My hands are tied - honestly! I just tied them myself!
He says he wants FM on all capable phones, and in the same breath says he doesn't "believe the FCC has the power to issue a mandate like that". Well, Ajit, you slimy fuck, I have news for you: your alleged belief doesn't mean shit, you do have the power, and any assertions you make to the contrary are simply inept and sophomoric bullshit politicking. Being a liar is bad enough - being incompetent at it is just diarrhea icing on the crapcake you're trying to get people to swallow.
The move to HTML5 video and audio has been especially annoying for me, because Firefox seems to not support this simple functionality. It is way overdue. My preference is for the elements to not be downloaded until I click play.
Can't help you with click-to-download, but click-to-play, (for some-but-not-all videos), can be turned on by going into 'about:config' and setting 'media.autoplay.enabled' to 'false' . And if you're running Pale Moon, (which you might want to consider if you're sick of Mozilla's idea of UI "innovations" and you also want to kill ALL video autoplay), then you can also set 'media.autoplay.allowscripted' to 'false'. That latter setting doesn't exist in FF as far as I can tell, but it is present in Pale Moon. I set both of the above values in Pale Moon soon after Flashblock started to not work, and now I NEVER experience automatic playing of videos. Add Greasemonkey and an appropriate script, (Startpage is your friend here), and you can also kill YouTube's shitty 'we're always going to play our next recommended video unless you explicitly tell us not to do so every time you open a new tab' behaviour.
I consider the above to be as important as NoScript and an ad blocker when it comes to taking control over my browsing experience away from the fuckwits who run websites and putting it back into my own hands.
Any company whose continued growth, (or possibly even its continued existence), depends on artificial scarcity, is going to fight like hell to maintain the scarcity. Those who are being pillaged by the artificial scarcity, should do their best to tear it down.
To decide which of these two sides you should support, ask yourself which you care about more - a sustainable Earth with sufficient natural resources and a hospitable-enough climate to foster future generations, or the profits of a short-term-gain-for-long-term-pain corporatocracy run by parasitic Ponzi scheme addicts? And no, 'both of the above' isn't an option.
Apple is coming down firmly on the side of 'sell you lots of shiny now and make all our heirs pay for it'. Fuck Apple.
... At least the algorithms have the possibility of being looked at. Maybe that should have been the story.
Algorithms that determine what goods and services a person has access to, the quality of said goods and services, and how much he or she pays for them, need more than the "possibility" of being looked at. They need legislation that requires them to be publicly released in their entirety before being put into use, and every modification, bug-fix, etc. needs to be published as soon as, or before, implementation takes place. And there need to be really onerous and consistently enforced penalties for not releasing them.
Algorithms have too much power over too many aspects of our lives for us to allow them to be another opaque, inaccessible tool employed by tyrants and by the wealthy to use and control us plebeian masses. An FOSS-like model needs to be mandatory for those algorithms that can and will shape our lives and, often, our deaths. Practically speaking, that means that ALL algorithms used by business and government should pass into the public domain immediately upon deployment.
is ALSO like eating potato chips. Heck, getting all your news from your own country's news outlets, even when that news is about your own country, severely limits your 'nutritional balance' among viewpoints and facts presented. Even if paying attention to news sources in other countries only increases the number of echo chambers you tap into, it still adds diversity that would otherwise be missing.
The chairman of Trend Micro claimed in 2011 that open source software was inherently less secure than closed source -- but instead of blaming Wordpress, Ferguson "said it goes to show how breaches are an unfortunate fact of life..."
Unless they'd written their own CMS, having an open-source platform was just about the only thing that allowed them to say they had "responded and shut down the vulnerability completely to resolve the issue" and actually mean it. Ferguson should be openly grateful that his team had free access to the source.
Unless you use ebay. That is the only reason I bother with PP.
The only reason I don't bother with eBay is that, except for the occasional seller set up to take debit or credit cards, the only way to pay is with PayPal. I simply refuse to do that. Ever. Because of PayPal, eBay is dead to me.
