Why competition is bad? Why not let "grandpa" to compete with Apple on the market? Exactly, what market we are talking about? Apple doesn't repair your phone, they tell you to buy a new one.
I'm glad to see that you agree with me. Chris Katko agrees with me too - it seems that your sarcasm meter failed and is in need of repair. Fortunately, there's no need to contact Apple for repair or replacement - you can do it yourself!
"Apple kicks dogs and steals from your grandmother!"
You're trying to be sarcastic, but in spirit if not in fact, your statement is pretty much true and accurate.
Exactly what types of broken states of a phone are you requiring a company to publish guides to fix...
Let's see... broken screens, busted speakers and microphones, (yes, it happens, and it's happened to me), failed backlights, broken cases, damaged earphone jacks, (for the 'pre-bravery era iPhones), cracked solder connections, cranky power and volume buttons, and probably a few others I haven't thought of.
...and make parts available for?
For all of the above problems - and in addition, chips as well. You seem to think the expertise to repair these things doesn't exist outside the hallowed halls of corporate repair centres. You're mistaken.
Electronic devices have come a lot farther than a car engine that you could demand be user-serviceable, and these laws are misguided attempts to make them so.
They don't need to be user serviceable, they just need to be serviceable by repair people who aren't members of the corporate empires that are trying so desperately to control their products even after they've been purchased. 'Cause, you know, you can have a monopoly in the service markets, just as you can have a monopoly in any other market, and monopolies are a BAD THING.
Don't make a company the villain for objecting to things that are nice in (ancient) principle, but unworkable in reality.
It's the companies who have made themselves the villains, in oh so many ways. Among them is objecting to things that are nice in (modern) principle, and entirely workable in reality.
Time to get the grassroots campaigns going. Repair Cafe fixers and clients, every member of every hackerspace, repair shops of all kinds, independent repair contractors, a large number of Slashdotters, and just average citizens who are tired of getting the shaft - all of them together could probably kick in enough money for some serious bribes. (Because let's face it - lobbying is essentially bribery). It might succeed in thwarting this loathsome, sleazy corporate assault on decency and fairness; but even if it doesn't, it will at least cost the bastards still more money for still bigger bribes, and will result in more news coverage that may convince more people to get behind the next campaign to tell the corporate bastards to fuck off with their 'you no longer own things, you only rent them' bullshit.
...On the other hand the Baby Boomer generation will probably love it; the Internet will likely become like a larger version of AOL.
Please don't generalize like that. I'm a Boomer, I HATE what's happened to the FCC, and I was sneering at AOL, (and using their CD's as coasters and Frisbees), when they were still new. And I know a lot of people my age with a similar outlook. Also, I'm sure there are lots of Xers and Millennials who are just fine with being spoon-fed what the corporations want them to eat. This isn't a generational issue.
^^^ This, exactly. I would add that the government agencies responsible for fighting terrorism don't want terrorism to stop, ever. Just like the "War on Drugs", the "War against Terrorism" is a huge part of the economy - careers and livelihoods and reputations and bragging rights depend on it. Not to mention that such power begets more power. For those addicted to that kind of power, the temptation is irresistible.
...this is either security theater or they want the data for other reasons.
I'd say it's both. The security theatre keeps people fearful, and gets them used to following orders and submitting to authority. The data collection both allows allows authorities to have more power over more people, and continually reminds those people that they are constantly being monitored, and had better not do anything that arouses the interest of the authorities. In fact, it ought to be called insecurity theatre, because it's specifically designed to keep people insecure, fearful, and constantly looking over their shoulders. And they've hoodwinked the majority into believing that it's all 'for their own good'. This is the face of oppression. This is the face of evil.
To use a car analogy, music listeners are cars owners and the RIAA is a gasoline company. YouTube is the gas station. Right now, the gas station is directly connected to the oil refinery and they are filling up the cars of anyone who pulls into the gas station.
Not quite true. When a gas station fills up a car and the car drives away, the gas is consumed - it's physically gone from the refinery. When a song is played on YouTube, (or even downloaded), the original recording still exists. Nothing physical has changed hands, and the original 'owner' or custodian of the song hasn't lost anything except an abstract, intangible opportunity. The advent of digital media has simply turned what might be called a 'natural scarcity', (the expense and difficulty of faithfully copying and distributing musical recording), into a 'natural abundance'; as a result, the previous beneficiaries of the natural scarcity are now engaging in various attempts at creating mechanisms of artificial scarcity, (DRM, laws, litigation, etc), to replace the earlier natural ones.
