* Posts by null 1

29 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Dec 2009

Apple's defense against apps vandalizing other apps still broken, developer claims

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File Permissions?

Shouldn’t this be addressed with proper file permissions?

'We hate what you’ve done with the place – especially the hate' Australia tells Twitter

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"Hate?"

"Hate?" Are these people for real? Thank God nobody uses Twitter anymore anyway.

You want AI regulation? Do it right with a dedicated agency, US senators suggest

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The last thing we need is the president regulating the internet - especially this president.

No more feature updates for Windows 10 – current version is final

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Re: Linux desktop

If Linux works on your computer, it works great. The problem is Linux doesn't work on all computers. Depending on your computer, you may need to find some obscure non-free driver, or you might just be SOL. I'm running Ubuntu-MATE on one of my laptops and it works great but for some reason FDE doesn't work. I couldn't get Debian to work either. You run into these kind of problems all the time with Linux. That's why my main laptop is running macOS. Sure, it's non-free and somewhat locked down like Windows, but you still have all your unix tools at your fingertips and it's more stable than windows and definitely more stable than Linux. Linux is good if you want to tinker but if you want to just get work done I suggest macOS.

More ads in Windows 11 Start Menu could be last straw for some

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Re: @EvilGardenGnome - As much as it might annoy you

True. Even firefox puts ads on your homepage now. Sure, you can turn them off with a few clicks, but it's the principle of the thing.

Deplatforming hate forums doesn't work, British boffins warn

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Hahaha

So if you dont support antifa youre a fascist huh? HA HA HA

FTC urged to freeze OpenAI's 'biased, deceptive' GPT-4

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Evil Joe Biden: ChatGPT is pretty bad. How can we make it even worse?

Evil Bill Gates: I know. Let’s “regulate” it.

The Pirate Bay SUNK: It vanishes after Swedish data center raid

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Opportunity Cost, Sales

It's not "magic money." Think about it: if the download had zero value, the downloader wouldn't download it; there is a time investment. I merely quantified that (although i made a small error in my calculation). It's called opportunity cost

Nowhere did I say that one download represents one sale, but you keep trying to ram this concept down my throat. Let's say that each download represents a very conservative 1/10 of a sale. That is, for every 10 downloads, one sale is lost. If we add up the top ten most downloaded movies and divide by 10, we get 7.47 million sales lost to piracy - just for movies and just for the top 10.

There's no doubt that with the #1 Piracy Site gone, sales will increase. It's just a matter of how much.

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There are such things as reviews and trailers you know. No store on this earth would let you walk out with a product and then pay for a it if you feel like it. And pirates have ruined any prospect of returning intellectual goods - even at brick and mortar stores.

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>"Sorry, that's bullshit. Netflix competes with free just fine. If the price is reasonable, the service is convenient, people will pay. Sure it could be better if the studios would get rid of the "not available in your region" crap, but it works well enough."

Do they? It's possible they don't compete with piracy at all but that their business is comes at the expense of traditional distribution models, for instance. Besides their profit margins are very slim. Regardless, Netflix will be doing even better with the shutdown of the Pirate Bay :)

>"No, at best it will just shift where the same money ends up, they might spend it locally instead of it going up someone's nose in Hollywood. It's not one download = one lost sale, and the money for that lost sale disappears from the face of the earth."

That's right. The money is being "shifted" to where it belongs: those responsible for the production and distribution of the product.

>"The value to the downloader might be zero, more like a time filler you watch on TV just because. They are never going to buy the Blu-Ray of Food Fight!"

The value is never zero. If they're taking the time to download it, assuming an average salary of $40k and assuming it takes five minutes to navigate the page, start the download, etc. that's $1.50 just in opportunity cost. If you don't like the product, don't download it. If you don't like Hollywood, don't buy their product. Vote with your dollar; don't steal. Don't be a moron.

Anyway, I'm in IT and I for one am excited at the prospect of the job opportunities that will become available with increased sales. I'm also happy that a major vector of malware infection (parasitic drag on IT) will be closed. Yes, it's a good day for the global economy.

>"-They might find something they like, and go out and buy it."

There's no way this outweighs the lost sales

>"-They might be watching a TV show that they can't watch. They will buy the Blu-Ray box set when it comes out (I know people who do that with Dr. Who for example)."

Delayed gratification. Have ya heard of it? "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

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Re: Keepin' em honest

"again you arguement is false, TPB is honerable, I've seen them support more than one or two aritists and those artists went on to get signed, like-wise you can no longer download, freely available distributions made available via there network which where legally available to all"

No doubt the poster children of the service, though hardly representative of the average user who is there to *surprise surprise* download copyrighted content on "The Pirate Bay."

