Of course they have power against the public will. They can't be compelled to labor.
If every place did this, and Uber and Lyft continued to pull out at place after place, you could just go into business as a fingerprinting version of them and compete. They'd either stand on principle (very unlikely) or just adapt.
But no, they don't have to obey. They have a choice- obey or leave. They chose to leave.
Basically, if you can pay the Mac tax, consider it. Also consider Linux and BSD.
I've always had a real beef with Microsoft's many shady dealings. If you have followed them closely, they did a lot of really shady stuff, and had legal pushback. Eventually, they settled into a path where they were making plenty of money and were sort of easy to predict- when they screwed up, which was sometimes, they would try to make it right. This long gentle summer of Microsoft had its peak with Windows 7. Windows 8 didn't feature any of the strange drama we see in 10, but we saw the designers essentially say "we want to move casual users away from the old UI". That's why they pretty much did everything they could to ruin it- if it was still there and easy to turn on, power users would run a script for their friends, and everyone would have the old UI. But this decision was ACTIVE and MALICIOUS. Windows 10 is an absolute nest of drama, as you've noticed.
Basically, the reason you weren't a "screw Microsoft" guy is that you weren't paying attention. I was fine with 7- it offers way less freedom than non-Windows OSes, but it ultimately belongs to the user. Windows 10 breaks that totally. Microsoft sometimes briefly releases the coils. That's just to get you to inhale and exhale so it can clamp down tighter next time. Stop falling for it. Use another OS for everything you possibly can. Evaluate carefully each demand from those around you to install a new MS-only thing. Push back where you can. If you really can discard Microsoft completely, good. But you'll never see how hard it is until you try, how thoroughly they have themselves wrapped tight around anything that they can.
Linux is great for gaming. It runs Linux games without issue, and even many Windows games.
Windows is terrible for gaming: it only runs Windows games.
What you mean to say goes something like "It sure is unfortunate that developers don't build Linux versions of their games. I guess game developers suck at Linux!"
> I mean seriously...people are paying people to do this?
I watch a little more professional video games in a year than I do other professional sports, though neither uses up too much of my time. Football is fun to watch, but so are pro streamers.
> when they decided to send the user's LOCAL queries to amazon without permission or notification
I'm pretty sure there was notification, and there was a configurable option to stop it.
It was still wrong, of course, and it is being stripped out in Ubuntu Unity 8. So I wouldn't throw too many lemons at them- enough were thrown to get them to do the right thing already.
> It's photons. Surely the human eye is not magic.
There's like a zillion layers of processing behind the eye that a robot can't match. There's also reasoning behind the eye that a robot can't match. Why do you think captchas are a thing? Pattern recognition is pretty much something animals do better than any robot, so far.
In principle? Sure. But we're talking about in practice, currently or in the near future. The fact is, no one has a car that can drive for shit in weather, and mostly they just refuse to autodrive if there's even light fog, much less snow and ice.
And if your comparison is, "can a car in 20 years drive better than a guy getting roadhead", I'm not sure whether you are making a comparison or pitching a porno.
> It's hilarious to me that people cite "ice" as an example of their precious human drivers being superior to machines
Not sure if trolling or serious, but the ability of a human to drive well in rough weather is, currently, absolute and true.
It is true that antilock brakes can automate a function that allows novice drivers to stop as well as good drivers, and that's an excellent innovation. It is also true that, at some point in time, computers will do everything better than humans. But, that time is not now. Frankly, it looks like it is a long way off.
In snowy weather, roads can lose a whole lane. Four lane roads become two lane roads become three lane roads. Watching a car subtlety veer as it runs over an ice patch, and knowing how to handle that (avoid the spot, coast over in neutral, whatever) is something that a good driver will do instantly, and a computer can't yet handle- nor does anyone seem to be working on that issue.
Why will infrared see black ice as different than the snow right next to it? Hell, infrared is hard pressed to function at all in light weather, because the useful wavelengths are so damned big, and the snow and rain just eats that stuff up.
