Another good one is "Whitespace is Not Your Enemy" by Golimbsky. But you are right, one big no-no is picking half a dozen different fonts for some project just because they look cool.
We're running out of time to find the dusty VHS tapes of the '700 Club' warning us about the horrors of "designer babies" before they degrade. They could save humanity!
I'm sorry that you think that eugenics through direct genetic manipulation is not a bad thing. Are you as unconcerned about the current "eugenics through abortion" system, too?
It's science fiction, old science science fiction, that's got you worried.
Every technological advance is science fiction until it happens. Prior to the Manhattan Project, nukes were science fiction, too.
that are far more likely to cause you harm in the immediate future
Ahhh, got it. You are only concerned about things which will cause you immediate personal harm, and ignore anything that may be harmful to future generations of other people.
I bought an unlocked HTC One M9 which was provisioned for Taiwan. It would not do LTE (wrong bands) but would hotspot fine. UNTIL... it stopped. Not permitted. T-Mobile had finally detected I was hotspotting with it on a plan that did not include hotspot (or technically, Internet). The unlocked phone was telling them/getting authorization.
I was on their case for a week. "Put it back the way it was." "We didn't change anything." "It worked last week, today it doesn't, you changed something." "We didn't change anything."
This was an unlocked, un-carriered phone. Didn't say T-Mobile anywhere on it. They could still tell it was hotspot data and block it.
I finally had to change to a plan that included "Internet" and "hotspot", and then like magic it worked again. Except still no LTE.
I think the odds are very high that an existing virus or bacterium would incorporate bits of the DNA and start replicating it. Even the cell itself would probably do that.
Imagine using this system to store a movie, and the MPAA comes after you for having pirated copies of their property in your genes.
Furthermore, unless I'm hugely mistaken, this will survive an EMP with no ill effect, so that's an added bonus in terms of resiliency.
The data might, but the gene sequencers will not. Just like I have a box of 9 track tapes with data on them. And the data won't survive ionizing radiation.
What is fascinating is that TFS said they encoded the data and then deleted problematic pairs, which would seem to be a waste. Why not change the encoding so you don't create problem base pairs in the first place?
Yes the technique is slow write and slow read but the information density is about as good as it is possible to get at a molecular level.
There are molecules much smaller than nucleic acids that could be strung together. The difference is that sequencing DNA is an existing technology that is paid for by serious users, so is available for cheap for this kind of thing.
Even better the stuff is self replicating
Uhhh, no.
where is that going to go in the next 50 years?
"Fixing one child" is to "today" as ? is to "in 50 years"? This is a very scary question. In no more than 15 years we will probably be fixing genetic diseases. It won't be much longer than that before we "fix" other things. Eugenics ain't just for chickens, you know.
But don't worry about your dystopian predictions. By then we'll have "fixed" our genetics so that the 0.001% are superhumans and the rest of you are the size of bacteria. You can fit a lot of "people" in a "ghetto" and feed them for pennies when the ghetto is a petri dish. "Oops, Professor, I put the wrong dish in the autoclave..."
... in the meantime Chevy is getting you to pay for their data collection, including speed/location/time, braking, acceleration, engine wear and damage so they can void your warranty for out-of-range operation.
Also creating an environment where it is even more likely that states will want to move to a "per mile" gas tax that has surcharges for high-traffic areas and times.
Oregon is drooling over that idea. I know one of the engineers who helped design one of the tests and she just could not imagine that the state would need location/time data for everyone so they could calculate the correct tax, and that dumping the GPS at the pump to pay then (the money collection system) means data that will never be deleted once the value to the state is realized. (E.g., you don't need a warrant to get GPS data from a suspect's car to see if he was near the scene of a crime, everyone in the state is giving their data to you already! You don't need to come up with a suspect before you scan the database to find your suspects.)
It's not the rain or snow, it's the salt that is used to deal with snow and ice.
Cars last a long time in Oregon. Not a speck of rust on my 12 year old car. Now the morons at ODOT are talking about using salt on the roads like every other fool state.
I'd much rather 1) drive on packed snow, 2) not drive in 12 inches of salty slush, 3) not track salt everywhere when I walk in from the parking lot, 4) have idiots decide to stay home because it isn't safe to drive instead of convincing them it is safe because "salt", and 5) not have to buy a new car every four years because the old one rusted out.
They're more concerned that idiots who drive in icy conditions make stupid decisions and must be protected from themselves than the cost to everyone for corrosive chemicals on the streets and in the environment.
While you are correct that the order mentions no religion whatsoever, it has a clause in it that specifically allows people of minority religions in those regions to not only continue to enter the country, but to also get expedited waivers for asylum seekers claiming religious persecution.
