Re: Eh?
A mouse? A keyboard? A headset? All these you can get wireless versions, or wired versions for a tiny fraction of the price?
Not to mention an external hard-drive.
6847 publicly visible posts • joined 28 May 2010
We're really off to a flying start with the idiotic comments today. This is a lab for noob AI developers wanting to get some understanding, and you're complaining it's not solving formerly unsolved problems?
This especially:
>If this is AI then we have AI since the 80's.
Seriously? If a problem has already been solved by non-AI/ML means then solving it a new way is meaningless?
I hope when your kids get into coding and proudly show you their version of Pong you will tell them kindly, how useless their efforts are.
>The idea of writing a large scale system with a modern distributed architecture in C++ is ludicrous. Even if you could, what would be the point? And where would you get the developers.
What do you mean, where would you get the developers? As the dominant applications language in the recent past, there are a vast number of experienced C++ developers out there. Many of them still relatively young (30s).
You certainly used to be allowed to use VS Express for commercial stuff pretty freely, I had thought the same was true of community edition. Annoying if so... seems they keep swinging back and forth on this!
I do wish they'd stop treating it as an income stream - it can't bring in THAT much and surely more developers! developers! developers! means a better ecosystem
Skype was always crap, and is a user-facing application.
MS are good at developer tools... VS is not only great but free for commercial use.
Also MS might already use Git (?) or if not, want to use it. If they are going to use it internally, it probably won't be terrible.
I'd wait a year at least before making a silly jump just because it's owned by MS.
Really? I can't imagine any small-medium sized town doesn't have a baker and a butcher. It might be a trendy baker but round here even the larger villages still have traditional butchers. And we have greengrocers. Outdoor markets are also popular though again a bit more trendy; farm shops are also pretty au fait these days.
>Only the 128GB model has crept up to £519 (for 8GB of RAM). You can get one for £469, but with 64GB and no slot I'm not sure why you'd want to. Maybe you live in the cloud
Huh? Only a few years ago 64Gb was a lot. Phones didn't typically have SD back then either, and I don't think MP3 files are larger these days. And the fact is people DO use streaming music services far more than in the past.
When I got my Lumia 1020 64Gb, I am not sure anyone was selling 128+Gb back then (maybe just?)
I don't 3.5mm or SD or swappable batteries are "high end" features. The former is a standard feature they're replacing with something worse, the other two are niche features.
The idea that a top-price phone should have EVERY feature doesn't make sense in a world where slim & sleek is seen as a key feature.
Oh dear Graham, are you worried you might catch a computer virus from an email you receive in WhatsApp?
I'm nowhere near being a millennial; I'm old enough to have children who are.
People who are scared of FB can simply not use it.
Cool and Scary and Life-threatening are NOT mutually exclusive, FWIW. Nuclear weapons are certainly the last two but the nobel-winning physicists who created them certainly thought they were cool applications of science. Bio-weapons and genetics are fascinating but terrifying. AI also.
As someone interested in tech, all these things we can do are exciting and very cool - but that doesn't mean they're good ideas.
...between the potential usefulness of any feature and the potential for it to piss people off, where the internet is concerned.
As a nerd, the idea that FB can automatically detect me when someone uploads a photo of me is bloody cool from a techy point of view and obviously very powerful. As a user the idea of not having to tag everyone in photos, and to be notified whenever someone uploads a photo of me, is straight out of sci-fi.
The obvious flip side is that any clever tech to help FB identify me and track me for cool reasons allows them to identify and track me for nefarious reasons... or for others to do so if FB deliberately or accidentally exposes this data.
>I know I'm repeating myself, but why don't common Linux distros have these problems? You can take a stable release of RedHat, Debian, or pretty much any popular Linux OS, install it on any non-exotic hardware (aka anything Dell) and it just works. You can update it and it just works. You can update the kernel and it just works
"it just works" is certainly not the first thing that springs to mind when thinking about installing Linux.
That aside, Linux is installed on FAR fewer home PCs than Windows, by people who are on average FAR more knowledgeable about how to set their system up. I don't think it's a fair comparison. And I'm sure Linux MUST brick some people's machines but because there are fewer of them and they will spend time fixing it, we don't hear about it as much.
