By 1989, Soviets and their client states definitely had desktop PCs and associated devices, including hard drives. Mostly copies of Western tech of a few years before then, so we're talking about 5Mb hard drives here, but still. In fact, GDR was the one Warsaw Pact country where most of that stuff was made for use by the others - look up "VEB Robotron". And of all places to actually get them, I would imagine that Stasi would be the first on the list.

That's how it used to work in Win8. Now, though, it'll just pop up a dialog telling you that you need to open Settings, and where you need to go there, to change defaults. It doesn't automatically open it for you anymore.

He didn't renounce his French citizenship. And he doesn't actually live in Russia.

This particular bit of policy has nothing to do with malware.

Generally speaking, self-defense is specifically listed as a valid reason in laws pertaining to negligent or reckless discharge of firearms. But you'd need to prove that you specifically fired in self-defense, and show that the direction of the shot etc was conductive to that claim. Following Joe Biden's suggestion and discharging a shotgun in the air to scare off the intruder would likely get you charged, for example.

Yes. With a sabot slug and a rifled barrel or choke, it's possible. Not with smoothbore & birdshot. And definitely not aiming up at a moving target.

Try JRMC. It's not free, but you get what you pay for. And, at least ~5 years ago (last time I needed something like WMC), it was good.

Related- why the hell would you want to innovate at a place that looks unfavorably upon independent thinking? The absolute best thing that could happen is for that business to die a flaming death, consumed by their own ineptitude and bureaucracy. Taking matters into your own hands only extends their reach, propping up their inefficiencies to suck the life out of even more people.

Mooch a paycheck if it is the only thing available, but definitely keep your best work under wraps. They've made it abundantly clear that's not what they are paying you for, so oblige them, even going so far as to gleefully compound their organizational problems. You'll probably get a promotion out of it, which will set yourself up better for finding another job.

You might actually find Win10 to be less flashy than Vista/7/8. It's mostly flat with few visual effects, gradients and the like, and even transparency can be deactivated.

You have to call it something to distinguish it from the rest of the product family at this point. Long-term, it'll probably just be called "Windows".

The first thought I had was that I hope they don't do it because it'll only be used to invade our privacy.

LK

That's precisely my point - the valid reason to regulate here is specific, measurable harm, not "general well-being".

I can update a proper linux system. apt-get update (etc etc) and I'm good. it could be a 5 yr old linux install, 10 yr even more. it will still get security and major bugfixes.

android? yeah, right. my nexus one (go ahead, laugh at the old guy with the ancient phone) has not had an update for over 3 years now; probably more than that. 2.x distro from cyan and even they stopped doing updates. I have no time in my schedule to learn android internals well enough to do this myself (I could do it for linux, but I have no desire to waste time on phone crap, too many other things to get done). and so, I am running quite old software on a mobile computer and unless I pay for new hardware (my old hw works fine, still) I can't get updates.

this is the main reason why I hate google so much. they totally messed up on the whole android build/deploy/update system. its not linux, its not separatable (gfx and kernel and ip stack all are comingled, like a college-hire might design, sigh) and you can't update just the parts you need. its a whole update or nothing at all. HOW UTTERLY STUPID.

I wish I could get to love apple gear. then again, they EOL their old products, too, and so I'd have to keep rebuying hardware just like android guys are forced to do.

I may just go back to dumb phones again. this is ridiculous. a mobile computer with wireless access, a lot of my personal info on it and yet no update mechanism at all. essentially its abandonware. hundreds of dollars and I have a device that won't ever get updated even though there's not a single good reason for that.

what I can't figure out is: was google stupid or smart when they planned this? I tend to think they were both; stupid due to having too many kids onboard who don't understand the longevity of embedded systems in the real world; and smart since they force people to keep re-re-rebuying things and that must make their hardware partners very happy. they also can ignore older hardware and save time on multiple forks and build trees. but it was all the wrong design for END USERS. we are the ones who get screwed by this.

I cannot ever forgive google. they could have kept linux clean on the phone and allowed users to update ip-stack, kernel, etc. but they put a lot of effort into NOT allowing this and we all pay for it with security problems; and ones that we won't ever be able to fix, either, unless we do the work ourselves (which is not acceptable for an embedded system).

As another noted on the Red Site:

"We'll know everything* about you and we'll be snitching (including your BitLocker key) whenever and/or to anyone we think is in our interest to. Starting Aug 15"[1]

In particular, this is more than a little disturbing.

"But Microsoftâ(TM)s updated privacy policy is not only bad news for privacy. Your free speech rights can also be violated on an ad hoc basis as the company warns:

In particular, âoeWe will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary toâ, for example, âoeprotect their customersâ or âoeenforce the terms governing
the use of the servicesâ."

As with all things Microsoft, use at your own risk. Only now, the risks to you personally are higher than ever before.

[1]https://soylentnews.org/breakingnews/comments.pl?sid=8667&cid=215390#commentwrap

I can see it now:

"Slashdot: Bad Hair for Billionaires; Stuff that still does not matter."