Um, the people pushing this sort of thing are about as far from socialist as you can get, it's the hard right behind most of this and has been for years.
The socialist countries (i.e. most of those in the EU) are the ones pushing back against it.
Still, nice attempt at trying to blame something on socialism that has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I third that (is that a thing?). As a UK citizen I do not feel me or my country has been harmed by Snowden's revelations at all, a few irresponsible individuals may have been harmed such as the management in GCHQ who seem to have broken the law but that's a different thing.
For British citizens it's a good thing because it shows how we don't need to waste billions on the Interception Modernisation Program because GCHQ have been doing it anyway and it still didn't stop terrorists.
It also means we're aware of criminality in our political and intelligence classes and it's much better to know crimes have been committed even if nothing is done about them to be blissfully unaware of the fact because it both better informs you who not to vote for and it acts as ammunition against these people getting their own way on other things that are against the public interest in future lessening their capacity to pull them off.
So yes this is an excellent thing all around, even for those of us in countries that have been embarrassed by the revelations. I didn't vote for this, I explicitly voted against it by voting Lib Dem last election and so did everyone who voted Tory who were also against the policy and we were, combined, over 50% of the electorate, although the Tories have tried to backtrack the Lib Dems have at least stood their ground to kill the IMP twice now which is exactly what the majority of the electorate voted for in this democracy. If GCHQ is going ahead and doing this against the will of the majority of the electorate and against the majority of politicians in power through the published election policies of their parties then we the electorate have a fundamental right to know.
Thank you Snowden for fulfilling that right when vested interests would go against our democratic will and deny us it.
"It's a one-sided arrangement that isn't working for anyone but the US"
To be fair the reason the EU and even Russia have these agreements with the US is that they expect in return the US will warn them of terrorist threats on their soil and work with them on intelligence issues. So it's not entirely one-sided, there are benefits, the problem is that the equation is changed and so do those benefits still outweigh the downsides?
It has to be consensual, the EU has no problem working with the US on this basis of intelligence cooperation, and neither does Russia, and neither does anyone else, but if the US then starts spying above and beyond what has agreed then the whole system has to be examined as to whether working with the US is indeed a net positive. The calculation was that when it was limited to those activities designed in legally binding agreements that it was a net positive, but now that it's clear the US' intelligence program has gone way beyond those agreed limits it's no longer clear that the original calculation involved in authorising the intelligence sharing agreements is still valid.
For example, the EU obviously determined that giving up citizen names, addresses, credit cards and so forth to the US was worth it for the intelligence shared back, but now it's clear that the US may have been mining private conversations and other personal information on top of that agreed, potentially mixing it together into one big data mining operation, that calculation has changed, and the EU has to hence re-evaluate that.
Opting to give up citizens personal data for security is one thing because the decision has been made (whether we here on Slashdot like it or not) that doing so is in the net interest of EU citizens, but having that personal data mixed in with illegally gathered trade and personal data that might be used to the detriment of EU citizens and economic interests is a whole different ballgame. Suddenly it's not so clearly in the EU's interest, though I guess perhaps that what you mean when you say it's one sided?
I agree with everything you say though by the way.
Lemme get this straight... Someone steals a car that *you're* responsible for violates the laws of the country that *you* chose to live in by running someone over and killing them, and your response is to threaten the police for arresting and blaming you for the murder? Wow... not only are you a value citizen, you're a great role model! ( :
Ownership of a product or service has never meant legal responsibility for misuse if used against your will. That shouldn't change now just because the music/movie industry wants to be treated as a unique and special snowflake by being handed a cheap way to find people guilty of crime without bothering to do the necessary legwork to prove their case like everyone else meaning that inevitably innocent people are being punished for the crimes of others.
P.S. Your smileys are as retarded and backwards as your argument and ideas.
"Soldiers don't usually get charged with murder for combat operations"
Yes and therein lies the problem, they should.
In many European countries at least you're not even supposed to fire until you've confirmed a target is an absolute threat - i.e. if it's fired at you and yes this puts your life at risk but you're a soldier and that's your job.
America's throwing out the window of the concept of "do not fire until fired upon" has been disastrous for it and the reason it frankly lost the Iraq invasion and has lost in Afghanistan (in both cases, the militants are still there in massive numbers with massive influence).
When you look at the collateral damage video for example you can see the Apache gunner's camera clearly states the range as over 1km from the targets, so there was literally no justification to pull the trigger under any circumstances - the Apache was out of RPG range, let alone effective RPG range and the people on the ground had not fired at any other US soldiers or shown any intention of doing so. The Apache pilots were given permission to fire regardless and what's the net effect? dead civilians, dead Americans and increased hatred for America and increased recruitment propaganda for the militants. The net effect? The militants get stronger and the Americans get weaker, which is why they've failed to achieve a victory in both Iraq and Afghanistan - because they put themselves above the law, above civilians and that makes them hated, and that makes them a target. The Apache video was one of many incidents of lack of punishment for clear violations of normally accepted engagement rules.
