A "confirmation" from an internal corporate investigation is worth about as much as my toilet.
On the other hand, for a company/organisation to come out in public with a statement like this is very risky indeed, unless they are able to back it up with substantial evidence. All Mr Appelbaum has to do is take them to court for X million of the currency of his choice; I'm sure there are plenty of no win, no fee lawyers who would take it on, if it had any prospect of succeeding at all. Perhaps he will do so, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.
You are aware that the last three or so generations, at least in the West, are overall the richest human beings that have ever lived.
To some extent, certainly. But there are two fatal flaws, I think - one being the fact that we are livin the good life because a lot of people in 3rd world countries are not. Our luxury depends on the easy access to cheap goods and labour from elsewhere, which depends on those people staying poor. The consequences of this imbalance is, unsurprisingly, growing dissatisfaction and ultimately, terrorism.
The other, even more serious problem is that we are using up resources that are not renewable; we are in a sense, living the high life on borrowed money, and the best we have come up with so far is to dismiss it with "Oh, we'll think of something"; which is to say, our descendants will have to solve the problems. So, yes, we are comfortable right now and here, but it will change, unless we start using the brains we have evolved (or been intelligently designed with, if you prefer).
So I'm all for a fairer society, but we've seen enough "utopian" systems to realize that there is no such thing as Utopia, and trying to bring up the lower classes by bringing down the upper classes never ends up the way you thought it would.
Fairer doesn't have to mean "perfect"; it just has to be fairer. Whatever your utopian ideal may be, fairer will also be somewhat closer to it, I imagine, unless you have some really weird ideas. We could probably do with something a few steps closer to what you might call communism, socialism, or any of a number of other paradises we cann imagine. These are not bad things to strive towards, as long as we keep our heads on and don't think we can reach perfection in a reality as changeable as this one.
Yeah; what I hear is, this latest Star Trek themed movie isn't even as good as the first two after it became yet another action movie franchise - the effects are impressive (but that is sort of run of the mill nowadays), and the story is non-existent. The original series were usually well-researched, sometimes politically daring and often with some sort of ethical morale - all of which has been replaced with a bunch of chest-beating narcissists. Maybe I'll watch it if it eventually makes it to a free-to-air TV channel, but only if I have nothing more interesting to do - like filling in a tax return or watching BBC Parliament from the House of Lords.
I have never been able to get my head around the way American politics is mainly about insignificant nonsense and hysterical posturing. So, people seem to be up in arms, basically because Mrs Clinton is a Clinton; I think we know that it is not about whether she is honest, competent, experienced. Nor is it about whether she get money from the wrong kind of rich people etc. After all, it would be so very hard to find a politician in the US who is not far too close to big money and whose character is several shades less than the purest white, and I find it highly surprising that the crap there undoubtedly is on Trump is not mentioned at all. But even more purprising is it that there are so many who eem to shut down their mental faculties and refuse to even think for a moment about the things he is promising - which he clearly can't deliver, and just as clearly has not spent any thought on how to implement.
SAy he gets elected - how long will it take before the wild excitement turns to disappointment and then outright hate? And when that happens, will he continue in style and whip up more shit against whoever is a convenient scapegoat - the Mexicans, the Muslims, whatever? Be careful what you wish for.
... prohibit "the use of network access, network devices, applications, and the disruption of normal advertising data, tampering with or blocking others doing advertising business (or) unauthorized loading the ad."
I have read through this string of words several times and still find it hard to read that interpretation into it. The way I read it, it says that it is illegal to hinder your competitors' online advertising in any way - and even I, who fundamentally dislike adverts in any form, find it hard to see that as anything but quite reasonable. Banning users from using adblockers etc would be absurd - like demanding that people must stop to look at advertising posters or have to watch tv adverts. Another thing I notice is that this comes from a website with the address http://adexchanger.com/ - I couldn't be bothered to go and read it, but the name suggests they are in the advertising business - wouldn't a ban on adblockers be a wet dream of theirs?
It's like if you go to buy a house and you pay $800k, up front, expecting to be able to get a mortgage, leave the place to your kids, and sell it if you have to, only to be told later that you merely rented the place for your life time.
You're thinking of leasehold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leasehold_estate)? It is unfortunately not uncommon, at least in UK.
