Or at least they need to start being actual news feeds. Only showing you stuff you asked to see - or at least, if it must include ads, clearly labeling them as ads.
And this shit about every shopping site you visit haunting you on Facebook for the next month has got to go. There needs to be some kind of "FaceOff" movement - where huge numbers of Facebook users agree to stop using the site on certain days to demonstrate that Facebook is nothing without us. And then, maybe voting on a set of demands for what Facebook can and can't do if it wants us to keep using it.
A good start might be to limit the number of posts you can comment on in a day (other that posts from your known friends) - and maybe the sheer number of comments too. Something to keep the trolls in check.
The main advantage of Outlook is the ability to have multiple messages open in their own windows. Primarily so you can be working on an outgoing email for hours during which time you can also deal with any new incoming stuff.
Gmail is great as an email app for short messages. Outlook invites you to use it in place of a word processor. In fact, I almost never fire up Word at work (or Libre Writer at home) - preferring to do my 'writing' such as it is, in my email client. Gmail is okay for this. Outlook is better, but if it weren't foisted on my by my employer, I'd never actually pay for it...
Maybe, but if this thing gets decent software support - and is unlockable so that it can run LineageOS - it's a pretty good deal at that price. Better hardware than the One Plus 5. I got a ZTE Axon 7 last year when the midrange 'flagships' were coming on strong. Hardware is great for the price, but ZTE has backtracked on their promise of openness, to the point that I don't know if my 11 month old phone is going to get any more security patches - let alone OS upgrades. It might (and I'm still hopeful), but next time, it's going to be unlocked out of the gate or nothing.
Essential tried to go for flagship pricing out of the gate - and at that level, anything less than perfection is death. Their camera software was supposedly lousy, and a few initial bad reviews were enough to prevent them from recovering once they fixed it. But at $499, they're probably the best device in that near flagship category. It'd be nice if they were to settle for that and keep producing great bargain hardware, but I suspect that if they can't get the hype machine going again, they'll fade away. Who knows...
It's not just the Russian ads, of course. Facebook has been skirting all standards for advertising. They've taken 'native advertising' to such a level that there's essentially no difference between advertising and other content in your feed - as long as somebody you know hit a 'like' button there. Other stuff may be labeled "Sponsored Content", or "chosen for you" or some such thing.
As regards political advertising, there's a reason for preventing anonymous political ads - and Facebook essentially invites them by doing nothing to prevent them. Political ads are time-sensitive, and outright lies need to be addressed if we want our democracy to function based on any sense of reality. But lies slipped into your Facebook feed close to election day and not even identified as funded in support of one candidate or another make a mockery of the concept of an 'informed voter'.
And then, let's not forget the hundreds (thousands?) of fake users commenting on these stories and amplifying them. Some in direct support of a candidate - some fraudulently pretending to support a third candidate in order to harm another one. Anonymity is one of the 'charms' of the Internet as well as one of it's curses. It's probably not going to survive - at least as a business model. The same can be said for Bitcoin. A digital substitute for cash might be a good thing - but if it's main purpose is to support an illegal underground economy, it's not going to have an aboveground life for long...
It's rarely talked about, but there's a kind of reverse problem.
I work on a system (mostly in C, some C++, some Java, and even some ancient assembler code) that's fairly old (though fairly nice from a support/UI standpoint), very stable, but not under heavy development. In fact, the only remaining dev staff are in their late 50's to early 60's. The system's not going away, but the company's been so shortsighted that there's no next generation coming up to support it - and now they're worried about our eventual retirement.
We're well paid, based on our app/industry-specific knowledge, and a new generation could continue this. But the tech industry seems to no longer support a concept of 'lifers' - where you grow with the job, and security follows. That's okay, I guess, for the younguns - and we oldsters have our security. But what about the systems themselves. They become orphans. I'm sure some of you young guns will respond with "all systems should be rewritten from the ground up every 5 years", but that's seriously unrealistic. Many computer systems were written to serve specific industries that need the systems - but can't really finance such rewrites. There's simply not enough potential payback in it. So... a problem. Answers - who knows?
It's not quite that the hardware hasn't been ready - it's that the natural audience for the hardware (those businesses that would want to stock a bunch of generic cubicles) is still stuck with Windows. And now with Windows Phone out the window, that audience isn't likely to be served. Of course, there's that other audience (schools, etc, that hand out Chromebooks) that might do well with a dock students can use to plug in their own phones and have a desktop-style browser with all their personal stuff as well.
