Not Ghostery -- it has a dubious mission and works by parsing lists that are growing longer by the week. Try the Request Policy extension for Firefox. Request Policy is simpler. It blocks off-site requests and shows you a list of what each site is requesting. You'll learn just how much tracking is happening and you may begin to avoid sites that you used to trust.

The latest Firefox has a "click to play" feature. Type "about:config" and search for "click_".

I prefer Linux on my desktop in every way. Just don't buy Nvidia and Broadcom hardware. Linux provides the tools that show exactly what your computer is doing. Debian 7 is excellent.

Windows 8, like ChromeOS, ties your computer to an e-mail account. Stay away.

We're in the golden age for software development. I prefer an "open" solution like the Beagleboard but I received an R.Pi v2 for free and have made it part of my low-power dev environment. I'll describe this environment for the amusement of ye 'dotters.

I installed a $10 hardware clock in the R.Pi and I power the it with a spare power cord from an Amazon Kindle.

I run Raspbian (Debian) with Icewm DE. I use the R.Pi for coding (Java, C++, Perl, Go) and I push Mercurial updates to a code repo on a Sheevaplug running Debian Wheezy. The Sheevaplug's power supply had failed (typical problem, melted capacitors) but I wired the mainboard to an AC adaptor from a USB hub.

I've overclocked the R.Pi to 900MHz. This isn't enough CPU to browse the Internet directly from the R.Pi with Iceweasel/Firefox, but Midori and NetSurf work well enough. On a Pogoplug V2 (running Debian, you see the pattern here), I have lighttpd and a Perl program that fetches and summarises RSS feeds for me. I can view the RSS summary from the R.Pi using NetSurf or Midori. (Dillo doesn't do tables well.)

When I need to do Web research that requires Flash or special plug-ins, I use rdesktop to connect to a VM instance of Firefox (M-Windows XP or Debian) installed on an AMD box running VMware ESXi server. ESXi server is free.

I have all this running with an APC battery back-up. The APC unit can run for some time with only the ARM kit to power. I have another APC UPS feeding my modem, router, and assorted switches.

It's a versatile dev environment and it didn't cost much. None of it would be possible without Linux. I'll say it again: this is a golden age for software developers.

Kardashian is working on this too?

A factoid is not a fact.

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

The only "factoid of interest" is that Slashdot may have editors.

I once had a job in the EduBubble where I had to learn SAS. It's a language could only survive in the EduBubble, which is at least 15 years behind in technology and 25 years behind in thinking.

If R isn't a well designed language, at least it is free, open source, and capable.

If this is true, then it proves once again these truisms of a military-based capitalist economy:

= Politicians serve their economic masters.

= When the rich declare war, poor kids are sent to die.

= The betrayal of the credulous happens every day.

In other breaking news, the Egyptian foreign minister just announced the completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Great, now I will know what the function with the following comment does:

"Gott vergib mir, das ist eine schreckliche Hack!"

For the sake of order on this sadly degenerating News for Nerds site, please add your post to this parent if the essence of your "thinking" is one of the following:

= LibreOffice is not MS Office, therefore it's crap.
= LibreOffice uses Java, which everyone know is not as fast and portable as .NET.
= LibreOffice lacks MS Office proprietary features and misfeatures, therefore it disappoints me terribly.
= LibreOffice doesn't read or write the constantly mutating, rubbish file formats of MS Office the way only MS Office can.
= LibreOffice isn't backed by a large corporation that Only Wants The Best For Me.
= LibreOffice is bloated, and I insist on the lean responsiveness and stability of MS Office!
= LibreOffice doesn't have ribbons to help me not find features that I used to use.

How you resolve your cognitive dissonance is your personal matter. You abandon intellectual integrity and the practice of science when you talk rubbish.

Citizen: Help! Randian Nutbag! My house is on fire!

RN: Contemptible Weakling, if you were strong, I would help you. Or perhaps I would murder you and take everything that makes you strong. That certainly would be an option for a Heroic Spirit. But you are weak and destined for failure.

Citizen: My family is in the house! Oh, save them!

RN: Pusillanimous Conformist Vermin, you have bred hapless, dependent whelps as pathetic as yourself. You are weak and destined for failure. I am indifferent to your suffering. { begins to fly away }

Citizen: W-wh-where are you going?

RN: To collect my welfare cheque. I am *not* indifferent to my own suffering.

> I'm no economist, but

That's ok, they don't know what they're talking about either.

And I expect that a highly numerate society would understand the probabilities well enough not to wage open war against a numerically superior adversary.

Hence the "global economy" that we have today.

There are many forces apart from incompetence acting upon any non-trivial software project. There are compromises to be made, and risks to be evaluated.

In short, there are factors that have nothing to do with the code that affect the quality of code.

The larger the organisation, the greater the tendency towards failure to understand, failure to communicate, and failure to complete. It isn't simply a question of architects, coders, testers, and documenters doing their very best.

There are some coding projects that are as essential as housing, in the sense that defects might cause death. But the majority of coding done in the world is slapped together and discarded within a five-year cycle.

What the heck, if it's for revenue recognition, release the prototype and hire e-workers to post favourable comments on some Web sites!

To paraphrase the Shat, "Bad code... survives."