You missed the stages where the customer changes their mind (and thus the requirements) half way through the project because "they read an article" - but has no idea what the consequences would be, or the stage where the lead developer decides he *hates* one environment and decides the whole project has to be reimplemented in a different environment (with no cogent reasons to support it), or the testing phase for the program is abandoned because there isn't time. Been there with all 3 of these.

Similar story here. I signed up to be able to truthfully claim that I was familiar with Twitter for a job application. I looked at the user interface and I knew enough to talk about it if asked. Never posted, never followed, never went back.

Just like everyone in the late '80s was going to use desktop publishing to make a mint doing flyers and low-end restaurant menus and ten years later everyone was going to make a mint designing websites.

Ah this "no-value-added middleman" is the guy who created the show, researched it, wrote it, his wife is one of the main characters and he acts in it as well. He is by no stretch a "middleman". I am not saying I agree with him - haven't read the article yet even - but he definitely on the creator side of things.

I agree, although I also think there is a strong element of "not on my watch" covering of the ass. No one in the West wants to be held responsible for the next 9/11, so gathering *all* the information on everyone seems a prudent exercise to prevent being blamed because *you* didn't do something to prevent it, no matter how flagrant a breach of the public trust, laws, etc.

The Anaconda don't want none unless you got root access, Hon.

Yes you are. Sure makes sense in that light doesn't it? :P

Rights holders won't have to worry about the effects of piracy when they offer a means of consuming media that is as userfriendly as torrenting that media is, or better. The technology exists, all they need to do is sell it to us at a reasonable rate.

Netflix is the wave of the future. Cable TV and all the other rental services that want to sell me media for consumption at 10x the rate of Netflix are doomed to failure, unless they can jury rig the laws to close Netflix down.

Which is why the fact that they are building a parallel case should be relevant and should be revealed to the Defense. In essence the use of these parallel cases means the government has the motive to "find" evidence to create a chain of evidence that can be used against the defendant. That is an encouragement to create evidence if it can't be found by other means. That's just wrong, period.

This also provides and incentive for the prosecution to rely on evidence acquired illegally, and only encourages the surveillance state mentality.

I am using an 20" iMac Desktop from 2008 or so. I have it set up to dualboot into Win7 using Bootcamp, and I admit I primarily spend my time on Windows. It is more or less completely silent, I can hear a slight sound from the fans but its almost always drowned out by sound from other sources (traffic, fridge, cat snoring etc). To the point that I was surprised to read this poll because I hadn't thought about system noise in ages.

Whether or not you like OS/X, the iMac is a brilliant desktop computer. Mostly I spend my time actually doing something with it rather than thinking about the system, unlike a lot of my Windows PC desktops prior to 2008.

But the key thing here is that most people do not care if the device is closed and limited - their needs for it are limited too. The average person does not need a computer, they just need something that lets them perform a limited amount of functions (mostly email and social networking), and a tablet can be put in your pocket or purse.

Thats a hard sell to the folks of /. of course, for whom the computer is an important tool they use heavily in a lot of cases for a variety of purposes that go beyond mere social networking crap.

I have a desktop that I do creative things on and play complex games on, I have a tablet that I use as my e-reader, and to play a few simple games etc. Each to its own purpose.

He'll be in a tougher prison, getting a lot of unsolicited male.

So fuck them with a rusty shovel.

Phew. For a second there I thought you were gonna talk about how long it's taking you to copy that 17-MB file.

I try to emulate Ender too, but I prefer his "If you have a bunch of assholes impeding progress kick their leader to death. The others will fall in line" approach to team building.

Hmm, that seems awkward. You would think there would be some sort of relationship between the two rating methods.