* Posts by dan1980

2933 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Aug 2013

Taylor Swift boycotts Apple Music over no-pay-for-plays shocker

dan1980

@AC

My counter-proposal: if you don't like this music (or think it doesn't even qualify) then just don't listen to it.

I don't like a single piece of music that I have heard from this artist. This is hardly surprising because I am a male in my mid-thirties and not, as is the case for much of her audience, a girl in my teens. But why this should disqualify it from being considered good music or music at all, is beyond me.

And this is utterly irrelevant anyway.

Apple are profiting from other peoples' work and not compensating them for that. For a company that takes a cut of everything and so tightly controls sales and prices of their kit, it is very much a greedy, arrogant move.

A free trial could actually work well for artists like Taylor Swift but for those that are new and not well-off, it is just plain mean.

Post-pub nosh neckfillers: Reader suggestions invited

dan1980
Thumb Up

Re: Cheese and tomato sandwich

YES!

Sorry - I missed the important bit!!! After a skin-full it must be hot!!!

A TOASTED cheese and tomato sandwich is the simplest thing that is hot, filling, delicious, not re-heated (microwaved) left-overs and that one can prepare at any time and in almost any state with minimal risk to life, limb and property.

Many a night has seen me man the cutting board and the oven grill turning out toasted cheese sandwiches.

My personal recipe has pesto on one slice, Dijon mustard on the other and filled with cheese, tomato and sliced pickled onions. Also I usually slice the cheese thinly and put some on each slice (so two layers of cheese) so the tomato and onion are encased in a melted cheese embrace.

Worth the small extra effort.

dan1980

Cheese and tomato sandwich

Add ham or left-over chicken if you want.

I think these competitions are fundamentally unfair because I have read the recipes and I have also been in the situation described as requiring such filling and I an tell you that, despite being a competent (home) cook, I simply can't see myself managing much of what is proposed in these articles.

So, I think the fairest assessment must follow from meals cooked "post-pub". Mixing and kneading and prooving and grating and straining and shaping and frying and, well, it all seems rather a lot for the time of night (morning) one might be whipping these up and certainly for the state one would be in.

Practicality must be recognised and some of these recipes seem rather . . . ambitious.

Version 0.1 super-stars built the universe – and they lived all the way over there, boffins point

dan1980

Re: Question

Reassuring?

How so?

Personally, I find it reassuring to know that I am part of the current configuration of an on-going process that has so far taken 14bn years but that I am utterly and completely unnecessary for it to continue. And continue it will - without me - and be none the worse for my absence.

Nihilistic? I prefer to think of it as stoic.

dan1980

Re: Question

"I would have thought that if there's something earlier, there would have been a Population IV predicted or theorized."

Give there was a natural first star type, it is confusing to me that the order is not the other way around - with these stars being 'Population I' and our current generation being 'Population II' and 'III'. I mean, if our star is a 'Population I' star, what are the next generation?

dan1980

Re: This is why i love science

It might be an inaccurate reading of the article or an even more inaccurate understanding of the science but I don't understand where the 'challenge' is - at least in the sense of this discovery being something that challenges what people know.

As I understand it, these stars pretty much had to exist at some point as the heavier elements we see around us every day are the product of fusion inside stars, but the big bang generated elements only as heavy as Beryllium. Thus, the earliest stars could only have been composed of these lighter elements as there simply wasn't anything else there to use.

I took this discovery as a confirmation of a widely held and accepted prediction which, if false, would cause people to go back to the drawing board to figure out how heavier elements were first generated. (And indeed re-think the big bang.)

To me, then, the really pleasing thing is how several (already multinational) teams of scientists working around the globe have coordinated themselves towards this goal. I find this all the more impressive and affirming because the observation was not some great leap but a confirmation of something already long assumed (again, unless I am mistaken).

Thousands of hours of observation and coordination and patience and diligence applied to making sure that we what we think we know is actually the truth.

DuckDuckGrow: Privacy search soars 600% after Snowden dumps

dan1980
Happy

"Privacy-first search aggregator DuckDuckDuckGo has grown a whopping 600 percent . . ."

Seems their company name has grown by 40% to go with it : )

(Sorry Darren.)

US Air Force drone pilots in mass burn out, robo-flights canceled

dan1980

Re: They better get this figured out

Figure it out?

