I just watched a video about how MS embraces a tech (buys the company), extends it with proprietary "standards" and then kills the market. Soooo.....what I think: - developers will completely convert to DX12-only (#1 goal) - W7 DX12 will end-up buggy - fixes will be delayed until EOL (and aborted at that time) In other words, what I fear: new games will no longer run under W7.
WHEN games stop running under W7....W8.1 is planned (already have the license...but too lazy to reinstall). Hopefully, by the time W8.1 gets the same treatment, my games would run under linux (go Valve go....) Oh! yeah!...I also did not update W7 since installing it (last year, when I got my 8700K and worked around the "new CPUs" constraint).
I see this on Android also (well, at least Sony's Android), but I am still confident that it DOES NOT DOWNLOAD without my permission. Wasn't W10 "free" upgrade problematic? Like, in the latst "free" months, when you got the popup, it already downloaded 3GB? Another difference to Android is that the update checking is actually CPU hog (checking which updates are installed or not). So if I just start my PC and immediately start a game, it would download and install while gaming (disclaimer: this happened to me in the 1st month of W10 release....I did not experience this later by NOT USING W10). I don't mind updating critical components (like kernel, firewall) which COULD be very small (at most 2-5MB). But my problem is that they force updates like (example) Paint or Edge, which I actually don't use (yes, I know Edge is critical update for many non-tech people). The point is that I am not allowed to choose what updates to install and when (+ we saw what MS considered critical with the "free" upgrades). Maybe I need my PC to work during a critical week or month. Besindes interrupting my workflow, the risk or being exploited is smaller than getting a bad update.
but the problem is that most software has stopped supporting XP. So I had to move to 7.
These are my concerns also. The Windows I actively use is just for games (7....tried 10 after release and reverted due to forced updates). But I expect the installers (and even games themselfes) to start not working. PS: I still have 2 laptops and 1 tablet with W10, but I use them less than 1h/month....and that is to do the updates before leaving somewhere. I actually use them with Ubuntu flavors.
This led me to see the difference between movie frame (which the study was based on) and game frame: 1/fps exposure vs 1/inf exposure. if you blend 2 movie frames together, you get an almost perfect 1/half-fps exposure image (even more blur than originating frames). But with 2 game frames, you can clearly see the original 2 frames in the blend. There is a point in these fast blurry things where the brain realizes it's a motion. PS: if you see a "slideshow" in a movie, it means the frames were shot with lower exposure. That is bad movie editing. Frames should contain a ~1/23s blur. If it's 1/60s but presented at 23fps....your brain will see individual images. If you pause a movie, you SHOULD see a blur. PS2: I'm looking for ways for OBS to capture at 120Hz but blend 2 images (for 60fps) or even 4(for 30fps result) instead of dropping. It should allow most of the 120Hz experience on lower-rate monitors.
This is the reason tablets are so popular now. They make computers literally idiot-proof.
Particularly, they don't force slow time-consuming updates on you, and don't spontaneously reboot. My tablet (and my phone) occationally informs me that some apps were upgraded. I didn't even notice. But I am in control - I can disable automatic updates if I want to.
Should I mention the Windows Tablets to both of you? They are unusable, especially with Atom chips (and I assume the new Celeron+Pentium Silver). Whereas and Android tablet I could charge once per week (with light usage every evening), the Windows tablet I would find it was drained on the 2nd night. Every time I wanted to use it for something quick, either it would be very slow (just found and update) or already asking me to reboot with less than 20% battery (when I charged it the evening before). Did I mention disabling WDefender was one of the 1st things I did? So my latest tablet is a Surface Go with Xubuntu installed. And it's usable (well, still worse than any Android tablet, but waaay better than W10).
Actually, VTd HELPS mitigate AMT concerns because with it turned on AMT is unable to execute arbitrary DMA reads/writes to system RAM, VTd limits AMT's DMA to only the ranges of RAM that the OS allows.
