"The NSA used to be very discrete, effective and restrained."
I think you mean discreet... more to the point, the NSA mass surveillance isn't an isolated development. It's part of the general movement to automate or at least remote-control everything, from the way we do research (Google) or send messages (spam) to the way we wage wars (drones) right down to way we compile "friends" or "followers" (Facebook/Twitter). "Liking" something used to be a matter of taste. Now it's a matter of clicking an icon. So, no, I don't think the NSA is entirely to blame.
Please don't underestimate the power of gradual propaganda. Let's say you want to damage Snowden's reputation. You won't begin by saying that he's a paranoid schizophrenic who's taking drugs 24/7 and has a Swiss bank account funded by North Korea and Cuba or membership in some fringe anarchist or survivalist group. No you'd begin by enumerating a list of his quirks, preferably stuff that can't be verified independently, trivial things like being in an unstable relationship with his partner, "frequent" bouts of insomnia, or maybe just being a practicing non-believer who likes to listen to Richard Dawkins speeches in his sleep. The first step would thus be to paint him as a bit right or left of the norm. Once that's established, that our supposed patriot isn't that all-American boy next door, you can proceed to tar him with more serious allegations, say, that because of his emotional problems he acquired a drug habit that he could fund by selling out to foreign states or that maybe he was being blackmailed by foreign agents who have threatened to expose one of his own personal secrets.
" Or making money using Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, Inventor, Autocad, Altium, VS, Vegas, etc..."
This looks like the Mac market, unless Apple decides to go down the Microsoft way and fuck over Mac users with a desktop version of iOS. Besides, the number of people using such specialized software is much, much smaller and is probably not the sort of crowd you'd find in CES, a Consumer Electronics Show. So it's really just the lack of games that's holding back the exodus away from Windows.
Not saying Android for the desktop is a good idea. But there are already non-mobile Android systems that can easily be repurposed as a mom-and-pop desktop (i.e. a Chrome OS-like system primarily for web browsing). Google or search Amazon, Ebay, etc for Android media players (Apple TV sized kit) or Android HDMI dongles (thumb-drive sized kit).
You can't run x86 programs on those ARM puppies, but with some pain you can install or chroot a full Linux desktop on them. Lighter distros like Debian or Arch are advisable over fancier distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.
"In general, considering the usability, user interface, and functionality of 7, it is an upgrade from XP."
In terms of security and stability, yes, I'd consider Win 7 to be a significant upgrade for XP. But as far as usability and UI are concerned, there's not much to recommend 7 over XP, unless you think the graphical bling greatly improves usability. For all its faults, MS practically pefected the desktop WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointing Device) environment with Windows XP. That's why many users are rebelling against the mutant Win 8 tablet interface.
See? That's the big difference (that little hook at the end). Posing the article as a question, you get the benefit of having a scoop (OMFG!!! Bruce the Schneier got fired by the NSA) as far as Slashdot's second-hand stories go, while not getting burned if the story turns out to be false (duh, Bruce isn't leaving).
No, this is just Google admitting their driverless car project is a failure. So they'll replace the car with a real Android driver that will chat you up while driving you to work, "Sir, there's they're having a 50% off sale at XXX.com. Would you like me to get you a promo code?"
If the nipple is an intuitive interface, then mothers wouldn't have to shove it in our mouths the first time around. It's as much an acquired taste as your favorite desktop OS. You get used to it and eventually even come to relish it. But a bottle-fed baby wouldn't know the difference from the real thing.
It's predictive if all you read is near-future sci-fi. Most of the sci-fi we call predictive is either mere coincidence or some bored engineer reading or watching it and deciding it's a cool thing to make things like sentient AI (Asimov, Clarke, et al), a multipurpose hand-held information acquisition tool (Star Trek), or a laser-based space defense system (Star Wars). So no suprise there. If you fire in one general direction enough times, you're bound to hit the bull's eye some time.
"Their founder actually dropped by our lab at MIT a year and a half ago, saying he wants to collaborate, and spent quite some time with the Copenhagen wheel team. We'll leave it at that,' Superpedestrian founder Assaf Biderman said."
Wrong state. But doesn't that remind you of a certain IT visionary who developed this idea for a graphically-oriented computer?
