People elected to public office usually have NO technical knowledge. But technology is popular and they often like to pretend that they know something.
My understanding is that Red Hat is strong enough that the company was able to force systemd on the Linux community, and did that because the unfinished, poorly documented systemd brings in more money for Red Hat support.
They might as well go all the way and change the name to CRASH, which in the case of explosions comes after Boom. Think of the slogan: "Fly with CRASH."
Reminds me of Malwarebytes software which is supposed to remove malware, not be what its name implies.
The federal government will try to take Apple apart piece by piece: in court, in the press, and perhaps by brain drain from people leaving.
To the government, it's very important to set a precedent where companies have to comply, in all circumstances, with any and all requests for technical assistance- regardless of the true legality. So expect ongoing government behavior to accomplish these goals.
That's the same as saying the U.S. government has become extremely corrupt.
The problem is not fast food labor. The problem is that a large percentage of jobs are in China. There are fewer hi-tech manufacturing jobs in the United States. Life in the U.S. is rapidly degrading.
It's good that low-level jobs are taken by machines. It's bad if the hi-level jobs of designing, manufacturing, and maintaining those machines are all taken by Chinese.
In Hong Kong, a long time ago, I met a man who was having golf clubs made in China. He said he taught a Chinese man to design the factory. He found later that the Chinese man's brother was building an identical factory to make golf clubs that would compete with his business.
Quote from that New York Times story: "There are no immediate synergies that I can see," said Stacy A. Rasgon, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. "It is a strategic deal, and it is a pretty rich price for a strategic buy."
Ohhh. It's a "strategic deal". Oh, well then, that's okay? Why are writers with no interest or understanding of technology allowed to write stories about technology?
My best guess is that's why Otellini was fired.
Stories about John McAfee, who started the company:
Quote from that BBC story: "At the time of the raid, McAfee had begun an affair with a 16-year-old ex-prostitute he had met on Belize Independence Day."
She was an "ex-prostitute"? She was no longer a prostitute?
Another quote: "One night Emshwiller took McAfee's gun. She aimed it at his head, squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger. She missed." John McAfee's response: "All she did was burst my eardrum. I'm deaf in one ear now, but I don't have a bullet in my head. Forgiveness is one of the graces that we have as human beings. Can I be faulted for indulging in it?"
Not-prostitute Emshwiller is quoted as saying, " 'One time before, I held him in the corner and I put a knife at his throat," she says.'
Former Intel CEO Paul Otellini got Intel, a hardware company, involved in that by buying McAfee, a software company. Would you use Intel McAfee software? It seemed to me that buying McAfee damaged Intel's reputation, and continues to damage Intel's reputation.
From the Slashdot story: "Barack Obama has a fine legal mind. But he may not have been using it when he talked about encryption last week."
Reality: Barack Obama often acts like a leader while saying or doing nonsense. One example: The ACA, "Affordable Care Act" gives money to the medical companies and takes it from citizens. Those who profit from people being sick got everything they wanted.
Portland is no longer a liveable city. There are 2 reasons: 1) The air is poisonous, much worse than before. The news
stories linked below don't discuss all the issues. 2) During all hours of the day there are terrible traffic
jams.
The problem with the air is more than pollution, the air
is poisonous:
Intel has been emitting fluoride for years
without state knowledge, permit. Quote: "When
Intel applied for D1X approval, the company considered its
fluoride emissions insignificant and did not include
those. It was only when the company applied for the new
DEQ permit required by greenhouse gas regulations that it
requested a 6.4-tons-per-year fluoride emission limit. "
6.4-tons-per-year!!!
Oregon warns home gardeners, Portland
leaders lash out at state pollution response. Quote: "Regulators
have known for years that Portland has high levels of the
heavy metal cadmium in the air, but didn't know until 2015
what the likely sources were." Another quote: "The
department's own air monitoring found arsenic levels were
159 times higher than the state's safety goal in Southeast
Portland and cadmium levels were 49 times higher."
Portland pollution: How does it affect
you? Quote: "Tests detected cadmium and arsenic
near Bullseye Glass in Southeast Portland and Uroboros
Glass in North Portland. Superheating the metals, which
are used to add color to glass, can send small particles
up smokestacks and into surrounding air." The next
paragraph: "The state also found that another
carcinogen, hexavalent chromium, was used by the two
plants."
