Bad enough that ffice products have historically been grossly overpriced; now they're trying to force people into a subscription model that will likely end up costing them a lot more in the long run.
I don't "subscribe" to software. Sell it to me or get lost.
Python has been around for a very long time, and frankly, its popularity is inexplicable.
It doesn't do anything that other languages don't, probably better, its syntax is weird, and it uses "significant white space", which most programmers I know do not like.
Yet again, they busted somebody for a "crime" the witch hunters created themselves... "lying" to investigators about something that wasn't even illegal in the first place. Everyone does opposition research.
This is another non-issue, and no, they aren't finding witches. They're your typical witch hunters showing everybody that those accused of being witches didn't float after all.
Two years of tax money has been wasted on this BS.
(Not to mention the whole problem with the phrase "conspiracy theory". Real conspiracies exist and always have. For example the recently declassified documents about the Kennedy assassination said he was shot from 2 directions: in front and behind. That has been a classic "conspiracy theory" for decades... but according to those documents it's also true.)
In all seriousness, I've been saying this for a long time: we need to establish a robust decentralized DNS system, rather than the hierarchical system which lets central authorities take control. (Aside from hardware, that is.)
I understand that Namecoin, unfortunate though the chosen name is, has made some progress in that regard.
Fukushima was so damned radioactive because there were 20 years of spent fuel rods being held in a temporary storage area that was only designed to hold spent fuel for a few months.
Apparently you weren't paying attention to the person you were replying to. You should look up Thorium reactors.
First, molten salt Thorium reactors can use those "spent" fuel rods as fuel.
Plus a lot of the rest of our current "nuclear waste" stockpile.
Its own eventual waste products tend to be less radioactive with much shorter half-life than waste from conventional reactors.
Molten salt Thorium is a win-win. Fuel is more abundant, there is less waste, it is less hazardous, and it's damned near impossible for them to cause a disaster.
While these new rules may impose no "additional restrictions", that is misleading in this context.
The FAA did impose new restrictions in October, which I have written about above.
The language of the law says operators of ALL "unmanned aircraft", no matter how small or inconsequential, must get a certification, and register the "aircraft".
While the areas they can fly in are now greatly expanded, the new rules are actually rather draconian. You can't do anything without approval.
It remains to be seen whether they will enforce the law the way it was written... but that isn't much better. That just makes it bad law.
And the 500 (I believe it's actually 400) foot limit is because manned aircraft may be flying above that level, affecting "interstate commerce".
Still, the FAA is trying to have it both ways here. Looks like they want to regulate "all" airspace, but they have no Constitutional authority to do so. Only airspace that, as a practical matter, may be used for interstate commerce.
And always has been, historically. Just like the minerals under the ground are.
As a Constitutional matter, the FAA only has authority over airspace that is involved (at least theoretically) in interstate commerce. In fact that's where they got their authority in the first place: from the 1926 Air Commerce Act.
Anything other than potentially interstate, commercial airspace is beyond their lawful jurisdiction. That is, in fact, why the rules formerly stated a 5-mile radius around airports, and an altitude limit: closer than that to airports, or higher than that, is potentially subject to interstate air commerce.
This jurisdictional issue is one of the same reasons EPA's "Waters of the US" (WOTUS) regulation was thrown out.
So someone in central Nevada, let's say, who is not 5 miles from an airport, and is under 400 feet, should not be under Federal jurisdiction at all: there is no practical way they could be engaged in interstate commerce.
Further (I just looked up what the actual rules are): this new set of rules defines any "aircraft", anywhere, that is unmanned as falling under their regulations. That is unconstitutionally vague and overreaching. The wording suggests that toy gliders that cost $1, and paper airplanes, are under their jurisdiction, requiring the pilot to get a certification and the toy to be registered.
Surely that will be challenged in court. It is completely ridiculous. But that is what it says.
