Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Is XFCE going the bloat-path? What happened to E? (Score 3, Interesting) 91

Is XFCE going down the bloat path? ... I'm not trolling here, this is an honest question. To me it looks like they're building a dekstop environment and slowing piling features on. My impression is, that we have enough of those with Gnome, KDE and Enlightenment 17 and perhaps a few others.

Or what is the upside of XFCE? Is it like a "light-weight" KDE or something? And what's with LXDE? Wasn't that the hippest kid on the WM/DE block these days?

BTW, what happened to E17? I remember Enlightenment being the darling-child of WMs in the Linux community. Is it nowadays to difficult to configure and/or install?

Comment The law makes no allowances for irony. (Score 2) 122

Nor should it.

So this guy has *exactly* the same privacy rights as any other public figure has, neither more nor less. These rights are fewer than those enjoyed by non-public figures, but they are not zero. He can't stop people from using his image and name, any more than Kim Kardashian can. While in a sense she owns her public persona, she doesn't own every image of her that is taken in public. In other words people can't use her image to sell things as if she endorsed them, but they can use and even sell the image itself.

If this guy owns the copyright to an image, he can reasonably file a DMCA takedown. If the image is taken in a situation in which a public figure would have a reasonable expectation of privacy (e.g. inside his house), then he can take other legal steps, even though allowing that to happen would be poetic justice. The law doesn't deal in poetic justice, and judges aren't allowed to stop enforcing the law just because it would be cool.

Comment Re:We need hardware write-protect for firmware (Score 2) 324

That's a bit like saying that having a portcullis in the castle gate doesn't help you if the enemy is already inside the walls, which is unquestionably true, but misses the point that having the portcullis makes it harder (although not impossible) for the enemy to do that.

I agree that a more secure way to update firmware, but we have to be realistic in that this would also tend to create new targets for malware writers (e.g. stealing signing keys).

I suspect what we really need is stuff that will occur *outside the box*, such as better vendor of firmware downloads and some kind of police agency tasked with discovering and investigating dodgy firmware. But of course the objection remains -- such an agency itself would be a potential source of problems.

Comment Re:Hashes not useful (Score 1) 324

Seagate is correct. Putting a hash on the website doesn't improve security at all because anyone who can change the download can also change the web page containing the hash.

While I agree just slapping a hashtag on a webpage doesn't necessarily improve security, it doesn't follow that it can't.

Security is a holistic property; it's a property of a system as a whole. An important part of that is detecting when you've been hacked and knowing in advance what you're going to do. There are many scenarios under which publishing the hash codes of downloads improves security, but that *always* depends on people doing certain things, many of which can be automated on the vendor end.

Comment Check your history (Score 1) 187

it pretty much _did_ happen. There was a 60 year period during the industrial revolution when millions were put out of work and tossed to the wayside. There's a reason why Luddites existed. They weren't forward think people. They were Luddites for Pete's sake. They were living in the misery caused by a lack of jobs in their day.

The industrial revolution caused massive unemployment, and it took the economy 60 years to catch up and start creating new jobs. If you lived after that period things got better as new tech created new jobs. If you lived during that period and weren't born wealthy life was Nasty, Brutish and Short. I'd like to skip that cycle this time.

Oh and there's one other thing: we're better at automation this time. So there's a good time the cycle will last a _lot_ longer. e.g. instead of 60 years of poverty we might be looking at 100, 200 or more while we wait for Star Trek style replicators and massive population declines to fix things.

Comment Re:Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More R (Score 3, Insightful) 187

Actually, reviewing U6 and discouraged workers, we are at record levels of unemployment. Close to 25% of the working age population isn't working. They are going on disability early, retiring early- but many 16 to 54 year olds who worked in the past are not finding employment. I know several people in this category.

It is much rougher for 30 year olds than it was when I was 30. Some retrain and then the job they were training for is swamped by so many applicants that wages are supressed.

