"If you cant figure out how to set up your own lab, then you have no business even thinking about Cyber Security or computers in general."

Also, if you can't afford bread you should just eat cake. Not everyone has the resources, which can include space, to set up a security lab, and nobody is going to do so without first deciding that they actually want to get into cyber security. If you're going to force that catch 22, then the field really won't have anyone other than those raised by incumbent professionals... not exactly a great model.

Keep in mind that the NYC subway is also one of the oldest in the world: they had very few predecessors to learn from and far more limited technology to work with when it was designed and constructed. Occasional retrofits are possible, and several have been made, but any sort of substantive upgrade is hard to implement when you're working on a finished, active subterranean system that runs, as you not, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Because there is nothing nerdier than arguing, in 2013, about what kind of train is the best. NOTHING.

Language is imprecise and governed in actual far more by guidelines than by immutable rules.

Inserting commas would have been entirely acceptable for most forms of written English, and would have improved parsing for laymen interested in his work (presumably a target audience for his homepage). It may, however, conflict with legal syntax; a lawyer would be more qualified than I to assess that possibility.

Hmm... interesting, but no, it almost certainly didn't happen that way.

For one thing, the retraction will never make as much news as the initial announcement. For another, there is enormous risk that, whatever they say, people will suspect that these schemes still exist (even if they are, for the time being, disabled) and avoid the system out of fear that they will be implemented later.

If this manages to work out in their favor, which is almost certainly not going to happen, it will be a miracle. Far more likely is that they are hoping to win back those customers who were fleeing toward the PS4 due entirely to the DRM issues but honestly prefer the XBox experience and crossing their fingers that by the time the consoles actually drop people have either largely forgotten (which is certainly possible) or, even better, that Sony screws something up even more (which is also certainly possible, Sony did think it was a good idea to deploy pirated rootkits). Expect them to walk on eggshells for the next few months, just to make sure they don't reignite the matter.

Presumably not with speech-to-text.

Sounds like a great reason to bring back the middle class trade guild as a meaningful part of professional development.

You can get in so long as you can pass the tests, then once you've worked under an experienced professional with genuine, demonstrated knowledge of how things happen in the real world for a period of time you get the stamp of approval to strike out on your own, and eventually take neophytes under your wing as well.

Of course anything even remotely resembling a union is "communist", so we can rule that option right out.

"Children being born today will have access to far more and better education than any generation ever, if we don't mess it up in some way."

No need to worry, we will definitely find a way to mess it up.

Yeah, somehow the bots are more intelligible than most of their actual human comments.

Really makes you lose faith in humanity, doesn't it?

"Remember there are several definitions of fairness: equality and equity. I'm a fan of equity..ie earned reward."

And I don't think a person should need to earn the privilege of not being disparaged or having their rights abridged. Equity is meaningless in a system where some people start so far behind that they never see any reward and other people start so far ahead that they never have to care.

"Yet their methods (laws passed, policies enacted) build systemic bias in society that benefits one group over another under the assumption (or made up malarkey) that there's an existing, systemic, opposing bias (some would call this a conspiracy theory)."

So when multiple states pass laws expressly and intentionally limiting the rights of homosexuals, it is "malarkey" to suggest that this is the result of a conspiracy against homosexuals? And liberals are wrong to wish to address laws and policies intended to curtail the rights of homosexuals with laws and policies intended to ensure those rights? What do you expect them to do, sit around and sing "Kumbaya" until everything gets magically better?

What "details"? They can read my comment history. Is there some secret functionality of Slashdot that I don't know about where all the drug deals and private scandal go down?

The difference is that I don't pretend that any of you people are my friends.

That might just sound like I'm being an asshole (which is fair), but think about it for a moment.

I don't tell Slashdot that I just ate an awesome burrito.

I don't keep Slashdot up-to-date on my relationship status.

I don't announce to Slashdot every time I'm super excited that my bff is having a cookout in 3 months.

I tell Slashdot that I think they're wrong on the internet.

Unless an employer is particularly interested in how I feel about lawyers (some of them are alright, some of them suck, pretty much like everyone else) or how great Planscape: Torment is (it is the best written video game ever) or whether or not Disney can afford to hire Harrison ford (of course they can, don't be foolish) or any of the other inane, mostly irrelevant crap I've commented about here, they aren't getting much.

That is to say, I'm sure if some stalker wants to track down random details of my life from sources on the internet, they can, and at this point I can't really stop them. That's just part of living in the future.

Given that this law would, in effect, force me to have a facebook profile... yes, it does affect me, and quite unjustly I might add. That is clear-cut cruel and unusual punishment.

Even if my employers didn't already know, which they do, then so be it. I prefer not to associate with anyone who can't handle the concept of somebody choosing not to use facebook anyway.

One of the things that a lot of people don't seem to grasp is that at some point, you need to just accept that your choices might have consequences you don't like, and just move on. I choose not to use facebook, twitter, and most of that other garbage. Sometimes I do this in venues that could be traced back to me personally. If somebody has a problem with it, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. What I won't do is start using services I don't have any interest in and don't like just because some hypothetical stranger thinks I'm weird unless I do.

"Google has cited their intent to drop compatibility for various platforms as a motivating factor for this decision"

My reading was that they wanted to drop code that existed for compatibility for older Mac platforms, but I got the distinct impression that part of the desire comes from Chromium itself already not supporting these. Perhaps I'm mistaken, though.