I expect it was less a "Cult" and more about being set up for failure.
Being asked to do something unrealistic, then on analysis coming up with the best option, then being told by Management to do something else, the team probably looked at the situation, realized they were being set up for eventual failure and rather than following through to the enviable conclusion decided to cut their losses and start looking for more rewarding work elsewhere.
In the end it was likely known that Management would throw them under the bus eventually and rather than being briefly associated with a failed project and tarnished reputations a better option was to simply move on.
Reminds me of the Delta airlines story of a few months ago. They had similar systems, yet the whole thing went down shutting Delta down for a couple days. I believe the investigation found similar results with Management making decisions that ultimately compromised the system, where a backup generator catching fire essentially took it all down...
OK reading even the summary seems to refute the inflammatory title.
It isn't quite as George Orwellian as it sounds. Half of Americans are in facial-recognition databaseS. Meaning multiple, not one central uber repository. Also how is facial-recognition defined? Does that mean the databases have the ability to scan and match, or just that that databases have photos of peoples faces? Think DMV etc...
Now think about the technical difficulty involved in trying to query what must be hundreds of unconnected databases. Now add the historical evidence of things like Obamacare registry as to how well government and indeed multiple governments and agencies are at integrating databases.
Anyway I think it is much less sinister than the story suggests. This isn't the movies where they have a grainy CC still that they match to a central database that comes back with a match in 30 seconds. That is fiction. People overestimate the capabilities of what government is able to realistically do. Much like the movies showing satellite imagery following individual people etc... The technology isn't there, let alone the coordination and infrastructure required to do so.
Is it interesting to note? Sure, but not all that surprising. Indeed look at the wording. Law enforcement have "access" and FBI are "allowed"... There are a lot of spectrum to "access", I have "access" to a lot of things that is neither easy, convenient, or useful. Similarly, I am "allowed" to access a lot of things that I wouldn't bother with due to the previous criteria. Anyway I have seen enough IT reality in my day to make me very unworried about this being anything more than it is. A bunch of independent databases that by law allow for lawful access by law enforcement for a variety of reasons, but most of which is probably not used at least not in the suggested "real time" fashion due to the lack of real capability.
I've been in a situation where I was labeled a "keener" (and I suspect not hired back as a result of other staff input) because I was at work at least 30min or more early every day. However this was not by choice. Fact was all the other staff had cars and could show up whenever. At that point in my life I did not, and the only bus that would get me there on time (and not hours late) was early. I didn't do a whole lot, but when you're the only one there a lot you can get board and will do work simply to keep yourself occupied.
I've been in another situation at the other end of the spectrum, where a lot of the senior guys would get in daily pissing match about how late at night they stayed and how much they came in over the weekend to work. I did none of this. Was criticized a few times, where my response was if you want to pay me like you get paid (i.e. x2+) then sure I'll stay late and work weekends, until then I'll enjoy my evening and weekends thanks...
The #1 problem with Netflix is that they need to beg for Licencing. The Cable companies are already BIG, and so they throw their weight around. This is why you get that stupid VPN stuff with Netflix because you cannot use certain content in certain countries because the Cable owns all the rights. When content creators were initially selling content, it was simply seen as another new revenue stream. Then when it started getting big they all now want a cut of the pie, and today you see all sorts of players. However even now, some of them are finding, usually because they not only want pie, but cake and eat it too, that tying subscription to also only their own customers, that well you limit your customers, fail to get enough subscribers, and start to fail (sorry for the run-on sentence). On top of that you have Netflix which is the most dominant and has the most established base to break into. Add to that the fact that in the last several years they have invested heavily into their own content, which makes them less dependent on the content providers themselves... Anyway to finish the thought, is that if they continue to do this year over year and get BIG enough, the shoe will be on the other foot and they will have content creators begging THEM to be allowed to licence deals to stream their content over their service... However just as Netflix is established as a streaming service, so are the Cable companies and content creators, it will be some time before any of this flips in the other direction.
Well to be fair, usually those that are identified as the first 4 are also the last 2 also... It's kinda slightly odd actually. So when the Clinton spin doctors are at work it is probably a pretty easy thing to simply muddy the waters a bit on that and a lot of people might just make the natural assumption. It has always boggled my mind why Clinton somehow has the Black vote for some reason. Not really saying that Trump would be all that better for the Black community, just not sure why Clinton seemingly gets a free pass.
Also I seem to recall, that Trumps dad might have been racist, in that I recall hearing a story about refusal of Black tenants in buildings he owned. Sins of the Father etc,,, Not that is really fair, but again once the spin is on it...
