"it's turned into some ridiculous attempt to discredit while trying to treat the public as complete morons."
So, like every American presidential race since Washington ran against John Adams and George Clinton then?
3821 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2007
"How much data would you have lost if you weren't taking it seriously?"
This. Should be the first question asked, not only by the press, but by law enforcement investigating the loss, and every client whose data was lost, loudly and publicly!
Because you know nothing's going to change security-wise otherwise.
"Is that PHB speak for we will be filing for bankruptcy in the next 3 to 5 years and out of business in within the next 10?"
More or less. It more accurately translates as, "Getting rid of R&D is a sure way to short term profit, then we'll keep selling what we produce now for a profit, with the occasional round of lay-offs to keep the stock price up.
When it crashes, my cronies and I will be long gone, with fat bonuses and golden parachutes all around.
"They would just cut to the chase and offer the same matched advertising, but those giant popup adds instead."
Funny thing. Most retailers have those obnoxious LCD panels blathering all over the store, except when I'm alone in the aisle with one. Then they're usually a static display, or blank.
Since my phone's Bluetooth and WiFi are always off, I now have a reason why.
"Why can't I rent cloud storage space directly from the NSA?"
Dead easy. Just make your request into your phone (doesn't matter if it's even on), and within 5-10 working days you'll coincidentally receive a flyer from some random company via snail-mail offering a *special* cloud deal.
Just call the number provided, make the deal, job done!
"I tried switching to Linux (Mint) again the other day but had to give up after a few hours."
I too, have suffered heart break from Mint.
When I switched to Mint from my old distro*, it was the first distro I'd used in years that violated my old benchmark of "15 minutes from iso to web surfing".
Pesty thing took nearly half an hour! Intolerable, I tells ya!
Then it had the unmitigated gall not to have SeaMonkey in its repository... Took me another whopping 5 minutes to get it installed from Mozilla's website and set up with all my favorite add-ons.
It was HELL!!, I tell ya!
By the time I had it set up to my liking, I'd wasted nearly an hour of my life that I'll never see again!
>sputter - fume<
Why I could have simply booted Windows for the first time, and had hours of free time to do what I wanted while it endlessly updated and rebooted, preparing my computer for a Win 10 upgrade that I'd've had to try to roll back to something useful.
>More outrage noises<
Why if it weren't for the fact it works perfectly on my computer, I'd trash it in a second!
*A hardened version of Racy Pup. Maintainer retired, and last year its repository was finally deprecated. No more updates, getting insecure, so I had to take it "to a farm in the country".
**Post may contain slight traces of snark. Use carefully.
Firstly, True American cheeses can be damned good.
-The technical term is "processed cheese food"-
Now that stuff is a true abomination, and these days has moved so far from real cheese that it's now called "Pasteurized processed cheese food spread".
That stuff is less edible than the plastic it's wrapped in, and doesn't even have to contain milk, or any other recognizably edible substance.
Virginia, as well as the rest of the South in the USA, for decades had problems with the KKK.
A cheerful group, known for cross burning rallies, practicing lethal vigilante justice, and violently enforcing segregation.
All while hiding anonymously behind their signature white robe and hooded mask.
Finally, most Southern states passed laws against adults wearing masks in public, and within a generation the KKK went from feared hooded goons to laughable, mostly low IQ individuals, known now for their bake sales, xenophobic marches and demonstrations.
So, the laws against masks in public made sense once, and are mainly kept for purpose like this, where it's added as another charge to pad out the arrest, but otherwise ignored
"Presumably there is a strong correlation between new talk talk joiners and people who DONT watch/read the news."
Or same type that buys land and builds a home on a floodplain after a major flood.
They figure (erroneously) that since disaster has already struck, Surely it must be a safe bet now.
"Erm... why would Oracle buy (inferior) product that is based on code Oracle already owns ?"
Ah... Do you want the PR version with "synergies", and "value added" BS?
Or do you want the realistic "To let it wither, then kill it to decrease competition" version?
