The idea that arguments have to be balanced is, in and of itself, a false assumption. Political correctness gone bad.
Sometimes things are just so unbalanced that trying to argue one side against the other becomes ludicrous./. is a tech site. One with a lot of individuals with their own (often quite vocal) opinions. It's not one person's blog (sorry, Taco!) anymore. There may be a group think, but it's based on the technical insights from people in the trenches.
Yes, a new version of hardware will have a new processor and more ram. Well, OF COURSE IT WILL. That should be a given. What else is going for it? That's what all the ridicule's about. They didn't even learn from their mistake about using the same naming convention for two handheld devices that aren't compatible with each other.
[...]watch any of the hot shows (TV's a vast wasteland again now that Fringe is over), and barely tolerate Superhero films or any Bond since Connery? (And get off my lawn, dammit!)
Dude, two words: Breaking Bad.
Or, to put it another way, there is still great TV out there. You just need a way to filter through the cruft. On imdb.com on the top menu, select TV > Top TV Series.
In the U.S. we've been using High Fructose Corn Syrup as our sweetener for a couple decades now. Why import something natural when you can synthesize something much worse locally?
Try a car with a good heads up display. They can show current speed, map directions, and/or music selection on the windscreen, at a focal length almost the same as the road. Much quicker to look at the HUD than the speedometer, and it's not obtrusive enough that you're always paying attention to it.
I like these articles about Amarok because they inevitably lead to people discussing the alternatives, and sometimes I'll give one of them a try.
Personally I've been on Banshee for the last year or so. It's got a simple UI that reminds me of an early version of iTunes. Not too many frills, but I can pick the columns I want, and it can sync with music players. Playlist modification is simple enough as well. I personally don't need much more than that.
The APIs can apparently only be used if the developers stay within certain guidelines. One of the guidelines is that the app must be HTML5. You break the guidelines, your app stops working.
Google doesn't have to follow the guidelines, since they wrote it.
If Google allowed Microsoft to not follow the guidelines, they would be giving Microsoft preferential treatment above what they allow independent app developers and potentially put them (Google) in legal jeopardy.
Or Microsoft can just get out. It costs them nothing[...]
Except, of course, admitting defeat and withdrawing from a large and growing market. Not a bad idea if you have credible plans to create a new market, not so much if your plan is to just keeping licensing the same stuff ad infinitum.
Not a short term fix, but a long term fix for the amber alert system.
Presumably the problem is a child abduction and people out on the streets should be alert. It's not particularly helpful for people asleep at home or at work.
So why tie it into phones? Why not tie it into automobiles that are turned on? How about a system that automatically turns the radio on to 10% higher than it's preset volume and do an audible alert? Or if the radio is already on just increase the volume by 10% for the audible alert.
That way you'll get the attention of the people already on the roads to look out for the vehicle in question.
Exactly how many children are abducted a year (really abducted, not taken by a parent who lost custody)? How many amber alerts a year?
If they're in the same order of magnitude, I'd be okay with this. Somehow I doubt it.
I started getting similar (unstoppably) alerts for a weather advisory in the area. Not a hurricane or tornado. Just "severe rain". Do these people realize that these sorts of alerts really don't do much except remind people to let in their cats and dogs and close the windows?
Doing a poll of the general population around me, not a single one of them uses any office suite on their phones.
Now, it's a biased sample. Almost half are iphones, almost half are androids, and there are a couple "dumb" call phones. None of them have a Windows 8 phone. (I like to call that 'Biased towards reality'.)
Most of us get Microsoft Office files. But the email reader either opens the files natively or can shunt it to a simple document viewer to open the files in a read-only mode.
The point is that having office (either Microsoft Office or any other office suite) on a cell phone is overkill. Even on a tablet computer. It's not until you have a real keyboard (and, likely, a mouse) are you going to make "office-type" documents.
Open source just can't get user interfaces right. LibreOffice has subtle problems, such as spelling correction that insists on making a change even after you've undone the change. Microsoft Word will yield to the user in that situation. The command-line crowd will never get fine details like that.
