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Comment Re:An abuse of the free market system. (Score 1) 624

As said in TFA :

"While markets are supposed to ensure transparency by showing orders to everyone simultaneously, a loophole in regulations allows marketplaces like Nasdaq to show traders some orders ahead of everyone else in exchange for a fee."

The companies managing the marketplaces make money (and probably lots of it) with this method, and it's not illegal. So it's just another flaw in the marketplace system that won't be fixed just because a few "key people" exploit it and make huge piles of money.

Comment I just switched after 15 years of Windows (Score 1) 542

I just switched to Ubuntu for my home computer last saturday, after 15 years of using pretty much every version of Windows. I'm not new to linux on the server-side, but very new on the desktop side.

After playing with it for a couple days, I don't see a single piece of innovation. The effects when moving the windows are neat. The package-management GUIs are useful. But that's it. There's nothing in there that isn't on other OSs. So I don't see where the innovation is.

On the other side, there are many little glitches, many little weird things that make Ubuntu (which IS the "linux Desktop" right now) not as good as Windows. Nothing important, nothing blocking, but annoyances that no other OS wouldn't fix.

For instance the fact you have to hit the "number lock" key every time you're on the "input your password" screen...there's most likely a fix for that, but then why (and how) would a basic user have to fix that ? There's more, like when you try to find out what's wrong with your sound card, or when your keyboard switches from your setting to another when you start some applications. And there's the copy-paste thing, where the copy part works great but the paste part needs you to figure out if the current app needs you to press the right or the middle button, or in a few cases ctrl-v.

The Linux Desktop is probably the greatest chance the world has to get away from MS and Apple one day, but right now, as a user, I have to say it's not ready. As 10+ years linux supporter I would love to say it is (even slightly) innovative, but it would be a lie. Right now, it can't really compete with other OSs, seeing how every app beahave in their own way. And you can't call that innovation. MS and Apple got this straight for a while now, probably because it's what matters to the user, even more than the fancy effects.

Comment Re:What's next, an email client and html editor? (Score 1) 360

I'll rephrase : I'd like a browser that only displays web-pages (html + css + javascript + flash) and that's all. By doing just that, maybe I can even dream of a web-browser that won't be using 100M when launched, and 2-300M after a few hours of usage.

You have to admit that today's Firefox is pretty far from that, and it's not exactly getting better :/

Comment Re:What's next, an email client and html editor? (Score 1) 360

For me, it would be pretty much everything. I don't use the search field, I don't use the bookmarks, I use an online RSS reader, I don't print-preview and print web-pages, I don't use history, I don't use side-panels. I wish all this could at least be optional.

Many of FF3 features now rely on SQLite database as a data storage system. It's a great idea, it's really fast and all, but if there's a need to store data that way, for a web-browser, maybe there's too much data in the first place ?
PHP

Submission + - Creating and using Phar archives in PHP V5.3

An anonymous reader writes: This article takes a close look at the new PHP5.3 feature called Phar, which is an archive format that can be used within PHP. Phar can be used to not only archive files but also to deliver and run an entire PHP application from a single file. Unlike JAR archives, Phar archives can be processed by PHP itself and don't require an external tool to create or use them.
Classic Games (Games)

The Return of (Old) PC Graphic Adventures 93

KingofGnG writes "Though they belong to a genre already considered defunct and inadequate for the mainstream video game market, adventure games have a glorious past, a past that deserves to be remembered, and, of course, replayed. At the center of a good part of this effort of collective memory, there is ScummVM, the virtual machine which acts like an interface between the feelings and the puzzles from the good old times and the modern operating systems. As already highlighted before, the ScummVM target has grown immensely over time, going from the simple support of the 'classic' adventure games par excellence published by Lucasfilm/Lucasarts, to a range that includes virtually any single puzzle-solving game developed from the beginning of time up to the advent of the (Windows) NT platform. The last video game engine added to ScummVM within the past few days is Groovie, created by the software house Trilobyte for its first title released in 1993, The 7th Guest ."
Image

World's Oldest Marijuana Stash Found 108

jage2 writes "Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana in a tomb in a remote part of China. The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly 'cultivated for psychoactive purposes,' rather than as fibre for clothing, or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany. The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China."

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