Right now, autonomous cars are ABSOLUTELY UNDRIVABLE in the snow. Sure, one day they'll be better than people- but weather will be the LAST thing autonomous cars master. You might have whole generations of useful auto^2 mobiles that can't drive in the snow, and have to creep along in rain, before you finally start to see them able to handle weather at all.
Oh, one last thing- an airplane is a much easier design target because the plane's environment is way more homogenous than a car's. Passenger jets don't fly in formation mere feet away from each other, and landing strips are maintained in ways that roads are not. Autopilot is NOT a good comparison point- it is MUCH simpler than an autodriving car.
> He could, at the very least, have small planned sales
In a rational market, yea, maybe. But this is Bitcoin. The coins in question haven't moved EVER- many assume that they are probably stuck in place (essentially destroyed), and the market reflects whatever percent of bitcoin speculators believe that. So even moving a single bitcoin would probably cause some pretty serious effects.
Certainly, this guy is not Satoshi, and now we know for sure. Previously there were hints that he may have set up. Now that he is claiming it, and refuses to do any arbitrary proof, he is trivially a liar until such time as he actually demonstrates it. There's a bunch of ways to do that, after all.
> Bitcoin, in it's raw form, is the most traceable currency in existence.
Not really.
Bitcoin is, as you point out, fully backtraceable. That's the whole point of blockchain. Now, there's various ways to "launder" it, but that's not really important. The important part is:
If you want to LEGALLY donate to something politically charged, bitcoin could EASILY be a really good method for you. If you: 1)- Buy bit coins at some place that is as normal as bitcoin institutions get- say, coinbase... and then... 2)- Push the coins straight to your donation target from there.
Then you are pretty safe. No "bitcoin washer", no darknet bullshit, not even one extra step of transferring to your own wallet first for plausible deniability. In order to trace that transaction, someone would need to be able to ask the bitcoin place you paid in cash, which transactions you did. Who can do that? Well, the government. But, you didn't commit a crime, so they won't. It's no crime to donate to piratebay, or sci-hub, or whatever.
Lets pretend you had to donate normally, with, like, a credit card. Now when piratebay gets in trouble, or gets hacked, some jackass has a list of everyone who donated. Said jackass then smears your good name, because you donated to those pirates / left wingers / right wingers / whatevers.
The advantage that bitcoin buys you is that you really ARE anonymous- as long as you aren't doing anything illegal. "Not being doxxed" is a pretty good benefit, right?
And of course, you COULD take some simple steps like pushing the money to your wallet first, or whatever. You have plenty of other options if you want to make it hard for someone looking to pierce your anonymity to do so. But we aren't talking about something illegal here, so the practical avenues of people with an agenda looking to smear you or attack you are very slim.
While you may be held in contempt or face other charges if you deliberately take an action to destroy evidence, I've never heard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" being interpreted as "or, you know, if they destroyed evidence". Much of this also depends on the specifics of the case as well.
The overall topic- that you can be compelled to use your finger to unlock a phone- isn't even new. This has already been found in older cases. It's a very solid reason to use good crypto- you can be compelled to unlock with a finger by pretty much anyone at any time, legal or not. It is inherently less secure than a password or even a PIN.
> How many MORE users are there on Steam that have been sitting around not buying anything because the only way they have to process a transaction is with bitcoin?
Well, probably at least one. But that's not really the question, is it? If I accept A, B, C, and D, and you can only pay with E, F, and G, you'll be happy if I implement E, F, or G.
I'm sure if there was no market for it all, they wouldn't have done it. So presumably it it worth it, to some measure.
The point is that MORE users will be able to buy Steam games now. I think it's interesting that Bitcoin is somehow the best way to make this happen, but it doesn't seem out of line. Certainly, Bitcoins are suited about as well as they can be for buying Steam stuff. Bitcoin suffers from a bunch of problems that don't really hit this type of purchase.
Microsoft is going in the WRONG direction. Their insistence on alerting the mothership every time you compile, open notepad, open your media player, view photos... it isn't good. At all.