"it's not the Bay sharing that file, so the blame rests entirely with the uploader"

Ever heard of aiding and abetting? They're not a common service provider- they police their content and they allow pirated material.

" which again bring's the blame kind of where it deserves to go back to the Anonymisation networks"

Tor is actually a common service: tor is not policed.

"Because all they've now succeeded in doing, is driving the real criminal's further under-ground.."

Exactly the point. "Driving them underground" increases the risk and cost associated with the activity. The hardcore aren't going to quit. That's the meaning of "keeping an honest man honest." A dishonest man is going to behave dishonorably anyway, but by making it harder it makes the piracy option less tempting to the average guy who just wants a good movie at a good price.

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Re: Keepin' em honest

No adaptaion can compete with free. The industry is adapting, just not in the way you'd like them to adapt. They're adapting through strict DRM and lobbying. A business is fundamentally unable to adapt in the way you'd like them to - that is providing products at or even below cost. So they do what they can to maintain profitability.

An honor system only works in a society in which people behave honorably; as organizations such as The Pirate Bay demonstrate, this is not always the case.

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Keepin' em honest

Closing the pirate bay will keep an honest man honest by increasing the risk and cost of piracy. It is said that "you can't compete with free". Thus, by increasing risk and cost (time, bandwidth, cpu time, risk of malware) patrons will be more likely to buy a product than to pirate it. This will improve the global economy, thus providing more jobs and people with good jobs will be even less likely to pirate. I

Proper law enforcement can make piracy unsustainable. It's win-win

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Couldn't get past sentence one. A glance indicated your post is way off topic and tl;dr. Sorry, try again

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You guys are so blinded by ideology that you've abandoned common sense in favor of ideology. The Pirate Bay was more than a common service provider. The site was a piracy site that encouraged piracy and the operators were constantly mocking law enforcement. The world will be a better place without the pirate bay.

Is taking down the pirate bay going to stop piracy? No, but it will help keep an honest man honest

'Critical' security bugs dating back to 1987 found in X Window

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Re: "X Windows"?

I think you missed the joke. Lol

LA schools math quiz: $500 Chromebooks or $700 iPads for students?

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Linux

Raspberry Pi

The district should consider giving the students raspberry pi's. Not only are they 1/3 - 1/4 the price of the Chromebook and less than 5% of the price of an iPad, but they'll also be using a real computer with powerful software, no vendor lock-in, and unlimited potential. In other words, it's a device that allows them to learn how a computer actually works, compared to both the chromebook and the ipad which can give only a superficial understanding of how a computer works. Plus they're practically disposable!

I know it's a hopelessly lost cause and this comment is a total waste of time but a man can dream!

Women! Worried you won't get that Job in IT? Mention how hot you are

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It's a two-fold problem

Keep in mind I'm speaking out of youth and no shortage of ignorance. Someone correct me where I'm wrong.

I think the problem is two-fold: one side of is that we men have trouble remaining objective around beautiful women. Can anybody refute this? The second side is that "beautiful"l women are often "beautiful" because they're dressed immodestly.

I can't speak for everyone, but when a beautiful woman dressed in splendid attire and smelling of sweet perfume, I have trouble focusing on the task at hand.

Trust me, the natural inclination of a man is *not* to shut beautiful women out. The natural inclination is to favor them and promote them beyond their competence in a transparent attempt to get laid. For this reason, we shut them out to maintain our integrity and the highly meritocratic nature of our workplace. Just as professional women must struggle to maintain both their professionalism and professional image, so must we men.

In our industry, objectivity is paramount. We use the intellectual tools of logic and mathematics analyze data and to solve problems. I think office romance and the perceived likelihood of office romance is anathema to our job. Maybe we overcompensate.

Why US Feds and g-men kick up a stink about a growing smartphone encryption trend

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Nothing new!

This is not new. This has been their goal since the 90's with the clipper chip. We didn't fall for it then, we're not falling for it now, and we wont fall for it in the future. They need to stop trying.

"Your own prison you shall not make."

Billionaire dumps Apple stock because Steve Jobs was 'really awful' guy

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And Also...

I'd like to add that I don't think Steve Jobs was a bad person. I'd be happy if I were a fraction of the man that he was.

