2. They don't care that WE are paying for any bandwidth usage they suck up on our end. (2MB pages with 10K the content the user wanted. Rest is advertising.)
ISP's are directly responsible for driving millions of people to ad blockers by imposing data caps. Before we cared about data usage, the financial cost of burdensome ads coming across our pipe wasn't a real motivator to block ads. Now it's on the minds of millions of people who formerly didn't give it much thought.
Yes, it happened (though the investigators found the wrong Pamela Jones). The reason PJ closed down Groklaw was because of NSA spying. The general supposition, based on her final Groklaw article, is that she received an NSA demand to spy on her users, but her conscience would not allow her to do so. So she stopped doing Groklaw so she wouldn't have anything to spy on.
While our competing companies in Russia or spending....
There is so much wrong with that posting that I don't know where to start. But the short list:
...mounting the CD drive from the command line....
While that always remains an option for those so inclined, it hasn't been necessary on major desktop Linux distribution for many years.
...rebuilding the kernel to fix GPU failures...
While that always remains an option for those so inclined, it hasn't been necessary on major desktop Linux distribution for many years.
...we'll be adding the innovation...
By "we'll", I presume you mean Microsoft. Microsoft hasn't been innovative in any positive manner in over 20 years.
...customers in a free market would choose to buy.
We haven't had a free market in operating systems in over 25 years, which is about the time frame that Bill Gates forced computer manufacturers to put only Windows on computers.
My favorite part of the article was when the writer said that it was unclear why Russia wouldn't want Windows on government computers. I almost laughed out loud. The writer actually phrased it in such a way as to imply that Russia would somehow be inflicting harm on itself by kicking Windows out.
This comment basically sums up the reason for doing this.
That's quite the interpretation. Let's look at another example of the grandparent's point. Recently, my city had a smattering of freezing rain. Not enough to cancel work for most people, but enough to make the roads *extremely* dangerous.
As it happened, the heater in my car broke shortly before the freezing rain, so my defroster didn't work below about 15 MPH. Traffic was moving at a brisk 1 or 2 MPH for many miles as we all made our way home, with cars forming a densely packed block on the road for a couple miles. Visibility out of my windshield was extremely poor, so I had to navigate largely based upon the appearance of the white center line and side white line.
Even with those driving aids, it was difficult to stay in my lane. And that's not even counting the frequent minor slides along the road when everything was going otherwise perfectly. The white lines were the main reason I was able to make it home safely.
That being said, the U.K. is not the U.S., so white line removal may make more sense there. But for most places in the U.S., that would be homicidal.
How would you expect such a device to behave when it is compromised with unauthorized components?
It could revalidate the pairing, just like Apple does.
There is really only one question: Does Apple provide documentation on how to revalidate the pairing? If so, then the problem can be resolved by providing the instructions. If not, then Apple is just being a bunch of dicks trying to lock you into Apple services.
Metamoderation used to serve an important function here, and I'd like to see that come back.
I also stopped metamoderating some ago for mostly the same reasons. Metamoderation went from serving a well defined, understandable purpose to being overly confusing and seemingly pointless.
4. Reducing time between comments? That's only a concern if you have crap karma....
In my experience, I can't see any relationship between crap Karma and that moronic delay between comments. Sometimes, there are multiple comments in a story that I want to rebut, but have very little time available in which to do so. That idiotic comment delay amounts to nothing more than massive frustration (which I'm experiencing right now, just talking about it, in case the tone of my posting doesn't make it obvious).
And for the record, my Karma is Excellent (and has been for years).
...given the state of the market and computers in general I doubt they are going to get out of this unscathed.
I disagree. Having watched Microsoft do this to people year after year (do you seriously believe this is a first for Microsoft?), it's obvious that the sheep will be sheep. Very few in the general Microsoft-using public will listen to the shephard who tells them that the predator eats sheep.
Microsoft will be hurt by mobile and, to a lesser extent, LibreOffice. But the general public is so accustomed to being abuse by Microsoft that they don't even notice for what it is (and never have).
Hardly, unless you are talking about browser plugin technology.