This issue is being blown out of proportion. You have the right to vote. You have the right to free speech. You don't have a right to have people work with/for you or your services.
Considering that A) I've never heard of "Project Include" and B) Y Combinator as mentioned in the same article is one of the biggest and most successful supporter of start ups, it seems to me that all they are doing is shooting themselves in the proverbial foot. They don't have to do business with anyone they don't want to.
If anything this is a PR stunt to try to bring "awareness" to their cause, however I'm not sure that it is shining them in the holy light they think it is.
Had a friend start a company. She was looking to brand herself as empowering women in a men dominated industry by hiring all women and wanted to not only advertise and broadcast that fact but get grants for said same purpose.
Not wanting to get into an argument I simply said to watch what she said or how explicit she was as I'm pretty sure that doing so isn't exactly legal.
I've noticed it elsewhere as well, where over the past several years the pendulum has swung in the totally other direction. Where almost all management and most hires are women now. Is this the end result of affirmative action, or just the other side of unconscious decision making processes where women start to outnumber men in manager (hiring) roles?
1) Not surprised. As soon as they started waiving the Russian "Hacking" flag around like it was something out of the Matrix I immediately postulated that the DNC were taken in by very usual and mundane means common to anyone that actually has an internet connection. 2) Considering the numbers, supposedly 20% and 25% of people fell for the scam, which really doesn't give you a lot of confidence in not only their "security acumen", but also just in their basic intelligence. You might do better with a random set of people. Cyber warfare campaign aside, there are a lot of other technology policy issues you really don't want someone who clicks on every attachment given to them to have power over. 3) That said, if the RNC were targeted I'm not sure they would have fared any better, likely worse, so it is a bit of a moot point I guess in general.
Only in China. Perhaps they should have phrased the missions objectives a bit better.
Mission Control:"OK were ready for you to put you into orbit and conduct some tests!" Human Meat/Astronaut: "What tests will we be doing in orbit?" Mission Control: "Well you'll be the first to test our life support systems for the greater glory of China and the Party!" Human Meat/Astronaut: "What are the test parameters? Are we to adjust the climate control for efficiency?" Mission Control: "Well if you die, we'll know it isn't ready to support life yet, and that we still have some bugs to work out!" Human Meat/Astronaut: "..." Mission Control: "What?" Human Meat/Astronaut: "ACHOO! I think I have some sniffles coming on..."
Agreed. It is all part of the political/media spin machine.
You could make the same arguments about Trump and all his recent scandals. Was anybody really surprised?
OMG he is a sexist egoist and behaves horribly!
I think everyone knew this well before he was even a candidate. I mean he ran the Miss America contests for years. Does anyone really believe those are about empowerment.
OMG he's a Billionaire that doesn't pay taxes! Like those are rare. To quote fictional Bill Gates in the Simpsons "I didn't get rich writing checks"...
Anyway all these "revelations" for both candidates are really nothing new to anyone really, other than perhaps some details.
First most of this story is ridiculous for a variety of reasons. However what I found most disturbing is the accusation that Wikileaks is now working for the Russians to hack the USA. Really? For real? OK I get it that the US is pissed about the leaking of embarrassing ambassadorial private messages, and images of the US military seemingly killing civilians at will. Oh no wait, it's Sweden wanting Assange on rape changes from years ago. Nope, its that he is a Russian saboteur... Seemingly justice is dead, and the US is willing to use whatever excuse they can throw towards their ends. That is scary stuff. Do I or anyone else really believe that Wikileaks is working with Russia to coordinate cyber attacks on the US? Nope. Please.
Second, "Former", "Acting".... So this guy making the accusations, isn't anybody, and when he was somebody, it was only temporary. Great credentials to cite.
This has been an issue pretty much everywhere where enhanced social programs exist. Not sure what the solution is unfortunately. I know locally in my area there has been an influx of methadone clinics over the last several years. While it is probably good that heroin addicts have a place to get help, it has also seemingly drawn more heroin addicts to the region and all that that entails.
I think part of the issue, at least in this case is that the clinic are largely unregulated. While I am sure the decision to locate in specific locations is influenced by the location of their clients, it is probably also influenced by mundane things like taxes, rental/lease/building costs. Which means setting up in the big cities where many addicts might be located is probably pretty expensive to do, while setting up in neighboring smaller cities easier due to the costs involved. However that has the net result of drawing the problems from the big city, to the smaller city which other than the clinics may be ill prepared to deal with the spin-off effects.
The bottom line is these efforts done as one offs by specific regions to ease a local issue, or private enterprise filling a role as needed, do not really have the larger picture in mind. That would require more regulation and a centralized body to coordinate efforts to best solve the issues that are trying to be resolved. That isn't to say that it wouldn't have some of the same problems, but it would likely be more effective, and may eliminate much of the social program migration that seems to happen.