... namely that these nanorods are incredibly small (5 nanometers), such that they can be 'liquefied' and used as "semiconductor paint". So it's primarily a breakthrough in 'scaling down', not multitasking. Conventional LED's have always had the capability to detect light. (Ever hear of 'photo-diodes'?). But exploiting this dual-functionality has always been inefficient, due to the relatively large size of individual LED's (on the order of millimeters).
It IS a breakthrough in multitasking - or at least it could be. Conventional LED's can detect light, but they are too big for making arrays sufficiently dense for any reasonable resolution. The techniques described in TFA may result in large screens which are also basically high-res image sensors. Also, with a speed "about three orders of magnitude faster than a typical video refresh rate", (as stated in TFA), the ability to switch back and forth between display mode and 'camera mode' will be limited only by the silicon that's connected to the display. AFAIK, existing chips are already capable of doing this, and only lack the kind of display that TFA suggests may now be possible.
Awesome. So all future TVs and computer monitors will be able to watch YOU while you watch them, and without an extra camera added that you can tape over... Just like in the book 1984.
Came here to say pretty much this. It won't be long before those of us with tin-foil hat tendencies have our TV's and computer monitors placed in front of a one-way mirror, while we view them from our vantage point in a darkened room behind the mirror. Then the TV's and monitors can watch themselves!
There should be no need and no place for a dispute over "not ergonomically compatible" and "excessive mandatory overtime". Legislated workplace standards, (and people of integrity to investigate complaints and enforce relevant legislation), should be in place to prevent this kind of dispute from being fought in the press. As for unions, they are an evil made necessary only by the fact that so much of government is in the pockets of corporations. Just my two cents worth.
Umm...does anyone else think he's really not focused on running Apple like Steve did?
Lacking a driven, hard-driving, asshole visionary like Jobs, Apple is, quite predictably, following in Microsoft's footsteps. After all, visionaries who have the stuff to go all the way are pretty rare. Besides, Apple is old and fat enough that it was their time to settle into complacency anyway - and I challenge you to name any major tech company that hasn't followed that path. It seems pretty much inevitable, as though it's a universal law or something.
At least what Tim Cook says is sensible and has some substance, unlike the bullying bombast that Ballmer was so fond of and the PHB-speak nonsensical platitudes coming from Satya Nadella.
This, exactly. There's no reason to expect my phone or chromebook to need a new major kernel update within 2 years of purchase.
Of course there is - 'it's the economy, stupid!'. Nobody who makes portable consumer electronics wants you to have the same hardware two years after you bought it - they want a new one in your hands and fresh money out of your bank account by then. Never mind what that does to the environment and to non-renewable resources, and never mind what kind of world we're leaving to our heirs.
is going to get screwed eventually. Inducing law enforcement to go after people who sell readily available boxes with readily available software installed on them, is the strategy of an industry that is in denial and wilfully clueless.
Other countries do. In particular Canadian border officials have a habit of asking the same thing. In the US however CPB is actually asking people to commit a Felony.
Citation please. I'm Canadian and I have never heard this before, either in news stories or from the people we know from other countries who have visited here. Not saying it hasn't happened; if it has, I really want to know the details.
I know personally, for family holidays we will no longer consider the USA, there is a great big world out there to see, and currently the USA and its policies places it a long way down the list of places to visit.
I've been reluctant for quite some time now to visit the US. With the latest developments, both my girlfriend and I have decided not to go there at all, and not to fly anywhere whose route takes us through American airspace. It's too bad though; we used to visit Frankenmuth with her mom once a year on a shopping trip - not anymore. And a couple of years ago she introduced me to New Orleans, which I absolutely loved, and would visit again in a heartbeat if America was still a nation under the rule of law. It makes me sad that I may never go back.
