I'd agree except for people within the same "chain of command", so to speak, because that introduces a power element that can be very damaging to the recipient of these advances.
In the case of Harvey Weinstein, for instance, nearly every potential or aspiring actress in Hollywood is part of his sphere of influence, because he wields great power within her chosen industry. He can literally make or break careers. This is why it's not so easy to decide for the women in question. There's always an implied threat of "I can ruin your career if you reject me."
People need to be very circumspect about propositioning anyone in a position underneath them in any sort of power hierarchy. I'll stop short of saying "never" (it can obviously work out, such as with Bill and Melinda Gates), but I think it's fraught with potential peril.
Being late to the market is sort of an Apple thing. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad were all somewhat late to their respective markets, and subsequently dominated those markets.
I think the big advantage Apple has is being able to tie into their own existing ecosystem. A huge percentage of the US population has iPhones, and so is already used to talking to Siri. These devices might be more comfortable to them as a result.
I have a Mac Mini 2012 model, so we'll see how the latest macOS runs on it - I haven't yet upgraded. I suspect it will be helped by the fact that I have 8GB of RAM and an SSD (I bought this as an inexpensive Mac dev machine), not to mention it's got a quad-code, unlike later Minis.
As far as I've been able to tell when researching the subject for my next smartphone purchase, Apple actually seems to offer updates and security patches longer than most smartphone makers: around five to six years or so, compared to three or four years on average for many Android devices. It's sort of surprising, as that's the opposite of their reputation. Or rather, one could say that Android is *even worse* than Apple in this regard, creating almost disposable devices, even among the premium products.
I was really disheartened to see Google only promising three years of security updates for an $800 flagship phone. IMO, it should be five years at a minimum. Seven years of support is perhaps asking a bit much smartphone, though, I think, especially for an earlier model like that. There's a pretty big disparity in hardware between an iPhone 4 and the latest models.
Now, if Slashdot would change its favicon to use transparent corners instead of white corners, that one tab of mine wont look so funny.
Ahaha, that was bugging me too!
I wasn't actually expecting to like this update. I can live with the UI updates, although I'd characterize them as "not much different". Fortunately, the few add-ons I used upgraded seamlessly, and the browser seems pretty snappy.
Overall, I think it's an improvement, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss the annoyance of those who don't like the UI or lost their favorite add-ons.
Indeed. An an indie game developer myself, I'm looking forward to the day my game's footage is used as irrefutable proof by a state official that a lone ship piloted by a plucky hero is bravely defending the earth against hoards of robotic alien invaders.
Thank you, well stated. This "comin' to take our jerbs!" mantra we're hearing these days is bordering on the absurd. Technology is *always* making some jobs obsolete or reducing labor costs. I'd bet the same thing happened in the shipping industry with standardized intermodal containers.
My parents owned a light manufacturing company for many years. They lived through the age of computerization, and some specific jobs certainly became obsolete. They never fired anyone because of this, though. Instead, people were cross-trained, operated new machines, and so on. Over time, even more employees were hired as the business grew.
I also have to chuckle at people who believe AI or robots are going to take over all or even most blue collar jobs. Many white-collar workers apparently can't envision anything beyond a McDonalds or assembly-line worker. There are thousands of other types of jobs that are, at our current and near-future level of technology, still very impractical or even impossible to automate.
I was worried about the user experience after the upgrade, but the three add-ons I use (I prefer a minimal experience) updated to new versions without user intervention. I was taken to a page of one of them that explained that there might be some reduced functionality, but it still works for what I need. So, well done on that front Mozilla.
The UI doesn't look bad - different, but not exactly better. More of the crappy minimalist trend. Black and white line drawings when we have millions of colors to use still seems silly to me. I'll be used to it in a few days, I'm sure. The only thing that was a bit annoying was the replacement with a bookmarks icon with the library icon. It took a bit to figure out how to customize the toolbar to restore that. The library command oddly displays bookmarks as a giant list of "recently bookmarked" instead of showing them in sorted folders, which is sort of a wtf feature.
I'll have to gauge usability and speed over time, but my initial impression is that it seems pretty snappy.
Overall, surprisingly, I'm actually happy with this update, so long as the performance improvements pan out, and it proves to be stable.
I've sort of made my peace with the fact that desktop Linux will always be a niche player for enthusiasts and experts, plus a tiny percentage of normal people who have experts to admin their systems. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think that an OS which is still a CLI focused system at its heart has some disadvantages as a desktop solution for the masses.
