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Comment Re: Ask Jeeves? (Score 1) 30

The problem with that is that it interjects an obstacle to a functional web browser. Most people just want stuff to work, and as long as it does, they don't care. For those people, stopping them from just jumping in to use Safari to answer a question (in which I gather the majority would just pick Google anyway) is bad UI/UX. For those that actually care, it is in fact quite easy to change the default search engine in the Safari preferences.

Comment Re:What websites? (Score 1) 68

Apparently this release has been blasted for omitting this and some other critical info as well...

The sites were specifically targeting Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China. (i.e. State sponsored hacking against Chinese minorities).

The specific iPhone exploits have apparently been patched (iOS 12.1.4).

These sites also targeted and exploited Windows and Android devices (funny how Google neglected to mention this).

A lot more info here: https://www.volexity.com/blog/...

Comment Re: Wrong place to focus... (Score 1) 106

Meltdown and Specter present a good illustration in the complexity of computer science and why no amount testing, or process, or methodology, etc. can solve all the problems.

Speculative execution is a performance feature, not limited to Intel processors. This was intentionally built into many modern processors (and in and of itself is really pretty cool).

At least it was a feature until it was discovered it could be exploited.

Comment Re:Wrong place to focus... (Score 1) 106

You can't test for every use case, because there is no way to anticipate every functional use case in a general purpose OS. The fact that you don't recognize that indicates you are way out of league here.

The book you site is a good book, but I'm not going to get into a pissing contest about who know what, because it's not worth my time. Besides the "making excuses for Apple's failings." seems to indicate this is more of fundementalist platform battle for you. You probably aren't really interested in facts here.

Comment Re:Wrong place to focus... (Score 2) 106

LOL. What a massive bunch of overly generalized proverbial nonsense. In a complex system (especially a fairly general purpose OS ecosystem) no matter what your process is, you can not test for every use case. Additionally, even Apple does not control it's whole ecosystem. For example, how does Apple's development process anticipate low level hardware issues like Meltdown or Spector? Seriously, nobody who has ever done this sort of thing would make such a statement. That's not to say that there aren't process issues (I'm pretty sure nobody has created a perfect process, and likely no one ever will, especially as long as people are involved). Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Comment Re:flawed dev model (Score 1) 106

Or it could be...

Modern system development is complex in a way that most developers will never realize.
Finding the right balance between performance, economy, scale and security.
Dealing with hardware, software, and network issues, the didn't exist, were unknown, or unexploitable a few years ago.
Coordinating an ever changing ecosystem.

Even under Steve Apple had been known to step back and make releases that focused on exactly this type of stuff.

Comment Lots of assumptions going on here... (Score 1) 64

If you read the available information about this, there seems to be many procedures in place to avoid social engineering. Also, there is nothing here about anyone having access to any ones files or data (encrypted or otherwise). Just procedures which would allow one access to there own account, this would be akin to an automated password reset.
That said, a lot of the details about this are unknown.

Comment Re:Developer unhappiness or Marketshare loss? (Score 1) 229

I'd assume this is about Mac OS X, not iOS. Mac OS X market share is actually growing (though not even close to iOS in market share, or especially sheer numbers). The truth is it's very easy to leave the MAS, many key software products never went there to begin with for whatever reason.

There is evidence that *some* developers who tested the waters of the MAS are turning away from it. Rich Siegel (of BBEdit fame) has recently said BareBones may pull some/all apps from the app store (at least BBEdit, which makes since, nobody wants a sandboxed professional text editor).

Comment Re:Too bad... (Score 2) 861

You do realize this is because the missiles being fired into Israel are being fired from civilian areas.

This is but one thing that separates terrorists from soldiers... terrorists hide among the civilians using them as shields and propaganda.

There is little honor to go around on either side of this, but hiding among the civilians is an act of supreme cowardice and Evil.

Comment Re:Overconstrained problem definition (Score 1) 402

Bzzzt... Actually some very excellent fixed focal length wide angle camera exist. Back in the "film" day most photog's I knew carried around Olympus SylusEpic's with the fixed 3.5 1:2:8 lens. Awesome camera!

Also see this: http://www.sigmaphoto.com/shop/dp2s-compact-digital-camera

A good fixed lens will beat a good Zoom lens in image quality every time.

Comment Re:Get a Lumix (Score 3, Informative) 402

I have an LX5, and it is an outstanding camera, however I recently picked up an Olympus E-PM1 and while I like the feel on of the LX5 better, the Olympus beats it in both picture and video quality. This should be expected since the LX5 has a much smaller sensor (though bigger then most compact digitals). (The LX-5 though is unique in using different area of the sensor for different aspect ratios... I really enjoy the 1:1 and the 16:9).

This was my first foray into the whole mirrorless interchangeable lens type camera so I didn't want to spend to much so it was down to the PanasonicGF3 and Olympus E-PM1 (I considered the new Nikon J system but it cost much more for much less). The two were very similar, but the Olympus had a hotshot for the flash and accessories and felt a bit more solid so that's what I went with.

I'm not giving up on my LX5, but I find it's no longer my go to camera.

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