I always assume whoever asking doesn't know what programming is and wouldn't be able to understand a detailed accurate description. So I tell them It's like lego but instead of wonderful coloured blocks, I'm building structures using words on a computer. Programming is taking a set of vanilla standard blocks and putting them together to build something coherent. I like the Lego car analogy, you want to build a giant car. There is no giant car lego block, there's no giant engine lego block, or giant wheel lego block. You build those giant parts using the regular lego and you get giant wheels, a giant engine and a when all the giant parts are done you have a giant car.

You joke about this, but take a shitty PC running Windows Vista or even 7 and install Windows 10. It'll be like a whole new computer. Microsoft is busy trying to fit their 10 pounds of shit into 5 pound bags and make it work. To phrase that differently, cram Windows 10 into super low end mobile hardware.

Hell I'll even admit that Edge is a fantastic browser, I just don't like *USING* it. It has a usability problem not a technological problem. I'd argue on a tech level it's even better than Chrome and Firefox, I work with a seriously HTML5/javascript heavy application suite, Edge is brilliantly fast and uses a fraction of the memory Chrome/Firefox do with it. Even though it's significantly better on Edge, I still use Chrome so that has to say something about the interface. However, IE11 is still an abomination in every way and should be burned.

Not really any different than all the shysters applying for grants for research projects at any University and providing bullshit results for the funding and additional funding?

So much research these days is bunk, with stats and results skewed to support predetermined results or conclusions. Worse yet when someone gets a grant without the intention of just bullshitting, not being able to determine a result and skews it to justify funding.

Granted there is sort of a reddit or imgur of research papers but it's totally voluntary. I feel like this could be curbed significantly if people were graded on their paper's quality regardless of where it's published (like the made up publications to 'publish' papers) and universities required a certain karma or what not to obtain funding. IF you were a shitty researcher with consistently unreproducible results? No funding.

Will the new division keep their Stargate in Cheyenne Mountain as well?

I don't recall exactly what model it was, but about 15 years ago when I worked for IBM, the customer I managed had a whooooole lot of IBM printers connected to their maintrame terminals. I remember the support desk used to get the odd call where the printer jammed mid printing and it would burn the paper, not a full on fire but scorched ostensibly from all the friction. Although this was rare, they often needed a service call afterwards so it was kind of an expensive paper jam.

I think you misspelled Upgrayedd.

When there's so many other brands still, I don't know what would incentivise a farmer to buy a John Deere. If a JD was selling tractors like HP sells printers, maybe they're selling the service, but you get the tractor at a steeply discounted price. But they're not and, it's still a premium tractor. I can't see a farmer looking at a JD and knowing they don't own it, and looking across the road to the Case, New Holland, Kubota or <insert other brand here> dealership and not just spitting on the ground and walking over to buy them self their very own shiny new tractor.

This keeps happening, big update comes out and all of the defaults reset to Microsoft products. It's been a constant problem since I've installed Windows 10 and at this point I'm willing to call this a feature rather than a bug. No I do not want to use your PDF viewer, Media player or Edge browser, stop forcing it on me Microsoft.

You have to pay a monthly fee to get the Control 4 system into the cloud. It's apparently a very popular system probably because they setup a very strong dealer network and require the dealers to do any changes or modifications - it's basically a closed system to the home owner so its really stupid. Want to add a new zone or piece of equipment? Gotta get it from a dealer.

The account in question was taken care of, I tried to follow up but they went silent. You can still register new accounts with out validation. This isn't a Gmail specific issue, it's really a no validation issue. If an account doesn't already exist under an email you can just register and use it right away.

