1,054 karma · joined April 1, 2012
Towards that goal, A 400$ watch with a life of 3-5 years sounds like a reasonable proposition, but 10,000$ for a watch with the same obsolescence is frankly ridiculous.
Is Apple's logic "that's what you get for having friends or working with people who do not buy the latest apple devices"?
Speaking as an Indian, I am not sure i would trust a CA run by a company that is close to the Indian govt. (whose record on corruption and civil liberties isn't exactly stellar).
More like no taxes. From what i heard, they have no sales tax, or income tax (including companies). And a flat 5% duty on all duty (with that even exempted on certain goods such as computers).
Now if they had said "Unreal Engine is now available as free software" that would have been more confusing and misleading.
0. Reading through all our email (We were so naive back then)
1. Google saying it would never link data from its other websites (Youtube, bloggr) with our Gmail id, and then going ahead and doing just that
2. Google announcing Android as Free, Open-source Operating System, then with each update removing functionality to Google Play Services,
3. Google sabotaging the permissions system, by clubbing innocuous, essential permissions with down-right dangerous/malicious ones
4. Creating amazing tech that could provide a quantum leap in the quality of life (for the first world at least) but will further enable Google's all-seeing eye to impinge over our daily life (Self-driving cars, Google Glass)
5. Acquiring home automation companies, robotics company with large defense contracts,
... is that Google is well on its way to becoming truly Evil.
People say that the NSA's unsaid motto is 'to collect it all'. I say that motto sum's up perfectly Google's vision.
For example, Imagine a person who comes to work after smoking a cigarette versus a person who comes after smoking a joint.
Regarding cocaine deaths, that is despite the fact that cocaine is not legally available, and is very expensive whereas cigarettes are readily and cheaply available. Almost all the deaths from cigarette smoking happen to heavy users over the long-term (149,222 of deaths are between ages 50-69 and 250,000 are over the age of 70) when compared to hard drug use. Cocaine is highly addictive, and the fact is a good percentage of the population does not have the self-control to restrict them to "occasional responsible use" (As is amply evident in the case of alcohol)
edit: If you are going to say that cocaine is primarily a stimulatant, You can't even compare the harmful effects/addictiveness of cocaine with coffee or cigarettes.
The core of my point is that a small percentage of the budget should be kept aside for r&d in science and technology (and also to encourage entrepreneurship) because the returns from such endeavours can be tremendous. If you put x dollars to buy a toilet you will only ever get 1 toilet but if you invest x dollars wisely you could in time pay for a hundred toilets.
So the strategy today's developing countries should be following is to find new frontiers in science, technology, entrepreneurship to create wealth while in parallel trying to provide basic facilities to their people. Developing countries are in some ways like startups- Perpetually strapped for cash and resources, struggling to stay afloat and facing tough odds. The key for them is not to try to compete in areas where others already dominate, but to disrupt them (by trying drastically different approaches) or to seek new fields. Microsoft didn't try to compete with IBM in mainframes, they went for the then-burgeoning PC market. Apple is the world largest corporation not because it competes head-on with Microsoft in the PC market, but because it disrupted mobile. Similarly, space is a good avenue for India to compete in, where there are few incumbents and where India can exploit its natural advantages (such as it's eye for cost-saving and huge, inexpensive talent pool).
Updated: Edited to removed lines that detract from main point.
As a social-networking website, the most important thing that defines it is the number of users. You could publish your code on Codeplex or Bitbucket, but you would be simply limiting your reach.
Under Ballmer, Microsoft had a brief identity crisis, trying to be a vertically integrated company like Apple. It is clear that Satya Nadella is taking Microsoft the other way to become a horizontally-integrated company like Google (http://stratechery.com/2013/understanding-google/)by open-sourcing .Net platform, to support competing platforms like Linux, releasing Office and Outlook on all mobile platforms (Windows, iOS, Android), focusing on cloud services, and deprioritizing Windows.
That would be because they're a non-profit working for the benefit of said users.
On the other hand, I rarely if ever click on site and blog ads (that make it through Noscript). Guess that is why Google has the most ad revenue on the internet (even though facebook arguably has more user data and people spend more time on it on average).
Web-based apps are also battling it out on mobile. Lot of apps are just wrappers for accessing web-based content. Performance is the primary obstacle stoping mobile from going completely web-based. Both the new entrants, Tizen and Firefox OS (not to mention Chrome OS) have thrown their weight behind web apps. We consume radio and youtube through web. Its not a stretch to imagine Netflix being accessed primarily through the browser in the future.
The growing SaaS business model is highly favoured to web-based apps. It is taking longer than expected, but the future is generally trending in the direction of web-based apps.
For many people, their Gmail id is their sole or primary id on the internet, used to identify them to scores of websites. It is their official online point of contact for various aspects of their online lives including their career, banking, social networking etc.
Facebook is their online social profile, which they spent thousands of hours curating.
Your Whatsapp id is merely your Phone no., (which was Whatsapp's main selling point). All interactions in Whatsapp are ephemeral in nature - Most people delete their conversations when their phone memory gets full. Compared to gmail and facebook, the switching costs are practically zero.
You are essentially taking away their right to do something.
So free speech hasn't taken precedence over political correctness. It's just that criticizing or offending muslims is considered politically correct.
Well I don't think many jews, or muslims for that matter (muslims do it too) would be offended by a reasoned criticism of circumcision. It is usually the hot topics like Israeli actions, or depiction of Prophet Muhammad that seems to trigger passions.
Consider the following statement :
"Maybe most Jews are peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing zionist cancer they must be held responsible"
Is the above sentence racist? anti-semitic? Blood libel? Incitement to hatred and violence? Possibly prosecutable?
Well here is what Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corporation, the head of one of the largest media organisations in the world tweeted a few days back :
"Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible."
Have you seen the Debian repositories or the Ubuntu Software center. They have a great selection of software, are easy to use, while at the same time not taking away your freedom or resorting to Orwellian tyranny.