They don't get to "continue to enter the country", they have to meet the religious persecution test before being granted sanctuary. The rules are tougher for everyone from those seven countries, not just one specific religion like many people claim.
And why is there a problem that we make special provisions for those suffering from persecution?
You do know what the minority religion is in those countries, correct? Christianity.
And Buddhism. And Jews. And Every Other Religion you can name. There was no specificity in that order towards ANY specific religion.
And the majority religion? Islam. So the order DOES specifically bar Muslims as opposed to Christians from those countries.
No, it does not. Find the words, then you can claim "specifically."
Why do you have a problem that religious persecution is an exemption? Do you think that the exemption should seriously apply to people of the majority religion? Kinda hard to say it's being persecuted when it is the majority, huh?
I would say that is a de facto admission that there were flaws with the previous order.
No, I'd say it was a de facto admission that getting the job done now is more important than wasting months in court getting the Ninth's typically poor decision overturned.
Oh, I don't know about that. They manipulated the controls of an aircraft that was already in the air, some of the least complicated things a real pilot does. I've allowed many of my passengers to do the same thing, and none of them has had the nerve to claim they were a pilot based on that limited experience. CFIs do the same thing, and they would be insane to pull onto the taxiway after the first landing with a new student so they could hop out and let the new "pilot" make the next take-off by himself.
Why the hostility?
People who fly goddam planes are, "technically," called ____. (hint: goddam pilots)
You claimed they were hijacked by (hint) "pilots". They weren't flying the planes before they hijacked them, so they weren't pilots yet. And if your only criterion for calling someone a pilot is that they've manipulated the controls of an aircraft at some point in their life, your definition is amazingly useless in any serious conversation.
In the context of "occupations that merit increased interest in immigration interviews" that the AC you "this"d brought up, the fact that some of them touched the yoke in the airplane they hijacked is irrelevant. They weren't pilots in any useful definition of the word, as demonstrated by the ones who wound up in PA instead of NY or DC, and their new occupation as "pilots" has no bearing on any immigration processing they went through before they touched any aircraft controls.
It is OK to periodically remind me that I need to reboot.
Yeah, handle it like Norton 360 does. It does it so nicely. Here's what it does:
1. As soon as the user sits down to do any work on the system, pop up a window with a default "reboot now" option telling the user the system needs to be rebooted to update the anti-virus.
2. Offer an option to be reminded in a few different numbers of hours, such as "24 hours". When that time expires, go back to 1.
3. After rebooting to update the AV, within 24 hours go back to step 1, nagging the user that the system needs to be rebooted again to update the AV.
They all eventually came around and moved to 7; they'll do the same with 10.
I will buy a system with Windows 10 on it only after I can no longer buy one with 7 or cannot put 7 on it. I have "updated" my last system to 10, and did so only because I have to support people who make bad choices for their computers.
If they were rebelling, they wouldn't be using Windows any more.
It must be marvelous to live in a world where the computer operating system exists just to exist, and not to be a tool that is used to run programs that do something productive. Yes, Windows 10 is a wonderful operating system for a computer that needs do nothing except... run Windows 10.
Or maybe the world you live in doesn't recognize that some of those productive things a computer needs to do are only available for Windows? I get it; you don't need anything that isn't available in some version on linux and don't have any Windows systems, and that means nobody else needs programs that run only on Windows, either.
And what's wrong with their choice of tools? Why should they "know better"?
Because their use locks other users into Windows. They are sharing a tool that MUST be run on Windows if others want to run it. This is not how science is supposed to work -- everyone writing the same tools over and over because the source is unavailable and it has to run on a different system to be useful. I thought that would be obvious from the context.
Are you suggesting that VB and C# are inherently flawed tools, that nobody should use under any circumstances?
Did you see me say that? I think from the context you might have picked up that WINDOWS is an inherently flawed tool for hardcore scientific number crunching, but you focused on the symptoms and not the illness.
Let me guess... you're not in the private sector.
Let me guess, you've never had to deal with complicated software that has been developed over several years but isn't available on an open system like Linux, so you either have to spend a year reverse engineering it and writing a usable version, or put up with Windows and the problems like unstoppable reboots, or not use it at all and not make progress on your own research.
Private sector, not private sector, doesn't matter. Some tools are available only on Windows, which means you either run Windows to run them or you do without. Or try to find a budget to write your own version, if you can.
The 911 airplanes were hijacked by, among others, ______. (hint: pilots)
IIRC, a few of the 911 hijackers had taken flight instruction for a PPSEL (private pilot single-engine land) rating but not obtained their license. Technically that makes them student pilots. They weren't ATP (airline transport pilots) as your statement would imply.
Notice that this "pilot" status resulted in changes to security involving even $100 hot dog flyers.
