If you want a stress-free life, pay cash for everything.
Amen.
There are two things in my life that I went into debt for, and both were homes that I owned. There are some things you don't want to save up because it just takes forever. But if you go into debt to pay for your daily living, or anything short of a car or a house, you are stupid, crazy and deserve every suffering you get as a consequence.
Homes you might have no choice but to finance, but buy something you can pay off in five to ten years
Might work in the US. European homes are more expensive, but with the right financial planning, you can pay them off in 20 years or a bit less instead of the more usual 30-40.
There's also one other aspect of buying a house: Again with the right financial juggling and good choices, it can actually be cheaper to buy it on mortgage then rent a comparable one. In that case it doesn't matter too much how long you pay for it.
"any bank that is too large to fail is too large to exist. Any bank that receives money from the federal government will be broken up in pieces and sold,"
Among the many things that made no sense during the crisis, this one stands out. Why did the taxpayers give money to banks and got nothing in return? Nobody else on that market operates like that. We should've offered them the usual free market conditions: Money in exchange for shares, period. And since they were pretty much broke anyways, that would've meant 100% of the shares, and if you don't like it you can throw yours into the furnace where they'll be worth more than at the exchange.
It doesn't make sense unless you take corruption and personal interests into account.
It's not as big with driving as it is with brewing beer as a hobby.
Errr... yes, it is.
Having a plastic dog with a wobbling head on your rear shelf is quaint. And not in any danger of becoming illegal.
Cars are often involved in lethal accidents.
Which is the point. Basic laws of causation, really. There is no causal link between "quaint" and "illegal" whatsoever. It just happens that some things happen to be both, just like "red" and "big" have no causal connection, but some things are both.
It's such a sad world where lies and strawman like the ones the GP posted are easier understood than simple truths like a third variable.
While I share the basic sentiment, I must also say that our (I live in Hamburg) former office holder knew more about what he was talking about. The current guy is a lawyer by profession.
If you are worried about your fingerprints making the rounds, there are several hundred other things more dangerous than your mobile phone, because frankly, you leave your fingerprint everywhere.
What is worrying about the digital thing is that theoretically a hacker in China could get it without travelling to your location and lifting your fingerprints of something you touched.
But - that would only work if the device actually stored a fingerprint, and not just what is essentially the hash sum of one.
My advise would be the exact opposite (and contrary to Caspar, I am a security expert). Do use your fingerprint for casual stuff like unlocking your phone. Do not use it for important things like your car, house or bank account.
Science updates its data, i.e. total non-story, it's like writing the sky is still blue and there are clouds moving - omg, moving! across it.
But of course, most people are really, really conservative at heart. Not in the political sense, necessarily. As a species, we hate change. Things that naturally change unsettle us. That's why for 99% of human history, things simply were. Fixed and eternal. You know, gods and their laws. Morality. Even today, just the idea that morals and ethics is something that changes and evolves is revolting. That fucking underage kids was perfectly fine in some ancient societies is not a topic for a polite dinner conversation, and the first instinct I bet almost everyone who just read that had was something along the lines of "what was wrong with them?".
And that is why you can make a headline out of the fact that something that everyone with three grams of working brain matter knows and expects to continuously be updated has, in fact, been updated.
Some days, I wonder how our species managed to survive at all. omfg, I think I just realized that everything else on this stupid planet must be even worse.
Taxi drivers will go the way of the Dodo bird within our lifetime. Over here in Europe, car sharing is massively on the rise. In my city, for example, there are a couple hundred smarts, and I can find the nearest one available using an app on my smartphone, walk up to it, rent it right there without going into any office, drive it to my destination, and just leave it there for the next guy to pick it up.
Just add self-driving to this and you have a perfect city-wide coverage. Not only because I could use it more like a taxi (i.e. let it drive me, instead of driving myself), but also because the cars could automatically move themselves to hotspots where they are needed, so you would always have one nearby - or could call one to your destination.