...and if you can't find that one, how about a dim bulb that lasts forever, like that firestation bulb that has been going a hundred years or whatever? If there's no "bright and robust", just link me "robust and efficient". Or, really, just "robust".
Your first and fourth links are both really derived from the same 2008 computer simulation. A fuller discussion is here: https://zbigniewmazurak.wordpr... I think the fifth link falls into this bucket as well.
You second link ALSO refers to the same 2008 RAND corporation one, and it also simply waves away stealth by assuming that the F -35 would be detected by ground based radar, or that the infrared signature on it would automatically betray it.
The third article has a sensational headline, and doubles down with this quote: "The F-35 isn't even close to fully operational - it can fly only on sunny days. It can't fly at night. And it can't fly in clouds or near lightning. We know this because the Pentagon tells us so, in a report written for the Secretary of Defense by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, J. Michael Gilmore, dated February 15, 2013."
Curious phrasing. Since they have to cite the "written report" to have any weight, why not link directly to it? Is a hyperlink too fucking hard for the author? He certainly has no problem providing one when something lets him editorialize.
"The Block 1A training syllabus used during the OUE was limited by the current restrictions of the aircraft. Aircraft operating limitations prohibit flying the aircraft at night or in instrument meteorological conditions, hence pilots must avoid clouds or other weather. However, the student pilots are able to simulate instrument flight in visual meteorological conditions to practice basic instrument procedures. These restrictions are in place because testing has not been completed to certify the aircraft for night and instrument flight."
Note also the title of this report: "F -35A Ready for Training Operational Utility Evaluation"
This report was talking about the first stages of training pilots. It happened before the plane had been tested for all the conditions, and talked about what the workaround was at the time. Hey, did they ever get to that testing? http://www.livescience.com/496...
Your links are sensational. Certainly, they are all over the internet, but most of them source the same few out-of-context facts. The fact that the authors have to really dig to find facts which they then portray sans-quote and most assuredly sans-context sorta shows that they have some kind of editorial vision that they were going to enact. Taking training reports and pretending that the restrictions in place for them are fundamental restrictions on the jet, extensive reliance on a 2008 computer simulation- these guys obviously have a bone to pick. Neutral headlines and reports don't get clicks though.
It's the fact that there's a bunch of functioning F-35s, and these stories are controversial so they run. If it bleeds, it leads. The F-35 has a whole bunch of versions, for different military branches, different countries, etc. All these stories make it sound like it's some alpha project instead of a functioning jet.
The breech is mostly when he segues from "this is the general path technology could very well follow" to "...and here is the timeline". His timeline is really generous, and he spends most of his time defending it. He also seems to mostly skip over the ludicrously huge social upheaval that many of his technology milestones could cause. Skipping over some of them might be possible, but for ALL of them to happen like that? A technological singularity would have unprecedented social effects, even if it happened at a slower rate than he states.
Yes, one day we'll cure aging. But for it to happen on a schedule that includes Kurzweil, or any of us, seems optimistic.
> In the meantime, I need to keep browsing forums for another 20-30 minutes while my console updates... and then has to download a patch for the game.
This has really hurt my console gaming. I have a Wii-U and a PS4, and I like them both. But every single time I get a new game, it needs to download hundreds of megabytes- and sometimes dozens of gigabytes- from the mothership before it will play.
This is a stupendously fragile system, and is only workable because I have a good internet connection. More importantly, it makes the process of playing a game orders of magnitude stupider than before, and roughly as stupid as on a PC. If I have friends coming over, I can't go buy a fun party game none of us have played, because I know that's something I need to budget time for ahead of time, to ensure it works.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course they have power against the public will. They can't be compelled to labor.
If every place did this, and Uber and Lyft continued to pull out at place after place, you could just go into business as a fingerprinting version of them and compete. They'd either stand on principle (very unlikely) or just adapt.
But no, they don't have to obey. They have a choice- obey or leave. They chose to leave.
Basically, if you can pay the Mac tax, consider it. Also consider Linux and BSD.
