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  1. Re:Lipstick on a pig! on Microsoft Releases Windows 10 IoT Core For Small, Embedded Devices · · Score: 2

    I just developed an embedded system on Open Embedded/Yocto. I don't know if I'll ever use Linux again after I can use Windows 10 IOT. Getting an embedded Linux customized and all of the necessary packages is a huge PITA. Compiling for that custom distribution image is an even larger PITA. I think I probably spent about 50% on my application and 50% on just pure bullshit trying to get it to run.

    Having Visual Studio, a bullet proof build and deployment system, an easy remote debugging system and the ability to *test* on my local machine in emulation easily? SOLD.

  2. Re:COLLADA is an existing open exchange standard on Pixar's Universal Scene Description To Be Open-Sourced · · Score: 1

    But can you modify Collada references? For example if I had a collada reference to a collada file of a car can I create a collada class called "Car" that exposes functions that can be called and overridden? For instance can my car asset have a .setSpeed() function that will modify the transform matrix to move in a straight line at that velocity whenever you call car.position(10s)? (I'm not trying to be combative I'm actually curious! :D) My memory of Collada was that you could reference objects but you couldn't override a setting. So the reference was an immutable reference.

  3. Re:Nerdlinger on Pixar's Universal Scene Description To Be Open-Sourced · · Score: 1

    The scene file could be a single file or it could be numerous files. The best comparison from my understanding of USD (and Katana's 'recipes' which clearly inspired this) is to CSS. CSS can be embedded in the document or it can be referenced, or it can reference references which reference references etc. You could have a file for a wine glass, which is referenced by a group for a place setting which is referenced by a group which is a table with place settings (but override the position of the forks to randomize the place setting slightly). The table file with the randomized place setting noise can be referenced into a dining room which is itself referenced into a house which is referenced into a block full of other houses all with referenced rooms, tables, assets and primitives.

    So it could be a single file with all of that or it could be thousands of files. They say they are lazy loading too which is inspired by the Alembic file format. What this means in short is that they only load into memory the exact requested data. So you can have your camera field of view loop through the USD network and determine based off of say bounding boxes everything in view and only load each leaf that is actually meeting that filter (taking into account layering overrides etc.)

  4. Re:Rewriting history on Google Is Restructuring Under a New Company Called Alphabet · · Score: 1

    It worked for him at Apple. Not so much outside of Apple. Apparently Pancreatic cancer is immune to reality distorting assertions.

  5. Re:When you look up gullible in the dictionary... on Google Is Restructuring Under a New Company Called Alphabet · · Score: 1

    If NPR's Marketplace hadn't covered it this evening I wouldn't have believed it for a second.

  6. Re:Will this fill a gap in free software? on Pixar's Universal Scene Description To Be Open-Sourced · · Score: 2

    If they integrated this they would have a vastly improved reference management system. However, much of what this offers probably isn't terribly useful to your average Blender user so it would be a total waste of time and actually just a time waster for someone who works by themselves and doesn't reference or instance assets or needs to move assets between multiple content creation packages.

  7. Re:COLLADA is an existing open exchange standard on Pixar's Universal Scene Description To Be Open-Sourced · · Score: 2

    Collada doesn't to my knowledge support inheritance and overrides. So I can't have a Collada file that modifies another Collada file which modifies a third Collada file etc.

    The best comparison would be CSS vs straight HTML. With CSS you can have a style sheet that modifies a second style sheet which inherits a third style sheet which overrides the property of a fourth style sheet and so on and so forth. HTML you just have a page with markup.

  8. Re:Nerdlinger on Pixar's Universal Scene Description To Be Open-Sourced · · Score: 1

    It's like a large application where you break up different components into separate files. Your project might include thousands of source files with hundreds of developers but since it distributes the asset information you can have one person working on a set of classes and functions while another person works on a UI that calls those classes or functions simultaneously.

    In this instance you can be editing in different 'contexts' aka you can be in a 3D modeling application sculpting an asset while a lighter references that model in their set. Conversely the modeler can continue to sculpt while using the lighter's lights.

