But I think it is pretty obvious that this is more about restoring their brand images than anything else. I don't doubt that they are geniunely miffed about some of the NSA's shennanigans, such as having their private wan connections tapped, but going on about the 'Rights of the individual' seems kind of ludicrous when the reason the government gets information from them in the first place is because they already have it neatly packaged up for the taking. In a nutshell they say "This needs to change because of the rights of the citizens bla bla bla" and all I hear is "This needs to change because the fallout is bad for business." Still, it's better than nothing being done at all right? Those in power can only get away with abusing it by tricking the public into letting them, which they have become very good at, unfortunately.
Hence why even non-gamers were so excited about Valve's gambit. Even with the few games released so far, it has brought tons of much-needed development effort to the areas GNU/Linux was lacking in. Imagine how things will be if SteamOS & Co. succeed and it becomes a major gaming platform. Free software purist or not, everyone is going to benefit.
It's easy to see why Linux Mint has been increasingly blazing their own separate trail. I tried Ubuntu 13.10 and liked it in some ways, but got extremely turned off when I spent an hour trying to customize the executed command on a Unity launcher to no avail. Making the interface simple to use is great, but that should never come at the cost of functionality, and there is no reason for it to.
Well, I suppose if you disagree with me you could just mod my comment down instead of flaming me; Although you probably don't have any mod points because you post anonymously, and because your idea of an insightful comment is to fling insults and curse words like a 14 year old on Xbox Live. You obviously didn't read past the first sentence, or you would have seen that I'm not implying that everyone needs to be a computer expert to use a PC responsibly any more than someone needs to be an auto-mechanic in order to drive a car. I have indeed advised and warned a lot of people about these kinds of scams, and helped people who fell for them, including relatives such as the ones you mentioned, all without the "ignorant douchebag attitude" that you are presuming. It is perfectly forgivable for most people not to be computer savvy, however, most IT people will agree that it is extremely frustrating when people wear their computer illiteracy as a badge of pride and refuse to learn even the most basic computer skills on the grounds of "I'm not a nerd"; Hence why I save my venting about it for places such as Slashdot. Personally, my guess is that you must have taken the bait on one of these scams and had your bank account drained, and are now lashing out at what I said out of embarrassment; as I cannot think of any other reason for you to get so worked up, even by the Internet's standards.
Elon Musk would never have accomplished what he has if it wasn't for his rabid passion and forceful, egotistical personality. He is trying to change the status quo in an industry where many have tried and failed, and where many want Tesla to fail as well. He had best try to temper himself, though; lest he become our generation's Nikola Tesla/Howard Hughes in more ways than one.....
I get sick of people and their "I'm not a computer person so it's not my fault" attitude. It's like getting in a car accident, taking your car to the shop, and then proudly declaring "I don't know how to drive!" to the mechanics. If random weirdo walks up to someone and says "You're sick! Bend over and let me give you this suppository!", are they going to do it? And then later say "I'm not a doctor, so how was I supposed to know?" It is beyond ridiculous in a world where computer use is such an integral part of everyday life.
Translation: "We love the absurd and unfair amount of power that the broken patent system gives us over any and all future start-ups and rivals, and will oppose any legislation that doesn't maintain the status quo."
You could make the argument that this is overblown, but you cannot deny that it is true at least to some significant degree. The ironic part is how the U.S. government has been warning us about the coming cyber-apocalypse, and it turns out that they have done more to stoke those flames than anybody else.
I have been a fan of Ubuntu for a while, but Shuttleworth's antics are increasingly turning me off of it. It seems to me that while he likes to benefit from the advantages of open-source development, he really doesn't care about the fundamental philosophies behind it.
There is a reason RHEL uses an older kernel after all. Personally, stability is the #1 feature that converted me from Windows. Best to keep it that way.
People who complain about him taking refuge in a country with a more oppressive government are missing the point entirely; maybe even intentionally. For years the U.S. government has put itself on a pedestal and acted as if it holds the moral high ground when it comes to the rights of it's citizens. Edward Snowden shattered that by revealing how full of crap they were. Does Russia have a worse human rights record than the U.S.? Absolutely. Does that give the U.S. the right to crap all over the 4th amendment and become a surveillance state? Hell no. Edward Snowden didn't defect to Russia and announce to the world that they are better than the U.S., he simply ended up there because he had no other choice; and he obviously would like to be able to come home. Personally, I am ticked at our government not just for violating our constitutional rights and branding whistleblowers as traitors, but for embarassing all Americans on the world stage by making us look like a bunch of hypocrits.