So true.
The solution, of course, is to file a bug report. At least it gets on the radar then.
I've filed bug reports. Often they are "won't fix", but at least I'll get an understanding why the software is set up that way. And the rest of the time they do fix it (or point me to the bug I'm a dupe of, and fix that bug)
I mean, I'm a middle aged American male. I like porn, videogames, and technology. That's hardly a secret and I don't care that some people know it
Absolutely. You're an adult and it's the 21st century. You don't have to hide that you like technology. Long gone are the days when kids are beat up for this sort of thing.
Not just that, but films are now coming out for rental much sooner than they used to. Why see a movie in the theater now when you can see it at home in 3-4 months?
Also, the price of rentals has fallen through the floor and the convenience has markedly increased. They have RedBox in almost every grocery store in my area. We pick up the movie and snacks and are good to go. The only thing that could kill RedBox would be streaming, if the big producers weren't intent to screw that up with licensing issues.
Frankly, I'd be surprised if 1% of Facebook users are even people.
Imposing a fee on non-people (companies, etc) is an option, however. I know a lot of small companies that use FB as their entire web presence. Charging $10/month for them is a drop in the bucket and is just a part of the operating expenses.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea that arguments have to be balanced is, in and of itself, a false assumption. Political correctness gone bad.
Sometimes things are just so unbalanced that trying to argue one side against the other becomes ludicrous. /. is a tech site. One with a lot of individuals with their own (often quite vocal) opinions. It's not one person's blog (sorry, Taco!) anymore. There may be a group think, but it's based on the technical insights from people in the trenches.
Yes, a new version of hardware will have a new processor and more ram. Well, OF COURSE IT WILL. That should be a given. What else is going for it? That's what all the ridicule's about. They didn't even learn from their mistake about using the same naming convention for two handheld devices that aren't compatible with each other.
[...]watch any of the hot shows (TV's a vast wasteland again now that Fringe is over), and barely tolerate Superhero films or any Bond since Connery? (And get off my lawn, dammit!)
Dude, two words: Breaking Bad.
Or, to put it another way, there is still great TV out there. You just need a way to filter through the cruft. On imdb.com on the top menu, select TV > Top TV Series.
You must be outside the U.S.
In the U.S. we've been using High Fructose Corn Syrup as our sweetener for a couple decades now. Why import something natural when you can synthesize something much worse locally?
Try a car with a good heads up display. They can show current speed, map directions, and/or music selection on the windscreen, at a focal length almost the same as the road. Much quicker to look at the HUD than the speedometer, and it's not obtrusive enough that you're always paying attention to it.
My first adware app for Google Glass will simulate a Mac truck approaching your car[...]
Why not a Window truck? Wouldn't they be easier to find?
I like these articles about Amarok because they inevitably lead to people discussing the alternatives, and sometimes I'll give one of them a try.
Personally I've been on Banshee for the last year or so. It's got a simple UI that reminds me of an early version of iTunes. Not too many frills, but I can pick the columns I want, and it can sync with music players. Playlist modification is simple enough as well. I personally don't need much more than that.
I just hope they don't screw it up.
The APIs can apparently only be used if the developers stay within certain guidelines. One of the guidelines is that the app must be HTML5. You break the guidelines, your app stops working.
Google doesn't have to follow the guidelines, since they wrote it.
If Google allowed Microsoft to not follow the guidelines, they would be giving Microsoft preferential treatment above what they allow independent app developers and potentially put them (Google) in legal jeopardy.
Are we still limiting the registry to horses with only four legs?
Or Microsoft can just get out. It costs them nothing[...]
Except, of course, admitting defeat and withdrawing from a large and growing market. Not a bad idea if you have credible plans to create a new market, not so much if your plan is to just keeping licensing the same stuff ad infinitum.
Fight clubs may be a suitable replacement for trusted electronic private communication, but the bit rate is horribly slow.