Then there is already an app that crosses transportation methods. I enter where I want to go, it knows where I am from the GPS in my phone, and it will calculate my options to getting where I want to go, taking public transport, car sharing and taxis into account.
Add Siri to the mix and in just a few years, things will go like this:
"Siri, I want to go visit my parents." "You can take the bus in 12 minutes, or I can get you a car. Going by car will be 18 minutes faster." "Get me a car, please." "Car rented, will be at the door in 6 minutes."
'The ultimate prize, of course, would be to bring the million-plus iOS apps to Macs.
Which is what will definitely not happen, because Apple is about the only company on this planet that really understands that mobile and desktop are two different animals, with different needs and patterns of interaction.
Microsoft's "surface" isn't a fail because the hardware sucks, you know?
The ultimate prize is that developers will have an easier time writing stuff for both iOS and OS X, because they can share the backend code between the two and only have to write a new frontend.
That way, instead of getting a million crap apps that work badly on OS X, you will get a few thousand quality apps with a true OS X interface.
Before you try cheap jokes on UIDs, come out of hiding and show your own.
You apparently don't understand anything about the official mission of the NSA nor its history. And if you think I'm a shill, you should know that I live in the european country that's #1 on their target list. The only reason I'm not raging is that it really wasn't much of a surprise, the only thing that's changed compared to last year is that we now know what we only suspected.
But all that doesn't change the facts. In all the rage and being upset and all that, you should try to keep your head and see the truth. And the truth is that the NSA does have a good track record when it comes to this stuff. An example from history: They made changes to DES back when it was in the standardization process. Nobody outside NSA understood why they made these changes at that time. About a decade later, cryptographers discovered an attack on DES that was interesting, but not devastating. They also discovered that it would have been devastating if those changes hadn't been made.
As I said in a different answer: Do trust the NSA with your crypto, they know a whole lot about it. Do not trust them with implementation. Anyone with half a brain will put a backdoor into the implementation, not the algorithm. Because when the russian or the chinese find it, you can fix the implementation easily. Fixing an algorithm is a lot more difficult. But even more importantly: You can use a non-backdoored implementation internally, and exchange encrypted data with external parties without them knowing that you're not using the same implementation.
How could anyone trust an encryption algorithm provided by an organization whose purpose is decryption and interception? That will always be the craziest part.
It's not crazy, you are just badly informed.
The NSA also has the job to make sure nobody does to the US what the US does to everyone else. They've been developing crypto and security technology for decades, some of which (like SELinux) has passed even the most paranoid double-checking.
You would want to trust them for the same reason an ex-burglar is the best guy to hire for checking out your home security system, or hackers make up some of the best security consultants: They know what they're talking about.
As close as you can come to trusting something like the NSA, but yes.
Most people see the NSA as a pure spy agency, but that's not true. It has two jobs. One, to spy on everything else and two, to make sure nobody spies on the US.
They employ enough smart people to understand that if they can break it, so can someone else.
If you are really concerned, you should check the implementation. Past experiences show us clearly that it is a lot easier to put backdoors there. And it has the advantage that if the enemy finds them, you can fix them.
Or, more likely, you use a different, backdoor-free implementation internally.
Do you think so called 'rock star' developers are necessary at every company? [...] If you give every problem a complexity value from 1 to 10, and your problems never get higher than a 6 or 7, do you need people capable of solving the 10s?
Those are two entirely different problems you mix there. No surprise you are confused.
"rock star" is mostly an attitude, not a skill level. Some of the very best are not famous, and many of the famous aren't all that good. That is true in all areas, not just music or coding.
So on that question: A "rock star" developer is necessary if and only if he adds value for the company. If you are selling your technology, say you are id software and your main business is selling your game engine to other developers, then a rock star can help you a lot to sell more licenses. Otherwise, no you probably don't need him.
But on the other question: Absolutely yes. Unless your company is tiny, you really, really want at least one brilliant guy on the team. You think in a simple, linear way. The real world rarely works like that. You may be perfectly able to solve that standard problem, but your 10 coder may be able to solve it faster, better, or in a more generic way that can be applied to other problems. Or he may be the one to ask the right questions to make everyone understand that you've been solving the wrong problem all along. If nothing else, he provides a benchmark and an aspiration for everyone else.