The browser plugin has needed to die for 20 years, so I'm glad to see it finally happen.
The submitted appears to now know the difference between the Java browser plugin and the Java language. The former is dying (it's about time), while the latter is thriving.
There are now. AMD, through necessity, has chosen the right path. NVidia, through ability, has chosen the wrong path.
Even now, when AMD cards perform worse than NVidia, I have started choosing AMD for both personal and professional use because of the Open Source AMD drivers. AMD's doubling down on Open Source has validated that decision, and I will likely never buy, nor recommend to my customers, another NVidia card.
I have completely inverted my recommendations for Linux video. It used to be, "buy NVidia and be done with it," since AMD's driver was a huge pain in the ass to get working on Linux. But Open Source has a powerful appeal to me, having been burned over and over again by proprietary business practices over the decades, and now my recommendation has switched to AMD for the same reason.
I wanted to buy an Ubuntu or KDE tablet, but they both have major problems: Ubuntu Touch uses Mir, so can't run Java. Plasma Mobile support for tablets is very sparse, and the ones it supports are very expensive.
I'm getting really tired of Android (iCrap isn't an option under any circumstances), and want a tablet that will run plain Java and is Free (note the difference between Free and free). Microsoft Surface does Java great, but ewwww Microsoft. And the Surface is too expensive.
Give me a Free tablet at a reasonable price that runs Java, and I will buy.
Wait, so someone has found a way to make audio work reliably across Linux distros?
Kubuntu audio has worked reliably since somewhere between version 9.10 and 10.04 (I'm not certain which). I think that's where Kubuntu got Pulse Audio finally installed correctly.
Does this make 2016 the Year of the Linux Desktop?
My customers (who vary in range from late 20's to early 70's) have been happily using Kubuntu desktops since the 2008 timeframe. Most reactions have included a variation of surprise that computers can work so well (once I turn off the brain damage that is desktop search).
Enough people fail to grasp the concept of a variable that I can confidently predict that the "anyone can code" mentality will hit an unassailable obstacle and be abandoned. The only question is how long it will take for this particular neurosis to metastasise and die.
When more do this, the problem of companies and bosses abusing the workers will go away.
My work week is 40 hours. In order to have a less stressful commute, and to get a little more done in a day, I would come in about an hour and a half early every day for about five years. One day, when my boss was asking me to to calculate my unpaid overtime compensation hours, he got irritated when I asked if I could include my five years of uncompensated overtime. He said, "No, because we didn't ask you to do it."
At that point, I started working exactly 40 hours a week. If something wasn't done, I started telling him I would get back to it first thing in the morning, but that I was going home at exactly 5pm every day. If he wanted me to work extra hours, he would have to ask me to do it, and it was going to be part of any unpaid overtime that he asked me to calculate.
I have never since been asked to stay late or to come in early without just compensation. The one time since then that I had to come in on one of my vacation days, I was at work for about an hour. I added 4 hours to my vacation time. When I came back from vacation, my boss said that he "granted" me that same four hours of vacation. I responded with a simple, "Yes."
So yes, don't let your bosses take advantage of you. I always thought my bosses were better than the others I had read about, and I was wrong. Most bosses are ego-maniacal pricks.
I've been saying this for 20 years. Watching Windows users defend Microsoft's practices is a lot like watching a lobster defend rising water temperature in the cooking pot while the big guy in the white hat talks about seasoning.
If Apple wants to continue selling devices in China (which is a needed market for Apple, as the US market is becoming saturated), then Apple will comply with the laws of China.
Which is why it is better for all tech firms to not have access to encryption keys. End to end encryption needs to be the standard, so there are no keys to turn over.
This behavior is what I (and others) predicted when this whole "cloud" stupidity began: as providers become more entrenched, the prices and complexity slowly increase. Those who become dependent on this particular brand of idiocy will be taken to the cleaners.
In my personal opinion: DRM simply lowers the value of products that it's applied to, PERIOD. Sometimes to the point of making those products worthless.