If you will allow me to go off on a tangent - I wonder if people will eventually get tired of all these special effects and animations that are realer than reality. I haven't watched movies for years, really, other than idly sitting in on whatever was on the telly when I felt to wasted to do something meaningful. I watched factual programmes for a while, but even they are now full of irrelevant and unrealistic effects that I can only presume were gratifying for the team to produce - they certainly do nothing for me. In many ways I long for the era of David Attenborough - there was something about seeing him waist deep in a muddy swamp, talking with a quiet passion about something he really wanted people to understand. Now, all we get is crap that is speeded up, with added soundtrack, "reality tv" effects and a "human interest" story line. Utter crap, if you ask me.
We are still at the problem of what is the best interest of society. You are still falling back to opinion - your opinion to be exact - and a lot of other people might have a lot of other opinions.
I'm sure they do, but what else do we have, but our own opinions? Only a specialised few have more than their own opinions to offer; democracy is a proposed solution to the problem of finding the best interest of society, but we are still having serious trouble getting that right, and I suspect that there are many, important functions in society that are not well suited for the democratic process.
Well, I don't think that is really the issue here - there are two things at play: the fact that the hotels are not happy about having "unfair" (= "any") competition, which hard to sympathise with, since the hotel trade appears to be booming in many, from the basest "budget" hotels to the perversely luxurious ones. At least, new hotels seem to be built on a regular basis wherever I go. But the more serious issue is that the professionals that are needed by the cities, like nurses, doctors, teachers, and a long list of fairly ordinary people, are finding it hard to impossible to get any accomodation in the city, and rent sharking or whatever the term may be, is a serious issue.
And as for "the little people" (we aren't talking about fairy folk, I assume?) - if you can afford to rent 10 appartments, then you will have been able to raise the deposit money for that, so you are probably not so "little" after all, you are just a rent shark, basically a predator causing damage and not caring a bit about it.
Best interest. . There is the problem. You do not know what my best interest is.
Well, to put it a bit harshly, *your* personal best interests are not important to society; and of course that isn't actually the full truth. But society is a compromise, and as a consequence, the best interests of society are a compromise as well; hopefully that compromise isn't too far from your best interests, on average. In a well functioning society, most people should, most of the time, feel fairly happy about how things are.
...You don't stand out. You look perfectly ordinary...
If you feel your need to watch porn and engage in its associated activities so keenly, that you have to do it in a McDonald's, I suspect you are going to stand out in other ways that have nothing to do with network packets.
Rather than whining at firms that add so much value to your society... the extortion/slavery/theft/rape that is tax.
Yeah, having to pay your fair share of the upkeep of society, from whose infrastructure and other facilities you benefit, is just so unfair. Why can't those bloody commies see that it is much more reasonable to let the poor and the middle class pay for it? As for whining - you sound exactly like some sort of teenager whining about how unfair it is that you have to clean up the mess in your room, wash your own clothes and contribute a bit to the household in general.
If the companies don't like it, they can just move out, IMO. There are plenty that find the UK attractive enough, and if the big ones move away, then there will be more room for a larger number of smaller ones instead. Companies like Google and Amazon don't add much value to UK apart from the value of the employment they offer; smaller businesses add much more to society than just employment; just take the many, small to tiny startups around Cambridge Science Park and the enormous value they add to UK in terms of science and innovation. I'd say, get rid of the Googles and the Amazons and get more of the really valuable businesses.
I'm unsure what her appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary means; maybe she had to have him inside the tent and has given him a last chance or enough rope. Seems a bit reckless though.
I think it is a brilliant piece of strategic nastiness, that one can only admire, as an engineer. She wanted to remain in EU, he was the highest profile brexiteer; now he can sort out the mess. If he fails miserably - and it seems not unlikely - he'll get all the blame; if he succeeds, it shines a positive light on her as a good leader. Well played, I think.
I wish I was a chinese right now, they are the coolest nation ever. They just do as they please. I'm sure they could crush USA in a war.
There are many, good reasons for admiring the Chinese and perhaps even their government, but being able to do whatever you please is probably not one of them; it mostly leads to arrogance and carelessness - as they say, "pride stands before a fall". Well, look at America's history since WWII.
That said, I don't think China have ambitions about taking over the world by force - why would they, when they can simply keep increasing their political influence through finance, industry, science etc etc? But I think I can spot a good reason why they are being pushy in the South China Sea: they feel they are hemmed in by the US, who have a strong, military and political presence all along the edge of the area - South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and so on. The US didn't feel at all comfortable with USSR having too much influence on Cuba, so you guys should understand the sentiment.
