"XP was fundamentally a transitional OS. It's half-way between the bad old days of Win9x/DOS where there was no security and practically everything ran in the kernel, and Win Vista which institutes a proper security model along with evicting most drivers to the user-mode."
To be fair, this is, in part, why some people haven't made the transition.
The issue is that finally breaking away from the older versions of Windows did come at a compatibility cost, and there's an awful lot of companies out there with bespoke software that just wont run on anything later than XP.
Throw in the financial turmoil since 2008 and you've got a perfect storm. The issue is you see, that many of the companies that wrote this bespoke software that was crap enough to not work on later versions of Windows went out of business, couple this with the fact that the companies lumped with this software also don't right now have the money to invest not just in upgrading to Windows 7 but also to commission replacement bespoke software.
As an aside the financial crisis in itself causes issues even without this complication above, again, companies are loathe to shell out during times of uncertainty for new versions of Windows, and often also Office regardless. Vista was released about a year before the crisis really became a big deal, and Windows 7 not until a year afterwards.
As such I'd wager that XP will go away when the global economic crisis goes away. Until that happens don't expect companies to shell out whatever the sanity of doing so - some just can't justify the expense, and others can justify the expense of the OS upgrade, but not the development of replacement bespoke software that must come with that. XP's longevity is a problem born of unfortunate timing. Had the financial crisis not have occurred I have little doubt that XP's market share would've been negligible and 7 would be used almost everywhere that Windows is used by now. Similarly, had Windows 7 been 100% backwards compatible with Windows XP (rather than say, 95% or whatever it is) I've no doubt that that would've decreased the XP install base somewhat also.
Most of the people fighting on the North's side were Chinese.
There were about 600,000 South Koreans, backed up by 300,000 Americans and about 15,000 British fighting against only about 250,000 North Koreans.... but 1.3million Chinese, and about 25,000 Russians.
The Korean war had very little to do with Korea vs. Korea, it was all about the West vs. Communism.
It happened because after World War II, when Japan was kicked out of Korea, the US and Russia decided to split it up, taking part of it each.
The Koreas never split and fought because of any inherent distaste for each other, but because of post-World War II, cold war politics. The Koreans never got to have a say in their division.
As such, North Koreans killing South Koreans in the Korean war was entirely about being forced into it by the great superpowers - the US vs. Russia/China than it was because of any inherent dislike amongst the Korean people.
"If the second Korean War breaks out, Seoul will disappear in thirty minutes by North Korean artillery. And there are ten million people living in Seoul."
This is complete rubbish and the ability to destroy Seoul thing is just complete and utter bluster.
Hitler spent about 3 years trying to destroy London and he had far more devastating munitions available than North Korea does. This is in part because Hitler had an air force capable of dropping large bombs whilst the North Korean air force wouldn't even be able to get close to Seoul. Artillery alone isn't going to destroy a city, even if they fire first, and get a few rounds off before they're hit by large conventional weapons like MOABs and cruise missiles, people will die but it'd be in the tens of thousands at worst. That sounds awful, but when you consider that 230,000 people died in the 2004 Tsunami it's still small fry as disasters go. Again, if London managed to survive the Blitz, then Seoul can survive a North Korean bombardment. It'd be bad, but it's not going to be 10 million dead, city destroyed bad, not even close.
North Korea doesn't even have the communications and intel required to make their artillery particularly effective, they'll have no idea if they're even hitting targets, they'll really just be firing blind for the most part.
So sure there will be casualties, but what's worse, it happens now when there are tens of thousands of deaths, or in a few years when North Korea has a larger, more capable nuclear stockpile?
I don't see how else this problem can resolve in all honesty, Kim Jong Un is young, he'll probably be around another 40 years, and you're never going to convince a crackpot like him to change, he's only going to get more capable, and more dangerous. He's not even listening to China anymore.
"We are supposed to be tolerant of marijuana use even though real medical treatments of those who supposedly need it are readily available. That is a lifestyle choice. We are supposed to be tolerant of people who want to have totally guilt-free, consequence-free sex while demanding that other people pay for it. That is a lifestyle choice and anyone opposing that choice is to be tarred and feathered in the media. We're supposed to be tolerant of radical Islam to the point of spending money to install ritualistic foot baths in public places but try to hang a copy of the Ten Commandments or a picture of Jesus (or try protesting against a teacher who demands that you stomp on the word 'Jesus') and the ACLU has a field day."
These examples are so utterly weak, irrelevant to the issue of obesity and largely just outright wrong that I think it only further confirms the fact that you're desperately looking for excuses as to why you feel it's not your problem.
If you spent half as much time thinking up really poor examples of supposed oppressed minorities that you ridiculously believe have more support than obese people as you did realising it's a problem you can do something about then you wouldn't have the problem. Again, you think you're one of life's victims, and you are, because you make yourself one, that ain't the ACLU's fault, it's yours.
Oh no... one of those people, a binary thinker, the sort of person that assumes if one side of an argument is wrong, the other is inherently right. You don't understand that it's possible for both sides to be wrong.
China shouldn't do what it does, but that doesn't give the US the right to do so. The reason the WTO will be ineffective is because past US actions on ignoring WTO rulings make it ineffective when it needs it to be effective, so it's a problem of it's own creation. If the US fulfilled it's obligations as a WTO member when rulings against it were made in relation to everything from Brazilian cotton and European steel to Canadian fresh water and lumber, then it would be able to use this sensible and proper route against China, it can't exactly do that and expect China to listen when it ignores it itself.
What you read as counterpoints in your binary world are merely examples as to why both sides are not exactly knights in shining armour. Come back and re-read the post when you understand the world isn't black and white, and that there are many shades of grey in between where two parties to an argument can both be in the wrong. You'll be able to understand it then.
If it's classified then how do you know? If you have security clearance then why can you tell us?
An alternative explanation is simply because since the beginning of the financial crisis, US protectionism has increased considerably.
The conveniently timed attacks on Toyota in 2009 that turned out to be non-issues, to the more recent attacks on Chinese networking equipment, it's about one thing- trying to reduce confidence in non-US products and increase confidence in US products. It's about trying to bolster consumption of US goods to help ensure growth.
