What a lot of idiots like Animats just don't get about Arduino is that Arduino managed to get a fun package out on the market anyone can get started with and can get started with without having to rely on the type of people who snort derisively at anyone who cannot tell resistors apart by smell.

Just buy a kit and you can experiment for fun in a way that is fun and does not involve the need to first lean how to measure voltages until you want to.

Yes there are countless other systems out there, both more powerful and invariable connected to communities that are exclusive rather then inclusive. Ask on an Arduino forum for stuff anyone knows about as beginner and you get an answer. It is the same reason Linux beat BSD and PHP beats say Java or Ruby. Not because they are necessarly better products but because more people can get started with them.

Plenty of people who mess with these kit robots just want to mess about, use them as toys, have a bit of fun. They don't need massive parallel processing or sensors with miles of range, they do not dream of making a spy bot. They want to have a toy that follows their hand or make their own beer cannon or just see some leds light up. I know to anyone who has a full soldering stations it might sound incredible but for the majority, first having to spend a weekend soldering a kit together is NOT what they want if they buy a diy robot kit. They want to spend maybe an hour at most and then have something that moves. From there they may or may not advance. 2D SLAM? Jezus Christ Animats, just how sad are you as a human being?

Most people don't want to instantly have to develop the next generation mars rover. They want to have some fun! PLAY. If you like remote control aircraft, you start with a simpel plastic model and have fun and MAYBE someday you will go further OR NOT! Maybe start with a click and play model train set like Kato and MAYBE one day move on to making your own tracks from scratch. MAYBE. But from beginner to expert there is a lot of room for simply having fun, for enjoying toys at the level you are comfortable at and are willing to spend the time learning. And Arduino sits there are the beginner entry, middle level, open and welcoming and not demanding people first follow a 4yr electronics course to get anything done and because of that it is a massive hit. And it is getting people involved in messing with electronics who never would have before and it is GREAT!

And in the background are the forever alone losers trying to point out there more powerful toys with impossible to read manuals and secret society forums where you can only post if you first lurked for two years as an apprentice.

It is kinda sad in a way because it is just basic business sense. You want to sell something, you got to make it accesible. Arduino is the next step up from Lego Mindstorm. They got what made Mindstorm such a gigantic hit, an open accessible friendly platform where you can either remain as a fun loving beginner or use as a stepping stone.

And forever aloners like Animats will be crying "but we got more cpu power" as the rest of the planet has fun.

This argument starts up every time somebody had to pay their plumber 80 bucks an hour to fix the toilet, their fility stinking filled with shit toilet. They then think the plumber doing a job they never ever want to do themselves, is rolling in it and the IT being their shit but piles of money.

As if that 80 bucks is pure profit. Meanwhile the daddy plumber knows just how much of that costs goes to cover unpaid hours, taxes, insurance, tool costs etc etc. And he also knows how much Mr Doctor and Mr Lawyer charged him for his children's delivery and to deal with that frivolous lawsuit.

So... what is he going to want for his kids? The same as himself in a world where just getting by is the same as being a loser OR to aim for the top?

And don't for a second think that Bloomberg is interested in the fortunes of the public. He just wants more plumbers so he can pay less, same reason his kind wants immigrants to bust unions and high wages. Sure kids, all become plumbers and wave bye bye to 80 bucks as the competition sky rockets. And then you look longingly at IT graduates making high wages because nobody learned how to code anymore.

Simple piece of advice for live: NEVER listen to a billionaire, they didn't get rich by looking out for other peoples interest.

If I make crap out a thoroughly horrid turt and you then buy it and goble it up... what exactly should be my motivation in creating a better turd?

You bought Windows8. You like turds, you are not a focus for further development because they already got your money.

8.1 is aimed at the people who haven't been eating shit for months on end. To try and get their money too by polishing the turd.

What do I use? Linux... yeah... gnome 3. But at least MY turd is FREE!

I OS makers made cars, we would all be riding bicycles.

That is basically company owned dealerships, they have existed for a long time and the decent ones were a FAR better deal if you just wanted a good car for a fair price with good service.

BUT it ties the car company to the vagaries of the local car market including having to worry about brick and mortar store issues like location.

For a very common large scale car maker, it is barely do-able. For a niche market? There is in Holland 1 Ferrari dealer. But that is not the issue because people in the market for such a car don't have an issue traveling a bit in their luxury car and are in any case likely to be living in the west part of Holland (the store used to be in Utrecht, which is almost dead center for the economic heart of Holland).

But it is FAR FAR easier to serve all you need to serve with a web site and a service van. If Tesla has to open a shell company in every state, in every country in every county/province, that is a LOT of shell companies. And why should it? Amazon doesn't have to do it. Why should car dealers not face pressure from web stores? Especially since dealers COULD have a unique location issue, fixing your car.

