Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:This is why I don't use spyware (Score 2) 96

I'm sure if your car dealer would randomly change things on your car you wouldn't have a problem with it either, right?

If they were upgrading a component of my car, I would not have a problem with it, which is what Google is doing here. Aside from the additional memory address space, this change also brings:

- Additional address space layout randomization means brute force attacks won't overcome your ASLR
- Additional architectural security features such as NX as well as others
- Twice the number of CPU registers means less writing to the memory stack
- Additional features I haven't thought of results in this action upgrading their users

With browser software in peticular, many of these features will result in an improved and more secure experience for Google Chrome users. The real question is: Is there any valid reason you wouldn't want them to do this? I can't think of one.

This is nothing like the Windows 7/8 to 10 forced upgrade, where the user-facing interface and feature-set changed; with this upgrade only the implementation details change. From the user perspective, everything remains exactly the same. So why the outrage?

Comment Re:AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Linux Benchmarks (Score 4, Insightful) 175

The only operating systems I run are Ubuntu Linux and Gentoo Linux and 80% of my gameplay occurs on Ubuntu Linux, as well. Ok, "only Linux" was an exaggeration because for the other 20% of games I care about that don't have Linux ports, I have a small partition for Windows 10, which I use exclusively for those games. But, 98% of the time I'm booted into a Linux OS. Sure, I'm a programmer, so it makes sense that I run Linux, but the OS is more than capable, hugely customizable, and nowadays easy enough for anyone to use. Moreover, today software exists to accomplish almost any required task, and even more, you will likely be able to look and fix any bugs you may encounter, instead of simply relaying a bug to a closed source programming team that will get around to it "when it is high enough priority for them to care". And if you can't dig into the code yourself like I can, the open source community will help resolve your bug immediately. It may not be right for everyone, but calling Linux "a completely worthless desktop OS" is simply wrong.

Comment Re:The issue is leftist naivety. (Score 1) 460

The issue is that the same leftists who implicitly trusted the Obama Administration are now, less than a week after he lost power, crying up a storm about the new administration.

Fuck you for believing that all liberals inherently trusted Obama. I think he generally did a favorable job, but I didn't blindly trust his administration. The fact remains, Trump has given us a hell of a lot more reason not to trust him by blatantly lying about easily invalidated data. If he didn't go out of his way to talk out of his ass, he wouldn't have such an issue. This skepticism is of his own damn making.

Only 18% of Americans voted for Trump. Whether that is an inditement of Trumps low level of national support or the low level of voter turnout is an exercise I will leave up to the reader, but in my opinion, it is important for the people to push back on the far right opinions of a president with a 34% approval rating.

Comment Re:Gov't data (Score 1) 460

[...] education, the states can handle that fine. FDA and EPA might fall under promoting the general welfare

You fail to understand that the United States, through its public schools, set the standard for the world by first offering publicly-funded (through taxes) school to all citizens.

This single action resulted in producing some of the most educated, advanced, and developed minds and directly contributed to the success of the United States of America. I would consider that "promiting the general welfare." Believing otherwise is inherently dangerous to our continued success.

If the ideas of Betsy DeVos, Trump's Education Secretary nominee, become the standard and private, religious institutions continue to have less regulation and less transparency, with tax-payer money funneled to them through "vouchers" and while public schools are neglected more, we are in for a shit educational system that favors those who can pay and hurts those already struggling even more.

Education is the paramount "general welfare". Without education, the United States does not compete in the world, or even on its own national stage. Something this important should be regulated, mandated, and offered to all, by the federal government.

Comment Re:Glasses (Score 1) 435

It is not 3D. The point many people are trying to get across is the following: lacking the ability to focus on components in space causes headaches and invalidates the idea that it is actually 3D.

Here is a simple example. Suppose you are sitting on the couch, with a laptop directly in front of you and a large screen TV ten feet in front of you. When you look at the laptop, it is in focus, and the background image, including the TV, is out of focus. Conversely, when you look at the TV, it enters focus, and the laptop is out of focus. This doesn't exist in "3D" movies.

This shortcoming contributes to the confusion and difficulty the brain encounters when trying to navigate the 3D space of a 3D movie. This, in and of itself, is the main contributing difficulty, IMHO.

Comment Re:More of that small, local govt freedom (Score 1) 200

And to see how intersectional bullshit actually works, look at the pissing contest for the Million Women March that's all about radical black feminists demanding that other radical feminists first "check their privilege" - in other words, submit to oppression by blacks.

You, sir, are a fucking moron. "Submit to oppression by blacks," huh? Go fuck yourself for twisting the Million Woman March into a white-vs-black game. Just STFU.

Comment Re:Google Messenger (Score 1) 98

[...] Google Talk, I mean XMPP [...]

There is extensive evidence that Google is no longer using XMPP, short of their legacy "Google Talk Service" end point, which is near useless since they have chosen not to implement the TLS-enforcing RFC 3920 (ratified back in 2004), leaving the vast number of XMPP servers unwilling to establish a connect to Google Talk anymore. They are killing it by slow-poisoning over a decade. That's one way to do it... More to the point, there is **no** evidence Allo or Duo are built on XMPP.

Comment Re:Go with Microsoft, get MapCruncher (Score 1) 252

I beg to differ. If Google Maps has no alternative, how does the MBTA use that feature to create a map showing all subway lines and stations?

Check it here: http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/subway/ and go to the Interactive Street Map.

As for the questions, I have had limited experience with both, but the Google API was much easier for me to work with. Also, the Google Maps API is now much more mature. Honestly, if you don't care about the API's maturity, try both and see which is prefered.

Slashdot Top Deals

The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. -- Paul Erlich

Working...