Uhhh...we lost a shitload of tech? look up "Greek Fire" or Damascus Steel to see two techs that were lost because they were kept as secrets.
The problem isn't so much the original idea of the system, it is that douchebags like the late Jack Valenti figured out how to bribe and game the system so they could have "forever minus a single day" which is the current copyrights system, or "patent the most vaguest idea I pull out of my ass crack and sue the shit out of anything even close to my ass crack idea" which is the current patent system.
Make patents and copyrights 7-10 years with the ability to pay for yearly extensions, starting at $1 and quickly jumping to over $1 million after a decade past the original term and $100 million after 2 decades. that way if some supermega corp thinks they have something REALLY that valuable, let them pay for it. Everyone else will have made their money and moved on, thus freeing huge amount of our culture from being lost.
For an example of being lost look at the non big name DOS games of the 80s through early 90s. Many of these companies are gone, many of these programs have NO chance of running on a modern machine, and good luck finding who owns the rights. I had a great little idea a few years back, to get together with a programming friend of mine and offer "DOSBox...in a box" which would have been a preconfigured DOSBox with the old DOS games preloaded and a nice GUI, all on a flash stick. That way those that didn't know how to set up DOSBox would have an easy way to try the funky and the rare just plug and play. So what happened?
Copyrights happened. Most of the games we tried to find info for have passed through so damned many hands nobody knows who owns shit, and the few that we did find wanted frankly more per unit than the things sold for new because "they might want to monetize the IP some day" so all those games will eventually be lost and the public will be poorer for it. Kinda like how there are tons of movies disappearing every year because the major studios can't figure out how to monetize the IP from some grade C movie from the 30s or 40s with no AAA stars anybody has heard of.
So if they want to keep it? Make them pay. Hoist them by their own petard because if I quit paying property taxes my property gets taken by the state, the same should happen to intellectual property. If you don't pay to keep it up? Into the Public Domain it goes. Just imagine how much richer our lives would be if all the music of the 50s through 70s, all the games of the DOS era, and all those classic movies, were free to be mashed up and remade and to be enjoyed.
I know that in my case we were planning on making donations of 10% of any money we made on our DOSBox in a box idea to DOSBox with the hopes of helping as well as sharing any changes and configs we came up with. After all it wasn't for the geeks on the DOSBox forums, it was for the kids and folks that wanted to try these classic games and have them as easy as we had those old shareware CDs back in the day. Sadly after 3 months of trying to deal with the legal minefield we just decided it wasn't worth doing all that hard work when in the end no matter what we did we would have gotten a C&D or sued by a company that hadn't sold the thing in 20 years or had ended up with the "IP" in some merger of a merger of a buyout so nobody knew they had it until they hit us with the suit.
Actually I'd say Obama is MORE evil than Bush, and here's why: Everyone knew what Bush was, hell he did jokes about "his people" at functions for the mega rich. He was an ass, people knew he was an ass, but sadly the choice was like shrimp or wimp in the 80s it was pretty much suck all around.
But I know plenty of young people who will NEVER believe in the system or vote EVER again because of what a lying POS Obama turned out to be. They voted because they believed they could actually affect change only to watch Obama become Bush II dipped in chocolate. Every major promise? Broken. Every major evil Bush supported? Obama supports too, sometimes to an even worse degree.
So it is at this point I have to say I agree with them, just don't bother giving a shit and wait for our Arab spring to come when the whole corrupt cabal comes crashing down. I personally think it is just a matter of time, as I know people, good hard working folks mind you, living in tents because there simply aren't any jobs to be had. I personally wouldn't be surprised if the real numbers are closer to 30% unemployment and probably close to that underemployment.
As for Clinton? hell he could fuck cheerleaders on the White House lawn and I'd still vote for him for POTUS to this very day. The economy was running good when old Slick Willie was pres, hell when he was guv the roads were getting fixed and the education system was improving. Personally I'd rather have a guy that fucked bimbos than the country ANY day of the week!
The problem with your idea is this: Our engines suck the big wet titty. What you are proposing is trying to drive to the top of Everest with a Model A-sure theoretically it could do it, but it wouldn't be safe, or fast, or even practical.
So until we can come with something better than the equivalent of tying a giant bottle rocket to our asses going past the moon simply isn't practical. Now I would be more than happy to support research into those new motors, especially if at the same time we ended the 3 wars we have going and quit building aircraft carriers and new super jets like we have WWIII planned for next Tuesday, but so far we just haven't found anything that makes going to other planets and back, even to Mars, anywhere near a reality. You just have to haul too much for too long because we are so slow.
Because if you look at the original mission statement it was a big fat failure? The way NASA sold it was the shuttle was supposed to be a "space truck" that would allow the USA to easily and cheaply carry large loads into space, work on damaged sats (again lowering costs) and even bring damaged birds home to be worked on.
Instead what we got was a ship that couldn't carry the loads the military or commercial needed (which is why they have the Delta V) and was insanely expensive to maintain. Finally Sen porkman and Con kickbackus made sure they could "bring home the bacon" by spreading work on the thing as far and wide as they possibly could (it ended up something like 23 states were working on shuttle parts IIRC) which just made it more inefficient to keep.
No what we need to do is either let commercial interests take care of it or to have the Delta V man rated. Either option would be better than now where since the end of the space race Sen Porkman and Con Kickbackus have used the NASA programs as a personal reelection machine. Now sadly NASA is more about how many jobs can embattled congressman X get sent to his district to buy some votes. Personally I'm starting to think we would be better off to do like India and just cut out the middle men so that the Senators can just buy the votes outright with cell phones and TVs like I heard they do over there.
Actually you want a more exact copy see Palm. Mobile device? Check. Icons in a grid pattern? Check. Ability to add apps and games? Check.
That said TFA is kinda misleading as they only dropped ONE claim and they have...what? Something like a dozen? So they dropped the weakest one of the bunch, it still gives them plenty to smack Apple with. In any case it should be worth popping the popcorn and sitting back while the two big boys tear into each other like two cats in a bag.
Only if you are an ISP. Are you an ISP? I think not. There are plenty of things a corporation can do that you the average Joe can't, see limited liability for an example.
The problem is the fucked up way that the CP distribution laws are written. In their current form if you have ZERO access to the package, simply deliver the package, like I said you are on the hook for distribution since the distribution charge does NOT have a single line about you yourself actually using or looking at said package simply that you delivered it and that is what the IP logs prove. Hell I doubt they would even need to crack any FreeNet crypto, simply show they download "x yr old fucking" and traced the download to your IP address. After all they busted a guy not too long ago for a single thumbnail image generated by one of those topsites, and I doubt anyone could really sanely argue one is gonna be using a thumbnail for anything.
In the end because the courts haven't really covered anything like FreeNet that means SOMEONE is gonna get drug into court sooner or later so that the courts will rule one way or another. Now considering on average for a CP case at least it my state you are looking at 2 years before coming to trial, with VERY high bail if you get any at all, along with a minimum of $100,000 to defend yourself unless you are willing to risk your freedom to a "public pretender' that will ONLY push you to please guilty (I know, I used to work for a bail bonds and saw how they operate) the question becomes thus: Are YOU willing to risk 60+ years of your life and 2 years minimum in county simply to find out if FreeNet has a legal leg to stand on? Seems like a hell of a lot to risk on an untested theory and I wouldn't be surprised if guys like the EFF shied away from jumping in on anything involving CP.
Uhhh did you read the link? GE which was bailed out by American taxpayers instead of using that money to...oh I don't know...keep their American workers instead took that money and promptly offshored a large chunk of their workforce and the CEO had the balls to brag "These aren't the low paying jobs, these are the good jobs, We are sending them to India because that is where the consumers are"
Well no shit the consumers are there you traitorous dirtbag who frankly should be shot, the REASON the consumers are there is because you and your dirtbag friends offshored more than 20,000 FACTORIES in the last decade alone!