Well, perhaps not so posh; apparently she is from a working class background, which isn't quite as unusual as one might think - a lot of working class Britons tend to be conservative, in that they just want things to work more or less like they use to. But she also seems like a very decent, down-to-earth person with some views that seem to be not at all common in the Tory party - and I suspect that there may be quite a lot of turbulence ahead for the government, despite their glossy show of unity just now. To me, it looks like we will have a very interesting time over the next few years, and I am in the strange situation of not being quite sure whether to vote one way or the other next time. If Mrs May turns out to be what I think she is, then perhaps I will vote for the Tories, unless Mr Corbyn manages to stay on as leader of Labour and unites the party, in which case I'll probably vote that way. And if you have followed British politics at all, you'll know just how strange that is.
To me it is all about the persons - the problems and their solutions dictate the policy at the moment, so both parties will have to do more or less the same; so it is down to whether you feel the actual persons are decent and trustworthy, and both Mrs May and Mr Corby appear to be that to a high degree. I think we have had enough of overly smart sounding politicians - Blair who sounded like an evangelist, Cameron who sounded like the Cillit Bang man and George "Lightyear" Osborne: "To the bone and beyond". There has been too much spin and too much schoolyard jeering, too much Tory Eton Bully and too much middle class Labour affrontedness. We just want sincere, pragmatic leadership, that works through the problems and takes care of the whole of the nation as best they can.
Wouldn't that be the perfect name for a drag queen at the lower end of the scale? Or are we witnessing the actions of one of the extremely rare, female, teen-age hackers, sniggering wildly as she unveils bombshells about somebody called Shaun from the Eastenders, who's cheating on his pregnant girlfriend while she's in hospital with a rare, but probably fatal disease?
15+ years for cybercrime vs 1-2 years for gang rape? Makes total sense...
Lots of thing in criminal justice make little sense. In order to make sense, criminal law would have to be the product of pragmatic considerations of what benefits society, and balanced with considerations of individual freedoms etc., rather than vindictiveness, petty moralism and fear of the unknown. A sensible, criminal law would not send people to jail for using a realtively harmless, recreational drug like cannabis, while allowing a widespread trade in more harmful drugs like alcohol and nicotine; that just doesn't make sense. Whther cybercrime should be punished harder than rape, I don't know; it is too wide a category - it covers everything from a silly prank on your school's network, to breaking in to important infrastructure and cause death and mayhem. In my view, a rapist should probably get quite a lot more than 2 years.
I always see a lot of different opinions about programming languages, but how much choice do you really get to have over which language to use? If you want to develop for Android, then you're probably using Java...and if you're developing for iOS, then you've probably been using Swift or Objective-C. Even when looking for a job, all your most recent job experience is usually tied up in whatever language your current employer insisted on using. (Unless people are routinely getting hired to work on projects in an entirely different language than the one that they're using now...)
Choice? Nowadays not a lot, I think; when I started way too long ago, you would choose a language that was accessible (in my case, one that I could find manuals for), then choose a job that required it. But back then you could get any number of jobs simply for being able to code. I started off with assembler, BASIC and FORTRAN in the 70es when programmers wrote in all upper case, added COBOL and PASCAL (still upper case languages back then) in the 80es, then C. I got into C++ in the 90es (because "The Future Has Arrived, And It Is Object Oriented"), and in the last decade or so I have used a much diverse range of languages - ksh and python for scripting, C, C++ and Java for application development, as well as whatever else was required on occasion. But C has been my main language for most of that time.
Maybe the question I really want to ask is how often do you really get to choose your programming languages... Does it happen when you're swayed by the available development environment or intrigued by the community's stellar reputation, or that buzz of excitement that keeps building up around one particular language? Or are programming languages just something that you eventually just fall into by default?
I think most developers really just code with whatever is used in their project, and will be able to change from one language to another with little difficulty. If I should make a guess, I would say that you start off early in your education by choosing the language that best suits your particular sphere of interest - GUI, back-end, kernel or whatever - but you will inevitably get infected by other languages over time. Personally, I have never paid much attention to what is popular or fashionable, but then I'm not a great follower of trends in general; I just use what seems best suitable. I suppose, when you build up your experience, you begin to notice that the differences between all those languages are fairly minimal - there's the old languages that seem to be made of cast iron and concrete, like COBOL and FORTRAN, there's a load of C style languages (including C++ etc), and then there are the "exotic" languages, if you will excuse my choice of words.
First, experts usually don't know nearly as much as they think they do. They often get it wrong, thanks to their inherently irrational brains that -- through overconfidence, bubbles of like-minded thinkers, or just wanting to believe their vision of the world can be true -- mislead us and misinterpret information...