I understand why you are defending the RIAA's actions here; I'm also sympathetic to the artists' plight, I don't know how to ensure the continued health and viability of music as an economic, cultural, and social driver, and I don't have any easy answers. You seem to think there's a simple, unambiguous approach and/or moral stance here, so let me extend your car analogy a bit and ask you this: if somebody invented a way to infinitely replicate gasoline at low or no cost, would you continue taking your car to a gas station and paying the oil industry for your gas? Or would you use that replicator to multiply what's already in your tank, and simply tell the oil companies to fuck off? Yes, I also understand that at some point new music might stop being made or recorded, and then no amount of replication will get us anything other than more copies of old music. But in the mass, humans aren't good at recognizing such abstractions and taking them into account - as a species we excel at choosing short term gain for long term pain, instead of the other way around. What to do?
The fundamental nature of music production and distribution has changed. It's time to stop trying to put the genie back in the bottle, and to start finding ways to adapt to the new reality. The old business models are dead, and the animated corpses of them shambling around are really starting to stink.
Youtube is the only way I've found to actually listen to any new music to see if I like it or not, since they don't play anything worthwhile on the radio these days.
I sometimes find worthwhile new music on the radio, and use SoundHound to identify it. But yes, YouTube is great when it comes to mining for music, either new stuff or stuff that's just new to me. I can spend hours following their sidebar recommendations. And I sometimes use youtube-dl to download a video and then rip the sound, just for the sake of convenience. Then, if I find myself actually listening to it, I buy the CD; yep, I'm old skool that way.
Except for music I simply can't find elsewhere new or used, or where the disc is out-of-print and being sold for stupidly high prices, I only download for evaluation. If I like it after several listens, I buy it. I've purchased a LOT more CD's as a result of YouTube than I would have bought if YT didn't exist. And any music that I downloaded but didn't subsequently purchase, I would never have bought anyway. So speaking strictly for myself, I see YT as a net benefit to the music industry. I suspect that's true for others as well, to a greater extent than the MAFIAA admits even to itself. Sure, the ease of copying and distributing digital content outside of 'official channels' has hurt the bottom line. But I think YouTube must be pretty far down the list of real, (as opposed to merely perceived), enemies of the music industry.
I've dumped network news for Internet news simply because I can get my news five-ten times faster. Likewise, all those science shows on television are unwatchable because of all the filler material. The medium that gives the most information in the least time should always be the winner, but that might depend on the student.
If the lecturers you've experienced are like watching TV of ANY kind, then they were doing it wrong. Proper lecturing is an interactive experience, wherein not only do the students ask the lecturer questions, the lecturer also asks the students questions, promotes discussions, and encourages paths of thought and ideas not covered in the lecturer's notes, nor in the textbook. A good lecturer also paraphrases the book, draws analogies, and in general provides as many ways as possible for students to have access to the course material in a way that they will 'get' and understand.
Concluding that lectures as a whole are ineffective or outdated, without taking into account the quality of the presenter, is kind of like concluding that movies aren't worth watching when all you've seen are Golden Turkey award winners.
... I don't get why Amazon keeps making these things, given that both technical people and "normal people" find these sorts of products incredibly creepy.
Amazon knows that familiarity breeds indifference, not contempt. Even if this one product fails to gain traction, they'll keep pushing similar stuff, because they know they're likely to succeed at some point.
It's all about creating a culture and a set of expectations. That's why I laugh at people who say they're not affected by advertising because they don't choose products based on the ads they see. They don't get that it's not really about getting them to buy a specific product. The over-arching goal of advertising, (and many advertisers themselves may not be aware of this), is to create and reinforce a culture of consumerism, and to establish conspicuous consumption as a norm. And now, when the currency that corporations are interested in is less about what's in consumers' pockets, and more about the intimate details of their lives, the same approach applies: keep normalizing loss of privacy, and keep hammering away at it until privacy seems quaint and irrelevant.
... But recently I've just recommended Ubuntu again with a single command typed in the console "liberating" the desktop and making it traditional again...So what does Mint offer in 2017?
Umm... how about a distro managed by people who actually give a shit about the desires and needs of YOU, the user? How about the hard working devs who were there for Linux users and gave them an alternative when the twin crapcakes of Unity and Gnome 3 were being forced down their throats?
Anybody who abandons Mint because of Ubuntu's about-face will SO deserve it if Ubuntu pulls another shit-headed fast one and leaves them scrambling to cobble together a decent Linux environment. And if Mint is gone by that time because it lost users to the 'everything old is new again' Ubuntu, they'll have one fewer viable alternative. Not to mention that with an IPO in the offing, Canonical is likely to become even less responsive to the average Ubuntu user than they are now.
