Nobody is that "stupid" in those departments.

The question should be what was the quid pro quo?

We can imagine what the PLA got out of it but what favor did Microsoft get?

And how high up the chain did it go? Who specifically approved the arrangement?

At least Microsoft probably has Windows 11 "backups" of the hard drives of anyone who might think of bringing charges.

Not sure if that strategy can be called stupid. Lots of other words apply.

"One Nation Under Blackmail" is a popular phrase.

Writes age it, so the best method is to write once, then plug it in for a while every few years to let it do whatever automatic maintenance can or must be done. And honestly, I'm not sure whether that's baked into the hardware or if you need some software process to check the thing. Not my area of expertise.

In theory you can throw one in a drawer and it'll be fine a decade later... but you can't trust that it will be.

Cool story bro time.

I developed finger-based calculation independently as a 10 year old. Freaked the teacher right out, she didn't understand what the hell I was doing.

Probably not as complex or effective (I have never heard of Chisanbop, but I assume it's well-developed), but my method definitely helped me rapidly finish math tests without the more traditional intermediary steps of pencil and paper or a calculator.

Please keep in mind that a flash drive is next to useless for long term storage. It will randomize over a surprisingly short time if it doesn't have power for data maintenance.

Your typical CD is better but still not good enough - under perfect conditions it will outlast you, but the way most people store them you might be really disappointed when you try to read it a decade from now. You're also going to run into the issue that even 20 years from now there may not be a consumer 'CD reader' available.

For music, your best bet remains a carefully stored vinyl collection. For now you should grab a USB vinyl ripper with a laser pickup and listen to your digital copies on whatever media you like, knowing that there will probably always be a traditional record player to fall back on if you look hard enough.

>What's next, making them learn how an abacus works? Yeah, real good use of time there.

I shall don my fedora for a moment and say, 'ecktually...'

There's value in teaching kids how to use an abacus. I doubt anybody benefits much anymore from learning to use one like an expert, but for basic counting, place value, and addition / subtraction I'd consider it an excellent tool for starting kids down the road to mathematical literacy.

Manual transmissions in a world where we're heading to EVs? Not so much. The ability to drive stick is more a hobby thing, and soon a historical curiosity for niche enthusiasts.

Yeah, so if this is the cover story what other heat signatures might they be looking for?

It's not immediately obvious to me but something we should understand.

Detecting Zizians would help prevent these forest fires but it would be quite hard for a satellite to do that.

It is generally possible to download without uploading. You'll just likely get a dribble of data when you do.

AGPL is a plague. GPL, I tolerate, though I have a strong preference towards v2. But AGPL has no redeeming qualities. The hypothetical world where someone creates a closed-source fork of a web service, convinces everyone to use it, and then holds their data hostage just isn't particularly plausible.

Meanwhile, AGPL precludes any interesting integrations, custom in-house authentication systems, using custom database backends, and all sorts of other stuff that potentially is useful to keep company-proprietary, but that has no impact whatsoever on the hypothetical freedoms that the AGPL is intended to protect.

It's a license that is so toxic that even companies that are strong proponents of open source with large open source offerings have outright bans on letting AGPLed code anywhere on the premises.

As far as I can tell, the main benefit of AGPL is for companies that create code and want to release it to the public as "free software", because by requiring contributor agreements, they can keep their own branch proprietary while forcing everyone else in the world to comply with the AGPL, thus ensuring that the only company that can create their own proprietary features is them.

It's definitely an interesting case, but it doesn't fit the original description. The GPL didn't prevent Linksys from strangling the free version of anything. No free WiFi routers ever existed, and Linksys did not destroy demand for the Linux kernel or the GNU C library.

Also, nothing in that case forced Linksys to open anything. They could have switched to a BSD kernel and C library, and they would have been in compliance. They chose to open it because they figured it was an easy way to make the case go away, and it could produce good will in the community. And it ended up being a minor windfall for Linksys.

My last HP OfficeJet would drop network connection every few hours and had to be rebooted to reconnect. I had to go into settings and schedule the printer to reboot itself every 6 hours to prevent this.

I bought a Brother laser printer and haven't looked back.

I mean, will it censor you if you ask about the Chinese premier looking like Winnie the Pooh or tienaman (sp?) square....will it say it can't answer that...or give answers that only praise china?

Genuine question with potential genuine concerns....

They made a political calculation to ask under oath about an affair that was nobody's business, hoping to catch him in a lie. I believe the word here is "entrapment". So the GP is right about when it started; he/she just incorrectly understood which party started it.

It was always the Republicans.

Nixon tried to start it back in the 1970s. He just found out the hard way that there were still too many Republicans with morals and ethics remaining in the party. So they spent the next four decades driving them out. What remains is the shell of the former Republican Party, surrounding a core of rot and disease. And that is why "President" Trump is still in office.

I think it's pretty f-ed up to say a company has to give their IP and trade secrets to their competitors (aka, your friends) so they can take their business, and then call it fairness. It isn't, it's theft.

Kinda sounds like China's business model, eh?

However, why couldn't Google just yank their servers out of the EU..and station them all around the EU. Sure, there might be a little performance hit, but at least they'd not be compelled to follow the EU rules, and I doubt the EU will firewall all things google, you know?

;)