Posts by Wade Burchette 1251 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Apr 2007
Malvertising can die quickly if advertisers follow my rules of acceptable ads. These rules were worked back when the internet went from luxury to necessity. If it worked once, it can work again. (1) Absolutely no javascript in ad, no exception. (2) Absolutely no plug-in like Flash or Java in an ad, no exception. (3) Absolutely no tracking, no exception. (4) Absolutely no autoplay audio or video, except when I click on a clear link for audio clip or video clip. (5) Absolutely no pop-up or pop-under ads, no exception. (6) Absolutely no ad that takes up part or all of a web page, no exception.
But that won't happen. Advertisers in their greed don't care about my security nor my privacy. So malvertising will still be a threat. We will just keeping the usual boilerplate non-response response: "we take your security seriously". If Pinocchio uttered those words, his nose would be 1000 miles long.
If these websites have the technology to block terrorism, what is to stop them from blocking content they do not agree with? For example: suppose someone uploaded a video on YouTube as to why abortion should be banned, what will stop Google from automatically blocking it? Freedom of speech means you are free to say what others do not want to hear. Whether I agree with the idea is irrelevant. Taken a step further, what is to stop the government from declaring certain ideas bad and thus should automatically be blocked on YouTube?
The best defense against terrorism is more liberty and better education, not more censorship.
To add to your list.
I want an OS not Windows 10. (Microsoft, which lives in a bubble, does not realize how much people hate Windows 10.) And I want the full driver support from the manufacturer for that alternative OS.
I want a Blu-Ray drive that can read 4K UHD discs and play them. I want a laptop with at least a DisplayPort 1.2 adapter so that I can, with the appropriate adapter, play these 4K discs on a TV when I am not at home.
I want a SD card slot. I want some USB C slots and some USB A slots.
I want manufacturers to give AMD's CPU's a chance only because competition is a good thing. One of the problems AMD ran in to was that the computers which their CPU's were put in were junk by design. With Zen coming out soon, it would be nice if they would actually use good motherboards for AMD parts. For the sake of our wallets.
The fact is, I would gladly turn off my adblockers if, and only if, they respected my privacy and do not track me (which they didn't do in the past), do not use javascript or flash or java (which they didn't do in the past), do not block all or part of a website (which they didn't do in the past), do not have any autoplay video or audio ads (which they didn't do in the past), and do not take up half of a web page's content (which they didn't do in the past).
Advertisers had a successful model in the past, back when the internet went from luxury to necessity. If it worked once, it can work again.
I think of net neutrality as internet providers not throttling, interfering, or discriminating with traffic in any way. If the death star wants to provide a service that does not consume my data allotment, why should I care? So long as AT&T does not throttle competition (i.e. Netflix) or "accidentally" forget to upgrade the backbone connecting to the competition or throttle traffic on someone not using AT&T's network to stream AT&T's satellite service, why should I care?
Why did net neutrality become so complicated? It shouldn't be. ISP's should do all they can to deliver the data I want and paid for without any discrimination or roadblocks. What is so hard about that?
There are 3 credit agencies in the US: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. These 3 let you put a lock on your credit that requires a PIN code to temporarily disable. In some states this is free, in others it is a small fee. Even if you do have to pay a small fee to have a credit freeze, it is still cheaper than a recurring monthly fee to LifeLock. I recommend everyone do this as soon as possible.
Brexit will finally happen, for reals. And it won't be as great as those who voted for it said, nor will it be as bad as those who voted against it said. This will embolden Frexit and Italexit ideas.
The anti-Trump protesters will stop because there are only so many Starbucks lattes you can drink and still stay warm. And then Donald Trump will become president and he won't be as great as those who voted for him said, nor will he be as bad as those who voted against him said.
Smartwatches will still be a bad idea.
My problem with electric cars is simple. It takes 30 minutes at these superchargers to travel 170 miles. Whereas, my gasoline engine takes 5 minutes to travel 400 miles. Electric cars will take off only when you can drive several hundred miles after a 5 minute recharge.
