OK, Microsoft... now please give us back MS Publisher 2021 LTSC licenses.

Have WAY TOO MANY clients that are small businesses and non-profits that -still- rely on Publisher. (Yes, I KNOW "UGH!" But, that's where we are.) Yanking the rug out from under them, not even allowing them to OPEN old Publisher files after October 2026, is asinine.

If weâ(TM)ve learned anything from the COVID debacle, certainly we should have learned that our scientific âbettersâ(TM) arenâ(TM)t always correct. Which is how science works. So just because âoescienceâ (aka âoethe geniuses posting at Wikipediaâ) currently posits that this alternative is âunprovenâ(TM) does NOT invalidate or âoedebunkâ it. Thatâ(TM)s NOT how science works. We only know what we think we know.
After all, those are the same group of âscientistsâ(TM) whoâ"until this pointâ"likely also âbelievedâ(TM) the core was round like a ball. âoeScienceâ changes. Looks like we maybe donâ(TM)t know what we thought we knew. Change.

âoe After five years of pioneering research into the abuse of social platformsâ
Quite a charitable description of their activity, given recent revelations. Misleading and propagandizing to the very end.

To expand on that, the Fukushima reactor did not implement retrofits that the US NRC had forced down to U.S. reactors of the same design that specifically addressed the issue of a hydrogen gas build up within the containment vessel, automatically venting it if necessary. TEPCO knew of the design upgrade and refused?/chose not to/failed to implement it. And that was the single most catastrophic mistake. If the hydrogen gas hadn't exploded in the containment vessel, Fukashima would likely be a different story today.

Wow⦠âoeMasks Work.â How did that headline get past the Slashdot editors? This site, between the COVIDiocy and anti-nuclear power hot-takes, has really fallen off a cliff.

First off, âoemasks workâ is an OPINION of a HISTORIAN, notâ"according to the ACTUAL SCIENCEâ"backed by SCIENCE; it is not a statement of FACT. Opinions should never be in a headline.

Secondly, anyone who has bothered to do any reading on this topic knows that the âoescience is settledâ position is ludicrous. As evidenced in the post, âoeonly six [studies] were actually conducted during the COVID-19 pandemicâ. Well, why THE FSCK is that??!? What the actual F were the people tasked with knowing this stuff, actual âoescientistsâ, DOING between SARS and 2019, if not doing the research work of determining mitigation strategies?? They certainly were getting paid. (Turns out we KNOW what they were doing now: they were off-shoring illegal and unethical serial-passage gain-of-function research on coronaviruses to a thinly-veiled ChiCom bioweapons-adjacent BSL-2 laboratory chasing antiviral drug patents the self-same ChiComs were trying to IP thieve.) Maybe there should have been active masking studies established to bolster the dictates⦠but they didnâ(TM)t bother with that, just like anll the other authoritarian dictators in history.

Finally, it is beyond absurd for a âoehistorian of scienceâ to twist âoescienceâ into being defined as **accepting** a hypothesis sans proof until evidence disputes as the way it works. This is, perhaps, the most egregious cudgel the pro-mask âoesideâ has chosen to wield. It is literally the opposite of how the scientific method is defined to work. How do the Slashdot editors allow this nonsense??

I donâ(TM)t get the fools on this site complaining about the Vision Pro price. What has happened to Slashdot? True Nerds have a sense of history, and understand how technology cost curves work. Along with basic Economics.
In 1990, I paid over $3,500 for my first Mac, a IIci. The 13-inch Apple Trinitron monitor that accompanied was another $999!
Go to DollarTimes and check the inflation calculator. $3500 of todayâ(TM)s dollars is not -that- much money, thanks to the Federal Reserve and out-of-control gov spending. And if the Vision Pro is the game-changing tech (like the Mac was in 1984) that all of Appleâ(TM)s VR/AR -competitors- seem to believe it is, $3,500 will historically be sensical. Further, a large number of consumers are buying $1,000 Pro iPhones every year! (Yes, I know, they arenâ(TM)t paying that much every year.) Point is, they can and do spend when they feel the tech warrants.
Will the first version of Vision Pro be the be-all/end-all? No, of course not, just as the little black-and-white Mac in 1984 was not⦠but by the IIci in 1990, the revolution was obvious. (OK, wasnâ(TM)t to everyone; DOS morons were shouting fealty to the command-line and proclaiming Windows a fad well past 2000.) The 2007 iPhone and 2010 iPad were pricing aberrations, an unusual step, but neither fulfilled the promise of the form-factor; that took another 3 or 4 iterations. Has this community gotten so misguidedly spoiled because of them??

TL;DR: The people on here complaining about the price are idiots. Ignore.

So⦠shouldnâ(TM)t Elon be talking with the Indian government about turning the southern tip of India into the preeminent spaceport on Earth? Seems to me that launching from +328ft, out across a low-gravity well, reaching Max-Q over top of it, would be beneficial, eh? I wonder how much so, however.
With Starship/Superheavy, SpaceX is eeking out percentage point increases of max thrust with the newest engines; offsetting gravity to gain a few more percentage points, off the coast of a low-cost, skilled labor country, would seem to be valuable.

