Posts by Doctor Syntax 40485 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
There would appear to be a severe selection bias here. The other mode comprises many of the students who didn't take CS and many of those who did but who dropped out.
See also http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vulp6l9HKX8J:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b445e250-79d5-11e6-97ae-647294649b28.html%2BThe+genetic+advantage+of+the+%28other%29+1+percenters&complete=0&hl=en-GB&gbv=1&ct=clnk
Of course, we aren’t suggesting that Microsoft is failing to comply with Privacy Shield, just that the certification is largely meaningless because companies are allowed to judge for themselves whether they meet the criteria US govt TLAs can ride roughshod over it.
FTFY
To be fair to Microsoft they do seem to be making serious efforts, both in the US courts and in putting in arms length arrangements in their German data centres.
"Of course your random manufacturer of badges for Chinese made IoT kettle does care about it security and knows how to do it properly."
Remember the bit about a CyberUL? If they wanted to get them to market they'd have to know, just as how they should know about electrical safety of said kettle.
OK, dangerous goods do get onto the market but when they do and the dangers are discovered the local Del boys vendors get stock seized or maybe they get prosecuted and the public gets warned.
'Yes, but we're not allowed to say 'Windows had it first"'
It probably didn't. ISTR reading of this sort of functionality years ago. One option was to add extensions to existing database engines but I thing there've been specific Unix-based products. Unix-based products probably never caught on because it would have been cheaper to knock up a few scripts with existing Unix tools than to buy something in.
"It might gain traction in the US where a class action starts a lawyer feeding frenzy."
Bad move. The lawyers make money, the monkeysusers get peanuts and MS just has to deal with one case. Individual small claims will cut out the middle man so the plaintiffs get the $650 or whatever and MS has the operating costs of running a compensation scheme.
"On the privacy issue, you have no problem giving facebook all your details, photos of your children and details of where you have been, where you are now and where you are going next week."
I'd find that very difficult as I neither have a farcebook account nor any intention of getting one.
However I do have grandchildren. The older one got a W7 laptop for secondary school. The younger one is going to get a PiTop RSN which will, of course, be running Debian.
"The login scheme may be used for enforcement purposes in the future, however, and the BBC's own media correspondent considered that “the inclusion of a postcode as part of the new compulsory sign-up information"
W1A 1AA
No problem.
On a more serious note I hope this doesn't bugger up get_iplayer.
"If you point to a mil-spec screw on a Tornado, you can find out exactly where and on which plane every screw is that came from that batch, there is a vast paper chain between the design, the factory and the plane for every component - full traceability.
That's an app that could use a blockchain and has nothing to do with money."
In other words, a solution to an already solved problem.
"All this IoT malarky is going to have to tighten up, and this kind of massive screwup is just the thing needed to bring big guns to make it happen."
Agreed, but the bad news is that there's more than enough kit out there to cause havoc and little if any means to get it cleaned up.
"I bet there's an off-the-shelf module for it somewhere."
I'm not sure there is but you could always create your own type for it. Working with old maps, land valuations etc it's an irritant that spreadsheets don't have a type for acres, roods & perches. Metric measures, or at least only having metric, just complicates things..
"If a piece of JavaScript is hosted from the same hostname as the page, it loads."
Only if I trust the host. And all too often the JavaScript from the same host wants to do little but upload (oops - mistyped uplard which seems a reasonable substitute) crap from who knows how many other hosts.
"How did they manage to take all of that snooping and data mining and still end up with ads that are less relevant than dumb print ads on a piece of paper?"
Simple.
Because that's an expensive service only the advertising industry can sell. Any fool can put together something simple that obviously works. Remember, the only thing the advertising industry sells is the services of the advertising industry.
"a) I'm not going to buy anything as a result of an ad on a news site. Usually I buy by browsing a shop, eBay, Amazon etc or searching for something I've decided I want. I never click, so no revenue lost?"
Of course the reason you decide to buy something might be because you've read about it on a news site. If the news site blocks you for using an adblocker it's the advertiser who loses out in the end. Funny old world, isn't it?
"Antron, in order for the ads to display things you may be interested in, they will have to track you and create a database of things that interest you. Is this what you want?"
Think about this a bit more.
I'm reading a page about, let's say growing mangel-worzels. If you know that then you know quite a lot of things I might be interested in. Growing mangelworzels, growing other cruciferous vegetables, growing things in general, possibly eating vegatables or selling them.
And you don't even need to track me to know that. You don't even need to know who I am. You know anyone reading the page is liable to have those interests. The contents of the page are the best and surest guide to the reader's interests and hence of what might most usefully be advertised at that point. Information gained from tracking the user is more often than not best described as post-relevant because it so often ends up trying to sell the user capital or at least durable items he's already bought*.
That's why many of us keep saying that static ads, tied to the page, on the site itself are not only acceptable, they're the form that stands the best chance of selling what they're advertising. Why don't advertisers and sites do that? Because the advertising industry makes lots of money by selling its services in tracking people and pissing them off. The one thing that the advertising industry is interested in selling is its own services. They put ads out there, maybe associate a few sales with them, they get paid. The vast majority of people who got the ad thrust at them are so pissed off they decide never to buy that product again? No skin off the advertising industry's nose.
*Not online advertising but an outstanding example of the same mentality. When I bought a new car 3 years ago within a few weeks the dealer started spamming me with texts inviting me to all sort of events presumably aimed at selling me a new car. The only thing they've achieved is to ensure I will never, in the remainder of my life, ever do business with them again.
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