No, they'll just up their dependence on private 'defence' contractors.

Australia's Senate demands access to NBN business case that doesn't exist

dan1980

Re: Bingo!

I thought it was German - schleppen or some such. Doesn't matter - I like that etymology. (Regardless of accuracy.)

dan1980

Re: Bingo!

"But I used it because it was one word that summed up what I was trying to say."

This is what I meant by 'economical'.

I.e. it would have taken many more words to say the same thing.

dan1980

Re: Bingo!

Seems like a justified use of an economical word to me and if we only ever read words we already knew then how would we expand our vocabulary?

While I do admit that this particular word seems a bit overblown and ridiculous, that very quality lends depth to the meaning - a trumped-up word people can't relate to used to describe trumped up politicians people can't relate to.

Super Cali goes ballistic – Uber says it's bogus (even though its contract is something quite atrocious)

dan1980

Okay, reading through the ruling, I think I dislike the plaintiff.

I am no fan of Uber (as I don't use them) but what I can gather is that the driver wants two things:

1. To be paid expenses, primarily fuel costs.

2. To be paid minimum wages/overtime/double-time, etc...

The latter of these seems to be Ms Berwick trying to weasel money out of Uber through deception and technicalities. Not that I am adverse to technicalities, but from my reading of the ruling, Ms Berwick setup a company and then, after claiming wages, asserted that she had no control over that company or visibility into its records and account.

That's clearly ridiculous and thankfully this was dismissed as the initial burden of proof is on her and she refused to provide any evidence of what she was paid, saying that "corporation retained [those records]". To me, that sounds very much like she was trying to double-dip - to be paid through her company and then arguing that she didn't get paid enough while refusing to provide any evidence.

The claim for expenses is ultimately rather boring as it follows naturally from the ruling that the plaintiff was indeed an employee of Uber, which is, of course, the meat of the issue.

The arguments used here are rather persuasive, particularly this nugget:

"Plaintiff's work was integral to Defendants' business. Defendants are in business to provide transportation services to passengers. Plaintiff did the actual transporting of those passengers. Without drivers such as Plaintiff, Defendants' business would not exist."

In other words, you hire contractors, generally, to perform specialised functions that you don't have internal expertise for, but that do not make up the totality of your business. Or, as I see it, if you had no contractors, you should still have a business. That is clearly not the case with Uber as all the people performing the main function of the business are, apparently, 'contractors'.

There are some good points around the 'control' that the various parties have over the operation, which is a core issue in determining the relationship. Likewise the ability of the driver to "affect profit or loss", seeing as she was paid a "non-negotiable service fee".

I think my favourite part of the ruling, other than the typo that claimed the driver "drove 132 hours per day for 49 days", was the following comment:

"Defendants refer to 'industry standards' with respect to drivers' cars, however, it is unclear to waht industry, other than the 'taxi' industry, Defendants are referring."

Which obviously ties in to the precedent, as it involves a taxi company.

How swearing at your coworker via WhatsApp could cost you $68,000

dan1980

Re: Freedom of Speech....

@Chris W

Perhaps so, but the issue is not directly the abuse, but the profanity, which is what this law is aimed at.

It is there to sanitise speech - to make speech, and through it, thought, conform to the dictates of the state. In assessing this, remember that the UAE is essentially a collection of monarchies with enforced religious law and it is a crime to insult the members of these rich and powerful ruling families.

dan1980

Re: Freedom of Speech....

Oh, they've heard of free speech - they just want nothing to do with it.

Oh, and the UAE is not quite a 'pissant backwater'. It's rich and relatively important. It is, however, rather behind the times so far personal rights are concerned.

Of course, many of our 'enlightened', 'Western' governments are regressing somewhat in this area.

Ready to go again, soldier? Final Fantasy VII remake revealed

dan1980

Re: Sir

There's something about FFVII's graphics that really works and part of it is the low-res nature of the characters.

Watching the promo video, it looks too real - too much like Advent Children, which loses some of the fantastic nature of it. Yes, Midgard is dark and industrial and a little bit realistic, with cars and trains and helicopters and sliding doors and machine guns and neon signs, but the combination of the art direction, the pre-rendered scenes and the blocky characters went to make it all seem somehow less so. (Which is good!)

