Domain: medium.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to medium.com.
Comments · 634
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Re:The essay's critics are missing the point.
Yonatan Zunger argued the same, and he's 100% right. This document basically states that a good number of Google employees are there not because of competence but politics; i cannot imagine anything more harmful for a workplace.
Google is now between a rock and a hard place. How can you possibly keep a person who publicly (internally, before the leak) states such a thing in your staff?
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Re:Why mess with h.265
Spending money to support VP9 for a few months makes little sense.
It won't be for a few months. It will be a gradual transition from VP9 to AV1. You don't think Netflix is using VP9 for the fun of it, do you?
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Re:Why mess with h.265
70-80% of all content uploaded to YouTube is in h.264
YouTube transcodes everything to VP9 at their preferred resolutions and bitrates. The upload format doesn't matter.
~0.4% is 4k or higher
VP9 outperforms H.264 at all resolutions.
skipping VP9 entirely
It wasn't skipped. The practical reality is that VP9 has been used for years.
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Re:Why mess with h.265
You really should follow the links. YouTube disagrees with you. Netflix disagrees with you. And so do I.
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Re:Apple
indications are Netflix is going with h.265.
No. Netflix is going with VP9 and in future will go with AV1. Netflix is a member of the Alliance for Open Media.
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Re:Need to put an end to climate change denialIf you'd written your comment ten years ago, it would be very timely. Two years ago, many would agree. But recently there has been a breakthrough in solar energy prices, one that people might have seen coming if they had been familiar with the solar equivalent of Moore's law.
It does amaze me how people can cheer whenever a nuclear plant closes while also saying climate change is an urgent problem. But just as deniers use myths to ignore science, some environmentalists believe myths that greatly exaggerate the danger of nuclear energy - perhaps thinking The Simpsons' nuclear plant is an accurate model of real life? The irony is that opposition to new plants has kept the oldest, least safe reactors running longer.
But most of the objections to "nuclear power" are actually objections to solid-fuel reactors. There is a new kind of nuclear plant, the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR), which solves almost all the problems with traditional reactors. Some call it "generation IV" but this is a misnomer - it's Gen I on a completely different technology track based on liquid fuel. MSRs, and an ideal version of the MSR called LFTR (Liquid-fueled thorium reactor), has a slew of advantages, most notably:- "Walk-away safe": relies mainly on passive safety, assured by physics, not pumps, not control systems, not human operators. Some designs don't even need coolant water.
- Absurdly high fuel density: a lifetime supply of thorium fits in the palm of your hand.
- Very low toxic waste: can produce 200+ times as much energy per kilogram of fuel compared to conventional LWRs, and the miniscule amount of remaining waste is a radiation hazard for 300 years instead of 3000. Not only that but some MSRs can actually burn existing waste stockpiles as a fuel.
- Economy of scale - reactor units are small, and can be built in a factory or shipyard and shipped to where they are needed. High-temperature operation means smaller, cheaper turbines.
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Re:Need to put an end to climate change denialIf you'd written your comment ten years ago, it would be very timely. Two years ago, many would agree. But recently there has been a breakthrough in solar energy prices, one that people might have seen coming if they had been familiar with the solar equivalent of Moore's law.
It does amaze me how people can cheer whenever a nuclear plant closes while also saying climate change is an urgent problem. But just as deniers use myths to ignore science, some environmentalists believe myths that greatly exaggerate the danger of nuclear energy - perhaps thinking The Simpsons' nuclear plant is an accurate model of real life? The irony is that opposition to new plants has kept the oldest, least safe reactors running longer.
But most of the objections to "nuclear power" are actually objections to solid-fuel reactors. There is a new kind of nuclear plant, the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR), which solves almost all the problems with traditional reactors. Some call it "generation IV" but this is a misnomer - it's Gen I on a completely different technology track based on liquid fuel. MSRs, and an ideal version of the MSR called LFTR (Liquid-fueled thorium reactor), has a slew of advantages, most notably:- "Walk-away safe": relies mainly on passive safety, assured by physics, not pumps, not control systems, not human operators. Some designs don't even need coolant water.
- Absurdly high fuel density: a lifetime supply of thorium fits in the palm of your hand.
- Very low toxic waste: can produce 200+ times as much energy per kilogram of fuel compared to conventional LWRs, and the miniscule amount of remaining waste is a radiation hazard for 300 years instead of 3000. Not only that but some MSRs can actually burn existing waste stockpiles as a fuel.
- Economy of scale - reactor units are small, and can be built in a factory or shipyard and shipped to where they are needed. High-temperature operation means smaller, cheaper turbines.
