If this device becomes a commodity found in every home, it will spawn a whole new generation of pranksters who will sneak up to houses and "hack" the lighting and appliances with a whistle. We'll wind up needing two-factor authentication for our whistle-houses.
Just like the problem of people waking around firing infrared through the window at your tv and changing the channel?
Really, we have hand held devices that can talk to another on the other side of a planet *without any infrastructure, not even an orbiting ship*?
How many rap lyrics *don't* contain statements that could be construed as a specific threat?
Will Smith
Are you seriously implying that touchscreen is the new, better method of input?
What exactly do you do on a computer? Im gonna guess its not
Or anything, really, that involves rapidly moving data from your brain onto a computer. Or does the new Lightning connector have that capability built into it?
I write code, and do system administration. Obviously I prefer my trusty thinkpad with linux on it, however when I get a phone call with a problem, I love the fact I can ssh in from my phone and restart apache or similar. I've gone as far as using vim to create perl. Once I even ran a debugger.
Obviously a PC is better than a laptop, a laptop is better than a tablet, and a tablet is better than a phone, however the chance of me having access to those devices is inversely proportional to how comfortable it is to use.
What's better, going home from the pub to log on to a 3-screened workstation with all the input you could possibly want, or quickly fixing a problem while your mate gets the next round in?
It is a common misconception from Techy Guys. They look at old technology with the blinding light of nostalgia. Often confusing equipment they bought 20 years ago that cost thousands of dollars and comparing them against their modern counterpart that cost a few hundred bucks.
I picked up an old thinkpad from the IBM era last week. It certainly feels more solid than the T410s I carry, and that feels more solid that the new T430.
It's a race to the bottom, and for those of us who upfront cost is less important lose out. I'd be happy to spend $3000 on a laptop, they're just not made any more.
Boston proved the when the chips are down, americans are a bunch of pussies.
No....Boston proved that Bostonians are a bunch of fucking pussies. Anyone who has ever met anyone from Boston, already knew this. The town is full of egotistical, arrogant dumbasses. Of course they cowered in fear, like the pants shitting cowards they are. If this had been Alabama the story would have different.
It's ironic. I grew up under constant attack by Boston-funded thugs, so perhaps I think a bloody nose is barely worth reporting, but when you get to a stage that a heavily armed force is on the streets, pointing guns in my kids bedroom, I do wonder where Paul Revere went to. One of by land, two if by sea, three is welcomed in with splayed legs.
Plenty of people in Boston are NRA members, they were cowering with the rest. If you can't defend yourself against one or two unorganised desperate fugitives, what change do you have against the local PD, let alone the army.
Homeland Security. I've always thought it sounded facist.
Yes of course it is. Sep 11th 2001 was the day america died. The fear that outsiders could actually harm you, something which hadn't happened for 60 years, got you all shitting your pants.
Your vaunted bill of rights was torn up, and you didn't bother using the 2nd amendment to ensure the rest of them remained. All it takes is the word "terror" and you have marshal law, the 4th amendment is thrown out.
Although effectually the TSA serves little to no purpose in actual deterrence, it may be left just to make people feel comfortable / safe. Tho I disagree with both having the TSA and theatrical aspects.
Generally the people that fly 50+ times a year are the ones that hate the TSA, the people that never fly, or maybe go once a year, are the ones that want "protecting" from the "terrorists".
Still what do you expect from land of the free home of the brainwashed?
Ironically how would armed drones have been sane to use in a busy metropolitan city to catch TWO people on foot. Maybe if they had hijacked a passenger less bus or vehicle and were on a stretch of the interstate by themselves, but then your still blowing up civil infrastructure for something a good o'le fashioned barricade would have made much more sense for.
Drones are a military technology for war fighting with limited use in the civil arena. The problems were having as a nation is conflating terrorism with military action.
Boston proved the when the chips are down, americans are a bunch of pussies.
Imagine what would happen if you didn't have a second amendment and a population who love their guns
"Please declare marshal law and put heavilly armed soldiers and tanks on the streets, I'm scared of a couple of guys on the run, please come into my house, don't mind the 4th amendment"
Oh wait.
Andoid is Linux
Funny how the definition of Linux oscillates between a full OS "distribution" and just the kernel, depending on what the person's trying to prove at the time.
I'm beginning to think RMS is right about one thing. The OS should be called GNU/Linux. Or maybe even that's understating it. If Linux with Android on top is called "Android". Linux with GNU on top should be called "GNU".
So, what nerds were using 20 years ago was GNU. And the mainstream still isn't using it.
Sure, but I have the following foreground processes running
Chrome
Firefox
Openoffice.org
rxvt
bash
eclipse
vim
fluxbox
I believe bash is the only Gnu program there. Sure the compiler may have been gnu, and the c-library gnu, but calling it "gnu/linux" ignores the work of everyone else that makes my computer useful.
"I'd take 51.1% total tax in a heartbeat to have really good government services."
Rejoice, you've found the answer! Move to Sweden.
Average temperature -17 degrees.
I thought it was a Futurama reference.
Indeed, I am a bit of a coin-o-seur.
It seems that the slashdot demographic isn't what it used to be.
No-one would notice the difference
The tweets were spelt correctly.
The SR-71 was deployed in 1964 and had an operational elevation limit of 80,0000ft. What excactly are we breaking out the champaign for?
It's Cham-pag-en
I think the "Space" part of it is a side show to what Virgin is really pushing for.
The bigger goal, IMO is being able to enable flight from the US/Europe to Australia in a matter of hours by a "plane" jumping into low Earth orbit and circling the globe in 2 hours. Imagine being able to "jump" to the other side of the Earth in an 1 hour? A 2 hour flight to China? Australia? Europe?
It takes 88 minutes in LOE to circle the globe.
It would simply be revolutionary. IMO that is the near term end goal of Branson's interest in space flight. I think the "manned space flights" are tangential to what the immediate goals are. Hammering out the science to allow cheap cross earth flights, is simply incredible.
Sadly I'm not sure the bulk market is there. You used to be able to hop on a plane in London and land in New York 3 hours later. Now it takes over 7.
I could see a market for a charter - sometimes as a business you need someone to be somewhere, and it's costing you $100k/hour that they aren't there, but that would require a lot of planes to be in key places ready for immediate launch (NY, LA, London, Tokyo, Singapore)
To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a test load.