There's a reason most other countries governments findings into Chinese networking products were the opposite of the US' - they believe that protectionism is not an acceptable solution to the financial crisis, whilst for the US, it's a key policy component in relation to it. It's all somewhat related to the pre-election rhetoric about whether China is a currency manipulator to boot, that is the was US politicians are justifying it to themselves. It's also why Chinese state media recently ran a week or so of attacks against Apple- because that's China's response.
I'm not defending China per-se, I think they are at least somewhat manipulative of their currency (though also understand their justification of wanting to maintain internal stability) and I do think they use subversive practices to give their companies an artificial advantage in global trade, something which simply isn't defensible as I do not believe on one hand it's fair of them to accept the benefits of globalisation and on the other to try and cheat it, but in this particular case I think the US is just simply doing the exact same thing because it views it as easier and quicker than pursuing the proper path of WTO sanctions, although it part it probably feels these would be ineffective given that China could just point out that the WTO has ruled against the US in a number of cases and the US has just ignored it, despite the US being the driving force historically and to this day between the WTO, but then, that's what happens when you try and push one rule for you, and another set of rules for everyone else - everyone else tries to start doing that to.
It's all just part of a tit for tat trade war and little more. It's a childish game of name calling when it comes to, one that stems from hypocritical global trade policies.
"A zombie apocalypse with disease spreading through the air is not even known fictional scenario."
Isn't that how it works on The Walking Dead? Given that you turn into a zombie on that show if you die even if you were never bitten? That's the implication I took away from it - that it was an airborne disease that simply infects you and then turns you when you die.
This coming from the guy who thinks the majority of obesity cases and genetic problems such as autism are equivalent in terms of the person's ability to self-treat.
37.5% of the US population is obese. You realise how utterly absurd it is to try and suggest that's something genetic that's arisen in such a vast proportion of the population in only a couple of generations that science has completely failed to detect? You realise that's a mathematical impossibility right? that you literally couldn't spread a genetic disease to that much of the population in that few generations?
Look I get it, it's not an easy thing to start to deal with, it takes a lot of effort and self-motivation and that can be hard to gather, but that's still not the same as something like autism which there's literally nothing you can physically do to change. The problem is you're in a state of denial that you can even do anything about it, you have this mindset that it's everyone elses fault and there's nothing you can do about it, if you can't even get past that point then it's no surprise you are making absurd claims that it's akin to genetic problems like autism. There are some groups that are genuinely victims of societal changes - native Americans, and Canada's inuit whose bodies aren't evolved to deal with Western food, which has been a cause of obesity and diabetes amongst other things, but even they have the option of changing their diet to one their body can better cope with.
Start by taking a look at yourself and accepting there are things you can do, that's the largest part the battle. Don't just sit there pretending you're one of life's victims though, and it's everyone else's fault for being mean to you, because that's the fastest way to make yourself a victim and ensure you never sort your problem out.
On that note I've often wondered if folks who suggest sahara solar is a magical saviour haven't missed the problem of sandstorms - could you really efficiently prevent the panels being covered in sand?
The difference is that issues such as autism are genetic, such that you're born with them, whilst only a minority (despite what some people on the larger side like to pretend) of obesity cases are caused by genuine genetic issues.
In the vast majority of cases obesity is like smoking - a lifestyle choice that can make you unhealthy. Autism, bipolar disorder, are not lifestyle choices.
Most people who are obese can take measures to get rid of obesity, you can't just get rid of autism.
I think if you have a genuine genetic disorder that causes obesity and people know that then they'll have sympathy for you as much as if you were born with downs syndrome or whatever. Don't expect people to have sympathy though if you're obese simply because you have a poor diet and can't be bothered to exercise enough - which again is the case for the vast majority of people who are obese.
I don't think that really matters, one has to accept that the cost of a flight depends in part on how many people they can squeeze onto the flight. If large people complain about space, then they have to accept their seating area needs to be made larger, if their seating area is made larger, less people can fly, if less people can fly, the price has to go up per flight, if the price has to go up per flight, that's likely going to hit large people even more under this model.
So if a flight costs $1000 (made up number) to transport 10 people, and half of them are heavy and pay $150 each, and the other half are light and pay only $50 each that covers the cost. If the large ones then say, well, we want more space, so you have to remove one heavy, and one light person from the flight, then that means you've got $200 to put onto the bill of the remaining eight, do that fairly and the cost for the overweight may go up to, say, $187.5 each, and to the underweight, $62.5 each. Everyone loses out, but the overweight are paying an extra $37.5 more again on top of the $150, whilst the underweight are only paying $12.5 more on top of their $50.
It may not work this way in practice, it may be that it's recognised that it's just the base cost of shifting the plane that's gone up relative to the amount of passengers (such that the $1000 drops slightly because the weight has dropped, but will not drop proportionately- i.e. it may only drop to say $900, rather than $800 if two people go), but as it's not the lighter/smaller passengers faults that the big folks don't fit in the seats then pricing that based on size is fair too in this respect if larger people are the reason for less folks being on the flight. Either way, making more room means the price has to go up for someone, or everyone.
"Why should I, a 5' 10" man have to pay more for weighing 180# than a woman that's 5' tall and weighing only 100#?"
Why if I weigh less should I have to pay more to subsidise your flight? it's not my fault you weigh more either yet it's me you're saying that should lose out in having to pay more than I need to relative to my weight. Your argument works both ways.
As someone else pointed out too, life's not fair. For example, it's well studied that taller people have a natural advantage in job interviews. Sometimes genetics gives people inherent advantages or disadvantages in life, this is one of those times.
Be weary about what you read here, some replies are from people who are veterans, others are from people who point out that they themselves are still only just getting into the industry. The advice on learning about databases and general data manipulation is good advice for example, but some of the other responses about specific technology because it's worked for that individual are mere anecdotes that wont apply to the general case.
If you really want to know what you should know then the first thing to realise is that it varies depending on where you live - in some cities in some countries you wont find a job in mobile at all, but enterprise Java developers get paid a fortune, in other places it's the other way around. Asking on Slashdot and getting anecdotes from individuals in places that may not mirror where you are could do more harm than good if followed blindly - there's no point learning C++ because someone on Slashdot said you should if you live somewhere where nowhere uses it for example (and don't plan on moving away where there are places that do). Where I live for example,.NET, Java, PHP, C++, SQLs are the key skills that will absolutely guarantee you a choice of employers and mobile, especially things like Objective-C really aren't on the radar.