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Re:Need to put an end to climate change denial
Traditional large reactors are slow at load-following, but it doesn't seem as though this has been a serious problem in the past. New SMR/LFTR reactors are smaller and can adjust their output more quickly.
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Re:lol know nothings
Never underestimate the power or stupidity of frameworks.
A good framework can cut out years of labor by providing canned versions of every bit of code that wasn't your application's business logic or content.
But that means these frameworks may need to include support for liking hotpockets and displaying pictures Guy Fiere at a moments notice.
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Adblock Plus
I don't know about a top 10 list, but the top 1 list should be Adblock Plus. Security conscious users switched to uBlock years ago.
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Re:OMG!
uses a codec that is a minefield of patents
Which codec would that be? The same H.264 that Flash used?
HTML5 video also offers the option of VP9 video. VP9 is royalty-free for all use cases and outperforms H.264.
So just use VP9 and be happy.
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Re:ICO?
The latter, that is "coins in a cryptocurrency that may or may not appreciate". I read a nice essay recently discussing this and comparing it to the dot com bubble which points out how ICOs are mostly dumb even if they aren't a complete scam:
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Re:They have a right!!!!
When was the last time you tried to donate money to your preferred politician?
It's physically impossible for your senator to talk to every person in his/her district. However, if you find a thousand (or even a hundred) like-minded people, pool in a hundred bucks each, your senator will be extremely eager to talk to you.
In fact, if you can get a thousand like-minded people who actually want to talk to your politician (instead of signing some kind of online poll), there is also a very good chance the politician will want to talk to you. Especially if you can speak rationally instead of emotionally. -
Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced
Fake news doesn't work on people thinking critically, but you're not after those.
Not true in the least. Remember when Dateline used model rocket boosters to blow up the gas tanks on pickup trucks? You know their target audience for that show at the time was 30-45 college educated or higher. Fake news works well on anyone who's ideologically deep in a rabbit hole and wants to engage in confirmation bias.
Let's look at two cases over the last 3 years: Gamergate, where the FBI could find no incidences of harassment from anyone tied to it. Demographics educated at college level or higher, married, has family, has high disposable income, roughly 15% are female, has a significant minority quotient from all over the world to boot and aligns politically left. But the media continues on with the lie that they're harassers who pump out death threats, are worse then isis, and then scrub away those women and minorities because they don't fit the narrative(that is if the anti-gg people simply don't call them house n*iggers, or uncle toms). The media view of the people in Gamergate are: single, white, males who live in their parents basement or are virgins living alone. Nice fabrications huh?
Or you can take a look at the "Trump-Russia-Collusion" story. Which has evolved from "Russia colluded with Trump" to "his son talked with a lawyer who's visa expired that the Obama administration specifically let back in at the behest of Susan Rice" along with "Putin talked with Trump during dinner." But the entire thing has fallen apart to the point where pundits outside of the main of the party are saying "shut-up, this is hurting us more then helping." If the media has one narrative, it's very easy to see from the outside. But it sure is self-reinforcing if you're in that rabbit hole.
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Re:Yes, go ahead!
Just for the record, just in case someone points to this and claims nobody expressed any doubts. Certainly not because I missed the tone of biting sarcasm in your voice:
- There are serious doubts if Rust is fast enough
- Serious doubts have been expressed about how to deal with the way libraries are distributed
- There are also serious doubts among the more crusty community members about whether it's easy to convert which point to documentation and library difficulties
Maybe these will be overcome. Maybe a better more formally proven type system will be implemented. For now there are doubts.
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Re: idiots
Making decisions is difficult and takes a toll; there is such as thing as decision fatigue, that's why Steve Jobs was always wearing the same thing.
https://medium.com/personal-gr...
As for understanding all the nuances and ramifications, I think it doesn't apply all that much in high-level executive jobs (including the presidency). Life is complex, and if you get down the rabbit hole you waste way too much time while other matters are waiting. The guy at the top of the pyramid has to grasp things globally and make calls based on the available information. It's people lower in the ranks that have the luxury of swimming in data.
Anyways for the most part it's ludicrous to assume that anyone can really foresee all the consequences and ramifications of decisions. Here's an example. Let's say you just deposed a dictator, who was part of a minority that has been in power for a while. Do you replace the leaders of that minority with leaders from the majority that has suffered under that regime? If you answered yes, then congratulations, you just made the same mistake that was made in Iraq and led to the creation of ISIS. If you answered no, then congratulations, you just made the same mistake that was made in Iran and led to the Islamic Revolution.
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Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal.
What's got me slightly pissed off is why the fuck these assholes all went "Nope, fuck off" to all of those in turn?
