Speaking of which, even Android is TiVo-ized, since you can't install your modified version of Android on your phone w/o breaking things
Just "breaking things" isn't what makes something Tivoized. It's when the system is designed to prevent executing custom or modified code through the use of something like digital signatures. A locked phone which normally runs a modified version of GNU/Linux and also refuses to execute code that isn't signed by the carrier would be an example of Tivoized hardware, but the Android software itself isn't Tivoized at all.
Well, I strongly prefer an UI like in Windows 7 and want to be in full control of updates.
I completely agree with you, but full control over updates is no longer a selling point of Windows 7. Microsoft has moved to a single monthly rollup package for Windows 7 which always includes all previous updates and is only all-or-nothing. So, for example, the November 2016 update that comes out next week will include all updates from the August 2016, September 2016, and October 2016 update packages.
It's a step backwards in every possible way and exists solely to make it easy for Microsoft to shove whatever updates they want down their users' throats. The Windows 10 GWX fiasco has taught them a valuable lesson about the dangers of consumer choice and giving users control over their computers.
Nice. I spent many hours messing around with POV-Ray on my old 400 Mhz Pentium II (and many more hours waiting for scenes to render...). Sadly I lost everything from that period when the drive crashed.
It's fun to look at mid-90's computer generated images and see how much has changed. I went through a folder of old Digital Blaspheme wallpapers (remember those?) a while back and they just look so quaint now.
Interesting, but doesn't that just pass the buck? You've got to run the server somewhere else with Internet connection so that it can proxy the ICMP requests. Might be good for making xfinitywifi a part of an anonymizing proxy but not so good for getting free bandwidth.
I'd also like to know why it's so difficult for Slashdot editors to include a link to the Google page. Shitty link farms like BGR obviously don't link back to Google but it would be nice if Slashdot would hold itself to a higher standard.
Ever heard of Apollo 11? Yeah, that was pretty much a suicide mission. Nixon had several speeches prepared to deliver to the nation covering the myriad of possibilities for failure.
Apollo 11 was not a suicide mission. It was dangerous as all space missions are, and the astronauts were heroic, but Nixon's speeches were simply a matter of planning for contingencies so that in the event that something went wrong they wouldn't be caught unprepared.
A mission where success is physically possible, and especially when estimates for a safe return exceed 50%, is not a suicide mission. Sending people to Mars without sufficient resources for them to return or subsist on the planet indefinitely -- that's a suicide mission. Give them enough fuel and the mechanisms required to return to orbit and make the trip back to Earth? That's a dangerous, but still ultimately survivable mission.
sending people to a dead rock to try to see if they can survive is fine for a Bear Gryllis episode
Yeah, as much as I'd like to see Bear figure out how to drink his pee in a space suit, before filming could commence they'd have to send a crew over to build a Marriott on Mars. Probably isn't worth the hassle.
I'm surprised so many people want to listen to playlists that somebody else made.
It's the new radio. Even when I used to make mixtapes and mix CDs in school, I'd eventually get tired of listening to the same things and turn to the radio to get some variety.
I love the idea of a radio station -- a curated playlist that fits within a general theme and evolves over time. That's what I'm very often looking for in music, and it's why I still listen to the radio in my car. I get tired of single albums or trying to manually create large and diverse playlists. It's also why I use still Pandora. I have a few stations which seem to work fairly well, although it does seem to get pretty repetitive, and I'm wary of adding new seed artists due to fears of ruining what I've got currently.
That said, I abhor advertising and don't tolerate it in any quantity. I can subscribe to Pandora but when a radio station starts playing ads I change stations. If all of my usual stations are on commercials, I mute the volume and enjoy the silence for a while. At least mixtapes never had that problem (well, unless you forgot to hit the Stop button while recording!:)
So, serious question: What do other people hear? Are there lots of ads? Is this a regional thing?
Ad-blockers like Adblock Plus usually block all visual and auditory ads on Pandora's free version. I used to listen to it all the time and see or hear an ad, but after a couple of months I decided to subscribe because I want to support companies which offer a service that isn't subsidized by advertising. I've paid for Pandora for about 3 years now.
