First of all read http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/ item #2. You cannot "enumerate evil". Similarly big brother will find that they can't come up with an all-inclusive blacklist of "evil apps". There will *ALWAYS* be something they haven't thought of.email
Instead, it's much more effective to whitelist "harmless apps". So you'll end up with...
* an email applet * a spreadsheet applet * a chat applet * etc, etc, etc
Either that, or the "general purpose applet" will be Facebook... bleagh.
> Urgh.. I'm sure someone could write one. I always turn off "file manager on > desktop" because having to move a window out of the way to start something > is a waste of time. I normally use my desktop space with, er, windows...
Howsabout the ***AUTOHIDING*** taskbar the MS intoduced 17 years ago in Windows95? And even then it wasn't an original idea. It was a copy of shareware apps that had been available for Windows 3.x for a few years back then.
> What people tend to forget about GNOME is that a large chunk of the developers are > employed by Red Hat. GNOME isn't worried about losing users because regular users aren't > supplying their pay cheques, Red Hat is and that's why they get to call the shots and you don't.
There must be some MS moles at Redhat, secretly working to destroy linux...
* GNOME 2 was usable; destroyed.
* Got your linux PC's hard drive nicely partitioned? Sorry, must repartition because they f'd up udev.
* Like your current init system (other than systemd)? Sorry, you'll soon have have to go with systemd as your init if you use udev. That's because udev code has been rolled up into the systemd tarball. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/17392 At first they talked about long-term support for a separate udev. But they're rapidly changing their tune. See http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2012-August/006066.html ====== (Yes, udev on non-systemd systems is in our eyes a dead end, in case you haven't noticed it yet. I am looking forward to the day when we can drop that support entirely.)
> And then they can change direction to: consistent design. It's not that any of the > interfaces in Windows 8 are bad, it's that there are more than one, and things > inconsistently shift between them. That's a fundamental design problem on > microsofts part, and they'll have to pick something and go with it.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. And oh yeah, did I mention that the "same interface everywhere" idea is wrong? Do you want a steering wheel in the cockpit of a Boeing 767? Or a joystick in your car?
> If I asked an employee why it took 30 mins to complete a 2 minute task and > the reply was 'Well, I didn't know how to do it with this new OS we installed, > so I had to google.......' then that's all I'd want to hear before firing them.
Howsabout firing the idiot who ordered the new OS installed without training the admins?
> But I got a feeling metro might be a good option when the touch > screen monitor for desktop and laptop becomes the norm.
1) If you think RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) has been bad before, wait till people have to stretch their arms out 2 feet and drag objects all across their 24" monitors. I dont want to even think of the people with two or three 24" monitors
2) How pray tell, do you implement left-click, middle-click, and right-click on a touchscreen?
I think that MS wants to destroy the Intel/AMD desktop computers we know and love, and replace them with ARM computers. Unlike Intel/AMD machines, the vast majority of of ARM PCs will be locked down to UEFI-only boot, just like Fritz Hollings wanted. They will not be able to be re-purposed as linux machines. Eventually, they're going to come with add-on keyboards, and monitors, to mimic current desktop PCs, but "under the hood", they'll be ARMs, locked down tight.
To force that transition, MS wants to to drive home users away from desktops ro tablets. That will drive economies of scale from Intel/AMD towards ARM. The ARM PC will become the cheap commodity machine, and Intel/AMD machines will become expensive "workstations", rarely seen except in legacy corporate environments.
> Gnome 3 gets way too much hate on Slashdot. No, they did not photocopy > The Mainstream, they re-engineered the GUI and underlying pinnings.
KDE and GNOME suffer from the "Microsoft Windows disease". Every time you learn the menus, etc, they change the GUI, and the way it operates. I expect a learning curve when switching to a new OS. But I should not have to repeat it every year or two.
I've been using ICEWM for several years, and it works. I have the bar on the bottom, with all apps and the launcher, plus a few dock applets. I prefer to spend my time doing real stuff, versus learning a "new and improved GUI" every year or two.
The following may come across as paranoid, but here goes. This is what I think Microsoft's plan is. I'm not guranteeing it'll succeed, but it's what they want.
* MS has not been able to beat linux in the server room. There's a lot of big bucks in corporate software.
