It's because the consumer electronics race causes manufacturers to fill their products with CRAP so that they get more feature bulletpoints or larger numbers they can use in their sales material, because stupid consumers think that more feature and larger numbers are better. That's why we have the megapixel race on compact cameras, even though more megapixels may in many cases produce worse images given that everything else is the same. What really matters is the quality of the optics and the quality and size of the CCD, but you can't put a nice number on that, so manufacturers don't bother.

With phones, and especially smartphones, it's all about feature bulletpoints and cramming as much shit into the phone as possible, and who the fuck cares about processor power or battery life, eh? The result is shit phones that are slow, and crashing, and that run out of batteries really fast. What use is a phone if you can't actually make calls on it? If you can send a text message? If it takes a few seconds between each keypress for it to register, the phone is fucking broken. I don't care that is has a bajillion apps and features and browsers and data transfer and internet connectivity and word document readers when I can't make or receive a call.

And that's why you get the backlash here, because it's the people here that are the early adopters, that buy the promised new cool technology, and it's the people here that discover when it's shit and doesn't work, and make rants about how they "just want a phone that makes calls".

The cross-country roaming charges are going to disappear though. There is absolutely no technical reason for them to be there, it suddenly doesn't cost 10 times more to transfer data just because you hit a country border, and it doesn't cost anything to switch providers either, they only need to keep track of actual usage. The roaming charges are there because it's a huge cash-cow for the telcos, and there will soon be EU-wide legislation to remove them, or reduce them to their actual cost.

That said, some companies have already started to remove their roaming charges voluntarily, on a smaller scale, because they, SURPRISE!, found out that you can attract all the roaming customers if you do.

...stupid me not previewing it properly...

It's been ten years, and people on Slashdot still trot out this stupid apologetic drivel. It goes like this, every time:

"The US is not #1 in mobile/broadband"
"But the US is so large, it's harder to build infrastructure here!"
"But do it better, and they have even lower population density."
"Yeah, but all those countries have a highly concentrated population!"
"No, are less urbane than the US and still do it better."
"But..."
"No, I'm sorry, the US is not #1 when it comes to this technology because your telcos aren't actually competing."
"But it's the free market, it must be better!"

Every single fucking time. It's so tiresome. It is understandable though, the big national lie in the US is that it is #1 in everything. It is the world leader in many things, but as soon as you point out one thing it is not, you get the apologetic hordes storming in to the rescue.

Originally, no, but I bet that the airports noticed a nice increase in profits after the liquid ban, and really don't want that policy to be removed, even though it adds costs in the form of more security.

I'm sorry I don't have mod points to bump you up, because you're one of the few little lights in this incredibly bleak discussion thread. The title of the article is " FOSS Sexism Claims Met With Ire and Denial", and just look at this thread, the overwhelming majority of posts are full of ire and denial. It's sad, but you kinda have to laugh about it.

And talk about it, until people start seeing the institutionalized sexism, so that they can finally do something about it.

The point is that you won't be able to get the DLC if you buy a used copy, you would have to buy a new copy, or you have to buy the DLC separately.

The point of this is not to combat piracy or to increase the price of the game, the point is to discourage people from buying it second-hand. The first owner will get two DLC pieces for free, but if you buy your copy used, you will not receive those DLC pieces, you have to buy them from EA, on top of paying for your used copy.

The proper way of looking at it is that the two free DLC pieces should be included in the full game, but that they figured out a way of robbing second-hand buyers of it.

I can see why publishers want to get money from the second-hand market, but doing that at the expense of their customers is incredibly annoying.

If you "need" to use a compiler, then you're limited to working in environments where one is available!

An IDE is a tool just like a compiler is a tool. There really is no difference, other than the fact that some people don't like IDE's.

I don't need a compiler to write my code, but it would be extremely time-consuming to do my work without one, so in practice I need one to be able to reach a meaningful level of productivity. In the same way I don't need an IDE write my code, but it would be extremely time-consuming to do my work without one, so in practice I need an IDE to reach a meaningful level of productivity.

But what the GP was saying is that I'm somehow less of a programmer because I can't do my job without an IDE, but if that's the case, I'd rather have a job and produce code in my IDE, than be a "real programmer" without a job.

Bullshit, you only make this argument based on your comfort zones and your levels of trust.

When you write code in a language that is not machine code you require some sort of text editor, you require some sort of file system for organizing your text files, and you require a compiler and a linker for making executables out of your human-readable code.You need to trust that all your tools actually do what they're supposed to do, and you need to be comfortable in that environment.

An IDE is simply one more tool in the chain that might organize your files differently, that might automatically invoke your compiler, and that might automatically highlight and analyze your code for your benefit. It's still just tools in the chain, and you still need to trust them. An IDE does not bring anything fundamentally different.

You only make your argument that an IDE is unnecessary because you are comfortable not using one, and because you probably don't trust them. And from that you argue that "real programmers" shouldn't use an IDE, because you don't, and you consider yourself a "real programmer".

However, I might as well make the argument that "real programmers" don't need text editors or compilers or linkers. How can you trust your compiler, hm? No way, a programmer should be able to enter machine code directly, and that text editor and compiler should only be for convenience, not necessity. And get off my lawn!

But that argument is of course stupid, text editors and compilers and higher level languages add to the productivity of the programmer, in the same way that IDEs add to the productivity of the programmer. Not using the best tools available is just stupid masochism.

Then again, in 10 or 20 years there will be something on top of IDEs that make them look as primitive as a simple text editor does to Eclipse, and I'll probably be whining about the young folks and their newfangled thingies, and I won't trust them, because my comfort level is in an IDE as we know them today. Hopefully, I'll not be as old and stuck in my ways as you are though.

I wish I had mod points. Or at least a leg of ham.

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

You're wrong. I highly recommend that you watch this.

Yes, let's translate everything to be as helpful as possible. Oh wait, we're already halfway there. :-/

Yes, thanks for proving my point. Note the title of the articles, and note that they mention "crowns" only once. For the remainder of the articles, the currency is consistently referred to as "kronor" and "kroner" respectively.

No, it is translated to "crowns" only by Scandinavians *themselves* when they are speaking English. Noone else does this, it's not translated outside of Scandinavia, and it's not like "kronor" or "kroner" is hard to pronounce in English either.