  9. Re:Hmmm on Drone Drops Drugs Onto Ohio Prison Yard · · Score: 1

    I always assumed payment was easy, you have friends who aren't in prison who pay on your behalf. An escrow economy.

  10. Re:What algorithm/primitive? on Microsoft Creates a Quantum Computer-Proof Version of TLS Encryption Protocol · · Score: 1

    The problem is that quantum computers are theoretically able to break encryption instantaneously. This isn't 20% slower than instantaneous it's 20% slower to encrypt/decrypt when you have the key. The comparison being that a dead bolt and a regular lock takes twice as long to lock and unlock but that doesn't speak to how much longer it takes to cut through the door.

  11. Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s on In Windows 10, Ad-Free Solitaire Will Cost You $10 -- Every Year · · Score: 1

    No you don't see the endgame you're imagining an endgame. If someone wanted to spy on you they could do that easy as pie, they just bribe Angry Birds to include a secret root kit. SSH was vulnerable for years and the source was public so that's no guarantee either. Simply put... if a nation state wants onto your computer they'll get there.

    If I want an app that isn't available in the store I can just sideload it, so the existing annoying installation systems exist. Of course they know who I am. But there isn't a whole lot they can do with it. Again, if they do want to monitor me then they have the mechanisms easily enough on their own without anyone helping them. If someone wants to hack me badly enough, they will.

  12. Re:Insecurity culture.... on Sociologist: Job Insecurity Is the New Normal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One thing I've noticed too is that when they try to transition from a well cared for workforce to one in which the company essentially says "Work hard, but be ready to get fired at any moment" suddenly a lot of costs start adding up for the company. Suddenly people who might have clocked out for lunch before now start 'working' at their desk. People who would even buy supplies from time to time in order to keep working would just sit idly doing nothing if they didn't have everything they needed waiting on the company to provide everything. Someone who might not have religiously used all of their sick days now uses up every paid sick day available because their throat tickles. Oh and all of those employees you used to classify as independent contractors, a few of them just filed paperwork asking the IRS for guidance on their status. The company now owes 5 years of back taxes on 15% of their payroll. Goodbye last 5 years of profits.

    When you become a stickler for rules as an employer you'll suddenly discover that your employees are also really good at finding rules that benefit them.

  13. Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s on In Windows 10, Ad-Free Solitaire Will Cost You $10 -- Every Year · · Score: 4, Insightful

    e I don't like the move to an ad-based, MS-store-based business model.

    If your biggest complaint is that there are ads in some areas of the solitaire suite then just spend the $1 per month for the next 10 years and you'll be back to where you were paying for windows before. You can even write it off if you're a business as an expense instead of a purchase.

    Better, take the $170 for Windows xp/7/8 pro and invest it. Every month you should make about $1.70 in returns. Take that $1.70 and get solitaire every month for life. Take the other $0.70 and every other month buy yourself a nice ad free version of the apps you want for $1.50 like MetroTube. Most ad supported apps in the store also have an ad free version you can buy outright.

    Meanwhile the Microsoft Store Based business model works great. All of your purchases are instant. No more filling out a shady as hell paypal form and waiting for a cd key to arrive. No more trying to find virus free freeware on Downloads.com which then ends up installing a firefox extension to spy on you. No more installing tiny applications which may or may not solve the problem you have and may or may not add a rootkit to your system. The Store is safe, it's well sandboxed by the WinRT APIs. It's cheap, since most apps are more like $1.50 instead of $9.99. It's convenient, you just search and all of the apps are in one place, you don't google and hunt through their poorly designed 1980s BBS inspired website. All of the libraries and packages are included no hunting for dependencies. And yes there are some ad supported apps, but I'm fine with that because I believe in developers being able to make a livelihood but sometimes I'm not willing to actually buy an app outright. I'm more than happy to look at a reasonable amount of ads in an app if I don't feel like spending the $0.99 for it. And when I do feel like spending a couple dollars to support an app it's bought outright 99% of the time and I can install it easily on all of my computers without registration or DRM or any bullshit.

