It has little to do with "indoctrination" of people, but familiarity is something of a factor, of course.

More critically, I think, Microsoft established a very large software ecosystem that Linux was never able to match as a relative late-comer, and catching up was nearly impossible without a critical mass that Windows enjoys. The simple reason people use Windows is because of the massive ecosystem of products available for the platform. Linux has some fine software, but there are many, many times the number of applications available for Windows, some of which are pretty damned specialized and are simply not available on other platforms.

There's a reason Linux is able to complete so well in other areas. In the server market, for example, the job is largely about serving up standard internet protocols, and so a free product is a huge win with no compatibility-related downsides. In the small-form device market, the open and free nature is also a big win, where margins are very tight, and vendors want to be able to customize their offering.

But the desktop relies on software written for specific platforms, so the ecosystem is everything. Microsoft has been extremely effective at courting third-party developers with excellent tools, services, and documentation. Windows has also enjoyed excellent long-term binary backward compatibility, which is hugely important for business software and the businesses that use them. So, to me, it's not hard to see why they've maintained their domination on the desktop.

Really? That hypothesis doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Larger and stronger at a younger age would seem to be a good survival trait, not a bad one. It doesn't seem like the benefits of parental protection instincts for young children would outweigh the negatives of being weaker and smaller, purely on the basis of survival traits. Besides which, I don't think parental protection instincts necessarily disappear when a child reaches adulthood. Talk to my mother if you're not convinced.

Still, it doesn't seem as simple as the brain using up too many nutrients either, for the obvious reasons you describe. If it was regulated by diet, then it seems we should be able to adjust growth in the same way, and that doesn't happen - although long-term growth is certainly affected by diet. It's certainly true the brain is an "expensive" organ in terms of nutrient consumption, but I think there are other regulating factors as well which we just don't understand yet.

Good luck telling your customers that they're sending you the wrong type of documents. I'm sure your competitors will be more than happy to accept documents in any type of format.

The value of Windows isn't really Windows the OS, but the Windows ecosystem. Essentially, the vast majority of the world's desktop software runs on Windows. There are a lot of fine Linux applications out there, but don't kid yourself into thinking there are replacements for everything people want or need by any stretch of the imagination. Some of it can run under WINE, but that's not always a practical or convenient solution.

If you have all the software you want on Linux and are happy with the OS itself, then there's zero reason to switch. I say use the best tool for the job. For me, it happens to be Windows, because I'm comfortable with it and the software I want to use is available for it. For you, it's Linux.

Ugh, I knew someone was going to completely misunderstand me. Probably my fault for being overly analytical about what is obviously a very emotional issue. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to anyone who had this happen to them, nor would I speak personally to someone like this who had suffered from an attack like that.

I hope you can see the difference between "blaming the victim" and acknowledging that people are going to engage in risky behavior which such a product won't necessarily solve. I'm not saying this product shouldn't be available by any means. I'm simply suggesting that I believe the most effective deterrent is for women to be extremely careful about getting into a situation where they are vulnerable to this sort of assault. It doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't go out drinking and having a good time, but do so smartly. That means watching your drink and friends looking out for each other. Sure, it's great if we have this sort of product in case it does help someone protect themselves - don't misunderstand me there. But color-changing nails won't help a woman if she's alone with a predator and already semi-conscious on a couch.

I just think we need to be realistic about how much a simple product like is going to do to really improve the situation. Maybe a few women might actually find someone attempting to drug them and alert her to the danger, and that would be awesome if it happened. It's great having better tools at your disposal. However, I think that, more than anything, it will probably help mostly by alerting women to potential dangers they face, and so encourage them to think proactively about their safety.

I'm just in favor of real solutions rather than feel-good, high-tech solutions when it comes to an issue this serious. Hopefully that clarifies my point a bit.

Oh, I'd wager they're almost certainly in the US, or at least another relatively wealthy country with an extradition treaty. They're also probably a bunch of teenage males from moderately well-off families, and who have far more free time and impotent angst than good sense. Anyone living in an area with lots of real-world problems as opposed to first-world problems wouldn't bother targeting videogame companies or Sony executives.

Slashdot is probably not a typical sampling of the US population and their feelings of the government, and "Credibility" doesn't necessarily mean "blind trust" or "unwavering devotion to".

Nor do, I feel, most people view "the government" as a single, monolithic entity, even though it's often referred to as such. For example: would you say that most people feel rather differently about the NSA versus the US Postal Service? How about the National Guard versus the US Congress? The CIA versus the Census Bureau?

In general, when the FBI or DHS goes after guys like these, I'd posit that the typical American has exactly zero problems with those efforts, and I think that's what GP was indicating.

It's a bit ironic that you feel the need to attempt to silence opposition by claiming some sort of moral superiority in having watched that video. Isn't that a form of censorship as well? Why are you opposed to a debate of the merits of such a decision?

I'm perfectly aware that the video is horrifying, and have no wish to subject myself to it. Why would I have to do so to recognize the face of evil? I learned all I need to know about the topic by searching for some online articles. For a man to cut off another's head and laugh about it later, even when that person had done him no harm... yeah, there are horrible people in the world. I already knew that.