So here's what you really need to do:
Look at job adverts in your area, go to Craigslist, Monster.com or whatever the most popular job boards are where you live. Have a look through and make a list of what each job is asking for, rank by popularity, and even weight by wage if you wish to. Don't do this once, do this regularly through your career, even if you have a job you're happy with and intend to stay in it for years, still do this at least every 6 months and be aware of where the market is going. Remember that if a skill is popular in advertisements now, then companies probably plan on continuing to use it for a good year or two yet at minimum, keep that in mind.
Don't be a technology zealot. For example, hate Apple if that's your thing, but learn Objective-C if you have to, love C++ and the power it gives or whatever, but if no one is using it around you then don't waste too much time on it. Generalise this - be capable of introspection, be capable of acknowledging to yourself in what areas of knowledge you aren't strong regardless of your otherwise personal bias on a topic, and be capable of admitting to yourself when you were wrong and learning from that even if you choose to save face and refuse to accept you were wrong publicly about something.
Don't assume a job sounds boring, the boring on the outside can hide the most interesting inside - I thought a dev role at an engineering firm sounded dull as hell, but I ended up getting to solve some incredibly interesting problems using techniques such as customised genetic algorithms and so forth and it was my most enjoyable job, it just sadly had no career growth prospects long term. Turns out, that the real restriction on interest in a job is not the industry it's in, but in the freedom and flexibility you're given to solve problems - if you have that you have what you need to make the job interesting, and produce solutions to problems people in that company had long written off as unsolvable which can make massive positive changes for them.
Recognise that there are some skills that are relevant to better yourself anywhere and always, but that these skills aren't languages, frameworks or APIs, they are things like math, project management, client communication, system architecture. This is why I said the post in this discussion about databases is good and a general understanding that it's all about the data. Understanding the nature of data and understand what things like statistics can do with data even if you don't understand the methods will all help.
Do these things, and you'll never need to worry, and always be succesful, but don't expect to do and learn it all over night - it takes time. Prioritise and focus, and figure out where you want t
Let's just keep things in context though - you're right building a new design is going to be expensive, but that expense is still only a tiny fraction of the amount we spent bailing out banks, far less than renewal of our nuclear deterrent will cost, and a tiny fraction of our benefits bill also, in fact, we spend a couple of billion each year handing out winter fuel allowance due to current absurdly high gas/electricity supplier prices. It'd also probably cost even less than our two new aircraft carriers.
In other words even if it costs billions it's still trivially affordable for us if the political will exists to do it. That's before you factor in that much, if not all of the money will be recouped reselling our knowledge and expertise globally if we successfully do it.
I doubt this part. Most of Alberta is no further North than the UK, unless you live right on it's most Northern border (which I doubt, given there are no real population centres there) then solar is certainly feasible. If you live in Edmonton which is about the furthest North population centre in Alberta then you're south of where I am in the UK and solar definitely works absolutely fine here and quite a bit further north too - we even get more grey skies from rain than you due to being an island nation so you'd have a more clear skies advantage to boot.
I wish I could still find the study, but the problem with wind is that there's a period of, IIRC, at least about 2 weeks combined total of every year where the whole of Europe has basically no wind meaning that even if you average out power generated by wind across the whole of Europe it's still producing next to nothing so your assertion that across the country there's always enough on average to produce base load is simply false. With Wind you have to accept that in Europe there's going to be 2 weeks of every year where it does nothing and you have to have something to fill that gap.
As such wind can only ever act as an environmentally friendly substitute for when it is generating power (to for example, reduce coal burning when you can) and never as a replacement in Europe. I know you recognise this somewhat with your comment on using gas to fill the gap, but I'm not sure you realise quite how big a problem it is. It's also worth pointing out that wind requires a massive amount of land area relative to the amount of electricity it produces. We don't physically have space to use wind to fulfil more than a small percentage of our needs (well, not without destroying every acre of countryside we own and all our farm land to boot).
You're right about Apple, but FWIW there are a number of US companies who do things that are legal in the US, but illegal in Europe and for some reason get away with it.
It's usually to do with privacy, and whilst some companies who are victims of millions of pounds of Microsoft lobbying for punishment in the EP like Google get rapped for it, others like Facebook who have very clearly broken the Data Protection Act in the UK (and equivalent in many European countries) continue to get away with it. For example, Facebook opted my account in to allowing friends to allow 3rd parties to access friends data (hence my data). This is a clear breach of the DPA as the only person who can authorise these 3rd parties to access my data is me, no one else can do it on my behalf.
I contacted the ICO over it and they simply didn't care, yet when I contacted them about a fairly large European recruitment agency illegaly selling on my CV they dealt with it within days - there's clearly a disparity between how they treat European companies and US companies in this area at least.
People here were making the claim that people were broken into and had guns stolen because of the leaked list, hence the onus is on them to prove that it was indeed because of the leaked list. I care, because I prefer facts in discussions, rather than made up bluster.
"I have relatives who had nothing but guns stolen while they are on vacation, twice. They had to get a high-end gun safe and sign up for home security monitoring. It's an anecdote, but it demonstrates the threat."
Absolutely I'm sure there is a threat, but this is my point - these people could've had their guns stolen anyway and the thieves may have never even seen the list.
"And while I'm sure a passive-aggressive* gun grabber like yourself will rationalize about anecdotes versus data, I'm sure you'd flip your shit if someone starting publishing a database for who owns valuable cars, or who has a lot of jewelry, or where young, hot women live home alone."
It's not so much about leaking of data, it's whether the list has any merit in it's creation in the first place. People are arguing the list shouldn't exist because when it leaks it causes people to be robbed for their guns, I'm merely pointing out there's no evidence of this and that hence it's probably not a valid argument for saying the list shouldn't exist. You can make other arguments and that's fine, I'll probably even agree with some (though disagree with others). I'd certainly question why a list of "young hot women living alone" exists in the first place as I can think of no real legitimate argument for it, which isn't the case for gun lists - there are legitimate reasons, even if you personally disagree with them.
"Why do you fucks always talk like that? You think it is clever sarcasm, but you sound like a sniveling weenie."
Why do people like you get so upset so easily and become so scared of facts? You think it makes you sound tough, but you sound like an irrational zealot.
Not in Europe it wont thank god, seeing as we've already had a sane ruling in the opposite direction for software.