I've always had a real beef with Microsoft's many shady dealings. If you have followed them closely, they did a lot of really shady stuff, and had legal pushback. Eventually, they settled into a path where they were making plenty of money and were sort of easy to predict- when they screwed up, which was sometimes, they would try to make it right. This long gentle summer of Microsoft had its peak with Windows 7. Windows 8 didn't feature any of the strange drama we see in 10, but we saw the designers essentially say "we want to move casual users away from the old UI". That's why they pretty much did everything they could to ruin it- if it was still there and easy to turn on, power users would run a script for their friends, and everyone would have the old UI. But this decision was ACTIVE and MALICIOUS. Windows 10 is an absolute nest of drama, as you've noticed.
Basically, the reason you weren't a "screw Microsoft" guy is that you weren't paying attention. I was fine with 7- it offers way less freedom than non-Windows OSes, but it ultimately belongs to the user. Windows 10 breaks that totally. Microsoft sometimes briefly releases the coils. That's just to get you to inhale and exhale so it can clamp down tighter next time. Stop falling for it. Use another OS for everything you possibly can. Evaluate carefully each demand from those around you to install a new MS-only thing. Push back where you can. If you really can discard Microsoft completely, good. But you'll never see how hard it is until you try, how thoroughly they have themselves wrapped tight around anything that they can.
Linux is great for gaming. It runs Linux games without issue, and even many Windows games.
Windows is terrible for gaming: it only runs Windows games.
What you mean to say goes something like "It sure is unfortunate that developers don't build Linux versions of their games. I guess game developers suck at Linux!"
> I mean seriously...people are paying people to do this?
I watch a little more professional video games in a year than I do other professional sports, though neither uses up too much of my time. Football is fun to watch, but so are pro streamers.
> when they decided to send the user's LOCAL queries to amazon without permission or notification
I'm pretty sure there was notification, and there was a configurable option to stop it.
It was still wrong, of course, and it is being stripped out in Ubuntu Unity 8. So I wouldn't throw too many lemons at them- enough were thrown to get them to do the right thing already.
> It's photons. Surely the human eye is not magic.
There's like a zillion layers of processing behind the eye that a robot can't match. There's also reasoning behind the eye that a robot can't match. Why do you think captchas are a thing? Pattern recognition is pretty much something animals do better than any robot, so far.
In principle? Sure. But we're talking about in practice, currently or in the near future. The fact is, no one has a car that can drive for shit in weather, and mostly they just refuse to autodrive if there's even light fog, much less snow and ice.
And if your comparison is, "can a car in 20 years drive better than a guy getting roadhead", I'm not sure whether you are making a comparison or pitching a porno.
> It's hilarious to me that people cite "ice" as an example of their precious human drivers being superior to machines
Not sure if trolling or serious, but the ability of a human to drive well in rough weather is, currently, absolute and true.
It is true that antilock brakes can automate a function that allows novice drivers to stop as well as good drivers, and that's an excellent innovation. It is also true that, at some point in time, computers will do everything better than humans. But, that time is not now. Frankly, it looks like it is a long way off.
In snowy weather, roads can lose a whole lane. Four lane roads become two lane roads become three lane roads. Watching a car subtlety veer as it runs over an ice patch, and knowing how to handle that (avoid the spot, coast over in neutral, whatever) is something that a good driver will do instantly, and a computer can't yet handle- nor does anyone seem to be working on that issue.
Why will infrared see black ice as different than the snow right next to it? Hell, infrared is hard pressed to function at all in light weather, because the useful wavelengths are so damned big, and the snow and rain just eats that stuff up.
Right now, autonomous cars are ABSOLUTELY UNDRIVABLE in the snow. Sure, one day they'll be better than people- but weather will be the LAST thing autonomous cars master. You might have whole generations of useful auto^2 mobiles that can't drive in the snow, and have to creep along in rain, before you finally start to see them able to handle weather at all.
Oh, one last thing- an airplane is a much easier design target because the plane's environment is way more homogenous than a car's. Passenger jets don't fly in formation mere feet away from each other, and landing strips are maintained in ways that roads are not. Autopilot is NOT a good comparison point- it is MUCH simpler than an autodriving car.