As an American, you were probably allowed only into the better schools. Who knows maybe you were looking at the Chinese equivalent of a magnet (if not necessarily a science/math) school. Imagine the bad press the Chinese would get if some true-blue American kids are allowed into one of their "shittier" schools. So your anecdote, even as anecdotes rarely count for good proof, doesn't count.
It's only a matter of time and who knows what restrictive GPL-incompatible license Microsoft will come up with. Everything's being opensourced, including guns, money, and government secrets. Note that I don't equate opensource with free as in freedom. Microsoft will still be in control so that maybe you can't mix Windows source with Android/Linux source. And you'll probably still need to pay a license while all your improvements will belong to them.
" Singapore is surrounded by neighbours that completely dwarf them (Malaysia, Indonesia) only 50 years ago encompassed them (Malaysia), have an Islamic majority (Malaysia) or a virulent Islamic minority (Indonesia) and are debating whether to become a fully Islamic state (Malaysia). "
Minor correction with Indonesia. Like Malaysia, Indonesia is a Muslim-majority state. In fact, the majority is greater in Indonesia (at least 90% IRC). Malaysia in fact has a rather large, non-Muslim ethnic Chinese minority, which have been discriminated against per official policy.
The problem with the Snowden revelations is likely to come more from Malaysia, which has adopted a more consistently anti-Western stance than Indonesia, which had been more business-like in its dealings with the West.
When you're a country, being bankrupt doesn't mean you don't have a money. You can always "print" more. Or maybe the US should start paying their snoops in Bitcoins?
"It's not that we always side with "the little guy" - we frequently side against small vendors making money off of illegal copying, such as Chinese illegal DVD vendors or businesses who sell open-source software."
Businesses are allowed to sell open-source software, at least by the two most popular types of free/open-source licenses, BSD and GPL.
Even morally, which is different from what's legally allowed, it's okay to sell open-source software, provided you give something back to the open-source developers, in terms of code or money. That's how the Wine (GPL) project is funded. What most free software developers hate are "freeloaders" who rebrand a program by making only trivial changes to it or, worse, vendors who ruin a program's "reputation" by adding adware and other crap (usually but not always wrapped around installers of dubious quality).
Trying mining other cyrptocurrents. They should have a lower barrier of entry than something as "over"-mined as Bitcoin. The trick, however, is to know which can be traded for a profit or not too great a loss with Bitcoin or maybe even directly to the fiat currency of your choice (dollars, yens, etc.). Litecoin seems attractive at the moment.
Also be careful of very, very recently forked Bitcoin alternatives. They might be fly-by-night operations designed simply to suck-er in users who want to buy their way into virtual weath.
Yes, let's wait. Far too many possible causes. If it's a personal matter, then leave him be. It's not as if he was getting seriously paid for his work?
If it's just a "simple" case of mid-career "fuck this, I'm going to change my life", then it's just time for the rest of us to also move on or fork the project, if you're technically capable. I mean, the main developer of Bitcoin also disappeared, and Bitcoin is now thousands of times more viral than when he was the alpha developer.
On the other hand, whatever happened to Reiser FS?
Basically, the way the legal process goes, Apple still hasn't "fully" won its match against Samsung. This isn't Apple's second victory if by victory we mean the guy who gets the gold medal, the championship belt, the cheer leader's hug, etc. Apple may have won the round/lap/inning/half but a victory it's not.
"It's pretty seamless. The only way they could make it better is if they put in a revert function or at least a backup so you get your old data back"
There's another BIG way they can make it better, create an installer that runs on other operating systems say, like GNU/Linux or OSX? Or better yet an installer that doesn't require another computer to do its thing. Smartphone are becoming as powerful as the computers of the Y2K, so why not an installer that can be run off the target device? It the lockdown crap is the problem, then I guess option 1 (installers for other OSs) would be Numero 1 on my list. If they write their installer in Java/Python or some other portable language, then it shouldn't be too hard to port that over.
I'm not disputing your comments. However, what gives me second thoughts about the efforts of the Gates foundation is that they don't try to promote self-sufficiency in the target areas they're supposedly trying to help. For example, instead of simply trying to donate medicine why don't they try to set up labs that will manufacture the medicine within the country that needs it. It seems that even in his charity work Bill Gates has adopted the mindset of a proprietary software vendor, where even if a product is given away free, you're not given too much of a control over how it is to be used.