An overall better solution, in my opinion, would be to have a strong passcode for accessing the phone when turning it on, then an easy one like biometrics for unlocking.
I admit that at first, I did not see a need for 2 systems.
But it has bothered me for a while now that they continue to insist on just one access system, both for initial access to the phone, and for the lock screen.
Pardon the bad characters in the text... that's what I get for copying and pasting from the original material and forgetting about Slashdot's refusal to update to a modern character set.
I detect some issues with their methodology. Definitions of what constitute "abusive" or "problematic" tweets are explained in Appendix E.
Their explanations of the categories do not seem very precise. They are vague enough to include lots of edge-cases. Their examples are clear enough, but a clear example does not exonerate a vague criterion. (Hypothetical example: "I am going to murder you tomorrow" is certainly an example of abusive and threatening speech... but what else is in included as threating and abusive speech? Counterexamples are also necessary, else "I hate that rabbit in the field behind your house" might also be considered abusive.)
But more to the point, a full 55% of the tweets they flag as "abusive content" fall under the category of "other"... and that's a huge red flag.
They describe "other" thus: There will be some tweets that fall under the âother categoryâ(TM) that are problematic and/or abusive. For example, statements that target a userâ(TM)s disability, be it physical or mental, or content that attacks a womanâ(TM)s nationality, health status, legal status, employment, etc.
Uh... yeah. "Some" is 55%. And not only is this one the majority, it is a particularly vague definition. For example, if someone replies to an irate tweet, "Calm down! I know the Irish are famous for temper, but cool down a little!" is that "targeting a woman's nationality"? According to their description, it could be.
But here is the biggest problem with this study:
Nowhere did they compare this to any other groups. They singled out famous women and women in politics, but they didn't compare against famous men and men in politics.
And since there is no such comparison, it's all pretty much meaningless.
What if famous men and men in politics are "abused" on Twitter every 31 seconds? Or every 28 seconds?
Without that knowledge, does the study really say anything other than "the subset of people we chose got 'abused' at this rate?"
So what? Nothing to compare it to makes it pretty much useless knowledge.
Hauwei was caught spying last year, and their products have been doing it ever since. Hauwei, ZTE, and One Plus were all caught doing it. They track everything from selfies to phone calls, and report back to China with the data. That is the reason they are all banned now for government use. It's not speculation, there is proof beyond reasonable doubt.
2) ITAR is irrelevant. That's just another straw-man.
ITAR regulates exports from U.S. businesses. None of those companies are U.S. businesses.
Hauwei, One Plus, and ZTE phones were all caught spying on their owners and sending the data back home to China. And no, it's not the same as Facebook or Google. This is at the firmware level.
You may know that those companies have been banned for government use for a while now.
There is nothing "racist" or political about it. Companies that spy on people â" no matter who they are or where they're from â" are not welcome. Hauwei's CFO is apparently guilty of arranging trade with Iran in violation of U.S. trade sanctions, and lying about it. That's yet another concern.
Stop with the U.S-bashing already. There was perfectly good reason to do this.
THIS was from last February, in case you don't keep up with the news.
Slashdot Mirror
"Office products" of course.
I second that.
Bad enough that ffice products have historically been grossly overpriced; now they're trying to force people into a subscription model that will likely end up costing them a lot more in the long run.
I don't "subscribe" to software. Sell it to me or get lost.
Java is not "what everyone uses for back-end systems". In fact its a notable minority.
And yes, it is a surprise that JavaScript has been growing for back-end. It's an awful language and it's slow (even with JIT and other compilers).
Python has been around for a very long time, and frankly, its popularity is inexplicable.
It doesn't do anything that other languages don't, probably better, its syntax is weird, and it uses "significant white space", which most programmers I know do not like.
Really? I don't think so.
Yet again, they busted somebody for a "crime" the witch hunters created themselves... "lying" to investigators about something that wasn't even illegal in the first place. Everyone does opposition research.