So this has NOTHING to do with abusing third world countries except that being able to poison the land and treat workers like dogs is considered a nice bonus to these bastards, no what we are talking about here is companies taking hand outs to then fuck us over with the money which is why we should demand payback at 75% interest RIGHT NOW and if they don't? They are banned. No GE products, no GE businesses, not even the CEO will be allowed to set foot on American soil and any assets they have here seized.
But of course that will never happen because our congress critters and dear leader are too busy cashing their bribery checks thanks to Citizens United to give a fuck. Hell the CEO that pulled this shit? Got to enjoy having GE PAY NO TAXES for most of this past decade!
That is why Apple is allowing you to download on their connection at the Apple store and why we Windows guys have WSUS Offline that lets you have EVERY version of Windows from XP 32bit to Windows 7 64 bit plus all the office versions from XP on up, all either burned to DVD or on a flash stick so all it takes is a single friend/relative with a decent connection. I have been using it for awhile now so I even have the complete Win2K in case I run into one of those that needs the final updates.
So it isn't like anybody is screwed here if they don't have fast net. If you have an Apple laptop I'm sure you know where the Apple store is so that is taken care of and WSUS Offline is "clicky clicky" simple so Windows is covered too. I don't know about Linux but I assume they have something similar as well.
But lets face it if you are still on dialup I don't think you really need to worry about updates as I don't you'll be downloading any big malware packages for either OS before you time out anyway. Hell does Apple laptops even come with modems anymore?
Uhhh...dude? The government is not a person it is a business owned by WE THE PEOPLE who have a RIGHT to know what our money is being spent on!
We are talking about OUR MONEY being paid to guys that give little fucking kids as party favors! Doesn't that bother you even a little bit? I know Citizens United was SCOTUS trying to sell us down the river but repeat after me...governments and corporations are not people they are businesses and like all businesses they are (or at least should be) responsible to their shareholders!
Now you gonna tell me if you bought shares in Google or MSFT you would be okay with "We're not gonna tell you our plans, what we did with your money, in fact here is our response to you" and they gave you an 8x6 of Goatse? Are you REALLY that "corporation yay, government yay"?
Maybe you were all for rigging the 72 election as well? After all Nixon said it was state secrets too. Without transparency there can be NO legitimate government, because there is NOTHING stopping another Watergate or some PMO from making sure no matter what "el presidente" gets his way. Is that REALLY the government you want?
Frankly Manning is an American Patriot and hero and Assange should have gotten the Nobel prize given to our "dropping bombs isn't hostile" dear leader. Those papers on wikileaks make the Pentagon papers look like the Sunday funnies and the simple fact that those that committed those crimes aren't in prison and instead the whistleblowers are being hunted simply shows how we no longer have a functional democracy, but a puppet state controlled by the elite.
I would also point out it is We,The People, that is paying for this douchebaggery so don't we have the right to know where our money went? I'm sure the guy above would argue the CEO of a company has the right to know if the IT guy is running a CP server on their network but what we have here is 1000 times worse: active coverup of a pedo ring using OUR money and OUR force to protect sick fucks that not ONLY did this in Afghanistan but in Kosovo? Did the the same damned thing with 10 and 11 year old girls!
So this isn't some "think of the children" bullshit here, we are talking about a company working for and with ties to the US government actively snatching little fricking kids and selling them for fucktoys. This is EXACTLY the kind of shit the American people have a right to know, and how sad is it that only wikileaks seems to give a shit enough to publish while OUR MSM tripped over themselves to have Assange declared worse than Osama. How far this once great nation has fallen, and I'm only glad my grandfather that fought and suffered to free Europe isn't here to see what a sleazebag country we have become.
Well to be fair to MSFT here they TRIED the harder to bypass schema with Vista and it was a clusterfuck. Waaaay too many false positives, way too many pissed off customers, way too much risk their server would go down at a bad moment and pooch the whole deal. I've had to deal with some of that "hard to copy" software, with dongles and crap, and frankly it is a nightmare at the best of times. Designing perfect DRM is like building a Caddy that gets 10k miles to the gallon and flies...it just ain't gonna happen. After all the Vista hatred I can see MSFT just saying "aww fuck this" as most home users (their biggest customers) just buy from honest shops like me and don't install Windows.
As for interns? That is because sadly too much of our education system is a bad joke, designing to enrich the owners and give out little sheets of worthless paper. One of the reasons I had to get away from corporate work (it was literally giving me chest pains) was the fact they'd bring in these "paper tigers" that if it wasn't EXACTLY step by step what they've been taught? Total thumb up their ass stupid. NO imagination, NO problem solving skills, all they had done was "teach to the test" and if it wasn't in the same little steps they were fucked. I had "network experts" brought to me that didn't have the common fucking sense to look and see if the Ethernet cable was plugged in!
And all the hot software? While I'd say MSFT is partially to blame for not having a low end license (I would kill for copies of Win 7 Starter at $35 a piece, it would be like heaven) I'd say a hell of a lot of it is greed, plain and simple. These corps know they can get these green ass kids that don't have a clue to do anything they want, so instead of just buying a site license or even God forbid upgrade your damned hardware once in a while, they'll get these green ass kids to load them to the gills with hot crap knowing they can push the kid under a bus if the corp gets caught. I don't know how many places where I saw Win98/ME era hardware struggling under a hot copy of XP pro because some PHB didn't want to buy a single machine until the damned things fell apart, the fact that they hindered the employees? Didn't matter.
But sadly in the end all that matters is the papers so the BS continues. I have no problem with using Linux or BSD, GPL or proprietary, whatever tool works best for the job. But then again I keep old boxes around to play with funky OSes just for fun and I have no qualms with actually learning new things. What I saw with these interns were clueless kids that had been taught to the test, dumped into a place where they had NO clue what they were doing, and instead of someone taking the kid under their wing and showing him the ropes they simply used it for the dirty and illegal jobs the bosses didn't want to do. It is BS, it stinks, and certainly ain't helping the kid learn anything useful, unless you call how to find the latest Razr1911.torrent a useful skill.
Actually according to a friend in the state crime lab there could be a serious problem with the Freenet approach. The way it was explained to me was like this: You carry a box from point A to B. you don't have the key to the box, you don't attempt to open the box. the cops pull you over and find there are drugs in the box you are still going to jail whether you had knowledge of the contents or not.
You see the way the current CP laws are set up all they have to do is have a cop download a CP file that is traced back to your IP. It doesn't matter if Freenet encryption keeps you from seeing the file because they are not busting you for possession but for distribution and as I said above you don't have to look inside the box to distribute it.
Is it right? No but personally I think the whole witch hunt, where we are busting people for words on a page or cartoons is total bullshit. But considering in most areas you are looking at as much as 20 years an image for distribution I'd think twice before risking being the one who gets to test their whole "plausable deniability" bit in court.
As for TFA happy Bday BT! Sadly I believe that your best days are behind you, at least in the USA, as the *.A.As are gonna ram through three strikes laws where THEY are judge and jury, and the ISPs can't wait to give us ever shittier caps so they can take those massive profits and buy some more hookers and blow instead of line upgrades. So while I'm sure you'll have a future maybe sending WoW or Steam updates I kinda doubt when the ISPs get done and the *.AAs help them along there will be much bandwidth or anything else left to worry about using BT.
The corps aren't gonna rest until they turn the net into the home shopping network, and after Wikileaks and the Arab spring governments will be happy to help them in their goals. Hell I'm shocked they haven't gotten Nancy Grace and the other talking heads to feed the public some shit about how BT and other P2P protocols are used by nothing but terrorists and kiddie fiddlers. So good luck BT, frankly you are gonna need it.
