Sure. It enables shady Chinese companies to flood the market with garbage, whereas previously they would have had the hardware but no software to drive it.

It is a barrier, when you consider that your lifespan is finite. I have no desire to put my life on hold while raising children. You're basically on-call 24/7 until they're self-sufficient, and I find that neither fun nor gratifying. I like my life the way it currently is: few responsibilities, I do what I want when I want, money's not too big of a problem, and if I feel like partying all night and sleeping all day, nobody's going to give me grief. Some people call that immaturity, I call them green-faced hypocrites.

I also have a very negative opinion of traditional families, because I come from a culture that encourages teenage pregnancy and under-achievers. In my hometown, it's not at all uncommon for girls to pop out a kid or two before even finishing high school, and they will never bother getting a real job, let along job skills. They live off their parents and social assistance, shack up with their drug-runner boyfriends, and continue popping kids. If finding that behaviour utterly parasitic makes me a snobbish twat, then so be it. I have better things to contribute to society than future problems.

This is where things go south. If I could get the shows I like from a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu, I would not mind waiting a few weeks or months after the original airdate, but I can't. A lot of the shows I watch, I can't get at all without paying $120+ for the "everything" cable package. They simply aren't available anywhere else, so I choose option C: Usenet/torrents.

If I were living in the U.S., things would be different, as the vast majority of popular TV programming is stubbornly geo-blocked as soon as you cross the border. I can't even begin to describe the stupidity of locking your content to a mere 5% of the world's population, but that's precisely what these media companies do. Fuck 'em! I have money, I want the content, but they won't sell it to me unless I agree to a 3 year contract with a cable company I absolutely despise, a fixed schedule that does not work for me, and invasive advertising wasting one fifth of my time. Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em dead!

As a newcomer to the Mac, I was not at all interested in the App Store. Maybe I'm too cynical, but goddamn it, I'm proven right too often to change my ways. The App Store does not solve any existing problems for me, as a user. If I can find some app in their, then I could have Googled for the author's web site just as easily. I actually prefer apps that self-update, rather than having to open the inflexible App Store client. I don't need a 3rd party getting between me and the developer, isn't that the whole point of a global network ? We don't need no stinkin' middlemen!

Another peeve is how their delivery method makes it difficult to back up the installation files. I don't want to redownload the dumb thing every time I set up a test box, or follow their annual OS upgrades (from scratch - fuck inline updates!) For regular users, I'm sure the experience is seamless, but as soon as you start messing in a terminal, the messy parts become painfully apparent. It's kind of like that last bit in Portal, where you break out of the test area and run around the broken-down maintenance hallways.

It's a fine model for the iPhone/iPad, but desktop/laptop computers have a long legacy that predates this sort of integration and far greater diversity in how people use them. Tell me how to use my computer and I'll tell your company to go fuck itself.

NUMA is for any multi-processor system. Even dual-Xeon boards can benefit from NUMA, because each processor has its own memory banks and controller, though the fast QPI links do help in that situation. It becomes progressively more important with larger systems where inter-CPU bandwidth becomes strained. Any improvement here is most welcome.

It really sounds like they applied a few in-house patches to streamline performance. I would rather see these sent back upstream, but again, this is Oracle we're talking about. They might have their rea$on$ for withholding stuff.

I allow neither guns nor kids in this house, so I'm practically invincible!

The "most elegant design" would be a big heavy slab of metal with a fat deadbolt. Anything else is pure snake oil. Electronic lock ? Dude, please, if I can rip out a button or smash through the screen, I can short the damn solenoid wires or rotate the gear myself.

Hell, even a bike lock is harder to defeat than these gun "safes".

That's like saying an apple is an orange.

Not being in a car does not magically make one immune to the other eleventy billion imbeciles on the road.

Not having a gun in the house kind of makes it hard for a kid to shoot himself in the face with your non-existent gun.

I think the fundamental problem is that any safe that protects your kid from a gun, will also prevent you from swiftly retrieving it should you ever need to protect yourself. Or did you think that half-bred gang member was going to wait a few minutes to give you a fair fight ?

