Maybe that depends on the desktop? Could it actually be that some (read whatever you are using) desktops are seriously limiting how different kinds of applications can be integrated degrading the user experience? Bashing the apps might be the wrong way around, as the problem is on the desktop environment.

I've seen a lot of nice Java desktop apps and a lot of bad ones.

I'm in Scandinavia and don't need to use any java applets...

Have you considered that there are tens of banks in Scandinavia, and only a handful require java support in browsers? I would be surprised if such banks did not exist outside Scandinavia too. Just switch to something else (at least for day to day banking if you can't move loans).

Not necessarily. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. People can be terrorists for lots of reasons, but generally of course something they feel strongly about (nationality, religion, race).

If the US army lost a lot of it's might, and China invaded your country (yeah, not going to happen, but play along) what would you do? Would you fully submit to their will, or would you do your best to get them out? Let's say you won't fight back, but others do... Upon trying to find out the "patriots" trying to kick out the invaders they kill 50 civilians for each militant. Half of your relatives are killed without taking part in some combat. Does this make you feel like you did the right thing in submitting to the Chinese invaders, or feel even more like getting rid of them?

I know the analogy does not work, but it's still not that far fetched. I live next to Russia in a country that has previously been invaded by them and regained independence. When we where under their reign any people fighting for independence where considered terrorists, and of course the same thing would happen again if they decided to invade us a second time. Looking from the Russian point of view terrorists would of course be considered the scum of the earth, they did after all invade our weak country in a day, now why can't everybody just submit and play along by their rules?

Having your country invaded generates terrorists. Having your relatives shot and blown to pieces generates terrorists. Having a religious or nationalist nut doing your head in generates terrorists, especially when combined with low education and those previous points.

Some of them are for sure

A few times could be considered an accident, doing it over and over again can not. If the people responsible for those accidents would have repercussions and they would be handled openly then they might be viewed as accidents, now it looks like policy to me.

Drones are killing 50 civilians for each military target, and this is over hundreds of strikes, where does the accident come to play? I really have the highest sympathy towards all victims in Boston, but the civilians in Pakistan are no less worthy humans then you or me.

These guys where not picked up in Cuba, they where apprehended all over the place. 92% of them where not armed combatants, actually 86% where turned in against bounty money which explains that there is no evidence (hey, take about as much money as a local lottery for turning in that annoying neighbour!).

If they are in no mans land it's because the US has attempted to create such a notion, don't think the rest of the world can't see through it.

There are no established norms on how to handle kidnapping civilians from a foreign country? You speak as if all the people held where actually terrorists...

Some numbers released by ACLU after guatanamo had been in use for 10 years: http://www.cairchicago.org/2012/01/11/marking-10-years-since-guantanamos-opening-the-aclu-releases-report-on-guantanamo-detainees/ - 779 detained - 92% where never Al-Qaida fighters - 5% where caught by US military - 86% where turned over to coalition forces for a bounty offer (millions payed in bounties to really poor people) - Youngest captured 13 years old - Oldest captured 98 years old - 21 children prisoned

In January 2012 171 people where still imprisoned. Out of these 41 will not be tried because there is no evidence at all against them, however they will not be released because they are too dangerous. A lot of the prisoners have already been found not guilty, but they are still held there.

The US created this situation. You say "they need a fair and regular trial" and that it was never defined, but even an idiot can see that what these people are getting is not even close to a fair and regular trial (you already have a bunch who will never get a trial because there is no evidence, can't see how that could be twisted to fair and regular). The only way to make the situation feel even remotely fair and regular is to compare against Hitler and Stalin, current dictatorships like North Korea are too close to make the US behavior seem good.

They might not have installed the stuff themselves. For example my mother in law can't install anything herself, and can't even speak a word of English. Some things are localized to her native tongue, others are not. Even the localized apps use wording that she just does not understand, hence her updating the app could just as well be clicking through a phishing sites gui.

Even I won't remember everything, I'll just prefer to have a third party application which keeps track of available updates so that I can click through them when I visit her, and it takes me up to an hour on the old computer even though it's just the most common apps.

I'm sure there is a group of people somewhere between who could actually have the technical knowledge to update the applications with enough certainty that they are really following through the applications own dialogues and not some pop-up from a dodgy page, but all the elderly / teachers / construction workers I know just don't automatically reach that level. It's pretty sad, but that's my experience.

And they will never get approval unless the product goes to EOL. Above this, the longer it takes to lose support, the less likely there will be somebody who knows the system in case and the more work an update will take.

It's not just a user problem. In Linux updates are channeled through a central repository so when a user is prompted to update he will do it to pretty much everything in one go. In Windows he will only be updating system files which have not been the target of exploits lately.

If you look at the last few years of common Windows exploits they have been deployed via bugs in 3'rd party applications, mainly Flash, Java and PDF. It's a user problem that they don't keep those applications up to date, but a system problem that keeping them up to date is too difficult for the average Joe.

OS X is closer to Windows in this regard. They don't have a problem with PDF since the native reader works well and has not contained meaningful exploit vectors, but in regards to Flash and Java the situation has been even worse then Windows. Java updates have lagged badly, and there has been no update mechanism for Sun / Oracle Java. Flash updates have been issued at the same time as Windows but it took ages to have an update mechanism and when it arrived it was flaky and looked so dodgy that I would not dare use it. App store could have offered a central repository like it does for Windows, but none of the vulnerable apps are there, so it does not help.

The user is just one part of the equation. You can of course blame him, but there are some realities you have to accept such as the fact that the user does not understand what's going on with the computer, does not have the patience to read the dialogues etc. With Linux updating is simple enough that even an average user can understand it, but there are other areas where the user will be in trouble.

Cause he did not break any laws there?

I'm on my third or fourth linkedin email despite having it non-visible. They never responded to any messages.

This is how it goes... However if they where smart, they would be able to understand what the background motives of the experts could be, and try to get opinions from several experts with differing motives (preferably also experts who's motives are not financial). This is where politicians seem to fail, at least here in Finland.

Then I turned it on... The thing sounded like an aeroplane taking off. I knew it would be loud, but this thing was just ridiculous. It took up quite a lot of space, so putting it in a data-center would have been very expensive. For a while I was thinking of turning it into a table, then I just sold it off.

I guess I could have rented it to some movie production studios for use as a wind machine :)