darksaga

For once I'd really like to see Microsoft position its product as a high end product instead of always trying to undercut everybody on price.

If they think their product is better, then sell it as such. Actually say your product is better and therefore, it's going to cost more.

I've always thought about the ravages of war nowadays and how many countries are constantly in conflict. As a great admirer of this period in American history, I have to conclude war and pestilence have always been around and are more symptomatic of the human race than of some particular span of time. The reminders were quite eye opening.

My whole family have always been avid readers. Even the younger kids (13-18 years) still read and exchange books on a regular basis at our family gatherings. A while back I asked why none of them had started reading on their i-pads or gotten an e-reader. Their answers were pretty interesting.

They all mentioned not being able to fully utilize their imagination. On a paperback novel, you have the cover artwork, you have the author's bio, and the back cover art. They said most e-readers don't have these and it takes away from the experience. They also said the feel of a book in their hands is an experience they know and love. Even the simplicity of turning pages is lost. Holding a little tablet, they never knew if they getting close to the end of the story or not. With a paperback, it was easy to visually see and know how close you were to the end of the book - and it felt like more of an accomplishment.

I found it pretty enlightening. A lot of simple things people take for granted which can't easily be replaced by a better technology.

Hardly the holy grail they're talking about. The fatal flaw is as soon as you close you one door, the pirates are already looking for 10 other ways to get around your technology.

Case in point? Look at how many times they've tried to shut down Pirate Bay. They just keep re-tooling and continue on.

I found it interesting they made a point about rebooting. Considering if you had people turn off their PC's at night, you could save almost double that when you take into account the energy it takes to run a PC and a single monitor. Although most employees I'm sure would be running dual monitors.

If they were indeed running Linux (which boots at least 5X faster than Windows) you could easily make an argument for the exact opposite.

Sorry, should have been more clear. By "it" I meant the sites where bitcoins are being traded. And yes, seeing these sites getting hacked frequently makes mainstream acceptance a lot harder. Which in turn makes changing the paradigm take a lot longer.

Also keep in mind this is in a country with around 5 million people and an area of around 330K sq miles. By contrast, Texas has 25 million people in roughly the same sq mile area.

Making such promises shouldn't be hard considering the size of the population and the area you're dealing with in terms of having to lay fibre.

Agreed. I know a lot of people who start to flirt with the notion of using Bitcoin, only to have their dreams smashed when they learn how frequently these companies and their accounts are hacked.

It may be anonymous, but its far from being secure.

The thing that's scary is how easy it is for these people to get away with what they're doing. I wonder how much money is lost every year and how many hackers you never hear about going to jail for this stuff. I'm pretty sure this is the motivation to do a lot of this stuff. The risk/reward level is completely slanted.

I see a LOT of stories on HN and other Tech sites about these kinds of attacks. Unfortunately, I rarely, if ever, hear about hackers getting arrested for this sort of activity.

I'm actually glad they are continuing on and fighting the stigma of the "best social network that never was".

I have used Diaspora's site for a while and prefer it to Facebook and Google+. The problem is trying to maintain three separate social networks. Since most of the people I like to keep up with are on FB and G+, my use of Diaspora has slowed down over the past year or so.

Great point. I had a friend who worked as a salesmen at Thomson West when they still owned Thomson Learning which published all their academic materials. To say the industry is entrenched is an understatement. My friend told me once a publisher was in with a university, there was virtually no way other publishers could get in there. Even the professors had little or no say who they could buy their books from.

It's a few steps removed from organized crime.

I agree with having someone who's already in the role interviewing you. Let the HR and managers interview the programmers last. This way you can filter out a ton of people before they waste everybody's time. One my last interviews the guy who interviewed me was a "change management" director. I thought to myself, "This is going to be a short, easy interview."

After being the industry for a while, I feel the best way to hire someone is still on referral. Developers know good developers and the good ones tend to stick together. They also know what their friends skills are, what they excel at, and what kind of work they would recommend.

Also, in the end, I learned its not what questions they ask, it's not about the stupid quizzes they put you through. Developers have to learn it's about you knowing enough about the company or asking enough tough questions to determine if it's going to be a good fit. Developers should have as much, if not more of a responsibility in vetting the companies they choose to interview with.

I had the same reaction when I saw the issue with the title, "How to Beat the CIA - Keep Everybody Out with our Ultimate Privacy Guide."

Real or not, it's still a very powerful piece of literature. I think there's an underlying theme to the story - a lot of our history is being lost or superseded by the internet.

There's so many things we have left to learn from "The Greatest Generation" yet when given the opportunity, most would rather downplay the story, or simply go back their smartphones social networks.