Oh, I wasn't saying that I agreed with a utility argument. I'm just saying that it is a common one made, but it's one that doesn't even hold ground here as there is no evidence that it HAS prevented an attack. So there isn't even the utility ground to stand on. Destroying the arguments that your opponent presents is the most effective way to win a debate. If our options are to have a world with more freedom or a world with less freedom with no additional benefit to it, what do you think wins in that situation in the minds of most people?

"If you like your privacy, you can keep it"

This is how power creeps. No one thinks they're evil. Each trust themselves to not abuse power. But even if this is going to a third party, it's still a violation of the 4th amendment. There are rules in place for a reason. This is asking to be abused.

Even worse, they still haven't proven or show any evidence that this is necessary. It's one thing if you were preventing terrorist attacks left and right and could make a utility argument, but they aren't even doing that. It's disgusting.

I don't know if I'm convinced Sony isn't doing this either. Sony said they won't "block" used games. Technically Microsoft isn't either. Both companies were holding secret meetings about a year ago. I doubt both companies having similar architecture and other features is a coincidence. Sony has also said that you would install games to the drive like Microsoft claims. I'm betting they're just playing quiet.

I might be able to take their word seriously if they didn't paint the blackberry playbook in a positive light at all. After running one of the worst launches in history, no wonder that thing fell flat on it's face. My favorite review said something along the lines of "It's like paying $200 to see Bruce Springsteen and having to settle for a homeless guy in the subway air guitaring it"

We're absolutely in a bubble right now. I'm not going to argue against that, but a high need for development is in no way going away anytime soon. The enrollment level in CS is pathetic, and aside from some technological breakthrough that renders developers useless or a massive wipe out of our level of technology, the jobs will remain in demand. As high as they are now? No, but still plenty high enough to not warrant the need for unionization. Look at the rest of the engineering fields. Extremely low unionization rate comparative to other fields and the ones that are unionized are mostly due to the unionization of lower manual labor jobs in connected work. I'm sorry, but I just don't see the general trajectory of need for developers being diverted anytime in the next decade. There will be waxes and wanes, but it would take something pretty monstrous to knock developers down that far. There are too many needs that the human race has to solve, and so many of them have software solutions.

Why would I want to belong to a union when the most of the power is on the developer's side? There's not enough developers to go around and thus plenty of job availability. Unions are meant to solidify workers rights in a situation where labor is plentiful, but that's nowhere near the case. Companies fight over us. I just made a decision between 3 offers this week to accept a new job. The power was in my hand.

Exactly. The biggest reason that the Nexus 7 is able to undercut the iPad in price is because it's a smaller screen and because Google isn't making a profit on hardware, not because of significantly less features. It's still as every bit capable and more internally, but the smaller screen on a device being sold at near cost is what makes it $200.

Because developers like me who are already making android games can easily make a few adjustments and sell our games on this console instead of having to work a lot harder to make a port.

Developer drops game price to $0, failing to cite that it was a really shitty game that charged for upgrades.

" even though they still use the crappy Java"

I was going to award you some points, and then I read that. Now I dislike you.

What really has me excited about Windows 8 is Kinect. I think we're going to see a big transformation in the landscape of user interface in the next several years pushing us towards device-less interfaces.

  Granted, this stuff isn't a replacement, it's a supplement. So don't think I'm preaching the death of touch or mouse and keyboard. The more options of well developed and useful interfaces we have the better.

I half expect /. to go dark in like 3 days since that's how long it normally takes the news to show up here.

man, some people just can't take a joke

Which I left.

This is such an obvious LOTR ripoff, please tell me this is a joke. It even looks like the same actor that palys the wizard...has Hollywood honestly come to this?