I'd say this will have no effect over here, but I'd be wrong. For some reason companies seem scared to death of setting up Europe only, or generally non-US only sites that offer services to people outside the US that are much wanted by users but forbidden by US law but not laws elsewhere. I guess at very least the US has been successful in scaring most startups/established companies into believing it really does have universal jurisdiction when it comes to laws relating to the digital world.
"It shows how well Linux shines compared to Microsoft when Microsoft it unable to use its Oppressive Microsoft Monopoly [or simply by being one] can successfully restrict competition."
It's funny you used to say this, I used to work local government here in the UK quite some years back and the head of IT there was as corrupt as they come* in signing up a massive multi-million pound deal with Microsoft for their software assurance programme. They didn't even evaluate FOSS at the time precisely because it was such a whitewash of a deal - the only contender they bothered to evaluate was Microsoft, so no wonder they won the bid - it's kind of easy when the person deciding on the bid wont let anyone else put a bid forward.
Fast forward to today and I'm told by an old friend who still works there that they're getting rid of all their Blackberries after all this time and are replacing them with... Windows Phones. That means a few thousand windows phone sales right there.
This is just one of 468 councils in the UK. Multiply this sort of backhander deal across all of the councils where there is trivially corruptible IT management, multiply it across the world and it's no surprise Windows Phone is gaining market share.
*I know this for a fact, because I was working in a conference hall that had a stage with curtains prior to a conference and was fixing some broken network points behind the curtains when he wasn't aware I was there. I heard him talking to the Microsoft sales rep about everything from how they both fiddle their expenses to how they were looking forward to getting the deal signed before it had even gone out to tender.
Well it's like this for.NET developers, and in fact, many areas of software development in most of the UK at least (the few exceptions may be places like Cornwall, or the North West north of Manchester perhaps, not sure).
You really have to be quite awful to not be able to find a job in this field in the UK right now as there are far far more jobs paying well with good benefits than there are candidates. In fact, I'd go as far as saying if you're genuinely at least semi-competent and can't find a role in this field then you're one of those people who probably doesn't really actually want to find a job if they're honest with themselves.
Is there any evidence these were linked to the gun list rather than just an intersection between the set of people who get robbed, and the set of people on the gun list?
Or are these just people who got robbed and would've been robbed regardless and blamed it on the publication of the list?
You'd need to get the number of people on the list, and the burglary rate for the area to see if an abnormally large number of people got robbed relative to the size of the list for it to have any meaning.
As an aside, I've seen some NRA supporters claim that guns are a deterrent to crime, if houses containing firearms are in fact more likely to be burgled then that kind of drives a steamroller right over that argument, because even if the burglars did a stakeout on the house (would they really go to that length when there are easier targets elsewhere?) the chance of someone being in the house that they were unaware of and who could access the firearms would still be much greater.
If the robberies genuinely were linked to the leaked list, it'd be interesting to then see if the perpetrators were more likely to be armed - i.e. posing the question, does gun ownership increase the chance of armed robbery? - but I doubt those statistics will ever be available given that the honest facts of the robberies will probably never come to light.
Still, apologies if this post tramples over people's biases, I know gun control is a heated debate, but personally I'm more interested in the statistical relevance of it all than partisan subjectiveness. Just saying some people who were on the list also got robbed/had their guns stolen doesn't tell us anything and the implication it does without better evidence that it's some kind of anomaly is simply false.
This post is stupid, you're implying Dotcom and Assange are criminals when they've not yet been found guilty of anything. This says more about your bias than it does about the majority of Slashdot supporting them.
Specifically though, both Assange and Dotcom have support outside the "geek" community too, in fact I'd wager in Assage's case at least the majority of the world's population recognise there's something really fishy.
For me in the UK, it's rather obvious that something is up, we can trivially extradite Assange in abnormal circumstances (we've never extradited anyone who hasn't been charged before) and where it's pretty clear, given that Sweden wont give a guarantee that he wont be extradited on to the US (this is something the Ecuadorian ambassadors have officially requested and had denied) where he could genuinely face the death penalty, but we can't extradite Abu Qatada who has been previously found guilty of supporting terrorism and even being complicit in a bombing because of fears that evidence obtained through torture will be used to convict him and where it has been confirmed that he will not face the death penalty (because we apparently never extradite when there's a threat of death penalty, well, unless it's Assange). There's a clear disparity between the way the two cases have been handled that implies that something is definitely not right.
So sure on one hand you probably have some people (I say some, this is a large and varied community remember?) believe people are innocent just because they are fellow geeks and nothing else, but then on the other you have people like yourself who claim people are criminals well before there's any confirmation of that.
The rest of us just look at the facts, and are capable of recognising independently when something smells fishy, when logical reasoning and simple fact finding shows clear inconsistencies in the prosecution's case, and the case of politicians who have become involved by making statements about what we can and can't do to ensure fair trials that are clearly not true given past evidence to the counter.
Personally I think this Kamphuis guy sounds like a complete cock, I'm not really one to say he's guilty before he's convicted, but at the very least what I am comfortable saying is that there is enough evidence that he's not done enough to keep criminal activity off of his hosting platform that Spamhaus were correct to add his servers to their blocklist.
"At first a lot of people here claimed (with 'evidence') the women didn't even exist, while they were being interviewed by local media."
FWIW I never saw any such claims, but in what kind of fucked up country do they call it a good idea to have alleged rape victims being interviewed on TV before any charges have been brought, let alone any conviction a good idea when it comes to obtaining a fair trial? In most normal countries with a fair sense of justice this in itself would be grounds to throw the trial out in that it would mean there would be no hope of guaranteeing a jury that hadn't been prejudiced by what they'd seen in the media.
It seems the reason you take issue with people "defending" these folks is because you don't believe in justice, you believe that accusation alone is evidence enough of guilt. I say this, because I don't see people inherently defending these people per-se, what I do see however are people defending the right for these people to have a fair trial. There's a lot fishy in the Assange case (and Manning case for that matter), and a lot of evidence that justice is not being done, and just because Dotcom was a criminal previously doesn't mean he's guilty of any crime now.
You may not like justice, you may love mob rule, and that's fine if that's what you want, but the countries were talking about at least pretend they believe in justice, so that's the standard people like me and many other Slashdotters are going to hold them to. If these people are guilty at the end of it (like Reiser was) then so be it, I think everyone h
Slashdot Mirror
"XP was fundamentally a transitional OS. It's half-way between the bad old days of Win9x/DOS where there was no security and practically everything ran in the kernel, and Win Vista which institutes a proper security model along with evicting most drivers to the user-mode."