It happened in an environment where this same organization (part of the Executive branch) has just been found by the Ninth Circuit courts to be attempting to specifically ban as many adherents of a specific religion as they could,
First, the executive order suspending immigration did not do so based on religion, only on citizenship in seven specific countries. There was an exemption for refugees from religious persecution, but no mention of Islam or muslims at all.
Second, the Ninth Circuit made no such finding in their stay. In fact, the article you linked to was quite explicit in saying exactly the opposite:
The court discussed, but did not decide, whether the executive order violated the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion by disfavoring Muslims.
The Administration isn't appealing it any further, which is essentially and admission.
"And [sic] admission" of what? And they haven't YET appealed it, but that does not mean it will never be appealed. In fact, the article you linked to explained why it might not be appealed immediately. Did you read it?
So harassing a valid Visa holder from this same country, in context, no longer looks particularly innocent.
You know, I hope, that a stay on an immigration policy that bars admission temporarily does NOT mean that there can be no barriers at all to immigration?
It looks very much like someone possibly literally being in contempt of court.
It looks like no such thing, once you understand what the executive order actually says, and what the court said about it. The court did not stay any and all immigration policies or practices for those seven countries, just the limited set defined by the executive order.
He went to jail for 30 months for perjury and colluding with his fellow officers before testifying:
And Al Capone went to prison for 8 years for tax evasion, not for the death of seven people in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. I think most people accept that as a win for the public.
It's actually not an entirely bad idea to confirm that someone coming in for a specific reason for a specific class of visa is here for legitimate purposes,
The story is opaque as to the actual visa involved, calling it only a "short term" visa. I would expect someone coming here to work would not have a short-term visa to start with, so that makes it suspicious. "Software engineer" is such a broad field that seems like a reasonable career for someone trying to enter illegally to pick. I mean, just how could ICE verify? Well, they tried, and I think it was reasonable to question him.
They also called his employer, which I suspect is why he got loosed.
but if the Government is issuing th visas in the first place then it should not be difficult to know what kinds of questions need to be asked,
Ummm, the visas are processed through embassy personnel, who certainly would have no idea what questions to ask.
Keeping a standard list of questions to ask specific careers would be a waste of time given the huge number of careers possible. For example, my "occupation" when I travel is "scientist". What do you ask a "scientist" to prove that he are one?
Since you're still using Windows after all these years of Microsoft doing those very things,
Windows 10 debuted July of 2015. That means it has been a total of about 19 months that anyone has been using it. Where do you get "all these years" from?
Oh, you didn't realize that the first thing many people (including me) did when getting a new Windows machine was to turn off automatic updates. No, you don't get to count "all those years" of using Windows before 10 as proof that everyone who uses Windows loves and accepts automatic updates and reboots.
You have indicated that you will accept it, you will like it,
Obfuscant lives on another planet. What color is the sky there?
You really don't have to be so insulting just because your experience is different than mine. I've been to many conferences where the rules are different, and I'm not talking about instrument control software for a $1,000,000 mass spec. I'm not talking about software that uses a standard protocol to talk to an oscilloscope or power supply (like GPIB or Labview) where I can write my own access software if they only provide Windows versions. I'm talking about a license for a model that costs maybe $500 and is available only as an exe file for Windows. Pure programming that has nothing to do with "drag and drop".
I also did not say that all scientists were incapable of programming well, only that many of them don't. I'm happy that you think you aren't part of that group, but many scientists don't have a clue how to write good software. I've spent hours trying to fix things as trivial as "what do you do if your parameters text file has a line without a ':'?" It took so long to fix because the problem was so patently obvious and really stupid that I couldn't believe anyone would write code that failed so badly, and because it ran when compiled with a stock Linux compiler (gfortran). The author never bothered to check the index returned for the colon separator in a "parameter: value" option. A blank line resulted in an index of '0' (not found) which was blindly passed to a string copy. (Copying a string from index 1 to "colon-1" is nonsense when the index of the colon is 0.) The failure was whitewashed by a low-performance FORTRAN library that did input checking on everything and didn't segfault. When compiled with a high-performance parallel FORTRAN that assumes the programmer wasn't lazy, it segfaulted, and did so under MPI, leaving only a "p4error" from the clients as a hint.
And I've spent a lot of time debugging what was supposed to be a fully supported configuration, but for some reason the author used mixed format FORTRAN code (some files free format, some fixed) and didn't correctly specify the compilation flags for each in the Makefile. I.e., the program would not compile, and the author didn't notice.
So climb down off your high horse, Coward, and recognize that the world you live on is not as homogenous as you think, and that not every reference to "science" refers to you.
Which is why serious work doesn't get done on Windows.
Unfortunately, some software is only available on Windows. People who don't program for a living tend to program to the style of the system they have at hand, and because Microsoft has so polluted the programming environment with system specific things, those programs become system-locked until someone with programming skills can convert it. If the source is available. If there is money to pay someone to do the programming.
