- Even Hitler didn't kill people "just for being foreign"; many of those killed had the same nationality as those left alone (= conquered / oppressed)
- People kill invaders for being invaders, not for being foreign.
With that said, what is happening here in Europe is not the same as an invasion, but it is cause for worry nevertheless. And Taco Cowboy is quite right that we do not really know how to defend ourselves against what is happening, not without turning into savages ourselves.
Handling cash and running branches is expensive and something banks have actively been discouraging here. Withdrawing larger sums (not talking 5 figures here) requires an appointment, and depositing cash comes with a charge even if you use an ATM for it. They have also funded several large campaigns to get shopkeepers to adopt debit card terminals (credit cards are hardly used for day-to-day transactions here). Banks *love* a cashless society.
With that said, our banks seem to have handled the transition to instant transactions just fine already. On a holiday in Tel Aviv, I used my debit card to pay for something but the machine didn't ask for a PIN. I wanted to make sure the shop got their money, even though the clerk assured me everything was ok. Sure enough, my phone showed the transaction right there, seconds later. The reverse happened when I bought an expensive second hand car. I transfered the money to the guys account from his living room; he used his computer to see the money arriving at the same moment. The latter was only possible because the guy was with the same bank; transactions between banks still dake 1-2 days to complete, but it would appear that the banks have had their internal accounting stuff modernised already.
I've been playing with an Apple Watch for the past few weeks (doing an app development project at the moment), and I find it to be fairly useful, though it certainly is no game-changer. It is not meant to be a replacement smart device, it is meant to be a companion to one. That means you don't need a full screen and full functionality, just something that can display notifications and basic information. You're not going to be reading the news on that thing, but it'll vibrate and pop up the headline if there's a breaking story, for example. Personally I found it useful for navigating a strange city (on foot); you can access Apple Maps on the watch and have it display directions. Way easier han walking around holding your phone, and the small screen provides enough space for usable directions.
What I really like about the watch is the vibrate function. I leave my phone on silent most of the time, and when it is in my pocket or lying around the house somewhere I often miss calls. But the watch' vibration is impossible to miss.
But the fact that the watch is a companion also means that its appeal will probably be very limited. Make your smart watch too expensive and most people will not want to buy one to gain a handful of mildly convenient but nonessential features. Make it too cheap and it'll look horrible as an accessory. Pebble make a good effort with their watches, but as watches go they still don't look very good. If I really wanted a smart watch, I'd pay 4 figures for one that looks really good, I mean classical watch good. Something in titanium or gold. But not if the innards will be obsolete in a few years. Unless manufacturers can find ways to make the electronics swappable so people can keep the case, these watches will be too ugly or expensive to find widespread use.
And the most successful method of catching terrorists still seems to be them being ratted out by family and friends. Even in the thoroughly hard-core muslim borough of Molenwijk in Brussels, there are still decent people who report suspicious activity to the police. And in that neighborhood I would say that these people do so at considerable personal risk. Winning hearts and minds is still important.
A Dutch journalist had a genuine Syrian passport made with the image of the Dutch prime minister (under a different name). He paid a couple of hundred dollars, though. Problem is that several groups in Syria have seized machines and supplies used to make these passports, and they are selling them to anyone who wants one. The Belgian authorities reported many so-called refugees with genuine Syrian passports who all had suspiciously similar stories, and upon further questioning admitted to being from Iraq, Morocco and other places.
Sadly, he is mostly right. There was absolutely no way to even begin screening refugees, what with immigration services in border countries being utterly overrun. For months, governments and politicians addressed the problem by vehemently denying that any terrorist would slip in with the refugees. In their actual words: "There are none", and anyone saying different was accused of playing into the hands of the political right wing at best, or called a goose-stepping foreigner hating racist sub-human at worst (similar terms have been used by normally polite politicians). The PC bug is more of a stick: there's even been a few proposed laws on the table in Brussels to outlaw criticism of islam.
Not that is makes much difference. We can't stop these fanatical idiots from coming in, even if we would build a wall and start screening the refugees. And despite our strict gun laws, it's ridiculously easy to obtain an illegal one. We can't stop all terrorism... but it doesn't mean we should do nothing. And like alcoholism, any cure starts with admitting that there is a problem. We're not there yet, here in Europe. And my fear is that when they do start taking measures, it will mostly be along the lines of more repression, surveillance and reduction of freedoms of ordinary citizens. Ineffective window-dressing that for some reason ticks their boxes.