This is clearly bought law. The US has the right to bear arms. Stop killing kids with your guns and kill yourselves some politicians instead. Or are the guns you carry just to compensate for your small penisses. Come on US, show us why you got more guns then citizens.

http://www.scroogled.com/

This campaign of lies funded by MS is now a double lie because MS unlike Google isn't open about it. Everyone knows gmail scans your messages. Nobody knew Skype does the same.

THAT is why it is news and deserves to be repeated over and over to shut up all the MS trolls who were so happy to spout the scroogled fud.

The recent bomb attack in Turkey near the Syrian border had as its target civilians who belong to the same group as Syrians government. They are ANTI the syrian rebels who are now in their town.

There is no such thing as a "Muslim", while to the outside world Islam tends to be presented as one faith (against the world), internally their are many divisions some of which are based on simply which region you are from. And those regions have little to do with todays borders.

The real danger so far is not so much ONE country falling into civil war, but it inevitably spreading as groups outside the first country taking sides and for it then to spread until it is warlord against warlord.

Only the British ever really managed to contain it with their moto of: 'Don't fight or we will kill you'. Remove the "evil" dictator who is supressing the groups and you soon find yourself with out of control groups willing to spend the next 1000 years fighting each other of patches of sand.

Pretty much as Europe was btw until finally after WW2 the EU was formed because constant war was to costly to business. And we in the EU with over half a century of peace still hate each others guts and universally resent the institution that has given us over half a century of peace.

As Douglas Adams said: People are a problem.

You seriously compare free account ever created for whatever reasons to active payed accounts... You must be dense. Why not compare the number of all WoW accounts every created, including during free weekends. And even then it doesn't compare because WoW is only on some occasions free to create an account while Maple story always is. You just confirmed to me the level of intelligence of F2P losers once again.

So basically your argument is to waste a HUGE range just in case one of your coders can't code and can't do basic transactions?

And your "fix" fixes nothing because underflow can happen at negative numbers as well. Basically if you are a coder, you are a lousy one because you took a design decision based on ONE possible occurrence. What if you reached the lowest limit of a signed int and deducted the WRONG amount? You would have fixed NOTHING. Worse, you "fix" the wrong thing that doesn't fix anything rather then fixing the true error, which is that you are both deducting the wrong amount AND more then the game logic should allow.

In any transaction type code, where the amount can't go negative (there is no debt in Diablo as far as I know) because you substract ANY amount, you first check that the amount can be deducted to begin with.

Your an idiot and shouldn't be let near anything more complicated then a stick. A small one.

This is a trivial issue and it has been solved countless times. By any banking software for instance. Really... deducting an amount where the result may not be less then 0... goddamn, I never thought I would encounter anyone who considered that a challenge who also didn't wear a helmet indoors.

To activate Linux, you either:

• Got to blow a Penguin
• Burn the American flag.
• Pay Darl McBride 999 dollar.

Any questions?

Like fish. Any other questions?

Although the parent is rather obviously trolling, Google has a bit to learn about marketing. They are after all the brainiacs that launch social hubs by generating massive publicity and intrest for it, then letting people in only slowly so that by the time most people can actually use it, the hype has completely died off and the early birds have left because the places were deserted.

Google Glass has a simple answer for both power and battery life and price and reception. It is called a wire, the kind of wire that is attached to headphones. Gadget freaks already carry a large battery, a powerful cpu etc. They also are highly likely to carry a pair of headphones. So... why is Google Glass not equipped for decent headphones or a wire?

Simply connect it via USB to a phone. Then you use the touchscreen on the phone in your pocket, use its cpu and its reception without wasting battery life on a short range radio that has to deal with close promiximity of a human body (always plays merry hell with bluetooth).

I think Google was terrified that the device would be to nerdy and not hip enough but lets face it. This will only appeal to the terminally uncool and that is okay because I long since given up on the idea that any woman will go "meh, why not, just how bad can it be" by just seeing me and would be perfectly at home... but I also like my gadgets to be functional and a gadget that is out of power before mid day, isn't functional (or do you think that as you use a device, battery life goes up?).

Nice try google but either invent a battery 10 times more efficient then current tech or break out the wires. And really, WHERE ARE THE EARPLUGS!

because there MIGHT be 1 woman out there crazy enough but if I am seen with these glasses on and STILL talking in my phone... forget it... oh wait, she just texted me... oh. right... oh well... send me a pair over Google, seems I don't need to worry about how it will look any more.

For those who don't follow UK politics, it is very important to remember who is in power to understand laws being introduced. What party is in power? One of the three corrupt ones. There are also only really three parties so it really doesn't matter. They are all corrupt and UK elections are really about voting for the party that people hate the least.

And this isn't just meant to be funny, the libdems were usually thought of as the nice but dim party, the moment they get a tiny sliver of power and come under some real scrutiny, the sleaze comes out.

'I think I just ruined my mom's night,' a man from New York tweeted him back while showing a profanity-laced message from his mother who asked if he 'wanted' to go back to jail.

Seems some "kids" just got no sense.