If you've never worked with a real pro before, you should. The difference between someone competent and someone brilliant is staggering, and it goes way beyond the difficulty levels of problems he can solve.
Maybe. Still I enjoy learning about how these things are used well.
For example, I own a license to Terragen 2. But my own creations are far, far away from the stuff they make as movie backgrounds using the very same software. I love reading about it and watching images and vids, because it shows me just what is possible and gives me aspiration to improve my skills.
City Engine is another thing that I've had on my radar for a long time. It's just way, way too expensive for a small indie developer.
So, basically: Yeah, it borders on slashvertisement, but people like me still care and want to read about it.
You're an idiot. The only reason this country is still standing is because we learnt during the Kohl era (her mentor, btw) how to run a country without a government, because its official attitude is basically that they're not interested in running the country.
The greatest strength of Germany is that it really doesn't matter who's in the drivers seat, because we have long removed the pedals and the steering wheel from there anyways.
If you want to understand Germany, the first thing you need to know about politics is that the central government does not matter one bit. Since Kohl, we've had 4 different parties in 4 different coalitions running the country. You need a microscope to find the changes in the actual politics.
Credit where credit is due: Everywhere but the government. The rest of the country is doing a pretty good job keeping the country running even though we haven't had an actual government for a decade or so.
Uh, no it doesn't. The current ruling coalition is not guaranteed to continue having the majority after the election. We will most likely keep our mother-troll, mostly because she spent the last 10 years wiping out everyone who could challenge her within her own party, but it's unclear if they can rule with their favorite coalition partner or someone else.
Of course this was a publicity stunt. Ponfalla is not in the business of stuff like this unless it is of personal important to the government.
Not the most stupid strawman non-argument in the history of debate, please.
Just because problem B also exists doesn't mean problem A should be ignored. So unless there is a causal link between smoking and motor vehicles, you're just being a troll.
I want by default a person-centric interface instead of a delivery-method-centric interface.
Are you sure you want that, or does it just sound like a cute idea?
I have an interest in HCI even though I'm not an expert. But one of the things you learn quickly in that area is that what people say they would find easy to use and what they actually find easy to use are quite often different things.
In a person-centric interface, you burden your brain with remembering individual data points, instead of having one rule that it needs to remember and can apply to everything. There's a lot of research that indicates that the second is the better choice.
I frankly don't care if you want to kill yourself, now or over time with smoking. But you are poisoning the same air I am breathing and that bothers me. And anything that can solve that is fantastic.
You, Sir, have no idea what the heck you are talking about.
You still think that technology matters, but it frankly doesn't, or very little. It's not who has the coolest widgets, it is who can make it work.
All the PDAs at that time, all of them, without exception, were toys. Average people wouldn't touch one with a ten foot pole. Heck, I'm an IT guy and I considered them barely useable. In fact, for serious stuff I even moved back to paper and pen.
The iPhone was, above all, useable. No, more then that, it was a pleasure to use. That's why it essentially started the smartphone market even though smartphones had been around for quite a while already.
You completely missed the point. It's not about having anything for free-as-in-free-beer. I'm quite willing to pay for my Internet access. I'm just not ok with everyone who thinks he's a big honcho messing with it.
Slashdot Mirror
If you want a stress-free life, pay cash for everything.
Amen.
There are two things in my life that I went into debt for, and both were homes that I owned. There are some things you don't want to save up because it just takes forever. But if you go into debt to pay for your daily living, or anything short of a car or a house, you are stupid, crazy and deserve every suffering you get as a consequence.
Homes you might have no choice but to finance, but buy something you can pay off in five to ten years
Might work in the US. European homes are more expensive, but with the right financial planning, you can pay them off in 20 years or a bit less instead of the more usual 30-40.