Well March isn't that much of a stretch or a limb. March is easily the most obviously likely time for a tech crash to happen. March 31st being the end of fiscal reporting period when companies, corporations, etc... all do their end of fiscal reporting. Seeing that bubble tend to last as long as possible to the last minute when they finally pop, that would put it firmly in March particularly if you have companies trying to save face for Q1.
As to 2017, who knows. I went into Computer Science and graduated just prior to the last bubble, which sucked.
That said this isn't exactly like last time. This time the layoffs are in big old gigantic corporations that have been around forever, were built up on one product, expended into everything, and have been collapsing under their own weight for a very long time now after failing to innovate and being surpassed by other more competitive companies. In most cases the layoffs are all part of restructuring deals as they spinoff and sell the undesirable departments to others hoping to pick the bones clean (and in some cases are just buying IP and assets, not working employees).
Well both of those things probably attributed to the issue, I think this probably has more to do with profitability and short term stock returns than any actual "trend" in PC sales.
I heard very recently that HP was spinning off the most profitable part of the company into another one. I've heard that the largest investor of HP with something like a 6% stake is suing the company because he will be with the with the less profitable PC and Printer business which is being held up by the other. This could be simply a way to make the company look more profitable in the short term so the CEO doesn't get sued for hobbling the company's share prices.
Tried looking for the news online, but can't find it... It could be that HP has just been sued so many times and that this is very recent news so it is like a needle in a online haystack.
Reminds me of the whole Sealand thing. Regardless of the novelty of space, the bottom line is unless other nations recognize you as a nation, you're not a nation. Heck there are plenty of contemporary examples of actual physical land areas for various political reasons call themselves independent or a nation, which arn't recognized by anyone. Then there are those that are by some nations but not by others, some for decades! So I don't hold out a lot of hope for the land of Thor...
I suspect regardless of corporate ownership the "legalities" involved have more to do with where you are physically located as you need to follow the law of the country where you operate.
That said the only thing that might make that even more confusing is if you worked for the US company and telecommuted from the UK... I suspect you would still be subject to US labor laws at that point, but I'm even less sure of that situation!
They are probably just being thorough. Most FOI legislation I've seen is horribly ambiguous and vague, usually intentionally so. However those kinds of requests *do* come in, and then what do you do? I've seen asks for entire databases and applications. At least this way there is some direction, and even the latitude to refuse in certain reasonable situations.
Second, if the French government is anything like most governments, they write very little code themselves. It is all done by contracted vendors. In some cases the government may insist on owning all IP. In other cases the IP will be owned by the company or contractor involved, which will likely make it unattainable anyway.
Lastly there are plenty of examples where this *should* be the case, and that people need to be able to FOI source code in certain situations. Sometimes perhaps even *if* the IP is not fully owned by the government. A perfect example was a few years back in Florida with breathalyzers used by law enforcement. There was a class action law suit there where people wanted access to the source code because many felt that the readings and the software used to generate them were complete BS. After some time, where the company involved invoked "trade secrets", and was eventually fined everyday they didn't produce the code, had to produce it for review. As it turns out it was a complete POS and it had implications on untold number of probably legitimate and illegitimate DUI legal cases. While that was a private company, I can still think of a number of systems, applications, algorithms used to make decisions on a number of things that people may want to review, mostly probably for how well it is working and how fair it is to everyone involved.
Anyway all this shows is France is being progressive insofar as FOI is concerned and keeping up with the times we currently live in...
Ah. didn't think of that (and didn't RTFA)... They probably don't count component sales into their calculations. So they are basically counting DELL's. Like you I haven't bought a "PC" for a long time, the last was a Dell Dimension 4200 P800Mhz boat anchor back in probably 2000. So that is a bit misleading.
Not really counting any issues arising from smart phone penetration, there are plenty of other unrelated reasons for slow PC sales. First and foremost is that A) many don't require additional power and B) even if they did the difference from cycle to cycle is diminishing anyway. Probably the other most influential factor is the Microsoft Windows debacle since Windows 7, and a reluctance of uses to buy a new PC with who knows what on it. Case in point, most corporate entities lease their PC's on a refresh cycle. I know in many large cases, this being lengthened by a year or two due to frankly a lack of need, and then additionally because of corporate IT support structures scared as hell to move tens of thousands of uses from Windows 7 to 8, or 8.1, and now 10 (and trying to support them all). I know from personal experience trying to mitigate applications that no longer work because of a move off of Windows 7 and onto one of the afore mentioned OS.
