Windows 10 started a big change in the support window for Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Every version of Windows before 10 was supported for 10 years after the release, with multiple additional Windows versions coming out before support ended.

Windows 10 only has two years support from each major build release date, and only one new version (11) has come out since it was released.

Windows historically had a stereotypical "every other release is crap" reputation, and it was pretty normal to skip major versions. That is not currently possible.

"Once and for all" is wrong. Getting infected only seems to convey a short-term resistance against getting reinfected with the same variant, and very little resistance against other variants. In both cases, less protection than being vaccinated.

Strongly disagree. I don't want music to have anything to do with Youtube. I'd prefer if music remained a separate product like it was in Google Play Music. The fact that it's branded as Youtube is a negative thing, not positive at all.

Music access and preference management is *completely* different from video access. An app optimized for one is going to suck for the other.

I would also generally have no interest in "TV" having anything to do with "random web videos" that youtube has for similar reasons, but I don't pay for Youtube TV, so that's moot.

Plugin Hybrids aren't "traditional hybrids, with a major engine integrated into the transmission, normally providing the motive power". That vastly misrepresents how they work today.

I may be extrapolating from the one I own, but the whole *point* of a plug-in hybrid is that it's primarily an electric car, and only uses the gas engine when the battery is dead (or if you floor it, or if the "car-brain" determines that it needs to run to keep the oil and gas fresh, or to more efficiently create heat in the winter).

Just commuting to/from work, I use *zero* gas most days in a plugin hybrid. My record so far is 3500 miles between fill-ups. That's about 3200 miles pure electric, and about 200 miles with the engine running. And that tank only ended because I filled up to go on a road trip.

Once the battery is "dead" with "0 miles" left, the car does drive like a traditional hybrid. The engine turns off opportunistically, just like a regular hybrid.

And yes, the car does have some complexity from both systems, *but* it is also simpler in other ways. The more complex transmission reduces other complexity... there's no reverse gear, for example (it just runs one of the electric motors in reverse). The gas engine itself can run on an Atkinson cycle that is more efficient, and can run in the RPM ranges that are always optimal, sending extra power to charge the battery at any time. Because the gas engine runs a lot less, all the parts associated with running the engine (everything from fuel pumps, injectors, etc. to the exhaust system and all the sensors there) get used far less, and *should be* cheaper to maintain in the long run than a full gas engine.

And even though the charging system and bigger battery adds more weight than a traditional hybrid, in practice the total lifetime ecological impact is less than a traditional hybrid or a pure gas vehicle.

Plugin Hybrids are also generally at much more attractive price points than pure electric vehicles, today. There are plugin hybrids in almost every vehicle segment, including ones where there are zero pure electrics that you can buy today, like minivans.

TL;DR: Plugin hybrids are not perfect, but they are better in almost every way than traditional gas engines or traditional hybrids for efficiency and long-term maintenance, are better than pure electrics on long trips (until the country gets ubiquitous charging infrastructure) and purchase price (in practice).

Good hackathons should be:
- optional
- during regular working hours
- not limited in scope or expected value to the company

This comment is very relevant, because *Picasa* is actually one of the few tools that can do facial recognition *without* uploading the results to "the cloud". I'm sure Google Photos (or whatever is replacing Picasa in Google's eye) will still do facial recognition in the cloud, but like you I don't see that as a good idea. Facebook etc. do this as well, and tie it to users' accounts.

One of the most unique features of Picasa is the facial recognition system. Are there any other systems out there that have it working to the degree that Picasa does? With training and automatic matching?

Several things make this possible, with everything available locally plus redundant offsite backups.

Get one or a pair of big hard drives. 4 TB drives are cheap. Various tests put 4 TB drives as a class as more reliable than 3 or 5 TB drives. If you get a pair, RAID 1 them, either with software raid or lvm. Put everything on there. I really like lvm, so that when one drive fails, or is close to failing, you can replace it and keep the whole collection intact locally. Hardware RAID is not necessary, and potentially *less* reliable, since its more complex to replace things. Consider making the volume slightly smaller than the drive to allow for slightly differently sized replacements. As newer drives get cheaper, get bigger drives. Every time I've had to replace drives, they've been twice as large, faster, and cheaper than the last time.