I have no problem with ZTE trying to innovate - though this particular brick doesn't appeal much to me. My problem, though, is that ZTE doesn't seem to have the resources to adequately support the phones that they actually sell, and this is where they're focusing their attention?
I have an Axon 7, which admittedly, is pretty up to date software wise (and has had many of its problems addressed). I bought it because, at the time, ZTE was making noises about unlocking the bootloader and working hand-in-hand with ROM developers to make sure that this device was well supported. But somewhere along the line, they got distracted (now, it seems this multi-screen thing was the big distraction), and went from providing a half-baked unlocking option (it still works, so there's that) to promising something better, to promising nothing (you'll find out what you're gonna get when you get it).
So now, we have a device that may or may not get Oreo - or even the fix to the current Wi-Fi exploit. And may or may not even remain part of their lineup. But we get to see their 'vision' for a multi-screen device - which might be nice to see if my relationship with them weren't soured. And yeah, maybe next month they'll patch Android on the A7, and I'll feel foolish for bitching...
It's not even a backlash - in the sense that anybody believes it's meaningful, much less something to base a movement on.
What it is is a focus group-tested canned response to 'Black Lives Matter' that's fed to Fox News viewers so they can say something slightly more palatable than "Ummm, errr, what's the big deal - I'm not sure cops killing unarmed black people for being uppity is so bad".
For what it's worth, Munich's LiMux is running an ancient linux desktop - which is part of the problem and part of why (some) users don't like it. A more modern desktop like Linux Mint would probably be better received. And systemd has fuck-all to do with it, haters. As noted above, the servers are probably running RedHat. And, in fact, Munich's desktop is probably so outdated that it doesn't run systemd either.
That said, the fact that Munich had to decide on a desktop to use - and that desktop is now more or less orphaned software now isn't a good thing. If Munich's needs required a frozen, non-standard Linux desktop in order for everyone to run the same apps, that's gotta be a point against it. Then again, these folks were early adopters, and endured a long, painful learning curve. If they weren't facing political opposition (and bribes) to switch to Windows, they could probably migrate to a newer generation Linux desktop that works much better than what they're using now.
But ultimately, the sad state of affairs is that, unless an organization has bitten the bullet and learned how to live without Windows desktop applications - i.e., they have gone with web-based apps for almost everything, Linux is not going to fit the bill for them. That said, there is a lot they can do to move in that direction. And tying themselves to the full suite of Microsoft stuff isn't it. So, switch to Windows on the desktop if you must - for those few 3rd party Windows apps you're still dependent on. But use LibreOffice - or if you must, Office 365 or Google web stuff. And use PDF for distributing documents. Or bite the bullet and make plans to migrate to a full web infrastructure with Chromebooks on the desktop. And if you can't do any of that, well, all is lost. But bear in mind that new organizations don't have the lock in that you do. Fine if you're a government that isn't in a competitive situation, then it's just a waste of money - but that's nothing new for governments. Businesses need to remain competitive, and new ones don't have to drag along a ton of Microsoft baggage.
True enough. But I suspect that improvements in breast cancer survival are mostly due to better early detection. The deadliest cancers are those that escape detection until it's too late. Either you catch it in an early stage where you can remove a tumor and be done with it - or you eventually die, with rare exceptions, I guess. One of these days, one of these revolutionary approaches will yield a treatment that can be administered at rates that make a dent in survival. And at 65, with both parents lost to cancer, I sure hope it's soon...
There are ARM Chromebooks, aren't there? The high end ones are Intel, because Intel processors are still more powerful. They may not compete on power consumption with ARM, but they do on processing power.
But I guess your last question (Why do you want a Chromebook?) is the most telling. People want Chromebooks because they have different needs than you do. They care mostly about the zero administration aspect - and the ability to share them and have all your data available. And they care about price. Granted, with the addition of local Android apps, they've introduced a local data component that works in odds with the 'shared internet terminal' aspect. But school and business Chromebook users don't have to use the Android stuff...
So, let's assume they actually do what you're guessing. Why? Do you really think it's so handy to let you know that person A you seem to meet up with regularly is also on Facebook? If you're meeting up with them personally and want to friend them on Facebook, you can ask them. Or search for them there by name.
It's almost as if Facebook is doing this 'just because they can'. Perhaps assuming people will think it's cool that Facebook is so 'smart'. It's not cool - it's creepy.
Which begs the question - why does Facebook suggest 'people you might know' based on anything other than their being Facebook friends of your Facebook friends? And how would it hurt them to let you opt out of that?