Predicting the demise of the Soviet Union or the rise of China is pretty easy. Empires made up of different ethnic groups always tend to collapse (Roman and Mongol empires). As for China, large countries are either destined for domination or collapse. So the fact that China's still existing means it's destined to reclaim its former glory as a world power.
What I'm more interested in is his predictions about the development of war technology. How much of his vision is genuine insight and how much of it is wish fulfillment? So he "predicted" the use of remote controlled airplanes in warfare, then maybe some general thought, Hey, that's cool, and decided to spend some money on the weird idea. Even if the research project started small, consistent funding eventually led to the development of drones.
I wonder, if this guy predicted mechas, would that lead to the production into gigantic, piloted robots?
Please, stop regarding the Constitution (of any country) as some sacred document. In every country, including obviously despotic states where the judicial system is staffed by the reigning dictator's stooges, the Constitution is simply what the supreme court of the land says it is. So effectively the Supreme Court IS the constitution. Sure there are violent and non-violent ways to fix the problem, throwing out the government or the simpler political expedient of impeaching and throwing out the recalcitrant justices.
Speaking of sacred texts, even the Bible, Koran, etc are subject to interpretation by whoever preacher/guru/imam you want to listen to. So even those documents are by no means clear as to what they mean.
The Shuttle program should at most be considered bridge technology. NASA should have started "serious" planning for its replacement right after the first shuttle disaster. I mean, if it was going to replace it with the Orion it could have done it at least a decade earlier. Or it could have increased funding for a true SSTO (single-stage-to-orbit) spacecraft. I'm not a rocket scientist so I don't know what's the best form factor to get people into space, but any successor to the Shuttle should have already been in the live test stage by the time the Endeavor touched down for the final time.
So while I consider the Shuttle to be a marvel of engineering, I consider the Space Shuttle program as a whole to be a failure, and I'll consider the whole manned space program a failure if after all the billions poured into it, our great grandchildren would look back at the Apollo moonwalks as the Golden Era of space. As it is, Elon Musk looks like he has more vision than all of NASA's board of directors.
Slashdot Mirror
"The NSA used to be very discrete, effective and restrained."
I think you mean discreet... more to the point, the NSA mass surveillance isn't an isolated development. It's part of the general movement to automate or at least remote-control everything, from the way we do research (Google) or send messages (spam) to the way we wage wars (drones) right down to way we compile "friends" or "followers" (Facebook/Twitter). "Liking" something used to be a matter of taste. Now it's a matter of clicking an icon. So, no, I don't think the NSA is entirely to blame.
Please don't underestimate the power of gradual propaganda. Let's say you want to damage Snowden's reputation. You won't begin by saying that he's a paranoid schizophrenic who's taking drugs 24/7 and has a Swiss bank account funded by North Korea and Cuba or membership in some fringe anarchist or survivalist group. No you'd begin by enumerating a list of his quirks, preferably stuff that can't be verified independently, trivial things like being in an unstable relationship with his partner, "frequent" bouts of insomnia, or maybe just being a practicing non-believer who likes to listen to Richard Dawkins speeches in his sleep. The first step would thus be to paint him as a bit right or left of the norm. Once that's established, that our supposed patriot isn't that all-American boy next door, you can proceed to tar him with more serious allegations, say, that because of his emotional problems he acquired a drug habit that he could fund by selling out to foreign states or that maybe he was being blackmailed by foreign agents who have threatened to expose one of his own personal secrets.
" Or making money using Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, Inventor, Autocad, Altium, VS, Vegas, etc..."
This looks like the Mac market, unless Apple decides to go down the Microsoft way and fuck over Mac users with a desktop version of iOS.
Besides, the number of people using such specialized software is much, much smaller and is probably not the sort of crowd you'd find in CES, a Consumer Electronics Show. So it's really just the lack of games that's holding back the exodus away from Windows.
Not saying Android for the desktop is a good idea. But there are already non-mobile Android systems that can easily be repurposed as a mom-and-pop desktop (i.e. a Chrome OS-like system primarily for web browsing). Google or search Amazon, Ebay, etc for Android media players (Apple TV sized kit) or Android HDMI dongles (thumb-drive sized kit).
You can't run x86 programs on those ARM puppies, but with some pain you can install or chroot a full Linux desktop on them. Lighter distros like Debian or Arch are advisable over fancier distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.