I doubt IOMMU can stop AMT. I'm pretty sure they tap directly to the memory controller, bypassing IOMMU. After all, isn't the ME (backend for AMT) scandal related to inabillity to block it with the OS?
All these stupid marketing-manager people always neglect bad connections. I also had to pause (youtube in my case) a lot to allow 10-20s of buffering so I would not have stuttering every 2s. The day Netflix does something like this is the day I cancel my account (which I barely use now).
I just bought the Surface Go to install linux (xubuntu 18.04) on it. Out of box experience is the best I've had with tablets (since all I tried were Atom based and this is Core M successor, as in really a Core i chip). The 1st problem was wifi chip (a bin download solved this). After 1 week, I got to the details: - idle desktop power draw: 1.5-2W in W10, 3W in ubuntu - 1080p60 streaming: 7w in W10, 10W in ubuntu So....now I want to see where I can reduce power consumption; and video streaming is a problem as only chromium-dev has HW decoding and is really unstable.
There is another alternative: Big app developers will realize MS mistake and start investing in native Linux versions (Ubuntu or Fedora seem to have the biggest corporate backup).
I have 2 Windows 10 PCs because: laptop with i7-7700HQ where intel "forbids" IGP drivers (I think I go into windows 2 times/month); the other is a tablet where Ubuntu is inconsistent (1st standby is good, 2nd does not turn on the backlight). Gaming? Win7, ever since Win10 update disrupted my iRacing practice (aug 2016 ????). Might still go with 8.1. HTPC: Used win8.1 for 1 year until I found how to stop tearing in xubuntu (but I haven't tested 3D and 5.1 support).
Flooding news of Google Reader shutdown made me investigate RSS feeds and started using selfoss. Local readers were not good for keeping "read" satus across multiple devices.
So....about 3 years ago I was annoyed that google services were so linked: once you connect to one (Gmail), you get connected to all (Youtube, Search etc.). Search was my biggest problem. So I use Chrome for Gmail and Youtube (well, they already have my info) and do the rest of my browsing in Firefox (logged-out Google Search and all others). For a lower-memory option (like a 4GB VM), I found I could open a Firefox private window and login to GMail+Youtube there (with saved passwords), leaving the main window unlogged to G services. Oh....and I'm browsing under Ubuntu-mate, separate from my Windows Gaming powerhouse. And I don't use Facebook, although I think I would use that with Chrome since so many sites also use FB "tracking plugins".
An you give a great example of it working pretty good. But the premise of the "contract" writer (service provider) is that when the client realizes it's disadvantage, it's too late and too costly to fight.
I hate(d) TV advertising where I would see the same commercial for months (the reason football/soccer and beer are high on my hate list). Internet advertising is even worse because they actually show a different and targeted ad to each viewer. And that is where data collection started. My bad example: the pregnant girl who received pregnancy/new-born ads from Target (as I recall) before her parents even knew her state. Most would comment it's an isolated case, but how many lives were screwed this way that did not get media attention? [sarcasm]Oh yeah....let's collect that also and analyze[/sarcasm].
I want to tell you about my real experience of dual-booting. Main idea: use linux for web and windows for gaming.
- 1st stage - dual booting - I had a 6 month cycle where I would start browsing in linux and reboot when I wanted to play.....but at the end of the cycle I would only stay in windows (and the cycle would restart due to Windows reinstallation) - 2nd stage - virtual machine - I discovered PCIe vitualization in 2011; I would have 2 input/output sets of KVM connected to the same PC: one for linux (VM host) and one for guest (VM gaming). Now I could leave linux running while I would play games, and getting back to linux would be just like switching to another PC. Linux only needed Intel IGP, and Z68 and Z87 chips would provide 2 USB controllers each, allowing to map physical USB ports to host and guest. Unfortunately USB3 screwed everything, as it did not allow me to do these splits (and Intel HW seems most reliable in VMs). I even had a separate NIC for Windows. 3rd stage - 2 PCs - now I use an intel NUC for linux and the big PC is just for games.
