McPants's comments

Rent could. If you try to create a start up in say SF or NYC you are going to be wasting a lot of money on living expenses when it could have gone back into the product itself.

Could the companies that are under threat of legal action work together and risk the threat all at once?

What I am saying is that if one company such as Google was to breach their gag order from the government regarding these things then they would be in a pretty bad situation which could result in a major loss of money to the company. However a lot of these tech companies are American and for them to all breach the gag order at once would have a large impact on the already struggling economy. Could they not use this potential economic disaster as a get out of jail token?

I mean it's kinda what the banks did with the too big to fail stuff. Putting a lot of companies in jeopardy at once could force the government to not act on prosecuting them.

I could also be talking out of my butt.

The reason they offer it for free is pretty simple to me. They have an app store which is making them more money than the Operating System itself. The more people who have access to the app store the more money they make, so why put a price barrier between the user and the store?

This is why Windows 8.1 is free and I will assume the next iterations of Windows will be. Windows now has an app store and they are banking on getting as many people into that ecosystem as possible. While they may lose money in the OS purchase, that isn't where the bulk of the money is made anymore.

It's all about money.

I recently tried to do this. Facebook actually will recognize if a name sounds "too fake" and reject it, saying that you can only use a real name.

https://www.facebook.com/help/112146705538576

Facebook is just shooting themselves in the foot. Instead of accommodating for it's users it wants its users to accommodate for facebook. These decisions are just silly and a slap in the face to anyone who wants a shred of privacy.

It would be nice to see it but I have a full page advertisement in my way of it. /snark

Totally, but in a comparison of vulnerabilities it is much different to compare flaws in apps versus the default software included in the system. The former is a vulnerability to a very small percentage of users whereas the latter applies to literally every device. It also relies heavily on the App store acceptance policies, the ability to install apps not through the app store, and the competence of the developers making those apps.

That's not exactly a fair comparison, Firefox is a third party app whereas this lock screen vulnerability is part of iOS itself.

Really none of the major OS's are hard to learn at all. They might approach things differently but let's be honest, operating a phone is something an 8 year old can do (and sometimes better than their parents). If you're having any trouble at all it takes a twenty second google search to fix it.

The question is really around what you use your phone for and then choosing an operating system that supports your needs better than the others.

Why focus on climate change? Al Jazeera should be concerned about changing the way news networks discuss topics entirely, not just this isolated story.

There is too much forced drama in television news, like the typical "Watch ---- news at 9 to see if your child will die from a toy you might have in your house". I haven't seen any of the new Al Jazeera programming but I did see their four minute promo trailer for the network and it looked to me like the same kind of stuff. The narrator to that teaser sounded like he was doing a michael bay trailer and the news anchors had plastic smiles like all the other news channels.

That isn't to say I don't have hope though. Anything that is better than the methods which current networks employ is a step forward.

It seems like that person I have been waiting for to create that mapping is me!

This is what is preventing me from learning Vim. I play games every day using WASD movement and if I have to switch to hjkl my brain goes haywire.

I have been waiting for someone to create a Vim control scheme that relies on WASD movement and maybe also brings in other common gaming related keys (E for insert?, space for escape?) To me this seems more logical than hjkl/i/esc.

Until then though it just feels like more work that it needs to be for me to personally learn Vim. Which is a shame because I can recognize how useful it can be, especially after watching Destroy all Software screencasts.

He said that because most people are not technically literate or have enough time to understand exactly what Snowden did. Considering the way he is portrayed in mass media I would bet that many people think what he did was along the lines of releasing the secret passwords to our spy computers of which then Al Qaeda can access and disrupt our job in killing and detaining terrorists.

Being loyal is a two way street to me. If you are going to support a product over an extended period of time then I believe there should be some sort of incentive to continue buying the new version - especially when the new version only has X new features added to it. Those new features are really the only thing existing users are paying for, while new users are paying for every feature.

It doesn't have to be approached in the typical upgrade fashion either, the companies can treat the program as a completely new one but I would like to see some form of promo codes that only existing users can take advantage of in order to show appreciation for their support of your product.

Blogspot is one of them.

Can the world afford to attack the US? I figure there is too much money flowing through the country which would prevent that from happening as they would be alienating US corporations.

Software in smart TVs need drastic changes. I won't go over the problems with the ui right now as I feel they are all pretty obvious, but what I think needs to get pushed is the connection between TVs and phones. Samsung is already starting to do this by having IR blasters on the galaxy phones and having ways to use to use the phone keyboards as a replacement for the on screen ones but it can go so much farther.

For example, parental controls should be available through your phone. You should be able to see what your kid is watching and also force them to watch something else "remotely", even if you're on vacation. or maybe they are staying up too late and you turn the TV off for them.

There are many other ideas but that sounds like one of the more useful ones as opposed to being more gimmicky (like gesture commands).

AFAIK, it's still in about:config. If you are smart enough to go into the options to turn off Javascript in the first place, then it won't be too much effort to go into about:config.

Also, radio stations only play your song for a couple seasons, an entire year if you are lucky and maybe more if you are one of the most successful bands. Pandora and similar services are always around 24/7.

My point was more along the lines of it is wasting time. If you do something bad for the right reason and then later find out it is bad then at least you know that solution was the issue and you can try a different solution next time.

If you do something right for the wrong reason then you have absolutely nothing to learn from and have made no progress at all at finding the correct solution for the problem at hand.

It's time for another good idea, bad idea.