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Comment Re:They. (Score 1) 397

Wasn't that just a reversal of the earlier push to establish gender-neutral "he"? Gender-neutral singular "they" has been in use since the 14th century. Gender-neutral "he" came about in the 18th century but never entirely displaced "they". Depending on which style guide you used, either or both would be considered correct.

What's happening today is simply that gender-neutral "he" is falling out of use since it's ambiguous and has led to interpretation nonsense when people weren't clear about whether a use of "he" was supposed to be gender-neutral or not.

Comment Re:What do you need? (Score 1) 288

TBH, I'd rather lose the numpad than deal with an offset trackpad. I spend vastly more time clicking on things than I do entering numbers. If I were an Excel jockey I could see the need for redundant number entry hardware but as a programmer I'd rather have a centered keyboard and trackpad instead.

Comment Re:What do you need? (Score 1) 288

Those specs look nice but I noticed that it's yet another notebook with the trackpad offset as far to the left as possible. Why it's so hard to get a decent notebook with a centered trackpad? I usually use my right hand to operate the trackpad so a left-aligned trackpad is rather unergonomic - but I wouldn't want a right-aligned one either because I often switch to my left hand when I'm holding something in my right.

It's one of the reasons why I liked Apple's designs until Jon Ives went insane in 2012. Unfortunately my Mid-2012 non-retina MBP won't last forever and at some point I'll have to replace it. I'd like to do so with something that doesn't require me to lug around a portable trackball when I'm on the go.

Comment Re:Why not just use Splenda? (Score 1) 328

Actually, the Mayas and Aztecs didn't really eat chocolate. They made a drink out of cocoa; solid chocolate bars were developed in 1847's Great Britain. Milk chocolate and the modern creamy texture were both developed in Switzerland in 1875 and 1879, respectively. Solid chocolate only became popular after that; the original bars were gritty and bitter (and if you've ever get the chance to try unconched chocolate you'll understand why nobody wanted that shit).

Oh, and you forgot about the Olmecs who first cultivated cocoa well before the Mayas and Aztecs were relevant.

(BTW, I recommend visiting a chocolate museum if you get the chance, especially if you can get a guided tour. Interesting stuff. The Imhoff Chocolate Museum in Cologne is pretty good.)

Comment Re:...Extinguish (Score 3, Informative) 75

Microsoft had nothing to do with this beyond picking up the pieces. Cyanogen Inc.'s penchant for spectacularly bad business decisions (such as offering an unrestricted worldwide license to one company while simultaneously offering an exclusive license for the Indian market to another) doomed the company from the beginning. And PR moves like "We'll kill Google by releasing a product based on one of Google's products." didn't help either.

A shame, really. Affordable handsets with known-good CM compatibility, no crapware and actual, real updates would've been a nice thing. But due to Cyanogen's leadership being farcically inept that just wasn't possible.

Comment Re:Why Debian chroot (Score 1) 79

The ereader format wouldn't be much of a problem. Android allows you to install alternative browsers and those usually support fairly old OS versions. For example, Firefox for Android supports everything down to 4.0, which is five years old now and probably will remain the baseline for what everyone must support for a few more years as some cheap low-end devices are still released with it AFAIK.

Comment Re:Shashdot has had this as well. (Score 1) 96

(for those who say it was a virus on the PC not slashdot, one of these times was on a fresh install of linux)

When the installer asks you if you want to install systemd-scamd you say no.

For the Gentoo users: The openscamd project is set to announce their first release soon so you know what not to compile.

Comment Re:Well (Score 1) 58

Not me but a close friend. He has a 6s, which will be replaced with another 6s if it dies because the 7 is not appealing to him. The lack of a headphone jack is one of the more important factors there.

I'm mainly interested because a) other manufacturers might decide to follow Motorola's example now that Apple did and b) I'd like my headphones to remain compatible between all of my devices, including ones too old to support Bluetooth.