The weird thing is that, having put enough effort into this particularly creepy kind of 'connection', the actual 'search for people you know' functionality on Facebook is horrible. You can search by name - that's it. Useless for any kind of common name - and even when the person you're searching for shows up in the list, you can't narrow it down by searching on location or any other keywords, so if you don't recognize their photo, you're out of luck.
Nice. Answer a charge of false equivalence (made with and argument to back it up) with another false equivalence (with nothing to back it up). Your charge of the left's crying 'racist' has nothing to do with the topic at hand (rich people's political manipulations). And, of course, completely ignores that at least some of those charges are addressing quite real racism.
But it's nice of you to admit so freely that your charges of "but, George Soros" are nothing but desparate attempts to shut down an argument you're losing.
Perhaps I should've read your whole post before dignifying it with a response. If your answer to Russian meddling is "illegal immigrants may have made campaign contributions", then you're probably in the camp that says (without an iota of evidence) that Trump lost the popular vote due to 3 million illegal votes. That's crazy talk man, and Slashdot is almost as full of such crap these days as Facebook.
But I'll address your point anyway. All illegality is not equivalent. The (completely unsubstantiated) assertion that some poor illegal immigrants could have made some small campaign contributions is in a completely different ballpark from the widely substantiated assertion of election meddling by a foreign government that the US government has conflicting interests with, and that has recently invaded and occupied its neighbor, a US ally, But let no false equivalence get in the way of a bullshit counterargument, buddy.
The Russia investigation is primarily to determine what Russia did and how to stop it in the future. There's no question that they did something. Plenty of evidence of that - including this email, which if nothing else, shows Trump campaign operatives knew about it. Not necessarily evidence of collusion, but evidence of something we should be investigating, no?
Yes, it falls under the investigation to determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in those efforts - and they may not have. And perhaps the media have focused too much on that aspect. But much of the reason for that focus is the constant evasions and attempts to shut down investigation by Trump, his cronies, and various mouthpieces. Noone's saying definitively that, say, Trump Jr. broke the law in attending that meeting - though Kushner may have broken the law by not disclosing that he attended it in the course of obtaining his security clearence. But why would he and others have taken such reckless chances if there's nothing there?
Sometimes, I think that the basis for all the obstruction from Trump is the simple fact that his ego can't stand the fact that he lost the popular vote. And the idea that he won the electoral college vote with help from Russia - even without his collusion - just makes that bruise to his ego all the worse. But then again, sick as this man is, sometimes the obvious answer is the more likely. He has something to hide. That something may not be collusion in election meddling (though it may well be - we don't know yet). Still, the bottom line is that our democracy and electoral process are fragile and have been attacked - and we want future elections to be free of such meddling. For whatever reason, Trump is trying his damnedest to prevent getting to the bottom of it, and that's not a good thing.
Mixed record for Bush. They went after Enron - you could argue that it was because Bush was so seemingly indebted to Enron (his biggest campaign contributor) and what they did was so obviously illegal, that they had to throw the book at them.
Wall Street got a big pass from Bush's Treasury secretary, Hank Paulsen - he of Goldman Sachs fame. The 'crime' there was to bail them out without any conditions - to the point that the bankers were able to use the money to pay themselves bonuses for the year of the crash. Incredible - but not prosecutable, and y'know, Bush. Holder didn't prosecute the bankers, and you can argue that he should've - if only to set an example. But the crash was caused at least as much by stupidity and corrupt ratings agencies as by criminal fraud. To the extent the bankers knew the bond ratings were bogus, they were surely complicit, but try proving that in court...
And your description of the 'guns to Mexican Drug Dealers' fuckup is ripped from the pages of Fox News or a Republican witch hunt hearing to imply criminality - when what happened was a law enforcement attempt to catch drug dealers by following a trail of guns to them. A colossal fuckup to be sure, but NO ON GOES TO JAIL? in all caps? Shit like that happens. Don't you watch 'Homeland'? Or the news?
How about Trump Jr's email that pretty much comes right out and says the Russian government is trying to help his father win? Sure, he went to the meeting thinking he was going to get some good dirt that he claims he didn't get. But the assumption going in (which has not been denied) is that it was general knowledge that the Russians were pushing for Trump and willing to share intelligence with the campaign.
Whether or not you believe the assessments of the CIA, FBI, etc on other specifics, this smoking gun kind of solidifies that there's something there.
It's like you guys think all you have to say is "George Soros", and you've made your argument.
