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Comment Re:I don't get it (Score 1) 297

Because all of /bin is hardly going to be your most used stuff, and there's probably a ton of stuff frequently used that isn't in /bin, /usr.

Sure, you can try and mount your most used stuff on SSD, but that's (a) a pain in the neck to fiddle around with (b) something ideally better left to an algorithm. (c) doesn't actually work that well, since you have to divide all your most used stuff into separate file systems.

Comment Re:Adobe also said... (Score 1) 497

Sorry, but your "strawman" claim is BS. Flash is not a good thing, and I've read (and been in) many discussions where people have literally claimed that Flash is the proper way to handle video distribution because it solves *all* the problems and is fully supported on *every* platform except for iPhoneOS. And that's simply not true.

If you read my post history, or even the post that you're replying to, I've said multiple times that I disagree with Apple keeping such tight control on application distribution. As an iPhone own (first gen, before there even was an app store), I've made multiple submissions to Apple's suggestion box asking for them to allow people to install whatever applications they want. It's enough that my next phone will probably be an Android phone.

BUT! That's really not the issue here. The issue is that Adobe is astroturfing, trying subvert web standards and push Flash adoption. They're successfully getting people to argue that Flash is the epitome of what's wrong with Apple's controlling nature. It's not. This is an instance where Apple's controlling behavior is doing everyone a tremendous favor, by damaging Adobe's strangle-hold on video distribution on the web. If you want the epitome of what's wrong with Apple's controlling nature, look instead to the rejection of Google Voice from the App store.

Comment Re:I'd pay it (Score 1) 224

Bigger problem than the weather: if you live in a city and rent an apartment, a lot of landlords won't let you install a dish.

As much as people say that the problem with US's telecommunications infrastructure is caused by low population density, I live in NYC and I only have a single choice in Internet or cable. There's no FIOS, no DSL, and no satellite service available. The one and only option is Time Warner Cable, and they generally stink. Still, I guess I can't complain, since a lot of people are still stuck on dialup connections.

Censorship

Submission + - South Park Censored (southparkstudios.com) 1

penguinman1337 writes: Apparently, all is not well over at comedy central. The heavily censored version of "201" that aired last night has a lot of people angry, including the show's creators. Apparently its ok to make fun of a religion as long as its followers don't carry AK-47's and plastic explosive.
Image

Protecting Traditional Divorce 7

lee1 writes "The Texas Attorney General is determined to help protect the traditional definition of divorce, which is the dissolution of the union between a man and a woman. Therefore any gay married couples who find their way into his state had better stay married. From the article: 'Gay and lesbian couples who turn to the courts when they break up are getting mixed results across the nation. A Pennsylvania judge last month refused to divorce two women who married in Massachusetts, while New York grants such divorces even though the state doesn't allow same-sex marriage.'"

Comment Re:A settlement is an agreement by the two parties (Score 1) 100

Try $43 billion over 10 years and even that's likely to be too high, the government is simply playing brinkmanship with Telstra so they don't try to block the plans: http://www.news.com.au/technology/billion-national-broadband-network-price-tag-a-bluff/story-e6frfro0-1225775686353

And virtually all this would've been unnecessary if Telstra had been privatised properly by previous governments - ie. split into an infrastructure company and a normal ISP and phone company, not a huge monopoly.

Australia might finally get a decent competitive broadband market in 2015-2020, if we're lucky.

Education

New Species of Worms Found To Release "Bombs" 104

caffiend666 writes "A newly found deep ocean worm 'can cast off green glowing body parts, a move scientists think may be a defensive effort to confuse attackers. Researchers have dubbed the newly discovered critters "green bombers." ... The first of the new species has been given the scientific name Swima bombiviridis. ... [T]he worms are able to regenerate the body parts.' So, it's a naturally occurring animal that rips off its arms and throws them, and we're not talking about a game from ID Software?"
Cellphones

Intel Envisions Shape-Shifting Smartphones 79

An anonymous reader writes "It's not sci-fi, but rather advanced robotics research which is leading Intel to envision shape-shifting smartphones. 'Imagine what you would do with this material,' says Jason Campbell, a senior researcher at Intel's Pittsburgh Lab who's working in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University. 'If you want to carry the device, you'd make it as small as possible by making it pack itself as densely as possible. When you go to surf the Web, you're going to make it big.' The material being studied is transparent silicon-dioxide hemispheres, which can roll around each other under electrical control to create different shapes. The lab has built 6-inch long actuators, which it's working to reduce to 1-mm tube-sized prototypes. When will we see a shape-shifting phone? 'In terms of me being able to buy it, that's a difficult forecasting problem, because I have to guess about manufacturing costs,' Campbell said. 'I won't do that. But we hope the science will be proved out in three to five years.'"
Social Networks

Is It Worth Developing Good Games For the Web? 82

SlashSlasher writes "A friend of mine started up a Facebook MMORTG game called Realm of Empires with his buddies as a personal project. Over the last couple of years, I've seen it grow up from an idea into a thriving community. A lot of money and effort has been sunk into constant improvement. As a result, it has become one of the most polished and substantial applications I've seen on Facebook. It's been quite interesting seeing the action behind the scenes without being directly entangled. Normal gameplay is free but certain premium features do exist. Recently, after allowing an open beta of premium features, the users complained vehemently that they would have to pay to keep these special features. They went so far as to start a petition to stop them from charging for premium features. People are getting up in arms about features that can be bought for less than $3 a month. I know the project hasn't broken even yet, and more money is put into it every day. I had always assumed that developers would receive a chunk of the ad revenue they attract to Facebook; apparently I was wrong. Facebook only gives the developer a very small (and shrinking) piece of real estate to try and make money with. How are these people supposed to break even, let alone profit? What working business models exist for the small game developer? Are people just too spoiled by free, throw-away games to be a target market for anything significant? Are developers who want to make any money for their work forced to move to restrictive platforms like the iPhone or the console market? More details of their story are available at their blog."

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