According to the linked chat log Linode is storing the lish passwords in plain text!!

I'd suggest you at least change your lish password...

This saddens me a lot, I had much more faith in Linode and make me look like a fool for recently recommending them to others.

I really wish Linode would come forward with the whole facts on this saga, and let us users know what has really been exposed/compromised.

Windows 8 may have some influence on diminishing PC sales but I also think the massive uptake of smart phones and tablets are having a massive impact here.

I'm not by any means saying that smart phones and tablets are a general replacement for PCs, but I'd speculate that the vast majority of PC sales have in recent times been to people who use them for email, web browsing, facebook and the like. For these tasks, the smartphone and tablets are perfectly good, reliable, more convenient and cheaper alternatives to PCs.

Err, ever heard of Android?

The rumour going around is that it's already had some success.

I think they squeezed some Linux in there somewhere.

What is the message here?

Seems like a personal observation of a single household's journey through time...

Is anyone here surprised that devices have become more functional and taken the place of more specific devices?

Perhaps I'm just getting old but this feels like a OMG my rock and stick have been replaced by a hammer scenario...

okay, okay, I'm crawling back under my rock...

Oh, it might be all kicks and giggles for those in the banking, finance and mining industries, but it's an absolute drain on the economy and social well being.

I don't have the figures at hand but the banking, finance and mining industries employ very few of our population. It does not work well for the country as a whole.

I'm not sure we're doing so much better.

Our government has successfully kicked the can down the road with its intervention, but the underlying issues that have plagued the world's financial markets are still present in our financial markets.

Look at how lop sided our economy is. Money is only made in banking/finance and mining, it's not a healthy position...

We are in the middle/end of our biggest commodity boom - these are the super good times, yet we struggle to have a surplus. Our housing has become so expensive that many struggle just to pay their mortgage...

Not feeling too lucky to me.

I don't feel so lucky..

Pfft, 70% - they cook their inflation figures using hedonics to suit what ever outcome they want. It's all a load of nonsense, useless figures and feel good fluff to feed our media brainwashed, critical thinking challenged population. /rant - It's just possible that I don't think highly of my government, perhaps even given up on the entire concept.. Just maybe..

Indeed - that's pretty much exactly how I'd like it.

On the desktop it's more of an input device than a display - the display part just makes it oh so much nicer.

Why must we consider our input devices to be mutually exclusive? We didn't ditch the keyboard with the introduction of the mouse...

On the desktop I can see a touch screen complimenting my current setup - it won't replace my keyboard and mouse any time soon but I would certainly get some use along side them.

Not that I agree it's a real problem in real world use (not form my experience anyway), but to answer your question - because you don't need to look though the gunk on your keyboard to read your screen.

I don't think many are concerned about the the hygiene of touch screens, it's the discomfort one feels when looking at a dirty screen.

Though looking at my colleague's screens that point is somewhat moot....

I agree that an Android device (or whatever competitor device you prefer) is not a replacement for your dev pc, but I'd wager that the vast majority of people who purchased PC before the explosion of smart phones did not use their PC like you or I. They used it for browsing the web, facebook, email, youtube, etc.

I'll also wager that the smart phones have most certainly replaced the PC for the vast majority of these users. Most PC owners used them to consume not create, and for that the smart phones and tablets are now the standard for these people.

Are they more productive? Probably not. Are they cheaper, easier to administer, better battery life (compared to laptops), more convenient? I'd say so... Not to mention, they are oh so more trendy!

So without being all technical, I'd be happy to claim that Android style devices have in fact already replaced the PC for the common person (who I'm sure are the vast majority of device purchasers).

13th Floor - in my opinion, far better then The Matrix.. One of my all time favourite movies.

My guess is, that the effects of the recent economic downturn has yet to be realised - it's been kicked down the road by the creation of trillions of dollars and increased debt to offset its effect - it's been absorbed (hidden) by more debt and inflation.

So I think it's a little too early to be making any judgements or conclusions.