While using the VM approach, I did think about what was needed for a laptop to be able to do this (I even choose an i5 thinkpad over i3 because of VT-d support, but never did any tests). But no manufacturer would provide a KVM integrated in a laptop. Any SW solution would mean some kind of compromise....I would say best approach is a linux VM inside Windows (or reverse, depending which needs 3D HW acceleration). Any other approach means having 2 devices (or if provided by OEM, a vulnerable platform...there were a few motherboards with a small linux in firmware).
PS: I also was thinking about a keyboard+screen combo for connecting to any PC. So having a portable screen+keyboard to debug "friends" PCs. If that would be made, then, if battery is not required, 2 NUCs are small and portable enough for a laptop bag.
The article does not mention how the question was posted: in a written test, oral examination or debate. If the student cannot get information from the questioner (written and oral exam), then the question is absurd, especially since it will be scored however subjectively. Also, 5th graders should not be concerned with valid ages for commanding ships. Here I can support the fight agains memorization (I always struggle with remembering unrelated/non-interesting things). If it was in a debate, then I can accept it as a way to force the child to ask questions (you know, like IRL). This kind of curiosity can help memorize things (although with this question in particular I argue it's usefullness like in the point before). Either way, scoring this question seems to be extremely subjective (a good student fails and a lucky one passes, or the teacher gives move information to some students than others). If a school prioritizes teaching than scoring, then questions like these make sense (again, in a debate environment). However, the standardized teaching, which I assume occurs in most countries, needs a quantization of quality, thus it's results are based on scoring. A good example for this is all the IQ tests that ask me (from EU) US geographical or political questions. Intelligence is not memorization. Sure, more information may help intelligence, but more time should be spent processing than memorizing.
But isn't the colorburst signal relative to the B&W signal? The tolerances are low between the intensity and colorburst signal, but I don't think they are that tight for the complete signal/carrier. I mean, isn't the H/V sync's function to allow the TV to detect when a line/frame has ended? To allow low-quality sources to still display an image? I know VGA is much newer, but I've played with h/vsync timings trying to produce the maximum resolution/refresh my monitor was capable of.
So an NTSC TV would probably accept a 27fps (56fields/sec) signal as long as it was valid NTSC.
Anyway, from the other posts it seems this is moot, as the game timing is calulated from frame counter, thus this discussion would be valid if a stopwatch or recording was used.
You mean for last years games at low....I would not reccomend anything under 945M.....that's where a massive performance bump occures (and a smaller one to 950M). I think 1050 15" laptops are pretty good deals. My only gripe is Windows 10. And Intel's 7-gen GPU had no Win8.1 or earlier support. Although the HD graphics package does offer older support, 7-gen is specifically excluded (I learned this the hard way). Desktops are excluded, since you will not be using the IGP (again, 1st hand experience).
I've done that on the desktop and the penalty was only lack of turbo-boost. On laptop, if done, power could also be an issue. But I've had 2 GPUs (radeon 5850 and later 7950 for VM and HD graphics for linux). But: - you need 2 outputs (I'm not sure on laptop....but the gaming GPU will NOT BE USED in linux, thus sharing the lcd is unexplored territory) - you need to look for specific support (Intel VT-d, not just VT-x) on CPU and MB - at that time, nVidia had only VT-d support on quadro.....geforce refused to work in my trials
My track record: 6 years of gaming in VM, Skyrim, Deus Ex HR, iRacing, previous Wolfesteins, Fallout 3/4 being the biggest games I've done. I ended it when I switched to the 1070 last year. PS: I've posted 3DMark numbers in the hardocp forums in 2013.
