Uggh ... terrible moderation here. This is flamebait, not insightful. As an ios developer, I recommend that you buy the device that best caters to your needs and if you do get off the beaten path with that device -- educate yourself on possible dangers. If you install 3rd apps on your android device, check its requested permissions. If you root your ios device, change the freakin' root password. The issue isn't the device, but the person using it.

Seriously ... I'm tired of this android / ios pissing match on Slashdot -- and that includes mods. I know it generate hits but it's make for terrible conversations. Believe it or not, they can co-exist.

These days, denoting anything positive about apple on Slashdot can result in a mod down or being slapped with a "fanboy" title.

If you want to get modded up, make sure you include the words "walled garden", "1984 commercial", and "flash" in your post while mentioning something positive about android even though the topic may not in the slightest way be about mobile devices.

If the topic is about desktop computers, make sure you tell people that in the future, the desktop is going to be like an ipod where you can only install approved software even though it isn't true. Then close your post making some remark about Steve Jobs and the cult of mac people.

If anyone disagrees with you, label them a fanboy, mention their supposed love affair with steve jobs, and tell them to give freedom a chance. Sign off and go play on your XBox360 or PS3 and forget about the irony of it all.

right ... because no one at google is a certified apple developer ...

Very interesting post although you did manage to sidestep the most important question of them all - how many pizza boxes will it take to stop a rifle bullet?

I'm running the latest build of Firefox on my late 2008 macbook pro with 4 gigs of ram. Right now, the app is taking 800megs while utilizing 15% of my cpu. I'm running Snow Leopard with five tabs open. One is a 404. One is an xml view. One is xbox live with the silverlight disabled. One is Slashdot with the ajax turned off. And the final one is an image was I viewing. I have only a couple of extensions installed and I never open a lot of tabs. Five or six is my sweet spot. Once firefox exceeds 1 gig of ram it starts to peg my cpu to the point where I have to kill the process.

Maybe it's the mac build, but it really is terrible. right now, I use it because of inertia but I these days, I feel more like a babysitter.

It relieves me to see them finally taking this issue seriously but I wonder if it might be a little too late (in my case). I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired with it.

Btw, it's now up to 865mb from when I started typing. Just switching tabs kicked it up to 890 and now 920. I'm not making this up. I've seen the same behavior on vanilla installs. It's hard to believe it's persisted so long. Lets hope we see from fruit from there team. 950 now. I can't access the status bar. Submitting this then closing down the process.

PS - Post preview it dropped to 730 although I still can't access the status bar.

I moved to Los Angeles in the late nineties and left before these traffic cameras were operational. When I first arrived, I noticed that people would collectively pause at a green light. It would be a one or two second delay which completely baffled me. In New England, we'd jump the greens like a drag race.

The answer came rather fast. In a lot of the intersections, there were no green arrows so in some places the only way for people to get across the street was to run a red light. And not just one person would run the light, but four or five. It was crazy but in time, it made complete sense to me and soon I internalized it. So I can imagine the outrage if there were now cameras placed at intersections. It's like paying a toll to cross the street. Maybe things have changed since then, but it seemed pure insanity not to have green arrows considering the amount of people in the area.

Editing is critical with writing (all writing is rewriting), but the editor / writer relationship has been increasingly diminished. Editors are getting more writers with fewer hours to devote to each one. The end result is that publishers are seeking "the best" manuscripts as opposed to manuscripts that need work.

For example, Robert E. Howard - author of the Conan stories - would not be published under today's system as he was nurtured from an editor early on in his career

The days of publishers farming their own writers are quickly becoming a thing of the past. You got to be a Stephen King right out of the gate and if your first book fails, then you have a better shot at getting published again if you use a penname ( ie, one bad book will kill you these days).

I'll give you a little insight into the publishing industry ... the editor/author relationship is becoming a thing in the past. Publishers these days tend to want to publish "the best" instead of growing a writer. I'm not saying these types of relationships no longer exist, rather they are no longer the norm. These days, publishers are looking for books ready to print.

