What about pointed sticks and rocks? Better put those under lock and key, too. How about martial arts? All martial arts are designed to turn the human body into a weapon for killing other human beings, so we'd better make all of those illegal, too. All vehicles, including bicycles, can be employed to injure or kill people. Better outlaw those, too. In fact let's outlaw everything because almost any object can be used to injure or kill another human being. Water is a prime candidate here, you can drown someone with water! Better outlaw water, too.
Why not just go to the source? Humans are troublesome and hurt other humans; better just lock up all humans from birth to death, and keep them under guard and surveillance 24/7/365, to ensure they're not harming anyone or getting into any trouble. There, problem solved!
Maybe they'd be more productive if they lived under a government that didn't oppress them at every turn, squashing their creativity and their joy of life in general?
The problem is that the average end-user is going to have the default settings for Automatic Updates, which I believe is to download and install all 'recommended' updates, am I right?
Shamelessly riding the coattails of the first score 5 post in this thread to say: Fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw, Microsoft. Now they're forcing Win10 on everyone? Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU. I'm one of the still-on-XP guys, was considering 7 at some point.. now, when the box finally dies and I have to build a new one? It's definitely some flavor of Linux. Also, it's official now: Computers are no longer Any Fun At All. Authoritarian, totalitarian bastard corporations like Microsoft have ruined it for good. Who knew that at some point in my life I'd be pining for Z80 processors and CP/M 2.2 and hardware I build from bare PCBs on up with my own two hands and a soldering iron (hell, I designed a fair portion of some of the first computers I had).
That's my point, really; there is no technoligical reason to do that, you'd do it only to protect your intellectual property. Being the manufacturer they know what IC is what so they don't need part numbers on them, just what refdes it is on the PCB. It's just another barrier against the less skilled/more casual tech pirates copying their product.
If it's interesting to you at all: back in the day arcade games were more hardware than they were software, and 'knock offs' weren't all that uncommon. If the PCBs were all common logic then it was just a matter of directly copying the PCB and EPROMs/bipolar ROMs and cranking out copies.
Are they protecting the privacy of their end-users or aren't they? Or is it that they don't want anyone else to abuse the personal data of their end-users? On the one hand they install spyware as parts of their OS, and on the other hand we have this.
You really think the whole 'signing' thing is going to stop anyone? That'll be broken quickly enough, and someone will produce a tool to 'sign' firmware images so you can use your own, and there's not a whole hell of a lot they can do to stop that, either.
What I do blame them for is pointlessly gluing parts together, filing down chips so you can't read their part ID or encasing them in a blob of epoxy for no reason other than ensuring you cannot replace it. That's what really irks me.
In my previous life, when I was repairing arcade games, you'd see that sort of thing all the time, sometimes entire circuit boards full of ICs would have the mfg's numbers filed off them, to 'protect their IP' (to use the modern term). I see no reason to believe that's not at least part of the motivation for doing that sort of thing today.
For various values of the word 'skilled'. I've been working in electronics for over 30 years. To 'repair' something used to mean 'replace components', but after a certain point it became 'replace an entire circuit board', which will always be a weak substitute so far as I'm concerned. But the real problem is that with the advent of surface-mount components, the door to repairing a circuit board largely became shut and locked to the vast majority of people. When you need (high) magnification and some specialized soldering equipment and supplies just to replace common passive components (YOU try to remove and replace 0402 SMCs with the naked eye!) it puts the job just out of reach of many. Of course most times passive components aren't the problem, and when the integrated circuits are in BGA (ball grid array) packages, and you need a $3000 setup just to remove one, and help from a diety to install a replacement, for 99% of anyone thinking of trying it, it just went entirely out of reach. This is not even touching on the subject of schematics for the device you're trying to repair, which for many/most things you're not getting your hands on for any amount of money, and in some cases you might get threatened with legal action just for trying to get it. Then there's the subject of proprietary software tools that might be necessary, and you're not getting those for any reason from a manufacturer. Even the manufacturers themselves often don't bother repairing anything, they'll just 'recycle' it and send you a new one because the cost in labor alone to repair exceeds what the thing costs.