So, I built an internet radio station on my LAN (with FLAC and 320kbps MP3 output)......and some MP3s sound HORRIBLE over the mp3 stream. That's one of the reason I hate BT audio (for music at least) even if I cannot "hear" artifacts, I don't know when I will get something that will.
Oh...so you never got to the Li-Ion (or whatever battery) wear. I still have working wired headphones from early 2000. BT headphones that old would need 3-4 battery replacements (which would force you to replace the whole headphone, as good luck finding the right batteries).
I never understood the rationale of BT headphones for music: you have a 2nd battery to keep track of (and increase the weight) and you drain 2 batteries when using them. When the market of no-jack devices will be big enough, I'm sure the stand-alone media player business will rise again.
I wonder if facebook has anything to do with this. I've heard it gives you only news that you may like. I don't have an account.
I personally have found+installed selfoss because I learned about Google Reader during it's "it will be closed" news flood and liked the idea. To the best, since I use an incognito window for mail and youtube only, so my searches are not done directly under my google account (yes, I know the IP can be linked).
Please ask yourself: would you remember a pin you set half-year ago and never used it? Although most people will not use it (thus why invest in development), those that know it, 90%(so I won't repeat "most") will forget the wipe PIN and would not rememeber it when needed. You have to be extremely well organised+great memory to be able to use it.
I wouldn't give up my CDs (and their FLAC RIPs), but CDs allowed producers to make bad music (see loudness wars). Even re-releases were affected and I think it's the main reason why vinyls are still here. Considering cars with casette players are still available (yes, 2nd hand, I know), some may choose that compromise. As for "sucks on SO many levels", I just hope you don't base that on unmaintained cheap players and casettes (you know, mainstream ones, that start catching your tape after 1 year). Just like vinyl players, there are cheap ones and good ones (and yes, FYI , I'm old enough to have used Sony Walkmans going to schools.....note the plural).
Slashdot Mirror
I just watched a video about how MS embraces a tech (buys the company), extends it with proprietary "standards" and then kills the market.
Soooo.....what I think:
- developers will completely convert to DX12-only (#1 goal)
- W7 DX12 will end-up buggy
- fixes will be delayed until EOL (and aborted at that time)
In other words, what I fear: new games will no longer run under W7.
WHEN games stop running under W7....W8.1 is planned (already have the license...but too lazy to reinstall).
Hopefully, by the time W8.1 gets the same treatment, my games would run under linux (go Valve go....)
Oh! yeah!...I also did not update W7 since installing it (last year, when I got my 8700K and worked around the "new CPUs" constraint).
yes it nags you endlessly.
I see this on Android also (well, at least Sony's Android), but I am still confident that it DOES NOT DOWNLOAD without my permission. Wasn't W10 "free" upgrade problematic? Like, in the latst "free" months, when you got the popup, it already downloaded 3GB? Another difference to Android is that the update checking is actually CPU hog (checking which updates are installed or not).
So if I just start my PC and immediately start a game, it would download and install while gaming (disclaimer: this happened to me in the 1st month of W10 release....I did not experience this later by NOT USING W10).
I don't mind updating critical components (like kernel, firewall) which COULD be very small (at most 2-5MB). But my problem is that they force updates like (example) Paint or Edge, which I actually don't use (yes, I know Edge is critical update for many non-tech people). The point is that I am not allowed to choose what updates to install and when (+ we saw what MS considered critical with the "free" upgrades). Maybe I need my PC to work during a critical week or month. Besindes interrupting my workflow, the risk or being exploited is smaller than getting a bad update.
but the problem is that most software has stopped supporting XP. So I had to move to 7.
These are my concerns also. The Windows I actively use is just for games (7....tried 10 after release and reverted due to forced updates). But I expect the installers (and even games themselfes) to start not working.
PS: I still have 2 laptops and 1 tablet with W10, but I use them less than 1h/month....and that is to do the updates before leaving somewhere. I actually use them with Ubuntu flavors.
