I appreciate that he's trying to solve a problem here, but using legal licensing mechanisms to get people to be nice to each other?
I believe your comment itself can be considered a violation of his code, see: Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their views. RMS is not trying to use "legal licensing mechanisms" to get people to be nice to each other
GNU Project guidelines and Policies the FSF adopts regarding communications between contributors on their mailing lists, etc are not licenses. RMS never describes the guidelines as a license....
Licensing works for simple self-contained items - code for instance. For documents, Copyleft works better, though by necessity some (corner-case) stuff must remain under proprietary lock-down
It begins to become apparent that you don't seem to have be clueful about what you are writing. All such works are subject to copyright, and the default is All Rights Reserved. Licensing is required for all of them.
Copyleft was RMS' name for Software that includes source code and includes GPL-style protections requiring that anyone making a modified work include the modified source code. Copyleft licenses are required primarily for SOFTWARE not documents.
The authors of open source documentation had some special needs beyond what the generic GPL provided, so the GNU Free Documentation license was introduced to add increased flexibility to allow publishing print documentation with similar protections to the GPL BUT reduced burdens for the publisher, so you can distribute a book under the GFDL without having to include the raw.DOC, Docbook XML, SGML, NROFF, or TeX Sourcecode in every copy of your printed book, and the original author can specify mandatory cover texts and backtexts which later editors are not allowed to remove, etc.
though by necessity some (corner-case) stuff must remain under proprietary lock-down, no matter how badly information wants free under those specific circumstances.
This has been promulgated at times but has been proven simply not true. There is no need to encourage or allow anything to be under proprietary "All Rights Reserved" lock-down within OSS.
At one time it was even thought necessary for example, that hardware drivers and proprietary vendor firmwares (such as Intel boot-time-loaded NIC firmwares included with the driver) would always have to be allowed in the kernel distro and be a permanent exception ---- thanks to purist projects such as Debian, such firmwares were eliminated, and eventually even those drivers came into compliance with open source.
I ran across the conflict between going 100% open-source on teaching Linux, and the prospect of students copying/passing-around test answers under the banner of 'well, it's open source, isn't it?'
The problem there is not OSS, but Student Evaluation Rubric. If you ask students an essay question, then for actual scoring Required Originality and Demonstration of Understanding the topic should be on the rubric.
If the question is of a form such as multiple choice, then you can build extremely large question/answer pools; and use pre-determined randomization algorithms to generate individualized examination.
But probably the best way to evaluate is for an instructor to create an individualized exercise for their group of students to demonstrate mastery of the material. The creation of the exercise AND the performance of the exercise AND the write-up of the response are all "Works in Progress," just like the student's learning, and while open source, they're not actually developed until completed, and the individualized exercise for this generation is not going to be the same as the exercise in a later sitting of the course ---- Because those in the next sitting of the course will have the open-source deliverables from this sitting of the course to review and add to their collective experience.
I for one do not welcome our mentally ill gender neutral overlords.
You can personally believe they are mentally ill all you like, but you don't get to say -- still "humor them" and respect whatever preference a person says their gender Id is; if it comes up in a project-related discussion.
If a person makes an issue out of other people's gender identity or refuses to comply with their gender preferences, then yeah, that person's toxic and should be given at least a timeout or suspension, And yeah.... someone responding with some junk like "You can identify as mayonnaise, but i won't refer to you that way" in reply to someone stating gender preference would be considered hate speech nowadays even by Twitter and FB (encouraging discrimination against gender identity), and would be an example of one of the rare cases where a permanent insta-ban should be used.
eg Text and UI controls requiring young levels of eyesight and motor control because nobody making the UI is old or disabled
This is not an issue of lack of diversity of your developers, but lack of feedback from a representative group of your users.
Camera film being not very good at capturing black skin because it was calibrated by white people for white people, etc
Camera film today being bad at capturing black skin because calibrated "by white people for white people" in general? That smells like bullshit. Do you have recently taken pictures in side-by-fashion on a modern film properly exposed and developed without touch-up work as proof of this?
Cameras and camera film are designed for capturing arbitrary images --- MANY MANY, perhaps most being pictures of inanimate objects/scenes from nature, so the ability for film to accurately take a very high depth of color across the spectrum is necessary...
Unless you have some really really oddball special film... cameras are are meant to capture a scene with high detail containing any color; not just people, let-alone people with a particular skin tone.
It's actually a pretty decent code of conduct; if you ask only that developers govern their interactions with others according to the code.
I am guessing the objections are that the code contains religions admonitions such as:
Rule 1. First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole strength.
A majority of developers will likely be of some religion that can identify with that statement; However, the statement could disturb atheists who might participate in the project, when the CoC references particular individual practices they disagree with.
On the other hand it's also true that the code doesn't mention any consequences for failing to follow specific rules on individual conduct. it particularly says:.... the SQLite developers elected to govern their interactions with each other, with their clients, and with the larger SQLite user community in accordance with the "instruments of good works".... This rule is strict, and none are able to comply perfectly. Grace is readily granted for minor transgressions. All are encouraged to follow this rule closely, as in so doing they may expect to live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. The entire rule is good and wholesome, and yet we make no enforcement of the more introspective aspects.....
like ridiculous licencing fees to a holding company in the Cayman Islands to claim that their EU operation is making no profit
"Ridiculous" is no more than an opinion here -- it's no more ridiculous than the franchising fees McDonalds charges all its restaurant owners for the rights to use its name and sell food - the vast majority of the individual restaurants owners' profits have to paid away to the parent company that licenses their franchise, after subtracting that and expenses and sales, there's about $100K or so profit per year left for the individual McDonalds owner or about 5 to 10% of the profit versus a few million $$ for the parent company.