If people don't choose to stay with Mint out of loyalty, decency, and gratitude, I hope they can at least muster an inkling of a fucking clue about where their own best interests lie, and consider staying with Mint for the sake of promoting diversity. BTW, I'm NOT a Mint user. When I was looking at alternatives to Debian I didn't love Mint, and Xubuntu seemed the best choice for me. But I very much value the continued vitality of Mint. In fact, I'll be giving it another try soon - it's time for an upgrade from Trusty, but the possibility of a Canonical IPO is making me think twice about continuing with Ubuntu.
The FCC was once a pretty good organization, and mostly managed to enact and enforce regulations that were in the best interests of the public good. But with Ajit Pai's kowtowing to Trump and to the corporate interests he serves, and now this, it seems the FCC is just another utterly corrupt organ in a thoroughly cancer-riddled body politic. Sad.
...(Oracle) played up its "perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company," hammering the debate over the rules as a "highly political hyperbolic battle," that is "removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality"...
Translation: "We're a knowledgeable and trustworthy tech company, and we know better than even the tech sector workers who create our products and services, so you should listen to us, not them. We don't like it that so many of those workers support Net Neutrality, so we're trying to pull rank. We'll also pretend that we both know and care about 'consumer reality', (even though it's patently obvious we know nothing and couldn't care less), because we'll happily polish our stinking turd of a strategy until it shines like gold, so long as there's even a minuscule chance that we'll gain some support for our plans for world domination".
... Oracle wrote in their letter that they believe Pai's plan to remove broadband providers from the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction "will eliminate unnecessary burdens on, and competitive imbalances for, ISPs [internet service providers] while enhancing the consumer experience..."
"unnecessary burdens" == anything that reduces the ability of ISPs to do whatever they want in the pursuit of profit
"enhancing the consumer experience" == forcing a consumer experience that's the cheapest, most convenient, and most profitable for us
... Other companies in support of Pai's plan, like AT&T and Verizon, have made the argument that the rules stifled investment in the telecommunications sector, specifically in broadband infrastructure.
Translation: Companies like AT&T and Verizon withheld investment in their own infrastructure in order to create an artificial scarcity so they could tighten the screws and persuade people that abandoning Net Neutrality is the less painful alternative.
I mean, if im out of something, maybe i don't want more of it...
Why, yes... yes, you DO want more of it. You just don't realize it yet. But don't worry, advertisers will make sure get with the program.
And when I want more of something I'm somewhat brand and price sensitive -- i'll buy whichever of 2 preferred brands of yogurt is cheaper a given week, i might try a new brand if it is on sale, and 4th brand i wouldn't take if they were paying me.
With the breadth and depth of data being gathered about you, it won't take them long to figure that out, then create custom orders and custom pricing tailored to your needs and preferences.
And while I have favorite flavors sometimes i mix it up; or i'll buy 2 flavors of the smaller containers if they're on sale or 1 bigger container if that's the better deal...
They probably haven't figured that out, but give it time. And their supply chain management, coupled with automated drone / driverless vehicle delivery, will give them lots of flexibility in dealing with product that they try to deliver when you're not at home, or that you refuse to take.
And if I'm going on vacation in a couple weeks, i want to start winding my fridge down -- so I won't buy replacement yogurt until i get back.
Chances are they'll know that too, when inter-company data aggregation is a little more mature. Hell, they may know now. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Mal-Wart had a pipeline to the credit card companies' data about your purchases from other vendors - vacation companies, airlines, etc.
While I agree that there are risks for users storing their data in the cloud, it seems like Google should be liable for damage done by this attack. Google clearly was notified and was aware of the vulnerability, hence the bug bounty paid out. I understand that it's not possible to deliver patches immediately, but there are reasonable standards depending on the scope of the vulnerability. Several years is beyond the length of a reasonable length to fix a security issue that could compromise a user's account that might contain sensitive and confidential data. It sure seems like Google was negligent in their security, and ought to be held responsible for damages caused in the attack. There needs to be a lot more liability when businesses are negligent in implementing reasonable security practices and when they fail to respond to reports of security issues within a reasonable amount of time. The only way for security to become a priority is when failing to practice it causes real financial penalties.
Came here to say this, but also to add that perhaps the responsibilities and liabilities are less clear in a legal sense when no money has changed hands, and therefore there may be no express or implied contract between Google and the average user. Some will say the TOS is that contract, and I'd be interested to see how that angle would play out in court, given the spotty history of court cases involving TOS.
