it makes me wonder why should I even purchase a console when a desktop will be infinitely better in terms of cost, performance, and longevity?
I call shenanigans. Have you priced a gaming PC? The most expensive console costs the same as the graphics card alone. You cannot get a decent gaming PC for the price of a console. I like my gaming PC, but I paid a hell of a lot more than any of my friends did for their consoles. You could buy a switch, PS5 Pro, and XBox One X for the price of an entry level gaming system.
Also, I think it's better to get a nicer experience for more money much sooner, so I welcome tiers. I will probably even pick up a switch this summer if they release an upgraded version like the rumors suggest.
is that the new leadership wants to make money and realizes there are more dollars to be made by enthusiastic, satisfied customers than by being evil. Since Balmer left, they've supported Linux and open languages quite well. The old ways of restricted platforms is a complex and difficult task with a lot of risk. That embrace, extend, and extinguish trope is old and hasn't been since since the times when there were a dozen blockbuster video stores in my city.
This could be a sinster plot to ruin crossplay or this could be a plot to get more people to like xbox live and pay for their services. This could be a plot to sell more microsoft games. This could be a plot to lower their dev expenses. This could be a plot to sell Azure gaming services.
Which do you think is more likely? They are trying to open up new markets and revenue streams....or plotting an evil conspiracy that no one but YOU saw coming!
What was profitable for the Bill Gates era really doesn't cut it in the modern landscape. I think Microsoft's new leadership sees that in order for Microsoft to be profitable and grow in the future, it needs to adapt its ways to world and how it is changing. It needs to evolve to find new markets as its old ones languish.
I suspect the real hoarders are those who collect porn.
Why do you say that? Porn has a very short shelf life. People get bored of it quickly and chase what is new and novel. With music, you can get joy from listening to a song over the years. Do you have porn you enjoy looking at over the years? People often are often more excited to hear old songs than new. Do you ever feel that way with porn?
In order to help us on #3, can you elaborate on #2? I am not doubting you. I just want to be more educated on this topic and am not certain what you're referring to.
There are plenty of competent programmers in India. They just want American wages, not 30k/year. Although most engineers recruiters present to me as "competent" for our Bangalore office are far from it. I sympathize. If you're good at your job, why work in Bangalore when companies will pay you to relocate to the US or UK for much higher wages...or find a job paying Western wages in India (like most tech giants do for their good projects).
I have Apserger's (or ASD). I am not an MRA. I don't like being a victim and I take responsibility for my own actions rather than whining about society. I can complain about how life is unfair for someone with my challenges or I can find ways of working with what I got and having the life I want. Your implication is that people with high functioning ASD are more likely to be MRA jerks. Well, I am not one. I get along well with my coworkers, treat women and people who are different than me with respect. None of this technically disproves your statement. However, if you are ever tempted to paint us with a broad brush, please think of me in the future. I am not ashamed of being autistic. I take responsibility for my actions and do my best to be someone people enjoy being around and working with. Being an MRA jerk is quite independent of the autism spectrum.
Presumption of innocence is important for a criminal trial. When you're running a business, you need to keep people happy. If you're a waitress and every customer thinks you are rude, you get fired...regardless of how rude you are or are not. You're bad for business.
For Riot Games, they need to keep their workforce happy. You're welcome to debate how, but the bottom line is that they need to. Also, when you have a lot of accusations, they could be false, but first of all, after a certain number, I start to believe the accusers...like Bill Cosby's. Once you have double digit accusers, the probability of it being a conspiracy or misunderstanding is very low. Maybe nothing is wrong with Riot Games' culture, however, if the perception is that it is a terrible place to work, it's in their interest to fix that perception.
You're parsing the details for a criminal trial. I don't care if he is a rapist or not. He abused his power and I wouldn't want someone like him working for me. Whether or not the accusations are rape or improper conduct, he did not conduct himself in an appropriate manner and his actions are bad for business, even if no one cared what he did. How many movies would have been better if the talent had been chosen based on merit rather than who was willing to sleep with that fat pig? The courts can determine if he broke the law. However, if I was an investor in the Weinstein company or Miramax, I would consider him a liability that needs to be corrected.
For Riot Games, their perception of being a hostile environment is bad for business. Their industry is a creative one and they need to keep the talent happy.
Perception is reality. Riot games needs to be perceived as a great place to work or else top talent will go to places with good reputations. Having top talent can make or break a tech company. It is worth their time to deal with accusations and make people happy, regardless of the merit of the actual accusation.
Don't forget that they usually go into these situations with such an incredible arrogance that it would make Narcissus himself blush.
