Posts by a_yank_lurker 4139 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Nov 2013
Several have alluded to the 7.5 billion paid for GitHub, a company that was essentially broke and badly overvalued by any reasonable measure. One has to wonder how Slurp is going to make back the purchase of what is an easily replicated service. There should be a plan to make money off the deal but marketing babble about opportunities does make a plan. If they are counting lock-in or loyalty, there is no real lock-in and developers are loyal to their projects/employers not Slurp. Customer loyalty to any vendor is always limited and if there is reasonable competitor customers may jump if provoked. As for lock-in, using Git locally or internally does not require any special skills or hardware and using another service such GitLab will not require an extensive learning curve. It is not the same as being locked-in to an OS and what is available on that OS, which is true to some extent for all OSes.
The head scratcher is why so much for a company whose only claim is they one of the larger online source control vendors. It is not as if someone could not start another with the available tools and a little bit of seed money. And it is not as if the a project or company really cares who the vendor is but rather that they can reliably reach the site. We are not talking a social network or online game where there is a definite critical mass to make money.
There is a long litany of anti-user actions by Slurp with just Bloat 10; too long to enumerate here. So why would anyone trust a know liar and scum when they mouth platitudes? Developers should be wary of someone borrowing their code, particular scum like Slurp, without any attribution and probably in violation of the license.
For my projects, I am actively looking at alternatives such as GitLab but I am open to others.
I think Slurp may have miscalculated badly. Developers are a wary bunch and hate being burned more than once. Also, a git version control system can be implemented internally, if so desired. The advantage of GitHub or GitLab is cost and not having to deal with the plumbing of such a system. So, it is relatively easy to move to another and the people deciding to make the move have the technical skills to pull it off. Also, there is nothing inherently special about GitHub, GitLab, etc. that makes it the only option for a project. All a contributor needs to know is where to pull the code for a project. The presence of other projects is really not very critical.
LinkedIn is more like Failbook in that most users are there as a type of social network and really do not pay much attention to the antics of the owner and how they abuse one's data. Thus, most users are not likely to abandon LinkedIn.
Wolfing done Github would cause a migration away from it as developers really distrust Slurp more so than the general public. Slurp's antics with non-support of standards, dropping developer tools, APIs, etc. makes their stewardship of Github rather problematic.
When they bought Linked, my activity has dwindled to nothing with some consideration to dropping it altogether.
One of the keys to spotting fraud is to have an understanding of human behavior. The Artificial Idiocy crowd thinks this is not that difficult to do. But in reality it is much harder to spot. Are those big ticket items due to fraud or not? Hard to always say without may be looking at the context of the purchase. And even then it is not always apparent.
The legal problems are excuse for their own blundering stupidity. Slurp won the OS wars in the 90s and decided to rest on their laurels as many stupid monopolists. They thought they were indispensable and would be forever. But what Slurp forgot is the presence of a monopoly in a market makes others try to work around by a combination of new products and legal threats. The new products are the bigger threat as they are the best hope to break the monopoly long term. For Chocolate Factory and Fruit to break the monopoly they had to find products that users would flock to. It was more do or die for them from day one while Slurp would be slow to see the threat as failure of iOS or Android would not hurt them.
One of the reasons I suspect many youngish PHBs do not like older workers is they have been there and do that before. They seen the periodic hype about AI, fusion, etc. and the resultant crash and burn enough times to have some pretty thick scars and callouses. Thus, they are naturally more wary of the latest fad and marketing 'trend' and will tend to ask hard, sometimes embarrassing questions. The PFYs, however, do not have that experience. Thus can be more easily snowed by marketing patter.
The primary effect will be to force companies to be more focused on user privacy and how much user information they collect directly or indirectly. Too many marketing weasels failed to grasp the cardinal of information security: "what you do not know/have you can not blab". So willy-nilly private data collection will stop once a few big boys get nailed by some eye-popping fines. If a company never really considered user data security seriously before they will have a rough time of it for awhile. But in reality they earned what they are getting. There was an old ad tag line may years ago in the US for a car oil filter: "Pay me now or pay me later". Either you pay up front to do things right or you pay much more later to fix the resulting problems.
I have little sympathy for the complainers because they mostly ignored it until too late and they were offenders the law is targeting.