Bean counters. I've had this argument for years now with corporate (while not as extreme as yours). Most corporate assets I've seen are leases, so you only really look at annual cost. Compare that to what your salary is. If that is your primary tool to do your job, what is a couple thousand dollars extra if it increases your productivity by even 5%, hell if it even make you a slightly happier less frustrated employee? Never mind when say you are supporting many millions of dollars worth of systems and data. But, hey never mind lets make you use this 5$ wrench, so we'll save a few bucks, that makes sense.
Like most of what Clinton says, much of it is simply misdirection and plausibility deniability.
Its it plausible that Russians are involved on the DNC hack? Sure it is. Why? Well unless you live in a shoe, over the last 10 years Russia has probably spawned more hackers than just about anywhere else, with possibly the exception of China. Do they work for the actual Russian government? Very unlikely. Heck if they accused Chinese hackers, it would probably be at least a little more likely that they are state sponsored. If there is any truth to the claim at all, it is the usual BS of an insufficiently protected server being extorted by private individuals for profit. At any rate this way she can "accuse" Russia for the spectacle against Trump, then later "find" out that these were really just Russia punks working on their own to try and extort cash. Then she might seem "reasonable" for her previous claims about the government of Russia and all is forgiven.
Movies supposedly "Lose" billions in dollars every year barely breaking even. Just ask Peter Jackson, the Tolkin estate, or any of the actors who were supposed to get 5% of the profits, not only from the movies, but merchandise etc... The films easily made billions (from all revenue sources), yet using "certain accounting practices" was able to claim "horrendous losses" and no profit at all. I expect in addition to cheating people out of contracted money, it is also counted towards a large tax dodge.
I expect the same is the case with Trumps $916M "loss"... Simply a line on an accounting ledger that argues that he no longer has to pay taxes ever again.
First, I read the article on FB the other day, is Slashdot mining it for stories now? At any rate my first impression was simply that there is a general lack of understanding and oversimplification of what "Science Fiction" is. Generally speaking it is given a set genre that *everything* falls into. It is actually a very large and broad category of genres. Atwood's words about rocket ships and the like I think was her trying to indicate that her work doesn't fall into the same type of work that might be commonly associated with the science fiction name. I've read an awful lot of science fiction of all types, and there are a lot of differences. Some of which are high art, others perhaps more guilty pulp. Comparing say "hard" science fiction to "space opera" science fiction is foolish, they are just too different. Heck even space opera could be divided into original and derivative works (i.e. star wars, star trek, etc...). I've found that many of my favorites, and most of the more highly acclaimed (with a few epic exceptions, Dune for example) pieces of science fiction, particularly older works (there does seem to be a lot more modern "trash" which folks like Atwood would want to distance themselves from), but some modern examples, take a singular theme or idea, and then expand on that until a "final" conclusion. Usually a "what if" type of thought experiment, such as the possible effect of clones on society, or instantaneous travel for a civilization etc...
Second, the awards specific to science fiction have been severely messed up for many years now with infighting and political garbage, not only among writers, but critics, and fans... So I could see that whole morass lending itself to the general problem of science fiction authors not really feeling appreciated all the time (other than simply getting paid for sales etc...). However awards do probably have some influence on that as well. One last thought is that certain types of science fiction do lend themselves very well (and indeed started out as) to political discourse. Which by their very nature can be divisive and cause conflict for people of all types (readers, critics, authors, etc...) and if they are left or right leaning, or whatever political stripe they might happen to be or even on certain polarizing topics. Indeed, if one were to lump most authors into a group it would be pretty leftish, whereas within the science fiction field there is also a larger number or folks that are of the right political spectrum, or explore it in a satirical sense. Stories of dystopian futures for example. "WE" regarded as the first in that class was written by a Russian in very much a form of political dissent.
So in summary, as a genre "science fiction" is an oversimplification of a complex group of genres, many of which due to they very nature cause political conflict amoungst it's readership making any kind of awards difficult and complex to determine as recent history has shown.
I expect it is both. Particularly in this day in age where everyone has a camera and can shoot a video.
Body cameras are as much for police to protect themselves from biased video. When both sides are taping it is hard to only show your "side" of the confrontation.
There was an example in Canada a year or so ago where a Native individual was protesting at a public military funeral. His comrades showed him being taken down forcibly by police. He says he was simply politely waving his flag in protest. Of course the video doesn't show the lead up to the police action, only the result. Leaving you with only one side of the story. Personally I doubt that is what actually occurred, however that is all the public gets to see, and what the police have to then justify...
Slashdot Mirror
I expect it was less a "Cult" and more about being set up for failure.