This applies alot in the scientific community. Really smart scientists, or their graduate students, program something in Visual Basic or C# or whatever, and this becomes a distributed executable shared with others. They don't know better.
Or worse, it is a small company that has picked up the program and doesn't have the money to support multiple OSs, so they pick the one that everyone has. Windows. They don't make enough from your license to pay someone to port the code to Linux to run on your system, so sorry.
I have users who have models that run for a week. The "three day delay" in rebooting is really nice, Microsoft. Thanks so much. It does make for a wonderful morning when one of those users comes in to find the system rebooted after a five day run on a six day model. And all I can say is, umm, well, start over? And pull your system off the net. Yes, copy all the boundary condition data off the fileservers before you start.
only an idiot would bring along a system to do a big presentation that is subject to frequent uncommanded reboots and brick periods.
Unfortunately, in the scientific community, such presentations are often not under the control of the user, depending on the "IT department" of a hotel or convention center. And by "IT department" I mean the low paid people who have to deal with 1000 issues and problems all going on at the same time. The same people who make sure there are tables and water and the signs are correct for each of 100 meeting rooms...
Of course you did. Every time you try to defend your claim that ISPs are monopolies you trot out that you can't get cable service from more than one company. That is an implicit statement that you think that "ISP" is defined by "cable service". You didn't say it in exactly those words, but that is the natural meaning to your statements.
Stop lying. Seems that's your only retort,
My "retort" to the claim that ISPs are monopolies because you can't get cable service from more than one company is the truth: "ISP" is not defined or limited to "cable service".
Unfortunately, reality proves you wrong.
The fact that I am able to make use of EIGHT DIFFERENT ISPS while sitting at my desk right now proves you wrong. If ISPs had any kind of monopoly, I would not have access to EIGHT of them, and I actually could add a couple more just by calling the 800 number to order service. How is this a monopoly of any kind?
No major coax provider isn't an ISP.
There you go again. That same statement. The only way it could mean anything in this discussion is if you thought "coax provider" is how "ISP" is defined. "All A is B" is NOT the same as "All B is A". All coax providers may be ISPs, but not all ISPs are coax providers. There is no monopoly status for ISPs. Regulating them as such would be stupid and prevent competition.
That I point out that reality doesn't mean I'm saying all ISPs are coax providers,
You using that statement to prove that ISPs are monopolies means just that. Why is it relevant if your "coax provider" is a monopoly when you can get ISP services from so very many other places, unless you think that the only way to get ISP services is through that awful monopolistic ISP running on your coax? Except the ISP business does not have monopolies. If you don't like the ISP you get with a "coax provider", use a different one. There is no monopoly on ISPs. Call my a liar for saying it, but that won't change the fact.
In most places only one company can run copper to an address, by law.
"Run copper" is not how ISP is defined. Please stop. There is no law creating a monopoly for ISPs. There are simply TOO MANY ISPs to choose from for anyone to think there is some monopoly involved.
And in most places, only one company can run coax into the house, by law.
Again, "run coax" is not how ISP is defined. But diverging into the topic of cable monopoly, even though it is irrelevant to the issue of whether ISPs are monopolies or not, I'll point out that it is not "by law" that there is only one cable company in any locality, it is "by contract". That contract is called a franchise agreement, and BY LAW exclusive franchise agreements are ILLEGAL and have been for a very long time. If you can actually find an example of an exclusive franchise agreement let me know, and then hie thee off to the FCC and FTC to let them know so they can begin enforcement proceedings against the violators.
Prove one of those wrong, or you are a liar.
What a wonderfully adult conversation. Please continue. Watching you make a fool of yourself is somewhat entertaining.
Your deflection would be accurate if none of the line providers were ISPs. But they are all ISPs, and all monopolies
They are monopolies IN THEIR MEDIUM, but NOT THEIR ISP SERVICE. "All cable companies that provide ISP service are monopolies" is not the same as "all ISPs are monopolies." You want to regulate ISPs as utilities because they are monopolies, but THEY ARE NOT. Regulate the actual monopoly maybe, which is not the ISP part of the business. Don't make it harder for ISP competition to exist in the first place by regulating all ISPs as if they were monopolies -- a concept that is patently absurd BY DEFINITION.
Or do I need to define "monopoly" and "ISP" in monosyllabic terms so you can keep up?
You need to define "monopoly" so that "tens or hundreds of competitors in every market" fits that definition. Try real hard, you've convinced yourself but nobody else.
Slashdot Mirror
Another good one is "Whitespace is Not Your Enemy" by Golimbsky. But you are right, one big no-no is picking half a dozen different fonts for some project just because they look cool.