There's a little of that on the left with the Koch Brothers - but at least there's documentation of what the Koch's do politically with their money and what they want to get out of it in return. And of course, there are many more where the Koch's come from. The Mercers are funding a nice little disinformation machine on their own.
So what exactly is it that Soros does - and wants in return for his cash - that's so nefarious? As far as I know, it's pretty much limited to "he's rich and he donates to Democrats". False equivalence accomplished...
Typical SlashDot nerd response. "I'm so smart and good at what I do that I don't care about things that might be threatening to the rest of you mere mortals. No skin off my ass".
This story was about a company lying about how well they protect the data they gather - and then giving much of it away to anyone who asks. That should be alarming to anybody - even you self-identified tech gods.
Maybe that's why Google's gone into hardware with their Pixel devices. Those devices aren't any better than the competition (though they are pretty good), but they do get around Microsoft's ability to bribe or extort OEM's into including their software - and even embedding it deeply into the system as you suggest.
If Google can establish a safely Microsoft-free version of Android as one of the top tier OEM's, they have at least some ability to buffer against that. And if, as they seem poised to do, they start making deals to put out nice, mid-tier Android One devices - also carrying a 'pure' version of Android, they don't even have to win the market share game with their own devices. In a way, the high price of Pixels along with the promise of more or less free software and update handling for mid-tier Android One ought to preserve the dynamism of Android hardware while solidifying a standard version of the software. Even if Google were to achieve iPhone level sales (and they won't), that'd still leave a vast swath of the Android ecosystem open to competition.
To be fair, they saw mobile. What they didn't see was Open Source mobile. According to the standard Microsoft playbook
1. Microsoft would be in mobile - because they 'have' to be in everything, tech wise. But their offerings would have limited appeal - mostly to business execs.
2. iOS would come out and redefine mobile
3. Microsoft would observe iOS and see what it takes to be successful.
4. Microsoft would make a system that works like iOS and sell it to OEM's at low enough prices that they would be the only viable alternative to iOS.
Google short-circuited that plan at step 4, and Android became what Windows mobile would've been. In fact Android's weakness (being Open Source, it was allowed to diverge enough from the 'standard' to make timely upgrades near impossible) was also it's biggest strength (allowing OEM's to attempt to differentiate themselves led to healthy competition and a great deal of innovation). Would there be hundreds of Windows Phone manufacturers, if all those phones had to be essentially the same on the inside? I don't know. Of course, now many of us would like Android phones to be as stock as possible - having witnessed the downside. But in any case, the alternative to iOS has been established, and Microsoft is at least smart enough to understand that now.
Whether Microsoft likes it or not, the future of Windows is Win32 apps. That's what forces people to keep using it, and almost nobody who has written an extensive Win32 app is going to rewrite it as a Metro app - though some will rewrite their apps as web apps, Android apps or iOS apps. The app store may someday be chock full of Win32 apps if their ChromeOS competitor ever takes off.
Microsoft has moved on - and their current focus seems to be to attempt to usurp Android, and 'own' it without having to own it. I don't expect great success there either - but if they're allowed to keep extorting patent fees from Android OEM's, they may be able to trade those for a bit of the OEM's souls......or maybe they'll just continue to shift their focus to the cloud - which after all, they can actually charge for.
Microsoft may have different sources of income - but they also tend to see where other people are making money and, if there's software involved, jump on the bandwagon and go after it themselves. In the case of search, Microsoft may simply want to deny Google their income (i.e. "choke off their air supply" as a notorious MS memo said of Netscape back when), in order to prevent them from threatening MS in other areas. I suppose they could continue to develop and support Bing for that reason alone - though it's a costly enterprise that you'd think they'd like to have pay for itself.
In any case, Bing is most certainly storing information about your searches - and Windows is sending MS information about your other web activities. If the only purpose were to hurt Google, giving away free competing services should suffice. Now in the case of search, storing the info makes search work better - that's one of the reasons Google does it too. It seems to me that the problem of Windows tracking you is that it happens without your knowledge, consent, or even the use of Microsoft's 'free' services. The OS is still a monopoly (try buying a computer without it), and still something you pay for. If MS also wants to provide free stuff in exchange for your personal info, I guess there's nothing stopping them - and nothing stopping you from using those services. But there's nothing in your 'agreement' to use Windows that should give Microsoft the exclusive right to a stream of your personal activities - for moneymaking purposes or otherwise...
You don't even need co-ops to accomplish that. You can do fine with garden variety large corporations that are forced to compete with other large corporations rather than allowed to buy them up to attain monopoly or near-monopoly profits.
