interested folks like me, that stuff is AMAZING. No, I'm talking cheap one-person missions out to farther and farther orbital points. "Test pilot Bucky Bergstrom today orbited the earth farther than any human ever has!"
...and was fried and dead within 3 hours of entering and orbiting within the Van Allen belts.
One element: Helium 3. Nuff said. Helium 3 is/would be valuable and is plentiful on the moon. It would be useful for fusion reactors. Of course, we just need to create a working fusion reactor...
No one is likely to come up with a "better" desktop design than the desktop. If that were really possible given the PC, then it would have happened...at Apple, M$, Linux, IBM, Sun, etc, etc. ALL desktops are similar because there are only so many ways to do it and do it RIGHT.
Fancy-shmancy-new-innovative GUI is crap if no one "gets it" right off. THE main thing people want from their PC is usability out of the chocks. The desktop as we know it is the end-all-be-all of keyboard and mouse GUI. Sorry, but that's a fact. We are ALL used to desktops (REAL desktops), file cabinets, trashcans, etc. They were extended to the PC screen because that is the easiest and most intuitive way to do it. You COPY the real world within the limits of a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, you do not come up with something different than what people know from the real world. If you do, you have turned using the device (the computer) into a major learning chore that goes against the very nature of our existence.
Sheesh. There are only so many ways to implement the PROVEN desktop model. People know it, people are comfortable with it, people LIKE it, people can use it from time 0.
Quit complaining about how the desktop model is soooooo non-innovative, derivative, and old-fashioned. If there was something better, it would EXIST. It doesn't. EVERY option to the desktop familiar to ALL of us requires much more RAM, many more CPU cycles, and has a LARGE learning curve. That wont do at all. Such is destined to failure because students, parents, business people, etc, want to get on their system and do useful stuff NOW. Not a week or so from now after they've retrained themselves to a new GUI/interface paradigm just to do the most rudimentary functions.
You are missing the point. You cannot avoid power struggles nor someone gaining power - it comes AUTOMATICALLY when groups of people get together to do anything at all. Even if a group is unstructured by design, it is inevitable that to accomplish goal A, someone WILL come out of the dominance hierarchy on top and the others will follow. It is just the way it is.
A country/society isn't just a gathering of people, it is an active group that absolutely requires a chain of command so that people know what to do and when to do it so that there is no nonsense working at cross purposes (and contrary purposes can be squelched...SOMEONE or SOME means/end HAS to come out on top or you get nothing at all but spun wheels and more conflict).
Social groups have leaders. If they aren't put there from the start, they will be put there as a matter of course and as a result of inevitable power plays/dominance hierarchy dynamics.
ALL people want power to some extent. It's part of evolution. There is a natural and inevitable dominance hierarchy that cannot be erased by utopian idealism. There is ALWAYS a person in any group who takes a leading role, regardless of the purpose of the group. There are always those who will chaffe against this to some extent, seeking themselves to be that person or obtain a favorable position in the overall hierarchy.
It is all part of acquiring mates and resources. EVERYTHING ultimately stems from these most basic drives. Power is not automatically "corrupt". It just is. What one does with power is what is corrupt or not. It is a value judgement you place on it, not something intrinsic to itself.
to control their women. They want to make sure they can identify the women who are going to Great Britain to get an abortion so they can slap 'em in jail and force them to have a baby.
Will such a computer be what it takes to play Doom III at tolerable rate?
So...are you saying that the Itanium2 will be Doom III certified? Now if only the video card guys would come up with a Doom III certified card with dual 1.1 GHz chips we'll be able to actually play the game when it is released.
Open the document/email, take screen shots, send to whomever I like or use in OCR app.
You can choose to NOT be listed and when you call information, they wont give it out. They will say "that person is unlisted".
Other details like SSN, and various similar items that can be used to steal your identity or wreck your life through manipulation are NOT public knowledge, deserve to not be available to anyone short of law enforcement in possession of a court order.
Privacy IS a right. If there was no right to privacy, there would be no logic to the right protecting you from illegal search and seizure and/or self incrimination. No privacy means you are searched without barriers and automatically incriminate yourself. Privacy IS important and if someone gave out my SSN or unlisted data (I am unlisted), they are culpable in any harm done by giving out that information. I would certainly take personal retribution on someone who engaged in this activity (giving out my SSN, etc).
That sound promising...except. I don't see how one can be killed by "political intrigue" without someone specifically doing the killing. This takes assassins in one form or another.
The problem is trying to balance the game so that it doesn't become a free-for-all deathmatch, but still has definite elements of danger like in real life. If we're talking about "living" a long time ago, then life was brutal and short. Disease, violence, dominance fights (political fighting), fights over resources (women, food, materiel). It isn't and wasn't (and isn't) all a nice get together with everyone happy and nice.
If a ruleset could be devised such that it is possible, though costly, to do ill to others for personal gain, then that would be really interesting (but very difficult). Incorporate game theory into the mix somehow where you can play (and perhaps die) by different strategies, ie, tit-for-tat, 2-tits-for-one-tat, etc.
It has already become highly unethical and a no-no to use chimps and various Great Apes in experiments (mainly those that do potential harm). The reason is due to the fact that they are so close to humans genetically and evolutionarily. They are cousins.
While the experiment I mentioned is elementary to the area of research, it would be cool and is really the only way to test the hypothesis that this one gene is somehow major critical for human speech/communication/creativity. The other obvious experiment is a nonstarter before it is even voiced: knock out the gene in a human fetus and watch the result. Since this wont be done, these types of experiments are typically done in mice where it is trivial and less ethically problematic.