Secure IoTs? Depends on what you mean by that. Standards like Z-Wave and Zigbee are already somewhat safer from remote tampering than WiFi-enabled devices since they operate on their own network. Hacking into them remotely or making them send data to a 3rd party involves hacking the central controller (if that controller even is connected to the Internet, though it often is). Certainly possible but it's a considerable extra hurdle. The networks themselves are fairly easy to hack, though the new version of Z-Wave adds encryption to make that a great deal harder.
For the rest, it comes down to selecting what data to share with whom, when, and what risk you deem acceptable when sharing. And if you're worried about the CIA and their pals, don't do anything in the cloud, access your stuff via encrypted VPN or forego remote access completely and create an air gap between your smart home stuff and the LAN.
I have the opposite attitude: I would not work for a startup if they do not offer stock or options as part of the deal (and not the kind that needs to vest and are void if you leave, i.e. the kind that they can screw you out of if they want to, like they did to many people at FaceBook). If I think the company has little future, I would not want to work for them anyway. But if they hit it big, it'll be partly due of my hard work (and believe me, you *will* work hard in a startup that's taking off). And in that case I'll want my payday as well.
But in general I agree: you should treat a job application as an "employer application" as well; it's a two way deal. Unless you don't have the luxury to turn down an offer, do look carefully at whom you're going to work for and be prepared to say No even if the money's ok. And don't believe you're going to learn all about the company, their culture and their way of working from the website that they expect you to scrutinize beforehand; often it comes down to asking the right questions at the interview. I've once turned down a prospective employer who made a very decent offer. I told them I thought their company wasn't a very good fit for the way I prefer to work, and I got the same incredulous look in return.
using social media as a resource to spread positive health behavior.
In other words, a resource for insurers to screw you for drinking "at home and/or at inappropriate hours", and for employers to give you a bollocking over the same.
So they really are "select" neighbourhoods as the summary calls them... That sort of language is most often used by the companies themselves to lend an air of exclusivity to the word "some".
I dislike Trump and fervently hope he is not going to be elected as president of the USA, but this is not one of the times I agree with what Anonymous do. I'm no fan of political vandalism.
In the UK apparently there are certain notable people pushing for a ban on encrypted services with no back door or centrally stored keys. And they can find plenty of support for such a ban in Europe. Now Obama tells us that crypto without back doors is doubleplus ungood. If these services get banned, it hardly matters if they get moved offshore. Perhaps they will start blocking encrypted traffic or simply monitor traffic and fine anyone using unsanctioned crypto.
Of course, that even presumes that reducing gun deaths should be a direct policy goal of federal policy at all, something many people disagree with.
That may sound weird but you are spot on. How the hell can these researchers simply lump together all "gun related deaths"? A guy who gets shot while committing a robbery, a woman shooting a guy attempting to rape her, a child finding his dad's gun and shooting his brother by accident, some idiot cleaning a loaded weapon and killing his neighbour, a guy committing suicide by firearm, a cop shooting a fleeing suspect, a wife mistaking her husband for a burglar and shooting him... All of these cases are different and should be counted differently. If a guy gets shot while committing a serious crime, that may not be the sentence that the law prescribes but I call it justice. Screw them, that's the risk of committing violent crimes. That's not a point against gun ownership, but for it, if it means that a violent crime has been prevented. The other examples are points against gun ownership, or at least against letting idiots have guns. But talking about "gun related deaths" is pointless if you fail to distinguish the circumstances under which these events took place.
Compare the casualties of terrorism in London, Madrid and Paris against, say, the daily death toll in traffic. Yes, terrorism exists in Europe, and we should continue to fight it as best we can, but in the grand scheme of things it is not a problem that should dominate our lives and make us throw away liberties such as the right to keep certain things private, nor throw away the rights of individual well-meaning Muslims.
Europe has its share of problems, but terrorism isn't a major one. Really, it isn't. Don't let the extremists or your elected or appointed representatives scare you into thinking otherwise.
Exactly. And if we can't fix democracy to guard against individual liberties being violated (i.e. being voted out), then all we can do is stop importing people who who vote or fight against said liberties.
The problem with even the moderate muslims (or with their beliefs) is that they are muslims first, citizens second. You are right: even many moderate muslims who wouldn't dream of stooping to violence themselves would vote for sharia law if it was brought to a vote. They feel they are obliged to. And the actual content of their religion plays a big role here! Not all religions are create equal as we are led, cautioned and forced to believe; islam has some pretty hardcore stuff in there and precious little of the whoever-is-without-sin or turn-the-other-cheek stuff. In a race of "who is the better muslim?", things get dark quickly. Even if it all happens by wholly democratic means. Egypt's "spring" went south pretty fast.