To be fair, this is, in part, why some people haven't made the transition.
The issue is that finally breaking away from the older versions of Windows did come at a compatibility cost, and there's an awful lot of companies out there with bespoke software that just wont run on anything later than XP.
Throw in the financial turmoil since 2008 and you've got a perfect storm. The issue is you see, that many of the companies that wrote this bespoke software that was crap enough to not work on later versions of Windows went out of business, couple this with the fact that the companies lumped with this software also don't right now have the money to invest not just in upgrading to Windows 7 but also to commission replacement bespoke software.
As an aside the financial crisis in itself causes issues even without this complication above, again, companies are loathe to shell out during times of uncertainty for new versions of Windows, and often also Office regardless. Vista was released about a year before the crisis really became a big deal, and Windows 7 not until a year afterwards.
As such I'd wager that XP will go away when the global economic crisis goes away. Until that happens don't expect companies to shell out whatever the sanity of doing so - some just can't justify the expense, and others can justify the expense of the OS upgrade, but not the development of replacement bespoke software that must come with that. XP's longevity is a problem born of unfortunate timing. Had the financial crisis not have occurred I have little doubt that XP's market share would've been negligible and 7 would be used almost everywhere that Windows is used by now. Similarly, had Windows 7 been 100% backwards compatible with Windows XP (rather than say, 95% or whatever it is) I've no doubt that that would've decreased the XP install base somewhat also.
Most of the people fighting on the North's side were Chinese.
There were about 600,000 South Koreans, backed up by 300,000 Americans and about 15,000 British fighting against only about 250,000 North Koreans.... but 1.3million Chinese, and about 25,000 Russians.
The Korean war had very little to do with Korea vs. Korea, it was all about the West vs. Communism.
It happened because after World War II, when Japan was kicked out of Korea, the US and Russia decided to split it up, taking part of it each.
The Koreas never split and fought because of any inherent distaste for each other, but because of post-World War II, cold war politics. The Koreans never got to have a say in their division.
As such, North Koreans killing South Koreans in the Korean war was entirely about being forced into it by the great superpowers - the US vs. Russia/China than it was because of any inherent dislike amongst the Korean people.
"If the second Korean War breaks out, Seoul will disappear in thirty minutes by North Korean artillery. And there are ten million people living in Seoul."
This is complete rubbish and the ability to destroy Seoul thing is just complete and utter bluster.
Hitler spent about 3 years trying to destroy London and he had far more devastating munitions available than North Korea does. This is in part because Hitler had an air force capable of dropping large bombs whilst the North Korean air force wouldn't even be able to get close to Seoul. Artillery alone isn't going to destroy a city, even if they fire first, and get a few rounds off before they're hit by large conventional weapons like MOABs and cruise missiles, people will die but it'd be in the tens of thousands at worst. That sounds awful, but when you consider that 230,000 people died in the 2004 Tsunami it's still small fry as disasters go. Again, if London managed to survive the Blitz, then Seoul can survive a North Korean bombardment. It'd be bad, but it's not going to be 10 million dead, city destroyed bad, not even close.
North Korea doesn't even have the communications and intel required to make their artillery particularly effective, they'll have no idea if they're even hitting targets, they'll really just be firing blind for the most part.
So sure there will be casualties, but what's worse, it happens now when there are tens of thousands of deaths, or in a few years when North Korea has a larger, more capable nuclear stockpile?
I don't see how else this problem can resolve in all honesty, Kim Jong Un is young, he'll probably be around another 40 years, and you're never going to convince a crackpot like him to change, he's only going to get more capable, and more dangerous. He's not even listening to China anymore.
"We are supposed to be tolerant of marijuana use even though real medical treatments of those who supposedly need it are readily available. That is a lifestyle choice. We are supposed to be tolerant of people who want to have totally guilt-free, consequence-free sex while demanding that other people pay for it. That is a lifestyle choice and anyone opposing that choice is to be tarred and feathered in the media. We're supposed to be tolerant of radical Islam to the point of spending money to install ritualistic foot baths in public places but try to hang a copy of the Ten Commandments or a picture of Jesus (or try protesting against a teacher who demands that you stomp on the word 'Jesus') and the ACLU has a field day."
These examples are so utterly weak, irrelevant to the issue of obesity and largely just outright wrong that I think it only further confirms the fact that you're desperately looking for excuses as to why you feel it's not your problem.
If you spent half as much time thinking up really poor examples of supposed oppressed minorities that you ridiculously believe have more support than obese people as you did realising it's a problem you can do something about then you wouldn't have the problem. Again, you think you're one of life's victims, and you are, because you make yourself one, that ain't the ACLU's fault, it's yours.
Oh no... one of those people, a binary thinker, the sort of person that assumes if one side of an argument is wrong, the other is inherently right. You don't understand that it's possible for both sides to be wrong.
China shouldn't do what it does, but that doesn't give the US the right to do so. The reason the WTO will be ineffective is because past US actions on ignoring WTO rulings make it ineffective when it needs it to be effective, so it's a problem of it's own creation. If the US fulfilled it's obligations as a WTO member when rulings against it were made in relation to everything from Brazilian cotton and European steel to Canadian fresh water and lumber, then it would be able to use this sensible and proper route against China, it can't exactly do that and expect China to listen when it ignores it itself.
What you read as counterpoints in your binary world are merely examples as to why both sides are not exactly knights in shining armour. Come back and re-read the post when you understand the world isn't black and white, and that there are many shades of grey in between where two parties to an argument can both be in the wrong. You'll be able to understand it then.
If it's classified then how do you know? If you have security clearance then why can you tell us?
An alternative explanation is simply because since the beginning of the financial crisis, US protectionism has increased considerably.
The conveniently timed attacks on Toyota in 2009 that turned out to be non-issues, to the more recent attacks on Chinese networking equipment, it's about one thing- trying to reduce confidence in non-US products and increase confidence in US products. It's about trying to bolster consumption of US goods to help ensure growth.
There's a reason most other countries governments findings into Chinese networking products were the opposite of the US' - they believe that protectionism is not an acceptable solution to the financial crisis, whilst for the US, it's a key policy component in relation to it. It's all somewhat related to the pre-election rhetoric about whether China is a currency manipulator to boot, that is the was US politicians are justifying it to themselves. It's also why Chinese state media recently ran a week or so of attacks against Apple- because that's China's response.