Of course I'm going to be reminded that nobody is trying to repair the circuit board in their phone, they just want to replace the battery or cracked screen or whatnot. Manufacturers have never wanted consumers repairing their own devices, so yes they make it as difficult as possible sometimes. It's always been like that. Don't expect that to change, either. You're always going to have to go to 3rd party sources for parts and supplies and information. When we really need to cry 'Foul!' is if they try to make it illegal, though.
Perhaps, but good bloody luck trying to find a floppy drive that is high enough quality to actually have head alignment accurate enough to read the aforementioned 'lightly used floppy disk'. Even at their peak there was never any guarantee that a floppy formatted in one drive would work worth a damn in a different drive, especially the further in towards the hub you went.
'Claiming' being the operative word, there. "Here, we'll save you from the nasty 'ol NSA! Trust us!" Yeah sure whatever you say. Sounds like misdirection to me. Here's an idea: How about they collect no data of any kind, that way there's nothing for the NSA to seize from them! What a concept!
Finally, yeah, it wouldn't be crazy to license bike riders who plan to ride on non-neighborhood streets, even if it is a one time license that you get after you prove you understand the rules of the road and how they practically pertain to bikes.
No, absolutely NOT. That's a Slipperly Slope and it is to be avoided at all costs. It would end up excluding entire classes of people, and would open the door to using cyclists as another revenue stream, essentially ruining it for everyone. We're not going there!
Essentially the problem is that motorists don't deal with bicyclists often, and so they don't know how to safely deal with them because they haven't put a lot of thought into the problem. As a bicyclist, you have to make it obvious to motorists what they need to do.
As an avid cylist myself (and a road racer) the best advice I can give? Be predictable. Don't ride like it's your private road and no one else could possibly be on it. Hold your line; don't suddenly change direction, don't make sudden moves of any kind. Ride as far to the right as is safe to do so. Need to make a left turn? Look over your shoulder, just like you would driving. Traffic is heavy/crazy/you can't see? Pull to the right where it's safe to do so and stop, look, wait for it to be 100% clear, then cross. Drivers are not going to stop for you, don't expect them to, expect that they cannot or refuse to see you and act accordingly. Finally, if you are scared all the time you're riding on public roads, then don't ride on public roads until you've improved your riding skills to the point where you're confident in the saddle. Scared people don't think straight and make mistakes, and mistakes on public roads riding a bicycle will get you killed. Don't be That Guy.
Always ride like absolutely NO ONE can see you...like you are invisible
I'll do you one better: Ride like people are actively trying to kill you, or at least think that way. I've been riding motorcycles for 35 years (have owned 7 motorcycles since age 15), and I ride a bicycle 6 days a week (road racer, so all of that is training), and I drive. I apply all those years of motorcycling to riding the bike, and I've never even come close to getting hit by a car. Now, here's a kicker for you: At least half the time when I come to a 4-way stop where there are cars to the left or right? They'll try to wave me through, regardless of them having the legal right-of-way. I'll come to a complete stop and step down off the pedals. Sometimes I'll even stand there and wave them through, and they'll get mad at me and insist I go anyway. Sometimes I even have to get completely off the bike and walk it over to the side of the road and lean up against the stop sign pole before they get the idea I'm not going anywhere. Sometimes they get all pissed off that I'm not going in front of them, which makes no sense at all. I think it's this sort of confusion that contributes to car versus cyclist accidents: motorists don't seem to know the rules of the road any better than some cyclists do. You can't say that I don't ride enough to get in situations where there might be a problem, either, because in a typical week I ride 200-300 miles over 6 days of training, and on weekdays in the Fall/Winter/early Spring, I'm riding after work and I'm in the dark (before anyone says it: with a 2-watt taillight and an 800 lumen headlight). Do some cyclists need to understand that the same laws apply to them? Yes. Do some motorists need to be reminded of the laws, too? Absolutely. It's not one or the other, it's both groups contributing to the problem.