I'm also into rollerskating, but there aren't many roller rinks here in Canada, and I had hoped to spend some time in the States where there's a big skating culture and lots of awesome skaters. But by the time it seems safe to cross the border again, (if it ever does), I may be too old to bother. Too bad for the places south of the border where we would have spent our money, but so much the better for some other countries, I guess.
... People will just start using two sets of email and two sets of social media. One set for me -- and one set for Mrs. Grundy to review which has tons of "followings" of cat videos and dog tricks.
I can see it now - a Silicon Valley startup with an algorithm that examines social media accounts and claims 87.6% accuracy in determining whether or not an account is fake. Plus a whole department or three in some TLA(s), devoted to using the expensive software that incorporates that algorithm, to ferret out fake Facebook accounts and the people associated with them.
...What a waste of time and resources, and a completely unnecessary invasion of privacy.
Your assertion is based on the premise that the people behind this policy actually give a rat's ass about the safety and/or privacy of the average American.
A friend once made the insightful comment that having to stand in line at an airport waiting to take your shoes off has nothing to do with thwarting terrorism - its purpose is to make obedience to authority reflexive and habitual. As far as I'm concerned this is more of the same - and don't be surprised when, a few years down the road, America citizens are also forced to give up their social media passwords at the border.
Once upon a time I thought the people who talk about governments of ostensibly 'free' nations having their citizens chipped or bar-coded was the fantasy of conspiracy theorists. These days I'm not sure they're wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
My hands are tied - honestly! I just tied them myself!
He says he wants FM on all capable phones, and in the same breath says he doesn't "believe the FCC has the power to issue a mandate like that". Well, Ajit, you slimy fuck, I have news for you: your alleged belief doesn't mean shit, you do have the power, and any assertions you make to the contrary are simply inept and sophomoric bullshit politicking. Being a liar is bad enough - being incompetent at it is just diarrhea icing on the crapcake you're trying to get people to swallow.
The move to HTML5 video and audio has been especially annoying for me, because Firefox seems to not support this simple functionality. It is way overdue. My preference is for the elements to not be downloaded until I click play.
Can't help you with click-to-download, but click-to-play, (for some-but-not-all videos), can be turned on by going into 'about:config' and setting 'media.autoplay.enabled' to 'false' . And if you're running Pale Moon, (which you might want to consider if you're sick of Mozilla's idea of UI "innovations" and you also want to kill ALL video autoplay), then you can also set 'media.autoplay.allowscripted' to 'false'. That latter setting doesn't exist in FF as far as I can tell, but it is present in Pale Moon. I set both of the above values in Pale Moon soon after Flashblock started to not work, and now I NEVER experience automatic playing of videos. Add Greasemonkey and an appropriate script, (Startpage is your friend here), and you can also kill YouTube's shitty 'we're always going to play our next recommended video unless you explicitly tell us not to do so every time you open a new tab' behaviour.
I consider the above to be as important as NoScript and an ad blocker when it comes to taking control over my browsing experience away from the fuckwits who run websites and putting it back into my own hands.
Any company whose continued growth, (or possibly even its continued existence), depends on artificial scarcity, is going to fight like hell to maintain the scarcity. Those who are being pillaged by the artificial scarcity, should do their best to tear it down.
To decide which of these two sides you should support, ask yourself which you care about more - a sustainable Earth with sufficient natural resources and a hospitable-enough climate to foster future generations, or the profits of a short-term-gain-for-long-term-pain corporatocracy run by parasitic Ponzi scheme addicts? And no, 'both of the above' isn't an option.
Apple is coming down firmly on the side of 'sell you lots of shiny now and make all our heirs pay for it'. Fuck Apple.
... At least the algorithms have the possibility of being looked at. Maybe that should have been the story.
Algorithms that determine what goods and services a person has access to, the quality of said goods and services, and how much he or she pays for them, need more than the "possibility" of being looked at. They need legislation that requires them to be publicly released in their entirety before being put into use, and every modification, bug-fix, etc. needs to be published as soon as, or before, implementation takes place. And there need to be really onerous and consistently enforced penalties for not releasing them.