This is the reason I don't buy Blu Ray disks, ever, but continue to buy DVD's. The first thing I do with DVD's I buy is to extract them to my home media server, to keep the original disk safe and to be able to watch the movie from any computer in my house. Blu Ray makes this so painful that I just won't buy any. That type of access restriction lowers the value of Blu Ray to zero.
I totally get why illegal movie downloaders claim that the movie studios are the biggest cause of illegal movie downloading.
As someone who spent the thousand dollars on one of these supposedly sound proof windows from the site linked in the article (just referring to them in a text post makes me feel dirty, so I refuse to type the URL), my whole hearted recommendation is to stay as far away from them as possible.
The window is very cheaply made (it looks and feels like a $25 vinyl window), and most likely won't do a damned thing for your sound problem, anyway.
The company sent a saleperson to take measurements, but then left me to my own devices for installation. After the window was delivered, they wanted to charge me extra to have someone install it. If you're comfortable doing this type of work on your house, then this part won't bother you so much. But for me, it was quite the blood pressure riser. After seeing the amazingly bad product I received, and knowing that a refund was not going to happen (which was my own fault for being so enamored by the promises that I shut down the common sense processing in my brain) unless I took them to court, I just cut my losses and bought a wood window from Pella for another thousand dollars. But this price included professional installation. The noise reduction in the room was very noticeable after the installation was complete.
Replacement windows can make a significant difference, but you're probably a lot better off buying a standard wooden frame window from a reputable company like Pella (or Lowes, which did a wonderful job on my other window) than falling for the sales promises made by this company.
Slashdot Mirror
2. They don't care that WE are paying for any bandwidth usage they suck up on our end. (2MB pages with 10K the content the user wanted. Rest is advertising.)
ISP's are directly responsible for driving millions of people to ad blockers by imposing data caps. Before we cared about data usage, the financial cost of burdensome ads coming across our pipe wasn't a real motivator to block ads. Now it's on the minds of millions of people who formerly didn't give it much thought.
Damn it is that what happened? I had no idea.
Yes, it happened (though the investigators found the wrong Pamela Jones). The reason PJ closed down Groklaw was because of NSA spying. The general supposition, based on her final Groklaw article, is that she received an NSA demand to spy on her users, but her conscience would not allow her to do so. So she stopped doing Groklaw so she wouldn't have anything to spy on.
While our competing companies in Russia or spending....
There is so much wrong with that posting that I don't know where to start. But the short list:
...mounting the CD drive from the command line....
While that always remains an option for those so inclined, it hasn't been necessary on major desktop Linux distribution for many years.
...rebuilding the kernel to fix GPU failures...
While that always remains an option for those so inclined, it hasn't been necessary on major desktop Linux distribution for many years.
...we'll be adding the innovation...
By "we'll", I presume you mean Microsoft. Microsoft hasn't been innovative in any positive manner in over 20 years.
...customers in a free market would choose to buy.
We haven't had a free market in operating systems in over 25 years, which is about the time frame that Bill Gates forced computer manufacturers to put only Windows on computers.
My favorite part of the article was when the writer said that it was unclear why Russia wouldn't want Windows on government computers. I almost laughed out loud. The writer actually phrased it in such a way as to imply that Russia would somehow be inflicting harm on itself by kicking Windows out.
This comment basically sums up the reason for doing this.
That's quite the interpretation. Let's look at another example of the grandparent's point. Recently, my city had a smattering of freezing rain. Not enough to cancel work for most people, but enough to make the roads *extremely* dangerous.
As it happened, the heater in my car broke shortly before the freezing rain, so my defroster didn't work below about 15 MPH. Traffic was moving at a brisk 1 or 2 MPH for many miles as we all made our way home, with cars forming a densely packed block on the road for a couple miles. Visibility out of my windshield was extremely poor, so I had to navigate largely based upon the appearance of the white center line and side white line.
Even with those driving aids, it was difficult to stay in my lane. And that's not even counting the frequent minor slides along the road when everything was going otherwise perfectly. The white lines were the main reason I was able to make it home safely.
That being said, the U.K. is not the U.S., so white line removal may make more sense there. But for most places in the U.S., that would be homicidal.