I'm not quite sure how you can make "scientists" mean "experts"; a scientist is somebody who conducts research, guided by evidence and logic - a true scientist is instictively averse to making bold statements about how things are, because they know how easily a good-sounding theory can be tripped up by reality - whereas "experts" is a much more loosely defined group, ranging from those few who actually know what they talk about, to the many that don't, but like to hear their opinions; a certain Mr Trump springs to mind. Being guided by science would be a good idea, but the ever present risk is that they quickly get sidelined by the usual crowd of dodgy dealers that we call politicians.
Another thing: it is probably time to stop talking about "the inherently irrational brain" as if it was an established fact. It is in fact nothing more than a myth that became popular in the early 20th century or thereabouts, because we didn't have a sufficiently good understanding of what happens in the brain. Now that we begin to know some of the details, it turns out that it is in fact perfectly logical, even if it is rather complex. The brain is not "inherently irrational" (what does that even mean?), but since it can only process a limited amount of information, some of which may be false, the outcome will inevitably seem irrational at times to others, even it it seems perfectly rational to the person.
And second, science has no business telling people how to live. It's striking how easily we forget the evil that following "science" can do. So many times throughout history, humans have thought they were behaving in logical and rational ways, only to realize that such acts have yielded morally heinous policies that were only enacted because reasonable people were swayed by "evidence".
Science is one step ahead this time - scientists are not telling anybody how to live. The role of science can only ever be advisory - science at best enables you to find ways to solve problems. And again, science is not "science"; the fact that (pseudo-) science has so often been used as an excuse for some agenda, does not make it the fault of science and scientists, I hope that is self-evident. Scientists discover how the world works, and idiots who don't understand or care about the wider ramifications then abuse the discoveries to satisfy their own, shortsighted gratification. Tyson knows, without doubt, that his idealised dream cannot be realised, but it is still a good dream - something to strive towards, I think.
Chinese cheat. Period. Ex-Soviets and formerly-Cubans do too. No, this is not "racism" â" the trait is not genetic, it is cultural. When you are dealing with the abusive State for most of the things, cheating is the only way to have a reasonably comfortable life. It is not considered wrong or dishonest â" everybody does it.
Western world weren't cheating quite so much not because they are racially superior somehow, but simply because they don't interact with the State as much as victims of Socialism/Communism are forced to.
You've got yourself some "interesting" theories there. But first about "racism": the term was never used in a stricly genetic sense; not only is skin colour a very superficial criterium with very little genetic background, but right from the beginning, the term "race" was used to label "them" as different from "us" - hence the British Race, the Spanish Race, the Jewish Race etc. Its influence even showed up in terms like "breeds" - working class people of the so-called "British Race" were a different breed from aristocrats, obviously. In modern times, racism has come to signify any unfair discrimination based on superficial differences - hence it is reasonable to talk about racism in the loose sense, in this case. The fact that you defend youself against being called a racist shows that you are aware of this. People are not somehow worse morally or of lower intelligence or whatever, simply because they are from a different cultural or political background; it might even be that you are the one lacking something - a sensible person would always take that into consideration.
As for what is the reason why there appears to be more companies from Russia or China that engage in dubious practices, it may be worth looking back at the history of America or UK. The Wild West was lousy with quacks and other fraudsters, until the dreaded state stepped in and forced some rules on them. You will find the same pattern in UK and the rest of Europe as well: the unregulated, free market encourages cheating, fraud and ruthless exploitation, and the state is force to step in to regulate things to the benefit of the common people. What has happened in both China and Russia is the same thing: the state loosened its control, and fraudsters popped up in great numbers; now the state needs to go and exert some form of control again. So, even if you think Communism is a bad thing in itself, its failings have less to do with the state control and more to do with poor administration and inability to build trust between individuals and the state; not so different from the way it is in the US.
Sorry for replying to my own post - I just had a thought, and it happens so rarely these days. Perhaps some players are not so much interested in doing the hard work of gaming, but still enjoy watching, seeing the landscape, exploring or whatever. Game makers could cater for them by allowing a "tourist mode", where you can travel around everywhere and won't get killed, but can't take part in the action; perhaps this already exists - I don't play games much. Or at all - there always seems to be more important things to do.
I have always been puzzled by people subscribing to a game, then cheating. I can understand the temptation to cheat a little to get over a hurdle that seems impossible, surely the pleasure of playing a game lies in knowing that you have achieved it all, or most of it, simply by your own effort? How much fun would it be to get a professional chess player to play for you right up to the last move, just before you say 'check mate'?
Slashdot Mirror
A "confirmation" from an internal corporate investigation is worth about as much as my toilet.