They didn't. VP9 is used, for example, by YouTube, Netflix, and Wikipedia. Watch a video on YouTube, right click on it and select "Stats for nerds". If your browser supports VP9 then chances are the video will be playing back in VP9.
AV1 is the successor to VP9.
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Re:Not again!
We only just knocked the last "Planet Nine" theory and now we've got ANOTHER ONE?!
See: https://medium.com/starts-with...
(A excerpt from our not-so-distant past...)
"You know, I think there are other objects besides our Sun and Moon out there..."
"Oh, what a load of shit. Everyone knows our world is flat, and we are the most important world. Even our Sun rotates around us."
Sometimes I wonder how many more times we'll find ourselves to be dead wrong when speaking about our solar system. From the dawn of time (brought to you by the Sun Chariot), we've certainly proven we have a rather ridiculous ability to not be right.
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Not again!
We only just knocked the last "Planet Nine" theory and now we've got ANOTHER ONE?!
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Re:I can totally see this...
speaking of which, https://medium.com/@timanglade...
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Re:Too bad I can't take the survey
Not just overloaded. It's all generated by Javascript, too. This is the first post that made me think there might be advantages.
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Re:HEVC and HEIF
HEVC is out now
VP9 is out now and has broader use than HEVC.
as well as software players like Microsoft and Apple
Microsoft supports VP9 in Edge.
VP9 has virtually zero mindshare outside the Googleplex
Netflix uses VP9. Wikipedia uses VP9. And, of course, even though it's inside the Googleplex it's difficult to ignore that YouTube uses VP9. YouTube no longer offers 4K video to Safari by default due to Safari's lack of VP9 support.
set top boxes, etc. that support VP9
Roku has VP9 support, Chromecast Ultra has VP9 support, Android phones have VP9 support, etc, etc.
AV1, on the other hand, looks very compelling... it actually has broad industry support, from big players like Microsoft, Cisco, Netflix, Google, all the way down to silicon makers like Broadcom, Xilinx, RealTek, ARM, AMD, and NVIDIA.
Right. Just like VP9. When will Apple add VP9 support?
It's disingenuous to complain that Apple isn't going to include AV1 when it isn't - and won't be - ready before High Sierra.
Show me where I complained that AV1 won't be in High Sierra. Quote me. Maybe re-read what I wrote.
In the meantime, let's acknowledge that Apple hasn't joined the Alliance for Open Media. When will Apple join?
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Re:bullets
After a few 1000 words of crap, we finally get a post that sums up the situation. I wish I had mod points.
You could have expanded on the ICO's though. They are driving this current bubble. ICO's are to ETH as Bitcoin is to real currency, which is to say where Bitcoin is a virtual currency whose value is measured in fiat currencies, the value of ICO's is measured in ETH's. Since ETH's is a virtual currency I guess you could say ICO's are virtual-virtual, or virtual squared. They are an idea within an idea - they are about as real as a virtualised CPU in Minecraft.
Perhaps one example will make it obvious what is going on. Golem is an Ethereum ICO, whose ambition is to become a market place for CPU cycles. They an awesome looking web site (if you are into CSS candy), but no working software, no hardware, no users. They put a ETH market cap on themselves of $302M.
Here is a list of the top 10 ICO's. Being merely an idea expressed in a virtual space, ICO's can breed at the rate of rumours in a girl's school. Which is pretty much what is happening, and it's driving an Ethereum bubble.
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Re:Why processes instead of threads?
They explain it pretty thoroughly in their Medium post about Firefox 54.
It's mainly about using less memory. The maximum number of processes is configurable (about:config dom.ipc.processCount) and defaults to 4. During extensive testing, four processes gave the best combination of speed and memory utilization. Memory utilization was quite a bit lower than Chrome (Chrome used anywhere from 36-77% more RAM).
The first four tabs you open spin off individual processes and then new tabs are attached to existing processes (they don't say how this is done - round-robin or some sort of load balancer).
Four processes is supposed to be the best for systems that have 8G of RAM or less. If you have more, you can bump up the processCount.
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Re:It's OK to hit a nazi
Remember when the FBI couldn't find any harassment from Gamergate? Me too. Remember when Quinn's little organization turned around and was harassing people and doxing them? Me too. Remember when all those SJW's(by their own definition) she supported tried doxing people too and one of the key people in her "anti-harassment" organization were caught being the ringleaders of it? Yep me too.
Seems to me you need to start growing up, in nearly 3 years and copious amounts of proof you're hanging onto that "harassment narrative" pretty hard.