Being asked to do something unrealistic, then on analysis coming up with the best option, then being told by Management to do something else, the team probably looked at the situation, realized they were being set up for eventual failure and rather than following through to the enviable conclusion decided to cut their losses and start looking for more rewarding work elsewhere.
In the end it was likely known that Management would throw them under the bus eventually and rather than being briefly associated with a failed project and tarnished reputations a better option was to simply move on.
Reminds me of the Delta airlines story of a few months ago. They had similar systems, yet the whole thing went down shutting Delta down for a couple days. I believe the investigation found similar results with Management making decisions that ultimately compromised the system, where a backup generator catching fire essentially took it all down...
OK reading even the summary seems to refute the inflammatory title.
It isn't quite as George Orwellian as it sounds. Half of Americans are in facial-recognition databaseS. Meaning multiple, not one central uber repository. Also how is facial-recognition defined? Does that mean the databases have the ability to scan and match, or just that that databases have photos of peoples faces? Think DMV etc...
Now think about the technical difficulty involved in trying to query what must be hundreds of unconnected databases. Now add the historical evidence of things like Obamacare registry as to how well government and indeed multiple governments and agencies are at integrating databases.
Anyway I think it is much less sinister than the story suggests. This isn't the movies where they have a grainy CC still that they match to a central database that comes back with a match in 30 seconds. That is fiction. People overestimate the capabilities of what government is able to realistically do. Much like the movies showing satellite imagery following individual people etc... The technology isn't there, let alone the coordination and infrastructure required to do so.
Is it interesting to note? Sure, but not all that surprising. Indeed look at the wording. Law enforcement have "access" and FBI are "allowed"... There are a lot of spectrum to "access", I have "access" to a lot of things that is neither easy, convenient, or useful. Similarly, I am "allowed" to access a lot of things that I wouldn't bother with due to the previous criteria. Anyway I have seen enough IT reality in my day to make me very unworried about this being anything more than it is. A bunch of independent databases that by law allow for lawful access by law enforcement for a variety of reasons, but most of which is probably not used at least not in the suggested "real time" fashion due to the lack of real capability.
I've had both.
I've been in a situation where I was labeled a "keener" (and I suspect not hired back as a result of other staff input) because I was at work at least 30min or more early every day. However this was not by choice. Fact was all the other staff had cars and could show up whenever. At that point in my life I did not, and the only bus that would get me there on time (and not hours late) was early. I didn't do a whole lot, but when you're the only one there a lot you can get board and will do work simply to keep yourself occupied.
I've been in another situation at the other end of the spectrum, where a lot of the senior guys would get in daily pissing match about how late at night they stayed and how much they came in over the weekend to work. I did none of this. Was criticized a few times, where my response was if you want to pay me like you get paid (i.e. x2+) then sure I'll stay late and work weekends, until then I'll enjoy my evening and weekends thanks...
Netflix's long term game is to get BIG.
The #1 problem with Netflix is that they need to beg for Licencing. The Cable companies are already BIG, and so they throw their weight around. This is why you get that stupid VPN stuff with Netflix because you cannot use certain content in certain countries because the Cable owns all the rights. When content creators were initially selling content, it was simply seen as another new revenue stream. Then when it started getting big they all now want a cut of the pie, and today you see all sorts of players. However even now, some of them are finding, usually because they not only want pie, but cake and eat it too, that tying subscription to also only their own customers, that well you limit your customers, fail to get enough subscribers, and start to fail (sorry for the run-on sentence). On top of that you have Netflix which is the most dominant and has the most established base to break into. Add to that the fact that in the last several years they have invested heavily into their own content, which makes them less dependent on the content providers themselves... Anyway to finish the thought, is that if they continue to do this year over year and get BIG enough, the shoe will be on the other foot and they will have content creators begging THEM to be allowed to licence deals to stream their content over their service... However just as Netflix is established as a streaming service, so are the Cable companies and content creators, it will be some time before any of this flips in the other direction.
Well to be fair, usually those that are identified as the first 4 are also the last 2 also... It's kinda slightly odd actually. So when the Clinton spin doctors are at work it is probably a pretty easy thing to simply muddy the waters a bit on that and a lot of people might just make the natural assumption. It has always boggled my mind why Clinton somehow has the Black vote for some reason. Not really saying that Trump would be all that better for the Black community, just not sure why Clinton seemingly gets a free pass.
Also I seem to recall, that Trumps dad might have been racist, in that I recall hearing a story about refusal of Black tenants in buildings he owned. Sins of the Father etc,,, Not that is really fair, but again once the spin is on it...
Meh.
This issue is being blown out of proportion. You have the right to vote. You have the right to free speech. You don't have a right to have people work with/for you or your services.