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It Actually Makes Sense

At first blush, it seems asinine but he's actually right. An hyper-egocentric person is probably not going to make a business that's designed to last beyond his own tenure. The business is intertwined with his ego and his ego is intertwined with the business. Creating a business that will last will probably require a lot of restructuring, restructuring which would lead to Apple losing its charm (its well on the way). They might even continue with some degree of success but the days of market-leading margins, products, and sales are probably gone. A list of ideas doesn't replace a dynamic, charismatic individual who's keeping up with the bleeding edge and changing his plans. Apple's losing its innovative edge and its completely predictable.

Iranian cyberwar chief shot dead. Revolutionary Guard: Assassination? Don't 'speculate'

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Shot through the heart!

And you're to blame!

Darling, you give loooove,

a bad name.

Too early?

Sorry.

Hackers crippled HALF of world's financial exchanges - report

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WTF?

"He told me that when he was in the military, warfare was simple. You stood on either side of a field, marched into the middle and fought."

This has to be one of the stupidest things I've read in a long time. I have trouble believeing that this unnamed "top general" even said that! Just how old IS THIS GUY? We're not living in the age of Napolean anymore. Even then, as always, it was generally the loser who thought like this.

""... It's sort of like having a water pistol and going up against someone with a cyber weapon of mass destruction."

This has to be a joke...

Tim Cook's post-PC iPad domination dream crushed by reality

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Just Like the 'Paperless Economy'

Does anybody remember the predictions that the world would transition to a paperless economy where pen and paper would be obsolete and we'd magically save the world from the horrors of deforestation? That hasn't really panned out yet, has it?

Does the tablet offer advantages over the desktop PC? Yes, namely, it is more portable. That's about it. Is it faster? No. Can you do more with it? No, quite the opposite. Is it customizable? No, not at all. Can it be tailored to the needs of the user? Nope! One-size-fits-all!

Will the tablet replace the desktop PC? Only if we want it to. It's this sort of needless prognostication that ends up making people look like fools down the road.

The large size and modularity of the desktop form factor make it a better choice for people who need the power or who have special requirements. I think the big thing the tablet has going for it right now is the complexity of the software required to take full advantage of a desktop PC. There are very few applications other than games that really tax desktop PC's. Of course, that wasn't the case only 5 years ago (remember the transition to Windows Vista?) and likely will not remain the case as software continues to progress.

I expect that the next major developments that will push power requirements enough to require a Desktop will be 3D user interfaces and alternative input devices.

Feds turn one in four black-hat hackers into snitches

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FAIL

..."25%"

How can this article honestly claim this as a factual statement? A better headline would be "There is Unfounded Speculation That Feds One in Four Black-Hat Hackers Into Snitches." Of course, that's not a very good headline is it? That's because it's not even news!

Cyberwar hype is obscuring real security threats

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Stop

Cyberwar Is Real

Cyber-warfare tactics, when integrated with the rest of the military's strategic and tactical skill set, could act as a force multiplier, greatly enhancing our military's ability to thwart a foe. While spurious attacks by small groups for the purpose of information gathering can be effective, imagine what a brigade of highly trained programmers, VXers, network specialists, etc. could do if they all worked in concert with a plan and carefully defined objectives. Both civilian and military infrastructure could be infiltrated, destroyed, dismantled, disrupted, and even used against the opposing force.

Similar techniques have been used for decades in the form of Electronic Warfare. What cyberwarfare does is escalate electronic attack from the tactical level to the strategic level. This is a logical progression as electronic systems have moved from the tactical (ie radios, radar, etc.) to the strategic level (battle management, stock markets, etc.).

The cyber theater can and will be utilized as a battlespace in the future. There is no way that any private organization will be able to deal with the crushing force of divisions of trained experts being leveraged against their systems. Such a defense strategy would allow the opponent to attack using a "cyber enfilade" strategy, utilizing their crushing economic and manpower advantage to attack systems and organizations individually or in small numbers.

Third party developers blamed for Windows security woes

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MS...

Microsoft ought to provide a unified patching framework like every other OS on the planet. Keeping track of the updates for each individual piece of software is such a pain. Updating through Synaptic on Ubuntu, for instance, is so much easier - almost a pleasant experience.

Sly new tactic sneaks hackers past security dogs

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FAIL

Excuse me?

What is this trash?

Copenhagen forest-saving plans to create 'carbon refugees'

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FAIL

Climate Kool-Aid

So you guys in England have consumed your full ration of climate kool-aid huh? Enjoy your carbon allowances, new taxes, and totalitarian control over your lives! Get back to me when you can prove that "Anthropogenic Global Warming" is the proximate cause of the suffering in the third world (absurd) or anywhere else.... The only thing constant in this world is change. Get used to it. The idea that the world could or even should be kept in climatological stasis is ridiculous.