MS is a shitshow. They may be mellowing slightly, but I woud never trust them. Linux is perfectly usable as a general desktop/web surfer, and for most routine office tasks. It's fast and reasonably friendly. It's a lot of fun for development and similar stuff. But I like to do advanced graphics (Photoshop, Illustrator) and audio/video (Sonar, Mixbus, Premiere Pro, Audition, etc. etc.). Not to mention the thousands of great free or cheap apps and utilities comprising the larger Windows ecosystem. Until Linux has anything remotely comparable, I'll hold my nose and somehow deal with Windows. It may be that the new MS Win10 update policy fixes most of my concerns about Win10. Until then, I'm sticking with Win7 (super fast and stable on modern hardware). Linux? Yeah, I run it as a VM sometimes, or on my RPi, but it's still all about itself -- interesting if you want to play with an OS, but useless if you want to get something amazing done creatively, without struggling with your tools every step of the way...
I'm very happy with Windows 7. It runs fast and stable on modern hardware. I realize I'll eventually have to go with Win10, but only if I do a major hardware upgrade. Right now, my 6-year-old system does great with audio and video rendering, graphics, etc. I practice safe innertubing, and don't have malware problems. The hot mess that is Windows 10 is just unattractive, and I won't hold my nose and plunge in until I absolutely have to.
Of course FB is an advertising company that tries to hide behind the fiction of "we're just connecting people!" Isn't that the BS that every marketer since the snake in the garden has pushed? Wake up sheeple, our economy, our nation (and every other industrial nation), and our very existence depends on consumerism, and therefore marketing. This is a doublethink that makes it nearly impossible to perceive the true insidious nature of marketing -- lies for profit.
If you bought a house in 2014, and need to move, you'll be looking at housing that is 50% more expensive than it was then. That's a hard pill to swallow when CPI-adjusted wages have been going down over the same time.
Exactly this. When housing was generally affordable and readily available, it was relatively easy to get established somewhere else. Now, the combination of housing scarcity and expense, coupled with such things as high college debt and low savings, means that it's too much of a hurdle to pull up roots and move for anybody but the most affluent. Especially if you have family/friends in your current location, you'd have to have an extremely attractive job offer, maybe plus moving expenses, before it would make sense to do a geographical.
Either that, or be so desperate that you're basically bumming around looking for work, not a great situation to be in these days.
Yeah, they make high quality expensive audio gear. But their customer service sucks, and I wouldn't be surprised if their programmers suck for the same reason. A few years ago, I had a problem with a cable on one of their high end headphones, where it connected to the earcup. The cable wasn't removable, so I emailed their service department to ask about repair. I got a very snotty reply suggesting I buy a new set of headphones. So I did. Not Sennheiser, of course. They have plenty of competition in the high-end audio market, and my new Focal phones sound way better than the old Sennheisers. Wouldn't be surprised if the corporate response to this security issue is similar.
So which one is it? The post starts off talking about a poll relating to social media, but then turns into hand-wringing over smart phones. To be sure they often go together, but this kind of fuzzy thinking is more click-bait than actual, you know, informed discussion.
Something like a dog or a cat can fall into the same category for a small child that doesn't fully understand emotions. It is very easy for them (and some adults who can't tell the difference, either) to incorrectly interpret the animal's reaction to calling their name, giving them a hug or petting them as "friendship" or an emotional bond.
While those sorts of relationships are different from Alexa's vocal responses - or Eliza's typed ones too, for people with a long memory - they can be just as strong, given the physical presence of pets in the home.
Some children need the emotional support of animals, some could grow to be emotionally dependent on a machine. It is a parental duty to teach children how to deal with these different sorts of relationship.
OK, now we're talking about machines vs. meat. Alexa "understands" and "speaks," without any actual understanding or cognition. Pets don't do speech. But they definitely are actual beings, with emotions, feelings, loyalties, etc. If you look at pets like robots and try to analyze their behavior in that context, you're missing the point.
By necessity, every interaction with a pet is nonverbal. Sure, you might talk to your dog and assume it understands you, but most of that is probably because your dog can easily recognize your body language and tone of voice, something that Alexa currently has no clue about.
So whether or not a toddler interacting with Alexa is harmless, it's orders of magnitude less of a rich experience than a dog, or even a cat, would be. It might be amusing to get my toddler an Alexa, but it could never be the companion, or learning experience, or emotional attachment, or guardian, that a dog could be.