Sorry, I am going to have to call you out on this. How do you know this? Do you work in the software industry? I do. You're describing a pretty toxic person and those people tend to not last in good jobs. They're kept out by the interview process as well as managers. No one wants to work with a jerk. If you act like a self-righteous jerk at my job or any I held before, you find yourself never promoted and eventually marginalized, if not directly fired or laid-off.
Work is not like an online forum. If people don't like being around you day-to-day, you usually don't last. No one likes a self-righteous jerk and if no one likes you, no one listens to you. Everyone figures out you're someone to be ignored and your complaints go unheard. From what I've seen in 25+ years in the software industry, your reputation matters a lot. If they're these so called SJWs are as you describe, they don't last. We hate them as much as you do.
The people bearing this label actively seek out what they perceive as social injustice, and where necessary cause that injustice, purportedly to bring light where they see it as needed. These are people who go into a situation, often in droves, with the intent to be offended by something.
That's the bit people don't get. An average worker filing a complaint might get called "SJW" by the company bigot, but most of the rest of the world recognizes that's not who they are or what they're doing. The SJW actively seeks out and destroys cultures they find offensive, and they deserve all the hate they get.
Your hypothesis is that people are so motivated to fight this silly war they will take a job they hate to poison the company? There are some nuts out there...I know quite a few. I even live in a very liberal tech bubble in a liberal city. However, those nuts can't cut it in the software industry. I am skeptical that someone so out of touch with reality can actually do well enough to pass a coding exam and not show their toxic personality in the interview or in their day-to-day interactions. You're really describing mental illness and a hostile personality co-opting a social justice movement.
Everyone I know who is like that is terrible at their job and usually fired, "laid-off," or just marginalized because no one wants to work with a self-righteous jerk.
So...either a huge number nutty SJW jerks purposely are staying in jobs they hate, like Riot games, to ruin things for everyone else from the inside....or Riot games has a sexist, hostile culture. Your theory is not impossible...just as it's not impossible that the Weinstein accusations are a huge conspiracy from vindictive women.
However, in the absence of evidence one way or the other, I am going to choose to believe the many reporting that Riot games has a culture issue over any theory that there's a conspiracy of SJWs trying to take down Riot games from the inside by taking jobs within the company and making false or exaggerated grievances colored by their fragile worldview.
Harvey Weinstein at this moment is only accused of misconduct, but given the number of accusations, I believe he is guilty of many, if not all, of the accusations.
When you have many accusations, it is very much worth a look as to why. My software company is 10x their size and we don't have many accusations of a sexist culture. I am not aware of a single one. Most women would praise how we treat female employees and especially female engineers. People generally don't make false accusations in the software industry. If you don't like where you are, it's easy to get a new job elsewhere.
Even if 100% of the accusations were false, it would be very much in Riot Games' interest to figure out why so many people are making these accusations? What is their motivation? Even if the allegations were proven to be exaggerated, they're at least unhappy and that is worth investigating why for a software company.
Think of sensitive SJWs as the canary in the coal mine. Even if their tolerance for BS is lower than yours, chances are that things are not too awesome if they're complaining about their job (it's easy as can be to find another job in the software industry). Forcing the company to rethink how they treat their employees is likely to make things better for everyone.
As a 25 year veteran of DB programming on Oracle, SQL Server, Cassandra, Mongo, I would like to state that you are wrong about that. Sure, some people just don't know how to use a relational database properly, so they go schemaless, but what I like to call an "HR problem, not a technology problem." A lot, if not most, problem domains don't fit the relational model very well. A lot of systems store complex, dynamic hierarchical customer data. My daily job is storing unpredictable user-entered data (dynamic tree structures). My last job was storing healthcare data. For both, document-based databases are a much better fit.
How many transactions have you written that weren't proper transactions, but you simply saving chunks of an object across multiple queries?
How many systems have you written that broke an object across many tables only to reassemble them back in the exact same format, never querying the individual child tables?
If either those are true, it's time to start questioning how much value you're getting from your relational database
Document-based databases are inherently more secure. A relational database returns everything unless you write code to limit it. One mistake or SQL injection and you're leaking data across customers. It leaks data by default and you have to write a WHERE clause to stop that. For a document database, it returns it's single user's document by default. You have to write special code to get data across customers.
For those reasons, despite building a long and very profitable career off Oracle, I recommend it less and less each day, going more for Cassandra and Mongo for a lot of corporate systems. Some portions of an application are clear fits for Oracle, simple systems with very predictable data structures. But I have taken data processing jobs down from minutes to milliseconds by replacing Oracle for dynamic and complex applications for Mongo because their underlying use case was a poor fit for a relational model and an excellent fit for a document model.
I hate how no single service has figured out how to serve both enthusiasts and casual users. Flickr was really great for photography enthusiasts like myself. I loved being able to see the EXIF information and the great layout. It just looks much better. Google Photos is better in every other way, though, including privacy.
