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Comment It's not a right, it's a free market (Score 1) 101

Microsoft puts on offer what they want to offer at the price it's being offered. You can take it or leave it. The beauty of a subscription is you don't have to renew and you can cancel. Open Source alternatives are great (I personally use a ton of Open Source and donate to several projects financially) until you hit the point where you can't do the work you've been hired to do without what Microsoft has on offer. This is the basic practical experience of tech in the free world. It's not a right, but yet everyone likes to talk about it as if it somehow is. Why not put your collective energy into building an alternative that can compete?

Comment Understandable (Score 1) 453

Big EV fan here. That said, nothing here surprises me in the least and people have a right to be upset by the proposed federal phaseout of petrol vehicle sales. People are fearing for their future and feeling like government has overreached too far into their lives, representing ideologies and transportation needs that don't match up with their own. Their needs are for quick fill-ups, long + reliable range, and to keep themselves employed if they're in the oil business. Remember that that state is sparsely populated and drive times between points are long. Many non-commercial trucks are outfitted with extra fuel tanks to help extend range and refuel diesel farm implements. Change is the enemy for these people and they've learned they have to demand it to hold it back and moderate it. It's a shame it has to be this way.

Comment Vulnerabilities are situationally proprietary (Score 1) 250

I get the sentiment and simplicity of holding IT professionals liable for vulnerabilities (like doctors/engineers/architects/etc.), but it's unfortunately not possible. All technology vulnerabilities are situationally proprietary in nature - no amount of best practices or rules can keep anything even 90% secure. Unlucky IT people would no doubt end up out of a job (and probably their career in IT) for no fault of their own. It's a bad idea all away around. If you want to stop digital exploitation dead in its tracks, unplug your business from the internet (yeah, good luck with that). IT security is not a game of gravity and newton's law, it's a game of cat and mouse.

Comment The House Robot Provided the Key on Request (Score 1) 207

If we must use the locked house analogy...

The browser grabbed a visitor key off the fence in front of the house, walked across the street to the trusted certificate provider, and successfully verified the key was legitimate and was okay for the browser to use on this specific house.

The browser then returned to the house, opened the lock on the doorbell with the key, rang the doorbell, and shouted what she wanted through an open window.

The house robot then looked through the window and decided that the browser wasn't a threat and threw a lockbox key out the open window to the browser.

The house robot then opened the front door and tossed a lock box with the requested contents to the browser and the door closed.

The browser left the porch and returned home. Using the two keys provided by the house robot, the browser then opened the locked box to reveal the unencrypted, plain text contents.

The browser never entered the house. It followed the required security protocol to request and take delivery of the requested content. It was up to the robot to deliver the correct content.

Perhaps the Governor needs some better advisors to explain things to him. And a course in basic computing might help, too.

Comment Worst UX Study EVER (Score 1) 226

This COULD be the ultimate UX study, but it's creators have failed from the start.

If I ask you if you would be interested in trying a candy bar as part of a study, you're more likely to answer my next question honestly: "what are your first impressions of the flavor?" But since you work at the candy factory, you might be able to answer some better questions like: "How does the flavor of this new candy bar differ from the old one?" In either case, I'll have feedback I can action on and you (hopefully) enjoyed a free candy bar.

If I tell you to eat a candy bar and go back to your desk at the candy factory to apply what you learned, I have created no measurable value for the organization. More likely, I've created a detractor from inside the organization - which is the seed of toxic culture. I've wasted money and created a liability.

This is UX Study 101 stuff, folks...

Comment Re:Workstations Are Not Going Away (Score 2) 122

For now. There's powerful momentum behind design technologies (CAD, BIM, 3D, Video Editing, etc.) moving into the cloud. No customer wants it, but software companies (Adobe, AutoDesk, etc.) have financial gains to be made by shoving the engineering and design industry back to renting computer time on their cloud.

Comment Evidence to back up the claim? (Score 1) 90

The argument is interesting at best, but does nothing to paint a believable picture of why such argument is necessary in the first place. The performance angle is likely to appease a broader audience searching for advice on improving performance. For everyone else, the advice is counter intuitive and raises additional questions around security and autonomy. As I prefer to use my app switcher as a way to flip between a very specific set of applications, I almost always close apps I'm not using immediately after I'm done with them. I don't trust most applications enough to leave them running or as one commenter suggested - flagged as a 'recent app' in my history.

My challenge the author would be to reveal their full intent behind sharing such advice. What are some examples of problems the practice of closing apps in iOS causes with evidence? To what extent does leaving iOS apps open impact data collection activities of either Apple or apps?

Comment Niche Market: Designers (Score 1) 80

The new NUCs are perfect for design firms (Architecture, Engineering, Ad Agencies, Studios, etc.) looking for a powerful, small desktop that can be deployed and centrally managed. Part of the allure is that Adobe, AutoDesk, and other design software makers have already approved the hardware for use with their products. This might be one of the only products that Intel has left where they've taken the time to understand the needs of their market - which doesn't include anyone who actually reads Slashdot or cares about anything ya'll care about.

Comment Audience (Score 1) 98

Seldom is the developer an expert in the domain their product is intended to service nor are they a part of the audience they intend to serve.

Finding a common structure for documentation that works for more than just a handful audiences is challenging.

There's a whole art of Knowledge Management that suggests that documentation is merely one of many instruments in the toolbox of knowledge transfer. The importance of documentation, it's format, and content are entirely dependent on what it's audience is expected to accomplish with it.

Comment A Better Experience (Score 1) 177

People who pay for it have a better experience than those who don't. They benefit from not seeing the ads in the time they get back and mental space not being invaded. It's a form of privilege. The rest of us are full contributors to the YouTube monetization scam. Subscribers pay to not participate in the most experience-invasive part of the scam. History has shown that this will continue until a massively compelling replacement comes along and/or the government steps in to break it up. That said, I don't see either happening anytime soon.

Comment We see it (Score 1) 45

Once a child gets screen time, they will expect it. I did as a child of the 90's and my daughter born in 2010's does, too. Taking it away and/or metering it is a fight. Increasingly, parents seem to be disinterested to engage in that fight. It's a babysitter with excellent short term results - kids are calm, entertained, and quiet for long spans of time when using screens. A child pulled away from their screens can often exhibit meltdowns of epic proportions. The lesson parents learn fast: Don't take away the free babysitter and make matters worse.

As the article pointed out accurately, the cost of child care is ludicrous. $250/week PER CHILD to send my kids to daycare? That would eat up 50% of my wife could make as a highly experienced Certified Medical Assistant. Our family is better off if she stays home, even if we have to scrimp to make ends meet.

Long term, kids spending all their time on the screens become screen time junkies and schlep off things like homework, playing with friends IRL, and playing outside (real play, not gaming from mom's phone while perched at the top of a park slide). We've seen plenty of 5-7 year olds falling into this category.

The precious time adults have away from their work is increasingly filled with their own screen addictions, home responsibilities, taking care of ailing parents, fighting ex spouses, going back to school, etc. It's a mess, people. A real mess.

Comment 80% Perpetual, 20% SaaS (Score 1) 356

I don't mind paying for SaaS products that come with a value proposition that justifies the cost - typically a live body to talk to on the other end of a support ticket or phone call.

Most applications I want to run, however, are best as desktop applications I can get 5-6 years out of.

Realities of the computing world today aside, this is my preference.

That said - 90% of the software I use is SaaS and I don't like it.

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