What I'd really like with modern trends is more emphasis on "private clouds". I want to put my data on my own server on my own network, so it can be accessed from any of my devices around the house and over VPN if I'm out, but with the data always securely under my control and backed up according to my wishes.

This is easy for some formats, including plain files obviously. However, it's surprisingly awkward for stuff like e-mail, where there are plenty of relevant concepts like IMAP and mail stores and smart hosts and web mail systems, but actually setting them up in a useful combination if you're not an experienced sysadmin is quite a challenge.

Sadly, it seems even the best FOSS client software is dying out these days, often because "everyone has Google Whatever". As far as I know there hasn't yet been a lot of movement in the FOSS world towards having easily-deployable private clouds for e-mail, shared documents, and so on, which always surprises me given the implicit freedom, independence, privacy and security.

You might not have much recourse even if it's a commercial service you're using. Ironically, on-line back-up services are among the worst offenders. If you use one, go ahead and check its terms, and see whether any of those lovely restoration options they offer will still be there if they decide to close down on a whim. (Hint: Probably they won't, and all you'll get is maybe 48 or 72 hours to download as much as you can at the same time as every other customer they have is trying to do the same.)

If it matters, back it up on systems you control yourself. If it's private, don't upload it to anything, and encrypt the back-ups. It's really that simple. Then again, so is "make sure you back up your important files", and how many people don't do that because it's mildly inconvenient? Maybe those on-line back-up services aren't quite so bad after all...

Have to agree.

But then again I had more fun removing the copy protection from SimCity 1 then playing the game, so *shrug*.

This is my news printer. Each morning I turn it on, and it prints a paper tape with the Reuters news summaries.

This is 1926 technology. The machine talks to a standard serial port at 45 baud, 5 bits, no parity, 1.5 stop bits.

PS4 and XBone are _already_ x86 so not sure if you are being serious, sarcastic, or cynical.

Are you referring to their abysmal 1.6 GHz clock speed?

Weird as it sounds with all the electronic label printers you can get today, there's just something about the old style "punch the label as a 3D letter into tape" approach that I prefer. Especially when the tape punch is a serious tool, not those cheap plastic versions:

http://makezine.com/review/too...

Perfection in engineering... it not only solves the problem of creating the perfect typing experience, it's also tough enough to use as your own personal Hammer of Thor when your office mates storm your cubicle trying to stop the noise.

> Failure to full exploit SMP in 2014 is a fine reason to avoid a given game as far as I'm concerned.

That's a crappy reason. You'll miss out on Path of Exile, Minecraft, and Terraria, all which are excellent games.

Let me guess - are you a Cubs fan?

IRC is still used as a major form of (semi) real time collaborative tool in free software development. Freenode remains hard to beat for this purpose, and I don't really see it changing anytime soon. It's not so much a question of not giving it up as seeing no compelling reason to replace a (very nicely) working solution to the problem.

Fuck man, I _still_ have my Apple //e and Apple //c but seriously I don't see the purpose of cluttering up new computers with stuff you never use.

When I upgraded from my old Phenom II X4 955BE to my i7 4770K @ 4.1 GHz I didn't bother with a DVD Burner / Blu-Ray drive. I would rather have something with minimal parts, and is ultra quiet that isn't wasting power.

When I upgraded the MacBook Pro not have a DVD burner or hard-wired ethernet port feels a little weird too, but I realized ... there is a time to hold onto old tech, but most of the time I have to ask:

Why?

This is fascinating. It's not the classic "people don't have social lives in the real world because they are on line too much" argument. The authors argue that following people who are "different" from you is bad for you. They write:

"Compared to face-to-face interactions, online networks allow users to silently observe the opinions and behaviors of an immensely wider share of their fellow citizens. The psychological literature has shown that most people tend to overestimate the extent to which their beliefs or opinions are typical of those of others. There is a tendency for people to assume that their own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are âoenormalâ and that others also think the same way that they do. This cognitive bias leads to the perception of a consensus that does not exist, or a 'false consensus' (Gamba, 2013)."

"The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt afterwards; the more they used Facebook over two weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time. The effects found by the authors were not moderated by the size of people's Facebook networks, their perceived supportiveness, motivation for using Facebook, gender, loneliness, self-esteem, or depression, thus suggesting the existence of a direct link between SNSs' use and subjective well-being."

This is a new result, and needs confirmation. Are homogeneous societies happier ones? Should that be replicated on line? Should efforts be made in Facebook to keep people from having "different" friends?