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Re:ETH is better for ICO scams
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Stallman on Facebook
His advice? In no uncertain terms, delete your account immediately.
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Re:Take a photo
This being a reason lot of hackers and leakers be talking and typing in way like this.
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Re:Hmmm
And here's an article on why the entire Russiagate nonsense is hysterical neocon propaganda, including the Cloudstrike "report". Some highlights:
DNC wouldn't let the FBI examine their servers
Crowdstrike has direct ties to the Russiaphobic organization, Atlantic Council
Crowdstrike invented the terms Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear
Crowdstrike got key details wrong in report according to their own sources -
Re: If your codec budget is zero, VP9 is superior
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Re: Great, but what about open codecs?
So by your own admission your argument is pointless and meritless. It's good to admit that you're wrong.
Remember that both VP8 and VP9 succeeded in being royalty-free video formats. YouTube uses VP9 and has done for a long time. Netflix uses VP9. AV1 will also succeed in being a royalty-free format.
As you have admitted, lawsuit scaremongering is a non-argument.
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Horrible Naming Scheme
I still maintain that even I can come up with a better naming scheme than "places that no one outside of California has ever heard of".
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Re:Bugzilla
Oh mother fucker, if you have 45,000 open bugs that's clearly wrong. Maybe there's no way to do it right, but zero bugs is achievable.
If you don't fix your bugs, then technical debt will begin to pile up and overwhelm you. In fact, one of the quickest ways to judge the quality of a codebase is to look at the number of bugs in the bug tracker (of course that can be gamed also, like any metric). -
Re: All for mobile
Perhaps you are right.However, my use case is as follows:
We verify users using various modalities (fingerprints, etc). One cannot possibly write and distribute a native app for each and every supported OS. Therefore, we simply used a web application and published the URL. When java applets were still supported, they provided access to the client hardware. (Granted, one still had to install additional OS software in some cases, but that was a one-time effort) With java applets gone, the only usable devices accessible from the web browser, are the photo camera and the microphone.With Webassembly, one might eventually be able to write device code that'll provide some access to the hardware. Something such as direct access via WebUSB.
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FWIW
Pushing 60. I started as a full-stack developer writing interdepartmental apps using a 4GL. Been an analyst, technical lead, lead architect, embedded systems programmer, and now come full circle to full-stack web development. I've kept up, and currently trying to push my organization from JQuery/Handlebars/Express (infrastructure groundwork I put down 4 years ago) to ES6/React/Redux/GraphQL.
It's hard, because the 40-somethings I work with are Javascript fatigued. They just want the merry-go-round to stop. For me, to stop learning is death. But I appear to be losing the battle in pushing to stay on top of current practice,
But here's the problem: when job searching, the cohort I compete against is invariably much, much younger. I wouldn't have this problem if I had stuck with C++ or Java my entire career. As someone previously posted, I'm an "outlier". The best counter I've come up with is to write about what I know and what I am learning.
I my mind, too many organizations want a "buddy" culture. It's not what I want, I want to do good work and deliver. The best way to gel a team IMO is to always be learning and delivery value to your end-user. Take pride as a team in your work, not in your team standing in Super Mario (that came up in a recent interview I had. Really.)
Anyhow, I might try freelancing.
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Re:How is this news?
Apple innovation often isn't in purely technical terms. They're rarely first to market. But what they tend to do is to merge technology and design in a way that few other companies seemed to be able to do.
Do you remember how complex and messed up a simple MP3 player used to be, trying to get it to work, patching firmware, crappy and unintuitive user interface obviously designed by engineers, etc? There were a dozen brands on the market, but Apple didn't release a product like that. Here's a case study between the iPod and the Creative Nomad. Note the distinct differences in the device design, press releases, and even the user manual. Is it any wonder the world jumped to the iPod when given a chance?
But no, not the geeks, of course. I remember plenty of slashdotters who didn't understand why anyone would prefer an iPod. After all, it was expensive, limited, and obviously technically inferior, as it couldn't play their Ogg Vorbis collection. And the rest of the world enjoyed their iPods, which they could actually figure out how to use.
I think you're using a fairly typical geek definition of "innovated", which is "to invent some brand new technology". Apple's definition of innovation is probably closer to "making complex technology simple and elegant for the masses." Innovation != Invention.
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Re:THIS DOOD--ECONOMIC TERRORIST?
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Problem with UBI
The problem with UBI is that it's a big new income redistribution and as such a huge political problem. To cover the costs you need to raise taxes that creates a new big transfer of income from the rich to poor. Also since UBI is such a big change in the system, it’s likely to introduce a new set of problems (e.g. scenarios which it can’t handle or where can be abused). And there is no middle ground, you have to go all in to be able to get the benefits.
https://medium.com/rational-zo... -
Re: Shouldn't be punishable anyway
>How did Milo dehumanize anyone?
