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Comment Re:Can an "atheist company" refuse too? (Score 1) 1330

As for roads, most of them were made by private people and companies, long before government got involved.

I give him credit for not reminding you that he never even used the word "government." He said "society." You want rid of that, go live on some forgotten island in Indonesia and see how long you last. Until then, your attitude of "I've got mine, plus all the benefits society gives me as well, so fuck you, Jack" is not just selfish and stupid, it's completely morally bankrupt. You're a turd and you're really not worth anyone's breath.

Submission + - 9 Signs You Should Jump Ship To A New Job

snydeq writes: Poor teamwork, little experimentation, no clear career path — your employer may be sending unmistakable signals of career stagnation just as many tech workers are enjoying high demand for their services, InfoWorld reports. 'Earning a stable income to endure ongoing tedium isn't everyone's ultimate goal for a career in IT. Unfortunately, that's all some employers have to offer — even if it didn't seem that way when you took the job years ago. Stagnation can mean career death in a competitive field, and if your company isn't offering unique, forward-looking projects, it might be time to hit the road.'

Comment Re:Good bye source compatibility (Score 1) 636

Good bye source compatibility. We hardly knew ye.
First Windows, and now OSX. I am still maintaining applications that are built crossplatform (Windows/Mac/Linux, with unified GUI look) but it's getting harder every year and, by the looks of it, will be impossible soon.

That's a kinda silly thing to say. Anytime a problem comes up like this, it creates an opportunity for vendors. In the game development world, you have toolkits like Unity. Xamarin is already helping developers port C# code to OS X. And there are and will be lots of other solutions.

And Apple isn't even abandoning support for Objective-C. Nobody is being forced to code in Swift.

Submission + - The Coming IT Hell of Unpatchable Systems

snydeq writes: Insecure by design and trusted by default, embedded systems present security concerns that could prove crippling if not addressed by fabricators, vendors, and customers alike, InfoWorld reports. Routers, smart refrigerators, in-pavement traffic-monitoring systems, or crop-monitoring drones — 'the trend toward systems and devices that, once deployed, stubbornly "keep on ticking" regardless of the wishes of those who deploy them is fast becoming an IT security nightmare made real, affecting everything from mom-and-pop shops to power stations. This unpatchable hell is a problem with many fathers, from recalcitrant vendors to customers wary of — or hostile to — change. But with the number and diversity of connected endpoints expected to skyrocket in the next decade, radical measures are fast becoming necessary to ensure that today's "smart" devices and embedded systems don't haunt us for years down the line.'

Comment Re:UEFI (Score 1) 566

The developer didn't have time to implement UEFI support, so he's killed the project instead.

But what sense would that make? Why not just say, "Somebody else will have to implement UEFI support, because I'm Audi 5000" and abandon the project where it sits?

Comment Re:Never used this keystroke (Score 1) 521

I read an article that Microsoft got rid of the start->shutdown button to turn off your computer. This freaked people out, even though for 15 years you've been able to just hit the power button and it would turn off properly.

Yeah, but isn't it idiotic that to stop everything and shut down your computer, you clicked on "Start"?

Comment Re:Never used this keystroke (Score 1) 521

why cant I have a single option, "Expert mode" that disabled ALL the freaking help shit and un-hides all functions?

That might be nice, but it's not hard to disable all of that stuff from the options. I use Word all day, every single day, and I don't ever have to wrestle with it. It does auto-correct some of my typos, too, for which I'm thankful.

Submission + - Security Vendor Snake Oil

snydeq writes: IT security expert Roger Grimes provides real-world tales of security vendor snake oil, spelling out seven promises and technologies touted by security companies that don't deliver. 'If you're a hardened IT security pro, you've probably had these tactics run by you over and over. It's never only one vendor touting unbelievable claims but many. It's like a pathology of the computer security industry, this all-too-frequent underhanded quackery used in the hopes of duping an IT organization into buying dubious claims or overhyped wares. Following are seven computer security claims or technologies that, when mentioned in the sales pitch, should get your snake-oil radar up and primed for false promises.'

Submission + - Apple JavaScript Accelerator Under Development

snydeq writes: Changes to Apple's JavaScript engine — JavaScriptCore (aka "Nitro") for WebKit — are giving it a performance boost to rival that of Google's V8 and Mozilla's SpiderMonkey, InfoWorld reports. 'These upgrades, codenamed "FTLJIT," use the LLVM compiler as the JIT (just-in-time) compilation system. ... One attribute that could make FTLJIT stand out from the pack all the more is how well it runs JavaScript code that is not specifically optimized for asm.js. Every JavaScript engine will run asm.js code, but only Mozilla's SpiderMonkey honors asm.js-specific optimizations, and right now no other browser maker has elected to follow Mozilla's lead. So far, the speed boosts afforded by FTLJIT vary but are intriguing.'

Comment Re: Episode II (Score 1) 457

Wowwww.... of all the trash people have to talk about Phantom Menace, I actually thought it was OK at the time. Maybe I was rationalizing. But Attack of the Clones was truly terrrrrrible, like really, really "I want my money and my time back" bad.

Comment Re:Get off my effin lawn! (Score 1) 457

The Empire Strikes Back is the better movie for plenty of reasons (and the best of the franchise) but Star Wars, just Star Wars, is my favorite.

I disagree. Empire is superior in various aspects (SFX wise, acting wise, mood wise) but I don't think they add up to make a better movie. I think people like it because of all the cool stuff in it (AT-ATs, Yoda, Boba Fett) but if you think about it, it kinda starts in the middle of nowhere, ends in the middle of nowhere, and the heroes lose. It's just nowhere near as satisfying as the original, if you ask me.

Oh, and if you're an old crank like me, was your reaction to the big "revelation" about Darth Vader like mine -- you assumed he was lying? Seriously, it probably wasn't until I actually saw Jedi that people could convince me it wasn't some kind of con designed by Vader to place doubt in Luke's mind. Even as a little kid, it came from so far left field that it seemed a little silly. Why all the business about Luke's father being "the best star pilot in the galaxy" if from Empire onward he never pilots a single thing?

Submission + - 11 Reasons Encryption Is (Almost) Dead 1

snydeq writes: Massive leaps in computing power, hidden layers, hardware backdoors — encrypting sensitive data from prying eyes is more precarious than ever. 'Encryption isn't always perfect, and even when the core algorithms are truly solid, many other links in the chain can go kablooie. There are hundreds of steps and millions of lines of code protecting our secrets. If any one of them fails, the data can be as easy to read as the face of a five-year-old playing Go Fish. ... This doesn't mean you should forgo securing sensitive data, but forewarned is forearmed. It's impossible to secure the entire stack and chain. Here are 11 reasons encryption is no longer all it's cracked up to be.'

Comment Re:Bank them (Score 1) 333

I humbly submit that, being in the healthcare field, you are seeing a higher concentration of misery than exists in the population-at-large.

How so? Unless you get shot or hit by a train, every single person who lives a normal lifespan and dies in America ends up in the hands of the healthcare industry. So in a sense, his sample of the "population at large" approaches 100%.

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