The manager might need to know what the condition is properly plan for staffing and absences. The problem is telling those who do not need to know. Also, even routine procedures like cataract surgery have a recovery period where person might need more breaks.
My non-shyster understanding of the key points of GPDR is you should have a written document, readily accessible describing what you collect, why you collect, what you do with it, and who has access to the information. Also, users have explicit opt in, opt out, know what you have on them, data deletion rights, and data breach notification rights. Depending on what your site does and how it is done you may have very little to do in reality. This particularly true for a site that collects minimal information from users. From what it sounds like your site may have a login requiring a username, contact email, and password to post on the BB as well as storing user posts.
The primary target of the legislation is not small hobby sites but semi-criminal outfits like Failbook and Twatter who abuse the information they collect. Also, the notification rules requirement, which sounds scary, means that what Equisuck did when sitting on the breach for several weeks/months is now illegal. There is a lot of hype over the law without understanding why it was done and who the real targets are: Silly Valley idiots who abuse their users to squeeze out a few more pennies.
From someone in an already privacy regulated industry, this is mostly an extension of what is already done in many industries even in the US. Other than the fines, I have not seen any thing in it that is much different than what I already must obey. In some respects it is less demanding than what my industry already must do.
@Giovani Tapini - I am no expert either but I understand the main emphasis is explaining what, where, why, and who for one's data collection in the appropriate local language not shyster with several stipulations. One is the user opts in, two the user has access to all the information you have about them on demand, three the user can opt out at any time, four the user can demand all the information you have about them is deleted, five data breaches must be reported within 72 hours. The implications of GDPR is make companies more careful about what they collect and how they handle it. One cardinal rule information security is: 'you can not blab what you do not know'. But this one too many ignore by hoovering up much more than they need.
Many companies already operate under stringent personal information requirements such HIPPA (US law protecting patient data and privacy) and the like. Basically, they have written procedures in place as to who, what, where, and why for accessing this information. And these procedures have been in place for many, many years. All GPDR really does is extend this to basically all companies operating in the EU to have similar procedures in place or potentially face some very significant fines.
I suspect much of the hype is coming marketing PHBs who are now finding themselves actually having to worry about protecting privileged information for the first time and not abusing it. Since many of these weasels (insulting weasels) have no ethics at all this is a real shock to them that someone actually cares. As someone who works in an industry with these requirements in place, welcome to the real world. An aside, when I was being interviewed I was basically asked if I had enough sense to keep my mouth shut when I needed to see live personal information.
The upper mismanagement does have AI - Always Idiotic. The historical problem for Itsy Bitsy Morons is they never really adjusted to the PC revolution in the 80s and 90s (almost going belly up in the late 80s) losing their mojo to others - primarily Slurp. The issue was trying to protect big iron when many potential applications were going to desktops/workstations/servers and were not really dependent on big iron. In some ways they have been limping along for many years trying to find something that will make them relevant again.
To use any frequency for radio transmission in any country one needs to get the appropriate license. Depending on the use and license, the transmitter may be assigned specific frequencies. The frequency assignment can be technically complex but is really very simple - transmitters in a band should be interfering with other transmitters in their area. Broadcasters are assigned fixed frequencies. Note for radio communications like cell phones, the carrier has the license not the user and carrier is responsible for maintaining the cell towers.
Pirate broadcasters are nothing new, it just pops periodically and is normally handled by the appropriate bureau as a routine administrative/judicial matter.
@werdsmith - Actually only some journalists and news outlets have lost the trust of the public. Many have tired to report stories as accurately and fairly as possible. Most people are smart enough to differentiate between the those that are actually doing journalism and those who are shilling for whomever.
If I have the fine correct, the EU could fine Slurp 4% of their world-wide gross which would be a tidy sum. It should catch the eye of various feral regulators as this would hit the P/L statements very hard. As I remember, if you have any European customers/activity you are subject to GPDR. Get hit once for Bloat and Orifice and that could total 8% of their gross.
The best non-pathology evidence was the eyewitnesses in the bunker who survived and knew Hitler very well as they worked closely with him. They were always consistent in their stories of what happened and there were several including secretaries, orderlies, etc. So the question then becomes are they all liars or they telling the truth. Having see interviews with some of them, I do not believe they are all liars so they are telling the truth.
