Certainly the settings should be controlled from a single control panel application or something like that. However, I can see how it would be helpful (think when you first fire up a new application) for it point out new things. However, it should not nag and it should only be displayed once. Also, if you go into the central settings panel and turn everything fully off you should never even see the first prompt.
The comedy Phablet market is saturated, but no-one is making small, quality phones apart from Sony.
I agree. I would really like a small 4"-4.5" display-class in the $200-$250 range. As someone who does not consume media on my phone, I find it infuriating that it is so difficult for companies to even consider that there are people out there who would buy phones like this. The only non-Apple device I have been able to find that even comes close to my requirements is the Sony Xperia compact phones, but at twice the price I would be willing to pay. The iPhone SE is even more expensive, as I recall.
I suppose I could buy something a couple or three years old, but then I want something that works on the newly acquired segments of spectrum in the US to ensure I have good coverage everywhere for voice, text, and wi-fi hotspot/tethering data. That seriously limits the possibilities.
but the company is finally proving that it's taking things seriously
Not quite. Proof that they are taking things seriously would be disabling all the telemetry, phoning home, adware, crapware, etc., and making it strictly opt-in.
For example, the first time you hit the start menu, it can show you a balloon: "Would you like to see customized content here? This would require sending blah-blah-blah to Microsoft." Then two clearly labeled buttons. One for "yes, phone home and show me ads" and another for "no, and don't show me this ever again." They could something similar in other places where they think there might be a benefit to the users.
Microsoft is launching what it calls a (web-based) privacy dashboard, which lets you configure anything and everything about information that might be sent to back to the mothership. You can turn all tracking off...
If it is on by default and the user has to log in to a Microsoft website to control/configure it, then Microsoft is demonstrating that they are willing to do only the bare minimum to appease the critics. How much do you want to bet that in order to even access the dashboard the user will have to have a Live account (giving MS even more of their personal information). The screenshot in the article doesn't look web-based to me, so perhaps a Live account won't be required, but either way the big problem is that they opt you in (likely against your will) and only if you are sufficiently determined can you opt out.
if a GG windshield means fewer "sand pits" (which I find annoying when driving into the sun) over the years, I'm in.
My three year old car has nearly a dozen nicks and chips just on the hood, front spoiler, and leading edge of the roof panel. I would love to see a GG-like film that can be used to coat every painted/moulded surface on the vehicle. I am also tired of the chips taken out of my door by idiots in parking lots who can't be courteous enough to be careful when opening their doors to or to remind their kids to be careful. I can't believe that in 2016 we don't have automotive paints or other films that can stand up to serious abuse.
I am surprised that nobody has brought it up yet, but Chuck Finley is the alter ego/favorite assumed persona of Sam Axe (played by Bruce Campbell) from Burn Notice. I can't believe that they haven't received props yet for the cool reference. Heck, I am inclined to give them a pass just for the originality of that.
One is embarrassing but arguably did the American public a service. The other not only subverted democracy and could even be said to have effected regeme change, de-legitimising the government and weakening it.
I am seriously having a hard time figuring out which statement applies to which.
Snowden leak/asylum:
Embarrassing: check (all the TLAs' secrets got out and Russia looks like it values openness and freedom more than the US)
Public service: check (people found out about things that affected them)
Subverted democracy: check (there was a process in place that Snowden chose to ignore)
Effected regime change: unknown
De-ligitimized/weakened government: check (the government has been dealing with political/diplomatic fallout and it has caused a real strain on certain international relationships)
DNC "hack":
Embarrassing: check (the DNC looks like it can't even keep its email secure)
Public service: check (people found out about things that affected them)
Subverted democracy: check (if by Democracy one means "the party elites get to make choices and people are supposed to go along")
Effected regime change: unknown, but doubtful
De-ligitimized/weakened government: check (the government appears to have lots its mind over something that is not really and should not be the government's concern, I mean what retaliatory actions were taken in the wake of the Sony email hack, which is just likely to have been perpetrated/organized by a national government?)
The co-founder and head of development at games firm Giant Spacekat hasn't announced which district she wants to represent in the U.S. House of Representatives to prevent alerting her potential opponent while she prepares.
Would that district not happen to be the one where she lives? I thought it was the law in every state that you had have residence in the constituency if you run for elected office in that constituency? Or, does she intend to carpetbag, like Clinton did when she moved to New York?
