My wife's photography business currently runs on Windows 7. We can't accept the risk of Microsoft screwing up her production environment (Photoshop + Lightroom).
For now, we're going to stop installing Windows updates, and cross our fingers.
Once that starts seeming too risky, I'll look into moving Windows into a VM with limited Internet access, or we'll migrate to using a Mac for the photo editing.
Neither option is appealing. I haven't yet figured out how difficult it will be to get monitor color-calibration right if Windows is running on a VM inside Linux. And sufficiently powerful Macs are painfully expensive.
I'll be curious to see if Microsoft's overall strategy from the past year is going to pay off for them. They're literally driving previously satisfied customers into their competitors' arms.
You are so full of shit. Testers who had no ability to develop or build/support test tools were prone to layoff. Testers still exist, including those who are not focused on test dev, but in smaller proportion. They are just putting greater emphasis on test as part of the agile development process.
QA is very far from gone as you'd like to convince people.
With some of the bugs that are getting non-optionally pushed onto end-users' systems, it clear that either Microsoft's QA team, or product managers, or both, are (at best) incompetent, and should be fired.
I'll leave it to the Microsoft insiders to figure out who.
If you think Slashdot is a 'mostly progressive' audience, you're a fucking idiot. Try bringing up subjects like gun control, or feminism, or environmentalism, or racism, or "political correctness," and see the response you get here.
Just because you disagree with the GP, you don't need to be so rude about it.
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
If Enemies is a subset of Everyone, then giving Aid and Comfort to Everyone is an act of Treason, at least until the US makes peace with Everyone. Specifically what Snowdon exposed was the difficulty the US Government has in distinguishing between Everyone and Enemy.
"Eddard Stark: What you suggest is treason. Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish: Only if we lose."
I think it could be argued that Bush, Cheney, Obama, and numerous CIA / NSA / DHS directors are enemies of the United States, and therefore aiding them is an act of treason.
The current US administration has been caught spying in violation of the constutition.
Because the Bush administration was never caught spying in violation of the Constitution. Forget the whole PATRIOT Act or the administration forcing phone companies to install digital taps so the government could listen in on everyone's phone calls?
As soon as Bush and Cheney are swinging from the end of a noose I'll be more than happy to agree with your demand.
I don't think the GP was arguing against Bush and Cheney being hanged for treason; he was only addressing the current administration.
Actually, speaking for myself only, I've found the opposite to be true.
The only way I've avoided falling off the wagon, so to speak, is to have a policy of simply never eating sweats. Even when I'm making a dessert for other people and need to taste-test it, I spit rather than swallow. (Sorry, hard to avoid the pun-fodder on that one.)
When I've tried to simply be moderate in how often I eat sweets, I've always ended eating them more and more frequently, until I was effectively eating them whenever I felt like it.
I'm not sure how much that holds for other people, but it's definitely true for me.
This. There are several insights I've found useful for keeping my weight down:
(1) Learn to recognize the difference between hunger and craving. When one's body seems to "be trying" to get back to your set-point weight, you'll be hit with all kinds of cravings that are unaccompanied by hunger. It takes less discipline to ignore cravings than to ignore the cravings+hunger.
(2) Keep a mental tally of (approximately) how many calories you've eaten so far in the day, vs. how active you have been / will be. It helps you decide if it's worth eating food ${X} or doing activity ${Y}.
(3) Poor sleep ==> { extra appetite, worse self-control, and less desire to get exercise }. So place a high premium on good sleep.
(4) Carbs seem to be somewhat addictive, in terms of cravings. In my experience, it takes ~ 1-2 months of not eating a lot of carbs in order for the cravings to go away.
(5) If I'm hungry, or even have cravings for fattening foods, it's better to eat something filling (meat, yogurt, etc.) rather than let myself get so hungry / craving that I say "screw it" and make brownies.
(6) For some reason, people who eat a lot of yogurt seem to be skinny. Correlation isn't causation, but it's perhaps a sign of it. So consider eating more yogurt. IMHO the yucky low-fat stuff with aspartame isn't worth it; just get something really yummy like Liberte and accept the calories as a worthwhile investment.
Unfortunately I still remember their patent threats; I don't think it's safe to go anywhere near Microsoft owned source, no matter the licensing.
I agree, but I'm even more wary than that. Microsoft has a nearly perfect record of deceptiveness, sleaziness, and overall douchebaggery. Even if software patents didn't exist I would still suspect this is some kind of trap.
Then perhaps they should sue Microsoft regarding this anti-competitive behavior, so they can start deposing Microsoft employees under oath.
OTOH, since we're no longer a nation of laws, it's possible that even if Valve had Microsoft dead-to-rights, perhaps ${USPresident} would somehow intervene and protect Microsoft. Again.
I'm pretty sure that is somehow racist by current standards.
Probably. Which is why it's important to keep on doing it until hypersensitive cry-babies learn to grow up. It's perhaps the kindest thing we can do for them.
