A few months ago, I would have agreed with you. But I've been using the PopcornTime app since then, and it reliably delivers HD streams with few if any stutters. There's no reason to believe a single (video+)voice stream wouldn't be possible using a similar approach....

When are 4chan users human?

Dat's correck. Ever'body knows it's grows to de trees.

And jus' to prove dat I'm a really a real québecois, ah now will swear at you in ma native langue: Calice d'ostie de saint ciboire que les anglos ont la tête dur!

Because a real grumpy programmer doesn't fucking talk on a fucking video. A real grumpy programmer uses text, just like he always did, to write about how those hipster fucks who think they have even half a fucking clue deserve get run out of town on the Rails they rode in on.

A real grumpy programmer still fucking hates Microsoft, but can't be arsed even to hold down the shift key long enough to type a '$' - even though those monopolistic fucks in Redmond deserve it. Develop my ass, Ballmer.

A real grumpy programmer knows what C is for, but the pissant little twerps who bitch about the lack of strong typing in Perl can go get fucked, because fuck you, that's why. And fuck your Web 2 Point fucking Oh, and fuck your Twitter and fuck your fucking FuckBook.

And that, my child, is what a real grumpy programmer looks like, because get the fuck off my fucking lawn you ignorant little turd polisher.

I'm going to take a wild guess and speculate that the Swiss arm of the business is curiously profitable. Swiss people just LOVE romance novels. Profitable ones especially.

Hello from the Ring of Fire!

I live in a country with 8 active volcanoes, an average of 1.5 hurricanes annually, and regular (i.e. often more than monthly) earthquakes of significant proportions. I've personally experienced three 7+ earthquakes, two tsunami warnings and more 6+ earthquakes than I can remember.

Even the most impoverished houses are built with cinder blocks reinforced with rebar and with the gaps filled. Traditional bamboo houses with pandanus roofs are virtually indestructible, even in a cyclone. The only time I've ever felt unsafe inside a building was in a Chinese-built structure that showed structural cracks after the very first earthquake.

It's perverse, I guess, but those of us with the least to lose seem to have the least to fear, too. In spite of living in one of the most geologically dangerous spots on Earth.

No, no it's really not.

The article is a breathlessly juvenile attempt to assert style over substance. It's an empty - deeply, deeply empty - gesture in the direction of hipness, and as such, has nothing at all of interest to say. Its descriptive abilities are so impoverished that the only way one could even comprehend the article is by watching the promo video. And who wants to do that, when someone composes English that sounds like a high school assignment handed in by one of those kids who tries WAY too hard

.

They wouldn't stop Snowden (only) with this. They would, however, be able to keep the story about what's happening in Ferguson, MO (for example) from ever trending on Twitter, simply by killing every phone talking to a particular tower.

To be clear: I'm not suggesting the Feds (black helicopters and all) would do it. I'm suggesting the enlightened minds of the Ferguson Police Department, who have already demonstrated the depth of their acuity, would be perfectly willing to use such a tool, if it were (somewhat) legally available to them.

Is it? I wasn't aware. Clearly sarcasm must have some association with satire, because making sardonic statements seems to be the first thing I want to do when I'm writing satire. Then I take someone's stupid idea, and extend it, by including absurd examples of where their (il)logic would/should take them....

... Which I did on the very next fucking line.

Do tell. Next you'll be telling me that The Daily Show isn't real news.

Because Jon Stewart never uses sarcasm when he indulges in acts of satire.

-----------------
P.S. I'm still being sarcastic. And by aping your tone, satirical, too.

[satire]That's a fucking brilliant idea! I really really really mean it. Sincerely.

But don't forget the [lies-all-lies], [am-i-boring-you-yet], [pandering-listery], [corporate-shilling] and [too-stupid-even-for-you] prefixes.

Just because neither of us hangs out with him doesn't mean I don't get to tell you what a giant douchebag Jeff Bezos is. That's one of the joys of the First Amendment, my friend! Freedom of speech is the freedom to bitch inanely about things that don't directly affect you.

You, of course, are equally free to tell me to shut the fuck up, or to take your own advice and not bitch about something that doesn't interest or affect you....

... But if you do decide to keep talking about the problem, and maybe even about how to address or resolve it, then you see the true glory of Open Public Dialogue - the very thing that makes Slashdot such a lovely place to be. :-)

And no, I am not being in the least bit sarcastic, Sheldon.

For the record, this is the 'Great Satan' argument. By castigating outside influences as Other, and associating them with a group or nation that the populace has been indoctrinated to hate, it's possible to reject an idea without ever actually considering the merit of the idea itself. Thanks to the hard-working censorship peons from the People's Republic of China for this updated version. The Iranian one was getting old, and we're WAY past blaming the Jews.

Okay, so go back to the top of my post and read it again for my response to 'It's too hard.' :-)

If you think that 'just fix everything' is what I'm saying, then you haven't even done me the justice of thinking about what I'm suggesting. I am saying that we geeks should know better, that we should do what we did in the 80s and 90s and turn our collective back on the well-trodden path and build our own internet, only this time with hookers and blackjack. Then I offered a few key suggestions about things we as geeks could fairly easily work on to move us in that direction.

To assume that I simply want to snap my fingers and effortlessly get all that and a pony is to fundamentally misunderstand what it is to be a geek. We build things for ourselves. When things don't work the way they should, we change them.

Now, I'm not suggesting you're not a True Geek (or Scotsman, for that matter). I'm just saying that if you're going to say 'too hard' about a situation such as this...

... No, fuck it. I am saying you're not a Real Geek :-)

GCHQ has already spoofed Slashdot in the past. So no, going to Slash dot is not safe.

All right then. Let's all just roll over and die, why don't we?

Look, I get your cynicism, but don't let it run to fatalism. There are things you can do:

• - Stop making it easy on them. Stop using Windows. Seriously. Understand that what's convenient for you is often convenient for them.
• - Stop using proprietary software at all. Yes, yes, HeartBleed nothing is safe bla bla bla. I'm not talking about safe, though; I'm talking about safer. And FOSS is, objectively, a safer environment, and will remain so even after it becomes popular.
• - Start building and using federated, encrypted, decentralised, peer-to-peer systems. I honestly don't know why geeks didn't do this years ago, but why the fuck is Facebook the state of the art in social media? I mean, seriously. It's not only a privacy disaster area, it's a badly polished piece of shit to boot. We know that They don't like TOR because it's harder for Them. We know That they don't like bittorrent because it's harder for Them. So why the fuck are we not taking a clue from that and creating a UseNET we can go back to? I mean, I get why the peons don't, but we're geeks, for fuck sake. That used to mean something.
• - Start re-imagining an internet whose physical characteristics resemble its protocols. At the outset, we thought it would be cool to have generic protocols that ran more or less transparently on any old network at all. What we didn't realise was that just because stupid networks were possible, that didn't mean they were inevitable. The whole ICANN/ITU fiasco is all the evidence we need to see that the world's telcos have begun to realise how much ground they've lost and they want it back. But that doesn't mean we have to give it to them. Mesh topologies using low-power devices are the only we we cut them back down to size.

You can get all fatalistic if you like, but if your only response to the encroachments of authority is to run further and faster, then (apologies to Scotsmen everywhere) you're not a real geek.

Ah, she told you her name was Alice?

You poor naive thing....