"So, pretty good odds for a successful insanity plea?"
They can call it the Kardashian Defense.
3821 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2007
"Scrapping the Nimrod replacement and later starting an entirely new procurement might be an example of that, as for all I know might be not continuing with Windows 10 Mobile."
"not continuing with Windows 6 - 7 - 8 - 10 Mobile."
It seems MS already has plenty of practice with sunk costs, and are determined to keep going until they get it... Wronger?
"What best practices would you suggest?"
For one, how about gadgets that can't call out, and only answer to your personal computer/phone, which polls the gadgets with a secure key.
Then you get to set settings from your phone/PC,
You get to approve online orders for whatever item whatever gadget has deemed essential to order.
You get to see and approve/disapprove any updates and changes, because Gadget Corp has to notify you first, and then you get to decide whether to download them and let your phone/PC pass them on, all without Gadget Corp snooping on you.
But this'll never fly, because it deprives Gadget Corp of all that juicy data it could be collecting about you to sell to the highest bidder.
"raise the AI to want what we want"
And why? So we can fight over it? Look what happens when "moral" groups of people want the same resources. They just rationalise why the the other group is amoral and start head-bashing.
Better to make it want what we don't. "Earth? Eugh! Too hot, wet, unstable, and close to the Sun! I'm building my own place in Deep Space away from it and all that damaging solar radiation."
"What are the odds that as one of his last acts in office, Obama will hand Mrs Clinton a presidential pardon?"
Too hot a potato for the Dems.
The way this ball is usually danced in the inner loop, the Rep that takes office will graciously make a "mending fences, building bridges" speech, and the whole thing will blow over... until the next election.
But why bother punching your way through dense atmosphere halfway around the world, when you could launch to near space, ride above the atmosphere until ready to re-enter and land at the destination?
Faster, quieter, more fuel efficient, plus the passengers get to say, "I've been in Spaaacce!", what's not to like?
"1% is about half the total number of users of all versions of Linux combined,"
Hmm, Sez here that Linux use is 5.6% as of last month, putting it ahead of Chrome OS, WinXP, and Vista combined, by more than 2X. It's even a bit higher than all mobile OSs combined. (5.2%)
Thanks for the help Microsoft, keep on pushing!
"If somebody asks you if you want some free cake then it's not forced cake. You don't have to take it. "
But if they keep knocking on your door everyday asking,"Now?", and leaving one on your doorstep in a FedEx box, or sticking it in your mailbox in a UPS box daily when you're not looking, labeling it, "Open Now, Important!".
Would that count as forced cake? If not, it'd at least be a major PITA.
" It'll only be available for Windows 10 users and will be turned off by default and activated on a subscription fee basis"
I never suspected Microsoft'd be rolling out a "Subscription fee for essential services" model for Windows 10.
Whoever could have saw that one coming?
(Eye rolling intensifies)
-The damning thing about voters' options anywhere is that the "options" have to be viable, n'est-ce pas? BTW, I don't think my vote is ever "wasted."-
And the options never will be viable, as long as people keep voting for a "winner", rather than voting for change, no?
Democrats and Republicans: "Cheers! Business as usual! >clink<"
How many of you can name just one of the more than 40 3rd party candidates in this election?
What their parties are?
What their platforms are?
Have you seen or heard of any of them on the news at all?
No?
Then Trump has done a damn fine job as this election's gonzo candidate tying up the media with his antics so that no one even so much as glimpses away from the rep/dem theatre to see if anything else might be out there that would be more palatable.
So Americans get to waste their vote yet again this November on one of two candidates whose whole purpose is to maintain the status quo in Washington without even realising that options exist.
Bravo Trump, Kudos to you and that caterpillar on your head for a job well done.
But I find it interesting that the test operator didn't override because he and the machine reached the exact same conclusion:
"Bigger, faster vehicle will obviously let smaller, slower vehicle pull in front." (I wouldn't bet my skin on that!)
Possibly a bit of Google bias (Me Important!) slipping through the programming?
"detoxifies"
That's all you need to read to know that it is either worthless, dangerous, or both.
The body is well set up to detoxify itself (or none of us would be alive right now) in all but extreme circumstances, and then, you'd better be under a doctor's care, since the cure is usually nearly as dangerous as the condition.
Samsung get a few dozen million this time, Apple got a few dozen million last time.
The lawsuits, counter-lawsuits and appeals continue with sums being swapped that are a pittance to either company.
And when the dust finally settles down, neither gains anything but willy-waving, and the sums earned are a fraction of what they paid their lawyers.
Seems like there could have been something more productive they could be doing with all that time and money, no?
"Many eyes, all rubbish at spotting security vulnerabilities."
Actually, as shown here, it works quite well, when someone does look.
Probably one of the happier fallouts of the whole NSA/Snowden affair, instead of just passively assuming that someone's looking, more are actually getting into the code looking.
(Now, what do you say about closed source software, where you can't look, and there's TLA pressure to put backdoors in?)
Self assured, quick to bully, a fountain of ignorance with the unshakable conviction that he is always right...
Y'know what? Trump is the twentyfirst century version of Moe Howard, he even has similar tastes in hair styling.
(disclaimer: The above link is not the latest Republican debate, despite the similarity.)
"You detach the outer part of the sail and use it to reflect the beam back to the remainder of the sail."
How exactly would that work?
The outer part would still be a solar sail, thus you'd still be accelerated, and the remainder of the sail wouldn't even cancel out that acceleration, let alone over all acceleration, since the light it'd be receiving would have already lost energy to the outer part.
In other words, wouldn't you still be accelerating, just slower with that setup?
Well hopefully they'll be working on staggered shifts to keep it going 24/7.
So on 'naut sleeping, one off duty (and playing asteroids), one on the last half of his/her shift manning one monitor and one on the first half of his/her shift manning the third.
That seems to work out about right.
"The reality is that unlocking the phone of a criminal/murder is mandatory and appropriate."
True that... But in this case the phone belongs to a third party, that did give permission and voluntarily turned over the password they had (The suspect's employer turned over the phone's iCloud password).
Then the FBI changed the phone's password so it could no longer sync to its backup, and locked up any data more recent than the last update in the phone.
And now they want Apple to unfix the fix the FBI themselves used to lock the data away from themselves so that Apple'd have to fix it.
Does look a trifle odd, eh?
That's very interesting, isn't it? The FBI had the phone and only had to ask the owner, San Bernardino County, for the password to its backed up data.
They did, and got access to to the phone's iCloud backup, what could be easier?
Buuuut, the phone may have data that was entered after the last backup... no prob, update the backup.
Buuuut, they can't do that, since the FBI very cleverly changed the backup password first, and now the phone can't sync with it's stored data... Smooth move Exlax!
So now they insist that Apple give them a gateway into the phone's data that they locked themselves out of.
And the $64,000 question is; Is the FBI actually that incompetent that they locked themselves out of the data they wanted and need help getting it (highly probable), or are they acting for some TLA that wants Apple to build a way to get into secured iPhones in the future without pestering the court system (also highly probable)?
"someone looking homeless can strip them of their Rolex, iWhatsits, Credit cards etc. and they won't even see who did it."
"Can you give me a description of the muggers, sir?"
"Why yes, one was a charming wrought iron Victorian lamp post, and the other was a terracotta planter full of begonias."