  14. Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s on In Windows 10, Ad-Free Solitaire Will Cost You $10 -- Every Year · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is a really really obvious reason Microsoft gave away Windows 10 for free. They take 30% of all apps sales.

    Give me a break. Solitaire is still free and *ad-free*. That's right I said Ad-Free, because it is if anyone actually bothered to open Solitaire on Windows 8 or Windows 10. If you want to play Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 7 solitaire aka Klondike solitaire it's still free and it's still completley ad free.

    They also added, in spite of everybody here being entitled little brats, 5 other versions of solitaire like Spider solitaire and freecell. If however you want to try out one of the "Daily Challenges" you may use the curated, daily content for the outrageous price of watching an ad.

    God, Slashdot has really hit a new low. God forbid an app, that can be uninstalled is included with a free OS that gives you 5 games for free but offers one tiny bit of premium content in exchange for an ad.

    If your tin foil hat paranoid brain can avoid clicking on the daily-challenge button you get multiple high quality card game apps for nothing. Or you can right click on the app in your app list (because it's not even pinned to your start menu by default) and click "Uninstall". Lord have mercy! The pain and trouble! Oh my!

    They aren't tracking your surfing habits more than google. They're tracking them exactly the same. The OS isn't scanning the contents of your files and applications and uploading them. Put simply this is some of the most rediculous FUD I've seen in nearly all of Slashdot's anti-Microsoft FUD. Which is saying a lot.

    For fuck's sake, Solitaire is not part of some master scheme to spy on you. In fact of all of the large tech companies Microsoft is the one most actively avoiding ads to pay for their products and instead choosing for subscriptions.

  15. Re:Is that even worthwhile? Serious Question... on GasBuddy Has a New Privacy Policy (Spoiler: Not As Customer Friendly) · · Score: 2

    Seriously, they must be able to monetize that (why else risk alienating customers) but how?

    Isn't it possible that these features are needed to help the app work better? If your phone is running hot and low on battery maybe it'll update its map less frequently.

  16. Re:Oh, editors! (Or lack thereof...) on A Naysayer's Take On Windows 10: Potential Privacy Mess, and Worse · · Score: 1

    No, I upgraded last week. RTM has been out since July 15.

  17. Re:Doubtful on Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point? · · Score: 1

    But rather, it will occur when the new technology does something that the old technology doesn't do at all, not even poorly.

    Fuel up in your garage? Personally I find the idea of charging off of any electricity source enormously appealing as well. I'm not saying I would charge up off of a solar panel on a mountain top, but it's a cool feature to know that you could theoretically setup a small hydro generator on your property and drive pretty much indefinitely without needing a massive global petroleum infrastructure to keep driving. That notion has green appeal, it has libertarian appeal, it has national security appeal and it has zombie apocalypse aficionado appeal. All the major demographics.

  18. Nobody in 2005 could imagine a smartphone!? on Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point? · · Score: 1

    75% of US consumers and over 85% of US millennials own smartphones. In fact, in 2005 few if any of the futurists would have even been able to imagine the kind of device most of us now depend upon.

    Really? I guess that handful of futurists who could forsee it must have been rocking Palm Treos in 2002. Or maybe they had a pocketPC in 2000.

    I was browsing the internet (through my PCMCIA dial up modem) on a PocketPC and running apps and playing games on the touchscreen in 2001. Obviously a cellular connection would have been desirable but at the time bandwidth was terribly constrained however it wasn't like anybody had any trouble thinking "Well if cellular internet is slow today, eventually we'll get at least dial up or DSL speeds."

    If futurists didn't see Smartphones coming they were stone dead blind.
     

  19. Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars on Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point? · · Score: 1

    You're completely missing the economics of car ownership. Whatever you are spending, the car company can spend too. Car services are currently grossly overpriced but it's only a matter of time before they become competitive.

    If the total cost of ownership is $3,000 per year (insurance, payments, gas etc). You can spend that or a corporation who can write it all off as an expense can also spend the exact same. If you are careful about model/make they can be careful.

