1,200 man-hours per year is LESS THAN one full time job. For reference, a 40hr/week job is 1880 - 2080hr/year (5 weeks vacation - zero vacation).
I'm certain that the cost to make those changes was waaaay more than the cost of those 1200 man hours. I wouldn't be surprised if this article wasted more than 1,200 man hours of peoples time reading it. It's like trying to save money by shopping at whole foods so you can re-use the bags and save $0.05/bag, while paying more for everything else. That said, I do like the idea of removing laws/mandates/orders/muck/mire/etc.
Using spaces to indent is really kind of an OCD thing to do. There's the time and the counting and then redoing when you change something.
Bullshit. And this sort of idea is why people using tabs get paid less:-P
Working with spaces is nearly identical if you set up your editor correctly. If I hit tab, it inserts enough spaces to go to the next tabstop, which I have set to 4. If I hit backspace within the leading whitespace indentation, it deletes back to the previous tab. Converting between them is even trivial, assuming the indents are consistent. Just set up the shiftwidth to make tabs the same as what spaces are using, then in vim it's just ":retab" and they're all switched over to whatever your current settings are.
The only benefit tabs had/has is the ability to visually change how much indentation they represent on the fly without modifying the content. For example, if you have some deeply indented code, ":set tabstop=1" can help condense it quickly. Conversely, ":set tabstop=8" will make indents very visible, and you can quickly switch back and forth at will, with no impact on the data in the document. While I do recall using that decades ago, I can't remember the last time I needed/wanted to do that.
Plopping something like this at the top of your file can help too: # ex: set tabstop=4 expandtab smarttab softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4: # -*- Mode: tab-width: 4; indent-tabs-mode: nil; basic-offset: 4 -*- # (if your editor doesn't know what to do with those, it's not worthy of use)
Books and movies though... There isn't much of a way to legitimately acquire those without DRM...
I have a house full of movies and books acquired without DRM, many of them this year.
I'm 99.999% sure he was referring to ebooks, not physical books, so I doubt your house is full of them, let alone sans DRM:-P
Movies... what movies do you have without DRM? I'm pretty sure you're referring to physical copies. If they're home movies, that's obviously not what we're talking about. If they're on VHS/Betamax/etc, really? I'd just be surprised. If they're blu-ray, they almost certainly have DRM. If they're DVD's, they almost certainly have DRM, though it's incredibly weak and broken now. I suspect this is what you were referring to, so it's quite a gray area, and I think it'd technically fail the, "legitimately acquire those without DRM" prereq. Or maybe they're bootlegs? But that certainly fails the legitimately acquire test.
Back to the books, I really really really wish the DRM would go away there. IMO, all they really need is a good digital watermark. Digitally sign each copy with a unique sig, and who cares if people copy it to their PC or other devices or friends devices. If normal folks start sharing a bit too much, you'll probably know who it was (same way they can tell on mp3s, since they often tag the files now), and can do something about it if you like. The DRM that is there is only a PITA for legitimate users, and that's all it can ever be since it's gotta display clear and readable text to the user at some point, so even a crappy OCR program could get a perfect copy of the text (assuming they couldn't just strip the encryption/DRM). For books as a service (ex. Amazon Kindle Unlimited; library/overdrive; etc), I don't mind the DRM. It serves the purpose for rentals/lending.
I wish someone replying on this actually knew why, rather than just guessing. (sorry to pick on this specific branch, Sloppy).
My understanding of it, and I haven't confirm this either, was that Firefox was moving to multi (initially 4?) processes, and each of those would be responsible for different areas and may have a bunch of threads within each. There are also different types of threads (user, kernel, etc), so these 4 processes may be implemented as heavy threads on windows.
The summary could have benefited from a link to the info on the e10s (electrolysis) project page: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Elect... That covers loads more info more accurately than any of these comments, my own included:-)
Well, it is all coming back to them, now they cry a river for the loss of 125 jobs.
wow, lots of AC's took offense, but you're absolutely right. Sure, 125 IT workers losing there jobs sucks, but when did 125 jobs become that big a deal? Even if they were all really great jobs, how many CS majors are getting pushed through the system every year? If there aren't way more than 125 more openings out there, then things are really really bleak.
That said, if this were my department at my company, and that department happens to be much smaller than 125 seats, I'd be quite pissed if it was all moved out of country.
Hopefully they're not getting H1B's while also offshoring loads of local IT jobs.
How about "Seth Rich Murder" on CNN, Politico, MSNBC, Salon, NYT, and WaPo? You are a fucking tool...
You made me curious, so I searched for "seth rich murder" on foxnews.com (because that's the only outlet mentioned by the GP you referred to as "a fucking tool"). There is only ONE hit on foxnews.com, and it is a retraction of the story, stating:
On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.
We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.
Virus writers will target the largest market portion.
This tripe is tired. There are more factors at play here, and being blind to them for decades isn't helping anyone.
The size of the installed base does not matter. An argument could be made that the effectiveness of the exploit may matter. IE. if there are more vulnerable machines of some specific type, that's a bigger target. This could also be skewed depending on the demographic of that target (ex. if it was 90% of the ATM's and the exploit made all accounts using them available, it wouldn't matter if the number of ATM's is much smaller than the total number of Windows machines). This would still be a weak argument because the raw count is far from the only consideration.
