It looks like they forgot to turn the Windows Firewall to "on" and set the Internet Security Zone to "High". That should prevent all hacks, right? /me ducks

I suppose it was a disgusted rhetorical... ;-)

My big problem was "change default audio device". :-)

Very anti-intuitive. I had to go through Metro to Win7 wrapper of XP menu for legacy NT/95 control panel. Ow.

The common denominator apps for Web, Twitter, Maps, Angry Birds, MP3 player and whatnot are basically equal across platforms. You can easily adapt to the peculiarities of one, so that the familiarity becomes an actual asset. Differentiation is then minor preferences in form factor, UI idiosyncrasy, etc.

But when you get to serious applications for music recording, editing and processing - or astronomical observation - or organising a rock climbing expedition - or any other rather specialised pursuit?

iOS is really the leader space. Because the tablet really is all about the apps. I can do everything from replace a 4-track studio to manage XBMC/Kodi, before a jailbreak. Nobody bothers with this stuff for Win or Droid. They seem destined for Spotify not Garage Band.

Neal Caffery? Is it you?

Oceania has ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR with East Asia.

Jackson ends up telling NO story - just a vomit of computer-guided coloured lights. Sound and fury, signifying nothing...

I was more worried about replenishing Red Vines, than seeing what happened next.

As a result, the money is stolen not from the customers, but from the bank itself.

"Party on, Garth."

Bizarre argumentation. One hardly knows where to begin with your assumptions and red-herring analogies.

To address your first point - with it's ill-considered implications of parity between democracy, capitalism and actual worth or value: Commercial success at this scale simply indicate how thoroughly that vulgarity and thoughtlessness have been cultivated and encouraged by this media-driven culture over the past 90-100 years or so.

When people make "free choices" in such a society, they do so in appalling ignorance, with a maximum of empty stimulation. This is the post-Edward Bernays world.

The vulgarity of this decadent age. So? He rapes the corpse of JRR Tolkien and that's just fine if it earns a bauble and a penny?

That was a case of "resource constraint".

Exactly.

I AM one of those "small musicians and authors".

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does....

It's actually a tragedy and missed opportunity, that Jackson has so little talent as a director, and so little discipline in telling a story.

I was appalled by how little he regarded the audience - and proportionally insulted his actors - in "Desolation". Huge musical cues 'instructing' the audience of the drama or character development that was supposed to be on screen, at all times. This seems to be because he cannot elicit real performances from his actors.

I might muse that this is because to Jackson, they are not actors - but merely the armatures on which he templates his green-screen composited glory... But to assume that this is the root of his deficiency, rather than another symptom of of his artlessness, would be to succumb to curmudgeonly urges.

The lesson to be taken away is that Jackson should be designing games, not ruining popular cinema.

It appears that - despite the contempt it provoked in my teenaged self - Rankin and Bass actually produced the best ever adaptation of Tolkien, with the greatest respect and truth towards the source text in feel and substance. Perhaps, when we have destroyed the concept of copyright as a tool of corporate greed, another - more thoughtful - filmmaker might use this as a point of departure for a loving and well-crafted "Hobbit".