    Theoretically you could set up a 'car service' corporation and spend exactly what you spend today but funnel it through a corporation. Some people do stuff like this for airplanes. So at very worst they should match your car ownership expenses. If they charge a profit then that percentage is how much you miss out on. But counter to the profit angle is also the utilization angle. My car is about 8% utilized. That means there is a 92% opportunity for a company to spend about what you spend and then have your car spend the other 92% of its life earning revenue. That's a massive opportunity to not just compete with ownership but actually beat ownership on price.

  20. Re:more problems than just windows 10... on Windows 10 App For Xbox One Could Render Steam Machines Useless · · Score: 1

    Redmonds XBox is the revenue jumper cable that keeps cringe-worthy projects like phone and surface alive

    Surface? Time to catch up. While everyone was busy ridiculing Surface's failure, Surface has become a $4B a year product for Microsoft with double digit quarter to quarter growth. That's admittedly about 1/4 of ipad's sales but that's also prior to more affordable devices like the surface 3 launching to compete in the Ipad's bread and butter $400-$500 price range.

  21. Re:App store lockdown on Windows 10 App For Xbox One Could Render Steam Machines Useless · · Score: 1

    those kinds of applications are installed by the TrustedInstaller account, which has privileges above and beyond normal administrative accounts in Windows. I have seen no indication that this situation has changed in version 10.

    I imagine you haven't seen any indication since you probably never bothered looking, spending 2 seconds googling or even care.
    http://cdn.nirmaltv.com/images...

  22. Re:Will Edge be ported to Windows 7? on Microsoft Edge On Windows 10: the Browser That Will Finally Kill IE · · Score: 1

    What! Windows 10 isn't sophisticated enough to figure out if it is running on a tablet?

    It's smart enough that when I detach my keyboard from my Surface it switches to tablet mode. But it's not smart enough to know whether I want to be using keyboard and mouse or I want to be touching the screen. It used to be far more aggressive but that annoyed users when it tried to be 'smart' and switched when people didn't want it to.

  23. Re:Is it still integrated with the shell? on Microsoft Edge On Windows 10: the Browser That Will Finally Kill IE · · Score: 1

    You're correct that they could theoretically do anything they want, however when Edge was first released to Insiders you couldn't access LocalHost files (aka .html files on your desktop or a local Apache server). The Public APIs have a checkbox for "local host" so I took that to mean that they were working from the public developer defaults in their compiler options.

    Also since Edge is intended to run on all universal windows platforms I assume they're going to avoid API hooks which might not be available (like shell access or COM which might not be available on Windows Mobile). Adding hooks back into Win32 means they have to have those same hooks available to Hololens etc.

  24. Re:Will Edge be ported to Windows 7? on Microsoft Edge On Windows 10: the Browser That Will Finally Kill IE · · Score: 1

    So you agree that Microsoft does not have the technical ability to develop the Edge browser to run on Windows 7.

    No. I very clearly stated that they technically can but they evidently chose not to write their new application for a product that has reached END OF LIFE and whose successor is FREE. That's a perfectly sane decision. "hey bob should we backport our new free product to people who refuse to accept our free upgrade?" "Fuck no!" "Yeah I didn't think we should either just checking."

    It's as easy to backport Edge as it is to port Chrome from Linux to OSX. You don't see Apple releasing Safari for OS 9. Safari no longer works on OS 9 because supporting an OS which has been End of Life'ed is ridiculous.

  25. Re:Will Edge be ported to Windows 7? on Microsoft Edge On Windows 10: the Browser That Will Finally Kill IE · · Score: 1

    Microsoft Developed the Browser using WinRT which doesn't exist in Windows 7. Both Mozilla and Google had to rewrite their browsers to support Android and iOS. That didn't just magically happen they had to devote a lot of resources to using the Android and iOS APIs. This is no different. Microsoft is moving away from Win32. Win32 had a good 20+ year run but WinRT should eventually displace it. If they didn't write Edge for WinRT developers would cry foul and say "If WinRT isn't good enough for you why should we adopt WinRT?!" Edge is a Universal Windows Application so that means it runs on: Windows Desktop, Windows Mobile, Xbox One (this fall), Hololens and Windows IOT. In other words they did write it so that it could be easily portable... among windows 10 devices.