* The problem is that PC's are open architecture, and MS can't stop corporations from running linux on a PC.
* They'd love to follow the Sony game console example and lock out other operating systems from Intel/AMD hardware, but they would run into anti-trust problems. The most they can do is ask OEM's to default to signed UEFI boot on motherboards, with a "legacy boot" option available in the machine setup.
* However, on the ARM platform "everybody does it", so MS has no anti-trust problems demanding that ARM Windows machines be signed UEFI boot only.
* So they bring out Windows 8, which will be deliberately horrible on desktops, but optimized for tablets.
* Tablet sales will take off, and "economies of scale" will kick in, pushing prices down. PC Desktop sales will crash and "economies of scale" will disappear. The price of an Intel/AMD "workstation" will shoot up to $4 K or thereabouts.
* Most people who need a desktop will find it cheaper to emulate a "desktop" by plugging in an external monitor/keyboard/mouse to an ARM tablet.
* Since the ARM Windows tablets will be locked down with signed UEFI boot only, they can't be re-purposed as linux machines.
* MS will probably also set up their machines so that apps can only be bought from an app store where they charge a fee for each app loaded. Good-bye OpenOffice for Windows, etc.
* Don't be surprised if MS follows Sony's example, and lobbies to get unlocked ARM PC's outlawed.
Somewhere, former US senator Fritz Hollings will be smiling.
> The mobile PC (iPad) replaces the PC just like the mobile phone replaces the landline phone. > The landline phone is now an alternate kind of phone, and the mobile phone is the "real" > phone. That is why you see the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is designed very much > for the classic Mac customer who is a creative workstation user, running video editing or audio > editing or photo editing or software development all day long, every day. It's less of a PC than > any of the Intel Macs. iPad is for PC users, now. The Mac is back to being a creative power tool.
So you reply to a terrible article with a terrible post? If you had claimed the the MacBook as a PC replacement, you would at least had some possible argument. The IPAD is *NOT* a PC replacement. It's an overgrown IPHONE targeted at viewing/listening/reading. For output, it's only suitable for short messages like texting/chat/twitter/Fecesbook-status-updates/etc.
Try doing any serious photo/audio/text editing, long emails, or even taking notes at a meeting, and you'll see why. And don't give me any BS about buying a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You've essentially converted the IPAD into a laptop or desktop.
Tablets (IPAD and Android) fill a large market for dumbed-down PC's. They do not come close to replacing the desktop. And Apple prices are a joke here in Canada (Toronto to be specific). E.g. desktop Apple (Mac Pro). The "low end " (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $2,549.00 !?!?! http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro A similar ASUS (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $999, http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=042214 and I can get something similar built for less.
IPADS *START* at $419. Android tablets are a lot lower. See http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=710_375 BTW, the 11.6" notebook I mentioned above is competitive with the IPAD, and it actually has keyboard and mousepad.
Apple has chosen to go for the more-money-than-brains market, like Mercedes/Cadillac/Lamborgini/RollsRoyce/etc. That can be a profitable niche, but I'm not part of that market.
> Does anyone know the Ip range of the like button so i can drop it in IPtables?
There are half-a-dozen ranges, depending where on the planet you are. The following blocks all of Facebook that I know of (LIKE and facebook.com and various foreign versions). Here are the ranges in both CIDR and traditional formats.
> The onslaught of Facebook stock looks like an avalanche. At the 91-day point after > the IPO, insiders are able to sell 268 million shares of stock. Between 91 and > 181 days after the IPO, insiders can sell an additional 137 million shares. And > then after 181 days following the IPO, another 1.2 billion shares are free to be sold.
I don't think that every insider will cash out (e.g. Mark Z wants to retain control) but obviously a bunch of "paper millionaires" will want to get out while the getting out is still good. For a country-by-country breakdown of Facebook's numbers, over various timeranges, check out http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/?interval=last-month#chart-intervals
> If it wasn't for his bitchiness, it would be Windows. Yes, I am not kidding. There'd be > ENTERPRIIIISE CODING brilliance in there, AKA useless bloat for stuff nobody should > EVER, IN THE HISTORY OF EVER, have access to, and countless other things. > (up YOURS Microsoft! ) What's that, writing a driver are you? If it isn't fully descriptive > in code, you're fired! What's that? You saved a huge number of cycles by using a Goto there? > FIRED, we want more lines! (I'm not even kidding, Linus had to defend a Goto in a driver-level > file, this is how mad this anti-Goto retardedness is these days, kids man) So on and so fourth.
