I busted my smartphone screen about a year ago (The Motorola Droid Razr XT912). I ordered a new screen, and while I waited for my new screen replacement I reactivated my old Blackberry Bold World Tour (I think it was the 8950? Could be wrong).

I actually enjoyed going back to my blackberry for a few weeks, it has a lot of glitches, and it only has 3g support, so it caused a few headaches. But I use my phone as a phone, so the fact that it could call, text, and do my e-mail was plenty for me. I don't ever use the camera, I don't use any apps except a web browser and Pandora. And honestly, I still love the way blackberry handled email and text. I still miss Viigo, which in my mind, is the single greatest app of all time (Blackberry bought it, and ruined it /sigh).

I have a lot of friends that have the latest and greatest, but honestly they are just fanboys. They show me all these "new" features that are "soooo revolutionary" and I couldn't be more turned off. I will never by a phone with a fingerprint scanner, I see that as a security liability. I won't buy a phone that has a higher pixel density than my eyes can even comprehend (it's just wasted power). I won't buy a phone because it has the latest and greatest OS version (that's why I use Cyanogenmod, no bloatware, and all the new features I could want). I won't buy a phone because it has a faster 4G radio, when cell companies have your bandwidth restricted to the point where you'd blow through all your data in a matter of minutes (and restrict your speed after a certain point, even if it's unlimited). I won't buy a phone that I can never truly own, because of a locked bootloader.

Idk how many people out there are like me. But the phone I would buy, is the phone built for the consumer. Not so locked down that the only way I can upgrade or change the OS is with the original manufacturer's permission. A phone built lean, not so crammed with fancy things I don't need it'll cost a few paychecks to replace/repair if I drop it.

But I really see this going more and more in the direction of desktop computing. Where we've started to see the plateau of not technology itself, but the plateau of the technology the average person needs.

If these companies want to keep increasing their bottom line, there needs to be more innovation, and less of increasing performance numbers. I'm no Apple fanboy, but it seems like these companies are just riding out Apple's innovation and then acting surprised that that innovation has a life expectancy.

Maybe Google project Ara is a step in the right direction? Maybe the Amazon phone? Only time will tell.

And China will release nothing.

I saw a video one time where a dev called it sent.aws (so the first part is pronounced like sent, and the last part is pronounced like the OSS as in boss or floss). I have also heard it where the last two letters were pronounced as letters, so sent.OH.ES

Sorry for being cryptic, I'm not versed on proper ways to dictate pronunciations.

I'm no expert, but I believe this depends heavily on the district. I believe some private schools receive Title I funding, but am unaware of the stipulations for said funding.

But at the end of the day our tax dollars are paying for education. Should we not then have the ability to chose the education those dollars go towards?

It's time schools went to free market.

Right now, as it stands, if you can't afford a private school for your child, your only real option is to put your child into the public indoctrination system. The system run by inefficient bureaucrats.

In my county, it costs an average of $12,000 per year, per child. That's for public education. Our most renowned private school is roughly $8,000 per year in tuition. This private school has a top level education. It is not uncommon for children to be held back when transferring to this school, as they have very high standards.

You want to make sure children get a better education? Let them use the money that is being spent anyway, to send their child to whichever school they chose.

This creates competition in the education system. Competition between schools will inevitably lead to competition between educators. Which will inevitably lead to better educations, and a greater variety of educational courses.

You could then offer grant money to schools with specific programs that met specific criteria (like a school that offers a CS class, that proves through some method, that children are competent to some degree, to meet whatever criteria laid out in the grant).

Or we could dump money into the hands of people that have already have shown they have no idea how to handle it.

Kind of ironic one of those repositories is owned by Qualcomm Atheros. Guess they are copyright infringing themselves?

Oh the world we live in.

Lol how the hell did you get bumped to 5? I guess /. doesn't have as many intelligent people as I previously thought.