On the other hand, I think Linux is really in its element with specialized environments like supercomputing. You can hack everything to make the OS work exactly as you need for the hardware you use, and strip out everything that's superfluous. There are lots of great open source tools to take advantage of. There are advantages in drawing from the wide range of scientific talent who are already familiar with using and programming for Linux. And of course, you don't have per-core or per-processor licensing fees for your OS, which is a nice bonus.
Women have also been documented to have made up cases of abuse, rape, or threatening incidents. It doesn't mean that these incidents don't happen for real in plenty of other cases. All it means is that some people lie, especially when its in a situation to benefit them or punish those they have a grudge against.
Let's see if there is any merit to the claims before rushing to judgement one way or another. If this truly is a systemic problem, it seems like there should be plenty of corroborating evidence and testimony to be had, according to the account described by the plaintiff.
True. Unlocking rewards over time is a game mechanic many people like, as it gives the player a sense of purpose and progression beyond the game itself. Not everyone enjoys that, but I think many do, so long as the requirements for unlocking those rewards is reasonable.
The problem comes when you introduce micro-transactions, because then the design incentive is strongly skewed toward make unlocks take so long that most many players are encouraged to pay a few bucks for those quick unlocks. At that point, it transforms from "fun" into "grind." This is an especially bad idea in multiplayer games, as it encourages botting. You've already paid for the game, and the game creator is now using that paid game to siphon additional money from players due to their original design decisions. It reeks of dishonesty and slimy behavior, no matter how you look at it.
Charging for the game and then *also* charging for micro-transactions just feels like double-dipping to many of us, especially when it could be rightly argued that those elements should already be part of the core game.
I don't WANT a random app to be able to skirt around not having root access by claiming to need permissions for "Accessibiliy". Google is doing the right thing here, even if the approach may be a bit clumsy or ham-fisted. They were rightly panned a while back (right here on Slashdot) when shown how the Accessibility API could lead to security issues and they dismissed it as "not a bug / working as intended".
Android developers were using an API for purposes it was clearly never intended for. Only now it's understood that those APIs have security implications, so those "clever" hacks may no longer be viable. Google is now working to close those loopholes a bit by making sure app developers justify the use of those APIs, and the response is "Google Evil!" Perfect proof that you can twist *anything* to make it sound nefarious.
Yep, just type in "Prime Video" in the search box, which takes you to the "Included With Prime" category filter. For the Xbox One app which I use, there's a category for Prime Videos for easy browsing as well.
The summary makes it sound like there's some sort of ad-related incrementalism going on with NFL broadcasts. To clarify for the many people who have never watched an NFL broadcast in your life, the game is regularly interrupted for both normal and artificial reasons, during which advertisements are played. So, when streaming an NFL game live, it would be rather idiotic to fill the stream with empty space instead of playing an advertisement. And in fact, on one occasion, I actually saw that happen, presumably by mistake. An animated NBC logo is no more fun to watch than an ad. Maybe even less so.
I'm not too worried at this point, but only because Amazon is competing against Netflix. But I certainly don't trust Amazon not to try to stuff in more ads anywhere they think they can get away with it, though. After all, even though I'm shopping on their site for the purpose of *paying* them for goods, they still feel the need to try to monetize my eyeballs every chance they get. It's a bit irritating, but not enough to overcome the convenience of shopping with them, I suppose. After all, I can just skip over those ads.
I'm fine with a free ad-supported version of a streaming service. I think it's a great idea to let people "pay" for a service in different ways. But if Amazon starts shoving ads in Prime streams, I'm definitely out, no question. I never considered subscribing to Hulu until they had an ad-free service, and actually quit them because they insisted on displaying a video bug in the corner, which is more or less an affiliate ad shown for the length of the entire damned show.
It has a 3.5" line-out port or can use Bluetooth. For music playback, you'd obviously need external speakers to get decent audio quality, especially for Echo Dots.
After that, of course, Microsoft (and everyone else) discovered that you could force users onto the upgrade treadmill by changing the standards over time and killing backwards compatibility.
What on earth are you talking about? If there's one thing that Microsoft is insanely good at, it's preserving backwards compatibility at the OS level, even allowing much older 32-bit applications (some even vintage Windows 95 era software) to run on 64-bit machines via a built-in emulation layer. Most issues of breaking compatibility had to do more with software explicitly breaking earlier rules which weren't strictly enforced in older versions of Windows (like Windows XP), such as writing data to the program directory, etc, but which are now enforced.
AV software, of course, pretty much breaks ALL the rules by hooking into the system guts, so naturally it tends to be version-specific. It would be a hell of a stretch to blame MS for this.