Same problems for browsers. Remember how AOL wrecked Netscape trying to turn it into a pseudo-OS that ran on top of Windows/Linux/etc? Well, Firefox is following that same trail. Ordinary settings are being kept in f***ing SQL databases fercryinoutloud. Sqlite achieves atomic transactions and file integrity by doing an fsync() as required. This is what causes Firefox to freeze every so often. Idiots.
Chrome/Chromium is even worse. In linux it has hard-coded dependancies on dbus, udev, elfutils, and libXinerama (I only have 1 screen). More idiots.
...is that you're going from "paper dollars" to "digital dimes". In "the good old days" newspapers used to have a virtual monopoly on "the information sideroad". They could charge extortionate ad rates and get away with it, because they were "the only game in town". Then came the internet. Canadian example; You can... * search a a very specific home at http://www.realtor.ca/ for free * search for a very specific jobe at http://english.monster.ca/ for free * search for used cars and light trucks at http://www.autotrader.ca/ for free * search for a whole bunch of stuff at craigslist or kijiji or ebay for free * go directly to Walmart/Futureshop/etc websites for free without waiting for the weekend edition with all the supplements
This drives a stake through the heart of newspaper revenue. Click-through and Google type ads bring in approximately 10% of what their paper equivalants do. That's why newspapers aren't going digital like people expected. Your subscription barely pays for the price of printing and delivering the paper to your doorstep. It's the classified ad revenue that pays for reporters at city hall, not to mention in Washington, Baghdad, Moscow, etc. Slash newspaper revenues by 90%, and the model collapses, even if you go to "digital delivery". Just like "video killed the radio star", so too is the internet killing large city daily newspapers.
>> with many places starting to not accept credit cards.
> Really? That seems like a good way for the business to lose a lot of sales.
Ever heard the joke about "we'll lose money on every transaction, but make up for it in volume"? All that "lot of sales" is going to come at the cost of 2 or 3 percent cut by the credit card issuer. In a business with thin profit margins, it can mean the difference between profit and loss. That's why those places are willing to "sacrifice" that business.
> We aren't completely to the point where I can do my entire > job on a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard (if needed)
Congratulations. You've just re-invented the wheel; or in this case a small-screen desktop. I'll keep my desktop and my netbook/laptop, thank you. BTW, what can a 10" iPad do that a 10" or 11" netbook can't do for a much lower price? http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=710_28 And exactly how much free open source software can you load up on your iPad without rooting it?
> Since it's a laser to deliver power, why can't it be mounted on a satellite?
1) We're not talking relatively low-power TV broadcast satellites where the receiving antenna gets a few microvolts, maybe millivolts from the satellite. Lasers capable of recharging a drone in flight require a lot of power, and it's bleeping expensive to continuously refuel/resupply a satelite even in low earth orbit. Just look at the costs of ISS (International Space Station).
2) Assuming that you could mount a powerful laser in low earth orbit, and refuel it as necessary, you'd have a HUGE military threat. The Russians and Chines would want to build their own. No need to power drones or whatever to attack enemies. "Blast them from orbit" instead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_Are_Forever_(film)
> Win8 will do well, IMO. It will come out coupled with touchscreens, > on which it really does work well - certainly far better than 7.
Oh boy, just what I need. Throw away the mouse. and stretch my arm out 2 feet to drag+drop stuff all the way across my 24 inch LCD screen. No thanks. You think people had carpal tunnel syndrome in the past, wait till this monstrosity takes over.
> Because they need to demote Windows 7 /.NET & COM to essentially a hosted > operating system to force change. They reason they need to force change is because > they want to support much more diverse hardware like phones and tablets. And that > means in particular moving to vector not bitmapped based interface standards > which effects all windows applications.
WTF??? Look, I agree that the desktop UI paradigm might suck on tablets+smartphones. That does *NOT* justify putting a tablet+smarthphone UI on desktop PCs, where it'll suck just as badly. Different horse for different courses, etc.