Slashdot Mirror
Or at least they need to start being actual news feeds. Only showing you stuff you asked to see - or at least, if it must include ads, clearly labeling them as ads.
And this shit about every shopping site you visit haunting you on Facebook for the next month has got to go. There needs to be some kind of "FaceOff" movement - where huge numbers of Facebook users agree to stop using the site on certain days to demonstrate that Facebook is nothing without us. And then, maybe voting on a set of demands for what Facebook can and can't do if it wants us to keep using it.
A good start might be to limit the number of posts you can comment on in a day (other that posts from your known friends) - and maybe the sheer number of comments too. Something to keep the trolls in check.
The main advantage of Outlook is the ability to have multiple messages open in their own windows. Primarily so you can be working on an outgoing email for hours during which time you can also deal with any new incoming stuff.
Gmail is great as an email app for short messages. Outlook invites you to use it in place of a word processor. In fact, I almost never fire up Word at work (or Libre Writer at home) - preferring to do my 'writing' such as it is, in my email client. Gmail is okay for this. Outlook is better, but if it weren't foisted on my by my employer, I'd never actually pay for it...
Maybe, but if this thing gets decent software support - and is unlockable so that it can run LineageOS - it's a pretty good deal at that price. Better hardware than the One Plus 5. I got a ZTE Axon 7 last year when the midrange 'flagships' were coming on strong. Hardware is great for the price, but ZTE has backtracked on their promise of openness, to the point that I don't know if my 11 month old phone is going to get any more security patches - let alone OS upgrades. It might (and I'm still hopeful), but next time, it's going to be unlocked out of the gate or nothing.
Essential tried to go for flagship pricing out of the gate - and at that level, anything less than perfection is death. Their camera software was supposedly lousy, and a few initial bad reviews were enough to prevent them from recovering once they fixed it. But at $499, they're probably the best device in that near flagship category. It'd be nice if they were to settle for that and keep producing great bargain hardware, but I suspect that if they can't get the hype machine going again, they'll fade away. Who knows...
It's not just the Russian ads, of course. Facebook has been skirting all standards for advertising. They've taken 'native advertising' to such a level that there's essentially no difference between advertising and other content in your feed - as long as somebody you know hit a 'like' button there. Other stuff may be labeled "Sponsored Content", or "chosen for you" or some such thing.
As regards political advertising, there's a reason for preventing anonymous political ads - and Facebook essentially invites them by doing nothing to prevent them. Political ads are time-sensitive, and outright lies need to be addressed if we want our democracy to function based on any sense of reality. But lies slipped into your Facebook feed close to election day and not even identified as funded in support of one candidate or another make a mockery of the concept of an 'informed voter'.
And then, let's not forget the hundreds (thousands?) of fake users commenting on these stories and amplifying them. Some in direct support of a candidate - some fraudulently pretending to support a third candidate in order to harm another one. Anonymity is one of the 'charms' of the Internet as well as one of it's curses. It's probably not going to survive - at least as a business model. The same can be said for Bitcoin. A digital substitute for cash might be a good thing - but if it's main purpose is to support an illegal underground economy, it's not going to have an aboveground life for long...
It's rarely talked about, but there's a kind of reverse problem.
I work on a system (mostly in C, some C++, some Java, and even some ancient assembler code) that's fairly old (though fairly nice from a support/UI standpoint), very stable, but not under heavy development. In fact, the only remaining dev staff are in their late 50's to early 60's. The system's not going away, but the company's been so shortsighted that there's no next generation coming up to support it - and now they're worried about our eventual retirement.
We're well paid, based on our app/industry-specific knowledge, and a new generation could continue this. But the tech industry seems to no longer support a concept of 'lifers' - where you grow with the job, and security follows. That's okay, I guess, for the younguns - and we oldsters have our security. But what about the systems themselves. They become orphans. I'm sure some of you young guns will respond with "all systems should be rewritten from the ground up every 5 years", but that's seriously unrealistic. Many computer systems were written to serve specific industries that need the systems - but can't really finance such rewrites. There's simply not enough potential payback in it. So... a problem. Answers - who knows?
It's not quite that the hardware hasn't been ready - it's that the natural audience for the hardware (those businesses that would want to stock a bunch of generic cubicles) is still stuck with Windows. And now with Windows Phone out the window, that audience isn't likely to be served. Of course, there's that other audience (schools, etc, that hand out Chromebooks) that might do well with a dock students can use to plug in their own phones and have a desktop-style browser with all their personal stuff as well.