With just some minor tweaks to court serious photographers Google Photos would be a perfect site that I'd be overjoyed to pay extra for. However, I think I am going to stick with Flickr a bit longer.
The AC above was pretty rude in his language, but I was thinking the same. As someone on the autism spectrum who has 2 kids on the spectrum, that sounds like how I and my son would communicate with strangers if we had a choice. I've learned to fit in through trial and error (much more on the error) and my Son is learning how to do so through special ed. However, people on the spectrum are often very literal and I do find insincerity very confusing. I have to stop myself from answering small talk honestly (like when someone asks "how was your weekend?" I start mentally evaluating how satisfactory it was and have to stop myself, forgetting that the random person trapped in the elevator with me just wants a quick and pleasant pre-canned response). I can definitely relate to how the article describes Finish communication style.
The cost for most items, including most of what you purchase regularly is not dictated by what you can afford to pay, but is a function of the cost to produce it plus a small profit. You can see this at the grocery store. If your theory were true, most items would have gone up in cost as people earned more. The price of a loaf of bread would be 10x larger in the bay area than in Montana. Bread or cereal is more expensive in NYC and SF, but by a relatively small amount to make up for rent and transportation costs, not by the actual income ratio of residents. Grocery store prices usually rise and fall as the cost of production rises or falls, not the income available to these purchasing. If you were worried that 1k/month in each pocket would tempt manufacturers to raise prices, remember that they have competition to pressure them to lower prices. They set that price to make a profit and keep competitors at bay.
Giving everyone more money will not raise prices for the vast majority of goods. In fact, some will go down in cost due to increased sales. I would predict that costs would largely remain flat. Wages would stagnate on the low end, unemployment would go way down, profits and sales will go up. UBI saves a lot of money in the long-term: law enforcement as crime rates go down, healthcare costs as people have less stress and more opportunity reduce hours or take a day off to see the doctor, greater productivity as people can go back to school and pursue high demand occupations rather than struggle to pay the bills. It allows workers to take lower paying jobs, so you'll see a higher quality of worker everywhere you go.
To my knowledge, the main costs that go up with relative income are education and real estate. I have no clue what would happen with education costs, but I am not even sure real estate costs will go up too much. One thing that drives up costs in urban areas like mine is people who have to move to a big city because the jobs farther out are less likely to pay a living wage. If people can thrive on lower incomes, they can live in more remote areas. It may relieve urban congestion. Also, the housing bubble was caused heavily by the 1% and even 5% buying multiple homes, not anyone who would notice an extra 12k/year in their pocket. Increasing taxes on the wealthy will probably lower real estate prices by a small amount because you won't have the ultra rich buying up as many properties for investment.
It is an awesome way for me to scan the day's news and a diverse group of websites very frequently, especially while at work. I can't stress that enough. I scan slashdot every hour or so through Live Bookmarks and people walking by my cube can't tell that I am not working until I find a page I want to read.
I've noticed a lot of sites dropping RSS support and that severely impacts the amount of times I visit them...not out of protest, but just finding better articles elsewhere or forgetting the other sites exist.
I see it as a win/win. They keep me engaged and visiting more and reading articles (as well as viewing ads) I might not have otherwise and all they have to do is serve some tiny XML. The alternative is that I only visit your site when I remember it exists and I want to.
That's a pretty insensitive comment, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you were hoping to be constructive and maybe you just don't understand what it is like to be on the spectrum or how your comment can be hurtful. First of all, only good friends would change venues completely because you have special needs. How do you make good friends if you can't socialize like everyone else? It's a chicken and egg scenario. You need to socialize with people to develop friendships strong enough that you can talk to them about how you're different and how do you socialize if the normal routes are challenging? Sure, plenty do it, but a development like this may help someone who cannot function in a bar blend in a little better and be like everyone else.
I am high-functioning, so for me, I can live a normal life, I just have to concentrate harder and work harder. For people with more severe needs, like my son, it can be a huge challenge to fit in, to make friends. In his school, there are kids with much much more severe needs who would require this to be able to function at all in such an environment. So while most people find this silly, I think it's a great invention that I hope becomes popular with people with special needs. It helps us adapt to environments we normally would have issues in without inconveniencing anyone...hell, most people probably won't even know we're wearing special glasses.
This will be amazing for people on the autism spectrum like me and my son. When a screen is moving in my field of view, I have to look at it. It takes a lot of concentration to "tune it out," so I dread going to bars. It also affects my hearing. My brain processes audio poorly if it is processing visual information, like a TV screen, so I am constantly having to ask people to repeat themselves. My brain is more single-threaded than a neurotypical person's. For people with more severe needs than mine, this can really impact your ability to socialize with friends. These glasses can really help someone on the spectrum have less anxiety in environments with a lot of screens.