The parent company is licensing the right to valuable branding, resource access, and intellectual property to their franchisee, though at the cost of most of the German subsidiary's profits (for example), what's being licensed is obviously extremely valuable.
So you could say it's quite reasonable, although there is also a deliberate structure here to minimize the collective taxes for the parent company; the German company is, after all a different company that pays a heft premium for the ability to do business using a name like "Google" or "Apple", etc
The target of this is Ireland. Though their nominal rate is 12.5%, they allow BER that results in an effective rate around 1%.
OK... But what happens when Ireland responds to this act by setting the corporate tax equal to the minimum BUT simultaneously creates a "Corporate Incentive" or "Tax Grandfathering" program that financially rewards companies by how much $$$ they paid in taxes, So meets the letter of the law "A minimum tax", However, essentially pays companies back the entire dollar amount in tax increases: to incentivize them staying in Ireland..
And if Ireland doesn't do it, then someone else will. Because of governments' ability to create corporate incentives -- there's literally no way to ban tax havens, even if you set a minimum tax rate, unless you block the entire idea of shifting revenues away from the country that generated them.
that says they're modified, reclaimed, or otherwise non-Apple parts, that'd probably be fine.
Who says they've been "modified" or "reclaimed" ?
The parts very well could have been never-used OEM parts that come off an Apple manufacturing line and/or waiting unused in storage to be ordered. These might have been stolen parts that were supposed to have been delivered for distribution to Apple service centers or stock or left-over units that were supposed to have been installed in new laptops, But that wouldn't make the units counterfeit.
Since Rossmann isn't buying the batteries (even indirectly) from Apple, nor is he himself allowed to use the Apple logo, it's indeed illegal to use the Apple logo on them.
This isn't true.... If the batteries were made by Apple and being re-sold, then Apple REQUIRED their logo be on it when Apple had it manufactured, and the markings remain when other people are re-selling Apple's product with or without Apple's blessing - If Apple originally sold the unit, then it's Trademark Fair Use for people recovering and reselling the old Apple parts to continue using the logo --- even if the batteries had been reconditioned by a 3rd party in China.
It would be illegal for Rossman to use Apple's Logo in trade -- marketing his services, but he doesn't do that; in fact, when a reconditioned (or new) replacement battery pack with the Apple outer shell gets installed in a laptop ---- all the markings are concealed inside the machine, so the consumer never even gets a chance to see markings on the battery - they are not being used in trade: only because Apple made sure they were put there originally.
And what are they supposed to do when they run out of lane ? Just wait until nightfall ?
If you didn't get a merge opening at the speed of traffic before you nearly ran out of acceleration lane and had to stop, then you stop and wait as long as necessary: until there is a large enough break in traffic to safely get on.
Because a marge is a YOU-YIELD and not a signaled situation, not a 4-way stop, not a situation where other vehicles eventually have to let you through --- there is no guarantee that you won't have to wait hours to get a chance.
Most likely if the interstate is congested for some reason, eventually you will see traffic slow enough so that some courteous person will give you a chance. And if it's not congested, then there should come a time within 10 or 20 minutes or so, when you see the super-wide enough gap to get in from a complete stop.
If for some odd reason, neither situation happens: then yeah, you might have to wait for nightfall, or you might have to wait for days. Probably at some point between reaching nightfall but before days, you'll look for an open shoulder and potentially make an about face to reverse course to find the safest possible way to get out of this onramp and then to a gas station and plan a new route.
In my home state slowing down to allow a car to Merge will get you a ticket
Don't slow down too much. Also, don't suddenly slow down by a great amount if there is a vehicle close behind.
The DMV rules from their manual say it best
* Merging Courtesy
When traveling in the right lane, courtesy dictates that you move over to allow a truck to merge. Be careful when pulling behind a truck which has just entered the highway
* Merging As you merge, make sure you are traveling the same speed as other traffic. Do not stop before merging with interstate traffic unless it is absolutely necessary. Interstate traffic has the right of way. You can’t always count on other drivers either seeing you or moving over to give you space to enter.
When you merge into traffic, you need a gap of four seconds. That will give both you and the car you merge in front of a two-second following distance. Don’t try to squeeze into a gap that is too small. Leave yourself a big enough space cushion. Watch for vehicles around you. Use your mirrors and turn signals. Turn your head to look quickly to the side before changing lanes. It is a good idea to leave three seconds of space between you and the vehicle ahead. Make sure you can stop safely if you must.
At some interstate entrances, there is a short acceleration lane. With heavy traffic you are more likely to see cars stopped and waiting for large enough gaps in traffic. This situation is dangerous because of the risk of rear-end collisions and the need for fast acceleration to enter traffic. To enter traffic from a full stop, you will need about a full block to get up to the speed of the other vehicles on the interstate highway.
Well; they didn't exactly cause a crash on the freeway --- they clearly contributed to creating the setting by which events occured. By the sounds of it: the self-driving car was apparently very inconsiderate and didn't let a Camry merge on - a very bad move the safety driver should've intervened on, which resulted in a scenario arising the Camry driver had a duty to anticipate and respond to in a safe manner but was apparently unprepared for: causing an accident, and the Camry would have been 100% at fault if it collided with another vehicle on the freeway.
If you are merging, and the other vehicles on the other side of the merge are being rude and creating no opening: you still have to ensure you are driving at such speed that you can safely stop shorter than the end of your merge lane and wait for a clearing in traffic, and stop if required.