I was talking to some smalltime hosters and they were bitching about how much spamhaus was hurting them by blocking ip's they had rented out to these high paying east europeans... basically it was one long sales pitch FOR spamhaus because as a non-spammer and hosting with reputable companies, spamhaus is for me a savior and provides zero hassle.

It is basically like listening as a non-smoker to smokers bitch about how all the anti-smoking laws are making their lives miserable. Wheee! So the laws do work after all! Yahoo! Come on smoker, make my day, tell me how you have to stand outside in the bitter cold and rain, give me a reason to smile. Because I remember the days when every office had gray-blue air.

And I remember the days when your mailbox was overflowing with spam and it still continues, try to find a forum or such where there aren't constant attempts with "I made money working from home". Spamhaus wrecked your hosting business? Cry me a fucking river smokey. Outside in the rain with you.

REMEMBER THIS when you see someone bitch that Spamhaus blacklisted their ip (range). It has ZERO effect on non-spammers. Spamhauses blocklists are ONLY used for email. If I go with a hosting party that was blocked and put a web server on a blacklisted IP. IT HAS NO EFFECT. My webserver will be fully accessible to anyone!

NOBODY but mass mailers are affected by spamhaus lists. Want to host with a disreputable hosting company AND send a small amount of emails to users? Send your "legit" emails as most reputable parties do, through 3rd party mail services. The ONLY reason to send mail from server hosted at a disreputable hosting party is because you are a filthy spammer or a very cheap ass bastard.

And no doubt some asswipe will come with his needs to force everyone to waste their bandwidth on HIS essential marketing message and I say to him, OUTSIDE IN THE RAIN YOU CANCER STICK BURNER.

By the way, were are all the kiddies who claimed the bunker hosting meant the guy was untouchable because he could life for years inside it? Wake up kiddies, people like that do not want to spend all their life holed up in a bunker. Spammer 0, The world 1

The placebo effect is essentially about faith, if you BELIEVE the sugar pill works, it sometimes does.

Religion is ultimately for people who are a bit silly, anyone with a working brain, who questions, who wants to know what the pills contains and how it works... well.. they are going to know sugrose is at most going to help a diabetic patient during an attack but not going to stop say the pain of kidney stones.

Not that people can't still have "faith" even if they know that morphine is the only cure for that, my doctor gave me some high dosis pills to take if the pain became to much with a list of warnings about how I really shouldn't take them if I could stand the pain. It was a nice trick, just by having them I was able to stand the pain for longer and having them in my hand for the moments in between low dosage regular non-addictive pain medicine having worn out and the new pill not yet working fully... well it gave me the strength to continue. BUT it was a faith bases on science, the faith that I could STOP the pain at any moment with the morphine pill made me able to endure it 5 more minutes, 10 more minutes.

I can see the same working for people who have faith in a beard in the sky as long you don't question why an omnipotent god can't just take the kidney stones away. Don't forget, ignorance is bliss. If you can just accept that there is an answer to it all and that it doesn't have to make any sense at all to you because you are not meant to understand gods plan... well... that isn't it logical you would be a more content person then someone who wants to know how a person who talks to a good god can rape kids and not be considered an ally of satan instead?

Don't question, be happy. It is simple. The slave who doesn't rebel isn't whipped and has everything taken care off. No worries and probably selected to breed to create new docile slaves.

Alternatively, question things, want the world to be just and make sense and you are in for a lot of anguish and mental torture. Just imagine what I, a person who does not believe that in a democracy there is room for royalty is going through right now in The Netherlands. Why, like Terry Pratchett wrote, does humanity come with foldable knees. Why is everyone kowtowing to a rather fat useless lardass who couldn't find a german war-criminal to marry so he went to brazil to get the daughter of one? There is nothing remarkable about the guy but most of Holland is falling all over themselves to worship him. WHY?

I can quite see how a person who doesn't question such things would be happier.

Just less of a human being.

You are absolutely 100% correct and this is a common tactic by those who seek to oppress, not to shut you up perso but just to silence you long enough for attention to drift away. You can see an excellent example by weasel company Shell who around the Brent Spar debacle diverted attention away from Greenpeace claim there was till oil aboard the to be sunk platform by claiming that there was less oil on board then Greenpeace claimed, bought reporters like Witteman immidiatly fell for it. Quite by accident (caused by lucrative public speaking contracts) forgetting that Shell had claimed there was NO oil left on board. No oil mean zero liters but the bought press then went into attack mode on Greenpeace because Greenpeace couldn't exactly measure how many thousands of liters were left on board. By the time more accurate measurements had been taken, attention had drifted.

BUT judgments such as this make it harder to pull the same thing again next time. No it won't fix things in the past but it might fix the future.

Oh and this bit did reach the news, so wikileaks is in the news again. And everyone now has proof that Visa, Mastercard and Paypal acted against the law. That means something to. Not much but the longest journey starts with a single step, and a LOT of steps after that. Nothing worth fighting for was every won easily.