My question is what this means for existing customers. I pay $4 per month now, since I was an existing subscriber when they moved to $5. Will we be included in this move to the new system at our current price, or will it increase?
The path from a neutral Internet to the one Comcast execs dream of at night is a slippery slope. Even embracing partial steps towards that end will lead to yet more, as the specific cases are generalized down to something so vague and weak that any ISP can use it to assign whatever priorities they want to whatever traffic. It will go from "user controlled fast lanes" to "dynamic fast lanes" to "ISP curated fast lanes" to "ISP controlled fast lanes for the sake of general network health".
No one will care that their netflix packets are prioritized lower than their voice packets, since netflix streams and voice needs to be near real-time.
Latency and throughput are very different things. NetFlix does not need to be "real-time" -- it only requires enough throughput to build up a buffer big enough to smoothly play content and handle network variations. Voice calls are very different. They require very low latency and cannot be buffered.
No application bandwidth limiting, just prioritization.
I agree, but we already have that and you even named it. Quality of Service and Class of Service have already largely solved this problem. The only people saying that this kind of prioritization is the same thing as provider or application level throttling (fast and slow lanes), or that QoS will be illegal under Net Neutrality laws are the big telecos and their paid shills.
Once you open the door to "fast lanes" even a little bit, that's it. The level of neutrality will fall over time until it's another fondly distant Internet memory -- kind of like anonymity and the Fourth Amendment.
Vinyl, on the other hand is analogue and as such requires a stylus contact to read the grooves which will eventually wear out the media.
Not true, in the latter days of vinyl, they developed a laser stylus now commercially available which doesn't touch the media
I was skeptical, assuming that this would largely negate the claimed advantage of analog vinyl over digital CDs, even with an absurd sampling rate, but following the link farm page to the real article suggests otherwise:
One of its biggest appeals for audiophiles is the fact that its electronics are entirely analogue – the signal is not digitised as part of the signalling and playback process. [...] The LT player's five lasers – one on each channel to track the sides of the groove, one on each channel to pick up the sound (just below the tracking beams), and a fifth to track the surface of the record and keep the pickup at a constant height
Or, you know, it's to prevent viruses and other such garbage that has plagued windows for years and years, to be able to boot up with windows by masquerading as a driver?
To play back certain types of next-generation premium content, all kernel-mode components in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows must be signed. In addition, all the user-mode and kernel-mode components in the Protected Media Path (PMP) must comply with PMP signing policy.
Besides, the only way to install kernel mode drivers is to be running as administrator. If malicious code is allowed to run on your computer with administrative credentials, you're already screwed in any number of ways. Installation of a kernel driver is just one avenue.
I see nothing wrong with this.
I see everything wrong with this. Microsoft is now dictating what software can be run on my computer. That alone is enough of a reason to vehemently reject this, but think also of the F/OSS software impacted. There are plenty of software tools out there which run a driver as part of their operation and not all of these will want to or be able to get their drivers signed.
I have been trying to decide lately if I'll ever bite the bullet and move from Windows 7 to Windows 10, or if I'll start looking migrating to Linux. The decision just got a lot easier.
Well, here's the thing. What do you need adblock for? If you're not going to whitelist advertiser domains, they're not showing up in the first place.
Most, but not all advertising is displayed via Javascript. AdBlock is useful for blocking static images and element hiding rules are nice for just removing text ads or other annoying elements of webpages. There is also the case of allowing domains to execute scripts (temporary or trusted) to make pages functional. AdBlock takes care of any ads that would be displayed as a result.
But yes, NoScript easily takes care of 60-70% of it and AdBlock helps clean up the rest. I don't think Ghostery is necessary with them (or even a good idea, given who owns it).
You can run an entire Linux DE now naively under Windows
Well, according to Wikipedia, the new Windows Subsystem for Linux cannot run graphical applications. I guess you can get around this by running a separate X server for Windows. I used Cygwin's X server years ago with good results but it looks like some people have had trouble getting more complicated applications to work.
