I’ve heard Microsoft built a new real-time telemetry system codenamed “Asimov” (yes, another Halo-influenced codename) that lets the OS team see in near real-time what’s happening on users’ machines.
(Emphasis mine.)
Maybe I'm just out of it since I've never played Halo, but how is "Asmiov" a "Halo-influenced codename"? Doesn't this reference Isaac Asimov, the extremely prolific writer and one of the major pillars of classic science fiction? I'm assuming that something within Halo is named Asimov, after Isaac. Do we credit references to the latest to use the reference instead of the original source?
Windows 8 isn't too bad once you use a 3rd party tool (e.g. Classic Shell) to restore your Start Menu/Desktop environment. It's just a shame that Microsoft felt the need to keep this from being a user selected option. Even if they set "Use Tiles On Start-Up" as the default, having the option would've been better.
I use a program (Free Launch Bar) to turn my task bar into a series of menus where I keep shortcuts to my most used applications grouped by subject. My "Internet" menu has Chrome, IE (used for testing websites), Firefox, etc. My "Web Development" group has my editor, programs to push development files live, etc. My "Multimedia" group has image editors, audio players/editors, video conversion tools, etc. By doing this, I know exactly where all my often-used programs are and I don't need to scroll through the cluttered Start Menu except for those rare occasions when I'm running a not-so-often used program.
If you expose a giant, gaping hole in their security theater, then terrorists will notice and abuse it. Right away, too. They're constantly milling around all airports trying to find a way through the air tight security. As to the question of wouldn't the terrorists notice the giant, gaping hole themselves: No, because terrorists can't see giant, gaping security holes unless Joe Citizen points them out.
He didn't cause the delay. If you build systems for normal users, you have to expect them to make errors, and the system has to catch those errors and handle them in a non-fatal way. If it doesn't, your system is broken.
I just had a frightening thought. Imagine if airport security personnel designed computer systems. It would be worse than the worst stereotypes of Windows. Click to run a file and you would need to wait for fifty scans of the file and all of its dependencies. Not that this would actually catch malware, but you would need to wait through it to help reassure you that your computer system was secure. After the program began, your mouse cursor would be restricted to a certain area "for security reasons." If you moved your mouse outside of the expected area, the entire computer would lock up, all programs would quit without saving, a "security violation" message would display, and you would need to wait for the entire system to reboot.
But if an actual virus got in, it would find it easy to infect the system.
What kind of imbecile shuts down an entire airport because one dude walked through the security area that wasn't paying attention?
Please, they don't like being called "imbeciles." They prefer "professional airport security personnel" although a better title might be "actors in a security theater."
Unfortunately, the way it is structured now, If you change your Google+ name to Some Pseudonym, that will be used for your GMail e-mail also. I want my G+ posts to show my Pseudonym, but my e-mail messages to show my real name. Since e-mail is more important to me than G+ right now, I'll avoid G+ and stick with the e-mail.
True, but when it comes down to it, I'll trust a scientists' word about something scientific over a celebrity's word or a preacher's word.
For example, Scientist A, a respected immunologist, says that vaccines prevent disease and are good. Celebrity M, a former Playboy model, says they're filled with icky stuff and should be banned. Too many Americans would listen to the celebrity over the scientist or give their views equal weight when there is no comparison: The scientist should win out.
For another example, Scientist B, a geologist, says that the evidence points to the Earth being 4.54 billion years. Preacher Z claims that the Bible says it is only 10,000 years old. Again, too many Americans would either give them equal weight or would side with the preacher.
Avoiding the authority fallacy is a good thing, but this doesn't mean that a person's knowledge of a field should be disregarded in all cases.
Yup. And that's what you get when you rely on spell-check too much and your mistype is a real word so spell-check doesn't flag it. I thought it might be wrong, but spell-check said it was fine so I let it go.
I'm not an expert on the UK by any stretch of the imagination, but I seem to recall that the City of London Police are a small force that are responsible for a small section of London. They are mostly known for making outrageous statements about expanding police powers.
