Not that you're generally wrong, but I would like to contest a minor point.

I think the better description would be to say Chrome is marketed to consumers. It's a subtle difference, but I think it leaves the clarity to say specifically that Chrome is built to further Google's goals. One of Google's main goals is to get consumers to use their system.

We've all seen people go to google.com to search for facebook rather than going to facebook.com directly. That's a win for Google. Google would really win if people forgot URLs exist. Then the only way to get to any website would be by having Google search for it, at least for most people. How could that happen? In small steps where first the http or https is hidden since most people don't know or care why it exists. Then after people get used to that, the next step is to hide other parts of the URL that people don't care to understand. Subdomains mean nothing to most people, TLDs are next. Really, what's the difference for most people? That's where Chrome is headed and what it is built for.

The real tragedy is that most people will be happier with it.

The courts have the authority to compel people to testify and the authority to come into a place of business and gather evidence. I don't think it would be much of a stretch to force a company to allow government employees to alter code. That could happen and it should be something that is argued strenuously in the courts.

This kind of compulsion goes far beyond any reasonable argument. It's one thing to say the government can gather evidence or even take action in a private company. It's a whole different thing to try to compel a private citizen, or company who employs private citizens, to write software that goes against their best interest. It's really just tyranny, and lazy tyranny at that.

I know, I know, ha ha. [best nerd voice] But akctualllly...

I love that I can use WSL [most inaccurate name ever] to manage files. I couldn't count how many times I've edited files from bash in Windows because I can do it faster and easier from the shell than from any standard Windows programs. For me, that one thing justifies every nuisance that has come with Windows 10 since I tried it in beta.

I know, Microsoft wants me to think "Powershell" instead of bash... and I'm learning Powershell as fast as I can, but I've been using bash for nearly two decades so it's still easier and faster for me to use bash than Powershell.

Sets sounds like the next thing I'm really going to appreciate. You can get Groupy now from Stardock and get the same functionality (albeit better than MS is doing) and I have to admit I'm tempted. It's not unusual for me to accumulate 30 or 40 windows during my workday to try to handle all the tasks I need to work on. Having the ones related to each other bound together would go a long way toward making my workflow more efficient.

Finally, to your point, for years and years I've been frustrated, nay angry, that there is not a Microsoft equivalent to apt, get, yum, ports, or any decent package manager. I love the idea of the MS store. So far, the implementation has sucked. It's sucked big time. Yet I have to hope that it gets better and I hope MS keeps pushing to make it viable. My ideal Windows looks a lot like my typical Linux distribution. The store is getting them a tiny bit closer.

There seems to be a common misunderstanding that WSL is running a Linux kernel. It isn't. WSL is still running on the Windows kernel. People think of popular Linux distributions as being Linux, but they're only Linux because of the kernel, not because of the tools they're bundling to create a distribution. When you switch to a BSD or Mach kernel using the same tools, you're no longer using Linux, regardless of the programs you're running. That's what WSL is too. It's a distribution's bundled tools running on a different kernel, in this case the Windows kernel.

It'd make more sense to call it Ubuntu on Windows. Really though, it makes more sense for MS to call it "Linux" because that's what people think of when they hear the word. Otherwise you'd have "GNU on Windows" and spend all your time explaining you're talking about running a Linux distribution on Windows without using actual Linux. It's like insisting people use the original meaning of the word "hacker." If you use the word to mean what it really means, then people won't understand what you mean.

I know this post is pretty much off topic, but a lot of people still seem misled by the term and I hope at to help clear up the misconceptions for a couple people.

WSL is not a virtual machine running Linux, in fact it's not Linux at all. Linux is a kernel. People think of distributions built around the Linux kernel as being Linux, but you can run other kernels with the same tools. Depending on your objectives and kernel choice, you can get very different or practically identical functionality while still not technically running Linux. That's all WSL is; it is a bundle of tools associated with Linux distributions but running on the Microsoft Windows kernel instead.

Your concerns about Windows accessing the Linux RAM don't make any sense in regards to WSL because it isn't a separate or hosted OS. Of course Windows has access to WSL memory; WSL is an integrated part of Windows. The point of WSL is to give Windows users less motivation to switch to a different OS, which it does fairly well. Most of the things I want to do in Windows but would normally have to switch to Linux to do are easy to do with WSL, meaning no switch is necessary. Most of the work I get paid to do needs to be done in a Microsoft OS (not always Windows) but it is easier and sometimes massively faster to do some things with the tools that were previously only supported by dual booting or running a VM. WSL makes my job simpler in that respect.

All that said, your concerns make sense in regard to Hyper-V. I think you're wrong about MS's goals there too, but at least it is a debatable topic.

Really?

