Bill Hicks and George Carlin were both heavily plug-resistant yet magnetic personalities, but are sadly no longer with us :(

It may not have been designed for audio files, but it's pretty damn good at them anyway - the hydrogen audio chaps rate is as equivalent to AAC and vorbis at the same bitrate, as well as having excellent quality at low bitrates along with low algorithmic delay. It appears to be a "cake and eat it" codec at present.

See here for their take on this very promising codec: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Opus

Now the problem that#s always plagued vorbis... will we see widespread hardware support for it? If it's already being deployed for Skype and WebRTC usage then I hope a few SoC manufacturers are going to support it.

As a history teacher, I'm sure your friend sadly understands how most people don't appreciate the freedoms they have until they've been lost, and then the cycle repeats itself. Most people of the current generation haven't this seen first, second or even third hand and don't understand what typically happens when those in power exceed their authority. Hell, most people don't even understand that everyone has something to hide, they just think that if their head is down low enough no-one will care. And then, sooner or late, cue Niemoller.

I don't think so. Most consumers who might be in the market for a new computer now have the option of either a regular PC or a tablet PC, and many are jumping on the tablet PC bandwagon - something that's even more locked down than even Windows 8.

People simply do not seem to care about lockdown, general computing or indeed almost anything that much of the /. community holds dear; most just want to watch youtube and twittle their facebook and think nothing of their device requiring an account to function that will happily upload your favourite websites to your advertising overlo... I mean, The Cloud.

The traditional PC industry isn't going to die, but it will become increasingly marginalised, especially if like me you don't like "commoditised" machines that have been intentionally gimped.

I think you mean Gothenburg, Finland.

Well last I checked, android shipped with FAT support anyway but I'm not sure if the onus would be on Google or the OEM itself to pay the MS tax (although most of them do anyway so suspect it's billed against the people shipping the devices). Even then, I think the patents only covered storing both forms of the filename so IIRC if you store only the long form and don't bother creating an 8.3 filename then I don't think you're technically in violation. Need to check up on that one...

exFAT I'm not very sure about since I inevitably end up formatting them FAT32 anyway, but yes, I long for the day when we can all just use UDF or somesuch on an SD card.

However, I do still think that the removal of SD cards by most manufacturers is mostly a result of trying to push people to using remote storage for everything simply because there's so much money to be made out of it. But then I'm cynical :)

I mean, really.. Are we re-inventing the dumb terminal here?

Yes. It's much easier to secure revenue when you've got a guaranteed monthly income from people whose data you're holding hosta... I mean, from people whose data you're protecting. I mean, it takes money to look after this stuff, and you wouldn't want anything to happen to it would you?

Witness the extremely aggressive push to even remove things like (micro)SD slots from mobile phones and tablets under the guise that it's a "design compromise", despite the fact they're miniscule. Surprisingly enough, the people who make android and iOS and windows and what have you and provision the "cloud" (aka Someone Elses Computer) behind them think it would be a really good idea for you to use their cloud.

I bought one of the original Nexus 7's and was shocked by how utterly unusable it was as a "computer to do things". Even finding applications that aren't in the google store is tricky.

It isn't a one-click method to install the CM firmware though - just a method of making the installation via PC less painless. All the app does is basically enable USB debug and help with the ADB setup.

Ars did a pretty decent writeup of the installation process here; http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/android-roms-the-easy-way-testing-the-new-cyanogenmod-installer/ - it's certainly not a one-step job.

Oblig. Onion (video): CEO Worked Way Up From Son of CEO

Oxymoronic.

I'm sure they'll all receive extensive de-escalation drilling as well.

*laughs bitterly, wipes tear from eye*

Hypothetical situation but one that seems all to scarily real now - passenger, perhaps running a bit late for their plane, becomes more short-tempered after perceiving idiocy at the hands of the TSA and makes a snarky comment regarding the legitimacy of TSA employees' parentage. Or perhaps, as has happened before, an outraged parent or sibling goes ballistic at their sobbing relative being groped or any one of a thousand potential reasons for getting stressed out in a security line. TSA rent-a-cop, perceiving a vastly over-inflated threat, pulls their sidearm and levels it in someone's face. What happens next?

Naturally, even after the first ten innocent people are shot, it'll be justifiable since the TSA can't take any chances and I'm sure any and all official enquiries will put all the wrongdoing at the feet of that parent or overly stressed sales rep.

Republicans: I say your Affordable Healthcare policy goes too far!
Democrats: And I say your Affordable Healthcare policy doesn't go too far enough!

There's be an Oblig. link to youtube if I could find one. And, not being a USian, I'm not sure if I've got the parties the right way around in my paraphrasing.

u38cg already mentioned that prostitution is legal in the UK (although many ancillary activities commonly related to prostitution are not), but for the most part you can just go to the wiki page for Prostitution_in_$country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Canada - legal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_United_Kingdom - legal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Ireland - legal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Australia - varies by state but legal in the most populous (NSW and Victoria)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_New_Zealand - legal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_South_Africa - illegal

If it's anything like the articulated bogies they're introducing on the tube/London Underground, there'll be even less seats. The Metropolitan line - one of the lines that extends out the furthest into the commuter belt - used to run the venerable A Stock which had 448 seats per train, but they've been replaced with the S8 stock which have only 306 seats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_S7_and_S8_Stock

But great news for people who like to stand for an hour on their morning commute into the City.

Obligatory Penny Arcade.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/06/28