> Its pretty cler to me that this isn't an issue on apple's end. They're really good out posting > guidelines for submitting binaries. Maybe app creators should be better about following instructions?
Huh??? Things were working just fine, thank you, before July 3rd. If you had RTFA, you would've seen the bit about...
> Update, July 5: After adding 114 apps to the list with more reports coming in > every few minutes, it's no longer practical for me to maintain the list. Obviously, > this is a very widespread problem for many apps updated from July 3-5.
Do you seriously expect people to believe that writers of well over a 100 apps all suddenly stopped doing things the right way on July 2nd, and started doing things the wrong way on July 3rd?
> Their efforts to change the user interface to suit the tablet > continued with the introduction of the Ribbon in Office 2007.
Everybody agrees that the universal desktop UI absolutely sucks on tablets/smartphones. What annoys me is all the idiots who want to ram a tablet/samrtphone UI down my throat that absolutely sucks on a desktop. It's not just MS either. The idiots writing GNOME and KDE are doing the same on linux. I'm sticking with ICEWM.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all read http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/ item #2. You cannot "enumerate evil". Similarly big brother will find that they can't come up with an all-inclusive blacklist of "evil apps". There will *ALWAYS* be something they haven't thought of.email
Instead, it's much more effective to whitelist "harmless apps". So you'll end up with...
* an email applet
* a spreadsheet applet
* a chat applet
* etc, etc, etc
Either that, or the "general purpose applet" will be Facebook... bleagh.
>> desktop launchers
> Urgh.. I'm sure someone could write one. I always turn off "file manager on
> desktop" because having to move a window out of the way to start something
> is a waste of time. I normally use my desktop space with, er, windows...
Howsabout the ***AUTOHIDING*** taskbar the MS intoduced 17 years ago in Windows95? And even then it wasn't an original idea. It was a copy of shareware apps that had been available for Windows 3.x for a few years back then.
> What people tend to forget about GNOME is that a large chunk of the developers are
> employed by Red Hat. GNOME isn't worried about losing users because regular users aren't
> supplying their pay cheques, Red Hat is and that's why they get to call the shots and you don't.
There must be some MS moles at Redhat, secretly working to destroy linux...
* GNOME 2 was usable; destroyed.
* Got your linux PC's hard drive nicely partitioned? Sorry, must repartition because they f'd up udev.
* Like your current init system (other than systemd)? Sorry, you'll soon have have to go with systemd as your init if you use udev. That's because udev code has been rolled up into the systemd tarball. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/17392 At first they talked about long-term support for a separate udev. But they're rapidly changing their tune. See http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2012-August/006066.html
======
(Yes, udev on non-systemd systems is in our eyes a dead end, in case you haven't
noticed it yet. I am looking forward to the day when we can drop
that support entirely.)
Lennart
--
Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc
=====
Some people are getting pissed off enough that they're seriously looking at running linux without udev. The common replacement is the mdev utility from the busybox build. See...
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mdev
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mdev/Automount_USB
https://github.com/slashbeast/mdev-like-a-boss
https://blog.stuart.shelton.me/archives/891
> And then they can change direction to: consistent design. It's not that any of the
> interfaces in Windows 8 are bad, it's that there are more than one, and things
> inconsistently shift between them. That's a fundamental design problem on
> microsofts part, and they'll have to pick something and go with it.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. And oh yeah, did I mention that the "same interface everywhere" idea is wrong? Do you want a steering wheel in the cockpit of a Boeing 767? Or a joystick in your car?
I'm surprised AOL hasn't sued MS for this http://tekblurb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/wpid-Photo-2012-05-31-846-PM.jpg
> If I asked an employee why it took 30 mins to complete a 2 minute task and
> the reply was 'Well, I didn't know how to do it with this new OS we installed,
> so I had to google.......' then that's all I'd want to hear before firing them.
Howsabout firing the idiot who ordered the new OS installed without training the admins?
> But I got a feeling metro might be a good option when the touch
> screen monitor for desktop and laptop becomes the norm.
