OEM's should listen to their customers and not Microsoft. Locking the bootloader is extremely anti-consumer and anti-competitive.
What this means for the future of Linux and alternative OSes is unclear at best.
Those who build their own desktops will retain the ability to disable Secure Boot, since Asus or MSI doesn't know what kind of operating system you're going to load on the board. But laptops are a different story. Some laptop vendors will undoubtedly continue to ship a ''Disable'' option on Secure Boot, but vendors like HP and Dell may simply decide that closing the attack vector is more important than user freedom, particularly when the margin on PCs is so low to begin with. When every support call is measured against the handful of dollars an OEM makes on each machine, eliminating the need for such interaction is extremely attractive.
Psychological research has long confirmed the power of default settings --- ship something enabled (or disabled), and the vast majority of users will never change the option. Given that Windows machines were already required to enable Secure Boot by default, where's the security benefit in making the kill switch optional?
For the vendor of a mass-market Linux laptop ---- if there is such a thing --- choosing a signed Linux OS and closing an attack vector common to both Linux and Windows makes perfect sense as well.
It is not anti-consumer and it is not anti-competitive.
OEMs are listening to their mass market customers and what these customers are saying is "Lock it down.. We don't want to tool up and poke around under the hood."
I can see this tech being useful for elderly drivers, the chronically ill or disabled. It is not always easy to see clearly when someone you care for needs to surrender their license.
I am buying hardware in wholesale lots for internal corporate use. Hardware the users will never own or be permitted to modify without approval from above. Tell me why I don't want secure boot and an OS signed by Microsoft or one of the mainstream Linux distributions.
I am a retailer in the general consumer market where bare bones or dual boot has never sold worth spitt. Tell me why I don't want a known-good OEM system install with an OS signed and badged by Microsoft or one of the mainstream Linux distributions.
The geek has piggy-backed on cheap OEM hardware built for the MSDOS and Windows ecosystem since 1981 --- and when Microsoft makes a decisive move, as it has with Win 10, the geek has to move with it. Future motherboards will support secure boot. The mainstream Linux distributions will support secure boot --- ultimately, with a licensed key and not a hack-around.
That's assuming self-driving cars and medicine have any place at all on the internet.. Which they don't, if you ask me.
The self-driving car must respond correctly to changes in the weather, traffic reports, detours, road-closings, and the like. Will it take the elevated highway that locals have learned to their cost is extraordinarily dangerous in high winds?
are allowed to operate hobby drones without being subject to the same rules. They can fly 50' octocopters right up to that same 400' and have a grand old time without needing a pilot's license, etc. Why?
This isn't a hobbyist project.
It's about laying the legal and technical foundation for an aerial delivery service on a commercial scale.
We aren't talking about learning how to fly a single drone, but how to manage a fleet of fifty to one hundred drones being flown out of a centralized warehouse.
Bridge's founders are challenging the long-held assumption that governments rather than companies should lead mass education programs.
It is political and cultural suicide to surrender control of education to outside forces.
There is always a reaction --- slow in coming perhaps ---- but poisonous when it takes full form. You only have to look at the history of OLPC and Common Core in the states to see the truth in that.
It's telling as well, I think, that where the Bridge Academies post its Awards, they are all for entrepreneurship, not education.
Whatever is in general use in a language (not any use, but general use) is for that reason grammatically correct. The grammatical rules invoked by pedants aren't real rules of grammar at all. They are, at best, just stylistic conventions.
These conventions are what make communication possible between the old and the young, the past and the present. The speeches of Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King resonate to this day, without translation.
This is no different than the music and movie industry - an archaic business segment eliminated through innovation that allows better quality for 1/10th the price.
Eliminated?
"Cinderella" cost $95 million to produce and grossed $132 million dollars world-wide in its opening weekend.
It is not at all unlikely that Disney could see a billion dollar return on its investment over the life of the film's theatrical run, home video sales, live stage productions, and so on.
"Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Big Hero 6" performed superbly for Disney in their theatrical adaptation ---and have impeccable geek cred, as does "Wreck-It Ralph."
The geek has spent his entire life whining that he can do it better and cheaper than Disney, but what has he put on the table other than another clone of Star Trek: TOS?
Here's some feedback: can we please go back to referring to programs as programs?
Not going to happen.
People are becoming accustomed to moving freely between fixed and mobile devices of every sort --- using "apps" which share a common look and feel and are increasingly in synch.
LibreOffice is a program.