So, well, the Google car swerved in response to the Camry's erratic actions and DID avoid their being involved in an accident with another vehicle, and b/c the Google car didn't collide with anything, other than being witnesses and possible candidates to render aid, there was no accident involving the Google car --- the Camry had a single car accident - crashing into the median that the driver of the Camry would have been responsible for (with being boxed in as a contributing factor).
There was that (non-collision) incident, because a passenger of the Google was injured by the swerving, but this would not be considered a road accident, since the Google car did not turn over, leave the road, or collide with anything....
So i'm guessing these people probably had some rather lengthy discussions with insurance companies and internal incident reports about this, But the media wouldn't be likely to cover it --- they want to talk about real accidents - sensational stuff, not near misses.
At least the "They put the car on the Forbidden Route" concept makes it sound like there's a story.
Probably doable using a Chrome extension. Not to endorse particular software, but a search suggests Silent Site Sound Blocker might fit the bill.
So what you really want exists --- although IMO this ought to be core browser functionality, along with the ability to blacklist/whitelist a site for a picklist of a variety of other commonly abused features, such as:
* Ability to script at all
* Ability to script beyond a very restricted feature set with many limitations to prevent web annoyances.
* After a document is rendered: ability to move or render a visible element invisible in response to an event other than a click.
* After a document is rendered: ability to have an event hook move or make visible new elements on a page layered on top of existing elements other than in response to a click action. (Prevent websites from randomly displaying new overlays that popup mid-screen on a timer or move when scrolling)
* Override/Disable Right click -- should be blacklisted by default most websites except 'rich HTML5 applications' (prevent websites from interfering with or overriding the default context menu)
* Deselect text or override left-click actions (prevent site from interfering with the ability to select text)
Dear Google: You don't get to change web standards randomly. The purpose of having a standard is there's a Stable Specification that developers write their applications against, and specifications stay the same and don't get willy-nilly changes until a new major version is ready, and the application sets a flag that it is ready to use the new version of the standard; your browser should be compliant and not suddenly change from developer expectations... stop coming up with random updates (planned or not) that make your browser start randomly doing weird stuff that breaks shit.
I'm all for muting annoying auto-plays, but you need to treat it like the PopUp blocker: Alert the user that your software has done something weird to stop a likely annoyance, and let the user easily override it for the site or disable AutoAudio blocking entirely.
I guess the idea is media creators could create a public blockchain describing their works and every playerID or userCode license that has an authorization to disseminate their work. The description of a work could actually contain enough information about various watermarks and identifying features of their works to identify both legitimate copies and Identify decent-quality rogue copies containing an identical picture or more than 30 seconds or so of audio or video: then in order to disseminate ANY work, a compliant playing device would be required to maintain an online connection and take steps to identify what work is being played --- then in order to play a work identified as matching a protected one: the player would be required to login, userId, and apply for a player hardware Id Lease containing the player hardwareId and the manufacturer+hardware IDs of the monitor and every device in the viewing chain (May require submitting a payment); wait for a short-lived Play authorization to appear on the blockchain, and maintain an internet connection to (1) Verify every 60 seconds that the play authorization is still valid for this content, and (2) The player has to transmit all the blockchain records to the HDCP display monitor, digital sound, and every device in the chain, so.... (3) The HDCP monitor also verifies the "play authorization".
The DRM could be combined with a proprietary audo/video encoding package: which would be protected by a patent, and in order to enforce the DRM policies -- licensing the patent to decode would require that all decoders made available be only "Compliant players". After every 3 or 4 years, there would be a new encoding/decoding package with a new patent, and a mandatory online instant update for Compliant Players to remain compliant and be able to continue playing content that involves removing the hardware's capability to decode media packages that are more than 2 versions behind -- and media leases can no longer be issued for older versions of the media to ensure by the time patent expires - nothing in consumers' hands can play that format anymore.
Especially with large and small decimal numbers. It becomes very easy to be off by an order of magnitude
You should be able to deal with zeros, but if you hate them, the solution is not to write things like 0.0025% for 1 fourty-thousandth -- you can write: that the fraction was 2.5E-4 and that's perfectly fine.
Second, percentages are used to express probability. They are not blind numbers on a page,
Probabilities Are by definition simple blind numbers on a page --- rational numbers no less than zero and no greater than unity or 1. The symbols %, , and are merely shorthands for: the fraction of 100, 1000, and 10000 respectively, with this number as the numerator. Writing "10%," ".1," "1E-1," "1/10," "2/20," "1:10," "one tenth," or "1 in 10" each refer to exactly the same number, and have exactly the same meaning. This is one of the first things schoolchildren are taught about the using %s, along with exercises in converting the shorthand into the represented fraction and to standard numerical notation.
All you can say about 0.00025 is that it is "really small"
That's not true... you can see the 25 in there and recognize that there is a 1/4th sitting in this number; 25 to 1/4 is one of the decimal to fraction conversions the schools drilled into students in the 3rd grade to instantly recognize - (How else would you remember what 25% means or that a quarter equals 25 cents?).
Everybody knows what a fourth of an apple pie looks like. Now see those 3 zeros in front of it; that means you should imagine sharing one fourth of a pie equally with 1000 people ---- like all the people who came to the stadium to watch a football game, and.00025 is one person's share of that fourth of pie.
You're starting from an extreme bogus premise though --- the 1 in 4000 should not be associated with "one guy in a small town"; because that's a misleading view of what the figure measures, etc, Besides it is extremely unlikely one person has ever seen all the people in a small town --- that is in fact just as abstract an idea as 0.00025 is. Furthermore; the purpose of reading values from statistical data is not to compare them to arbitrary quantities of things in the real world unrelated to what the statistics are about, but to compare them to other statistical values within the same or other study.