>But does it still send everything you do back to the Chocolate Factory?
>If it does then why would anyone use it? Or don't you even care?
I don't really care. I rather assume everything I do online is viewable by someone who really cares, but that they almost certainly don't. If Chrome is working within the law(?) I'm OK with that.
If it means IoT devices are properly securitised this might be preferable. Better than hundreds of 2-bit no-name companies mass-producing chips we haven't the slightest clue about, perhaps?
Of course your whole argument is predicated on the supposed axiom that proprietary = bad, this dogma is after all only opinion.
Apart from the fact you can as already mentioned get Google on Fire quite easily, you're missing the point.
To many people, a tablet that can browse the web, do email and stream content from Amazon+Netflix+iPlayer+YouTube is as functional as they need. It can cast to a Fire stick too. Not everyone installs lots of apps on their tablet the way they do on phones.
In fact to many just being able to watch Netflix & iPlayer is all they want. At the price of a Fire tablet, that's pretty good for them.
Your arguments aren't actually backed by any kind of science.
Your main argument seems to be "before tablets existed billions of people, in fact 100% of people, were educated without tablets. All the smart adults around today were taught without tablets so clearly that's the best way".
1."Mechanisms like Age Verification will affect *everyone*, whether or not they have children, and remember the majority of households in this country *don't* have children, so why do we all have to be "protected" from this stuff?"
What kind of argument is that? It's not about protecting adults, but checking users are adults. Where have you got the notion this is about whether we have kids from? Besides, the idea a rule is needed only if it affects the majority is clearly nonsense. I submit you're just acting out of self-interest that YOU don't want to have to jump through hoops.
2. I (deliberately) never made any comment on porn being harmful but I'd hope we agree it's not a great idea for pre-pubescent children to be exposed to hard-core porn, or to explicit sexualisation in any sense.
That said, "it doesn't do anyone any harm" is just a load you've swallowed (ahem). Whether or not it harms the consumer, it is a matter of fact that porn is linked to abuse and trafficking. It is very hard(!) for you to know if the stuff you're consuming is legit when it's just a stream on some website. Some people might go out of their way to source "ethical porn" but most just type some search term into Google.
But while we're on the topic, I refute your claims it's harmless. It just smacks of tobacco companies funding research showing smoking wasn't bad for you. Whether it has a negative affect on mature adults, to suggest that children who grow up consuming porn before they start interacting with the opposite sex in real life won't be affected AT ALL is a very bold claim. It's not like there is any line between soft and hard stuff so a curious 10yo is just as likely to come across(!) some really dark stuff. It has also been shown that porn is on average getting harder. Maybe we grew up thinking a topless woman was pretty exciting, these days content very typically includes violent overtones, dominance, etc, not two people having a fun consensual time together.
They say they do, but that any actual restrictive mechanism is likely to be harmful. Do we really believe them... genuine question? Do we think pornographers are good citizens running legitimate businesses, or dodgy types who - like cigarette makers in the past - are more than happy to get the next generation hooked?
Parents and schools need to be having discussions with their children about pornography, explaining that it is not a representation of real life and it is often a fantasy that can take things to extremes," said Lust, who has created a site that aims to help do this.
"Instead of trying to fix a social problem with technology, children should be educated and given a safe space to explore their sexuality."
Girl on the Net agreed, saying that young people have been crying out for "properly funded sex ed, which doesn't just cover the very basics like pregnancy and STIs, but which is broad and covers issues such as consent, self identity and pornography as well".
The many teachers I know bemoan the fact that they ALREADY have to teach this stuff at a younger and younger age and that this clearly isn't helping. They say they should not be having to talk to under-10s, or even under-8s about porn, consent and sexuality, and that the focus is all on sex not on relationships. They definitely don't like the idea of pre-pubescent children being encouraged to "explore their sexuality"
It seems like the things being requested are already part of modern sex-ed, but they don't seem to stop modern kids growing up with the impression that spaffing on your GF's face is a respectful relationship as long as they consent to it.