The "$99 per year recurring fee to run software you wrote on a machine you own" policy that Apple implemented in iOS was strikingly similar to the "$99 per year recurring fee to run software you wrote on a machine you own" policy that Microsoft had already implemented on Xbox 360.

Only for iOS. OS X still has free Xcode development tools available. They used to ship with the OS, but now it's in the Mac App Store as a separate download. And this started before Microsoft created the Express edition of Visual Studio.

Case in point: Unlike Apple with the iPad, Microsoft has allowed for a free-of-charge developer license on Windows RT, where you pay only once it's time to upload your app to Windows Store.

Great, so Microsoft makes it a one-time payment to code for a dead platform? And given the struggles Microsoft has with their app store(s), it's no wonder Microsoft is trying all sorts of things because developers aren't willing to code for a marginal platform like Windows RT or Windows Phone. They have to make it super cheap or free because developers wouldn't code for it otherwise.

I quickly checked Wikipedia, and most countries seem to stick with at least "Life + 50yr" term. That is a great achievement of the lobbyists.

Some island nations seem to have no known copyright legislation, but they are still usually parties to some limiting international treaties, and also have similar restrictions under other names ("unauthorized copying", etc.)

Seriously, is there no place on Earth with more reasonable terms?

You have to realize that most countries are bound by the Berne Convention w.r.t. copyrighted works. This is simply where all signatories have agreed to respect each other's copyright claims. Before that, well, an author can very well find their work pirated and indeed, one of the biggest industries in the New World Colonies was... piracy. Ben Franklin and others who owned printers realized that copyright didn't apply to them, so they promptly began making copies of everything - books, sheet music, etc.

Given the fairly lame update to the Mac Mini caused mainly by the lack of choices in Intel's mobile CPU offerings (and Apple's refusal to design and stock a separate motherboard just for quad core), I'm wondering just what would it take for Apple to make yet another CPU transition. They must hate being dependent on the release schedules of Intel for when it comes to putting out Macs, and the A8X is nearly the performance of a couple years ago MacBook Air.

Highly unlikely.

First of all, the Mac Mini, like the Mac Pro, isn't a strong seller. Apple pretty much updated it "because it was there" - the Mini was last updated in 2012 and it was lacking all the nice stuff like Haswell.

The only thing is, enough people buy Mac Minis and Mac Pros that they're still relevant, just not enough to put any design effort into. See the iPods - they still sell, but not in huge enough quantities to put much effort making a next-gen version. We're at the A8, and the iPod Touch is running on an A5 core.

Apple went with Intel not because of the roadmaps or delays, but because when intel says they can make a million of a part, they can actually do it. Apple dumped Motorola for IBM when the former over promised and under-delivered (Motorola didn't really care for Apple's business anyways since their embedded PowerPCs were doing quite well). But then IBM had the same problem (and IBM was getting distracted by Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) making high-end G5s, so Apple looked around. They could've gone AMD, but AMD also has issues making high end parts in sufficient quantity, leaving only Intel.

Intel owns super high end fabs, and they have plenty of capacity so when Apple places the order for 1M top end parts, they can be reasonably sure they will get 1M parts within the timeframe specified.

How many times has it been pronounced dead ?
Analog modems ?
Tubes ?
AM Radio ?

I don't know about modems - they do have their uses (getting around internet censorship - interestingly because things like FidoNet generally are uncensored because they take place through phone calls). Short hauls are more likely point to point WiFi or Ethernet.

Tubes still have a purpose - high power amplification and switching where even modern semiconductors perform poorly. If you're a radio station with even moderate power, your finals are most likely going to be a tube because high power semiconductors are not only extremely expensive, perform worse, and you'll need a lot more of them, they don't last as long and have troublesome requirements.

AM radio also has its uses - besides being extremely easy to demodulate without a power source, AM transmissions have characteristics that are superior to FM, which is why aircraft use AM to communicate. FM communications suffer from the "capture" effect, where the strongest signal is the one demodulated by the receiver - weaker signals simply disappear. AM signals though, if you step on someone else, the receiver knows it (the receiver squeals). It's not all useless - if you have a powerful transmitter, you can still "break through" the noise to be understood (ATC towers generally transmit on the order of hundreds of watts, while an aircraft is on the order of tens of watts). However, the ability to detect a collision is extremely important and that's inherent in the AM system. FM systems don't have collision detection mechanisms and can lead to dangerous situations if someone steps in at the wrong time.

My uncle dismantled a Chevy Nova in 4 seconds. He did have some help from a train.

How'd he get one of those to actually, uh, go?

Also, all the speed in the world doesn't do much good with low caps.

All the speed in the world doesn't do much good if you can't stream Netflix in HD. Or your webpages take forever to load because the website didn't pay your ISP. Or your VoIP calls are shitty because the links are so overloaded latency spikes.

I'm curious how you'd know. Did someone trip a content filter/IDS trying to use it or did someone grab a laptop/tablet and demand to see what they were doing?

It sounds pretty fascist to shitcan someone like that, especially if the policy they were fired under wasn't fairly specific about Evernote-type services.

It seems hard to believe someone would risk immediate termination for Evernote. I've known people who liked it but I don't think I know anyone who'd say "Yeah, I like it so much I'd risk getting fired for it."