Here in Europe we don't have a problem with terrorists or with muslims; of the former there are precious few, and the latter are pretty normal people, individually. But the beliefs of those normal people can still be dangerous if they gather (vote) in large numbers. We do have a problem with islam gaining in influence. And our democracy is poorly protected against such influence: a previous minister of justice stated that if enough people wanted sharia, it would become the law (and he stated it as a matter of fact, not as a warning).
People disliked the 5c because of its reduced memory and bargain-basement look & feel, not because of its size; the similarly sized 5 / 5s sold well enough.
I recently switched from a 5S to a 6S, but I find it a bit too big and too thin for my taste. If Apple bring back a 4" model into their lineup with full specs, fingerprint scanner, the works, having the form factor of the 5s, then that might very well be my next phone.
Seriously, I like Apple products, I have an iPhone and I recently picked up a refurbished watch for a "good" (in Apple terms) price; as someone involved in app development I kind of started to need one. But when we start getting excited about a new strap for a bloody watch is when we should stop and think if we're not taking our fanboi-ism a tad too far.
I'm with you on the Mac Mini; I'd love a more powerful model... at a slightly less ridiculous price.
Yeah, it's a common narrative: scientist excluding alternative viewpoints and/or sources of knowledge. It is a valid concern. But here the authors make a lot of assumptions for which there is little actual proof: the nature of the bias (here we read the usual accusation of scientists being white male imperialist), and the value or even existence of alternative "narratvies", and the extent of the bias caused by exclusion of those narratives in the results drawn by the scientists. The language in this paper is rather accusatory, and makes me suspect that the authors suffer from more than a little bit of confirmation bias themselves.
It is utter rubbish. Please do read the conclusion: "a broader consideration of ‘cryoscapes’, the human, and the insights and potentials of alternative ice narratives and folk glaciologies.". "Global environmental change research must pluralize its ontologies, epistemologies, and sensibilities". Seriously, this is what passes for science these days?
This thing truly reads like a poor April fools article, and I am sad to say that this is the case for a lot of other papers coming out of gender study departments. "Many humanities and social science disciplines and sub-disciplines have given significant attention to these issues, but there remain boundaries between these analyses and those considered central to the environmental change question." That part is true, and for good reasons. For examples of these reaons, read the conclusion of this ridiculous paper. If you want to be included in any serious discussion about these matters, you'll have be able to bring something worthwhile to the table. This ain't it.
We're getting into Howard Hughes levels of germ paranoia here. If you are worried about the "occupied" lever being dirty, just unlatch it and then wash your hands. Problem solved.
They do not just trounce Apple in sales, but often in specs as well. But in terms of profits, Apple solidly beats them. Still, I think the main reason that the press is more interested in Apple is simply because the public is. They still perceive them as the premium brand that sets the yardstick and is more secure than the others. "Huawei Horror 7 fingerprint scanner defeated" will not garner nearly as many eyeballs as "iPhone fingerprint scanner unsafe!" in the tech press, and an article about broken Android security would not even run in the mainstream press.
Perhaps it'll be used for enforcement. I see unmarked vans equipped with mikes driving around the neighbourhood, and the Disney Police busting down your door if they hear you printing unlicensed Toy Story figurines.
Let the government (any government) design a smart phone and it'll probably end up sucking horribly at $3000 a unit. And instead of keeping up with modern technology, they will take at least 5 years to come up with the next model which will then be 3 years behind.
Nothing wrong with government buying closed stuff like Apple as long as you can easily migrate away from it if necessary. I've worked with corporate ecosystems that accommodated a mix of Android, Windows and iOS phones very well, and dropping one in favour of tbe other could be done overnight. That is an advantage of having a BYOD scheme: from the get-go you are more or less forced to cater to different platforms. I would rather see the govt focus on rolling out open data and document standards, because decades of legacy docs are hard to migrate.
I think that sentiment is mutual. Ads provide them with income and if you block them they don't want you there. Which is fine: their house, their rules. Should Slashdot link to such sites though? I don't know... what I do know is that Slashdot should stop linking to Forbes because it's a rubbish magazine: the articles are often about highly interesting subjects but they lack substance, and in most cases there are far better (and free) alternative sources.