Seriously ? You can't see it ? How did he NOT ?
>Can you link me to the essay?
Here's the whole book it's from: http://archive.org/details/Ope...
But it looks like that link is not working anymore - could be that somebody has made a recent copyright claim against it.This discussion represents it pretty well and relates it to the same events we are discussing: https://medium.com/@parkermoll... the quotes are accurate, the caveats included. It's sufficient for the purpose.
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Re:The Viri
After heartbleed, security researchers realized you could give a vuln a catchy name and a cute logo and it would get a lot more attention.
Since being a security company is more a matter of marketing than skill (in a great many cases: look at the most popular anti-viruses), once the white hats realized that, they did it more. -
Re:Fake News
Without knowing 4chan other than by reputation, someone who does wrote about their relation with Trump, https://medium.com/@DaleBeran/....
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Re:Liability
Yes. Sometimes the bug is hard to stop, but sometimes it's a clear case of negligence. The manufacturer just doesn't care.
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Re:What?
Do you actually work for a living? $100,000 a year doesn't equate to $8,333 a month in take-home pay. Try deducting FICA, Social Security, Medicare, and local taxes. That gives you about $4,600 take-home per month. Oh, don't forget insurance premiums and 401(k)/IRA contributions so you can one day afford one day in the far future to retire, so say $4,000 / month take-home.
Rent is more like $3,000 / month, then add electricity, water, trash, insurance, telephone, and Internet.
The rest, if you can find it, can be used to eat. God help you if you need to buy clothes, get anything dry cleaned, buy furniture, pay medical deductibles, etc.
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Re:Logic and Reason, or lack thereof
England was paying for information, paying informants, paying propagandists, jailing and killing people who spoke out publicly against the Crown's control
Citations would've been most helpful here, but let's stipulate, it is all true.
So, in the 18th century Britain was already doing all of that. And in the 20th it did too — and we still regard Alan Turing's efforts as nothing but heroic and decisive in turning the war in the Allies' favor and saving thousands of lives.
Why, then, are so many folks — yourself included — denouncing Turing's descendants at CIA, NSA and their British equivalents in the 21st century? Yes, they could spy on their own citizens illegally and it, likely, does happen — including political opposition. But they do, unfortunately, have a vast number of legitimate targets and their secretive efforts continue to save lives... To sabotage all of their efforts because they could sometimes be abusive is like banning cars because some times people die in them.
It is most refreshing to have a mainstream media outlet call the "leaker" a "traitor", but, when he is found, we are likely to discover, that he was lead to these actions by the Western public's suicidal attitudes towards earlier traitors — Snowden and Manning.
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Re:Implication
It actually IS that bad.
It is soundly beaten by an F-16 in dogfights, even when the F-16 is carrying two drop tanks, and the F-35 is flying without any arms or extra fuel, so should be at a weight advantage relative to the encumbered F-16.
It is also soundly beaten in dogfights by a late 1970's era F-15.
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the shadow brokers == "alt-right" extremists
If you look at the political ramblings they posted, then you can see what they really are interested in:
- DO support the ideologies and policies of Steve Bannon, Anti-Globalism, Anti-Socialism, Nationalism, Isolationism
- Don’t care if your popular or nice, get er done, Obama’s fail, thinking he could create compromise. No compromise.
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Re:The real problem
More guys should try switching names with a female co-worker for a week.
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Re:What can Berners-Lee do here, really?
If anyone is wondering what the Mozilla Paris office looks like, here it is. I can't comment on what the costs of such an office would be. Maybe not much.
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worker co-operatives
unions are good, worker co-operatives are better https://medium.com/@PrestoViva...
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Re:An American patent?
If a patent or copyright makes a reasonable profit during it's term, the intent of those exclusive rights is met. Beyond that, locking up IP impedes progress, since others can't freely build on the original. Disney built their business using the works of the bros. Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, Kipling, etc., but now work diligently to steal our culture from us by preventing newcomers from doing similar.
In the world of software I would argue that patents impede more than they help promote innovation. Many of the motivations for developing software aren't because there is a promise of a patent or monopoly, since if it were we wouldn't have the huge number of open source solutions. If a company hasn't capitalized on a software 'invention' within a couple of years, then there is a good chance someone will come up with and equivalent solution, without evening needing to see how the 'original' works and in a number of cases we even see evidence of parallel creation.
It has been argued that copyright is more valuable to software than patents.
One interesting article on software patents is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/e...