2. There are STILL programs that simply go by the logic of "let's just load every DLL in this directory".
This is not unusual because this is how programs handle extended functionality via plugins. For instance, every digital audio workstation (DAW) in the world works by scanning key folders for dlls with well-defined interfaces, known as VSTs. These VSTs contain virtual instruments or effects that can be accessed by the host DAW. Photoshop plugins? Same concept. And there are probably thousands more examples.
This is what people mean when they talk about the conflicting interests of security and functionality.
Does anyone think IBM has a serious problem with brand recognition?
Honestly, I think this is just representative of the insatiable need some people have to put their own mark on things. I mean, read this quote:
We should really design a typeface that really reflects our belief system and make it relevant to people now. Helvetica is a child of a particular sect of modernist thinking that’s gone today.
Wow... seriously? It gets more ridiculous:
A design tool at its core, IBM Plex is an expression of that same intersection between humans and technology. IBM will make the typeface free for anyone to download and is encouraging its widespread adoption. “If shoe stores or coffee shops or small businesses are using it for their identity, awesome,” Abbink says in the video. “They’re agreeing they want to be part of a discussion around machines and how they’re going to evolve and progress our world.”
Again... wow. Sorry friend, but you're not changing the world. You're just making another family of fonts in a virtual sea of new fonts available in this modern era.
Actual numbers showed, however, that giving poor people access to birth control does result in smaller family size. It turns out that-- surprise-- not all women living in rural poverty actually wanted to have a family of eight children.
This apparently came as quite a surprise to demographers.
Correct, which is why I said "as well". I'm not discounting the effects of access to birth control and better education of women (which tends to give them more life choices, and thus control over reproduction). But I don't think it's been demonstrated that finances are not also a factor (i.e. distributing birth control doesn't lead to negative birth rates, such as in many first-world countries). The reasons are likely more complex and layered, due to a number of factors working in combination.
There's a slightly more practical reason as well. You can simply ask the question: Are children a financial benefit or a financial burden to the family?
In most first world countries, for most of its population, rearing a child is terribly expensive, with very little financial benefit for the parents in return. In parts of the world where you can benefit from the labor of your family (subsistence farming, for example), you tend to see large families.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd agree except for people within the same "chain of command", so to speak, because that introduces a power element that can be very damaging to the recipient of these advances.
In the case of Harvey Weinstein, for instance, nearly every potential or aspiring actress in Hollywood is part of his sphere of influence, because he wields great power within her chosen industry. He can literally make or break careers. This is why it's not so easy to decide for the women in question. There's always an implied threat of "I can ruin your career if you reject me."
People need to be very circumspect about propositioning anyone in a position underneath them in any sort of power hierarchy. I'll stop short of saying "never" (it can obviously work out, such as with Bill and Melinda Gates), but I think it's fraught with potential peril.
Being late to the market is sort of an Apple thing. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad were all somewhat late to their respective markets, and subsequently dominated those markets.
I think the big advantage Apple has is being able to tie into their own existing ecosystem. A huge percentage of the US population has iPhones, and so is already used to talking to Siri. These devices might be more comfortable to them as a result.
It's hard to say whether they'll do well here or not. Honestly, I think it's probably a long shot, but Slashdot has a long, proud history of being wrong about these things.
I have a Mac Mini 2012 model, so we'll see how the latest macOS runs on it - I haven't yet upgraded. I suspect it will be helped by the fact that I have 8GB of RAM and an SSD (I bought this as an inexpensive Mac dev machine), not to mention it's got a quad-code, unlike later Minis.
As far as I've been able to tell when researching the subject for my next smartphone purchase, Apple actually seems to offer updates and security patches longer than most smartphone makers: around five to six years or so, compared to three or four years on average for many Android devices. It's sort of surprising, as that's the opposite of their reputation. Or rather, one could say that Android is *even worse* than Apple in this regard, creating almost disposable devices, even among the premium products.
I was really disheartened to see Google only promising three years of security updates for an $800 flagship phone. IMO, it should be five years at a minimum. Seven years of support is perhaps asking a bit much smartphone, though, I think, especially for an earlier model like that. There's a pretty big disparity in hardware between an iPhone 4 and the latest models.
Apparently, AI can do anything except vet immigrants.
Now, if Slashdot would change its favicon to use transparent corners instead of white corners, that one tab of mine wont look so funny.
Ahaha, that was bugging me too!
I wasn't actually expecting to like this update. I can live with the UI updates, although I'd characterize them as "not much different". Fortunately, the few add-ons I used upgraded seamlessly, and the browser seems pretty snappy.
Overall, I think it's an improvement, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss the annoyance of those who don't like the UI or lost their favorite add-ons.
