Honestly ... do you really thing do not track means a damned thing? Are you that naive?

Do not track says "gee Mr Website, will you be nice and not attempt to monetize my traffic". It doesn't mean a damned thing.

You should pretty much assume that everyone on the internet will track everything about you they can at every chance they can get. You should assume some greedy asshole with an MBA and a tendency to be a sociopath doesn't give a fuck about your desire not to be tracked is making the decision to obey no not track.

Do not track was an industry attempt to distract people from regulations which would have tried to stop them.

Do not track is a complete fucking lie.

Don't be all surprised now to find out it doesn't actually do anything or hold any weight. Which is why you should be actively blocking as many of these things as you can, instead of relying on the kindness of some greedy sociopath asshole who doesn't give a crap that your browser has pathetically announced it doesn't wish to be tracked.

Hell, do not track, when ignored like we know it is, just gives them another point of data. I don't even set it, because I know damned well it's not going to do anything.

When a company publicly says they won't respect do not track, you can pretty much assume every other company is already ignoring it anyway. There is not do not track.

Everything about you they can get, all day long, as long as the app is running.

They'll figure out what they can make money off later. Like, do people buy more gas in the winter or summer.

This is just greedy assholes maximizing both greedy and asshole. And this why I look at apps as basically ads and analytics in disguise, and why I don't feel compelled to have a smart phone with a data plan.

You can always not play the damned game.

Me, I want Android to return the ability to selectively turn off stuff that apps can do. If your app keels over because I won't let it access my contacts, I don't want your fucking app.

I view most apps as about the same as if a retail store demanded the ability to rifle through my wallet before I came in the store, only in the case of apps it's pretty much all the time.

No thanks.

Wasn't the ability for other browsers to set themselves as the default browser part of the DoJ settlement? So now Microsoft is deciding that doesn't apply?

Sorry, but Microsoft has gone well into the "we can do anything we want to your computer, any time we want, and unless you have an enterprise license you can't stop us".

That is complete bullshit. If they're going to assert ownership of my computer, they can help me pay for it. Until they do, it's my computer.

So basically they're doing the same thing with Windows 10 as they did originally with IE? Making it part of the OS and claiming it can't be removed?

Sorry, Microsoft ... but everything I hear about Windows 10 is making me say "fuck you, I'll stick with my Windows 8.1".

When will Microsoft realize we own the computers, we are ultimately the ones who make decisions about the computers, and they simply can't dictate to us what software is on our computers and how we use it.

And, like every other Microsoft product, I'm sure this new hotness is riddled with security holes an defects for their users to have to deal with.

But don't worry, because they'll update the OS as they see fit, and if they break it, that's your problem ... says it right there in the EULA.

Keep alienating your customers, see how that works out for you. You might even find the DoJ knocking at your door if they ever grow a pair and stop doing whatever industry demands of them.

So you agree that you should be able to be charged under Thai laws for criticizing their king? Or Saudi laws for blasphemy?

Or do you understand there are such things as jurisdiction, and Google is saying "we reject your assertion of extra-territorial jurisdiction"?

Unless you think your posts on the internet should be under the jurisdiction of every piss-pot dictator on the planet, what the hell do you expect from Google?

Google is doing the right thing here. French courts have the right to make decisions on what happens in France. They sure as fuck don't have the right to tell Google what to do in every other country. The world doesn't work that way.

If that was true, we'd all be under Sharia law or whatever country mostly loudly decided its laws applied globally.

You enjoy the same protections as Google ... if in your home country France sends you a letter telling you that you must comply with French law ... you too can tell them to fuck off. Unless of course you live in France.

Do you really think that France has the right to dictate the behavior of the entire internet? If so, you're a fool.

So, precisely how again do they suggest sites verify ages?

How do they verify anything? Do you really think people are going to provide a porn website with their actual names and dates of birth? Would you?

Why the hell would anybody trust a porn site with that? I wouldn't trust most any website with that information ... both because it's none of their damned business, and because I assume they're grossly incompetent at security.

These idiot politicians want a world which is wrapped in bubble wrap, and must be softened to accommodate children. And I'm sorry, but that's simply not possible.

But expecting every web site in the world to implement age verification to keep David Cameron happy is asinine. However, most news stories see about Cameron make him sound like a bit of an ass, so that's fitting.

What he want simply won't work, but he wants to appear to be doing something. Like every other damned politician who thinks they can legislate the solution to the problems of when society meets technology.

A pro-Linux bias on Slashdot is

A complete myth. At least these days.

Slashdot has several bags of crazy, all competing with one another at various times.

