That cuts both ways. It's likely there are people who don't use Twitter because they allow hate speech.

You're welcome to move on if it makes you happy. Others will want to keep discussing this issue because it's important to them. It's still a free country. Let's hope it stays that way.

One thing that is certain is that many Slashdotters seem heavily influenced by emotion rather than reason. This is evidenced by the seemingly nonsensical conclusions that so many are making. Here's just a few:

1. Donald Trump is somehow for the working class. Nothing in this man's history suggests that he's ever had a connection with the working or middle class. He clearly comes from privilege, his self-worth is deeply tied to how rich he is perceived to be, and he eagerly boasts of his prowess at working the system for his own benefit at every opportunity presented. Any logical person would conclude that Donald Trump represents the point one percent of the American ultra-rich who know nothing of the plight of working class and middle class America. Yet somehow because he's "anti-establishment" he's somehow for the working man. Here's some simple logic: anti-establishment != good for America.

2. The ridiculously high bar set for Hillary Clinton as compared to any other politician that ever held office. When, in the history of politics, has there ever been a politician whose private and public positions on policies were always the same? And where is the proof that public and private positions on policy have to be the same in order for there to be a net benefit to the public? It's so common it even has it's own word in the dictionary: it's called "realpolitik".

3. We're living in a time where technology makes it possible to put any person under a microscope and amplify all their mistakes and flaws in a matter of minutes. Ask yourself if we had the same same technology during the time of the founding of this nation what would that do to our opinion of the men who founded this country? Everyone of us knows that humans are flawed and that the longer a career is the more mistakes are made, and yet we're somehow illogically concluding that two individuals with lengthy careers should somehow be of flawless character and with immaculate records to bolster them up. We're not electing robots we're electing people.

One thing I've learned from experience is that when people use words like "despise" and "hate" it's usually coming from a place of deep-seated emotion rather than clear-headed logical consideration. Unfortunately, I see a great deal of that in these discussion. Whoever you vote for this election season I would urge to dump your emotional baggage. Do some breathing exercises, clear your head, talk yourself down. Consider each candidate in a historical context. Weigh their policies against each other. Force yourself to look for something good in each one. Question all your premises. Don't take things personally. You must find the strength to this for yourself and for your families.

I use Synology DS Note on a Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

Synology DiskStation (https://www.synology.com) is a feature-rich NAS solution. In addition to the usual file sharing and backup services you would expect from any decent NAS, it provides a some really great SaaS solutions that you can access from either a browser, Android app, or iPhone app. E.g. they have pretty good apps for managing photos, videos, spreadsheets, and notes stored on your NAS. They also have a free subscription service similar to DynDNS that allows you to access these services from outside your local network.

While DS Note, the note-taking app for Synology DiskStation, is not as feature rich as OneNote or Evernote, it has a decent feature set and allows you to access your notes across all your android and iOS devices as well as from a browser. What I like best about this solution is that I have way more control over the data and services, no need to worry about services being shut down or third party snooping. You can even configure your DiskStation to periodically store encrypted backups to Amazon Glacier. Furthermore, it's easy enough to setup that I don't have to be an IT expert to get cloud-like capabilities from a NAS sitting on my home network.

For the actual note-taking I have found the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 to be the perfect device. For a minimalist who hates having to carry multiple things, the Note 4 is a killer device. I specifically opted for the Note 4 for it's expandable storage and replaceable battery. The Wacom technology stylus + MyScript handwriting recognition perfectly complement each other to provide the best note-taking experience for cursive writing second only to pen and paper. While I understand the appeal of pen and paper, the ability to centralize, enrich, and easily share notes is worth the extra trouble for me.

Lastly, I want to put in a good mention for DrawExpress. Absolutely the best way to quickly create graphs during meetings that you can actually read, modify, and share later on.
For the record, I don't have any affiliation with the companies mentioned in this post.

What's fucking sad are conspiracy theorists. GE, like all companies, has problems but your analysis is obviously juvenile trolling.

