Seconded. I showed a guy Ubuntu a bit back and it is now on his map and being used (not as primary, but it may be heading that way) because it has a start menu. He knows a tiny bit of linux (more like generic nix) and has interacted with various server solutions for fifteen years or so, but it's kind of "that thing you have to deal with" and most of the interaction involves calling me. That's ok, I'm mostly in charge of that. But Ubuntu now.. it has a start menu. And, like, through it you can find things. And they look familiar. Not all the way, but kinda. You can click them and they do stuff. He's actually finally getting into it a bit. He really, absurd as it may sound, would never have gotten anywhere if it looked exactly* like now, except with no start menu.
It's a good step forward though. For years, I was always torn about IDEs, it's very handy to be able to do so much automatically rather than having to do everything yourself. So much so that the productivity boost is near-required in a modern environment. But.. you don't get to edit in vi. For no particular reason as such, the editing scheme in the IDE is no less arbitrary. The whole kit would be nice, but hey, if it's at least modal and support the normal keyboard functions (around what you'd get if you just ssh:ed into your buddies box to help him with something and ended up editing things with vi, the local version, nothing customized) that's a lot.
There is no law against making your catalog widely available. Yes, currently they seem unable to do so. That isn't the consumers problem (quite literally). Very few things are so awesome that you'll have people begging you to take their money (and root access on their box, the right to revoke the product at any time, etc), so few in fact that the publishers should firmly assume they are not it. If they can't sort that out between themselves, tough shit - customers/pirates/in-betweens will not care. The ball is not in their court and it will be extremely hard to put it there by force.
I've assumed quotes meant one or more words were wanted in that order, not as keywords ("to be or not to be" = I don't mean a lot of documents including all those words, but rather that exact phrase) whereas + meant that particular word or phrase had to be in the page (melting abs +plastic = I'm not concerned with placement, but the term "plastic" has to be explicitly mentioned on the page, not related from another page, as I'm wanting to melt ABS plastic as opposed to reshape my abdominals). I considered + as the opposite of -, which is usually the easier way to narrow something down (melting abs -muscle -workout). Oh well..
The narrative fits the US hopes and dreams very well, so well in fact that many believe it. I'm not saying people shouldn't be allowed to publish (and in fact they are) but this is a lot like the "I would be a rockstar if someone would just give me a break" story in music. Are we swimming in out-of-nowhere hits now that nearly everyone can buy everything you need to record/publish for less then a four-track recorder? No. The reason people aren't billboard no 1s/NYT bestsellers/directing the next Paramount isn't that the man is holding them down, it's that they suck at it. More cash won't change that much (an editor and a staff helps, but it's not a cure-all either).
That said, sure, the concept of books is in serious need of help and e-readers including kindle do help some. I know several people who hadn't read a book since high school but suddenly got used to reading on kindle/nook/their laptop/phone and suddenly trade suggestions and (gasp) purchase actual books. This is a positive, seeing as getting them to sign up for a library card or even giving them (no strings) a physical book to read was usually met with suspicion.
I can't find anything in a quick search, but I recall seeing a report ~15 years ago on what was considered sufficiently random for lotteries. It was kind of tiered, most low-level stuff was based on pseudo with a seed based on dice throw (i.e. they rolled something like 10d10 under specific conditions, then used that as seed) with some higher up stuff being die or ball pick. This was before having entropy generators (like an over level amp hooked to a A/D) being commonplace. Not sure what they like now, but I'm sure political/legal argued about it, yelled at each other and eventually settled on what was "random enough" fairly arbitrarily but sufficiently enough that no one complains. There's probably enough stuff around that needs to be "legally random" to have laws about it though.
You'd imagine someone would do this sooner or later. My skills are horribly rusty, but they might be worth brushing off. Lots of people did it for their ham licenses and it's certainly faster then t9, possibly qwerty-on-touchscreen. Especially with two-switch repeating ones (i.e. one button does dot dot dot dot.. one does dash dash dash... at a set speed).
A lot of the problem is that practicing something is not only not encouraged but actively discouraged. Getting a CS student to code, a chemist to experiment, a physicist to experiment and a builder to build isn't hard. Throw them the equipment and say "Here, check this out!" and they'll go at it oldschool. Usually that doesn't happen, instead A) all equipment is kept away except during mandated times and for mandated purposes and B) they're held in classes and lectures long after they've gone "Ok, cool. Let's play with this for a bit and we'll do more theory later" so that they're pretty much sick of all of it at the end of the day. This is the most discouraging thing about the current system. You have to have the option of pacing yourself and also have the space to grow. I'd play in the CS labs in the wee AM. I'd borrow the machine shop. The cafeteria usually left the rest of the coffee out, me and my friends would sit and do electronics problems or calculus all night, perhaps take a break to learn sign language or how to tap out a proper 4/4 beat. No one complained because that's excellent - you're learning! Exactly what a university is there for!
Vidalia is a GUI for tor, letting you start it, stop it, change identity, monitor your connections, etc. Torbutton toggles if firefox goes via tor or not and monitors to make sure it still does and nothing has changed and changes some settings to make attempt to prevent accidental leaks. Current broswer bundles is usually pretty much a browser with torbutton, vidalia and tor. Tor itself will no doubt still be able to proxy other things (such as pidgin or other non-web traffic). I'm not sure what exactly forking the browser would entail, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly meant to provide a full separate (and neutral looking to the server) browser rather then have people flip back and forth which has always been a bad idea since it's very easy to accidentally have it give you away. If the bundle itself includes Tor or not is hard to say. If chrome + tor (started with vidalia rather then command line, if you wish) is secure is debatable, perhaps or perhaps not - it's never been a project they've really focused on. Third party or roll-your-own setups are as secure as you make them.