It might be better for someone seeking damages in a case like this to also argue that the information Google collects from users has substantial value, and therefore represents a payment. That would automatically suggest that an implied contract exists. Personally, I'd love that; assigning a monetary value to personal information could open up all kinds of interesting legal possibilities when it comes to adequate recompense for allowing one's personal data to be harvested. It could also establish that, at least in some cases, collecting personal data is theft and therefore a felony. The corporations that govern our societies probably won't let that happen, but it's nice to dream...
what's to stop the authorities from planting evidence on the phones? Yes, I know that's unlikely in this case - but entirely aside from the constitutional violation, this precedent just begs to be misused by LEO's, many of whom would much rather chalk up a 'win' at the expense of innocent citizens than invest the time and sweat required to either uncover the truth or determine that they can't do so. This is a really BAD idea.
Low-sodium diets also have some pretty serious problems with lack of any repeatable evidence of efficacy.
And even if kids got ZERO dietary sodium in meals at school, how many of them would be sodium-deficient? That's also likely to be pretty close to zero, given the average American diet.
To be fair, the regulations are trying to push a low fat whole grain diet, which I don't believe is actually healthy. Fat is essential for brain development, our kids definitely shouldn't be eating low fat.
True. But the low sodium requirements should have been kept in place as is. That likely would have happened, if this move had been designed to favour students' health; instead, it was designed to simultaneously cut costs, boost the profits of the crap-meisters who peddle highly processed foods, and take yet another cheap shot at the previous administration. When they say this will "make school meals great again", it's pretty hard not to laugh. Where's Sinclair Lewis when we need him?
Why should the public be worried about the privacy & freedom of rapists, robbers and the like? I mean, it's one thing to say that the cops shouldn't be able to dig up one person's life to find something they might be guilty of, but it's quite another to say that they have to bury their heads in the sand and avoid looking for criminals in broad daylight.
My my! A post that succeeds in both trolling liberal-minded people, and shilling for TLA's and corporations like Taser / Axon. That was very well done, Mister Asshole AC! Have you ever considered using your powers for good, rather than for evil?
I bet that in this case "persons of interest" comprises every plebe on the whole damned planet. I think this exercise is just an excuse to take a lot of pictures so they can significantly enlarge their 'faces' database, get better photos of faces they already have catalogued, and take note of connections among people to give more detail, depth and breadth to the profiles they're already building on every citizen. This is Big Brother's Big Data at its finest, most perverse, and most dangerous. Look for such 'security initiatives' to become ubiquitous. They'll gradually start targeting smaller and more innocuous public gatherings, until cops with cameras will become commonplace at high-school sporting events and church bake sales.
...as Microsoft-owned LinkedIn searches for ways to help diversify its workforce.
as Microsoft-owned LinkedIn searches for ways to help Microsoft make H-1B irrelevant by churning out new American programmers until programming becomes a low-wage commodity-class skill. FTFY.
That's not to say they will, or even can, succeed in that goal - but I'm pretty sure 'diversity' is just a politically-correct red herring.
Yup, the idea that components can be reused is absurd.
While re-using parts soldered onto PCB's is usually not practical, there certainly ARE components such as keyboards, displays, and drives that could well be re-used. But that's not even the real point - in may cases we're talking about fully functional devices that are being shredded. That's outright fucking criminal. Each device represents a huge investment of energy - therefore each device should be used as long as it works and someone wants it. Destroying fully functional equipment 'because business' or 'because shareholders' is stupid, shortsighted, and immoral.
Repair is likely to cost as much as buying a new one...
'Uneconomical to repair'? Most often these days, that's a pile of contrived bullshit. Manufacturers set it up that way. They do so partly by purposely making equipment difficult or impossible to service, and by charging scandalous prices for replacement parts. They also do it by having artificially low prices for their goods. If the REAL costs were factored in, (depletion of natural resources, environmental damage, climate change, the human costs of slave labour, etc.), goods would be much more expensive to purchase, as they should be. Repairability and longevity would then be not only cost-effective, but necessary, and the market for used equipment would be huge. Instead, we have companies fattening their bottom lines at the expense of future generations, in the service of a Ponzi scheme of an economy whose only guiding principle is "more growth is better, and unlimited growth is best". Which, incidentally, is the guiding principle of cancer, infections, and a whole host of other similar phenomena which rob human beings of life and dignity.
Slashdot Mirror
Why competition is bad? Why not let "grandpa" to compete with Apple on the market? Exactly, what market we are talking about? Apple doesn't repair your phone, they tell you to buy a new one.