We're running out of time to find the dusty VHS tapes of the '700 Club' warning us about the horrors of "designer babies" before they degrade. They could save humanity!
I'm sorry that you think that eugenics through direct genetic manipulation is not a bad thing. Are you as unconcerned about the current "eugenics through abortion" system, too?
It's science fiction, old science science fiction, that's got you worried.
Every technological advance is science fiction until it happens. Prior to the Manhattan Project, nukes were science fiction, too.
that are far more likely to cause you harm in the immediate future
Ahhh, got it. You are only concerned about things which will cause you immediate personal harm, and ignore anything that may be harmful to future generations of other people.
The unlocked phones just pump data.
I bought an unlocked HTC One M9 which was provisioned for Taiwan. It would not do LTE (wrong bands) but would hotspot fine. UNTIL ... it stopped. Not permitted. T-Mobile had finally detected I was hotspotting with it on a plan that did not include hotspot (or technically, Internet). The unlocked phone was telling them/getting authorization.
I was on their case for a week. "Put it back the way it was." "We didn't change anything." "It worked last week, today it doesn't, you changed something." "We didn't change anything."
This was an unlocked, un-carriered phone. Didn't say T-Mobile anywhere on it. They could still tell it was hotspot data and block it.
I finally had to change to a plan that included "Internet" and "hotspot", and then like magic it worked again. Except still no LTE.
I'd imagine the odds would be really steep...
I think the odds are very high that an existing virus or bacterium would incorporate bits of the DNA and start replicating it. Even the cell itself would probably do that.
Imagine using this system to store a movie, and the MPAA comes after you for having pirated copies of their property in your genes.
Furthermore, unless I'm hugely mistaken, this will survive an EMP with no ill effect, so that's an added bonus in terms of resiliency.
The data might, but the gene sequencers will not. Just like I have a box of 9 track tapes with data on them. And the data won't survive ionizing radiation.
What is fascinating is that TFS said they encoded the data and then deleted problematic pairs, which would seem to be a waste. Why not change the encoding so you don't create problem base pairs in the first place?
Yes the technique is slow write and slow read but the information density is about as good as it is possible to get at a molecular level.
There are molecules much smaller than nucleic acids that could be strung together. The difference is that sequencing DNA is an existing technology that is paid for by serious users, so is available for cheap for this kind of thing.
Even better the stuff is self replicating
Uhhh, no.
where is that going to go in the next 50 years?
"Fixing one child" is to "today" as ? is to "in 50 years"? This is a very scary question. In no more than 15 years we will probably be fixing genetic diseases. It won't be much longer than that before we "fix" other things. Eugenics ain't just for chickens, you know.
But don't worry about your dystopian predictions. By then we'll have "fixed" our genetics so that the 0.001% are superhumans and the rest of you are the size of bacteria. You can fit a lot of "people" in a "ghetto" and feed them for pennies when the ghetto is a petri dish. "Oops, Professor, I put the wrong dish in the autoclave..."
Also creating an environment where it is even more likely that states will want to move to a "per mile" gas tax that has surcharges for high-traffic areas and times.
Oregon is drooling over that idea. I know one of the engineers who helped design one of the tests and she just could not imagine that the state would need location/time data for everyone so they could calculate the correct tax, and that dumping the GPS at the pump to pay then (the money collection system) means data that will never be deleted once the value to the state is realized. (E.g., you don't need a warrant to get GPS data from a suspect's car to see if he was near the scene of a crime, everyone in the state is giving their data to you already! You don't need to come up with a suspect before you scan the database to find your suspects.)
Cars last a long time in Oregon. Not a speck of rust on my 12 year old car. Now the morons at ODOT are talking about using salt on the roads like every other fool state.
I'd much rather 1) drive on packed snow, 2) not drive in 12 inches of salty slush, 3) not track salt everywhere when I walk in from the parking lot, 4) have idiots decide to stay home because it isn't safe to drive instead of convincing them it is safe because "salt", and 5) not have to buy a new car every four years because the old one rusted out.
They're more concerned that idiots who drive in icy conditions make stupid decisions and must be protected from themselves than the cost to everyone for corrosive chemicals on the streets and in the environment.
While you are correct that the order mentions no religion whatsoever, it has a clause in it that specifically allows people of minority religions in those regions to not only continue to enter the country, but to also get expedited waivers for asylum seekers claiming religious persecution.
They don't get to "continue to enter the country", they have to meet the religious persecution test before being granted sanctuary. The rules are tougher for everyone from those seven countries, not just one specific religion like many people claim.
And why is there a problem that we make special provisions for those suffering from persecution?
You do know what the minority religion is in those countries, correct? Christianity.
And Buddhism. And Jews. And Every Other Religion you can name. There was no specificity in that order towards ANY specific religion.