Can someone with more UK knowledge clarify the "City of London Police" situation?
Not to mention: How are you going to enforce this?
Let's assume that this guy somehow is successful and starting tomorrow, everyone in the UK needs to obtain a license before starting a website.
First, they would need to define "a website." Is a Facebook page a website? A Twitter feed? A Google+ page. People can those just like any WordPress blog. What if you're starting a new web service that you hope to go commercial with at some point. Do you need to apply for a license before you can publish one line of HTML code?
After this would come the big problems: Namely, how do you identify these rouge, unlicensed website operators? If I were living in the UK and opened an account with a US hosting firm, using a domain registrar located outside of the UK, how could the UK authorities tell that I was the one behind the website? Registrars have privacy settings that enable you to hide your WHOIS address and I doubt many non-UK registrars would bother with UK police calling them up demanding the personal information of their clients. Same goes for those non-UK hosting providers.
I almost want them to try instituting a "create a website license" just to see it crash and burn. Almost. In reality, I realize that they wouldn't attempt to apply it 100% but would simply use it to either add a charge onto someone whose online opinions they don't like or to silence critics. (You want to speak out against us? What a coincidence, your website license has mysteriously been revoked. You have a week to shut down your blog.)
I wouldn't be surprised to see Hulu have exclusive "fast lane Internet video" access... given that they are owned by the cable companies who also want to offer fast lane access.
In my area, I have wired broadband access through Time Warner Cable. (Likely soon to be Comcast.) Let's run through some of your "competitors."
T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon Wireless: Wireless broadband is far too expensive for normal home use. It's only reasonable for "I'm on the go and need to check my e-mail" use. Try streaming a few dozen Netflix titles on your wireless connection and see what kind of overage fees you generate.
Verizon FIOS: Doesn't reach my area and Verizon has no plans on expanding. (They're one town over and I'm in an urban area, not a rural one. But still, no FIOS.)
Satellite: Very expensive and slower.
DSL: This one is actually available to me, but Verizon has made it clear that they want to get rid of DSL as quickly as possible. Why would I go to an older, slower technology that the company that manages it has all but declared dead?
My only real option is Time Warner Cable. If I don't like what they do, then I'm free to not have Internet at all. (Except, since I'm a webmaster by trade, not having Internet would harm my ability to do Freelance work.)
In many cases, the ISP networks were built using taxpayer money. Sometimes, this money was given with the promise that everyone in the area would get high speed wired broadband. Then, in many cases, the promises were broken and nobody took the ISPs to task. (See Verizon and New Jersey.)
Exactly this. They donated to campaigns and now the current FCC Chairman is the guy who used to run the head of the cable lobbying group, I'm not expecting a complete ignoring of our complaints - that might stir up too much of a backlash. Instead, they'll put a "fair process" in place to allow for this. The "fair process" will be designed to shut up Network Neutrality proponents while still letting the ISPs do whatever they want (so long as they hide it behind the smoke and mirrors for a bit).
Especially if you compare it to the number of comments the FCC gets on other issues. I'd wager that most FCC comment periods net a few thousand comments at most. 3.7 million is a huge outlier.
Just to double-check, I looked at fcc.com/comments.
"Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet" (i.e. Network Neutrality) has 283,467 comments. (This doesn't count e-mailed comments.) For contrast, "In the Matter of Connect America Fund A National Broadband Plan for Our Future High-Cost Universal Service Support" has 165 submitted comments.
This means that the Network Neutrality comment area received 1,717% more comments than the more normal "fund a national broadband plan" comment area.
No, 3.7 million might not be big compared to the entire voting public, but it's big compared to the usual FCC commenting group.
I'll agree that it's likely a vocal minority that say things like "FEMALE_GAME_DEVELOPER should be raped and killed." I'll also agree that most of the people who say things like this wouldn't actually do it if given the chance. Unfortunately, all it takes is one person unbalanced enough to not tell the difference between Internet hyperbole and real actions. If someone kept following me around online saying "all Jews should die", I'd take it seriously. If a group of people did this, even if I thought that they mostly were harmless, I'd be very worried. If they started posting my home address and messages like "someone in the area please kill this guy", then I'd go to the police ASAP. No cries of "I didn't really mean it" would ease my fears.