Maybe use Uber or Lyft instead of renting a Hertz car?
I'm guessing that the CEO of Hertz has no technical knowledge, and no interest in knowing anything about technology. So, to him, someone who supports Hertz technology is just a rent-a-car, just an appliance. Don't think! Get the cheapest!
I doubt he understands the long-term social and technical effects. It seems that his actions make Hertz a place of hurts.
"Are they hitting a wall of unmanageable complexity?" No, my view is that Microsoft has hit a wall built of many years of technically incompetent top management.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was called "Monkey Boy". The January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek
magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (now replaced by Satya Nadella) with the headline
calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article:
Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover
says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that
the magazine called Ballmer "Monkey Boy" -- on its cover.
Worst CEO in the United States: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr.
Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."
Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it
comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)
Who would want to work for "Monkey Boy"? Microsoft is apparently not able to hire socially competent people. Apparently Satya Nadella was chosen because he was the least annoying person. However, he does not seem to me to be the kind of person who can handle the enormous conflicts inside Microsoft.
This is my guess: Someone at Microsoft said, "Google and Facebook are collecting data about customers and selling it; let's do that also." So Windows 8 was designed to try to sell "Apps", as though Windows was a particularly trashy cell phone operating system. I was shocked when I first saw the Windows 8.1 GUI. Utterly incompetent. Now Windows 10 is apparently trying to imitate Google Android, which has become more and more invasive.
People who have work to do have already learned the GUIs they need. Even if the design is imperfect, that's what they know. They don't want wild changes.
It's scary. In the last few months, Windows 10 has been shown again and again to be sloppily designed and implemented, as well as being spyware.
Judging from comments on Slashdot, people try to find some technical reason for Microsoft's policies. They apparently have difficulty imagining that Microsoft managers are as incompetent as they are.
The fundamental thing to remember is that politicians and government employees are often extremely ignorant about technology, yet they think they can make decisions about technology.
CEOs should be happy that I don't view many ads. Often the ads are so abusive that I think I could go to the Board of Directors and get the CEO fired.
A serious problem for Google and Yahoo is Windows 10. Apparently, from what I've read, Microsoft uses the forced installation of Windows 10 to collect data to sell. Microsoft calls that "telemetry"; others call it spyware.
There's a huge amount of money in selling customer data. That's apparently why Windows 10 is "free".
Another issue: There is no way to stop ad blockers. They could, for example, download the ads, but not display them. There would apparently be no way to stop that.
Rio suffers from insufficient city management. Improvements that should have been done 50 years ago haven't been done. People in the U.S. often don't like dealing with details. Brazilians, in general, are even more intense about not liking details. So things don't get done.
To get a more balanced view, consider the U.S. metropolitan area centered on Portland, Oregon:
Intel has been emitting fluoride for years without state knowledge, permit. Quote: "When Intel applied for D1X approval, the company considered its fluoride emissions insignificant and did not include those. It was only when the company applied for the new DEQ permit required by greenhouse gas regulations that it requested a 6.4-tons-per-year fluoride emission limit. " 6.4-tons-per-year!!!
Oregon warns home gardeners, Portland leaders lash out at state pollution response. Quote: "Regulators have known for years that Portland has high levels of the heavy metal cadmium in the air, but didn't know until 2015 what the likely sources were." Another quote: "The department's own air monitoring found arsenic levels were 159 times higher than the state's safety goal in Southeast Portland and cadmium levels were 49 times higher."
Portland pollution: How does it affect you? Quote: "Tests detected cadmium and arsenic near Bullseye Glass in Southeast Portland and Uroboros Glass in North Portland. Superheating the metals, which are used to add color to glass, can send small particles up smokestacks and into surrounding air." The next paragraph: "The state also found that another carcinogen, hexavalent chromium, was used by the two plants."
The stories about Portland help give a more balanced view of the poor city management in Rio.
I have lived in Brazil a total of about 3 years. When the 2008 financial crash occurred in the U.S., Brazilian newspaper writers were assigned to write stories about how the crash affected Brazil. The writers seemed to put a lot of effort into finding stories about bad effects, but they never seemed to find anything particularly bad. Why? Brazil has better banking laws and the laws were followed.