What I have seen with too news events in general is the 'news' outlets (on cable in particular) have to fill time. So they grab some babbling moron who knows absolutely nothing about the particular situation to pontificate about it live. Often the ponitifications are shown to be wrong once the details finally emerge a few days later as they usually do. These details usually also show a more complicated situation than the babbling blowhards ever imagined. Also, the media is prone to latch on to 'official' sources who may know very little who also spout off random nonsense and spread rumors. None of this specific to this situation but a general observation of media behavior, particularly of the TV channels.
About this situation, other than it happened and several were killed and more injured, I doubt much is really known by the investigators at the time of this post. And I doubt any of the pontificators on your favorite new outlet really knows anything about the situation other than the barest facts. Certainly they do not why this tragedy occurred and at this point the investigators may not really know either. I understand they have the shooter in custody so the investigators can interview him to find out why. But getting clear answers takes time and effort by the investigators.
Making intelligent policy to prevent these from happening requires avoiding knee jerk reactions by all. How did he get the guns? Several possible answers and depending on the actual answer is there a way to prevent someone like him from getting them in future. In a couple of recent mass killings, the shooter was not entered into the database due various administrative stupidities as required by law and was thus able to buy them legally. Where the guns stolen? Do not know but that raises another set questions. Where the guns legally owned by a relative? Again, this raises a different set of questions. At this point, there are more questions than answers. Why did he do it? The answer here is also not obvious but important in possibly stopping future events. Was he a known problem that was ignored? Was there a recent traumatic event that triggered this? Answers these types of questions point to different issues and possible solutions. Again more questions than answers. And I do not have the answers to these questions and I may not have raised the pertinent question for this case.
The basic commercial problem is very few works ever have any real commercial success. Of the few that do, most of their commercial success is for a relatively short period; somewhat variable but based on the type of work. After this period minimal sales occur and many of the copies that are sold are highly discounted (remaindering in the book trade). This period might be only a few months to a few years at most. The number that have any continued commercial success is incredibly small. And very few of those works out last the active career of the creator commercially.
So a truly reasonable copyright system would have a moderate period of about 10 years to cover the commercial life of the work. It would have limited renewal by the creator, about 2 times to cover virtually any other work. It would also require a positive registration initially. Thus, most works are automatically public domain and commercial works would enter public domain fairly quickly.
The very rare works that have continued commercial success would also go into public domain unlike the current system.
Also, I wonder if the current copyright period is even Constitutional but that never stopped Congress critters from being both criminal and idiotic before.
@Deltics - The point of BYO kit is you control what is used not that you can save money. Usually you do not save money but more. But you have built a machine you want not what is offered by a vendor. Your example is what I would expect, components bought in retail quantities will have a higher cost than the same bought in commercial quantities.
Biometrics are basically permanent and can not be changed so they are only good as username or equivalent. Questions like mother's maiden name can be guessed if you assume (mostly correct) the person actually answered correctly. But if a person use a set fictitious answers to these questions that would not be obvious where they come from, they are much harder to guess. For example using 'von Francois' for mother's maiden when it is 'Smith' and 'von Francios' is not a close relative's name like an in-law.
The difference between closed source and open source is who has the authority to make modifications. With closed source only the vendor can make changes to the code. So you are completely at their mercy if something will get patched or added. With open source, you have the explicit authority to make any change you want for any reason. Whether you do, is your choice.
From a practical user perspective, there often is very little difference when using either if the code is being used internally. If the code is being used externally then the license restrictions do matter and often the open source licenses are less restrictive by default as you being able to include the code in your code base. With closed licenses, one needs to read the T&Cs to be sure though many cases you can include a compiled binary in your code.
@Doctor Syntax - Spot on. But many PHBs and MBAs (being redundant) only look at personnel as a cost not a resource. Having the resource internal to you makes it easier to shift them were needed. Also, internal personnel if they can talk to each other can share resources with each other more freely; they are both working for the same company.
@DougS - Third party videos can be used as evidence such as dash cam videos without reading the Miranda rights. Miranda explicitly refers to interviewing the accused and nothing else. Most local Stasis over here record all interviews as a matter of policy to provide an accurate record of what was said. However, the ferals generally do not.
Training can only partially replicate what happened in reality. Plus, the pilot is faced with possibly several different problems at once that may not be run in a simulator simultaneously or at all in some cases. See he has to make quick, accurate decisions based on his training, experience, and what is actually happening at the time to bring the plane as safely as possible with them minimum of casualties. So any when faced with a crisis, who rises to the occasion does qualify as a hero in the public's eyes.
