They never are. It is the clueless users, of which there are plenty. As Linux gets more popular, it gets more of them. We have a lot where I work at a university. Grad students will decide they want to have a Linux system for something they are researching. They won't consult IT, they just go grab whatever distro they've heard of and install it. Then they start turning on every feature they can, SSH, web, etc, anything any of their software asks for or anything they think might be neat. They leave it on all the time and don't mind after it. Then it gets owned, and they are surprised.

I care about malware notices not for my own system, I've never had any case of any kind of malware since I'm vigilant in my security. I care because I work in IT and have to deal with people who are not careful. Also because the more of these infected systems there are, the shittier a place the Internet is in general.

Cheaper than TT, very easy to use, and it works well. Ya I could do it myself but in addition to being a fair bit of paperwork and math (I think about 15-20 pages between federal and state in my case) I don't want to have to look up any rule changes or breaks that might apply to me and the tax software has all that programmed in. I'm way too lazy to do them by hand, and they aren't complex enough to be worth paying an accountant to do for me.

Only downside is they want more money to e-file a state return. No problem, I just print it and mail it. E-file is convenient but no big deal.

Far from helping ISIS's message, it hurts them in most of the world. Never mind how angry it had made various Middle Easter nations (Jordan the most of course) it is the kind of thing that'll hurt their recruitment with western youths. It's much harder to glorify them as valiant freedom fighters when you see shit like this. When the killing is impersonal it is easier to write it off as just "war against the infidels" or whatever. When you see cruelty up close, it makes it a hell of a lot harder to ignore.

You realize even taking taxes in to account, most people make a lot less than that and do just fine, right? When you see income reported, it is normally pretax. If you think most people are making more than 90,000 Euro a year, you are really out of touch. That's a lot of damn money, in any country, enough to live well. You aren't rich, but you are doing just fine.

Most carriers the cost of a phone is rolled in to your plan. So you keep a phone longer than the 2 year contract, well then that does you no good. Tmobile charges you only if you have a phone payment plan (interest free) if you BYOD or pay off the phone, your cost goes down.

Or, on the flipside if you want a new toy all the time they have a plan that adds $10/month, but lets you trade in your phone every 6 months for a new one. You end up paying a lot monthly (cost of the phone payment + $10) but you can get shiny new toys all the time if that's your thing.

They are the only company that aren't assholes about how they charge IMO.

Also the thing that really sells me is that you don't need network extenders/pico cells to get coverage in hard to reach spots, the phones will do wifi calling. Works great at work since we have wifi in all our buildings, but cell service is non existent in the basements. No problem, phone just hops on to WiFi and it is good signal everywhere.

...now they need to find someone that has a 14nm FinFET process since Intel isn't that interested in selling theirs. That seems to be the biggest issue holding people outside of Intel back these days is I hear a lot of talk about 20nm and smaller, but I'm not seeing much in the way of delivery, products still seem to be 28nm by and large.

I think it may be a bit over optimistic to think that TSMC will be doing 14nm by next year, given their recent history of over promising and under delivering on process technology. Perhaps Samsung will fair better, we'll see.

These are separate charges. In the case I'm talking about the whacko killed a number of people, and injured more. Some of them were just ordinary civilians, and so it would be Arizona law that would cover it. However some of them were federal employees and federal law would cover it. So he could be tried for some of the crimes under state law, some of them under federal. No jeopardy problems with that.

As a defense lawyer you have to work with what you have, and sometimes you have jack and shit. My friend is a lawyer that worked for the public defender's office and of all his clients, there was only one who he wasn't sure of their guilt. So all he could do is see if the state made any procedural mistakes which could get the case dismissed (which they did sometimes) or try to talk the client in to taking a plea. If they wouldn't he'd have to go to trial with an already-lost case. He'd try his best, as both the law and his personal ethics required, but the defenses were usually pretty damn weak ass and far fetched. I mean what else can you do?

Private defense attorneys can fire their client, but PDs have to work with what they have. Also private attorneys will usually work with a client, unless they are really problematic. If they say "Look you have no hope, take the plea, you are going to jail," and the client says "fuck no I want a trial," they'll still do it rather than dump the client. They'll just warn them up front about what is going to happen.

