Why anyone ever thought Canonical wouldn't end up being vile shit bags? I have never liked Ubuntu specifically because it has a corporation tied to it... and being that the nature of corporations is to make money at all costs and above all else, their stupid anti-OSS decisions could and should have been foreseen at the start (yes, this is worth the karma hit from fanboys).
Fedora has a corporation tied to them as well. Fedora is so pro-OSS that you cannot even obtain it with built-in MP3 support. The Fraunhofer corporation (GmbH?) owns patents on critical MP3 technology and even though they've stated that it's available free for non-commercial use, Red Hat won't bundle it because it's not 100% OSS without encumbrances.
A corporation doesn't have be rapacious if it doesn't want to. Fewer of them would be if we'd all stop giving our money to the ones that are.
Right now I am imagining a bug that causes a self-printing printer to go out of control, so that the printers keeps printing printers that keep printing printers that keep...
Cue up Paul Dukas. Bomp-de-bomp-de-bomp-de-bompitty...
Any developments in this direction? It surely would be possible to print a 1950's type of transistor at home, right?
We already print silicon. That's how Intel and AMD make their chips. Print masks and deposit materials through the masks.
Ohhhh. You wanted a home printer for silicon!
Seriously, take a look at the photo of the original transistor. Not exactly a work of beauty there. But the hard part about making more sophisticated chips is in refining and doping the silicon. Granted, you probably don't have ion-deposition equipment in an old closet either, but you can't just build micro-electronics from the kids sandbox.
It's kind of funny that Americans with all their guns seems to have a more tyrannical government than countries with fewer guns but a lot more political engagement from the population.
There are times when I think the whole 2nd Amendment thing may be doing us more harm than good. We don't take political action when we should because if things get too bad we can just haul out our guns.
Except that by the time guns are the best or only solution, we've already lost pretty much everything anyhow. And who (aside from fantasists) really want a life that's basically nothing but guerilla warfare against tanks and drones?
But the point remains, no one is FORCED to believe in the statue. I disagree with the intent that you feel it is somehow forcing you to believe
Would you feel the same way if it were core principles of Scientology? Would that not represent a de facto endorsement of the tenents of Scientology?
the 10 commandments have been on state capitols for as long as this country has been around, its nothing new
And this bit of hypocrisy is long overdue for abolition.
one does not have to believe in god to respect others.
Quite correct. And believing in god does not absolve you from respecting others either. Using public funds and public property to promote your religion is unequivocally disresepectful to citizens who think differently.
in other words, you do NOT have the right to not be offended anymore than someone of a different faith/non faith
A hindu, buddhist, or pagan would be just as troubled by state sponsored proselytization.
I believe that a 100-foot tall statue of Ganesh should be erected on the Capitol Mall.
Because Lord Brahma knows, if there's any group of people who need the Provider of Solutions right now, it's the US Government.
Sin or fallacy? I've never met anyone who believes that believing in a deity is a sin. I've met plenty, myself included, who believe that believing in a deity requires at least one fallacy.
"There is no God but God (Allah) and Mohammed is his Prophet".
In short, there are literally billions of people who who believe that believing in the wrong deity IS a sin and one to be swiftly corrected.
Although minus Mohammed, the same viewpoint is stated by the First Commandment. Which is not a co-incidence. But there are many partisans on both sides who will deny that God and Allah are the same deity despite what Mohammed said to the contrary.
It's not unreasonable for him to start sending them out into the streets.
What people like Rush Limbaugh don't get is that Pope Francis isn't pushing an ideology, he's setting examples. He's not damning people for being rich, he's reminding them that riches aren't the sole reason for existence. As head of his organization, obviously it's better for bishops to follow his views, but he hasn't been conducting mass purges. While he won't stand for anything blatant, he hasn't attempted to stack the house with yes-men either.
Ideology is what happens when good ideas become dogma, and (so far), he's never been dogmatic, just someone who practices what he preaches and urges others to do likewise.
This is what is so wonderful about him. He transcends his position and he does it in practical ordinary ways not in a lot of pomp and circumstance and Edicts From Above. It's why you don't have to be Catholic - or even religious - to admire him. He'll get more done by gentle persuasion than many could do by force of arms.
