Software doesn't hate black people. Software doesn't dislike Islam. Software doesn't think kids these days need to pull their damned pants up and stop playing that crap music too loudly.

Apologizing for a program miscategorizing an image it has never seen before as somehow "racist" makes about as much sense as GE apologizing because my toaster looks like a frowny-face from just the right angle.

Yes, Virginia, we've taken this shit too far.

1999 called and wants its meme back.

Seriously, have you actually used any modern Linux distros? Hey, good news, it has gotten so easy to install and use, you don't even need to install it! Download any of a dozen LiveCD / DVD / BRD / Thumbdrive versions, burn it to the appropriate media, and reboot. Bam! You have a fully functional modern OS at your fingertips.

Give it a try, and if you don't like it, it comes with a 100% money back guarantee.

Because that should definetly be the benchmark, right?

Not in the way you meant it, but yes, it should!

If it disgusts us to hear about $150M wasted on an endeavor that enriches all of humanity, how much more disgust should we feel over F-35s that cost twice as much and don't even work? How much more disgust should we feel over spending trillions on a never-ending war on terrorism? How much more disgust should we feel about paying 250 times that much to oppress our own citizens in a show of Security Theatre?

Yes, NASA wasting $150M disgusts me - Because of all the complete bullshit our taxes go toward, NASA shouldn't even need to blink at the cost to human-rate this thing.

Here, let me quote TFS to you:

"I found a game world with a lot to offer. Player created civilizations, unique monsters, and the sheer mystery of the world combine to keep this ancient MMO compelling. For all the ways in which the genre has improved, Ultima Online remains one of just a few MMOs that let you live an alternative life. That feeling of ownership ... combined with the diversity on offer, keeps players coming back day after day."

Does that help, or should someone post an mp3 of themselves reading it for you?

How about you respect your wife's choices and let her decide what she wants to do, you're treating her like a teenage child.

The subtext of the TFS makes that pretty clear - Because "sitting around the house watching Oprah and eating Cheetos" doesn't pay the bills.

Hey, guess what - I feel "not very eager" to get my ass out of bed every morning just so I can go make some rich inbreds even more rich. But the mortgage doesn't pay itself.

I think he just means that optical disks don't have quite the same amount of inertia or need to do internal self-checks as HDDs, before you can actually access them. They still "spin them up", but it happens in a few ms rather than on the order of 5-15s.

then draw a wild conclusion that people are using it to get Windows 10?!

I recently helped a local nonprofit upgrade to Win7 for exactly that reason.

Yes, I can think of plenty of other reasons for people to pick up a Win7 license (as the most obvious, "I just got a new laptop with Win8, help!"), but the average retail customer will realistically just use whatever the computer comes with, and keep it for the life of the machine.

If, therefore, we see an uptick in sales of an OS you can't even easily get on a new machine anymore (yes, we geeks can still get it, but Granny, not so much) - That means something.

Soo, you want to replace a democratically elected government because you disagree with the electorate?

Did you even read TFS? The electorate fully agrees with him. Congress mostly agrees with him. The 2nd circuit agrees with him.

...And yet, we still have these asshats in FISA blatantly saying "to hell with all of the above, fuck 'em even harder, NSA!".

Yeah, we have a problem here. And the "democratically elected government" ain't it.

Freedom of speech is a government thing.

Court orders to reveal someone's identity are also a government thing.


anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion

And the real courts have fuck-all to do with that. Using them as a tool to out your enemies goes against everything we supposedly believe in.


In this particular case, the business owner believes that the reviews are malicious, fake, the act of a single person, etc. etc.

I "believe" Google should pay me for beta-testing their various products that almost never leave beta. When can I expect the courts to make them send me a check?

Hear hear! Now let's go turn ourselves in for infringing on Webster's famous API for the English Language.

Fucking lawyers - Do we think we can just go around using words without paying their rightful owner?

So overall the fast results are what we want out of a search engine- the answer.

This. Giving me the correct answer doesn't count as "anti-competitive", it means doing their job well.

I don't go to Google to save me typing in "www.m-w.com" and then searching for a word - I go to Google because it gives me more useful answers than searching directly on almost any specific site. Merriam-Webster considers itself too digified to define "blumpkin" for me; UrbanDictionary has no such qualms. UD doesn't do so well in explaining "Pepe" to me - KnowYourMeme has the whole history of it even giving credit to the original author. None of the above has a good definition for "Mary Sue", but TV Tropes nails it.

But, instead of searching on MW... Then UD... Then KYM... Then TT, and then who knows what else - I can just type it into Google, and bam! It gives me exactly what I wanted to know, and often does so faster than most ad-riddled pages can even load.

Companies need to quit whining about free exposure, and instead focus on doing their own jobs well. If anyone really want to vanish from the Googleable internet, they always have the option of setting noindex/nofollow on their pages. Huh, I don't see many of these righteously indignant sites doing that, I wonder why not?

Does anyone have a plan for this?

Your phrasing implies that we need to have some sort of centrally managed plan to handle the fallout of disruptive technologies. We don't, and realistically, can't.


It's fine to say; "Well, just learn something new" when it's not you with a family and a tight budget having to jump into the marketplace and retrain while competing with people who've done that task their entire life

I run the risk of someone creating a "real" AI today that can out-code any human on the planet. That would instantly put my entire profession on the unemployment line. I have hedged against that threat by choosing positions that allow me to diversify my skillset (both in terms of experience and education), making me qualified to work in any of a dozen broad categories of "professional" positions.

I would recommend cabbies (and Uber drivers, as you point out) start doing the same today - They can already see the writing on the wall, and still have time to act accordingly.

The world changes around us. We need to adapt, or die - Simple as that, really.

Wait... Some companies actually give programmers a drug test?

And they actually manage to find any? Wow, impressive! Or rather, can I get a list of these companies so I can short their stock, since they apparently resort to people that desperate for a job?

Our (illegal) drugs-of-choice vary, but I can count the number of programmers I know who don't use anything on one finger (and even she has "tried" weed, "back in college").

dimwit, how else will people pay attention? inconveniencing the idle rich IS THE WHOLE POINT of non-violent protesting.

"Non-violent protest" doesn't include flipping cars, burning tires, beating up drivers, and blocking emergency vehicles,

As for "the whole point" - Yeah, look how well shutting down critical infrastructure worked for PATCO.

I feel sympathetic toward cabbies, I really do - Their industry basically died overnight because someone came up with an alternative that makes them irrelevant. All the world's protectionist systems of placards and medallions and special licensing, "poof", suddenly worthless.

Finding new lines of work sucks, no doubt. But when you manufacture buggy-whips, you implicitly depend on the continued use of horse-based transportation to make your living. Similarly, when you deliver low quality rudely-delivered service at a high price and with upcharges for the top 90% of destinations - You implicitly depend on a complete lack of any viable alternatives.

I believe GP was talking about home users, and it seems pretty obvious that he was.

I am the GGP, and specifically mentioned "coworkers". The GP said nothing to change that context.