...because I assumed that Windows behaved more ... sanely.
After all these years, why the hell would you think that?
This is how social justice warrior feminists destroy companies, by imposing their own sense of self-hatred on their customers.
...Or maybe Sandy Bridges.
I think you responded to the wrong story.
How would you expect such a device to behave when it is compromised with unauthorized components?
It could revalidate the pairing, just like Apple does.
There is really only one question: Does Apple provide documentation on how to revalidate the pairing? If so, then the problem can be resolved by providing the instructions. If not, then Apple is just being a bunch of dicks trying to lock you into Apple services.
Metamoderation used to serve an important function here, and I'd like to see that come back.
I also stopped metamoderating some ago for mostly the same reasons. Metamoderation went from serving a well defined, understandable purpose to being overly confusing and seemingly pointless.
4. Reducing time between comments? That's only a concern if you have crap karma....
In my experience, I can't see any relationship between crap Karma and that moronic delay between comments. Sometimes, there are multiple comments in a story that I want to rebut, but have very little time available in which to do so. That idiotic comment delay amounts to nothing more than massive frustration (which I'm experiencing right now, just talking about it, in case the tone of my posting doesn't make it obvious).
And for the record, my Karma is Excellent (and has been for years).
...given the state of the market and computers in general I doubt they are going to get out of this unscathed.
I disagree. Having watched Microsoft do this to people year after year (do you seriously believe this is a first for Microsoft?), it's obvious that the sheep will be sheep. Very few in the general Microsoft-using public will listen to the shephard who tells them that the predator eats sheep.
Microsoft will be hurt by mobile and, to a lesser extent, LibreOffice. But the general public is so accustomed to being abuse by Microsoft that they don't even notice for what it is (and never have).
They should sell slashdot more often.
Give it a few hours, and Slashdot will post a story about how it's being sold to someone named, "Rob Malda."
Hardly, unless you are talking about browser plugin technology.
The browser plugin has needed to die for 20 years, so I'm glad to see it finally happen.
The submitted appears to now know the difference between the Java browser plugin and the Java language. The former is dying (it's about time), while the latter is thriving.
There are no "goodies" or "baddies" here.
There are now. AMD, through necessity, has chosen the right path. NVidia, through ability, has chosen the wrong path.
Even now, when AMD cards perform worse than NVidia, I have started choosing AMD for both personal and professional use because of the Open Source AMD drivers. AMD's doubling down on Open Source has validated that decision, and I will likely never buy, nor recommend to my customers, another NVidia card.
I have completely inverted my recommendations for Linux video. It used to be, "buy NVidia and be done with it," since AMD's driver was a huge pain in the ass to get working on Linux. But Open Source has a powerful appeal to me, having been burned over and over again by proprietary business practices over the decades, and now my recommendation has switched to AMD for the same reason.
I wanted to buy an Ubuntu or KDE tablet, but they both have major problems: Ubuntu Touch uses Mir, so can't run Java. Plasma Mobile support for tablets is very sparse, and the ones it supports are very expensive.
I'm getting really tired of Android (iCrap isn't an option under any circumstances), and want a tablet that will run plain Java and is Free (note the difference between Free and free). Microsoft Surface does Java great, but ewwww Microsoft. And the Surface is too expensive.
Give me a Free tablet at a reasonable price that runs Java, and I will buy.
Wait, so someone has found a way to make audio work reliably across Linux distros?
Kubuntu audio has worked reliably since somewhere between version 9.10 and 10.04 (I'm not certain which). I think that's where Kubuntu got Pulse Audio finally installed correctly.
Does this make 2016 the Year of the Linux Desktop?
My customers (who vary in range from late 20's to early 70's) have been happily using Kubuntu desktops since the 2008 timeframe. Most reactions have included a variation of surprise that computers can work so well (once I turn off the brain damage that is desktop search).
Enough people fail to grasp the concept of a variable that I can confidently predict that the "anyone can code" mentality will hit an unassailable obstacle and be abandoned. The only question is how long it will take for this particular neurosis to metastasise and die.