Computers are hard to program because computers are stupid. That's why the most deadly words ever spoken in the industry are "All You Have To Do Is..." It's hard enough to get other humans to do things right when you tell them what to do, much less computers.
Some programming languages look more or less like English such as COBOL. Some look more or less like mathematical notation, such as FORTRAN or APL. Some are basically mathematical/symbolic notations on drugs. Each has its advantages, but none of them - including English-like languages such as COBOL - actually have succeeded in the Holy Grail of allowing the production of properly-functioning software by underpaid chimpanzees in a handful of hours, much less in a way that can actually be read and understood. And maintained.
COBOL is especially evil because the PHB's think that they understand the program simply because it's in "English". In reality, their beady little eyes glaze over and they quickly push it aside because their time is too valuable to go through all that crap. Which is how the sins of the programmers avoid discovery.
I suspect Jobs *would* be where he is today, since she wasn't researching cures for pancreatic cancer.
Wouldn't matter, if it's true that Jobs had the treatable kind, since he ignored that route and went all New Age on it instead. Might as well have just loaded up on Laetrile.
"I'll remember that as I cash my next quarterly insurance dividend."
Then you have a mutual fund, not insurance. Congratulations (?).
I guess someone should tell them that. Seeing as "Insurance" is part of their corporate name and you cannot simply buy shares in it like you can in a publicly-traded fund, but have to buy a policy with all rights and prerogatives according thereto.
Read the frickin' Wikipedia article, if nothing else. Especially their formula on where insurance companies really get their income. Not all of it is premiums.
Insurance companies are required by law to maintain reserve funds sufficient to cover the ordinary ups and downs of what is after all a statistical business. Some of those funds are invested in ways that keep them liquid enough to make payouts while still earning money on cash that would otherwise be idle. This allows greater profits off lower premiums and for certain organizations such as the one I've got a policy in, it even permits actual dividends to be paid back to policyholders. That, in fact, was one of their selling points, and to be honest, one that got them in a lot of trouble a while back since many people were sold policies as though they were actual investments.
I used to work in the industry in the areas relating to actuarial support and reserves. They spent a lot of time figuring out where money should go and when. I'm not simply blowing out a lot of "common sense", I'm speaking from experience.
Yes. He might not have had the ability to do anything to stop it by being President but if you are elected to that position and then realise that what is going on under your watch is wrong, unethical and against the fundamental principles of your country and that, furthermore, the system is such that you cannot effect the changes required via the authority invested in the office of President then you should have the courage to resign and say why.
The President - any President - has a lot less power that people blame him for.
However, he does have a bully pulpit. Unlike Congress and the various high legislative offices, there's only one President at a time and so when he speaks, more people pay close attention. He speaks (figuratively) for the Nation. So while he might not be able to directly change how things are done, what he says can end up influencing the voters for the people who can. Thus, his speech or silence have a lot of leverage.
My understanding is that the NSA is a pretty large organization and that it's involved in rather a lot of signals intelligence type operations. It's doubtful, in the majority of cases, that $RANDOM_NSA_EMPLOYEE is likely to be involved in the particular scandal of the day you want addressed.
I appreciate this view isn't going to be popular here, where most commenters seem to think that $RANDOM_NSA_EMPLOYEE is guaranteed to be directly involved in reading their emails, which they're obviously doing because they want to root out subversives and blackmail them, rather than because the NSA might, I dunno, be going overboard and doing illegitimate things for a legitimate cause (like tackling terrorism or even spying on rival governments.)
Or because they've discovered a suspected terrorist link to Kevin Bacon...
I'm amazed that they were able to eradicate small pox
Actually, it's not eradicated, and it's actually making a comeback (thanks to the anti-vaxxers).
Smallpox, It wasn't eradicated from the world (many third world countries have outbreaks), but generally in North America and Europe, the chances of contracting it were nil. It's why they started going after chickenpox as well.
Anyhow, those with a medical reason to not get vaccinated don't generally hang out with others who aren't vaccinated as well, so they get some herd immunity.