The quintessential office suite of the 90s, boat-anchored to the desktop.
The animator of a feature film begins with a study of an actor's vocal performance, facial expression and mannerisms but the end product will be shaped his own imagination and interpretation of the character
One reason for Disney's recent string of hits is that the studio casts its nets widely and avoids using overly familiar celebrity voices in predictable ways.
The geek shares at least one thing with the white-collar criminal, the unshakable belief that the world revolves around him, and that it would take the entire police force to bring him down.
How about reporting yes to Linux and keeping the correct 5 as a response.Then return all that dont deliver a working computer as broken.
You have 185 generic PC desktops sitting on pallets in a warehouse. Your boss wants them installed on schedule with a minimum of disruption and expense. Suck it in. Get it done.
The candelabra bulbs were made to (poorly) mimic the shape of candle flame, and now we are attempting to mimic that imitation because we have gotten used to the way it looks:)
It has never been easy or cheap to change the way you illuminate your home. Think of the ways light affects how we perceive food and table sevice, skin tones, colors and textures in wall coverings, fabrics and so on.
The problem here is that the extract reads more like a high flying call for political action than the kind of down to earth case or controversy a judge can decide.
The Joint Space Operations Center, part of United States Strategic Command (formerly the United States Space Command), currently tracks more than 8,500 objects larger than 10 cm in LEO. However, a limited Arecibo Observatory study suggested there could be approximately one million objects larger than 2 millimeters, which are too small to be visible from Earth-based observatories.
Musk believes he can launch and maintain a constellation of 4,000 satellites in low earth orbit and still make a profit while others are pursuing simpler and cheaper broadband solutions, which can be deployed more rapidly and with less environmental impact and no one sees a problem in this?
College is supposed to be a place where all viewpoints and ideas are explored - even the ugly and stupid ones.
Since when did cat calls from the frat house become an intellectually rigorous exploration of ideas good and bad?
By kicking out the frat charter, you only drive the problem deeper underground... and where is the frickin' benefit in doing that among a body of kids that are going to be naturally rebellious in the first place?
More naturally conformist than rebellious would be closer to the truth.
The geek conflates freedom of speech with anonymity and freedom from all restraints. But the roots of a traditional liberal arts education have always been openness, inclusion and civility.
You stand your ground and you stand exposed.
No hiding behind the bed sheets of the KKK, the screen name or the keyboard. It takes guts to do that. The kind that were celebrated in Selma this past week.
I am reminded how Elijah Baley was reduced to tears and asking whether the sun would be out when he landed on Solaria. The Naked Sun
I don't find the geek's willingness to divorce himself from the natural cycle of day and night and the change of seasons particularly healthy --- nor do I share his obsession with reducing everything to base 10.
The second customer basically said "I don't want no damn stinkin' automatic mode, because if I'm payin' for an operator to sit out there, he better be working"
The geek is a binary thinker.
Which is why his jokes and anecdotes read like stand-up comedy or urban legend --- and so familiar from repetition that you can see the punch-line coming from miles away.
Real-life rarely comes so neatly packaged and free of ambiguity
When the automobile debuted, the UK passed the infamous Locomotive Acts (otherwise known as the Red Flag Law), requiring someone to walk in front of a "horseless carriage" waving a red flag.
The first Locomotive Acts were passed in the 1860s.
Forget the "horseless carriage." We are talking about road trains, huge and heavyweight steam powered agricultural tractors, bailers, threshers, bulldozers, steam shovels and the like.
To this day flagmen and escort vehicles serve the same purpose.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people need to get over the ridiculous notion that they have some kind of "right" to not be offended.
There is no right to create a hostile working environment for women.
It takes me back some years now.
Someone brought a life sized border town strip club poster into work and pinned it to a back office wall.
That ignited a frat house arms race that ended with the entire back office being papered over with pinups with a spillover up front....
This did not end well.
OEM's should listen to their customers and not Microsoft. Locking the bootloader is extremely anti-consumer and anti-competitive.
What this means for the future of Linux and alternative OSes is unclear at best.
Those who build their own desktops will retain the ability to disable Secure Boot, since Asus or MSI doesn't know what kind of operating system you're going to load on the board. But laptops are a different story. Some laptop vendors will undoubtedly continue to ship a ''Disable'' option on Secure Boot, but vendors like HP and Dell may simply decide that closing the attack vector is more important than user freedom, particularly when the margin on PCs is so low to begin with. When every support call is measured against the handful of dollars an OEM makes on each machine, eliminating the need for such interaction is extremely attractive.
