Well, if you read TFA (no, I'm not new here) they have a sidebar call out that answers your question...

So about 8K in migration costs vs. 18K in licensing. Assuming another 2-3K of unforeseen support over training issues or missing features that haven't been caught yet it should be a significant savings. And if you factor in the migration cost as a one time payment and assume support costs go down over time as people get used to the new system than the savings become very large indeed after the three years cited in the article.

Most of what I've ever had to use it for was pretty simple so genuinely asking here; is Dia not a good Visio replacement? Are there features in Visio that make it more attractive for even simple stuff or is it that Visio has advanced features that haven't been replicated elsewhere?

E18 eats all of them for breakfast!

I find Vi/G**/Make is still pretty simple. And things like SDL, GTK, QT, etc. simplify things even more. Having watched Windows development evolve for a long time I can sort of see what the submitter is saying but on the other hand anyone who ever wrote a C program for Windows in the 90's using the original Petzold books should really appreciate the frameworks available for Windows programming these days.

Again, I'm talking "Coding for fun, hobby, learning" here, just simple stuff. If it's a business app or something where the subject matter is complex than my feeling is the tools are still more helpful in overcoming that complexity than having to do everything from the bottom up.

Well, if they come up with a scheme to encrypt the paper maybe it will finally be safe for all those lazy users to store their passwords on a post it note. Should be able to squeeze at least 640K onto a post it note, should be enough for anybody.

Although a bit of a long read, the article about the data collected and what the stat's mean is pretty helpful. And unique among 4.3M is pretty bad. It means you are easy to identify and track.

What the results mean (PDF): https://panopticlick.eff.org/b...

Yes, Privacy Badger is a great tool. It's a little tedious when loading content from CDN's, can make pages look pretty bad unless you let a little tracking in... So I also keep my privacy set to delete everything when I close the browser. I also follow the guidelines here ( Scroll down to the Web Browser section ). It's Debian specific but easily translated to whatever mozilla based browsing experience you're using.

As mentioned in the HowTo you can check your "fingerprint" here: https://panopticlick.eff.org/.

And all that said, I have no idea at the moment if any of the above defeats the technique from TFA.

Well as long as they don't spontaneously exhibit signs of evolving into living organisms I don't see what else could go wrong.

That's interesting. Is it the same with Google? I guess I never saw one way or another but I have assumed until now that gone from Google's results meant all of Google, not just TLDs in Europe...

This is what I was wondering... AFAICT the first link is /.'ed and the second link doesn't go in to any technical details. I'm assuming Windows until I hear otherwise but the geographic mix is interesting; are these Windows XP boxes? Is the fact that the infections are concentrated in India and Asia an indication of the many people there that have not upgraded?

I'd never heard of Pushdo before this, anyone else know more about it?

Google of course. I'm sure a lot of Sys Admins recognize that without even thinking, who doesn't ping google.com the minute they have a new machine up, running and online?

Oops. Was actually going for "don't really have to worry about [it]"

Have you seen Weird Al's Word Crimes? It's hilarious.

I'd say Trey and Matt would have lines that rival Apple fans lining up for new iStuff of people ready to sue them. But I think in their case parody and satire protects them where Activision is going for gritty and realistic.

But IANAL and all that. I really don't know what to think here; Noriega is scum but laws should apply equally to all, regardless of how much of a dick they are. I know I wouldn't want people profiting off my depiction without my permission. Lucky me, I'm a nobody and don't really have to worry about! :-)

He's in prison under Panamanian law. Sure, we helped put him there (and profited from his crimes before that became unfashionable and he became less willing to be controlled) but he's in prison for violating Panamanian law and was put there by the Panamanian judiciary.

One of the early What If? comics Marvel put out was about Jane Foster finding Thor's Hammer instead of Don Blake. There is a hilarious summary of it here. Not sure if it's the earliest example of Thor as a woman but's its gotta be close!