I'm glad to see that you agree with me. Chris Katko agrees with me too - it seems that your sarcasm meter failed and is in need of repair. Fortunately, there's no need to contact Apple for repair or replacement - you can do it yourself!
Yes, I am sure people said the same about Silverlight, ActiveX and the Quicktime plugin.
I'll give you Quicktime and ActiveX, but I don't think anybody outside of Redmond ever said that Silverlight was here to stay.
"Apple kicks dogs and steals from your grandmother!"
You're trying to be sarcastic, but in spirit if not in fact, your statement is pretty much true and accurate.
Exactly what types of broken states of a phone are you requiring a company to publish guides to fix...
Let's see... broken screens, busted speakers and microphones, (yes, it happens, and it's happened to me), failed backlights, broken cases, damaged earphone jacks, (for the 'pre-bravery era iPhones), cracked solder connections, cranky power and volume buttons, and probably a few others I haven't thought of.
...and make parts available for?
For all of the above problems - and in addition, chips as well. You seem to think the expertise to repair these things doesn't exist outside the hallowed halls of corporate repair centres. You're mistaken.
Electronic devices have come a lot farther than a car engine that you could demand be user-serviceable, and these laws are misguided attempts to make them so.
They don't need to be user serviceable, they just need to be serviceable by repair people who aren't members of the corporate empires that are trying so desperately to control their products even after they've been purchased. 'Cause, you know, you can have a monopoly in the service markets, just as you can have a monopoly in any other market, and monopolies are a BAD THING.
Don't make a company the villain for objecting to things that are nice in (ancient) principle, but unworkable in reality.
It's the companies who have made themselves the villains, in oh so many ways. Among them is objecting to things that are nice in (modern) principle, and entirely workable in reality.
Time to get the grassroots campaigns going. Repair Cafe fixers and clients, every member of every hackerspace, repair shops of all kinds, independent repair contractors, a large number of Slashdotters, and just average citizens who are tired of getting the shaft - all of them together could probably kick in enough money for some serious bribes. (Because let's face it - lobbying is essentially bribery). It might succeed in thwarting this loathsome, sleazy corporate assault on decency and fairness; but even if it doesn't, it will at least cost the bastards still more money for still bigger bribes, and will result in more news coverage that may convince more people to get behind the next campaign to tell the corporate bastards to fuck off with their 'you no longer own things, you only rent them' bullshit.
...On the other hand the Baby Boomer generation will probably love it; the Internet will likely become like a larger version of AOL.
Please don't generalize like that. I'm a Boomer, I HATE what's happened to the FCC, and I was sneering at AOL, (and using their CD's as coasters and Frisbees), when they were still new. And I know a lot of people my age with a similar outlook. Also, I'm sure there are lots of Xers and Millennials who are just fine with being spoon-fed what the corporations want them to eat. This isn't a generational issue.
^^^ This, exactly. I would add that the government agencies responsible for fighting terrorism don't want terrorism to stop, ever. Just like the "War on Drugs", the "War against Terrorism" is a huge part of the economy - careers and livelihoods and reputations and bragging rights depend on it. Not to mention that such power begets more power. For those addicted to that kind of power, the temptation is irresistible.
...this is either security theater or they want the data for other reasons.
I'd say it's both. The security theatre keeps people fearful, and gets them used to following orders and submitting to authority. The data collection both allows allows authorities to have more power over more people, and continually reminds those people that they are constantly being monitored, and had better not do anything that arouses the interest of the authorities. In fact, it ought to be called insecurity theatre, because it's specifically designed to keep people insecure, fearful, and constantly looking over their shoulders. And they've hoodwinked the majority into believing that it's all 'for their own good'. This is the face of oppression. This is the face of evil.
To use a car analogy, music listeners are cars owners and the RIAA is a gasoline company. YouTube is the gas station. Right now, the gas station is directly connected to the oil refinery and they are filling up the cars of anyone who pulls into the gas station.
Not quite true. When a gas station fills up a car and the car drives away, the gas is consumed - it's physically gone from the refinery. When a song is played on YouTube, (or even downloaded), the original recording still exists. Nothing physical has changed hands, and the original 'owner' or custodian of the song hasn't lost anything except an abstract, intangible opportunity. The advent of digital media has simply turned what might be called a 'natural scarcity', (the expense and difficulty of faithfully copying and distributing musical recording), into a 'natural abundance'; as a result, the previous beneficiaries of the natural scarcity are now engaging in various attempts at creating mechanisms of artificial scarcity, (DRM, laws, litigation, etc), to replace the earlier natural ones.