Amen, brother.

Same here. I tried it for two days, ran out of content to watch - I shit you not!

It seems us Canadians only get a few hundred b-movies, incomplete seasons of TV shows (even Trailer Park Boys!), and stuff you can catch for free with an antenna. I am in no way cheap, so it takes one hell of an epic fail for me to deny a company eight measly dollars. Hell, I often drink fancy beers that cost more than that per pint.

Netflix failed hard. I'd rather pay twice as much for Usenet access to download what I want.

Then I guess most Android manufacturers and carriers are Apple fanbois ? Because every single Android we own except the Google ones are stuck on obsolete firmware.

It's not that choice is bad, but Android is so fractured a platform that it negates its open-source benefits.

My partner learned that lesson when she bought her first Android phone: a Motorola Milestone. Piece of shit. Zero software updates, Motorola practically disowned it months after launch. The only option available was to root it and install 3rd party firmware that sort-of worked but was very rough around the edges. Her brand new phone was so bad, she lusted after my tired old iPhone 3GS. When she finally got out of her contract, I steered her toward a Galaxy Nexus. Pimp phone, now I'm the envious one.

Still, it's a bit sad that it took Google this long to deliver a decent phone and OS. Ice Cream Sandwich seems quite nice, as is the hardware, but meanwhile my 3 year old iPhone is still doing fine, despite me being a techie. Her 2 year old Android is a paperweight and she's just a casual user.

Choice isn't bad. Immature software running on cost-cut 3rd-world hardware designs are bad.

I certainly agree with most of your comment, but I do have one big gripe, and I say this as a lifelong PC freak.

This is where I have to rebut. I've owned, repaired and/or sold just about every PC laptop on the market. When the time came to replace my own aging laptop last year, I looked everywhere for the right fit. There were none. Then someone hired me to write mobile apps so I needed a Mac. I bought a Macbook Pro, and it is the best damned laptop I've ever owned. I still hate the OS, but the hardware is fantastic. Fast, quiet, sturdy, functional, epic battery life. It is everything I want in a laptop. I don't feel like I paid a premium, because high-end PC laptops are just as expensive, yet they're pitched as "desktop replacement" devices, which is a euphemism for "big fragile noisy non-upgradable piece of tethered junk with a built-in UPS". I paid a high-end price for a high-end machine, got exactly what I wanted.

I kid you not, I'm in the PC sales and service business, and for years I've recommended Dell laptops, because hey at least you get a good warranty with your shitty laptop. I still do, because for most people, that's all they need, but for any professional use I try to steer them toward a Macbook. As a freelancer, I quite enjoy the convenience of a full day's work on a single charge. Worst case, if I'm doing compile-heavy stuff, I can quickly top-up during a coffee break, head over to the pub and sip a few pints while logging the other half of the day's billables.

Now, on the converse, I am not at all interested in Mac desktop computers. THAT is paying a premium for run-of-the-mill hardware. I wouldn't even buy an iMac for myself, because I can bolt a mini-ITX box to almost any LCD and have the same small footprint at a quarter of the cost. I sell "luxury" PC desktops (gamers, design nuts etc), and I don't think of Mac Pros as anything even remotely luxurious. Shiny, but not powerful for the money.

That's not sufficient. We have to go all the way and outlaw thinking. It's the only way to be sure no one defeats our puny weapons with their superior intellect.

Sure, EVE is supposed to be great. I played it for a little while, got repeatedly murdered by some griefing douche with a battleship the size of Jupiter, and lost all interest in the game. I deal with enough of that heavy-handed bullshit in the real world. I want the game to be a challenging and rewarding fantasy, not an unwinnable simulation of bullying.

Hardcore PVP isn't for everyone. If there were a slightly nerfed variant where more PVE types like myself could safely explore with less chance of some asshole invalidating hundreds of hours of effort, then maybe it would catch on a bit more. I like competing with my fellow man, but I have no desire to start over from scratch, every time someone decides to bounce me around like a freakin' soccer ball. Even Hardcore Diablo isn't that insulting.