The problem I see is that free games used to be financed by advertisers who wanted their banners seen. But now we have free games with in-app purchases. An example might be a first person shooter game where if you want more than a bow and arrow, you have to buy a gun, and ammo (separately). Or a virtual reality game where you are naked until you buy some clothes. In a early game called, Jones in the Fast Lane, if you waited too long to buy clothes, your avatar ended up sporting a barrel with suspenders. Of course that was not for real money. But getting back to games with paid for advantages. You don't have to be killed every few minutes by foes with superior weapons very long before you want to buy a machine gun. I got involved in one such game thinking if I was skillful enough, I wouldn't have to spend real money for enhancements, but it was not so. My policy now it to delete a game as soon as it becomes obvious it is a trap leading to in-app purchases.

I think if a drone is flying over my house enough to be considered a constant annoyance, a good rule of thumb might be that if it is close enough to hit with a shotgun shell, it's too close. Thoughts anyone?

I got through step 2, but when it came to step 3 the computer wouldn't boot. I need to access my data on the computer, what do I do now?

About eight years ago, Apple made a huge decision to give up their homegrown OS and go with something better. They hired a reputable engineer from the FreeBSD project to help them bring together the microkernel, FreeBSD structure, and GNU user land, with a GUI on top that looked oddly familiar. In my opinion this was one of the best decisions Apple ever made, and it was at that point, the arrival of Mac OS X, that I gratefully bailed on Windows. I was astounded at the time that the normal Unix command line was easily accessible if you were more comfortable there. GNU language tools and even the X Window System was available. I mention this because in moving from the System 9 to Mac OS X, they broke backward compatibility and knowingly disrupted the user's ability to run software previously acquired. At the same time they made more good decisions, like supplying the compiler for free with the system, and also supplied massive amounts of documentation for developers. For end-users there was a nice GUI, not that unlike the Windows look and feel except for the menu bar. For the power users, it was now fully a "Workstation", and eventually the Mac OS X system even was recognized by Unix.Org as real unix. The FreeBSD system was very well written and took advantage of System Software capabilities built into the x86 CPU's. Hardware boundary protection, real virtual memory, write protected memory regions, copy on write... This in complete opposition to the way Microsoft went about building their operating systems. Many of their contemporary vulnerabilities are the result of design flaws many versions back having to do with DOS compatibility for Windows programs. It astounds me each time I receive a Microsoft Security notification, as they all sound the same. A flaw resulting in the ability of a remote user to obtain privilege levels high enough to execute arbitrary software. And the fix is always to disable some critically important feature. I admit that up until now, Windows was a bigger target, but you would think with all the billions of dollars Microsoft had to invest in product improvements and fix these underlying vulnerabilities. I am not sure Linux beats them both. Because of the fairly closed nature of Apple hardware, they are able to write tighter drivers that aren't required to work with thousands of different I/O boards that might get plugged in. This is not Microsoft's fault, as they chose to support the clone platform, with all it's diverse hardware configurations. For the time being I am still convinced the Mac OS X platform is intrinsically safer, and seems to be the system of choice for many developers. Beyond that, as more and more application software becomes available, the Mac picks up speed on the desktop.

There was quite a good period of time between 1988 and 1999 where there seemed to be lots of work going on, and my wife delighted in selling my evenings and weekends. I didn't know how well I had it then.

As a person who keeps an eye on the packets arriving at my Internet server, I see the majority of the systematic attempts to crack my sshd server coming from China.. There are other sources to be sure. I have emailed the admin contacts for the domains from which the attacks originate, and I have not received back a single email from an admin that was concerned about the behavior of their customers. This means to me that the admins either don't care, or are part of the problem. I don't want to just block all IP traffic because there are legitimate humans, students, and researches that I would like to be able to contact and whom I would like to receive email from. "Methinks they doth protest to strongly".

Society's luck being what it is, they might be dumped near some radioactive waste and become brain eating zombies. I am not sure if that is better or worse than what the were, but it would be bad nonetheless. People who are already up to their eyeballs in credit card debt don't really need to be misled by scam artists on top of that.