Please temper your fake outrage. You already know the answer to this. Not every region of the world has people of every race. There are rural areas in California where you won't find many people of color or of a specific race. However, women are well distributed across every region of the globe.
As a white male, I don't care much about affirmative action. I am pretty sure I have never been denied a job at the expense of whatever group that some body has deemed underrepresented. You can debate about the fairness of measures like this, but I am very confident I and presumably you have not been measurably harmed by programs like this. There are plenty of jobs for men elsewhere.
As others already pointed out, you just have to have 1 woman on your board. Really? Is that so hard? You can't find a single woman somewhere who is as qualified as a man? They're over 50% of the population. Surely someone somewhere is in the same league as the wanker you originally wanted to hire for that last seat.
Finally, it's a free country. If you don't like it, I would suggest voting with your feet. I am confident you won't see any laws like this any time soon in Alabama, Mississippi, or Florida any time soon. Have you considered moving your corporate headquarters there? If you want to take advantage of the tech savvy, liberal-oriented California-based labor pool and VC market, I guess this is just the cost of doing business. If you can do fine elsewhere, I would suggest you move. California is crowded enough already. They'll do just fine without any company that cannot tolerate having 1 woman on their board.
This is a scenario where you should just let the market decide.
From what I can tell, under the new leadership, Microsoft likes making money more than forcing Windows and Office on users. If they can make money selling Linux services for less effort, why not do so?
I think this is a great development and I respect where Satya Nadella is taking the company. I like the prospect of Microsoft being a powerful, profitable software company that plays well with others. I get the impression Nadella does as well.
I hate to be a stickler for words, but "Slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux" is not the traditional definition of dominate.
To be clear, I am a Linux user/lover - desktop and server. I'm happy Microsoft is making good money supporting Linux. It's just a slight majority is not what I would normally call domination.
4) Has a FAR more elegant interface for basic shooting. Seriously the interfaces on interchangeable lens cameras are universally awful and almost useless for anything more than basic chimping.
I find the reverse. On my Canon, there are knobs for everything I adjust. It is much easier to adjust the settings you actually care about on a DSLR (or any pro-grade mirrorless) because it has dedicated hardware controls. Either those settings are completely hidden from you or you have to download special apps which are far less elegant.
I strongly agree with your first point, but this point is absolute nonsense. I can't speak for your Sony a9, but I have owned 4 Canon bodies and the interface is far more functional than android or ios.
It's not Canon/Nikon/Sony's fault if you never bothered to learn how to use a camera correctly. Once you do, you'll appreciate how much better those dials are than a touch interface.
Real cameras take better pictures. If you think otherwise, you really need to learn how to use your camera. I've never met a knowledgeable professional who disagrees. We don't buy these expensive, bulky cameras for show. They really do take MUCH better pictures.
The camera manufacturers have a lot to learn from Google and Apple about usability, particularly with cloud integration, but their quality advantage is indisputable.
To those making the "just take an SLR with you" well great, we own an SLR, it lives in the closet and comes out for weddings and that is just about it. You get 99% of the quality with 500% more compactness. No contest.
Sorry. You're just wrong about that. If you have a modern DSLR, it should take substantially better photos, especially when you know what you're doing. I own a Pixel 2. It takes serviceable photos. It is NOTHING compared to my Canon 6Dmark2 and every lens I've used on it, especially in anything other than full sun. Yes, at the beach, mid-afternoon, it's about 99% as good as a lens at the exact same focal length. Every other situation, a full-frame or even cropped sensor DSLR with a good lens will beat it by a huge margin. I am not even a professional, just a dad taking pics of his kids.
However, don't take my word for it. Look at what professionals do. If it was really 99% of the quality, all movies would be shot on tiny cameras with the Pixel 2's sensor. Every professional photographer would use one.
Trust me, no one wants to carry around a huge, heavy, expensive camera. Every professional does because they know it takes much better pictures than your Pixel 2. If a smartphone could take a photo 99% as good, we'd all be using much smaller and much cheaper cameras.
I take photos daily with a DSLR. I take photos nearly daily with a Pixel 2. View them in a standard computer monitor and the DSLR image quality is very clearly MUCH better.
Saying a pixel 2, 3, or any other phone eliminates the need for a real camera is about as intelligent as saying an eBike replaces the need for a car, so why does anyone buy cars these days? eBikes are great supplemental vehicles, but no replacement for cars. No one would dispute that. Your Pixel 2 takes nice photos, but it's no substitute for a real camera.
If you can't see that, you're viewing photos on a 25 year old monitor or you really have no clue how to use a camera.
Slashdot Mirror
it makes me wonder why should I even purchase a console when a desktop will be infinitely better in terms of cost, performance, and longevity?