The U.S. financial system continues to be corrupt. For example, see this story about Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine.
That's avoidance, not logic. There are many, many, many articles about abuse by Microsoft. Whether or not you like what I said, or the articles I chose, there is an issue.
As I said above: The domination we are seeing is destructive toward the lives of those who do it, in the kind of way that alcoholism is not a solution to problems, but degrades the lives of alcoholics.
Don't be dishonest toward yourselves. Deal with conflicts, don't avoid them.
Slashdot Mirror
About one-tenth of the time, Hillary Clinton seems to me to say things that aren't logical, or don't make much sense.
How can there be so many defects in Flash? Is Adobe paid to include vulnerabilities? If so, who pays? Secret government agencies? One of the many stories: The NSA hacks other countries by buying millions of dollars worth of computer vulnerabilities.
Is Adobe badly managed?
"Honestly, the only thing which has cumulatively had more security holes than Flash is Windows."
Is Microsoft paid to include vulnerabilities? Or is it bad management? "Monkey Boy" can't run a technology company?
An idea: The right panel of Slashdot shouldn't change when someone logs in.
People elected to public office usually have NO technical knowledge. But technology is popular and they often like to pretend that they know something.
"... the majority of Debian maintainers chose systemd... "
But why? Were there reasons other than good management? Was it difficult to ignore something Red Hat did?
My understanding is that Red Hat is strong enough that the company was able to force systemd on the Linux community, and did that because the unfinished, poorly documented systemd brings in more money for Red Hat support.
Any sense in that?
They might as well go all the way and change the name to CRASH, which in the case of explosions comes after Boom. Think of the slogan: "Fly with CRASH."
Reminds me of Malwarebytes software which is supposed to remove malware, not be what its name implies.
That's the same as saying the U.S. government has become extremely corrupt.
The problem is not fast food labor. The problem is that a large percentage of jobs are in China. There are fewer hi-tech manufacturing jobs in the United States. Life in the U.S. is rapidly degrading.
It's good that low-level jobs are taken by machines. It's bad if the hi-level jobs of designing, manufacturing, and maintaining those machines are all taken by Chinese.
In Hong Kong, a long time ago, I met a man who was having golf clubs made in China. He said he taught a Chinese man to design the factory. He found later that the Chinese man's brother was building an identical factory to make golf clubs that would compete with his business.
This is an excellent book that tells one part of the story of degradation: Poorly Made in China: An Insider's Account of the Tactics Behind China's Production Game. There are many other, related issues.
Good points. There is a long list of things they got. I need to go somewhere and don't have time to make another comment.
McAfee is owned by Intel Corporation. Former Intel CEO Paul Otellini bought McAfee for $7.6 billion.
Quote from that New York Times story: "There are no immediate synergies that I can see," said Stacy A. Rasgon, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. "It is a strategic deal, and it is a pretty rich price for a strategic buy."
Ohhh. It's a "strategic deal". Oh, well then, that's okay? Why are writers with no interest or understanding of technology allowed to write stories about technology?
My best guess is that's why Otellini was fired.
Stories about John McAfee, who started the company:
1) Meet the harem of SEVEN women who lived with fugitive software tycoon John McAfee before he fled Belize
2) Bath Salts, Orgies, Murder, and Anti-Virus Software
3) U.S. antivirus legend John McAfee wanted for murder in Belize
McAfee is a "legend"? McAfee software was always undesirable, in my experience.
4) John McAfee: Addict, coder, runaway
Quote from that BBC story: "At the time of the raid, McAfee had begun an affair with a 16-year-old ex-prostitute he had met on Belize Independence Day."
She was an "ex-prostitute"? She was no longer a prostitute?
Another quote: "One night Emshwiller took McAfee's gun. She aimed it at his head, squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger. She missed." John McAfee's response: "All she did was burst my eardrum. I'm deaf in one ear now, but I don't have a bullet in my head. Forgiveness is one of the graces that we have as human beings. Can I be faulted for indulging in it?"