Yes, MOST guns used in crimes in America were legally purchased, but what you failed to mention is that almost all of them were illegally stolen. /sigh

Lol name one of the only places in Virginia where private firearms are ILLEGAL. Nice going dumbass

go tell that to all those terrorist cells and the vietcong

Yeah, I just lost all respect for Bruce. I respect your father for fighting in the war, and removing the firing pin was his right. But by sharing that story all you really did is show your prejudice.

You talk about traveling the world... Ok, this is something we both share common ground. The U.K. has a higher violent crime rate than the U.S. Oh, of course we have a different view of violent crime than Britain, but even when you account for that, our violent crime rate is STILL lower.

And on top of that, I live in Virginia.... You know how easy it is to get a gun here? Easier than anywhere else in the world I gauranfuckintee it. Go look at our crime rate, and our murder rate. Want to know why it's so low? Everyone has a gun, regular citizens walk around with guns strapped on. If I wanted another gun, I could go get it today. Want to know why that drops crime? Because the whackjobs are scared to do anything cause literally everyone has guns. Me and my neighbors don't have to wait for cops to show up, we're all locked and loaded and have each other on speed dial.

As it stands now, many locations still have only one option when it comes to high speed internet (excluding satellite, but that's not really high speed). Comcast is now trying to merge with Time Warner. Talk about one hell of a monopoly.

Now they argue they don't compete in enough markets, but think about it, it's the internet. With a combined merger, they will have a much easier time charging content providers for bandwidth to costumers.

So now you, the customer, are going to be higher premiums for any online services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. Because when these companies have to start shelling out to internet providers, they have to raise their prices in order to stay profitable.

So having these huge open wifi networks seems like a good deal for a consumer, it's actually just a way for these companies to get increased revenue, using the bandwidth you've purchased from them, extending it "freely" to other people, and using this as a way to entice companies such as Netflix to pay them a higher streaming premium.

Basically, and in essence, this is a way for Comcast to extend it's user base without extending it's customer base, to leverage higher bandwidth fees from content providers.

Are you saying that Men are inherently more able to take a punch than a woman? That's sexist.

I understand that the readers of /. tend to be more educated than the "normal" citizen. I also understand that as a result of this higher level of education, they have a higher level of understanding of the scientific models that are used in climate science.

Here's my problem, reading through all of these posts.

I see a bunch of "well these agencies said" "well these scientists said" "well this percentage of people said" "well it's accurate according to what we know" blah blah blah. I'm not saying these arguments have no merit... But what about scientists such as Richard Lindzen? One of the most respected and intelligent climate scientists in the world. What about the scientists that get canned left and right if they speak out against the man made climate change/global warming/whatever it's called now(simply type in "scientist fired for questioning global warming", there's more than just one, so I wont post a reference). I see people referencing NASA, but what about the former NASA scientists that dispute(http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-scientists-dispute-climate-change-2012-4)?

I know it's a hard thought to believe that you could be tricked, duped even. But claiming there's all this evidence, and claiming there's all these scientists claiming something is definitive, in a field that will destroy their career for going against the grain. IDK you're not really contributing anything new. The skepticism comes from the fact that there are skeptics in the field in question, and they are quickly drowned out, silenced, and discredited. And there are far more skeptics within the scientific community than those on here are claiming, a simple Google search would show this. But it seems like everyone on here is so busy researching the "proof" they don't even want to be bothered with the other side of the story.

Yeah, nobody really cares about the Unix philosophy. I do love Ken Thompson and everything he contributed, but I don't necessarily agree with him to the point that I can't and wont think for myself. Different ideas, different styles, and different methods lead to new and wonderful things. People should never stick to one given set of rules or innovation would suffer. I became a fan of Linux because of the ability to mix and match. Saying we should just make XFCE work and then all just use that is like saying let's just use Windows. No thanks. The beauty of the OpenSource community, is that even if a project dies off, if there's enough interest (which there always is when it comes to DEs), something else will be born. Kind of like how forest fires burn everything to a crisp, but beautiful new life rises from the ashes. Which is exactly what happened when Ubuntu took a blowtorch to the user interface with Unity, and the result was Cinnamon becoming a full fledged and beautiful DE.

get a solid state disk