I have no problem with ZTE trying to innovate - though this particular brick doesn't appeal much to me. My problem, though, is that ZTE doesn't seem to have the resources to adequately support the phones that they actually sell, and this is where they're focusing their attention?
I have an Axon 7, which admittedly, is pretty up to date software wise (and has had many of its problems addressed). I bought it because, at the time, ZTE was making noises about unlocking the bootloader and working hand-in-hand with ROM developers to make sure that this device was well supported. But somewhere along the line, they got distracted (now, it seems this multi-screen thing was the big distraction), and went from providing a half-baked unlocking option (it still works, so there's that) to promising something better, to promising nothing (you'll find out what you're gonna get when you get it).
So now, we have a device that may or may not get Oreo - or even the fix to the current Wi-Fi exploit. And may or may not even remain part of their lineup. But we get to see their 'vision' for a multi-screen device - which might be nice to see if my relationship with them weren't soured. And yeah, maybe next month they'll patch Android on the A7, and I'll feel foolish for bitching...
It's not even a backlash - in the sense that anybody believes it's meaningful, much less something to base a movement on.
What it is is a focus group-tested canned response to 'Black Lives Matter' that's fed to Fox News viewers so they can say something slightly more palatable than "Ummm, errr, what's the big deal - I'm not sure cops killing unarmed black people for being uppity is so bad".
For what it's worth, Munich's LiMux is running an ancient linux desktop - which is part of the problem and part of why (some) users don't like it. A more modern desktop like Linux Mint would probably be better received. And systemd has fuck-all to do with it, haters. As noted above, the servers are probably running RedHat. And, in fact, Munich's desktop is probably so outdated that it doesn't run systemd either.
That said, the fact that Munich had to decide on a desktop to use - and that desktop is now more or less orphaned software now isn't a good thing. If Munich's needs required a frozen, non-standard Linux desktop in order for everyone to run the same apps, that's gotta be a point against it. Then again, these folks were early adopters, and endured a long, painful learning curve. If they weren't facing political opposition (and bribes) to switch to Windows, they could probably migrate to a newer generation Linux desktop that works much better than what they're using now.
But ultimately, the sad state of affairs is that, unless an organization has bitten the bullet and learned how to live without Windows desktop applications - i.e., they have gone with web-based apps for almost everything, Linux is not going to fit the bill for them. That said, there is a lot they can do to move in that direction. And tying themselves to the full suite of Microsoft stuff isn't it. So, switch to Windows on the desktop if you must - for those few 3rd party Windows apps you're still dependent on. But use LibreOffice - or if you must, Office 365 or Google web stuff. And use PDF for distributing documents. Or bite the bullet and make plans to migrate to a full web infrastructure with Chromebooks on the desktop. And if you can't do any of that, well, all is lost. But bear in mind that new organizations don't have the lock in that you do. Fine if you're a government that isn't in a competitive situation, then it's just a waste of money - but that's nothing new for governments. Businesses need to remain competitive, and new ones don't have to drag along a ton of Microsoft baggage.
True enough. But I suspect that improvements in breast cancer survival are mostly due to better early detection. The deadliest cancers are those that escape detection until it's too late. Either you catch it in an early stage where you can remove a tumor and be done with it - or you eventually die, with rare exceptions, I guess. One of these days, one of these revolutionary approaches will yield a treatment that can be administered at rates that make a dent in survival. And at 65, with both parents lost to cancer, I sure hope it's soon...
There are ARM Chromebooks, aren't there? The high end ones are Intel, because Intel processors are still more powerful. They may not compete on power consumption with ARM, but they do on processing power.
But I guess your last question (Why do you want a Chromebook?) is the most telling. People want Chromebooks because they have different needs than you do. They care mostly about the zero administration aspect - and the ability to share them and have all your data available. And they care about price. Granted, with the addition of local Android apps, they've introduced a local data component that works in odds with the 'shared internet terminal' aspect. But school and business Chromebook users don't have to use the Android stuff...
So, let's assume they actually do what you're guessing. Why? Do you really think it's so handy to let you know that person A you seem to meet up with regularly is also on Facebook? If you're meeting up with them personally and want to friend them on Facebook, you can ask them. Or search for them there by name.
It's almost as if Facebook is doing this 'just because they can'. Perhaps assuming people will think it's cool that Facebook is so 'smart'. It's not cool - it's creepy.
Which begs the question - why does Facebook suggest 'people you might know' based on anything other than their being Facebook friends of your Facebook friends? And how would it hurt them to let you opt out of that?