When it comes down to that I'll probably just jump ship completely and start using some flavor of Linux instead, with the one or two must-have applications that are Windows-only running out of WINE or something.
tinfoil hat reply: Cant turn of update on the xp machine
Apparently someone doesn't understand how to disable a service in Windows. Or, somehow failing that, Deny 'read and execute' privs for System for the affected files. Or, if you want the real Nuclear option, hack the registry to remove the Automatic Updates service completely from the OS. Don't tell me it can't be done, either, because I've done all the above at one point or another. In Win10? Couldn't tell you if it'd work, or if it'l slap your hand and put everything back. I won't know, either, because I wont touch it with a ten foot pole.
I'm still running XP on a >10 year old desktop that's still healthy, and at this point in time I have absolutely zero intention of upgrading the OS for any reason. If the box dies and I have to rebuild it, it'll have some flavor of Linux on it, and damn the consequences. The one or two applications I have that don't have a Linux version will just have to run through WINE I guess. I'm not putting up with this bullshit. Microsoft can go fuck themselves.
Re:Sigh...Twitter is about following celebrities
on
How To Fix Twitter
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· Score: 1
This is related to what I was going to inquire about. I do not use 'social media', not since Livejournal, and not since the short stay I had on Facebook (the former became irrelevant, and the latter pissed me off one too many times with it's invasion of my privacy), and I certainly have never used Twitter. I've wondered what percentage of the content there is actual communication, and how much of it is just 'hey, hey look at me, look at me, pay attention to meeeeeeee!' sort of stuff. I think the AC I'm responding to has more or less answered that question for me: sounds like the vast majority of the 'content' (if you can call it that) on Twitter is just attention-whoring of one flavor or another. How disappointingly useless. Based on that I'd have to say the way to 'fix' Twitters 'problems' is to nuke it from orbit, returning the wasted Internet bandwidth to be used for something actually useful.
The first question you should ask is, "Do I need a tablet, really, or do I just want a tablet?". I've found few legitimate uses for a tablet computer versus a laptop or even a traditional desktop computer.
If that's what you really feel then why are you still coming here? Listening to you, Slashdot has 'sold out' to whoever they'd sell out to, and is effectively dead; shouldn't you be moving on to somewhere more to your liking?
Let's be fair: The reason we haven't put personnel back on the Moon is mainly economic and political, not a technological deficit, and you have to admit that we didn't put men on the Moon in the first place for any scientific reasons, we did it for purely political reasons, specifically to beat Russia there. In fact now that I think about it for a moment, it hits me that we might not have had developed the first nuclear bombs if Germany hadn't been working on such a thing themselves, am I right?
You're mostly complaining, but I get it. Personally I think it's a mess, and there are too many people with their own personal agendas screwing it up even worse. Meanwhile it's increasingly considered career suicide to go into teaching, when the real chemo to cure the public school systems' cancer is more talented, dedicated teachers, and fewer overpaid administrators.
Would a computer for every child be a good thing, if it were implemented properly? Of course. But as you're pointing out, the implementation is poor at best. Hell, I think what would be a better plan is all textbooks published as e-books, and give a Kindle to every kid. Changes or corrections to their textbooks get uploaded to them all wirelessly, automatically. Meanwhile the school library is all e-books, and they can 'check out' downloaded copies of whatever they want to read; might even encourage them to read that way, make it easy for them. Throw in major news publications for free and who knows what else might be enriching for them, and it might just make a difference.
Slashdot Mirror
SJW
If raising the signal-to-noise ratio of Slashdot by discouraging shitheads from hanging around makes me a SJW, then so be it.