* The inability to prevent Windows 10 from phoning home for reasons I'm prevented from knowing.
If you care, there's a great PowerShell script available that turns off everything that's known so far. We're going to include it in our deployment script on principle.
Thanks for the link. I really hope I don't end up needing to us it. I really don't have the spare cycles to engage in an arms race with our OS vendor.
I'm not saying this tool will completely block all of the data collected but, it does block the vast majority of it
We should probably be clear on what you mean by "vast majority" of data.
For example, suppose that the tool blocks 99% of Windows' phone-home calls, and reduces the number of bytes sent by 99%. But what does get through is all of my important passwords, PKI private keys, and bank account numbers.
Perhaps all we can really say is that using Anti-Beacon is probably better than nothing?
A contract requiring you to give you your first-born is not legally binding (in the United States), so that's no reason not to click "accept".
Does that mean that no contract was established, and therefore the product's consumer were genuinely accessing the company's computers without authorization?
I don't mind if Windows 10 Pro is rented, per se. If the PC market is slowing, it strikes me as a reasonable way to fund (and incent) continued security patches and bug-fixes. I.e., make Microsoft re-earn my business every 6-12 months. After all, I can always migrate away at my leisure before the rental agreement expires.
However, I do object to other aspects of Windows 10, that if anything I would expect to get worse under such a model:
* An EULA that gives Microsoft unfettered access to all of my data, and using it in whatever way they see fit.
* The inability to assess each proposed patch, and to choose if/when to apply it.
* The inability to prevent Windows 10 from phoning home for reasons I'm prevented from knowing.
If it were just the rental cost, the cost/benefit analysis for my wife's photography business would be easy. But the snooping, and particular the risk of uncontrollable, unpreventable, unnecessary downtime on her production computers... that risk is unacceptable even if Windows 10 were perpetually free (as in beer).
I really don't look forward to the cost of migrating her photo-editing workstation to a sufficiently powerful Mac. But we'll probably need to find a way.
$5k/year for telecommute costs? Maintaining a VPN and having decent conferencing equipment shouldn't cost that much.
You're right, it doesn't. I was just trying to be conservative, because my main point was not that it was a cost-savings from the employer's perspective. (Although it almost certainly is, considering the saved money on office-space.)
Also, there's no need to price the cost of commuting into my salary, which is just a net win all around.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife's photography business currently runs on Windows 7. We can't accept the risk of Microsoft screwing up her production environment (Photoshop + Lightroom).
For now, we're going to stop installing Windows updates, and cross our fingers.
Once that starts seeming too risky, I'll look into moving Windows into a VM with limited Internet access, or we'll migrate to using a Mac for the photo editing.
Neither option is appealing. I haven't yet figured out how difficult it will be to get monitor color-calibration right if Windows is running on a VM inside Linux. And sufficiently powerful Macs are painfully expensive.
I'll be curious to see if Microsoft's overall strategy from the past year is going to pay off for them. They're literally driving previously satisfied customers into their competitors' arms.
You are so full of shit. Testers who had no ability to develop or build/support test tools were prone to layoff. Testers still exist, including those who are not focused on test dev, but in smaller proportion. They are just putting greater emphasis on test as part of the agile development process.
QA is very far from gone as you'd like to convince people.
With some of the bugs that are getting non-optionally pushed onto end-users' systems, it clear that either Microsoft's QA team, or product managers, or both, are (at best) incompetent, and should be fired.
I'll leave it to the Microsoft insiders to figure out who.
If you think Slashdot is a 'mostly progressive' audience, you're a fucking idiot. Try bringing up subjects like gun control, or feminism, or environmentalism, or racism, or "political correctness," and see the response you get here.
Just because you disagree with the GP, you don't need to be so rude about it.
It's only treason if you lose. If you win, it's revolution.
No, it's both things either way. The winning sides' rhetoric doesn't change the underlying reality.
Article III, Section 3:
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
If Enemies is a subset of Everyone, then giving Aid and Comfort to Everyone is an act of Treason, at least until the US makes peace with Everyone. Specifically what Snowdon exposed was the difficulty the US Government has in distinguishing between Everyone and Enemy.
"Eddard Stark: What you suggest is treason.
Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish: Only if we lose."
I think it could be argued that Bush, Cheney, Obama, and numerous CIA / NSA / DHS directors are enemies of the United States, and therefore aiding them is an act of treason.
I don't think the GP was arguing against Bush and Cheney being hanged for treason; he was only addressing the current administration.
To find me in SoCal.
I assume the TPP includes a provision allowing the BBC to hire a private mercenary force to seize your home on the suspicion of a violation.
Actually, speaking for myself only, I've found the opposite to be true.
The only way I've avoided falling off the wagon, so to speak, is to have a policy of simply never eating sweats. Even when I'm making a dessert for other people and need to taste-test it, I spit rather than swallow. (Sorry, hard to avoid the pun-fodder on that one.)
When I've tried to simply be moderate in how often I eat sweets, I've always ended eating them more and more frequently, until I was effectively eating them whenever I felt like it.