In the case where there's a state and a federal case, often the state will step aside and let the feds try theirs first and if they get the conviction, leave it with that. That is what happened with the loony who shot Gabby Giffords and others in Arizona. AZ had murder and attempted murder cases against him, but so did the federal government, since he killed a federal judge and tried to kill a congressman. AZ let the feds arrest and try him, so they incur the cost of imprisoning him in their facilities. He's away for life anyways, so it doesn't matter. In the event the federal case had failed, AZ could have then stepped in and moved forward on their charges.

Education isn't just about what is in the class curricula, it is also about learning social skills, and just learning to deal with life. This is particularly true for a smart kid. I was an above average performer in school academically, but I had a tough time with social skills, and with learning to respect people I perceived to be my intellectual inferiors. Public school helped me with that a lot. I was exposed to people from all walks of life and learned that even if you are the Smartest Motherfucker in the Room(tm) that doesn't mean the other people are worthless or that you are better and oh, often you aren't the smartest even when you think you are.

Also it can be pretty hard to teach a really well rounded curriculum when it is just one person. You never know the stuff that may end up being valuable. For me? Various English class and speech class, bar none. They helped me overcome my fear of speaking in front of groups, and honed my communication skills. That is the second thing people will judge you on (after your looks) and it has helped me professionally plenty. All the math I did? Not useful, despite being in computers. Algebra is all I needed.

Plus for smart kids something that can be valuable to learn is that ya, maybe things move at a slower pace than you'd like, you need to STFU, deal with it, and do the work because actual jobs will have that too. You are not going to find some magic position where you are always stimulated, always challenged. Real life will be mired in BS too, so learn to deal with it.

I'm not trying to say public school is perfect, but in general I still feel it is by far the best option.

Also where I work (a university) we notice the same: The public school kids tend to do the best on entrance tests over all. A diploma and given SAT score gets you in the door, but you still have to pass university administered proficiency tests to determine what level of English and math you get in. You see a lot more home school kids getting stuck in the remedial classes than public school kids, including some smart home schooled kids. They just didn't learn what they needed to for university, in the university's estimation.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask Dara O'Brian to respond to this one for me:

"They say 'oh herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years,' indeed it has and then we tested it all and the stuff that worked became 'medicine' and the rest of it is just a nice potpourri."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Turns out most people aren't good self-motivated learners. You find that if you have the "courseware" kind of model where people can just go and watch lectures and do assignments at their own pace the attrition and failure rate is very high. People just won't do what they need to do. They need a more structured environment to succeed. Now you can get all self superior and say "Well they should just work harder and not suck!" but we have to deal with the real world and that means educating all types of people.

My boss got us smartphones back in the Windows CE days, because he's a huge geek like the rest of us. The problem was that while work was willing to pay for the phone part the data was WAAAAY too expensive so we didn't have that. Combine that with lackluster wifi availability and the fact that you had to manually turn it on and off because it drained battery out of range, and we didn't end up using the "smart" portion much. Not because it was too hard to use or any of that BS, but because there just wan't the ability.

Now, data is cheap, and my phone auto roams on and off of wifi, and work has complete wifi coverage. So I use my smartphone often for its "smart" features. It is always on data of some kind and like you, I never get near my cap, particularly because it is usually using wifi.

That is the biggest thing that changed and made smart phones useful to me, and others I know. It because affordable and practical to use the smart features. Data is something that is an included feature in most phone plans these days. $40/month can get you a line with some data.

Another thing that changed is just the progress of technology mainly the processors. Before switching to Android I had a Blackberry, which I loved, except for its slow CPU. Due to the excessive amount of JavaScript and such shit on most websites, browsing with it was slow. Not so much waiting for data, but rendering. However I not can browse whatever I want, my phone has a very high power CPU in it that can deal with all that shit, so it isn't too much slower to load a page than on my desktop.

Touchscreens and such weren't the thing that changed it for me. I still liked Blackberry's real keyboard + scrolly ball interface. It was having an affordable data plan plus a processor capable of handling the BS of the modern web.

If you choose not to use the tools available, well don't expect anyone to have sympathy for you or marvel at how hard you had it. You've only yourself to blame. When I wish to mount something in my house I get out a laser level, cordless electric drill with titanium bits, and so on. As such things get put up easily, quickly, and dead level. You could do the same with a rock and sharpened metal pieces, but don't expect me to be impressed with how long it took you or the problems with the results. You could use modern tools, if you chose.

Because sorry, but that's really what they've become. If each was a masterpiece like the original book, I'd be all on board. However they aren't. They are a mess of characters nobody cares about.