Remind mom/wife you really need to buy that solar panel kit you've been drooling over. [Candles are so last century.]
"In general, considering the usability, user interface, and functionality of 7, it is an upgrade from XP."
In terms of security and stability, yes, I'd consider Win 7 to be a significant upgrade for XP. But as far as usability and UI are concerned, there's not much to recommend 7 over XP, unless you think the graphical bling greatly improves usability. For all its faults, MS practically pefected the desktop WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointing Device) environment with Windows XP. That's why many users are rebelling against the mutant Win 8 tablet interface.
See? That's the big difference (that little hook at the end). Posing the article as a question, you get the benefit of having a scoop (OMFG!!! Bruce the Schneier got fired by the NSA) as far as Slashdot's second-hand stories go, while not getting burned if the story turns out to be false (duh, Bruce isn't leaving).
No, this is just Google admitting their driverless car project is a failure. So they'll replace the car with a real Android driver that will chat you up while driving you to work, "Sir, there's they're having a 50% off sale at XXX.com. Would you like me to get you a promo code?"
"The nipple is the only intuitive interface."
If the nipple is an intuitive interface, then mothers wouldn't have to shove it in our mouths the first time around. It's as much an acquired taste as your favorite desktop OS. You get used to it and eventually even come to relish it. But a bottle-fed baby wouldn't know the difference from the real thing.
It's predictive if all you read is near-future sci-fi. Most of the sci-fi we call predictive is either mere coincidence or some bored engineer reading or watching it and deciding it's a cool thing to make things like sentient AI (Asimov, Clarke, et al), a multipurpose hand-held information acquisition tool (Star Trek), or a laser-based space defense system (Star Wars). So no suprise there. If you fire in one general direction enough times, you're bound to hit the bull's eye some time.
"Their founder actually dropped by our lab at MIT a year and a half ago, saying he wants to collaborate, and spent quite some time with the Copenhagen wheel team. We'll leave it at that,' Superpedestrian founder Assaf Biderman said."
Wrong state. But doesn't that remind you of a certain IT visionary who developed this idea for a graphically-oriented computer?
As an American, you were probably allowed only into the better schools. Who knows maybe you were looking at the Chinese equivalent of a magnet (if not necessarily a science/math) school. Imagine the bad press the Chinese would get if some true-blue American kids are allowed into one of their "shittier" schools. So your anecdote, even as anecdotes rarely count for good proof, doesn't count.
It's only a matter of time and who knows what restrictive GPL-incompatible license Microsoft will come up with. Everything's being opensourced, including guns, money, and government secrets. Note that I don't equate opensource with free as in freedom. Microsoft will still be in control so that maybe you can't mix Windows source with Android/Linux source. And you'll probably still need to pay a license while all your improvements will belong to them.
Hitler is handsome? What beer are you drinking? By the way, Google why he has that mustache.
" Singapore is surrounded by neighbours that completely dwarf them (Malaysia, Indonesia) only 50 years ago encompassed them (Malaysia), have an Islamic majority (Malaysia) or a virulent Islamic minority (Indonesia) and are debating whether to become a fully Islamic state (Malaysia). "
Minor correction with Indonesia. Like Malaysia, Indonesia is a Muslim-majority state. In fact, the majority is greater in Indonesia (at least 90% IRC). Malaysia in fact has a rather large, non-Muslim ethnic Chinese minority, which have been discriminated against per official policy.
The problem with the Snowden revelations is likely to come more from Malaysia, which has adopted a more consistently anti-Western stance than Indonesia, which had been more business-like in its dealings with the West.
"Money ? Nope. USA is bankrupt."
When you're a country, being bankrupt doesn't mean you don't have a money. You can always "print" more. Or maybe the US should start paying their snoops in Bitcoins?
"It's not that we always side with "the little guy" - we frequently side against small vendors making money off of illegal copying, such as Chinese illegal DVD vendors or businesses who sell open-source software."
Businesses are allowed to sell open-source software, at least by the two most popular types of free/open-source licenses, BSD and GPL.
Even morally, which is different from what's legally allowed, it's okay to sell open-source software, provided you give something back to the open-source developers, in terms of code or money. That's how the Wine (GPL) project is funded. What most free software developers hate are "freeloaders" who rebrand a program by making only trivial changes to it or, worse, vendors who ruin a program's "reputation" by adding adware and other crap (usually but not always wrapped around installers of dubious quality).
