If Pepsi caused fuss about a can of coke on someone's desk then I'd agree that they were unreasonable.

When someone brings a can of coke into a meeting - and nobody's brought a can or bottle of coke or pepsi to any meeting I've been in for months - then I can understand that this is interpreted as either antagonism or a lack of business sense, and either are reasonable grounds to challenge the competence of the developer.

Picking up a can of coke knowing you're going into a meeting with Pepsi is provocation or naivety, and just unprofessional in that context either way.

If Pepsi came in to sell you their products then sure, do that to put pressure on them, exert competitive tensions, make a point. But not when they're the client.

Mine's on the kitchen counter, where it's been cooking meat and toasted cheese sandwiches for 11 years now.

They rock. They're superb. They're easier to clean than a conventional grill.

While Pepsi may indeed be utter twats, it was fucking poor showing by the developer.

Show some fucking respect for your client.

The MyBook Live Duo using 9W and I can buy one pre-built with 4TB of storage for $432.

It's not as powerful as an i3 (any i3) but it's a fully functional linux box and perfectly adequate as file server.

When something is cheaper than home-brew, comes prebuilt, has the configuration/setup software pre-installed (including user, quota and access management via web UI) and just sits there working properly, I'm happy.

Or you could buy their (cheap, reliable, effective) NAS devices and use your own Dynamic DNS and SSH to provide cloud-based file storage without relying on the Western Digital cloud service.

WD make good hard disks, and their MyBook Duo is a perfectly capable home NAS device, and it's bloody cheap. That doesn't mean that they're good at cloud services, redirection to your home network or otherwise.

What utter total fucking nonsense.

There are hundreds of innovative American businesses that aren't Apple. Indeed, Apple is significantly less innovative than many of them.

Shit, IBM innovate more than Apple, and have been for decades longer, let alone the likes of Lockheed Martin.

No, I attack personally when confronting someone that can't grasp basic arguments, continues to believe they're right when I've pointed out where they're not, and acts like a twat.

You.

You ignorant patronising piece of shit.

There's a big difference between "Prevent a source of fraudulent payments and/or high chargebacks from damaging the brand/customers" and being a cartel.

Learn the difference, and learn to use citations without resorting to unnecessary and puerile lmgtfy links. Especially when they're not relevant to the argument.

I'd link to lmgtfy for the word 'cunt' but you don't need to be told the meaning; just look in the mirror.

Visa do incur cost. They act as a broker between card acquirers (the people providing card payments services to retailers) and card issuers (the people that give cards to consumers). (Processors such as First Data provide services to card issuers).

Visa is not a cartel, anybody can use their services. They grew from an industry association, but that doesn't make it a cartel, and certainly doesn't describe its current operations.

If the fixed costs are not in the transaction fees, then how are you proposing that those are funded? Connectivity fees that penalise low volume stores?

The fee often isn't a percentage. It's sometimes a fixed fee, sometimes a fixed minimum with percentage beyond that. There may be upper limits in place.

Yes, it should. Higher loss in the event of fraud, and a $1.59 purchase usually isn't even going to get checked against card balances, to keep the network traffic down.

Interchange fees are however an interesting thing, and very easily misunderstood. I worked for a corporation that had a retail arm and a card issuing bank. They proposed using cards issued by the bank to pay all of their supplier invoices, so that they'd get the interchange fees back.

No thought about the cost to the bank of providing that service, the card payment fees owed to VISA/Mastercard, the suppliers tacking on card surcharges or the cost of money impacts of using a credit card (although they could have used non-credit payment cards, they also wanted the interest free period from using credit card).

The thing with Notch is that he did something for fun, made it a success, earned a fortune, and now he puts his money where his mouth is. He backs other independent developers - including Oculus, even though they were developing hardware not the games that need it.

So you have a very successful developer living the dream, a very successful businessman that's a self-made millionaire and a genuine philanphropist, all of which would draw attention and admiration, all wrapped up in one slightly unreliable but interesting person.

He may or may not be right, but he's done a fuck of a lot more than most people, and whether it's appropriate or not he sets trends. People listen.

It could've gone two ways.

Microsoft are bloody good at hardware computer peripherals - sure the Xbox variants have had issues, but generally speaking Microsoft do excellent hardware.

But they might have coupled it to the Xbox.

My new favourite Slashdot comment of the decade.

I'd actually respect them if they did that. It would be a remarkably decent thing to do.

However, I do agree - they either really believed in VR, and Facebook's money will help them deliver on their vision, and/or they were in this to make money, and job done. Either way you can't blame them for saying 'yes'.