It's the likes of Jenny McCarthy and their ilk - like attracts like so you end up with whole groups who aren't immunized congregating together and regularly and who will rapidly pass disease from one to another. One person in a herd not having it is fine. A whole herd not having it means the entire herd gets it.
Last I heard, the only place you could get smallpox would be to break into one of about 7 sealed government health facilities on this planet and steal one of the preserved virus samples. Unless something very alarming happened very recently and I haven't heard about it, smallpox has been eradicated. Unless some idiot opens one of those labs and makes a biological weapon.
I work in Houston, make ~$100,000, don't pay any state income taxes, have a 7% sales tax rate in my city, and a $800 two bedroom apartment 15 minutes from work. I doubt I could have all that in very many other states.
Oh, and we have sun like 230 days a year (compared to Seattle's ~100), and it's never really cold (it snows maybe once every 7 years).
15 minutes to work in Houston? So you live next door?
History remembers the great conquerors, but he was one of the great peacemakers. Let his memory last as long. This was one Nobel prize that was richly deserved.
Sad to lose him, even though it's been years since he was a major player. The last year could not have been pleasant, though. Now he can rest. He's earned it.
"Insurance is ALL about spreading the risk. Over the population and over time."
You're forgetting the all-important homogeneity of the risk pool (over the life of a contract, usually a year or few -- not a lifetime!). Different risk pools naturally get different premiums/benefits, at whatever level of granularity the marketplace can offer. Guess what industry was just stopped from being such a marketplace (web site nicknames notwithstanding).
"An Insurance plan is intended to insure that you have an organized way of putting aside money, that it will be invested by the insurer to permit the insurer to be able to make a profit on that money (and maybe even return some of it), and finally, to deliver if and when you need the money."
No, an insurance policy is not a savings vehicle. Even life insurance isn't, since the actuarial premiums on average are in excess of the expected payments + investment returns (all numbers suitably discounted), or else an insurance company couldn't exist as a going concern.
You might like reading Warren Buffet's annual note to his BRK investors. He gives a basic introduction to the concept of insurance, which you appear to sorely need.
I'll remember that as I cash my next quarterly insurance dividend.
"I think everyone who understand what insurance actually is understands - at least implicitly - that they are subsidizing someone else. These people also understand that if they end up needing help, then others will be subsidizing them."
No, and this is a common and tragic misunderstanding.
Insurance is not designed for systematic subsidizing others of different risk profiles. It's not supposed to subsidize anyone on average at all. Yes, a single instance of covered peril will end up pulling money from other similar subscribers, but on average, in fact, everyone must lose.
Whereas when the "risk pools" are forcibly intermingled by law, the low-risk people are systematically exploited to pay for the high-risk ones. What Medicaid, Social Security etc. have in common with obamacare is that they are also not "insurance" but wealth transfer.
You're full of it. Insurance is ALL about spreading the risk. Over the population and over time. It is precisely the recent trend of narrowing pools to get all reward and no risk that have make such a hash not only of the insurance industry but of the people and businesses who were "cherry picked" and "lemon dropped". Recall the recent financial collapse. Not only did the industry fail, but the insurance underpinning the industry failed. And the insurance was supposed to reduce the damage done in case of a failure. Which is why the whole thing snowballed.
Yes, there are one-shot policies such as travel insurance. But the term of most policies runs in years. Yesterday's young and healthy are tomorrow's old and infirm. That isn't "socialism", it's investing. Pure and simple. Depending on the plan, it may even pay dividends. An Insurance plan is intended to insure that you have an organized way of putting aside money, that it will be invested by the insurer to permit the insurer to be able to make a profit on that money (and maybe even return some of it), and finally, to deliver if and when you need the money. It's not primarily intended to be a casino or lottery, even though there are plans that run that way as well. A balanced plan will statistically be equivalent to having all of the money you saved up for your life's needs no matter what point in your life you end up needing. Because you never know when you're going to be hit by a truck, no matter how young and healthy you are. Or even meteorites, as a kid in South Florida recently discovered.
Depends on how you define metadata. Nowadays the line between privacy, metadata and your last name, habits, shopping, etc seems to be a single "SELECT" line involving one or two tables.
