Outside of a minority of technically minded folks, most people never wanted local storage in the first place. They don't want to understand it, manage it, back it up, or deal with it in any way. That simple fact is one of the key drivers toward cloud computing, web apps, and away from the local-storage model of computing.

Everyone wants local storage. The non-technically minded folks just don't know it. The only drivers towards cloud storage are marketing hype, marketing hype, and more marketing hype. "Cloud" is the new "E-".

People's data is generally safer in the cloud than locally.

Safer from what? Hackers? The NSA? I think yuo aer confusssed.

Sure, workstation-type computers will still be available for the few people doing CAD, etc, but they will be far more expensive and not generally purchased by most of the general public.

Oh, I see now. Its still the 1990's, and the desktop PC is still dying. We'll all be going back to the client-server structure.... any day now.....

I know very few people who really want a PC any more. They virtually all prefer tablets, smartphones, and so on.

That's funny, because everyone I know already has a smartphone, and the few who also have tablets found they can't actually do anything with it, and still use their PCs/Macs.

The death of the PC is being predicted by retarded market analysts who look at PC sales instead of PC ownership. PC sales are down for multiple reasons:
1. 5 year old PCs are still fast enough
2. windows 8 is terrible
3. we are (still) in an economic depression

Big companies WANT us to buy shit computers that can't do anything, because then we'll HAVE to use gay "cloud" apps for everything, and pay monthly fees for the privilege. It's the first step in instituting a 21st century techno-serfdom, with IP owners replacing the land-lords of old.

Don't think so? Wade through the annoying and insulting Office2013 install process, and then tell me Lord Balmer isn't telling us piss-ants to get back to the turnip fields.

Thinkpads turned to shit once IMB ThinkPads became Lenovo ThinkPads. Lenovo has done nothing but shit all over the brand they purchased.

The only thing Lenovo has gotten right is making it VERY SLIGHTLY less painful to download drivers.

PeerBlock detects a connection to the amazon EC2 cloud when I attempt to launch SimCity. SimCity will not launch unless i disable PeerBlock.

So....

I don't know if the SimCity main servers, or maybe just authentication servers are hosted by Amazon.... but... NO EXCUSES. IIRC EC2 has plenty of tools for rapidly cloning servers.

Christ, I keep hearing this shit. I've been hearing the code monkeys lament the backwards compatibility tribulations of the windows ecosystem since the days of Windows95 fucking up 16-bit Windows3.1 code. AND IT ISN'T THE PROBLEM. It is A PROBLEM, but not THE problem.

I can name a whole shit load of things wrong with (pick a version of) windows, none of which have anything to do with backwards compatability, or anything else under the hood.

The problem with windows 15 years ago is that Microsoft didn't know how to innovate. All they could do is steal the good ideas of others.

The much worse problem with windows today is that they've stopped stealing good ideas, and started developing horrible ones in-house.

Microsoft is an alchemist that has discovered, after years of toil, a method for turning gold into shit.

I can't see how people don't understand how Trayvon's character may be pertinent.

Zimmerman's story is that he was following a suspected burglar. He called 911, and continued following the suspect despite the dispatcher telling him "you don't need to do that". The suspect noticed he was being followed, and confronted Zimmerman.

Investigating Trayvon's personality traits answers the following questions:
1. Is it possible or plausible that Trayvon was the burglar robbing homes in the area? If so, 'racial profiling' goes out the window. Maybe there are more possibilities for why Zimmerman was following Trayvon than 'racial profiling' and 'good detective work', but the jury will be presented with those two, as they are the opposing claims.
2. Was Trayvon Martin an agressive, confrontational person? If so, Zimmerman's claim that Martin struck first is more believable... and that story needs help. True or not, its a little hard to believe a 17 year old punched an adult with a gun.

The problem with apple products is they just work.... until one day when they just don't.

And, when it stops working, you either have a VERY expensive repair to deal with, or a very frustrating time trying to google for helpful info.

Really? With RIM letting repressive governments (but not ours of course) get access to SMS and email? Blackberry would be my LAST option.

If desktop sales are dead, its not because people don't want desktops anymore. Its because they already have one, and don't need a new one. Same with laptops.

The "Core" core was what put intel back in the lead... and they didn't even develop it themselves. They purchased an Israeli company that was making a new CPU based on the old P-III coppermine core.

Intel was, up until that point, still fighting the MegaHurtz war. This is in spite of the fact that the war had already ended a few years back when the AthlonXP line was easily beating higher clocked P4s. Intel's only answer was MOAR MHZ!!!1, spreading FUD about the performance ratings assigned to the AMD chips, and silly branding schemes that made me smack my head every time someone insisted they wanted a Centrino processor.

I really resent Intel for "cheating" their way back into first place.

There have been dozzens of these as far back as I can remember. The problem, was, is, and will continue to be, the batteries.

They fight forest fires with fire, dumbshit. Burned grass doesn't burn.