And the majority religion? Islam. So the order DOES specifically bar Muslims as opposed to Christians from those countries.
No, it does not. Find the words, then you can claim "specifically."
Why do you have a problem that religious persecution is an exemption? Do you think that the exemption should seriously apply to people of the majority religion? Kinda hard to say it's being persecuted when it is the majority, huh?
I would say that is a de facto admission that there were flaws with the previous order.
No, I'd say it was a de facto admission that getting the job done now is more important than wasting months in court getting the Ninth's typically poor decision overturned.
"Technically," they flew the goddam planes.
Oh, I don't know about that. They manipulated the controls of an aircraft that was already in the air, some of the least complicated things a real pilot does. I've allowed many of my passengers to do the same thing, and none of them has had the nerve to claim they were a pilot based on that limited experience. CFIs do the same thing, and they would be insane to pull onto the taxiway after the first landing with a new student so they could hop out and let the new "pilot" make the next take-off by himself.
Why the hostility?
People who fly goddam planes are, "technically," called ____. (hint: goddam pilots)
You claimed they were hijacked by (hint) "pilots". They weren't flying the planes before they hijacked them, so they weren't pilots yet. And if your only criterion for calling someone a pilot is that they've manipulated the controls of an aircraft at some point in their life, your definition is amazingly useless in any serious conversation.
In the context of "occupations that merit increased interest in immigration interviews" that the AC you "this"d brought up, the fact that some of them touched the yoke in the airplane they hijacked is irrelevant. They weren't pilots in any useful definition of the word, as demonstrated by the ones who wound up in PA instead of NY or DC, and their new occupation as "pilots" has no bearing on any immigration processing they went through before they touched any aircraft controls.
It is OK to periodically remind me that I need to reboot.
Yeah, handle it like Norton 360 does. It does it so nicely. Here's what it does:
1. As soon as the user sits down to do any work on the system, pop up a window with a default "reboot now" option telling the user the system needs to be rebooted to update the anti-virus.
2. Offer an option to be reminded in a few different numbers of hours, such as "24 hours". When that time expires, go back to 1.
3. After rebooting to update the AV, within 24 hours go back to step 1, nagging the user that the system needs to be rebooted again to update the AV.
I love step 1. I REALLY love step 3.
They all eventually came around and moved to 7; they'll do the same with 10.
I will buy a system with Windows 10 on it only after I can no longer buy one with 7 or cannot put 7 on it. I have "updated" my last system to 10, and did so only because I have to support people who make bad choices for their computers.
If they were rebelling, they wouldn't be using Windows any more.
It must be marvelous to live in a world where the computer operating system exists just to exist, and not to be a tool that is used to run programs that do something productive. Yes, Windows 10 is a wonderful operating system for a computer that needs do nothing except ... run Windows 10.
Or maybe the world you live in doesn't recognize that some of those productive things a computer needs to do are only available for Windows? I get it; you don't need anything that isn't available in some version on linux and don't have any Windows systems, and that means nobody else needs programs that run only on Windows, either.
And what's wrong with their choice of tools? Why should they "know better"?
Because their use locks other users into Windows. They are sharing a tool that MUST be run on Windows if others want to run it. This is not how science is supposed to work -- everyone writing the same tools over and over because the source is unavailable and it has to run on a different system to be useful. I thought that would be obvious from the context.
Are you suggesting that VB and C# are inherently flawed tools, that nobody should use under any circumstances?
Did you see me say that? I think from the context you might have picked up that WINDOWS is an inherently flawed tool for hardcore scientific number crunching, but you focused on the symptoms and not the illness.
Let me guess... you're not in the private sector.
Let me guess, you've never had to deal with complicated software that has been developed over several years but isn't available on an open system like Linux, so you either have to spend a year reverse engineering it and writing a usable version, or put up with Windows and the problems like unstoppable reboots, or not use it at all and not make progress on your own research.
Private sector, not private sector, doesn't matter. Some tools are available only on Windows, which means you either run Windows to run them or you do without. Or try to find a budget to write your own version, if you can.
He wasn't coming to work. IIRC his stated reason for visit was "vacation"
Well, that would raise a lot of red flags -- someone who claims to be a software engineer who is actually in the vacation "business". From TFA:
And even more red flags if his short-term visa was for work but he claimed to be here on "vacation". Or vice versa.
The 911 airplanes were hijacked by, among others, ______. (hint: pilots)
IIRC, a few of the 911 hijackers had taken flight instruction for a PPSEL (private pilot single-engine land) rating but not obtained their license. Technically that makes them student pilots. They weren't ATP (airline transport pilots) as your statement would imply.
Notice that this "pilot" status resulted in changes to security involving even $100 hot dog flyers.
