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Comment Agreed (Score 1) 204

I'm not a very visual person. I have to stare at icons and and interpret them, and somehow it doesn't stick.

Menus are fine. Words are good.

Some stupid nondismissable palette that replaces menus in order to take up 20x the vertical screen space and makes you solve pictogram puzzles for functionality... well, it makes me use other software. Like Libreoffice.

May be stuck with Microsoft's shitware at work, but can use decent software at home.

Comment PatriOracle (Score 4, Insightful) 54

I think we can all look forward to the kind of quality programming only a silver-spoon son of Larry could offer.

The patriotic fervor of a fascist twat who thinks praising Dear Leader lifts his boat; news reports that would make Putin blush (more from embarrassment than excess, say what you will, dude knows how to suppress a polity), all backed by decades of the cash-extraction expertise Oracle has taught you to know and love.

Ask not what your teevee can do for you. Ask what your Teevee can do to your country.

Comment The even-better part (Score 4, Informative) 38

So that drone that some dipshit ordered destroyed is part of a ridiculously inefficient program that wastes enormous amounts of money even when they aren't used for target practice by mouth-breathing clowns.

A few fun details from that report:

Drones have led to only 0.5 percent of apprehensions at a cost of $32,000 per arrest.

A Predator B drone engine cannot regularly handle its maximum flight of 20 hours; even 6 or 7 hours of operation per day would cut at least 15 years off the 20-year lifespans of such engines.

two of the CBP drones (18 percent of its fleet) have crashed within just 10 years of purchase—one because of human error in 2006 and another owing to a generator failure in 2014.

Each Predator B drone costs $17 million to purchase and $12,255 per flight hour to operate. [...] For comparison, manned aircraft with surveillance capabilities similar to the Predator B cost only about $1,500 to $2,000 per flight hour.

Shut yer yap and pay your tariffs, serf.

Comment Re: Not a rhetorical question (Score 1) 165

I get that. And I realized my comment was drifting off-topic - I was responding to a particular claim, not asserting I thought this particular law was a good idea.

For the record, I don't, for multiple reasons[1].

I was just responding to a particular argument that gets repeated a lot, which seems to be that all kids of any age should have access to the same online resources adults have, with a parent's role relegated to trying to explain why cartoon characters are doing that to each other in some Youtube video their kinder-gardener found.

It is an idea with a certain utopian appeal, and it could even work for certain kids who luck in to having good parents. But it is culturally unrealistic (you're not going to convince a significant number of parents), and almost certainly net-bad for kids (Lots of kids don't fit that lucky combination).

[1] I don't want governments PMing my OS; even if I did, that's the wrong layer for something like this; we already have workable parental controls, it is just that parents are just too fucking lazy to figure out how to operate them; and I don't believe this is good-faith in the first place - it is part of a ratchet to eventually control content available on the public internet.

Comment Odd to root for one of these shops, but (Score 4, Interesting) 84

I'm honestly surprised.

Either threat is pretty serious - nevermind that they're utterly contradictory.

Kegseth isn't going to invoke the DPA. They seem to get away with crazy shit that just hurts people, but they're trying not to spook the market, and going old-school socialist in peacetime is a bit much.

I can see this regime blacklisting them from DoD procurement, which would limit their "addressable market", as the tweedlers say. It would give them cred with certain segments, but that trade won't be revenue-positive.

So that's a tough decision to make, especially given the shamefully shitbaggy baseline of his aristo-wannabe peers at other tech firms.

So good on Anthorpic.

Comment Re: Not a rhetorical question (Score 2) 165

Sooner or later they are going to come into contact with such material.

Correct. This is as it should be. Young kids are simply not equipped to deal with some of this. It can cause real trauma. As kids get closer to adulthood, parents with good judgement will relax the controls as they see their kids' judgement developing.

If this material is forbidden it will also be more attractive

So this isn't any of your business, regardless of how true your statement may be. Parents get to parent how they see fit, within parameters society defines[1]. Lots of parents do all sorts of things to their kids, both gross and subtle, that I think is awful, damaging, ineffective or stupid. But that's none of my business, either.

surely its better that when they first encounter such things they do so under the guidance of responsible adults who can explain what it is.

Yes, absolutely! And part of that is judging when they're emotionally mature and intellectually developed enough for a given topic. Look at it like this - trying to explain military strategy to a four year old is doomed. There is no point in trying to explain it someone who doesn't even really grasp the concept of societies, let alone why they might fight. Explaining BDSM to someone who doesn't understand any relationship modes other than parent-child is similarly doomed.

Thus, a parent may want to try to delay some of those conversations.

[1] I make no claims about the wisdom of the specific rules in any given place, just describing.

Submission + - NY AG Letitia James is suing Valve (cbsnews.com)

DesScorp writes: James is going after Valve on gambling charges, stating that loot boxes are predatory, especially for underage gamers:

"This loot box model that Valve has developed—charging an individual for a chance to win something of value based on luck alone—is quintessential gambling, prohibited under New York's Constitution and Penal Law," the complaint says. In one of the games, the process even resembles a slot machine, according James. Since the prizes in the loot boxes are determined randomly in accordance with odds set by Valve, James alleges, that effectively makes Valve an online casino. "Valve, a video game developer, has made billions of dollars by letting children and adults illegally gamble for the chance to win valuable virtual prizes," James posted on social media. "These features are addictive and harmful. That's why I'm suing to stop Valve's unlawful conduct and protect New Yorkers."


Comment Re:Commies (Score 1) 195

I have no idea how you got there when I explicitly said "Trumpistas". If I meant Reaganites, I would have said that.

The fascist clownshow still wears that skinsuit, though, and needling them about it makes other Republicans uncomfortable, so I consider it useful.

Trump is basically a 1980s Democrat

Right, I can vividly remember the horror of Geraldine Ferarro shipping all those poor souls to gulags after establishing her own network of paramilitary brownshirts.

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