My point is, there has to be a whole lot more VULNERABLE Windows machines to make it more attractive than other targets (Mac/Linux/etc). For example, if every Mac OS X install had a remote root vulnerability, but only %1 of Windows 10 installs were still vulnerable to a similarly bad thing, then Windows would not be as attractive based on numbers and impact.
WannaCry sucked extra hard because so many people actively disabled windows update so they could avoid the heavy handed push to Windows 10. People could avoid many of those large issues by moving to Linux - little to no telemetry (depending on distro, and can be easily disabled on those that have it), updates how and when you want them, updates that don't force restarts or delay boot up time, significantly fewer viruses now and for the foreseeable future, and way more freedom to stay current in whatever way suits you (ie. distro/desktop choices).
Sadly, I still think TFS is more of a troll than a real suggestion. It's just begging for people to trot out their favorite justifications.
I'm not a fan of how locked down these are, nor the steps to get play store, or play store apps, onto the device. You note that you just have to install a few apk's. The problem is, all the howto's for this point to various 3rd party sites to get the apk's. For example: https://www.howtogeek.com/2327... That has you get them from apkmirror.com
All the directions read like an email from the early 90's that's trying to get you to download and run something to install a virus.
Where are the steps to verify these apk's are legit? If they came from the play store, the app signatures would be checked.
Amazon also offers their app store for common android devices. Installing it on an android device is similar, but different in that you download the amazon underground or amazon app store from amazon's site over https, so at least you know you're getting it from the owner. You install just that one, then you can install other apps from the amazon app store.
The reverse process (installing google play store on a fire tablet) seems far more risky. Google and Amazon have made this difficult on purpose. On the fire tablet, you can't even add a shortcut/bookmark onto the home screen, so you can't have an easy link to the web based google apps (or any other companies sites).
The hardware might be OK for the price, but I'll never buy one again. I'm amazed every time I hear of someone saying they work just as well as any other tablet... that's simply not true unless all you use it for is amazon content. If you're thinking of getting one for a family member, just spend a couple more bucks and get them something more standard.
now that phones are not subsidized with contracts...
Where is that? In the US, the primary way the big carriers sell phones these days is via a multi-year lease type of thing (get the phone for $0 down today, and only $35/month for 18 months... which works out to a bit more than retail cost). The other way is via things like iPhone forever, where you get the newest version of the device every year, and you pay a monthly fee for that.
Imagination is going to have to sell off MIPS and Ensigma, two parts of its business that aren't as profitable as PowerVR
I've seen similar things stated by other companies over the years. Oh, they're struggling, so they're selling off less profitable parts. That's the way it's usually stated, rather than something like, "selling off non-profitable divisions" or something like that.
If it's profitable, at all, then there's no reason to sell it. The only reason to sell it would be if they weren't calculating "profit" correctly. If it's bringing in any profit, then selling it is only going to reduce the amount of extra money they can throw into their favorite products.
Ugh. How do you make those statements while quoting facts that, IMO, oppose the conclusion you have reached?
2% of the desktop/laptop world (that runs linux)... No one actually cares.
2% may look small, but consider that MacOS X only has about 3%, and that 2% is almost certainly understated, and the total count is REALLY BIG (billions). We're talking about 10's or 100's of millions of devices, not counting VMs. That's a lot of potential customers, and this segment tends to carry some decision making weight elsewhere.
(does it run Linux) is the "only" relevant question here./sarcasm
Here is slashdot. Here we have seen all the forced upgrade things Microsoft has done, and their history of anti-competitive behavior. Why shouldn't this be the first question? As in, when some new atrocity comes after 10S, will it be possible to ditch it and run something else on your own hardware? Feel free to replace "Linux" with some other non-Windows thing, but Linux runs damn near everywhere, so it's a great candidate to determine if the hardware can run anything besides what it shipped with.
This laptop is targeted at the basic user who wants an ultra-light device but not a tablet... You aren't the intended market segment at all
How the hell do you jump from one to the other? You didn't say, "this laptop is targeted at people who can barely grasp usage of windows and notepad" or something like that... just an ultra-light device that is not a tablet. That very segment was, and still is, one of the strongest segments for Linux (ex. netbooks and chromebooks). This laptop is targeted directly at the segment that wants to stick Linux on it, but is doing everything it can to make that somewhere between difficult and impossible, rather than embracing it and those customers (for that side, see Apple and bootcamp).
And yet somehow, Slashdot readers will find a way to bash Microsoft for giving their customers this choice.
It's not very difficult... I'll give it a go. What "choice" were they given? Between Windows 10S or Windows 10 Pro? Really? That's supposed to be compelling? Think of any other choice that's that narrow, and it seems stupid: hot fudge sunday, or warm fudge sunday? Blue Ford F-150, or Black Ford F-150?
It's clear that Microsoft is trying to do a good thing
Saying it doesn't make it so. This isn't a "good" thing. FWIW, I don't think this is "bad", as in worse than not offering it, but it's not "good" in a moral way, which is how you phrased it. They're even charging for it, so it is by no means altruistic. The $49 wouldn't feel as much like a rip off if "Pro" still meant something, but even if it was a choice of the enterprise version, it's still not "good".
