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Comment Re: Future Shock (Score 1) 319

The fashion industry would like to respectfully disagree with you.

In all seriousness, apparently some change does matter. I read about a study (on phone and too lazy to find link) where heterosexual women were asked to decide which of a group of photographs of men were more "striking" or somesuch. When the group was almost all people with beards, those without we're deemed more striking. And vice versa.

So, if everyone does something one way, being different stands out. Not everyone is creative enough to find their own own way, but they can jump on the coat tails of the actual creative innovators. Eventually the whole market moves and "change" has happened for "change's sake", but it's roots are justified in human desire to appreciate the unique and innovative.*

* a desire that is not shared by all, and often misguided, admittedly.

Comment Re:Crash Mitigation (Score 1) 549

From the video, it looks like the Google car did leave some space in front of it. It should have realized that the person approaching from behind was not stopping fast enough and might rear end it, and, prior to impact, applied a quick burst of gas then brake to use up some of that buffer space. That would give the approaching driver additional space to stop.

Then again, when I do that, it's because I see the panic in the eyes of the driver approaching from behind, and I can also tell that he's trying to stop and just doesn't quite have enough space. It's been successful a few times. Were I to see that the approaching driver is way too fast and, for example, looking at his phone, I would assume he wasn't going to try to stop and me eating into my buffer space would just make it more likely my car would have front-end damage, too. I'd be better served trying to drive out of the way. Fortunately I've only been in this situation twice and the driver behind me both times decided to drive into the shoulder/ditch instead of rear end me.

Comment Re:Crash Mitigation (Score 1) 549

As shown in the video, the Google car both stopped short (leaving space for it to move up a few feet and brake again when it realized the driver behind wouldn't stop in time, giving the driver behind more space to stop) AND wasn't the first car at the light, so even if it used up its buffer space and was still shoved, it would neither be driving nor likely get shoved into the intersection.

Comment Re: Why do I get the funny feeling that (Score 1) 265

- The halloween emails represent typical corporate strategy;
- MS is still a corporation;

So the burden of proof is on those who say MS has changed.

Signs of changing would include:
- Support for old systems, instead of the endless unneeded costly and toxic upgrade cycle. You cannot have volunteers like debian to better support old stuff than a billion tier corporation.
- API stability and openness, instead of pushing and retiring flavours of the month. Ask people who invested in silverlight.

- Acknowledging the billion hours, and dollars, spent just because MS thought your computer was marketshare. I think many wars have costed less to society than MS, the other corporations, and the entire system of IT based on planned obsolescence, incompatibilities, NIH syndrome.

tldr: go on trusting MS it worked so well for those before you.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 1307

It appears that the problem is assuming that taxes paid went up because tax rates went up. Greece has a huge problem with underpayment of taxes.

A study by researchers from the University of Chicago concluded that tax evasion in 2009 by self-employed professionals alone in Greece (accountants, dentists, lawyers, doctors, personal tutors and independent financial advisers) was â28 billion or 31% of the budget deficit that year.[1]

Property records are essentially non-existent. Taxes are difficult to assess. Corruption is extreme.

Comment Re:Drone It (Score 1) 843

Well, it's definitely troubling that the F-35 is getting its ass kicked in short-range battle but you're right. We're relying on stealth and advanced sensors along with next-generation AMRAAMS and ASRAAMS to get you the victory long before gun range.

Comment Re:Finish the job... (Score 1) 175

because of control. It's control that drives innovation, not people's best interest.

So, while any sane person reasoning in a vacuum would eventually decide that the internet should be about sharing data on open protocols with a wealth of different clients so that hackers have no monocultures to study and attack, we have web browsers happily executing js from sites whose url is gotten by executing js (possibly to make noscript users give up) and the government of elbonia able to tell you that that yourbank.de certificate is legitimate.

This generation has to go through the same hell through which the previous one went with windows, and given the nature of the notifications in my sis' smartphone, we are near.

Comment Re:Hash and Salt (Score 1) 206

A hacker could go through all that trouble to reverse a hash but if the user changes the master password, then there's no compromise. So...the race is to have the user change passwords before the hacker hacks the hash. Should be easy to win, no?

Also, use two-factor. Seriously. No reason you shouldn't be using two-factor.

Comment Re:Some comments about the US legal system (Score 0) 75

Many people seem to think that lawyers just popped into a case and started all this ruckus. However, that's not true. Attorneys represent parties with conflicts. The parties in conflict hate each other; that's why they're in court. So each attorney is trying to win the case for their client. Thus, each client thinks that the other side's attorney is a bad person because they are an extension of the other side.

Therein lies the problem. With most court cases, you will have one winner and one loser. Fifty percent of litigants, therefore, would hate litigation.

Courts hate issuing sanctions because if you lower the bar for sanctions, well, everyone and his mother would constantly file motions for sanctions. I mean, it's tough to get sanctions but lawyers routinely act like morons and threaten sanctions. Making it easier would only waste more time with parties trying to get sanctions.

Why shouldn't attorneys get paid for their time? Again, they're representing someone. And if they're on the verge of getting money from the other side, well, aren't they just doing their job? Of course, the guy who lost will think it sucks but the guy who won is pretty happy about it.

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