Any way I look at this, it's pointless and stupid. All it'll really do is victimize innocent immigrants, who are being considered guilty until proven innocent (which won't happen; YOU try proving a negative!), and have law enforcement chasing ghosts while the real bad guys go about their business. Nice job, Washington.
On this you are wrong. Here is something I already posted further up in the discussion. I repost it here because it directly addresses your statement:
Right now, if someone tries to enter the US and they are allowed to enter, discovery of a social media presence that indicates they may pose a terror threat is not necessarily grounds for deportation or removal. Thought-crime is not a crime in the US.
However, if the government requires you to disclose your social media presence as a condition of entry (remember, immigration can refuse entry to anyone based on one or more of a very diverse set of criteria available to them) and you don't, then you have lied and most likely falsified immigration paperwork. If they discover a social media presence that is you sharing pictures of your kids with your friends, it is likely that nobody will care. However, if they discover a social media presence that indicates you may pose a terror threat, they can deport or remove you prior to you committing an act of terrorism, because you have already committed one or more crimes: entering the country under false pretext, lying to immigration officials, falsifying immigration paperwork, etc.
There is a perfectly reasonable and rational explanation and a clear way in which this sort of thing can be used. Now, whether you agree that the reason is legitimate, or even good is another thing altogether.
Actually, it is different than that. Right now, if someone tries to enter the US and they are allowed to enter, discovery of a social media presence that indicates they may pose a terror threat is not necessarily grounds for deportation or removal. Thought-crime is not a crime in the US.
However, if the government requires you to disclose your social media presence as a condition of entry (remember, immigration can refuse entry to anyone based on one or more of a very diverse set of criteria available to them) and you don't, then you have lied and most likely falsified immigration paperwork. If they discover a social media presence that is you sharing pictures of your kids with your friends, it is likely that nobody will care. However, if they discover a social media presence that indicates you may pose a terror threat, they can deport or remove you prior to you committing an act of terrorism, because you have already committed one or more crimes: entering the country under false pretext, lying to immigration officials, falsifying immigration paperwork, etc.
What you say may also be true, but the reality is that the government rarely thinks that far ahead.
This assumes, of course, that we don't collectively lose our minds when the government tries to enforce actual laws.
Yeah, but how does that work for a solo freelance developer, or a small shop with just a few programmers? I am fairly certain that large enterprises represent a minority of the number of total organizations and developer population.
I am a developer, but I work almost exclusively in Linux. I do have to test on Windows, but it is not my primary environment by any stretch.
That said, I am really curious how developers handle this sort of thing with the automatic reboots and forced updates. To me, the biggest thing is that as a developer I feel like configuration control is a big thing. If I decide to update my development or build systems, I have to make absolutely certain that I know what versions of libraries (including core OS components) I am using before and after the upgrade so that if something mysteriously breaks, I can figure out the origin of the breakage and revert the update/change. On Linux this is nearly trivial. It sounds like that is now impossible with Windows 10. I don't know how a developer would be able to work under those conditions without losing his or her mind.
Also, what do people in safety critical fields do? I mean if you are one of those fields using Windows (which I understand from colleagues that there are an alarming number of such fields, like industrial process control, satellite operations, aerospace/aviation, etc.), do you just throw up your hands and give up to being stuck on some outdated platform?
I had a similar thought to "regulate all you want," only I was thinking more along the lines of "if security of networked devices is so important, why have we not had similar regulation for the last 20-30+ years?" I mean, we've all seen the movie Sneakers. I know it was a bit fanciful, but the very first time someone decided to connect a power plant, bank, or air traffic control tower to any sort of external network, the world changed. The problem is I don't think that the general public understood just how dramatic that change was until only very recently, decades later. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is a combination of "quick, the horses got out, close the barn" and "that ship has already sailed."
With the DNC actions and the trickery and deceit they used to get Clinton past Sanders, no further propaganda was necessary to demolish HC. If some imaginary russian PR agency had been tasked with invention stories that put HC into a bad light, they couldn't possibly come up with such a shit. They would've been told "come on guys, it has to be at least borderline believable".
This reminds of me of my favorite quote. I believe it was Tom Clancy (or at least I saw it attributed to him) who said something to the effect of, "the difference between the truth and fiction is that fiction has to make sense."
deployed malware to over one thousand alleged visitors of a dark web child pornography site. Now, it has emerged that the campaign was actually several orders of magnitude larger.
several orders of magnitude... really?
base: 1,000
1-order: 10,000
2-order: 100,000
3-order: 1,000,000
Am I to believe that the FBI hacked over 1,000,000 computers? Oh wait, that's not at all what happened. Why is it that journalists and journalistic websites (people and organizations whose entire livelihood depends upon the written word) can't even perform the most basic of editing reviews? Were I an editor, such a clearly hyperbolic and improperly used statement would never have made it to publication.