It happened in an environment where this same organization (part of the Executive branch) has just been found by the Ninth Circuit courts to be attempting to specifically ban as many adherents of a specific religion as they could,
First, the executive order suspending immigration did not do so based on religion, only on citizenship in seven specific countries. There was an exemption for refugees from religious persecution, but no mention of Islam or muslims at all.
Second, the Ninth Circuit made no such finding in their stay. In fact, the article you linked to was quite explicit in saying exactly the opposite:
The Administration isn't appealing it any further, which is essentially and admission.
"And [sic] admission" of what? And they haven't YET appealed it, but that does not mean it will never be appealed. In fact, the article you linked to explained why it might not be appealed immediately. Did you read it?
So harassing a valid Visa holder from this same country, in context, no longer looks particularly innocent.
You know, I hope, that a stay on an immigration policy that bars admission temporarily does NOT mean that there can be no barriers at all to immigration?
It looks very much like someone possibly literally being in contempt of court.
It looks like no such thing, once you understand what the executive order actually says, and what the court said about it. The court did not stay any and all immigration policies or practices for those seven countries, just the limited set defined by the executive order.
He went to jail for 30 months for perjury and colluding with his fellow officers before testifying:
And Al Capone went to prison for 8 years for tax evasion, not for the death of seven people in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. I think most people accept that as a win for the public.
I wonder what kind of tests do they give them.
1. Are they fresh water or salt water dwellers?
2. What is their main predator?
3. What is the airspeed velocity of a gyan?
It's actually not an entirely bad idea to confirm that someone coming in for a specific reason for a specific class of visa is here for legitimate purposes,
The story is opaque as to the actual visa involved, calling it only a "short term" visa. I would expect someone coming here to work would not have a short-term visa to start with, so that makes it suspicious. "Software engineer" is such a broad field that seems like a reasonable career for someone trying to enter illegally to pick. I mean, just how could ICE verify? Well, they tried, and I think it was reasonable to question him.
They also called his employer, which I suspect is why he got loosed.
but if the Government is issuing th visas in the first place then it should not be difficult to know what kinds of questions need to be asked,
Ummm, the visas are processed through embassy personnel, who certainly would have no idea what questions to ask.
Keeping a standard list of questions to ask specific careers would be a waste of time given the huge number of careers possible. For example, my "occupation" when I travel is "scientist". What do you ask a "scientist" to prove that he are one?
Since you're still using Windows after all these years of Microsoft doing those very things,
Windows 10 debuted July of 2015. That means it has been a total of about 19 months that anyone has been using it. Where do you get "all these years" from?
Oh, you didn't realize that the first thing many people (including me) did when getting a new Windows machine was to turn off automatic updates. No, you don't get to count "all those years" of using Windows before 10 as proof that everyone who uses Windows loves and accepts automatic updates and reboots.
You have indicated that you will accept it, you will like it,
Wrong.
Obfuscant lives on another planet. What color is the sky there?
You really don't have to be so insulting just because your experience is different than mine. I've been to many conferences where the rules are different, and I'm not talking about instrument control software for a $1,000,000 mass spec. I'm not talking about software that uses a standard protocol to talk to an oscilloscope or power supply (like GPIB or Labview) where I can write my own access software if they only provide Windows versions. I'm talking about a license for a model that costs maybe $500 and is available only as an exe file for Windows. Pure programming that has nothing to do with "drag and drop".
I also did not say that all scientists were incapable of programming well, only that many of them don't. I'm happy that you think you aren't part of that group, but many scientists don't have a clue how to write good software. I've spent hours trying to fix things as trivial as "what do you do if your parameters text file has a line without a ':'?" It took so long to fix because the problem was so patently obvious and really stupid that I couldn't believe anyone would write code that failed so badly, and because it ran when compiled with a stock Linux compiler (gfortran). The author never bothered to check the index returned for the colon separator in a "parameter: value" option. A blank line resulted in an index of '0' (not found) which was blindly passed to a string copy. (Copying a string from index 1 to "colon-1" is nonsense when the index of the colon is 0.) The failure was whitewashed by a low-performance FORTRAN library that did input checking on everything and didn't segfault. When compiled with a high-performance parallel FORTRAN that assumes the programmer wasn't lazy, it segfaulted, and did so under MPI, leaving only a "p4error" from the clients as a hint.
And I've spent a lot of time debugging what was supposed to be a fully supported configuration, but for some reason the author used mixed format FORTRAN code (some files free format, some fixed) and didn't correctly specify the compilation flags for each in the Makefile. I.e., the program would not compile, and the author didn't notice.
So climb down off your high horse, Coward, and recognize that the world you live on is not as homogenous as you think, and that not every reference to "science" refers to you.
Which is why serious work doesn't get done on Windows.