Algorithms have too much power over too many aspects of our lives for us to allow them to be another opaque, inaccessible tool employed by tyrants and by the wealthy to use and control us plebeian masses. An FOSS-like model needs to be mandatory for those algorithms that can and will shape our lives and, often, our deaths. Practically speaking, that means that ALL algorithms used by business and government should pass into the public domain immediately upon deployment.
is ALSO like eating potato chips. Heck, getting all your news from your own country's news outlets, even when that news is about your own country, severely limits your 'nutritional balance' among viewpoints and facts presented. Even if paying attention to news sources in other countries only increases the number of echo chambers you tap into, it still adds diversity that would otherwise be missing.
The chairman of Trend Micro claimed in 2011 that open source software was inherently less secure than closed source -- but instead of blaming Wordpress, Ferguson "said it goes to show how breaches are an unfortunate fact of life..."
Unless they'd written their own CMS, having an open-source platform was just about the only thing that allowed them to say they had "responded and shut down the vulnerability completely to resolve the issue" and actually mean it. Ferguson should be openly grateful that his team had free access to the source.
Said no investor, ever, when given news the likes of "Abovitz's last tweet Saturday reassured fans that 'We will not let you down.'"
... Viola! Incendiary phone.
Voila! An incendiary phone named Viola! I think you should trademark that right away!
top weekend programming languages are: Rust, Glsl... Kicad...
I use KiCad to create schematics and PCB designs. When, and how, did it become a programming language?
Unless you use ebay. That is the only reason I bother with PP.
The only reason I don't bother with eBay is that, except for the occasional seller set up to take debit or credit cards, the only way to pay is with PayPal. I simply refuse to do that. Ever. Because of PayPal, eBay is dead to me.
... namely that these nanorods are incredibly small (5 nanometers), such that they can be 'liquefied' and used as "semiconductor paint". So it's primarily a breakthrough in 'scaling down', not multitasking. Conventional LED's have always had the capability to detect light. (Ever hear of 'photo-diodes'?). But exploiting this dual-functionality has always been inefficient, due to the relatively large size of individual LED's (on the order of millimeters).
It IS a breakthrough in multitasking - or at least it could be. Conventional LED's can detect light, but they are too big for making arrays sufficiently dense for any reasonable resolution. The techniques described in TFA may result in large screens which are also basically high-res image sensors. Also, with a speed "about three orders of magnitude faster than a typical video refresh rate", (as stated in TFA), the ability to switch back and forth between display mode and 'camera mode' will be limited only by the silicon that's connected to the display. AFAIK, existing chips are already capable of doing this, and only lack the kind of display that TFA suggests may now be possible.
Awesome. So all future TVs and computer monitors will be able to watch YOU while you watch them, and without an extra camera added that you can tape over... Just like in the book 1984.
Came here to say pretty much this. It won't be long before those of us with tin-foil hat tendencies have our TV's and computer monitors placed in front of a one-way mirror, while we view them from our vantage point in a darkened room behind the mirror. Then the TV's and monitors can watch themselves!
There should be no need and no place for a dispute over "not ergonomically compatible" and "excessive mandatory overtime". Legislated workplace standards, (and people of integrity to investigate complaints and enforce relevant legislation), should be in place to prevent this kind of dispute from being fought in the press. As for unions, they are an evil made necessary only by the fact that so much of government is in the pockets of corporations. Just my two cents worth.
Umm...does anyone else think he's really not focused on running Apple like Steve did?
Lacking a driven, hard-driving, asshole visionary like Jobs, Apple is, quite predictably, following in Microsoft's footsteps. After all, visionaries who have the stuff to go all the way are pretty rare. Besides, Apple is old and fat enough that it was their time to settle into complacency anyway - and I challenge you to name any major tech company that hasn't followed that path. It seems pretty much inevitable, as though it's a universal law or something.
