ElCheapo

>You just need a remote with QWERTY and trackpad

Sure, if you change your requirements and sidestep mine then everything becomes easy. Now try doing the same with an actual TV remote, which my question actually asked about.

It was amazing at doing.... what? You've just listed a bunch of hardware functionalities without actually saying what you managed to use it for.

I think you're being extremely vague about the things you are using your GDP for. Nothing you've written strikes me as something that couldn't be achieved with a proper I/O module attached to a smartphone.

Yes, and people brought their Machintoshes 512k to work with a bag. I sincerely don't understand how your PC-on-a-stick experience has any relation to what I was talking about. You have to connect it to a screen and bring your own peripherals. I don't believe that's what people think when they hear "pocketable PC".

Your set up works because you tailored both the hardware and the software to make up for the shortcomings of the devices. Normally a TV remote doesn't have a full fledged keyboard attached to it, so many applications become borderline unusable. What you did is enhance the inputs of your device and this opened up many more possibilities. You also tweaked the software from its ootb configuration to make operations smoother.

None of these devices attempt doing something similar. They offer less options than normal computers and their desktop is left unchanged.

Lastly, what you wrote actually proves my point. You are not using your linux system to do everything a computer does. Your set of functionalities is limited to media consumption and as such you just had to find a workaround for your use case. Could you browse (or even write) your emails on your TV? Sure, but you'd have to use a heavily customized UI and UX if you don't want people to squint their eyes and take ages to navigate everything. And who's going to write such a program? And what about all the other applications that we expect a complete system to have such as a general purpose web browser, a video player, a file browser, etc.? My whole point is that these "pocketable PCs" might be great for a subset of problems, but they have to be tailored for them. They are terrible general computing devices.

Can we stop with this absolute fantasy about PCs that "fit in your pocket"?

The medium is the message, the form is the functionality.

Smartphones have been "pocketable PCs" for more than a decade already, but are dumbed down because their inputs and outputs are limited. You can't type effectively, your screen is small, your battery is limited. Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remote? How about XFCE? Or GNOME? No, for a Smart TV we have purposefully made OSs that are limited in functionality such as Kodi, LibreELEC and others specifically because of the type of inputs and outputs needed.

I think the only way we could ever get a portable PC experience on the go is by having AR glasses project a full desktop in front of us and let us control it with an imaginary keyboard and touchpad by somehow analyzing our hand movements on a hard surface in front of us. But that's only if we get to a point where said devices are fast and hold a decent battery, which, with current technology, is impossible.

If you know a way to order yourself into anesthesia I think some kind of million dollar prize is waiting for you

It's so crazy to think that we as humans can look at our lungs and clearly see what's wrong with them and what it would take to solve the problem but we can't simply order our immune cells to deal with the matter consciously and are at the mercy of a system we have a murky relationship with.

Instead, just like CRISPR, we have to find already existing organisms or mechanisms that do something and try to get them inside of us to carry the job

Do you think homomorphic encryption will be the next hot thing in security-related sectors of tech?

I don't know, somehow even though I cannot resist using my smartphone in the boredom of my house once I go outside I completely drop the need to look at it. I might wait on a bus bench for half an hour and only occasionally take it out to check the time. I simply can't relate to this post, the phone is irrelevant to me in those situations

ADA has existed for a loooong time

Linus hates Perl?

Heck, so my secret project of slowly replacing every Perl script in the kernel with C might even get approved...

It costs $100 to publish apps on the App Store every single year. Plus Apple puts caveats and conditions that must be dealt with by people in the organization on company time.

Publishing your program on the App Store makes it convenient for the user to keep it in sync and updated, but it costs the publisher money. LibreOffice sure needs a bit of funding (like Anki) so I'm totally for putting it up for sale.

Let's also not forget that the App Store is a proprietary platform, meaning that publishing a FOSS program vs. a proprietary one is pretty much the same since you can only distribute binaries. Sure, you can download the source and install it on your machine if you want to pay $0, but you can already do exactly that by going to the developer's website and downloading the .DMG installer.

I mean, if the DRM wasn't a blob it would be open source. Andnif it were open source it wouldn't be DRM...

I don't see how bringing up a right wing conspiracy meme adds anything to what your parent said. Your biometrics should be processed and gathered by the most secure parts of the device, which means going through more hoops to get a replacement.

Google as a whole (especially in America) has a slew of services entirely comparable to WeChat. The problem is not many people use them.

They have phone and internet plans, they have mobile and desktop OSs, they have self-driving taxis, they have email, they have IM, they (had) a social network, they have a payment system, they have cloud storage and computing, they even have actual phones and computers. Sure, they miss a couple of things like a marketplace, but if US citizens somehow were forced to use all-Google devices they would definitely do everything with Google Search, Google Duo, GMail and Google Pay just like the Chinese do everything via WeChat. In that case obviously Google would integrate all their services even tighter by allowing almost everything to be done through their IM or email, but right now they are much more similar to WeChat than you might think

WeChat is controlled by the government. They don't need an open ecosystem: if the government mandates an app then everyone will use that app. It's completely unnecessary to implement some kind of public facing API to offer the functionalities to supposed third parties. There are none.

Here's what's actually needed for an event to not suck:

- Plenty of free water

- Plenty of food, preferably free

- Plenty of seating space

- Plenty of bathrooms

- Clear indications as to where all of those things are placed

I'll attend almost any event if I can sit down with a drink, some food and make small talk with people and maybe even network! And even if your presentation is empty and boring (as most of them are) I will still remember your event as a decent one because I was able to enjoy it my way and get something out of it.

Now go and see how many APIs Google Chrome has

I don't understand what the purpose of your comment is in relation to my post.

Conscious multitasking is incredibly inefficient, but hardware accelerated (unconscious) multitasking works pretty well

So freedom of expression only applies to arbitrary "protected classes"?

How about suing people who post illegal stuff and leaving the matter to the courts? Having to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines will deter unlawful people more than having to change hosting provider every few years

The christian bakery owner is free to decide who they want to make cakes for and who they don't want to make cakes for. If they're fine with being known for knowingly hosting the scum of the earth (homosexuals), more power to them; but they are also absolutely allowed to nope out of that.

To me the matter is very simple:

If you are a hosting service and one of your clients publishes illegal content (perjury, child pornography, etc.) then either of two things happen:

1) If your client gets sued or investigaded for said content and you don't have their credentials, you are held responsible for the content they publish. You go to court and you get fined/arrested and forced to remove the content.

2) If you have your client's identifiable information then 2a) the client goes to court and he is fined/arrested and forced to delete che content 2b) if the client used fake credentials (fake passport, stolen credit card etc.) and you prove your good faith then you are only forced to take down the content.

Alternative title:

"How the Netherlands facilitates free speech on the internet, and how that's a bad thing!"

From my experience google will show that banner for a couple of times if you log in from an unusual device and only after that will require you the complete login with the 2FA

Google periodically puts that banner at full display when you log in. Even if you miss it one or two times it will come again. If you are so incompetent as to ignore a clear security warning that many times then you are responsible for your own actions.

What attitude? Asking your clients to be truthful in exchange for a mutually trustful relationship?

Yes, and people still fall through literal cracks and die every day.

You can't force people to be truthful online, just like you can't fill up every crack on the Earth with cement.

If I ask you to confirm you haven't changed your number and you outright lie then I'm sorry but it is what it is.

>"I would have, had I only known!"

log into Google

giant banner appears

"Hey, is this still your phone number? If it's not you better change it otherwise we can't recover the account!"

click 'no'

change it to a new one

done.