I was hoping (but not holding my breath) to see the headline read:
Don't let the new Windows 10 S operating system stop you from buying a Surface Laptop this year. If you'd rather run a non-Microsoft OS, you can easily do so via Microsofts answer to bootcamp, __________!
If that bootcamp like solution only supported MacOS X, then I still wouldn't consider it much of a choice (like republican/democrat). If they also refund the OS license fee if you switch out the OS, then they would be trying to do a good thing (or just the right thing).
But be warned: Once you upgrade your license key, you can't go back.
See, how is this "trying to do a good thing"? I'm not sure why someone would want to go back, but why the hell wouldn't they allow it? Seems like that should be baked in and always possible (ie. let the user screw things up however they like, but flash to recovery and it restores the original Windows 10S), not locked out because you spent $49 to reclassify an identifier (the license key) from 10S to 10Pro.
I'm sure this is welcome news to some folks who want ("need") to run certain programs that don't run on 10S, but it's far from a karma gaining action. They locked things down and took away choices first. They're now easing off slightly. One step forward and two steps back doesn't put them on the positive side of the equation. None of what I said above even begins to touch on any of the other big negatives (frequent defaults resets (ex. browser), telemetry, forced updates, cortana hard to disable, ads integrated into menus, ruined start menu, multiple places to configure settings, removal of dvd playback and other features on upgrade, unable to uninstall builtin programs, let alone all the FOSS complaints).
What I do see in common with all the critics is that they base things on the current size of phones, current wifi routers, and current phone power consumption.
A quick side note: I think that even the Qi wireless charging, where the device rests right on top of the pad, is wasteful and pretty silly. Convenient? Slightly, but it could just have some metal tabs and a cradle like old wireless phones. Anyway, moving on...
Someday, we might have a device that uses far less power. Maybe it'll natively do far less too (run stuff in the cloud)? There could also be some personal integration that makes a much larger antenna feasible (maybe a sleeve?).
Maybe there's also multiple "wifi" devices in range that can triangulate where the user is?
Maybe those can then focus a signal on/near the device, and go all the way up to the 1W output (maybe not doing actual wifi, or maybe riding on top of the signal).
After all that, maybe the little trickle that is left would be enough to run the device at full power. Maybe not "charge" it, but if it can run it, then the device would effectively last nearly forever without a recharge. That could be pretty nice. I'm thinking more along the lines of watches and IoT than what we currently do on phones... but still... even if it's incredible wasteful and inefficient, it might still sell and function enough to be useful. Maybe?
1. Most ISPs don't allow residential customers to run an email service of their own.
Wrong. Sometimes, you may have to ask to have the port opened, but most allow it.
many domains will reject any email out-of-hand that's sent from just some random IP address
Set it up correctly. Set up the various SPF records and other such stuff. That'll greatly reduce the impact of this. Furthermore, you *can* get your own static IPv4 IP that isn't in those blocks, and/or you can use a virtual server and forward that stuff, and/or you can use IPv6 to route around it, and/or you can use a different outbound SMTP server or forward through one. There are lots of ways around this trivial issue.
Why even bother with this when there's something like Proton Mail out there...
Using a common service/server is one of the primary things this product is trying to avoid, as is using hardware/storage someone else owns (virtual servers / hosting / cloud / etc). There's nothing wrong with that part of the theory.
If you don't want to use a service like Proton Mail, what's wrong with using your own end-to-end encryption?
It relies on accessible and verifiable public keys and integration with the client software. That works within protonmail because all users get keys and can share public keys (AFAICT). Doing it yourself means pgp/gpg or s/mime, and both parties must have that, and there's no encryption of email headers (including TO, FROM, and SUBJECT) with those, so they won't be protected once they leave your server.
If you're really so worried about someone hacking into your communications over the Internet, then why are you even bothering with email in the first place?
What type of argument is that? Probably shouldn't use http either, nor facebook, nor any instant messenger, nor any search engine, nor the internet... heck, you should probably completely disconnect from every external line and seal yourself in a faraday cage within a bunker underground. Email has loads of benefits and still the most widely used (head count) communication platform. It's certainly capable of sending an encrypted payload and the delivery mechanism is very well established... why not use it?
None of this means this product is good or worthwhile, but a secure communication appliance *could* be done right.
The example that made up the majority of your ramble, of which you couldn't recall what ISP did it.... that was my final sentence and I included the name of the ISP (comcast).
Let's try this another way... The point of net neutrality is to prevent this sort of thing. It's to ensure that end users can use any part of the internet without some parts being artificially restricted. If/when it goes away, Comcast and other ISP's can go back to charging content providers, such as Netflix, for faster transmission to Comcast's network. This restriction favors Comcast because they also have their own streaming site(s), so it's an anti-competitive move. I think you're on the same page up to this point.
What GGGP was saying, is that those ISP's should be careful what they wish for because the content providers could turn around and do the same thing right back to them (but can't at this time due to current regulations).
Trying to wring money out of an ISP as large as Comcast as opposed to charging users directly would backfire. Comcast would just say no, denying Google a large part of the ISP customer market.