On the other hand, for a company/organisation to come out in public with a statement like this is very risky indeed, unless they are able to back it up with substantial evidence. All Mr Appelbaum has to do is take them to court for X million of the currency of his choice; I'm sure there are plenty of no win, no fee lawyers who would take it on, if it had any prospect of succeeding at all. Perhaps he will do so, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.
You are aware that the last three or so generations, at least in the West, are overall the richest human beings that have ever lived.
To some extent, certainly. But there are two fatal flaws, I think - one being the fact that we are livin the good life because a lot of people in 3rd world countries are not. Our luxury depends on the easy access to cheap goods and labour from elsewhere, which depends on those people staying poor. The consequences of this imbalance is, unsurprisingly, growing dissatisfaction and ultimately, terrorism.
The other, even more serious problem is that we are using up resources that are not renewable; we are in a sense, living the high life on borrowed money, and the best we have come up with so far is to dismiss it with "Oh, we'll think of something"; which is to say, our descendants will have to solve the problems. So, yes, we are comfortable right now and here, but it will change, unless we start using the brains we have evolved (or been intelligently designed with, if you prefer).
So I'm all for a fairer society, but we've seen enough "utopian" systems to realize that there is no such thing as Utopia, and trying to bring up the lower classes by bringing down the upper classes never ends up the way you thought it would.
Fairer doesn't have to mean "perfect"; it just has to be fairer. Whatever your utopian ideal may be, fairer will also be somewhat closer to it, I imagine, unless you have some really weird ideas. We could probably do with something a few steps closer to what you might call communism, socialism, or any of a number of other paradises we cann imagine. These are not bad things to strive towards, as long as we keep our heads on and don't think we can reach perfection in a reality as changeable as this one.
Yeah; what I hear is, this latest Star Trek themed movie isn't even as good as the first two after it became yet another action movie franchise - the effects are impressive (but that is sort of run of the mill nowadays), and the story is non-existent. The original series were usually well-researched, sometimes politically daring and often with some sort of ethical morale - all of which has been replaced with a bunch of chest-beating narcissists. Maybe I'll watch it if it eventually makes it to a free-to-air TV channel, but only if I have nothing more interesting to do - like filling in a tax return or watching BBC Parliament from the House of Lords.
I have never been able to get my head around the way American politics is mainly about insignificant nonsense and hysterical posturing. So, people seem to be up in arms, basically because Mrs Clinton is a Clinton; I think we know that it is not about whether she is honest, competent, experienced. Nor is it about whether she get money from the wrong kind of rich people etc. After all, it would be so very hard to find a politician in the US who is not far too close to big money and whose character is several shades less than the purest white, and I find it highly surprising that the crap there undoubtedly is on Trump is not mentioned at all. But even more purprising is it that there are so many who eem to shut down their mental faculties and refuse to even think for a moment about the things he is promising - which he clearly can't deliver, and just as clearly has not spent any thought on how to implement.
SAy he gets elected - how long will it take before the wild excitement turns to disappointment and then outright hate? And when that happens, will he continue in style and whip up more shit against whoever is a convenient scapegoat - the Mexicans, the Muslims, whatever? Be careful what you wish for.
... prohibit "the use of network access, network devices, applications, and the disruption of normal advertising data, tampering with or blocking others doing advertising business (or) unauthorized loading the ad."
I have read through this string of words several times and still find it hard to read that interpretation into it. The way I read it, it says that it is illegal to hinder your competitors' online advertising in any way - and even I, who fundamentally dislike adverts in any form, find it hard to see that as anything but quite reasonable. Banning users from using adblockers etc would be absurd - like demanding that people must stop to look at advertising posters or have to watch tv adverts. Another thing I notice is that this comes from a website with the address http://adexchanger.com/ - I couldn't be bothered to go and read it, but the name suggests they are in the advertising business - wouldn't a ban on adblockers be a wet dream of theirs?
They spend 500 million bribing people to like them?
One assumes they must be worried about be hit much harder, were they to be made to pay taxes in proportion to their earnings.
It's like if you go to buy a house and you pay $800k, up front, expecting to be able to get a mortgage, leave the place to your kids, and sell it if you have to, only to be told later that you merely rented the place for your life time.
You're thinking of leasehold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leasehold_estate)? It is unfortunately not uncommon, at least in UK.