Slashdot Mirror
- Even Hitler didn't kill people "just for being foreign"; many of those killed had the same nationality as those left alone (= conquered / oppressed) - People kill invaders for being invaders, not for being foreign. With that said, what is happening here in Europe is not the same as an invasion, but it is cause for worry nevertheless. And Taco Cowboy is quite right that we do not really know how to defend ourselves against what is happening, not without turning into savages ourselves.
Handling cash and running branches is expensive and something banks have actively been discouraging here. Withdrawing larger sums (not talking 5 figures here) requires an appointment, and depositing cash comes with a charge even if you use an ATM for it. They have also funded several large campaigns to get shopkeepers to adopt debit card terminals (credit cards are hardly used for day-to-day transactions here). Banks *love* a cashless society.
With that said, our banks seem to have handled the transition to instant transactions just fine already. On a holiday in Tel Aviv, I used my debit card to pay for something but the machine didn't ask for a PIN. I wanted to make sure the shop got their money, even though the clerk assured me everything was ok. Sure enough, my phone showed the transaction right there, seconds later. The reverse happened when I bought an expensive second hand car. I transfered the money to the guys account from his living room; he used his computer to see the money arriving at the same moment. The latter was only possible because the guy was with the same bank; transactions between banks still dake 1-2 days to complete, but it would appear that the banks have had their internal accounting stuff modernised already.
I've been playing with an Apple Watch for the past few weeks (doing an app development project at the moment), and I find it to be fairly useful, though it certainly is no game-changer. It is not meant to be a replacement smart device, it is meant to be a companion to one. That means you don't need a full screen and full functionality, just something that can display notifications and basic information. You're not going to be reading the news on that thing, but it'll vibrate and pop up the headline if there's a breaking story, for example. Personally I found it useful for navigating a strange city (on foot); you can access Apple Maps on the watch and have it display directions. Way easier han walking around holding your phone, and the small screen provides enough space for usable directions.
What I really like about the watch is the vibrate function. I leave my phone on silent most of the time, and when it is in my pocket or lying around the house somewhere I often miss calls. But the watch' vibration is impossible to miss.
But the fact that the watch is a companion also means that its appeal will probably be very limited. Make your smart watch too expensive and most people will not want to buy one to gain a handful of mildly convenient but nonessential features. Make it too cheap and it'll look horrible as an accessory. Pebble make a good effort with their watches, but as watches go they still don't look very good. If I really wanted a smart watch, I'd pay 4 figures for one that looks really good, I mean classical watch good. Something in titanium or gold. But not if the innards will be obsolete in a few years. Unless manufacturers can find ways to make the electronics swappable so people can keep the case, these watches will be too ugly or expensive to find widespread use.
And the most successful method of catching terrorists still seems to be them being ratted out by family and friends. Even in the thoroughly hard-core muslim borough of Molenwijk in Brussels, there are still decent people who report suspicious activity to the police. And in that neighborhood I would say that these people do so at considerable personal risk. Winning hearts and minds is still important.
A Dutch journalist had a genuine Syrian passport made with the image of the Dutch prime minister (under a different name). He paid a couple of hundred dollars, though. Problem is that several groups in Syria have seized machines and supplies used to make these passports, and they are selling them to anyone who wants one. The Belgian authorities reported many so-called refugees with genuine Syrian passports who all had suspiciously similar stories, and upon further questioning admitted to being from Iraq, Morocco and other places.
Sadly, he is mostly right. There was absolutely no way to even begin screening refugees, what with immigration services in border countries being utterly overrun. For months, governments and politicians addressed the problem by vehemently denying that any terrorist would slip in with the refugees. In their actual words: "There are none", and anyone saying different was accused of playing into the hands of the political right wing at best, or called a goose-stepping foreigner hating racist sub-human at worst (similar terms have been used by normally polite politicians). The PC bug is more of a stick: there's even been a few proposed laws on the table in Brussels to outlaw criticism of islam.
Not that is makes much difference. We can't stop these fanatical idiots from coming in, even if we would build a wall and start screening the refugees. And despite our strict gun laws, it's ridiculously easy to obtain an illegal one. We can't stop all terrorism... but it doesn't mean we should do nothing. And like alcoholism, any cure starts with admitting that there is a problem. We're not there yet, here in Europe. And my fear is that when they do start taking measures, it will mostly be along the lines of more repression, surveillance and reduction of freedoms of ordinary citizens. Ineffective window-dressing that for some reason ticks their boxes.