Bow hunting is legal in the US. I can walk into a local sporting goods store and find all types of bows and hunting rifles. Even crossbows. Some hunters prefer the bow and arrow because it requires more skill. I have heard a few hunters tell me that it is very difficult to kill a wild turkey with a bow. The hunters told me that the wild turkey can hear the arrow and dodge it. Unless you are very close to the bird which is hard to do without the bird noticing.
I stopped using it several years ago because I found several legitimate sites were being flagged as bad just because they expressed an opinion that was not popular with some. I always like to investigate all sides of an issue and I did not like getting warnings about a website being unsafe for children, or some other nonsense. Even if the person's opinion is wrong or crazy, that does not give anyone license to silence it. I always viewed freedom of speech as the freedom to say something people do not like.
I still go to mywot.com to figure out if a strange cookie on my computer is used by a web advertiser. But that is it.
"Their response to these issues is mainly meh, or I just live with it."
I find that younger people with no experience or wisdom in life have the "so what?" attitude. Tell the same thing to an older person and you will get the exact opposite response. The younger generation has been conditioned to accept "free" content. They happily go to the street and protest a 3 letter organization tracking us while telling Facebook all about it.
I started to word things differently. I started saying that large multi-billion dollar for-profit corporations have no business knowing anything about my personal life. Do you really think big businesses can be trusted with your personal information?
"But the main advantage is that I can see who is calling or texting me with the flick of a wrist. Makes in invaluable when driving as I do not need to take my hands from the wheel"
I can do that too without a watch. It is called a car cradle. I can buy 4 of them for the cost of 1 Garmin smartwatch.
Nobody is asking you to help maintain parity. This was about AMD once again being a product worth buying. My desktop computer is Intel. It was better, I bought it. My laptop is an AMD Carrizo based one. Why? Full H.265 decoding, that is why. It has a blu-ray drive so I can buy 4K blu-rays and have them play on my laptop. I deemed the H.265 decoding and better gaming more valuable for my laptop than what Intel offered. My only complaint is HP only offered a displayport 1.1 adapter on their laptops at the time, which means no 4K external monitor/TV.
There is talk of 8 core/16 threads available at launch. With 32 cores/64 threads available not long after. Intel does not offer a 32 core CPU. Zen will definitely be more power-efficient. It is using a smaller die and it is a redesign from the ground, up. If Zen has comparable performance to i7 and isn't a blowtorch (unlikely) and is reasonably priced, they can easily win back many enthusiasts and some high-markup servers.
And then Vega is coming out next year. The old, inefficient Fury X can hold its own against the new NVidia 1080 only in DirectX 12/Vulkan games, although not in older games, because of HBM memory. Vega will be using HBM2 memory, which will allow the video card to have more than 4GB of memory for 4K gaming. DirectX 12 and Vulkan have AMD's fingerprints all over it. AMD is poised to win back the enthusiasts for video cards, at least for a few months.
All is this good. I love competition. I want a healthy AMD because it means a heavier wallet. Competition brings innovation and lower prices. I punch those numbers into my smartphone's calculator and it comes out a winner.
"Next time MS will need to get an NDA from every coach, and add a "must use" clause as well. Then old Bill B. will just have to suck it up and use the wretched thing."
This will happen. If players don't wear NFL approved shoes, they get a fine. If coaches and inactive players don't wear NFL approved clothing, they get a fine. One coach wanted to wear a suit and tie on the sideline, but Nike doesn't make suits. To appease the corporate overlords and compromise on the situation, Nike made a suit just for this coach.
Have you ever dealt with a lifelong government employee who was responsible for that bureaucracy's budget? I have. In the private sector, you have to earn money; in the public sector, you take money. When you have to earn money you appreciate how difficult it can be to obtain so you are careful to not waste it. It is quite different when you take money. There was no effort required to get the money, so you do not appreciate how hard it is to get.
Now, yes there are many exceptions. This is not meant to demean the people in the public sector. It is to help you understand why waste in government is rampant. Their experience in life is different.