[EDIT] You're welcome. Chrome via proxy in incognito on a separate install is probably pretty safe. Might even be safer - I'm not really qualified to answer either way. The bundles are only as safe as the writers as well, so.. dunno.
This would seem like the reasonable choice. Or, just leave the tablet market alone. They could, perhaps, enhance the amount of other useful features in it for the "temporary mode before bothering to find a computer" but abandon the very low power drain (mostly by frugal screen) and they're abandoning the whole niche and stepping into a strange and different land. Many others have so much more to offer in all kinds of ways except.. recharge it every few hours of use. Nope, sorry, can't do that - the tempting device is now useless to me.
The problem is that not everyone can afford that. In fact, almost no one can afford that. The internet as a whole is only viable because of vastly pooled resources - it could never have happened on a "my slice, get off my lawn" basis. Even if you can afford it, you're being vastly overcharged compared to a decentralized network. One that already exists in many areas, most of it is already fully painted with WiFi supposing people could actually all use it.
So.. Essentially man the F up and live without GC in the parts that are going too slow instead of saying "Oh it's cool, just wait ten years and hardware will be fast enough to run this anyway". Use GC for stuff that needs to be simple and is fast enough anyway, don't bog down code that's too slow with it.
> selling these smart watches for the sharp price of $149
Cool idea, but there seems to be a massive misstep in logic somewhere in there. If it's supposed to be a thin client to the phone, then it needs to act like one (not run apps). If it's supposed to be a somewhat thicker client, you need to travel forward in time from 1988 until now and insert more space, provide an OS (even if it's single thread) to manage said apps and possibly more then an on/off button for input.
It's where regulation gets tricky indeed. Having any government capable of disrupting information flows lead to all kinds of danger. Having no control also leads to other, way more glaring (though not necessarily more severe) dangers. In a hype-driven process it's not hard to see who will end up on top, but even more so when even in a rationally and carefully weighed situation it's really hard to say and there's no real hope of doing research on what will work.
Most places have lower sentences then the US simply out of practicality. Consider what it would be like to go to jail for eight years right now. Would you really be less motivated if it was ten? Twenty? 25 with an L? Really, you're already past the point where anyone considering it is "all in" here - if caught your life is irreparably fucked up (which seems pretty fair). Going further is just posturing or revenge for general laughs, it won't do much to actual crime rates.
The one day per hour isn't "without being able to power through it" it's for "without a noticeable difference". It's 8pm right now and there's no particular reason I couldn't still be going fairly strong by 4am (if sufficiently motivated), but I will not be as awake as someone adjusted to my 4am being around noon or so. In other words, it's a way to estimate when there will be no tired phase to power through. That said, yeah, an hour a day is a wimpy pace - people modestly used to switching sleep schedules can easily flop much more and be fairly unaffected by crossing the atlantic after a day or two. Being used to it and age both make a big difference. Those who are unused to it or older switch much slower (that would include me at 15 v me at 30). How much the sun matters can also depend, I grew up in near complete darkness during the winter and near 24h sunlight during the summer. My daughter and wife (used to the US continents stable cycle) found that incredibly hard to adjust to, even with dark rooms to sleep in.
I can see where free wifi could be a drain on resources. If someone wants to rent an air conditioned/heated cubicle space with a 300w power and open wifi for $2/5 hours.. go for it. I can't quite see the economics in that, but I'm sure prices vary. If people use it like an average human (read the boards/news, check email, surf a bit while having your morning coffee) it's great. When some are turning it into a much more pricey proposition a lot of customers won't want to pay $7-$10 for the coffee you have to charge when they weren't going to sit there all day anyway. Libraries rock for this, which is also incidentally what they are for - free info, silence and breathing room to those who can't set it up themselves.
Innovative? This is just another name for vaporware, launch a small ad campaign, see how it goes, discard failures brutally. It is also incredible offputting to customers (who actually aren't complete idiots and can remember a brand). I'm sure anyone who has googled around for a solution to something knows the feeling "We have a product that matches what you want to do completely! Click here! Oh btw, by 'have' we mean 'don't have but will. Perhaps". Yeah, next time you offer something real, there's a good possibility may say "Suuure you do".
You'd have to be pretty naive to think being legal would then suddenly mean you can easily make it. Burgers are legal. The vast majority consume them. Now open a burger joint and corner the market! Oh wait.. Health code regulations? Employee benefits? Payrolls? Tax? Inspections? Fire code? Have to be better and/or cheaper then the big chains? Who would have guessed running a successful business wasn't trivial!
People who were in the game before competed against anyone who couldn't run a small time dry cleaning shop. They were in it because it was illegal and those good at business was instead running legal businesses.
Looking at it, yes, that's pretty much it. Lenticular images (aka, sports flips, those odd things that move when you tilt them, etc) are based on the same principle except with a lens to show each "band" depending on viewing angle rather then moving a striped sheet over it to obscure a sequence of frames.