Hey Barb, I think you really hit the nail on the head about the "give the possibly illegal and bullshit jobs to the intern" kind of shit. As a guy that has actually had to walk in and clean up more than a few messes in my time I can tell you I've seen shops get connected with schools and then use the interns to install hot everything from Windows on up, knowing the unpaid kid can get the blame. hell I was once even offered a paid internship with this company and my interview went something like this...
Boss-"Hey you know Windows and Linux servers, right?" me-yes sir not a problem, what do you need? Boss-Can you make it so all the machines in all our office ONLY get Windows updates from us instead of MSFT? Sure, you can set up something like WSUS but why? Are there bandwidth issues? A problem with the network or software that is at risk of breaking? Boss-So we can use this...and slides across the desk a copy of "Windows Vista Ultimate razr1911 edition".
Of course needless to say I laughed and walked away but I'm sure they got some kid later on to do it and had no problem shoving him/her under a bus if they got caught. If you wanna know why Linux isn't getting any traction I can tell ya that piracy is fricking rampant, especially in this dead economy, and I've walked into businesses with more than 30k worth of software loaded on every machine in the place.
From what I've seen in waaaay too many businesses the intern is the designated fall guy. He's the one that will get the blame if they get caught with the dirty bullshit and being some green ass they won't have any proof they were told to do what they get caught doing. I have to agree with the earlier poster if they are doing ANY work they should at LEAST get minimum wage. hell the guy emptying the trash cans gets at least that, somebody pay the kid. But I'd say there needs to be more oversight because the amount of hot software floating around some of these places is just nuts.
That is why we have war crimes and world courts, because as we found out in WWII there are certain levels of evil that the free peoples of a planet just don't want to condone, whether the dictator wants to condone them or not.
As for TFA what we have here is what another poster hit right on the head....the Pentagon papers. like the Pentagon papers we have some intel showing the collective douchebaggery (and I would argue warcrimes) of those in power. I mean covering up a defense contractor that gives away little kids as fucktoy party favors to win contracts? You sick fucks need to be shot. And this intel coming out was more than a little embarrassing because it showed what sick evil fucks are doing quietly in the halls of power in the name of "national interests" so they are trying to use their power here to force laws over there to punish them.
But lucky for the rest of the planet they aren't forced to bow before the USA (yet, I have seen some of the treaties we are trying to ram through) and if you want to do business there you have to follow the rules there, and lucky for the rest of the world by and large the EU seems to have a spine when it comes to big corps being dicks. Personally though I have a better idea: How about instead of punishing Wikileaks you execute the sick evil fucks running a muck in the halls of power, how about that? If you weren't selling your collective asses Mr politician you wouldn't have to be embarrassed when the video shows up on the net.
And if on page 14 in tiny print it says it gets to empty your bank account, is that cool too? Because of the pages of legal bullshit people have been conditioned to go "clicky clicky next next next" because otherwise you'd spend more time reading bullshit than you do at work!
And that doesn't change the fact you have one of the largest corps on the planet, with one of the if not the MOST popular pages on the planet, so why are they doing Realplayer stealth dropping bullshit? Why happened to the no evil bit huh?
Not being evil includes not being a giant asshole, especially when there is NO POINT in being an asshole in the first place. It isn't like they have a shitty product, or no way to advertise their product. They are one of the largest ad companies on the fucking planet for God's sake!
Finally douchebag behavior does NOT help their cause. People that get stealth installed don't go "oh look, a free prezzie, I will enjoy it" no they go 'WTF is that shit? How did it get there and why is it taking over my browser launches? get that shit off of there!" which if you want a program to be popular seems like the ass backwards way to go about it.
So if a company says "We don't serve niggers" is that cool? Discrimination has been a no no for quite awhile now, be it race, color, creed, or belief. I don't know how it is in the EU but before the USA was sold to the corps we also had a thing known as antitrust, where companies who had grown to dominate a market couldn't use their control of a market for douchebag behavior.
So let us hope that unlike the USA, which was sold several years and a few decades ago, and is now nothing but a shell with lip service paid to a constitution nobody in power actually follows anymore, that the EU actually has a spine. With groups like Wikileaks to expose the evil dirty double dealing backstabbing bullshit that goes on every damned day in the halls of power? Well I'd say things would be even worse but honestly I'm beginning to doubt anything short of our own Arab spring is gonna change our freefall anyway.
I mean when you have a government covering up for a defense contractor that is using 9 year old boys as fucktoy party favors to win a contract, and whom the time before that was giving out 10 year old girls for the same reason, and the ONLY complaint they have is it might bring some bad publicity? Sorry but your government is evil now and there is no other way to put it. Now the USA IS the bad guys.
See? Thanks for proving you are a coward as I conclusively proved, with link after link no less, that your driver model is shit, retailers consider your product about as useful as an STD, and your ONLY answer? The ONLY thing you can come up with? Waaaah, he won't suck Linus' cock so he must work for M$! Wahhh!
Hell I even provided a link showing from the mouth of Linus himself that his "big plan" for the kernel is THERE IS NO PLAN just whatever itch he and his douchey kernel buds feel like, like it is 1993 and they are passing the kernel around on IRC. No care what pain he is causing the users, no giving a shit he is running off the OEMs, nope just Linus and his pals going Goatse on the kernel, not a care in the world.
So do us all a favor...kill yourself. If you are such a sheep that even when shown link after link, proof after proof that you are being fucked the ONLY answer you can come up with is "Waaah he doesn't like being fucked raw like me so he is a poopy head!" then please, make the world a better place...kill yourself. Suck on a tailpipe, eat a bullet, go play in traffic. this world is too full of cowering sycophants kissing the ass of anyone in power to ever miss you.
Wow, thanks for the link. 55% still use IE? That is amazing to me as honestly I haven't seen an IE user in my shop in like 3 years now. Granted I deal with mainly home users and SOHOs/SMBs but I can honestly say I haven't seen an IE user in nearly 3 years. For awhile it was all Firefox and then in the last year it has been a mix of Firefox and Chrome.
I figure my home is probably what one would call pretty typical, with my mom on Seamonkey (it reminds her of Netscape but I love how she says she has to have "her blue bird thingy" when she gets on one of my machines) and my GF on Firefox, I'm on Comodo dragon along with my youngest and the oldest refuses to ever let go of his Opera. Not a single IE user in neither mine nor my GF's families, not a single one. I even get the occasional long distance call from a member of her family going "Hey you're the resident PC guru guy. How do I get that Fox thingy" or "How do I install that Chrome thing?"
So while I can see why IE is still used in business (AD and GPOs although I hear chrome has those now as well) frankly it really has become like that old joke, at least here "IE is what you use to download a better browser" as I can honestly say it has been years since I've seen an IE user in the wild. I think the big selling point is Facebook myself, as I've notcied that at least for me Dragon and the other Chromium browser slaughter the others when it comes to Facebook, and the average folks eat those Zynga games up.
So it really doesn't surprise me that Chrome is climbing, I just wish Google would get some sense when it comes to Chromebook. So far the ones I've seen are more than a real laptop when if they would sell them for $100 Google would own the "browser in a box" market and probably take out the low end laptop and tablet sales as well.
I'd add that while I can see why Chrome is climbing (I'm personally giving all my customers Comodo Dragon, based on Chromium because of the speed and added security) I'd add that there is waaaay too many pieces of software out there that has default install set for dumping Chrome. Just the other day I was rushed and found Chrome dropped on my desktop from Defraggler I believe.
So while I see why some are switching (I personally don't like how Chrome phones home, one of the reasons I'm using Dragon instead) I have to wonder how many got it dropped on their desktop by some freeware. Speaking of dropped the only thing more irritating is how shockwave and some other software are now dropping some Norton Scanner crap on PCs. I don't know how many times I've had to clean that crap off someone's PC this past month.
