Page moved permanently, to the head?

Apple may not be as large as Google or Microsoft, but IIRC it fared the economic downturn better than M$ to the point that it was actually richer than Microsoft at one point. I'd be willing to bet that it could have spent that cash on creating a search engine, but instead it decided not to. That point aside, I'd like to suggest that the whole scenario suggested in TFA is ludicrous. Microsoft has been battling with Apple for longer than Google was on the scene, and aside from both companies bringing a phone to the market they're barely in competition at-all. Compare this to the established Apple Vs PC rivalry (and, to a lesser extent, iPod vs Zune) and you see that Google's Nexus One doesn't really register as a blip on the radar. Even if it sells well, phones were never Apple's main market. Once Google and Apple start commissioning TV ads to stab at each other, rather than Apple and Microsoft being at each other's throats, I think there may be a possibility of the two Steves becoming bedfellows.

Actually, statistically you're more likely to be convicted if you wear a tie to court. There are a couple of possible reasons for this, primarily that you're a) more likely to sweat (thus seem uncomfortable, and guilty) and b) to be seen as 'trying too hard' (and thus be guilty).

Statistically, men are best-off smart-casual (wearing a plain shirt without a tie, or possibly a plain t-shirt with blazer) thus looking comfortable with themselves whilst clearly having put some effort in.

Women are best-off with a knee-length skirt without heels and minimal makeup. A knee-length skirt with no heels or makeup seemingly comes-off as a sign of sexual innocence, which translates into actual innocence in the eyes of the jury. It thus follows that a woman showing legs or cleavage is clearly a guilty whore, and wearing a trouser-suit makes a woman seem heartless and thus obviously guilty.

Personally, If I ever go to court, I plan to wear both a shirt with no tie and a knee-length skirt with minimal makeup, thus clearly proving to all in the courtroom that I am comfortable with myself and completely innocent. :-)

I think the major thing to consider is that the customers are the ones who pay the ISPs money. Why would the ISPs care if their users have infected machines? Unless it's made a legal requirement, no ISP is going to voluntarily snub someone who pays them money.

I'd prefer the time and money spent on avatar customization to be spent on improving the game itself, or possibly adding extra game modes, thankyouverymuch.

Seriously, avatar customization not only takes the developers more time to implement, but also more time for me to make an avatar. Take Oblivion as an example. Practically limitless options for how your character looks, but 99% of your options are hideously ugly, the remaining 1% is spread so thin that the chances of actually being able to make a character both look vaguely like you want it to and not be ugly is pretty-much nil. In the end, you just click randomize until something that's not ugly comes along, change the hair to how you want it, and wonder why you just wasted your time when you effectively got nothing better than a stock face would have given you.

What I'd like to see is a cross between this (undoubtedly a geek party) and a good party.

You know, with lots of booze and attractive women, but set in the host's parent's basement? Perhaps someone's brought magic brownies?

I can see it now. They've just installed Win7 for the second time (the first time someone spilled a beer on the laptop) and the person who's supposed to be showing Windows off has the giggles.

One guy is tripping-out in the corner, when someone takes over and decides to test the search features. A few clicks later, and they've found the porn on the hard-drive.

All is going well until people start noticing noises coming from the bed. Yep, a couple's getting frisky. There's no separate room, it is the basement after-all, and so people are torn between watching porn and watching the real thing. This continues for several minutes until an uncomfortable silence falls, only broken by the tripping guy's babbling, after the girl in the bed screams 'Do me, Ballmer, do me!'

Well, that's the party over. The guests leave and the host's parents say goodbye to people on the way out. The hosts mother is hopelessly trying to hook at-least one of the girls up with her son in that really embarrassing way parents do. You know, where they quietly remind you that you're over 30 and they want some grandchildren before they die?

Oh well, the host goes back downstairs and decides to leave the porn on. A nice familiar fap, however, turns bad when he finds a used condom in the covers.

I dunno. I can probably say I've been to worse parties.

...or they might miss the chance to infect lots of computers with malware! Seriously, it's not like people are going to stop pirating windows.

The pirates who seed the software, or the people who run the tracker, could conceivably log the IPs of the people who download their windows torrent.

Scroll forwards a month or two to the next SMB2-grade bug: Bam, the hackers have a list of ip addresses for people who are likely to be using un-patched versions of windows.

I stpd wen he Usd the "wrd" "ppl". We've a ful kbrd here, Us it.

Fxd th@ fr ya :)

So what are the advantages of a true tablet PC over a laptop with the screen turned over? I imagine the latter still has a touch screen, and has the advantage of optional keyboard input.

First thing that popped into my head is "Someone's getting defensive!"

Second thing that popped into my head was "Hi, you must be new here"

Seriously, where would /. be without stereotypes? We'd all have attractive girlfriends and be willing to let grammar mistakes slide.

Actually, that doesn't sound so bad... Shame.

I'm a full-time web developer, and I can honestly tell you that IE8's CSS implementation is still poor. One CSS file will generally suffice for Opera, Firefox, and Webkit-based browsers (Safari and Chrome), another is still needed for IE8 for most designs, bringing the total number of CSS files to 4, 75% of which are due to Microsoft's browsers.

Does Microsoft have any excuse for their browser being this bad after so many years? It's not like CSS support is a bleeding edge feature, maybe CSS3, but I'm talking about CSS standards that have been around for years. I just want to make web pages and not have to, once more, duplicate my effort in-order to get stuff to work on another M$ browser.

Erm... Isn't part of the deal to set-up the Book Rights Registry, which pays authors when their books are viewed online? If you do get royalties then I don't see how express permission is necessary. Otherwise, how is what they're doing any worse than what a library does?

Ninja Bay?

So? You still drew the comparison, and Godwin's Law dictates that such comparisons lose their meaning through overuse, regardless of whether they're correct or not.

I do agree that apple's system is somewhat authoritarian, but IMHO comparing their bans to fascism is a step too far. I think that's just subscribing to the sensationalized version purveyed by the media. You hear all about when Apple bans an OK app unfairly, but because sensation makes better news than mediocrity you don't hear about when Apple admits it made a mistake and allows the app.

See, I know lots of people with iPhones and they are all pretty happy with the selection of apps there are available. I've seen numerous reports in the news of apps being unfairly banned, and looking into them later that apple has bowed and allowed the apps.

It looks like there are lots of engineers screening the apps, all of whom check the apps differently. It's obvious that whoever checked the baby-shaker app wasn't really on the ball, for example, meanwhile there are several examples of app bans despite similar content being available in other apps. I'm not sure how 'arbitrary and susceptible to media pressure' can equate to fascist.

All in all, I don't see how Apple's actions with the app store can be said to be worse than Microsoft's OOXML rush-through, to give an example.

Lol, ever heard of Godwin's law? Seriously, if you're going to compare apple's refusal of a few iPhone apps to a regime that murdered millions then how can I take your argument seriously? A lot of people who still call it a great device despite the control that apple keeps, and there is certainly an argument that apple's control is a good thing in simplifying the choice for consumers.

Seriously, the only reason the iPhone is a general purpose device is because apple make it one by allowing 3rd party development.