At least what Tim Cook says is sensible and has some substance, unlike the bullying bombast that Ballmer was so fond of and the PHB-speak nonsensical platitudes coming from Satya Nadella.
This, exactly. There's no reason to expect my phone or chromebook to need a new major kernel update within 2 years of purchase.
Of course there is - 'it's the economy, stupid!'. Nobody who makes portable consumer electronics wants you to have the same hardware two years after you bought it - they want a new one in your hands and fresh money out of your bank account by then. Never mind what that does to the environment and to non-renewable resources, and never mind what kind of world we're leaving to our heirs.
Thanks. I've seen it but never really watched - next time it's on I'll pay closer attention.
is going to get screwed eventually. Inducing law enforcement to go after people who sell readily available boxes with readily available software installed on them, is the strategy of an industry that is in denial and wilfully clueless.
Other countries do. In particular Canadian border officials have a habit of asking the same thing. In the US however CPB is actually asking people to commit a Felony.
Citation please. I'm Canadian and I have never heard this before, either in news stories or from the people we know from other countries who have visited here. Not saying it hasn't happened; if it has, I really want to know the details.
I know personally, for family holidays we will no longer consider the USA, there is a great big world out there to see, and currently the USA and its policies places it a long way down the list of places to visit.
I've been reluctant for quite some time now to visit the US. With the latest developments, both my girlfriend and I have decided not to go there at all, and not to fly anywhere whose route takes us through American airspace. It's too bad though; we used to visit Frankenmuth with her mom once a year on a shopping trip - not anymore. And a couple of years ago she introduced me to New Orleans, which I absolutely loved, and would visit again in a heartbeat if America was still a nation under the rule of law. It makes me sad that I may never go back.
I'm also into rollerskating, but there aren't many roller rinks here in Canada, and I had hoped to spend some time in the States where there's a big skating culture and lots of awesome skaters. But by the time it seems safe to cross the border again, (if it ever does), I may be too old to bother. Too bad for the places south of the border where we would have spent our money, but so much the better for some other countries, I guess.
Ahh, I see. So the plan is to make the US such a terrible place that no-one will want to go there? Now it finally makes sense.
Just a heads up, you might want to look into Somalia, they appear to have attempted a similar approach.
This keeps happening to me here lately - I end up laughing out loud at a comment which is also penetrating and insightful. Well played sir!
Maybe other countries will demand the same thing. I can see el Presidente Tweety giving up his password in the name of security.
He's already given up his password - to the staffers who tweet in his name in an effort to make him seem intelligent and literate.
... hell, I know people who don't have a Facebook account either.
You say that as though you're surprised by the fact. Probably half the people here on Slashdot don't have Facebook accounts.
... People will just start using two sets of email and two sets of social media. One set for me -- and one set for Mrs. Grundy to review which has tons of "followings" of cat videos and dog tricks.
I can see it now - a Silicon Valley startup with an algorithm that examines social media accounts and claims 87.6% accuracy in determining whether or not an account is fake. Plus a whole department or three in some TLA(s), devoted to using the expensive software that incorporates that algorithm, to ferret out fake Facebook accounts and the people associated with them.
...What a waste of time and resources, and a completely unnecessary invasion of privacy.
Your assertion is based on the premise that the people behind this policy actually give a rat's ass about the safety and/or privacy of the average American.
A friend once made the insightful comment that having to stand in line at an airport waiting to take your shoes off has nothing to do with thwarting terrorism - its purpose is to make obedience to authority reflexive and habitual. As far as I'm concerned this is more of the same - and don't be surprised when, a few years down the road, America citizens are also forced to give up their social media passwords at the border.
Once upon a time I thought the people who talk about governments of ostensibly 'free' nations having their citizens chipped or bar-coded was the fantasy of conspiracy theorists. These days I'm not sure they're wrong.
Most folks here probably wouldn't have known about these three sites had they not been given free publicity courtesy of the MPAA!