Similarly, I was shocked to see that the standard procedure for flight computers acting up was to simply re-power them. Computer hardware/software should be made reliable enough that you don't need to do the "Windows thing" of rebooting regularly to keep it operating. Circuit breaker instead of power switch, but the same deal, really.

The depressing (or incriminating?) part here is that the fix didn't require any hardware modifications, as I would have expected. I assumed that there was some cost/weight issue to having the MCAS have access to the left and right sensors. But nope, it could have compared both.
If it can be fixed with a software fix, then it could have been done right from the start without any extra hardware costs of production.
Very damning.
I get so tired of the reports calling clear software/algorithm bugs "computer glitches."
It's akin to blaming every pilot error situation on the plane.
Just as with hardware design flaws, software design flaws should have repercussions for the manufacturer, and not written off as "oh, one of those computer glitches!" If your computers are glitchy, don't put them on my plane, thanks.

Sounds a wee bit like the ill-fated 737 Max 8's MCAS system, which overrode the pilot's climb ability when they needed it most.
Not having power when you need it to safely avoid an accident will cost lives.
But, just as with self-driving cars, more lives will probably be saved, overall, by the system. Because humans, on average, aren't great drivers; computers can, or soon will be able to, outperform them.

> The Norwegian browser maker,

Really? That seems a bit, errr, disingenuous. Maybe even misleading.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/...

After a $1.2 billion deal fell through, Opera has sold most of itself to a Chinese consortium for $600 million. The buyers, led by search and security firm Qihoo 360, are purchasing Opera's browser business, its privacy and performance apps, its tech licensing and, most importantly, its name. The Norwegian company will keep its consumer division, including Opera Apps & Games and Opera TV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Opera Ltd. is publicly listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange [8], with majority ownership and control belonging to Chinese Businessman Yahui Zhou, creator of Beijing Kunlun Tech[9] which specialises in mobile games and cybersecurity specialist Qihoo 360.

If you want to send all your traffic through a Chinese VPN, go ahead, but at least be aware who ultimately controls Opera. The fact it's explicitly pitched as "Norwegian" seems suspicious. Could be a trap. :)

737's can inappropriately (and repeatedly) retard the throttles to idle if the single radar altimeter used gives a bad reading. (And the plane has two radar altimeters!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

There are supposedly other similarly reported incidents.

So my Google Play music caches my entire library on the 64g MicroSD card on my phone or tablet.

Probably a way more green result, streamed/copied the first time, then playing off a MicroSD card on an energy efficient phone/tablet/etc., as compared to spinning CD's or repeated streaming.

People tend to listen to their music repeatedly, not on a one-off basis,so local cacheing goes a long way.

So instead of taking 100% of my CPU, Firefox will be able to take 500% or 1000% of my CPU (100% for every tab I have opened and Firefox is spinning on for some reason.)

And so instead of nearly crashing my machine by hogging resources, it most certainly will.

Please, Firefox devs, get the CPU and memory leaks, javascript wedging, etc., under control before splitting things into more processes (which will just further hide such performance/memory leaks for now.)

At least one might (supposedly?) be able to kill off rogue/misbehaving pages on a per-process basis. But again, a properly functioning/secure/stable browser wouldn't have that need in the first place.

Sigh. 15% market share vs. Chrome's 60%, I fear for FF's future. It's my main browser, and the last viable hope for any privacy or security on the web (unless you wholehearted trust google.)

Security Nightmare???

Awesome, 'cause there's no one I trust more than FB with security, to make sure that camera is never used unknowingly to the owner.

Interesting that, if I recall correctly, his "Brief History of Time" and other published works mentioned that it allowed for the possibility of a God.

He leaves stating there's no God to be published post-humously.

Hedging his bets? Or just avoiding controversy while alive?

While it wasn't the full PhotoShop, Adobe did for awhile produce versions of PhotoShop for the Android phone and tablet. (Not the silly little red-eye photo editor they call PhotoShop on Android now.)

It had way better functionality than any other image editor I've used on Android, with many of PhotoShop's nicities. It was also surprisingly useful and easy to use with a touch interface, not an easy accomplishment.

I bought both the Phone and Tablet versions (I think they were $10 and $20 respectively), and it easy was (and is) my favorite Android app of all time.

Aaaaaannnd they go and suddenly discontinue the product.

While it isn't visible in the Play Store any more, since I did purchase it, I can still download and install it on new devices, thankfully. But I'm sure those days are numbered.

I'm not sure why they pulled it, I think they gave some vague "focus on other stuff" excuse, but I wonder if they were concerned it's great core functionality might have ended up competing with their desktop product for some users...?

