From about 1995 to 2005, Microsoft absolutely dominated every aspect of computing. They tried to create an ecosystem where every device: from your PC to your smartphone/PDA to your watch was part of a single ecosystem running their software. They were very successful at it. Cracks began to show during anti-trust lawsuits and the rise of the iPhone and iPod, leading to their ultimate fall from grace.

Now, with the departure of Balmer, Microsoft has really begun to turn around and embrace other platforms and open standards, something that was anathema to them during their heyday. Apple has very much become the new Microsoft in regards to proprietary systems, taking it a step further and completely controlling the hardware side as well. But hey, at least they are better at aesthetics than Microsoft was in 2000.

Yeah, you have to put your eyeballs so close to the screen to see the pixelation that you cannot focus.

However, Samsung uses these displays for VR and through their Gear system 1440p is very low resolution. Samsung would actually need something like an 8K display on their phones just to get close to real-life resolution in your primary field of view (not even counting the peripheral vision, which is like 80 million pixels).

How is that exactly? Biometric ID makes it much more facile to use a secure password on your phone. I can use a 20 digit password and only have to enter it once a day or less. The only real loss of security is if someone manages to get a hold of my phone after the key is entered and, within the timeout period, gets my fingerprint to unlock it.

That seems like a small risk for the convenience. If it looks like my phone might be compromised, I can simply hold down the power button for a few seconds to power the phone down. At that point, it is as secure as my password and the encryption used by android.

It is Sophie's choice, except your daughter is humorless honor student with a 140 IQ and your son is an asshole retard that likes setting things on fire.

I live in California, so thankfully I don't have to vote for one of these clowns, but if I did, I would vote for the person who at least is intellectually qualified for the job and can control her narcissism and bitchiness when she's in public for more than five minutes at a time.

I completely get why people are voting for Trump. Clinton is pretty much the exemplar of everything wrong with a "good" politician. I really want an outsider to run for President. I just don't want the five year old who poops his pants and then smears feces everywhere.

It sounds like two of the biggest manufacturers of "good" wireless keyboards (Microsoft and Logitech) are encrypting their transmissions. I'm not surprised to find that Chinese bottom-dwellers like Insignia (Best Buy store brand) does not care about such things. I am a bit more surprised by big corporate vendors like HP.

I am fond of my S7 as well. I just wish Samsung had the software development skills of Apple. The hardware is near perfect, but the software is slow and buggy.

If you use high quality settings VBR with an average around 256 or higher, I doubt that anyone could tell the difference in a double blind test.

If you can actually tell the difference between a CD and mp3 (and not imagine it, as many people do), it is likely due to it not being encoded by the best standards allowed by the mp3 algorithm.

Audiophiles are convinced they can detect all sorts of differences that they probably cannot. It is the placebo effect. A lot of them rushed out to buy SACD's, recorded and played back at 24 bits and 192K samples per second, but double-blind tests show they cannot actually distinguish between a SACD or analog source played purely and one downsampled through a CD-quality DAC.

I suspect it is the same in distinguishing between high quality MP3s and CDs.

The drivers (headphones) probably represent about 95% of the difference in playback quality that is detectable to a human. Headphones are what actually create the sound, not the amp and not the DAC. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck on a headphone upgrade than on upgrading your DAC or amp.

I would like to see double-blinded studies that show otherwise.

Most of the quality of your music is determined by how it is recorded and mastered.

Most of the rest is determined by the drivers you use.

Different DACs and amps have different audio characteristics, but it is doubtful that, among similar ones that are not weird outliers, audiophiles can actually tell the difference or prefer one to the other when thy are properly balanced against each other in a double blind test.

So far, I have seen no convincing double-blind tests showing that anyone can distinguish between high-quality MP3 compression and lossless.

Audio has an awful lot of pseudoscience in it. Almost all the differences in the quality of sound is made:

1) During the recording process.
2) By the drivers that play back the sound.

Unless you're still listening to 128 kbs MP3's encoded using old algorithms, lossless is likely not doing much if anything beyond the placebo effect.

If you can tell the difference between a high quality, 256+ vbr MP3 and a SACD, you are probably a Cylon.

. . . he demonstrated a kernel of cleverness. He's a witch! We must burn him for upsetting the simpleminded villagers!

Did Newton personally force anyone to adopt Christianity?

Someone can condemn the enormity of the crimes Christians have committed against humanity in the name of their religion without condemning everyone who claims to be a Christian.

I have a difficult time understanding the impetus that drives random people on the internet to lecture perfect strangers on how they should live their lives.

SCAMMER: We have detected that the Windows computer running on your network has a virus.
ME: [lie] I only run Linux.
SCAMMER: [click]. . . [dial tone]

There are a number of flaws with your argument:

1) "Black kids" most certainly are "less able to program," at least in the US, as revealed by the empirical evidence.

2) If you meant to write that they were congenitally not "less able to program" (which is how I interpret it), then it is a supposition based on speculation and not upon empirical evidence. The fact is, we do not know to what extent congenital factors affect ability in computer science nor do we know if they are unevenly distributed along gender, ethnic, or racial lines.

3) African Americans and "blacks" are two different groups.

4) If you had "race-blind" programs than there would be no way to target the demographics most underserved. The hill-folk in rural West Virgina and the impoverished people in Bedford–Stuyvesant both tend to be poor and undereducated and are at higher than average risk to be the victim of a crime, but for a police/sherrif's department to develop the same strategies to combat the higher crime rate in those very different demographics would be laughably obtuse.

Likewise, if you're trying to get poor, mostly rural white people in the Ozarks into computer science, you need a very different strategy than you would to get poor, mostly Latin kids in San Ysidro. Ignoring essential demographic information would be tantamount to incompetence.

Also, if helping one race to the exclusion of other races is "racist", then our whole society and culture is racist, as there exist many social institutions, formal or informal, that create that effect. It seems kind of silly to worry about Google giving money to programs that help low-participating demographics achieve parity when there exists a massive institution called American society that exists to elevate members of one population above another, on gender, racial, ethnic, national, and pecuniary lines.