Indeed. An an indie game developer myself, I'm looking forward to the day my game's footage is used as irrefutable proof by a state official that a lone ship piloted by a plucky hero is bravely defending the earth against hoards of robotic alien invaders.
Thank you, well stated. This "comin' to take our jerbs!" mantra we're hearing these days is bordering on the absurd. Technology is *always* making some jobs obsolete or reducing labor costs. I'd bet the same thing happened in the shipping industry with standardized intermodal containers.
My parents owned a light manufacturing company for many years. They lived through the age of computerization, and some specific jobs certainly became obsolete. They never fired anyone because of this, though. Instead, people were cross-trained, operated new machines, and so on. Over time, even more employees were hired as the business grew.
I also have to chuckle at people who believe AI or robots are going to take over all or even most blue collar jobs. Many white-collar workers apparently can't envision anything beyond a McDonalds or assembly-line worker. There are thousands of other types of jobs that are, at our current and near-future level of technology, still very impractical or even impossible to automate.
I'm going to bet that, at this point and in the near future, Samsung batteries are among the safest in the world.
I guess the Dutch didn't like it...
Damn straight.
I was worried about the user experience after the upgrade, but the three add-ons I use (I prefer a minimal experience) updated to new versions without user intervention. I was taken to a page of one of them that explained that there might be some reduced functionality, but it still works for what I need. So, well done on that front Mozilla.
The UI doesn't look bad - different, but not exactly better. More of the crappy minimalist trend. Black and white line drawings when we have millions of colors to use still seems silly to me. I'll be used to it in a few days, I'm sure. The only thing that was a bit annoying was the replacement with a bookmarks icon with the library icon. It took a bit to figure out how to customize the toolbar to restore that. The library command oddly displays bookmarks as a giant list of "recently bookmarked" instead of showing them in sorted folders, which is sort of a wtf feature.
I'll have to gauge usability and speed over time, but my initial impression is that it seems pretty snappy.
Overall, surprisingly, I'm actually happy with this update, so long as the performance improvements pan out, and it proves to be stable.
I've sort of made my peace with the fact that desktop Linux will always be a niche player for enthusiasts and experts, plus a tiny percentage of normal people who have experts to admin their systems. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think that an OS which is still a CLI focused system at its heart has some disadvantages as a desktop solution for the masses.
On the other hand, I think Linux is really in its element with specialized environments like supercomputing. You can hack everything to make the OS work exactly as you need for the hardware you use, and strip out everything that's superfluous. There are lots of great open source tools to take advantage of. There are advantages in drawing from the wide range of scientific talent who are already familiar with using and programming for Linux. And of course, you don't have per-core or per-processor licensing fees for your OS, which is a nice bonus.
Women have also been documented to have made up cases of abuse, rape, or threatening incidents. It doesn't mean that these incidents don't happen for real in plenty of other cases. All it means is that some people lie, especially when its in a situation to benefit them or punish those they have a grudge against.
Let's see if there is any merit to the claims before rushing to judgement one way or another. If this truly is a systemic problem, it seems like there should be plenty of corroborating evidence and testimony to be had, according to the account described by the plaintiff.
I'll just leave this here: https://xkcd.com/605/
True. Unlocking rewards over time is a game mechanic many people like, as it gives the player a sense of purpose and progression beyond the game itself. Not everyone enjoys that, but I think many do, so long as the requirements for unlocking those rewards is reasonable.
The problem comes when you introduce micro-transactions, because then the design incentive is strongly skewed toward make unlocks take so long that most many players are encouraged to pay a few bucks for those quick unlocks. At that point, it transforms from "fun" into "grind." This is an especially bad idea in multiplayer games, as it encourages botting. You've already paid for the game, and the game creator is now using that paid game to siphon additional money from players due to their original design decisions. It reeks of dishonesty and slimy behavior, no matter how you look at it.
Charging for the game and then *also* charging for micro-transactions just feels like double-dipping to many of us, especially when it could be rightly argued that those elements should already be part of the core game.
I don't WANT a random app to be able to skirt around not having root access by claiming to need permissions for "Accessibiliy". Google is doing the right thing here, even if the approach may be a bit clumsy or ham-fisted. They were rightly panned a while back (right here on Slashdot) when shown how the Accessibility API could lead to security issues and they dismissed it as "not a bug / working as intended".
Android developers were using an API for purposes it was clearly never intended for. Only now it's understood that those APIs have security implications, so those "clever" hacks may no longer be viable. Google is now working to close those loopholes a bit by making sure app developers justify the use of those APIs, and the response is "Google Evil!" Perfect proof that you can twist *anything* to make it sound nefarious.
Well, I'm in good company. At least I didn't crash a spaceship, right?