Trying mining other cyrptocurrents. They should have a lower barrier of entry than something as "over"-mined as Bitcoin. The trick, however, is to know which can be traded for a profit or not too great a loss with Bitcoin or maybe even directly to the fiat currency of your choice (dollars, yens, etc.). Litecoin seems attractive at the moment.
Also be careful of very, very recently forked Bitcoin alternatives. They might be fly-by-night operations designed simply to suck-er in users who want to buy their way into virtual weath.
Yes, let's wait. Far too many possible causes. If it's a personal matter, then leave him be. It's not as if he was getting seriously paid for his work?
If it's just a "simple" case of mid-career "fuck this, I'm going to change my life", then it's just time for the rest of us to also move on or fork the project, if you're technically capable. I mean, the main developer of Bitcoin also disappeared, and Bitcoin is now thousands of times more viral than when he was the alpha developer.
On the other hand, whatever happened to Reiser FS?
Amen to that.
Basically, the way the legal process goes, Apple still hasn't "fully" won its match against Samsung. This isn't Apple's second victory if by victory we mean the guy who gets the gold medal, the championship belt, the cheer leader's hug, etc. Apple may have won the round/lap/inning/half but a victory it's not.
"It's pretty seamless. The only way they could make it better is if they put in a revert function or at least a backup so you get your old data back"
There's another BIG way they can make it better, create an installer that runs on other operating systems say, like GNU/Linux or OSX? Or better yet an installer that doesn't require another computer to do its thing. Smartphone are becoming as powerful as the computers of the Y2K, so why not an installer that can be run off the target device? It the lockdown crap is the problem, then I guess option 1 (installers for other OSs) would be Numero 1 on my list. If they write their installer in Java/Python or some other portable language, then it shouldn't be too hard to port that over.
I'm not disputing your comments. However, what gives me second thoughts about the efforts of the Gates foundation is that they don't try to promote self-sufficiency in the target areas they're supposedly trying to help. For example, instead of simply trying to donate medicine why don't they try to set up labs that will manufacture the medicine within the country that needs it. It seems that even in his charity work Bill Gates has adopted the mindset of a proprietary software vendor, where even if a product is given away free, you're not given too much of a control over how it is to be used.
Predicting the demise of the Soviet Union or the rise of China is pretty easy. Empires made up of different ethnic groups always tend to collapse (Roman and Mongol empires). As for China, large countries are either destined for domination or collapse. So the fact that China's still existing means it's destined to reclaim its former glory as a world power.
What I'm more interested in is his predictions about the development of war technology. How much of his vision is genuine insight and how much of it is wish fulfillment? So he "predicted" the use of remote controlled airplanes in warfare, then maybe some general thought, Hey, that's cool, and decided to spend some money on the weird idea. Even if the research project started small, consistent funding eventually led to the development of drones.
I wonder, if this guy predicted mechas, would that lead to the production into gigantic, piloted robots?
Please, stop regarding the Constitution (of any country) as some sacred document. In every country, including obviously despotic states where the judicial system is staffed by the reigning dictator's stooges, the Constitution is simply what the supreme court of the land says it is. So effectively the Supreme Court IS the constitution. Sure there are violent and non-violent ways to fix the problem, throwing out the government or the simpler political expedient of impeaching and throwing out the recalcitrant justices.
Speaking of sacred texts, even the Bible, Koran, etc are subject to interpretation by whoever preacher/guru/imam you want to listen to. So even those documents are by no means clear as to what they mean.
The Shuttle program should at most be considered bridge technology. NASA should have started "serious" planning for its replacement right after the first shuttle disaster. I mean, if it was going to replace it with the Orion it could have done it at least a decade earlier. Or it could have increased funding for a true SSTO (single-stage-to-orbit) spacecraft. I'm not a rocket scientist so I don't know what's the best form factor to get people into space, but any successor to the Shuttle should have already been in the live test stage by the time the Endeavor touched down for the final time.
So while I consider the Shuttle to be a marvel of engineering, I consider the Space Shuttle program as a whole to be a failure, and I'll consider the whole manned space program a failure if after all the billions poured into it, our great grandchildren would look back at the Apollo moonwalks as the Golden Era of space. As it is, Elon Musk looks like he has more vision than all of NASA's board of directors.