aclsid

If every single utility and app start charging $3 or $5 per month then it becomes a problem. Software as a service is a good concept for something that is truly changing all the time, but I find it absurd that a Photoshop subscription or a huge IDE cost as much as these utilities thst used to be shareware in the past.

The old business model works but you have to keep innovating and diversify your product line. Microsoft was the best example with things like Encarta, Age of Empires and other tools like Project.

This new trend of doing these apps once, with far easier programming languages in a connected environment with plenty of docs, crash report data and things like stack overflow really makes it look that we are talking about cheap people trying to make a quick profit not unlike those free to play games.

In my case I go for simplenote, but yeah same deal. If somebody creates the same experience in a less resource intensive framework I'm a in.

I'm with you on this one. During the end of the 90s there was a similar phenomenon for the exact same reasons, which was Java desktop apps, with their write once run anywhere motto. With the added insult that they had this awful non-standard UI most of the time. They eventually died down except for the corporate app world and things like JetBrains IDEs.

But now with Electron, which I don't like for the same reasons, as a friend once told me, allowed me to have some of my favorite apps running in Windows, Linux and Mac almost flawlessly with a good interface that finally the promise of Java was fully realized.

So while I would like people to follow more the Sublime Text approach, there is value in these Javascript based apps that lower the barrier of entry, provide widespread availability and are definitely easier to debug. Also sometimes I don't get to decide, since my org for instance makes it extremely convenient to stick with JetBrains stuff.

But hey, I'm the type of person that considered a Gentoo machine running Fluxbox far more useful than the very polished MacOS.

That doesn't seem to match reality, where you have some men living past 100+ years. But I'm not a doctor so...

They certainly don't go on counting pennies

By that argument we should block all non-national apps or services and create national networks instead, since you are assuming everybody is fine with the US as a country imposing their views and values to every country.

I can see Middle Eastern countries getting offended by several things we are used to. In short, anything that is not Western would be difficult in that sense, but even among Western democracies, there are taxation issues for these services and different views on privacy.

Well, think about it. A mosquito bite seems harmless, while getting torn to pieces by a shark, in a medium where you cannot even run it is scary as hell.

Just get a proper antivirus and it will probably disable the built-in security suite for you

I agree with the main sentiment, but I have made my peace with it. Mainly Java and Electron based apps because they do provide us with a nice thing that was impossible years before unless you wanted to become a digital hermit: Linux on the desktop.

I can now use simplenote, discord, slack, the jetbrains dev suite, visual studio code, and this is without including separate developments like Steam, which has made it effortless to switch between Windows, Linux and Mac.

That being said, I still consider Mac OS the superior OS (this call home issue from the article aside), mostly because the font rendering still works better after all these years, Windows and Mac still have better quality software available for them, and Mac still does not have the forced updates as Windows does. Also I have noticed that in Ubuntu, some electron apps like Simplenote, the copy and paste of text is funky at times, like not even letting me select stuff.

This, the only way to prevent stuff like this from happening is to actually decouple the system from business interests. These kind of incidents repeat themselves over and over because it is based on a flawed logic where if you help businesses it will have a trickle down effect that ends up helping productive people. Same thing that happened when GM got a whole bunch of money and then they were using their private jets and collecting the nice CEO bonuses.

Governments by their very nature, and democratic ones especially, are supposed to be about charging taxes and redistributing that wealth for the better good. There is this big concept about having a powerful middle class which in turns make the extremely poor or the extremely rich a problem for the system to deal with.

The SBA could have helped all of those businesses directly through a coordinated effort with the IRS. Through the IRS they will know who is effectively a small business doing real work recently. How hard is it to just phone or email people asking for their bank account and fund the small business directly? If 6% of funding was all that was available at least a public raffle would have been a fairer system.

But even this stuff doesn't solve the question of what do you do with people that are out of a job, have a disability, mental issues or in general people that are unable to work like the elderly. Do you just let them die out of starvation out in the streets?

I saw that video and it proves my point. Taiwan is not recognized as an independent country, and the reporter, which is from a Hong Kong network, knows perfectly well that situation and wanted to ask a pointy question, so don't be surprised by the result. The staffer just did not know how to answer that well without getting into political issues since he's just trying to do his job.

But if you think this is definitive proof of a conspiracy, then you should check where the financing for the WHO comes from (China is nowhere near the top list), and second China actually ignored some recommendations from the WHO during the initial stage of the outbreak.

There are areas of Colombia that are a sovereign country because they are controlled by guerrillas. The same goes for Russian controlled areas of the Ukraine and Georgia.

What makes them sovereign countries with a right to be in the UN is the amount of recognition they get from their peers. I don't have anything against the Taiwanese, but they are embroiled in a conflict just like the previous regions I described. Until they solve those issues one way or another and gain more international recognition they will not be able to participate in the UN, the Olympics or other places as a country.

This is a tough question because on one side freedom of speech is something that ought to be protected and it is somebody's opinion of what means misinformation or not.

But on the other hand, if you allow people that spread extreme ideologies like fascism/nazism, communism, hatred between religious or ethnic groups, that is where you should draw the line.

In here, supporting freedom of speech and therefore the ability for deniers to have a platform sets a dangerous precedent for the whole population. Just like anti-vaccine groups, they are creating a massive hazzard for people that disagree with them, so just like the law says, your right ends where mine begins.

Doctors are the one driving people away from hospitals in China, since they act like a normal bureaucracy where they don't earn much.