Many sales people are poorly informed and give out extremely inaccurate information. First of all, that number is the half-life rating (the amount of time it takes for the display to degrade to half it's original brightness). Secondly, most decent model plasma screens had a half-life rating of 60,000 hours, the exact same as what most LCD models are rated at; and most of the newer Panasonic models were rated at 100,000 hours, so they actually had a LONGER lifespan than most LCD TVs until LED backlights became the norm. For context, old CRT TVs were rated at 25,000 hours. How long have you seen some of those last?
I sold TVs for a couple years between 2006 and 2009, and I got to scrutinize a lot of screens side by side. It wasn't until LED backlights became common that LCDs could even begin to compare to the color accuracy of plasma screens. Unfortunately, customers would often come in already convinced that plasma screens had all kind of problems, some of which were extremely overblown or had been vastly improved since the early models (burn-in, lifespan); and others that were complete baloney (some salespeople at other stores had been telling customers that touching a plasma screen would ruin it). I suppose it was inevitable since Panasonic is alone on that front and LCDs are evolving much faster. If I could buy any TV I wanted today, it would still be one of Panasonic's high-end plasma models. Oh well. I still have my trusty 42 inch one and I hope to get quite a few more years out of it.
A perfect example would be the way AT&T was allowed to start pulling itself back together after the trouble was taken to split the beast apart. It wasn't long before they were happily providing the government with taps into the backbone if the Internet. This is the paradox of people who scream for deregulation and rail against big government. They don't want the government to have too much power (perfectly understandable), but don't have any qualms giving ALL of the power to oligopolies which then collaborate with the government, thus giving them infinitely more power than the "onerous" rules and regulations ever would.
It's ok, though, because between the NSA spying on literally everybody, the TSA feeling us up at the airports, and the government spending millions pursuing "terrorists" such as Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, there is no way somebody is going to be able to walk through an unsecured, open door and wreak havoc; because the sheer irony itself would tear a hole in space and time.
I love how political extremists on the right run around screaming "LEAVE BUSINESSES ALONE!", and then proceed to pass laws that discriminate against specific businesses; albeit ones that aren't chummy enough with the right people.
Slashdot Mirror
But I think it is pretty obvious that this is more about restoring their brand images than anything else. I don't doubt that they are geniunely miffed about some of the NSA's shennanigans, such as having their private wan connections tapped, but going on about the 'Rights of the individual' seems kind of ludicrous when the reason the government gets information from them in the first place is because they already have it neatly packaged up for the taking. In a nutshell they say "This needs to change because of the rights of the citizens bla bla bla" and all I hear is "This needs to change because the fallout is bad for business." Still, it's better than nothing being done at all right? Those in power can only get away with abusing it by tricking the public into letting them, which they have become very good at, unfortunately.
Famous last words for so many big companies............
Fear will keep the local journalists in line. Fear of this data center.
How many of these devices will actually get patched by their users?
Hence why even non-gamers were so excited about Valve's gambit. Even with the few games released so far, it has brought tons of much-needed development effort to the areas GNU/Linux was lacking in. Imagine how things will be if SteamOS & Co. succeed and it becomes a major gaming platform. Free software purist or not, everyone is going to benefit.
It's easy to see why Linux Mint has been increasingly blazing their own separate trail. I tried Ubuntu 13.10 and liked it in some ways, but got extremely turned off when I spent an hour trying to customize the executed command on a Unity launcher to no avail. Making the interface simple to use is great, but that should never come at the cost of functionality, and there is no reason for it to.
Darn. Someone beat me to it.
Said the spider to the fly.
Well, I suppose if you disagree with me you could just mod my comment down instead of flaming me; Although you probably don't have any mod points because you post anonymously, and because your idea of an insightful comment is to fling insults and curse words like a 14 year old on Xbox Live. You obviously didn't read past the first sentence, or you would have seen that I'm not implying that everyone needs to be a computer expert to use a PC responsibly any more than someone needs to be an auto-mechanic in order to drive a car. I have indeed advised and warned a lot of people about these kinds of scams, and helped people who fell for them, including relatives such as the ones you mentioned, all without the "ignorant douchebag attitude" that you are presuming. It is perfectly forgivable for most people not to be computer savvy, however, most IT people will agree that it is extremely frustrating when people wear their computer illiteracy as a badge of pride and refuse to learn even the most basic computer skills on the grounds of "I'm not a nerd"; Hence why I save my venting about it for places such as Slashdot. Personally, my guess is that you must have taken the bait on one of these scams and had your bank account drained, and are now lashing out at what I said out of embarrassment; as I cannot think of any other reason for you to get so worked up, even by the Internet's standards.