Christmas before last I was the lovely new recipient of a brand new amazon account, that I didn't signup for. The problem starts with Amazon not validating email ownership and ends with Amazon not understanding how account ownership works. Some child with my same name was given a brand spanking new Fire HD for Christmas and a pile of Amazon gift certificates which they loaded up in short order, the mistake was made they maybe typoed their email address or they them self didn't understand that you don't inherently own yourname@emailprovider.com

I tried to contact Amazon support and have them fix this problem with out ruining this kids Christmas. Amazon's response? No problem here with their processes, however I should give him my email address as far as they are concerned he owns my gmail account I've had since the closed gmail beta... After much arguing Amazon wasn't budging, I had already explained that gmail ignores dots in your address among other things, so u.ser@gmail.com u.s.e.r@gmail.com us.er@gmail.com, and user@gmail.com etc all are the same account but amazon will register individual accounts for them, my problem is I use a . in mine just for readability and spam identification and is how I have *MY* amazon account registered. Additional fun is anything after a + sign in your email gets ignored too, so you can use an email like user+is.the.CEO.of@gmail.com and it'll just send any email to that to user@gmail.com, maybe I could have used this and told them that this is not a gmail problem and they should fix it? This behavior on google's part is in my opinion: fantastic, it's an epic step on account security meaning someone else can't come along and pretend to be me just by adding or removing a dot from their email address. Blaming Google in this case was a weak attempt at avoiding responsibility.

Long story short, Amazon didn't care that I could reset this kids password and buy whatever it is I wanted using it, as far as they were concerned this wasn't their problem. Here's amazon's official response I got before I escalated it to Jeff Bezos and spoke to the executive of customer relations (this is a thing by the way, anyone can do this)

"Unfortunately, this is an issue that will need to be resolved by Google. We would normally be able to temporarily disable your account in order to sort out the email issues, as these issues can be caused by typos on another person's side. However, as this is not an email typo issue, we will not be able to resolve this issue ourselves. Samantha L"

I would really like to know beyond handing over my account, what they think Google is going to do about it?

At what point did I say it should be banned? Please quote the statement. I'm absolutely fine with it as I said, I just said I understand why a public organization decided to end the anonymous commentary. What I didn't agree with was going back and unmasking the past anonymous comments. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I'm just saying it's more effective if articulated appropriately. My examples you're so delightfully taking out of context because you're even more anonymous than I am were the real examples as to why the paper is ending anonymous commentary.

A small town newspaper, those comments are being made by your immediate neighbors. They apparently don't want you to know that *THEY* really think of you, but they *REALLY* want you to know it.

Outing the past anonymous commenters is just tabloid tactics. It's like having private information and sharing it with the world because they can. If they want their neighbors behaving with civility, fine, set the old comments on fire and go forth with your decisions. Like I said, nothing is forcing people from commenting - go else where if you want them to be anonymous. Requiring an identity is their attempt at maintaining civility.

I'm pretty sure I can post open and honest comments while not being anonymous. Unless you define open and honest as the requirement of being allowed to devolve into a stream of profanity and hate at even the smallest amount of disagreement.

Penny Arcade put it best.
Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad
http://www.penny-arcade.com/co...

I think this is pretty interesting. Out in society where someone has a face and a name where people behave as if their actions will affect them, but they feel as if online anonymity is a right for them to leverage for their otherwise hidden secret feelings that would normally ruin their reputation. Oh no somebody says something in public that's hateful or otherwise resentful and chastise them for their opinion, but it's totally ok for them and those who crucify them to do it anonymously online.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for anonymous communication but we should be using it as a tool and not a weapon. Unfortunately it's far far far too commonly used as a weapon and that's what drove the newspaper and others to eliminate it. Though retroactively removing the anonymity I don't agree with, it's basically exposing to the world into the deep dark sides people don't want to share. Now you know your neighbor is a homophobe and your kids teacher is a racist, and your wife is actually a generally terrible person. The internet has lots of places you can go be a total pile of crap anonymously, there's no need to do it as publicly as possible via comments to your local news paper.

I think perhaps the real issue here is that he's grossly under educated on a subject and he opened his ignorance hole on the subject. Because (so far) murdering 10,000 non-combatant Men, Women and children for not following Islam is totally just trying to protect their community, right?

Disclaimer: There is an application of sarcasm here. Please read carefully.

Seems Ars' recent reviews suggest they don't really care anymore about the quality of the review, but click bait and views.

Why do I have to see this giant Apple ad on my page? Whatever happened to read more?