I'm not defending China per-se, I think they are at least somewhat manipulative of their currency (though also understand their justification of wanting to maintain internal stability) and I do think they use subversive practices to give their companies an artificial advantage in global trade, something which simply isn't defensible as I do not believe on one hand it's fair of them to accept the benefits of globalisation and on the other to try and cheat it, but in this particular case I think the US is just simply doing the exact same thing because it views it as easier and quicker than pursuing the proper path of WTO sanctions, although it part it probably feels these would be ineffective given that China could just point out that the WTO has ruled against the US in a number of cases and the US has just ignored it, despite the US being the driving force historically and to this day between the WTO, but then, that's what happens when you try and push one rule for you, and another set of rules for everyone else - everyone else tries to start doing that to.
It's all just part of a tit for tat trade war and little more. It's a childish game of name calling when it comes to, one that stems from hypocritical global trade policies.
Some people believe in fairies too.
"A zombie apocalypse with disease spreading through the air is not even known fictional scenario."
Isn't that how it works on The Walking Dead? Given that you turn into a zombie on that show if you die even if you were never bitten? That's the implication I took away from it - that it was an airborne disease that simply infects you and then turns you when you die.
This coming from the guy who thinks the majority of obesity cases and genetic problems such as autism are equivalent in terms of the person's ability to self-treat.
37.5% of the US population is obese. You realise how utterly absurd it is to try and suggest that's something genetic that's arisen in such a vast proportion of the population in only a couple of generations that science has completely failed to detect? You realise that's a mathematical impossibility right? that you literally couldn't spread a genetic disease to that much of the population in that few generations?
Look I get it, it's not an easy thing to start to deal with, it takes a lot of effort and self-motivation and that can be hard to gather, but that's still not the same as something like autism which there's literally nothing you can physically do to change. The problem is you're in a state of denial that you can even do anything about it, you have this mindset that it's everyone elses fault and there's nothing you can do about it, if you can't even get past that point then it's no surprise you are making absurd claims that it's akin to genetic problems like autism. There are some groups that are genuinely victims of societal changes - native Americans, and Canada's inuit whose bodies aren't evolved to deal with Western food, which has been a cause of obesity and diabetes amongst other things, but even they have the option of changing their diet to one their body can better cope with.
Start by taking a look at yourself and accepting there are things you can do, that's the largest part the battle. Don't just sit there pretending you're one of life's victims though, and it's everyone else's fault for being mean to you, because that's the fastest way to make yourself a victim and ensure you never sort your problem out.
That'd explain it :)
On that note I've often wondered if folks who suggest sahara solar is a magical saviour haven't missed the problem of sandstorms - could you really efficiently prevent the panels being covered in sand?
The difference is that issues such as autism are genetic, such that you're born with them, whilst only a minority (despite what some people on the larger side like to pretend) of obesity cases are caused by genuine genetic issues.
In the vast majority of cases obesity is like smoking - a lifestyle choice that can make you unhealthy. Autism, bipolar disorder, are not lifestyle choices.
Most people who are obese can take measures to get rid of obesity, you can't just get rid of autism.
I think if you have a genuine genetic disorder that causes obesity and people know that then they'll have sympathy for you as much as if you were born with downs syndrome or whatever. Don't expect people to have sympathy though if you're obese simply because you have a poor diet and can't be bothered to exercise enough - which again is the case for the vast majority of people who are obese.
I don't think that really matters, one has to accept that the cost of a flight depends in part on how many people they can squeeze onto the flight. If large people complain about space, then they have to accept their seating area needs to be made larger, if their seating area is made larger, less people can fly, if less people can fly, the price has to go up per flight, if the price has to go up per flight, that's likely going to hit large people even more under this model.
So if a flight costs $1000 (made up number) to transport 10 people, and half of them are heavy and pay $150 each, and the other half are light and pay only $50 each that covers the cost. If the large ones then say, well, we want more space, so you have to remove one heavy, and one light person from the flight, then that means you've got $200 to put onto the bill of the remaining eight, do that fairly and the cost for the overweight may go up to, say, $187.5 each, and to the underweight, $62.5 each. Everyone loses out, but the overweight are paying an extra $37.5 more again on top of the $150, whilst the underweight are only paying $12.5 more on top of their $50.
It may not work this way in practice, it may be that it's recognised that it's just the base cost of shifting the plane that's gone up relative to the amount of passengers (such that the $1000 drops slightly because the weight has dropped, but will not drop proportionately- i.e. it may only drop to say $900, rather than $800 if two people go), but as it's not the lighter/smaller passengers faults that the big folks don't fit in the seats then pricing that based on size is fair too in this respect if larger people are the reason for less folks being on the flight. Either way, making more room means the price has to go up for someone, or everyone.
"Why should I, a 5' 10" man have to pay more for weighing 180# than a woman that's 5' tall and weighing only 100#?"
Why if I weigh less should I have to pay more to subsidise your flight? it's not my fault you weigh more either yet it's me you're saying that should lose out in having to pay more than I need to relative to my weight. Your argument works both ways.
As someone else pointed out too, life's not fair. For example, it's well studied that taller people have a natural advantage in job interviews. Sometimes genetics gives people inherent advantages or disadvantages in life, this is one of those times.
Be weary about what you read here, some replies are from people who are veterans, others are from people who point out that they themselves are still only just getting into the industry. The advice on learning about databases and general data manipulation is good advice for example, but some of the other responses about specific technology because it's worked for that individual are mere anecdotes that wont apply to the general case.
If you really want to know what you should know then the first thing to realise is that it varies depending on where you live - in some cities in some countries you wont find a job in mobile at all, but enterprise Java developers get paid a fortune, in other places it's the other way around. Asking on Slashdot and getting anecdotes from individuals in places that may not mirror where you are could do more harm than good if followed blindly - there's no point learning C++ because someone on Slashdot said you should if you live somewhere where nowhere uses it for example (and don't plan on moving away where there are places that do). Where I live for example, .NET, Java, PHP, C++, SQLs are the key skills that will absolutely guarantee you a choice of employers and mobile, especially things like Objective-C really aren't on the radar.