Most activist groups stop short of wishing death or bodily harm on their opponents. There is a fringe, though, that do this. Hopefully, the numbers of these groups will get smaller and smaller. (Yes, I'm an eternal optimist.)
Given that "Gamer Gate" was pretty big news recently, I thought it would be obvious.
As an aside, my point wasn't that everyone needed to agree with Zoe Quinn. Just that "disagreeing" with her via threats of bodily harm and/or death are NOT the way to win supporters to your cause. If anything, they are just proving her point for her.
True. Which is why I was saying that attacking 4chan over the actions of some percentage of their users (hopefully a small one, though to be honest I don't really know). The big problem is that some people can't handle other people not agreeing with them. They feel that any disagreement is a personal attack and they must attack back. Face to face, this might not result in much but a raised middle finger and some cursing. On the "anonymous" Internet, though, they feel more free to expand into death threats and the like. (This isn't an argument to remove anonymity from the Internet. I think it should remain. This is just the bad that you need to deal with to get the good that comes with Internet anonymity.)
I agree that attacking 4chan is a bad idea, but the 4chan problem users aren't the ones who keep their behavior on 4chan. They are the ones who think that, since they think X, anyone who doesn't agree with them must be attacking them and thus must be dealt with using the harshest of threats (including bodily injury and/or death) and hacking attempts. If anyone supports their target or opposes them, they become a target as well.
When you need to resort to death threats and intimidation to "win" your disagreement, then you've not only lost the argument but have moved into the areas of harassment or worse.
I didn't know why they couldn't keep their real name policy but modify it so that you supplied them with a real name and then entered a pseudonym that the world would see. So Google might know that I'm "Jason Levine", but everyone else would see my posts/comments/etc as coming from "UserX". You could make this a Google-services-wide default with some application-level exceptions. (For example, you might want your e-mails to display a different name.)
Insisting on "give us a real name that we'll show to the world" was just unreasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
(Emphasis mine.)
Maybe I'm just out of it since I've never played Halo, but how is "Asmiov" a "Halo-influenced codename"? Doesn't this reference Isaac Asimov, the extremely prolific writer and one of the major pillars of classic science fiction? I'm assuming that something within Halo is named Asimov, after Isaac. Do we credit references to the latest to use the reference instead of the original source?
Windows 8 isn't too bad once you use a 3rd party tool (e.g. Classic Shell) to restore your Start Menu/Desktop environment. It's just a shame that Microsoft felt the need to keep this from being a user selected option. Even if they set "Use Tiles On Start-Up" as the default, having the option would've been better.
I use a program (Free Launch Bar) to turn my task bar into a series of menus where I keep shortcuts to my most used applications grouped by subject. My "Internet" menu has Chrome, IE (used for testing websites), Firefox, etc. My "Web Development" group has my editor, programs to push development files live, etc. My "Multimedia" group has image editors, audio players/editors, video conversion tools, etc. By doing this, I know exactly where all my often-used programs are and I don't need to scroll through the cluttered Start Menu except for those rare occasions when I'm running a not-so-often used program.
If you expose a giant, gaping hole in their security theater, then terrorists will notice and abuse it. Right away, too. They're constantly milling around all airports trying to find a way through the air tight security. As to the question of wouldn't the terrorists notice the giant, gaping hole themselves: No, because terrorists can't see giant, gaping security holes unless Joe Citizen points them out.
In other news, this Kool-aid tastes funny.
I just had a frightening thought. Imagine if airport security personnel designed computer systems. It would be worse than the worst stereotypes of Windows. Click to run a file and you would need to wait for fifty scans of the file and all of its dependencies. Not that this would actually catch malware, but you would need to wait through it to help reassure you that your computer system was secure. After the program began, your mouse cursor would be restricted to a certain area "for security reasons." If you moved your mouse outside of the expected area, the entire computer would lock up, all programs would quit without saving, a "security violation" message would display, and you would need to wait for the entire system to reboot.