This is another non-issue, and no, they aren't finding witches. They're your typical witch hunters showing everybody that those accused of being witches didn't float after all.
Two years of tax money has been wasted on this BS.
(Not to mention the whole problem with the phrase "conspiracy theory". Real conspiracies exist and always have. For example the recently declassified documents about the Kennedy assassination said he was shot from 2 directions: in front and behind. That has been a classic "conspiracy theory" for decades... but according to those documents it's also true.)
The problem is that YouTube (and Google in general) is wholly incapable of deciding what is a "conspiracy theory" and what is not.
I mean, some are obvious of course, like flat earth and moon landing hoax BS.
But there are many others which are not so clear-cut, and Google uses known biased sources (like Politico and Snopes) as its determiners of "truth".
It's really not Google's job to decide what is correct and deserving of your attention. That's very definitely your business, not theirs.
Cold winter? Climate change!
Hot summer? Climate change!
Wetter than usual? Climate change!
Drier than usual? Climate change!
It has gone far beyond the point of idiocy.
The day Twitter requires biometrics in order to post is the day Twitter dies.
Biometrics are generally a bad idea anyway... but for Twitter? Hell, no.
In all seriousness, I've been saying this for a long time: we need to establish a robust decentralized DNS system, rather than the hierarchical system which lets central authorities take control. (Aside from hardware, that is.)
I understand that Namecoin, unfortunate though the chosen name is, has made some progress in that regard.
Parent is correct.
Fukushima was so damned radioactive because there were 20 years of spent fuel rods being held in a temporary storage area that was only designed to hold spent fuel for a few months.
Apparently you weren't paying attention to the person you were replying to. You should look up Thorium reactors.
First, molten salt Thorium reactors can use those "spent" fuel rods as fuel.
Plus a lot of the rest of our current "nuclear waste" stockpile.
Its own eventual waste products tend to be less radioactive with much shorter half-life than waste from conventional reactors.
Molten salt Thorium is a win-win. Fuel is more abundant, there is less waste, it is less hazardous, and it's damned near impossible for them to cause a disaster.
Also, one other point:
While these new rules may impose no "additional restrictions", that is misleading in this context.
The FAA did impose new restrictions in October, which I have written about above.
The language of the law says operators of ALL "unmanned aircraft", no matter how small or inconsequential, must get a certification, and register the "aircraft".
While the areas they can fly in are now greatly expanded, the new rules are actually rather draconian. You can't do anything without approval.
It remains to be seen whether they will enforce the law the way it was written... but that isn't much better. That just makes it bad law.
Yes, exactly.
And the 500 (I believe it's actually 400) foot limit is because manned aircraft may be flying above that level, affecting "interstate commerce".
Still, the FAA is trying to have it both ways here. Looks like they want to regulate "all" airspace, but they have no Constitutional authority to do so. Only airspace that, as a practical matter, may be used for interstate commerce.
And just to be clear: the bit about the wording is not just my opinion. Others have already written about it.
Actually, yes it is.
And always has been, historically. Just like the minerals under the ground are.
As a Constitutional matter, the FAA only has authority over airspace that is involved (at least theoretically) in interstate commerce. In fact that's where they got their authority in the first place: from the 1926 Air Commerce Act.
Anything other than potentially interstate, commercial airspace is beyond their lawful jurisdiction. That is, in fact, why the rules formerly stated a 5-mile radius around airports, and an altitude limit: closer than that to airports, or higher than that, is potentially subject to interstate air commerce.
This jurisdictional issue is one of the same reasons EPA's "Waters of the US" (WOTUS) regulation was thrown out.
So someone in central Nevada, let's say, who is not 5 miles from an airport, and is under 400 feet, should not be under Federal jurisdiction at all: there is no practical way they could be engaged in interstate commerce.
Further (I just looked up what the actual rules are): this new set of rules defines any "aircraft", anywhere, that is unmanned as falling under their regulations. That is unconstitutionally vague and overreaching. The wording suggests that toy gliders that cost $1, and paper airplanes, are under their jurisdiction, requiring the pilot to get a certification and the toy to be registered.