1) If you think RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) has been bad before, wait till people have to stretch their arms out 2 feet and drag objects all across their 24" monitors. I dont want to even think of the people with two or three 24" monitors
2) How pray tell, do you implement left-click, middle-click, and right-click on a touchscreen?
I think that MS wants to destroy the Intel/AMD desktop computers we know and love, and replace them with ARM computers. Unlike Intel/AMD machines, the vast majority of of ARM PCs will be locked down to UEFI-only boot, just like Fritz Hollings wanted. They will not be able to be re-purposed as linux machines. Eventually, they're going to come with add-on keyboards, and monitors, to mimic current desktop PCs, but "under the hood", they'll be ARMs, locked down tight.
To force that transition, MS wants to to drive home users away from desktops ro tablets. That will drive economies of scale from Intel/AMD towards ARM. The ARM PC will become the cheap commodity machine, and Intel/AMD machines will become expensive "workstations", rarely seen except in legacy corporate environments.
> Gnome 3 gets way too much hate on Slashdot. No, they did not photocopy
> The Mainstream, they re-engineered the GUI and underlying pinnings.
KDE and GNOME suffer from the "Microsoft Windows disease". Every time you learn the menus, etc, they change the GUI, and the way it operates. I expect a learning curve when switching to a new OS. But I should not have to repeat it every year or two.
I've been using ICEWM for several years, and it works. I have the bar on the bottom, with all apps and the launcher, plus a few dock applets. I prefer to spend my time doing real stuff, versus learning a "new and improved GUI" every year or two.
The following may come across as paranoid, but here goes. This is what I think Microsoft's plan is. I'm not guranteeing it'll succeed, but it's what they want.
* MS has not been able to beat linux in the server room. There's a lot of big bucks in corporate software.
* The problem is that PC's are open architecture, and MS can't stop corporations from running linux on a PC.
* They'd love to follow the Sony game console example and lock out other operating systems from Intel/AMD hardware, but they would run into anti-trust problems. The most they can do is ask OEM's to default to signed UEFI boot on motherboards, with a "legacy boot" option available in the machine setup.
* However, on the ARM platform "everybody does it", so MS has no anti-trust problems demanding that ARM Windows machines be signed UEFI boot only.
* So they bring out Windows 8, which will be deliberately horrible on desktops, but optimized for tablets.
* Tablet sales will take off, and "economies of scale" will kick in, pushing prices down. PC Desktop sales will crash and "economies of scale" will disappear. The price of an Intel/AMD "workstation" will shoot up to $4 K or thereabouts.
* Most people who need a desktop will find it cheaper to emulate a "desktop" by plugging in an external monitor/keyboard/mouse to an ARM tablet.
* Since the ARM Windows tablets will be locked down with signed UEFI boot only, they can't be re-purposed as linux machines.
* MS will probably also set up their machines so that apps can only be bought from an app store where they charge a fee for each app loaded. Good-bye OpenOffice for Windows, etc.
* Don't be surprised if MS follows Sony's example, and lobbies to get unlocked ARM PC's outlawed.
Somewhere, former US senator Fritz Hollings will be smiling.
> The mobile PC (iPad) replaces the PC just like the mobile phone replaces the landline phone.
> The landline phone is now an alternate kind of phone, and the mobile phone is the "real"
> phone. That is why you see the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is designed very much
> for the classic Mac customer who is a creative workstation user, running video editing or audio
> editing or photo editing or software development all day long, every day. It's less of a PC than
> any of the Intel Macs. iPad is for PC users, now. The Mac is back to being a creative power tool.
So you reply to a terrible article with a terrible post? If you had claimed the the MacBook as a PC replacement, you would at least had some possible argument. The IPAD is *NOT* a PC replacement. It's an overgrown IPHONE targeted at viewing/listening/reading. For output, it's only suitable for short messages like texting/chat/twitter/Fecesbook-status-updates/etc.
Try doing any serious photo/audio/text editing, long emails, or even taking notes at a meeting, and you'll see why. And don't give me any BS about buying a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You've essentially converted the IPAD into a laptop or desktop.
Tablets (IPAD and Android) fill a large market for dumbed-down PC's. They do not come close to replacing the desktop. And Apple prices are a joke here in Canada (Toronto to be specific). E.g. desktop Apple (Mac Pro). The "low end " (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $2,549.00 !?!?! http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro A similar ASUS (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $999, http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=042214 and I can get something similar built for less.