The weird thing is that, having put enough effort into this particularly creepy kind of 'connection', the actual 'search for people you know' functionality on Facebook is horrible. You can search by name - that's it. Useless for any kind of common name - and even when the person you're searching for shows up in the list, you can't narrow it down by searching on location or any other keywords, so if you don't recognize their photo, you're out of luck.
Nice. Answer a charge of false equivalence (made with and argument to back it up) with another false equivalence (with nothing to back it up). Your charge of the left's crying 'racist' has nothing to do with the topic at hand (rich people's political manipulations). And, of course, completely ignores that at least some of those charges are addressing quite real racism.
But it's nice of you to admit so freely that your charges of "but, George Soros" are nothing but desparate attempts to shut down an argument you're losing.
Perhaps I should've read your whole post before dignifying it with a response. If your answer to Russian meddling is "illegal immigrants may have made campaign contributions", then you're probably in the camp that says (without an iota of evidence) that Trump lost the popular vote due to 3 million illegal votes. That's crazy talk man, and Slashdot is almost as full of such crap these days as Facebook.
But I'll address your point anyway. All illegality is not equivalent. The (completely unsubstantiated) assertion that some poor illegal immigrants could have made some small campaign contributions is in a completely different ballpark from the widely substantiated assertion of election meddling by a foreign government that the US government has conflicting interests with, and that has recently invaded and occupied its neighbor, a US ally, But let no false equivalence get in the way of a bullshit counterargument, buddy.
The Russia investigation is primarily to determine what Russia did and how to stop it in the future. There's no question that they did something. Plenty of evidence of that - including this email, which if nothing else, shows Trump campaign operatives knew about it. Not necessarily evidence of collusion, but evidence of something we should be investigating, no?
Yes, it falls under the investigation to determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in those efforts - and they may not have. And perhaps the media have focused too much on that aspect. But much of the reason for that focus is the constant evasions and attempts to shut down investigation by Trump, his cronies, and various mouthpieces. Noone's saying definitively that, say, Trump Jr. broke the law in attending that meeting - though Kushner may have broken the law by not disclosing that he attended it in the course of obtaining his security clearence. But why would he and others have taken such reckless chances if there's nothing there?
Sometimes, I think that the basis for all the obstruction from Trump is the simple fact that his ego can't stand the fact that he lost the popular vote. And the idea that he won the electoral college vote with help from Russia - even without his collusion - just makes that bruise to his ego all the worse. But then again, sick as this man is, sometimes the obvious answer is the more likely. He has something to hide. That something may not be collusion in election meddling (though it may well be - we don't know yet). Still, the bottom line is that our democracy and electoral process are fragile and have been attacked - and we want future elections to be free of such meddling. For whatever reason, Trump is trying his damnedest to prevent getting to the bottom of it, and that's not a good thing.
Mixed record for Bush. They went after Enron - you could argue that it was because Bush was so seemingly indebted to Enron (his biggest campaign contributor) and what they did was so obviously illegal, that they had to throw the book at them.
Wall Street got a big pass from Bush's Treasury secretary, Hank Paulsen - he of Goldman Sachs fame. The 'crime' there was to bail them out without any conditions - to the point that the bankers were able to use the money to pay themselves bonuses for the year of the crash. Incredible - but not prosecutable, and y'know, Bush. Holder didn't prosecute the bankers, and you can argue that he should've - if only to set an example. But the crash was caused at least as much by stupidity and corrupt ratings agencies as by criminal fraud. To the extent the bankers knew the bond ratings were bogus, they were surely complicit, but try proving that in court...
And your description of the 'guns to Mexican Drug Dealers' fuckup is ripped from the pages of Fox News or a Republican witch hunt hearing to imply criminality - when what happened was a law enforcement attempt to catch drug dealers by following a trail of guns to them. A colossal fuckup to be sure, but NO ON GOES TO JAIL? in all caps? Shit like that happens. Don't you watch 'Homeland'? Or the news?
How about Trump Jr's email that pretty much comes right out and says the Russian government is trying to help his father win? Sure, he went to the meeting thinking he was going to get some good dirt that he claims he didn't get. But the assumption going in (which has not been denied) is that it was general knowledge that the Russians were pushing for Trump and willing to share intelligence with the campaign.
Whether or not you believe the assessments of the CIA, FBI, etc on other specifics, this smoking gun kind of solidifies that there's something there.
It's like you guys think all you have to say is "George Soros", and you've made your argument.
