We learned wordperfect for dos in school because "thats what people use at work"... When i left school, wordperfect for dos had disappeared.

To be fair, the time you were using WordPerfect for DOS was when schools were still coming to grips with this "computer thing". They knew that "computers" were a big deal and they would continue to be a big deal when you got out into the workforce and so, not knowing what was going to happen in the future (and sure as heck having little resources) they did the best they could.

I mean back when I was in sixth grade we were being taught how to program in BASIC on an Apple ][, not because it was this great problem solving exercise, but because at that time there wasn't a whole lot that computers could do yet (that a middle school teacher could teach, that is). As a result when I got to college I knew a number of people my age who couldn't maneuver Microsoft Word to save their lives but they could program in PASCAL for some reason.

Not that this detracts from your point, but your particular example wasn't because your school was clueless, it was because it was the best anyone could do at that time.

Seemingly altruistic social media site which performs a useful service to millions of users for free turns out to have business plan to profit from people's usage of the site, and does not in fact exist just to be free.

I'm disheartened to realize that there are still people who do not get this concept. Of course Instagram is going to sell your photos and not cut you in on the deal. You agreed to it in the T&C. Even if it wasn't in the T&C, the clause of "oh hey we can change this at any time with no notice and you proactively agree to any changes" is probably in there. Why in the hell did you think they set up this service? Because they want to "connect people through social experiences"? Fuck no, they want to sell this shit to whomever will pay for it.

Same as Facebook. Same as TwitPic. Same as every other site that does this for free.

You should just assume anything that you put online will be sold to the highest bidder and adjust your habits accordingly. If you don't what that photo of your dick to be on a porn site don't put it on Instagram.

When you get into using it, you'll see that it's a bit more involved than "browse to game name and hit go". I thought the same thing but there's some hurdles to overcome, as evidenced by how Valve has lists now of "controller-friendly titles" and "partially controller-friendly titles"

Why would you ever expect the surface to be $200?

It was the rumor a while back. Gruber made the point that $199 would be a very aggressive play against the iPad, but that if it wasn't true (and it wasn't) then it's the sort of thing Microsoft set themselves up for by announcing an iPad competitor without pricing in tow for several months (as opposed to Apple which announces products with prices)

Citation Needed

This story has buried the lead. All anyone's going to talk about is Woz this and Cloud that, when the real news should be that somehow people are continuing to pay money to go see Mike Daisey put on his one-man show that, despite coming across as if he's telling a true story about what he did, has in fact been proven to be largely false. It became quite the embarrassment for the radio show This American Life when they aired portions of it as being true after he lied to them about specifics of the story.

It's because you can rely on a developer to be able to figure out the right way to do things even if he has to go through menus and such. The average person will just uses spaces instead of tabs because they don't know what they're doing

But she said the family's main concern was the lack of understanding from TSA agents that they were dealing with a 4-year-old child, not a terror suspect.

Umm, devil's advocate: why can't the 4-year-old girl be considered a terror suspect?

I mean, once we start saying things like "well she can't be a terrorist, she's a grandmother!" or "she can't be a terrorist, she's just a 4-year-old girl!" aren't we essentially letting the world know that these are the loopholes that can allow you to get past the TSA?

Do I think the 4-year-old girl was a terrorist? No. Do I think it's impossible though? No.

You're a terrorist cell. You need to get the (whatever) to your guy on the inside so he can hijack/blow up the plane. You find a family in a generally unsuspecting demographic. You kidnap the mother. You tell the father that unless he has his 4-year-old girl smuggle (whatever) to the terrorist who has already crossed the gate into the terminal you will kill the mother. The little girl won't actually be on the plane, she'll just be giving the (whatever) to the terrorist, then she's free to go and the father gets his family back.

Is that a movie plot? Sure. Is it likely to happen? I don't know but probably not.

But is it completely unreasonable to pat down people who don't fit a terrorist stereotype? No.

I missed this article yesterday since I was too busy huddling into a basement to avoid tornadoes so I doubt anyone will read this comment, let alone moderate it, but I think there's a small bit of information that might be essential here.

Something that people should realize is: Dallas Love Field, which is where this incident occurred, is a relatively small airport.

