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User: tepples

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  1. Encrypted /home on AT&T Chooses Ubuntu Linux Instead of Microsoft Windows (betanews.com) · · Score: 1

    It doesn't have separate OS and data storage?

    Even if it did, the data storage is encrypted, and the master key for the volume changes when the device is switched between developer mode and not-developer mode.

  2. Press space to wipe and reenable OS verification on AT&T Chooses Ubuntu Linux Instead of Microsoft Windows (betanews.com) · · Score: 1

    Chrome OS by default is locked down not to run any app other than the Chrome web browser. If you put it in developer mode to install Crouton (a chroot with GNU and X11), it'll beg you every time it starts up to reenable operating system verification, which wipes the entire drive. Most other PC operating systems allow someone with physical access to wipe the drive but don't exactly encourage it. So you'd need to keep reinstallation media handy at all times and never save files to internal storage.

  3. GNU's Not UNIX on AT&T Chooses Ubuntu Linux Instead of Microsoft Windows (betanews.com) · · Score: 1

    Especially because GNU's Not UNIX. As far as I can tell, OS X is the only widely used desktop operating system to be certified as a UNIX® system.

  4. Laptops vs. desktops on AT&T Chooses Ubuntu Linux Instead of Microsoft Windows (betanews.com) · · Score: 1

    GNU/Linux on servers and desktops has been so smooth since, let's be conservative, 2012

    Servers yes. Desktops yes. Purpose-built laptops yes (source: System76). Random laptops not so much, as a lot of manufacturers of laptops that ship with Windows cut corners by using chipsets for which one or more of audio, WLAN, or suspend is unsupported on Linux.

  5. 10 LET M$ = "Microsoft" on AT&T Chooses Ubuntu Linux Instead of Microsoft Windows (betanews.com) · · Score: 1

    M$ is a callback to its origin as a publisher of BASIC interpreters. In the line number era, before Dim ... As String, all string variables' names ended with a dollar sign.
    10 LET M$ = "Microsoft"
    20 PRINT M$;" introduces Windows"
    30 END

  6. Small bias-motivated rudenesses on The President Wants Every Student To Learn CS. How Would That Work? (npr.org) · · Score: 2

    I am all for giving women equal opportunity to enter Computer Science but beyond that I see no advantage. Why are we forcing people into careers that they do not want to do

    Perhaps it's to change the underlying culture that makes people in groups with a history of systemic disadvantage "not want to do" certain jobs. There could be a background level of small bias-motivated rudenesses that build up over time.

  7. Re:Cultures and time zones on The President Wants Every Student To Learn CS. How Would That Work? (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    Bof. If they won't work nights there's plenty of others.

    The practicality of finding said "plenty of others" depends on the tools available to match outsourcing clients with service providers.

    Third, the field of use needs to be one where sending information out of country does not pose an unacceptable privacy risk.

    Whose privacy? Whose risk?

    End users A, B, and C buy products or services from company D, who in turn buys programming services from E. Mishandling of information belonging to D by E could compromise the privacy of the personally identifying information, health information, or other legally privileged information about A, B, and C that D holds on behalf of A, B, and C. Some privacy laws provide for greater penalties if D and E are in different countries. The risk is that A, B, and C would sue the living intercourse out of D in case of a breach, or for especially privileged (think military) information, in case of information leaving the country at all.

  8. Mile wide, inch deep on The President Wants Every Student To Learn CS. How Would That Work? (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    Most people live quite well without calculus.

    In fact, people live so well without calculus that they pay a dental hygienist to scrape it off their teeth twice a year.

    Differential calculus: Rate of tartar growth over time
    Integral calculus: Area between gumline and tartar line

    But seriously:

    CS will work the same way. Some people will have talent and some won't. Those who don't will stop taking CS after "Introduction to CS"

    But once you fill the entire high school schedule with "Introduction to" every field of study, you end up with a populace whose knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep. They may prove unable to start working to save up for college without metaignorance plaguing their work.

  9. Make sorting look like a game on The President Wants Every Student To Learn CS. How Would That Work? (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    Play a game of 52 card pickup. Then demonstrate bubble sort, selection sort, insertion sort, binary radix sort ("above or below 7?"), quicksort, merge sort (you take half and I'll take half), and American flag sort (stack all the 3's, stack all the 7's, etc.) physically.

  10. This is just as clueless as Nancy Pelosi telling everyone to go out and be Writers Living on Welfare. Wow.

    Was this intended as a slam against Patreon and other means of Internet patronage?

  11. Cultures and time zones on The President Wants Every Student To Learn CS. How Would That Work? (npr.org) · · Score: 2

    Computer programming is a labour intensive job that can be done from anywhere.

    With a few provisos. First, the cultures need to match closely enough to minimize loss of information when communicating requirements. Second, the time zones need to match closely enough for clarifications and change requests to be communicated in a timely manner. Third, the field of use needs to be one where sending information out of country does not pose an unacceptable privacy risk.