I call shenanigans. Have you priced a gaming PC? The most expensive console costs the same as the graphics card alone. You cannot get a decent gaming PC for the price of a console. I like my gaming PC, but I paid a hell of a lot more than any of my friends did for their consoles. You could buy a switch, PS5 Pro, and XBox One X for the price of an entry level gaming system.
Also, I think it's better to get a nicer experience for more money much sooner, so I welcome tiers. I will probably even pick up a switch this summer if they release an upgraded version like the rumors suggest.
is that the new leadership wants to make money and realizes there are more dollars to be made by enthusiastic, satisfied customers than by being evil. Since Balmer left, they've supported Linux and open languages quite well. The old ways of restricted platforms is a complex and difficult task with a lot of risk. That embrace, extend, and extinguish trope is old and hasn't been since since the times when there were a dozen blockbuster video stores in my city.
This could be a sinster plot to ruin crossplay or this could be a plot to get more people to like xbox live and pay for their services. This could be a plot to sell more microsoft games. This could be a plot to lower their dev expenses. This could be a plot to sell Azure gaming services.
Which do you think is more likely? They are trying to open up new markets and revenue streams....or plotting an evil conspiracy that no one but YOU saw coming!
What was profitable for the Bill Gates era really doesn't cut it in the modern landscape. I think Microsoft's new leadership sees that in order for Microsoft to be profitable and grow in the future, it needs to adapt its ways to world and how it is changing. It needs to evolve to find new markets as its old ones languish.
I pay for them because their client works on desktop linux.
I suspect the real hoarders are those who collect porn.
Why do you say that? Porn has a very short shelf life. People get bored of it quickly and chase what is new and novel. With music, you can get joy from listening to a song over the years. Do you have porn you enjoy looking at over the years? People often are often more excited to hear old songs than new. Do you ever feel that way with porn?
In order to help us on #3, can you elaborate on #2? I am not doubting you. I just want to be more educated on this topic and am not certain what you're referring to.
There are plenty of competent programmers in India. They just want American wages, not 30k/year. Although most engineers recruiters present to me as "competent" for our Bangalore office are far from it. I sympathize. If you're good at your job, why work in Bangalore when companies will pay you to relocate to the US or UK for much higher wages...or find a job paying Western wages in India (like most tech giants do for their good projects).
I have Apserger's (or ASD). I am not an MRA. I don't like being a victim and I take responsibility for my own actions rather than whining about society. I can complain about how life is unfair for someone with my challenges or I can find ways of working with what I got and having the life I want. Your implication is that people with high functioning ASD are more likely to be MRA jerks. Well, I am not one. I get along well with my coworkers, treat women and people who are different than me with respect. None of this technically disproves your statement. However, if you are ever tempted to paint us with a broad brush, please think of me in the future. I am not ashamed of being autistic. I take responsibility for my actions and do my best to be someone people enjoy being around and working with. Being an MRA jerk is quite independent of the autism spectrum.
Presumption of innocence is important for a criminal trial. When you're running a business, you need to keep people happy. If you're a waitress and every customer thinks you are rude, you get fired...regardless of how rude you are or are not. You're bad for business.
For Riot Games, they need to keep their workforce happy. You're welcome to debate how, but the bottom line is that they need to. Also, when you have a lot of accusations, they could be false, but first of all, after a certain number, I start to believe the accusers...like Bill Cosby's. Once you have double digit accusers, the probability of it being a conspiracy or misunderstanding is very low. Maybe nothing is wrong with Riot Games' culture, however, if the perception is that it is a terrible place to work, it's in their interest to fix that perception.
You're parsing the details for a criminal trial. I don't care if he is a rapist or not. He abused his power and I wouldn't want someone like him working for me. Whether or not the accusations are rape or improper conduct, he did not conduct himself in an appropriate manner and his actions are bad for business, even if no one cared what he did. How many movies would have been better if the talent had been chosen based on merit rather than who was willing to sleep with that fat pig? The courts can determine if he broke the law. However, if I was an investor in the Weinstein company or Miramax, I would consider him a liability that needs to be corrected.
For Riot Games, their perception of being a hostile environment is bad for business. Their industry is a creative one and they need to keep the talent happy.
Perception is reality. Riot games needs to be perceived as a great place to work or else top talent will go to places with good reputations. Having top talent can make or break a tech company. It is worth their time to deal with accusations and make people happy, regardless of the merit of the actual accusation.
Don't forget that they usually go into these situations with such an incredible arrogance that it would make Narcissus himself blush.
Sorry, I am going to have to call you out on this. How do you know this? Do you work in the software industry? I do. You're describing a pretty toxic person and those people tend to not last in good jobs. They're kept out by the interview process as well as managers. No one wants to work with a jerk. If you act like a self-righteous jerk at my job or any I held before, you find yourself never promoted and eventually marginalized, if not directly fired or laid-off.