I'm not sure how much that holds for other people, but it's definitely true for me.
This. There are several insights I've found useful for keeping my weight down:
(1) Learn to recognize the difference between hunger and craving. When one's body seems to "be trying" to get back to your set-point weight, you'll be hit with all kinds of cravings that are unaccompanied by hunger. It takes less discipline to ignore cravings than to ignore the cravings+hunger.
(2) Keep a mental tally of (approximately) how many calories you've eaten so far in the day, vs. how active you have been / will be. It helps you decide if it's worth eating food ${X} or doing activity ${Y}.
(3) Poor sleep ==> { extra appetite, worse self-control, and less desire to get exercise }. So place a high premium on good sleep.
(4) Carbs seem to be somewhat addictive, in terms of cravings. In my experience, it takes ~ 1-2 months of not eating a lot of carbs in order for the cravings to go away.
(5) If I'm hungry, or even have cravings for fattening foods, it's better to eat something filling (meat, yogurt, etc.) rather than let myself get so hungry / craving that I say "screw it" and make brownies.
(6) For some reason, people who eat a lot of yogurt seem to be skinny. Correlation isn't causation, but it's perhaps a sign of it. So consider eating more yogurt. IMHO the yucky low-fat stuff with aspartame isn't worth it; just get something really yummy like Liberte and accept the calories as a worthwhile investment.
After Windows 10, I thought MS would need to rest up before damaging yet another once-useful product.
Unfortunately I still remember their patent threats; I don't think it's safe to go anywhere near Microsoft owned source, no matter the licensing.
I agree, but I'm even more wary than that. Microsoft has a nearly perfect record of deceptiveness, sleaziness, and overall douchebaggery. Even if software patents didn't exist I would still suspect this is some kind of trap.
Not to quibble, but would it make sense to narrow your statement to the following?
Then perhaps they should sue Microsoft regarding this anti-competitive behavior, so they can start deposing Microsoft employees under oath.
OTOH, since we're no longer a nation of laws, it's possible that even if Valve had Microsoft dead-to-rights, perhaps ${USPresident} would somehow intervene and protect Microsoft. Again.
Once (if) Windows 10 gets an off switch we can talk.
Microsoft is doing their best to listen to your opinion.
Once upon a time the icon would have been a shark. Sigh.
To be fair, sharks would suffocate / freeze / explode on Mars.
I'm pretty sure that is somehow racist by current standards.
Probably. Which is why it's important to keep on doing it until hypersensitive cry-babies learn to grow up. It's perhaps the kindest thing we can do for them.
* The inability to prevent Windows 10 from phoning home for reasons I'm prevented from knowing.
If you care, there's a great PowerShell script available that turns off everything that's known so far. We're going to include it in our deployment script on principle.
Thanks for the link. I really hope I don't end up needing to us it. I really don't have the spare cycles to engage in an arms race with our OS vendor.
We should probably be clear on what you mean by "vast majority" of data.
For example, suppose that the tool blocks 99% of Windows' phone-home calls, and reduces the number of bytes sent by 99%. But what does get through is all of my important passwords, PKI private keys, and bank account numbers.
Perhaps all we can really say is that using Anti-Beacon is probably better than nothing?
I wonder if France will give in to your demands.
Yup, Microsoft is the new Yahoo.
Did Microsoft just put on record that they're incapable of developing a desktop OS and a phone OS at the same time?
One would think that with their resources, they could afford two competent development teams.
WTF-32
A contract requiring you to give you your first-born is not legally binding (in the United States), so that's no reason not to click "accept".
Does that mean that no contract was established, and therefore the product's consumer were genuinely accessing the company's computers without authorization?
I don't mind if Windows 10 Pro is rented, per se. If the PC market is slowing, it strikes me as a reasonable way to fund (and incent) continued security patches and bug-fixes. I.e., make Microsoft re-earn my business every 6-12 months. After all, I can always migrate away at my leisure before the rental agreement expires.
However, I do object to other aspects of Windows 10, that if anything I would expect to get worse under such a model:
* An EULA that gives Microsoft unfettered access to all of my data, and using it in whatever way they see fit.
* The inability to assess each proposed patch, and to choose if/when to apply it.
* The inability to prevent Windows 10 from phoning home for reasons I'm prevented from knowing.
If it were just the rental cost, the cost/benefit analysis for my wife's photography business would be easy. But the snooping, and particular the risk of uncontrollable, unpreventable, unnecessary downtime on her production computers... that risk is unacceptable even if Windows 10 were perpetually free (as in beer).
I really don't look forward to the cost of migrating her photo-editing workstation to a sufficiently powerful Mac. But we'll probably need to find a way.
You're right, it doesn't. I was just trying to be conservative, because my main point was not that it was a cost-savings from the employer's perspective. (Although it almost certainly is, considering the saved money on office-space.)
Also, there's no need to price the cost of commuting into my salary, which is just a net win all around.