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Comment Porting to Windows RT (Score 1) 308

I was excited about WinRT (not to be confused with Windows RT...yeah, I know) during Windows 8's development and was considering porting a project, but after evaluating Windows 8, the lack of features in the APIs, annoying interface decisions, and confusing hardware fragmentation made it an easy decision not to bother. Microsoft's alleged refusal to promote ARM-only apps, when it needs all the apps it can get, re-affirms that decision. Windows 8 is a non-starter as a development platform.

Comment Re:Stallman bitches, film at eleven (Score 2, Insightful) 597

It's one thing to have some Larry Wall style eccentricities, but Stallman hurts any movement he attaches his name to because of his extremist views. He believes, for example, that programmers should not expect to be paid for their work and that it's more important that non-free software disappear than it is for someone's children to be fed (he also believes nobody should have children). He's also made vile statements about what he calls "voluntary pedophilia", claiming that it should be legalized.

The annoying part is that in nearly every Stallman discussion, people will say things like, "You may not agree with everything he says, but we sure need someone like him who always sticks to their guns!" No, we don't. He's hurting the movement.

GNU was an interesting philosophy when it was started, but it's not as if it was the only open source ideology or that other open source movements wouldn't have taken hold. This isn't to diminish GNU so much as it is to diminish Stallman's glorified role in history among computer geeks and lessen the movement's reliance on a crazy person.

Comment Doesn't help (Score 1, Insightful) 308

I don't take issue with the shutdown since Megaupload was being used as a gigantic, unregulated store for pirated content, and that does take money away from content creators. Instead, I go out of my way to purchase independent content to support artists outside of the mainstream system, and any mainstream content I do want gets purchased digitally, which ultimately contributes to a lessening of relevance for the traditional distributors represented by the MPAA. Home film releases come out out sooner and sooner after their theater runs, and streaming services like Netflix are so popular on living room devices that Microsoft claims video streaming surpasses game-playing in terms of hours of usage on the Xbox 360. Whatever traditional structure the MPAA is protecting has already been supplanted by legal mediums.

In other words, Megaupload isn't necessary--the fate of the traditional movie industry has already been sealed by companies who embraced the internet.

Comment Re:It's very possible (Score 1) 526

It's also very possible that the Asus Transformer range showed that a good touchscreen tablet/laptop combo is a useful bit of gear well before "Microsoft might have validated the idea".

It's because I own a Transformer that I know touchscreen laptops suck.

And I, as an owner, too, will have to disagree because absolutely love it. There's future right there, no doubt on my mind.

Comment Re:It's very possible (Score 1) 526

If you're too lazy to check facts, don't challenge people who post them.

I disagree. Any troll can post false "fact" after false "fact" fast enough to overwhelm anyone else's ability to check and disprove them. Therefore the responsibility should be on the person presenting the fact to provide a valid citation (if not up front, then at least when asked for it).

So true, I'm so sick and tired of such gish gallops often used by the AGW denialists.

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence""

Comment Re:Like who again? (Score -1) 446

How is this countersuing or fighting back? This is an outright offensive move. The only "consensus" otherwise is among Slashdot posters who are STILL trying to portray Google's acquisition of Motorola as purely defensive. For some reason, Google can absolutely do no wrong here, whatsoever, at all, ever. Why? Because they use Linux?

Technology

Submission + - Nuclear Fusion Nears Break-Even Point For Efficiency (tgdaily.com)

bonch writes: Nuclear fusion is close to emitting nearly as much energy as expended. Using a combination of magnetic fields and pre-heated lasers, special tubes called liners successfully fused nuclear fuels under test conditions. Computer simulations predict the possibility of high-gain fusion conditions, in which the fuel's energy output exceeds what was put in by more than a thousand times.
Google

Submission + - Motorola Seeks Ban On Macs, iPads, And iPhones (arstechnica.com)

bonch writes: Google-owned Motorola is asking the International Trade Commission to ban every Apple device that uses iMessage, based on a patent issues in 2006 for "a system for providing continuity between messaging clients". Motorola also claims that banning Macs and iPhones won't have an impact on U.S. consumers. The ITC has yet to make a decision.
IOS

Submission + - iOS 6 review: Refining the world's most refined mobile OS (bgr.com)

zacharye writes: Like OS X Mountain Lion is to Lion, iOS 6 is a refinement of a mobile operating system that Apple had in place in iOS 5, with a few new changes that might raise your brow. Available for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad 2, new iPad (third-generation) and iPod touch (fourth-generation), the changes Apple made in iOS 6 are subtle, but add to Apple’s endless pursuit of iOS perfection. It’s an update chock-full of features, as has been the case with every other major iOS update, and best of all: it’s free for all devices. iOS 6 will become available to the public in about an hour so in the meantime, let’s take a look at all of the most important new features Apple’s latest OS has to offer...

Comment Re:NSA likely already built one (Score 1) 262

Absolutely. It is naive and foolish to believe that there is any publicly available encryption that actually works. Some things are born secret and will stay that way until it's no longer useful

Don't be silly. There are symmetric ciphers that have been proven to be "unbreakable" in a sense that to open them would take time comparable to brute forcing.

Factoring large prime composites and RSA is another matter, but to entangle 4000 qubits right now? I seriously doubt it.

And I think you're also wrong on the availability aspect. It's naive to think that anything but public encryption methods actually work.

Comment Re:Bruce still has a shot (Score 1) 352

You're wrong. Just sayin'.

"The biggest bomb ever detonated on earth" is the biggest one ever built - the full yield version was never built.

Yep, that would be Tsar Bomba detonated over Novaja Zemlja in the sixties. Windows were broken as far as in Finnish and Norwegian north. Amazing and fascinating stuff.

Comment Re:FB and Google are NOT in the same situation. (Score -1, Redundant) 215

One is the designer and developer of the most popular smartphone + tablet OS.

Huh? The most popular tablet operating system is iOS. Android has very little presence in the tablet market. Having smartphone market share won't mean much if Google doesn't make money from Android, according to their own quarterlies.

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