That is also why the likes of the Boston bombings occured, because as the culprits stated, they were recruited because they were sick of seeing civilians killed by America.
America desperately needs to start punishing it's soldiers properly when they fuck up, it needs to show occupied countries what justice means, it needs that more than anything else it will continue to be unable to win any war other than those against nation states with no post-victory occupation. That's not a military suited for modern day engagements though.
There are a number of interesting documentaries out there about places like Afghanistan where many times villagers say they want anything other than the Americans giving them protection because the Americas are too trigger happy, kill civilians and just make things worse and this lack of punishment for it's soldiers for having a lack of RoE discipline is at the absolute core of that. Hell, even some British soldiers have officially put forward concerns about going to war with America in the past because of the disproportionate number of blue on blue incidents caused by the Americans which go without proper punishment (see the incident of A10s strafing British soldiers and journalists in Iraq for example). If even your closest military ally has problems with you on the battlefield then something has to change.
I wont pretend it's even an entirely new problem though, it's the same reason America lost in Vietnam and went running with it's tail between it's legs from Lebanon and Somalia too - too quick to dehumanise the civilian population and treat them as vermin to which any act can be carried out without accountability leading to the civilian population doing the obvious thing - supporting their enemies instead.
Agreed, America is very different, it does it's disappearing in the night overseas instead.
In fact, that's exactly why Karzai banned US special forces from operating in one province of Afghanistan just a few months ago, because even in Afghanistan with the shitstorm there it was deemed unacceptable to just kidnap people at night and sometimes kill them on the weakest and often incorrect suspicion they were a Taliban militant.
Already dropped by US based Usenet provider and web host for precisely this reason. It was getting tiresome having to deal with a host that bowed down to everything the US wanted even though I was doing nothing wrong in my country (or even frankly under US law either, but this isn't about law, it's about morals being imposed by companies outside of the law).
Okay sure yeah I see where you're coming from, though it does beg the question no as to whether some of those Microsoft published titles are Microsoft published because of the DRM no?
I think it would only make sense to exclude those companies that are owned by Microsoft rather than all those that publish through Microsoft. Same for Sony of course.
So the question is if the Information Commissioner now blocks it again and gives reasons this time will the whole case have to start over?
If big media only won on narrow terms then that surely implies they only won again a very narrow circumstance too? It doesn't sound like the judge has ruled on the validity of the information commissioner's underlying claim, just that the specific claim put forward wasn't valid without reason. Put it forward with reason and that implies a new case would be required on the validity of the reasons themselves no?
I would never suggest doing things ad-hoc. I've worked in such organisations, one had around 6,000 systems and even more users, with a number of distributed sites and I worked in an IT support role at the time and currently in a similar organisation but now as a developer.
I think processes are good, but some of the stuff ITIL mandates is just stupid and sometimes even counterproductive.
Hiring people with common sense and ditching those without doesn't mean doing things ad-hoc and completely without process, it just means having processes that make sense and adapting/destroying them when they don't. Too many organisations blindly follow ITIL even when it works against their interests.
ITIL assumes one size fits all, but that's a fallacy.
Well Google own Motorola now, are we sure this isn't just the Android Sync integration? If it is then it does ask you when you set the device up first time.
You'll have to excuse me in suspecting that if the author of TFA didn't realise it was a sync tool that he also is inept enough to not realise he actually signed up to it when he first got the device.
I usually disagree with you on almost everything but you're absolutely right about this.
It's the same point I've made to people claiming that the XBox One's Kinect will spy on them and so forth for the NSA. It wont because people will trivially be able to spot video data transfer.
The NSA can spy at data centres and so forth because the end user has no control over them, but spying when people control interim devices is much harder because you've got to not just hide the transfer from the device initiating the transfer, but somehow hide it on the wire from every other single device en-route to the destination server and I do not believe that's a problem that could realistically be achieved without being spotted.
This isn't to say the likes of the NSA couldn't do targetted attacks by bugging individual's devices where there's much lower possibility of discovery because unless the target is a technical expert they'd never know, but for a mass consumer product it's a different story because in that set of users there is always going to be at least one who would be doing what is necessary to notice it.
That is why I believe talk of wide scale surveillance by bugging consumer devices like the XBox One or iPhone en-mass are FUD, and if you believe they can bug these devices and hide it on the wire through devices you own and control then you might as well assume every single device you own with a camera/mic is also bug whether it's your Logitech webcam, your iPad, your digital camera, your CCTV system, or you Blackberry, Android, or Windows Mobile phone as well because if they're good enough to hide it even on some consumer hardware you might own like an XBox One's Kinect or iPhone, then they're good enough to hide it on any hardware you own whoever makes it. The more rational and realistic view is that they're not good enough to hide it on any hardware you own and so just don't bother. If you're a real threat they'll just bug your home, car and workplace directly.