For example, the soldiers you face early on probably should look like they do in the remake promo (i.e. - like real soldiers) but that they don't allows you to maintain the feeling that this is a different world, unlike our own.

I hope the remake manages to update the graphics without destroying the other-worldly feel.

dan1980

Re: Aeris' Death

Was I the only one utterly unfazed by this?

My first playthrough - where I just played, letting the story take me - I barely even used Aeris. I found her annoying and so could never understand the subplot love story there because I was on team Tifa. Give me the spunky one over the mopey one any day.

Auto-playing video ads? People love auto-playing video ads – Twitter

dan1980

What's a "vine video"?

Sunday Times fires off copyright complaint at Snowden story critics

dan1980

Re: Conspiracy Theory of the Day

We get exactly the same in the Murdoch papers in Australia (Daily Telegraph, etc . . .).

Microsoft finally finishes its PowerPC emulator

dan1980

"Finally, Microsoft shed light on an upcoming crop of games exclusive to the Xbox One and PC. Those include Halo 5, Gears of War 4, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Redmond also touted the non-exclusive releases of Fallout 4, FIFA 16 and Madden NFL 16."

Good to see so much new IP.

Australia needs MOAR L33T WHITE HATZ, says Federal Police

dan1980

You know it's a crazy world when researching cryptography is tightly controlled but people can just go ahead and print out banners in Comic Sans.

Unlucky, Palmer: Facebook's going to BAN Oculus pr0n apps

dan1980

Re: So we skeptics were right

Well, more accurately, they want to monetise as much as possible and it's so much easier to control and keep track of everyone in a nice walled garden.

Anyone who is even the slightest bit surprised is, frankly, rather naive or hasn't been paying much attention.

Hyperconvergence isn't about hardware: It's server-makers becoming software companies

dan1980

The thing is that most solutions have a sweet-spot where they are cost-effective.

For example, if you are smaller with one IT staffer then no matter how clever your boxes, you won't be able to reduce your staffing costs by enough to justify the extra spend on the kit.

But, a bit larger and/or with different needs and more expensive kit like this might allow you to roll-out new services or expand without needing to add extra staff.

There is no inherent problem with 'cloud' services. The issue is that many vendors are focusing so heavily on it, to the detriment of other kit/software/services and/or it is sold as a one-stop-shop, silver-bullet to any and all IT needs/problems.

Which it isn't.

Cortana threatens to blow away ESC key

dan1980

Funny - my 'Escape' key is, thanks to Microsoft, now enjoying a great revival following a long period of disuse. It's the key that gets me out of that blasted full-screen "hey - your server has a touch screen interface, right? Well here are some tiles!" start menu.

Being a Sysadmin, I am on dozens of MS servers daily, ranging from 2003 up to 2012 R2 and I now understand my father's constant grumbling at his cars - one with the indicator on the left of the steering column, the other with it on the right. He was always going around corners with his wipers on, just as I am constantly right-clicking the start menu on Win 2008 R2 servers and then left-clicking it on 2012 R2.

Hence the newfound utility of the ESC key.

Condoleezza to China: 'The rules' mean cyber-spying isn't allowed

dan1980

Re: Sorry

@Trevor

". . . or any Aussie talking about anything security, ever.

Hey - you! We . . . I mean . . . come on, that's not fair!

Oh right. Yeah.

The biggest problem with "American Exceptionalism" is that it is nearly a required stance for politicians and public figures. Any pollie who has the temerity to suggest that the US (as opposed to themselves, personally) has done anything wrong or is less awesome than anyone else in any way is lynched by the media and their oppositions.

The most amusing was of course comes from Fox:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7Fa0r-5Cw

Awesome.

Scientists love MacBooks (true) – but what about you?

dan1980

@Dave 126

While what you are saying about the regulations around lead may well be the cause of failures, these types of changes are usually flagged well in advance, with the express purpose of allowing affected parties the time to adjust.

For RoHS, it was sorted out in 2003 but companies had 3 years to get their acts together so if they point the finger at that regulation for failures then they are trying to shift the blame.

dan1980

Re: Sheeple?

@Michael M

" . . . he 90% criticizing the 10% for following the herd . . ".