I was hoping retiring boomers would take up the slack but I read 80% of them have no under $20,000 savings and will not be able to voluntarily retire. Plus boomers in good slots are simply continuing to work and have no intention of retiring and letting those slots open up to younger people. By the time this group dies or retires at 77 to 82- the generation behind them is nearly at retirement age- never having had the good earnings years the generation before them had.

Advances in AI will make it possible to replace large swaths of 'smart' and 'creative' jobs by 2050. And they won't even consider that to be "real" AI by them. Whenever we get a real AI, it will be a massive paradigm shift. Robotics already have superhuman performance when "plugged" in . So an easily clonable AI combined with super human bodies obsolete humans overnight.

Comment Re:Fuck it - everyone for themselves. (Score 1) 374

I'm confused. The chart you linked shows.

LED consumes less electricity.
LED lasts much longer (so less physical waste)
LED has a total cost of ownership lower than CFL. (About $110led* vs $126cfl vs $496inc)

Also
LED doesn't have mercury (and I know most CFL bulbs are not disposed of properly)...

75 watts are past the sweet spot now (tho you can get good ones for $19).
60 and 65 watts are $9 to $12 now.

Personally, I like 65 watts-- friendlier on my aging eyes. 900 lumens vs 850 lumens makes a big difference.

Really- I hate CFL. Even the 3500K ones. Even 65w ones. The rated life isn't what they say it is. CFLs may be rated for 10,000 hours but by the time I hit 6000 hours, the lumen output drops visibly. I'm replacing LED with CFLs as much as possible. So far.. I have never replaced an LED yet due to failure.

*with a 26.50 bulb addressing error you point out.

Comment Re: Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More (Score 1) 187

Great... for the half of the population at iq 100 and above. What about the average to below average 3.5 billion people?
They supposed to just roll over and die?

One of the links was to a company where robots are already constructing robots.

Robot development jobs are under 1:1000 of the jobs replaced.

Robot repair also needs under 1% of the workers.

If robots were not cheaper than humans, businesses wouldn't replace humans with robots.

Going forward- it's pretty much leadership as you point out (under 1/1000 of the employees) or creative jobs. But-- they automate everything except the creative part and lay off 140 employees while retaining 20. They also use the code phrase "focus the humans on the 'best parts of their jobs'" and "cost savings" (i.e. staff reduction). There are a million security guards in the country.

Projected results from the new robotic security guards in the pipeline are 95%. They can patrol, video, raise alerts, - even detain suspects- as well as a human being.

If we don't figure out how to transition effectively, you are going to see large scale civil unrest.

Unemployed humans. And significantly depressed demand for goods.

Comment Re:Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More R (Score 2) 187

Just last week I had a strong disagreement with someone who said robots were not ready to effectively replace humans. He's spoken to industry people personally and they told him robots were not ready yet.

And he ignored the numerous examples I linked him where robots are already replacing humans-- and damn fast too.

This could be about half a million skilled employees who were making $5000 or less- yet robots are replacing them because the robots are less expensive. How can a 1st world employee hope to compete?

Comment Re:Inproper influence (Score 1) 83

The sad part is that the huge corporate screw-ups keep winning the contracts because small but capable shops can't afford the costs of the paperwork designed to keep screw-ups out of the process and they can't afford the lawyers needed to actually get paid when the customer changes directions 5 times and makes the project late.

If they would allow pay as you go contracts with small shops they would get a lot more successful projects (or at worst, fail cheaply enough to try again) but again they're so paranoid that the project will fail that they set conditions that assure it will fail big and expensive.

Comment Re:Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More R (Score 5, Interesting) 187

Right, but the conversation that's being had around this is what are we going to do with all these people that we don't need anymore. Sure, we can say that the economy will catch up, but that might take 50, 60 years. In the meantime we'll have 2 or 3 lost generations who live in terrifying abject poverty. It'd be nice if this time around we did something about that...

Slashdot Top Deals

Nothing happens.

Working...