Psychological research has long confirmed the power of default settings --- ship something enabled (or disabled), and the vast majority of users will never change the option. Given that Windows machines were already required to enable Secure Boot by default, where's the security benefit in making the kill switch optional?
As far as we can tell, there isn't one.
Linux's worst-case scenario: Windows 10 makes Secure Boot mandatory, locks out other operating systems
For the vendor of a mass-market Linux laptop ---- if there is such a thing --- choosing a signed Linux OS and closing an attack vector common to both Linux and Windows makes perfect sense as well.
It is not anti-consumer and it is not anti-competitive.
OEMs are listening to their mass market customers and what these customers are saying is "Lock it down.. We don't want to tool up and poke around under the hood."
No corporation is going to run windows 10 for at least 3 years.
That is true --- but it is only a stay of execution.
If you don't trust your kids, don't lend them your car.
It isn't about trusting your kid, it is about learning the hard way how your kid's behavior can change in the company of others his own age.
Especially when alcohol is involved.
The only way to learn to drive is to drive.
I can see this tech being useful for elderly drivers, the chronically ill or disabled. It is not always easy to see clearly when someone you care for needs to surrender their license.
I am buying hardware in wholesale lots for internal corporate use.
Hardware the users will never own or be permitted to modify without approval from above.
Tell me why I don't want secure boot and an OS signed by Microsoft or one of the mainstream Linux distributions.
I am a retailer in the general consumer market where bare bones or dual boot has never sold worth spitt.
Tell me why I don't want a known-good OEM system install with an OS signed and badged by Microsoft or one of the mainstream Linux distributions.
The geek has piggy-backed on cheap OEM hardware built for the MSDOS and Windows ecosystem since 1981 --- and when Microsoft makes a decisive move, as it has with Win 10, the geek has to move with it.
Future motherboards will support secure boot. The mainstream Linux distributions will support secure boot --- ultimately, with a licensed key and not a hack-around.
That's assuming self-driving cars and medicine have any place at all on the internet.. Which they don't, if you ask me.
The self-driving car must respond correctly to changes in the weather, traffic reports, detours, road-closings, and the like. Will it take the elevated highway that locals have learned to their cost is extraordinarily dangerous in high winds?
Five days ago, when SFGate reported this story, it was made quite clear that Tusch's friends were not in on the hoax and took it quite seriously ---
and that someone reported it to the police independently of Facebook.
A mans fake suicide post gets him detained
are allowed to operate hobby drones without being subject to the same rules. They can fly 50' octocopters right up to that same 400' and have a grand old time without needing a pilot's license, etc. Why?
This isn't a hobbyist project.
It's about laying the legal and technical foundation for an aerial delivery service on a commercial scale.
We aren't talking about learning how to fly a single drone, but how to manage a fleet of fifty to one hundred drones being flown out of a centralized warehouse.
Bridge's founders are challenging the long-held assumption that governments rather than companies should lead mass education programs.
It is political and cultural suicide to surrender control of education to outside forces.
There is always a reaction --- slow in coming perhaps ---- but poisonous when it takes full form. You only have to look at the history of OLPC and Common Core in the states to see the truth in that.
It's telling as well, I think, that where the Bridge Academies post its Awards, they are all for entrepreneurship, not education.
Whatever is in general use in a language (not any use, but general use) is for that reason grammatically correct. The grammatical rules invoked by pedants aren't real rules of grammar at all. They are, at best, just stylistic conventions.
These conventions are what make communication possible between the old and the young, the past and the present. The speeches of Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King resonate to this day, without translation.
This is no different than the music and movie industry - an archaic business segment eliminated through innovation that allows better quality for 1/10th the price.
Eliminated?
"Cinderella" cost $95 million to produce and grossed $132 million dollars world-wide in its opening weekend.
It is not at all unlikely that Disney could see a billion dollar return on its investment over the life of the film's theatrical run, home video sales, live stage productions, and so on.
"Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Big Hero 6" performed superbly for Disney in their theatrical adaptation ---and have impeccable geek cred, as does "Wreck-It Ralph."
The geek has spent his entire life whining that he can do it better and cheaper than Disney, but what has he put on the table other than another clone of Star Trek: TOS?
Here's some feedback: can we please go back to referring to programs as programs?
Not going to happen.