This led me to see the difference between movie frame (which the study was based on) and game frame: 1/fps exposure vs 1/inf exposure.
if you blend 2 movie frames together, you get an almost perfect 1/half-fps exposure image (even more blur than originating frames). But with 2 game frames, you can clearly see the original 2 frames in the blend. There is a point in these fast blurry things where the brain realizes it's a motion.
PS: if you see a "slideshow" in a movie, it means the frames were shot with lower exposure. That is bad movie editing. Frames should contain a ~1/23s blur. If it's 1/60s but presented at 23fps....your brain will see individual images. If you pause a movie, you SHOULD see a blur.
PS2: I'm looking for ways for OBS to capture at 120Hz but blend 2 images (for 60fps) or even 4(for 30fps result) instead of dropping. It should allow most of the 120Hz experience on lower-rate monitors.
This is the reason tablets are so popular now. They make computers literally idiot-proof.
Particularly, they don't force slow time-consuming updates on you, and don't spontaneously reboot. My tablet (and my phone) occationally informs me that some apps were upgraded. I didn't even notice. But I am in control - I can disable automatic updates if I want to.
Should I mention the Windows Tablets to both of you? They are unusable, especially with Atom chips (and I assume the new Celeron+Pentium Silver). Whereas and Android tablet I could charge once per week (with light usage every evening), the Windows tablet I would find it was drained on the 2nd night. Every time I wanted to use it for something quick, either it would be very slow (just found and update) or already asking me to reboot with less than 20% battery (when I charged it the evening before). Did I mention disabling WDefender was one of the 1st things I did?
So my latest tablet is a Surface Go with Xubuntu installed. And it's usable (well, still worse than any Android tablet, but waaay better than W10).
Actually, VTd HELPS mitigate AMT concerns because with it turned on AMT is unable to execute arbitrary DMA reads/writes to system RAM, VTd limits AMT's DMA to only the ranges of RAM that the OS allows.
I doubt IOMMU can stop AMT. I'm pretty sure they tap directly to the memory controller, bypassing IOMMU. After all, isn't the ME (backend for AMT) scandal related to inabillity to block it with the OS?
All these stupid marketing-manager people always neglect bad connections. I also had to pause (youtube in my case) a lot to allow 10-20s of buffering so I would not have stuttering every 2s. The day Netflix does something like this is the day I cancel my account (which I barely use now).
I just bought the Surface Go to install linux (xubuntu 18.04) on it. Out of box experience is the best I've had with tablets (since all I tried were Atom based and this is Core M successor, as in really a Core i chip).
The 1st problem was wifi chip (a bin download solved this).
After 1 week, I got to the details:
- idle desktop power draw: 1.5-2W in W10, 3W in ubuntu
- 1080p60 streaming: 7w in W10, 10W in ubuntu
So....now I want to see where I can reduce power consumption; and video streaming is a problem as only chromium-dev has HW decoding and is really unstable.
Oh...shit.....MS still got my money!
I'm looking very closely to the new surface go.....I hope xubuntu 18.04 will run good on it.
There is another alternative: Big app developers will realize MS mistake and start investing in native Linux versions (Ubuntu or Fedora seem to have the biggest corporate backup).
I have 2 Windows 10 PCs because: laptop with i7-7700HQ where intel "forbids" IGP drivers (I think I go into windows 2 times/month); the other is a tablet where Ubuntu is inconsistent (1st standby is good, 2nd does not turn on the backlight).
Gaming? Win7, ever since Win10 update disrupted my iRacing practice (aug 2016 ????). Might still go with 8.1.
HTPC: Used win8.1 for 1 year until I found how to stop tearing in xubuntu (but I haven't tested 3D and 5.1 support).
Flooding news of Google Reader shutdown made me investigate RSS feeds and started using selfoss. Local readers were not good for keeping "read" satus across multiple devices.