That's quite debatable, but I disagree. If google, youtube, netflix, hulu, amazon, apple/itunes, pandora, spotify, etc all teamed up and said they would put a big banner on the top of every page informing the user that their ISP failed to pay their dues, so their connection was being limited to low bitrate titles, and they did so, I'm certain they could easily take on comcast. They could even target that action to those cities (based on geoip) where comcast has competition, so that users could go to an ISP that has paid the dues. They could also make it free for some ISP's by setting up cooperative peering arrangements (which has been done for ages and is common practice).
I'm curious... what is your opinion on net neutrality in general, and the legislation in particular? Based on your comment, it would seem that you are pro-net neutrality, since you called out the "egregious" act that "bullshit ISPs have ALREADY done". So am I, and so was the GP, and so is the argument that ISPs should be afraid of loosing the net neutrality legislation (though I don't think it (content providers charging the end users ISPs) is a likely outcome).
This has nothing to do with Google competing directly for in the ISP space. Just ignore google fiber for a bit. For that matter, ignore the mention of google - that probably wasn't the best example, though it's still a decent one (think youtube instead of google, which they also own).
What GP is implying is that content providers *could* theoretically turn the tables on the ISP's. Instead of staying alive on advertising money and user subscriptions, New York Times could sell a "fast lane" to the ISP (ie. ISP pays NYT for faster access to NYT from their network). If the ISP doesn't pay, they get throttled, and the site throws up a warning that their connection is throttled because their ISP hasn't paid their dues.
Furthermore, content providers *could* band together, somewhat like patent portfolios, so they could have strength in numbers. If they did so, they could also offer individuals personal plans to their site to get fast access just for you and only to that site (or to a group of sites). If you or your ISP don't pay, you'd just get a more basic site (low res videos, rate limitted, etc). They could make your ISP look like a 3rd world ISP.
IMO, it's absolutely crazy. The ISP should never charge some content provider for faster access, nor vice-versa. The users are paying for their last mile connection. The servers / content providers are paying for their bandwidth within their colo's or interconnects etc. When comcast demanded that netflix pay to send that traffic to their users, that was double dipping and violated the spirit (if not the law) of net neutrality.
"an HDMI cable's length" is a very imprecise measurement - way worse than LoC's (libraries of congress). Regardless, I'm certain your PC is within that distance from your PC.
No. A Wii is not the same as a combo nes/snes/n64 retro box preloaded with titles. And yes, cost is one of the biggest factors. There's no way I'm spending enough to get all the (expensive) add on controllers, and buy all the games ($5 - $15 each**), on top of buying a Wii. Form factor also matters, as does ease of use/maintenance. With the games preloaded, it's very convenient - buy it, plug it in, and it's all there. No network connection needed (or even possible). No need to create accounts, make additional purchases, download each title, etc. It's all right there. I want to pick it up and play for a bit. If I have to be bothered to do all the leg work, it's not worth it (I would have stood outside and waited for one if I had that kind of time to devote to it, HA).
THIS. This is all I was planning on saying, more or less. You can't even view facebook messages on a phone via the browser. I'm pretty sure I would have installed the app if I wasn't so stubbornly opposed to forcing stuff on people.
I don't think it's a monopoly practice (as the GP stated). Separating messenger off to its own app is actually a good design, and we should probably give them credit for that. However, comparing its download stats to other stand alone apps is disingenuous, and forcing it on people viewing the website via a browser is, IMO, a dick move.
Minecraft: 5839 downloads in past 24hr (https://minecraft.net/en-us/stats/)
Facebook Messenger: averaged 348000 downloads per day in September 2016 (https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/13-eye-popping-app-download-statistics-42f176356637)
I'm sure minecrafts numbers are larger overall, since there are other platforms not counted in that figure (it's just PC/Mac, but parent *did* state, "maybe not on the google store or whatevs the poor people use", so I don't feel bad about using that stat). I'm also guessing minecraft has far more downloads per day when they push out an update. Regardless, there's still a few orders of magnitude to make up.
The only thing MacOS is missing out of the box is window snapping, but there are ways to fix that....
(I'm wondering off topic a bit, but...) 1. focus follows mouse and window menu bars within the window (need the latter for the former to work). 2. legal/supported hackintosh.
If Apple had made their OS generally available in the same way Windows is, and I could do focus follows mouse, I would have had it running on at least one of my machines, and I suspect that would have grown into most of them.
For those coming from Windows, and buying new hardware, it really shouldn't be a big deal. Sure, everything underneath is different, as is the way everything looks, but it all ends up working pretty much the same. The change isn't significantly more drastic than going from Windows 7 to Windows 10.
:-( I should have previewed that comment. The two examples I provided should have been:
* include both on the location bar (one in parenthesis). Eg. [lock icon] Secure | [www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com] https://www.apple.com/ *... or vice-versa: Eg. [lock icon] Secure | [www.apple.com] https://www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com/
NOTE: in the above, the word "apple" would be the phishing version with the "l" replaced by a unicode character, or the "a" replaced by the greek "a", but slashdot doesn't like unicode, so I just entered the ascii versions. IE. use your imagination:-)
Slashdot Mirror
You should be modded up.
1,200 man-hours per year is LESS THAN one full time job.
For reference, a 40hr/week job is 1880 - 2080hr/year (5 weeks vacation - zero vacation).
I'm certain that the cost to make those changes was waaaay more than the cost of those 1200 man hours. I wouldn't be surprised if this article wasted more than 1,200 man hours of peoples time reading it. It's like trying to save money by shopping at whole foods so you can re-use the bags and save $0.05/bag, while paying more for everything else. That said, I do like the idea of removing laws/mandates/orders/muck/mire/etc.