I'd like to address some of the ill-informed knee-jerk reactions on this topic. In the interest of full disclosure, I should also mention that I work for GE Digital (as an engineer). Regarding "actual IoT entities", some of the firmware/software that we built is test on these platforms because in many situations they are convenient for testing I myself have a collection of Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, Parallax Propellers, Basic Stamps, etc. But let's be real, here's a list of the "things" that GE builds:

• Jet Engines (http://www.geaviation.com/engines)
• Healthcare Imaging Devices (http://www3.gehealthcare.com/en/products/categories)
• Wind Turbines (https://renewables.gepower.com/wind-energy/turbines.html)
• Locomotives (http://www.getransportation.com/locomotives)
• Industrial Scale Water Treatment (http://www.gewater.com/)
• Turbines for Power Generation (https://powergen.gepower.com/products/heavy-duty-gas-turbines.html)

The list above is not exhaustive but it's enough to illustrate the point. All of the equipment built by GE uses a multitude of sensors and Industrial Control Systems and GE Digital is invested in building PaaS solutions on open source software to help bring data from those sensors into the cloud and run analytics that improve reduce cost and improve efficiency. In fact, GE has been doing this for many years the only thing that's changed is that now there is an organization, GE Digital, dedicated to standardizing the hardware, firmware, software, and security of these systems. You don't get more IoT than that.

The problem is one of perception, because we take things like power generation, water purification, air travel, healthcare for granted. We don't realize that there's a massive amount of software, data, and analytics needed to run these things and tremendous room for efficiency gains with the right software. We're so obsessed with smart phones, smart watches, fitness devices, and companies building consumer products we forget the foundation on which these things rely on.

As far as the security in the IoT space is concerned, GE made an investment to buy Wurldtech (http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/09/ge-buys-wurldtech-to-beef-up-internet-of-things-industrial-infrastructure-security), a company that specializes in securing ICS. They build systems designed to both passively, and actively mitigate against threats. In addition to that, it's probably worth noting that GE has several divisions dedicated to both IT security and cyber security research. Finally, I can state that GE is contributing to open source projects that provide software security capabilities (e.g. authentication services) by both writing code and performing ongoing penetration testing. Also keep in mind that many of these systems are deployed on private clouds and some which service critical infrastructure are not directly connected to the internet (think on-site cloud computing).

I've been reading Slashdot for a while and I know there's a sort of cynical anti-establishment attitude around here. Honestly, it's what drew me to this forum in the first place. It's funny though, being on the other side, seeing how much vitriol gets thrown around that's terribly ill-informed. It definitely gives me some perspective.

It's disheartening to see people with entrenched positions lash out the minute something new threatens their illusory bubble of safety. The reactions are visceral yet I wonder how many have actually tried pair programming?

It's really this simple: if you think peer review has value then pair programming is simply just-in-time peer review. Furthermore, by virtue of the fact that it is just-in-time, it has one big advantage over traditional code review: the reviewer is immediately invested in the process. In other words, they can't relegate their code review to the background.

Here's how it works: two people sit at a pairing station which has a monitor, keyboard, and mouse for each developer connected to the same workstation. The programmers take turns "at the wheel". The programmer that is not "driving" is reading the other programmers code, catching typos before they turn into hours of debugging, acting as a sounding board for design decisions, providing a second opinion or consensus when making tough decisions. Pairs rotate at intervals.

Yes, your team will write less code overall, but 1) the quality and the maintainability of the code improves significantly 2) the confidence in the code increases 3) the team benefits from shared knowledge.

Pair programming is not about how you feel it's about better teamwork. Yeah, a senior developer will feel that pairing with a junior developer slows them down, but those justifications are selfish. If I see a programmer making a mistake or tediously performing the same repetitive task shouldn't I teach them a better way?

Leave your ego at the door and accept that 1) you don't know everything; therefore, you will learn new things working with others 2) sharing your knowledge takes time but is a force multiplier 3) sometimes trying something different can have a positive effect 4) working in a closet with your headphones blasting "Dual Core" without team interaction may be heaven for you but its likely detrimental to others.

Grow up people.

The problem isn't Windows (not sure if you are implying this or not). It's a convergence of factors which make patching systems a veritable nightmare in the process control systems.

1. The people who run the plant are trying to squeeze the maximum amount of yield from their plant. Shutting down a SCADA system so that it can be patched and tested may literally cost them millions of dollars per hour. Furthermore, the cost of upgrading is not looked upon kindly unless it's going to help you create more of product X at a lower price. You may argue that the greater good is more important than money but these guys aren't listening to that.

2. These industries are rife with rules and regulations that further inflate the cost of patching systems. In the pharmaceutical industry the cost of applying a single patch may run well into the millions of dollars because every change has to be meticulously audited.