So....about 3 years ago I was annoyed that google services were so linked: once you connect to one (Gmail), you get connected to all (Youtube, Search etc.). Search was my biggest problem.
So I use Chrome for Gmail and Youtube (well, they already have my info) and do the rest of my browsing in Firefox (logged-out Google Search and all others).
For a lower-memory option (like a 4GB VM), I found I could open a Firefox private window and login to GMail+Youtube there (with saved passwords), leaving the main window unlogged to G services.
Oh....and I'm browsing under Ubuntu-mate, separate from my Windows Gaming powerhouse. And I don't use Facebook, although I think I would use that with Chrome since so many sites also use FB "tracking plugins".
An you give a great example of it working pretty good. But the premise of the "contract" writer (service provider) is that when the client realizes it's disadvantage, it's too late and too costly to fight.
I hate(d) TV advertising where I would see the same commercial for months (the reason football/soccer and beer are high on my hate list). Internet advertising is even worse because they actually show a different and targeted ad to each viewer. And that is where data collection started. My bad example: the pregnant girl who received pregnancy/new-born ads from Target (as I recall) before her parents even knew her state. Most would comment it's an isolated case, but how many lives were screwed this way that did not get media attention? [sarcasm]Oh yeah....let's collect that also and analyze[/sarcasm].
I want to tell you about my real experience of dual-booting. Main idea: use linux for web and windows for gaming.
- 1st stage - dual booting - I had a 6 month cycle where I would start browsing in linux and reboot when I wanted to play.....but at the end of the cycle I would only stay in windows (and the cycle would restart due to Windows reinstallation)
- 2nd stage - virtual machine - I discovered PCIe vitualization in 2011; I would have 2 input/output sets of KVM connected to the same PC: one for linux (VM host) and one for guest (VM gaming). Now I could leave linux running while I would play games, and getting back to linux would be just like switching to another PC. Linux only needed Intel IGP, and Z68 and Z87 chips would provide 2 USB controllers each, allowing to map physical USB ports to host and guest. Unfortunately USB3 screwed everything, as it did not allow me to do these splits (and Intel HW seems most reliable in VMs). I even had a separate NIC for Windows.
3rd stage - 2 PCs - now I use an intel NUC for linux and the big PC is just for games.
While using the VM approach, I did think about what was needed for a laptop to be able to do this (I even choose an i5 thinkpad over i3 because of VT-d support, but never did any tests). But no manufacturer would provide a KVM integrated in a laptop. Any SW solution would mean some kind of compromise....I would say best approach is a linux VM inside Windows (or reverse, depending which needs 3D HW acceleration). Any other approach means having 2 devices (or if provided by OEM, a vulnerable platform...there were a few motherboards with a small linux in firmware).
PS: I also was thinking about a keyboard+screen combo for connecting to any PC. So having a portable screen+keyboard to debug "friends" PCs. If that would be made, then, if battery is not required, 2 NUCs are small and portable enough for a laptop bag.
The article does not mention how the question was posted: in a written test, oral examination or debate.
If the student cannot get information from the questioner (written and oral exam), then the question is absurd, especially since it will be scored however subjectively. Also, 5th graders should not be concerned with valid ages for commanding ships. Here I can support the fight agains memorization (I always struggle with remembering unrelated/non-interesting things).
If it was in a debate, then I can accept it as a way to force the child to ask questions (you know, like IRL). This kind of curiosity can help memorize things (although with this question in particular I argue it's usefullness like in the point before).
Either way, scoring this question seems to be extremely subjective (a good student fails and a lucky one passes, or the teacher gives move information to some students than others).
If a school prioritizes teaching than scoring, then questions like these make sense (again, in a debate environment). However, the standardized teaching, which I assume occurs in most countries, needs a quantization of quality, thus it's results are based on scoring. A good example for this is all the IQ tests that ask me (from EU) US geographical or political questions. Intelligence is not memorization. Sure, more information may help intelligence, but more time should be spent processing than memorizing.