I provided objective facts that demonstrate the problem and you came back with misdirection and nonsense. This is perfect proof that you are not willing to learn and prefer to bask in your own ignorance.
Examples: You claim OOP isn't defined when it is, you claim it's just how closures work and C# works the same whilst demonstrating how Microsoft have fixed the very problem because it is a language problem which I pointed out about 10 posts ago, you demonstrate you don't understand inheritance and encapsulation, you try and pretend because old books on quantum physics still have some relevance that that's somehow equivalent to old studies into OO language design are still 100% relevant - I suppose you think Russell's Principia Mathematica is 100% relevant still just because it's old even though it's wrong right?, you claim that PHP's == and === operators work as in any other languages and show that you have absolutely no knowledge of PHP or other languages given that that's well established to be false.
You're a lost cause, you have no idea what you're on about, you have pitiful knowledge of OO, you don't understand why unnecessarily verbose code leads to more bugs, and you don't understand the importance of mathematical concepts in languages like transitivity. You're an amateur, but given your depserate defence of Javascript and PHP that's not exactly surprising is it given that they're the go-to languages of amateurs. You could have at least learnt a bit about PHP before defending it though, the fact you're entirely unaware of the problems in it's equality operators shows how painfully little knowledge you have.
So good luck with all that, I guess you enjoy defending your own stupidity. Do me and everyone else a favour at least though, stop pretending you're willing to learn, it's obvious you want anything but, you just want to stay stupid.
Is that still around? I thought when the recession hit most companies realised that one of the first things you should cut is pointless money and time wasting bureaucratic process and just hire people who know what they're on about and have real actual common sense whilst firing those that don't.
Please don't tell me now that the global economy looks like it might be improving again soon that it's going to make a comeback?
They don't, that's why despite MI5 knowing personally a terrorist they still managed to miss the fact he was a threat when he committed a violent murder in the name of terrorism on the streets of London a few weeks ago.
This is why many people including me dislike said algorithms, not because I have an inherent problem with them spying on people if there is just cause and they are an actual threat, but because I know that their algorithms when run against everyone and anyone can't possibly accurately separate real threats from innocent people and will result in manpower being wasted investigating, harassing and harming innocent people whilst simultaneously missing the real actual threats.
Realise that shouting "fanboys" is just the same as shouting hater.
Realise how dumb your whole post is as a result.
Remove your signature because it makes you look like a hypocrit.
The End.
(Talking about rational rebuttal whilst throwing out FUD, hyperbole, and nonsense, whilst declaring anyone that disagrees with you before they've even disagreed as a fanboy is the height of hypocrisy.)
It's a question of how many direct reports Don had, but if it was only 1, 2, or 3 then it's possible they will just become the faces gamers see more of without a middleman. It's possible that the folks that reported to Don are perfectly capable of running the show without someone sitting in between them and Ballmer and if it was them that demanded the backtrack on the DRM fiasco then they may be a far safer bet for Ballmer to keep under him than any middleman they recruit.
If Ballmer would've refused to backtrack and Don clearly did refuse to backtrack then who did? Those under them couldn't do it by themselves and as Ballmer is the only one above Don then it had to be Ballmer that ok'd the backtrack.
If Don wanted to go because he'd been undermined by Ballmer and/or by people under him and Microsoft wanted him out because he'd made the company look terrible at E3 then they'll have both been happy to throw the notice period out the window.
Similarly if Don had been given his notice and so went job hunting and got the Zynga job why would Microsoft make him serve his full notice period? They'd probably be happy to stop paying his wage and just let him go earlier than his notice period.
You can't use a notice period of any kind of evidence as the reasons for leaving because it's so arbitrary and the only time the fixed period comes into play is when either the employee or employer want it to be served in full. There's no reason why this would be true in this case.
Not really,.NET is quite clean in a number of ways. Take Date/Time handling for example..NET has a nice sensible unified API for this sort of thing whilst Java has a bunch of deprecated attempts that each replace the other and are all shit.
The language is better too, supports things like operator overloading, has helpful keywords that make common tasks easier (using, and lock for example) and more readable.
I don't know if you're actually a developer or just parroting opinion you'd like to be true, but as a C# and Java developer (I've spent roughly 3 solid months working with each this year alone) I can assure you that C# and.NET are both better and cleaner than Java and it's libraries. If you think otherwise, you've simply not had enough experience with both of them to have a valid opinion.
"1) Oh oh shiny toy called Java, must have ->.NET"
Ballmer wasn't even in charge then. This was entirely under Bill's watch.