But if an actual virus got in, it would find it easy to infect the system.
Please, they don't like being called "imbeciles." They prefer "professional airport security personnel" although a better title might be "actors in a security theater."
Unfortunately, the way it is structured now, If you change your Google+ name to Some Pseudonym, that will be used for your GMail e-mail also. I want my G+ posts to show my Pseudonym, but my e-mail messages to show my real name. Since e-mail is more important to me than G+ right now, I'll avoid G+ and stick with the e-mail.
True, but when it comes down to it, I'll trust a scientists' word about something scientific over a celebrity's word or a preacher's word.
For example, Scientist A, a respected immunologist, says that vaccines prevent disease and are good. Celebrity M, a former Playboy model, says they're filled with icky stuff and should be banned. Too many Americans would listen to the celebrity over the scientist or give their views equal weight when there is no comparison: The scientist should win out.
For another example, Scientist B, a geologist, says that the evidence points to the Earth being 4.54 billion years. Preacher Z claims that the Bible says it is only 10,000 years old. Again, too many Americans would either give them equal weight or would side with the preacher.
Avoiding the authority fallacy is a good thing, but this doesn't mean that a person's knowledge of a field should be disregarded in all cases.
Yup. And that's what you get when you rely on spell-check too much and your mistype is a real word so spell-check doesn't flag it. I thought it might be wrong, but spell-check said it was fine so I let it go.
I'm not an expert on the UK by any stretch of the imagination, but I seem to recall that the City of London Police are a small force that are responsible for a small section of London. They are mostly known for making outrageous statements about expanding police powers.
Can someone with more UK knowledge clarify the "City of London Police" situation?
Not to mention: How are you going to enforce this?
Let's assume that this guy somehow is successful and starting tomorrow, everyone in the UK needs to obtain a license before starting a website.
First, they would need to define "a website." Is a Facebook page a website? A Twitter feed? A Google+ page. People can those just like any WordPress blog. What if you're starting a new web service that you hope to go commercial with at some point. Do you need to apply for a license before you can publish one line of HTML code?
After this would come the big problems: Namely, how do you identify these rouge, unlicensed website operators? If I were living in the UK and opened an account with a US hosting firm, using a domain registrar located outside of the UK, how could the UK authorities tell that I was the one behind the website? Registrars have privacy settings that enable you to hide your WHOIS address and I doubt many non-UK registrars would bother with UK police calling them up demanding the personal information of their clients. Same goes for those non-UK hosting providers.
I almost want them to try instituting a "create a website license" just to see it crash and burn. Almost. In reality, I realize that they wouldn't attempt to apply it 100% but would simply use it to either add a charge onto someone whose online opinions they don't like or to silence critics. (You want to speak out against us? What a coincidence, your website license has mysteriously been revoked. You have a week to shut down your blog.)
I wouldn't be surprised to see Hulu have exclusive "fast lane Internet video" access... given that they are owned by the cable companies who also want to offer fast lane access.
In my area, I have wired broadband access through Time Warner Cable. (Likely soon to be Comcast.) Let's run through some of your "competitors."
T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon Wireless: Wireless broadband is far too expensive for normal home use. It's only reasonable for "I'm on the go and need to check my e-mail" use. Try streaming a few dozen Netflix titles on your wireless connection and see what kind of overage fees you generate.
Verizon FIOS: Doesn't reach my area and Verizon has no plans on expanding. (They're one town over and I'm in an urban area, not a rural one. But still, no FIOS.)
Satellite: Very expensive and slower.
DSL: This one is actually available to me, but Verizon has made it clear that they want to get rid of DSL as quickly as possible. Why would I go to an older, slower technology that the company that manages it has all but declared dead?
My only real option is Time Warner Cable. If I don't like what they do, then I'm free to not have Internet at all. (Except, since I'm a webmaster by trade, not having Internet would harm my ability to do Freelance work.)