Using spaces to indent is really kind of an OCD thing to do. There's the time and the counting and then redoing when you change something.
Bullshit. And this sort of idea is why people using tabs get paid less :-P
Working with spaces is nearly identical if you set up your editor correctly. If I hit tab, it inserts enough spaces to go to the next tabstop, which I have set to 4. If I hit backspace within the leading whitespace indentation, it deletes back to the previous tab.
Converting between them is even trivial, assuming the indents are consistent. Just set up the shiftwidth to make tabs the same as what spaces are using, then in vim it's just ":retab" and they're all switched over to whatever your current settings are.
The only benefit tabs had/has is the ability to visually change how much indentation they represent on the fly without modifying the content. For example, if you have some deeply indented code, ":set tabstop=1" can help condense it quickly. Conversely, ":set tabstop=8" will make indents very visible, and you can quickly switch back and forth at will, with no impact on the data in the document. While I do recall using that decades ago, I can't remember the last time I needed/wanted to do that.
Plopping something like this at the top of your file can help too:
# ex: set tabstop=4 expandtab smarttab softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4:
# -*- Mode: tab-width: 4; indent-tabs-mode: nil; basic-offset: 4 -*- #
(if your editor doesn't know what to do with those, it's not worthy of use)
Books and movies though... There isn't much of a way to legitimately acquire those without DRM...
I have a house full of movies and books acquired without DRM, many of them this year.
I'm 99.999% sure he was referring to ebooks, not physical books, so I doubt your house is full of them, let alone sans DRM :-P
Movies... what movies do you have without DRM? I'm pretty sure you're referring to physical copies. If they're home movies, that's obviously not what we're talking about.
If they're on VHS/Betamax/etc, really? I'd just be surprised.
If they're blu-ray, they almost certainly have DRM.
If they're DVD's, they almost certainly have DRM, though it's incredibly weak and broken now. I suspect this is what you were referring to, so it's quite a gray area, and I think it'd technically fail the, "legitimately acquire those without DRM" prereq.
Or maybe they're bootlegs? But that certainly fails the legitimately acquire test.
Back to the books, I really really really wish the DRM would go away there. IMO, all they really need is a good digital watermark. Digitally sign each copy with a unique sig, and who cares if people copy it to their PC or other devices or friends devices. If normal folks start sharing a bit too much, you'll probably know who it was (same way they can tell on mp3s, since they often tag the files now), and can do something about it if you like. The DRM that is there is only a PITA for legitimate users, and that's all it can ever be since it's gotta display clear and readable text to the user at some point, so even a crappy OCR program could get a perfect copy of the text (assuming they couldn't just strip the encryption/DRM).
For books as a service (ex. Amazon Kindle Unlimited; library/overdrive; etc), I don't mind the DRM. It serves the purpose for rentals/lending.
We were discussing you -- not me.
I wish someone replying on this actually knew why, rather than just guessing. (sorry to pick on this specific branch, Sloppy).
My understanding of it, and I haven't confirm this either, was that Firefox was moving to multi (initially 4?) processes, and each of those would be responsible for different areas and may have a bunch of threads within each. There are also different types of threads (user, kernel, etc), so these 4 processes may be implemented as heavy threads on windows.
The summary could have benefited from a link to the info on the e10s (electrolysis) project page: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Elect... :-)
That covers loads more info more accurately than any of these comments, my own included
Well, it is all coming back to them, now they cry a river for the loss of 125 jobs.
wow, lots of AC's took offense, but you're absolutely right. Sure, 125 IT workers losing there jobs sucks, but when did 125 jobs become that big a deal? Even if they were all really great jobs, how many CS majors are getting pushed through the system every year? If there aren't way more than 125 more openings out there, then things are really really bleak.
That said, if this were my department at my company, and that department happens to be much smaller than 125 seats, I'd be quite pissed if it was all moved out of country.
Hopefully they're not getting H1B's while also offshoring loads of local IT jobs.
How about "Seth Rich Murder" on CNN, Politico, MSNBC, Salon, NYT, and WaPo? You are a fucking tool...
You made me curious, so I searched for "seth rich murder" on foxnews.com (because that's the only outlet mentioned by the GP you referred to as "a fucking tool"). There is only ONE hit on foxnews.com, and it is a retraction of the story, stating:
On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.
We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.
So what was your point exactly?
Ah, I see you support the return of mass DDT sprayings.
Why not? It was being overused. It was quite effective and isn't very toxic though. ... or do any number of searches regarding it.
http://www.acsh.org/news/2016/...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04...
Virus writers will target the largest market portion.
This tripe is tired. There are more factors at play here, and being blind to them for decades isn't helping anyone.
The size of the installed base does not matter.
An argument could be made that the effectiveness of the exploit may matter. IE. if there are more vulnerable machines of some specific type, that's a bigger target. This could also be skewed depending on the demographic of that target (ex. if it was 90% of the ATM's and the exploit made all accounts using them available, it wouldn't matter if the number of ATM's is much smaller than the total number of Windows machines). This would still be a weak argument because the raw count is far from the only consideration.
