The problem affecting the kernel appears to only be enabled with a specific set of optimizations, and only to matter for a specific class of programs.

Also, apparently the problem has actually been present for a number of iterations of the compiler, but a shift within the Linux kernel code has caused the compiler error to manifest. But the shift within the Linux kernel code was still valid C (C++?) code, so it was a compiler problem, even though it didn't affect most programs.

I, personally, dislike swearing even when "sanitized".

OTOH, I do realize that this is my personal taste. I feel it makes the communication less clear.

OTTH, written communication lacks the richness of communication by speech. This means that there is no inherent channel corresponding to tone of voice. When someone uses swearing as a substitute for certain tones of speech, it's really hard to say there is a better option. The alternative work-arounds tend to be verbose. Also, swearing via the use of the term "shit" appears to be something we inherited from our common ancestor with chimpanzees, because if they are taught to sign they will automatically use the term "shit" to describe persons and situations that they dislike.

Of the winners in computing, those that won because of technical merit are swarmed by those that won for other reasons.

I mean just look at some of the match ups
DOS vs Everything else available ?
Windows vs Everything else
Microsoft office vs Everything else
X86 vs Everything else
ISA bus vs NuBus vs MCA
DirectX vs OpenGL

Technical merit only seems to matter when it completely crushes every other factor as in transistor vs tube, IC vs transistor, CMOS vs TTL.

Theocratic is not fascist. The Muslim groups were originally theocratic, and that is what they appear to be headed towards again.

Just because it's vile and evil doesn't make it Fascist. Fascism involves commercial entities (usually corporations) having power over the government, and the government having power over the commercial entities, in such a tight bond that both do wha tthe other desires. In the original fascism this was the unification on Italy, and the creation of a powerful military so that nobody will laugh at it. (It did unify Italy, but the military wasn't all that great.)

Note that Fascism is not at all the same as nazism. I'm not even totally convinced that nazism is even a form that fascism can take. They did have certail similarities in methods of operation, but many of those are used by most governments, which makes them useless for categorization. Nazism seems to have been a combination of dictorship and theocracy, though I can't really say I understand it well enough to be sure.

Also not that just because I'm saying the Muslims are drifting towards theocracy doesn't mean I think they're heading towards nazism. I don't. What they *are* headed towards might, however, not be any more pleasant. They seem to be headed towards a "reestablishment of the Caliphate" whatever that means, but it seems to include a divine dictator at the center, with his sucessor chosen by a violent internal power struggle whose details are hidden. This seems calculated to pick the slimiest schemer as the successor. The one benefit is that he'll almost certainly be intelligent.

OTOH, just because they are currently drifting in a particular direction doesn't mean that they'll ever get there.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/dr/hl...

Since my answer is a bit nitpicky, I doubt that you'll be satisfied, and additionally I am not deeply knowledgeable about the current situation, howevr:

First, please note that fascism is not nazism.
Fascism: (from Wikipedia) Most scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. Authoritarianism is thus a defining characteristic, but most scholars will say that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.

For me the additional factor is that corporations and the government work together in a tight connection.

Given this, I would say that both Israel and the US are fascist governments. Both are a bit weak on the authoritarian aspect, but the US, at least, has been becoming increasingly authoritarian over the past few decades. I'm not sure about Israel. I have a feeling that Israel might be tending more towards a theocracy, but I have no direct knowledge.

OTOH, loosely used (as I suspect the grandparent was using it) fascism is a powerful group that uses its power to oppress those opposed to it. That clearly fits most existing governments, but people usually refuse to see that the definition is to broad to be of any use.

Thirdly, the fact that your family was victimized by some group 50 years ago doesn't prevent some group you currently support from practising the same tactics. I'm sorry if you find that comment distasteful, but it's also accurate.

As for the "anti-semetic" part, most of the Israelis are not Semetic. Many of them are ethnic Russians. There's a tangled history behind that, but most of the Semetic Jews are Shephardic. (Not all, but the Diaspora was a long time ago, and over the centuries there was a lot of interbreeding, joining by conversion, etc. to the extend that the non-Shephardic jews are only very slightly Semites.) So to be anti-semetic in this conflict you would be against the Palenestinians (who also aren't all that Semetic, but are more so than most of the Jews).

Pardon me if I don't think that would solve the problem. Passing a law doesn't prevent people from violating it, and neither Israel nor the Palestinians have any reason to trust that the other would continue to be peaceful once the foreign eyes were off them.

Israel is already about the minimum size for a viable country. You're asking it to be further reduced in size. And it's not at all clear that if it made the agreement AND the Palestinians kept their part of it AND the Israelie's kept their part of it, no other neighboring country wouldn't decide to expand its borders.

I don't like being pessimistic, but I don't see any decent end to this conflict.

It's not a very moral attidude, but it's a very human one. I'm sorry if your species disappoints you. (I wish it didnt' regularly disappoint me.)

People tend to care more about a friend's daughter's puppy being rescued from a well than they do about 100.000 people they've never heard of being tortured to death. It's not exactly moral, but it's the way people think. They can empathize with the friend and the daughter, and even with the puppy more than they can with the "larger number than I can picture" number of strangers they've never met.

No. The main difference is that in Syria the conflict as several plausible solutions. In the Israeli problem I see only three, and the most humane would be condemned by every Jewish, Christian, or Muslim on earth. (I.e., conscript 100% of the infants born in either Israel or Palestine, anonymize them, and place groups of them in Kibbutz run by combined groups of the parents, There is a 75% chance that one of the kids they are raising is their own, but they don't know whether or which. If parents aren't willing to participate in the Kibbutz, sterilize them, and let them go.)

Unfortunately, the other answers I see involve one group killing off almost all of the members of the other.

Even more unfortunately, I don't think my "anonymize the kids" approach would work as designed, because the racial stocks are now too different, so the adults would able to determine that there was no chance that they were related to a large number of the kids. And you need to have adults raising the kids, because communal nursuries where that doesn't happen fail miserably. There might be a way to adapt it, but why bother, it will never be tried anyway.

How do you know?

I expect that there is a combination of individual effort and organized, and that some of the addresses that apperar to be French aren't really. Etc.

Do note that this is normal. This is true even on /., where comments aren't very significant in terms of political effect. The question is what the proportions are, and we have no way of telling.

OTOH, calling it spam is clearly wrong. Astroturfing would be closer, but even that's not quite correct. Neither is trolling. This is similar to all of the above, but it being done with a political rather than an economic agenda. I don't think I know a word for organized political rants over the internet. This doesn't mean they don't happen, and aren't even rather common. But spam isn't the right word.

Trusted by whom? I don't think there's any requirement that the purchaser of the device trust the "trusted" data extractor. IIUC it could become trusted before the customer ever received the device, or anytime it's in for service.

So this *probably* means that J. Random Hacker can't access the information. If the assertion is true. It doesn't say anything about Apple, their employees, or anyone they share information with...transitivly.

Unfortunately, no, I wouldn't "expect people to be more sensible than that, especially in the post-Snowden era", even though this actually isn't the post-Snowden era. He's still around, and still occasionally releasing new tid-bits.

I normally expect people to be short-sighted, and to have little memory of history. I regret that I'm rarely disappointed.