Secure IoTs? Depends on what you mean by that. Standards like Z-Wave and Zigbee are already somewhat safer from remote tampering than WiFi-enabled devices since they operate on their own network. Hacking into them remotely or making them send data to a 3rd party involves hacking the central controller (if that controller even is connected to the Internet, though it often is). Certainly possible but it's a considerable extra hurdle. The networks themselves are fairly easy to hack, though the new version of Z-Wave adds encryption to make that a great deal harder.
For the rest, it comes down to selecting what data to share with whom, when, and what risk you deem acceptable when sharing. And if you're worried about the CIA and their pals, don't do anything in the cloud, access your stuff via encrypted VPN or forego remote access completely and create an air gap between your smart home stuff and the LAN.
I have the opposite attitude: I would not work for a startup if they do not offer stock or options as part of the deal (and not the kind that needs to vest and are void if you leave, i.e. the kind that they can screw you out of if they want to, like they did to many people at FaceBook). If I think the company has little future, I would not want to work for them anyway. But if they hit it big, it'll be partly due of my hard work (and believe me, you *will* work hard in a startup that's taking off). And in that case I'll want my payday as well.
But in general I agree: you should treat a job application as an "employer application" as well; it's a two way deal. Unless you don't have the luxury to turn down an offer, do look carefully at whom you're going to work for and be prepared to say No even if the money's ok. And don't believe you're going to learn all about the company, their culture and their way of working from the website that they expect you to scrutinize beforehand; often it comes down to asking the right questions at the interview. I've once turned down a prospective employer who made a very decent offer. I told them I thought their company wasn't a very good fit for the way I prefer to work, and I got the same incredulous look in return.
using social media as a resource to spread positive health behavior.
In other words, a resource for insurers to screw you for drinking "at home and/or at inappropriate hours", and for employers to give you a bollocking over the same.
So they really are "select" neighbourhoods as the summary calls them... That sort of language is most often used by the companies themselves to lend an air of exclusivity to the word "some".
I dislike Trump and fervently hope he is not going to be elected as president of the USA, but this is not one of the times I agree with what Anonymous do. I'm no fan of political vandalism.
In the UK apparently there are certain notable people pushing for a ban on encrypted services with no back door or centrally stored keys. And they can find plenty of support for such a ban in Europe. Now Obama tells us that crypto without back doors is doubleplus ungood. If these services get banned, it hardly matters if they get moved offshore. Perhaps they will start blocking encrypted traffic or simply monitor traffic and fine anyone using unsanctioned crypto.
Still, if it'll get rid of FB...
Of course, that even presumes that reducing gun deaths should be a direct policy goal of federal policy at all, something many people disagree with.
That may sound weird but you are spot on. How the hell can these researchers simply lump together all "gun related deaths"? A guy who gets shot while committing a robbery, a woman shooting a guy attempting to rape her, a child finding his dad's gun and shooting his brother by accident, some idiot cleaning a loaded weapon and killing his neighbour, a guy committing suicide by firearm, a cop shooting a fleeing suspect, a wife mistaking her husband for a burglar and shooting him... All of these cases are different and should be counted differently. If a guy gets shot while committing a serious crime, that may not be the sentence that the law prescribes but I call it justice. Screw them, that's the risk of committing violent crimes. That's not a point against gun ownership, but for it, if it means that a violent crime has been prevented. The other examples are points against gun ownership, or at least against letting idiots have guns. But talking about "gun related deaths" is pointless if you fail to distinguish the circumstances under which these events took place.
Compare the casualties of terrorism in London, Madrid and Paris against, say, the daily death toll in traffic. Yes, terrorism exists in Europe, and we should continue to fight it as best we can, but in the grand scheme of things it is not a problem that should dominate our lives and make us throw away liberties such as the right to keep certain things private, nor throw away the rights of individual well-meaning Muslims.
Europe has its share of problems, but terrorism isn't a major one. Really, it isn't. Don't let the extremists or your elected or appointed representatives scare you into thinking otherwise.
Exactly. And if we can't fix democracy to guard against individual liberties being violated (i.e. being voted out), then all we can do is stop importing people who who vote or fight against said liberties.
The problem with even the moderate muslims (or with their beliefs) is that they are muslims first, citizens second. You are right: even many moderate muslims who wouldn't dream of stooping to violence themselves would vote for sharia law if it was brought to a vote. They feel they are obliged to. And the actual content of their religion plays a big role here! Not all religions are create equal as we are led, cautioned and forced to believe; islam has some pretty hardcore stuff in there and precious little of the whoever-is-without-sin or turn-the-other-cheek stuff. In a race of "who is the better muslim?", things get dark quickly. Even if it all happens by wholly democratic means. Egypt's "spring" went south pretty fast.