Boeing doesn't play fair, and they would just hate to be upstaged by an upstart, when they've gotten fat off of sucking the federal tit forever. Expect some unexpected developments, either in the media or on some legislative subcommittee or both, to try to slow Elon down.
I don't use Google much (mostly Duck Duck Go), nor am I a subscriber, or use Chrome, or anything like that. So I'm a little confused about what a "card" is. Any explanations appreciated.
MS has spent decades building a reputation as a greedy, cutthroat, and not terribly competent behemoth. Even if they could somehow instantly change their internal culture (yeah right), it would take further decades before their reputation recovers.
Every nation's military targets every other nation in every way, including the cyberinfodiginet. The only news would be if somebody had elected to forego such hijinks. Unlikely.
It's easy to send a text from a desktop PC, using any email client.Simply look up the SMS gateway email address, readily available online if you know the recipient's carrier, or you can use their phone# to find their carrier. Every carrier has an SMS/email gateway, and the specific phone number is itself the address. This is all easily found using any search engine. Et voila! Once again, some highly touted "app" simply provides a slick interface to something that was already dirt simple, and thereby collects even more of your personal info, while trying to strengthen your ties to their particular ecosystem.
Money and power don't always win in court. See Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein for example. True, we're all complicit in climate change for using fossil fuels. But the allegation here is that Chevron actively lied and suppressed information about their product. That might be tough to defend.
This guy seems to think that Python has functions, whereas C++ doesn't. He claims that repetitive operations in C++ require coding the same lines over and over. If he's that misinformed, it kind of ruins his credibility. A perfect example of Dunning-Krueger -- he learned a little and thinks he knows a lot.
Slashdot Mirror
MS is a shitshow. They may be mellowing slightly, but I woud never trust them.
Linux is perfectly usable as a general desktop/web surfer, and for most routine office tasks. It's fast and reasonably friendly. It's a lot of fun for development and similar stuff.
But I like to do advanced graphics (Photoshop, Illustrator) and audio/video (Sonar, Mixbus, Premiere Pro, Audition, etc. etc.). Not to mention the thousands of great free or cheap apps and utilities comprising the larger Windows ecosystem. Until Linux has anything remotely comparable, I'll hold my nose and somehow deal with Windows.
It may be that the new MS Win10 update policy fixes most of my concerns about Win10. Until then, I'm sticking with Win7 (super fast and stable on modern hardware).
Linux? Yeah, I run it as a VM sometimes, or on my RPi, but it's still all about itself -- interesting if you want to play with an OS, but useless if you want to get something amazing done creatively, without struggling with your tools every step of the way...
I'm very happy with Windows 7. It runs fast and stable on modern hardware.
I realize I'll eventually have to go with Win10, but only if I do a major hardware upgrade. Right now, my 6-year-old system does great with audio and video rendering, graphics, etc. I practice safe innertubing, and don't have malware problems.
The hot mess that is Windows 10 is just unattractive, and I won't hold my nose and plunge in until I absolutely have to.
Subscription required to actually, you know, read the article. So I didn't bother.
But you can bet I have a very strong opinion on the contents!
Oh so sad but oh so true.
Tassilo Festetics. It just rolls right off the tongue. Might be, I dunno, a brand name for stripper supplies or something.
Um, that was a quote from Ronald Reagan.
See one redwood, you've seen 'em all.
Of course FB is an advertising company that tries to hide behind the fiction of "we're just connecting people!" Isn't that the BS that every marketer since the snake in the garden has pushed?
Wake up sheeple, our economy, our nation (and every other industrial nation), and our very existence depends on consumerism, and therefore marketing. This is a doublethink that makes it nearly impossible to perceive the true insidious nature of marketing -- lies for profit.
If you bought a house in 2014, and need to move, you'll be looking at housing that is 50% more expensive than it was then. That's a hard pill to swallow when CPI-adjusted wages have been going down over the same time.
Exactly this. When housing was generally affordable and readily available, it was relatively easy to get established somewhere else. Now, the combination of housing scarcity and expense, coupled with such things as high college debt and low savings, means that it's too much of a hurdle to pull up roots and move for anybody but the most affluent. Especially if you have family/friends in your current location, you'd have to have an extremely attractive job offer, maybe plus moving expenses, before it would make sense to do a geographical.