Not-prostitute Emshwiller is quoted as saying, " 'One time before, I held him in the corner and I put a knife at his throat," she says.'
Former Intel CEO Paul Otellini got Intel, a hardware company, involved in that by buying McAfee, a software company. Would you use Intel McAfee software? It seemed to me that buying McAfee damaged Intel's reputation, and continues to damage Intel's reputation.
From the Slashdot story: "Barack Obama has a fine legal mind. But he may not have been using it when he talked about encryption last week."
Reality: Barack Obama often acts like a leader while saying or doing nonsense. One example: The ACA, "Affordable Care Act" gives money to the medical companies and takes it from citizens. Those who profit from people being sick got everything they wanted.
Consumerist stories about Comcast.
One of the stories: Comcast: 2014 worst company in America.
6 Things Comcast Customers Can Try To Get Some Actual Customer Service
The main purpose of my comment was to talk about the fact that many CEOs are ignorant about technology.
Technology professionals need to be careful to communicate the advantages they have given their companies.
Portland is no longer a liveable city. There are 2 reasons: 1) The air is poisonous, much worse than before. The news stories linked below don't discuss all the issues. 2) During all hours of the day there are terrible traffic jams.
The problem with the air is more than pollution, the air is poisonous:
Intel has been emitting fluoride for years without state knowledge, permit. Quote: "When Intel applied for D1X approval, the company considered its fluoride emissions insignificant and did not include those. It was only when the company applied for the new DEQ permit required by greenhouse gas regulations that it requested a 6.4-tons-per-year fluoride emission limit. " 6.4-tons-per-year!!!
Oregon warns home gardeners, Portland leaders lash out at state pollution response. Quote: "Regulators have known for years that Portland has high levels of the heavy metal cadmium in the air, but didn't know until 2015 what the likely sources were." Another quote: "The department's own air monitoring found arsenic levels were 159 times higher than the state's safety goal in Southeast Portland and cadmium levels were 49 times higher."
Portland pollution: How does it affect you? Quote: "Tests detected cadmium and arsenic near Bullseye Glass in Southeast Portland and Uroboros Glass in North Portland. Superheating the metals, which are used to add color to glass, can send small particles up smokestacks and into surrounding air." The next paragraph: "The state also found that another carcinogen, hexavalent chromium, was used by the two plants."
There are now traffic jams most of the day. Yet Portland city management is allowing the construction of large buildings with no parking! One story: New Portland apartment buildings with no parking have neighbors worried about congested streets.
That messy German language! Worse even than English!
noun: Gleichschaltung -- The standardization of political, economic, and social institutions as carried out in authoritarian states.
Maybe use Uber or Lyft instead of renting a Hertz car?
I'm guessing that the CEO of Hertz has no technical knowledge, and no interest in knowing anything about technology. So, to him, someone who supports Hertz technology is just a rent-a-car, just an appliance. Don't think! Get the cheapest!
I doubt he understands the long-term social and technical effects. It seems that his actions make Hertz a place of hurts.
The FBI operates outside the USA.
"Are they hitting a wall of unmanageable complexity?" No, my view is that Microsoft has hit a wall built of many years of technically incompetent top management.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was called "Monkey Boy". The January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (now replaced by Satya Nadella) with the headline calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article: Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that the magazine called Ballmer "Monkey Boy" -- on its cover.
Worst CEO in the United States: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."
Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)
Who would want to work for "Monkey Boy"? Microsoft is apparently not able to hire socially competent people. Apparently Satya Nadella was chosen because he was the least annoying person. However, he does not seem to me to be the kind of person who can handle the enormous conflicts inside Microsoft.
This is my guess: Someone at Microsoft said, "Google and Facebook are collecting data about customers and selling it; let's do that also." So Windows 8 was designed to try to sell "Apps", as though Windows was a particularly trashy cell phone operating system. I was shocked when I first saw the Windows 8.1 GUI. Utterly incompetent. Now Windows 10 is apparently trying to imitate Google Android, which has become more and more invasive.
People who have work to do have already learned the GUIs they need. Even if the design is imperfect, that's what they know. They don't want wild changes.
It's scary. In the last few months, Windows 10 has been shown again and again to be sloppily designed and implemented, as well as being spyware.