> He could, at the very least, have small planned sales
In a rational market, yea, maybe. But this is Bitcoin. The coins in question haven't moved EVER- many assume that they are probably stuck in place (essentially destroyed), and the market reflects whatever percent of bitcoin speculators believe that. So even moving a single bitcoin would probably cause some pretty serious effects.
Certainly, this guy is not Satoshi, and now we know for sure. Previously there were hints that he may have set up. Now that he is claiming it, and refuses to do any arbitrary proof, he is trivially a liar until such time as he actually demonstrates it. There's a bunch of ways to do that, after all.
> No one (to my knowledge) really, truly objects to 'encryption'.
> But a lot of governments object to encryption that they don't personally have a master key for.
Encryption with a 'master key' isn't encryption. That's literally the whole fucking point.
> Bitcoin, in it's raw form, is the most traceable currency in existence.
Not really.
Bitcoin is, as you point out, fully backtraceable. That's the whole point of blockchain. Now, there's various ways to "launder" it, but that's not really important. The important part is:
If you want to LEGALLY donate to something politically charged, bitcoin could EASILY be a really good method for you. If you:
1)- Buy bit coins at some place that is as normal as bitcoin institutions get- say, coinbase... and then...
2)- Push the coins straight to your donation target from there.
Then you are pretty safe. No "bitcoin washer", no darknet bullshit, not even one extra step of transferring to your own wallet first for plausible deniability. In order to trace that transaction, someone would need to be able to ask the bitcoin place you paid in cash, which transactions you did. Who can do that? Well, the government. But, you didn't commit a crime, so they won't. It's no crime to donate to piratebay, or sci-hub, or whatever.
Lets pretend you had to donate normally, with, like, a credit card. Now when piratebay gets in trouble, or gets hacked, some jackass has a list of everyone who donated. Said jackass then smears your good name, because you donated to those pirates / left wingers / right wingers / whatevers.
The advantage that bitcoin buys you is that you really ARE anonymous- as long as you aren't doing anything illegal. "Not being doxxed" is a pretty good benefit, right?
And of course, you COULD take some simple steps like pushing the money to your wallet first, or whatever. You have plenty of other options if you want to make it hard for someone looking to pierce your anonymity to do so. But we aren't talking about something illegal here, so the practical avenues of people with an agenda looking to smear you or attack you are very slim.
While you may be held in contempt or face other charges if you deliberately take an action to destroy evidence, I've never heard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" being interpreted as "or, you know, if they destroyed evidence". Much of this also depends on the specifics of the case as well.
The overall topic- that you can be compelled to use your finger to unlock a phone- isn't even new. This has already been found in older cases. It's a very solid reason to use good crypto- you can be compelled to unlock with a finger by pretty much anyone at any time, legal or not. It is inherently less secure than a password or even a PIN.
Sure, if you ignore:
https://www.eff.org/press/rele...
I am NAL, but it does not.
https://www.eff.org/press/rele...
> How many MORE users are there on Steam that have been sitting around not buying anything because the only way they have to process a transaction is with bitcoin?
Well, probably at least one. But that's not really the question, is it? If I accept A, B, C, and D, and you can only pay with E, F, and G, you'll be happy if I implement E, F, or G.
I'm sure if there was no market for it all, they wouldn't have done it. So presumably it it worth it, to some measure.
The point is that MORE users will be able to buy Steam games now. I think it's interesting that Bitcoin is somehow the best way to make this happen, but it doesn't seem out of line. Certainly, Bitcoins are suited about as well as they can be for buying Steam stuff. Bitcoin suffers from a bunch of problems that don't really hit this type of purchase.
> /. needs a "like" button
Pls no
Microsoft is going in the WRONG direction. Their insistence on alerting the mothership every time you compile, open notepad, open your media player, view photos... it isn't good. At all.
...and if you can't find that one, how about a dim bulb that lasts forever, like that firestation bulb that has been going a hundred years or whatever? If there's no "bright and robust", just link me "robust and efficient". Or, really, just "robust".
