Posts by L W J 13 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Oct 2014
I used Netscape until Mozilla then have used Internet Explorer ever since with few issues, and a lot of great browsing. On the iPad though I use Chrome. It's awful: slow buggy, crashes - worse than Windows 95 days. The only reason I use Chrome over Safari is because Safari is terrible.
[Quote]
The connections linking nuclear power and weapons is more than political or historic. Consider: l FISSIONABLE MATERIALS: It is the same nuclear fuel cycle with its mining of uranium, milling, enrichment and fuel fabrication stages which readies the uranium ore for use in reactors, whether these reactors are used to create plutonium for bombs or generate electricity. In the end, both reactors produce the plutonium. The only difference between them is the concentration of the various isotopes used in the fuel. Each year a typical 1000 mega-watt (MW) commercial power reactor will produce 300 to 500 pounds of plutonium -- enough to build between 25 - 40 Nagasaki-sized atomic bombs. [/Quote]
http://www.neis.org/literature/Brochures/weapcon.htm
Thorium nuclear reactors could provide non-carbon energy indefinitely. Thorium is three times more abundant than uranium, cleaner and easier to extract from the earth, much more stable, less 'radio-active', and much harder to weaponize. It is also much more efficient rendering energy per kilogram. The technology is already here (e.g. Candu nuclear reactors can be configured to burn thorium), so there are many reason to go this route for energy.
One of the main reasons countries have not settled on thorium is because it is much more difficult to weaponize the thorium fuel cycles. Gov'ts long ago decided they wanted the nuclear power reactors of their respective nations to produce material for nuclear bombs (who cares about the environment, right(?)); so, thorium was dropped in favour of uranium as the choice for nuclear fuel.
This needn't be the case going forward.
But they look like the good guys these days. They are much more careful to ask permission, they set limits on themselves, they're actually listening to the public on how to build Windows 10, and trying to make it more secure and so on ..
But as for Google, their motto has become "Do evil" and as for Apple, theirs is "We'll back stab you in our walled prison er garden".
For me digits I think I will go with Microsoft.
Microsoft said at the get-go that they would be doing added-on enhanced tracking and info gathering with the preview. It was released SPECIFICALLY to gather information. I used it a bit, gave some feedback, then went back to my regular OS.
I've been using IE safely for years and years (just a tad upping the security setting, and, of course, refusing permission to things offered by websites). I do not want a deal with Google.
Since the beginning of this summer, Google is not my home page. Google knows too much and is involved with too much for my comfort anymore when using the computer. Sure, I do YouTube and often search via Google, but I'm also going elsewhere now for search. I certainly do not use their phone home Chrome.
So I do not see why Microsoft should do "a deal" with Google. Google has its tentacles into too many places already.
Um .. you can get a Start menu for Windows 8.x either for free or for a nominal fee (e.g. Start8 is five bucks). I did that a long time ago. With the boot to Desktop and the Start8, Windows 8 is almost like Windows 7, except perhaps it is a bit quicker, and ships with Hyper-V.
I get that folks hate Windows 8.x. I groaned too when they removed the Start button from the beta. And I hammered away at the keyboard pointing out to anyone who'd read just how much I hated Metro. On the Windows 8.0 Desktop PC it amounted to nothing more than a cheap and sleazy marketing scheme. But, you know, with Windows 8.1 toning things down, and with Start8, it doesn't seem much of an issue to me anymore.
Microsoft though, must put Windows 8.x behind (and be very careful regarding Metro). It's doing really really badly for an MS OS.
The good thing is that there seem to be nice improvements in the pipe for Windows 10, both in features and appearance. Looking forward to it.
Well, no, of course you wouldn't switch .. it's a beta release. The only reason to use it is for curiosity and/or to volunteer feedback to the people at Microsoft.
It was released to garner feedback, that's it. The thing is loaded with phone home tech.
The idea, I would venture, is to get a lot of feedback .. sift through it .. and make Windows not only better, but better in a way the public has said they want.
But I wouldn't even attempt to develop anything for it at this stage. It is very much a 'what do you guys think we should do?' release.
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