If you will allow me to go off on a tangent - I wonder if people will eventually get tired of all these special effects and animations that are realer than reality. I haven't watched movies for years, really, other than idly sitting in on whatever was on the telly when I felt to wasted to do something meaningful. I watched factual programmes for a while, but even they are now full of irrelevant and unrealistic effects that I can only presume were gratifying for the team to produce - they certainly do nothing for me. In many ways I long for the era of David Attenborough - there was something about seeing him waist deep in a muddy swamp, talking with a quiet passion about something he really wanted people to understand. Now, all we get is crap that is speeded up, with added soundtrack, "reality tv" effects and a "human interest" story line. Utter crap, if you ask me.
We are still at the problem of what is the best interest of society. You are still falling back to opinion - your opinion to be exact - and a lot of other people might have a lot of other opinions.
I'm sure they do, but what else do we have, but our own opinions? Only a specialised few have more than their own opinions to offer; democracy is a proposed solution to the problem of finding the best interest of society, but we are still having serious trouble getting that right, and I suspect that there are many, important functions in society that are not well suited for the democratic process.
OMG, the "little people" are making money!
Well, I don't think that is really the issue here - there are two things at play: the fact that the hotels are not happy about having "unfair" (= "any") competition, which hard to sympathise with, since the hotel trade appears to be booming in many, from the basest "budget" hotels to the perversely luxurious ones. At least, new hotels seem to be built on a regular basis wherever I go. But the more serious issue is that the professionals that are needed by the cities, like nurses, doctors, teachers, and a long list of fairly ordinary people, are finding it hard to impossible to get any accomodation in the city, and rent sharking or whatever the term may be, is a serious issue.
And as for "the little people" (we aren't talking about fairy folk, I assume?) - if you can afford to rent 10 appartments, then you will have been able to raise the deposit money for that, so you are probably not so "little" after all, you are just a rent shark, basically a predator causing damage and not caring a bit about it.
Best interest. . There is the problem. You do not know what my best interest is.
Well, to put it a bit harshly, *your* personal best interests are not important to society; and of course that isn't actually the full truth. But society is a compromise, and as a consequence, the best interests of society are a compromise as well; hopefully that compromise isn't too far from your best interests, on average. In a well functioning society, most people should, most of the time, feel fairly happy about how things are.
...You don't stand out. You look perfectly ordinary ...
If you feel your need to watch porn and engage in its associated activities so keenly, that you have to do it in a McDonald's, I suspect you are going to stand out in other ways that have nothing to do with network packets.
Rather than whining at firms that add so much value to your society ... the extortion/slavery/theft/rape that is tax.
Yeah, having to pay your fair share of the upkeep of society, from whose infrastructure and other facilities you benefit, is just so unfair. Why can't those bloody commies see that it is much more reasonable to let the poor and the middle class pay for it? As for whining - you sound exactly like some sort of teenager whining about how unfair it is that you have to clean up the mess in your room, wash your own clothes and contribute a bit to the household in general.
If the companies don't like it, they can just move out, IMO. There are plenty that find the UK attractive enough, and if the big ones move away, then there will be more room for a larger number of smaller ones instead. Companies like Google and Amazon don't add much value to UK apart from the value of the employment they offer; smaller businesses add much more to society than just employment; just take the many, small to tiny startups around Cambridge Science Park and the enormous value they add to UK in terms of science and innovation. I'd say, get rid of the Googles and the Amazons and get more of the really valuable businesses.
I'm unsure what her appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary means; maybe she had to have him inside the tent and has given him a last chance or enough rope. Seems a bit reckless though.
I think it is a brilliant piece of strategic nastiness, that one can only admire, as an engineer. She wanted to remain in EU, he was the highest profile brexiteer; now he can sort out the mess. If he fails miserably - and it seems not unlikely - he'll get all the blame; if he succeeds, it shines a positive light on her as a good leader. Well played, I think.
Somebody, open the window - he's dropped one again.
I wish I was a chinese right now, they are the coolest nation ever. They just do as they please. I'm sure they could crush USA in a war.
There are many, good reasons for admiring the Chinese and perhaps even their government, but being able to do whatever you please is probably not one of them; it mostly leads to arrogance and carelessness - as they say, "pride stands before a fall". Well, look at America's history since WWII.
That said, I don't think China have ambitions about taking over the world by force - why would they, when they can simply keep increasing their political influence through finance, industry, science etc etc? But I think I can spot a good reason why they are being pushy in the South China Sea: they feel they are hemmed in by the US, who have a strong, military and political presence all along the edge of the area - South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and so on. The US didn't feel at all comfortable with USSR having too much influence on Cuba, so you guys should understand the sentiment.