Oh, hey, âoejournalistsâ from the New York Times⦠where the frak have you been? No better example of âoeNo duh.â

All of this was âoediscussedâ in early 2019, under threat of being deplatformed by the political interests the NYTs pretty obviously represents. At this point, thanks for the âoeinfoâ, but now Iâ(TM)m more curious about the sudden interest. Next theyâ(TM)re going to try to convince me that weâ(TM)ve ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia.

Hmmmmma year or so ago I reported to Microsoft security that I'd gotten a spam email (for an AMEX card) to a unique email address that I'd ONLY used when communicating with Microsoft for one of my clients that would have been "'interactions between Microsoft and prospective customers,' including around the planning and implementation of Microsoft services." They were pretty insistent it wasn't a breach on their side, which was completely impossible, since the address was completely unique (and not guessable). Guess I know differently now! Wonder how long this exposed??

Please.

Thank you.

(What is needed, specifically, is the updated version of either the CD or the patcher, long lost, that fixed the audio on 68040 Macs, where the program runs much better but audio is bad because of changes in System 7.5.1 or 2. Trying to find that patcher, or a correct CD, is next to impossible. I own the older version, v1.1.1, but never had gotten the patched version, v1.1.2. So I can't get it running properly on newer emulators.)

And Big Cable had pulled this same strategy with the 25/3 decision; they lobbied to move the goal posts just beyond the very edge of where the primary competitor, DSL, could deliver. Which effectively took the incumbent local telcos off the playing field for subsidies. (Then they buried any and all mention of the lower-priced tiers so that customers who would have qualified for them knew nothing about them. Reps would straight out lie about their existence. Worse, the Feds let them write the program eligibility requirements such that if a customer attempted to pay the "real rates", but financially could not afford them, they became ineligible for the subsidized service unless they disconnected for 90 days and paid any outstanding balance. Which was completely impractical during the COVID lockdowns, so the fallout is going to get worse over the next year.)

As always: #FollowTheMoney

I don't blame the Capitalists, I expect greed. I blame the politicians and governing "elite" class...they're the ones who can't seem to understand for whom they work. They're clearly innumerate and blithely ignore potential consequences. (Well, we see how they've reacted to the Jan 6th "circus", perhaps they're not so blithe anymore, just wishfully obtuse.)

IMHO, Diller (and the article) conflate a number of disparate things. To him, to the "industry", they've lumped these things together because that's how it always had been...however for anyone sufficiently "outside" that industry, what has occurred was inevitable: the movie industry used to be content creation -AND- presentation, but presentation got eaten by technology. And we're well on the path that creation shall be too.
When I was kid, almost a half century ago, going to a theater (even a drive-in), was "an event". However, today, the event experience SUCKS. And it has, for over 20 years. It wasn't COVID that killed it, that was just the last bit of dirt shoveled onto the grave. It had been dead for over decade, thanks to greedy studios and the advancements of big screen TVs. When I sat three feet from my first 42-inch LCD, whereby I could pause when I wanted to grab snacks at "wholesale" prices, pee when I wanted, rewind to see that last bit of action again... I knew theaters were done. The screen was relatively the same size, it looked better, it sounded better, I could fart loudly whenever, and there wasn't those punk kids three rows back talking through the whole thing. From then on, I only went to theaters when I -had- to, thanks to the studio "model", and pirated as many first-run movies as I could. My experience at home was better. WAAAAY better. Sorry studios, you f'd up.

But the other side of the coin is quickly coming face up soon too... folks have the power in an iPhone or iPad to destroy Hollywood. They just need to do it. I mean, yes, we've had that power for well over a decade, longer even. But... now they really have it. Everyone. The only thing the studio model has is the I.P., the Marvel and LucasFilm properties. And you can be sure they'll flail those horses until they're well past death. Reincarnated. Flailed. And Reincarnated again. But we don't watch Laurel and Hardy anymore; we'll eventually tire of X-Men and Avengers just the same. Even Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewy. There are lived experiences all around us, we just need to be the ones who start telling our own tales.

Which brings me to the Future: this isn't all bad, because we're on the cusp of the Next Big Thing! That will be VR. Anyone with eyes should "see" that. With VR, movie theaters are... well... nothing. They're garbage. Every good thing about theaters can be done better with VR. Everything. And VR -is- coming.

Both the article and the letter make a mish-mash of the history and terminology of the subject matter, so it is no wonder nothing "pro-consumer" ever gets accomplished with respect to broadband, the folks "We The People" hire are mostly morons and no match for the paid suits of the corporations.