Well, it's really about context. In a university situation, many of the students will be using Macbooks so they are the 90% there. Other scenarios and the situation is reversed.

dan1980

Re: The view from Silicon Valley

@ckm5

"I'm not really sure what IT people have against Macs - it seems to be that they cause fewer user headaches, so less support burden."

Well, you've kind of hit the nail on the head - people (not necessarily you) don't understand why system administrators prefer not to have Macs everywhere.

The simple truth is that most people who want to use Macs don't just want to use a Mac computer - they want to run the way they do at home, without the burden of IT policies and having to use this program or that program or accessing files in this way rather than that way.

They want to be able to install whatever programs they 'need' and use whatever websites they want without firewalls blocking them or security settings stopping scripts from running. They want to view Flash on news websites and to be able to access Facebook and Twitter without needing to get signed-off approval from their managers and they want to receive zip files in their e-mails and save all their documents on their desktop rather than using the document management system and so they are easy to work with at home without having to bother connecting to the VPN.

They don't want to have to use a complex password or have to change them every 60 days and they'd rather use their e-mail mailbox as a filing system along with a collection of spreadsheets they have cobbled together rather than the company database application.

That is what most people want - it's not just a matter of using a shiny laptop with a glowing bit of fruit on the back (though that's a lot of it for some people) but of being freed from the controls and restrictions that are necessary in most larger organisations.

In situations where people are working autonomously, perhaps uploading results or data to a central website share to collaborate with people around the world then Macs work beautifully. If you are a professional photographer designer or musician, working on your own projects and transferring files to clients via DVD or dropbox and saving things on stacks of USB hard drives then, again, fine. If you are a student using your laptop to take notes and plagarise articles from Wikipedia and keep in-touch with friends and access the university e-mail then a Macbook with a sticker or two is certainly a suitable way to express your individuality and creativity while you do so.

But, if you are working in a large organisation, where protecting against unauthorised access to or disclosure of sensitive data is a major concern, and where compliance is paramount and uniformity of the system and ease of deployment are dictated by development cycles and support budgets, then Macs aren't quite so suitable an option.

Not to say they can't work in businesses great and small, and there are many add-ons and programs that will help wrangle them into some kind of order but Windows boxes are designed to be used inside such networks from the get go, and Macs simply aren't.

dan1980

"Even a blind pig will truffle every now and again."

Well, considering truffle hogs locate the tasty morsels via smell, this would not be so surprising.

WikiLeaks offers $100k for copies of the Trans-Pacific Partnership – big biz's secret govt pact

dan1980

Re: That AC

@AC

Mate, if you're still reading this then the answer to one of your questions is that the money is coming out of individuals pockets - it is being 'crowdsourced'.

So, this money is not coming directly from Wikileaks or Julian Assange (who is a distraction) but from ordinary people who are concerned by this and willing to contribute to this cause.

As hinted above, I believe Julian Assange is a distraction here and your focus on him misses the point entirely. That point is about the TPP and getting caught up with one person and what his crimes may or may not be, is playing the man and thus avoiding dealing with the issue at hand.

So what if it's not Wikileaks but some organisation of unimpeachable trustworthiness? Is it a worthwhile initiative?

The question is: how do we, the people, let our 'leaders' know that this secrecy is just not on and we'd like a say in how we are governed that reaches beyond our invitation to choose a fresh lizard every four years.

dan1980
Happy

Re: Democracy

@AC

Are you going for an all-time record?

I actually want to upvote your post because I am beginning to appreciate the artistry of your verbalism, but I can't bear to break your streak. Baybee.

dan1980

Re: Democracy

The idea of a "mandate" is just ridiculous when all we really can do is vote in the party whose (announced) policies are the least odious. Or who are actually able to stop bickering and backbiting long enough to put on the facade of a relatively cohesive team.

But even then, when our politicians lie, go back on their promises and bring out entirely new policies after they're elected, how can it ever be claimed that they have been given a mandate by the people to enact those new/changed policies?

Or what if both parties are for some measure or other - such as is the case with the TPP? We had no choice to tell you we didn't want it.

dan1980

Re: Amongst other dodgy deals....

Just for sake of information (and I don't mean to talk down to anyone) - Investor-State Dispute settlement (ISDS) is a part of many trade agreements and this is why Philip Morris Asia is able to bring an action against Australia regarding the plain packaging laws.