In many cases, the ISP networks were built using taxpayer money. Sometimes, this money was given with the promise that everyone in the area would get high speed wired broadband. Then, in many cases, the promises were broken and nobody took the ISPs to task. (See Verizon and New Jersey.)
Exactly this. They donated to campaigns and now the current FCC Chairman is the guy who used to run the head of the cable lobbying group, I'm not expecting a complete ignoring of our complaints - that might stir up too much of a backlash. Instead, they'll put a "fair process" in place to allow for this. The "fair process" will be designed to shut up Network Neutrality proponents while still letting the ISPs do whatever they want (so long as they hide it behind the smoke and mirrors for a bit).
Especially if you compare it to the number of comments the FCC gets on other issues. I'd wager that most FCC comment periods net a few thousand comments at most. 3.7 million is a huge outlier.
Just to double-check, I looked at fcc.com/comments.
"Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet" (i.e. Network Neutrality) has 283,467 comments. (This doesn't count e-mailed comments.)
For contrast, "In the Matter of Connect America Fund A National Broadband Plan for Our Future High-Cost Universal Service Support" has 165 submitted comments.
This means that the Network Neutrality comment area received 1,717% more comments than the more normal "fund a national broadband plan" comment area.
No, 3.7 million might not be big compared to the entire voting public, but it's big compared to the usual FCC commenting group.
Justice League & Justice League Unlimited is available on Netflix. It's on Amazon VOD too if you want to pay per-episode.
Either that, or we all read the articles but then are struck by lightning and forg....
*ZZZZAAAAPPP!!!!*
What was I posting about again?
I'll agree that it's likely a vocal minority that say things like "FEMALE_GAME_DEVELOPER should be raped and killed." I'll also agree that most of the people who say things like this wouldn't actually do it if given the chance. Unfortunately, all it takes is one person unbalanced enough to not tell the difference between Internet hyperbole and real actions. If someone kept following me around online saying "all Jews should die", I'd take it seriously. If a group of people did this, even if I thought that they mostly were harmless, I'd be very worried. If they started posting my home address and messages like "someone in the area please kill this guy", then I'd go to the police ASAP. No cries of "I didn't really mean it" would ease my fears.
Most activist groups stop short of wishing death or bodily harm on their opponents. There is a fringe, though, that do this. Hopefully, the numbers of these groups will get smaller and smaller. (Yes, I'm an eternal optimist.)
Given that "Gamer Gate" was pretty big news recently, I thought it would be obvious.
As an aside, my point wasn't that everyone needed to agree with Zoe Quinn. Just that "disagreeing" with her via threats of bodily harm and/or death are NOT the way to win supporters to your cause. If anything, they are just proving her point for her.
True. Which is why I was saying that attacking 4chan over the actions of some percentage of their users (hopefully a small one, though to be honest I don't really know). The big problem is that some people can't handle other people not agreeing with them. They feel that any disagreement is a personal attack and they must attack back. Face to face, this might not result in much but a raised middle finger and some cursing. On the "anonymous" Internet, though, they feel more free to expand into death threats and the like. (This isn't an argument to remove anonymity from the Internet. I think it should remain. This is just the bad that you need to deal with to get the good that comes with Internet anonymity.)
Kind of like they fell into a hole of some kind.
I agree that attacking 4chan is a bad idea, but the 4chan problem users aren't the ones who keep their behavior on 4chan. They are the ones who think that, since they think X, anyone who doesn't agree with them must be attacking them and thus must be dealt with using the harshest of threats (including bodily injury and/or death) and hacking attempts. If anyone supports their target or opposes them, they become a target as well.
When you need to resort to death threats and intimidation to "win" your disagreement, then you've not only lost the argument but have moved into the areas of harassment or worse.
I didn't know why they couldn't keep their real name policy but modify it so that you supplied them with a real name and then entered a pseudonym that the world would see. So Google might know that I'm "Jason Levine", but everyone else would see my posts/comments/etc as coming from "UserX". You could make this a Google-services-wide default with some application-level exceptions. (For example, you might want your e-mails to display a different name.)
Insisting on "give us a real name that we'll show to the world" was just unreasonable.