First off, both the article and the letter conflate the term "high-speed broadband" with the FCC definition of "broadband". And how? One sentence in the January FCC report that puts the phrase "high-speed broadband" ahead of a next sentence wherein the FCC effectively defines "broadband" or "fixed broadband" rather, as "25/3 Mbps". Notice: latter is a lower limit; the former is a nice thing we'd all like to have. Now, the letter, through this conflation, has turned a perk into lower limit, literally "moving the goalposts", while entirely admitting that the prior "limit" has yet to be achieved and is even likely adulterated by really bad reporting data that the FCC has allowed (got caught allowing) the providers to lie with.

Second, the letter admits that "according to speedtest.net’s January 2021 analysis, average service is currently 180 Mbps download / 65 Mbps upload". Now, I almost don't expect these moron pols understand what the actual definition of "average" is, but I'd hope a technically-inclined staffer does. In short, many more than half of broadband customers don't have access to anywhere NEAR 100Mbps upload speeds. So that "goal" is so pie-in-the-sky as to be stupid; we might as well ask for rocket trip to the Moon. (Since Elon is likely to make that happen too before these idiot pols make any headway.)

But lost in ALL of it is what customers REALLY need: a clear, comprehensive Service Level Agreement-style "truth in advertising" scheme. We don't need 100/100; we need to know what we're paying for, and we need to be guaranteed we're getting it. Right now, the providers lie their asses off, and the customers have no recourse of action. In monopoly service areas, it is even worse because they lie AND soak us for exorbitant fees. The thing is, all of these providers should be doing service-level metrics... c'mon, we know they are. But they aren't compelled to share that information with customers, state or municipal regulatory bodies, or even the FCC. Every cable modem and DSL modem that gets plugged in knows and can report back its line speed, regardless of the customer's provisioned bandwidth. Comcast, et al know that info, but they lie to the FCC about it routinely as if they don't.

3Mbps upload is pretty shoddy when you're looking at day-on-end of WFH or at-home classroom video. Yup. But a goal of 1080p up is just plain daft in the face of where most DSL speeds are in large swaths of the rural America. And anyone who tells me that 25Mbps just isn't enough downstream bandwidth for a lot of tight-budget folks can just GTFO. The FCC compromised on 25/3 because of DSL; the cablecos tried to stick it to the incumbent telecoms by getting that raised, because they knew that the max DSL speed was ~12/2 (and therefore at most 25/4 with a two-line bonding), but ultimately failed to make it happen. However that should be re-examined, and that might should cause a conversation about how America is currently wired. (Old school POTS has had its day, 100 years ago it was the "moonshot". Today we need another... it should have been FTTC in the 2000s, but Rs screwed that up. Ds didn't do any better in the 2010s.) 25/5? 25/10? I dunno. But the cablecos have to be stopped raising bandwidth "promises" ALONG with prices, or this is just a joke. And the DSL companies... well, we need to just write that off, they're done, toast, bye bye, dead. Wireless? The capacity problems are so problematic I can't see that as a solution. And if the carriers are allowed to promote it as one, we will see data price gouging like we did at the outset of the smartphone, before Apple's infamous "Unlimited" iPhone plan with AT&T. (And, see what happened since!)

And that's where the SLA comes in, along with an enforced lower target: say, 25/10 for $25/month. I don't care HOW they do it, but every carrier should have that plan, available to every American. Then we can talk about subsidizing that.

Apple's poor treatment of Nvidia over the past few years--dickish behavior of not allowing them to sign their drivers, basically not allowing Nvidia GPUs on the Mac, due to a long-ago beef over Nvidia sorta pre-announcing new Apple hardware--could just come back to bite Apple in the butt if Nvidia gets ahold of ARM. I'm sure Apple has a pretty solid licensing agreement in place with ARM currently, but their move to Apple Silicon will still necessarily rely on ARM IP. Might just make a future re-licensing discussion interesting; can't imagine Nvidia doesn't have that in mind right now.

Having a case to interact with Amazon a year ago on a likely-gray-market/counterfeit $1500 Microsoft Surface product, I can attest that the Counterfeit Crimes Unit at Amazon is a joke. I worked with multiple Executive Team resolution folks, and THEY couldnâ(TM)t get the Counterfeit Crimes Unit people to even get back to them! Same with the Marketplace Sellers Fraud Unit. It was kaska-esque. And Iâ(TM)m the good, patient, âoedone this beforeâ expert they could only dream of for partnering on a issue like what happened. It was eventually âoeresolvedâ when the credit card issuing bank finally did a chargeback, nearly 3 months later, having tied up precious budget money for my non-profit client over a year-end budget end. I had been warned by Amazon that doing so (a charge-back against Amazon proper) could see us dropped/banned as an Amazon customer; ultimately they have not been.

I could only come away from the situation with the belief that Amazon isnâ(TM)t fundamentally serious about the problem. Neither I nor the clients were EVER contacted by the Counterfeit Crimes Unit or the Marketplace Fraud unit, and after the chargeback no one from Amazon ever contacted us back, at all, much less to follow up on what had happened over a multi-MONTH ordeal. Fundamentally not serious.