Bloody hell! (in a posh accent)
Well, perhaps not so posh; apparently she is from a working class background, which isn't quite as unusual as one might think - a lot of working class Britons tend to be conservative, in that they just want things to work more or less like they use to. But she also seems like a very decent, down-to-earth person with some views that seem to be not at all common in the Tory party - and I suspect that there may be quite a lot of turbulence ahead for the government, despite their glossy show of unity just now. To me, it looks like we will have a very interesting time over the next few years, and I am in the strange situation of not being quite sure whether to vote one way or the other next time. If Mrs May turns out to be what I think she is, then perhaps I will vote for the Tories, unless Mr Corbyn manages to stay on as leader of Labour and unites the party, in which case I'll probably vote that way. And if you have followed British politics at all, you'll know just how strange that is.
To me it is all about the persons - the problems and their solutions dictate the policy at the moment, so both parties will have to do more or less the same; so it is down to whether you feel the actual persons are decent and trustworthy, and both Mrs May and Mr Corby appear to be that to a high degree. I think we have had enough of overly smart sounding politicians - Blair who sounded like an evangelist, Cameron who sounded like the Cillit Bang man and George "Lightyear" Osborne: "To the bone and beyond". There has been too much spin and too much schoolyard jeering, too much Tory Eton Bully and too much middle class Labour affrontedness. We just want sincere, pragmatic leadership, that works through the problems and takes care of the whole of the nation as best they can.
Things are really going her way - you could say that this is the month of May.
Wouldn't that be the perfect name for a drag queen at the lower end of the scale? Or are we witnessing the actions of one of the extremely rare, female, teen-age hackers, sniggering wildly as she unveils bombshells about somebody called Shaun from the Eastenders, who's cheating on his pregnant girlfriend while she's in hospital with a rare, but probably fatal disease?
15+ years for cybercrime vs 1-2 years for gang rape? Makes total sense...
Lots of thing in criminal justice make little sense. In order to make sense, criminal law would have to be the product of pragmatic considerations of what benefits society, and balanced with considerations of individual freedoms etc., rather than vindictiveness, petty moralism and fear of the unknown. A sensible, criminal law would not send people to jail for using a realtively harmless, recreational drug like cannabis, while allowing a widespread trade in more harmful drugs like alcohol and nicotine; that just doesn't make sense. Whther cybercrime should be punished harder than rape, I don't know; it is too wide a category - it covers everything from a silly prank on your school's network, to breaking in to important infrastructure and cause death and mayhem. In my view, a rapist should probably get quite a lot more than 2 years.
I always see a lot of different opinions about programming languages, but how much choice do you really get to have over which language to use? If you want to develop for Android, then you're probably using Java...and if you're developing for iOS, then you've probably been using Swift or Objective-C. Even when looking for a job, all your most recent job experience is usually tied up in whatever language your current employer insisted on using. (Unless people are routinely getting hired to work on projects in an entirely different language than the one that they're using now...)
Choice? Nowadays not a lot, I think; when I started way too long ago, you would choose a language that was accessible (in my case, one that I could find manuals for), then choose a job that required it. But back then you could get any number of jobs simply for being able to code. I started off with assembler, BASIC and FORTRAN in the 70es when programmers wrote in all upper case, added COBOL and PASCAL (still upper case languages back then) in the 80es, then C. I got into C++ in the 90es (because "The Future Has Arrived, And It Is Object Oriented"), and in the last decade or so I have used a much diverse range of languages - ksh and python for scripting, C, C++ and Java for application development, as well as whatever else was required on occasion. But C has been my main language for most of that time.
Maybe the question I really want to ask is how often do you really get to choose your programming languages... Does it happen when you're swayed by the available development environment or intrigued by the community's stellar reputation, or that buzz of excitement that keeps building up around one particular language? Or are programming languages just something that you eventually just fall into by default?
I think most developers really just code with whatever is used in their project, and will be able to change from one language to another with little difficulty. If I should make a guess, I would say that you start off early in your education by choosing the language that best suits your particular sphere of interest - GUI, back-end, kernel or whatever - but you will inevitably get infected by other languages over time. Personally, I have never paid much attention to what is popular or fashionable, but then I'm not a great follower of trends in general; I just use what seems best suitable. I suppose, when you build up your experience, you begin to notice that the differences between all those languages are fairly minimal - there's the old languages that seem to be made of cast iron and concrete, like COBOL and FORTRAN, there's a load of C style languages (including C++ etc), and then there are the "exotic" languages, if you will excuse my choice of words.
First, experts usually don't know nearly as much as they think they do. They often get it wrong, thanks to their inherently irrational brains that -- through overconfidence, bubbles of like-minded thinkers, or just wanting to believe their vision of the world can be true -- mislead us and misinterpret information...