Comment Re:Well (Score 1) 58

It's not that 3.5 mm jacks are perfect and impossible to beat. They just happen to be good enough for most people, usually only becoming unreliable after the device has reached the end of its useful life. In terms of reliability I'd put them about on par with Micro-USB jacks; those can also easily experience forces they weren't designed to handle and will then become unreliable. I don't know how much force Lightning jacks can take.

The main beef many people have is that Apple removed the 3.5 mm jack without supplying an adequate alternative. All options Apple has offered are problematic in some way:

Lightning headphones: Few manufacturers offer these so availability and choice are severely limited. It might be straight-up impossible to obtain Lightning headphones that have all desired qualities (form factor, sound, price etc.). These headphone are also incompatible with any non-Apple device. I didn't bother researching prices but I also suspect that Lightning headphones are a bit more expensive as far as the low-end market is concerned. Also, the only port capable of charging the host device is occupied, which is impractical when - for instance - using the phone while working in an area where it's easy to keep plugged in. Does not allow the host device to be connected to a car stereo that only has a 3.5 mm input port and no Bluetooth support.

Bluetooth headphones: Usually markedly more expensive than similarly capable regular headphones. Choice is limited, especially with in-ear monitors. Limited battery life can cause reliability issues and requires additional maintenance. RF interference and spectrum congestion can affect performance. Pairing might not always work well or might be lost during operation. Use of Bluetooth headphones drains the host device's battery faster than use of wired headphones. Sound quality is dependent on which audio profiles the host device and the headphones support. Also does not allow the host device to be connected to a car stereo that only has a 3.5 mm input port and no Bluetooth support.

3.5mm headphone adapter: Having a dongle attached to the host device makes it less handy and takes up additional space in one's pocket. One might accidentally unplug the dongle while pulling the device out of the pocket. Less control over how exactly the cable is positioned in the pocket (since many people are not going to keep it dongle-up) makes it easier to accidentally kink the cable. Having one more thing to lug around means one more thing that can be lost. Again the Lightning port is occupied.

The downsides of regular 3.5 mm wired headphones are well-known: The jack is moderately fragile and may become unreliable over time. Depending on the precise dimensions of the plug and jack the plug might become easily dislodged from the jack.

The 3.5 mm jack's problems are mainly of a reliability nature. The other options' problems are often about convenience and the inability to do things that used to be possible. There's the main beef: Apple's alternatives are all inconvenient to acquire and/or use or require workarounds to do things that used to be easy to do (such as plugging the device into a car stereo's aux port while powering the device from the cigarette lighter port). Unlike when Apple ditched the floppy drive for USB sticks or ADB for USB HID the change comes with a noticeable reduction in capability and ease of use. That is something worth complaining about in my opinion.

Comment Re:Different ideas, indeed (Score 2) 215

Still, despite Europe getting worse with regards to press freedom, it's still better on average then the United States (who got a lot worse in that regard after 9/11). So despite the rhethoric employed by foreignpolicy.org, Europe is better at freedom of speech than the United states according to that article's source.

Also, again, the United States already have demonstrated a lack of regard for freedom of speech by suppressing the speech of a political enemy. It appears that there is no country or organization that actually respects freedom of speech as a fundamental, absolutely inviolable right - so I'd rather hand the internet over to a committee where a majority has to agree in order to get anything done rather than a single nation that can arbitrarily restrict the speech of people it doesn't like.

Comment Re:Different ideas, indeed (Score 2) 215

I'd think fewer. Getting enough UN countries to agree on something to effect change isn't easy - but under US control all it takes to an entire TLD to be disabled is one call to the DOC as has been demonstrated with .iq. (Even though other factors might have been involved, such as the Tech-C having been arrested, it still coincided exactly with the Iraq War.) So the USA have already shown that they will not guarantee freedom of speech for their enemies.

I'd rather have an internet where TLDs don't get disabled just because the USA decided to pick a fight with the country they're attached to.

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