"2) Oh oh shiny toy called Flash, must have -> Silverlight"
Sure but you could similarly argue Flash was just a specialisation of a number of things that came before it like Java applets and ActiveX controls. It was also started under Bill's watch.
"3) Oh oh shiny toy called Mobile, must have -> Windows 8"
Agree with this one.
"4) Oh oh shiny toy called Objective C, must have -> "refocusing on C++, and throwing.NET under the bus"".NET hasn't been thrown under a bus so this is just completely made up. There's been no refocus on C++ at all, it's always been supported and still is to the same degree, similarly.NET support hasn't decrease - the C# 5.0 language spec was just release,.NET 4.5 was release not so long ago and they're still busy working on.NET 5.0. Where is the evidence of a refocus on C++? Where is the evidence of reduced focus on.NET? As someone who works with C#.NET, C++ and Java (and used to work on some iOS dev) I'm yet to see any evidence of this point because there is none. Objective C is irrelevant to Microsoft.
"5) Oh oh shiny toy called Search Engine, must have -> Bing"
Microsoft tried and failed in the search market and tried and failed to buy Yahoo and such since before Google even existed so it hardly seems to be a "me too" thing and again was certainly going on well before Ballmer's watch. Microsoft have been trying and failing with their web strategy almost since the web began but their first real attempt that went anywhere was MSN Search in 1998.
"6) Oh oh shiny toy called Online docs, must have -> Office 365"
Somewhat true. I think this is more a natural evolution, Microsoft understood the concept of a thin client long before Office 365. It seems a bit of a stretch to call this a me too when it's more like a "no shit" idea.
"7) Oh oh shiny toy called JavaScript HTML, must have -> WinRT"
Don't know what you mean by this. I can only assume you mean that WinRT has bindings for Javascript and HTML5. I'm not sure why this is a me too thing. It's quite common for companies to support new bindings and API hooks for new technologies. It's just something you do if you want your tools to be used.
"8) Oh oh shiny toy called cloud computing (AWS), must have -> Azure"
Yes, kind of a me too to be fair, but it's more successful than you seem to realise.
But what I really don't get is that you started your argument out suggesting Ballmer is a salesman and can sell anything to anyone, right, so why have so many things like Windows 8, Zune and so forth flopped? That's not the work of a salesman who can sell anything to anybody. You seem to be defeating your own argument by claiming he can sell anything to anyone and then saying most of Microsoft's technologies are second rate and people don't use them. Which is it?
I'm not sure you know too much about Microsoft technologies and certainly not the history given that so many of the things you mention were either not me too, or were going on long before Ballmer took the helm, or just aren't true (refocussing on C++ and abandoning.NET being the most glaring falsehood).
Your analysis seems to be a little tainted with bias, writing off first party titles and including low quality indie games alongside full blown AAA titles (which are what sell consoles with only a few exceptions - e.g. Minecraft) seems to be the very definition of cherry picking statistics.
Also, those lists aren't correct anyway, there's a couple of announced XBox One exclusives missing and games like Diablo 3 haven't been announced as PS4 exclusives, they've just not had their XBox One versions announced yet, which is how it went with the current generation - for example, Diablo 3 was listed only for PS3 for ages but just in the last few weeks it turns out a 360 version is coming out at the same time.
So maybe I'll rephrase to clarify, if you compare the number of AAA titles announced and confirmed as exclusives for the XBox One then Microsoft is way ahead of Sony's announced and confirmed AAA exclusives for the PS4. Another point is the prominence with previously Sony oriented studios focussing heavily on the XBox One - Metal Gear Solid 5 for example was showcased far more prominently as an XBox One product despite it historically being a Sony exclusive series (apart from Rising) and Insomniac a previously Sony exclusive studio for the most part is now developing Sunset Overdrive as an XBox One exclusive.
This is why it seems like Microsoft has been quite successful in pulling more major studios onside than Sony has and as I say I'm pretty sure a lot of it was the DRM.
Microsoft also recently announced quite a few more exclusives to be announced before release too, whether Sony also has more to match it I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
I think you're right about DRM being put in originally somewhat at the behest of companies like EA. Microsoft has bagged itself a lot more exclusives and a lot more big names this time round at it's launch than Sony and I have no doubt that that was part of a deal on their DRM policy. Where that leaves them now with said deals I've no idea - it's also quite possible the companies themselves realised that if they forced Microsoft to keep the DRM as part of said deals that there'd be no installed console base to even sell their exclusive titles on in the first place. It's possible that they were part of the u-turn themselves if this were the case.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, the people pushing this sort of thing are about as far from socialist as you can get, it's the hard right behind most of this and has been for years.
The socialist countries (i.e. most of those in the EU) are the ones pushing back against it.