I like my coffee like I like my women.
Dark and bitter.
The problem is when you want to use a combination of a SSD and a HDD on Ubuntu or other linux and use the SSD as cache.
Yes, it's possible with bcache, but where's the easy setup at the OS level?
Each time I upgrade the OS, I hope that they have setting up this combination as an easily configured option.
Different strokes for different folks. You would think he would know that.
And you would think he would be secure enough in what he's done that he doesn't have to tear down others.
Not a short term fix, but a long term fix for the amber alert system.
Presumably the problem is a child abduction and people out on the streets should be alert. It's not particularly helpful for people asleep at home or at work.
So why tie it into phones? Why not tie it into automobiles that are turned on? How about a system that automatically turns the radio on to 10% higher than it's preset volume and do an audible alert? Or if the radio is already on just increase the volume by 10% for the audible alert.
That way you'll get the attention of the people already on the roads to look out for the vehicle in question.
Exactly how many children are abducted a year (really abducted, not taken by a parent who lost custody)? How many amber alerts a year?
If they're in the same order of magnitude, I'd be okay with this. Somehow I doubt it.
I started getting similar (unstoppably) alerts for a weather advisory in the area. Not a hurricane or tornado. Just "severe rain". Do these people realize that these sorts of alerts really don't do much except remind people to let in their cats and dogs and close the windows?
Couldn't you just disconnect the TV from the internet? Or am I missing something?
When I'm eating baclava, I'm usually wearing it as well.
Doing a poll of the general population around me, not a single one of them uses any office suite on their phones.
Now, it's a biased sample. Almost half are iphones, almost half are androids, and there are a couple "dumb" call phones. None of them have a Windows 8 phone. (I like to call that 'Biased towards reality'.)
Most of us get Microsoft Office files. But the email reader either opens the files natively or can shunt it to a simple document viewer to open the files in a read-only mode.
The point is that having office (either Microsoft Office or any other office suite) on a cell phone is overkill. Even on a tablet computer. It's not until you have a real keyboard (and, likely, a mouse) are you going to make "office-type" documents.
Open source just can't get user interfaces right. LibreOffice has subtle problems, such as spelling correction that insists on making a change even after you've undone the change. Microsoft Word will yield to the user in that situation. The command-line crowd will never get fine details like that.
So true.
The solution, of course, is to file a bug report. At least it gets on the radar then.
I've filed bug reports. Often they are "won't fix", but at least I'll get an understanding why the software is set up that way. And the rest of the time they do fix it (or point me to the bug I'm a dupe of, and fix that bug)
I mean, I'm a middle aged American male. I like porn, videogames, and technology. That's hardly a secret and I don't care that some people know it
Absolutely. You're an adult and it's the 21st century. You don't have to hide that you like technology. Long gone are the days when kids are beat up for this sort of thing.
And it's your fault if your machine is turned into a cog of part of a greater machine, bending to the whims of some "hacker".
Actually, that sounds pretty cool. Like there's a higher purpose in my computer's existence.
And aren't we all just cogs in the greatest machine there is, creation?
If you have a known username and password, is it possible to derive the salt?
Not just that, but films are now coming out for rental much sooner than they used to. Why see a movie in the theater now when you can see it at home in 3-4 months?
Also, the price of rentals has fallen through the floor and the convenience has markedly increased. They have RedBox in almost every grocery store in my area. We pick up the movie and snacks and are good to go. The only thing that could kill RedBox would be streaming, if the big producers weren't intent to screw that up with licensing issues.
It doesn't have to be an invisible watermark, either.
Simply print the subscriber's name and email address on the cover of the magazine, just where their name and home address would be on the print copy.
Frankly, I'd be surprised if 1% of Facebook users are even people.
Imposing a fee on non-people (companies, etc) is an option, however. I know a lot of small companies that use FB as their entire web presence. Charging $10/month for them is a drop in the bucket and is just a part of the operating expenses.