When polling data is presented, for example --- the purpose of reading the numbers is for making relative comparisons between the different options in that poll.
If you say 1 in 4000 chose option A, 1 in 3000 chose option B, 1 in 75 chose option C, and 1 in 2855 chose option D. It becomes very obnoxious to try and compare these figures, because essentially: different units of measurement have been used each time.
It's like quoting the measurements of a building as 182 meters long by 300 pumpkins wide by one fourtieth of an eifel tower high.
That may sound like it makes it easier for someone to visualize the measurement, but it is sure as hell a majorly problematic way and imprecise way of describing things.
Except the GPL can also say "Look, we fixed your bug and you can't have it!".
If I release software under BSD license, even the 3-clause modified BSD license, and you fix a bug, then you'd best inform me of the fix. In case you choose not to do so: I can still incorporate the patch or fix if you release a project containing my BSD-Licensed code with a patch or fix.
Even if you license your overall project under GPL: the file you got that was under the BSD license, and any derivative works thereof, may only be distributed under the terms of the BSD license: It's just called redistribution of the source and/or binary forms with modification --- you are very much allowed to distributed my BSD-licensed code with modification also called a Derivative work; However, in order to do so, you MUST retain the copyright, license, and list of conditions, specifically clause [1]:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
As you can see: you're required to retain the same list of conditions for code redistributed, even distributed with modification, therefore: I can simply compare the modified version fixing bugs to the original, and add the fixes to be distributed under the same list of conditions.
The list of conditions is required to be maintained, even if your non-modifications are nontrivial and you could (in theory) otherwise claim exclusive copyrights to them; However, something such as a one-line Bugfix is just a derived work --- and the copyright to a derived work and code with other minor changes not having required major creative effort remains solely with the original author of the code you modified or fixed.
you probably don't have access to the sorts of funds that charge a percentage of assets under management
Uhm, wrong... Most mutual funds, index funds, REITs, etc, and even simple commodity ETFs' management compensation works this way.
Annual percentage of assets under management is by far a most common way that fund managers receive most compensation for most funds; the only real way of avoiding such charges is to manage it yourself or find a personal broker willing to make a deal with you to do it for only commission (which likely makes the commission expensive and incentivizes your broker to make more frequent trades/rebalances at your expense) --- then you still pay various commissions on stock or asset transfers.
The company managing a fund generally charges an annual percentage of the Net Asset Value, called the "expense ratio" of the fund, typically a very small percentage on simple index funds, for example: 0.04% for SPYV; leveraged funds, or actively managed funds generally have higher costs involved, and sometimes the annual and other fees are different for different classes of shares on the same fund, depending on whether they are Institutional or Investor shares, and within there may be class A, B, and C options.
The additional ways funds are compensated for their management include: * Performance Fees -- charges scaled based on the percentage increase in the NAV that occurred - The manager's "performance" in growing the valuation of the fund
* Commissions or load costs when a customer deposits into a fund or purchases shares
* Sell commission when a customer sells shares or withdraws their money
I would rathter people just say "zero point 1" for 1 in 10, or "zero point zero zero zero two five" for 0.00025 (25 in 100,000).
When folks start spewing fractions like "1 / 4000" they cannot be compared mentally to other fractions like that have a different base, such as "276 in 4500".
Hosting and the technical operation is such a SMALL percentage of the Wikimedia foundation's $76 Million in annual operating expenses: it's kind of ridiculous.
They would still complain that Amazon's contribution is paltry.
Consider this though: The people contributing FREE LABOR to build the encyclopedia are not getting paid by the foundation, BUT the foundation has many hired staff and buildings.... so the donations are going to pay people, But the people who develop the software and write the articles on the encyclopedia are largely unpaid volunteers ---- Meanwhile the WM foundation spends more than $6 million on administrative employees, close to a $1 million each on a bunch of different categories like "branding and brand identity, community health, etc"
In short.... they seem like a sprawling non-profit that has a disproportionately large and disproportionately expensive operation leeching off the public good done by unpaid volunteers to provide personal salaries for an entity that serves itself and uses donations to grow itself and pay administrative overheads to people that own itself, whereas an organization of 10% of its size would be more than adequate to support the technical infrastructure and systems that the unpaid volunteers doing 99% of the real work require for all languages of the global free encyclopedia to exist.
Too much time spent on mitigation, too little on education.
Well, there you have it, exactly.... the patches are mitigations, but none has been a complete fix, and there's still a problem, and L1TF was exploitable by what could be a malicious actor in some virtualization scenarios, even with all the patches, and blocking hyperthreading turns out to be required to fully close the vuln: at least until new CPUs come out.
My suspicion is i9-9900K comes as a Desktop-Only Processor with this known caveat. The exploitability caused by hyperthreading wasn't an issue in physical desktop deployments, because they're single-tenant: each CPU socket only has one Operating System Environment executing on it, or perhaps One host environment and one virtual tenant... so it's not like tricking VM software on a desktop to provide one VM intermittent access to another VM's memory will be an issue for most consumer user scenarios.
Those are all external. The self-shredding was part of the artwork.
Acts of deliberate sabotage before transfer by the artist who commissioned the auction house to sell the work are even STRONGER reasons for the buyer to declare the sale invalid and back out.
It's probably not happening in this case only because the art experts and the buyer's advisors believe this actually increases the uniqueness and value of the piece.
