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Comment Re:I can see it coming . . . (Score 5, Interesting) 176

YES.

I hope Google does this.

"Oh, you're suing us? You want us to be a copyright enforcement agency? Fine. We're not going to index ANY of your stuff. Or the stuff of any of your divisions. Or any of the stuff of any companies you have a controlling interest in. Plus, we're going to block their networks from accessing any of our services. Good luck."

Comment Yeah, so? (Score 4, Insightful) 215

You *should* have a working prototype before you expect to get money.

Yes, it's difficult to build a prototype when you don't have funds. Welcome to the Real World, asshole. It's not easy to produce/market a new product. Kickstarter has made it *easier*, but it's not a magic bullet. It briefly *was* a magic bullet before people got smart and realized that giving money away for something that has almost no chance of ever being a real product was silly.

Comment Re:magicJack alternative? (Score 2) 162

They don't profit directly, but having a database of Google accounts tied to phone numbers that those accounts called/received calls from is pretty valuable, if you are selling advertising. Which, of course, is Google's real business.

You have to remember that EVERYTHING Google does is about gathering information on people, to build a picture of what kind of products those people might buy, and showing advertisements to those people. EVERYTHING.

Comment It's job security (Score 1, Insightful) 826

Old-school Unix admins don't WANT anything to change, or get easier. It threatens their livelihood. This is true of anyone with any kind of skill, but int computer-land, the changes come quickly.

It wouldn't be a problem if people weren't fundamentally lazy. But most people are. And admins are some of the *laziest*, because that laziness translates into an "automate everything" mindset, which is actually a good thing if you are an admin. But the idea of having to RE-automate everything sounds like work. Lots of work.

Comment Uh, they're not cheap. Not really. (Score 1, Insightful) 192

Yeah, you can find a bare-bones Amiga 2000 for not much money. But it's pointless- a bare-bones Amiga 2000 is essentially the same thing as an Amiga 500.

Unless you can get one that has accelerator cards and video cards and hard drives and all that stuff, it's not worth bothering with. Unfortunately, "loaded" Amiga 2000s are EXPENSIVE. All of those expansion cards are hard to come by, and sell for a ridiculous amount of money. Why? I have no idea. I assume it's because of the lunatic Amiga fans that still exist. The poor bastards.

Honestly, UAE (Ultimate Amiga Emulator) is so good, that there simply isn't a reason to own actual Amiga hardware. The emulator is faster, and more flexible, and more stable. And at this point, the only real reason to even mess around with an Amiga is to play the games.

As a general-purpose computer, it sucks. It sucks less than you might think for a nearly 30-year-old system, but it still sucks. Even the latest version of AmigaOS (which is only a couple of years old, I think) is a joke. There are some neat things that the AmigaOS can do, for sure, but most of it is irrelevant nowadays.

Comment Re:The best part... (Score 4, Insightful) 164

The thing is, if you are heavily tied to Adobe products, paying $50/month to ALWAYS have the latest version is actually a good deal, from a usability perspective. Adobe likes to change/abandon file formats with every upgrade, and that causes issues. If you always have the newest version, you don't have to worry about that.

You're right, though: Adobe has no competition. But that isn't Adobe's fault. For all the screwy-ness of Adobe's software, they are STILL better than any of the alternatives, and basically always have been. They "won" their market legitimately.

Comment Smart move on their part, but... (Score 3, Insightful) 227

It's too little, too late. Sony has probably won this generation already. The Xbox One isn't a failure, but it is going to be relegated to second place.

If Microsoft REALLY wanted to sell some systems and possibly win the war, they would do away with "Gold" Live! subscriptions, and make the full online experience free-to-all.

Comment Re:Disregarding range, is this actually cheaper? (Score 1) 398

Yes, but what is the *total cost of ownership* of the Versa versus the *total cost of ownership* of keeping your Altima?

Your Altima was paid for. The insurance was likely really cheap.

People like to ignore simple math when it comes to car purchases. Emotions take over. You want to "win" the car game? But a decent user car and drive it/repair it until it spends more time in the shop than on the road, and get rid of it. Then buy another decent used car.

New cars are ALWAYS a bad investment. The worst investment, actually. Don't be a sucker.

Comment Is gaming on Linux actually going to take off? (Score 5, Insightful) 132

It almost seems like it's finally going to happen. Amazing.

Now we just need to standardize on a desktop environment, and Linux will actually be a nice OS for the masses. /cue the "But choice is good!" crowd. Yeah, choice is good, but fragmentation is FAR worse than having no choices, when it comes to operating systems.

Comment HURD is an embarrassment (Score 2, Insightful) 163

Having a project like HURD reflects poorly on Open Source/Free software. It's kind-of emblematic of the major problem with non-commerical software projects; namely, without a central guiding force and a *real* budget, big software projects have a very difficult time getting finished.

Stallman should just kill it. It's pointless.

Comment It's doomed, because Japanese software sucks (Score 1) 153

It's a weird phenomenon, but it seems that the Japanese don't "get" system software/operating systems AT ALL.

It almost seems to be a cultural thing. They like baroque/quirky interfaces and systems. For video games, that is often a good thing; it makes the game interesting. For applications, it sucks.

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