Still, nice attempt at trying to blame something on socialism that has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I third that (is that a thing?). As a UK citizen I do not feel me or my country has been harmed by Snowden's revelations at all, a few irresponsible individuals may have been harmed such as the management in GCHQ who seem to have broken the law but that's a different thing.
For British citizens it's a good thing because it shows how we don't need to waste billions on the Interception Modernisation Program because GCHQ have been doing it anyway and it still didn't stop terrorists.
It also means we're aware of criminality in our political and intelligence classes and it's much better to know crimes have been committed even if nothing is done about them to be blissfully unaware of the fact because it both better informs you who not to vote for and it acts as ammunition against these people getting their own way on other things that are against the public interest in future lessening their capacity to pull them off.
So yes this is an excellent thing all around, even for those of us in countries that have been embarrassed by the revelations. I didn't vote for this, I explicitly voted against it by voting Lib Dem last election and so did everyone who voted Tory who were also against the policy and we were, combined, over 50% of the electorate, although the Tories have tried to backtrack the Lib Dems have at least stood their ground to kill the IMP twice now which is exactly what the majority of the electorate voted for in this democracy. If GCHQ is going ahead and doing this against the will of the majority of the electorate and against the majority of politicians in power through the published election policies of their parties then we the electorate have a fundamental right to know.
Thank you Snowden for fulfilling that right when vested interests would go against our democratic will and deny us it.
"It's a one-sided arrangement that isn't working for anyone but the US"
To be fair the reason the EU and even Russia have these agreements with the US is that they expect in return the US will warn them of terrorist threats on their soil and work with them on intelligence issues. So it's not entirely one-sided, there are benefits, the problem is that the equation is changed and so do those benefits still outweigh the downsides?
It has to be consensual, the EU has no problem working with the US on this basis of intelligence cooperation, and neither does Russia, and neither does anyone else, but if the US then starts spying above and beyond what has agreed then the whole system has to be examined as to whether working with the US is indeed a net positive. The calculation was that when it was limited to those activities designed in legally binding agreements that it was a net positive, but now that it's clear the US' intelligence program has gone way beyond those agreed limits it's no longer clear that the original calculation involved in authorising the intelligence sharing agreements is still valid.
For example, the EU obviously determined that giving up citizen names, addresses, credit cards and so forth to the US was worth it for the intelligence shared back, but now it's clear that the US may have been mining private conversations and other personal information on top of that agreed, potentially mixing it together into one big data mining operation, that calculation has changed, and the EU has to hence re-evaluate that.
Opting to give up citizens personal data for security is one thing because the decision has been made (whether we here on Slashdot like it or not) that doing so is in the net interest of EU citizens, but having that personal data mixed in with illegally gathered trade and personal data that might be used to the detriment of EU citizens and economic interests is a whole different ballgame. Suddenly it's not so clearly in the EU's interest, though I guess perhaps that what you mean when you say it's one sided?
I agree with everything you say though by the way.
Lemme get this straight... Someone steals a car that *you're* responsible for violates the laws of the country that *you* chose to live in by running someone over and killing them, and your response is to threaten the police for arresting and blaming you for the murder? Wow... not only are you a value citizen, you're a great role model! ( :
Ownership of a product or service has never meant legal responsibility for misuse if used against your will. That shouldn't change now just because the music/movie industry wants to be treated as a unique and special snowflake by being handed a cheap way to find people guilty of crime without bothering to do the necessary legwork to prove their case like everyone else meaning that inevitably innocent people are being punished for the crimes of others.
P.S. Your smileys are as retarded and backwards as your argument and ideas.
"Soldiers don't usually get charged with murder for combat operations"
Yes and therein lies the problem, they should.
In many European countries at least you're not even supposed to fire until you've confirmed a target is an absolute threat - i.e. if it's fired at you and yes this puts your life at risk but you're a soldier and that's your job.
America's throwing out the window of the concept of "do not fire until fired upon" has been disastrous for it and the reason it frankly lost the Iraq invasion and has lost in Afghanistan (in both cases, the militants are still there in massive numbers with massive influence).
When you look at the collateral damage video for example you can see the Apache gunner's camera clearly states the range as over 1km from the targets, so there was literally no justification to pull the trigger under any circumstances - the Apache was out of RPG range, let alone effective RPG range and the people on the ground had not fired at any other US soldiers or shown any intention of doing so. The Apache pilots were given permission to fire regardless and what's the net effect? dead civilians, dead Americans and increased hatred for America and increased recruitment propaganda for the militants. The net effect? The militants get stronger and the Americans get weaker, which is why they've failed to achieve a victory in both Iraq and Afghanistan - because they put themselves above the law, above civilians and that makes them hated, and that makes them a target. The Apache video was one of many incidents of lack of punishment for clear violations of normally accepted engagement rules.