I understand why you are defending the RIAA's actions here; I'm also sympathetic to the artists' plight, I don't know how to ensure the continued health and viability of music as an economic, cultural, and social driver, and I don't have any easy answers. You seem to think there's a simple, unambiguous approach and/or moral stance here, so let me extend your car analogy a bit and ask you this: if somebody invented a way to infinitely replicate gasoline at low or no cost, would you continue taking your car to a gas station and paying the oil industry for your gas? Or would you use that replicator to multiply what's already in your tank, and simply tell the oil companies to fuck off? Yes, I also understand that at some point new music might stop being made or recorded, and then no amount of replication will get us anything other than more copies of old music. But in the mass, humans aren't good at recognizing such abstractions and taking them into account - as a species we excel at choosing short term gain for long term pain, instead of the other way around. What to do?
The fundamental nature of music production and distribution has changed. It's time to stop trying to put the genie back in the bottle, and to start finding ways to adapt to the new reality. The old business models are dead, and the animated corpses of them shambling around are really starting to stink.
Youtube is the only way I've found to actually listen to any new music to see if I like it or not, since they don't play anything worthwhile on the radio these days.
I sometimes find worthwhile new music on the radio, and use SoundHound to identify it. But yes, YouTube is great when it comes to mining for music, either new stuff or stuff that's just new to me. I can spend hours following their sidebar recommendations. And I sometimes use youtube-dl to download a video and then rip the sound, just for the sake of convenience. Then, if I find myself actually listening to it, I buy the CD; yep, I'm old skool that way.
Except for music I simply can't find elsewhere new or used, or where the disc is out-of-print and being sold for stupidly high prices, I only download for evaluation. If I like it after several listens, I buy it. I've purchased a LOT more CD's as a result of YouTube than I would have bought if YT didn't exist. And any music that I downloaded but didn't subsequently purchase, I would never have bought anyway. So speaking strictly for myself, I see YT as a net benefit to the music industry. I suspect that's true for others as well, to a greater extent than the MAFIAA admits even to itself. Sure, the ease of copying and distributing digital content outside of 'official channels' has hurt the bottom line. But I think YouTube must be pretty far down the list of real, (as opposed to merely perceived), enemies of the music industry.
I've dumped network news for Internet news simply because I can get my news five-ten times faster. Likewise, all those science shows on television are unwatchable because of all the filler material. The medium that gives the most information in the least time should always be the winner, but that might depend on the student.
If the lecturers you've experienced are like watching TV of ANY kind, then they were doing it wrong. Proper lecturing is an interactive experience, wherein not only do the students ask the lecturer questions, the lecturer also asks the students questions, promotes discussions, and encourages paths of thought and ideas not covered in the lecturer's notes, nor in the textbook. A good lecturer also paraphrases the book, draws analogies, and in general provides as many ways as possible for students to have access to the course material in a way that they will 'get' and understand.
Concluding that lectures as a whole are ineffective or outdated, without taking into account the quality of the presenter, is kind of like concluding that movies aren't worth watching when all you've seen are Golden Turkey award winners.
... I don't get why Amazon keeps making these things, given that both technical people and "normal people" find these sorts of products incredibly creepy.
Amazon knows that familiarity breeds indifference, not contempt. Even if this one product fails to gain traction, they'll keep pushing similar stuff, because they know they're likely to succeed at some point.
It's all about creating a culture and a set of expectations. That's why I laugh at people who say they're not affected by advertising because they don't choose products based on the ads they see. They don't get that it's not really about getting them to buy a specific product. The over-arching goal of advertising, (and many advertisers themselves may not be aware of this), is to create and reinforce a culture of consumerism, and to establish conspicuous consumption as a norm. And now, when the currency that corporations are interested in is less about what's in consumers' pockets, and more about the intimate details of their lives, the same approach applies: keep normalizing loss of privacy, and keep hammering away at it until privacy seems quaint and irrelevant.
... But recently I've just recommended Ubuntu again with a single command typed in the console "liberating" the desktop and making it traditional again...So what does Mint offer in 2017?
Umm... how about a distro managed by people who actually give a shit about the desires and needs of YOU, the user? How about the hard working devs who were there for Linux users and gave them an alternative when the twin crapcakes of Unity and Gnome 3 were being forced down their throats?
Anybody who abandons Mint because of Ubuntu's about-face will SO deserve it if Ubuntu pulls another shit-headed fast one and leaves them scrambling to cobble together a decent Linux environment. And if Mint is gone by that time because it lost users to the 'everything old is new again' Ubuntu, they'll have one fewer viable alternative. Not to mention that with an IPO in the offing, Canonical is likely to become even less responsive to the average Ubuntu user than they are now.