There's also one other aspect of buying a house: Again with the right financial juggling and good choices, it can actually be cheaper to buy it on mortgage then rent a comparable one. In that case it doesn't matter too much how long you pay for it.
"any bank that is too large to fail is too large to exist. Any bank that receives money from the federal government will be broken up in pieces and sold,"
Among the many things that made no sense during the crisis, this one stands out. Why did the taxpayers give money to banks and got nothing in return? Nobody else on that market operates like that. We should've offered them the usual free market conditions: Money in exchange for shares, period. And since they were pretty much broke anyways, that would've meant 100% of the shares, and if you don't like it you can throw yours into the furnace where they'll be worth more than at the exchange.
It doesn't make sense unless you take corruption and personal interests into account.
It's not as big with driving as it is with brewing beer as a hobby.
Errr... yes, it is.
Having a plastic dog with a wobbling head on your rear shelf is quaint. And not in any danger of becoming illegal.
Cars are often involved in lethal accidents.
Which is the point. Basic laws of causation, really. There is no causal link between "quaint" and "illegal" whatsoever. It just happens that some things happen to be both, just like "red" and "big" have no causal connection, but some things are both.
It's such a sad world where lies and strawman like the ones the GP posted are easier understood than simple truths like a third variable.
While I share the basic sentiment, I must also say that our (I live in Hamburg) former office holder knew more about what he was talking about. The current guy is a lawyer by profession.
If you are worried about your fingerprints making the rounds, there are several hundred other things more dangerous than your mobile phone, because frankly, you leave your fingerprint everywhere.
What is worrying about the digital thing is that theoretically a hacker in China could get it without travelling to your location and lifting your fingerprints of something you touched.
But - that would only work if the device actually stored a fingerprint, and not just what is essentially the hash sum of one.
My advise would be the exact opposite (and contrary to Caspar, I am a security expert). Do use your fingerprint for casual stuff like unlocking your phone. Do not use it for important things like your car, house or bank account.
Science updates its data, i.e. total non-story, it's like writing the sky is still blue and there are clouds moving - omg, moving! across it.
But of course, most people are really, really conservative at heart. Not in the political sense, necessarily. As a species, we hate change. Things that naturally change unsettle us. That's why for 99% of human history, things simply were. Fixed and eternal. You know, gods and their laws. Morality. Even today, just the idea that morals and ethics is something that changes and evolves is revolting. That fucking underage kids was perfectly fine in some ancient societies is not a topic for a polite dinner conversation, and the first instinct I bet almost everyone who just read that had was something along the lines of "what was wrong with them?".
And that is why you can make a headline out of the fact that something that everyone with three grams of working brain matter knows and expects to continuously be updated has, in fact, been updated.
Some days, I wonder how our species managed to survive at all. omfg, I think I just realized that everything else on this stupid planet must be even worse.
Then how long after that before "manual" driving becomes illegal?
omfg
Will that eventually become "quaint" and old fashioned... sorta like home-brewing your own beer?
You do understand the vast, massive, continent-wide distance between "quaint" and "illegal", yes?
Taxi drivers will go the way of the Dodo bird within our lifetime. Over here in Europe, car sharing is massively on the rise. In my city, for example, there are a couple hundred smarts, and I can find the nearest one available using an app on my smartphone, walk up to it, rent it right there without going into any office, drive it to my destination, and just leave it there for the next guy to pick it up.
Just add self-driving to this and you have a perfect city-wide coverage. Not only because I could use it more like a taxi (i.e. let it drive me, instead of driving myself), but also because the cars could automatically move themselves to hotspots where they are needed, so you would always have one nearby - or could call one to your destination.
Then there is already an app that crosses transportation methods. I enter where I want to go, it knows where I am from the GPS in my phone, and it will calculate my options to getting where I want to go, taking public transport, car sharing and taxis into account.
Add Siri to the mix and in just a few years, things will go like this:
"Siri, I want to go visit my parents."
"You can take the bus in 12 minutes, or I can get you a car. Going by car will be 18 minutes faster."