"It seems that the firm cannot resist trying to be an integrated hardware/software provider like Apple, even though it has seen how difficult and ultimately self-defeating that quest is – with its own purchase and sale of Motorola and its disappointing Android One platform; and with the debacle of rival Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s handset business."
A few things. First, in the US, this new Google Phone is on one carrier only. Google does not have an army of zealots waiting to buy whatever they produce; there is no Google cult like there is an Apple cult. If you want your device to succeed, limiting yourself to one carrier is not a good idea. Apple could get away with for a while because they are Apple.
Second, why did Motorola fail? That question is not asked but it is just assumed that Motorola Androids failed because Samsung.
Third, the Nokia situation is Apples to Oranges. Nokia went full bore with Windows mobile. But Microsoft screwed that up so bad that it never had a chance to succeed. Nokia failed because they had (or were made to) hitched their wagon to a platform that was not properly supported. Thus, the apps never came. Android does not have such problems.
I had that problem too. So I manually downloaded and installed KB3172605. It fixed the problem. No more waiting for days for updates to download, no more 100% CPU usage by svchost.exe. But, of course, that fix broke Windows Server Essentials connector. This is the best backup program I've seen so I want to keep it working. So I removed KB3172605.
And the problem returned. So I disabled Windows Update, waited until the next patch Tuesday, and installed KB3172605 again. I made a note of which updates were out and uninstalled KB3172605. Surprisingly, the problem went away.
What was going on is that KB3172605 is a collection of patches, which included several updates that broke the Server Essentials connector. This is a Microsoft program, and Windows updates break it. Why can't Microsoft get their own programs to be compatible with their own updates?
This is a tax write-off for the business. Corporate malfeasance will not end until you go after the personal wallets of the decision makers. Fine the actual factual people responsible and junk like this will quickly stop. As it is now, the worst thing that can happen to anyone who green lighted such unethical actions is to be fired, sacked, let go. Hardly a deterrent.
If the NSA, FBI, CIA, et al asked Google to read the emails to have more relevant advertisements, they would be welcomed with open arms, a parade, and a night out on the town. All they would have to do is make a fake shell company and call themselves advertisers to get all the info they would ever want, and then some.
And it is called CableCard. Just because the cable companies have worked hard to make CableCard a failure does not mean that it is. TiVo proves that CableCard works quite well. The solution to overpriced cable boxes is to make it cheaper, and thus easier, to be certified by CableLabs. That move can quickly open up the cable box market. You would also need some electronic program guide, ideally a cross-platform one.
"Where the Roku falls down is where it isn't leaping ahead: where is 3D support? And its operating system needs a refresh."
Why? Why update something that works very well and is well understood? If ain't broke, don't fix it. This is same idiotic thinking that first led to Windows 8. And the same idiotic thinking that makes websites cluttered messes (like the ones where you scroll to the bottom only to find more content was added at the bottom, so you can no longer find footer links like "about" or "contact" or "privacy policy"). I find the Roku to be easier than Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. What is this obsession of changing things that work quite well?
"So you're telling me that Microsoft created an update to its OS that knackered one of its own products and couldn't be bothered to find that out in the test phase ?"
Not uncommon. To date, I have logged 23 Windows 7 updates that interfere with a Microsoft program I use every day.
Having used Windows 10, here are the advantages of it of Win7:
* It is faster
* DirectX 12
* Multiple desktops
Here are the disadvantages of Win10 over Win7:
* Pre-boot F8 disabled by default, the dumbest of the dumb decisions Microsoft ever made
* No option for Aero
* The ribbon interface is everywhere, where it should be nowhere except as an option (not requirement) in Office
* Mandatory updates: I currently have logged 23 Win7 updates that break a Microsoft program that I use every day; how can businesses block updates that ruin their expensive programs?
