maybe once on a non-windows machine, because the raid controller flaked out. Otherwise, backups and new drives when drives go bad have been all I have needed. I also have multiple machines, over many years. I guess if you'd stop using an OS with a crappy file system designed over 20 years ago, you too might just be able to run without reformatting. I haven't regretted the move in over 10 years.

You can wipe cookies and local data at will. You can also run with a variety of browsers, VMs, etc, so that you possibly could never be tracked. Use TOR on top of it all, and now you might, just might, reach tin foil hatter stage.

I'd have to agree - will the world be a poorer place without any of these "applications? With the exception of Fanhattan, the rest are just lists relatively easily gotten straight off the web pages of Netflix with some trivial scraping scripts.

A bitter OpenSSL proponent?

You can also get a prepaid sim over there, and use that. The GSM/LTE sim based phones are far better in that regard than the old locked in pre-SIM phones.

No, the problem was you then, and you now. You were using a hammer as a drill. Everything else you said is irrelevant criticism. But go ahead and continue your rant, nothing to see here.

Considering .NET (C#) copied 95% of Java, is it so surprising that this is exactly how things are in the Java world? The gp doesn't have a clue. I sometimes would like to send the red stapler of shame (with several slams) to whomever decided not to print a stacktrace for an unusual error, sometimes even omitting the message. (This is called swallowing exceptions). Yeah, so stacktraces are long. Yes, in JBoss especially, they can run 3 pages. That's not the fault of Java, but of JBoss and it's endless layering of filters. I've written programs of large size (100s of K LOCs) where the longest stacktrace in the logs is less than 20 lines. In fact, 1100+ line stacktraces are a major sign of bad design, IMNSHO.

Hmm, "one experence [sic]"? It appears that your total lack of knowledge of Java may have skewed your view. Java was never meant to integrate with the DOM, for instance, nor with JS, so attempting to do that is like hammering a wet noodle into a circuit board. You are correct on one point, Flash needed to die around the time of VB3. It would have saved everyone lots of pain. (I'm aware you didn't exactly say that;)

I certainly did - who cares? If I make a machine that can do the same job, but may or may not also be able to use the trademarked kwik lok tabs, there's no violation. If it only worked with kwik lok tabs, then you'd have a problem, but only in that you'd have to buy official kwik lok tabs. The machine itself is fine either way.

The biggest problem with general jury duty is it is unbounded. If it was a guaranteed - I go and 8 hours later I'm done, or even in special cases 1 week and I'm done, that would be fine. With today's technology, it would be simple enough to condense down the case to less than 4, 8 or even 40 hours of video testimony (objections and grandstanding lawyers would be erased, for example) so that the jury only sees what all sides agree they should, and blammo, the jury reviews said testimony in the time given, then however long it takes to reach a verdict and done.

Even better, the jury could be selected when the video is done, so the trial could go on as long as the lawyers want it to, but the jury doesn't have to deal with their delays and extension nonsense. Jury duty didn't used to take over 12 people's lives for weeks just because some douche drank and drove and wrecked, killing someone. That kind of thing used to be - was the defendant drunk and did they do 'a'? Yes? Jury - guilty! Not some presentation of 90 days of history of how their parents neglected them, a sibling or spouse abused them, how life was unfair to them, etc etc etc.

But it doesn't stop someone from building a closer machine of their own once the patent has run out. They might even be able to utilize the Kwik-Lok tabs, in addition to other tabs.

You'll note that there has been a dearth on tinfoil hatter jokes since Snowden.

This occurs automatically with small, localized ownership.

Decentralization for wire ownership is the answer. The wires are owned by local municipalities, and ISPs provide services over those wires. With fiber, there's no excuse not to go this route. The feds can tax and provide service to disadvantaged areas much like the Universal Service Fund now, in fact, there would need be little to no change there. Just that the wires belong to the local municipalities, and they cannot sell the property, only maintain and improve it as necessary. Cities, counties, states, etc, can work to improve the infrastructure, but at it's core, it's still locally owned. What else matches this pattern? Roads, railroads, the electrical grid and various pipelines all at least started this way, as does the global internet. So there's no reason this particular component cannot be handled this way at a more local level and finally remove the evil specter of Ma Bell and its wanna be clones.

Running buggy crap on a new OS isn't any better than running dedicated legacy on old hardware/software, IMNSHO. Having rewritten more than one system to migrate from 10+ year old legacy code into something approaching the modern world will make you appreciate modern tools a lot.

But you're right in one thing - I haven't explicitly nailed the reason spreadsheets are terrible - hard links vs relative links, no error checking, link across multiple pages, functions spanning multiple rows/columns/pages for values that seemingly are unrelated, all because last week/month/year/decade that particular page had a number that made sense that particular day but no one since remembers why. the list goes on - spreadsheets are entirely unstructured and unconstrained when it comes to creating "code". That fudge factor that "Joe" threw in for an estimate never got removed, now your investor reported numbers are all skewed by it, but no one knows. etc etc etc.

I guess that's way more than one reason. At least with real code, things are usually more deterministic and easier to unravel.