Work is not like an online forum. If people don't like being around you day-to-day, you usually don't last. No one likes a self-righteous jerk and if no one likes you, no one listens to you. Everyone figures out you're someone to be ignored and your complaints go unheard. From what I've seen in 25+ years in the software industry, your reputation matters a lot. If they're these so called SJWs are as you describe, they don't last. We hate them as much as you do.
The people bearing this label actively seek out what they perceive as social injustice, and where necessary cause that injustice, purportedly to bring light where they see it as needed. These are people who go into a situation, often in droves, with the intent to be offended by something.
That's the bit people don't get. An average worker filing a complaint might get called "SJW" by the company bigot, but most of the rest of the world recognizes that's not who they are or what they're doing. The SJW actively seeks out and destroys cultures they find offensive, and they deserve all the hate they get.
Your hypothesis is that people are so motivated to fight this silly war they will take a job they hate to poison the company? There are some nuts out there...I know quite a few. I even live in a very liberal tech bubble in a liberal city. However, those nuts can't cut it in the software industry. I am skeptical that someone so out of touch with reality can actually do well enough to pass a coding exam and not show their toxic personality in the interview or in their day-to-day interactions. You're really describing mental illness and a hostile personality co-opting a social justice movement.
Everyone I know who is like that is terrible at their job and usually fired, "laid-off," or just marginalized because no one wants to work with a self-righteous jerk.
So...either a huge number nutty SJW jerks purposely are staying in jobs they hate, like Riot games, to ruin things for everyone else from the inside....or Riot games has a sexist, hostile culture. Your theory is not impossible...just as it's not impossible that the Weinstein accusations are a huge conspiracy from vindictive women.
However, in the absence of evidence one way or the other, I am going to choose to believe the many reporting that Riot games has a culture issue over any theory that there's a conspiracy of SJWs trying to take down Riot games from the inside by taking jobs within the company and making false or exaggerated grievances colored by their fragile worldview.
Harvey Weinstein at this moment is only accused of misconduct, but given the number of accusations, I believe he is guilty of many, if not all, of the accusations.
When you have many accusations, it is very much worth a look as to why. My software company is 10x their size and we don't have many accusations of a sexist culture. I am not aware of a single one. Most women would praise how we treat female employees and especially female engineers. People generally don't make false accusations in the software industry. If you don't like where you are, it's easy to get a new job elsewhere.
Even if 100% of the accusations were false, it would be very much in Riot Games' interest to figure out why so many people are making these accusations? What is their motivation? Even if the allegations were proven to be exaggerated, they're at least unhappy and that is worth investigating why for a software company.
Think of sensitive SJWs as the canary in the coal mine. Even if their tolerance for BS is lower than yours, chances are that things are not too awesome if they're complaining about their job (it's easy as can be to find another job in the software industry). Forcing the company to rethink how they treat their employees is likely to make things better for everyone.
As a 25 year veteran of DB programming on Oracle, SQL Server, Cassandra, Mongo, I would like to state that you are wrong about that. Sure, some people just don't know how to use a relational database properly, so they go schemaless, but what I like to call an "HR problem, not a technology problem." A lot, if not most, problem domains don't fit the relational model very well. A lot of systems store complex, dynamic hierarchical customer data. My daily job is storing unpredictable user-entered data (dynamic tree structures). My last job was storing healthcare data. For both, document-based databases are a much better fit.
How many transactions have you written that weren't proper transactions, but you simply saving chunks of an object across multiple queries?
How many systems have you written that broke an object across many tables only to reassemble them back in the exact same format, never querying the individual child tables?
If either those are true, it's time to start questioning how much value you're getting from your relational database
Document-based databases are inherently more secure. A relational database returns everything unless you write code to limit it. One mistake or SQL injection and you're leaking data across customers. It leaks data by default and you have to write a WHERE clause to stop that. For a document database, it returns it's single user's document by default. You have to write special code to get data across customers.
For those reasons, despite building a long and very profitable career off Oracle, I recommend it less and less each day, going more for Cassandra and Mongo for a lot of corporate systems. Some portions of an application are clear fits for Oracle, simple systems with very predictable data structures. But I have taken data processing jobs down from minutes to milliseconds by replacing Oracle for dynamic and complex applications for Mongo because their underlying use case was a poor fit for a relational model and an excellent fit for a document model.
I hate how no single service has figured out how to serve both enthusiasts and casual users. Flickr was really great for photography enthusiasts like myself. I loved being able to see the EXIF information and the great layout. It just looks much better. Google Photos is better in every other way, though, including privacy.
With just some minor tweaks to court serious photographers Google Photos would be a perfect site that I'd be overjoyed to pay extra for. However, I think I am going to stick with Flickr a bit longer.