Note may of the pilot heroes actually do not consider themselves heroes but only someone doing their job very well in a crisis. Another point in favor of calling them heroes, their actions were only done to solve a serious problem not for seeking any glory.
Most heroes do have the appropriate training for the jobs but only show any heroism when there is a serious crisis demanding someone rise up to the occasion.
The solution for Failbook is to learning the meaning of ethics and start acting ethically not like some bratty toddler when called for their ethical short comings. Fundamentally, this is what the case is about; unethical and now illegal behavior in some jurisdictions being attacked by the abused.
The first of many I suspect. What is worse for FailBook is if these cases generate ongoing negative publicity about their antics. They rely more than Chocolate Factory on user acquiescence at a minimum to their data slurping ways as they need a critical mass of active users to be viable; MySpace anyone? While Chocolate Factory is vulnerable on the same grounds their services are more varied so they are less reliant on anyone service to the degree FailBook is.
@Mark 85 - His problem was he been found guilty twice of trying to smuggle? firearms. Thus, finding legal gun parts would naturally be suspicious for someone who is a known smuggler. The court gave a split decision; the agents need more than a whim to search electronic gadgets but in his case the agents had enough reasonable suspicion to search. It seems they got the situation more or less correct - no warrantless search at the border unless there is reasonable grounds to suspect a possible crime.
I have always suspected the purpose of these ads was not to influence the election in any meaningful way but to stir the pot if someone is stupid enough to fall for them. Both Blowhard (now President Blowhard) and Felonia are well known personalities to the public well before the election. So with 20+ years of sizing them up it is likely that only the youngest voters would not have an opinion (largely negative for both) about them. The reason the ads have become 'important' is the donkeys do not want to admit Felonia ran an incompetent campaign and is widely detested by very large swaths of the American public well before the election. And she ran against Blowhard who is also detested by large swaths of the public. A competent campaign with a moderately appealing candidate might have won easily.
I think the difference was back in the mainframe days many activities were never fully computerized and often there were manual systems (and staff) still in place for when the mainframe went down. Also, the pace of mail tended to make time a less critical factor. This also meant it was pointless to fully automate a lot of processes as saving 10 minutes was going to be lost later. A lot of communication back then was down by snail mail which might take 3 or 4 days (or longer) to reach the recipient. Also, computers were not networked like now as there was no Internet.
Now, people get antsy if one does answer an email in 20 minutes or have their phone within arms reach. Plus a lot of commercial interactions are done initially online making absolute up time critical.
While smartphones are really very portable computers under the skin their usage is very different from a PC (laptop or desktop). Thus the nature of the applications and UI is very different. While some data can be shared between devices (see Apple) not everyone is thrilled at having this done. One security consideration is a phone is a lot easier to lose or get nicked than a PC so limiting the amount information it can access is a good idea. It seems Slurp has not quite gotten into the feeble minds that phones and PCs are used differently and that most people are perfectly happy with this. It is as if Slurp uses the geekiest focus group they can find to ask what features they crave.
I personally go so far as to have different base email accounts for my Android phone and my main email. Nothing of personal importance goes to the phone email and I do not have any banking or shopping apps on the phone, limits the amount of damage losing the phone will cause.
I suspect an accurate usage survey would show about 45% of the features Office 2010 being used by about 95% of the users. Another 10% of the features used by 4.5%+ of the users and the rest of the features each used by a small scattering of users with no definitive trend.
Blockchain is not necessary for an unbreakable chain of evidence. It may make it easier to implement than other methods. But one thing to remember, a business that has a working system is not going to implement a new, mostly unproven, system if they have any sense. The risk is to great and the reward is too meager if it is successful.
A little history is in order. Electric cars have been manufactured off and on since about 1900 with varying degrees of success and profitability. The primary problems they faced have been range, charging time, and replacement battery costs. Range has been more or less solved in that nominal range of many models is reasonable for most people. Charging time has been a weakness from day as a battery pack can only be charged so fast before you have problems. Different chemistries will be a little faster or slower but still somewhat slow. Battery replacement is expensive and the batteries can handling only so much discharge-recharge cycles These problems existed in 1910 and the still exist to some degree today.
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