I've had plenty of paychecks signed by people who probably had abandoned any traces of morality. I've been on phone calls with customers who hated me and any concept I might have been associated with, but whose business supported my paycheck.

You're telling me that investing in a cryptocurrency might support some government I don't like? I couldn't care less. It might go against some hairy muppet in office? I actually could care less... if it goes against that moron's desires, it moves my give-a-damn-a-meter slightly towards inclined. Not enough to do anything significant, but enough to post on slashdot.

Here's the chance for you anti-Trump people to jump on a bandwagon. If you really want to make a statement, you need to invest in whatever he's against. Just give me a minute to click a couple buttons first.. okay, now.

Just kidding, I don't expect any rational response. I don't even trust the public to have a completely irrational response at this point.

Yes. They take VISA, aka you can spend Bitcoin there.

I got a card from Coinbase. Anywhere I can use a VISA, I can spend my cryptocurrency. My card by itself would be accepted most places in Singapore, and I could withdraw local currency as needed.

As for me personally? I actually couldn't pay for it with Bitcoin because I liquidated all my Bitcoin at a value maybe ten percent below it's current value, but I could pay for stuff with Bitcoin Cash ... not that what I have left would go very far.

I invested in Mt. Gox when it was still going strong, and lost all my investments in it when it crashed. I lost nearly seven dollars! I was mailed information about joining a class action lawsuit, but my cynicism in investing along with my laziness kept me from pursuing any compensation.

That's why I switched to Coinbase actually. I figured that I'd spend a fraction of my entertainment money playing in that system and trusted them more since they're governed by US law. As soon as I had the option to put my "investment" in an offline system, I went for it. When mainstream news started to talk about Bitcoin, I cashed out. I did well. $50,000 less than I would have made if I'd had two different decisions, but hey, when it's a two thousand percent gain or a near total loss, I feel like that was a good call. Honestly I wish I hadn't paid any attention at all and just stuck with the HODL approach, but as soon as my "investments" were worth more than dinner and a movie, I didn't have the risk tolerance real gamblers do.

That's my real takeaway from my experience. If you're lucky, and don't mind gambling real money, you can have a lot of fun with cryptocurrency. If you're not really a gambler (like me) then it's entertainment. If you're a real gambler... well you might make inconceivable fortunes if you're lucky, but you have to be willing to lose actual significant money and that's hard for me to empathize with.

You can spend it on taxes. That's the real value. Sure the government backs it up with guns and tanks and such, but they only have so much ability to make people agree on how much goods and services are worth.

OTOH cryptocurrencies have exactly zero validity unless people agree to place value on them. I'm not sure which I trust more, governments or people.

The president is supposed to have some control over the enforcement of laws. That makes sense because the president has the authority to determine how the budget is spent (or not spent) and to pardon people who have been convicted of breaking the law. In theory, the president could pardon everyone convicted of breaking a law that he/she disagreed with.

When the president says "we order this" what it should always mean is that the law either supports his/her desire and he/she is deciding to spend budget money on it, or the law is against his/her desire and he/she is deciding to not spend budget money on it or is granting a pardon to anyone who breaks said law.

This seems to be a case of the president saying a law should be enforced that most citizens wouldn't have known was even in existence. I have some doubts as to how effective an attempt to enforce it will be, but thanks to /., I am better informed about the laws supporting it than I would have been otherwise.

Sidenote: I'm trying to be open minded with the "he/she" bit, but it's a nuisance to type. Nothing else works, so I'm about to go back to just typing "he" for convenience despite recognizing the possibility that it could apply to a "she" just as well in the future.

Stupid executive orders are good for the long term goal of freedom. Stupid executive orders get challenged in court, overturned and as a result, they create a sort of self regulating system. More stupid executive orders getting made means more of them getting overturned by the courts. The result is that fewer stupid executive orders will happen in the future.

I hope.

The cynic in me has to note that stupid people get power and stupid people support it. It's hard to trust that stupidity will limit itself.

Update: Trump denies any ties with campaign contributors who made a killing investing in a fake currency nobody had heard of before he talked about it and it's value doubled overnight.

The planet is fine. No matter what we do, the planet is likely to be here for millions, probably billions of years. (Approximately 7.5 billion to be inexact.) I know that's not what you meant, but maybe be a little more exact with your language.

Actually I agree with the ideas you're presenting, but I have trouble imagining all the ways we can get from where we are a species to where we survive as a species in a thousand years. Changing people is hard. Changing technology, well that seems to happen daily. Those are the reasons I don't feel stress about our future. People will continue to act like people, but the technology affecting them is going to continue changing day to day. People are going to die, billions, practically guaranteed, but I think some will survive. That belief makes me happy. I do hope it is with minimal suffering, and I do hope many people like you are trying to minimize it, and are successful.