So while I personally wish the Chrome team well, and frankly after getting stuck for years cleaning up crap thanks to ActiveX frankly ANYTHING is better than IE, I have to question the wisdom of these stealth Chrome installs. I mean really guys, you are the largest search engine in the world, which gives you a really easy way to advertise Chrome. Do you really need to use sneaky realplayer style tactics just to gain share? It isn't like you have a bad product here, I personally find all the Chromium based browsers much faster, especially on the social and other JavaScript heavy sites. So please end the stealth install program, okay?
Riiight. Hey douchey, citation please? Someone must have forgotten to tell me where Ballmer parked the money truck. Hell I don't even get discount licensing I buy OEM boxes off Newegg like every other system builder.
Isn't it sad, how like a frightened child afraid to look under the bed, you cower at the truth? if your driver model isn't shit then why does Dell have to run their own repos even though we are talking a teeny tiny subset of hardware? Oh right because Linus shits itself and dies if you use the default repos! Man that is some excellent product you got there! you think I can get better QA than the third largest OEM on the planet? What, you expect me to tell paying customers "Go to the forum, kiss some loser ass, and maybe, just maybe, in a few days someone will have mercy and give you a big pile of bullshit that may or may not make your sound work again"?
You see you whiny little delusional mama's boy, I'm your worst fucking nightmare...a retailer that still believes. I believe that the community doesn't have to take Torvalds shit sandwiches, I believe that things can be made better, I believe Linux can be something for more than douchebags like you that will happily take a cock slapping from linus as long as you can say you are sticking to "teh man". I believe that there can be Linux boxes on actual shelves and penguins on boxes.
So you go hide now mama's boy, you hide with your Tux blankie and keep saying your magical nigger nigger faggot, or should I say shill shill astroturfer, like it is a magical word that will make all the bad go away. But it won't change reality and the reality is your driver model is shit and more than 15 years behind everyone else and that is why retailers like me wouldn't piss on it, not some mythical money truck that sneaks up to my door in the middle of the night. So go compile something and leave the men to talk about the real world, okay little girl?
Man nothing is cooler than the free toad sloth, nothing at all.
As for TFA honestly how great can having Ubunru on ARM be? Don't have any ARM boards to try this out but generally when I've heard something touted as "cross platform" what I've seen is something that runs great on ONE platform, and kinda gimps along on the others. See Java, flash for examples.
So does anybody have some benchmarks? Doesn't have to be Ubuntu, just say any Linux and the top 5 programs on X86 VS the same Linux and top 5 programs recompiled for ARM. I'd love to see some real benchmarks with the real programs folks use, LO/OO,hell even KOffice,Firefox, Gimp, Chromium, just the basic kind of stuff the average person would want use on a netbook be it x86 or ARM. Frankly I think it would be cool if the benches doesn't suck as there is always cheap WinCE ARM netbooks on CL, but I ain't holding my breath.
As long as FB has those shitty clickfest "games' then Google is SOL. I have actually had folks come into the shop and buy a PC around those stupid games, folks are addicted to Mafia Wars and Farmville/Frontierville like someone on warcrack. I even had to keep a late model P4 at my apt just so when my GF comes over she can have her morning Farmville fix without waking me up.
So give it up Google if you don't get Zynga on board. Maybe Google ought to just buy them out? because while we geeks hate the things those Zynga games are hot shit to the average folks.
Uhhh...I take it you haven't seen this video it may be a parody but sadly anyone who has held MSFT packaging in their hands knows it is sadly funny because it is true. I swear their marketing guys must be paid by the bullet point or something.
As for TFA while I'm glad they are doing SOMETHING to make GFWL suck a little less if there are any MSFT devs here? Please, please for the love of puppies and kittens and great sex with your GF/wife, for the love of all that is good and decent in this world...DON'T FUCK UP WINDOWS 8!
You finally, after all these damned years, finally get a UI that is fricking awesome. It is easy for the clueless like my dad, while breadcrumbs and the library and integrated search makes it easy for old hands like me. you already have something that works on ARM, it is called the WinPhone. If you try to shoehorn Windows onto ARM all you are gonna do is royally piss people off when they find their games and software won't run on the damned thing. Believe me I know, the local Craigslist is filled to the brim with those that bought WinMo ARM netbooks and found it won't run their software so they shitcanned it.
So please, i know the Sweaty One is running around in a mock turtleneck and wanting to copy all things that fruit company run by the other Steve does, but just throw something shiny to distract him and let the Office guys take care of Win 8. Want a feature to get folks to buy old Hairyfeet will give you a killer one: make a simple homegroup style app that will let anyone easily connect to their work PC from home, or connect to any PC in their house. it needs to be simple, just plug in a USB dongle, put in your password, and have Win 8 do the rest. Allow seamless sharing of files, printers, all as simple as plug in a USB stick, what could be nicer?
Look I know its tempting to try to rip the fruit company, after all it has worked for years right? But your market and the fruit buyers market in this case are just too different. The fruit buyers don't care if their programs from last year don't run, they get the latest and greatest every refresh anyway. So please, you are seeing now integration is good, and you finally have a platform to build on that doesn't suck. So from a guy that had to spend two years wiping Windows Vista to put on WinXP because people hated it just.....just don't okay?
But I would argue that this is because so few people know how easy it truly is. Lately I have been building quite a few HTPCs, why? Because I had one customer who wanted a new PC but couldn't afford a new screen and I said "You have that nice new 37 inch, why not just use that?" so I built him a nice AMD quad and put a nice cheap HD4830 in it, along with getting him a wireless keyboard and mouse and the next thing I know he is bragging about it to everyone who will listen and i'm getting calls "Hey, are you that guy that was able to hook Brian's PC to his TV? Can you do that for me too?"
It just goes to show despite my best efforts to be a "voice for the common man" that sometimes I can geek out too as I thought being able to hook a PC to a modern TV was common knowledge but apparently not. But with a wireless X360 controller and his keyboard and mouse wireless frankly he sees no need for a console now and the games are soooo much cheaper on PC.
Now the only problem the guy has is trying to actually get to use his new PC, as his wife wants to do her Farmville on it, the kids of course love the picture for all their kid shows on Netflix, and now that there is wireless HDMI honestly if you have a PC less than three years old you can just wirelessly stream the HDMI straight to the set, no need to buy another.
But when people see how cheap I can build them a new triple most are just opting to have me build them one. Hell Tigerdirect is selling 8Gb monsters for just $300, add in another $100 for Win 7 HP X64 and $50 for a nice GPU and for less than $500 you have a machine that will easily last you a decade or more as an HTPC. Just rip all your movies to the Tb HDD so you don't have to fiddle with discs and away you go!
But I'd say TFA shows MSFT is FINALLY getting a clue that folks want integration. They want the PC, the X360, the WinPhone, all of this stuff to talk to each other while being "clicky clicky" simple. The only real stickler they have now is GFWL which frankly blows ass. They really do need to make it more like Steam as the last time I tried dealing with it (over Bioshock II) I ended up downloading the cracked version even though I bought the game because I was fighting GFWL more than the splicers! damned thing would lose connection, would say I wasn't hooked up when I was, just a royal PITA and about 180 compared to my experience with Steam. And is there an easy way to back up your games yet? One of the things I love about Steam is when I get a bigger drive I can just drop my steam folder onto it and tell Steam where it is and BOOM all my games work perfectly.
So let us hope that this means MSFT is finally getting a clue about what folks want. They have good separate components..Win 7 is good, the X360 is good, from those that I've talked to the WinPhone is nice if not an iPhone killer, so if they can tie everything together with a pretty little bow and make it all simple it should be sweet. but never underestimate MSFT's ability to cock things up so I'll wait to pass judgement.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhhh...we lost a shitload of tech? look up "Greek Fire" or Damascus Steel to see two techs that were lost because they were kept as secrets.
The problem isn't so much the original idea of the system, it is that douchebags like the late Jack Valenti figured out how to bribe and game the system so they could have "forever minus a single day" which is the current copyrights system, or "patent the most vaguest idea I pull out of my ass crack and sue the shit out of anything even close to my ass crack idea" which is the current patent system.