As chimps and gorillas (and perhaps orangutans?) are already capable of learning sign language...and are proven able to pass it on to offspring, enhancing this communication capacity, ostensibly via a gene alteration, isn't going to do them damage, but would potentially make them even less different they they already are (~98% the same on the genetic level for chimps). It COULD even enhance our own ability to communicate with them, bringing all the knowledge gained from that to the fore.
They are already under protection, and deserve even greater protections than they have already. A family of Great Apes that has an enhanced ability to communicate and enhanced creativity (if the gene change REALLY can affect this on its own) would help drive greater protection.
If it does them no harm, then I have no problem with it. If it does them a net "good" then I am all for it. It isn't like we're talking about altering ALL of them in any case.
Not true at all. Some genes are merely part of a larger cascade system such that a change in one gene will only have a relatively minor effect on the final trait. Other genes are practically the end-all, be-all. One mutation and BING! Big change. You are overgeneralizing but are likely somewhat correct in THIS case.
This is news because it appears that one gene can have a major effect on what people might generally consider a complex trait. Not all traits are as complex as people WANT them to be. Humans are animals, little different than any other animal. We do not have magic super genes that makes us "special". Get over it.
I would suspect that it takes more than just this one gene, however, to get creativity and high-level communication skills. Why? Because mutations happen all the time. If this gene is all that it takes to set off a cascade of events leading to technological humans, then it would have happened to other animals in the past many times over.
Cool experiment: give chimpanzees the same Foxp2 gene and study the result. Do the same with mice (which is much easier than chimps). There is likely a set of interrelated genes that must take on the "right" pattern of activity to get the bigger effect. The shorter the path, the more times it has already happened in the past...so where are these supercommunicating/artistic/creative non-homo sapiens?
Four words: One person, multiple accounts
As a variation, six words: Multiple friends, multiple accounts, same goal
Depends. If there is already extant life, and terraforming would destroy it, then no terraforming. On the other hand, if there is life and terraforming would not wipe it out, go for it.
Life is largely defined by death. Also, Egypt is not a place of peace, daisies, and cuddly friendship. It is a Middle-Eastern country just a few steps away from falling under the whims of rabid Mullahs and/or a Taliban-style leadership. There are groups there that consider the ancient treasures of Egypt to be evil and an affront to "allah". These groups seek to destroy these treasures much as the Taliban did with the standing buddhas.
There is malaria in Egypt, political intrigue, murderous and backwards religious fanatics. You are not free to simply get along and do whatever. Incorporate the REAL reality and make the game even more interesting.
No prob. Just give me your phone number, and while you're at it, your address. From there I can get just about anything else I want.
Are you married by the way? Is your wife hot? Or, if you're female, are YOU hot? Are you married and willing to entertain a stalker?
Does the "21st Century" automatically mean no privacy nor even the illusion of privacy? "21st Century" doesn't mean ANYTHING except what you make it mean and thus your comment is without real content. This system of enum is broken at the start. Broken from the privacy standpoint, broken from the standpoint that people's location and phone numbers CHANGE, and broken from the standpoint that many people are unlisted FOR VALID reasons (of course, there is no need to justify being unlisted as that is entirely a choice you are free to make...fortunately).
There are other problems, of course, just read some of the other messages about it.
Point certainly taken and appreciated...however, how do you respond to the NO DEODERANT accusation? Hmmm? Yes or no, do you Frenchies use deoderant?! Answer the question!
Yes, fine. Basically just a phonebook. The problem is that with this new system, a person would have that info to enter at google and get the info. With it as it is now, you enter someone's email address and all you will get are other instances of that email address posting (to usenet, public mailing lists, etc). You wont get anything REAL on that email address.
If you enter my email address at google you wont get anything on me but other posts. Type my phone number, happily provided by this bogus system, and now you know my phone number and address. You have now specifically gained info on me as an individual in ways unavailable from just my semi-anonymous email address.
You lost me. How would this privacy violation encourage anyone to provide broadband to anyone? What diff does it make what the nature of your identifier is wrt whether or not broadband is made available?
I'd STILL be stuck with dialup, being in a USA rural area (meaning BIG wide open spaces vs the equivalent in the UK where it appears that DSL is doable with just a little goading/support from the guv'mnt)...it would just mean I would have the same old slow 56k connection but broadcast to everyone what my phone number is...and I'm UNLISTED for a reason.
So, if these houses and sh*t have "value" that can be defrauded, can I be arrested if, in the game, my character breaks in and takes stuff? I can then sell what I take. Is this REAL theft?
Of course not. I think I'll give a shot to UO and be a frickin thief...perhaps blend my UO character with that of Thief II's Garrett.
I wont use it, thank you. My phone number is unlisted. I take pains to protect that and I use a relatively anonymous email address that cannot easily be tied to me in the real world.
I will not go for having my phone number pasted all over the net, part of every newsgroup posting, email-based opinion expression, etc. My phone number, address, etc, are not for wide open, general consumption.
You could simply send probes to the Lagrange points. It is highly likely that each L point will contain a mass of rocks...the problem is that they could contain a mix of terrestrial (blown off by meteorite strikes) and extraterrestrial rocks. Theses points are much closer than the asteroid belt.
As for the asteroid belt and collision protection...not a problem. The asteroid belt is NOTHING like what you see on Star Wars movies. It is not a chaotic hoard of roaving rocks. There is a great deal of space between rocks and they are not wildly roaming about in the belt. You can easily (and we have done it every time we send out a deepspace probe to the outer planets) send a craft through the belt without coming anywhere near any rock.
Just pick a rock or two and send a probe. Your chances of finding anything are likely minor as it is doubtful that EVERY space rock is going to contain appreciable amounts of amino acids or their precursors.
Really? Then why is that precisely one of the config settings available in KDE's KControl app? You can associate any file type with any app you want and can easily create new ones or switch them around.