Judging from comments on Slashdot, people try to find some technical reason for Microsoft's policies. They apparently have difficulty imagining that Microsoft managers are as incompetent as they are.
Some links:
Windows 8: NSA Backdoor Exploit in Windows 8 Uncovered (Aug. 22, 2013)
Windows: NSA "backdoor" mandates lead to a computer-security FREAK show Quote: "Microsoft Windows OS vulnerable to hackers, thanks to National Security Agency requirements." (March 6, 2015)
Windows: NSA Built Back Door In All Windows Software by 1999 (June 7, 2013)
Windows 10, Microsoft hiding what it is doing: Microsoft has no plans to tell us what's in Windows patches. Quote: "Each update is a black box, and it's going to stay that way." (Aug 21, 2015)
Windows 10, Microsoft takes even more control: Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do -- here's how to opt out (July 31, 2015) But, of course, Microsoft can change the spyware to a
The fundamental thing to remember is that politicians and government employees are often extremely ignorant about technology, yet they think they can make decisions about technology.
ArgleBargle, thanks for the clarifications.
What you said is the opposite of Argle Bargle: "Copious but meaningless talk or writing; nonsense".
CEOs should be happy that I don't view many ads. Often the ads are so abusive that I think I could go to the Board of Directors and get the CEO fired.
A serious problem for Google and Yahoo is Windows 10. Apparently, from what I've read, Microsoft uses the forced installation of Windows 10 to collect data to sell. Microsoft calls that "telemetry"; others call it spyware.
There's a huge amount of money in selling customer data. That's apparently why Windows 10 is "free".
Another issue: There is no way to stop ad blockers. They could, for example, download the ads, but not display them. There would apparently be no way to stop that.
Rio suffers from insufficient city management. Improvements that should have been done 50 years ago haven't been done. People in the U.S. often don't like dealing with details. Brazilians, in general, are even more intense about not liking details. So things don't get done.
To get a more balanced view, consider the U.S. metropolitan area centered on Portland, Oregon:
Intel has been emitting fluoride for years without state knowledge, permit. Quote: "When Intel applied for D1X approval, the company considered its fluoride emissions insignificant and did not include those. It was only when the company applied for the new DEQ permit required by greenhouse gas regulations that it requested a 6.4-tons-per-year fluoride emission limit. " 6.4-tons-per-year!!!
Oregon warns home gardeners, Portland leaders lash out at state pollution response. Quote: "Regulators have known for years that Portland has high levels of the heavy metal cadmium in the air, but didn't know until 2015 what the likely sources were." Another quote: "The department's own air monitoring found arsenic levels were 159 times higher than the state's safety goal in Southeast Portland and cadmium levels were 49 times higher."
Portland pollution: How does it affect you? Quote: "Tests detected cadmium and arsenic near Bullseye Glass in Southeast Portland and Uroboros Glass in North Portland. Superheating the metals, which are used to add color to glass, can send small particles up smokestacks and into surrounding air." The next paragraph: "The state also found that another carcinogen, hexavalent chromium, was used by the two plants."
Portland, Oregon is no longer a livable city in other ways. There are now traffic jams most of the day. Yet Portland city management is allowing the construction of large buildings with no parking! One story: New Portland apartment buildings with no parking have neighbors worried about congested streets.
The stories about Portland help give a more balanced view of the poor city management in Rio.
I have lived in Brazil a total of about 3 years. When the 2008 financial crash occurred in the U.S., Brazilian newspaper writers were assigned to write stories about how the crash affected Brazil. The writers seemed to put a lot of effort into finding stories about bad effects, but they never seemed to find anything particularly bad. Why? Brazil has better banking laws and the laws were followed.
The U.S. financial system continues to be corrupt. For example, see this story about Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine.
Wow! Moderated up to +4, now at 0.
That's avoidance, not logic. There are many, many, many articles about abuse by Microsoft. Whether or not you like what I said, or the articles I chose, there is an issue.
As I said above: The domination we are seeing is destructive toward the lives of those who do it, in the kind of way that alcoholism is not a solution to problems, but degrades the lives of alcoholics.
Don't be dishonest toward yourselves. Deal with conflicts, don't avoid them.