but it was never hers. It was company provided!

I've been using a rolling release of Linux for years. The whole concept of having to start over when a new version comes out seems so antiquated.

On the other hand.. I don't see how this can work for a closed, comercial product unless they can sell people on the subscription model. I'd say that would be a tough sell but then again.. people buy crappy hardware that needs replaced in a year or two. People subscribe to access libraries of movies and music rather than permanently buy recordings. Maybe it's only a tough sell to me.

That's not what the article is about. The article is about a fight over their right to distribute plans for the Liberator. That is an all-plastic 3d printed gun.

Uh, no.

The article was about digital plans for the Liberator, a 3D printed gun which is meant to be printed in plastic.

The last I heard their mill was just a nifty little CNC mill. It's good for making guns and that's what they market for but it's nothing new. If you have the skill and knowlege to make a gun with it then you already have the skill and knowlege to make a gun with tons of other machines which have been available for a long time.

But have they been actively developed during that time? Have they had the kind of development effort that the internal combustion engine has enjoyed?

I'm all for DD supporting second amendment rights but come on... I still can barely believe that people are actually printing guns.

Sure.. with some super-expensive, totally out of reach equipment you can print a nice metal gun at many many times the price of making it the old fashioned way. But plastic guns? Really... let me type that again... PLASTIC F'ING GUNS!!

Law abiding citizen or criminal... I think a person shooting a plastic gun is mostly a threat to themself. One of these things is going to blow up in somebody's face!

Those who support individual rights can call 3d printed guns a great thing. Those who fear inanimate objects and bogeymen can call it a disaster. I'll just call it a boatload of Darwin Awards waiting to happen!

Yes, may their significant others do so and if they have none then may the mate of their dreams take the job.

My Droid Bionic plus Lapdock have been great for me.

Granted.. the software IS mostly optimized for phone use. I'm not installing desktop stuff on there. Many apps do change their displays significantly when they are ran on a tablet as opposed to a phone. When using the lapdock they do the same thing which is awesome. They switch back to phone-mode when I unplug it.

Of course.. for 'real' desktop applications I use a VNC app. That's fine by me though. I already 'babysit' a desktop. (keep applications up to date, etc...). I don't really want a laptop because that would be just like having a second desktop to babysit. VNC on my phone in the lapdock with an unlimitted data connection is perfect for me!

I have a 30 year old Panasonic and a 29 year old that I don't remember the brand name. They both get lots of use and still work great!

No you don't! You can do it with just one. That's how it was done originally and many Hams stil do it that way. It's called a straight key. You just hold your finger down longer for a dah, shorter for a dit.

There are apps already out there for this using either one or two buttons. Some can even work both ways based on preference. They just need to be ported to the watch.

I've never seen a break key. Interesting idea. I'm not sure why/how you would use it. Instead of pressing a break key just spend that same time pressing nothing.

Then again I am thinking more of actually sending morse such as a ham sending CW. If you had a break key then a short press would mean you could immediately go to the next dit or dah. The keyer would still have to wait to send that dit or dah so you would need a buffer. That would be kind of weird to use since usually when sending morse one listens while sending.

I suppose that for this applicaiton a break key could work and would allow faster 'typing'. Just don't actually sound out the code and do display the characters as they are typed. It is hardly necessary though, two or one button would work just fine.

That's what you took away from my post? Really? Maybe you think that YOU are working for the next big billion dollar business?

I guess con artists who go after specific age groups shouldn't be prosecuted for being con artists. They should be sued for age descrimination because they are not offering to steal from everyone equally.

It doesn't matter where they are now. The point is there were alternatives. Without Microsoft one or more of those alternatives would have had Microsoft's user base. Of course.. that would have probably resulted in more money going into that alternative.. which would have meant more development.. taking it to a further level than it was originally developed.

So.. no, we would not all be on mainframes without Microsoft.

I guess I was being naive myself to expect unicode to work!

Most of the time when those tech companies are targeting the young people it's naiveté that they are really looking for.

They want someone who will work all their waking hours on salary and not bitch about it because they think they are "a part of something". They think they are working on the next Facebook and they are going to get rich because they are among the early employees.

In actuality they are just looking to pump as much cheap labor as they possibly can until either the kids are all burnt out and they dump them for fresh ones or they can find someone to sell the company to, likely laying everyone off but getting the owner a nice check out of the deal.

Most older people should know better by now anyway and realize they aren't missing much.

I guess I should have been shorter.

My suggestion is that when you are presented with two doors, behind one you know there is death, behind the other you have no f'ng idea. Only an idiot would chose the death one. Taking a chance is better than not having a chance!

Every study that comes out says that we need to cut unrealistic amounts of carbon and we need to do it yesterday. Meanwhile politicians only commit to mandates that aren't even as good as what realistically could be done and industry just continues on as usual.

Do you all think this problem is going to solve itself?

On the hopeful side... at least once everything that naturally lives on Antarctica is dead because it can't adapt fast enough we will have a nice chunk of land we can bomb to create the nuclear winter we will need just to keep alive.