Comment Re:Indulgences (Score 1) 11
The key was that your sins could be forgiven *ahead of time* at a discount. Want to murder someone and still end up in heaven?
Comment Cathedral vs. the Bazzar in some sense (Score 1) 78
But I really don't want Zuke's folks writing software for nuclear power plants, ADAS, or anything else that may cause anything more than a mild stomach upset. Perfect for facebook, not for people who are working on things that are actually impactful and important.
Comment Re:"Punish success"... (Score 1) 104
What a fucking ridiculous super right wingnut trope
Yes, the left wing should realize that those who are successful are contributing *more* to society, than those who are not. We should punish the latter for slacking!
Comment Re:Just use andriod (Score 1) 65
The "invisible hand" doesn't fail, it just gets chopped off by government intervention. Apple doesn't run the app market as a charity, but the current model is not to charge for apps, instead treat the app as the demo and charge for upgrades. Apple wants a cut of that action. Developers are absolutely free to go back to the old model of having separate demo apps and paid apps where apple gets their cut up front and the consumer pays nothing more. Developers are also free to look at the massive profits from owning an app store and starting their own smart phone company. What they aren't free to do is demand someone else push their app for free.
Submission + - One of the FBI's Most Wanted Hackers Is Trolling the US Government (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this year, the U.S. government indicted Russian hacker Mikhail Matveev, also known by his online monikers “Wazawaka” and “Boriselcin,” accusing him of being “a prolific ransomware affiliate” who carried out “significant attacks” against companies and critical infrastructure in the U.S. and elsewhere. The feds also accused him of being a “central figure” in the development and deployment of the notorious ransomware variants like Hive, LockBit, and Babuk. Matveev is such a prominent cybercriminal that the FBI designated him as one of its most wanted hackers. Matveev, who the FBI believes he remains in Russia, is unlikely to face extradition to the United States.
For Matveev, however, life seems to go on so well that he is now taunting the feds by making a T-shirt with his own most wanted poster, and asking his Twitter followers if they want merch. When reached by TechCrunch on X, formerly Twitter, Matveev verified it was really him by showing a picture of his left hand, which has only four fingers, per Matveev’s FBI’s most wanted page. Matveev also sent a selfie holding a piece of paper with this reporter’s name on it.
After he agreed to do an interview, we asked Matveev a dozen questions about his life as a most wanted hacker, but he didn’t answer any of them. Instead, he complained that we used the word “hacker.” “I don’t like this designation — hacker, we are a separate type of specialist, practical and using our knowledge and resources without water and writing articles,” he wrote in an X direct message. “I was interested only in terms of financial motivation, roughly speaking, I was thinking about what to do, sell people or become. it, [sic] let me tell you how I lost my finger?” At that point, Matveev stopped answering messages.
For Matveev, however, life seems to go on so well that he is now taunting the feds by making a T-shirt with his own most wanted poster, and asking his Twitter followers if they want merch. When reached by TechCrunch on X, formerly Twitter, Matveev verified it was really him by showing a picture of his left hand, which has only four fingers, per Matveev’s FBI’s most wanted page. Matveev also sent a selfie holding a piece of paper with this reporter’s name on it.
After he agreed to do an interview, we asked Matveev a dozen questions about his life as a most wanted hacker, but he didn’t answer any of them. Instead, he complained that we used the word “hacker.” “I don’t like this designation — hacker, we are a separate type of specialist, practical and using our knowledge and resources without water and writing articles,” he wrote in an X direct message. “I was interested only in terms of financial motivation, roughly speaking, I was thinking about what to do, sell people or become. it, [sic] let me tell you how I lost my finger?” At that point, Matveev stopped answering messages.
Submission + - US Argues Google Wants Too Much Information Kept Secret In Antitrust Trial (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Justice Department on Monday objected to removing the public from the court during some discussions of how Google prices online advertising, one of the issues at the heart of the antitrust trial under way in Washington. The government is seeking to show that Alphabet's Google broke antitrust law to maintain its dominance in online search. The search dominance led to fast-increasing advertising revenues that made Google a $1 trillion company. [Throughout the trial, Google's defense is that its high market share reflects the quality of its product rather than any illegal actions to build monopolies in some aspects of its business.]
David Dahlquist, speaking for the government, pointed to a document that was redacted that had a short back and forth about Google's pricing for search advertising. Dahlquist then argued to Judge Amit Mehta, who will decide the case, that information like the tidbit in the document should not be redacted. "This satisfies public interest because it's at the core of the DOJ case against Google," he said. Speaking for Google, John Schmidtlein urged that all discussions of pricing be in a closed session, which means the public and reporters must leave the courtroom. [...]
Case in point was testimony given early Monday by a Verizon executive, Brian Higgins, about the company's decision to always pre-install Google's Chrome browser with Google search on its mobile phones. After about 30 minutes of testimony, Higgins' testimony was closed for the next two hours. It's possible that he was asked about Google's payments to Verizon but the public will never know. Those payments — which the government said are $10 billion annually to mobile carriers and others — helped the California-based tech giant win powerful default positions on smartphones and elsewhere.
David Dahlquist, speaking for the government, pointed to a document that was redacted that had a short back and forth about Google's pricing for search advertising. Dahlquist then argued to Judge Amit Mehta, who will decide the case, that information like the tidbit in the document should not be redacted. "This satisfies public interest because it's at the core of the DOJ case against Google," he said. Speaking for Google, John Schmidtlein urged that all discussions of pricing be in a closed session, which means the public and reporters must leave the courtroom. [...]