The information is obviously a valuable law enforcement tool. Just like phone records, like wiretapping (under a judge auth.). At least my perception, way before snowden and all the latest leaks, was that this was actually happening. This is just a confirmation.
Would be great if, as in wiretapping, this would be supervised by justice, and used only in criminal investigations. Sound naive...i know
That's probably a pretty good definition of what separates data from metadata. A single JOIN clause.
Even outsourced jobs require a desktop. Just they won't be sold in your first world market. Aaaanyway I don't see the desktop as dying, but I do see it moving into a niche for power users, developers and gamers.
Wait! I thought the outsource desktops were all running old pirate copies of Windows XP!
The performance of the language environment has absolutely nothing to do with the competence of the programmers beyond the fact that good programmers can bring out the best in a platform while bad programmers can bring out the worst.
I've seen some real abominations committed in assembly language as well. Heard whole teams scream in horror about the techniques employed by one of their allegedly experienced C programmers. Had to deal with code that actually broke COBOL compilers.
I don't believe in a "both ways" oriented world. Leave that to the Republicans and the Democrats. There are rarely only 2 sides to an issue. There are things done well one way and things done well another and still other things better done a third way. What I am saying is that there are hard numbers published on JVM performance and they disagree with what most java-bashers "know". High-performance JVMs can optimize low-level execution better than fixed-code generators simply because they can measure and re-code dynamically based on what the program flow is and not on what the programmer "knew" it would be back when the program was compiled/assembled.
But low-level optimization isn't the only thing. Pick the wrong algorithm for the task and no amount of instruction-level tuning may be able to beat code in even the least-optimized of languages using a more appropriate algorithm.
Slashdot Mirror
Why anyone ever thought Canonical wouldn't end up being vile shit bags? I have never liked Ubuntu specifically because it has a corporation tied to it ... and being that the nature of corporations is to make money at all costs and above all else, their stupid anti-OSS decisions could and should have been foreseen at the start (yes, this is worth the karma hit from fanboys).
Fedora has a corporation tied to them as well. Fedora is so pro-OSS that you cannot even obtain it with built-in MP3 support. The Fraunhofer corporation (GmbH?) owns patents on critical MP3 technology and even though they've stated that it's available free for non-commercial use, Red Hat won't bundle it because it's not 100% OSS without encumbrances.
A corporation doesn't have be rapacious if it doesn't want to. Fewer of them would be if we'd all stop giving our money to the ones that are.
I'll be more impressed when it's capable of printing a vaccuum tube...
Printing a metal-shelled tube shouldn't be that hard.
Printing the vacuum, on the other hand.
Right now I am imagining a bug that causes a self-printing printer to go out of control, so that the printers keeps printing printers that keep printing printers that keep ...
Cue up Paul Dukas. Bomp-de-bomp-de-bomp-de-bompitty...
Wake me up when we can print silicon.
Any developments in this direction? It surely would be possible to print a 1950's type of transistor at home, right?
We already print silicon. That's how Intel and AMD make their chips. Print masks and deposit materials through the masks.
Ohhhh. You wanted a home printer for silicon!
Seriously, take a look at the photo of the original transistor. Not exactly a work of beauty there. But the hard part about making more sophisticated chips is in refining and doping the silicon. Granted, you probably don't have ion-deposition equipment in an old closet either, but you can't just build micro-electronics from the kids sandbox.
I believe that a 100-foot tall statue of Ganesh should be erected on the Capitol Mall.
cool. I'll bring a big bag of peanuts.
Bring something for His mouse, too!
It's kind of funny that Americans with all their guns seems to have a more tyrannical government than countries with fewer guns but a lot more political engagement from the population.
There are times when I think the whole 2nd Amendment thing may be doing us more harm than good. We don't take political action when we should because if things get too bad we can just haul out our guns.
Except that by the time guns are the best or only solution, we've already lost pretty much everything anyhow. And who (aside from fantasists) really want a life that's basically nothing but guerilla warfare against tanks and drones?
But the point remains, no one is FORCED to believe in the statue. I disagree with the intent that you feel it is somehow forcing you to believe
Would you feel the same way if it were core principles of Scientology? Would that not represent a de facto endorsement of the tenents of Scientology?
the 10 commandments have been on state capitols for as long as this country has been around, its nothing new
And this bit of hypocrisy is long overdue for abolition.
one does not have to believe in god to respect others.
