Didn't Douglas Adams cover this?

Well, if someone does the "shotgun trick" with the starling, maybe in 30 years someone will be waxing poetically about the starling and how it used to cover the skies and the peculiar sound it made.

Live flocks of birds make noise and shit. Dead flocks of birds make ornithologists nostalgic.

Seriously, all I see in a Bitcoin is a number on a computer. That's it. Where is the value?

Before you get all into the fiat currency argument; yeah, I understand *that*. But (for example) the U.S. dollar has an accepted value that (I'd argue) that isn't completely independent of goods and services produced in the U.S. Yes, you have to *believe* that fiat currency has value, but there is something indirectly tangible behind it for the U.S. dollar and other currencies.

Bitcoins, not so much. It is a number on a computer. It may be a fiat currency in the purest sense, which means you need to make sure everyone *truly* believes it to have value, in the same way some people believe the earth is flat or in unicorns. It really is like getting an answer from an ouiji board - as long as everyone agrees you get an answer that has some value.

When the bitcoin fanbois get distracted by the next New Shiny paradigm-buster, bitcoin will not be worth the electrons it is printed on.

Ummm...you need oxygen to burn stuff.

Electric cars are not ubiquitous because range and ability to charge is a concern. Charging stations are not ubiquitous because electric cars are not ubiquitous.

Gasoline automobiles were able to take off when they were invented because the liquid fuel infrastructure was in largely in place prior to their invention. Kerosene for lamps was distributed by metered pumps that were easily converted to dispense gasoline.

Establishing a standard charging station would allow companies to make the investment in charging infrastructure, confident that it would be widely applicable to different vehicles and would not disappear overnight. When you can pull into the CircleK and purchase a few kWh of juice while grabbing a burrito, that's when electric cars will really take off.

I'd hack a sign to say "KISS HER YOU FOOL" or "THAT FELT GOOD". That should make things interesting.

If you treat email as if it were a postcard that anyone can read, and you don't provide information on the interwebz that you wouldn't be willing to shout out on a street corner (SSN, credit card number, etc..) you're good. If you think any online security is actually secure against a dedicated attack, you're going to get pwned.

If you're less concerned about "security" and more about "freedom of speech", the same rules apply. In this day and age, if you say something (via postcard, on a streetcorner, on the phone, or via the interwebs) that pisses off someone with power, all I can say is send my regards to Gitmo and assume the position, because you will be fucked if it tickles their fancy to do so. If they decide to dig up stuff on you, they'll find it, encryption be damned.

There is nothing especially new about this - people who say things against the authorities out loud historically often met bad ends. The only difference these days is that many people are happily entering that data into the internet database and greatly simplifying the work the government has to do to identify and track them. If you think security through obscurity works, well, you're assuming that the government would be unwilling to scoop you up and 5 or 10 innocent bystanders.

...Duh?

The non-American world is happily sitting at keyboards and attempting to hack the evil U.S. to pieces. Is this really a surprise to anyone?

It is a shame the next corpse still won't have life.

FTFY

I'm not a software engineer, just a user, but why do we need to have new OS versions every fucking year? Really, couldn't Microsoft have an OS that looks largely like Windows 3.1 or XP or whatever to the user, but is streamlined and patched to modern standards of security and interoperability?

I'm not trying to start a flame war, but really - as a user I see more change in software as churning to turn a dollar vs. actual improvement. A model where a software might be patched and "recalled" for improvement for a long period of time would be much more satisfactory than the jiggles in UI format that seem to introduce more bugs than improvements.

And yeah, this costs money to do. What cost <X> would I have to plunk down *once* to sit and enjoy an stable OS that were patched and upgraded ad infinitum (or until I died, close enough)?

This must-churn-a-new-shiny-every-reporting-quarter is bullshit. I need a stable OS that I can operate for years without relearning everything. Is such a business model even possible?

The writer of this article knows jack shit about nuclear plant operations. Ever get a look at the inside of a nuclear containment, especially the older ones with lots of modifications? Just being a human in a coverall getting around can be a PITA, never mind adding an exoskeleton. And the exposure to a worker in a normally operating plant is minimal and very well understood. Exoskeleton not needed, thanks.

This is a solution looking for a problem, or a sentient robot desperately looking for work to feed his family of toasters.

If the plant goes bad like Fukushima, then maybe, but both humans and robots can get fried pretty quickly if they wander into a high radiation environment. I'd rather be able to run away quickly if my counter spiked wildly instead of being encumbered with a lot of metal. Even better, I'd rather just send in some cheap disposable robots to map the danger regions.

Yeah, I think you get my drift. The problem is really with the user interface and the experience, not necessarily with the underlying capabilities of the OS.

If users are confused and frustrated by trying to do simple things with the OS, the "advanced features" are pretty much invisible, no matter how great and innovative they may be.

When your business leaves your customers wondering "What the fuck am I paying for again?", you have a problem.

Windows has jumped the shark. It's all downhill from here.

Many folks have finally tired of Microsoft just churning the interface just to make a new product. All that did was alienate the users that had grown accustomed to menu interfaces in Office and the Start menu. Paying to buy a whole new version of the OS and then dealing with the headaches of just trying to figure out how to just get back to the capability the user had before the change got really old.

The problems with Windows 8 are not necessarily with the features. Windows 8 may be the best OS under the sun, but most users won't ever know that because it is buried under one of the most craptastic PC user interfaces contrived. Folks probably would be happy to have the core features of Windows 8 if the menus and buttons looked familiar to the last version. They do not.

I finally went to Linux simply because they kept a lot of the UI features like menus and start buttons that Windows abandoned. Linux really is now at a point where it is an easier OS to transition to from Windows XP and 7 vs transitioning to Windows 8. That is not because Linux interfaces improved dramatically (though they are better than they were) but because Windows 8 broke a lot of UI features that the users really liked and wanted.

Happy trails Microsoft, best wishes from a formerly happy customer from the Windows 3.1 days. Friendly advice - stop pissing off your loyal customers and give them what they want to see.

You'll shoot your eye out!

...dem radioactive urine-packin' kittehz.

Yeah Kittehz!

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