Forks and knives
What about pointed sticks and rocks? Better put those under lock and key, too. How about martial arts? All martial arts are designed to turn the human body into a weapon for killing other human beings, so we'd better make all of those illegal, too. All vehicles, including bicycles, can be employed to injure or kill people. Better outlaw those, too. In fact let's outlaw everything because almost any object can be used to injure or kill another human being. Water is a prime candidate here, you can drown someone with water! Better outlaw water, too.
Why not just go to the source? Humans are troublesome and hurt other humans; better just lock up all humans from birth to death, and keep them under guard and surveillance 24/7/365, to ensure they're not harming anyone or getting into any trouble. There, problem solved!
Maybe they'd be more productive if they lived under a government that didn't oppress them at every turn, squashing their creativity and their joy of life in general?
You need to jam a great big black dick up your ass
You need to return to your containment unit (http://www.4chan.org/b/) and stay there, or we'll be forced to use The Hose on you. Again.
The problem is that the average end-user is going to have the default settings for Automatic Updates, which I believe is to download and install all 'recommended' updates, am I right?
Shamelessly riding the coattails of the first score 5 post in this thread to say: Fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw, Microsoft. Now they're forcing Win10 on everyone? Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU. I'm one of the still-on-XP guys, was considering 7 at some point.. now, when the box finally dies and I have to build a new one? It's definitely some flavor of Linux. Also, it's official now: Computers are no longer Any Fun At All. Authoritarian, totalitarian bastard corporations like Microsoft have ruined it for good. Who knew that at some point in my life I'd be pining for Z80 processors and CP/M 2.2 and hardware I build from bare PCBs on up with my own two hands and a soldering iron (hell, I designed a fair portion of some of the first computers I had).
Bastards.
That's my point, really; there is no technoligical reason to do that, you'd do it only to protect your intellectual property. Being the manufacturer they know what IC is what so they don't need part numbers on them, just what refdes it is on the PCB. It's just another barrier against the less skilled/more casual tech pirates copying their product.
If it's interesting to you at all: back in the day arcade games were more hardware than they were software, and 'knock offs' weren't all that uncommon. If the PCBs were all common logic then it was just a matter of directly copying the PCB and EPROMs/bipolar ROMs and cranking out copies.
Are they protecting the privacy of their end-users or aren't they? Or is it that they don't want anyone else to abuse the personal data of their end-users? On the one hand they install spyware as parts of their OS, and on the other hand we have this.
You really think the whole 'signing' thing is going to stop anyone? That'll be broken quickly enough, and someone will produce a tool to 'sign' firmware images so you can use your own, and there's not a whole hell of a lot they can do to stop that, either.
What I do blame them for is pointlessly gluing parts together, filing down chips so you can't read their part ID or encasing them in a blob of epoxy for no reason other than ensuring you cannot replace it. That's what really irks me.
In my previous life, when I was repairing arcade games, you'd see that sort of thing all the time, sometimes entire circuit boards full of ICs would have the mfg's numbers filed off them, to 'protect their IP' (to use the modern term). I see no reason to believe that's not at least part of the motivation for doing that sort of thing today.
For various values of the word 'skilled'. I've been working in electronics for over 30 years. To 'repair' something used to mean 'replace components', but after a certain point it became 'replace an entire circuit board', which will always be a weak substitute so far as I'm concerned. But the real problem is that with the advent of surface-mount components, the door to repairing a circuit board largely became shut and locked to the vast majority of people. When you need (high) magnification and some specialized soldering equipment and supplies just to replace common passive components (YOU try to remove and replace 0402 SMCs with the naked eye!) it puts the job just out of reach of many. Of course most times passive components aren't the problem, and when the integrated circuits are in BGA (ball grid array) packages, and you need a $3000 setup just to remove one, and help from a diety to install a replacement, for 99% of anyone thinking of trying it, it just went entirely out of reach. This is not even touching on the subject of schematics for the device you're trying to repair, which for many/most things you're not getting your hands on for any amount of money, and in some cases you might get threatened with legal action just for trying to get it. Then there's the subject of proprietary software tools that might be necessary, and you're not getting those for any reason from a manufacturer. Even the manufacturers themselves often don't bother repairing anything, they'll just 'recycle' it and send you a new one because the cost in labor alone to repair exceeds what the thing costs.