Make patents and copyrights 7-10 years with the ability to pay for yearly extensions, starting at $1 and quickly jumping to over $1 million after a decade past the original term and $100 million after 2 decades. that way if some supermega corp thinks they have something REALLY that valuable, let them pay for it. Everyone else will have made their money and moved on, thus freeing huge amount of our culture from being lost.
For an example of being lost look at the non big name DOS games of the 80s through early 90s. Many of these companies are gone, many of these programs have NO chance of running on a modern machine, and good luck finding who owns the rights. I had a great little idea a few years back, to get together with a programming friend of mine and offer "DOSBox...in a box" which would have been a preconfigured DOSBox with the old DOS games preloaded and a nice GUI, all on a flash stick. That way those that didn't know how to set up DOSBox would have an easy way to try the funky and the rare just plug and play. So what happened?
Copyrights happened. Most of the games we tried to find info for have passed through so damned many hands nobody knows who owns shit, and the few that we did find wanted frankly more per unit than the things sold for new because "they might want to monetize the IP some day" so all those games will eventually be lost and the public will be poorer for it. Kinda like how there are tons of movies disappearing every year because the major studios can't figure out how to monetize the IP from some grade C movie from the 30s or 40s with no AAA stars anybody has heard of.
So if they want to keep it? Make them pay. Hoist them by their own petard because if I quit paying property taxes my property gets taken by the state, the same should happen to intellectual property. If you don't pay to keep it up? Into the Public Domain it goes. Just imagine how much richer our lives would be if all the music of the 50s through 70s, all the games of the DOS era, and all those classic movies, were free to be mashed up and remade and to be enjoyed.
I know that in my case we were planning on making donations of 10% of any money we made on our DOSBox in a box idea to DOSBox with the hopes of helping as well as sharing any changes and configs we came up with. After all it wasn't for the geeks on the DOSBox forums, it was for the kids and folks that wanted to try these classic games and have them as easy as we had those old shareware CDs back in the day. Sadly after 3 months of trying to deal with the legal minefield we just decided it wasn't worth doing all that hard work when in the end no matter what we did we would have gotten a C&D or sued by a company that hadn't sold the thing in 20 years or had ended up with the "IP" in some merger of a merger of a buyout so nobody knew they had it until they hit us with the suit.
Actually I'd say Obama is MORE evil than Bush, and here's why: Everyone knew what Bush was, hell he did jokes about "his people" at functions for the mega rich. He was an ass, people knew he was an ass, but sadly the choice was like shrimp or wimp in the 80s it was pretty much suck all around.
But I know plenty of young people who will NEVER believe in the system or vote EVER again because of what a lying POS Obama turned out to be. They voted because they believed they could actually affect change only to watch Obama become Bush II dipped in chocolate. Every major promise? Broken. Every major evil Bush supported? Obama supports too, sometimes to an even worse degree.
So it is at this point I have to say I agree with them, just don't bother giving a shit and wait for our Arab spring to come when the whole corrupt cabal comes crashing down. I personally think it is just a matter of time, as I know people, good hard working folks mind you, living in tents because there simply aren't any jobs to be had. I personally wouldn't be surprised if the real numbers are closer to 30% unemployment and probably close to that underemployment.
As for Clinton? hell he could fuck cheerleaders on the White House lawn and I'd still vote for him for POTUS to this very day. The economy was running good when old Slick Willie was pres, hell when he was guv the roads were getting fixed and the education system was improving. Personally I'd rather have a guy that fucked bimbos than the country ANY day of the week!
The problem with your idea is this: Our engines suck the big wet titty. What you are proposing is trying to drive to the top of Everest with a Model A-sure theoretically it could do it, but it wouldn't be safe, or fast, or even practical.
So until we can come with something better than the equivalent of tying a giant bottle rocket to our asses going past the moon simply isn't practical. Now I would be more than happy to support research into those new motors, especially if at the same time we ended the 3 wars we have going and quit building aircraft carriers and new super jets like we have WWIII planned for next Tuesday, but so far we just haven't found anything that makes going to other planets and back, even to Mars, anywhere near a reality. You just have to haul too much for too long because we are so slow.
Because if you look at the original mission statement it was a big fat failure? The way NASA sold it was the shuttle was supposed to be a "space truck" that would allow the USA to easily and cheaply carry large loads into space, work on damaged sats (again lowering costs) and even bring damaged birds home to be worked on.
Instead what we got was a ship that couldn't carry the loads the military or commercial needed (which is why they have the Delta V) and was insanely expensive to maintain. Finally Sen porkman and Con kickbackus made sure they could "bring home the bacon" by spreading work on the thing as far and wide as they possibly could (it ended up something like 23 states were working on shuttle parts IIRC) which just made it more inefficient to keep.
No what we need to do is either let commercial interests take care of it or to have the Delta V man rated. Either option would be better than now where since the end of the space race Sen Porkman and Con Kickbackus have used the NASA programs as a personal reelection machine. Now sadly NASA is more about how many jobs can embattled congressman X get sent to his district to buy some votes. Personally I'm starting to think we would be better off to do like India and just cut out the middle men so that the Senators can just buy the votes outright with cell phones and TVs like I heard they do over there.
Actually you want a more exact copy see Palm. Mobile device? Check. Icons in a grid pattern? Check. Ability to add apps and games? Check.
That said TFA is kinda misleading as they only dropped ONE claim and they have...what? Something like a dozen? So they dropped the weakest one of the bunch, it still gives them plenty to smack Apple with. In any case it should be worth popping the popcorn and sitting back while the two big boys tear into each other like two cats in a bag.
Only if you are an ISP. Are you an ISP? I think not. There are plenty of things a corporation can do that you the average Joe can't, see limited liability for an example.
The problem is the fucked up way that the CP distribution laws are written. In their current form if you have ZERO access to the package, simply deliver the package, like I said you are on the hook for distribution since the distribution charge does NOT have a single line about you yourself actually using or looking at said package simply that you delivered it and that is what the IP logs prove. Hell I doubt they would even need to crack any FreeNet crypto, simply show they download "x yr old fucking" and traced the download to your IP address. After all they busted a guy not too long ago for a single thumbnail image generated by one of those topsites, and I doubt anyone could really sanely argue one is gonna be using a thumbnail for anything.
In the end because the courts haven't really covered anything like FreeNet that means SOMEONE is gonna get drug into court sooner or later so that the courts will rule one way or another. Now considering on average for a CP case at least it my state you are looking at 2 years before coming to trial, with VERY high bail if you get any at all, along with a minimum of $100,000 to defend yourself unless you are willing to risk your freedom to a "public pretender' that will ONLY push you to please guilty (I know, I used to work for a bail bonds and saw how they operate) the question becomes thus: Are YOU willing to risk 60+ years of your life and 2 years minimum in county simply to find out if FreeNet has a legal leg to stand on? Seems like a hell of a lot to risk on an untested theory and I wouldn't be surprised if guys like the EFF shied away from jumping in on anything involving CP.
Uhhh did you read the link? GE which was bailed out by American taxpayers instead of using that money to...oh I don't know...keep their American workers instead took that money and promptly offshored a large chunk of their workforce and the CEO had the balls to brag "These aren't the low paying jobs, these are the good jobs, We are sending them to India because that is where the consumers are"
Well no shit the consumers are there you traitorous dirtbag who frankly should be shot, the REASON the consumers are there is because you and your dirtbag friends offshored more than 20,000 FACTORIES in the last decade alone!
So this has NOTHING to do with abusing third world countries except that being able to poison the land and treat workers like dogs is considered a nice bonus to these bastards, no what we are talking about here is companies taking hand outs to then fuck us over with the money which is why we should demand payback at 75% interest RIGHT NOW and if they don't? They are banned. No GE products, no GE businesses, not even the CEO will be allowed to set foot on American soil and any assets they have here seized.