From what I can see by reading her wikipedia entry (completely), she is a ruthless human being, made power-mad by her willingness and ability to apply the full force of power against people (who are aafter all human beings). She apparently missed the part in the Bible about letting GOD do the final judging. It is true she has taken on some powerful criminals, but she has also been slapped down for playing it fast and loose with the evidence, and had her activities curtailed by higher authority on occasion. I am glad I don't have any business with her.

I was conflicted whether to use my moderation points here or comment. I choose to comment... I have been in this business a long time. I have spent years working at desks with and without cubicles. I made it through about half of the endless postings in this thread, and there were a number of things I never saw mentioned. For one thing, when you work remotely, you are not forced to share equipment.. Fighting over physical possesion of the equipment you need to do your job is highly counter productive. Staying up until all hours getting the hardware just so for the demo the next day, and coming in to find your manager gave away your equipment just before you arrived because a consultant is coming in and they need the equipment in the conference room, that can really stress you out. Everything seems to sprout legs and walk away, books, CD's, tools, instruments, listings. Manytimes it's hard to tell if you just lost something on your desk, or it really is gone. I was never more productive than when I had control over my work environment. I don't want to listen to other people's music, and listening to their phone calls drives me insane. I have never minded attending a meeting when I agreed there was a purpose, and sometimes the purpose was just to make sure we were all on the same page. I find that as a programmer, I have naturally occuring times of day when I am the most focused and creative. I find there are times I just cannot concentrate, and a half hour nap works wonders. I do believe remote workers need to make sure that perhaps half of their hours correspond with those of the on-site workers so effective communication can be had. Usually, my co-workers know I am focused and effective because when we do communicate, I have new code for them, and I want to talk about things I have thought through. It is important to have good team dynamics, and I want to know if I can help my teammates in some way, but please not to the point that I have to jeopardize my own promised schedule. We certainly have great tools for sharing audio/video remotely. Now the down side is really hard. Management doesn't really think you are on the team if they don't see you at the desk pounding keys, despite all evidence to the contrary, and when budget cuts come, the remote workers usually go first. This can be made even worse if you have enemies who drop comments about you out of your hearing. It is not being paranoid, it is just a reality that in many companies, staff are competing for advancement and commensurate raises. Lastly about the zone... Our ability to get into that concentrated, balanced state of mind. To load up our thoughts with everything that must be considered at once, and to make critical decisions, one after the other... That is what we mostly get paid for, and things that are counter-productive to that are to be strongly avoided. I believe individual managers should have descretion about remote workers, because there are occasional highly saught after people that can only be acquired with some accomodation. But there need to be guidelines to avoid jeolousy between groups about the degree of personal freedom accorded to other employees. All of that said, there is a lot more control in the office. If your staff are professional enough, they do not have to be tightly controlled. If they are not, the workplace can turn into a zoo without it. Some managers are consultative, some are authoritative. Some feel they are not doing their jobs if they are now asserting there authority. Some think their job is to remove obstackles that can slow down their team.

I find it hard to believe such an error exists, but I tested it on my MacBook Pro by typing it into Safari "File->OpenLocation" and sure enough it a bended Safari just like that. I said, "Dad, it hurts when I do this...", he said, "Don't do that". Given that this is now a known and discussed , it is very surprising that it has not been fixed right away by a software update. It does not take admin privileges to try to open a file by that name. Now all it seems to do is crash a single App, like Safari, but what if this was fed to a system process such that it cripples the OS if it crashes?

Don't tell complete strangers what arrangements you make to keep yourself secure. The more they know, the closer they are to getting past your defenses.

Does the new model A have the same USB trouble as the model B's. This problem with the unstable USB has affected both the keyboard and the USB attached network adapter. If they haven't fixed this problem, why are they ramping up Model A production?

I have to agree, this pretty much forces application vendors to do compatibility testing on a yearly basis. No doubt there is a developer program (paid) that gives developers early access to the updates. It is a merry-go-round, and I still don't miss it. This gives developers an even shorter window of opportunity to sell a specific version. If the developer sells through the Microsoft app store, it subjects developers to an annual ordeal getting their updates approved.