Cinemax has always been softcore, even by 80s standards. I know it's a small part of your point, but I am a stickler for my pornography. :)
Correction: "Skinemax came along and started piping just short of SOFTcore porn into the home yeah that changed the dynamic."
The AC above was pretty rude in his language, but I was thinking the same. As someone on the autism spectrum who has 2 kids on the spectrum, that sounds like how I and my son would communicate with strangers if we had a choice. I've learned to fit in through trial and error (much more on the error) and my Son is learning how to do so through special ed. However, people on the spectrum are often very literal and I do find insincerity very confusing. I have to stop myself from answering small talk honestly (like when someone asks "how was your weekend?" I start mentally evaluating how satisfactory it was and have to stop myself, forgetting that the random person trapped in the elevator with me just wants a quick and pleasant pre-canned response). I can definitely relate to how the article describes Finish communication style.
The cost for most items, including most of what you purchase regularly is not dictated by what you can afford to pay, but is a function of the cost to produce it plus a small profit. You can see this at the grocery store. If your theory were true, most items would have gone up in cost as people earned more. The price of a loaf of bread would be 10x larger in the bay area than in Montana. Bread or cereal is more expensive in NYC and SF, but by a relatively small amount to make up for rent and transportation costs, not by the actual income ratio of residents. Grocery store prices usually rise and fall as the cost of production rises or falls, not the income available to these purchasing. If you were worried that 1k/month in each pocket would tempt manufacturers to raise prices, remember that they have competition to pressure them to lower prices. They set that price to make a profit and keep competitors at bay.
Giving everyone more money will not raise prices for the vast majority of goods. In fact, some will go down in cost due to increased sales. I would predict that costs would largely remain flat. Wages would stagnate on the low end, unemployment would go way down, profits and sales will go up. UBI saves a lot of money in the long-term: law enforcement as crime rates go down, healthcare costs as people have less stress and more opportunity reduce hours or take a day off to see the doctor, greater productivity as people can go back to school and pursue high demand occupations rather than struggle to pay the bills. It allows workers to take lower paying jobs, so you'll see a higher quality of worker everywhere you go.
To my knowledge, the main costs that go up with relative income are education and real estate. I have no clue what would happen with education costs, but I am not even sure real estate costs will go up too much. One thing that drives up costs in urban areas like mine is people who have to move to a big city because the jobs farther out are less likely to pay a living wage. If people can thrive on lower incomes, they can live in more remote areas. It may relieve urban congestion. Also, the housing bubble was caused heavily by the 1% and even 5% buying multiple homes, not anyone who would notice an extra 12k/year in their pocket. Increasing taxes on the wealthy will probably lower real estate prices by a small amount because you won't have the ultra rich buying up as many properties for investment.
It is an awesome way for me to scan the day's news and a diverse group of websites very frequently, especially while at work. I can't stress that enough. I scan slashdot every hour or so through Live Bookmarks and people walking by my cube can't tell that I am not working until I find a page I want to read.
I've noticed a lot of sites dropping RSS support and that severely impacts the amount of times I visit them...not out of protest, but just finding better articles elsewhere or forgetting the other sites exist.
I see it as a win/win. They keep me engaged and visiting more and reading articles (as well as viewing ads) I might not have otherwise and all they have to do is serve some tiny XML. The alternative is that I only visit your site when I remember it exists and I want to.
That's a pretty insensitive comment, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you were hoping to be constructive and maybe you just don't understand what it is like to be on the spectrum or how your comment can be hurtful. First of all, only good friends would change venues completely because you have special needs. How do you make good friends if you can't socialize like everyone else? It's a chicken and egg scenario. You need to socialize with people to develop friendships strong enough that you can talk to them about how you're different and how do you socialize if the normal routes are challenging? Sure, plenty do it, but a development like this may help someone who cannot function in a bar blend in a little better and be like everyone else.
I am high-functioning, so for me, I can live a normal life, I just have to concentrate harder and work harder. For people with more severe needs, like my son, it can be a huge challenge to fit in, to make friends. In his school, there are kids with much much more severe needs who would require this to be able to function at all in such an environment. So while most people find this silly, I think it's a great invention that I hope becomes popular with people with special needs. It helps us adapt to environments we normally would have issues in without inconveniencing anyone...hell, most people probably won't even know we're wearing special glasses.
This will be amazing for people on the autism spectrum like me and my son. When a screen is moving in my field of view, I have to look at it. It takes a lot of concentration to "tune it out," so I dread going to bars. It also affects my hearing. My brain processes audio poorly if it is processing visual information, like a TV screen, so I am constantly having to ask people to repeat themselves. My brain is more single-threaded than a neurotypical person's. For people with more severe needs than mine, this can really impact your ability to socialize with friends. These glasses can really help someone on the spectrum have less anxiety in environments with a lot of screens.