Probably a little from column A and a little from column B.

If your policy is to not allow cloud services, then yes, Evernote is bad. However, a lot of people only think "cloud services" as those like Google Drive, Dropbox, etc., and don't realize that Evernote too is a cloud service. And given how useful Evernote is, people probably expect it to be like another OneNote - a damn nice note-taking tool. The "cloud" part is completely hidden away and they unknowingly use it.

One-Plus-One, the Android-Cyanogenmod is selling like hotcakes, and it looks like it will outsell the Nexus device. We want privacy, Google Android delivers spyware instead. Cyanogen mod have taken the lead on that issue.

Bad example - I'm sure even the Samsung Galaxy S5 series sells more than the Nexus devices - just by being more available, and popular.

And it comes loaded with triple spyware - Google's, Samsung's, and your carrier's.

Nexus devices aren't huge sellers by any means.

It's much easier to track people by cell phone. The advantage is that you can do that from a mile away, rather than an inch.

Yeah, but what if you know the guy, but don't know his cellphone? Being able to tie a name to a face, an NFC identifier, AND a cellphone turns it into the ultimate cookie.

He changes phones? Well, he's unlikely to change those NFC chips in his hand, so you simply detect nearby cellphones when you scan his NFC tag. Do it a few times and you can narrow down which cellphone it is.

What would typically be the source of the whine/buzz behind a convector heater (non-fan), and an LCD monitor, and an LED bulb?

Header - surprisingly, AC current on a regular wire heater. The coils of heating element do act like an inductor and cause it to vibrate some. Depending on the mount, that vibration can translate into actual vibration of the chassis causing the buzzes.

LCD monitor - the switch mode power supply is generally the cause of it. Practically everything with a SMPS is vulnerable to buzzes/whines because of the way they operate.

LED bulb - a lot of them use a SMPS, so ditto.

The problem is, I just bought a Hershey bar at the store for 99 cents. If it had been 2 or 3 dollars, I would not have even reached for it.

That's retail pricing - you can probably go to Costco and get a box of bars for 1/3rd the price or so. So even if the price went up, the retail price might go up, but maybe not as much as it seems.

Geeks have real issues with the concepts of knowledge and intent mattering in the law. They think something is either ok, or not ok, and if it is ok it is ok in all situations. Of course that's not how the law work. Intent in particular matters a hell of a lot. Something can be illegal or legal just based off of intent, or can be a different level of crime. Likewise if you know you are helping someone commit a crime, that can get you in trouble whereas doing the same thing unknowingly can be fine.

It is complex, because it varies, there are crimes that don't require intent, or crimes where even doing it unknowingly will get you in trouble, but there are others that are not. It is complex with various shades of gray, which I guess is why geeks can't understand it. Many seem to be very binary thinkers and want absolutes in rules, which the law frequently doesn't have.

Easy, because computers are only 0 or 1, black or white, ok or not ok. So geek thinking generally follows that of a computer - always OK, always not OK. Fine shades of grey are an analog thing that has no place in a digital world.

Of course, this leads to interface errors since the real world is most definitely analog and in no way black or white. Even worse, fine shades of grey do certainly matter - you can't just ignore the LSB anymore because that can make all the difference.

Yep - Japan is (or at least was, the last was retired in 2006) the only country in the world to use 747 derivatives essentially as commuter aircraft.

Well, I think they use 777s now. Or other widebody jets.

The reason is there are just so many people per trip that they have to use widebody jets just to keep up. It's not that they need the long-range capacity of the aircraft - they just need the fact those can carry lots of people at one time.

Boeing actually makes a special manual for Japanese customers on how to best load their planes for efficient operations - since those aircraft never reach their regular cruising altitude where they're designed to operate best (the trip is too short). Partial fuel and how to calculate the best altitude for most efficient flight.

Boeing also uses the aircraft for research - since those aircraft accumulate cycles far quicker, they can study and check for long term issues relatively quickly and fix the fleet before it becomes a problem.

Now you not only have to concern yourself with the personal sanitary habits of those with whom you shake hands, but whether they've "cleaned you out", as well.

Question is - does it not seem like a really good way to track someone?

Sure it's not like they can ping you from space to get your coordinates, but it's like license plate readers - they can identify you and where you were when you were scanned.

I just worry that all these Netflix wannabes is going to fracture the content market (with content being hopelessly split amongst competing streaming services thanks to a morass of exclusive deals). It's fine now, with just Netflix and Amazon Prime being serious contenders (and Hulu's half-assed effort pulling up the distant rear). But I see a possible future where I've got 300 different streaming services on my box, all of them wanting a monthly fee--and with me trying to remember which one of those 300 has the movie or TV show I want to watch tonight.

That's the point. No one provider will "have it all" and the content producers have intentionally done it this way. The movie industry saw what iTunes did to the music industry when it basically became the way to get music and the immense power Apple had to force the industry to accept its terms.

So the movie industry is intentionally splitting their catalog across multiple services - Netflix gets some, Amazon gets others, etc., so no one of them will end up being a monopsony.

As for finding which one of the servers? Multi-library search should be available on popular devices. I mean, the Xbox can do it (it you search for a movie or TV show, it'll show you which providers have it), and I think Amazon's FireTV can too as well.