You download a program that appears legit (and may be mostly legit, or be a hacked version of a legit program), and are running it.

But why would I do that? Almost all the programs I use come from the repository, and to get me to download one they'd have to compromise the repository first (which is possible, but not nearly as easy as just advertising a program for download). The rest are again ones I download from known sources, usually the developers' own official site, and again it's not trivial to compromise those sites.

The situation you propose only happens in the world of Windows where downloading random software from untrusted/unknown sources is routine. And if you're routinely doing that, you've got more problems than just a way to bypass the screen lock. The best way to avoid shooting yourself in the foot is to not blithely follow instructions but to stop and ask "Wait a minute, why are they asking me to aim a loaded gun at my foot and pull the trigger?". And if after pondering that question you still think following the instructions is a good idea, please report to HR for reassignment as reactor shielding.

I sure hope his hack is free/open-source.

chmod 101 /dev/joke

Even you admit heartbleed *WAS* around (not *IS* around) and thus was found and fixed.
Clearly at least two eyes reviewed the code, found the bug, and it is now fixed as a result.

That is two more eyes than is searching through closed source code.
Two is still greater than zero so it is still a net positive.

Yup, I cleared about 4-6 inches of snow off our walkway/sidewalk/driveway at 1 am, and when we woke up at 8, the only evidence that I had even been out there were some slightly higher mounds where I had tossed snow.

Normally it takes several storms over the course of a week or two to pile it up like this and the streets were just kind of wet as of 5 pm yesterday. This has been a good one.

Why is this rated 5? Yes, paying drivers more *might* slightly increase supply but my guess is that the number of drivers is somewhat

You guess? Well lets just throw out the Iron Clad Law of Supply & Demand, on which almost all of the worlds productive economy is based, because you guess.

fixed so without also charging passengers more you do nothing on the demand side. The point of demand pricing is to reduce demand
so that you don't overwhelm the relatively fixed supply. If your goal is to always have cars available, then increasing the price while
paying the drivers the same would actually be a better solution than increasing the pay while charging the same but that would also be
idiotic.
You cannot look at one side of the equation.

When demand is up, there are only two options. Option number one is shortages (of supply). Option number two is that supply must increase.
When supply is down, there are only two options. Option number one is shortages (of demand). Option number two is that supply must decrease.

In either case, the solution is price elasticity. When the price drops, because supply is too high or demand is too low, drivers will drop out of the market. When the price raises, because supply is too low or demand is too high, drivers will enter the market.

Uber has a flexible work force, and it is no way fixed. They also posses 100% more information about the market and their drivers than you do, or the AG does.

This is the case of government using consumer protection laws in a way that will hurt consumers. Economics and the market are not friendly, but they do produce desirable outcomes. If the desirable outcome is fairness, than what the government and AG are doing will produce a fair outcome - everyone regardless of ability to pay will have an equal chance of getting or not getting a car, based on random luck, your skin color, or whatever else motivates you.

If the outcome is to provide as many rides possible, this requires a market with supply and demand efficiency. By curbing supply efficiency by limiting price elasticity, you provide fewer rides than the market will optimally support. If you are frequent driver, you know that by going to where the demand is, to when the demand is, will produce more and more profitable rides. If you are a rider, you know that by relying on Uber during exceptionally busy times, you will only be able to get a ride by paying far more than you would otherwise.

This is really a great case of the nanny government stepping into a situation which is drastically over it's head, in the name of "fairness". Fairness is not an economic goal, it's a social goal, and it's stupid to try to enforce a social goal like this on the very tail end of the policy stack.

As an owner of a GTX 970 card, all I can say is I can run Shadow of Mordor at full 1920x1080 res with the "ultra" texture setting and it never dips below 30fps, usually getting 45-60.

The additional fact I got the card as an open-box return at the local computer store for $220 makes things a no-brainer for me even if the allegations of 3.5gb vram were true.

There is no game in existence that a 980 or titan card can play that my 970 couldn't, even if I had to bump the settings down to just "very high".

If I bought a thousand of the things for super computer style multi-GPU number crunching, then I would probably be more upset and yelling a bit louder at Nvidia.
As a gamer I just can't see myself getting any worked up over this.

It isn't a "need", it is only a "want"

Just imagine the cost difference between a fleet of IT people posistioned in every city the gas station chain does business in, paying their US pay rates - compared to a poor lone indian guy on the other side of the planet being paid a tiny fraction of US pay rates, not multiplied by the number of employees (or multiplied by one technically) able to manage all 100000 pumps owned by the chain.

The psychopaths at the top of the gas station chain companies get to keep that unspent money for themselves, so the less they pay out the better it is in their mind.

Of course you both get what you pay for, and must suffer the consequences of your own choices and actions once made, but it's pretty rare either of those factors even pops into their minds - and when it does the only reaction is to beef up the golden parachute package for when the inevitable happens.

The point is the whole intention here is not to do things right but to save money and raise profits without concern for the future or security of the company as a whole.

Going by those terms, not only do the pumps need to be on the Internet, but does make them more short term profits, so clearly is the correct solution to their incorrect and needless problem.

So this-or-that company promises you unbreakable encryption or that they won't poke their nose in your data. Do you trust them? I don't. All it takes is a little firm chit-chat from the national security agency of the country your data is hosted in, and your "safe" data isn't safe anymore.

If you really insist on putting files and shit in the cloud, encrypt it yourself before uploading it. Better yet, run your own server and provide yourself with your very own fucking cloud. Those who want real security aren't lazy and do the work themselves.