But isn't the colorburst signal relative to the B&W signal? The tolerances are low between the intensity and colorburst signal, but I don't think they are that tight for the complete signal/carrier. I mean, isn't the H/V sync's function to allow the TV to detect when a line/frame has ended? To allow low-quality sources to still display an image?
I know VGA is much newer, but I've played with h/vsync timings trying to produce the maximum resolution/refresh my monitor was capable of.
So an NTSC TV would probably accept a 27fps (56fields/sec) signal as long as it was valid NTSC.
Anyway, from the other posts it seems this is moot, as the game timing is calulated from frame counter, thus this discussion would be valid if a stopwatch or recording was used.
You mean for last years games at low....I would not reccomend anything under 945M.....that's where a massive performance bump occures (and a smaller one to 950M).
I think 1050 15" laptops are pretty good deals. My only gripe is Windows 10. And Intel's 7-gen GPU had no Win8.1 or earlier support. Although the HD graphics package does offer older support, 7-gen is specifically excluded (I learned this the hard way). Desktops are excluded, since you will not be using the IGP (again, 1st hand experience).
I've done that on the desktop and the penalty was only lack of turbo-boost. On laptop, if done, power could also be an issue.
But I've had 2 GPUs (radeon 5850 and later 7950 for VM and HD graphics for linux).
But:
- you need 2 outputs (I'm not sure on laptop....but the gaming GPU will NOT BE USED in linux, thus sharing the lcd is unexplored territory)
- you need to look for specific support (Intel VT-d, not just VT-x) on CPU and MB
- at that time, nVidia had only VT-d support on quadro.....geforce refused to work in my trials
My track record: 6 years of gaming in VM, Skyrim, Deus Ex HR, iRacing, previous Wolfesteins, Fallout 3/4 being the biggest games I've done. I ended it when I switched to the 1070 last year.
PS: I've posted 3DMark numbers in the hardocp forums in 2013.
So, I built an internet radio station on my LAN (with FLAC and 320kbps MP3 output)......and some MP3s sound HORRIBLE over the mp3 stream. That's one of the reason I hate BT audio (for music at least) even if I cannot "hear" artifacts, I don't know when I will get something that will.
Oh...so you never got to the Li-Ion (or whatever battery) wear. I still have working wired headphones from early 2000. BT headphones that old would need 3-4 battery replacements (which would force you to replace the whole headphone, as good luck finding the right batteries).
I never understood the rationale of BT headphones for music: you have a 2nd battery to keep track of (and increase the weight) and you drain 2 batteries when using them. When the market of no-jack devices will be big enough, I'm sure the stand-alone media player business will rise again.
I wonder if facebook has anything to do with this. I've heard it gives you only news that you may like. I don't have an account.
I personally have found+installed selfoss because I learned about Google Reader during it's "it will be closed" news flood and liked the idea. To the best, since I use an incognito window for mail and youtube only, so my searches are not done directly under my google account (yes, I know the IP can be linked).
Please ask yourself: would you remember a pin you set half-year ago and never used it? Although most people will not use it (thus why invest in development), those that know it, 90%(so I won't repeat "most") will forget the wipe PIN and would not rememeber it when needed. You have to be extremely well organised+great memory to be able to use it.
I wouldn't give up my CDs (and their FLAC RIPs), but CDs allowed producers to make bad music (see loudness wars). Even re-releases were affected and I think it's the main reason why vinyls are still here. Considering cars with casette players are still available (yes, 2nd hand, I know), some may choose that compromise.
As for "sucks on SO many levels", I just hope you don't base that on unmaintained cheap players and casettes (you know, mainstream ones, that start catching your tape after 1 year). Just like vinyl players, there are cheap ones and good ones (and yes, FYI , I'm old enough to have used Sony Walkmans going to schools.....note the plural).
Tell that to Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel and Greger Huttu.