I'm not quite sure how you can make "scientists" mean "experts"; a scientist is somebody who conducts research, guided by evidence and logic - a true scientist is instictively averse to making bold statements about how things are, because they know how easily a good-sounding theory can be tripped up by reality - whereas "experts" is a much more loosely defined group, ranging from those few who actually know what they talk about, to the many that don't, but like to hear their opinions; a certain Mr Trump springs to mind. Being guided by science would be a good idea, but the ever present risk is that they quickly get sidelined by the usual crowd of dodgy dealers that we call politicians.
Another thing: it is probably time to stop talking about "the inherently irrational brain" as if it was an established fact. It is in fact nothing more than a myth that became popular in the early 20th century or thereabouts, because we didn't have a sufficiently good understanding of what happens in the brain. Now that we begin to know some of the details, it turns out that it is in fact perfectly logical, even if it is rather complex. The brain is not "inherently irrational" (what does that even mean?), but since it can only process a limited amount of information, some of which may be false, the outcome will inevitably seem irrational at times to others, even it it seems perfectly rational to the person.
And second, science has no business telling people how to live. It's striking how easily we forget the evil that following "science" can do. So many times throughout history, humans have thought they were behaving in logical and rational ways, only to realize that such acts have yielded morally heinous policies that were only enacted because reasonable people were swayed by "evidence".
Science is one step ahead this time - scientists are not telling anybody how to live. The role of science can only ever be advisory - science at best enables you to find ways to solve problems. And again, science is not "science"; the fact that (pseudo-) science has so often been used as an excuse for some agenda, does not make it the fault of science and scientists, I hope that is self-evident. Scientists discover how the world works, and idiots who don't understand or care about the wider ramifications then abuse the discoveries to satisfy their own, shortsighted gratification. Tyson knows, without doubt, that his idealised dream cannot be realised, but it is still a good dream - something to strive towards, I think.
Chinese cheat. Period. Ex-Soviets and formerly-Cubans do too. No, this is not "racism" â" the trait is not genetic, it is cultural. When you are dealing with the abusive State for most of the things, cheating is the only way to have a reasonably comfortable life. It is not considered wrong or dishonest â" everybody does it.
Western world weren't cheating quite so much not because they are racially superior somehow, but simply because they don't interact with the State as much as victims of Socialism/Communism are forced to.
You've got yourself some "interesting" theories there. But first about "racism": the term was never used in a stricly genetic sense; not only is skin colour a very superficial criterium with very little genetic background, but right from the beginning, the term "race" was used to label "them" as different from "us" - hence the British Race, the Spanish Race, the Jewish Race etc. Its influence even showed up in terms like "breeds" - working class people of the so-called "British Race" were a different breed from aristocrats, obviously. In modern times, racism has come to signify any unfair discrimination based on superficial differences - hence it is reasonable to talk about racism in the loose sense, in this case. The fact that you defend youself against being called a racist shows that you are aware of this. People are not somehow worse morally or of lower intelligence or whatever, simply because they are from a different cultural or political background; it might even be that you are the one lacking something - a sensible person would always take that into consideration.
As for what is the reason why there appears to be more companies from Russia or China that engage in dubious practices, it may be worth looking back at the history of America or UK. The Wild West was lousy with quacks and other fraudsters, until the dreaded state stepped in and forced some rules on them. You will find the same pattern in UK and the rest of Europe as well: the unregulated, free market encourages cheating, fraud and ruthless exploitation, and the state is force to step in to regulate things to the benefit of the common people. What has happened in both China and Russia is the same thing: the state loosened its control, and fraudsters popped up in great numbers; now the state needs to go and exert some form of control again. So, even if you think Communism is a bad thing in itself, its failings have less to do with the state control and more to do with poor administration and inability to build trust between individuals and the state; not so different from the way it is in the US.
Sorry for replying to my own post - I just had a thought, and it happens so rarely these days. Perhaps some players are not so much interested in doing the hard work of gaming, but still enjoy watching, seeing the landscape, exploring or whatever. Game makers could cater for them by allowing a "tourist mode", where you can travel around everywhere and won't get killed, but can't take part in the action; perhaps this already exists - I don't play games much. Or at all - there always seems to be more important things to do.
I have always been puzzled by people subscribing to a game, then cheating. I can understand the temptation to cheat a little to get over a hurdle that seems impossible, surely the pleasure of playing a game lies in knowing that you have achieved it all, or most of it, simply by your own effort? How much fun would it be to get a professional chess player to play for you right up to the last move, just before you say 'check mate'?