My point is, there has to be a whole lot more VULNERABLE Windows machines to make it more attractive than other targets (Mac/Linux/etc). For example, if every Mac OS X install had a remote root vulnerability, but only %1 of Windows 10 installs were still vulnerable to a similarly bad thing, then Windows would not be as attractive based on numbers and impact.
WannaCry sucked extra hard because so many people actively disabled windows update so they could avoid the heavy handed push to Windows 10. People could avoid many of those large issues by moving to Linux - little to no telemetry (depending on distro, and can be easily disabled on those that have it), updates how and when you want them, updates that don't force restarts or delay boot up time, significantly fewer viruses now and for the foreseeable future, and way more freedom to stay current in whatever way suits you (ie. distro/desktop choices).
Sadly, I still think TFS is more of a troll than a real suggestion. It's just begging for people to trot out their favorite justifications.
I'm not a fan of how locked down these are, nor the steps to get play store, or play store apps, onto the device. You note that you just have to install a few apk's. The problem is, all the howto's for this point to various 3rd party sites to get the apk's. For example: https://www.howtogeek.com/2327...
That has you get them from apkmirror.com
All the directions read like an email from the early 90's that's trying to get you to download and run something to install a virus.
Where are the steps to verify these apk's are legit? If they came from the play store, the app signatures would be checked.
Amazon also offers their app store for common android devices. Installing it on an android device is similar, but different in that you download the amazon underground or amazon app store from amazon's site over https, so at least you know you're getting it from the owner. You install just that one, then you can install other apps from the amazon app store.
The reverse process (installing google play store on a fire tablet) seems far more risky. Google and Amazon have made this difficult on purpose. On the fire tablet, you can't even add a shortcut/bookmark onto the home screen, so you can't have an easy link to the web based google apps (or any other companies sites).
The hardware might be OK for the price, but I'll never buy one again. I'm amazed every time I hear of someone saying they work just as well as any other tablet... that's simply not true unless all you use it for is amazon content. If you're thinking of getting one for a family member, just spend a couple more bucks and get them something more standard.
now that phones are not subsidized with contracts ...
Where is that? In the US, the primary way the big carriers sell phones these days is via a multi-year lease type of thing (get the phone for $0 down today, and only $35/month for 18 months... which works out to a bit more than retail cost). The other way is via things like iPhone forever, where you get the newest version of the device every year, and you pay a monthly fee for that.
What I don't understand is this from TFS:
Imagination is going to have to sell off MIPS and Ensigma, two parts of its business that aren't as profitable as PowerVR
I've seen similar things stated by other companies over the years. Oh, they're struggling, so they're selling off less profitable parts. That's the way it's usually stated, rather than something like, "selling off non-profitable divisions" or something like that.
If it's profitable, at all, then there's no reason to sell it. The only reason to sell it would be if they weren't calculating "profit" correctly. If it's bringing in any profit, then selling it is only going to reduce the amount of extra money they can throw into their favorite products.
Ugh. How do you make those statements while quoting facts that, IMO, oppose the conclusion you have reached?
2% of the desktop/laptop world (that runs linux) ... No one actually cares.
2% may look small, but consider that MacOS X only has about 3%, and that 2% is almost certainly understated, and the total count is REALLY BIG (billions). We're talking about 10's or 100's of millions of devices, not counting VMs. That's a lot of potential customers, and this segment tends to carry some decision making weight elsewhere.
(does it run Linux) is the "only" relevant question here. /sarcasm
Here is slashdot. Here we have seen all the forced upgrade things Microsoft has done, and their history of anti-competitive behavior. Why shouldn't this be the first question? As in, when some new atrocity comes after 10S, will it be possible to ditch it and run something else on your own hardware? Feel free to replace "Linux" with some other non-Windows thing, but Linux runs damn near everywhere, so it's a great candidate to determine if the hardware can run anything besides what it shipped with.
This laptop is targeted at the basic user who wants an ultra-light device but not a tablet ... You aren't the intended market segment at all
How the hell do you jump from one to the other? You didn't say, "this laptop is targeted at people who can barely grasp usage of windows and notepad" or something like that... just an ultra-light device that is not a tablet. That very segment was, and still is, one of the strongest segments for Linux (ex. netbooks and chromebooks). This laptop is targeted directly at the segment that wants to stick Linux on it, but is doing everything it can to make that somewhere between difficult and impossible, rather than embracing it and those customers (for that side, see Apple and bootcamp).
And yet somehow, Slashdot readers will find a way to bash Microsoft for giving their customers this choice.
It's not very difficult... I'll give it a go.
What "choice" were they given? Between Windows 10S or Windows 10 Pro? Really? That's supposed to be compelling? Think of any other choice that's that narrow, and it seems stupid: hot fudge sunday, or warm fudge sunday? Blue Ford F-150, or Black Ford F-150?
It's clear that Microsoft is trying to do a good thing
Saying it doesn't make it so. This isn't a "good" thing. FWIW, I don't think this is "bad", as in worse than not offering it, but it's not "good" in a moral way, which is how you phrased it. They're even charging for it, so it is by no means altruistic. The $49 wouldn't feel as much like a rip off if "Pro" still meant something, but even if it was a choice of the enterprise version, it's still not "good".