So here's what you really need to do:
Look at job adverts in your area, go to Craigslist, Monster.com or whatever the most popular job boards are where you live. Have a look through and make a list of what each job is asking for, rank by popularity, and even weight by wage if you wish to. Don't do this once, do this regularly through your career, even if you have a job you're happy with and intend to stay in it for years, still do this at least every 6 months and be aware of where the market is going. Remember that if a skill is popular in advertisements now, then companies probably plan on continuing to use it for a good year or two yet at minimum, keep that in mind.
Don't be a technology zealot. For example, hate Apple if that's your thing, but learn Objective-C if you have to, love C++ and the power it gives or whatever, but if no one is using it around you then don't waste too much time on it. Generalise this - be capable of introspection, be capable of acknowledging to yourself in what areas of knowledge you aren't strong regardless of your otherwise personal bias on a topic, and be capable of admitting to yourself when you were wrong and learning from that even if you choose to save face and refuse to accept you were wrong publicly about something.
Don't assume a job sounds boring, the boring on the outside can hide the most interesting inside - I thought a dev role at an engineering firm sounded dull as hell, but I ended up getting to solve some incredibly interesting problems using techniques such as customised genetic algorithms and so forth and it was my most enjoyable job, it just sadly had no career growth prospects long term. Turns out, that the real restriction on interest in a job is not the industry it's in, but in the freedom and flexibility you're given to solve problems - if you have that you have what you need to make the job interesting, and produce solutions to problems people in that company had long written off as unsolvable which can make massive positive changes for them.
Recognise that there are some skills that are relevant to better yourself anywhere and always, but that these skills aren't languages, frameworks or APIs, they are things like math, project management, client communication, system architecture. This is why I said the post in this discussion about databases is good and a general understanding that it's all about the data. Understanding the nature of data and understand what things like statistics can do with data even if you don't understand the methods will all help.
Do these things, and you'll never need to worry, and always be succesful, but don't expect to do and learn it all over night - it takes time. Prioritise and focus, and figure out where you want t
Let's just keep things in context though - you're right building a new design is going to be expensive, but that expense is still only a tiny fraction of the amount we spent bailing out banks, far less than renewal of our nuclear deterrent will cost, and a tiny fraction of our benefits bill also, in fact, we spend a couple of billion each year handing out winter fuel allowance due to current absurdly high gas/electricity supplier prices. It'd also probably cost even less than our two new aircraft carriers.
In other words even if it costs billions it's still trivially affordable for us if the political will exists to do it. That's before you factor in that much, if not all of the money will be recouped reselling our knowledge and expertise globally if we successfully do it.
Money isn't the issue, that's for sure.
"I live in Alberta, too far north for solar"
I doubt this part. Most of Alberta is no further North than the UK, unless you live right on it's most Northern border (which I doubt, given there are no real population centres there) then solar is certainly feasible. If you live in Edmonton which is about the furthest North population centre in Alberta then you're south of where I am in the UK and solar definitely works absolutely fine here and quite a bit further north too - we even get more grey skies from rain than you due to being an island nation so you'd have a more clear skies advantage to boot.
I wish I could still find the study, but the problem with wind is that there's a period of, IIRC, at least about 2 weeks combined total of every year where the whole of Europe has basically no wind meaning that even if you average out power generated by wind across the whole of Europe it's still producing next to nothing so your assertion that across the country there's always enough on average to produce base load is simply false. With Wind you have to accept that in Europe there's going to be 2 weeks of every year where it does nothing and you have to have something to fill that gap.
As such wind can only ever act as an environmentally friendly substitute for when it is generating power (to for example, reduce coal burning when you can) and never as a replacement in Europe. I know you recognise this somewhat with your comment on using gas to fill the gap, but I'm not sure you realise quite how big a problem it is. It's also worth pointing out that wind requires a massive amount of land area relative to the amount of electricity it produces. We don't physically have space to use wind to fulfil more than a small percentage of our needs (well, not without destroying every acre of countryside we own and all our farm land to boot).
You're right about Apple, but FWIW there are a number of US companies who do things that are legal in the US, but illegal in Europe and for some reason get away with it.
It's usually to do with privacy, and whilst some companies who are victims of millions of pounds of Microsoft lobbying for punishment in the EP like Google get rapped for it, others like Facebook who have very clearly broken the Data Protection Act in the UK (and equivalent in many European countries) continue to get away with it. For example, Facebook opted my account in to allowing friends to allow 3rd parties to access friends data (hence my data). This is a clear breach of the DPA as the only person who can authorise these 3rd parties to access my data is me, no one else can do it on my behalf.
I contacted the ICO over it and they simply didn't care, yet when I contacted them about a fairly large European recruitment agency illegaly selling on my CV they dealt with it within days - there's clearly a disparity between how they treat European companies and US companies in this area at least.
"Is there any evidence it isn't? Who cares?"
People here were making the claim that people were broken into and had guns stolen because of the leaked list, hence the onus is on them to prove that it was indeed because of the leaked list. I care, because I prefer facts in discussions, rather than made up bluster.
"I have relatives who had nothing but guns stolen while they are on vacation, twice. They had to get a high-end gun safe and sign up for home security monitoring. It's an anecdote, but it demonstrates the threat."
Absolutely I'm sure there is a threat, but this is my point - these people could've had their guns stolen anyway and the thieves may have never even seen the list.
"And while I'm sure a passive-aggressive* gun grabber like yourself will rationalize about anecdotes versus data, I'm sure you'd flip your shit if someone starting publishing a database for who owns valuable cars, or who has a lot of jewelry, or where young, hot women live home alone."
It's not so much about leaking of data, it's whether the list has any merit in it's creation in the first place. People are arguing the list shouldn't exist because when it leaks it causes people to be robbed for their guns, I'm merely pointing out there's no evidence of this and that hence it's probably not a valid argument for saying the list shouldn't exist. You can make other arguments and that's fine, I'll probably even agree with some (though disagree with others). I'd certainly question why a list of "young hot women living alone" exists in the first place as I can think of no real legitimate argument for it, which isn't the case for gun lists - there are legitimate reasons, even if you personally disagree with them.
"Why do you fucks always talk like that? You think it is clever sarcasm, but you sound like a sniveling weenie."
Why do people like you get so upset so easily and become so scared of facts? You think it makes you sound tough, but you sound like an irrational zealot.
Does it do anything that's illegal in the US but not outside though?
Not in Europe it wont thank god, seeing as we've already had a sane ruling in the opposite direction for software.