Quite correct. And believing in god does not absolve you from respecting others either. Using public funds and public property to promote your religion is unequivocally disresepectful to citizens who think differently.
in other words, you do NOT have the right to not be offended anymore than someone of a different faith/non faith
A hindu, buddhist, or pagan would be just as troubled by state sponsored proselytization.
I believe that a 100-foot tall statue of Ganesh should be erected on the Capitol Mall.
Because Lord Brahma knows, if there's any group of people who need the Provider of Solutions right now, it's the US Government.
Sin or fallacy? I've never met anyone who believes that believing in a deity is a sin. I've met plenty, myself included, who believe that believing in a deity requires at least one fallacy.
"There is no God but God (Allah) and Mohammed is his Prophet".
In short, there are literally billions of people who who believe that believing in the wrong deity IS a sin and one to be swiftly corrected.
Although minus Mohammed, the same viewpoint is stated by the First Commandment. Which is not a co-incidence. But there are many partisans on both sides who will deny that God and Allah are the same deity despite what Mohammed said to the contrary.
Well, considering: http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/krajewski-francesco-francisco-francis-30266/
It's not unreasonable for him to start sending them out into the streets.
What people like Rush Limbaugh don't get is that Pope Francis isn't pushing an ideology, he's setting examples. He's not damning people for being rich, he's reminding them that riches aren't the sole reason for existence. As head of his organization, obviously it's better for bishops to follow his views, but he hasn't been conducting mass purges. While he won't stand for anything blatant, he hasn't attempted to stack the house with yes-men either.
Ideology is what happens when good ideas become dogma, and (so far), he's never been dogmatic, just someone who practices what he preaches and urges others to do likewise.
This is what is so wonderful about him. He transcends his position and he does it in practical ordinary ways not in a lot of pomp and circumstance and Edicts From Above. It's why you don't have to be Catholic - or even religious - to admire him. He'll get more done by gentle persuasion than many could do by force of arms.
Computers are hard to program because computers are stupid. That's why the most deadly words ever spoken in the industry are "All You Have To Do Is..." It's hard enough to get other humans to do things right when you tell them what to do, much less computers.
Some programming languages look more or less like English such as COBOL. Some look more or less like mathematical notation, such as FORTRAN or APL. Some are basically mathematical/symbolic notations on drugs. Each has its advantages, but none of them - including English-like languages such as COBOL - actually have succeeded in the Holy Grail of allowing the production of properly-functioning software by underpaid chimpanzees in a handful of hours, much less in a way that can actually be read and understood. And maintained.
COBOL is especially evil because the PHB's think that they understand the program simply because it's in "English". In reality, their beady little eyes glaze over and they quickly push it aside because their time is too valuable to go through all that crap. Which is how the sins of the programmers avoid discovery.
True, but I would assume that's a given in most cases.. Not all, just most..
I take it you don't work in the business, then.
I think one of the "Murphy" laws covers what happens to code once you document it.
I suspect Jobs *would* be where he is today, since she wasn't researching cures for pancreatic cancer.
Wouldn't matter, if it's true that Jobs had the treatable kind, since he ignored that route and went all New Age on it instead. Might as well have just loaded up on Laetrile.
"I'll remember that as I cash my next quarterly insurance dividend."
Then you have a mutual fund, not insurance. Congratulations (?).
I guess someone should tell them that. Seeing as "Insurance" is part of their corporate name and you cannot simply buy shares in it like you can in a publicly-traded fund, but have to buy a policy with all rights and prerogatives according thereto.
Read the frickin' Wikipedia article, if nothing else. Especially their formula on where insurance companies really get their income. Not all of it is premiums.
Insurance companies are required by law to maintain reserve funds sufficient to cover the ordinary ups and downs of what is after all a statistical business. Some of those funds are invested in ways that keep them liquid enough to make payouts while still earning money on cash that would otherwise be idle. This allows greater profits off lower premiums and for certain organizations such as the one I've got a policy in, it even permits actual dividends to be paid back to policyholders. That, in fact, was one of their selling points, and to be honest, one that got them in a lot of trouble a while back since many people were sold policies as though they were actual investments.