* The start menu is an illogical disaster
* Cortana cannot be turned off even when it is disabled
* Too much tracking
* No product key sticker on the computer in case the motherboard goes bad
* Free games are now replaced by advertising games
* It is a pain to change the default PDF viewer from the Edge browser
* Win10 blocks some programs "for your protection" with no clear instructions on how to run that program in case it is a false positive
Advertisers have no respect for me, why should I have any respect for them? When they start treating me respect -- that is to say, when they start respecting my privacy and stop tracking me and stop trying to determine my physical location -- then I will treat them with respect. Lead by example; do not ask me to do something unless you do it first. Until they treat me respect, I will continue to use whatever tool I need to maintain my privacy.
"The world of software is founded upon a few simple and deterministic operations. Cellular biology? errr, not quite so much."
For a computer, I can install Photoshop on it and Photoshop will work the exact same way on every computer, even if it is a HP, Dell, Lenovo, or a custom made one. For a person, I can give them a drug and it does not work the exact same way on every person. I was once given a drug to make my mouth dry so that I could have braces installed; it did the exact opposite. This is why drug commercials of any kind spend so much time listing side-effects which may or may not effect you.
I don't think people from a computer world really understand how marvelous life is. They are trying to make self-driving cars and are finding it difficult to overcome what comes naturally to people. Life is not a series of 1's and 0's. It would be better for software giants to give money, discreetly (not discretely), to medical charities who better understand life.
I have already caught Windows 10 blocking legitimate programs for 'my protection'. I downloaded a driver from HP's website and Win10 would not let me run it. There was no clear instructions on how to run it either.
This is the second step into blocking users from installing software any way they want. Microsoft will tell us that they want us to use the Windows store to download our "apps" because it is safer, the apps can be vetted. What they really want is to get a cut of every software purchase. Look at how much money Apple and Google make from their app stores.
The first step was, of course, to have an app store and to rename programs "apps".
"When I speak to my family and friends about data slurps, most of them (okay, the younger members) think that it's a good thing - or at least, not a bad thing."
And yet, the same people do not like it when the government does the exact same thing. A for-profit corporation cares just as much about you as the bureaucracy does, which none at all.
"The 13-to-15 age group does not only feel the strongest about music – particularly new music – but also strongly believes that artists should be rewarded for their creativity – and that stealing is wrong," the IFPI notes.
A few things: First, IT IS NOT STEALING! Nothing was physically taken. It is copyright infringement, which is as equally wrong as stealing.
Second, this new age group does not feel strong about music because it, well, sucks. You, the music studios, stifle creativity and shuffle out another banal song from Adel or Lady Gaga. Far too many songs I wish was banal; far too many are horrible horrible. In 100 years, nobody will care about Lady Gaga but in 100 years people will listen to the Beatles or David Bowie or Ray Charles or other artists who were allowed to be creative.
Third, why illegally download (what you incorrectly call stealing) something that sucks? Just because people don't want the tripe you are producing does not mean the same people believe artists should be rewarded. The music (and movie) studios vanity has blinded them to the fact that the quality of their product is hot garbage. The record studios think they are wise and perfect and so look for a reason why people don't want their perfect product. Since they incorrectly think people want their perfect product, they look for other reasons why people aren't buying. This is one such misguided reason. I do not want your music, legally or illegally, because it is terrible.
First thing I thought of, the old Sega Genesis game I used to play (and have in my attic somewhere).
"Companies that buy-in to security software or anti-virus to gain a foot-hold in that territory (eg. intel and microsoft) do not have the specialist background needed, and so continue to degrade whatever software they bought until some other suckers buy it."
McAfee has been crap for years, even before Intel. Intel just made it much worse, much like Microsoft did with Skype. Now McAfee couldn't find water standing waist deep in the ocean. And since McAfee has 8 or so background programs going all the time, it really slows a computer down.
"Or for a far simpler solution - just don't respond to devices being plugged in while the OS is locked."
Sometimes, the OS needs to install hardware while it is locked. If you replace your keyboard, for example, and you must enter a password, how will you enter the password if new hardware is not installed until after you enter the password?
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