From RT:
http://rt.com/politics/177248-...
Such authors will now have to register with the state watchdog Roskomnadzor, disclose their real identity and follow the same rules as journalists working in conventional state-registered mass media.
The restrictions include the demand to verify information before publishing it and abstain from releasing reports containing slander, hate speech, extremist calls or other banned information such as, for example, advice on suicide. Also, the law bans popular bloggers from using obscene language, drawing heavy criticism and mockery from the online crowd.
So.., now you're not legally allowed to lie to a large number of people or incite violence based on those lies. Gee. That's bad how? Might be nice to have something like that in the West, because right now it's perfectly legal for FOX News to outright lie to their viewers.
Russia, like any large nation the US hates, (see Venezuela) must defend against the standard CIA tactics used to de-stabilize governments and population bases through grass roots propaganda tactics. Forcing creeps and liars out of the game seems like a pretty good way to do this. You don't want to be forced out? Then follow the law and back up your claims with fact checking verification of what you are writing, don't use hate speech and don't incite violence. How hard is that?
There's a reason you're not allowed to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, and this falls neatly beneath the same rubric.
Honestly, think of the gossips and cruel kids in school spreading lies in deliberate attempts to undermine healthy energies. Putin has the guts to whip the carpet out from under such types.
So now, once you reach 3000 readers, the Russian government says you are a news source with real pull and must start acting in a manner befitting such responsibility. Is 3000 the right magic number to have picked? I don't know, but it makes perfect sense to draw a line somewhere.
Of course, any law can be abused, but right now I don't see this as an abuse. I see it as a sensible measure as Russia is under increasing media attack by a truly psychopathic nation whose leadership is completely disconnected from objective reality, has a tail-spinning economy and seemingly bottomless war lust. Of course you have to take measures to protect your populace from that kind of sickness.
But naturally, this proactive move is being spun with wicked and/or childish glee in the West (depending on whether you are CIA or just ignorant and easily led).
The digital system for the exam works on usersâ(TM) personal laptop, which they bring to the testing facility, where they download the company's application to the computers they use to take the tests. At the end of the exam, the file closes and locks. When the user is able to connect to the Internet, the file uploads. Users cannot make changes to the file after the conclusion of the test.
You have to drive to the exam site but you're expected to bring your own equipment? Who thought that up? Rather than trying to intrusively lock down everyone's machine it would be far better to simply issue everyone a cheap tablet or netbook on which to take the exam. Controlled hardware, no need to try to "lock down" innumerable variations of BYOD. The ExamSoft web site says the software runs on "any modern machine", defined as Windows, Mac, or iPad purchased in the past 3-4 years. But disable any anti-virus, and no VMs. They're basically trying to secure any random machine off the street to prevent cheating. That's a very fine example of "doing it wrong".
Requiring a human to be ready and able to take control in an emergency is just plain dumb. The human in question will be distracted. They'll be texting or playing Flappy Birds or doing any number of things that a passenger might do during a commute. Even if you require that their hands be on the wheel at all times they'll get bored and daydream and be absolutely useless in an emergency situation.
The only reason you'd want to require human controls would be in case the vehicle gets into a (non-emergency) situation that it can't deal with. Think about a situation that would normally be wrong, like parking on a lawn or driving on the wrong side of the road due to a blockage or something like that. Something that requires a judgement weighing the letter of the law against the practical realities of the situation.
Anyone actually used them? Is it as good as their demos?
I haven't done any admin or dev work with it, but as far as just logging in to the VPN at work Duo works very well. I initiate the VPN connection on my computer and get a pop-up on my phone almost instantly. Hit approve, and the VPN login on the computer completes. In my pre-smartphone days I used their SMS service. They'd send me 10 codes via SMS and the VPN login would say "enter code A", "enter code B", etc. Each code was used once, and a new batch sent whenever you'd used them up. (This is probably quite insecure if you use Google Voice or some similar service that redirects your texts so you can read them online.)
Plus, I used to work with Dug Song, one of the founders of Duo. Smart guy. I trust him to have done his homework.
What kind of numbnuts trusts a phone number given to them by the person being authenticated? "Here, call my accomplice-- er, I mean account rep, and he'll verify me." Yeah, pull the other one.
Unfortunately, even my credit card issuer can't get this right. They called me about some charges. "Now sir, to verify that I'm really talking to the account holder, what is your social security number?" Um, no. YOU called ME. You can reasonably assume that the phone number you have on file for me is valid. It's up to YOU to prove to ME that you're from my credit card company. "But sir, we ask this for your own security..." Eventually I got them to give me a ticket number so I could call the number printed on my card and get back to them. Turns out it actually was my issuer calling, not a scammer. Guys, you really should know better!
What an utterly pointless article. IF we had an Internet-of-Things, and IF they all talked with each other directly instead of needing infrastructure, and IF emergency services were prioritized over regular traffic, and IF people were cool with having random devices they own connect to random devices other people own for the sole purpose of forwarding messages in a mesh network, THEN we could use the IoT as a spiffy disaster-resistant emergency network.
No shit? Is that all it takes? Sounds like someone trying desperately to figure out just why the hell anyone would want an Internet-connected toaster, anyway. Emergency services, yeah, that will sell it!
Two words: "Market Differentiation". I once worked for a company which made printers. One printer line had a low-end model and a high-end model. The hardware was identical except for two things: (1) The print head, which produced higher-quality output and was more durable in the high-end model; and (2) the color of the case. That's it. Otherwise they were identical. The marketing guys decided that the print quality alone wouldn't tempt people towards the high-end model, so they required us to hobble the software. The same software build was loaded into each model, but if it detected the cheap print head it inserted wait-states into memory access to force about a 30% decrease in formatting speed. Voila! Now the high-end product had enough benefit to justify the price difference!
tl;dr: Sometimes yes, companies will expend extra effort to intentionally make a crappier product, if it means that they'll sell more of an expensive higher-profit-margin product. And yes, it drives the engineers completely bananas.
They cover that in the full memo:
Q: Why do some supplier employees not take breaks when others do?
A: There are some business functions and processes that have been fully outsourced (Outsourcing), such as cafeteria services, landscaping and call centers. These Outsourcing engagements are limited, require a certain set of criteria be met and must go through a rigorous approval process.
The plane was 10km up. It wasn't shot down by something bought for $50,000 from Bob's Quality Used Implements of Death and Destruction and delivered to you by a courier van. The suspected weapon system requires at minimum one tank sized tracked launcher vehicle, and for full capability it requires three such vehicles. This is way out of Bob the arms dealer's league. Although I'm pretty much guessing here, the missile alone I expect would cost over a million dollars to manufacture.
You mean something like http://www.mortarinvestments.e...
"It's 100 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, a half pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."
"Hit it."
Anderson isn't aiming to supplant Bitcoin, or even challenge the money-exchange model that drives society. But he's hoping it will change the way people think about currency
Ah, so the whole thing's just a performance art piece, not a serious proposal. Good to know. Now we can just ignore him until he goes away.
For me, price is also a factor. Watching it just while cooking alone or something, I don't want to pay $5 for something that is just not that good. Crappy stream quality also doesn't matter in that case.
There seems to be a trend of the studios to allow digital "purchase" of movies but disallow rental, even for older releases. I'm only going to watch most movies once. $5 is my sweet spot for watching a movie. I'll gladly pay $5 for the ability to stream it for 24 hours, on the same model as the video rental store. I won't pay $15 to "own" it, especially when "ownership" is simply an indefinite-term rental until such time as the streaming service goes out of business. I'd rather just go without than play that asinine game.
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death. -- James F. Byrnes
