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Comment Apply the Basic Test (Score 3, Interesting) 39

Did you pay money for it? If the answer is no, then you are not the customer; you are the product! So applying that, this browser is designed for you to train the AI.

This works for everything online. Though I suppose there are some additional grades. Did you pay ENOUGH to sustain your usage? If the answer is no then you are partially the product. Companies that offer "free" things are evil little spies. Companies that offer subscription services that cost money are potentially not stealing your data or tricking you into doing things for them.

Comment I have already switched back to iOS. (Score 1) 49

While I applaud the effort to try to keep Android open, I think it is futile. Even if this campaign succeeds, google will just continue to chip away at androidâ(TM)s openness until they achieve the closed off system they want. That, in turn, means that it is dying.

The thing is, googleâ(TM)s Android is an inferior product both in terms of capability and user experience. The only value proposition it held for me was its openness, and since that is a deprecated feature I decided to jump ship while my Android devices still had value. I sold my flagship galaxy lineup (ultra, tablet, watch, and ring) and bought the Apple equivalents.

I had to kick in about $50 to rebuy apps that did not have transferable subscriptions, but apart from that little annoyance the transition has been very smooth. The transfer of my last Google Drive file completed last week and now I am fully in Appleâ(TM)s clutches.

To say that this has improved my life is an understatement. The integration between Mac, iPad, and iPhone is just wonderful. Granted I no longer have a device with a usable shell in my pocket, but it does have an ssh client and that is almost just as good. That iCloud encrypts files at rest and has the ability to be configured in a way where apple does not possess the keys was a pleasant surprise. They are certainly selling privacy as a feature!

So there it is. I have given up. The walled garden is delightful. Appleâ(TM)s garden is green and is a joy to wander through. Googleâ(TM)s is more like a prison camp with muck raked over every surface and machine gun equipped cameras watching your every move.

Choose the pleasant prison. Itâ(TM)s better.

Comment Re:And that is why I am switching to IOS soon! (Score 2) 78

99% of what I do on my phone is done through open source F-Droid applications. I have very little from the play store. Essentially, I have my built-in apps, Hearthstone, and then a few apps forced on me by modern society. Otherwise, my phone is a pocket linux machine with a bunch of F-Droid apps thrown in. So essentially, my platform is about to die. It's not so much that I am changing ecosystems as it is that Google is about to poison my ecosystem. So I'll simply be starting fresh in a new environment, and I would not choose Android over iOS.

Comment Re:And that is why I am switching to IOS soon! (Score 1) 78

Right now, you are correct. Once google locks out all independent apps, that will no longer be the case. If my phone will be reduced to officially allowed functionality, there is no need for much RAM, storage, or any sort of spec. It'll just be a terminal to which I can tether devices that I can control. So that just leaves the user interface and device packaging. In my opinion, iOS is the clear winner in that department.

Comment Re:And that is why I am switching to IOS soon! (Score 1) 78

I could see this, but the fancy equipment is useless if it doesn't do what I tell it to. I'll be coming off a flagship Samsung to the crappiest iPhone that the market can provide. I'll bank, text, and pay my parking meter with it. What a good little citizen I will be.

Comment And that is why I am switching to IOS soon! (Score 3, Insightful) 78

If I'm going to be forced to wear handcuffs, I am going to have the shiniest handcuffs on the market and that is not Android. I tolerate android because it grants me the freedom to *gasp* run programs of my choosing on a computer that I own. Take that away and the value proposition is gone. iPhone here I come!

Comment Re: How much of our tax money goes to wikipedia? (Score 1) 173

The rule for us has always been that as a private citizen, we can say anything we like. If we are acting as a government agent though, like if I am in the classroom or on a news program with my university logo proudly displayed under my talking head, then we are more constrained. Honestly, that is as it should be.

But yeah, there seems to be a push in the direction of because our paychecks are derived from the government then that extends into all sorts of other controls. Like giving to Wikimedia or a political party.

Comment Re:How much of our tax money goes to wikipedia? (Score 4, Insightful) 173

I think it's just a poorly formed sentence. Wikipedia gets no tax dollars, as far as I know. Unless you count the fact that they are a non-profit organization and so they don't pay some taxes.

I believe the subsidized people are the academic institutions which receive subsidies. Read that way they are alleging that people who work at publicly funded institutions are using wikipedia to influence the public. Probably part of their general crackdown on people like me (I'm a public university professor.) Hey! I guess that means some of your tax dollars indirectly go to wikipedia. My university gets tax dollars, out of which I get paid a salary. I turn around and give like $50 a year to the wikimedia foundation.

Comment That's a real shame, Whisky is a better product (Score 1) 56

Something about the settings that Whisky uses imparts better performance on every game I have tried. I can't even get some of them to run at all under CrossOver. I have yet to figure out how to replicate these settings in the paid product. I guess I'll have to figure it out now. Where whisky worked out of the box, I must now fiddle with obscure settings and pay for the privilege.

I have no issue paying for CrossOver. If only it worked.

Comment Re:Teaching (Score 2) 110

I have a PhD, and I am a professor. Really professors split their time between teaching and doing research work. The exact ratio varies by institution. I wanted to go into teaching, and so I went to a teaching university to work. I spend about 80% of my time teaching students to hack code and then 20% advancing the state of the art of my field. (By tiny increments at glacial speed as is the way of the academy.)

Personally, I love it! Though in computer science it can be a hard sell because of what you have said. My undergraduate students will graduate into a job that pays more than mine. Though to be fair, my academic job is far less stressful than their software engineering positions will be. I used to be a software engineer, but realized I could have more fun teaching, reading, and writing.

As far as positions, if you are an American with a PhD in Computer Science, there are positions for you. Every university I have been part of has been in constant search mode to cover the computing classes. Our credentials could get us some very nice research positions at Google or Amazon. You have to love teaching 20 somethings to code to stay in the academic game.

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