Note that my gripe is not with the/. editor, but with Motherboard.
The other argues that by spending time on social media and sharing our thoughts, we are demeaning the value of our work, our ideas. (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source.)
What a shocker. An organization that exists solely because people pay them for their ideas advocates against other people giving away ideas for free. Next, you'll tell me that oil and coal companies argue that renewable energy has more negative environmental impact than fossil fuels and that the gun control crowd says that the more law abiding citizens have guns the more crime we will have.
It's a legacy language. They last for incredibly long, but it's not what a forward-looking CTO would have their people coding in today.
I'm afraid you paint with too broad a brush. That would be like saying "every forward-looking CTO would have their people coding in ${language}."
The fact is that any forward-looking CTO will evaluate their company, their market segment, their industry as a whole, and many other factors and then make a decision. For example, it would be ludicrous not to consider what technologies your potential customers are comfortable with. If you are marketing a bank or other large financial institution, for example, Java is pretty much the default choice. If you show up there with Python, Ruby, or whatever else as the core of your technology stack, you are likely to get laughed out of the place.
The Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2010 allows government agencies to pay cash awards to employees who accurately classify government documents consistently and avoid unnecessary over-classification of information that is not a threat to national security.
This sounds suspiciously like the "Bribing Wally" Dilbert strips from earlier this week: 1 and 2.
I mean seriously a law that says "we will pay you more money to not break other laws and do the job you were hired to do" speaks volumes about how messed up the US government is. Why not try something different, perhaps? Like, when a law is broken or a policy violated then the individual or people responsible are held accountable and administrative or punitive measures are taken. Clinton certainly won't do anything at all to fix that, and Trump only has a marginally higher likelihood (if only because both Republicans and Democrats hate him and will dig in like petulant children rather than work with him).
I really wish that it looked like there was a tenable solution to this, but it doesn't appear like anything will change meaningfully in any of our lifetimes.
...but with the rise of 4K and 8K capture, as well as 360-degree video and VR, high-end professionals need all the storage they can get their hands on.
At least we know that there is an upper bound. I seem to recall some computer guy a few years ago saying that 640K should be enough for anyone. So, once we hit that, we're good!
a new Advance Placement course "will be offered in more than 2,000 U.S. classrooms this fall...the largest course launch in the history of the AP exam."
Are they still teaching Pascal for AP Comp Sci, by chance?
Now, get off my lawn!
Seriously, though, I don't remember anything that I learned my high school AP Comp Sci class (which taught Pascal), aside from discovering that I really enjoyed tinkering with computers to make them do different things.
Can anyone think of a single MS purchase where the employees did well out of the deal, leaving out the original owner?
Not just MS. I know people who were at small or very small firms that were either directly or indirectly acquired by very large firms (e.g., IBM, HP, General Dynamics, etc.). Not a single one of those friends or acquaintances remained with new large parent company past a year or two. In every instance they mentioned how at first things seemed fine, be eventually the parent wanted to fully assimilate the new acquisition, which meant a loss of the old company culture, structure, etc. Invariably, there were pay cuts, removal of perks, reorganizations, office closures, relocations, and all manner of other changes that would definitely challenge the morale of those who liked the environment of the smaller company.
As far as I can tell this seems to be a potential problem when any large and established company acquires a significantly smaller and/or less established company.
You do realize that the single biggest complaint people have about the government is "overreach" and "too much government intrusion".
Hence why being open about something like this is so important. It helps people understand government actions that have the potential affect their privacy.
So this would just put another nail in the coffin, not to mention the republicans would use it as a cudgel to complain about "the democrats are against the police and due process".
In what coffin? So what if the Republicans will use it to browbeat the Democrats? The Democrats use plenty of real and invented situations to browbeat the Republicans. Welcome to politics. The truth is that many Democrats campaign on platforms relating to civil liberties, then don't come through. Just like lots of Republicans campaign on platforms relating to family values and then get caught having affairs or secret homosexual rendezvous in airport bathrooms. What's new about any of that?
Sadly we have a delicate situation that is best left to the courts because anything else is going to get politicized like mad.