I think whoever wrote or proofread the ZDNet article Introduced mistakes, here.
The phrases "TLS Middleware", "TLS middleware appliances," and "Middleware appliances" appear throughout the article Slashdot linked, BUT the paper does not use the word even once. They are called Middleboxes in the study.
Slashdot Mirror
I appreciate that he's trying to solve a problem here, but using legal licensing mechanisms to get people to be nice to each other?
I believe your comment itself can be considered a violation of his code, see:
Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their views. RMS is not trying to use "legal licensing mechanisms" to get people to be nice to each other
GNU Project guidelines and Policies the FSF adopts regarding communications between contributors on their mailing lists, etc are not licenses. RMS never describes the guidelines as a license....
Licensing works for simple self-contained items - code for instance. For documents, Copyleft works better, though by necessity some (corner-case) stuff must remain under proprietary lock-down
It begins to become apparent that you don't seem to have be clueful about what you are writing.
All such works are subject to copyright, and the default is All Rights Reserved. Licensing is required for all of them.
Copyleft was RMS' name for Software that includes source code and includes GPL-style protections requiring that anyone making a modified work include the modified source code. Copyleft licenses are required primarily for SOFTWARE not documents.
The authors of open source documentation had some special needs beyond what the generic GPL provided, so the GNU Free Documentation license was introduced to add increased flexibility to allow publishing print documentation with similar protections to the GPL BUT reduced burdens for the publisher, so you can distribute a book under the GFDL without having to include the raw .DOC, Docbook XML, SGML, NROFF, or TeX Sourcecode in every copy of your printed book, and the original author can specify mandatory cover texts and backtexts which later editors are not allowed to remove, etc.
though by necessity some (corner-case) stuff must remain under proprietary lock-down, no matter how badly information wants free under those specific circumstances.
This has been promulgated at times but has been proven simply not true. There is no need to encourage or allow anything to be under proprietary "All Rights Reserved" lock-down within OSS.
At one time it was even thought necessary for example, that hardware drivers and proprietary vendor firmwares (such as Intel boot-time-loaded NIC firmwares included with the driver) would always have to be allowed in the kernel distro and be a permanent exception ---- thanks to purist projects such as Debian, such firmwares were eliminated, and eventually even those drivers came into compliance with open source.
I ran across the conflict between going 100% open-source on teaching Linux, and the prospect of students copying/passing-around test answers under the banner of 'well, it's open source, isn't it?'
The problem there is not OSS, but Student Evaluation Rubric.
If you ask students an essay question, then for actual scoring Required Originality and Demonstration of Understanding the topic should be on the rubric.
If the question is of a form such as multiple choice, then you can build extremely large question/answer pools; and use pre-determined randomization
algorithms to generate individualized examination.
But probably the best way to evaluate is for an instructor to create an individualized exercise for their group of students to
demonstrate mastery of the material. The creation of the exercise AND the performance of the exercise AND the write-up of the response
are all "Works in Progress," just like the student's learning, and while open source, they're not actually developed until completed, and
the individualized exercise for this generation is not going to be the same as the exercise in a later sitting of the course ---- Because those
in the next sitting of the course will have the open-source deliverables from this sitting of the course to review and add to their collective experience.
I for one do not welcome our mentally ill gender neutral overlords.
You can personally believe they are mentally ill all you like, but you don't get to say -- still "humor them" and respect
whatever preference a person says their gender Id is; if it comes up in a project-related discussion.
If a person makes an issue out of other people's gender identity or refuses to comply with their gender
preferences, then yeah, that person's toxic and should be given at least a timeout or suspension, And yeah....
someone responding with some junk like "You can identify as mayonnaise, but i won't refer to you that way" in
reply to someone stating gender preference would be considered hate speech nowadays
even by Twitter and FB (encouraging discrimination against gender identity), and would be an example of one of the rare cases
where a permanent insta-ban should be used.
eg Text and UI controls requiring young levels of eyesight and motor control because nobody making the UI is old or disabled
This is not an issue of lack of diversity of your developers, but lack of feedback from a representative group of your users.
Camera film being not very good at capturing black skin because it was calibrated by white people for white people, etc
Camera film today being bad at capturing black skin because calibrated "by white people for white people" in general? That smells like bullshit.
Do you have recently taken pictures in side-by-fashion on a modern film properly exposed and developed without touch-up work as proof of this?
Cameras and camera film are designed for capturing arbitrary images --- MANY MANY, perhaps most being pictures of inanimate objects/scenes from nature, so the ability for film to accurately take a very high depth of color across the spectrum is necessary...
Unless you have some really really oddball special film... cameras are are meant to capture a scene with high detail containing any color; not just people, let-alone people with a particular skin tone.
The text is on SQLite's website: Code of Conduct.
It's actually a pretty decent code of conduct; if you ask only that developers govern their interactions with others according to the code.
I am guessing the objections are that the code contains religions admonitions such as:
Rule 1. First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole strength.
A majority of developers will likely be of some religion that can identify with that statement; However, the statement could disturb
atheists who might participate in the project, when the CoC references particular individual practices they disagree with.
