And of course this all has a Streisand Effect to it.

I literally had never pirated an app from my Jailbroken since day one 2G iphone until a Slashdot story a few weeks ago told me how easy it was courtesy of appulo.us et al.

After going on an utter bonanza of "Yarrr prepare to be boarded - your booty be mine for the plunderin!" the only pirated app (out of.... 43 that I downloaded, just checked) is Wolfram Alpha ($50 for a web front end?!) and NBA Season Pass which now doesnt work since I moved back to China and would have made me LIVID had I paid the $60 for it only to be "Blacked Out Due To Location" a week later. Oddly enough though I can still watch their highlight reels....

The other ones (Brian Eno apps, some lame ass meteor game) were shareware at best anyways. I paid for Scrabble, I paid for my Chinese dictionary. Quit bitchin.

Ok I actually read this today (sorry but im calling out a great deal of this discussion as being just based on reaction the the summary and prior comments) and found it absurd myself, but not something I could instantly write off.

From TFA:

"During an interview on Tuesday, General Jabiri challenged a Times reporter to test the ADE 651, placing a grenade and a machine pistol in plain view in his office. Despite two attempts, the wand did not detect the weapons when used by the reporter but did so each time it was used by a policeman."

Well.... Shit. What does 'detect' mean here? This last unfinished thought could (stated differently) totally skew the article in the opposite direction. Im not saying it is anything more that a divining rod - because I dont know - but the level of technical depth in the article / argument is as nonexistant as it purports the devices to be. There isnt a single mention of 'what works' and 'how stuff works' on the US side other than 'large and expensive.'

Mid 90's in high school I had a '72 VW Beetle (convertible, loved that car). One of the many problems I encountered was a broken fuel gauge that couldnt be figured out - cheaply.

In 5 years of driving that car I probably ran out of gas.... 3 times. So yes, I was incompetent (and broke) as well. But somehow I trusted that car more than I do my VW CC today. I could literally _turn the car off_ with the key driving down the road and coast along with no problem - downshifting and letting out the clutch to turn the car back on (now with the key in the 'off' position.

Broken starter? Just park aimed downhill everywhere - worked for me for months.

I fixed about 60% of every problem I had on that car with duct tape, coat hanger wire, elbow grease and a little time figuring it out.

My point: I miss those days. Yes the cars broke down more often but at least I could do something about it. Now every other month the "Check Engine" comes on and its a couple hundred bucks at the dealership for 'a chip malfunction' or 'a bad sensor.' Screw it, I might hop onto Craigslist right now and see what I can pick up as a 'weekender' for a grand...

Have Leo Laporte and the TWiT's had their Windows 7 party yet?

He said that they were signing up (2 weeks ago?) and would receive among other things: Windows 7 themed balloons, napkins and cups.

Wow, Microsoft.... Just, wow...

I know you are being flippant about it but I want to run with your original point.

It IS very dangerous to play real football. Full stop. Science is just starting to reveal what the long term effects of concussions are, and frankly I think many people including myself were horrified about how potentially dangerous it really is. Not to mention ligament damage and broken bones that can easily happen as a hazard.

As a hocker player and boxer I think I can weigh in and say "Yes, some sports unless yo/// EVEN if you are a trained professional are crazy dangerous and in some cases (boxing) should probably be outlawed." This isnt tennis which is a great workout for any age and completely safe. I mean look at how loopy Brett Fahrve is now ;) Play Fight Night and Madden at home - then go outside, ride your bike over to a friends, and get some more gaming on there.

It also sounds like a great way to bring the exercise back into it as well. Remember Nintendo is also huge in the Japanese market.

People that feel the need to shout that sort of nonsense probably have something going on themselves....

... how would you determine how they are related in the first place if you dont RTFA? Especially given the complexity of these issues in their relation to your understanding of them.

There, fixed it.

Pointless anyways.