Files are organized by year/month-event. Use whatever format works for you, but definitely have some level of simple organization, ideally using a folder structure so you aren't tied to a particular tool to manage them.

Keep everything as it comes off the camera. I don't keep RAW files, but you should have room for plenty.

Use Crashplan for online backup. This is a moderate cost for all the computers in your house, but with unlimited storage. (If you don't have reasonable internet access to do this, you are stuck shuffling tapes or drives offsite, which is a royal pain). If you have friends with similar desires, you can (for free) use the software to back up to each other's computers, but you each need lots of free space.

Put all the pictures and videos on flickr. Flickr has a 1 TB limit for free. I've got 40,000 pictures and videos on there (almost 10 years worth) and have only gotten up to about 300 GB. Flickr may require some format conversion for video. I recommend getting familiar with ffmpeg and similar command line tools, use the open source flickr library (and language) of your choice, and script the whole thing. Once the pictures and videos are on flickr, put them into albums that mirror your folder structure.

Flickr also lets you share your photos with exactly who you want to share them with, relatively securely. The downside is that everyone needs to create a flickr (yahoo) account. You can also share by album with a link (slightly less secure). Services with better/more convenient sharing like google are significantly more expensive. But of course, you could keep a rotating set of pictures in google free storage and also keep everything on flickr as a backup.

If you have an android phone (I assume Iphone is similar) also let it have multiple automatic backups: There are a number of apps that will automatically sync all pictures to their service, including flickr, google photos, and many others. Pick one or two and let them sync everything. Flickr lets them be private by default, but you'll have the backup. Then also use FolderSync to automatically sync them to your computer, where they will also be backed up by Crashplan and be accessible on the computer directly.

Use any of a hundred tools to view the pictures at home. With a home network and a shared folder, kodi is great for showing them on the TV (pictures and video).

Good luck, and congrats on the kid!

Repeating the statement that the word "theory" means something different to you than it does to the general populace does nothing to help your cause. In this case especially, using terminology that is different from the common use is what is preventing "Science" from reaching the masses.

We really need to come up with a better term than "theory" if we want people to understand what you mean.

The repository is not gone, it just moved to http://deb-multimedia.org/

You can very quickly generate a lot of data with pictures of your kids. I have on the order of 80 GB with two kids under 5.

You definitely want multiple layers of protection, both locally and remote. For remote storage of pictures and videos, Flickr can't be beat price-wise. It is *unlimited* storage for $25 per year. And you can always retrieve the original file, and there are tons of APIs and clients available.

It's also useful for sharing photos and videos, with a strong security model that lets you control who has access to pictures of your kids.

Flickr does have a 500 MB per video file limit for uploads, and a 90 second limit for playback (you can download the original longer than 90 seconds, but no one else can view more than 90 seconds), but splitting videos up can be scripted with tools like ffmpeg, of course.

The key, though, is to *always* have more than one accessible copy of the originals in different physical locations. (i.e. two hard drives in your house doesn't count)

I also use an online backup solution. Look for unlimited storage for a reasonable price. I settled on CrashPlan+ Unlimited for $50/year, but there are a lot of options out there, now.

Interpreted code is great if you can babysit all the deployments. Generally, when you have to actually ship software, the sooner you find the bugs, the better. It doesn't get any earlier than compile time.

I have made brief forays into interpreted languages, and always feel immense pain and frustration from the lack of a compiler.

It's still worthwhile if you aren't upgrading the OS. Replacing MOBO + CPU + RAM is still cheaper than replacing a whole machine. Keeping the case, power supply, drives, keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc. etc.

Motherboards have gotten so all-inclusive lately, and USB so ubiquitous, that expandability is generally moot. Unless you're gaming, of course.

I use 1/1/1970 often, because it's ZERO in UTC.
Shocked no one has "gotten that" yet, even here.

How can you *stand* smooth scrolling? It's so slow!

It's one of the first things I turn off, in any app.