Considering that A) I've never heard of "Project Include" and B) Y Combinator as mentioned in the same article is one of the biggest and most successful supporter of start ups, it seems to me that all they are doing is shooting themselves in the proverbial foot. They don't have to do business with anyone they don't want to.
If anything this is a PR stunt to try to bring "awareness" to their cause, however I'm not sure that it is shining them in the holy light they think it is.
Had a friend start a company. She was looking to brand herself as empowering women in a men dominated industry by hiring all women and wanted to not only advertise and broadcast that fact but get grants for said same purpose.
Not wanting to get into an argument I simply said to watch what she said or how explicit she was as I'm pretty sure that doing so isn't exactly legal.
I've noticed it elsewhere as well, where over the past several years the pendulum has swung in the totally other direction. Where almost all management and most hires are women now. Is this the end result of affirmative action, or just the other side of unconscious decision making processes where women start to outnumber men in manager (hiring) roles?
1) Not surprised. As soon as they started waiving the Russian "Hacking" flag around like it was something out of the Matrix I immediately postulated that the DNC were taken in by very usual and mundane means common to anyone that actually has an internet connection.
2) Considering the numbers, supposedly 20% and 25% of people fell for the scam, which really doesn't give you a lot of confidence in not only their "security acumen", but also just in their basic intelligence. You might do better with a random set of people. Cyber warfare campaign aside, there are a lot of other technology policy issues you really don't want someone who clicks on every attachment given to them to have power over.
3) That said, if the RNC were targeted I'm not sure they would have fared any better, likely worse, so it is a bit of a moot point I guess in general.
Yikes!
Only in China. Perhaps they should have phrased the missions objectives a bit better.
Mission Control:"OK were ready for you to put you into orbit and conduct some tests!"
Human Meat/Astronaut: "What tests will we be doing in orbit?"
Mission Control: "Well you'll be the first to test our life support systems for the greater glory of China and the Party!"
Human Meat/Astronaut: "What are the test parameters? Are we to adjust the climate control for efficiency?"
Mission Control: "Well if you die, we'll know it isn't ready to support life yet, and that we still have some bugs to work out!"
Human Meat/Astronaut: "..."
Mission Control: "What?"
Human Meat/Astronaut: "ACHOO! I think I have some sniffles coming on..."
Agreed. It is all part of the political/media spin machine.
You could make the same arguments about Trump and all his recent scandals. Was anybody really surprised?
OMG he is a sexist egoist and behaves horribly!
I think everyone knew this well before he was even a candidate. I mean he ran the Miss America contests for years. Does anyone really believe those are about empowerment.
OMG he's a Billionaire that doesn't pay taxes! Like those are rare. To quote fictional Bill Gates in the Simpsons "I didn't get rich writing checks"...
Anyway all these "revelations" for both candidates are really nothing new to anyone really, other than perhaps some details.
OK several things.
First most of this story is ridiculous for a variety of reasons. However what I found most disturbing is the accusation that Wikileaks is now working for the Russians to hack the USA. Really? For real? OK I get it that the US is pissed about the leaking of embarrassing ambassadorial private messages, and images of the US military seemingly killing civilians at will. Oh no wait, it's Sweden wanting Assange on rape changes from years ago. Nope, its that he is a Russian saboteur... Seemingly justice is dead, and the US is willing to use whatever excuse they can throw towards their ends. That is scary stuff. Do I or anyone else really believe that Wikileaks is working with Russia to coordinate cyber attacks on the US? Nope. Please.
Second, "Former", "Acting".... So this guy making the accusations, isn't anybody, and when he was somebody, it was only temporary. Great credentials to cite.
This has been an issue pretty much everywhere where enhanced social programs exist. Not sure what the solution is unfortunately. I know locally in my area there has been an influx of methadone clinics over the last several years. While it is probably good that heroin addicts have a place to get help, it has also seemingly drawn more heroin addicts to the region and all that that entails.
I think part of the issue, at least in this case is that the clinic are largely unregulated. While I am sure the decision to locate in specific locations is influenced by the location of their clients, it is probably also influenced by mundane things like taxes, rental/lease/building costs. Which means setting up in the big cities where many addicts might be located is probably pretty expensive to do, while setting up in neighboring smaller cities easier due to the costs involved. However that has the net result of drawing the problems from the big city, to the smaller city which other than the clinics may be ill prepared to deal with the spin-off effects.
The bottom line is these efforts done as one offs by specific regions to ease a local issue, or private enterprise filling a role as needed, do not really have the larger picture in mind. That would require more regulation and a centralized body to coordinate efforts to best solve the issues that are trying to be resolved. That isn't to say that it wouldn't have some of the same problems, but it would likely be more effective, and may eliminate much of the social program migration that seems to happen.