The agreement that allows them to do is over two decades old so these provisions are nothing new.

ISDS was born from the risk of investing in nations that were still developing and may have poor legal system, which might see a foreign investor lose assets as situations change. This limits trade and so ISDS was created to fill that need. One can hardly argue to countries like Canada and Australia and Japan and New Zealand have weak legal systems so the reasons for having ISDS in the past just don't hold up anymore.

Even taking ISDSs as a whole, the TPP is worse because of its scope; most other Trade Agreements are between two or three nations.

With the Philip Morris case against plain packaging, one of their claims is that PM Asia (HK) will lose on their investment in shares of PM Australia. Amusingly, PM Asia only obtained the shares after the legislation was announced and after they had registered their opposition with the Australian Government.

They knew it was going to happen and they then went and acquired the shares and now are complaining that those shares have lost value and/or will lose value.

ISDS at work.

In other instances, companies have sued over countries raising minimum wages. Yes, really. In Australia, we might be prevented from raising minimum wages for fear of being sued. Or we might shy away from introducing laws around product labelling or nearly anything else that could affect profits.

dan1980

Re: Why would anyone take the money?

@heyrick

No, I really don't have to ask myself why this is secret. The answer is so plain it jumps to mind before one even forms the question.

dan1980

Re: Don't worry citizen.

@Captain DaFt

"Yes, yes, I know it's just a trade agreement and not some super secret criminal laws... yet."

Ahhhh . . . well, that's the thing: there is at least one provision there (in the parts of the drafts we've seen) that does specify 'criminal laws'. Specifically as relates to copyright infringement by individuals.

dan1980

Re: Democracy

@AC (we all know which one I mean.)

I usually try to limit my swearing and go to some lengths to avoid being directly rude to people.

That out of the way, you are a fucking idiot.

The text of this agreement does not contain submarine locations or some movie-inspired list of secret agents in the field. It doesn't contain the bank account details of your next-door neighbour or the combination to your gun safe. It doesn't dispose of copyright or dissolve patents and it doesn't provide an alphabetised list of state secrets.

It does, however, contain a laundry list of provisions that have been on (US) big-business wish-lists for a long time and are aimed solely at increasing profits for those same (again, US) big-businesses.

While we don't know for sure what is in the current version, we do know several of the things that have been in previous drafts and so the thrust of it is clear.

If it was just a standard trade agreement then it's not a huge issue. But it's not just that - not by a long shot. Some of the parts revealed would, if enacted, impact hundreds of millions of people and perhaps millions of businesses in the participant nations. More than that, there are parts that restrict the sovereign right of the nations to make their own laws and, by extension, the democratic right to the citizens of those countries.

Through the TPP, I, in Australia, may become personally subject to new laws and regulations and new punishments for existing behaviours, based on the lobbying of gigantic US corporations to the US government.

Our politicians in Australia - and the US as well - love to talk about having a 'mandate'. But how can any government claim to have approval from the people (whom they are supposed to be listening to and serving) when we have no ability to see what it is we are getting?

And, all that aside, these provisions will be made public once they are passed. You do realise that, right? They won't be secret - they will be 'on the books' and available for anyone to investigate. The thing is that we want to see them before that happens so we can make informed comments to our representatives.

You do see how that's different from:

"Like wow man, freeeeow! Yeah baby, let's get all the secrets out on the table so we can screw ourselves man! Where our subs are, secrets of the rail gun, yeah man, secrets just wanna be free!"

Right?

No? well, refer to the start of my post.

Tech giants gang up on Obama over encryption key demands

dan1980

@Eddy

"Oh come on AC; don't hold back; tell us how you really feel."

Actually, I'd like him/her to because I can't make heads or tails out of that post.

Facebook tosses creepy Place Tips beacons at stateside retailers

dan1980

@Novex

Yes, 'best practice' may well be to disable anything you are not using, thus reducing the attack surface and resource usage.

But these devices are ubiquitous - they're not just tools for IT professionals. Everyone I know has an iPhone or Android phone and I guarantee that most of them have the phone set pretty much as default. That's what ordinary people do.

