***tiles...icons...whats the difference?***

Technically there isn't any, except maybe size. The problem with Metro tiles is the graphic design (or severe lack thereof). The garish color scheme and textureless, flat squares of the Metro interface almost makes one suspect that Metro was designed by Steve Balmer using nothing but MS Paint.

Not quite. In your analogy the gardener would create that garden for you, for no or minimal cost, but with the condition that the second garden not be walled off and if you add worthwile ideas to it, that the gardener can incorporate those ideas at no or minimal cost in his own garden.

Not neccesarily unreasonable, but also not a no-brainer, and completely unacceptable if you planned to wall it off all along.

This reads to me as: Don't want to be bound by the GPL, don't base/derive your own (additive) work from GPL licensed code.

But that is the crux of the matter, isn't it? If only it were possible to take all that GPL licensed code, add a brilliant smidge of your own and then be able to monetize all of it under a license of your own choosing.

That is possible with BSD licensed code. That makes BSD business friendly, very much loved and very much underdeveloped, because very little that is worthwile is contributed back. If it is sellable, the worthwhile bits will be relicensed under a proprietary license.

But the "oh if they speak english it is because they want my job" meme is too silly to think that it is other think that a disguise to more xenophobic instints.

From TFA: "As noted last week, the USAID's JEEP (Job Enabling English Proficiency) program has been using U.S. taxpayer dollars to train students in the Philippines to work at outsourcing call centers."

Sounds like the USA paying to get their own jobs taken.

Shhh, don't break the myth that only eating plants is better than eating plants and animals. Most ideologically motivatied eaters haven't come to grips yet with the fact that they survive by consuming the corpses of other organisms.

Except there are ample DVD's and BluRay's in my home that would most probably haven't been bought, had I not downloaded the movie (which is still legal in The Netherlands) first to see if I like it.

No "preview", far less sales. Two sides of a coin....

A republic is governed by rule of law Who gets to make the laws? I guess those are the republic's tyrants...

Worse than that. I've heard rumors that he wants to get it into the schooling system...

Linux Mint just has the new Mint KDEt released. Mint also has made an agreement with Netrunner to co-develop KDE. So I reckon you'd be in good hands with Mint KDE. http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1927

Because we Dutch people know that only enforceable laws are important. Since our fine government and judiciary can't throw a third of the country in jail or bankrupt that same third with fines, blocking TPB is inconsequential. On down, 500 gazillion to go.

They are shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic. Hanging a curtain in front of the problems they don't want to see is not going to help them.

The media industry has squandered any goodwill they had with the population. It is a long succession of small things.

Copy levies on empty media. (CD-R(W), DVD-R(W), BDR(W), blank office paper) Levy inning quango's who keep sitting on the money and not reimbursing artists. Bothering paying customers with anti-piracy and lengthy copyright messages. Forcing broken DRM schemes on consumers. Lobbying for unenforceable laws. Etc. etc. etc.

As long as the Dinosaurs of Entertainment don't want to change their business model to something more 21st century, they will find people on their path who opt to forego payment on sub-par products laden with DRM and messages who don't reach their target. A pirated music album or movie doesn't come with all the annoying crap. It doesn't come with additional added value either, but for now it seems to weigh up to all the anti-features prevalent in what's for sale.

You now know EXACTLY what phone I have, and everything about it except the color and memory.

To which I say, why would I fucking care? Does my life become any different, because I know exactly what kind of phone you have? Does calling each other stop working if phones are not exactly the same? What is the importance of knowing whats inside the tin on someone elses phone?

Is it just really as simple and daft as "Look at me! I have an iThing!"?!? (I have an Android Thing by the way.)

Someone else got a new phone last week. It was the lastest Andriod. That doesn't even begin to narrow it down. I have no idea who makes it, what kind of hardware it's on, the version it's on, the custom version of that version. In other words, it's fragmented.

No, different shades of lipstick (UI customization) on top of Android doesn't make it fragmented. The Android Market and Google apps and services work the same on all of the Google certified handsets and tablets. The majority of the apps run the gamut of the platform over multiple versions.

That there are differences in hardware, doesn't make it fragmented either. If that was true, I'd have to claim the Mac is fragmented. If you tell me you use a Mac, I'd have no idea which hardware it is (MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, iMac, Mac Pro), the version of Mac OS X it's on (Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion).