That is also why the likes of the Boston bombings occured, because as the culprits stated, they were recruited because they were sick of seeing civilians killed by America.
America desperately needs to start punishing it's soldiers properly when they fuck up, it needs to show occupied countries what justice means, it needs that more than anything else it will continue to be unable to win any war other than those against nation states with no post-victory occupation. That's not a military suited for modern day engagements though.
There are a number of interesting documentaries out there about places like Afghanistan where many times villagers say they want anything other than the Americans giving them protection because the Americas are too trigger happy, kill civilians and just make things worse and this lack of punishment for it's soldiers for having a lack of RoE discipline is at the absolute core of that. Hell, even some British soldiers have officially put forward concerns about going to war with America in the past because of the disproportionate number of blue on blue incidents caused by the Americans which go without proper punishment (see the incident of A10s strafing British soldiers and journalists in Iraq for example). If even your closest military ally has problems with you on the battlefield then something has to change.
I wont pretend it's even an entirely new problem though, it's the same reason America lost in Vietnam and went running with it's tail between it's legs from Lebanon and Somalia too - too quick to dehumanise the civilian population and treat them as vermin to which any act can be carried out without accountability leading to the civilian population doing the obvious thing - supporting their enemies instead.
Europe's leakers just end up asphyxiated zipped up inside holdall bags in London.
Agreed, America is very different, it does it's disappearing in the night overseas instead.
In fact, that's exactly why Karzai banned US special forces from operating in one province of Afghanistan just a few months ago, because even in Afghanistan with the shitstorm there it was deemed unacceptable to just kidnap people at night and sometimes kill them on the weakest and often incorrect suspicion they were a Taliban militant.
Already dropped by US based Usenet provider and web host for precisely this reason. It was getting tiresome having to deal with a host that bowed down to everything the US wanted even though I was doing nothing wrong in my country (or even frankly under US law either, but this isn't about law, it's about morals being imposed by companies outside of the law).
Okay sure yeah I see where you're coming from, though it does beg the question no as to whether some of those Microsoft published titles are Microsoft published because of the DRM no?
I think it would only make sense to exclude those companies that are owned by Microsoft rather than all those that publish through Microsoft. Same for Sony of course.
So the question is if the Information Commissioner now blocks it again and gives reasons this time will the whole case have to start over?
If big media only won on narrow terms then that surely implies they only won again a very narrow circumstance too? It doesn't sound like the judge has ruled on the validity of the information commissioner's underlying claim, just that the specific claim put forward wasn't valid without reason. Put it forward with reason and that implies a new case would be required on the validity of the reasons themselves no?
I would never suggest doing things ad-hoc. I've worked in such organisations, one had around 6,000 systems and even more users, with a number of distributed sites and I worked in an IT support role at the time and currently in a similar organisation but now as a developer.
I think processes are good, but some of the stuff ITIL mandates is just stupid and sometimes even counterproductive.
Hiring people with common sense and ditching those without doesn't mean doing things ad-hoc and completely without process, it just means having processes that make sense and adapting/destroying them when they don't. Too many organisations blindly follow ITIL even when it works against their interests.
ITIL assumes one size fits all, but that's a fallacy.
Well Google own Motorola now, are we sure this isn't just the Android Sync integration? If it is then it does ask you when you set the device up first time.
You'll have to excuse me in suspecting that if the author of TFA didn't realise it was a sync tool that he also is inept enough to not realise he actually signed up to it when he first got the device.
I usually disagree with you on almost everything but you're absolutely right about this.
It's the same point I've made to people claiming that the XBox One's Kinect will spy on them and so forth for the NSA. It wont because people will trivially be able to spot video data transfer.
The NSA can spy at data centres and so forth because the end user has no control over them, but spying when people control interim devices is much harder because you've got to not just hide the transfer from the device initiating the transfer, but somehow hide it on the wire from every other single device en-route to the destination server and I do not believe that's a problem that could realistically be achieved without being spotted.
This isn't to say the likes of the NSA couldn't do targetted attacks by bugging individual's devices where there's much lower possibility of discovery because unless the target is a technical expert they'd never know, but for a mass consumer product it's a different story because in that set of users there is always going to be at least one who would be doing what is necessary to notice it.
That is why I believe talk of wide scale surveillance by bugging consumer devices like the XBox One or iPhone en-mass are FUD, and if you believe they can bug these devices and hide it on the wire through devices you own and control then you might as well assume every single device you own with a camera/mic is also bug whether it's your Logitech webcam, your iPad, your digital camera, your CCTV system, or you Blackberry, Android, or Windows Mobile phone as well because if they're good enough to hide it even on some consumer hardware you might own like an XBox One's Kinect or iPhone, then they're good enough to hide it on any hardware you own whoever makes it. The more rational and realistic view is that they're not good enough to hide it on any hardware you own and so just don't bother. If you're a real threat they'll just bug your home, car and workplace directly.