On the other hand it's also true that the code doesn't mention any consequences for failing to follow specific rules on individual conduct. .... the SQLite developers elected to govern their interactions with each other, with their clients, and with the larger SQLite user community in accordance with the "instruments of good works" .... This rule is strict, and none are able to comply perfectly. Grace is readily granted for minor transgressions. All are encouraged to follow this rule closely, as in so doing they may expect to live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. The entire rule is good and wholesome, and yet we make no enforcement of the more introspective aspects. ....
it particularly says:
like ridiculous licencing fees to a holding company in the Cayman Islands to claim that their EU operation is making no profit
"Ridiculous" is no more than an opinion here -- it's no more ridiculous than the franchising fees McDonalds charges all its restaurant owners for the rights to use its name and sell food - the vast majority of the individual restaurants owners' profits have to paid away to the parent company that licenses their franchise, after subtracting that and expenses and sales, there's about $100K or so profit per year left for the individual McDonalds owner or about 5 to 10% of the profit versus a few million $$ for the parent company.
The parent company is licensing the right to valuable branding, resource access, and intellectual property to their franchisee, though at the cost of most of the German subsidiary's profits (for example), what's being licensed is obviously extremely valuable.
So you could say it's quite reasonable, although there is also a deliberate structure here to minimize the collective taxes for the parent company; the German company is, after all a different company that pays a heft premium for the ability to do business using a name like "Google" or "Apple", etc
The target of this is Ireland. Though their nominal rate is 12.5%, they allow BER that results in an effective rate around 1%.
OK... But what happens when Ireland responds to this act by setting the corporate tax equal to the minimum BUT simultaneously creates a "Corporate Incentive" or "Tax Grandfathering" program that financially rewards companies by how much $$$ they paid in taxes, So meets the letter of the law "A minimum tax", However, essentially pays companies back the entire dollar amount in tax increases: to incentivize them staying in Ireland..
And if Ireland doesn't do it, then someone else will. Because of governments' ability to create corporate incentives -- there's literally no way to ban tax havens, even if you set a minimum tax rate, unless you block the entire idea of shifting revenues away from the country that generated them.
Not end of story. They were physically looked at and found to contain Apple logos, therefore CBP assumed them to be counterfeit.
that says they're modified, reclaimed, or otherwise non-Apple parts, that'd probably be fine.
Who says they've been "modified" or "reclaimed" ?
The parts very well could have been never-used OEM parts that come off an Apple manufacturing line and/or waiting unused in storage to be ordered. These might have been stolen parts that were supposed to have been delivered for distribution to Apple service centers or stock or left-over units that were supposed to have been installed in new laptops, But that wouldn't make the units counterfeit.
Since Rossmann isn't buying the batteries (even indirectly) from Apple, nor is he himself allowed to use the Apple logo, it's indeed illegal to use the Apple logo on them.
This isn't true.... If the batteries were made by Apple and being re-sold, then Apple REQUIRED their logo be on it when Apple had it manufactured, and the markings
remain when other people are re-selling Apple's product with or without Apple's blessing -
If Apple originally sold the unit, then it's Trademark Fair Use for people recovering and reselling the old Apple parts to continue using the logo --- even if the batteries had been reconditioned by a 3rd party in China.
It would be illegal for Rossman to use Apple's Logo in trade -- marketing his services, but he doesn't do that; in fact, when a reconditioned (or new) replacement battery pack with the Apple outer shell gets installed in a laptop ---- all the markings are concealed inside the machine, so the consumer never even gets a chance to see markings on the battery - they are not being used in trade: only because Apple made sure they were put there originally.
And what are they supposed to do when they run out of lane ? Just wait until nightfall ?
If you didn't get a merge opening at the speed of traffic before you nearly ran out of acceleration lane and had to stop, then you stop
and wait as long as necessary: until there is a large enough break in traffic to safely get on.
Because a marge is a YOU-YIELD and not a signaled situation, not a 4-way stop, not a situation where other vehicles eventually have
to let you through --- there is no guarantee that you won't have to wait hours to get a chance.
Most likely if the interstate is congested for some reason, eventually you will see traffic slow enough so that some courteous person will give you a chance.
And if it's not congested, then there should come a time within 10 or 20 minutes or so, when you see the super-wide enough gap to get in from a complete stop.
If for some odd reason, neither situation happens: then yeah, you might have to wait for nightfall, or you might have to wait for days.
Probably at some point between reaching nightfall but before days, you'll look for an open shoulder and potentially make an about face to reverse course to find the safest possible way to get out of this onramp and then to a gas station and plan a new route.
In my home state slowing down to allow a car to Merge will get you a ticket
Don't slow down too much. Also, don't suddenly slow down by a great amount if there is a vehicle close behind.
The DMV rules from their manual say it best
Well; they didn't exactly cause a crash on the freeway --- they clearly contributed to creating the setting by which events occured. By the sounds of it: the self-driving car was apparently very inconsiderate and didn't let a Camry merge on - a very bad move the safety driver should've intervened on, which resulted in a scenario arising the Camry driver had a duty to anticipate and respond to in a safe manner but was apparently unprepared for: causing an accident, and the Camry would have been 100% at fault if it collided with another vehicle on the freeway.
If you are merging, and the other vehicles on the other side of the merge are being rude and creating no opening:
you still have to ensure you are driving at such speed that you can safely stop shorter than the end of your merge lane and wait for a clearing in traffic, and stop if required.
So, well, the Google car swerved in response to the Camry's erratic actions and DID avoid their being involved in an accident with another vehicle,
and b/c the Google car didn't collide with anything, other than being witnesses and possible candidates to render aid,
there was no accident involving the Google car --- the Camry had a single car accident - crashing into the median that the driver of the Camry would have been responsible for (with being boxed in as a contributing factor).
There was that (non-collision) incident, because a passenger of the Google was injured by the swerving, but
this would not be considered a road accident, since the Google car did not turn over, leave the road, or collide with anything....