But of course that will never happen because our congress critters and dear leader are too busy cashing their bribery checks thanks to Citizens United to give a fuck. Hell the CEO that pulled this shit? Got to enjoy having GE PAY NO TAXES for most of this past decade!
What's good for GE is good for India
FTFY
That is why Apple is allowing you to download on their connection at the Apple store and why we Windows guys have WSUS Offline that lets you have EVERY version of Windows from XP 32bit to Windows 7 64 bit plus all the office versions from XP on up, all either burned to DVD or on a flash stick so all it takes is a single friend/relative with a decent connection. I have been using it for awhile now so I even have the complete Win2K in case I run into one of those that needs the final updates.
So it isn't like anybody is screwed here if they don't have fast net. If you have an Apple laptop I'm sure you know where the Apple store is so that is taken care of and WSUS Offline is "clicky clicky" simple so Windows is covered too. I don't know about Linux but I assume they have something similar as well.
But lets face it if you are still on dialup I don't think you really need to worry about updates as I don't you'll be downloading any big malware packages for either OS before you time out anyway. Hell does Apple laptops even come with modems anymore?
Uhhh...dude? The government is not a person it is a business owned by WE THE PEOPLE who have a RIGHT to know what our money is being spent on!
We are talking about OUR MONEY being paid to guys that give little fucking kids as party favors! Doesn't that bother you even a little bit? I know Citizens United was SCOTUS trying to sell us down the river but repeat after me...governments and corporations are not people they are businesses and like all businesses they are (or at least should be) responsible to their shareholders!
Now you gonna tell me if you bought shares in Google or MSFT you would be okay with "We're not gonna tell you our plans, what we did with your money, in fact here is our response to you" and they gave you an 8x6 of Goatse? Are you REALLY that "corporation yay, government yay"?
Maybe you were all for rigging the 72 election as well? After all Nixon said it was state secrets too. Without transparency there can be NO legitimate government, because there is NOTHING stopping another Watergate or some PMO from making sure no matter what "el presidente" gets his way. Is that REALLY the government you want?
Frankly Manning is an American Patriot and hero and Assange should have gotten the Nobel prize given to our "dropping bombs isn't hostile" dear leader. Those papers on wikileaks make the Pentagon papers look like the Sunday funnies and the simple fact that those that committed those crimes aren't in prison and instead the whistleblowers are being hunted simply shows how we no longer have a functional democracy, but a puppet state controlled by the elite.
I would also point out it is We,The People, that is paying for this douchebaggery so don't we have the right to know where our money went? I'm sure the guy above would argue the CEO of a company has the right to know if the IT guy is running a CP server on their network but what we have here is 1000 times worse: active coverup of a pedo ring using OUR money and OUR force to protect sick fucks that not ONLY did this in Afghanistan but in Kosovo? Did the the same damned thing with 10 and 11 year old girls!
So this isn't some "think of the children" bullshit here, we are talking about a company working for and with ties to the US government actively snatching little fricking kids and selling them for fucktoys. This is EXACTLY the kind of shit the American people have a right to know, and how sad is it that only wikileaks seems to give a shit enough to publish while OUR MSM tripped over themselves to have Assange declared worse than Osama. How far this once great nation has fallen, and I'm only glad my grandfather that fought and suffered to free Europe isn't here to see what a sleazebag country we have become.
Well to be fair to MSFT here they TRIED the harder to bypass schema with Vista and it was a clusterfuck. Waaaay too many false positives, way too many pissed off customers, way too much risk their server would go down at a bad moment and pooch the whole deal. I've had to deal with some of that "hard to copy" software, with dongles and crap, and frankly it is a nightmare at the best of times. Designing perfect DRM is like building a Caddy that gets 10k miles to the gallon and flies...it just ain't gonna happen. After all the Vista hatred I can see MSFT just saying "aww fuck this" as most home users (their biggest customers) just buy from honest shops like me and don't install Windows.
As for interns? That is because sadly too much of our education system is a bad joke, designing to enrich the owners and give out little sheets of worthless paper. One of the reasons I had to get away from corporate work (it was literally giving me chest pains) was the fact they'd bring in these "paper tigers" that if it wasn't EXACTLY step by step what they've been taught? Total thumb up their ass stupid. NO imagination, NO problem solving skills, all they had done was "teach to the test" and if it wasn't in the same little steps they were fucked. I had "network experts" brought to me that didn't have the common fucking sense to look and see if the Ethernet cable was plugged in!
And all the hot software? While I'd say MSFT is partially to blame for not having a low end license (I would kill for copies of Win 7 Starter at $35 a piece, it would be like heaven) I'd say a hell of a lot of it is greed, plain and simple. These corps know they can get these green ass kids that don't have a clue to do anything they want, so instead of just buying a site license or even God forbid upgrade your damned hardware once in a while, they'll get these green ass kids to load them to the gills with hot crap knowing they can push the kid under a bus if the corp gets caught. I don't know how many places where I saw Win98/ME era hardware struggling under a hot copy of XP pro because some PHB didn't want to buy a single machine until the damned things fell apart, the fact that they hindered the employees? Didn't matter.
But sadly in the end all that matters is the papers so the BS continues. I have no problem with using Linux or BSD, GPL or proprietary, whatever tool works best for the job. But then again I keep old boxes around to play with funky OSes just for fun and I have no qualms with actually learning new things. What I saw with these interns were clueless kids that had been taught to the test, dumped into a place where they had NO clue what they were doing, and instead of someone taking the kid under their wing and showing him the ropes they simply used it for the dirty and illegal jobs the bosses didn't want to do. It is BS, it stinks, and certainly ain't helping the kid learn anything useful, unless you call how to find the latest Razr1911 .torrent a useful skill.
Actually according to a friend in the state crime lab there could be a serious problem with the Freenet approach. The way it was explained to me was like this: You carry a box from point A to B. you don't have the key to the box, you don't attempt to open the box. the cops pull you over and find there are drugs in the box you are still going to jail whether you had knowledge of the contents or not.
You see the way the current CP laws are set up all they have to do is have a cop download a CP file that is traced back to your IP. It doesn't matter if Freenet encryption keeps you from seeing the file because they are not busting you for possession but for distribution and as I said above you don't have to look inside the box to distribute it.
Is it right? No but personally I think the whole witch hunt, where we are busting people for words on a page or cartoons is total bullshit. But considering in most areas you are looking at as much as 20 years an image for distribution I'd think twice before risking being the one who gets to test their whole "plausable deniability" bit in court.
As for TFA happy Bday BT! Sadly I believe that your best days are behind you, at least in the USA, as the *.A.As are gonna ram through three strikes laws where THEY are judge and jury, and the ISPs can't wait to give us ever shittier caps so they can take those massive profits and buy some more hookers and blow instead of line upgrades. So while I'm sure you'll have a future maybe sending WoW or Steam updates I kinda doubt when the ISPs get done and the *.AAs help them along there will be much bandwidth or anything else left to worry about using BT.
The corps aren't gonna rest until they turn the net into the home shopping network, and after Wikileaks and the Arab spring governments will be happy to help them in their goals. Hell I'm shocked they haven't gotten Nancy Grace and the other talking heads to feed the public some shit about how BT and other P2P protocols are used by nothing but terrorists and kiddie fiddlers. So good luck BT, frankly you are gonna need it.
Hey Barb, I think you really hit the nail on the head about the "give the possibly illegal and bullshit jobs to the intern" kind of shit. As a guy that has actually had to walk in and clean up more than a few messes in my time I can tell you I've seen shops get connected with schools and then use the interns to install hot everything from Windows on up, knowing the unpaid kid can get the blame. hell I was once even offered a paid internship with this company and my interview went something like this...