Unfortunately, some software is only available on Windows. People who don't program for a living tend to program to the style of the system they have at hand, and because Microsoft has so polluted the programming environment with system specific things, those programs become system-locked until someone with programming skills can convert it. If the source is available. If there is money to pay someone to do the programming.
This applies alot in the scientific community. Really smart scientists, or their graduate students, program something in Visual Basic or C# or whatever, and this becomes a distributed executable shared with others. They don't know better.
Or worse, it is a small company that has picked up the program and doesn't have the money to support multiple OSs, so they pick the one that everyone has. Windows. They don't make enough from your license to pay someone to port the code to Linux to run on your system, so sorry.
I have users who have models that run for a week. The "three day delay" in rebooting is really nice, Microsoft. Thanks so much. It does make for a wonderful morning when one of those users comes in to find the system rebooted after a five day run on a six day model. And all I can say is, umm, well, start over? And pull your system off the net. Yes, copy all the boundary condition data off the fileservers before you start.
only an idiot would bring along a system to do a big presentation that is subject to frequent uncommanded reboots and brick periods.
Unfortunately, in the scientific community, such presentations are often not under the control of the user, depending on the "IT department" of a hotel or convention center. And by "IT department" I mean the low paid people who have to deal with 1000 issues and problems all going on at the same time. The same people who make sure there are tables and water and the signs are correct for each of 100 meeting rooms...
Again, "run coax" is not how ISP is defined.
I never said otherwise.
Of course you did. Every time you try to defend your claim that ISPs are monopolies you trot out that you can't get cable service from more than one company. That is an implicit statement that you think that "ISP" is defined by "cable service". You didn't say it in exactly those words, but that is the natural meaning to your statements.
Stop lying. Seems that's your only retort,
My "retort" to the claim that ISPs are monopolies because you can't get cable service from more than one company is the truth: "ISP" is not defined or limited to "cable service".
Unfortunately, reality proves you wrong.
The fact that I am able to make use of EIGHT DIFFERENT ISPS while sitting at my desk right now proves you wrong. If ISPs had any kind of monopoly, I would not have access to EIGHT of them, and I actually could add a couple more just by calling the 800 number to order service. How is this a monopoly of any kind?
No major coax provider isn't an ISP.
There you go again. That same statement. The only way it could mean anything in this discussion is if you thought "coax provider" is how "ISP" is defined. "All A is B" is NOT the same as "All B is A". All coax providers may be ISPs, but not all ISPs are coax providers. There is no monopoly status for ISPs. Regulating them as such would be stupid and prevent competition.
That I point out that reality doesn't mean I'm saying all ISPs are coax providers,
You using that statement to prove that ISPs are monopolies means just that. Why is it relevant if your "coax provider" is a monopoly when you can get ISP services from so very many other places, unless you think that the only way to get ISP services is through that awful monopolistic ISP running on your coax? Except the ISP business does not have monopolies. If you don't like the ISP you get with a "coax provider", use a different one. There is no monopoly on ISPs. Call my a liar for saying it, but that won't change the fact.
In most places only one company can run copper to an address, by law.
"Run copper" is not how ISP is defined. Please stop. There is no law creating a monopoly for ISPs. There are simply TOO MANY ISPs to choose from for anyone to think there is some monopoly involved.
And in most places, only one company can run coax into the house, by law.
Again, "run coax" is not how ISP is defined. But diverging into the topic of cable monopoly, even though it is irrelevant to the issue of whether ISPs are monopolies or not, I'll point out that it is not "by law" that there is only one cable company in any locality, it is "by contract". That contract is called a franchise agreement, and BY LAW exclusive franchise agreements are ILLEGAL and have been for a very long time. If you can actually find an example of an exclusive franchise agreement let me know, and then hie thee off to the FCC and FTC to let them know so they can begin enforcement proceedings against the violators.
Prove one of those wrong, or you are a liar.
What a wonderfully adult conversation. Please continue. Watching you make a fool of yourself is somewhat entertaining.
Your deflection would be accurate if none of the line providers were ISPs. But they are all ISPs, and all monopolies
They are monopolies IN THEIR MEDIUM, but NOT THEIR ISP SERVICE. "All cable companies that provide ISP service are monopolies" is not the same as "all ISPs are monopolies." You want to regulate ISPs as utilities because they are monopolies, but THEY ARE NOT. Regulate the actual monopoly maybe, which is not the ISP part of the business. Don't make it harder for ISP competition to exist in the first place by regulating all ISPs as if they were monopolies -- a concept that is patently absurd BY DEFINITION.
Or do I need to define "monopoly" and "ISP" in monosyllabic terms so you can keep up?
You need to define "monopoly" so that "tens or hundreds of competitors in every market" fits that definition. Try real hard, you've convinced yourself but nobody else.