After living in China for years I can tell you the second this went into effect they would have set up stalls right beside the dealer to uninstall it before you left the building (ok maybe not if you bought it at Carrefore but they would just be outside then.

What strikes me as interesting in all this is the redundancy (ie they arleady have the Great Firewall - which works pretty well) why do they need to wear two condoms all of a sudden? My guess would be cyber warfare. Sell a few hundred million PC's in the next few years and have the biggest nastiest botnet in the world with some back end hooks for military access. Actually quite genius (until another country figures out how to access it and wipes you out from the inside...).

Picked up an HP Mini 1000 series 10" about a month ago when my original Macbook Pro drank a glass of water as a stop gap measure. I have run this thing through 4 operating systems and (goddammit) it has been my primary computer with about 8-10 hourse use daily in that time.

First was winXP - as you can infer from my screen name I have never been its biggest fan.

Second was OSX using iDeneb - such a pain in the ass to get everything working right that it completely undermines the entire idea of having a mac. Clones will never kill Apples marketshare.

Third round Ubuntu Netbook Remix... Ok, the install was a breeze, the price cant be beat, and it picked up 90% of the hardware without a hiccup. Not bad. Until you start using it - graphical glitches everywhere. There is some single window dashboard on the netbook version that is sluggish and confusing garbage - turn it off first to even attempt to have a decent time. It still fails on so many common tasks without tweaking / dl'ing that it failed "The Wife Test" and that was it.

I cant see some hardware manufacturer sitting down and saying "Yes, this is the best way to show off and sell my hardware" after using it for a week.

Fourth and finally: Windows 7. Mac zealot since '99 here - first gen iPod and iPhone fanboy - and I have to say Windows 7 is by far the best thing Microsoft has put out since Windows 2000. THIS is what is going to kill Linux on netbook - the fact that Microsoft realized that they couldnt hand this segment to the Open Source community on a platter and designed an OS to run GREAT on a 1.6 Core Solo with 2GB of ram.

XP is garbage. Linux had a great chance to lead this market. But now Win7 is here and there is no way in hell the user experiences can be compared. [That said I am still just biding MY time for another macbook ;]

Ok this one I will definitely go with.

After living in Beijing for three years and becoming a Call Of Duty 4 freak (a nasty opium like habit that some Chinese friends gave me)I have seen that their net cafe's are _sketchy_.

The smaller ones will sell you pornography. EVERYONE is smoking like a chimney (I know I was lighting up between rounds) and in general they are just dark, seedy, places that I wouldnt want my kid within 100 yards of.

I know its easy to say 'think of the children!' but in this case ill actually go along.

Yeah I would say a citation is needed here. Zero day exploits exist - on every system - but as a Mac user since '99 and a Windows admin since I can tell you no matter the skill level of the user: Macs dont get viruses. Period. Full stop. Yes I saw the embedded trojan in iLife and the zero day sploit that got the guy a free laptop recently but as a person who has really seen a wide cross section of computers and users all the way up to Vista it is decidedly two different worlds.

Im glad Apple dropped the "100% virus free" moniker from marketing as has been pointed out it makes them a target - and good job on hiring forward thinking people in _all_ facets of the business. Now just get ZFS plugged in as the default file system and I will officially drown myself in kool-aid.

And I hate to even point this out but look at the submitters username. If you just got to /. since the mac ads came out you might want to sit back and listen for a few. Years. I know I did.

I am sure this is going to be a total disaster!

But then again I will spread any FUD to keep my /. username relevant another 7 years. And if it keeps my consultant prices up in the meanwhile so be it.

This is what I scanned the comments for - my worst fears realized.

Or is it?

I guess this isnt as bad as having a straight "points" system - and I was automagically given some pretty neat 'achievements' (user stats) retroactively. But after last years great "dupe of a dupe of a dupe" I honestly couldnt believe this was real.

Wow, and I thought the subtle redesign was shocking. I cant remember the last time slashdot _itself_ made my jaw drop.

So basically youre saying it WAS my fault I tried to get a first post here?