As an IT worker, I get it - I really do - and I am amazed at how open most peoples' computers and devices are. But then I remind myself that this is the way non-IT people are - they trust their devices and the providers of their software. Naive perhaps but that's the way it is.

And then I ask myself if it really is too much to ask to be able to use the features of the device you have purchased without having to be constantly switching things on and off through the day. Yes, it's wishful thinking at its best/worst but not unreasonable when you think about it.

And, as I detailed in another post (in a different story,) it can be a real pain to keep turning things off and on through the day - on at home, off for the trip to work (unless your train/bus has free wifi, in which case it's off for the walk to the station, then on for the trip and back off for the walk to work), back on at work, back off for the trip home, back on again when you get home - wash, rinse, repeat.

The simple truth is that most people just won't bother and will leave it on the whole time. After all, the battery issue is generally not a deciding factor as they will have it charging at home and again at work, seeing as some of them struggle to last 24 hours even with everything disabled.

So yes, it is a good idea to turn off everything and then only enable what you use, when you use it, but people just don't do that.

AFP officer abused data access to stalk ex

dan1980

@Gray Ham

". . . to the point where I am doubtful that he indeed had any sort of clearance, and simply should not have been allowed access to any sort of sensitive data."

But you see - this is exactly my point!

The safeguards around these data sets are pretty much non-existent. The problem is that the agencies simply don't respect the privacy of the people; they don't think it's important and certainly not as important as their job. Thus, they don't attach any important to protecting the data and you have a free-for-all.

What you may not realise is that the meta data collected and stored under the new regime won't be available just to police and related agencies but to everyone who currently has access. You know - critical bodies protecting our children from pedophiles and our borders from attack. Like Ipswitch & Bankstown councils.

See, what you also may not know is that the current regime not only grants access on the basis of "enforcement of a criminal law"* but also for "enforcement of a law imposing a pecuniary penalty or the protection of the public revenue". I.e. - if you can issue a fine, you've got a claim to our data.

So the fact that a member of the AFP could access data without difficulty is hardly surprising.

* - Which covers not only the police but, understandably, agencies like ICAC, the ATO, ASIC, ACCC and customs and also, somewhat less obviously, the RSPCA and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority.

dan1980

There have been the same breaches/misuses/crimes in the Victorian Police and doubtless every other agency with access to similar information. Worldwide.

The simple fact is that people* just can't be trusted to do the right thing. In society, we make laws that - at least in theory - try to strike a balance between protecting the few people who are idiots (or protecting everyone from the few that are 'bad') while not unnecessarily burdening or inconveniencing all the normal people.

Unfortunately, in Australia our 'leaders' seem to lean strongly towards the side of law enforcement, enacting laws that affect everyone in order to target a very small group. Like the very strict alcohol laws in Sydney. You can't drink in any public place, you can't buy alcohol after 10pm and bars must shut their doors at 1am and kick everyone out at 3am. Oh, and, we have one of the highest alcohol tax rates in the world of course. (5th or 6th I think.)

Likewise, we have speed limits of 50kph all over the place and plans to reduce them further still. the M2 went from 100kph to a hotch-potch mixture of 70, 80 and 90kph and, following form, the fines keep getting raised well above CPI.

That turned into a bit of a rant but the point is that Australia tends to favour the 'nanny-state' situation, cracking down and affecting everyone to try and catch/stop/help 0.1% of people. So why, when there is a risk like this - of our private and very personal data being misused - do we not apply a similar mindset?

I can't stop in to grab a 6-pack on the way home after a late night at the office because we need to stop the tiny handful of people who want to get viciously drunk at home before heading out for a night of 'alcohol-fuelled violence' but who are also poor planners or don't have much cupboard space and so need to do an emergency run to the bottle-shop for some vodka Cruisers or whatever it is people drink in such situations.

That's apparently okay, but putting in place simple, prudent safeguards, oversight and restrictions to prevent public servants from abusing our personal data to spy on anyone they want is just too much to countenance and so this huge trove of data that is and will forever be available to even the lowliest police officer represents a colossal risk to the privacy and security of every single man, woman and child in Australia.

It's fine to inconvenience the entire population to target a small handful of people but apparently far too much to ask to inconvenience a few police officers in order to protect everyone.