YouTube and Twitter are private companies and not in the journalist trade, even if their services are used for such purposes on occasion. They should have no qualms about removing videos that obviously violate their terms of use. The summary's idea for a Red Cross or other PSA is also downright bizarre. It seems like such a video would be the last thing anyone would want to be associated with.

It's a clever bit of science, but unfortunately, I fear the young ladies who are most likely in need of this product are probably not going to have the foresight to wear it. If they had such foresight in the first place, it seems like perhaps they wouldn't be in a position where someone they shouldn't trust could surreptitiously slip them drugs in their drinks.

I'm not "blaming the victim", mind you. No should be subject to drugging and rape regardless of circumstances, and the perps and deserve all the wrath our legal system can throw at them. I'm just pointing out that some people are more prone to making poor life choices. I'm sure we've all met them before. We feel really bad when these people are eaten by wolves, but we can't help but thinking: "was it really the best idea to go out in a suit made of meat and barbeque sauce?"

The big problem is that if you're drugged, you may not be in a suitable state of mind to fight off a would-be rapist even if you know you've been drugged. The best defense is, as always, for women to watch out for their friends when at bars and parties. Don't go wandering off alone after heavy drinking with a guy you don't know or trust. That's asking for trouble in about a million different ways. Drugged drinks are just another type of potential trouble among many.

I predict it's going to be pretty terrifying for the twats participating in this DDOS when the authorities come knocking on the door. Some time at the local police station with the threat of serious consequences hanging over their heads should do them some good.

Life Lesson #1: You aren't anonymous on the internet in the face of a determined investigation.
Life Lesson #2: Raging against the world and challenging the FBI isn't a good idea.

No C-style casts or any explicit casts were involved at all in this particular case. I've long since stopped that sort of dangerous style of programming and adopted a much saner and safer subset of C++ unless there's no alternative.

Disabling "unsafe" features might be useful for some, but not in my case. In my particular field (videogame programming), we often have to interop with older C-style libraries, or write some very specific low-level optimizations down in the engine for maximum performance. For instance, nearly all AAA games that I've worked on completely replace the default memory manager, which is why I was using custom deleters. When you write your own memory allocator, you obviously have to do a lot of raw pointer manipulation and unsafe casting.

Honestly, it's probably better to simply develop a personal or corporate coding standard and make sure it's followed. That way, if there's a legitimate need to "break the rules", you can do so, but only if there's no realistic alternative. That's part of what makes C++ so useful. It's a very pragmatic language.

No, they certainly would mind, because this is something that would cause an uproar among the general population, and that would directly affect their sales, besides bringing lawsuits and very bad press.

This is why corporations care about user security at all. They care only because they want us to buy their products. It's really important to keep the profit motive in mind when talking about corporations. Most aren't inherently evil, but neither are they altruistic. They essentially neutral, wanting only to do business with us, so you can expect them to typically act in their own best interest. This occasionally coincides with their customers' interest, simply because it's good business to treat your customers well, especially in a competitive market.

DVD security was fundamentally flawed and could never work, because there was no way to keep the decryption key secret. Modern cryptography with well-vetted standards is currently (and for the foreseeable future) unbreakable if:

a) you choose a strong key
b) you keep the key secret, and
b) you implement the encryption algorithms correctly and securely

Tech companies, especially phone providers, have a lot more experience doing this than a decade ago. Is it easy to do? No, but it's not nearly as hard as it used to be either.

And of course, the ever obligitory xkcd

Hah, tell that to my cat! I was having a problem with mice, and wasn't getting good results with traps, so I adopted her from the local shelter. Now, in return for the cost of a bag of cat food every few months, she's kept the house and yard rodent-free for the last 12 years or so. I'll take that any day over having to muck around with traps and poison.

D sounds like a neat language that I'll probably never be able to use. I'm a game developer, and C++ has a native compiler for every machine I would ever need my code to run on, as well as an already mature ecosystem (engines, code libraries, sample code, all in C++). In fact, C/C++ is pretty much the only option I have if I want my code to be broadly portable.

It's interesting how a lot of languages don't seem worry too much about backward compatibility, because they want to focus on a clean and better language. Unfortunately, in the real world, there are always massive amounts of legacy code that need to continue to work alongside whatever new whizbang features are introduced, even at the expense of a cleaner or more elegant language.

If I had to give any one reason for C++'s success, it would be the standards committee's stubborn (and in hindsight, wise) refusal to "clean up" the language by removing crufty features and syntax, a lot of which were leftover from C. C++ code from 20 years ago still compiles today mostly unchanged, and that's incredibly important when trying to build up or maintain a large ecosystem. You can see what a huge split it causes in the community when a language breaks compatibility like Python did (2.x vs 3.x), and ultimately, I wonder if it's more damaging than C++'s more conservative approach. As a developer, I'd be hesitant to heavily invest in a language that is more likely to break compatibility and leave me stranded.