That said, marketing dollars for a non published writer is pretty much non-existent. Marketing dollars are generally reserved for the Stephen Kings of the industry while the new writer gets next nothing. And here's the lovely catch-22. Since publishers have access to sales numbers, a first book is do or die for a writer. If your first book sells horribly, you'll be less likely to publish again. A new writer has a better shot at getting published than a failed published one. So as a new writer, you really have the cards stacked against you.

The big problem with self publishing is that writers tend to publish way too early, but it is certainly losing it's stigma it used to have. I knew a guy who self published a zombie book. It was terrible. I couldn't make it through it but he kept revising it (after he already self published) and he got a book deal out of it. Hell, two years ago, if you self published a manuscript, no house in the world would touch it. These are exciting times for a writer.

"... The existence and use of non-free software [which] is a social problem. It's an evil. And our aim is a world without that problem"

-- Sent from my iPod

Bill Bryson wrote (and I'm paraphrasing here) in his book "At Home" that often times aristocrats held unreasonable expectations of their servants because they had never preformed the work that the servants did.

I'm reference this because people who wrap themselves up in the ideology of "internet freedom fighters" probably don't understand the process of creating something and how debilitating it is to have that work released before it is ready. Especially after years of hard work and personal sacrifice went into it.

I don't expect you to understand because I'm not talking about laws and rights and the inherit freedom of digital bits - I'm talking about what it takes to be a good neighbor.

Hmm ... I challenge you to provide a feature to this "open" spec and see where that gets you. I'm guessing you won't be able to get past their spam filter. When they mean that anyone can contribute, they really mean "anyone with relevant patents" or "anyone with industry clout". To the everyday coder, this spec is just as closed as the Google spec.

Yes, boiled down to its essence, rhythm games are just pressing buttons to a color on the screen. But if you want to argue usefulness, players are learning rhythm to different beats as they are learning to step up and step down on fake instruments. These skills do transfer over to playing an instrument.

But that's not really the point. The really fun thing about these types of games is that you get a whole bunch of different people who DO NOT play video games and have great time. It's a SOCIAL experience. I watched my mother and my aunt sing a duet together and they are both in their seventies who look at all video games the same way you look at rhythm games.

And yes, people look ridiculous when they brag about their fake guitar skills the same way they look ridiculous when they brag about their fake driving skills or their fake army skills.

I think people raise their nose at them because it's one of those things that look so ridiculous but turns out to be really fun with a low point of entry. But when other gamers turn up their nose, I want to hit them with a clue stick because they fail to see the irony of their snobbery. They don't realize that they are being judged by the exact same criteria by non-gamers.

A few points ... one can still buy a commercial operating system and support open source / free software to push the "cause" forward. Mind you, the "cause" doesn't give a rats ass about him or you in any way.

Two ... life isn't defined in binary oppositions. Saying that you either support the status quo or are moving forward is disingenuous at best.

Three ... just because a person is religious does not mean he or she has turned off critical thinking skills. Start using your own critical thinking skills for you are defining the whole by a very small albeit extreme part.

Four ... if you see someone losing faith in something you believe in (ie, free software), you don't bring him back to the fold by making grand speeches with "big" ideas and how he is failing to meet those ideals. You reach out to him and offer personal support. You become the bridge. Save the speeches for the politicians.

Kinnect is a $150 ... not the two hundred as you claim. And you can always pick one up used from ebay if you like. And I'm guessing the majority of Kinnect purchasers already own the XBox. That said, having recently played the Kinnect I will say that I was underwhelmed. I found the lag to be bothersome and the games I played were forgettable. The voice navigation just sucked often requiring us to pick up the controller to actually do what we wanted to do. I will say it was a blast watching the kids play it. They loved it so it may turn out to be a a fun family thing down the line but for now, I'm sticking to Rock Band for my group activities.

This most disturbing thing about the Kinnect is the data mining potential as noted by a MS exec. Seriously ... if I had one, I would keep it unplugged when I wasn't playing a game.

You might want to check over here in all its 1990's web design glory: http://www.driveinmovie.com/mainmenu.htm