Apple receives patent #999666 for "power adaptor allows handheld device to be charged from AC mains" and patent #666999 for "Handheld device User-interface buttons".

I hope this is an April Fools joke. How long have cameras had a bayonet lens mount?

this "does not matter". it is sad, yes, but it does not matter. there are many worse things that happen every day. I do not visit slashdot for this kind of news. Samzenpus -- **you suck**. Thanks for wasting my time.

Yahoo cannot even make yahoo mail work right. The "redesign" -- when it works -- is not user friendly at all. Most of the time it doesn't load pages and show mail at all.

Good luck getting video going.

They need to pack their shit and go home, not blow more shareholder money on a(nother) losing venture.

Gnome 3.12: **slighltly** more user friendly than Windows 8, which is like saying it is slightly more user friendly than a rabid zombie wolverine in a kindergarten playground.

I watched the video. Gnome 3.12 still sucks. It is an embarrassment to Linux; it is one of the reasons why after 10 years we still don't have "the year of the Linux Desktop". This is a continuing example of the developers deciding how the users should work, not thinning about how the users are used to doing things. Yecch.

Thank goodness for XFCE. XFCE's developers seem to actually have the user experience in mind.

My boss can hire two fresh-outs for what he pays me. He knows this. A short sighted person might think two fresh-outs are more effective than me. My boss knows better. I regularly deliver way more than two fresh-outs, and I show up on time every day, not hung over. No drama.

Not every boss is like mine. Many think that more cheap labor can get the job done. Good luck with that. You get what you pay for.

Let me guess the city where the writer lives...

I'd argue that it is nothing like classical Florence, where the artists had sponsors. There's no analog in Silly Valley for that, none of the new rich are sponsoring great art, whether for themselves or the public.

Comcast router software completely BLOWS. And I mean that. Laden with bugs, utter crap. I just got a new "gateway" from them, a Arris TG862 and it was pretty much completely unusable until they put it into bridge mode. I would get pages that would not load (static DNCP), pages that said features were disabled (dynamic DNS), etc.

I got on chat with support and they put it into bridge mode. The support guy told me I would have to get them to put it back into router mode if I ever desired (I don't)

The good news is that the thing is crazy fast, and I mean > 120 mbit/sec incoming and > 20mbit/sec outgoing. Yee-haw.

anybody think Obama is still not Bush 2.0?

Actually, Turing designed an improved "bombe" -- the "Turing Bombe" -- and there are reproductions of those at Bletchley Park, as well as the Colossus.

Note that Colossus was not built to crack Enigma. It was built to crack teleprinter code. The "Lorenz Cipher" -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

You need to pay more attention. The NSA's spying on Americans in the USA is absolutely contrary to the 4th amendment. What Snowden leaked shows much, much more than that.

For instance: spying on Russian politicians is part of what our national intelligence organizations are supposed to be doing, and Snowden revealing that Sweden and Norway have helped us to that is worse than unhelpful to every American, as well as being damaging to Sweden and Norway.

Further, his disclosures have shown what the tools and methods used to by the NSA to accomplish their legitimate role have damaged the NSA's ability to collect the intelligence they are charted to collect. Another example: The NSA had put some espionage "malware" onto computers used by the Russian Military, mexican drug cartels, and others (see http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01...) -- how was disclosing this information useful to anybody but our adversaries?

No apologies from me for the NSA. They broke the law with respect to the fourth amendment by illegally spying on Americans at home and they should answer for it. Clapper and Alexander lied to Congress and they should be made to answer for that.

actually, no.

when the NWS issues a "watch", that means something could happen. when they issue "warning", they mean business.

case in point: we get a lot of "tornado watch" alerts around here. That means pay attention, somthing might happen. when we get a "tornado warning" than means it's time to go into your hidey hole.

There's no nuance there! That's about as polar as opinions get on this subject.

Snowden disclosed the NSA's illegal violations of the 4th amendment, and that is OK in my book. This is helpful to Americans.

However, he also disclosed a whole lot more, and that has damaged the ability of the NSA to do what is chartered to do, and that is not OK in my book. This is not helpful to Americans.

The NWS nailed it. They described exactly what was going to happen.

The travesty was that **everybody** ignored the Winter Storm Warning that was issued in plenty of time to cancel school, make other arrangements for work. That was compounded with a situation where the roads went from dry to impassible in one hour, and then 5 million people all tried to drive home at once.

Disaster.

General Keith Alexander. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), lied under oath to congress, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.

James Clapper. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), lied under oath to congress, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.

Edward Snowden. Meant well (trying to protect Americans), stole and released classified materials, violated federal laws. Knew it was wrong. Should be punished.

The fact that Snowden is being pursued for what he did, while Alexander and Clapper appear to be getting off scott-free is the biggest hypocrisy ever.

God forbid you offer "nuanced" opinions on /. -- you'll get downmoderated as a troll. There is no tolerance here, even though most of the readers and moderators would tell you they are very tolerant.

People have their prejudices, and those color their views on every bit of information they receive, and if your opinions don't agree, then you must be the idiot. This is as true on /. as in the real world, though perhaps it is more obvious here than in RW, the vitriol spewed in various flame wars here go beyond what would be considered "fighting words" if uttered to a person's face.