And why only women?
Please temper your fake outrage. You already know the answer to this. Not every region of the world has people of every race. There are rural areas in California where you won't find many people of color or of a specific race. However, women are well distributed across every region of the globe.
As a white male, I don't care much about affirmative action. I am pretty sure I have never been denied a job at the expense of whatever group that some body has deemed underrepresented. You can debate about the fairness of measures like this, but I am very confident I and presumably you have not been measurably harmed by programs like this. There are plenty of jobs for men elsewhere.
As others already pointed out, you just have to have 1 woman on your board. Really? Is that so hard? You can't find a single woman somewhere who is as qualified as a man? They're over 50% of the population. Surely someone somewhere is in the same league as the wanker you originally wanted to hire for that last seat.
Finally, it's a free country. If you don't like it, I would suggest voting with your feet. I am confident you won't see any laws like this any time soon in Alabama, Mississippi, or Florida any time soon. Have you considered moving your corporate headquarters there? If you want to take advantage of the tech savvy, liberal-oriented California-based labor pool and VC market, I guess this is just the cost of doing business. If you can do fine elsewhere, I would suggest you move. California is crowded enough already. They'll do just fine without any company that cannot tolerate having 1 woman on their board.
This is a scenario where you should just let the market decide.
From what I can tell, under the new leadership, Microsoft likes making money more than forcing Windows and Office on users. If they can make money selling Linux services for less effort, why not do so?
I think this is a great development and I respect where Satya Nadella is taking the company. I like the prospect of Microsoft being a powerful, profitable software company that plays well with others. I get the impression Nadella does as well.
I hate to be a stickler for words, but "Slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux" is not the traditional definition of dominate.
To be clear, I am a Linux user/lover - desktop and server. I'm happy Microsoft is making good money supporting Linux. It's just a slight majority is not what I would normally call domination.
4) Has a FAR more elegant interface for basic shooting. Seriously the interfaces on interchangeable lens cameras are universally awful and almost useless for anything more than basic chimping.
I find the reverse. On my Canon, there are knobs for everything I adjust. It is much easier to adjust the settings you actually care about on a DSLR (or any pro-grade mirrorless) because it has dedicated hardware controls. Either those settings are completely hidden from you or you have to download special apps which are far less elegant.
I strongly agree with your first point, but this point is absolute nonsense. I can't speak for your Sony a9, but I have owned 4 Canon bodies and the interface is far more functional than android or ios.
It's not Canon/Nikon/Sony's fault if you never bothered to learn how to use a camera correctly. Once you do, you'll appreciate how much better those dials are than a touch interface.
Real cameras take better pictures. If you think otherwise, you really need to learn how to use your camera. I've never met a knowledgeable professional who disagrees. We don't buy these expensive, bulky cameras for show. They really do take MUCH better pictures.
The camera manufacturers have a lot to learn from Google and Apple about usability, particularly with cloud integration, but their quality advantage is indisputable.
To those making the "just take an SLR with you" well great, we own an SLR, it lives in the closet and comes out for weddings and that is just about it. You get 99% of the quality with 500% more compactness. No contest.
Sorry. You're just wrong about that. If you have a modern DSLR, it should take substantially better photos, especially when you know what you're doing. I own a Pixel 2. It takes serviceable photos. It is NOTHING compared to my Canon 6Dmark2 and every lens I've used on it, especially in anything other than full sun. Yes, at the beach, mid-afternoon, it's about 99% as good as a lens at the exact same focal length. Every other situation, a full-frame or even cropped sensor DSLR with a good lens will beat it by a huge margin. I am not even a professional, just a dad taking pics of his kids.
However, don't take my word for it. Look at what professionals do. If it was really 99% of the quality, all movies would be shot on tiny cameras with the Pixel 2's sensor. Every professional photographer would use one.
Trust me, no one wants to carry around a huge, heavy, expensive camera. Every professional does because they know it takes much better pictures than your Pixel 2. If a smartphone could take a photo 99% as good, we'd all be using much smaller and much cheaper cameras.
I take photos daily with a DSLR. I take photos nearly daily with a Pixel 2. View them in a standard computer monitor and the DSLR image quality is very clearly MUCH better.
Saying a pixel 2, 3, or any other phone eliminates the need for a real camera is about as intelligent as saying an eBike replaces the need for a car, so why does anyone buy cars these days? eBikes are great supplemental vehicles, but no replacement for cars. No one would dispute that. Your Pixel 2 takes nice photos, but it's no substitute for a real camera. If you can't see that, you're viewing photos on a 25 year old monitor or you really have no clue how to use a camera.