* - I am reminded of a line from Men In Black where Will Smith's character says that "people are smart - they can handle it" to which Tommy Lee Jones's character replies: "A person is smart, people are dumb." Likewise, a person might be trustful but people aren't.

Sysadmins rebel over GUI-free install for Windows Server 2016

dan1980

Re: What is a picture worth?

The simple fact is that it is irrelevant which you think is better. Just as it is irrelevant which I think is better.

They haven't eliminated the option to have a GUI, just made it so it takes longer to do. So give people the option at install and everyone is happy. If you don't want the GUI then you choose the 'core' option. If you want the GUI, you choose the 'GUI' option.

If the way you have chosen is somehow objectively worse then that's presumably your problem and I am sure you can deal with that.

dan1980

Re: Long-time Linux and Windows Admin here

Agree nearly 100%.

"A simple example would be to compare typing 'vi httpd.conf' on Linux to manage Apache to the dozens and dozens of PowerShell Cmdlets which exist to manage IIS on Windows Server."

The bit you are forgetting here is that once you have typed you 'vi httpd.conf' into the CLI, you actually have to know the syntax for the setting you want to configure! Of course, if it's just changing and existing setting from one value to another then that's relatively straight-forward but you get my point.

dan1980

There is no good reason to exclude the option to add the GUI during install.

It is available to add after install so any argument about a GUI being problematic (in whatever way) is irrelevant. All you do by removing the option is force people to do in two steps what could previously be done in one.

Anyone who argues that GUIs mean that unskilled users are more likely to jump on and mess things up is perhaps not familiar with something called "Google". In my experience, if a particular task is obscure or not user-friendly then the unskilled 'administrator' or 'guru' or accountant's son who is 'clever at computers' will simply search for what they want to do and copy-paste some command or follow a set of steps, without understanding what they are actually doing or whether the actions and commands are relevant and what the consequences are.

I have seen more than a few systems - be they PCs or servers - stuffed up because someone who thought they knew what they were doing knew just enough to run some commands but not enough to understand what would happen.

People who are likely to mess up a server through the GUI are likely to mess one up through a command line.

As for remote administration, that's great and all but sometimes it's not that simple. Referencing a comment by someone else, above, who said that and SMB who didn't have internal technical staff should outsource, the question is: what about those who are brought in to manage the server(s)? What if you provider support for dozens of small businesses that have one or two servers on site? Where exactly are you installing these remote tools? If you need to connect to a client's server and do some quick tasks then a GUI is much easier, most of the time. Yes, you can use scripts, but they need to be customised for each client and sometimes that's just not worth the effort for small, infrequent actions.

But again, all that is irrelevant as you can add the GUI after install so all this does is make extra work for many people.

Science teacher jammed his school kids' phones, gets week suspension

dan1980

His problem is with the school/district board. Get together with other teachers and, preferably, parents (at a PTA) and get consensus. Then submit a proposal to the headmaster or the board directly.

The resulting rules can be quite straight-forward. Anyone caught dicking around on their phone during class gets a detention notice. If you have to take an urgent call, let the teacher know and he/she will excuse you from class for a minute. If you are expecting an urgent call, then let the teachers know and they will accommodate you provided it is reasonable.

Don't block everything just because you find the existing rules cumbersome.

SourceForge sorry for adware, promises only opt-in in future

dan1980

Once bitten . . .

Ad-supported sites are one thing. And I get it - bandwidth and hosting isn't free. BUT, where sites have adware then that is just not on.

Worse is those sites that have fake 'download' buttons above and/or below the real one, or that show up before the correct link displays. These fake links are just like adware that is hard to opt-out of: both are trying to trick the user into downloading and installing something they don't want and that may be detrimental to their computer.

I believe that neither install process should qualify as obtaining consent.

And, given that, any site that uses such measures for revenue generation clearly doesn't actually respect their visitors, once that trust is lost, it's very hard to get back because why should I believe that a site that has tried to trick me into installing something I don't want won't do it again - or use other methods instead? (Like the fake links mentioned above.)

'You wanted Silk Road to be your legacy. And it is. Now enjoy your life behind bars'

dan1980

Is for me at least. (From Australia.)

dan1980

Ah, yes. Would you believe I wrote 'barmy' originally and the silly US spell-checker gave me a red-wriggly 'nope; try again' line.

dan1980

I just don't agree with a life without parole sentence in this case.

