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Comment Re:Lovely Concept, but the true answer (Score 1) 72

By the way, I always thought that URIs were supposed to handle precisely this - that they were supposed to be unique, universally accessible identifiers for contents and resources - identifiers that, once assigned, wouldn't need to be changed to access the same contents or resources in the future.

What happens when you want to access something on fubar.com but the domain fubar.com no longer exists?

Comment Re:But who uses Yahoo! mail? (Score 1) 83

Their best proposed solution is to ban Yahoo email users from mailing lists and encourage them to switch to other ISPs

What the fuck? Since when is Yahoo an ISP?

A lot of people use Yahoo's shitty webmail but only because they are too brain dead to use a real email client sending/receiving email via their ISP's servers.

Although I have to admit, i do like the idea of banning anyone who uses Yahoo mail.

Comment Re:I see no violation here... (Score 5, Insightful) 1116

1) He resigned, he wasn't fired.
2) There was pressure to resign, or else be fired, sure, but the fundamental reason is that users were throwing tantrums and threatening a boycott. That seems like a legit reason to fire someone to me.

No, that's coercion.

What's been lost in all this is the fact that in 2008, the same year that Brendan Eich made that campaign contribution, Barack Obama went on national television in a debate with John McCain, and said that he believes marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Where is the outrage over that? Why is it that Obama was elected president of the United States, twice, and Eich was forced to resign from the company he helped start?

Comment Re:It's a start (Score 0) 294

I won't bother reciting all the things that are wrong with Windows 8, many other people have already done that in great detail. When the new "Update 1" leaked onto the Internet a few weeks ago I decided to give it a try.

The Update does make quite a few improvements and results in a system that is closer to what Windows 8 should have been in the first place. Closer, but not there. After installing the Update and doing a bit of wrangling, what you have is a system that looks and works very similar to Windows 7 except for:

(a) Uglier, shittier color scheme
(b) A "Start Screen" that takes up your entire desktop instead of a proper Start Menu that only uses the lower left quadrant, and you still don't have one of the best features that were introduced in Windows XP 12 years ago -- keeping a list of most recently used programs.
(3) Windows Explorer (now apparently renamed to File Explorer) now has the godawful "ribbon" abomination that makes it 10 times harder to use.
(d) All the other things that are wrong with Windows 8, such as installing a dozen useless "apps" on your desktop.

In other words, what's the point? Windows 8.1 Update 1 is just a shittier version of Windows 7.

Comment Re:Wear the tin foil hat (Score 1) 303

You can configure noscript to temparariy allow javascript from that domain by default.

Yes, that is correct. And back when Noscript was first created that approach worked just fine. But things have changed and Noscript's default behavior (block everything) just doesn't work any more. That's not Noscript's fault. That's the fault of assholes running shitty websites. Regardless, the number of pages that are horribly broken, or don't display at all (without Javascript) continues to grow. So now, every time you visit a domain you've never visited before, you have to tinker with NoScript.

Google Chrome has a feature (or used to, I haven't used it for a while) that allows you to selectively block Javascript by domain. I find this to be a better approach -- everything is whitelisted by default and you selectively block the ones you don't like.

Comment Re:Ghostery (Score 1) 303

I got some websites that now come up with a message begging me to stop blocking their Ad shit, they need to make money.

And those are the sites that I never visit again.

You want to make money? Charge people for whatever it is you have to offer. People spend a few Gazillions of dollars every year paying for things, so it's not like this is a new concept. If people aren't willing to pay for what you have to offer then you have nothing of value and need to die.

And nobody will even notice that you are gone.

Comment Re:solution (Score 1) 303

I wouldn't mind seeing a few unobtrusive adverts, particularly if they are relevant - but turn off adblock and you often get those annoying pop-up adverts that tell lies like "you computer is infected, click OK to quarantine the virus", or ones where hitting the close icon on the window launches a pop-up or download.

And that's the *REAL* problem.

We've lived with ads our entire lives. Radio, television, newspapers, magazines, etc. And it was annoying but not too terrible. But now, everything is dominated by assholes who are committed to making advertising as offensive, intrusive and dishonest as possible.

That's why CPM rates for Internet ads are so low --- everyone knows that they are nothing but shit and scams that nobody would ever click on except accidentally.

Comment Re:Wear the tin foil hat (Score 2) 303

Today, more and more websites are designed in a such a way that disabling Javascript breaks them completely -- you literally get nothing but a blank page.

IMHO these websites are examples of bad design . Good design should fall back to plain html/css with ideally, minimum loss of functionality

Thank you Captain Obvious.

Yes, it is bad design. But it is bad design done deliberately.

Comment Re:Wear the tin foil hat (Score 3, Insightful) 303

Use noscript , disable cookies. If your tin foil hat is too thick , Tor it out.

The problem with Noscript is that things have changed. You used to be able to block Javascript and most websites worked well enough to still be usable. Today, more and more websites are designed in a such a way that disabling Javascript breaks them completely -- you literally get nothing but a blank page.

Comment Re:The problem is not targeted ads (Score 1) 303

The targeted ads are far better then random ones that mean little to the users.

No they aren't.

Targeted ads are based on something you did in the past. Just because you searched for XYZ a week ago doesn't mean you now want to see a lot of ads for XYZ everywhere you go. So called targeted ads are just as useless and random as everything else.

Comment Re:Two solutions (Encrypt or leave) (Score 1) 243

Otherwise, stop using drop box and move on to something else.

And that "something else" will still be subject to the same bad laws (DMCA) as Dropbox.

One of the consequences of using the magical cloud is that your are bound to somebody else's rules for how they manage your data.

The problem is, this isn't Dropbox's rules. They are following the law.

Comment Re:Is it really that costly? (Score 0, Troll) 423

but did you really expect your software to work for more than 10-15 years without needing an upgrade? .

Why not? Automobiles can last for 20 years or more with little more than minor repairs and routine maintenance. Musicians routinely use instruments made in the 1950s or earlier. But for some reason, people have bought into the absurd idea that software is obsolete and unusable after a few years.

Comment Re:Check you premise (Score 2) 423

If you think that newer versions of windows don't have anything to offer you shouldn't have to do anything at all

First, the only newer version of Windows that "has anything to offer" is Windows 7. Vista isn't as bad as some people have tried to claim, but once Windows 7 became available, Vista became meaningless and there is absolutely no reason to even consider it. Windows 8 is a mess. One of the all time worst.

But the real problem isn't that newer version of Windows don't have anything to offer. The problem is the expense of switching.. Whether it's an individual with one computer or a business with a few thousand, the cost far outweighs the benefits.

Then there is the dirty little secret of business, that isn't so secret. There are millions of computers running shitty, poorly written software that will stop working if you make the tiniest change to the underlying hardware or operating system. That makes switching even more difficult and expensive.

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