Boss-"Hey you know Windows and Linux servers, right?" me-yes sir not a problem, what do you need? Boss-Can you make it so all the machines in all our office ONLY get Windows updates from us instead of MSFT? Sure, you can set up something like WSUS but why? Are there bandwidth issues? A problem with the network or software that is at risk of breaking? Boss-So we can use this...and slides across the desk a copy of "Windows Vista Ultimate razr1911 edition".
Of course needless to say I laughed and walked away but I'm sure they got some kid later on to do it and had no problem shoving him/her under a bus if they got caught. If you wanna know why Linux isn't getting any traction I can tell ya that piracy is fricking rampant, especially in this dead economy, and I've walked into businesses with more than 30k worth of software loaded on every machine in the place.
From what I've seen in waaaay too many businesses the intern is the designated fall guy. He's the one that will get the blame if they get caught with the dirty bullshit and being some green ass they won't have any proof they were told to do what they get caught doing. I have to agree with the earlier poster if they are doing ANY work they should at LEAST get minimum wage. hell the guy emptying the trash cans gets at least that, somebody pay the kid. But I'd say there needs to be more oversight because the amount of hot software floating around some of these places is just nuts.
That is why we have war crimes and world courts, because as we found out in WWII there are certain levels of evil that the free peoples of a planet just don't want to condone, whether the dictator wants to condone them or not.
As for TFA what we have here is what another poster hit right on the head....the Pentagon papers. like the Pentagon papers we have some intel showing the collective douchebaggery (and I would argue warcrimes) of those in power. I mean covering up a defense contractor that gives away little kids as fucktoy party favors to win contracts? You sick fucks need to be shot. And this intel coming out was more than a little embarrassing because it showed what sick evil fucks are doing quietly in the halls of power in the name of "national interests" so they are trying to use their power here to force laws over there to punish them.
But lucky for the rest of the planet they aren't forced to bow before the USA (yet, I have seen some of the treaties we are trying to ram through) and if you want to do business there you have to follow the rules there, and lucky for the rest of the world by and large the EU seems to have a spine when it comes to big corps being dicks. Personally though I have a better idea: How about instead of punishing Wikileaks you execute the sick evil fucks running a muck in the halls of power, how about that? If you weren't selling your collective asses Mr politician you wouldn't have to be embarrassed when the video shows up on the net.
And if on page 14 in tiny print it says it gets to empty your bank account, is that cool too? Because of the pages of legal bullshit people have been conditioned to go "clicky clicky next next next" because otherwise you'd spend more time reading bullshit than you do at work!
And that doesn't change the fact you have one of the largest corps on the planet, with one of the if not the MOST popular pages on the planet, so why are they doing Realplayer stealth dropping bullshit? Why happened to the no evil bit huh?
Not being evil includes not being a giant asshole, especially when there is NO POINT in being an asshole in the first place. It isn't like they have a shitty product, or no way to advertise their product. They are one of the largest ad companies on the fucking planet for God's sake!
Finally douchebag behavior does NOT help their cause. People that get stealth installed don't go "oh look, a free prezzie, I will enjoy it" no they go 'WTF is that shit? How did it get there and why is it taking over my browser launches? get that shit off of there!" which if you want a program to be popular seems like the ass backwards way to go about it.
So if a company says "We don't serve niggers" is that cool? Discrimination has been a no no for quite awhile now, be it race, color, creed, or belief. I don't know how it is in the EU but before the USA was sold to the corps we also had a thing known as antitrust, where companies who had grown to dominate a market couldn't use their control of a market for douchebag behavior.
So let us hope that unlike the USA, which was sold several years and a few decades ago, and is now nothing but a shell with lip service paid to a constitution nobody in power actually follows anymore, that the EU actually has a spine. With groups like Wikileaks to expose the evil dirty double dealing backstabbing bullshit that goes on every damned day in the halls of power? Well I'd say things would be even worse but honestly I'm beginning to doubt anything short of our own Arab spring is gonna change our freefall anyway.
I mean when you have a government covering up for a defense contractor that is using 9 year old boys as fucktoy party favors to win a contract, and whom the time before that was giving out 10 year old girls for the same reason, and the ONLY complaint they have is it might bring some bad publicity? Sorry but your government is evil now and there is no other way to put it. Now the USA IS the bad guys.
See? Thanks for proving you are a coward as I conclusively proved, with link after link no less, that your driver model is shit, retailers consider your product about as useful as an STD, and your ONLY answer? The ONLY thing you can come up with? Waaaah, he won't suck Linus' cock so he must work for M$! Wahhh!
Hell I even provided a link showing from the mouth of Linus himself that his "big plan" for the kernel is THERE IS NO PLAN just whatever itch he and his douchey kernel buds feel like, like it is 1993 and they are passing the kernel around on IRC. No care what pain he is causing the users, no giving a shit he is running off the OEMs, nope just Linus and his pals going Goatse on the kernel, not a care in the world.
So do us all a favor...kill yourself. If you are such a sheep that even when shown link after link, proof after proof that you are being fucked the ONLY answer you can come up with is "Waaah he doesn't like being fucked raw like me so he is a poopy head!" then please, make the world a better place...kill yourself. Suck on a tailpipe, eat a bullet, go play in traffic. this world is too full of cowering sycophants kissing the ass of anyone in power to ever miss you.
Wow, thanks for the link. 55% still use IE? That is amazing to me as honestly I haven't seen an IE user in my shop in like 3 years now. Granted I deal with mainly home users and SOHOs/SMBs but I can honestly say I haven't seen an IE user in nearly 3 years. For awhile it was all Firefox and then in the last year it has been a mix of Firefox and Chrome.
I figure my home is probably what one would call pretty typical, with my mom on Seamonkey (it reminds her of Netscape but I love how she says she has to have "her blue bird thingy" when she gets on one of my machines) and my GF on Firefox, I'm on Comodo dragon along with my youngest and the oldest refuses to ever let go of his Opera. Not a single IE user in neither mine nor my GF's families, not a single one. I even get the occasional long distance call from a member of her family going "Hey you're the resident PC guru guy. How do I get that Fox thingy" or "How do I install that Chrome thing?"
So while I can see why IE is still used in business (AD and GPOs although I hear chrome has those now as well) frankly it really has become like that old joke, at least here "IE is what you use to download a better browser" as I can honestly say it has been years since I've seen an IE user in the wild. I think the big selling point is Facebook myself, as I've notcied that at least for me Dragon and the other Chromium browser slaughter the others when it comes to Facebook, and the average folks eat those Zynga games up.
So it really doesn't surprise me that Chrome is climbing, I just wish Google would get some sense when it comes to Chromebook. So far the ones I've seen are more than a real laptop when if they would sell them for $100 Google would own the "browser in a box" market and probably take out the low end laptop and tablet sales as well.
I'd add that while I can see why Chrome is climbing (I'm personally giving all my customers Comodo Dragon, based on Chromium because of the speed and added security) I'd add that there is waaaay too many pieces of software out there that has default install set for dumping Chrome. Just the other day I was rushed and found Chrome dropped on my desktop from Defraggler I believe.
So while I see why some are switching (I personally don't like how Chrome phones home, one of the reasons I'm using Dragon instead) I have to wonder how many got it dropped on their desktop by some freeware. Speaking of dropped the only thing more irritating is how shockwave and some other software are now dropping some Norton Scanner crap on PCs. I don't know how many times I've had to clean that crap off someone's PC this past month.
So while I personally wish the Chrome team well, and frankly after getting stuck for years cleaning up crap thanks to ActiveX frankly ANYTHING is better than IE, I have to question the wisdom of these stealth Chrome installs. I mean really guys, you are the largest search engine in the world, which gives you a really easy way to advertise Chrome. Do you really need to use sneaky realplayer style tactics just to gain share? It isn't like you have a bad product here, I personally find all the Chromium based browsers much faster, especially on the social and other JavaScript heavy sites. So please end the stealth install program, okay?