Surely that will be challenged in court. It is completely ridiculous. But that is what it says.
At the same time, as part of that dual security system, there should be a near-instant way to turn your phone off.
An overall better solution, in my opinion, would be to have a strong passcode for accessing the phone when turning it on, then an easy one like biometrics for unlocking.
I admit that at first, I did not see a need for 2 systems.
But it has bothered me for a while now that they continue to insist on just one access system, both for initial access to the phone, and for the lock screen.
Not so.
The EPA is NOT changing the rules for mercury. The OP title is Fake News.
What they DID do, is release the results of a study showing that mercury reduction is very expensive.
And it is.
Pardon the bad characters in the text... that's what I get for copying and pasting from the original material and forgetting about Slashdot's refusal to update to a modern character set.
I just looked at the published methodology.
I detect some issues with their methodology. Definitions of what constitute "abusive" or "problematic" tweets are explained in Appendix E.
Their explanations of the categories do not seem very precise. They are vague enough to include lots of edge-cases. Their examples are clear enough, but a clear example does not exonerate a vague criterion. (Hypothetical example: "I am going to murder you tomorrow" is certainly an example of abusive and threatening speech... but what else is in included as threating and abusive speech? Counterexamples are also necessary, else "I hate that rabbit in the field behind your house" might also be considered abusive.)
But more to the point, a full 55% of the tweets they flag as "abusive content" fall under the category of "other"... and that's a huge red flag.
They describe "other" thus: There will be some tweets that fall under the âother categoryâ(TM) that are problematic and/or abusive. For example, statements that target a userâ(TM)s disability, be it physical or mental, or content that attacks a womanâ(TM)s nationality, health status, legal status, employment, etc.
Uh... yeah. "Some" is 55%. And not only is this one the majority, it is a particularly vague definition. For example, if someone replies to an irate tweet, "Calm down! I know the Irish are famous for temper, but cool down a little!" is that "targeting a woman's nationality"? According to their description, it could be.
But here is the biggest problem with this study:
Nowhere did they compare this to any other groups. They singled out famous women and women in politics, but they didn't compare against famous men and men in politics.
And since there is no such comparison, it's all pretty much meaningless.
What if famous men and men in politics are "abused" on Twitter every 31 seconds? Or every 28 seconds?
Without that knowledge, does the study really say anything other than "the subset of people we chose got 'abused' at this rate?"
So what? Nothing to compare it to makes it pretty much useless knowledge.
While what they say may be true,
It's amazing to me how one can state easily verifiable historical facts, and get labeled "troll" on Slashdot.
I must have pissed off some Progressives.
Can you add?
They are NOW. But then in just the last few years they've implemented Progressive ideas again... like open borders.
Apples and oranges.
1) Straw-man argument
Hauwei was caught spying last year, and their products have been doing it ever since. Hauwei, ZTE, and One Plus were all caught doing it. They track everything from selfies to phone calls, and report back to China with the data. That is the reason they are all banned now for government use. It's not speculation, there is proof beyond reasonable doubt.
2) ITAR is irrelevant. That's just another straw-man.
ITAR regulates exports from U.S. businesses. None of those companies are U.S. businesses.
This is nonsense.
Hauwei, One Plus, and ZTE phones were all caught spying on their owners and sending the data back home to China. And no, it's not the same as Facebook or Google. This is at the firmware level.
You may know that those companies have been banned for government use for a while now.
There is nothing "racist" or political about it. Companies that spy on people â" no matter who they are or where they're from â" are not welcome. Hauwei's CFO is apparently guilty of arranging trade with Iran in violation of U.S. trade sanctions, and lying about it. That's yet another concern.
Stop with the U.S-bashing already. There was perfectly good reason to do this.
THIS was from last February, in case you don't keep up with the news.