I was hoping (but not holding my breath) to see the headline read:
Don't let the new Windows 10 S operating system stop you from buying a Surface Laptop this year. If you'd rather run a non-Microsoft OS, you can easily do so via Microsofts answer to bootcamp, __________!
If that bootcamp like solution only supported MacOS X, then I still wouldn't consider it much of a choice (like republican/democrat).
If they also refund the OS license fee if you switch out the OS, then they would be trying to do a good thing (or just the right thing).
But be warned: Once you upgrade your license key, you can't go back.
See, how is this "trying to do a good thing"? I'm not sure why someone would want to go back, but why the hell wouldn't they allow it? Seems like that should be baked in and always possible (ie. let the user screw things up however they like, but flash to recovery and it restores the original Windows 10S), not locked out because you spent $49 to reclassify an identifier (the license key) from 10S to 10Pro.
I'm sure this is welcome news to some folks who want ("need") to run certain programs that don't run on 10S, but it's far from a karma gaining action. They locked things down and took away choices first. They're now easing off slightly. One step forward and two steps back doesn't put them on the positive side of the equation. None of what I said above even begins to touch on any of the other big negatives (frequent defaults resets (ex. browser), telemetry, forced updates, cortana hard to disable, ads integrated into menus, ruined start menu, multiple places to configure settings, removal of dvd playback and other features on upgrade, unable to uninstall builtin programs, let alone all the FOSS complaints).
I think you did a great job with that write up.
What I do see in common with all the critics is that they base things on the current size of phones, current wifi routers, and current phone power consumption.
A quick side note: I think that even the Qi wireless charging, where the device rests right on top of the pad, is wasteful and pretty silly. Convenient? Slightly, but it could just have some metal tabs and a cradle like old wireless phones. Anyway, moving on...
Someday, we might have a device that uses far less power. Maybe it'll natively do far less too (run stuff in the cloud)? There could also be some personal integration that makes a much larger antenna feasible (maybe a sleeve?).
Maybe there's also multiple "wifi" devices in range that can triangulate where the user is?
Maybe those can then focus a signal on/near the device, and go all the way up to the 1W output (maybe not doing actual wifi, or maybe riding on top of the signal).
After all that, maybe the little trickle that is left would be enough to run the device at full power. Maybe not "charge" it, but if it can run it, then the device would effectively last nearly forever without a recharge. That could be pretty nice. I'm thinking more along the lines of watches and IoT than what we currently do on phones... but still... even if it's incredible wasteful and inefficient, it might still sell and function enough to be useful. Maybe?
1. Most ISPs don't allow residential customers to run an email service of their own.
Wrong. Sometimes, you may have to ask to have the port opened, but most allow it.
many domains will reject any email out-of-hand that's sent from just some random IP address
Set it up correctly. Set up the various SPF records and other such stuff. That'll greatly reduce the impact of this.
Furthermore, you *can* get your own static IPv4 IP that isn't in those blocks, and/or you can use a virtual server and forward that stuff, and/or you can use IPv6 to route around it, and/or you can use a different outbound SMTP server or forward through one. There are lots of ways around this trivial issue.
Why even bother with this when there's something like Proton Mail out there ...
Using a common service/server is one of the primary things this product is trying to avoid, as is using hardware/storage someone else owns (virtual servers / hosting / cloud / etc). There's nothing wrong with that part of the theory.
If you don't want to use a service like Proton Mail, what's wrong with using your own end-to-end encryption?
It relies on accessible and verifiable public keys and integration with the client software. That works within protonmail because all users get keys and can share public keys (AFAICT). Doing it yourself means pgp/gpg or s/mime, and both parties must have that, and there's no encryption of email headers (including TO, FROM, and SUBJECT) with those, so they won't be protected once they leave your server.
If you're really so worried about someone hacking into your communications over the Internet, then why are you even bothering with email in the first place?
What type of argument is that? Probably shouldn't use http either, nor facebook, nor any instant messenger, nor any search engine, nor the internet... heck, you should probably completely disconnect from every external line and seal yourself in a faraday cage within a bunker underground.
Email has loads of benefits and still the most widely used (head count) communication platform. It's certainly capable of sending an encrypted payload and the delivery mechanism is very well established... why not use it?
None of this means this product is good or worthwhile, but a secure communication appliance *could* be done right.
You fail at reading comprehension.
The example that made up the majority of your ramble, of which you couldn't recall what ISP did it.... that was my final sentence and I included the name of the ISP (comcast).
Let's try this another way... The point of net neutrality is to prevent this sort of thing. It's to ensure that end users can use any part of the internet without some parts being artificially restricted. If/when it goes away, Comcast and other ISP's can go back to charging content providers, such as Netflix, for faster transmission to Comcast's network. This restriction favors Comcast because they also have their own streaming site(s), so it's an anti-competitive move. I think you're on the same page up to this point.
What GGGP was saying, is that those ISP's should be careful what they wish for because the content providers could turn around and do the same thing right back to them (but can't at this time due to current regulations).
Trying to wring money out of an ISP as large as Comcast as opposed to charging users directly would backfire. Comcast would just say no, denying Google a large part of the ISP customer market.
That's quite debatable, but I disagree.