  12. Chemistry too? on The President Wants Every Student To Learn CS. How Would That Work? (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    Is "reactionary" a bad word now? I thought we were supposed to be teaching chemistry alongside computer science, not suppressing it.

  13. Avoid mkt domination by "mother may I program?" HW on The President Wants Every Student To Learn CS. How Would That Work? (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    More to the point, promoting CS for everyone is just a way for the pols to claim they are somehow in tune with the current economy.

    Either that or it's a means of ensuring a market for computing devices designed to run homemade software, as opposed to iDevices and game consoles where you have to seek the manufacturer's permission (which may be denied for any reason or no reason) in order to program them.

  14. Re:Some dreams don't count on The President Wants Every Student To Learn CS. How Would That Work? (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    Remember [gender inequality in politics] next time a politician claims "a long historic discrimination in the areas of gender".

    Even if the next paragraph is to the effect "That's something that should be fixed in politics as well; let's expand political science classes"?

  15. Re:The Mayans were Right! It's Global Warming! on Distant Supernova Is the Most Powerful Ever Detected (osu.edu) · · Score: 1

    But can they do the Kessel run in 12 parsecs?

    Depends on how smart the freighter's GPS (Galactic Positioning System) is at finding shortcuts.

  16. Re:Sanctions lifted ... on Iran Complies With Nuclear Deal; Sanctions Lifted (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Or to have one of the plane engines fall off and hit the ground, making a "Boeinggggg" noise.

  17. Sanders campaign's OCILLA mistake on China Targets 2018 For Landing Probe On Far Side of Moon (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    Hillary will really start feeling the Bern

    Until his staffers mistakenly DMCA his campaign website off the Internet, like they did with his Wikipedia article.

  18. Vista was more like Hubble on China Targets 2018 For Landing Probe On Far Side of Moon (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    Windows Vista was more like the Hubble Space Telescope. Both were launched successfully, usable in reduced functionality mode despite serious flaws, and ultimately repaired in the field. Hubble got a corrective lens, and Windows Vista got Service Pack 1 "Mojave".

  19. Dark in the sense of radio silence on China Targets 2018 For Landing Probe On Far Side of Moon (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    The far side is not always dark to sunlight, but it is dark to radio transmissions from Earth. Also "Darkest Peru" in the sense of unexplored wilderness.

  20. Who chose the names DRM and GCN? on Open Source Could Help Bring Vulkan To More AMD GPUs (phoronix.com) · · Score: 1

    The work involved would be porting GCN 1.0/1.1 support from the existing open-source Radeon DRM driver over to the new AMDGPU DRM driver.

    Who chose the name "Direct Rendering Manager" in the first place? Was it created before or after "Digital Rights Management"?

    And who chose the name "Graphics Core Next"? That was certainly years after the GameCube console was officially abbreviated GCN. Incidentally AMD bought the company (ATI) that bought the company (ArtX) that developed the Flipper GPU in the GameCube.

  21. Re:Things end up discontinued on Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 Reach End-of-Life Next Week (thenextweb.com) · · Score: 1

    LOL You've been bitching about that netbook thing for a couple of years now. (I'm assuming that's what your link goes to - I didn't click.)

    Yes. But mostly I was using it as an example of computing products that get discontinued because not enough other people demand it.

  22. Re:Fucking media companies on Geoblocking, Licensing, and Piracy Make For Tough Choices at Netflix (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    I think the next step is to 'fix', via some aspect of those agreements, the displays that are sold to the public so that unlicensed media can't be played.

    How would that work while preserving the functionality of the camcorder feature of an iPhone?

  23. Buy 1 view and let 999 go to waste on Big Trouble for Bitcoin (medium.com) · · Score: 1

    You'd just buy a block of 1000 views at once, for some fraction of a Bitcoin.

    But who would operate the network that sells blocks of 1000 views and pays sites? There used to be a network like that over ten years ago called Adult Check. But as far as I can gather from those articles about Adult Check that I could find, it got shut down when it couldn't afford to defend vicarious infringement lawsuits from the publisher of Perfect 10 magazine claiming that it aided and abetted the use of infringing copies of Perfect 10 photographs on sites that take Adult Check.

    Or did you mean that each end user would have to buy a block of 1000 views from each individual site? Then it would become impractical for a user to view one page through a search result or shared link, as the user would have to pay for 999 views on each site that end up going to waste.

  24. Re:Then what low-transaction-fee network? on Big Trouble for Bitcoin (medium.com) · · Score: 2

    If it has been shown that Bitcoin does not scale, and a fork would scale, then why is Bitcoin superior to said fork?

  25. Re:Then what low-transaction-fee network? on Big Trouble for Bitcoin (medium.com) · · Score: 2

    It's primary market is people that don't want government influence over their transactions.

    How much influence does the PRC government have over the two Chinese groups that control the majority of mining power?