Case in point was testimony given early Monday by a Verizon executive, Brian Higgins, about the company's decision to always pre-install Google's Chrome browser with Google search on its mobile phones. After about 30 minutes of testimony, Higgins' testimony was closed for the next two hours. It's possible that he was asked about Google's payments to Verizon but the public will never know. Those payments — which the government said are $10 billion annually to mobile carriers and others — helped the California-based tech giant win powerful default positions on smartphones and elsewhere.
Comment Better look more closely at the bill then (Score 1) 97
If Apple is supporting it, it probably doesn't actually do much for consumers. Any "right to repair" should includes source code for firmware, for instance.
Comment Siri oversimplified the prior research (Score 1) 85
Basic research in the 70s thru the 90s led to the DARPA CALO program that ran from 2003 to 2008. Some of those technologies then were used for Siri. As someone who worked on some of the basic research projects that eventually were leveraged for CALO I can say there were a lot of useful bits that were left on the cutting room floor that perhaps should not have been.
Generative technologies could still be leveraged for UI, but the underlying system was "overly simplified" in my view; the original systems upon which CALO was based could hold conversations, track changes in attention and model user understanding as well as interact with planning systems to perform complex multi-application actions.
Now it is perfectly understandable that an early commercial version wants something very robust and thus would limit the amount of "high end" features that would be available in a MVP, but things should not have been left there. And those technologies, being primarily rules based, also have the advantage of both having a practical (as far as code review is concerned) method for explaining how they came up with a response unlike large text corpus-based approaches.
Comment Re:What do you expect from Apple? (Score 1) 204
Really? Did you check both with a kill-a-watt?
Comment Re:What do you expect from Apple? (Score 1) 204
In this case, a fine against Apple would be coercive for no protection of any third party.
Well, there is the externality of increased refuse (pollution) and the social cost of same, as well as the social cost of lack of transparency of the technology (the concept of the patent system is that you have to publish the technology to get limited monopoly rights to it allowing others to copy it and more importantly learn from it and improve it in the future).
I'm personally in favor of the basic concept of right to repair as it strengthens the first sale doctrine and gets us away from this idea that things can be licensed but not bought. That's also a strong argument against property taxes, btw; once you "buy" property you should gain allodial title to it.
Submission + - Engineers Say They've Created Way To Detect Weapons Using Wi-Fi (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The researchers, which include engineers from Rutgers University–New Brunswick, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), and Binghamton University, published a study this month detailing a method in which common wifi can be used to easily and efficiently identify weapons, bombs, and explosive chemicals in public spaces that don’t typically have affordable screening options. The researchers’ system uses channel state information (CSI) from run-of-the-mill wifi. It can first identify whether there are dangerous objects in baggage without having to physically rifle through it. It then determines what the material is and what the risk level is. The researchers tested the detection system using 15 different objects across three categories—metal, liquid, and non-dangerous—as well as with six bags and boxes across three categories—backpack or handbag, cardboard box, and a thick plastic bag.
The findings were pretty impressive. According to the researchers, their system is 99 percent accurate when it comes to identifying dangerous and non-dangerous objects. It is 97 percent accurate when determining whether the dangerous object is metal or liquid, the study says. When it comes to detecting suspicious objects in various bags, the system was over 95 percent accurate. The researchers state in the paper that their detection system only needs a wifi device with two to three antennas, and can run on existing networks.
The findings were pretty impressive. According to the researchers, their system is 99 percent accurate when it comes to identifying dangerous and non-dangerous objects. It is 97 percent accurate when determining whether the dangerous object is metal or liquid, the study says. When it comes to detecting suspicious objects in various bags, the system was over 95 percent accurate. The researchers state in the paper that their detection system only needs a wifi device with two to three antennas, and can run on existing networks.
Submission + - Fewer than half of young Americans are positive about capitalism (cnbc.com)
gollum123 writes: According to a new poll from Gallup, young Americans are souring on capitalism. Less than half, 45 percent, view capitalism positively. "This represents a 12-point decline in young adults' positive views of capitalism in just the past two years and a marked shift since 2010, when 68 percent viewed it positively," notes Gallup, which defines young Americans as those aged 18 to 29. While young people have a less upbeat view on capitalism, "older Americans have been consistently more positive about capitalism than socialism," Gallup reports. Of those between 30 and 49 years old, 58 percent have a positive view of capitalism and 41 percent have a positive view of socialism. Of those aged 50 to 64, 60 percent have a positive view of capitalism and 30 percent have a positive view of socialism. "Socialism clearly sounds better as a concept to young people than to those who are older, as it has over the past eight years," Gallup notes. "Whether the appeal of socialism to young adults is a standard function of idealism at that age that dissipates as one grows older, or will turn out to be a more permanent part of the political beliefs held by the cohort of millennials who have come of age over the past decade, remains to be seen."
Comment Re:Really? (Score 1) 85
There's only two kinds of stock - growth and value. If you can figure out how much a business is worth based on well-understood metrics (EPS, Book value, etc.) then it's a value stock, and it's PE should be in line with the market with various modifiers based on the specifics of these metrics. Otherwise (you add fantasy and predict "big things") it's growth, and the PE is generally a multiple of the market. Apple has been too large to be a "growth stock" for some time, and arguably made the transition the minute it began paying dividends, or the PE fell to the market value whichever you like. My point is, I don't think it's transitioning *now*, though Berkshire's sudden interest does indicate that Buffet thinks the stock is very undervalued (he wants to see a big multiple between when he buys and sells).
Comment Re:Taxes = theft (Score 1) 579
I'm not sure why this is being marked as a Troll given the topic and the obvious political slant of the commenter being responded to (rated 5/Insightful). Goes to show just how partisan even /. is now.
Comment Re:Politician-Speak (Score 1) 875
Cruz's evangelism and insistence at making it part of the public sphere is hardly Conservative. Most of the founders were Deists, Washington was Anglican. None were evangelical.
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