There's a little of that on the left with the Koch Brothers - but at least there's documentation of what the Koch's do politically with their money and what they want to get out of it in return. And of course, there are many more where the Koch's come from. The Mercers are funding a nice little disinformation machine on their own.
So what exactly is it that Soros does - and wants in return for his cash - that's so nefarious? As far as I know, it's pretty much limited to "he's rich and he donates to Democrats". False equivalence accomplished...
Typical SlashDot nerd response. "I'm so smart and good at what I do that I don't care about things that might be threatening to the rest of you mere mortals. No skin off my ass".
This story was about a company lying about how well they protect the data they gather - and then giving much of it away to anyone who asks. That should be alarming to anybody - even you self-identified tech gods.
Maybe that's why Google's gone into hardware with their Pixel devices. Those devices aren't any better than the competition (though they are pretty good), but they do get around Microsoft's ability to bribe or extort OEM's into including their software - and even embedding it deeply into the system as you suggest.
If Google can establish a safely Microsoft-free version of Android as one of the top tier OEM's, they have at least some ability to buffer against that. And if, as they seem poised to do, they start making deals to put out nice, mid-tier Android One devices - also carrying a 'pure' version of Android, they don't even have to win the market share game with their own devices. In a way, the high price of Pixels along with the promise of more or less free software and update handling for mid-tier Android One ought to preserve the dynamism of Android hardware while solidifying a standard version of the software. Even if Google were to achieve iPhone level sales (and they won't), that'd still leave a vast swath of the Android ecosystem open to competition.
To be fair, they saw mobile. What they didn't see was Open Source mobile. According to the standard Microsoft playbook
1. Microsoft would be in mobile - because they 'have' to be in everything, tech wise. But their offerings would have limited appeal - mostly to business execs.
2. iOS would come out and redefine mobile
3. Microsoft would observe iOS and see what it takes to be successful.
4. Microsoft would make a system that works like iOS and sell it to OEM's at low enough prices that they would be the only viable alternative to iOS.
Google short-circuited that plan at step 4, and Android became what Windows mobile would've been. In fact Android's weakness (being Open Source, it was allowed to diverge enough from the 'standard' to make timely upgrades near impossible) was also it's biggest strength (allowing OEM's to attempt to differentiate themselves led to healthy competition and a great deal of innovation). Would there be hundreds of Windows Phone manufacturers, if all those phones had to be essentially the same on the inside? I don't know. Of course, now many of us would like Android phones to be as stock as possible - having witnessed the downside. But in any case, the alternative to iOS has been established, and Microsoft is at least smart enough to understand that now.
Whether Microsoft likes it or not, the future of Windows is Win32 apps. That's what forces people to keep using it, and almost nobody who has written an extensive Win32 app is going to rewrite it as a Metro app - though some will rewrite their apps as web apps, Android apps or iOS apps. The app store may someday be chock full of Win32 apps if their ChromeOS competitor ever takes off.
Microsoft has moved on - and their current focus seems to be to attempt to usurp Android, and 'own' it without having to own it. I don't expect great success there either - but if they're allowed to keep extorting patent fees from Android OEM's, they may be able to trade those for a bit of the OEM's souls... ...or maybe they'll just continue to shift their focus to the cloud - which after all, they can actually charge for.
Microsoft may have different sources of income - but they also tend to see where other people are making money and, if there's software involved, jump on the bandwagon and go after it themselves. In the case of search, Microsoft may simply want to deny Google their income (i.e. "choke off their air supply" as a notorious MS memo said of Netscape back when), in order to prevent them from threatening MS in other areas. I suppose they could continue to develop and support Bing for that reason alone - though it's a costly enterprise that you'd think they'd like to have pay for itself.
In any case, Bing is most certainly storing information about your searches - and Windows is sending MS information about your other web activities. If the only purpose were to hurt Google, giving away free competing services should suffice. Now in the case of search, storing the info makes search work better - that's one of the reasons Google does it too. It seems to me that the problem of Windows tracking you is that it happens without your knowledge, consent, or even the use of Microsoft's 'free' services. The OS is still a monopoly (try buying a computer without it), and still something you pay for. If MS also wants to provide free stuff in exchange for your personal info, I guess there's nothing stopping them - and nothing stopping you from using those services. But there's nothing in your 'agreement' to use Windows that should give Microsoft the exclusive right to a stream of your personal activities - for moneymaking purposes or otherwise...
You don't even need co-ops to accomplish that. You can do fine with garden variety large corporations that are forced to compete with other large corporations rather than allowed to buy them up to attain monopoly or near-monopoly profits.