People are becoming accustomed to moving freely between fixed and mobile devices of every sort --- using "apps" which share a common look and feel and are increasingly in synch.
LibreOffice is a program.
The quintessential office suite of the 90s, boat-anchored to the desktop.
The film industry could also benefit from an easy way to paste the expressions of actors on to the cartoon characters they voice.
The Adventures of Mr. Incredible (with Commentary)
The animator of a feature film begins with a study of an actor's vocal performance, facial expression and mannerisms but the end product will be shaped his own imagination and interpretation of the character
One reason for Disney's recent string of hits is that the studio casts its nets widely and avoids using overly familiar celebrity voices in predictable ways.
--- can multi-task.
The geek shares at least one thing with the white-collar criminal, the unshakable belief that the world revolves around him, and that it would take the entire police force to bring him down.
There is money in Karaoke.
Karaoke Bar in Trafalgar Square
Rendering a game is kiddy stuff...
--- until you are expected to believer a theatrical quality experience while running a game on hardware costing no more than $500 retail list.
How about reporting yes to Linux and keeping the correct 5 as a response.Then return all that dont deliver a working computer as broken.
You have 185 generic PC desktops sitting on pallets in a warehouse. Your boss wants them installed on schedule with a minimum of disruption and expense. Suck it in. Get it done.
The candelabra bulbs were made to (poorly) mimic the shape of candle flame, and now we are attempting to mimic that imitation because we have gotten used to the way it looks :)
In 1910 Sears. Roebuck was sold both (portable!) gas and electric lamps and chandeliers. Sears, Roebuck Home Builder's Catalog: The Complete Illustrated 1910 Edition
It has never been easy or cheap to change the way you illuminate your home. Think of the ways light affects how we perceive food and table sevice, skin tones, colors and textures in wall coverings, fabrics and so on.
The problem here is that the extract reads more like a high flying call for political action than the kind of down to earth case or controversy a judge can decide.
Space debris
The Joint Space Operations Center, part of United States Strategic Command (formerly the United States Space Command), currently tracks more than 8,500 objects larger than 10 cm in LEO. However, a limited Arecibo Observatory study suggested there could be approximately one million objects larger than 2 millimeters, which are too small to be visible from Earth-based observatories.
Low Earth orbit
Musk believes he can launch and maintain a constellation of 4,000 satellites in low earth orbit and still make a profit while others are pursuing simpler and cheaper broadband solutions, which can be deployed more rapidly and with less environmental impact and no one sees a problem in this?
College is supposed to be a place where all viewpoints and ideas are explored - even the ugly and stupid ones.
Since when did cat calls from the frat house become an intellectually rigorous exploration of ideas good and bad?
By kicking out the frat charter, you only drive the problem deeper underground... and where is the frickin' benefit in doing that among a body of kids that are going to be naturally rebellious in the first place?
More naturally conformist than rebellious would be closer to the truth.
The geek conflates freedom of speech with anonymity and freedom from all restraints. But the roots of a traditional liberal arts education have always been openness, inclusion and civility.
You stand your ground and you stand exposed.
No hiding behind the bed sheets of the KKK, the screen name or the keyboard. It takes guts to do that. The kind that were celebrated in Selma this past week.
Humans have been phase-locked to the mean solar day for just over 200 out of the last 6 million years.
--- which is just another way of saying that humans were essentially home-bound for about 6 million years.
I am reminded how Elijah Baley was reduced to tears and asking whether the sun would be out when he landed on Solaria. The Naked Sun
I don't find the geek's willingness to divorce himself from the natural cycle of day and night and the change of seasons particularly healthy --- nor do I share his obsession with reducing everything to base 10.
The second customer basically said "I don't want no damn stinkin' automatic mode, because if I'm payin' for an operator to sit out there, he better be working"
The geek is a binary thinker.
Which is why his jokes and anecdotes read like stand-up comedy or urban legend --- and so familiar from repetition that you can see the punch-line coming from miles away.
Real-life rarely comes so neatly packaged and free of ambiguity
When the automobile debuted, the UK passed the infamous Locomotive Acts (otherwise known as the Red Flag Law), requiring someone to walk in front of a "horseless carriage" waving a red flag.
The first Locomotive Acts were passed in the 1860s.
Forget the "horseless carriage." We are talking about road trains, huge and heavyweight steam powered agricultural tractors, bailers, threshers, bulldozers, steam shovels and the like.
To this day flagmen and escort vehicles serve the same purpose.