Contrast that with Canada, where the provinces have regulations like Saskatchewan's Health Information Protection Act, that explicitly mandate the protection and security of medical records and prescriptions.
Personally I found Myst to be the most frustrating video game I ever wasted money on. There were virtually no clues for the puzzles it presented, which made them an exercise in futility rather than an exploratory challenge of thinking or creativity.
While the graphics were beautiful for the time, they're quite primitive compared to modern games.
Personally I think Half-Life and Deus Ex were far more groundbreaking and open-ended, despite the fact that you could attack the Myst puzzles in virtually any order you liked. Sometimes a bit of direction to the plot improves the story.
As to the phone, in the internet age I call even fewer people than I ever did before. I've got maybe 4 friends I hear from throughout the course of the year by phone, other than that the only people I talk to are relatives and pollsters. So for me, personally, the CDR collection isn't a big deal.
This won't be a popular perspective, but I agree that metadata is not data.
It's like collecting the "from" addresses on the mail delivered to your door without opening the envelopes. They're not steaming open your letters, so it's legal.
The problem is that "legal" isn't necessarily moral. Especially given the sheer volume of meta data generated by the average internet-connected humanoid in modern times.
For one thing, I keep in touch with far more people and places using email than I ever did using snail mail. I used to get maybe 3-4 letters a year, a few magazines, and anonymous junk mail when I relied on snail mail for communications. In the electronic age, I keep in touch with several dozen friends, get newsletters from vendors and sometimes click on the links to read the articles they've published or subscribe to the online training they've offered, I broadcast emails to groups of friends (something I couldn't do with snail mail at all), and generally am far more connected via email alone than I ever was by snail mail or phone calls.
Add in the browsing meta data, and you start to get a painfully clear picture of my likes, dislikes, interests, and associations without ever diving into the details. When you consider that the NSA, CSEC, GCHQ, and others track not only my direct interests but n levels of indirection, and I end up associated with all kinds of distasteful figures that I'd never willingly associate with in real life, much less send a snail-mail letter to.
The only saving grace is the needle-in-a-haystack problem. The more meta data they collect, the bigger the haystack and the harder it is to find the needles buried within.
And the number of mass shootings and bombings in the US and around the world just proves that point. I've not seen it broadcast that they arrested anyone other than the VIA train plotters in Canada to date.
One instance where surveillance did what it should. Versus dozens of instances where it failed abysmally.
Books on the theory of computing, physics, mathematics, and so on far outlive reference manuals. Keep texts that describe things like O(n) notation, matrix and vector math, graphics, simulations, and so on.
I still think it would be easier for someone as large as Facebook to take a snapshot of MySQL and maintain/enhance it themselves than to switch databases.
What's stupid is paying $900 for a phone and then bitching about $30 for a charger.
It's like the idiot I saw in Mississauga, ON driving an umpteen thousand dollar car. He couldn't get up a shallow hill because he didn't buy snow tires. All that money, and not a dime on the important part of the purchase.
Even when you change compilers but keep the same source code you have to redebug complex FORTRAN code, due to idiosyncracies in implementations over the years.
You don't have to rewrite your code entirely, just a little bit.
You only have to restructure the subroutines and change the syntax.
Well, that sounds like rewriting to me. Just because there is a library that might implement the same semantics as FORTRAN's math does not mean that it isn't a rewrite, coming with all the risks for new errors and gotchas that that implies.
Part of the purpose of patents was to allow people to build their own. That aspect has been true since day one. It was one of the "protections" afforded to the individual when patent law was created.
You cannot make items for other people. You cannot sell the item you made. But you can make one for your own use.
When I contracted, 60 hour weeks were the norm. Often in 12 hour days.
But I love programming, and it comes naturally to me, so I didn't notice any code quality degradation.
Even post retirement, when I work on my pet project, it's usually to the tune of a 16 hour day.
I find that if I try to "crunch" more than 20 hours, though, I get tired enough that I stop thinking clearly for debugging purposes, and need to crash for 8-12 hours.
I expect someone will try to extend copyright law to cover CAD models used to drive the printers, but I also expect that attempt to fail because copyright isn't allowed to cover a list of facts, only a creative work.
Slashdot Mirror
Contrast that with Canada, where the provinces have regulations like Saskatchewan's Health Information Protection Act, that explicitly mandate the protection and security of medical records and prescriptions.
Personally I found Myst to be the most frustrating video game I ever wasted money on. There were virtually no clues for the puzzles it presented, which made them an exercise in futility rather than an exploratory challenge of thinking or creativity.
While the graphics were beautiful for the time, they're quite primitive compared to modern games.
Personally I think Half-Life and Deus Ex were far more groundbreaking and open-ended, despite the fact that you could attack the Myst puzzles in virtually any order you liked. Sometimes a bit of direction to the plot improves the story.
You still play Quake?
How... quaint.
I find it telling that even Google Earth doesn't use NaCl yet.
As to the phone, in the internet age I call even fewer people than I ever did before. I've got maybe 4 friends I hear from throughout the course of the year by phone, other than that the only people I talk to are relatives and pollsters. So for me, personally, the CDR collection isn't a big deal.
This won't be a popular perspective, but I agree that metadata is not data.