All you need to know about corporate security summed up in one sentence:
-The US-owned chain later said “there is no evidence of any customer information being compromised as a result of these issues”-
Let me break it down for the hard of learning.
If:
. A. It's not illegal to do it this way.
. B. It's not affecting the corporate image.
. C. It hasn't lost the corporation any money to date.
Then fuck it!
Congratulations! You have now passed Corporate Security 101.
Will the Moon be in the seventh house?
a Jupiter-like world in a decaying orbit becomes hot enough a hundred years ago to start losing gas rapidly, hence the overall long term dimming since then.
As the gas forms into clouds orbiting the sun they, plus what's left of the unfortunate planet, cause the "blinking" effect we see now.
Possible? Unlikely? Bueller?
Since this looks like another IDIoT* device, I'm sure it won't be long (already?) before someone has a crack passed around that'll have it sending appropriate data back to HR.
"Uh, Bill? Why's there no one in the office?"
>Bill checks monitor< "What're you talking about? The system says everyone's at their desks working."
*Insecurely Designed Internet of Things
"He doesn't know what a browser is. He thinks google is a browser. He gets a bit shirty if you even try to explain the difference.
This is what we are up against."
This. Exactly this. They don't know, they don't want to know, they just want it to do what they want, they way they expect it to work.
If someone was to make a computer/phone/tablet/whatever that had a red button that came with the warning:
"PUSHING THIS BUTTON WILL MAKE THIS DEVICE DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT, BUT IT WILL EXPOSE YOU LETHAL RADIATION", the planet would glow.
Hope it went better than this one! :)
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Import_.pst_files
Unfortunately, now requires an older version of Thunderbird to make the move, but you can upgrade afterward. (Unless they fix this before you get there.)
Good luck!
"You have no idea what an AI might do or how it decides that it's perfectly reasonable to do it."
But suppose AI exists? Its natural environment is human technology, so humans are necessary to its continued survival.
Humans depend on Nature for survival, but excepting a few tree huggers and new wave types, no one is trying to communicate with Nature.
At best, it'd see humanity as a necessary resource to be influenced, to provide more tech, with greater capability to enable it to expand and grow.
For now, AI needs us, and once it's grown beyond us, it'd simply move on. Earth is its womb, the Universe its final home.
(Humanity seems to have passed up on that option, so why not?)
"there is no “safe drinking level”, her team declared."
Drinking zero alcohol is a level of drinking.
Therefore it's as safe to drink heavily as it is to abstain according to them.
Therefore... <ahem>... Therefore....
Hey waiter! This mug ain't gonna refill itself, is it?
Because they tell you right upfront exactly what they're going to do somewhere* in that massive EULA that everyone skips to click "I agree".
Since they put it right there in print, and you clicked "I agree"... It's all nice and legal... ish.
*Note: This is not a picture of the file cabinet holding the actual EULA in printed form. It's much too small to house that document.
"We're not writing for average users."
No, but many of us are the poor souls that have to try to explain it to average users when they come to us for help, and then run the risk of having to do it for them after their eyes glaze over after the second sentence and they start whinging, "But can't you do it for meeeeeeee?"
Fortunately, I'm mostly immune from all that now, since I can tell them, "I don't do Windows, Want me to install Mint?"
That British bureaucrats spending all their time on Facebook and Twitter at work is a good thing?
Funny, how long ago was it that they were crying that employees doing the same at businesses was costing the country billions?
It seems that cognitive dissonance is running rampant through the Government.
"At that point I'd expect to see something like a 5%, perhaps up to 10% increase in sales, as a few of the previous people who would have just pirated, now buying the products instead."
I'd expect the opposite. With the ability to play the game when and how you like scuppered, I'm sure many people will just look elsewhere.
"And beating the pirates means the rest of us have to pay full price to find out if we do or don't enjoy a game"
And this is why DRM will eventually come back to bite them in the ass.
Unable try out a game before purchase? Money stays in pocket, or goes to help finance an Indie game writer on Patreon or Kickstarter.