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Comment Waste of Film, Time, Money, and Opportunity (Score 1) 16

I read this thread announcement this AM, and bought two tickets IMMEDIATELY. Four hours later and I am back to give you my review. TL;DR? SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY. Get drunk instead. I knew the film was short: 40 minutes. But 40 minutes would still allow me to see hundreds, if not thousands of never-before-seen images, from detailed images of closer galaxies to images from the furthest reaches. Right? But instead of showing 40 minutes of celestial images, I would guess that 70% of that precious 40 minutes was spent showing film of earth. Film of various undistinguished people (curiously, about 90% of the people worthy of interview were women, with little of astronomical relevance to say. Make of that what you will...maybe 90% of Webb telescope top-experts really are women?) Then we had film of the telescope being built. Film of the rocket taking off. Film of SIMULATIONS of things. Really boring, boring, boring, at least to me. So then you get down to the approximately 30% of the film which I expected to blow my mind. It didn't. And I am not entirely sure why. Maybe the quality of the projection was lacking (it was an IMAX, but I had expected one of those monstrously huge IMAX screens, at unbelievable resolution, and this wasn't that). Or maybe it was the music. Or maybe the lack of drama - or explanation - in the presentation? Regardless, 30% of 40 minutes is 12 minutes to show you actual, mind-blowing images. Anyway, the universe is a really big place. But this film makes it look small. And it makes me question the budget of both the film and the Webb telescope itself. The tickets were inexpensive, at only $11 apiece. But this film was SO bad, so cheap, so unprofessionally paced, that I wouldn't pay $0.50 to see the film a second time. The theatre was nearly empty. And I don't expect it to fill up by word of mouth. I actually regret wasting my afternoon on this one. PS. I grew up in the Phillipines, 60 years ago, before all the light pollution made a mockery of dark. I grew up transfixed by the fire and beauty of the night sky, stars handing like diamonds and the Milky Way being stretching light a shimmering road from one horizon to another. And all that you could see with your naked eye. To say I was disappointed by this film is an understatement. Who the hell produced it, what was their intention in producing it, and what was their budget?

Comment This is bad news for Linux security. (Score 2) 110

...Or at least questionable. Microsoft is a monoculture and -- as long as it remains such -- will ALWAYS be the preferred target, by far, for ransomware and other exploits, at least on the desktop. How does it benefit LInux for Windows to now come commingled with a Linux attack surface? There has been a lot of celebration of Microsoft adopting Linux, but it is.a very uneven ("What can you do to help us sell more Windows software?") relationship. Security -- both because of Linux/Unix having a better security model, and also due to "security by obscurity" -- is one of Linux's big comparative strengths. And now it is being undercut by Windows coming with Linux inside as some sort of lapdog? This becomes a good reason to begin promoting and building up possibly BSD or - in the future - maybe https://www.redox-os.org/ Just a thought.

Comment Re:Choices (Score 1) 485

(1) The "person" in mind is usually only recently exiting their teen-age years. Can we agree that when a "person" is still "thinking" it is "great fun" to go out and get drunk and get laid they are - perhaps - a bit too immature to make a "wise" decision about financial slavery? (2) The banksters, sociopaths, and oligarchs, who through hook and by CROOK arranged for "educational debt" in a SPECIAL CATEGORY which could not be discharged in bankruptcy, and arranged for the TAXPAYER to become a co-signer, on the other hand, are commonly WAY beyond their childhood years. (3) How much financial sense was taught in YOUR high school? Yeah, mine neither. I think that is deliberate; the banksters and oligarchs like it that way. Anyway, this is a CROOKED racket and could be fixed really easily.... Those who loan money on bad prospects should ALWAYS *eat* their dogfood. Cunning people prey on weak, ignorant, and immature people. If there is any legitimate function for government it is to bring some basic fairness to the table.

Comment Stop using commodity software (Score 3, Interesting) 119

To stop hackers you need to stop using software that they have access to, can practice on, and can compile to. And that means you need to get rid of the stupidity like JVM and CLR, also - just don't allow it on your machine by never allowing it to be ported in the first place. Microsoft and MacOS and even generic Linux need to go, the system calls/APIs and general vulerabiltities are public knowledge. Next, commodity hardware shouldn't be used, either. Other than that, almost no system used for serious purposes should have "easy" remote access/connectivity. Purism has the right idea here -- keep all the stuff like USB, Bluetooth, and camera/microphone HARDWARE DISABLED. Or pull it out entirely. Even a hyperintelligent AI would have a hard time getting past missing hardware. Look, I had a run-in with a ransomware attack about three years ago. It isn't that hard to make a system 100x harder to crack; it is mostly just a matter of making bad practices sufficiently painful. More than anything else, LOSE the internet and LOSE Microsoft. Monocultures are not a good idea.

Comment Are these Windows monocultures? (Score 2) 53

Everyone in ecology knows monocultures invite extinction. Why don't large governments - who have enough money to build their own operating systems, or at least tweak existing open source - know this and take commonsense measures? is government that ignorant of common sense -- or is this what lobbying does to the commons? And what was the vector? Was it attack from internet, bad software in the firewall, or another -- too easy -- stick USB in Windows machine for 30 seconds and it will autoexecute? More forensic information about how the systems were attacked and what types of systems were attacked would be just common sense and good public information, you would think.

