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User: passionplay

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  1. Yup. Another one. on Python Gets New Governance Model (sdtimes.com) · · Score: 1

    All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's only a matter of time.

  2. Re:Do I call my system GNU/Linux/X.Org/KDE? on Ask Slashdot: Is It Linux or GNU/Linux? (linuxjournal.com) · · Score: 1

    If you use any of those items, they require the glue on top of which all those other tools are built. Or did you forget GLIBC and LIBSTDC++ along with all the OS primitives?

  3. Re:Both, of course on Ask Slashdot: Is It Linux or GNU/Linux? (linuxjournal.com) · · Score: 1

    In which case you would have a BSD OS. BSD and GNU have different licenses. If you rewrite the stuff to emulate BSD, you may has well just use BSD. Stop complaining about a free as in beer and free as in speech OS.

  4. Re:Both, of course on Ask Slashdot: Is It Linux or GNU/Linux? (linuxjournal.com) · · Score: 1

    If you need just the kernel - sure. But if you need an OS, you need both.

  5. Physical access isn't a software or hardwar breach on Researcher Finds Another Security Flaw In Intel Management Firmware (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Rule 1 of security. Physical access trumps everything else. So you can't claim finding a defect that can be exploited physically is a breach. For that matter, someone could start plugging things into the motherboard. This just a lot of stupid hoopla. Everyone in OpenSource knows the REASON Open Source works is to bypass security through obscurity. Open Source DOES NOT and WILL NEVER (and neither will any security system) foil physical access 100% of the time. As for this - I've never even seen this option in my Bios choices. Just pop sensationalism.

  6. First post: It's Apple. Expecting something else? on The 'App' You Can't Trash: How SIP is Broken in Apple's High Sierra OS (eclecticlight.co) · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    You can dream, but at the end of the day, lather, rinse repeat and it's still just Apple.

  7. The BabelFish has come to pass on Google Pixel Buds Are Wireless Earbuds That Translate Conversations In Real Time (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All hail Douglas Adams. So long and thanks for all the fish.

  8. First post. AI is the new silver bullet. on Could AI Transform Continuous Delivery Development? (thenextweb.com) · · Score: 1

    Welcome to the new age of yesterday.

  9. Biology is a non-starter for inequality on Fired Google Engineer Says Company Execs Shamed and Smeared Him (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    You cannot expect to use biology as your shield for supporting inequality without expecting a severe backlash. This country is founded on equality. If you want something else, find a different geography that espouses your views.

    Let's be real.

    We will never achieve perfect diversity.

    But we are guaranteed equal opportunity under the constitution. Equal opportunity is not conditional on biology or "suited for" conclusions. The measuring stick is independent of biology. Unfortunately in these jobs, the perceived capacities often overshadow the real measurements and hence we get inequality based on biology.

    If he wants to support "to those based on need from those based on their merit" - there is an ideology and a geography that supports that. And they would be happy to take him in. And for kicks - they may even drink his homo superior vs homo sapiens koolaid.

    But not in this country. It's not about right and left, right and wrong. It's about equality.

  10. Prior art as evidence - Scansoft/Nuance QMAX PDFs on Ask Slashdot: What Is Your View On Sloot Compression? (youtube.com) · · Score: 1

    1. We use PDF's today which when compressed are relatively small.
    2. We have a commercial entity called ScanSoft that also compresses PDFs
    3. PDFs generated by ScanSoft are incredibly much smaller than any other PDFs
    4. Scansoft PDFs use a compression algorithm called QMax
    5. Nuance which now sells the Scansoft PDF products have access to the same technology
    6. No other PDF technology in the marketplace has a compression algorithm that uses STANDARD decompression and unique COMPRESSION to achieve the ridiculous PDF sizes (try converting one of the PDFs and you will see)

    Sloot didn't HAVE to have a good DECODER, but even a BETTER ENCODER would do. If you add a better DECODER as well, then things get really interesting and the compression factor suggested becomes visible as a possible end goal.

  11. Re:Oh... no... yet another article on the same... on 'The Traditional Lecture Is Dead' (wired.com) · · Score: 1

    My class size was 300-500 students. Where did you get small class sizes for lectures?

  12. Same Stuff Different Day on 'The Traditional Lecture Is Dead' (wired.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Remote courses were going to replace classwork. Doing was going to replace learning. Write less, do more was going to solve everything

    Stop deluding yourself. Monkeys are smarter than us. We are social learners who learn by: reading, hearing and doing. Different people do it differently but we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

    It is STUPID to state everyone learns physics by doing. Having actually TAUGHT physics, I can tell you have had to demonstrate for some, explain for others and write on the board for yet others.

    Everyone's mode of learning is equally valid. And for some, the traditional lecture is just fine.