There's Windows fanbois, Linux fanbois, and Apple fanbois. Over the years the ratio of those has swung back and forth, these days I'd say on balance you'd be hard pressed to say there's a strong bias one way or another.

At various times it's been chic to tend more to one or another, now it seems like Slashdot has grown enough that there's at least 30 different kinds of batshit crazy at any given time, all struggling to get out.

But let's face it, the actions of the Linux people in their unwavering belief in the perfection of Linux is no less sketchy than the people whose unwavering defense of Microsoft defies logic.

I'd like to say Slashdot has a bias towards rational thought. I'd like to, but if anything I'd say Slashdot has an increasing bias towards fixed positions and screeching monkeys flinging poo.

There's always been poo flinging, but now there's less rational discourse.

Sure it was good behavior.

But it was borne entirely out of the Linux people saying "OMG, teh Samsung is teh sux0r".

I do give them a lot of credit. More than the people who apparently insisted it was the fault of Samsung in the first place.

After many complaints that Samsung SSDs corrupted data when used with Linux

There was definitely some self-interest there.

Samsung can't have people saying their SSDs corrupt data when it's not them doing it.

and anal fumigation by tobacco smoke used in that "CPR" of the 1700s are exactly the same as modern CPR

Oh, come on, you're just blowing smoke up our asses.

Honestly, what I want to know is ... who the hell was the first person to decide to try that?

I'm sure there's some "rule #34" porn out there for the adventurous. Somehow I suspect urban dictionary has a definition which includes this.

The mind reels.

On the one hand, yes, CPR traces it's history to the 1700s, even if it wasn't the entire modern version.

On the other hand I can find at least two references which acknowledge Jude as being part of the modern version of it.

But, more to the point ... thanks to all of the people throughout history who have helped us find ways to save lives.

And you can be damned sure that the use of CPR in its modern form has saved a tremendous amount of lives.

Sorry for your loss, voxelman. Few people can claim to have contributed to saving so many lives.

You don't think Oracle would allow something to be designed which didn't maximize license revenue, do you?

Why, yes, we'll sell you this CPU for $800 ... but the licensing costs for your organization running this in production in a web-facing environment will be 16 trillion dollars.

Oracle is all about maximizing license revenues.

One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison. It costs a lot of money to maintain private islands and yachts.

And besides, nobody is forcing you to buy it, hey - there are cars that cost millions, are you complaining about that too? And why would you? How does this product or its cost affect you? Isn't its ownership entirely up to you? Surely nobody would need a car like that?

And when the fuck did I say anybody was forcing me to own it or your choice to have one impacted me? I don't give an elephants arse what you buy for your own machine. I think that such stuff exists is cool, but the overwhelming majority of people will never need it.

I said "wow, you wacky people and your crazy stuff", followed by "this is what I have and is entirely suited for my needs".

I'm entirely aware there are legitimate reasons for all of this stuff. But knowing I don't need it, nonetheless I continue to be wowed by these crazy high end stuff.

Get over your fucking self, and read what I wrote.

I'm not saying there aren't reasons for this kind of stuff. I'm saying for those of us who don't need it and know we don't need it, we can get the performance we want with entirely different hardware.

Because when I rip a CD to MP3, and the same fucking CPU stays pegged until that is done, I can pretty much tell that processor affinity in the scheduler means that, yes, for all intents and purpose, while it is running that task gets a mostly dedicated CPU. Which allows everything else I'm doing to keep running smoothly.

If you truly need the performance, buy any damned thing you can afford and justify.

So in other words, like many, many things sold under the guise of being healthful,

It's pure marketing, and not necessarily true.

As a general rule, I usually treat most marketing claims as if they're either lies, or a creative interpretation of the truth.

Because they probably are.

Those would be 8 lousy AMD cores which probably cannot stand to an i5... seeing how the cheapest Intel 8 core chip is 650+$

Yes, they're AMD, no, they're not "lousy". (And, I guess technically it's 4 cores with hyperthreading, I'm not sure)

They are entirely adequate for my needs, are not called upon to run the most computationally intense stuff on the planet ... instead they provide my desktop with the ability to remain responsive while running 3 browser, 2 VMs, iTunes, the software for updating my GPS.

There will always be people who truly do need the absolute most speed achievable by technology. You are probably one of them.

But for many of us, we can achieve some pretty damned fine performance by doing this stuff with cheaper hardware. Most people for most tasks will never be truly CPU bound ... but when running multiple things concurrently, these "lousy" cores offer a really good boost for what we really need. Because it allows more apps to run concurrently on the same machine without competing for CPU directly.

For me, those 'lousy' AMD 8 cores are a big pile of awesome. Because it means when I do run a long-running task which wants some CPU time, nothing else really notices.