On the bright side, maybe this means we can finally install systemd on Windows 10! One can only imagine what their combined powers are capable of.
If you haven't figured out, the founding mantra of the USA is "equal opportunity, not equal outcome".
But UBI has nothing to do with equal outcome. It's about a minimum outcome, and takes the place of a myriad of support programs we already have in place to give people something to fall back on when they've got nothing else. Social Security, food stamps, unemployment, tax credits, etc -- these programs are already funded via taxes (yes, social security is more like mandated retirement planning) and would be eliminated with a UBI program. The savings in administrative overhead alone would be enormous.
encourages mediocrity and abuse
I think few people would be content with nothing more than the UBI, but if they are, then so be it. As for abuse, how can you abuse something for which everyone is eligible?
Venezuela as the latest example
This is a meaningless comparison. The Venezuelan economy has little in common with that of the US. As a single data point, in 2013 its GDP per capita was about $14,000 while the US was $53,000.
I'm not saying that a UBI is a surefire good idea, but it also shouldn't be dismissed out-of-hand as a replacement to our current welfare systems.
I'm completely fine with investigating ISIS sympathizers
How do you identify ISIS sympathizers without violating people's rights? Or do you just take the route a disturbing number of politicians have and legislate away annoying things like the Fourth Amendment, and put everyone under mass surveillance? And then, even if you do find someone who sympathizes with ISIS (perhaps even through an open confession), what would you do about it?
There's no law against having dangerous or stupid opinions (as evidenced by the "presumptive Republican presidential nominee", a phrase I'm getting all to tired of hearing). As long as someone doesn't take action themselves, or encourage others to do so, they're free to tell the world they think ISIS is just peachy keen and doin' Allah's work.
Regardless, this stale bullshit Newt is spewing is just another step on the road to the Thought Police. Reading something, even batshit religious propaganda, should never be a crime, no matter how long we've been at war with Eurasia.
Home and Pro have no sign of moving to a subscription plan at this point.
Are you sure? Does it need to be in 150-foot tall neon for it to qualify as a "sign"?
Given the direction they've taken consumer and enterprise Office, the newly announced enterprise Windows subscriptions, and the claim that "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows", what other conclusion can be made? And on top of that, desktop sales have slowed as newer machines tend to last users a lot longer than they historically did. With all this in mind I think it's entirely reasonable to deduce that within a year or two all editions of Windows will be sold via subscription.
The real question is what they will do with existing installations. Will there be a year or two grace period after which point your license expires and will require a subscription renewal? Or will they allow existing licenses to continue in perpetuity? Will offline installation still be possible or will yearly renewals be required via phone for disconnected machines? Either way, Microsoft will probably price it such that they even claim it's a "savings" because the "average user" would have spent more to upgrade Windows every two years than they will in subscription fees.
I would expect someone claiming to be fluent in a programming language to be able to sit down, cold, and write code in that language which would compile (or interpret) without syntax error and solve the problem at hand. If interviewing for a job, they should be able to whiteboard with the language without hesitation. If you cannot do this, you are not fluent with the language, but you might be familiar with it. Most people probably will not be fluent unless they're actually writing code with the language on a regular basis. Whether or not a job opening requires fluency probably depends on the amount of time available to get the new hire productive; if they need to learn C++ from scratch that just increases the training overhead, no matter how proficient they are with Smalltalk.
Frameworks should fall into a separate bucket. As you say, there are hundreds and more all the time. Being familiar with the most common is a good idea, since they're used so often, but experience with a framework should only be a plus and not a requirement.
No, they are not. Even ignoring commonly recognized and respected social responsibilities, they are, at the very least, responsible to their shareholders (the public).
Facebook can do whatever it wants, and allow whatever it wants to be shown on its site.
Also not true. They must obey the law, same as anyone else.
Reality is nuanced and multi-faceted, and sweeping generalizations are rarely insightful and usually don't add much to a discussion.
The reason this matters has little to do with what Facebook is allowed to do, and much more to do with what they should do. For better or worse (hint: worse), Facebook has become "the Internet" to billions of people. Anytime you have such broad influence over so many, morals and good stewardship become much more important.