For notebooks MacBook "Air" and "Pro" *START* at $1029 and $1229 respectively http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro Regular notebooks can be had for under $500 http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=046492
IPADS *START* at $419. Android tablets are a lot lower. See http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=710_375 BTW, the 11.6" notebook I mentioned above is competitive with the IPAD, and it actually has keyboard and mousepad.
Apple has chosen to go for the more-money-than-brains market, like Mercedes/Cadillac/Lamborgini/RollsRoyce/etc. That can be a profitable niche, but I'm not part of that market.
What about laptop built-in microphones that come bundled with the cameras?
> Does anyone know the Ip range of the like button so i can drop it in IPtables?
There are half-a-dozen ranges, depending where on the planet you are. The following blocks all of Facebook that I know of (LIKE and facebook.com and various foreign versions). Here are the ranges in both CIDR and traditional formats.
66.220.144.0/20
66.220.144.0 - 66.220.159.255
69.63.176.0/20
69.63.176.0 - 69.63.191.255
69.171.224.0/19
69.171.224.0 - 69.171.255.255
74.119.76.0/22
74.119.76.0 - 74.119.79.255
173.252.64.0/18
173.252.64.0 - 173.252.127.255
204.15.20.0/22
204.15.20.0 - 204.15.23.255
The actual problem for FB is that 1.6 billion shares could be dumped by insiders in the next several months. I don't expect it to happen, but a bunch will. But, but, but... didn't they only sell 421 million shares at the IPO. Yeah, but, insiders have been granted 1.6 billion shares beforehand. See http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/story/2012-05-25/facebook-insider-lockup-period/55208546/1
> The onslaught of Facebook stock looks like an avalanche. At the 91-day point after
> the IPO, insiders are able to sell 268 million shares of stock. Between 91 and
> 181 days after the IPO, insiders can sell an additional 137 million shares. And
> then after 181 days following the IPO, another 1.2 billion shares are free to be sold.
I don't think that every insider will cash out (e.g. Mark Z wants to retain control) but obviously a bunch of "paper millionaires" will want to get out while the getting out is still good. For a country-by-country breakdown of Facebook's numbers, over various timeranges, check out http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/?interval=last-month#chart-intervals
> If it wasn't for his bitchiness, it would be Windows. Yes, I am not kidding. There'd be
> ENTERPRIIIISE CODING brilliance in there, AKA useless bloat for stuff nobody should
> EVER, IN THE HISTORY OF EVER, have access to, and countless other things.
> (up YOURS Microsoft! ) What's that, writing a driver are you? If it isn't fully descriptive
> in code, you're fired! What's that? You saved a huge number of cycles by using a Goto there?
> FIRED, we want more lines! (I'm not even kidding, Linus had to defend a Goto in a driver-level
> file, this is how mad this anti-Goto retardedness is these days, kids man) So on and so fourth.
Same problems for browsers. Remember how AOL wrecked Netscape trying to turn it into a pseudo-OS that ran on top of Windows/Linux/etc? Well, Firefox is following that same trail. Ordinary settings are being kept in f***ing SQL databases fercryinoutloud. Sqlite achieves atomic transactions and file integrity by doing an fsync() as required. This is what causes Firefox to freeze every so often. Idiots.
Chrome/Chromium is even worse. In linux it has hard-coded dependancies on dbus, udev, elfutils, and libXinerama (I only have 1 screen). More idiots.
...is that you're going from "paper dollars" to "digital dimes". In "the good old days" newspapers used to have a virtual monopoly on "the information sideroad". They could charge extortionate ad rates and get away with it, because they were "the only game in town". Then came the internet. Canadian example; You can...