I used to work in the industry in the areas relating to actuarial support and reserves. They spent a lot of time figuring out where money should go and when. I'm not simply blowing out a lot of "common sense", I'm speaking from experience.
Yes. He might not have had the ability to do anything to stop it by being President but if you are elected to that position and then realise that what is going on under your watch is wrong, unethical and against the fundamental principles of your country and that, furthermore, the system is such that you cannot effect the changes required via the authority invested in the office of President then you should have the courage to resign and say why.
The President - any President - has a lot less power that people blame him for.
However, he does have a bully pulpit. Unlike Congress and the various high legislative offices, there's only one President at a time and so when he speaks, more people pay close attention. He speaks (figuratively) for the Nation. So while he might not be able to directly change how things are done, what he says can end up influencing the voters for the people who can. Thus, his speech or silence have a lot of leverage.
Well, no, at least, not the last bit.
My understanding is that the NSA is a pretty large organization and that it's involved in rather a lot of signals intelligence type operations. It's doubtful, in the majority of cases, that $RANDOM_NSA_EMPLOYEE is likely to be involved in the particular scandal of the day you want addressed.
I appreciate this view isn't going to be popular here, where most commenters seem to think that $RANDOM_NSA_EMPLOYEE is guaranteed to be directly involved in reading their emails, which they're obviously doing because they want to root out subversives and blackmail them, rather than because the NSA might, I dunno, be going overboard and doing illegitimate things for a legitimate cause (like tackling terrorism or even spying on rival governments.)
Or because they've discovered a suspected terrorist link to Kevin Bacon...
Actually, it's not eradicated, and it's actually making a comeback (thanks to the anti-vaxxers).
Smallpox, It wasn't eradicated from the world (many third world countries have outbreaks), but generally in North America and Europe, the chances of contracting it were nil. It's why they started going after chickenpox as well.
Anyhow, those with a medical reason to not get vaccinated don't generally hang out with others who aren't vaccinated as well, so they get some herd immunity.
It's the likes of Jenny McCarthy and their ilk - like attracts like so you end up with whole groups who aren't immunized congregating together and regularly and who will rapidly pass disease from one to another. One person in a herd not having it is fine. A whole herd not having it means the entire herd gets it.
Last I heard, the only place you could get smallpox would be to break into one of about 7 sealed government health facilities on this planet and steal one of the preserved virus samples. Unless something very alarming happened very recently and I haven't heard about it, smallpox has been eradicated. Unless some idiot opens one of those labs and makes a biological weapon.
Maybe you mean polio.
Man, Texas ain't half that bad!
I work in Houston, make ~$100,000, don't pay any state income taxes, have a 7% sales tax rate in my city, and a $800 two bedroom apartment 15 minutes from work. I doubt I could have all that in very many other states.
Oh, and we have sun like 230 days a year (compared to Seattle's ~100), and it's never really cold (it snows maybe once every 7 years).
15 minutes to work in Houston? So you live next door?
He will be sadly missed. Huge respect.
History remembers the great conquerors, but he was one of the great peacemakers. Let his memory last as long. This was one Nobel prize that was richly deserved.
Sad to lose him, even though it's been years since he was a major player. The last year could not have been pleasant, though. Now he can rest. He's earned it.
"Insurance is ALL about spreading the risk. Over the population and over time."
You're forgetting the all-important homogeneity of the risk pool (over the life of a contract, usually a year or few -- not a lifetime!). Different risk pools naturally get different premiums/benefits, at whatever level of granularity the marketplace can offer. Guess what industry was just stopped from being such a marketplace (web site nicknames notwithstanding).
"An Insurance plan is intended to insure that you have an organized way of putting aside money, that it will be invested by the insurer to permit the insurer to be able to make a profit on that money (and maybe even return some of it), and finally, to deliver if and when you need the money."
No, an insurance policy is not a savings vehicle. Even life insurance isn't, since the actuarial premiums on average are in excess of the expected payments + investment returns (all numbers suitably discounted), or else an insurance company couldn't exist as a going concern.