I randomly looked through them and many appear to be pretty reasonable. Many are related to simple copyright infringement, such as storing textbooks or published homework and test questions and answers. This isn't surprising, as GitHub is basically just a place you can store files.
Some say the code or data is internal or non-public and was uploaded without permission. There are also a bunch from Qualcomm complaining about firmware images and driver code. VMWare complained about internal roadmap documentation.
Some are just files with links to other materials, such as TV shows and movies. Sony and Marvel make appearances.
The line blurs some for others. There are HTML5 versions of classic games, such as ones from Nintendo and Blizzard, that got pulled down. A few companies appear to have searched GitHub for serial numbers and license keys of their products, and requested the entire repo be pulled if it contains a single file with a serial number in it. Many of these appear to be honest mistakes and have counter-notices.
In any case, it's nice to see GitHub being transparent. The DMCA requests themselves are pretty interesting, but since the vast majority of the targeted repos are no longer accessible, it's hard to gauge how justifiable most of the complains really were.
It's definitely true that some of the Clinton policies did directly contribute to the crash of 2008
I'm pretty sure the GP is referring to the dot-com bubble, and the subsequent burst in late 2000, early 2001. The argument is that a big part of the "successful Clinton economy" during the 90s was due to riding the formation of the bubble. George Bush, for all his many (many) faults, did get left holding the bag when it finally burst while Clinton is remembered for the honeymoon.
But of course you're also right about Clinton's role in 2008.
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking of which, even Android is TiVo-ized, since you can't install your modified version of Android on your phone w/o breaking things
Just "breaking things" isn't what makes something Tivoized. It's when the system is designed to prevent executing custom or modified code through the use of something like digital signatures. A locked phone which normally runs a modified version of GNU/Linux and also refuses to execute code that isn't signed by the carrier would be an example of Tivoized hardware, but the Android software itself isn't Tivoized at all.
Well, I strongly prefer an UI like in Windows 7 and want to be in full control of updates.
I completely agree with you, but full control over updates is no longer a selling point of Windows 7. Microsoft has moved to a single monthly rollup package for Windows 7 which always includes all previous updates and is only all-or-nothing. So, for example, the November 2016 update that comes out next week will include all updates from the August 2016, September 2016, and October 2016 update packages.
It's a step backwards in every possible way and exists solely to make it easy for Microsoft to shove whatever updates they want down their users' throats. The Windows 10 GWX fiasco has taught them a valuable lesson about the dangers of consumer choice and giving users control over their computers.
Nice. I spent many hours messing around with POV-Ray on my old 400 Mhz Pentium II (and many more hours waiting for scenes to render...). Sadly I lost everything from that period when the drive crashed.
It's fun to look at mid-90's computer generated images and see how much has changed. I went through a folder of old Digital Blaspheme wallpapers (remember those?) a while back and they just look so quaint now.
Hans - IP over ICMP
Interesting, but doesn't that just pass the buck? You've got to run the server somewhere else with Internet connection so that it can proxy the ICMP requests. Might be good for making xfinitywifi a part of an anonymizing proxy but not so good for getting free bandwidth.
Where's the Google page for this? I don't see it in the store or at /pixel.
It's at the adorable madeby.google subdomain. Because of course that makes sense.
I'd also like to know why it's so difficult for Slashdot editors to include a link to the Google page. Shitty link farms like BGR obviously don't link back to Google but it would be nice if Slashdot would hold itself to a higher standard.
Ever heard of Apollo 11? Yeah, that was pretty much a suicide mission. Nixon had several speeches prepared to deliver to the nation covering the myriad of possibilities for failure.
Apollo 11 was not a suicide mission. It was dangerous as all space missions are, and the astronauts were heroic, but Nixon's speeches were simply a matter of planning for contingencies so that in the event that something went wrong they wouldn't be caught unprepared.