If you think the courts aren't equally, if not more, politicized, then you are fooling yourself.
Let me ask you a question: have you ever personally known anyone who had to receive treatment for cancer? It is an ugly and painful thing. Sometimes people say "the cure is worse than the disease". However, you can't just let the disease take over; that would mean certain death. The situation with our government is like a cancer. Treating it will be very painful and not without risks. However, to give some part of the government a pass now because the opposition political party would take advantage of the situation if it were out in the open is disingenuous. Just like refusing to treat a cancer because other people would then know you were sick is patently absurd.
The news organizations' lawsuit seeks information about the source of the security exploit agents used to unlock the phone, and how much the government paid for it. It was filed in federal court in Washington by USA TODAY's parent company, Gannett, the Associated Press and Vice Media. The FBI refused to provide that information to the organizations under the Freedom of Information Act. The lawsuit charges that "there is no lawful basis" for the FBI to keep the records secret.
If President Obama was really committed to running the most transparent administration in US history (remember, this was probably the thing he promised most frequently during his 2008 campaign), then he would order the FBI director to release the information without them having to be taken to court. But, I won't hold my breath. I'm just saying...
What large-corperation loving candidate is very likely to win the election and be in office next year to make that happen, hmm...
As both major candidates love large corporations (albeit different large corporations), could you be more specific? I say that because Apple is one of those companies that inhabits multiple spaces, some of which have been associated with the left and others which have been associated with the right.
Oracle's antics caused me to switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice, not from any "GPL Purity" reasons (which I care little about) but from a reasonable suspicion that Oracle, being Evil, would soon do something I did not like.
Same here. It makes me think that the Java community would be better served if Oracle turned over stewardship of Java to ASF or even a new organization. I use OpenJDK for *nix, but as far as I can tell, support for OpenJDK on Windows is sorely lacking.
In fact, when I have to work on Windows, Oracle's ridiculousness with forcing the Java control panel to always turn on automatic checks for updates is maddening. I mean, I'm a programmer. I have to maintain control over the configuration of my development system. I can't have Java auto-updating itself because I forgot to turn off the stupid feature. I also recently had to set up a VM for Windows 10 testing and had a similar thought: if the system auto updates when it feels like, how do I know that my development configuration is stable? At least with a VM I can fire it up without a network adapter. But still, it shouldn't come to that.
Come to think of it, this is a pretty solid argument for staying as far away from proprietary commercial software and closed ecosystems as possible (just because they drop a source tarball on a website somewhere doesn't make it free software the proper sense).
Slashdot Mirror
It was Chelyabinsk-sized. A direct hit on a city could kill millions of people.
I am having trouble putting this in perspective. Could you convert to VW Beetles, Libraries of Congress, or their metric equivalents?
Certainly the settings should be controlled from a single control panel application or something like that. However, I can see how it would be helpful (think when you first fire up a new application) for it point out new things. However, it should not nag and it should only be displayed once. Also, if you go into the central settings panel and turn everything fully off you should never even see the first prompt.
The comedy Phablet market is saturated, but no-one is making small, quality phones apart from Sony.
I agree. I would really like a small 4"-4.5" display-class in the $200-$250 range. As someone who does not consume media on my phone, I find it infuriating that it is so difficult for companies to even consider that there are people out there who would buy phones like this. The only non-Apple device I have been able to find that even comes close to my requirements is the Sony Xperia compact phones, but at twice the price I would be willing to pay. The iPhone SE is even more expensive, as I recall.
I suppose I could buy something a couple or three years old, but then I want something that works on the newly acquired segments of spectrum in the US to ensure I have good coverage everywhere for voice, text, and wi-fi hotspot/tethering data. That seriously limits the possibilities.
but the company is finally proving that it's taking things seriously
Not quite. Proof that they are taking things seriously would be disabling all the telemetry, phoning home, adware, crapware, etc., and making it strictly opt-in.
For example, the first time you hit the start menu, it can show you a balloon: "Would you like to see customized content here? This would require sending blah-blah-blah to Microsoft." Then two clearly labeled buttons. One for "yes, phone home and show me ads" and another for "no, and don't show me this ever again." They could something similar in other places where they think there might be a benefit to the users.
Microsoft is launching what it calls a (web-based) privacy dashboard, which lets you configure anything and everything about information that might be sent to back to the mothership. You can turn all tracking off...