"Get me a car, please."
"Car rented, will be at the door in 6 minutes."
Author is an idiot.
'The ultimate prize, of course, would be to bring the million-plus iOS apps to Macs.
Which is what will definitely not happen, because Apple is about the only company on this planet that really understands that mobile and desktop are two different animals, with different needs and patterns of interaction.
Microsoft's "surface" isn't a fail because the hardware sucks, you know?
The ultimate prize is that developers will have an easier time writing stuff for both iOS and OS X, because they can share the backend code between the two and only have to write a new frontend.
That way, instead of getting a million crap apps that work badly on OS X, you will get a few thousand quality apps with a true OS X interface.
Before you try cheap jokes on UIDs, come out of hiding and show your own.
You apparently don't understand anything about the official mission of the NSA nor its history. And if you think I'm a shill, you should know that I live in the european country that's #1 on their target list. The only reason I'm not raging is that it really wasn't much of a surprise, the only thing that's changed compared to last year is that we now know what we only suspected.
But all that doesn't change the facts. In all the rage and being upset and all that, you should try to keep your head and see the truth. And the truth is that the NSA does have a good track record when it comes to this stuff. An example from history: They made changes to DES back when it was in the standardization process. Nobody outside NSA understood why they made these changes at that time. About a decade later, cryptographers discovered an attack on DES that was interesting, but not devastating. They also discovered that it would have been devastating if those changes hadn't been made.
As I said in a different answer: Do trust the NSA with your crypto, they know a whole lot about it. Do not trust them with implementation. Anyone with half a brain will put a backdoor into the implementation, not the algorithm. Because when the russian or the chinese find it, you can fix the implementation easily. Fixing an algorithm is a lot more difficult. But even more importantly: You can use a non-backdoored implementation internally, and exchange encrypted data with external parties without them knowing that you're not using the same implementation.
If you search you will find the official list of software that is certified as FIPS 140-2.
Correct. That list is here:
http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140val-all.htm#1051
you will not find any open source encryption certified by the government as FIPS 140-2
Incorrect. OpenSSL has been on that list since 2008, here's the certificate:
http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140crt/140crt1051.pdf
How could anyone trust an encryption algorithm provided by an organization whose purpose is decryption and interception? That will always be the craziest part.
It's not crazy, you are just badly informed.
The NSA also has the job to make sure nobody does to the US what the US does to everyone else. They've been developing crypto and security technology for decades, some of which (like SELinux) has passed even the most paranoid double-checking.
You would want to trust them for the same reason an ex-burglar is the best guy to hire for checking out your home security system, or hackers make up some of the best security consultants: They know what they're talking about.
As close as you can come to trusting something like the NSA, but yes.
Most people see the NSA as a pure spy agency, but that's not true. It has two jobs. One, to spy on everything else and two, to make sure nobody spies on the US.
They employ enough smart people to understand that if they can break it, so can someone else.
If you are really concerned, you should check the implementation. Past experiences show us clearly that it is a lot easier to put backdoors there. And it has the advantage that if the enemy finds them, you can fix them.
Or, more likely, you use a different, backdoor-free implementation internally.
Do you think so called 'rock star' developers are necessary at every company? [...]
If you give every problem a complexity value from 1 to 10, and your problems never get higher than a 6 or 7, do you need people capable of solving the 10s?
Those are two entirely different problems you mix there. No surprise you are confused.
"rock star" is mostly an attitude, not a skill level. Some of the very best are not famous, and many of the famous aren't all that good. That is true in all areas, not just music or coding.
So on that question: A "rock star" developer is necessary if and only if he adds value for the company. If you are selling your technology, say you are id software and your main business is selling your game engine to other developers, then a rock star can help you a lot to sell more licenses. Otherwise, no you probably don't need him.