A mission where success is physically possible, and especially when estimates for a safe return exceed 50%, is not a suicide mission. Sending people to Mars without sufficient resources for them to return or subsist on the planet indefinitely -- that's a suicide mission. Give them enough fuel and the mechanisms required to return to orbit and make the trip back to Earth? That's a dangerous, but still ultimately survivable mission.
sending people to a dead rock to try to see if they can survive is fine for a Bear Gryllis episode
Yeah, as much as I'd like to see Bear figure out how to drink his pee in a space suit, before filming could commence they'd have to send a crew over to build a Marriott on Mars. Probably isn't worth the hassle.
I'm surprised so many people want to listen to playlists that somebody else made.
It's the new radio. Even when I used to make mixtapes and mix CDs in school, I'd eventually get tired of listening to the same things and turn to the radio to get some variety.
I love the idea of a radio station -- a curated playlist that fits within a general theme and evolves over time. That's what I'm very often looking for in music, and it's why I still listen to the radio in my car. I get tired of single albums or trying to manually create large and diverse playlists. It's also why I use still Pandora. I have a few stations which seem to work fairly well, although it does seem to get pretty repetitive, and I'm wary of adding new seed artists due to fears of ruining what I've got currently.
That said, I abhor advertising and don't tolerate it in any quantity. I can subscribe to Pandora but when a radio station starts playing ads I change stations. If all of my usual stations are on commercials, I mute the volume and enjoy the silence for a while. At least mixtapes never had that problem (well, unless you forgot to hit the Stop button while recording! :)
I used to listen to it all the time and WOULD NEVER see or hear an ad
Gah, fixed. I would love to have a 3-minute window where comment editing was allowed.
So, serious question: What do other people hear? Are there lots of ads? Is this a regional thing?
Ad-blockers like Adblock Plus usually block all visual and auditory ads on Pandora's free version. I used to listen to it all the time and see or hear an ad, but after a couple of months I decided to subscribe because I want to support companies which offer a service that isn't subsidized by advertising. I've paid for Pandora for about 3 years now.
My question is what this means for existing customers. I pay $4 per month now, since I was an existing subscriber when they moved to $5. Will we be included in this move to the new system at our current price, or will it increase?
The path from a neutral Internet to the one Comcast execs dream of at night is a slippery slope. Even embracing partial steps towards that end will lead to yet more, as the specific cases are generalized down to something so vague and weak that any ISP can use it to assign whatever priorities they want to whatever traffic. It will go from "user controlled fast lanes" to "dynamic fast lanes" to "ISP curated fast lanes" to "ISP controlled fast lanes for the sake of general network health".
No one will care that their netflix packets are prioritized lower than their voice packets, since netflix streams and voice needs to be near real-time.
Latency and throughput are very different things. NetFlix does not need to be "real-time" -- it only requires enough throughput to build up a buffer big enough to smoothly play content and handle network variations. Voice calls are very different. They require very low latency and cannot be buffered.
No application bandwidth limiting, just prioritization.
I agree, but we already have that and you even named it. Quality of Service and Class of Service have already largely solved this problem. The only people saying that this kind of prioritization is the same thing as provider or application level throttling (fast and slow lanes), or that QoS will be illegal under Net Neutrality laws are the big telecos and their paid shills.
Once you open the door to "fast lanes" even a little bit, that's it. The level of neutrality will fall over time until it's another fondly distant Internet memory -- kind of like anonymity and the Fourth Amendment.
Vinyl, on the other hand is analogue and as such requires a stylus contact to read the grooves which will eventually wear out the media.
Not true, in the latter days of vinyl, they developed a laser stylus now commercially available which doesn't touch the media
I was skeptical, assuming that this would largely negate the claimed advantage of analog vinyl over digital CDs, even with an absurd sampling rate, but following the link farm page to the real article suggests otherwise:
One of its biggest appeals for audiophiles is the fact that its electronics are entirely analogue – the signal is not digitised as part of the signalling and playback process.
[...]
The LT player's five lasers – one on each channel to track the sides of the groove, one on each channel to pick up the sound (just below the tracking beams), and a fifth to track the surface of the record and keep the pickup at a constant height
Sounds fancy. Whether that's worth $20,000, well, YMMV.
And you know it's paywalled! So why using that article at all?