If it is on by default and the user has to log in to a Microsoft website to control/configure it, then Microsoft is demonstrating that they are willing to do only the bare minimum to appease the critics. How much do you want to bet that in order to even access the dashboard the user will have to have a Live account (giving MS even more of their personal information). The screenshot in the article doesn't look web-based to me, so perhaps a Live account won't be required, but either way the big problem is that they opt you in (likely against your will) and only if you are sufficiently determined can you opt out.
Taking things seriously, indeed!
if a GG windshield means fewer "sand pits" (which I find annoying when driving into the sun) over the years, I'm in.
My three year old car has nearly a dozen nicks and chips just on the hood, front spoiler, and leading edge of the roof panel. I would love to see a GG-like film that can be used to coat every painted/moulded surface on the vehicle. I am also tired of the chips taken out of my door by idiots in parking lots who can't be courteous enough to be careful when opening their doors to or to remind their kids to be careful. I can't believe that in 2016 we don't have automotive paints or other films that can stand up to serious abuse.
I am surprised that nobody has brought it up yet, but Chuck Finley is the alter ego/favorite assumed persona of Sam Axe (played by Bruce Campbell) from Burn Notice. I can't believe that they haven't received props yet for the cool reference. Heck, I am inclined to give them a pass just for the originality of that.
One is embarrassing but arguably did the American public a service. The other not only subverted democracy and could even be said to have effected regeme change, de-legitimising the government and weakening it.
I am seriously having a hard time figuring out which statement applies to which.
Snowden leak/asylum:
DNC "hack":
The co-founder and head of development at games firm Giant Spacekat hasn't announced which district she wants to represent in the U.S. House of Representatives to prevent alerting her potential opponent while she prepares.
Would that district not happen to be the one where she lives? I thought it was the law in every state that you had have residence in the constituency if you run for elected office in that constituency? Or, does she intend to carpetbag, like Clinton did when she moved to New York?
Any way I look at this, it's pointless and stupid. All it'll really do is victimize innocent immigrants, who are being considered guilty until proven innocent (which won't happen; YOU try proving a negative!), and have law enforcement chasing ghosts while the real bad guys go about their business. Nice job, Washington.
On this you are wrong. Here is something I already posted further up in the discussion. I repost it here because it directly addresses your statement:
Right now, if someone tries to enter the US and they are allowed to enter, discovery of a social media presence that indicates they may pose a terror threat is not necessarily grounds for deportation or removal. Thought-crime is not a crime in the US.
However, if the government requires you to disclose your social media presence as a condition of entry (remember, immigration can refuse entry to anyone based on one or more of a very diverse set of criteria available to them) and you don't, then you have lied and most likely falsified immigration paperwork. If they discover a social media presence that is you sharing pictures of your kids with your friends, it is likely that nobody will care. However, if they discover a social media presence that indicates you may pose a terror threat, they can deport or remove you prior to you committing an act of terrorism, because you have already committed one or more crimes: entering the country under false pretext, lying to immigration officials, falsifying immigration paperwork, etc.
There is a perfectly reasonable and rational explanation and a clear way in which this sort of thing can be used. Now, whether you agree that the reason is legitimate, or even good is another thing altogether.
Actually, it is different than that. Right now, if someone tries to enter the US and they are allowed to enter, discovery of a social media presence that indicates they may pose a terror threat is not necessarily grounds for deportation or removal. Thought-crime is not a crime in the US.
However, if the government requires you to disclose your social media presence as a condition of entry (remember, immigration can refuse entry to anyone based on one or more of a very diverse set of criteria available to them) and you don't, then you have lied and most likely falsified immigration paperwork. If they discover a social media presence that is you sharing pictures of your kids with your friends, it is likely that nobody will care. However, if they discover a social media presence that indicates you may pose a terror threat, they can deport or remove you prior to you committing an act of terrorism, because you have already committed one or more crimes: entering the country under false pretext, lying to immigration officials, falsifying immigration paperwork, etc.
What you say may also be true, but the reality is that the government rarely thinks that far ahead.
This assumes, of course, that we don't collectively lose our minds when the government tries to enforce actual laws.
Yeah, but how does that work for a solo freelance developer, or a small shop with just a few programmers? I am fairly certain that large enterprises represent a minority of the number of total organizations and developer population.
I am a developer, but I work almost exclusively in Linux. I do have to test on Windows, but it is not my primary environment by any stretch.