If people don't choose to stay with Mint out of loyalty, decency, and gratitude, I hope they can at least muster an inkling of a fucking clue about where their own best interests lie, and consider staying with Mint for the sake of promoting diversity. BTW, I'm NOT a Mint user. When I was looking at alternatives to Debian I didn't love Mint, and Xubuntu seemed the best choice for me. But I very much value the continued vitality of Mint. In fact, I'll be giving it another try soon - it's time for an upgrade from Trusty, but the possibility of a Canonical IPO is making me think twice about continuing with Ubuntu.
The FCC was once a pretty good organization, and mostly managed to enact and enforce regulations that were in the best interests of the public good. But with Ajit Pai's kowtowing to Trump and to the corporate interests he serves, and now this, it seems the FCC is just another utterly corrupt organ in a thoroughly cancer-riddled body politic. Sad.
...(Oracle) played up its "perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company," hammering the debate over the rules as a "highly political hyperbolic battle," that is "removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality"...
Translation: "We're a knowledgeable and trustworthy tech company, and we know better than even the tech sector workers who create our products and services, so you should listen to us, not them. We don't like it that so many of those workers support Net Neutrality, so we're trying to pull rank. We'll also pretend that we both know and care about 'consumer reality', (even though it's patently obvious we know nothing and couldn't care less), because we'll happily polish our stinking turd of a strategy until it shines like gold, so long as there's even a minuscule chance that we'll gain some support for our plans for world domination".
... Oracle wrote in their letter that they believe Pai's plan to remove broadband providers from the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction "will eliminate unnecessary burdens on, and competitive imbalances for, ISPs [internet service providers] while enhancing the consumer experience..."
"unnecessary burdens" == anything that reduces the ability of ISPs to do whatever they want in the pursuit of profit
"enhancing the consumer experience" == forcing a consumer experience that's the cheapest, most convenient, and most profitable for us
... Other companies in support of Pai's plan, like AT&T and Verizon, have made the argument that the rules stifled investment in the telecommunications sector, specifically in broadband infrastructure.
Translation: Companies like AT&T and Verizon withheld investment in their own infrastructure in order to create an artificial scarcity so they could tighten the screws and persuade people that abandoning Net Neutrality is the less painful alternative.
How do you feel about interrupt
I don't care. I don't do bare-metal program
I mean, if im out of something, maybe i don't want more of it...
Why, yes... yes, you DO want more of it. You just don't realize it yet. But don't worry, advertisers will make sure get with the program.
And when I want more of something I'm somewhat brand and price sensitive -- i'll buy whichever of 2 preferred brands of yogurt is cheaper a given week, i might try a new brand if it is on sale, and 4th brand i wouldn't take if they were paying me.
With the breadth and depth of data being gathered about you, it won't take them long to figure that out, then create custom orders and custom pricing tailored to your needs and preferences.
And while I have favorite flavors sometimes i mix it up; or i'll buy 2 flavors of the smaller containers if they're on sale or 1 bigger container if that's the better deal...
They probably haven't figured that out, but give it time. And their supply chain management, coupled with automated drone / driverless vehicle delivery, will give them lots of flexibility in dealing with product that they try to deliver when you're not at home, or that you refuse to take.
And if I'm going on vacation in a couple weeks, i want to start winding my fridge down -- so I won't buy replacement yogurt until i get back.
Chances are they'll know that too, when inter-company data aggregation is a little more mature. Hell, they may know now. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Mal-Wart had a pipeline to the credit card companies' data about your purchases from other vendors - vacation companies, airlines, etc.
While I agree that there are risks for users storing their data in the cloud, it seems like Google should be liable for damage done by this attack. Google clearly was notified and was aware of the vulnerability, hence the bug bounty paid out. I understand that it's not possible to deliver patches immediately, but there are reasonable standards depending on the scope of the vulnerability. Several years is beyond the length of a reasonable length to fix a security issue that could compromise a user's account that might contain sensitive and confidential data. It sure seems like Google was negligent in their security, and ought to be held responsible for damages caused in the attack. There needs to be a lot more liability when businesses are negligent in implementing reasonable security practices and when they fail to respond to reports of security issues within a reasonable amount of time. The only way for security to become a priority is when failing to practice it causes real financial penalties.
Came here to say this, but also to add that perhaps the responsibilities and liabilities are less clear in a legal sense when no money has changed hands, and therefore there may be no express or implied contract between Google and the average user. Some will say the TOS is that contract, and I'd be interested to see how that angle would play out in court, given the spotty history of court cases involving TOS.