Can you link me to one that is "bright and robust"- lasts a lifetime, is bright, but isn't efficient? I'd definitely like at least one bulb like that.
Your first and fourth links are both really derived from the same 2008 computer simulation. A fuller discussion is here:
https://zbigniewmazurak.wordpr...
I think the fifth link falls into this bucket as well.
You second link ALSO refers to the same 2008 RAND corporation one, and it also simply waves away stealth by assuming that the F -35 would be detected by ground based radar, or that the infrared signature on it would automatically betray it.
The third article has a sensational headline, and doubles down with this quote:
"The F-35 isn't even close to fully operational - it can fly only on sunny days. It can't fly at night. And it can't fly in clouds or near lightning. We know this because the Pentagon tells us so, in a report written for the Secretary of Defense by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, J. Michael Gilmore, dated February 15, 2013."
Curious phrasing. Since they have to cite the "written report" to have any weight, why not link directly to it? Is a hyperlink too fucking hard for the author? He certainly has no problem providing one when something lets him editorialize.
Well, here's the report:
http://pogoarchives.org/straus...
And here's the quote:
"The Block 1A training syllabus used during the OUE was limited by the current restrictions of the aircraft. Aircraft operating limitations prohibit flying the aircraft at night or in instrument meteorological conditions, hence pilots must avoid clouds or other weather. However, the student pilots are able to simulate instrument flight in visual meteorological conditions to practice basic instrument procedures. These restrictions are in place because testing has not been completed to certify the aircraft for night and instrument flight."
Note also the title of this report: "F -35A Ready for Training Operational Utility Evaluation"
This report was talking about the first stages of training pilots. It happened before the plane had been tested for all the conditions, and talked about what the workaround was at the time. Hey, did they ever get to that testing? http://www.livescience.com/496...
Your last link is discussed here:
https://fightersweep.com/2548/...
And was on slashdot initially here:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
And then again here:
https://slashdot.org/story/16/...
Your links are sensational. Certainly, they are all over the internet, but most of them source the same few out-of-context facts. The fact that the authors have to really dig to find facts which they then portray sans-quote and most assuredly sans-context sorta shows that they have some kind of editorial vision that they were going to enact. Taking training reports and pretending that the restrictions in place for them are fundamental restrictions on the jet, extensive reliance on a 2008 computer simulation- these guys obviously have a bone to pick. Neutral headlines and reports don't get clicks though.
Well, the "expensive" part is correct. But claiming it "can't fly, can't fight" is just not true.
It's the fact that there's a bunch of functioning F-35s, and these stories are controversial so they run. If it bleeds, it leads. The F-35 has a whole bunch of versions, for different military branches, different countries, etc. All these stories make it sound like it's some alpha project instead of a functioning jet.
The breech is mostly when he segues from "this is the general path technology could very well follow" to "...and here is the timeline". His timeline is really generous, and he spends most of his time defending it. He also seems to mostly skip over the ludicrously huge social upheaval that many of his technology milestones could cause. Skipping over some of them might be possible, but for ALL of them to happen like that? A technological singularity would have unprecedented social effects, even if it happened at a slower rate than he states.
Yes, one day we'll cure aging. But for it to happen on a schedule that includes Kurzweil, or any of us, seems optimistic.
> In the meantime, I need to keep browsing forums for another 20-30 minutes while my console updates... and then has to download a patch for the game.
This has really hurt my console gaming. I have a Wii-U and a PS4, and I like them both. But every single time I get a new game, it needs to download hundreds of megabytes- and sometimes dozens of gigabytes- from the mothership before it will play.
This is a stupendously fragile system, and is only workable because I have a good internet connection. More importantly, it makes the process of playing a game orders of magnitude stupider than before, and roughly as stupid as on a PC. If I have friends coming over, I can't go buy a fun party game none of us have played, because I know that's something I need to budget time for ahead of time, to ensure it works.
I'm pretty sure I've been replaced with a simple shell script.