Either that, or be so desperate that you're basically bumming around looking for work, not a great situation to be in these days.
Yeah, they make high quality expensive audio gear. But their customer service sucks, and I wouldn't be surprised if their programmers suck for the same reason.
A few years ago, I had a problem with a cable on one of their high end headphones, where it connected to the earcup. The cable wasn't removable, so I emailed their service department to ask about repair.
I got a very snotty reply suggesting I buy a new set of headphones. So I did. Not Sennheiser, of course. They have plenty of competition in the high-end audio market, and my new Focal phones sound way better than the old Sennheisers.
Wouldn't be surprised if the corporate response to this security issue is similar.
Smart thief leaves stolen car parked inside sturdy garage.
So which one is it? The post starts off talking about a poll relating to social media, but then turns into hand-wringing over smart phones. To be sure they often go together, but this kind of fuzzy thinking is more click-bait than actual, you know, informed discussion.
hey siri, tell google to go fuck alexa and cortana, and send me the video.
Something like a dog or a cat can fall into the same category for a small child that doesn't fully understand emotions. It is very easy for them (and some adults who can't tell the difference, either) to incorrectly interpret the animal's reaction to calling their name, giving them a hug or petting them as "friendship" or an emotional bond.
While those sorts of relationships are different from Alexa's vocal responses - or Eliza's typed ones too, for people with a long memory - they can be just as strong, given the physical presence of pets in the home.
Some children need the emotional support of animals, some could grow to be emotionally dependent on a machine. It is a parental duty to teach children how to deal with these different sorts of relationship.
OK, now we're talking about machines vs. meat. Alexa "understands" and "speaks," without any actual understanding or cognition. Pets don't do speech. But they definitely are actual beings, with emotions, feelings, loyalties, etc. If you look at pets like robots and try to analyze their behavior in that context, you're missing the point.
By necessity, every interaction with a pet is nonverbal. Sure, you might talk to your dog and assume it understands you, but most of that is probably because your dog can easily recognize your body language and tone of voice, something that Alexa currently has no clue about.
So whether or not a toddler interacting with Alexa is harmless, it's orders of magnitude less of a rich experience than a dog, or even a cat, would be. It might be amusing to get my toddler an Alexa, but it could never be the companion, or learning experience, or emotional attachment, or guardian, that a dog could be.
Boeing doesn't play fair, and they would just hate to be upstaged by an upstart, when they've gotten fat off of sucking the federal tit forever.
Expect some unexpected developments, either in the media or on some legislative subcommittee or both, to try to slow Elon down.
I don't use Google much (mostly Duck Duck Go), nor am I a subscriber, or use Chrome, or anything like that. So I'm a little confused about what a "card" is. Any explanations appreciated.
MS has spent decades building a reputation as a greedy, cutthroat, and not terribly competent behemoth.
Even if they could somehow instantly change their internal culture (yeah right), it would take further decades before their reputation recovers.
Every nation's military targets every other nation in every way, including the cyberinfodiginet. The only news would be if somebody had elected to forego such hijinks. Unlikely.
Sky is blue, water is wet, corporations want more profit. You expected otherwise?
I can afford better lawyers.
A meeting of the foxes to discuss henhouse security.
It's easy to send a text from a desktop PC, using any email client.Simply look up the SMS gateway email address, readily available online if you know the recipient's carrier, or you can use their phone# to find their carrier. Every carrier has an SMS/email gateway, and the specific phone number is itself the address. This is all easily found using any search engine. Et voila! Once again, some highly touted "app" simply provides a slick interface to something that was already dirt simple, and thereby collects even more of your personal info, while trying to strengthen your ties to their particular ecosystem.
Yes he was, but even the stupid, gullible, and greedy shouldn't be preyed on by crooks.
Money and power don't always win in court. See Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein for example.
True, we're all complicit in climate change for using fossil fuels. But the allegation here is that Chevron actively lied and suppressed information about their product. That might be tough to defend.
This guy seems to think that Python has functions, whereas C++ doesn't. He claims that repetitive operations in C++ require coding the same lines over and over.
If he's that misinformed, it kind of ruins his credibility. A perfect example of Dunning-Krueger -- he learned a little and thinks he knows a lot.