So i'm guessing these people probably had some rather lengthy discussions with insurance companies and internal incident reports about this,
But the media wouldn't be likely to cover it --- they want to talk about real accidents - sensational stuff, not near misses.
At least the "They put the car on the Forbidden Route" concept makes it sound like there's a story.
Probably doable using a Chrome extension. Not to endorse particular software, but
a search suggests Silent Site Sound Blocker might fit the bill.
So what you really want exists --- although IMO this ought to be core browser functionality,
along with the ability to blacklist/whitelist a site for a picklist of a variety of other commonly abused features, such as:
* Ability to script at all
* Ability to script beyond a very restricted feature set with many limitations to prevent web annoyances.
* After a document is rendered: ability to move or render a visible element invisible in response to an event other than a click.
* After a document is rendered: ability to have an event hook move or make visible new elements on a page layered on top of existing elements other than in response to a click action. (Prevent websites from randomly displaying new overlays that popup mid-screen on a timer or move when scrolling)
* Override/Disable Right click -- should be blacklisted by default most websites except 'rich HTML5 applications' (prevent websites from interfering with or overriding the default context menu)
* Deselect text or override left-click actions (prevent site from interfering with the ability to select text)
Dear Google: You don't get to change web standards randomly. The purpose of having a standard is there's a Stable Specification that developers write their applications against, and specifications stay the same and don't get willy-nilly changes until a new major version is ready, and the application sets a flag that it is ready to use the new version of the standard; your browser should be compliant and not suddenly change from developer expectations... stop coming up with random updates (planned or not) that make your browser start randomly doing weird stuff that breaks shit.
I'm all for muting annoying auto-plays, but you need to treat it like the PopUp blocker: Alert the user that your software has done something weird to stop a likely annoyance, and let the user easily override it for the site or disable AutoAudio blocking entirely.
I guess the idea is media creators could create a public blockchain describing their works and every playerID or userCode license that has an authorization to disseminate their work. The description of a work could actually contain enough information about various watermarks and identifying features of their works to identify both legitimate copies and Identify decent-quality rogue copies containing an identical picture or more than 30 seconds or so of audio or video: then in order to disseminate ANY work, a compliant playing device would be required to maintain an online connection and take steps to identify what work is being played --- then in order to play a work identified as matching a protected one: the player would be required to login, userId, and apply for a player hardware Id Lease containing the player hardwareId and the manufacturer+hardware IDs of the monitor and every device in the viewing chain (May require submitting a payment); wait for a short-lived Play authorization to appear on the blockchain, and maintain an internet connection to (1) Verify every 60 seconds that the play authorization is still valid for this content, and (2) The player has to transmit all the blockchain records to the HDCP display monitor, digital sound, and every device in the chain, so.... (3) The HDCP monitor also verifies the "play authorization".
The DRM could be combined with a proprietary audo/video encoding package: which would be protected by a patent,
and in order to enforce the DRM policies -- licensing the patent to decode would require that all decoders made available
be only "Compliant players". After every 3 or 4 years, there would be a new encoding/decoding package with a new patent,
and a mandatory online instant update for Compliant Players to remain compliant and be able to continue playing content
that involves removing the hardware's capability to decode media packages that are more than 2 versions behind --
and media leases can no longer be issued for older versions of the media to ensure by the time patent expires - nothing in consumers' hands can play that format anymore.
Especially with large and small decimal numbers. It becomes very easy to be off by an order of magnitude
You should be able to deal with zeros, but if you hate them, the solution is not to write things like 0.0025% for 1 fourty-thousandth --
you can write: that the fraction was 2.5E-4 and that's perfectly fine.
Second, percentages are used to express probability. They are not blind numbers on a page,
Probabilities Are by definition simple blind numbers on a page --- rational numbers no less than zero and no greater than unity or 1.
The symbols %, , and are merely shorthands for:
the fraction of 100, 1000, and 10000 respectively, with this number as the numerator.
Writing "10%," ".1," "1E-1," "1/10," "2/20," "1:10," "one tenth," or "1 in 10" each refer to exactly the same number, and have exactly the same meaning.
This is one of the first things schoolchildren are taught about the using %s, along with exercises in converting the shorthand into the represented fraction and to standard numerical notation.
All you can say about 0.00025 is that it is "really small"
That's not true... you can see the 25 in there and recognize that there is a 1/4th sitting in this number;
25 to 1/4 is one of the decimal to fraction conversions the schools drilled into students in the 3rd grade
to instantly recognize - (How else would you remember what 25% means or that a quarter equals 25 cents?).
Everybody knows what a fourth of an apple pie looks like. Now see those 3 zeros in front of it; .00025 is one person's share of that fourth of pie.
that means you should imagine sharing one fourth of a pie equally with 1000 people ---- like
all the people who came to the stadium to watch a football game, and
You're starting from an extreme bogus premise though --- the 1 in 4000 should not be associated with "one guy in a small town"; because
that's a misleading view of what the figure measures, etc, Besides it is extremely unlikely one person has ever seen all the people in
a small town --- that is in fact just as abstract an idea as 0.00025 is. Furthermore; the purpose of reading values from statistical data
is not to compare them to arbitrary quantities of things in the real world unrelated to what the statistics
are about, but to compare them to other statistical values within the same or other study.
When polling data is presented, for example --- the purpose of reading the numbers is for making
relative comparisons between the different options in that poll.
If you say 1 in 4000 chose option A, 1 in 3000 chose option B, 1 in 75 chose option C, and 1 in 2855 chose option D.
It becomes very obnoxious to try and compare these figures, because essentially: different units of measurement have been used each time.