I'd say this will have no effect over here, but I'd be wrong. For some reason companies seem scared to death of setting up Europe only, or generally non-US only sites that offer services to people outside the US that are much wanted by users but forbidden by US law but not laws elsewhere. I guess at very least the US has been successful in scaring most startups/established companies into believing it really does have universal jurisdiction when it comes to laws relating to the digital world.
"It shows how well Linux shines compared to Microsoft when Microsoft it unable to use its Oppressive Microsoft Monopoly [or simply by being one] can successfully restrict competition."
It's funny you used to say this, I used to work local government here in the UK quite some years back and the head of IT there was as corrupt as they come* in signing up a massive multi-million pound deal with Microsoft for their software assurance programme. They didn't even evaluate FOSS at the time precisely because it was such a whitewash of a deal - the only contender they bothered to evaluate was Microsoft, so no wonder they won the bid - it's kind of easy when the person deciding on the bid wont let anyone else put a bid forward.
Fast forward to today and I'm told by an old friend who still works there that they're getting rid of all their Blackberries after all this time and are replacing them with... Windows Phones. That means a few thousand windows phone sales right there.
This is just one of 468 councils in the UK. Multiply this sort of backhander deal across all of the councils where there is trivially corruptible IT management, multiply it across the world and it's no surprise Windows Phone is gaining market share.
*I know this for a fact, because I was working in a conference hall that had a stage with curtains prior to a conference and was fixing some broken network points behind the curtains when he wasn't aware I was there. I heard him talking to the Microsoft sales rep about everything from how they both fiddle their expenses to how they were looking forward to getting the deal signed before it had even gone out to tender.
Well it's like this for .NET developers, and in fact, many areas of software development in most of the UK at least (the few exceptions may be places like Cornwall, or the North West north of Manchester perhaps, not sure).
You really have to be quite awful to not be able to find a job in this field in the UK right now as there are far far more jobs paying well with good benefits than there are candidates. In fact, I'd go as far as saying if you're genuinely at least semi-competent and can't find a role in this field then you're one of those people who probably doesn't really actually want to find a job if they're honest with themselves.
Is there any evidence these were linked to the gun list rather than just an intersection between the set of people who get robbed, and the set of people on the gun list?
Or are these just people who got robbed and would've been robbed regardless and blamed it on the publication of the list?
You'd need to get the number of people on the list, and the burglary rate for the area to see if an abnormally large number of people got robbed relative to the size of the list for it to have any meaning.
As an aside, I've seen some NRA supporters claim that guns are a deterrent to crime, if houses containing firearms are in fact more likely to be burgled then that kind of drives a steamroller right over that argument, because even if the burglars did a stakeout on the house (would they really go to that length when there are easier targets elsewhere?) the chance of someone being in the house that they were unaware of and who could access the firearms would still be much greater.
If the robberies genuinely were linked to the leaked list, it'd be interesting to then see if the perpetrators were more likely to be armed - i.e. posing the question, does gun ownership increase the chance of armed robbery? - but I doubt those statistics will ever be available given that the honest facts of the robberies will probably never come to light.
Still, apologies if this post tramples over people's biases, I know gun control is a heated debate, but personally I'm more interested in the statistical relevance of it all than partisan subjectiveness. Just saying some people who were on the list also got robbed/had their guns stolen doesn't tell us anything and the implication it does without better evidence that it's some kind of anomaly is simply false.
This post is stupid, you're implying Dotcom and Assange are criminals when they've not yet been found guilty of anything. This says more about your bias than it does about the majority of Slashdot supporting them.
Specifically though, both Assange and Dotcom have support outside the "geek" community too, in fact I'd wager in Assage's case at least the majority of the world's population recognise there's something really fishy.
For me in the UK, it's rather obvious that something is up, we can trivially extradite Assange in abnormal circumstances (we've never extradited anyone who hasn't been charged before) and where it's pretty clear, given that Sweden wont give a guarantee that he wont be extradited on to the US (this is something the Ecuadorian ambassadors have officially requested and had denied) where he could genuinely face the death penalty, but we can't extradite Abu Qatada who has been previously found guilty of supporting terrorism and even being complicit in a bombing because of fears that evidence obtained through torture will be used to convict him and where it has been confirmed that he will not face the death penalty (because we apparently never extradite when there's a threat of death penalty, well, unless it's Assange). There's a clear disparity between the way the two cases have been handled that implies that something is definitely not right.
So sure on one hand you probably have some people (I say some, this is a large and varied community remember?) believe people are innocent just because they are fellow geeks and nothing else, but then on the other you have people like yourself who claim people are criminals well before there's any confirmation of that.
The rest of us just look at the facts, and are capable of recognising independently when something smells fishy, when logical reasoning and simple fact finding shows clear inconsistencies in the prosecution's case, and the case of politicians who have become involved by making statements about what we can and can't do to ensure fair trials that are clearly not true given past evidence to the counter.
Personally I think this Kamphuis guy sounds like a complete cock, I'm not really one to say he's guilty before he's convicted, but at the very least what I am comfortable saying is that there is enough evidence that he's not done enough to keep criminal activity off of his hosting platform that Spamhaus were correct to add his servers to their blocklist.
"At first a lot of people here claimed (with 'evidence') the women didn't even exist, while they were being interviewed by local media."
FWIW I never saw any such claims, but in what kind of fucked up country do they call it a good idea to have alleged rape victims being interviewed on TV before any charges have been brought, let alone any conviction a good idea when it comes to obtaining a fair trial? In most normal countries with a fair sense of justice this in itself would be grounds to throw the trial out in that it would mean there would be no hope of guaranteeing a jury that hadn't been prejudiced by what they'd seen in the media.
It seems the reason you take issue with people "defending" these folks is because you don't believe in justice, you believe that accusation alone is evidence enough of guilt. I say this, because I don't see people inherently defending these people per-se, what I do see however are people defending the right for these people to have a fair trial. There's a lot fishy in the Assange case (and Manning case for that matter), and a lot of evidence that justice is not being done, and just because Dotcom was a criminal previously doesn't mean he's guilty of any crime now.
You may not like justice, you may love mob rule, and that's fine if that's what you want, but the countries were talking about at least pretend they believe in justice, so that's the standard people like me and many other Slashdotters are going to hold them to. If these people are guilty at the end of it (like Reiser was) then so be it, I think everyone h