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Comment Re:Who would have thought (Score 1) 194

I have seen perfectly sober drivers go the wrong way on a roundabout.

I have never seen this. Ever, not even with blind drunk drivers. Not even with the ditziest of SUV drivers and Australia has a hell of a lot more roundabouts than the US.

and that is exactly why you have never seen it because people encounter them more and thus learn to use them in US they are rare enough that people don't learn to use them properly.

Comment Re:What a great move! (Score 1) 352

...because Windows is such a well loved brand!

What will consumers think of when they get to the cellphone store. Do you want the phone made by Apple (immediately associated with status) Google (the guys that make the internets in the mind of joe sixpack) or Windows (immediately think of the blue-screen or "this program has just performed an illegal operation dialog [translated you just lost three hours of work on the project the boss wants dialog]").

Which is the consumer going to pick social status symbol, gift of the internet gods, or the product associated with frustration and fail?

Comment Re:Too late ... (Score 1) 352

I'm sure Blackberry used to say the same about the various upstarts that tried to dethrown them... and we know how well that worked out.

Blackberry sat on its laurels and didn't try to innovate or court the consumer market instead aiming to the corporate market which was killed by the popularization of the Bring.Your.Own.Device policy.

Comment Re:Who would have thought (Score 4, Insightful) 194

Why does version 2.0 of your application still not have all its features?

Because code takes time. And you can't just manpower your way through it.

A roundabout is simply nothing more than a right hand turn at a yield sign, followed by an exit ramp. If your application can't handle that, then why the hell is it on the road in the first place? And what connection does this have to what *other* drivers do?

I have seen perfectly sober drivers go the wrong way on a roundabout. Self driving cars in a beta if not alpha program having to contend with asinine drivers like that would understandably need human intervention remember this is not a finished product, not even a release candidate, it is a limited alpha release it will be improved by the time it gets to market.

Comment Re:HALO (Score 1) 368

No it would not have to be reverse engineered again as even though they now own it, it is still available and under the gpl v2. So that would be impossible for Microsoft to shutdown as it would be forked the next day and you can't retroactively re-licence someone else’s copy of gpl'ed software, remember GPL is viral and thats a good thing.

Unfortunately the Minecraft server code wasn't clean-room reverse engineered, it was decompiled. Microsoft has a decent legal leg to stand on and the money to back it up to say that the GPL'd code was a copyright violation and is not legally usable.

That doesn't matter any more as Bukkit was bought up by Mojang the people that own the original copyrighted on the Minecraft Server that was decompiled to create Bukkit in the first place. So now as the same entity now owns both Bukkit & Minecraft Server, and as Mojang continues to distrubute and develop Bukkit under the GPL, it is now leagle and abides by the term of said license. As such any fork of Bukkit would now be legitimate and covered by the gpls redistribution clause eg; "the no takesies backsies clause"

Comment Re:Thermodynamic equilibrium is not required (Score 1) 211

It's a fallacy that entropy always increases ON EARTH, and therefore life is impossible to have evolved naturally, because it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. That's only true in a closed system, which most definitely the Earth is not. There's this "Sun" bombarding the planet with energy, constantly.

Stop bringing thermodynamics into biochemical or origin of life questions. It's irrelevant.

Yes energy is constantly added but without a system to use it it only increases entropy think uv radiation and Dna the energy there disorders the system rather than maintains it.

Comment Re:HALO (Score 2) 368

If that happened everyone would just stick with the old version and tell Mojang-rosoft to f*ck itself. Just like open-source reveres engineered bukket server became the default Minecraft server for most servers the cracked client would become the default. As is many people run old versions already just to maintain compatibility with various mods already so its not that much of a stretch. I bought Minecraft specifically because they have Linux support, that would end if MS ever got their hand on it.

Not sure if you're aware what's been happening with that Bukkit server you cite. Turns out, Mojang AB secretly bought it two years ago when they hired away the lead developers. So Microsoft would own Bukkit, too. So it would have to be re-reverse engineered...

I agree... A Microsoft purchase would destroy Minecraft. Microsoft doesn't know how to do Java, or "open", or Mac/Playstation/iPad games... It would become just another banal property that gets milked for Microsoft Entertainment Division profit.

My older son literally burst into tears instantly when I was stupid enough to read the Verge headline out loud. He apparently shares my opinion...

No it would not have to be reverse engineered again as even though they now own it, it is still available and under the gpl v2. So that would be impossible for Microsoft to shutdown as it would be forked the next day and you can't retroactively re-licence someone else’s copy of gpl'ed software, remember GPL is viral and thats a good thing.

Comment Re:Minetest. (Score 0) 368

C++, Irrlicht, Crossplatform including Android.

It doesn't have the 360/XBone, but if you go buy one of those crappy 100 dollar Android Settop boxes from China, it's got you covered :)

Other benefits/detriments: No Java, Lua scripting, some C++ scripting hooks, laggy with exceptionally large collections of modpacks. Everybody things it 'sucks' because they tried it before it had scripting and obv couldn't have improved in the past 2-4 years.

I tried it a couple monthes ago still sucked compared to minecraft it lacked a lot features and wasn't very polished, Compared to a fully modded Tekkit build Minecraft setup it isn't even in the same league.

Comment Re:HALO (Score 1) 368

They should have bought minecraft years ago then. Back when the hype was starting and they could have gotten it for a couple million.

Kinda curious as to how they're going to screw it up.
Forced windows 8 integration?
Port the x-box port back to windows and drop the java version?
Mandatory Realms hosting for multiplayer so they can police it and add microtransactions for diamonds? "10 credits = 1 diamond. Or buy a pack and save! Available packs include the 64 diamond Stack Pack, the 574 diamond Block Stack Pack, or the best value the Diamond Block Dick To Pierce The Skies pack!"

If that happened everyone would just stick with the old version and tell Mojang-rosoft to f*ck itself. Just like open-source reveres engineered bukket server became the default Minecraft server for most servers the cracked client would become the default. As is many people run old versions already just to maintain compatibility with various mods already so its not that much of a stretch. I bought Minecraft specifically because they have Linux support, that would end if MS ever got their hand on it.

Comment Re:Spoon (Score 2) 134

No kidding. For all the talk about Apple's walled garden, Amazon seems to have more crippled devices with higher walls.

And, really, if Microsoft or any other vendor could lock people into their walled gardens they'd do it in a heartbeat.

Not really the fire line of tablets lets you sideload apps I installed fdroid app repository on my kindle fire, which I happen to be posting from. That's not to say their perfect by any means for example you cant replace the keyboard without rooting your device which is just stupid and pain in the ass when I need to use ssh and have no metakeys, yet have symbols for copyright trademark registered and infinity but no tab. There are other minor nits to pick but saying they have a worse garden wall then apple is disengenuos at best.

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