Well March isn't that much of a stretch or a limb. March is easily the most obviously likely time for a tech crash to happen. March 31st being the end of fiscal reporting period when companies, corporations, etc... all do their end of fiscal reporting. Seeing that bubble tend to last as long as possible to the last minute when they finally pop, that would put it firmly in March particularly if you have companies trying to save face for Q1.
As to 2017, who knows. I went into Computer Science and graduated just prior to the last bubble, which sucked.
That said this isn't exactly like last time. This time the layoffs are in big old gigantic corporations that have been around forever, were built up on one product, expended into everything, and have been collapsing under their own weight for a very long time now after failing to innovate and being surpassed by other more competitive companies. In most cases the layoffs are all part of restructuring deals as they spinoff and sell the undesirable departments to others hoping to pick the bones clean (and in some cases are just buying IP and assets, not working employees).
Well both of those things probably attributed to the issue, I think this probably has more to do with profitability and short term stock returns than any actual "trend" in PC sales.
I heard very recently that HP was spinning off the most profitable part of the company into another one. I've heard that the largest investor of HP with something like a 6% stake is suing the company because he will be with the with the less profitable PC and Printer business which is being held up by the other. This could be simply a way to make the company look more profitable in the short term so the CEO doesn't get sued for hobbling the company's share prices.
Tried looking for the news online, but can't find it... It could be that HP has just been sued so many times and that this is very recent news so it is like a needle in a online haystack.
Unfortunately the only response it gives is that it is "short and stout"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Reminds me of the whole Sealand thing. Regardless of the novelty of space, the bottom line is unless other nations recognize you as a nation, you're not a nation. Heck there are plenty of contemporary examples of actual physical land areas for various political reasons call themselves independent or a nation, which arn't recognized by anyone. Then there are those that are by some nations but not by others, some for decades! So I don't hold out a lot of hope for the land of Thor...
I suspect regardless of corporate ownership the "legalities" involved have more to do with where you are physically located as you need to follow the law of the country where you operate.
That said the only thing that might make that even more confusing is if you worked for the US company and telecommuted from the UK... I suspect you would still be subject to US labor laws at that point, but I'm even less sure of that situation!
So a couple of things.
They are probably just being thorough. Most FOI legislation I've seen is horribly ambiguous and vague, usually intentionally so. However those kinds of requests *do* come in, and then what do you do? I've seen asks for entire databases and applications. At least this way there is some direction, and even the latitude to refuse in certain reasonable situations.
Second, if the French government is anything like most governments, they write very little code themselves. It is all done by contracted vendors. In some cases the government may insist on owning all IP. In other cases the IP will be owned by the company or contractor involved, which will likely make it unattainable anyway.
Lastly there are plenty of examples where this *should* be the case, and that people need to be able to FOI source code in certain situations. Sometimes perhaps even *if* the IP is not fully owned by the government. A perfect example was a few years back in Florida with breathalyzers used by law enforcement. There was a class action law suit there where people wanted access to the source code because many felt that the readings and the software used to generate them were complete BS. After some time, where the company involved invoked "trade secrets", and was eventually fined everyday they didn't produce the code, had to produce it for review. As it turns out it was a complete POS and it had implications on untold number of probably legitimate and illegitimate DUI legal cases. While that was a private company, I can still think of a number of systems, applications, algorithms used to make decisions on a number of things that people may want to review, mostly probably for how well it is working and how fair it is to everyone involved.
Anyway all this shows is France is being progressive insofar as FOI is concerned and keeping up with the times we currently live in...
Ah. didn't think of that (and didn't RTFA)... They probably don't count component sales into their calculations. So they are basically counting DELL's. Like you I haven't bought a "PC" for a long time, the last was a Dell Dimension 4200 P800Mhz boat anchor back in probably 2000. So that is a bit misleading.
Not really counting any issues arising from smart phone penetration, there are plenty of other unrelated reasons for slow PC sales. First and foremost is that A) many don't require additional power and B) even if they did the difference from cycle to cycle is diminishing anyway. Probably the other most influential factor is the Microsoft Windows debacle since Windows 7, and a reluctance of uses to buy a new PC with who knows what on it. Case in point, most corporate entities lease their PC's on a refresh cycle. I know in many large cases, this being lengthened by a year or two due to frankly a lack of need, and then additionally because of corporate IT support structures scared as hell to move tens of thousands of uses from Windows 7 to 8, or 8.1, and now 10 (and trying to support them all). I know from personal experience trying to mitigate applications that no longer work because of a move off of Windows 7 and onto one of the afore mentioned OS.