Of course I'm going to be reminded that nobody is trying to repair the circuit board in their phone, they just want to replace the battery or cracked screen or whatnot. Manufacturers have never wanted consumers repairing their own devices, so yes they make it as difficult as possible sometimes. It's always been like that. Don't expect that to change, either. You're always going to have to go to 3rd party sources for parts and supplies and information. When we really need to cry 'Foul!' is if they try to make it illegal, though.
Lightly used floppy disks still work.
Perhaps, but good bloody luck trying to find a floppy drive that is high enough quality to actually have head alignment accurate enough to read the aforementioned 'lightly used floppy disk'. Even at their peak there was never any guarantee that a floppy formatted in one drive would work worth a damn in a different drive, especially the further in towards the hub you went.
'Claiming' being the operative word, there. "Here, we'll save you from the nasty 'ol NSA! Trust us!" Yeah sure whatever you say. Sounds like misdirection to me. Here's an idea: How about they collect no data of any kind, that way there's nothing for the NSA to seize from them! What a concept!
..Google, Apple, and Microsoft pushing back against government surveillance..
Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME!? Especially Microsoft, with it's gods-be-damned spyware package entitled "Windows 10"!? Seriously!? What the actual fuck!?
Finally, yeah, it wouldn't be crazy to license bike riders who plan to ride on non-neighborhood streets, even if it is a one time license that you get after you prove you understand the rules of the road and how they practically pertain to bikes.
No, absolutely NOT. That's a Slipperly Slope and it is to be avoided at all costs. It would end up excluding entire classes of people, and would open the door to using cyclists as another revenue stream, essentially ruining it for everyone. We're not going there!
Essentially the problem is that motorists don't deal with bicyclists often, and so they don't know how to safely deal with them because they haven't put a lot of thought into the problem. As a bicyclist, you have to make it obvious to motorists what they need to do.
As an avid cylist myself (and a road racer) the best advice I can give? Be predictable. Don't ride like it's your private road and no one else could possibly be on it. Hold your line; don't suddenly change direction, don't make sudden moves of any kind. Ride as far to the right as is safe to do so. Need to make a left turn? Look over your shoulder, just like you would driving. Traffic is heavy/crazy/you can't see? Pull to the right where it's safe to do so and stop, look, wait for it to be 100% clear, then cross. Drivers are not going to stop for you, don't expect them to, expect that they cannot or refuse to see you and act accordingly. Finally, if you are scared all the time you're riding on public roads, then don't ride on public roads until you've improved your riding skills to the point where you're confident in the saddle. Scared people don't think straight and make mistakes, and mistakes on public roads riding a bicycle will get you killed. Don't be That Guy.
Always ride like absolutely NO ONE can see you...like you are invisible
I'll do you one better: Ride like people are actively trying to kill you, or at least think that way. I've been riding motorcycles for 35 years (have owned 7 motorcycles since age 15), and I ride a bicycle 6 days a week (road racer, so all of that is training), and I drive. I apply all those years of motorcycling to riding the bike, and I've never even come close to getting hit by a car. Now, here's a kicker for you: At least half the time when I come to a 4-way stop where there are cars to the left or right? They'll try to wave me through, regardless of them having the legal right-of-way. I'll come to a complete stop and step down off the pedals. Sometimes I'll even stand there and wave them through, and they'll get mad at me and insist I go anyway. Sometimes I even have to get completely off the bike and walk it over to the side of the road and lean up against the stop sign pole before they get the idea I'm not going anywhere. Sometimes they get all pissed off that I'm not going in front of them, which makes no sense at all. I think it's this sort of confusion that contributes to car versus cyclist accidents: motorists don't seem to know the rules of the road any better than some cyclists do. You can't say that I don't ride enough to get in situations where there might be a problem, either, because in a typical week I ride 200-300 miles over 6 days of training, and on weekdays in the Fall/Winter/early Spring, I'm riding after work and I'm in the dark (before anyone says it: with a 2-watt taillight and an 800 lumen headlight). Do some cyclists need to understand that the same laws apply to them? Yes. Do some motorists need to be reminded of the laws, too? Absolutely. It's not one or the other, it's both groups contributing to the problem.