I have experienced it first hand and I can tell you that on all honesty, healthcare in general is the biggest issue affecting the Chinese. Most of them don't realise how bad it is because that is what they know but even places in Latin America have way better patience care with less developed infrastructure

Some people eat crocodiles, horse meat, etc. Eating cows or pigs themselves is pretty weird on itself, especially if you see how they kill and process the animal. The fact that we are used to se things is all that counts.

That being said, viruses were not transmitted by people eating bats. It was a species of cats that got infected by bats. As for cat consumption, well it is very easy to dupe somebody to eat cat meat thinking it is rabbit. That is why in a lot of developing countries when you buy rabbit meat they keep the furry head of the animal attached to the body on the bag so that you can see it is the real thing.

It was reported in the BBC today that while SARS originated in bats, the vector for humans were a species of cats that got the disease from the bats.

For coronavirus what we know so far is that it originated in a seafood market, but as to what species was eaten that is speculation at this point.

I think more of an issue with who they hire it should be more about the minimum amount they are allowed to pay. That will tilt the scale in favor of home players since they already know the language, local customs, work culture, etc.

Germany is the poster child for controlled rent working well for everybody, to the point where it is more of hassle to buy.

Plus in all honesty, lots of Adobe software behaves like a virus by installing these always running updaters. I haven't had Flash in my laptop for sometime and the web has evolved to a point that it was never an issue, but the CC updater ended up saying I needed to install the latest update to Flash.

I have already tried Pixelmator and the Affinity suite, but after that shady behavior plus the monthly fee, I ended up uninstalling anything Adobe based and just switched completely to Affinity Design and Photo. The only thing I'm missing is when somebody sends me an .ai file in a certain format, but if they export with SVG or with PDF support, zero issues there.

That Cold War mentality is getting old already. The world has a lot more to gain if we drop the "my approach is superior" in the process. Russia and China is not filled with demons, and much of the same things they are being acused of can be said of the US, from severe human rights violations in Guantanamo, migrant populations and pretty much being involved in almost every war out there while destabilizing countries that do not follow Washington's views in the process.

But there is no way I'll let all of those issues start affecting me with an anti-American attitude, and all the same I won't be having an anti-Russian or anti-Chinese attitude. First, I don't have anything to gain. I think China is making the best price/value phones out there at the moment, Russia has JetBrains and some good tools like Yandex for Domains which is free, and the US, well Google/Android/Apple you name it.

In a way it is like the console wars. Instead of going with Nintendo against Sega, just get both consoles and be happy.

Just give thanks that you did not have to work with the likes of CVS and such.

I started playing around with Linux since Redhat 5.1, and it is amazing that after all these years, some people still don't get it when it comes to good UI/UX design. The fonts look all out of place even on window titles.

I thought, well it is an open source project with people doing this on their spare time, maybe I should contribute to that project to help, but the issue is so widespread that there really needs to be a frank conversation about it so that all the teams start doing some basic polish on the presentation.

I'm very glad though that the font rendering nightmare is over in Linux and funny enough, IMHO now Windows has the crazy font rendering.

The problem is that after growing up with cars, I went and lived several years in China. I lived car free and the public transit system was actually top notch, but again, having to withstand cold days, extreme heat, carrying groceries around (first with a bag, then with a small cart), it was just incovenient.

Sure you can live like that, just like you can survive without electricy, but I honestly do not ever want to do that anymore.

I live in a place where that is actually a thing, and let me tell you what happens then is that a new coffee shop opens and suddenly a two-lane road becomes a one-lane road. So too much freedom in that sense also hurts.

Also the decentralize idea is not too far off. I think the DC metro area, Pennsylvania and the New York suburbia are great in that sense. You take your car to the commuter train station and off you go into the city. It is the best tradeoff without having to do something radical.

Call me the evil polluter, but I'm sorry I still find cars one of the best inventions humankind has come up with, and it could be a horse and a carriage for all I care. But the freedom of having your own horse/car won't be replaced with stuff like this imho.

If somebody comes up with electric cars that are small and standardized, small enough to carry you and your groceries, and not to be a victim of the elements (rain, heat, cold), then you can call me a believer.

Oh nobody denies that you have more political freedoms, I'm talking about why for instance, would your society focus so much about China being bad, highlighting the differences, whereas countries like Vietnam, still a communist state, you get to see tourism articles and everything.

What Israel is doing to some Palestinians would also qualify as shady behavior, but what I'm saying is that I don't have a personal feud with any of those countries, and I would totally visit them. But I have friends and family that based on the amount of propaganda about China are refusing to buy certain products, use software like Wechat, etc. That is sophisticated propaganda in my opinion.

that seemed to worked well for Saudi Arabia, a country which has far more human right abuses and you never see the kind of propaganda we are seeing against the Chinese.

Didn't you see the news they are making a 1000Kph train?

Kind of similar to North America in a way. And just like the Chinese, you guys don't realize it because as the saying goes, everybody thinks their crap doesn't stink.

Sure in the case of China it is a more crude form of propaganda, but if you don't believe me, just try to find information about what happened in Ecuador just now in your newsmedia. That information was supressed by media conglomerates because of a pro-US president that ended up doing something wildly unpopular. Compare the same exact event happening in a country like Venezuela. You get the idea.

As a non-US nor Chinese national, I find it interesting how the US keeps creating these artificial enemies. Of course the Chinese are not pro-America but they are very much self-contained and just interested in making money. Aside from internal old and new revolutions, China have also had a long history of not invading other countries.

I can understand that the US feels threatened by the massive competition created on the other side, but this is very rapidly leading to a similar situation like the anti-Japanese mentality that ended up stigmatizing a whole swath of people based on ethnicity alone.