Bean counters. I've had this argument for years now with corporate (while not as extreme as yours). Most corporate assets I've seen are leases, so you only really look at annual cost. Compare that to what your salary is. If that is your primary tool to do your job, what is a couple thousand dollars extra if it increases your productivity by even 5%, hell if it even make you a slightly happier less frustrated employee? Never mind when say you are supporting many millions of dollars worth of systems and data. But, hey never mind lets make you use this 5$ wrench, so we'll save a few bucks, that makes sense.
Like most of what Clinton says, much of it is simply misdirection and plausibility deniability.
Its it plausible that Russians are involved on the DNC hack? Sure it is. Why? Well unless you live in a shoe, over the last 10 years Russia has probably spawned more hackers than just about anywhere else, with possibly the exception of China. Do they work for the actual Russian government? Very unlikely. Heck if they accused Chinese hackers, it would probably be at least a little more likely that they are state sponsored. If there is any truth to the claim at all, it is the usual BS of an insufficiently protected server being extorted by private individuals for profit. At any rate this way she can "accuse" Russia for the spectacle against Trump, then later "find" out that these were really just Russia punks working on their own to try and extort cash. Then she might seem "reasonable" for her previous claims about the government of Russia and all is forgiven.
Movies supposedly "Lose" billions in dollars every year barely breaking even. Just ask Peter Jackson, the Tolkin estate, or any of the actors who were supposed to get 5% of the profits, not only from the movies, but merchandise etc... The films easily made billions (from all revenue sources), yet using "certain accounting practices" was able to claim "horrendous losses" and no profit at all. I expect in addition to cheating people out of contracted money, it is also counted towards a large tax dodge.
I expect the same is the case with Trumps $916M "loss"... Simply a line on an accounting ledger that argues that he no longer has to pay taxes ever again.
First, I read the article on FB the other day, is Slashdot mining it for stories now? At any rate my first impression was simply that there is a general lack of understanding and oversimplification of what "Science Fiction" is. Generally speaking it is given a set genre that *everything* falls into. It is actually a very large and broad category of genres. Atwood's words about rocket ships and the like I think was her trying to indicate that her work doesn't fall into the same type of work that might be commonly associated with the science fiction name. I've read an awful lot of science fiction of all types, and there are a lot of differences. Some of which are high art, others perhaps more guilty pulp. Comparing say "hard" science fiction to "space opera" science fiction is foolish, they are just too different. Heck even space opera could be divided into original and derivative works (i.e. star wars, star trek, etc...). I've found that many of my favorites, and most of the more highly acclaimed (with a few epic exceptions, Dune for example) pieces of science fiction, particularly older works (there does seem to be a lot more modern "trash" which folks like Atwood would want to distance themselves from), but some modern examples, take a singular theme or idea, and then expand on that until a "final" conclusion. Usually a "what if" type of thought experiment, such as the possible effect of clones on society, or instantaneous travel for a civilization etc...
Second, the awards specific to science fiction have been severely messed up for many years now with infighting and political garbage, not only among writers, but critics, and fans... So I could see that whole morass lending itself to the general problem of science fiction authors not really feeling appreciated all the time (other than simply getting paid for sales etc...). However awards do probably have some influence on that as well. One last thought is that certain types of science fiction do lend themselves very well (and indeed started out as) to political discourse. Which by their very nature can be divisive and cause conflict for people of all types (readers, critics, authors, etc...) and if they are left or right leaning, or whatever political stripe they might happen to be or even on certain polarizing topics. Indeed, if one were to lump most authors into a group it would be pretty leftish, whereas within the science fiction field there is also a larger number or folks that are of the right political spectrum, or explore it in a satirical sense. Stories of dystopian futures for example. "WE" regarded as the first in that class was written by a Russian in very much a form of political dissent.
So in summary, as a genre "science fiction" is an oversimplification of a complex group of genres, many of which due to they very nature cause political conflict amoungst it's readership making any kind of awards difficult and complex to determine as recent history has shown.
I expect it is both. Particularly in this day in age where everyone has a camera and can shoot a video.
Body cameras are as much for police to protect themselves from biased video. When both sides are taping it is hard to only show your "side" of the confrontation.
There was an example in Canada a year or so ago where a Native individual was protesting at a public military funeral. His comrades showed him being taken down forcibly by police. He says he was simply politely waving his flag in protest. Of course the video doesn't show the lead up to the police action, only the result. Leaving you with only one side of the story. Personally I doubt that is what actually occurred, however that is all the public gets to see, and what the police have to then justify...