Here in Europe we don't have a problem with terrorists or with muslims; of the former there are precious few, and the latter are pretty normal people, individually. But the beliefs of those normal people can still be dangerous if they gather (vote) in large numbers. We do have a problem with islam gaining in influence. And our democracy is poorly protected against such influence: a previous minister of justice stated that if enough people wanted sharia, it would become the law (and he stated it as a matter of fact, not as a warning).
People disliked the 5c because of its reduced memory and bargain-basement look & feel, not because of its size; the similarly sized 5 / 5s sold well enough.
I recently switched from a 5S to a 6S, but I find it a bit too big and too thin for my taste. If Apple bring back a 4" model into their lineup with full specs, fingerprint scanner, the works, having the form factor of the 5s, then that might very well be my next phone.
What I'm going to get is another shitty iphone.
AND a new iWatch strap, you lucky dog!
Seriously, I like Apple products, I have an iPhone and I recently picked up a refurbished watch for a "good" (in Apple terms) price; as someone involved in app development I kind of started to need one. But when we start getting excited about a new strap for a bloody watch is when we should stop and think if we're not taking our fanboi-ism a tad too far.
I'm with you on the Mac Mini; I'd love a more powerful model... at a slightly less ridiculous price.
Yeah, it's a common narrative: scientist excluding alternative viewpoints and/or sources of knowledge. It is a valid concern. But here the authors make a lot of assumptions for which there is little actual proof: the nature of the bias (here we read the usual accusation of scientists being white male imperialist), and the value or even existence of alternative "narratvies", and the extent of the bias caused by exclusion of those narratives in the results drawn by the scientists. The language in this paper is rather accusatory, and makes me suspect that the authors suffer from more than a little bit of confirmation bias themselves.
It is utter rubbish. Please do read the conclusion: "a broader consideration of ‘cryoscapes’, the human, and the insights and potentials of alternative ice narratives and folk glaciologies.". "Global environmental change research must pluralize its ontologies, epistemologies, and sensibilities". Seriously, this is what passes for science these days?
This thing truly reads like a poor April fools article, and I am sad to say that this is the case for a lot of other papers coming out of gender study departments. "Many humanities and social science disciplines and sub-disciplines have given significant attention to these issues, but there remain boundaries between these analyses and those considered central to the environmental change question." That part is true, and for good reasons. For examples of these reaons, read the conclusion of this ridiculous paper. If you want to be included in any serious discussion about these matters, you'll have be able to bring something worthwhile to the table. This ain't it.
We're getting into Howard Hughes levels of germ paranoia here. If you are worried about the "occupied" lever being dirty, just unlatch it and then wash your hands. Problem solved.
They do not just trounce Apple in sales, but often in specs as well. But in terms of profits, Apple solidly beats them. Still, I think the main reason that the press is more interested in Apple is simply because the public is. They still perceive them as the premium brand that sets the yardstick and is more secure than the others. "Huawei Horror 7 fingerprint scanner defeated" will not garner nearly as many eyeballs as "iPhone fingerprint scanner unsafe!" in the tech press, and an article about broken Android security would not even run in the mainstream press.
Perhaps it'll be used for enforcement. I see unmarked vans equipped with mikes driving around the neighbourhood, and the Disney Police busting down your door if they hear you printing unlicensed Toy Story figurines.
Let the government (any government) design a smart phone and it'll probably end up sucking horribly at $3000 a unit. And instead of keeping up with modern technology, they will take at least 5 years to come up with the next model which will then be 3 years behind.
Nothing wrong with government buying closed stuff like Apple as long as you can easily migrate away from it if necessary. I've worked with corporate ecosystems that accommodated a mix of Android, Windows and iOS phones very well, and dropping one in favour of tbe other could be done overnight. That is an advantage of having a BYOD scheme: from the get-go you are more or less forced to cater to different platforms. I would rather see the govt focus on rolling out open data and document standards, because decades of legacy docs are hard to migrate.
F*k off is all I have to say to them
I think that sentiment is mutual. Ads provide them with income and if you block them they don't want you there. Which is fine: their house, their rules. Should Slashdot link to such sites though? I don't know... what I do know is that Slashdot should stop linking to Forbes because it's a rubbish magazine: the articles are often about highly interesting subjects but they lack substance, and in most cases there are far better (and free) alternative sources.