But on the other question: Absolutely yes. Unless your company is tiny, you really, really want at least one brilliant guy on the team. You think in a simple, linear way. The real world rarely works like that. You may be perfectly able to solve that standard problem, but your 10 coder may be able to solve it faster, better, or in a more generic way that can be applied to other problems. Or he may be the one to ask the right questions to make everyone understand that you've been solving the wrong problem all along. If nothing else, he provides a benchmark and an aspiration for everyone else.
If you've never worked with a real pro before, you should. The difference between someone competent and someone brilliant is staggering, and it goes way beyond the difficulty levels of problems he can solve.
Maybe. Still I enjoy learning about how these things are used well.
For example, I own a license to Terragen 2. But my own creations are far, far away from the stuff they make as movie backgrounds using the very same software. I love reading about it and watching images and vids, because it shows me just what is possible and gives me aspiration to improve my skills.
City Engine is another thing that I've had on my radar for a long time. It's just way, way too expensive for a small indie developer.
So, basically: Yeah, it borders on slashvertisement, but people like me still care and want to read about it.
Merely by being arrested and owning an iPhone they could claim you have given them implied access to your phone.
I don't think that assertion passes the giggle test.
You're an idiot. The only reason this country is still standing is because we learnt during the Kohl era (her mentor, btw) how to run a country without a government, because its official attitude is basically that they're not interested in running the country.
The greatest strength of Germany is that it really doesn't matter who's in the drivers seat, because we have long removed the pedals and the steering wheel from there anyways.
If you want to understand Germany, the first thing you need to know about politics is that the central government does not matter one bit. Since Kohl, we've had 4 different parties in 4 different coalitions running the country. You need a microscope to find the changes in the actual politics.
Credit where credit is due: Everywhere but the government. The rest of the country is doing a pretty good job keeping the country running even though we haven't had an actual government for a decade or so.
This.
It also remains unclear
Uh, no it doesn't. The current ruling coalition is not guaranteed to continue having the majority after the election. We will most likely keep our mother-troll, mostly because she spent the last 10 years wiping out everyone who could challenge her within her own party, but it's unclear if they can rule with their favorite coalition partner or someone else.
Of course this was a publicity stunt. Ponfalla is not in the business of stuff like this unless it is of personal important to the government.
Not the most stupid strawman non-argument in the history of debate, please.
Just because problem B also exists doesn't mean problem A should be ignored. So unless there is a causal link between smoking and motor vehicles, you're just being a troll.
I want by default a person-centric interface instead of a delivery-method-centric interface.
Are you sure you want that, or does it just sound like a cute idea?
I have an interest in HCI even though I'm not an expert. But one of the things you learn quickly in that area is that what people say they would find easy to use and what they actually find easy to use are quite often different things.
In a person-centric interface, you burden your brain with remembering individual data points, instead of having one rule that it needs to remember and can apply to everything. There's a lot of research that indicates that the second is the better choice.
If your company relies on the CEO to be the final QA, you have a bigger problem.
Other companies would kill for having the problems that Apple had during the past decade. So your point is?
I really, really welcome them.
I frankly don't care if you want to kill yourself, now or over time with smoking. But you are poisoning the same air I am breathing and that bothers me. And anything that can solve that is fantastic.
You, Sir, have no idea what the heck you are talking about.
You still think that technology matters, but it frankly doesn't, or very little. It's not who has the coolest widgets, it is who can make it work.
All the PDAs at that time, all of them, without exception, were toys. Average people wouldn't touch one with a ten foot pole. Heck, I'm an IT guy and I considered them barely useable. In fact, for serious stuff I even moved back to paper and pen.
The iPhone was, above all, useable. No, more then that, it was a pleasure to use. That's why it essentially started the smartphone market even though smartphones had been around for quite a while already.
aiming for further ones, like 720p video recording.
That's what I mean.
Why in all hells would I want a watch that does video recording? Or Facebook? Or messaging?
You completely missed the point. It's not about having anything for free-as-in-free-beer. I'm quite willing to pay for my Internet access. I'm just not ok with everyone who thinks he's a big honcho messing with it.
Oh, I don't doubt that there are elements within the state that I wouldn't want to mess with.
But they are rarely the government.