You might like reading Warren Buffet's annual note to his BRK investors. He gives a basic introduction to the concept of insurance, which you appear to sorely need.
I'll remember that as I cash my next quarterly insurance dividend.
"I think everyone who understand what insurance actually is understands - at least implicitly - that they are subsidizing someone else. These people also understand that if they end up needing help, then others will be subsidizing them."
No, and this is a common and tragic misunderstanding.
Insurance is not designed for systematic subsidizing others of different risk profiles. It's not supposed to subsidize anyone on average at all. Yes, a single instance of covered peril will end up pulling money from other similar subscribers, but on average, in fact, everyone must lose.
Whereas when the "risk pools" are forcibly intermingled by law, the low-risk people are systematically exploited to pay for the high-risk ones. What Medicaid, Social Security etc. have in common with obamacare is that they are also not "insurance" but wealth transfer.
You're full of it. Insurance is ALL about spreading the risk. Over the population and over time. It is precisely the recent trend of narrowing pools to get all reward and no risk that have make such a hash not only of the insurance industry but of the people and businesses who were "cherry picked" and "lemon dropped". Recall the recent financial collapse. Not only did the industry fail, but the insurance underpinning the industry failed. And the insurance was supposed to reduce the damage done in case of a failure. Which is why the whole thing snowballed.
Yes, there are one-shot policies such as travel insurance. But the term of most policies runs in years. Yesterday's young and healthy are tomorrow's old and infirm. That isn't "socialism", it's investing. Pure and simple. Depending on the plan, it may even pay dividends. An Insurance plan is intended to insure that you have an organized way of putting aside money, that it will be invested by the insurer to permit the insurer to be able to make a profit on that money (and maybe even return some of it), and finally, to deliver if and when you need the money. It's not primarily intended to be a casino or lottery, even though there are plans that run that way as well. A balanced plan will statistically be equivalent to having all of the money you saved up for your life's needs no matter what point in your life you end up needing. Because you never know when you're going to be hit by a truck, no matter how young and healthy you are. Or even meteorites, as a kid in South Florida recently discovered.
Closed systems wouldn't be so bad. The problem is legal ambiguity about what is or is not allowed.
I take it you're an Apple fan.
Depends on how you define metadata. Nowadays the line between privacy, metadata and your last name, habits, shopping, etc seems to be a single "SELECT" line involving one or two tables.
The information is obviously a valuable law enforcement tool. Just like phone records, like wiretapping (under a judge auth.).
At least my perception, way before snowden and all the latest leaks, was that this was actually happening. This is just a confirmation.
Would be great if, as in wiretapping, this would be supervised by justice, and used only in criminal investigations. Sound naive ...i know
That's probably a pretty good definition of what separates data from metadata. A single JOIN clause.
Sir, had I the points, I would mod you up as Interesting, Funny, AND Informative.
I still want a sad-but-true mod. I know someone else who has the same problem.
Even outsourced jobs require a desktop. Just they won't be sold in your first world market. Aaaanyway I don't see the desktop as dying, but I do see it moving into a niche for power users, developers and gamers.
Wait! I thought the outsource desktops were all running old pirate copies of Windows XP!
Non sequitur.
The performance of the language environment has absolutely nothing to do with the competence of the programmers beyond the fact that good programmers can bring out the best in a platform while bad programmers can bring out the worst.
I've seen some real abominations committed in assembly language as well. Heard whole teams scream in horror about the techniques employed by one of their allegedly experienced C programmers. Had to deal with code that actually broke COBOL compilers.
I don't believe in a "both ways" oriented world. Leave that to the Republicans and the Democrats. There are rarely only 2 sides to an issue. There are things done well one way and things done well another and still other things better done a third way. What I am saying is that there are hard numbers published on JVM performance and they disagree with what most java-bashers "know". High-performance JVMs can optimize low-level execution better than fixed-code generators simply because they can measure and re-code dynamically based on what the program flow is and not on what the programmer "knew" it would be back when the program was compiled/assembled.
But low-level optimization isn't the only thing. Pick the wrong algorithm for the task and no amount of instruction-level tuning may be able to beat code in even the least-optimized of languages using a more appropriate algorithm.