That said, I am really curious how developers handle this sort of thing with the automatic reboots and forced updates. To me, the biggest thing is that as a developer I feel like configuration control is a big thing. If I decide to update my development or build systems, I have to make absolutely certain that I know what versions of libraries (including core OS components) I am using before and after the upgrade so that if something mysteriously breaks, I can figure out the origin of the breakage and revert the update/change. On Linux this is nearly trivial. It sounds like that is now impossible with Windows 10. I don't know how a developer would be able to work under those conditions without losing his or her mind.
Also, what do people in safety critical fields do? I mean if you are one of those fields using Windows (which I understand from colleagues that there are an alarming number of such fields, like industrial process control, satellite operations, aerospace/aviation, etc.), do you just throw up your hands and give up to being stuck on some outdated platform?
I had a similar thought to "regulate all you want," only I was thinking more along the lines of "if security of networked devices is so important, why have we not had similar regulation for the last 20-30+ years?" I mean, we've all seen the movie Sneakers. I know it was a bit fanciful, but the very first time someone decided to connect a power plant, bank, or air traffic control tower to any sort of external network, the world changed. The problem is I don't think that the general public understood just how dramatic that change was until only very recently, decades later. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is a combination of "quick, the horses got out, close the barn" and "that ship has already sailed."
With the DNC actions and the trickery and deceit they used to get Clinton past Sanders, no further propaganda was necessary to demolish HC. If some imaginary russian PR agency had been tasked with invention stories that put HC into a bad light, they couldn't possibly come up with such a shit. They would've been told "come on guys, it has to be at least borderline believable".
This reminds of me of my favorite quote. I believe it was Tom Clancy (or at least I saw it attributed to him) who said something to the effect of, "the difference between the truth and fiction is that fiction has to make sense."
deployed malware to over one thousand alleged visitors of a dark web child pornography site. Now, it has emerged that the campaign was actually several orders of magnitude larger.
several orders of magnitude... really?
Am I to believe that the FBI hacked over 1,000,000 computers? Oh wait, that's not at all what happened. Why is it that journalists and journalistic websites (people and organizations whose entire livelihood depends upon the written word) can't even perform the most basic of editing reviews? Were I an editor, such a clearly hyperbolic and improperly used statement would never have made it to publication.
Note that my gripe is not with the /. editor, but with Motherboard.
The other argues that by spending time on social media and sharing our thoughts, we are demeaning the value of our work, our ideas. (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source.)
What a shocker. An organization that exists solely because people pay them for their ideas advocates against other people giving away ideas for free. Next, you'll tell me that oil and coal companies argue that renewable energy has more negative environmental impact than fossil fuels and that the gun control crowd says that the more law abiding citizens have guns the more crime we will have.
It's a legacy language. They last for incredibly long, but it's not what a forward-looking CTO would have their people coding in today.
I'm afraid you paint with too broad a brush. That would be like saying "every forward-looking CTO would have their people coding in ${language}."
The fact is that any forward-looking CTO will evaluate their company, their market segment, their industry as a whole, and many other factors and then make a decision. For example, it would be ludicrous not to consider what technologies your potential customers are comfortable with. If you are marketing a bank or other large financial institution, for example, Java is pretty much the default choice. If you show up there with Python, Ruby, or whatever else as the core of your technology stack, you are likely to get laughed out of the place.
The Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2010 allows government agencies to pay cash awards to employees who accurately classify government documents consistently and avoid unnecessary over-classification of information that is not a threat to national security.
This sounds suspiciously like the "Bribing Wally" Dilbert strips from earlier this week: 1 and 2.
I mean seriously a law that says "we will pay you more money to not break other laws and do the job you were hired to do" speaks volumes about how messed up the US government is. Why not try something different, perhaps? Like, when a law is broken or a policy violated then the individual or people responsible are held accountable and administrative or punitive measures are taken. Clinton certainly won't do anything at all to fix that, and Trump only has a marginally higher likelihood (if only because both Republicans and Democrats hate him and will dig in like petulant children rather than work with him).
I really wish that it looked like there was a tenable solution to this, but it doesn't appear like anything will change meaningfully in any of our lifetimes.
...but with the rise of 4K and 8K capture, as well as 360-degree video and VR, high-end professionals need all the storage they can get their hands on.
At least we know that there is an upper bound. I seem to recall some computer guy a few years ago saying that 640K should be enough for anyone. So, once we hit that, we're good!
a new Advance Placement course "will be offered in more than 2,000 U.S. classrooms this fall...the largest course launch in the history of the AP exam."