Such a sentence should only be handed down when it is clear that there is no possibility of rehabilitation. Why on Earth does the Judge believe that this should be the case? Does she really believe that Ross Ulbricht is so depraved a human being that no matter how long he spends behind bars, he will remain a danger to society and that his crimes were so great and reprehensible that no matter how long he serves, he will always deserve to be in there still longer?

Let us adopt the balmy notion that one should be innocent unless proven guilty (crazy!) and so ignore the question of the 6 supposed murders. That will be tried separately and so should not have any impact on this case.

So what has he done, really, that is cause to sentence him to die in prison?

I am no supporter of his and I am not one for drugs, nor do I much care for this 'libertarian' ideal he claims as his motivation. But, I can certainly see my way to accepting that he is remorseful and thus a good prospect for rehabilitation.

You - and indeed the judge - may not believe him but I think he makes a very good case for himself. He claims that the reason for establishing The Silk Road was to setup a truly free and anonymous marketplace and this is pretty much what he did. If one accepts that motivation then much of what follows makes sense. Not justified by any means as doing wrong in the name of even the best ideals is still wrong, but it does paint it as something more than just wanton criminal behaviour.

It is not at all unimaginable that Ulbricht could go on to live out the remainder of his days (after a 20 year sentence) as a normal, quiet, even productive (given his obvious intelligence), person. And if that scenario is possible, then so should parole be.

I do not think that the several overdose deaths that resulted from items bought from the site should have any relevance. Yes, many illegal drugs are dangerous and this is one of the reasons why selling them is a crime and why the penalties are so harsh.

Punishing someone more because someone who took drugs died inescapably means that you are punishing other drug suppliers less just because they had the good fortune to have clients who weren't idiots*. And that seems rather odd to me. Even more so if the person being tried wasn't actually the one selling the drugs but the one facilitating the sale.

Personally, I think that 30 years with a non-parole period of 20 is suitable and if you can't get someone like this rehabilitated in that time then the problem is the criminal justice system as a whole.

I wonder how much the death threats the Judge received contributed to this sentence.

* - I know that's a little harsh of me but those who died from overdoses of drugs (allegedly) bought via the Silk Road site should not be laid that the feet of the person running that site. families want someone to blame, however - after all, their son or daughter was a good person, don't you know. If it wasn't for people like Ross Ulbricht preying on them, they would have led good, long and happy lives. Except he didn't prey on them. He didn't push drugs. Those who took them wanted to. They went to effort to do so and that effort is sufficient to dismiss any suggestion that without the Silk Road they wouldn't have taken any drugs - they would have simply gotten them elsewhere.

IT-savvy US congressmen to Feds: End your crypto-backdoor crusade

dan1980

Here's the problem: the government and the federal agencies won't admit that what they are clamouring for will inevitably make cryptography weaker.

They are claiming - either through ignorance or outright falsehood - that their plans would provide the access they seek without adversely affecting the security of those using cryptography to keep their data safe.

They are wrong, of course, but they won't admit it so no amount of reasoned argument and logic can convince them.

Hardcore creationist finds 60-million-year-old fossils in backyard ... 'No, it hasn’t changed my mind about the Bible'

dan1980

Re: re: creationism makes perfect sense. As long as you ignore all of creation?

@itzman

"Creationist time lines are simply truncated 5,000 years ago, when a divine act of creation brought everything into being, fossils and all."

That may have been what those people thought but it's not the general creationist model. Given that this chap is clearly a devotee of Ken Ham (as an Australian, I apologise) I suspect he believes, as Ham does, that the fossils were deposited as part of the great flood.

On the surface, it should be simple to refute this - just show that radiometric dating proves these bones to be far older, or point out the very clear stratification that is observed. The old "fossilised rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian" line.

Sadly, the simple fact is that people like Ham and his followers don't start from a point of wanting to know what happened but of already knowing what happened and then massaging the evidence to fit and discounting it when it doesn't. Thus Ham declares that all radiometric dating is suspect and so can't be treated as evidence for an old-Earth.

NSA eggheads tried to bork Nork nukes with Stuxnet. It failed – report

dan1980

Just goes to show that physical security is still the best defence and that meat is still most systems' biggest vulnerability.