If google, youtube, netflix, hulu, amazon, apple/itunes, pandora, spotify, etc all teamed up and said they would put a big banner on the top of every page informing the user that their ISP failed to pay their dues, so their connection was being limited to low bitrate titles, and they did so, I'm certain they could easily take on comcast. They could even target that action to those cities (based on geoip) where comcast has competition, so that users could go to an ISP that has paid the dues. They could also make it free for some ISP's by setting up cooperative peering arrangements (which has been done for ages and is common practice).
I'm curious... what is your opinion on net neutrality in general, and the legislation in particular? Based on your comment, it would seem that you are pro-net neutrality, since you called out the "egregious" act that "bullshit ISPs have ALREADY done". So am I, and so was the GP, and so is the argument that ISPs should be afraid of loosing the net neutrality legislation (though I don't think it (content providers charging the end users ISPs) is a likely outcome).
This has nothing to do with Google competing directly for in the ISP space. Just ignore google fiber for a bit. For that matter, ignore the mention of google - that probably wasn't the best example, though it's still a decent one (think youtube instead of google, which they also own).
What GP is implying is that content providers *could* theoretically turn the tables on the ISP's. Instead of staying alive on advertising money and user subscriptions, New York Times could sell a "fast lane" to the ISP (ie. ISP pays NYT for faster access to NYT from their network). If the ISP doesn't pay, they get throttled, and the site throws up a warning that their connection is throttled because their ISP hasn't paid their dues.
Furthermore, content providers *could* band together, somewhat like patent portfolios, so they could have strength in numbers. If they did so, they could also offer individuals personal plans to their site to get fast access just for you and only to that site (or to a group of sites). If you or your ISP don't pay, you'd just get a more basic site (low res videos, rate limitted, etc). They could make your ISP look like a 3rd world ISP.
IMO, it's absolutely crazy. The ISP should never charge some content provider for faster access, nor vice-versa. The users are paying for their last mile connection. The servers / content providers are paying for their bandwidth within their colo's or interconnects etc. When comcast demanded that netflix pay to send that traffic to their users, that was double dipping and violated the spirit (if not the law) of net neutrality.
They should skip all that and release a Retro Nintendo Switch ASAP. It'd help fill in the empty shelf space where the Nintendo Switch should be.
"an HDMI cable's length" is a very imprecise measurement - way worse than LoC's (libraries of congress). Regardless, I'm certain your PC is within that distance from your PC.
No. A Wii is not the same as a combo nes/snes/n64 retro box preloaded with titles.
And yes, cost is one of the biggest factors. There's no way I'm spending enough to get all the (expensive) add on controllers, and buy all the games ($5 - $15 each**), on top of buying a Wii.
Form factor also matters, as does ease of use/maintenance. With the games preloaded, it's very convenient - buy it, plug it in, and it's all there. No network connection needed (or even possible). No need to create accounts, make additional purchases, download each title, etc. It's all right there. I want to pick it up and play for a bit. If I have to be bothered to do all the leg work, it's not worth it (I would have stood outside and waited for one if I had that kind of time to devote to it, HA).
* got the game pricing from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (500 - 1500 Wii Points, or $4.99 - $9.99 on the Wii U). And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (100 points = $1; Dr. Mario Online RX is 1500 points).
THIS. This is all I was planning on saying, more or less.
You can't even view facebook messages on a phone via the browser. I'm pretty sure I would have installed the app if I wasn't so stubbornly opposed to forcing stuff on people.
I don't think it's a monopoly practice (as the GP stated). Separating messenger off to its own app is actually a good design, and we should probably give them credit for that. However, comparing its download stats to other stand alone apps is disingenuous, and forcing it on people viewing the website via a browser is, IMO, a dick move.
So wrong.
Minecraft: 5839 downloads in past 24hr (https://minecraft.net/en-us/stats/)
Facebook Messenger: averaged 348000 downloads per day in September 2016 (https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/13-eye-popping-app-download-statistics-42f176356637)
I'm sure minecrafts numbers are larger overall, since there are other platforms not counted in that figure (it's just PC/Mac, but parent *did* state, "maybe not on the google store or whatevs the poor people use", so I don't feel bad about using that stat). I'm also guessing minecraft has far more downloads per day when they push out an update. Regardless, there's still a few orders of magnitude to make up.
The only thing MacOS is missing out of the box is window snapping, but there are ways to fix that....
(I'm wondering off topic a bit, but...)
1. focus follows mouse and window menu bars within the window (need the latter for the former to work).
2. legal/supported hackintosh.
If Apple had made their OS generally available in the same way Windows is, and I could do focus follows mouse, I would have had it running on at least one of my machines, and I suspect that would have grown into most of them.
For those coming from Windows, and buying new hardware, it really shouldn't be a big deal. Sure, everything underneath is different, as is the way everything looks, but it all ends up working pretty much the same. The change isn't significantly more drastic than going from Windows 7 to Windows 10.
:-( I should have previewed that comment.
The two examples I provided should have been:
* include both on the location bar (one in parenthesis). Eg. [lock icon] Secure | [www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com] https://www.apple.com/ ... or vice-versa: Eg. [lock icon] Secure | [www.apple.com] https://www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com/
*
NOTE: in the above, the word "apple" would be the phishing version with the "l" replaced by a unicode character, or the "a" replaced by the greek "a", but slashdot doesn't like unicode, so I just entered the ascii versions. IE. use your imagination :-)