  13. Yep. They use the Microsoft issued keys.

  14. Step 1. Make Linux compatbile on Windows
    Step 2. Teach children that learn on the ubiquitous windows that Linux runs on Windows
    Step 3. Those children when they grow up, think Linux is something to run on Windows
    Step 4. When Microsoft pulls the plug, the children don't think they've lost anything.

    This is exactly how the RIAA and the MPAA have eroded copyright in the US.

  15. Welcome to our new corporate overlords on Ubuntu Arrives in the Windows Store, Suse and Fedora Are Coming To the Windows Subsystem For Linux (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Has everyone forgotten: embrace, extend, extinguish? This is just step one.

  16. Readable perhaps. Unambiguous, not so much. Concise? YMMV.

  17. P.S. Every example provided in Python can be done as readable in C or D or even C++. It is not a function of the language but a function of the programmer.

  18. I call BS. Modern programming languages = bloat on Power of Modern Programming Languages is That They Are Expressive, Readable, Concise, Precise, and Executable (scientificamerican.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unless you're talking about C, or D, the fact of the matter is that you've hidden all the computational overhead in multiple layers of automated translation behind your syntactical sugar.

    Case in point: non-memory managed languages don't need to manage memory - memory requirements for these programs are huge due to inadequate planning. How many programmers take into account object pooling?

    Case in point: The Motorola Startac was a very limited device but had its programming in hardware - you could not type faster than the device. New smartphones have 2-3Gb in memory and yet are less responsive.

    Case in point: a field programmable gate array was never intended for production use - yet every computer today uses these

    Case in point: how many Java programmers think about += string concatenation versus =+ string concatenation?

    While the K&R manual is correct that every complex problem can be further simplified by one more level of indirection, it is not true that there is no cost.

    Our computers today are 1000 times more powerful and solve the same problems as before. So what has changed? Our efficiency in coding as dropped and we are not using the resources at hand to make better solutions but sloppier ones that require less effort on our part but more computational overhead.

    We have become lazy and complacent and we call it progress. Until our programs can optimize to the level that we can generate by hand, I would not deem to consider our current state of programming languages an improvement in anything other than readability.

  19. I smell a rat...or alternative facts on Arctic Ice Loss Driven By Natural Swings, Not Just Mankind, Says Study (reuters.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why does it take 37 years to show nature is responsible? Something doesn't smell right.

  20. Re:The two seem very related... on Study Finds Link Between Profanity and Honesty (neurosciencenews.com) · · Score: 1

    Incorrect. Mod parent down. Not insightful because it does not reflect the article.

    The two are not related in any way shape or form. Correlation is not causation.

    The article didn't say those that use profanity are honest. It said that those that use profanity are SEEN as honest.

    Being articulate and precise is not a marker of dishonesty. It's an ability to communicate what you mean. Unfortunately, for most people, precision also opens the door to being "tricked" and hence the PERCEPTION of dishonesty as compared to when profanity is used.

    I'm not sure why we are all arguing about profanity as a marker for truth and/or a filter being a marker for truth. The two are not related. It's a correlation - not causation.

    They're saying Trump got elected because he was SEEN as more honest.

  21. Re:This is why anti-malware protection must be... on Zero-Days Hitting Fedora and Ubuntu Open Desktops To a World of Hurt (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Oh God no. Not another area for systemd. It's bad enough it wants to own the entire Linux world. Lennox Pottering as emperor would just be bad.

  22. Re:Every anti-Linux clickbait article is the same on Zero-Days Hitting Fedora and Ubuntu Open Desktops To a World of Hurt (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    But it's a library that doesn't give you root. So what? Every exploit on windows pretty much gives you admin.

  23. Re:Every anti-Linux clickbait article is the same on Zero-Days Hitting Fedora and Ubuntu Open Desktops To a World of Hurt (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Now if I could just get upvoted for pointing out how pointless this whole story was..... *sigh*. I agree with you.

  24. Re:Script Kiddie exploits game library - news at 1 on Zero-Days Hitting Fedora and Ubuntu Open Desktops To a World of Hurt (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    The issue is that it is listed as a DESKTOP failure while it is truly a Game Emulator failure. It's not where you run it - it's who you gonna call. The Desktop folks can't do anything about it. Neither can the distro. It's gotta be the Game Emulator folks. Bludgeoning the top level only works in the commercial space. Here the distributions have already labelled it as a bad plug-in as a warning. There is nothing more that can be done.

  25. Re:This is great work. on Zero-Days Hitting Fedora and Ubuntu Open Desktops To a World of Hurt (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    You cannot get more security by trading in your freedom. You can only be enslaved. Security is your own business. Asking someone else to do it is like giving the keys to your house and the passwords to your accounts to a third party and trusting they will do "the right thing". And since when is a game emulator library failure a distribution failure?