When was the last time you heard Microsoft bash OSS? I'm genuinely curious. I've only seen them pushing code to Git or opening their own specs or frameworks lately (MVC, for instance). I think your point is correct, but I don't think Microsoft is the right example anymore.

And I heard stories of the Dassault Rafale shooting down F-22 with their canon. There'll always be stories of "plane X shot plane Y so plane X is better than plane Y" but that overlooks individual skills (dog fighting), tactical conditions (can't shoot from beyond visual range if the target is flying low in a mountain range) or even strategic considerations (can you afford, both money and time wise, to replace your planes when they go down or need maintenance). The whole problem of military design is to find the right balance between high-technology and affordability. And it seems that lately the US have been shifting a lot more towards the former. Keep in mind that you can live using credits only for so long, and during war times it becomes even more critical.

How can you start a website in 2014 with only iOS apps? What the hell?

Majors should be careful. Pretty soon they won't be able to argue that what they care about is art and the artists. In any case, pretty soon there won't be a need for majors. Most people will self-produce, and if they make enough money by selling direct to the customers/fans (which should be easier than going through a major which takes WAY more than a fair share), then they can go to producers and record in a studio. Then all you need is a proper agent to setup tours and stuff. I genuinely believe that in a modern world major companies are really not that needed. Only the really motivated and good musicians will get ahead of the pack, and that's for the better. Too much shit music these days.

Or over XBMC, really.

What is the advantage of Plex over UPnP/DLNA ?

The problem is that in people's perception, Microsoft and Apple are not only proprietary systems over which nobody but these companies have control (this is not a perception but a reality) ; but are also evolving in a way that is less and less open and would force you to go through them. I'm one of the few people who actually like Windows 8(.1) but I'm really not in favor of Microsoft only allowing applications from the Windows Store in the future. Sure, it's "maybe" they'll do that. But I don't like maybes. If Valve is committing to developing a platform that is more open than Microsoft's, then I'm happy. Maybe Microsoft will keep its own platform open, and in that case it's a win/win situation for me. If Microsoft doesn't, then I still have Valve's.

Let's just hope they don't upgrade their HDDs to SSDs!

If you think having a movie made by Hollywood automatically makes it better, I don't think you know what cinema is. Hollywood is mostly about shock-and-awe, story be damned. I'm not saying all American movies are like this (some are amazing), but just because it's Made In America doesn't make it better. Usually they re-make it because they need to adapt to an American audience (who's not used to be 'influenced' by other cultures, what with being the dominant culture of our times, like France was 100 years ago), and also because reading is hard and people don't want subtitles (or dubbed versions).

I hate this tax. They tax TVs already. Just owning a TV makes you subject to pay the tax, even if you don't watch public TV. I never watch public channels - I mean, never, ever. I use my TV for Bluray, XBMC and Xbox. But I still have to pay the tax. They also tax PC monitors, because you *might* be watching public channels on them. In the past public channels used to be interesting because they were less money driven. You wouldn't have stupid reality shows or Hollywood movies (I have a Bluray player for the later), it would be more "culture" oriented, but even that is going out the window.

The more immediate problem is that a valid Certificate, even if it's "reasonably" signed, costs quite a lot of money. The VeriSign Mafia and others took that market over, and there's no 'free' (as in beer or speech) standardized alternative. I'm working on a number of small- medium-sized projects and if I had to buy a certificate for all of them, that would add up to a hefty sum (the projects are free of ads and subscription, so I make no money at all from them). I wish I had a secure, safe and viable alternative. CACerts.org isn't because their CA isn't in the list of browsers.

I've also personally witnessed that the Dutch tend so speak a much, much better English than the rest of Europe. I'm saying this as a French, who is generally a people who don't speak other languages very well. I believe this is because in the Netherlands almost no English program is dubbed, so people develop a good skill for the language. Since I travel across all of Europe, I've noted that countries that usually dub the English program (Germany, France, Spain, Italy) tend to have a lower English level than the countries who don't (Portugal, Netherlands, Nordics, ...).

I'm all for preserving languages with a strong literary background (I'm mostly familiar with France's, obviously, but I do believe it's known worldwide thanks to people like Victor Hugo, Balzac or other great authors), but when it makes those people basically speak only their native tongue it's a little sad.

What do the 9% remainder do? Watch? Bloody pervs!

"News for nerds." I'm a nerd, I flashed my OCZ SSD. I've had it for 2 years and according to S.M.A.R.T. and my own human perception it's working like a charm. I had it for a good price, and it's got great performance. I'm a rather happy customer. Would I have preferred not to flash the firmware? Yes. Do I care, or is it beyond my skills? No.

Disclaimer: I'm French.

At school I was taught how the French Revolution was an amazing thing. It freed us. It was the end of a time of the absolute, divine right monarchy that France and other European nations had for almost a thousand years. I learned later about The Terror, where nobles would get their heads chopped off. Including the wives and kids, and I reckon some servants too. There's probably been a rape or two, as well, since that's what you get when a mob forms up and there's nobody to police them. They don't teach you much of that when you're at school. I guess it's understandable, since you don't want 12 years old to learn about rape and kids their age being killed just because they were born in the right family. Or do you?

Anyway, I learned much, much later, in my late 20's, that the actual History is much more cynic. It was not "we, the people" (to paraphrase an American concept) who started this. People got riled up by the bourgeois. A bourgeois is a very, very rich commoner. He can hardly hope to ever become a noble. That limits, right there, the richness he can ever hope to achieve. He'll always be looked down from the nobles. He can be killed for talking wrong to a noble. It's better to be a poor noble than a rich bourgeois. So, they didn't like that very much. They started the Revolution. They manipulated the peasants and poorly educated population to do the Revolution. Just so they could usurp the power from the nobles.

Note that I'm personally fine with the fact that we took the nobles out. Nobody should have a birthright over somebody else, just because. This is unfair, this is archaic, and it doesn't make the society move forward. The problem I have with the Revolution, besides the way it's taught (unless you do a History Major you won't hear much of this), is that it replaced one nobility with another. At least the previous one, the actual nobles, where honest about their absolute power. They said "I'm better than you, you're lesser than me, fuck you and fuck off." But the Bourgeoisie, which is still in power today (we call them Oligarchs, because they are the ultimate Bourgeois and there are not so many of them), is much more hypocritical. They will make you think you're in a Democracy, when really you're not. When the Banks can decide whether or not a state will default its credits, after pushing them towards into a mass debt, it's not a democracy. It's an illusion.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, as I just started typing with no set plans for the post. I guess my point is, I'm fed up of hearing we are in a democracy, and we should feel lucky, because more and more I feel I have no choice and no say. Even if my situation isn't as bad as a serf from 400 years ago, it sure as hell isn't as good as the people back them wanted my life to be.