Well, if that's really true then that's the final deal-breaker. No way I'm putting up with nonsense like that.
When it comes down to that I'll probably just jump ship completely and start using some flavor of Linux instead, with the one or two must-have applications that are Windows-only running out of WINE or something.
tinfoil hat reply: Cant turn of update on the xp machine
Apparently someone doesn't understand how to disable a service in Windows. Or, somehow failing that, Deny 'read and execute' privs for System for the affected files. Or, if you want the real Nuclear option, hack the registry to remove the Automatic Updates service completely from the OS. Don't tell me it can't be done, either, because I've done all the above at one point or another. In Win10? Couldn't tell you if it'd work, or if it'l slap your hand and put everything back. I won't know, either, because I wont touch it with a ten foot pole.
St Fu and install Linux.
I'm still running XP on a >10 year old desktop that's still healthy, and at this point in time I have absolutely zero intention of upgrading the OS for any reason. If the box dies and I have to rebuild it, it'll have some flavor of Linux on it, and damn the consequences. The one or two applications I have that don't have a Linux version will just have to run through WINE I guess. I'm not putting up with this bullshit. Microsoft can go fuck themselves.
This is related to what I was going to inquire about.
I do not use 'social media', not since Livejournal, and not since the short stay I had on Facebook (the former became irrelevant, and the latter pissed me off one too many times with it's invasion of my privacy), and I certainly have never used Twitter. I've wondered what percentage of the content there is actual communication, and how much of it is just 'hey, hey look at me, look at me, pay attention to meeeeeeee!' sort of stuff. I think the AC I'm responding to has more or less answered that question for me: sounds like the vast majority of the 'content' (if you can call it that) on Twitter is just attention-whoring of one flavor or another. How disappointingly useless. Based on that I'd have to say the way to 'fix' Twitters 'problems' is to nuke it from orbit, returning the wasted Internet bandwidth to be used for something actually useful.
The first question you should ask is, "Do I need a tablet, really, or do I just want a tablet?". I've found few legitimate uses for a tablet computer versus a laptop or even a traditional desktop computer.
If that's what you really feel then why are you still coming here? Listening to you, Slashdot has 'sold out' to whoever they'd sell out to, and is effectively dead; shouldn't you be moving on to somewhere more to your liking?
Let's be fair: The reason we haven't put personnel back on the Moon is mainly economic and political, not a technological deficit, and you have to admit that we didn't put men on the Moon in the first place for any scientific reasons, we did it for purely political reasons, specifically to beat Russia there. In fact now that I think about it for a moment, it hits me that we might not have had developed the first nuclear bombs if Germany hadn't been working on such a thing themselves, am I right?
You're mostly complaining, but I get it. Personally I think it's a mess, and there are too many people with their own personal agendas screwing it up even worse. Meanwhile it's increasingly considered career suicide to go into teaching, when the real chemo to cure the public school systems' cancer is more talented, dedicated teachers, and fewer overpaid administrators.
Would a computer for every child be a good thing, if it were implemented properly? Of course. But as you're pointing out, the implementation is poor at best. Hell, I think what would be a better plan is all textbooks published as e-books, and give a Kindle to every kid. Changes or corrections to their textbooks get uploaded to them all wirelessly, automatically. Meanwhile the school library is all e-books, and they can 'check out' downloaded copies of whatever they want to read; might even encourage them to read that way, make it easy for them. Throw in major news publications for free and who knows what else might be enriching for them, and it might just make a difference.