An all-out sprint on a treadmill doesn't take you anywhere. Can we please stop reinventing the wheel, over and over and over again?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3420641&cid=42739283

Moving mass requires energy. The amount of energy required increases in proportion to the mass. Energy used by an airplane is supplied by fuel that costs money. More mass, more fuel, more money. Full stop. This has nothing to do with health, or discrimination, or anything else besides the laws of physics.

My feelings tell me that nuclear power is bad and scary!

These people are trapped by their own make-believe assumptions about the technology, refuse to acknowledge that apps like Codea exist, and are convinced that using an Apple product somehow takes away their freedom. What freedom? Oh, you know, that freedom that lets you go in and modify the kernel source code to suit your own needs. Or that freedom to use whatever software you like. Or to create new content. Yeah, Apple totally destroys all that and keeps kids from learning! The iPad sucks! Fuck Apple! I want my freedom!

So tired of reading these disk destruction threads. This question comes up on Slashdot every few months and it's the same, tired, old nonsense. If you really cared about your data not falling into nefarious hands, you would've encrypted it in the first place.

There's no serious, practical reason to give a hard drive a spectacular destruction other to satisfy primitive urges.

Absolutely freaking correct. The state of open source duplicity is simply embarrassing these days.

We have redundant efforts with databases.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3590191&cid=43301755

Redundant efforts with web browsers and phones.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3420641&cid=42739283
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3457941&cid=42884767

Then waste heat on anachronistic projects.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3469697&cid=42931869

And now we have redundant efforts on display servers.

Doesn't anyone else the damn pattern here? As long as this nonsense continues, open source platforms are going to be inconsistent, slapped-together, lack-luster trash heaps without any clear focus or direction. All the while playing catch up to where desktops were over a decade ago, in an age where the desktop is rapidly diminishing into irrelevance.

Sigh.

Have fun with your fork, guys.

Because Windows is shit? Of course, Windows is quite secure these days. I already answered your point by referencing Apache HTTPD. Try again, maybe?

Again, you're using a term from an entirely different sphere that describes a phenomenon among biological organisms. Software products don't have variation from copy to copy, they don't breed, and they don't evolve through natural selection. They're designed and modified in response to specific needs and threats. Nothing could be further from how living things survive and propagate.

Yes, it is. In this case, we have two different projects that are both hard at work on inventing the wheel. We all know exactly how we want the wheel to work, but because we're dividing our efforts we're getting two wheels that work very similarly, and aren't truly interchangeable.

A SQL database is meant to store and retrieve data in a very specific way, and do those tasks as quickly and reliably as possible. The mathematics that define how best to accomplish these goals is a common factor. So why the hell do we have two independent projects chasing those goals?

You tell me: what is the benefit? (And don't start spouting terms "monoculture," because that's baloney. This isn't a biological ecosystem we're talking about here, and even if you use that term, Apache proved it wasn't a problem a long time ago.)

Because everyone in the open source community has this insufferable "Me, too!" attitude, resulting in half a dozen needlessly duplicative efforts.

That should be http://nodejs.org/ not .com.

Are you one of these people who suggests JavaScript isn't a “real” language? Would it help to know that I have applications in production that service thousands of requests per second, accessed through rich, stateful clients that are loaded once and talk to the server without reloading the page?

JavaScript is probably the most powerful, versatile, and accessible language around these days.

I'm glad I could discourage you, although the other respondent here (CaptainLard) also offers some good advice. (There is, at least, a trial period where you can use the camera and send it back if you're not happy. But I'd be cautious; their support is extremely slow.) Keep in mind, however, that I haven't told the whole story here. You can imagine a lot of hand-wringing went on during the two months and three cameras I received before I finally got a product that wasn't broken on delivery. And now that I've a nominally working camera in my hands, I find myself very disappointed with its performance. (I have no doubt GoPro didn't eat their own dog food when filming the "sample videos" shown in their advertisements.) Do some digging around GetSatisfaction forums and read the complaints. You'll find I'm not alone. And, as someone who reads Slashdot, you'll probably identify all the weaknesses and flaws in the product's engineering quickly. I think the only reason GoPro gained popularity is because they were the only game in town. Now that other companies are recognizing this is a hot space, I believe the alternatives will start eating their lunch pretty quickly.

GoPro easily produces one of the worst products I've ever had the misfortune of using. The HERO3 I received shipped with a barely working wireless feature, which a software update disabled, then a following update bricked the device. After over one month of going back and forth with technical support, they finally got around to issuing a replacement. The replacement had a bad lens. At last, I finally got one that works! But now more than two months had passed since my initial order. Alas, the video quality is poor, it can no longer be made to record 1080p wide video, and the battery gives me about 30 minutes of recording time. Their product design and engineering is laughably sloppy, and I'm eagerly awaiting the day we see some competition move in and offer decent alternatives.