One of the big "security benefits" I've heard claimed is that WebAssembly will only be able to invoke the same functions/methods as JavaScript itself. So that implies that WebAssembly is nothing more than pre-compiled JavaScript.

As the compile phase of JavaScript pales in comparison to the execution phase, the only people I can see pushing for this are those who want DRM-style protection of their JavaScript so no one else can read it.

Google's model is to tie their platform to their other platform. The Google Play apps and the Play Store must be installed on Android systems for them to be called Android. All of those tie back to Google.

While Microsoft might get into hot water for tying back to their desktop exclusively, they have apps for iOS and for Android. They have Outlook.com, Exchange, Visual Studio (which can make phone apps!), Office for mobile, Sharepoint, etc that they can push.

While you're saying they won't succeed, that's not the same as saying that what they want to try is the same as what Apple's doing. Giving up most of the Nokia hardware business means they've given up on the vertical single-source solution pretty thoroughly.

I don't doubt the performance would be stellar, but even with the encouraging news from the write endurance tests and stuff like Samsung's 10 year warranty on their Pro series drives I still am just nervous enough about long-term durability and some rubber-hits-the-road compatibility with systems like FreeNAS/Nas4Free that it makes me just a smidgen nervous about dumping $2500 into a new NAS setup.

My own personal usage patterns are probably low enough that durability really wouldn't be a major issue, although I wonder what the "write multiplier" effect is with even single parity RAID. Is every byte written to a filesystem multiplied by 2, 3, 5, or more? That could play into the durability angle faster than you might think. Just moving my 2.5 TB of VMs to a new NAS could end up being 5, 10 or more TBs of writes to the drives.

Of course not!! *Obviously* the Chinese and Russian governments have have a long history of secular humanism and effective promotion of their citizens' welfare.

(Oh, wait. That's Denmark & Sweden back when they didn't have many dark-skinned immigrants.)

You do your cause no good when you edit out crucial words.

The actual quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".

Or maybe everybody could just put down the guns and stop trying to engineer a utopia by force. Yeah, maybe somebody would make less profit under such a regime, but the current trade-offs aren't worthwhile.

I'm not a meteorologist, but this is my understand: It depends on the size and temperature of the particles, and potentially on their shape and concentration. If the particulate matter is too hot and in the air too thick, not enough water vapor condenses on each to form droplets heavy enough to fall.

I think what they are saying in this case is once the particles cool and thin a bit, they end up carrying that moisture with them until the condensation is complete. Hitting a mountainside and mixing with the cool air above is a perfect trigger to release the rain.

Large rain events often happen when a warm, wet mass of air mixes with a cooler, dryer mass of air that can't hold that level of moisture. The particulate matter is just one of a number of variables.

...using these con/pro-sumer drives and not high-dollar SLC enterprise drives?

I've been long tempted to and more so with the generally positive results from the SSD write-them-to-death-athon that wrote to SSDs until they expired.

I know it's "not advised", risky, etc, but I'm thinking that maybe the drives are more reliable than we think and between backups and maybe a double parity RAID scheme or hot spare the risk is dialed down, or at least worth taking on a what-if basis.

For my own home/lab VMware cluster I'd sure like more disk performance than spinning rust gives me.

Distinction without a difference, really? Do you think Apple has a healthy ecosystem of devices that only includes first-party devices? No. Apple has only first-party devices. You can't buy an iOS phone from a non-Apple source. Google has the Nexus but the vast majority of Android phones are from other vendors. That's what a software company calls a "healthy ecosystem".

Basically the announcement reads "We want Windows Phone to be delivered the way Windows on the PC always has been: by every OEM out there".

I know it's wrong and I will go to hell for it, but when I get a spyware plant Microsoft support call I usually try to play dumb for as long as possible to keep the guy tied up (I'm kind of paying it forward to someone down the list who may not get called because I kept the guy going).

Once i get bored with that or they get irritated with me and it's obvious the caller is from South Asia, I start to get insulting. Some guys won't just hang up on you, they try to bully you and that's when I get really cruel and drag out truly offensive insults -- "So I hear you upgraded your residence recently, you moved from a cardboard box to a tin shanty. How's that working out? Are you still eating insects or have you moved to a fresh rat diet? Your wife, has she freshened her dot lately, or is it the same old faded one she's had for a while?"

If I get that far, the guy is usually really wound up and spewing profanity as fast as he can mentally translate it. One guy threatened to kill me and I told him that the CIA would be interested to know that he's probably a terrorist and might want to watch those drone stike videos on YouTube for a preview.

I know, it's awful, the worst kind of Americanism possible, but I figure these people are the scum of the Earth and deserve no quarter.

I wonder if it comes under:

1) a sub-entry of the legal department budget
2) a main heading entitled something like "Regulatory fees, legal compliance and civil litigation unrelated to human resources"
3) a sub-entry under "Political contributions, lobbying and outright bribes"

#3 would be nice because they could force the "governmental relations" arm to eat it and reduce lobbying payments, political contributions and bribes. This would probably be the right feedback mechanism because if their political payees want to maxmize their income they need to make sure they are minimizing their fines and penalties.

"We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem that includes our first-party device family,"

This isn't Apple envy. They didn't say they want to focus on one offering. They said they want a vibrant ecosystem that includes their first-party devices. They've learned that when you're making the bulk of your OS's phones yourselves, there's little incentive for competitors to license your software. However, if you make a reference model, or maybe a couple for different market segments, and license cheaply and liberally, then you can really grow the influence of your OS.

Microsoft successfully killed any relevance Symbian still had. They killed Meego. Firefox and Ubuntu are still on the horizon. They didn't kill Android of course, and won't at this point. iOS is another juggernaut. MS wants to play the game Google has been playing, because they won't beat Apple at theirs.

Mod parent up.

The amount of trash stories we're inundated with since Dice took over is slowly turning Slashdot into a generic infotainment website that has no more relevance to technology and science than Faux News.

What has generic politics from the US got to do with technology?

What has an over-the-hill cartoon got to do with technology?

What does the situation in Greece have to do with technology?

It's all turning into one grand flogging of clickbait instead of content, and I'm disgusted by it.

I just bleed for the scammers and fraudsters who are going to be directly and immediately traced by this change of policy.

As to those who are complaining about their "personal" information being made public: perhaps you'd care to explain why you don't have a business address and corporate officers for your "business"?

Sure there are people who run their businesses out of their homes, but they should not be free of identification requirements just because they're small businesses. Any business should be forced to provide valid contact information in case of problems with the business.

There are far too many "company" websites out there that don't provide any real contact information, just an email form that you can't even be assured routes your issues and complaints anywhere except the great bit bucket. They don't publish email addresses, they don't publish the names of corporate officers, and they don't publish a street address.

If you don't want to provide your contact information, don't get a .com. There are plenty of other options. The .coms should be reserved for professionally run businesses, not a free-for-all for scam artists who are willing to pony up a few dollars for a website registration and then hide behind anonymous information.

Lemme guess: your judgment is more significant than the judgement of millions of consumers sending their opinion information through price signals?
*I* happen to think he's very overrated, but then *my* opinion doesn't count for much. Certainly not more than millions of other people.