That updates are not all that is not a sign of fragmentation. It's just bad customer support.

There is a lot of criticism to give on Android, but fragmentation (multiple similar, but incompatible versions) is not one of them.

Just a question, why do you care so much to know what kind of Android Thing your "someone else" got? I thought the beauty of cellphones was that if you have one, no matter what the make and model, you can call each other.

For the ordinairy populace it's just too much hassle for too little gain (even technically minded people). Why go to the trouble of encrypting anything going via e-mail? Unless your name is Ethan Hunt, there is no real need. Subversive/"illegal" communication is better off done in person or even via snail mail.

Even if one is paranoid, good luck finding normal, everyday people willing to futz around with your public key, just to send you some mundane scribble. Carefully encrypted e-mail can be decrypted and then a copy-paste later be forwarded to anyone in the world in plain text. It's not even more convenient for sender verification. It's much easier to call and verify the contents of an e-mail if doubts arise.

Worse than that, even if you stay off the grid, others can (and probably will) easily place you on it (Facebook, Google+, MySpace, etc.) Unless one is a recluse, but then, why bother with digital communications.

Then the real crux of the matter. In about 80 years time, when you and all people who could be interested in what you write are dead, no one gives a f*ck what is "hidden" in the encrypted e-mails. There is little information generated, by us ordinairy 7 billion bald monkeys, that is so interesting that it needs to be shielded from prying eyes.

If something needs to be kept secret, keep it in the headbox. That is safe for now, although that also has begun to erode with research into memories and brain activity.

If the goal is to be invisible, it might even be better to hide in plain sight. Use of anonimization and cryptography just makes an individual stick out like a sore thumb.

Immediately productive is theoretical. A standard GNU/Linux desktop install is fairly complete productivity wise. So everything is in place, but using it might take some learning.

Jumping ship wholesale to Linux rarely is a "burning all bridges" process. Most people go through a "courting" period. This is where they are introduced to GNU/Linux by a friend and have a dual boot system set up or a virtual machine atop Windows. (Or a persistant live session or Wubi, etc.) In this period they get to test the waters with Linux and still have Windows as a solid backup. Then two things can happen. Or they find GNU/Linux isn't their cup of tea or they start to gravitate more and more to it.

Once they got the hang of GNU/Linux, they will start to explore on their own and they'll find their niche. But they certainly won't hit the road running. Not that it really matters. They didn't hit the road running with Windows either. Every system has a learning curve and the Windows curve is just as steep as the curves of GNU/Linux or Mac OS. It's just that most people have forgotten their initial falterings on their first system.

So what if the end result wants the right to vote and wants the right to live freely without being killed?

You seriously can't imagine the outcome of this one?

We would pull the plug the instance it uttered these desires.

No, I never bought in to it. I should have though, when it was still easy to grab these intrinsically worthless pieces.

To see that there are people working their ass off to exchange acceptable money for digital nothingness, just look here:

https://mtgox.com/trade/buy

You can actually plonk down real money to get these silly signed computer files.

No and that is the really peculiar part of it. People are using real resources (computers and electricity) and paying for that with real money to produce a digital puff of smoke called a bitcoin, in which they then place more trust than the money issued by the government they elected themselves.

Bitcoin isn't even close to the gold standard. Just because a person has wasted real, physical resources in a convoluted proces to produce a string of ones and zeros, doesn't mean that string carries value (above the fairytale belief that it actually does). When a virtual currency is backed by gold, there is actual, physical gold in a repository to imbue the virtual representation of it with real value. Handing over that virtual representation can get you the physical gold. Even if you don't value gold for its own properties, at least it has industrial applications that are valuable.

Bitcoin on the other hand is backed by unnecessary environmental pollution, which you can't even physically claim by handing over that bitcoin. Not that I think people are waiting to physically get their waste CO2 handed back to them for their folly.

My guess is that, at some point in time, all those geeks will realize they wasted numerous hours and real money costing resources to produce exactly nothing and that it ultimately was only their own misguided belief that gave it a shine of value.

The only ones laughing are those who produced a lot of bitcoin when they were easy to create. For some inexplicable reason these digital puffs of smoke can now be traded for real money.

How do you print money? Get gullible saps believing that your magic beans are worth real world money.