Very sad and stupid situation, wish they'd bring it back.

Glad to see the iPad will be getting some PhotoShop love. Hopefully it will be a $20-ish product like the earlier Android product, but given that they're calling it "full PhotoShop" I'm guessing it will be hundreds, out out of my range.

Too bad, they had me as customer, and could have more of my money in the future, if they had just continued down that road they were on with a powerful, cost-effective, phone/tablet version of their product.

Oh well, there's no use trying to make sense of corporate greed, even if they're missing out on bigger opportunities because of it.

Have you fully considered the multidimensionality of the vehicular divide of which you speak? Oh my gosh, and the multiplicity of the analogy gap!

And are you pretending the ACA did anything to actually reduce costs are help resolve the problem you're talking about? Did you read the entire article you linked?

So, 1-2 trillion dollars that are going to be spent per year, and the very same broken legs are still going to be paid out of pocket. I love this stuff!

Hmmm, I don't seem to recall the disclaimer on the end of that sentence when the president said it. I don't remember ANY wiggle room here. I think the President said this better than I could. Not sure where you'd pick any of this apart.

Instead, President Obama should have said something like, "You can keep your plan... comma insert disclaimer here".

As for this up-sell notion... the policies that got dropped were dropped due to them not offering all the stuff required by the ACA to be offered. These were policies that had existed prior to the ACA implementation. The white house knew many of the policies out there would no longer be allowed to be offered. They knew it when the President was out giving speeches that you would not lose your plan under any circumstances... "period". He was either completely ignorant of the fact, or was out and out fabricating lies. There is no in between.

Seeing as how my original comment has gone from -2 flamebait to +3 informative in less than an hour, I felt I should better explain this statement. First off, I wasn't fully accurate about the constitution stating the House has the exclusive power of the purse. It seems this is more historical precedence than stated fact. Please refer to the following FAQ that explains this better than I could.

Furthermore, because a program exists does not automatically assume that it will be fully funded. Even the military has to have approval for its funds every year, and it's not just a law but a constitutional requirement. The power to not fund a project is an important check on power that legislature has. It didn't just vanish because proponents of the ACA wanted to make this a talking point.

Not only is it perfectly legitimate to remove funding from a program, it would be dishonest for representatives of people who want to see a program abolished to not try to do this very thing. Representing constituents is what they are all supposed to be doing.

The funny part in all this is that initially the Republican proposal was to fund everything except the ACA. Then they backed down to delaying it for one year. Then they backed down to just forcing federal employees to make use of the exchanges instead of what they have today. Before this is all done, I'll bet there's going to be plenty of Democrats who wish they'd gone with that delay for a year deal.

I'd still love to see Harry Reid and all the folks that voted this on us to have to actually use it themselves. Apparently they're too good for that.

If the issue was actually insurance like we issue for cars, then the costs would be trivial. There are really good reasons why this stuff is so expensive. Unfortunately, as we're now finding out, if a company isn't providing everything from birth control to chronic disease care as a complete package then that policy is no longer valid per the ACA. This is why 3.5 million folks who had policies that worked for them no longer do.

And yes, if you break your leg on the side of the street then you should accept the burden of that debt as a part of your existing in our society. All the better for you if you were insured. Otherwise, the bill should be in the mail. Ummm, kinda of like any other part of society I might add. Your leg will still get fixed, but you still owe for a service that was provided to you at some cost.

There were issues that could have been addressed by our government that could have actually helped. Treat chronic illness differently then broken legs for example. Today we toss them all into one big pile, driving up costs on all. Allowed the market place set up a market place, instead of what we now have as conclusive proof that the government is not competent to provide, by allowing interstate sales of policies. The government didn't need to come in and set all this up... it could have gotten the hell out of the way years ago. Definitive guidelines across varying specialities as to what constitutes a valid law suit or not, where huge sums of money get sucked into lawyers pockets.

Ahh, but instead we got this debacle that every right thinking Democrat will be behind 100% regardless of what "should" have happened.

Ya know, it wasn't even a specific policy point that really bothered me about all this. It was how this thing was passed. Nobody read the damn thing! A bill that important couldn't reach across the aisle for a single vote from the other party. This massive 2,000 page beast that should have been hashed out in committee, which is the normal process, was instead rammed through using parliamentary trickery. How could any reasonable human being expect this was going to go well regardless of your political affiliations?

Now we know the president either lied outright about what would happen to existing policies, or he was just another one in DC who didn't actually bother to read this bill. If this were a Republican it would be just as damning!