Are they still teaching Pascal for AP Comp Sci, by chance?
Now, get off my lawn!
Seriously, though, I don't remember anything that I learned my high school AP Comp Sci class (which taught Pascal), aside from discovering that I really enjoyed tinkering with computers to make them do different things.
Can anyone think of a single MS purchase where the employees did well out of the deal, leaving out the original owner?
Not just MS. I know people who were at small or very small firms that were either directly or indirectly acquired by very large firms (e.g., IBM, HP, General Dynamics, etc.). Not a single one of those friends or acquaintances remained with new large parent company past a year or two. In every instance they mentioned how at first things seemed fine, be eventually the parent wanted to fully assimilate the new acquisition, which meant a loss of the old company culture, structure, etc. Invariably, there were pay cuts, removal of perks, reorganizations, office closures, relocations, and all manner of other changes that would definitely challenge the morale of those who liked the environment of the smaller company.
As far as I can tell this seems to be a potential problem when any large and established company acquires a significantly smaller and/or less established company.
You do realize that the single biggest complaint people have about the government is "overreach" and "too much government intrusion".
Hence why being open about something like this is so important. It helps people understand government actions that have the potential affect their privacy.
So this would just put another nail in the coffin, not to mention the republicans would use it as a cudgel to complain about "the democrats are against the police and due process".
In what coffin? So what if the Republicans will use it to browbeat the Democrats? The Democrats use plenty of real and invented situations to browbeat the Republicans. Welcome to politics. The truth is that many Democrats campaign on platforms relating to civil liberties, then don't come through. Just like lots of Republicans campaign on platforms relating to family values and then get caught having affairs or secret homosexual rendezvous in airport bathrooms. What's new about any of that?
Sadly we have a delicate situation that is best left to the courts because anything else is going to get politicized like mad.
If you think the courts aren't equally, if not more, politicized, then you are fooling yourself.
Let me ask you a question: have you ever personally known anyone who had to receive treatment for cancer? It is an ugly and painful thing. Sometimes people say "the cure is worse than the disease". However, you can't just let the disease take over; that would mean certain death. The situation with our government is like a cancer. Treating it will be very painful and not without risks. However, to give some part of the government a pass now because the opposition political party would take advantage of the situation if it were out in the open is disingenuous. Just like refusing to treat a cancer because other people would then know you were sick is patently absurd.
The news organizations' lawsuit seeks information about the source of the security exploit agents used to unlock the phone, and how much the government paid for it. It was filed in federal court in Washington by USA TODAY's parent company, Gannett, the Associated Press and Vice Media. The FBI refused to provide that information to the organizations under the Freedom of Information Act. The lawsuit charges that "there is no lawful basis" for the FBI to keep the records secret.
If President Obama was really committed to running the most transparent administration in US history (remember, this was probably the thing he promised most frequently during his 2008 campaign), then he would order the FBI director to release the information without them having to be taken to court. But, I won't hold my breath. I'm just saying...
What large-corperation loving candidate is very likely to win the election and be in office next year to make that happen, hmm...
As both major candidates love large corporations (albeit different large corporations), could you be more specific? I say that because Apple is one of those companies that inhabits multiple spaces, some of which have been associated with the left and others which have been associated with the right.
Oracle's antics caused me to switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice, not from any "GPL Purity" reasons (which I care little about) but from a reasonable suspicion that Oracle, being Evil, would soon do something I did not like.
Same here. It makes me think that the Java community would be better served if Oracle turned over stewardship of Java to ASF or even a new organization. I use OpenJDK for *nix, but as far as I can tell, support for OpenJDK on Windows is sorely lacking.
In fact, when I have to work on Windows, Oracle's ridiculousness with forcing the Java control panel to always turn on automatic checks for updates is maddening. I mean, I'm a programmer. I have to maintain control over the configuration of my development system. I can't have Java auto-updating itself because I forgot to turn off the stupid feature. I also recently had to set up a VM for Windows 10 testing and had a similar thought: if the system auto updates when it feels like, how do I know that my development configuration is stable? At least with a VM I can fire it up without a network adapter. But still, it shouldn't come to that.
Come to think of it, this is a pretty solid argument for staying as far away from proprietary commercial software and closed ecosystems as possible (just because they drop a source tarball on a website somewhere doesn't make it free software the proper sense).