3. IT is often outsourced to third parties in order to control costs. The downside of ceding control of your own infrastructure is that even something mundane like changing a firewall rule has a process which costs money and resources.

4. There is an old-school engineering mentality that is pervasive based on the old adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it". No person involved in the industry wants to find problems. They want the plant to produce and they expect the hardware and software they buy to produce - untouched - for 20-30 years.

I have seen crazy things at plant floors. Control systems still running on Windows NT, operators sharing credentials, copying files from one system to another using thumb drives because the network does not allow files-haring.

1. Dante's Inferno - Probably the only classic that I actually re-read.
2. Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond - This book has many answers about our history as a species.
3. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins - Amazing well written and humorous.
4. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien - Everything you need to know about morality.
5. Dune by Frank Herbert - Is there a better sci-fi book?
6. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - Once you finish reading it you'll know where all that Matrix nonsense comes from.
7. The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell - Pratically explains why Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon.
8. The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins - A very readable book on evolution.
9. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - Because Hannibal Lecter said so!

That's short sighted. Please define the "foreseeable future" because from my experience that's just a cliche that gets thrown around far too much. Here's something that is more concrete: given enough time and not enough competition one company will dominate the market. Just because it isn't so now doesn't mean it won't be later. The best way to prevent market dominance is to welcome all competition with open arms and put aside any emotional feelings about which companies are "nice" and which ones are "naughty".

Microsoft's failure in the mobile market hurting it's desktop market is, in my opinion, not even worth discussing. First of all we could use a reasonable desktop alternative to Windows that is not locked into a hardware platform. Second, Windows is alive and well in industries where people can't afford to make decisions based on image. I'm not talking about run or the mill consumers that tune into the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials I'm talking about industry. The vast majority or our refining, chemical, electrical generation, pulp and paper, nuclear, pharmaceutical, smart grid, manufacturing, you name it runs Windows (at least on the desktop). Furthermore, in those industries you pick a platform and you stick with it for as long as you can milk it. They could care less about what Microsoft's mobile or gaming platforms are doing. Not everyone is easily swayed by reputation and image. Some people still make decisions based on good old fashioned dollars and cents.

I don't want them to dominate the mobile platform (which at this point is only a very remote possibility anyway). I don't want anyone to dominate the mobile platform. The only way to do that is to embrace all competition. Companies are all the same they're after your money. But as long as they have to watch their back and fight off the competition they'll at least be giving you something worth while for it.

Comments like this make me nervous because they insinuate that other companies (such as Google, Apple) will not behave the same way Microsoft did if they have a chance to. And any argument to that effect is terribly weak given that there is absolutely no evidence to support it. Public corporations are public corporations. They are not on your side. Your welfare is not their primary concern unless it boosts their profits. I'm not necessarily against public corporations. They're like fire. They can help you when you need them but given the right circumstances they will burn indiscriminately.

ANY competition in a "free market" economy is good. It doesn't matter where it comes from. There is plenty of evidence to support that. Windows 7 is by far the best operating system Microsoft ever produced and the only reason why is competition. We need competition from Microsoft to lower the chance that companies like Google, Apple, Adobe, or some other company try to pull a Microsoft stunt. And if you believe they won't you're terribly naive.

As a community of geeks we must put our emotions aside and assess these companies and their doings dispassionately.

Amen brother!
But seriously. You're absolutely right. I won't even make any arguments here I will simply refer everyone to Richard Dawkins wonderful book on the subject "The God Delusion". I especially like his Darwinian explanation of why religion is so successful within our species. The next step in human evolution is realizing that there is no god and being OK with that. Really, we don't need him/her.

What's wrong with learning from past experiences and doing whatever we can to nip this in the bud? I'm assuming you believe being proactive about something is being better than reactive.

What exactly is YOUR point? Should we all just roll over and accept the things we don't like in life? Maybe for some people the issue is big enough that they want to change the status quo. How can you make a claim that no one cares? Where's the evidence? Obviously the DoJ and the FTC cares. That's somebody backed by alot of guns. If you don't care then tune them out but really who gives a damn whether you think it's worthwhile to complain about it or not especially on a site where half the content could be construed as people whining about stuff. And if you think /. is a dev exclusive community then you MUST be new here.