It might be better for someone seeking damages in a case like this to also argue that the information Google collects from users has substantial value, and therefore represents a payment. That would automatically suggest that an implied contract exists. Personally, I'd love that; assigning a monetary value to personal information could open up all kinds of interesting legal possibilities when it comes to adequate recompense for allowing one's personal data to be harvested. It could also establish that, at least in some cases, collecting personal data is theft and therefore a felony. The corporations that govern our societies probably won't let that happen, but it's nice to dream...
what's to stop the authorities from planting evidence on the phones? Yes, I know that's unlikely in this case - but entirely aside from the constitutional violation, this precedent just begs to be misused by LEO's, many of whom would much rather chalk up a 'win' at the expense of innocent citizens than invest the time and sweat required to either uncover the truth or determine that they can't do so. This is a really BAD idea.
Low-sodium diets also have some pretty serious problems with lack of any repeatable evidence of efficacy.
And even if kids got ZERO dietary sodium in meals at school, how many of them would be sodium-deficient? That's also likely to be pretty close to zero, given the average American diet.
Things like this seriously undermine the credibility of anyone who claims that the US is still a 'nation under the rule of law'.
To be fair, the regulations are trying to push a low fat whole grain diet, which I don't believe is actually healthy. Fat is essential for brain development, our kids definitely shouldn't be eating low fat.
True. But the low sodium requirements should have been kept in place as is. That likely would have happened, if this move had been designed to favour students' health; instead, it was designed to simultaneously cut costs, boost the profits of the crap-meisters who peddle highly processed foods, and take yet another cheap shot at the previous administration. When they say this will "make school meals great again", it's pretty hard not to laugh. Where's Sinclair Lewis when we need him?
Why should the public be worried about the privacy & freedom of rapists, robbers and the like? I mean, it's one thing to say that the cops shouldn't be able to dig up one person's life to find something they might be guilty of, but it's quite another to say that they have to bury their heads in the sand and avoid looking for criminals in broad daylight.
My my! A post that succeeds in both trolling liberal-minded people, and shilling for TLA's and corporations like Taser / Axon. That was very well done, Mister Asshole AC! Have you ever considered using your powers for good, rather than for evil?
You can't compare before and after with your sample size of one...
One? It may be small, but it's not THAT small!
I bet that in this case "persons of interest" comprises every plebe on the whole damned planet. I think this exercise is just an excuse to take a lot of pictures so they can significantly enlarge their 'faces' database, get better photos of faces they already have catalogued, and take note of connections among people to give more detail, depth and breadth to the profiles they're already building on every citizen. This is Big Brother's Big Data at its finest, most perverse, and most dangerous. Look for such 'security initiatives' to become ubiquitous. They'll gradually start targeting smaller and more innocuous public gatherings, until cops with cameras will become commonplace at high-school sporting events and church bake sales.
...as Microsoft-owned LinkedIn searches for ways to help diversify its workforce.
as Microsoft-owned LinkedIn searches for ways to help Microsoft make H-1B irrelevant by churning out new American programmers until programming becomes a low-wage commodity-class skill. FTFY.
That's not to say they will, or even can, succeed in that goal - but I'm pretty sure 'diversity' is just a politically-correct red herring.
Say what?
Yup, the idea that components can be reused is absurd.
While re-using parts soldered onto PCB's is usually not practical, there certainly ARE components such as keyboards, displays, and drives that could well be re-used. But that's not even the real point - in may cases we're talking about fully functional devices that are being shredded. That's outright fucking criminal. Each device represents a huge investment of energy - therefore each device should be used as long as it works and someone wants it. Destroying fully functional equipment 'because business' or 'because shareholders' is stupid, shortsighted, and immoral.
Repair is likely to cost as much as buying a new one...
'Uneconomical to repair'? Most often these days, that's a pile of contrived bullshit. Manufacturers set it up that way. They do so partly by purposely making equipment difficult or impossible to service, and by charging scandalous prices for replacement parts. They also do it by having artificially low prices for their goods. If the REAL costs were factored in, (depletion of natural resources, environmental damage, climate change, the human costs of slave labour, etc.), goods would be much more expensive to purchase, as they should be. Repairability and longevity would then be not only cost-effective, but necessary, and the market for used equipment would be huge. Instead, we have companies fattening their bottom lines at the expense of future generations, in the service of a Ponzi scheme of an economy whose only guiding principle is "more growth is better, and unlimited growth is best". Which, incidentally, is the guiding principle of cancer, infections, and a whole host of other similar phenomena which rob human beings of life and dignity.