Dallas has two airports, Dallas Love Field and the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW Airport). Dallas Love Field was the first airport (it's the one JFK flew into right before his assassination), DFW Airport was built in the 1970's.

Dallas Love Field is 1,300 acres and has one terminal. Until a few years ago only one airline flew out of it, Southwest Airlines (there's four airlines now). DFW Airport is the second largest in the country at 18,000 acres, five terminals (that have to be traversed by monorail) and dozens of airlines flying in and out.

The reason I point this out is that there's a lot of outcry in this discussion of "why did this shut down HALF AN AIRPORT" and I think most people are thinking it's DFW Airport they're referring to in the article, not Dallas Love Field (as in, most people not in the Dallas area might think that Dallas Love Field is the main airport of the Dallas area). The reason they shut down half the airport is because the airport is not very big to begin with. The isolated area of DFW Airport that would have been shut down in the same instance is probably the same size as the half of Dallas Love Field they did shut down.

Not that this justifies putting students in handcuffs but I thought I'd point out that the scale of the reaction needs to be considered.

That doesn't mean the show is funded by NPR any more than if a McDonald's employee sells me a necklace it would mean McDonald's is in the jewlery business.

Actually I think for most people that would mean McDonald's is in the jewelry business. Same as jewelry stores. I think what you meant to say is that it doesn't mean McDonald's is in the jewelry creation and manufacturing business.

Apple devices are consumer electronics, they're designed to be replaced every year. You're supposed to go out and buy another iPhone or iDevice at the next keynote speech. That's what you're supposed to do.

You are wrong in so many ways that it's pretty amazing. Apple supports iPhones with OS upgrades for at least three years, historically. And you're signed in for a two year contract so no, you're not supposed to buy a new one every single year.

I prefer to have a device that is rugged and the vendor is not just trying to milk me into buying the next one.

You're taking offense to the fact that Apple is trying to entice people into buying their new phone? Tell me what vendor you're using that isn't trying to get you to buy the next one. If you say HTC I'll smack you. And as per that chart above, good luck finding another vendor with the long term support of OS upgrades.

at what point would a variant of the board game Monopoly be different enough to ensure Parker Brothers couldn't sue you?

I don't know for certain, but it appears that as long as you don't call it "Monopoly", don't feature the same graphics and fonts (i.e., the train logo), and don't use the same street names, you can do whatever you want.

Meet Late for the Sky Games. They are a company that, as near as I can tell, is 100% Monopoly clones like you describe. They make them for colleges (Aggieopoly, Longhornopoly), cities (Miamiopoly), little kids (Pirateopoly) and apparently they'll even make a custom version for you if you'll buy 1,000 units. As you can see, they even use the "-opoly" suffix. They've been doing this for decades now.

I believe it's that the rules of a game can be patented, but patents expire, and Monopoly is an old game. That's how they "get away" with it.

Also I believe that this is the reason that Parker Bros. went hogwild on the licensing thing (Star Wars Monopoly, Dallas Cowboys Monopoly, Hello Kitty Monopoly, etc.) because they saw companies like LFTS (who have apparently sold 7M copies of their games) and said "well shit, we should get in on that"

Since the '90s, it's all been PCs.. I do still miss the days of the diversity of home computers (Sinclair spectrums, Dragon 32, Memotech MTX, C64, Amiga, Atari, Oric and so on!).

The diversity you pine for is currently around in the form of the mobile phone hardware/platform wars.

Stallone explains it here in Question #9.

Be careful what you ask for...

This is the third code release since the Zenimax acquisition (the first being the DOOM Classic iOS source and the second being the Enemy Territory source).

Also, just prior to the Zenimax acquisition they released Wolfenstein 3D Classic on iOS, a port which would not be possible (or at least nearly as easy) had it not been for open source. Someone took the Wolfenstein 3D source and the Quake 2 source and combined them to make an OpenGL port of Wolfenstein 3D. Carmack used this for a base. He also used prBoom as the basis for DOOM Classic on iOS.

So basically he was able to make the case that open source actually made money for id in the long run (he mentioned this at QuakeCon a few years back)