When more do this, the problem of companies and bosses abusing the workers will go away.
My work week is 40 hours. In order to have a less stressful commute, and to get a little more done in a day, I would come in about an hour and a half early every day for about five years. One day, when my boss was asking me to to calculate my unpaid overtime compensation hours, he got irritated when I asked if I could include my five years of uncompensated overtime. He said, "No, because we didn't ask you to do it."
At that point, I started working exactly 40 hours a week. If something wasn't done, I started telling him I would get back to it first thing in the morning, but that I was going home at exactly 5pm every day. If he wanted me to work extra hours, he would have to ask me to do it, and it was going to be part of any unpaid overtime that he asked me to calculate.
I have never since been asked to stay late or to come in early without just compensation. The one time since then that I had to come in on one of my vacation days, I was at work for about an hour. I added 4 hours to my vacation time. When I came back from vacation, my boss said that he "granted" me that same four hours of vacation. I responded with a simple, "Yes."
So yes, don't let your bosses take advantage of you. I always thought my bosses were better than the others I had read about, and I was wrong. Most bosses are ego-maniacal pricks.
Someone is still using that piece of shit?! It takes the crown from MySQL for the worst database ever. Here's only the most recent example:
A coworker issued an update to a large table to which he didn't have update rights. Oracle's response? Drop the table!
Way to go, Oracle! This is only the latest reason my company has decided to ditch Oracle in favor of PostgreSQL.
And multiple databases per server? PostgreSQL has had that forever.
My guess is that this has nothing to do with Oracle and everything to do with that Apache harmony isdead and it is annoying to maintain a fork.
Using OpenJDK insulates Android from Oracle lawsuits over Java.
...or better yet, don't use Windows.
I've been saying this for 20 years. Watching Windows users defend Microsoft's practices is a lot like watching a lobster defend rising water temperature in the cooking pot while the big guy in the white hat talks about seasoning.
If Apple wants to continue selling devices in China (which is a needed market for Apple, as the US market is becoming saturated), then Apple will comply with the laws of China.
Which is why it is better for all tech firms to not have access to encryption keys. End to end encryption needs to be the standard, so there are no keys to turn over.
This behavior is what I (and others) predicted when this whole "cloud" stupidity began: as providers become more entrenched, the prices and complexity slowly increase. Those who become dependent on this particular brand of idiocy will be taken to the cleaners.
In my personal opinion: DRM simply lowers the value of products that it's applied to, PERIOD. Sometimes to the point of making those products worthless.
This is the reason I don't buy Blu Ray disks, ever, but continue to buy DVD's. The first thing I do with DVD's I buy is to extract them to my home media server, to keep the original disk safe and to be able to watch the movie from any computer in my house. Blu Ray makes this so painful that I just won't buy any. That type of access restriction lowers the value of Blu Ray to zero.
I totally get why illegal movie downloaders claim that the movie studios are the biggest cause of illegal movie downloading.
As someone who spent the thousand dollars on one of these supposedly sound proof windows from the site linked in the article (just referring to them in a text post makes me feel dirty, so I refuse to type the URL), my whole hearted recommendation is to stay as far away from them as possible.
The window is very cheaply made (it looks and feels like a $25 vinyl window), and most likely won't do a damned thing for your sound problem, anyway.
The company sent a saleperson to take measurements, but then left me to my own devices for installation. After the window was delivered, they wanted to charge me extra to have someone install it. If you're comfortable doing this type of work on your house, then this part won't bother you so much. But for me, it was quite the blood pressure riser. After seeing the amazingly bad product I received, and knowing that a refund was not going to happen (which was my own fault for being so enamored by the promises that I shut down the common sense processing in my brain) unless I took them to court, I just cut my losses and bought a wood window from Pella for another thousand dollars. But this price included professional installation. The noise reduction in the room was very noticeable after the installation was complete.
Replacement windows can make a significant difference, but you're probably a lot better off buying a standard wooden frame window from a reputable company like Pella (or Lowes, which did a wonderful job on my other window) than falling for the sales promises made by this company.