@Dashrender said:

The quote indicates leaving 6 billion on the table, i.e. shrinking the market value... sure they are talking about increasing their own share, but the market overall would be shrinking. Wouldn't others step in to bring the market back to the full 9 billion? or am I missing something? the market has already shown that it's willing to pay at least 9 billion to do what they do.

The market was willing to pay $9bn when no other options existed. Other options now exist. Like any market, competition shrinks markets. Just like how IBM, HP and Dell have decimated the server market total size by lowering the cost per company. And how Amazon has. But as we have seen Amazon killing the server market still makes Amazon a LOT of money!

@Carnival-Boy said:

@Dashrender said:

I agree with Nick and Scott - while this is not good, it's definitely not as bad as it sounds... the bad thing - non technical people won't understand why and they'll just crucify LastPass instead.

I'll include myself as non technical person here. It does further put me off hosted solutions. That's not the only reason I use on-premise (Keepass) as I didn't really like LastPass when I tried it anyway. I do store my Keepass databases in the cloud though, but that's a different risk.

The sad fact of the matter is that unless you completely unplug yourself, you just can't avoid hosted solutions. I say sad, and others will say, what makes it sad? Life has so many advantages today because of the hosted/integrated solutions - this is a conundrum I haven't reconciled yet.

@dafyre said:

@coliver Yeah. Her school was using the Promethean brand, I think. They used short throw projectors and special software on the PC and the big fat stylus, lol.

Oh, yep the Promethean stuff was really nice, right around the same price but they didn't have an integrated projector that the ones we were getting did. Leveling those smartboards was probably one of the worst things... since they were installed over blackboards normally they would shift randomly and go crazy between presses of the stylus.

This looks really promising for businesses though as many probably don't know about the Smartboard/Promethean brands.

@thecreativeone91 said:

My thoughts as well. I get things on the side of Spiceworks saying "Unblock our ads to see what you are missing"

I used to whitelist them. No longer. They do not deserve my ad generated revenue.

Very cool, thanks!

@Dashrender said:

LOL did you miss the first five words?
"It's definitely a good start"

You're right, It's definitely a good start and awesome to see it OFF the drawing board and into real life.

Yeah, probably. I blame the lack of coffee. Of course I don't drink coffee, but then I can always blame things on it then 🙂

One of the podcasts I listen to was talking about exactly this problem and other problems related to ads, etc.

Some study found that many of the most popular websites now have a user downloading more junk related to analytics and ads than it does the content of the website.

@scottalanmiller said:

@IRJ said:

@Breffni-Potter said:

@IRJ said:

Good thing the NSA has stopped dozens of terrorist attacks...oh wait they haven't stopped a single one.

Can you prove that they have not? 🙂

If the NSA ever stopped anything they would be gloating about it to justify their exsistence. As discussed before, even if they saved 50 lives a year it still isn't worth the invasion of privacy. More people die from hornets and wasps every year.

I wonder how many people die every year commuting to work at the NSA, of stress caused by the NSA, actually killed by the NSA, due to trying to hide from the NSA, etc.

More than the NSA has saved, that's for sure.

@IRJ said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@IRJ said:

I am surprised they are still online at all.

Why? I mean they are redundant after all lol...

The only thing that is redundant is their outages

And their excuses. And their talk... their.... double talk? Tee hee.

@scottalanmiller said:

That the same company that had Steve is the company that is Microsoft today is really surprising. It seemed like they had completely lost their minds for an era there.

In many ways Apple and Microsoft have switched. Microsoft is listening to people now. A few years ago apple stop listening and abandoned their true "creative professional" market by ditching the Final Cut Pro 7 and going with the Final Cut Pro X which wasn't professional, and then also ditched the upgradable Professional workstation... hmm.

@Dashrender said:

Well let's use the UK, since it's the only one I know a tiny amount about.... The queen has very little real power. Most everything is run by the Parliament. Is that not the same for the rest of those countries that you listed?

Perhaps I'm thinking of monarchs wrong - is it not a single person who's word is law (save for the contract of a constitution, which just seems weird with regards to a monarch/dictator).

Yes, which is why I prefer a stronger monarchy that most of these have become. Although some of them have a bit stronger monarchs than others. Some the king (or queen) still wields a pretty sizable amount of power and/or influence.

Throughout history, though, kingdoms and empires have had the most stability. Modern history, look in terms of a hundred years or so, is misleading as great empires had millenium of history. Like living in Spain, for example, pretty much only three empires have run it for well over two thousand years with some pretty great luck. It was Rome for around 800 years. Then it was Al Andalus for another 700. Then it was the Kingdom of Spain in the Holy Roman Empire for another 700ish. It's recent history with the empire disbanded is just a blip in the imperial history of Spain. And the king still sits and to be a Spanish citizen one must claim fielty to the throne.

Persia, Rome, Byzantium and others stood for lengths of time that are mind boggling and commanded massive percentages of the world's population. Castro was a 1/2 generation dictator over a really small island. Hardly plays into the statistics for success or failure. And one has to wonder how badly he did.

The greatest work of human civil engineering of the century was done by a dictator that most westerners despise (with good reason), but his love for his country led him to do things that it is often believed a democracy could not even do.

@Ambarishrh said:

I used the pro for sometime, but now back on free, does most things I wanted now.

Can't beat the price! 🙂

Thanks for the heads-up. We just reserved ours. I have really been liking Windows 10 tech preview on one of my other machines.