If the main Forbes site gives you trouble (or you just don't want to patronize them), try the Internet Archive. Seems to work okay for me.
You wouldn't download a nuclear breeder reactor, would you?
Or, you know, it's to prevent viruses and other such garbage that has plagued windows for years and years, to be able to boot up with windows by masquerading as a driver?
Actually the GP is right, and Microsoft calls it out themselves:
To play back certain types of next-generation premium content, all kernel-mode components in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows must be signed. In addition, all the user-mode and kernel-mode components in the Protected Media Path (PMP) must comply with PMP signing policy.
Besides, the only way to install kernel mode drivers is to be running as administrator. If malicious code is allowed to run on your computer with administrative credentials, you're already screwed in any number of ways. Installation of a kernel driver is just one avenue.
I see nothing wrong with this.
I see everything wrong with this. Microsoft is now dictating what software can be run on my computer. That alone is enough of a reason to vehemently reject this, but think also of the F/OSS software impacted. There are plenty of software tools out there which run a driver as part of their operation and not all of these will want to or be able to get their drivers signed.
I have been trying to decide lately if I'll ever bite the bullet and move from Windows 7 to Windows 10, or if I'll start looking migrating to Linux. The decision just got a lot easier.
Well, here's the thing. What do you need adblock for? If you're not going to whitelist advertiser domains, they're not showing up in the first place.
Most, but not all advertising is displayed via Javascript. AdBlock is useful for blocking static images and element hiding rules are nice for just removing text ads or other annoying elements of webpages. There is also the case of allowing domains to execute scripts (temporary or trusted) to make pages functional. AdBlock takes care of any ads that would be displayed as a result.
But yes, NoScript easily takes care of 60-70% of it and AdBlock helps clean up the rest. I don't think Ghostery is necessary with them (or even a good idea, given who owns it).
Derp, OK.
*Begins typing CC number... 4--*
*Shutdown*
Oh come on; Microsoft isn't that inept. Why, that would be as bad as making a window's [X] close button be the same as clicking the "I agree" button.
Windows now runs Linux binaries.
Hopefully it works better than last time.
You can run an entire Linux DE now naively under Windows
Well, according to Wikipedia, the new Windows Subsystem for Linux cannot run graphical applications. I guess you can get around this by running a separate X server for Windows. I used Cygwin's X server years ago with good results but it looks like some people have had trouble getting more complicated applications to work.
On the bright side, maybe this means we can finally install systemd on Windows 10! One can only imagine what their combined powers are capable of.
If you haven't figured out, the founding mantra of the USA is "equal opportunity, not equal outcome".
But UBI has nothing to do with equal outcome. It's about a minimum outcome, and takes the place of a myriad of support programs we already have in place to give people something to fall back on when they've got nothing else. Social Security, food stamps, unemployment, tax credits, etc -- these programs are already funded via taxes (yes, social security is more like mandated retirement planning) and would be eliminated with a UBI program. The savings in administrative overhead alone would be enormous.
encourages mediocrity and abuse
I think few people would be content with nothing more than the UBI, but if they are, then so be it. As for abuse, how can you abuse something for which everyone is eligible?
Venezuela as the latest example
This is a meaningless comparison. The Venezuelan economy has little in common with that of the US. As a single data point, in 2013 its GDP per capita was about $14,000 while the US was $53,000.
I'm not saying that a UBI is a surefire good idea, but it also shouldn't be dismissed out-of-hand as a replacement to our current welfare systems.
I'm completely fine with investigating ISIS sympathizers
How do you identify ISIS sympathizers without violating people's rights? Or do you just take the route a disturbing number of politicians have and legislate away annoying things like the Fourth Amendment, and put everyone under mass surveillance? And then, even if you do find someone who sympathizes with ISIS (perhaps even through an open confession), what would you do about it?
There's no law against having dangerous or stupid opinions (as evidenced by the "presumptive Republican presidential nominee", a phrase I'm getting all to tired of hearing). As long as someone doesn't take action themselves, or encourage others to do so, they're free to tell the world they think ISIS is just peachy keen and doin' Allah's work.