> Likewise, when scammers call me up about my [insert model year] [insert make] [insert model] and how my
> warranty is up, I ask them to name my warranty company

I had fun with these guys once. I was tired of hanging up on them so I decided to hang on the line and try to get info out of the guy after they thought they might have me. So I get put on with this guy who....asks about my car!

Lol the audacity to claim my warranty was expiring then to not even know what kind of car I have? wow. So I told them.... a 1992 bucik lesaber (this was about 5 years ago so almost a 20 year old car, and one I never owned). and I ask "oh btw what company is it you work for" I forget now, but I wrote it down and then told him, thanks for the info now you can add me to your do not call list. :)

Despite that, he saved the car info, and I started getting calls about my 1992 buick lesaber!

When Apple's prices change (actually, has that happened in the last few years? I think the price has been steady for a while) the market doesn't reconfigure around that price.

Apple has effectively raised prices. The Iphone 5 and 6 lines both have less stuff (namely, storage) for the same amount of money. This is a price increase in everything but optics. While prices should be declining, they are actually stagnant (while adding higher price points).

Apple's control extends only to their own product

No, I don't think this is true. Cell phone sales slow and crawl for all carriers and brands before a new Apple product announcement or release. Additionally, what's unusual, is that typically if there is a constrained supply of a product, some of the unfilled demand bleeds off into other competing products. Like, around Xmas, you go to the store, Toy X is gone off the shelf. Do you give no present? Nope. You substitute a competing product. There is surprisingly little of this in cell phones. One good theory why is because of platform lock-in. In this way, Apple is able to constrain the ability to switch to a competing product effectively. It produces a magnifying effect to their market share. This is very similar to the tying claims that Microsoft go in trouble with in the 90's.

If Apple disappeared tomorrow, the world would still have smartphone manufacturers.

This is true, but not that relevant. There's always another dog.

The only way this monopoly argument could hold water is if we decide that Android and the handsets it runs on should be considered a completely different category of product.

I don't think this is true. Android is not a thing you buy, just like iOS is not something you buy. You buy the phone, with the OS. So for comparison purposes, you can't say it's "Android v. iOS". It has to be handsets for the iPhone. Until you can reasonably buy phone OS's, really, there is no such thing as a market for Android the platform. Since the platform is so fragmented, switching between Android platforms is non-trivial.

In this regard iPhone is a huge market leader and has a greater share than competing products. And that gulf is wide enough that in other industries, combined with the market power, there is a reasonable case to be made that Apple has monopoly control of the smartphone market in the US.

As people are always delighted to point out, Apple's market share is by no means the majority. Apple isn't a utility.

I agree, but only for now. In the future, if they are running a communication service over a public utility (i.e. regulated internet access), it certainly seems iMessage is exactly like other communication services over regulated infrastructure, namely phone service. Carriers can't lock out each other from similiar over the air services, like SMS, for the same reason.

BlackBerry missed the boat about a dozen times at this point and that's their fault, not Apple's.
Yeah, BB is totally irrelevant to the meat of the discussion. They are screwed.

As far as Apple and monopoly power, it's an interest case. A company does not need to have X% of a market to have a monopoly. Companies have monopoly power with much smaller shares. In some industries, a company can have monopoly power with even 20% of the market. In terms of Smartphones, it's often seen as "Google v. Apple". But really, Google is just a small player. Just because Android runs on many smartphones, does not mean that Google is a direct actor in the market. Apple competes with partnerships of Google/Handset maker. If you were to look at share in this light, I think Apple is by far the largest player. (But I can't find any numbers. Last I found was in mid-2014, with Apple around 40% and Google around 45% and everyone else doing the rest).

The key elements of Apple's monopoly power are there though: they can effectively set prices in the market, they have the ability to raise or lower production to affect prices and availability of the good, they can suppress or increase the market by withholding or releasing products. This last one is important.

This is an interesting time to see what happens with Apple. The practices and behavior of Apple right now are not far off from where MS got itself into trouble in the 1990's. Especially with regards to bundling, tying, and price controls.

Yeah, it's close to those examples.

The phone analogy almost fits, in that after the phone monopoly was ended, they really did have to open up the service to any phone. The difference being a phone has no operating system (at the time), it was just an electro-mechnical device operating to common standard.

The wording is just really bizarre. Downloading a service.

"Net Neutrality means mandating that developers and services must create something that works on your dying platform? Does that mean that NetFlix will have to make sure it works with Symbian too? How about PocketPC 2003?"

I am not sure that's what he is saying.

Partly because he uses phrases like "downloading the service".

"Neutrality must be mandated at the application and content layer if we truly want a free, open and non-discriminatory internet. All wireless broadband customers must have the ability to access any lawful applications and content they choose, and applications/content providers must be prohibited from discriminating based on the customer’s mobile operating system."

The application layer doesn't necessarily mean code, it means making the application layer, as well as the content layer, available to outside developers, to facilitate a non-discriminatory policy of open content access.

I think there was a big leap made here from "open access" to "force app developers to write code for Blackberry".

Chen has a strong point Apple's iMessage service, which is proprietary and closed. It is odd to imagine iMessage running over regulated, public utility internet access while at the same time using patents and copyright and trademark law to prevent interoperability. If Apple is going to run a communications service over a public utility, and use monopoly tactics like lock-in and tying, why should that be permitted?