Still fundamentally different things. Dropbox is meant for continuous live access (and is actually a handy way to get some semblance of version control for word docs and other binary files that don't play well with VCSs). It is also meant for syncing across computers--which doesn't make sense at all if you are using it to back up system-specific information/configuration files/etc. It will protect the documents you store in it, but it makes disaster recovery a huge pain since you are starting from scratch (but hey, at least having your files is better than having nothing)

Backup systems are meant to never have to be accessed. Until you need them, in which case you want quick and easy access, and if you really care, you want more than just your pictures backed up so that you can get up and running quick (i.e. dropbox might be ok for some home user who only uses the computer for personal use and would otherwise have zero backups. It's not ok for someone who uses that computer for a living and needs to be able to get up and running again quickly in order to start making money again).

I don't think getting the license is particularily difficult in the US.

It can be very expensive and take time to get those hours...but a crazy person who wins the lottery (or an insurance settlement) wouldn't have much trouble making it into the air.

You don't even know the difference between actual backup and dropbox/google docs document sharing/syncing.

Do you even read slashdot, or do you just come here to post your awful shit?

Get your own damn blog.

While the practice isn't so nice, it's not exactly walmart's fault that this is the best way to get cheap labor.

Tying benefits to employment is stupid (especially with how often people are changing jobs these days). If everybody bought health insurance on their own (or had it provided by the government), then walmart wouldn't see a cost savings by hiring 2 people to work 20-30 hours instead of one to work 40-60, in fact they would probably see a savings since training costs would be reduced, turnover might be reduced (people will stop ditching the PT job as soon as they find something FT), and you might end up with a more effective employee.

IIRC, this essentially came as an unintended consequence of some government wage controls during/following the war. Companies couldn't raise wages to attract talent, so they started offering non-wage benefits. Now it is standard for it to come from your employer, while people buying their own insurance get screwed by high prices. Hard to break free of that system though...everybody expects the benefit, and it costs the company less to provide the benefit than they would have to pay you extra to afford your own insurance. So skilled/in demand workers keep getting their benefits, while the easily replaceable laborers get 30 hour work weeks.

This is a better alternative than that money going to other causes.

I'd much rather have a bunch of people out there building a life sized Ark (and maybe even employing some skilled tradesmen) than for that same money being spent winning local elections for candidates that want to take evolution out of textbooks.

Good to know--I will have to try again. Glad they fixed this, as it was really a bummer

You forgot that Amazon won't deliver HD content to the browser (even for paid rentals where HD is an extra dollar).

Netflix wins hands down there...my HTPC is significantly more powerful than my parents roku...but their amazon streaming looks way better.

The local dealer chains in a lot of areas tend to be very successful.

This means they can make lots of local political campaign contributions (both to buy influence and to get themselves tickets to all of the fundraising galas where they can meet and great with the townsfolk). They also tend to be somewhat of a dynasty, having been started back in the golden age of automobiles and inherited by younger family members

Then, what do you do when you've got 2 kids, and your dealer brother's got 2 kids, and you don't have enough dealerships for them to all inherit? Why not send one of them into politics? It could be very beneficial to your business to have someone on the city counsel, and you've got the cash to finance the race. Maybe later they move on to the state senate.

What happens if you have a 12:00 meeting with people in a wide area that spans time zones and DST treatments.

Does the calendaring software decide that the person who started the meeting is the "master" (i.e. the meeting is always at 12 their time)? What if the meeting is originally at a time where it is during the workday outside of DST in all countries, but the DST switch would move it outside of the workday for someone who isn't the host? Then I would think you would want to allow the host's time to change so that someone else doesn't have to work overtime.

Obviously there are solutions, but I don't think the software will be able to fix it by itself. (for reference, I don't like the DST switch, but I actually prefer DST--more daylight after work is better than more daylight before work)

To play devil's advocate--If I stole your phone...I'd probably want to wipe all of your crap off of it anyways. Flash a fresh OS on there and it is good as new.

Just like if I stole your laptop to use it myself, I would wipe the drive first (though many thieves are not so clever), or if I wanted to sell it, I would put a clean OS on it. Might be some valuable information stashed on your drive, but if I am a petty thief, I probably care more about the easy money of selling electronics vs the more complex prospect of figuring out how to profit off a stolen identity (much more difficult than cash).

A kill switch that bricked the phone (or made it unable to join a mobile network or fully boot until disabled) would kill the residual value of the phone. Sure, maybe you could harvest it for parts, but if the bootloader is locked and the OS is hosed, nobody is going to be using it as a phone again.

A lot of phone thefts in big cities like NYC/Chicago go like this:

Person is on the train, engrossed in their facebook news feed (and probably have their headphones on so as to be further zoned out). Train pulls into stop and doors open. Thief rips phone out of person's hand and dashes out the closing doors. By the time the victim or anyone nearby recognizes what just happened, the doors are closed and the train is pulling away (and to an outside observer on the platform, it just looked like a guy who forgot it was his stop and dashed to get off the train). Less pro thiefs may not have the timing down, but they can probably run fast enough to still avoid getting caught.

If everyone knew that that phone would become worthless, these types of thefts would calm down. You might have a phone to play with for an hour (and if you were savvy, you might try using the linked email to break into some financial accounts), but the sketchy guy in the ice cream truck with a "cash for phones" sign isn't going to want soon-to-be bricked devices.

As an aside, if I were a robber, I am not sure if I would take the phone or not. Maybe take it and toss or break it (especially if it will be bricked remotely). The last thing I would want after robbing someone is something that is so easily tracked. My movements after the theft might be recorded and the phone might be hard to sell since they are much easier to check the history on than cash or random jewelry (and I would have to turn it on show any potential buyer that it was working).

The audio latency issues on android are kind of a shame.

The one reason I almost bought an ipad instead of an android tablet was basically so I could use the ReBirth app (and maybe other music apps in the future). Figured it wasn't worth double the money for a single app when I got a deal on a 2013 Nexus 7...but I wish I could run it.

There are some alternatives but the audio latency just kills it. You can write stuff and then hit play, but you can't adjust it on the fly without lag. If you are writing it in advance, might as well use a computer since you aren't taking advantage of a big multitouch control surface to have live control of multiple effects.

To be fair, ctrl-shift-t is magical. I found out about it years ago and use it multiple times per day.

In fact, now that I have started doing my breakfast/couchbound casual browsing on a Nexus 7 instead of a netbook, I have come to miss the ease of restoring closed tabs (that and easy within-page searching...you can at least do that on a tablet, but it is a lot slower than with ctrl-f and f3)