Regardless, this stale bullshit Newt is spewing is just another step on the road to the Thought Police. Reading something, even batshit religious propaganda, should never be a crime, no matter how long we've been at war with Eurasia.
Home and Pro have no sign of moving to a subscription plan at this point.
Are you sure? Does it need to be in 150-foot tall neon for it to qualify as a "sign"?
Given the direction they've taken consumer and enterprise Office, the newly announced enterprise Windows subscriptions, and the claim that "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows", what other conclusion can be made? And on top of that, desktop sales have slowed as newer machines tend to last users a lot longer than they historically did. With all this in mind I think it's entirely reasonable to deduce that within a year or two all editions of Windows will be sold via subscription.
The real question is what they will do with existing installations. Will there be a year or two grace period after which point your license expires and will require a subscription renewal? Or will they allow existing licenses to continue in perpetuity? Will offline installation still be possible or will yearly renewals be required via phone for disconnected machines? Either way, Microsoft will probably price it such that they even claim it's a "savings" because the "average user" would have spent more to upgrade Windows every two years than they will in subscription fees.
What is fluent?
I would expect someone claiming to be fluent in a programming language to be able to sit down, cold, and write code in that language which would compile (or interpret) without syntax error and solve the problem at hand. If interviewing for a job, they should be able to whiteboard with the language without hesitation. If you cannot do this, you are not fluent with the language, but you might be familiar with it. Most people probably will not be fluent unless they're actually writing code with the language on a regular basis. Whether or not a job opening requires fluency probably depends on the amount of time available to get the new hire productive; if they need to learn C++ from scratch that just increases the training overhead, no matter how proficient they are with Smalltalk.
Frameworks should fall into a separate bucket. As you say, there are hundreds and more all the time. Being familiar with the most common is a good idea, since they're used so often, but experience with a framework should only be a plus and not a requirement.
Facebook is a private company.
No, they are not. Even ignoring commonly recognized and respected social responsibilities, they are, at the very least, responsible to their shareholders (the public).
Facebook can do whatever it wants, and allow whatever it wants to be shown on its site.
Also not true. They must obey the law, same as anyone else.
Reality is nuanced and multi-faceted, and sweeping generalizations are rarely insightful and usually don't add much to a discussion.
The reason this matters has little to do with what Facebook is allowed to do, and much more to do with what they should do. For better or worse (hint: worse), Facebook has become "the Internet" to billions of people. Anytime you have such broad influence over so many, morals and good stewardship become much more important.
On github, what constitutes being a valid target for a DMCA takedown?
Well, you can look at the full list of DMCA complaints they have received and see for yourself.
I randomly looked through them and many appear to be pretty reasonable. Many are related to simple copyright infringement, such as storing textbooks or published homework and test questions and answers. This isn't surprising, as GitHub is basically just a place you can store files.
Some say the code or data is internal or non-public and was uploaded without permission. There are also a bunch from Qualcomm complaining about firmware images and driver code. VMWare complained about internal roadmap documentation.
Some are just files with links to other materials, such as TV shows and movies. Sony and Marvel make appearances.
The line blurs some for others. There are HTML5 versions of classic games, such as ones from Nintendo and Blizzard, that got pulled down. A few companies appear to have searched GitHub for serial numbers and license keys of their products, and requested the entire repo be pulled if it contains a single file with a serial number in it. Many of these appear to be honest mistakes and have counter-notices.
In any case, it's nice to see GitHub being transparent. The DMCA requests themselves are pretty interesting, but since the vast majority of the targeted repos are no longer accessible, it's hard to gauge how justifiable most of the complains really were.
It's definitely true that some of the Clinton policies did directly contribute to the crash of 2008
I'm pretty sure the GP is referring to the dot-com bubble, and the subsequent burst in late 2000, early 2001. The argument is that a big part of the "successful Clinton economy" during the 90s was due to riding the formation of the bubble. George Bush, for all his many (many) faults, did get left holding the bag when it finally burst while Clinton is remembered for the honeymoon.
But of course you're also right about Clinton's role in 2008.