It's like collecting the "from" addresses on the mail delivered to your door without opening the envelopes. They're not steaming open your letters, so it's legal.
The problem is that "legal" isn't necessarily moral. Especially given the sheer volume of meta data generated by the average internet-connected humanoid in modern times.
For one thing, I keep in touch with far more people and places using email than I ever did using snail mail. I used to get maybe 3-4 letters a year, a few magazines, and anonymous junk mail when I relied on snail mail for communications. In the electronic age, I keep in touch with several dozen friends, get newsletters from vendors and sometimes click on the links to read the articles they've published or subscribe to the online training they've offered, I broadcast emails to groups of friends (something I couldn't do with snail mail at all), and generally am far more connected via email alone than I ever was by snail mail or phone calls.
Add in the browsing meta data, and you start to get a painfully clear picture of my likes, dislikes, interests, and associations without ever diving into the details. When you consider that the NSA, CSEC, GCHQ, and others track not only my direct interests but n levels of indirection, and I end up associated with all kinds of distasteful figures that I'd never willingly associate with in real life, much less send a snail-mail letter to.
The only saving grace is the needle-in-a-haystack problem. The more meta data they collect, the bigger the haystack and the harder it is to find the needles buried within.
And the number of mass shootings and bombings in the US and around the world just proves that point. I've not seen it broadcast that they arrested anyone other than the VIA train plotters in Canada to date.
One instance where surveillance did what it should. Versus dozens of instances where it failed abysmally.
This.
Books on the theory of computing, physics, mathematics, and so on far outlive reference manuals. Keep texts that describe things like O(n) notation, matrix and vector math, graphics, simulations, and so on.
I still think it would be easier for someone as large as Facebook to take a snapshot of MySQL and maintain/enhance it themselves than to switch databases.
Great when you have one database instance and can afford to set up dual instances.
How do you propose doing so for something like Facebook or Twitter that have thousands of nodes and servers?
You don't have to pay for a commercial license of MySQL as far as I know, unless you want support for it.
And even if there were a dollar difference, I doubt it would be enough to cover the cost of redeveloping everything to use NoSQL servers.
Hell, it's not even cost effective to switch to another SQL database like PostgreSQL.
Can you imagine the downtime required to export Facebook from MySQL and to re-import it to another database? The users would go ballistic!
I don't expect any "earth shattering" movement by any of the big users in the near future.
You mean all the people who use a desktop other than Unity.
Which, from what I've seen, is 99% of the population.
Ping pong is attractive to the tech crowd because it can be played indoors.
It's scary out there in the real world with that hot ball burning things from the sky.
Something you leave lying around on everything you touch is a poor key for security.
Who'd a thunk it?
I think Valve has a very good shot at taking on the console market.
They have a recognizable and respected name.
Their online delivery system is tested and reliable.
Their software quality is generally good.
What I know of their test betas has been solid.
They have a huge catalogue of games for the platform before it's even released.
What's stupid is paying $900 for a phone and then bitching about $30 for a charger.
It's like the idiot I saw in Mississauga, ON driving an umpteen thousand dollar car. He couldn't get up a shallow hill because he didn't buy snow tires. All that money, and not a dime on the important part of the purchase.
Sometimes you get new bugs even with the same compiler, just because you changed optimization flags for the build.
Even when you change compilers but keep the same source code you have to redebug complex FORTRAN code, due to idiosyncracies in implementations over the years.
And so on the basis of one example you're willing to take their word that changing languages doesn't require re-debugging the entire program?
My, my, but you are naive, aren't you?
The NSA denied the spying flat out, until they were caught.
The government claimed the court oversight was adequate, until FOI releases proved they're not.
They said they were only using the surveillance data to catch terrorists, until it was revealed that the DEA was getting a feed.
Why should anyone, even an NSA employee, believe anything these idiots have to say any more?
You don't have to rewrite your code entirely, just a little bit.
You only have to restructure the subroutines and change the syntax.
Well, that sounds like rewriting to me. Just because there is a library that might implement the same semantics as FORTRAN's math does not mean that it isn't a rewrite, coming with all the risks for new errors and gotchas that that implies.
<SARCASM>Because we can trust American hardware not to have NSA back doors, right?</SARCASM>
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Note: If you're using the patented item in a business, you aren't using it for your own self. You're selling it's use. That's not allowed.
Check again.
Part of the purpose of patents was to allow people to build their own. That aspect has been true since day one. It was one of the "protections" afforded to the individual when patent law was created.
You cannot make items for other people. You cannot sell the item you made. But you can make one for your own use.
When I contracted, 60 hour weeks were the norm. Often in 12 hour days.
But I love programming, and it comes naturally to me, so I didn't notice any code quality degradation.
Even post retirement, when I work on my pet project, it's usually to the tune of a 16 hour day.
I find that if I try to "crunch" more than 20 hours, though, I get tired enough that I stop thinking clearly for debugging purposes, and need to crash for 8-12 hours.
A "crunch" while contracting was a 90 hour week.
I expect someone will try to extend copyright law to cover CAD models used to drive the printers, but I also expect that attempt to fail because copyright isn't allowed to cover a list of facts, only a creative work.