Riiight. Hey douchey, citation please? Someone must have forgotten to tell me where Ballmer parked the money truck. Hell I don't even get discount licensing I buy OEM boxes off Newegg like every other system builder.
Isn't it sad, how like a frightened child afraid to look under the bed, you cower at the truth? if your driver model isn't shit then why does Dell have to run their own repos even though we are talking a teeny tiny subset of hardware? Oh right because Linus shits itself and dies if you use the default repos! Man that is some excellent product you got there! you think I can get better QA than the third largest OEM on the planet? What, you expect me to tell paying customers "Go to the forum, kiss some loser ass, and maybe, just maybe, in a few days someone will have mercy and give you a big pile of bullshit that may or may not make your sound work again"?
Bleeding yet douchey? want some more? nice thing about having the truth on your side, you can keep throwing punches all day! How about how a decade old Windows beat the shit out of Linux on netbooks or how ASUS has given up on your bullshit or how about Walamart running away from linux as fast as it can? You got the crazy koolaid drunk enough to say they ALL are paid shills because they won't do your forum dance or CLI horseshit? Meanwhile your "hero" Torvalds the great says Plans? We don't need no steenkin plans!. Why don't you tell them that at work next week, see how quick you get a pink slip? More? How about you actually have the balls to celebrate getting a whole 1% market share while you are actually lower than JavaME and there is a whole website dedicated To your bullshit and excuses .
You see you whiny little delusional mama's boy, I'm your worst fucking nightmare...a retailer that still believes. I believe that the community doesn't have to take Torvalds shit sandwiches, I believe that things can be made better, I believe Linux can be something for more than douchebags like you that will happily take a cock slapping from linus as long as you can say you are sticking to "teh man". I believe that there can be Linux boxes on actual shelves and penguins on boxes.
So you go hide now mama's boy, you hide with your Tux blankie and keep saying your magical nigger nigger faggot, or should I say shill shill astroturfer, like it is a magical word that will make all the bad go away. But it won't change reality and the reality is your driver model is shit and more than 15 years behind everyone else and that is why retailers like me wouldn't piss on it, not some mythical money truck that sneaks up to my door in the middle of the night. So go compile something and leave the men to talk about the real world, okay little girl?
Man nothing is cooler than the free toad sloth, nothing at all.
As for TFA honestly how great can having Ubunru on ARM be? Don't have any ARM boards to try this out but generally when I've heard something touted as "cross platform" what I've seen is something that runs great on ONE platform, and kinda gimps along on the others. See Java, flash for examples.
So does anybody have some benchmarks? Doesn't have to be Ubuntu, just say any Linux and the top 5 programs on X86 VS the same Linux and top 5 programs recompiled for ARM. I'd love to see some real benchmarks with the real programs folks use, LO/OO,hell even KOffice,Firefox, Gimp, Chromium, just the basic kind of stuff the average person would want use on a netbook be it x86 or ARM. Frankly I think it would be cool if the benches doesn't suck as there is always cheap WinCE ARM netbooks on CL, but I ain't holding my breath.
As long as FB has those shitty clickfest "games' then Google is SOL. I have actually had folks come into the shop and buy a PC around those stupid games, folks are addicted to Mafia Wars and Farmville/Frontierville like someone on warcrack. I even had to keep a late model P4 at my apt just so when my GF comes over she can have her morning Farmville fix without waking me up.
So give it up Google if you don't get Zynga on board. Maybe Google ought to just buy them out? because while we geeks hate the things those Zynga games are hot shit to the average folks.
Uhhh...I take it you haven't seen this video it may be a parody but sadly anyone who has held MSFT packaging in their hands knows it is sadly funny because it is true. I swear their marketing guys must be paid by the bullet point or something.
As for TFA while I'm glad they are doing SOMETHING to make GFWL suck a little less if there are any MSFT devs here? Please, please for the love of puppies and kittens and great sex with your GF/wife, for the love of all that is good and decent in this world...DON'T FUCK UP WINDOWS 8!
You finally, after all these damned years, finally get a UI that is fricking awesome. It is easy for the clueless like my dad, while breadcrumbs and the library and integrated search makes it easy for old hands like me. you already have something that works on ARM, it is called the WinPhone. If you try to shoehorn Windows onto ARM all you are gonna do is royally piss people off when they find their games and software won't run on the damned thing. Believe me I know, the local Craigslist is filled to the brim with those that bought WinMo ARM netbooks and found it won't run their software so they shitcanned it.
So please, i know the Sweaty One is running around in a mock turtleneck and wanting to copy all things that fruit company run by the other Steve does, but just throw something shiny to distract him and let the Office guys take care of Win 8. Want a feature to get folks to buy old Hairyfeet will give you a killer one: make a simple homegroup style app that will let anyone easily connect to their work PC from home, or connect to any PC in their house. it needs to be simple, just plug in a USB dongle, put in your password, and have Win 8 do the rest. Allow seamless sharing of files, printers, all as simple as plug in a USB stick, what could be nicer?
Look I know its tempting to try to rip the fruit company, after all it has worked for years right? But your market and the fruit buyers market in this case are just too different. The fruit buyers don't care if their programs from last year don't run, they get the latest and greatest every refresh anyway. So please, you are seeing now integration is good, and you finally have a platform to build on that doesn't suck. So from a guy that had to spend two years wiping Windows Vista to put on WinXP because people hated it just.....just don't okay?
But I would argue that this is because so few people know how easy it truly is. Lately I have been building quite a few HTPCs, why? Because I had one customer who wanted a new PC but couldn't afford a new screen and I said "You have that nice new 37 inch, why not just use that?" so I built him a nice AMD quad and put a nice cheap HD4830 in it, along with getting him a wireless keyboard and mouse and the next thing I know he is bragging about it to everyone who will listen and i'm getting calls "Hey, are you that guy that was able to hook Brian's PC to his TV? Can you do that for me too?"
It just goes to show despite my best efforts to be a "voice for the common man" that sometimes I can geek out too as I thought being able to hook a PC to a modern TV was common knowledge but apparently not. But with a wireless X360 controller and his keyboard and mouse wireless frankly he sees no need for a console now and the games are soooo much cheaper on PC. Now the only problem the guy has is trying to actually get to use his new PC, as his wife wants to do her Farmville on it, the kids of course love the picture for all their kid shows on Netflix, and now that there is wireless HDMI honestly if you have a PC less than three years old you can just wirelessly stream the HDMI straight to the set, no need to buy another.
But when people see how cheap I can build them a new triple most are just opting to have me build them one. Hell Tigerdirect is selling 8Gb monsters for just $300, add in another $100 for Win 7 HP X64 and $50 for a nice GPU and for less than $500 you have a machine that will easily last you a decade or more as an HTPC. Just rip all your movies to the Tb HDD so you don't have to fiddle with discs and away you go!
But I'd say TFA shows MSFT is FINALLY getting a clue that folks want integration. They want the PC, the X360, the WinPhone, all of this stuff to talk to each other while being "clicky clicky" simple. The only real stickler they have now is GFWL which frankly blows ass. They really do need to make it more like Steam as the last time I tried dealing with it (over Bioshock II) I ended up downloading the cracked version even though I bought the game because I was fighting GFWL more than the splicers! damned thing would lose connection, would say I wasn't hooked up when I was, just a royal PITA and about 180 compared to my experience with Steam. And is there an easy way to back up your games yet? One of the things I love about Steam is when I get a bigger drive I can just drop my steam folder onto it and tell Steam where it is and BOOM all my games work perfectly.
So let us hope that this means MSFT is finally getting a clue about what folks want. They have good separate components..Win 7 is good, the X360 is good, from those that I've talked to the WinPhone is nice if not an iPhone killer, so if they can tie everything together with a pretty little bow and make it all simple it should be sweet. but never underestimate MSFT's ability to cock things up so I'll wait to pass judgement.