See, I told you you just didn't get it.
I provided objective facts that demonstrate the problem and you came back with misdirection and nonsense. This is perfect proof that you are not willing to learn and prefer to bask in your own ignorance.
Examples: You claim OOP isn't defined when it is, you claim it's just how closures work and C# works the same whilst demonstrating how Microsoft have fixed the very problem because it is a language problem which I pointed out about 10 posts ago, you demonstrate you don't understand inheritance and encapsulation, you try and pretend because old books on quantum physics still have some relevance that that's somehow equivalent to old studies into OO language design are still 100% relevant - I suppose you think Russell's Principia Mathematica is 100% relevant still just because it's old even though it's wrong right?, you claim that PHP's == and === operators work as in any other languages and show that you have absolutely no knowledge of PHP or other languages given that that's well established to be false.
You're a lost cause, you have no idea what you're on about, you have pitiful knowledge of OO, you don't understand why unnecessarily verbose code leads to more bugs, and you don't understand the importance of mathematical concepts in languages like transitivity. You're an amateur, but given your depserate defence of Javascript and PHP that's not exactly surprising is it given that they're the go-to languages of amateurs. You could have at least learnt a bit about PHP before defending it though, the fact you're entirely unaware of the problems in it's equality operators shows how painfully little knowledge you have.
So good luck with all that, I guess you enjoy defending your own stupidity. Do me and everyone else a favour at least though, stop pretending you're willing to learn, it's obvious you want anything but, you just want to stay stupid.
Is that still around? I thought when the recession hit most companies realised that one of the first things you should cut is pointless money and time wasting bureaucratic process and just hire people who know what they're on about and have real actual common sense whilst firing those that don't.
Please don't tell me now that the global economy looks like it might be improving again soon that it's going to make a comeback?
You assume that algorithms to spy on people work.
They don't, that's why despite MI5 knowing personally a terrorist they still managed to miss the fact he was a threat when he committed a violent murder in the name of terrorism on the streets of London a few weeks ago.
This is why many people including me dislike said algorithms, not because I have an inherent problem with them spying on people if there is just cause and they are an actual threat, but because I know that their algorithms when run against everyone and anyone can't possibly accurately separate real threats from innocent people and will result in manpower being wasted investigating, harassing and harming innocent people whilst simultaneously missing the real actual threats.
Read your signature.
Realise that shouting "fanboys" is just the same as shouting hater.
Realise how dumb your whole post is as a result.
Remove your signature because it makes you look like a hypocrit.
The End.
(Talking about rational rebuttal whilst throwing out FUD, hyperbole, and nonsense, whilst declaring anyone that disagrees with you before they've even disagreed as a fanboy is the height of hypocrisy.)
It's a question of how many direct reports Don had, but if it was only 1, 2, or 3 then it's possible they will just become the faces gamers see more of without a middleman. It's possible that the folks that reported to Don are perfectly capable of running the show without someone sitting in between them and Ballmer and if it was them that demanded the backtrack on the DRM fiasco then they may be a far safer bet for Ballmer to keep under him than any middleman they recruit.
If Ballmer would've refused to backtrack and Don clearly did refuse to backtrack then who did? Those under them couldn't do it by themselves and as Ballmer is the only one above Don then it had to be Ballmer that ok'd the backtrack.
Notice periods aren't fixed without question.
If Don wanted to go because he'd been undermined by Ballmer and/or by people under him and Microsoft wanted him out because he'd made the company look terrible at E3 then they'll have both been happy to throw the notice period out the window.
Similarly if Don had been given his notice and so went job hunting and got the Zynga job why would Microsoft make him serve his full notice period? They'd probably be happy to stop paying his wage and just let him go earlier than his notice period.
You can't use a notice period of any kind of evidence as the reasons for leaving because it's so arbitrary and the only time the fixed period comes into play is when either the employee or employer want it to be served in full. There's no reason why this would be true in this case.
Not really, .NET is quite clean in a number of ways. Take Date/Time handling for example. .NET has a nice sensible unified API for this sort of thing whilst Java has a bunch of deprecated attempts that each replace the other and are all shit.
The language is better too, supports things like operator overloading, has helpful keywords that make common tasks easier (using, and lock for example) and more readable.
I don't know if you're actually a developer or just parroting opinion you'd like to be true, but as a C# and Java developer (I've spent roughly 3 solid months working with each this year alone) I can assure you that C# and .NET are both better and cleaner than Java and it's libraries. If you think otherwise, you've simply not had enough experience with both of them to have a valid opinion.