Elon Musk would never have accomplished what he has if it wasn't for his rabid passion and forceful, egotistical personality. He is trying to change the status quo in an industry where many have tried and failed, and where many want Tesla to fail as well. He had best try to temper himself, though; lest he become our generation's Nikola Tesla/Howard Hughes in more ways than one.....
I get sick of people and their "I'm not a computer person so it's not my fault" attitude. It's like getting in a car accident, taking your car to the shop, and then proudly declaring "I don't know how to drive!" to the mechanics. If random weirdo walks up to someone and says "You're sick! Bend over and let me give you this suppository!", are they going to do it? And then later say "I'm not a doctor, so how was I supposed to know?" It is beyond ridiculous in a world where computer use is such an integral part of everyday life.
Translation: "We love the absurd and unfair amount of power that the broken patent system gives us over any and all future start-ups and rivals, and will oppose any legislation that doesn't maintain the status quo."
We could only dream that the government comes down on them the same way they did on Aaron Swartz for what his computer was set to automatically do.
Well it's about time.
You could make the argument that this is overblown, but you cannot deny that it is true at least to some significant degree. The ironic part is how the U.S. government has been warning us about the coming cyber-apocalypse, and it turns out that they have done more to stoke those flames than anybody else.
I have been a fan of Ubuntu for a while, but Shuttleworth's antics are increasingly turning me off of it. It seems to me that while he likes to benefit from the advantages of open-source development, he really doesn't care about the fundamental philosophies behind it.
There is a reason RHEL uses an older kernel after all. Personally, stability is the #1 feature that converted me from Windows. Best to keep it that way.
People who complain about him taking refuge in a country with a more oppressive government are missing the point entirely; maybe even intentionally. For years the U.S. government has put itself on a pedestal and acted as if it holds the moral high ground when it comes to the rights of it's citizens. Edward Snowden shattered that by revealing how full of crap they were. Does Russia have a worse human rights record than the U.S.? Absolutely. Does that give the U.S. the right to crap all over the 4th amendment and become a surveillance state? Hell no. Edward Snowden didn't defect to Russia and announce to the world that they are better than the U.S., he simply ended up there because he had no other choice; and he obviously would like to be able to come home. Personally, I am ticked at our government not just for violating our constitutional rights and branding whistleblowers as traitors, but for embarassing all Americans on the world stage by making us look like a bunch of hypocrits.
I suppose I'm not too surprised, but wow. All that is missing is a mustache twirling villain rubbing his hands together as he chuckles maniacally.
Many sales people are poorly informed and give out extremely inaccurate information. First of all, that number is the half-life rating (the amount of time it takes for the display to degrade to half it's original brightness). Secondly, most decent model plasma screens had a half-life rating of 60,000 hours, the exact same as what most LCD models are rated at; and most of the newer Panasonic models were rated at 100,000 hours, so they actually had a LONGER lifespan than most LCD TVs until LED backlights became the norm. For context, old CRT TVs were rated at 25,000 hours. How long have you seen some of those last?
I sold TVs for a couple years between 2006 and 2009, and I got to scrutinize a lot of screens side by side. It wasn't until LED backlights became common that LCDs could even begin to compare to the color accuracy of plasma screens. Unfortunately, customers would often come in already convinced that plasma screens had all kind of problems, some of which were extremely overblown or had been vastly improved since the early models (burn-in, lifespan); and others that were complete baloney (some salespeople at other stores had been telling customers that touching a plasma screen would ruin it). I suppose it was inevitable since Panasonic is alone on that front and LCDs are evolving much faster. If I could buy any TV I wanted today, it would still be one of Panasonic's high-end plasma models. Oh well. I still have my trusty 42 inch one and I hope to get quite a few more years out of it.
Even the best of security practices does little to dissuade them when all of the eggs are in one basket.
A perfect example would be the way AT&T was allowed to start pulling itself back together after the trouble was taken to split the beast apart. It wasn't long before they were happily providing the government with taps into the backbone if the Internet. This is the paradox of people who scream for deregulation and rail against big government. They don't want the government to have too much power (perfectly understandable), but don't have any qualms giving ALL of the power to oligopolies which then collaborate with the government, thus giving them infinitely more power than the "onerous" rules and regulations ever would.
It's ok, though, because between the NSA spying on literally everybody, the TSA feeling us up at the airports, and the government spending millions pursuing "terrorists" such as Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, there is no way somebody is going to be able to walk through an unsecured, open door and wreak havoc; because the sheer irony itself would tear a hole in space and time.
I love how political extremists on the right run around screaming "LEAVE BUSINESSES ALONE!", and then proceed to pass laws that discriminate against specific businesses; albeit ones that aren't chummy enough with the right people.