It's like quoting the measurements of a building as 182 meters long by 300 pumpkins wide by one fourtieth of an eifel tower high.
That may sound like it makes it easier for someone to visualize the measurement, but it is sure as hell a majorly problematic way and imprecise way of describing things.
Except the GPL can also say "Look, we fixed your bug and you can't have it!".
If I release software under BSD license, even the 3-clause modified BSD license, and you fix a bug, then you'd best inform me of the fix.
In case you choose not to do so: I can still incorporate the patch or fix if you release a project containing my BSD-Licensed code with a patch or fix.
Even if you license your overall project under GPL: the file you got that was under the BSD license, and any derivative works thereof, may only be distributed under the terms of the BSD license: It's just called redistribution of the source and/or binary forms with modification --- you are very much allowed to distributed my BSD-licensed code with modification also called a Derivative work; However, in order to do so, you MUST retain the copyright, license, and list of conditions, specifically clause [1]:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
As you can see: you're required to retain the same list of conditions for code redistributed, even distributed with modification, therefore: I can simply compare the modified version fixing bugs to the original, and add the fixes to be distributed under the same list of conditions.
The list of conditions is required to be maintained, even if your non-modifications are nontrivial and you could (in theory) otherwise claim exclusive copyrights to them; However, something such as a one-line Bugfix is just a derived work --- and the copyright to a derived work and code with other minor changes not having required major creative effort remains solely with the original author of the code you modified or fixed.
you probably don't have access to the sorts of funds that charge a percentage of assets under management
Uhm, wrong... Most mutual funds, index funds, REITs, etc, and even simple commodity ETFs' management compensation works this way.
Annual percentage of assets under management is by far a most common way that fund managers receive most compensation for most funds; the only real way of avoiding such charges is to manage it yourself or find a personal broker willing to make a deal with you to do it for only commission (which likely makes the commission expensive and incentivizes your broker to make more frequent trades/rebalances at your expense) --- then you still pay various commissions on stock or asset transfers.
The company managing a fund generally charges an annual percentage of the Net Asset Value, called the "expense ratio" of the fund, typically a very small percentage on simple index funds, for example: 0.04% for SPYV;
leveraged funds, or actively managed funds generally have higher costs involved, and sometimes the annual and other fees are
different for different classes of shares on the same fund, depending on whether they are Institutional or Investor shares, and
within there may be class A, B, and C options.
The additional ways funds are compensated for their management include:
* Performance Fees -- charges scaled based on the percentage increase in the NAV that occurred - The manager's "performance" in growing the valuation of the fund
* Commissions or load costs when a customer deposits into a fund or purchases shares
* Sell commission when a customer sells shares or withdraws their money
I would rathter people just say "zero point 1" for 1 in 10, or "zero point zero zero zero two five" for 0.00025 (25 in 100,000).
When folks start spewing fractions like "1 / 4000" they cannot be compared mentally to other fractions like that have a different base, such as "276 in 4500".
Anyone under the age of 30
Actually: It's anyone under age 46. Routine vaccination against smallpox ended in 1972.
Hosting and the technical operation is such a SMALL percentage of the Wikimedia foundation's $76 Million in annual operating expenses: it's kind of ridiculous.
They would still complain that Amazon's contribution is paltry.
Consider this though: The people contributing FREE LABOR to build the encyclopedia are not getting paid by the foundation, BUT the foundation has many hired staff and buildings.... so the donations are going to pay people, But the people who develop the software and write the articles on the encyclopedia are largely unpaid volunteers ---- Meanwhile the WM foundation spends more than $6 million on administrative employees, close to a $1 million each on a bunch of different categories like "branding and brand identity, community health, etc"
In short.... they seem like a sprawling non-profit that has a disproportionately large and disproportionately expensive operation leeching off the public good done by unpaid volunteers to provide personal salaries for an entity that serves itself and uses donations to grow itself and pay administrative overheads to people that own itself, whereas an organization of 10% of its size would be more than adequate to support the technical infrastructure and systems that the unpaid volunteers doing 99% of the real work require for all languages of the global free encyclopedia to exist.
Too much time spent on mitigation, too little on education.
Well, there you have it, exactly.... the patches are mitigations, but none has been a complete fix, and there's still a problem,
and L1TF was exploitable by what could be a malicious actor in some virtualization scenarios, even with all the patches, and
blocking hyperthreading turns out to be required to fully close the vuln: at least until new CPUs come out.
My suspicion is i9-9900K comes as a Desktop-Only Processor with this known caveat. The exploitability caused by hyperthreading wasn't an issue in physical desktop deployments, because they're single-tenant: each CPU socket only has one Operating System Environment executing on it,
or perhaps One host environment and one virtual tenant... so it's not like tricking VM software on a desktop to provide one VM intermittent access to another VM's memory will be an issue for most consumer user scenarios.
It sounds like you only heard about Meltdown but not the issues related to Foreshadow a.k.a the L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF)
For some attacks: disabling Hyperthreading is necessary to completely mitigate.
Those are all external. The self-shredding was part of the artwork.
Acts of deliberate sabotage before transfer by the artist who commissioned the auction house to sell the work are even STRONGER reasons
for the buyer to declare the sale invalid and back out.
It's probably not happening in this case only because the art experts and the buyer's advisors believe this actually increases the uniqueness and value of the piece.
I think whoever wrote or proofread the ZDNet article Introduced mistakes, here.
The phrases "TLS Middleware", "TLS middleware appliances," and "Middleware appliances" appear throughout the article Slashdot linked, BUT
the paper does not use the word even once. They are called Middleboxes in the study.