Um, most of those things are not true:
"1) Oh oh shiny toy called Java, must have -> .NET"
Ballmer wasn't even in charge then. This was entirely under Bill's watch.
"2) Oh oh shiny toy called Flash, must have -> Silverlight"
Sure but you could similarly argue Flash was just a specialisation of a number of things that came before it like Java applets and ActiveX controls. It was also started under Bill's watch.
"3) Oh oh shiny toy called Mobile, must have -> Windows 8"
Agree with this one.
"4) Oh oh shiny toy called Objective C, must have -> "refocusing on C++, and throwing .NET under the bus"" .NET hasn't been thrown under a bus so this is just completely made up. There's been no refocus on C++ at all, it's always been supported and still is to the same degree, similarly .NET support hasn't decrease - the C# 5.0 language spec was just release, .NET 4.5 was release not so long ago and they're still busy working on .NET 5.0. Where is the evidence of a refocus on C++? Where is the evidence of reduced focus on .NET? As someone who works with C# .NET, C++ and Java (and used to work on some iOS dev) I'm yet to see any evidence of this point because there is none. Objective C is irrelevant to Microsoft.
"5) Oh oh shiny toy called Search Engine, must have -> Bing"
Microsoft tried and failed in the search market and tried and failed to buy Yahoo and such since before Google even existed so it hardly seems to be a "me too" thing and again was certainly going on well before Ballmer's watch. Microsoft have been trying and failing with their web strategy almost since the web began but their first real attempt that went anywhere was MSN Search in 1998.
"6) Oh oh shiny toy called Online docs, must have -> Office 365"
Somewhat true. I think this is more a natural evolution, Microsoft understood the concept of a thin client long before Office 365. It seems a bit of a stretch to call this a me too when it's more like a "no shit" idea.
"7) Oh oh shiny toy called JavaScript HTML, must have -> WinRT"
Don't know what you mean by this. I can only assume you mean that WinRT has bindings for Javascript and HTML5. I'm not sure why this is a me too thing. It's quite common for companies to support new bindings and API hooks for new technologies. It's just something you do if you want your tools to be used.
"8) Oh oh shiny toy called cloud computing (AWS), must have -> Azure"
Yes, kind of a me too to be fair, but it's more successful than you seem to realise.
But what I really don't get is that you started your argument out suggesting Ballmer is a salesman and can sell anything to anyone, right, so why have so many things like Windows 8, Zune and so forth flopped? That's not the work of a salesman who can sell anything to anybody. You seem to be defeating your own argument by claiming he can sell anything to anyone and then saying most of Microsoft's technologies are second rate and people don't use them. Which is it?
I'm not sure you know too much about Microsoft technologies and certainly not the history given that so many of the things you mention were either not me too, or were going on long before Ballmer took the helm, or just aren't true (refocussing on C++ and abandoning .NET being the most glaring falsehood).
Your analysis seems to be a little tainted with bias, writing off first party titles and including low quality indie games alongside full blown AAA titles (which are what sell consoles with only a few exceptions - e.g. Minecraft) seems to be the very definition of cherry picking statistics.
Also, those lists aren't correct anyway, there's a couple of announced XBox One exclusives missing and games like Diablo 3 haven't been announced as PS4 exclusives, they've just not had their XBox One versions announced yet, which is how it went with the current generation - for example, Diablo 3 was listed only for PS3 for ages but just in the last few weeks it turns out a 360 version is coming out at the same time.
So maybe I'll rephrase to clarify, if you compare the number of AAA titles announced and confirmed as exclusives for the XBox One then Microsoft is way ahead of Sony's announced and confirmed AAA exclusives for the PS4. Another point is the prominence with previously Sony oriented studios focussing heavily on the XBox One - Metal Gear Solid 5 for example was showcased far more prominently as an XBox One product despite it historically being a Sony exclusive series (apart from Rising) and Insomniac a previously Sony exclusive studio for the most part is now developing Sunset Overdrive as an XBox One exclusive.
This is why it seems like Microsoft has been quite successful in pulling more major studios onside than Sony has and as I say I'm pretty sure a lot of it was the DRM.
Microsoft also recently announced quite a few more exclusives to be announced before release too, whether Sony also has more to match it I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
I think you're right about DRM being put in originally somewhat at the behest of companies like EA. Microsoft has bagged itself a lot more exclusives and a lot more big names this time round at it's launch than Sony and I have no doubt that that was part of a deal on their DRM policy. Where that leaves them now with said deals I've no idea - it's also quite possible the companies themselves realised that if they forced Microsoft to keep the DRM as part of said deals that there'd be no installed console base to even sell their exclusive titles on in the first place. It's possible that they were part of the u-turn themselves if this were the case.
They should have videoed it and used it as the bootup animation for the XBox One.
Now that would win people back.