* search a a very specific home at http://www.realtor.ca/ for free
* search for a very specific jobe at http://english.monster.ca/ for free
* search for used cars and light trucks at http://www.autotrader.ca/ for free
* search for a whole bunch of stuff at craigslist or kijiji or ebay for free
* go directly to Walmart/Futureshop/etc websites for free without waiting for the weekend edition with all the supplements
This drives a stake through the heart of newspaper revenue. Click-through and Google type ads bring in approximately 10% of what their paper equivalants do. That's why newspapers aren't going digital like people expected. Your subscription barely pays for the price of printing and delivering the paper to your doorstep. It's the classified ad revenue that pays for reporters at city hall, not to mention in Washington, Baghdad, Moscow, etc. Slash newspaper revenues by 90%, and the model collapses, even if you go to "digital delivery". Just like "video killed the radio star", so too is the internet killing large city daily newspapers.
Sorry, newspapers as we know them are doomed.
>> with many places starting to not accept credit cards.
> Really? That seems like a good way for the business to lose a lot of sales.
Ever heard the joke about "we'll lose money on every transaction, but make up for it in volume"? All that "lot of sales" is going to come at the cost of 2 or 3 percent cut by the credit card issuer. In a business with thin profit margins, it can mean the difference between profit and loss. That's why those places are willing to "sacrifice" that business.
> We aren't completely to the point where I can do my entire
> job on a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard (if needed)
Congratulations. You've just re-invented the wheel; or in this case a small-screen desktop. I'll keep my desktop and my netbook/laptop, thank you. BTW, what can a 10" iPad do that a 10" or 11" netbook can't do for a much lower price? http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=710_28 And exactly how much free open source software can you load up on your iPad without rooting it?
> Since it's a laser to deliver power, why can't it be mounted on a satellite?
1) We're not talking relatively low-power TV broadcast satellites where the receiving antenna gets a few microvolts, maybe millivolts from the satellite. Lasers capable of recharging a drone in flight require a lot of power, and it's bleeping expensive to continuously refuel/resupply a satelite even in low earth orbit. Just look at the costs of ISS (International Space Station).
2) Assuming that you could mount a powerful laser in low earth orbit, and refuel it as necessary, you'd have a HUGE military threat. The Russians and Chines would want to build their own. No need to power drones or whatever to attack enemies. "Blast them from orbit" instead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_Are_Forever_(film)
Ah yes, Austrian economics. Anyone heard of the Creditanstalt Bank of Austria? Hint... 1931 and the depression http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2009/03/1931.html
> Win8 will do well, IMO. It will come out coupled with touchscreens,
> on which it really does work well - certainly far better than 7.
Oh boy, just what I need. Throw away the mouse. and stretch my arm out 2 feet to drag+drop stuff all the way across my 24 inch LCD screen. No thanks. You think people had carpal tunnel syndrome in the past, wait till this monstrosity takes over.
> Because they need to demote Windows 7 / .NET & COM to essentially a hosted
> operating system to force change. They reason they need to force change is because
> they want to support much more diverse hardware like phones and tablets. And that
> means in particular moving to vector not bitmapped based interface standards
> which effects all windows applications.
WTF??? Look, I agree that the desktop UI paradigm might suck on tablets+smartphones. That does *NOT* justify putting a tablet+smarthphone UI on desktop PCs, where it'll suck just as badly. Different horse for different courses, etc.
> Its pretty cler to me that this isn't an issue on apple's end. They're really good out posting
> guidelines for submitting binaries. Maybe app creators should be better about following instructions?
Huh??? Things were working just fine, thank you, before July 3rd. If you had RTFA, you would've seen the bit about...
> Update, July 5: After adding 114 apps to the list with more reports coming in
> every few minutes, it's no longer practical for me to maintain the list. Obviously,
> this is a very widespread problem for many apps updated from July 3-5.
Do you seriously expect people to believe that writers of well over a 100 apps all suddenly stopped doing things the right way on July 2nd, and started doing things the wrong way on July 3rd?
> Their efforts to change the user interface to suit the tablet
> continued with the introduction of the Ribbon in Office 2007.
Everybody agrees that the universal desktop UI absolutely sucks on tablets/smartphones. What annoys me is all the idiots who want to ram a tablet/samrtphone UI down my throat that absolutely sucks on a desktop. It's not just MS either. The idiots writing GNOME and KDE are doing the same on linux. I'm sticking with ICEWM.
> Does Facebook hire monkeys to do their coding?
Hey, don't insult primates. These guys http://www.newtechusa.com/ppi/talent.asp would be a step up over Facebook's programmers.