Yep, just type in "Prime Video" in the search box, which takes you to the "Included With Prime" category filter. For the Xbox One app which I use, there's a category for Prime Videos for easy browsing as well.
The summary makes it sound like there's some sort of ad-related incrementalism going on with NFL broadcasts. To clarify for the many people who have never watched an NFL broadcast in your life, the game is regularly interrupted for both normal and artificial reasons, during which advertisements are played. So, when streaming an NFL game live, it would be rather idiotic to fill the stream with empty space instead of playing an advertisement. And in fact, on one occasion, I actually saw that happen, presumably by mistake. An animated NBC logo is no more fun to watch than an ad. Maybe even less so.
I'm not too worried at this point, but only because Amazon is competing against Netflix. But I certainly don't trust Amazon not to try to stuff in more ads anywhere they think they can get away with it, though. After all, even though I'm shopping on their site for the purpose of *paying* them for goods, they still feel the need to try to monetize my eyeballs every chance they get. It's a bit irritating, but not enough to overcome the convenience of shopping with them, I suppose. After all, I can just skip over those ads.
I'm fine with a free ad-supported version of a streaming service. I think it's a great idea to let people "pay" for a service in different ways. But if Amazon starts shoving ads in Prime streams, I'm definitely out, no question. I never considered subscribing to Hulu until they had an ad-free service, and actually quit them because they insisted on displaying a video bug in the corner, which is more or less an affiliate ad shown for the length of the entire damned show.
Wow. What the hell was I smoking when I typed in those dimensions?
I'm trying to imagine what a 3 1/2" plug would actually look like now.
It has a 3.5" line-out port or can use Bluetooth. For music playback, you'd obviously need external speakers to get decent audio quality, especially for Echo Dots.
After that, of course, Microsoft (and everyone else) discovered that you could force users onto the upgrade treadmill by changing the standards over time and killing backwards compatibility.
What on earth are you talking about? If there's one thing that Microsoft is insanely good at, it's preserving backwards compatibility at the OS level, even allowing much older 32-bit applications (some even vintage Windows 95 era software) to run on 64-bit machines via a built-in emulation layer. Most issues of breaking compatibility had to do more with software explicitly breaking earlier rules which weren't strictly enforced in older versions of Windows (like Windows XP), such as writing data to the program directory, etc, but which are now enforced.
AV software, of course, pretty much breaks ALL the rules by hooking into the system guts, so naturally it tends to be version-specific. It would be a hell of a stretch to blame MS for this.
2. There are STILL programs that simply go by the logic of "let's just load every DLL in this directory".
This is not unusual because this is how programs handle extended functionality via plugins. For instance, every digital audio workstation (DAW) in the world works by scanning key folders for dlls with well-defined interfaces, known as VSTs. These VSTs contain virtual instruments or effects that can be accessed by the host DAW. Photoshop plugins? Same concept. And there are probably thousands more examples.
This is what people mean when they talk about the conflicting interests of security and functionality.
Does anyone think IBM has a serious problem with brand recognition?
Honestly, I think this is just representative of the insatiable need some people have to put their own mark on things. I mean, read this quote:
We should really design a typeface that really reflects our belief system and make it relevant to people now. Helvetica is a child of a particular sect of modernist thinking that’s gone today.
Wow... seriously? It gets more ridiculous:
A design tool at its core, IBM Plex is an expression of that same intersection between humans and technology. IBM will make the typeface free for anyone to download and is encouraging its widespread adoption. “If shoe stores or coffee shops or small businesses are using it for their identity, awesome,” Abbink says in the video. “They’re agreeing they want to be part of a discussion around machines and how they’re going to evolve and progress our world.”
Again... wow. Sorry friend, but you're not changing the world. You're just making another family of fonts in a virtual sea of new fonts available in this modern era.
Actual numbers showed, however, that giving poor people access to birth control does result in smaller family size. It turns out that-- surprise-- not all women living in rural poverty actually wanted to have a family of eight children.
This apparently came as quite a surprise to demographers.
Correct, which is why I said "as well". I'm not discounting the effects of access to birth control and better education of women (which tends to give them more life choices, and thus control over reproduction). But I don't think it's been demonstrated that finances are not also a factor (i.e. distributing birth control doesn't lead to negative birth rates, such as in many first-world countries). The reasons are likely more complex and layered, due to a number of factors working in combination.
There's a slightly more practical reason as well. You can simply ask the question: Are children a financial benefit or a financial burden to the family?
In most first world countries, for most of its population, rearing a child is terribly expensive, with very little financial benefit for the parents in return. In parts of the world where you can benefit from the labor of your family (subsistence farming, for example), you tend to see large families.