Comment Cool if everyone COMPENSATED (Score 2) 33

"Normalizing" and out of control disease-state hardly sounds like an intelligent choice if you want less of the disease. On the other hand, mandating a minimum payout if your data was stolen at all - with "sky's the limit" if you can prove you suffered harm would clean up the problem rather smartly. A company which "secures" data - which is later to be found to be incompetent at said task - needs to be bankrupt, not coddled. A business can reasonably secure insurance, from a well-heeled company, to help cover their risk, as most good citizens do with most things.

Comment Opt Out via Certified US Mail; CA Proposition? (Score 1) 82

I've just wasted the better part of an hour trying to "opt out". Don't waste your time with that; Even the customer service reps profess to have know knowledge of this, nor of how to opt out. What I'm going to do instead is send a US mail letter direct to the President of T-Mobile, certified, return receipt requested (so I will have legal proof) to opting out and telling him what I think of this decision to go into the "pimping" business and taking the low road "testing businesses' appetite for information that other companies have restricted." I really am shocked and disappointed. Beyond that? The people of California, at least, have a truly democratic "Proposition" process to amend state law in a way that the bribery and lobbying of major corporations can't easily subvert. I think ALL data harvesting or data usage should require explicit OPT in. But I think that can only happen via the Proposition process. But California could tip the balance of this "Swiftly Tilting Planet" with ONE proposition. Going through politicians has been a waste of time. T-Mobile Headquarters Phone Number and Contacts. Company Website http://www.t-mobile.com/ Corporate Address [Mike Sievert, President and CEO 12920 Se 38th St. Bellevue, WA 98006 Phone Number (425) 378-4000 Fax Number (425) 378-4040 Twitter IDs @tmobile What is T-Mobile’s Corporate Office Phone Number? T-Mobile USA’s Headquarters phone number is: 1-425-378-4000.

Comment Notice they INSIST on conflating tracking and ads! (Score 3, Insightful) 56

As DuckDuckGo has said in its advertising, and as its profitability PROVES (so the issue is settled) you can advertise based upon what the consumer is looking for (their need) versus needing to compile a dossier on who they are and what they react to. What is "modern" advertising? Advertising where both the product being pitched and, inevitably, the "stimulus" used to trigger a consumer action has a name and a precedent: It is a Skinner Box or, if you wish, a psych operation designed to control/provoke/manipulate the customer using secret knowledge and repeated experiment. "If you would not give your body to any passer-by to do with as they wished, why do you give your mind?" -Epictetus

Comment Try KDE Neon Linux (Score 1) 239

The best "commercial" grade OS and apps out there, for most users, IMO. Super-polished and professionally done for a very cutting edge experience. I'm even getting tired of Mac, with its too-often updates that break too many applications and gradually drown the machine in pork.

Comment Re:"Best practice" isn't good for users (Score 1) 239

No, actually you DON'T "get it". You apparently were out to lunch for a while. The ONLY reason Microsoft does this is so they can RENT software back to people who already bought it. Oh, and SELL its users like cheap hookers to any John with a few bucks. How did you fail to "get" that when it is so obvious? I don't even have the service packs all installed. Most of the bugs are the bugs Microsoft puts in with its "updates". Just don't do dangerous browsing and block "phone home" (try sorgum.org/net-disalber-v-1-0) with a Wn7 machine (or any machine) and -- like magic-- pretty much all need of "updates" goes away.

Comment A soln the Gov and Goldman won't like (Score 1) 303

Plant trees. But, but, but the government is only interested in "solutions" that give them more taxes and more bureaucratic power. Goldman Sachs, of course, isn't interested in anything that doesn't exploit their property (you) and pad their bottom line: "tax credits" is a great vector for profits for both GS and the Gov, so they are okay with you continuing to buy and ship plastic stuff from China....but not really much interested in a practical solution that doesn't transfer more of you and yours to them. I've been saying for about 20 years that "global warming" may be real, and it may even be "man made". But we have both much bigger problems (e.g., species extinction) and problems with much more direct solutions (e.g., pesticides and plastics). But it isn't "PC" to even talk openly about them - much actually do anything about them. Solving real problems and cutting off their vigorous hurts the bottom line of both government and G.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... George Carlin, American Dream (especially relevant beginning at 2 min mark)

Comment Internet put all Media on fire sale.... (Score 1) 958

So the criminals bought. Anyone who underestimates Guilliani in the racket-busting business is likely making a mistake; there is nobody more experienced at setting up and taking down rackets. This next week should be fun as racketeering court cases get filed at a federal level. ;-)

Comment Re:Why isn't there a port gatekeeper program? (Score 1) 292

By the way, even on MacOS and Linux Mint this remains a major problem. On MacOS I recently got the news that a supposedly FOSS install of "Polar Bookshelf" had -- WITHOUT MY PERSMISSION -- been downloaded and I was TOLD (not asked) that on my next reboot it would automatically be installed. On Linux Mint it is better, but still there are plenty of programs that are "phoning home" without first ASKING me if they can phone home. I can generally go hours or even days with NO need for internet, so why doesn't there seem to be support for some sort of strict gatekeeping as, at least, a well known option for those of us who are sick of this "forced sex without protection" from all corners of the internet?

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