Just about every good programmer I know started doing it on their own in highschool, or earlier. then, many of them took a 4 year degree in computer science or software engineering. I don't think there's a lot of people who could become a good programmer in 2 years. I took software engineering, and by the end of the second year, I don't think I was really that good. Sure there was a bunch of courses that weren't programming related, but you can't just jam everything together into the same semester. There's a reason classes have prerequisites, 2 years does not give you enough time to progress to progress in your knowledge.

If you buy a laptop/computer from the Microsoft Store, I think they all feature Signature Edition, which they state includes the following

Signature Edition PCs are tuned for fast performance from the second you turn them on. They include free anti-virus software that never expires and have no junkware or trialware, ensuring that your new PC is always clean, fast, and protected.

It seems that MS realizes there is a problem with junkware included with their OS. They can't force manufacturers to not install junkware on the computers they sell, but it looks like MS is trying to do something to alleviate the problem. It actually looks like the machines sold on the Microsoft Store are actually quite competitively priced.

I have an LG TV and it has a stupid voice recognition feature. You have to press a button on the remote for it to start listening to you. The feature is pretty much completely useless. I tried it a few times when I first got the TV, but quickly found that it's pretty much worthless. The rest of the TV works really well though, and I have no complaints. I don't see the purpose of even building this feature into the TV. Nobody will use it, and nobody is going to make a TV buying decision based on rather or not it has voice recognition. Except maybe some people who will specifically be looking for a TV that doesn't have the feature.

One of the hosting companies I used a decade ago got hacked, causing every page to contain maláfare. I tried contacting them to get it fixed but nothing worked. I ended up having to switch hosting companies because of that problem. But I learned a good lesson. It's not a good idea to go with bargain basement hosting companies. I wonder if this is a similar issue.

From looking at the article, it doesn't actually state how fast it runs. Maybe it's just a comment, that it actually does run very fast. Like it generates a very large and complex dungeon in .1 seconds, whereas on the machine it was originally written on, it would have taken minutes.

Firstly, I would have to say that part of the problem is user training. When you have people renaming the file "just in case" so it doesn't overwrite the other version, then you have training issues. Any version control system will keep a copy of every single version, so there's no reason to do stuff like this. This needs to be clear to the employees.

Many places require that suicide be covered under life insurance policies, provided it's a certain amount of time after they were insured.

They had to make quite a few compromises to get it to that price point. Most notably is the thickness and the low battery life of only 3 hours. I guess it depends on what your use case is, but 3 hours is not enough for me. 5 would be a lot more acceptable.

Which is why I said I will probably end up getting something really cheap or try to make my current phone last until we see what happens with Windows 10. If Windows 10 turns out to be a huge flop, I can still get an Android phone. If Windows 10 turns out to be great, I'll get a Windows 10 phone.

Well, it's only $19 for an individual to register to make Apps for Windows App store (PCs and tablets) and the Windows Phone App store. You can't yet publish Windows 10 apps on the XBox, but I can't see the price going up a lot when they do add that functionality.

I just looked it up, and the water in the ocean weights 1.5 Quintillion Tons (1.5 x 10 ^ 17 tons), which means we are dumping the equivalent of 0.000000005% of the mass of the ocean in plastic into the ocean. At those percentages, I wonder if the effects are really any different if we halved or quartered our pollution of the ocean. Really it would all be about the same to the ocean. Sure we should try to reduce how much we dump, but there's way bigger environmental problems to be working on.

So my only choices are to have a 6 inch phone, which is basically a tablet, or to go with the older model Nexus 5, which is still quite large, and doesn't even have an SD Card slot? The specs are decent for the price, but the phone is still a little high end for me. I like to be able to take my phone hiking or on a bike ride, and I don't quite see the appeal with carrying a $350 computing device while doing those activities. Getting updates shouldn't be a status symbol. It should be available to all Android phones.

It will support running the same "Apps" as Windows 10. This is actually a nice thing about the way Windows is headed. I can write a single app, and have it run on XBox One, Windows PCs, Windows Tablets, and Windows Phones. Sure it doesn't support legacy software, but it makes a lot more tempting to write Windows apps if they will run on so many devices with very little extra work. If they were really smart they'd adopt similar technology to what Xamarin has and allow the C#/.Net code you write to run on Android and iPhone as well.

I for one am very much not happy with Android on my Phone. My current Android Phone is only running version 2.3 even though I bought it 6 months before Android 4 came out. The lack of upgrades on Android is appalling. I'm due for a new phone in the next month (yay 3 year contracts!) and I'm seriously considering just getting a cheap phone or waiting it out to see what happens with Windows 10. The only Android Phone in my price range that I like is the Moto G, which currently doesn't have the update to Android 5 in Canada where I live, and although they say it is coming, they seem to be taking their slow old time with it. Meanwhile Android continues to do stupid things, like removing the functionality to move apps to the SD card. Apparently that's back in Android 5, but like I said, it's hard to be certain that phones will even be upgraded. Windows Phone (at least since 8+) seems to have a much better track record with updates, and doesn't impose stupid restrictions about where apps can be installed. I've bought a few apps and I'm used to the way that Android works, so I really don't want to abandon it, but the lack of updates seriously makes me want to avoid them in the future.

You can get the lowest end Surface Pro for $849 plus $130 for the keyboard. You can often find deals if you wait for a sale and get the lowest end version for $800 or less. So less than $1000. Still about double the iPad, but if you count it as a tablet and a laptop (which it basically is) you save money as a laptop with similar specs, plus buying the iPad. Even compared to buying a laptop and a cheap but good $200 Android tablet, the price is pretty reasonable. Like I said, wait a few more iterations until they can bring the price down. Apple won't be able to last long when their tablets and phones are asking a premium price and delivering the same experience as devices at half their price. It's interesting that you add in the price of the keyboard when the iPad doesn't come with one either. And even the lowest end Surface comes with 64 GB of storage, plus room for an SD Card (Or use USB3 Storage). The iPad base unit only comes with 16 GB of storage, and has no option for expansion. If you want more, you're going to be paying at least $100 more just for the privilege.