Actually, I think that they scramble the planes while they're double checking. Then they don't have them go past a certain point unless they get the GO signal, and if they do, they're a lot closer. This gives them a head start if it's for real, but also gives them enough time to turn around safely if it's a false alarm.

Because unlike software-based solutions, it can successfully hide the information from the user (barring any hardware vulnerabilities). The problem isn't just that hidden information can exist on the system, the problem is that the root user can't access the information. Being able to access the information is what made DRM crackable. Without that, it could be possible to make a DRM system that actually works, which would be the worst invention in the history of computing. If the user can clear it but not see it, that does nothing to make that less viable.

Exactly. Censorship attempts to make it impossible for people to see and/or read whatever's been censored. Moderation, as practiced here, only makes it slightly more difficult because you can always click on the down-modded post's link and see what was hidden.

Oh, I totally get that point, and agree! But my point remains: We don't need to replace Teams-as-a-whole with a craptastic monolithic of mismatched functionality shoehorned into one poorly-behaved application. We need a messaging app, halfway decent teleconferencing, and a collaborative document management platform. And I guess some form of locally mountable cloud storage, if you're a fan of giving your personal data to completely untrustworthy third parties.

No strawman, it happens almost every time I express concern at the possibility of TPM enabling a working DRM system.

Anyone care to once again reassure me how TPM, a system for hiding information from a computer's user regardless of privilege level, can't be used for DRM again?

I think the bigger problem is trying to replace all of Teams in the first place.

Just give us Skype back! Sharepoint already exists and works fine in a browser (sure, even Edge if we want to go there); and I actively go out of my way to remove OneDrive every time MS shoves it back down our throats. Bam, there goes 90% of what's wrong with Teams.

IANAL, but perhaps someone who is could explain why on Earth they went for antitrust rather than something with a lower bar like tortuous interference?

As I understand it, the former is virtually impossible to win even under the best of conditions; the criteria for the latter is practically Google's own defense in this case - "Yeah, we intentionally destroyed any shot at you ever getting another customer solely to boost our own ad revenue, by deceptively offering you a free carrot while we stole the whole farm out from under you - But we don't have a contract with you, so nyah-nyah!"

Fortunately, societal expectations have changed radically over the past few decades. In the 1950s virtually nobody was voluntarily child-free. In the '70s that rose for the first time to roughly 10%. By 2010 it was 20%. Today (well, in 2023) it's 29% and still appears to be rising rapidly.

It's one thing to have a vague sense of despair for the future of humanity; it's another matter entirely to act on that feeling if it means your family and most friends will disown you. When I chose not to have kids 30ish years ago, fortunately I had fairly supportive parents (though the family elders nag me at every gathering even now); but I still watched most of my childhood friends basically drop off the map as soon as they had kids. Even at work, where reproductive status is theoretically a federally protected class, I would always get the worst shifts and even when I became a 9-to-5'er, the parents constantly check out early to pick their kids up from random events, and they always get first pick of PTO because boo-fuckin'-hoo they have a harder time scheduling things.

By contrast, today a third or more of someone's high-school friends are likely to remain after the breeders pair up and vanish from circulation. Parents have come to realize they may not ever get grandkids, and if they really want some, they'd better pop out a few extras of their own to boost the odds. And work... Still tries to play those same games, but I'm old enough now to put my foot down and demand they send a copy of any discriminatory policies in writing to my lawyer - To be clear, I'm not actually a litigious bastard, but those magic words are enough to make even the most worthless of HR drones stop parroting "RAAAWK! Employee Handbook, comply, comply!" and engage the brain long enough to realize what they're saying is blatantly illegal.

Whether or not the world is worse today than it was near the end of the Cold War, people are finally (somewhat) free to follow their conscience.

Census by the founders includes *every person* not just citizens. Disagree with the founding fathers on that one eh? Also there is an easy thing to do with people who are illegal, just make them legal. Reagan knew there isnt a practical alternative and now a new generation will have to learn that.

Nope....I liked Reagan a LOT, but he fucked up really badly on that one thing allowing an amnesty....caused a rush on the border...Hey everyone isn't perfect and he fucked that one.

Fuck legalizing them....send them all back and try to come in the legal way. I'm not against streamlining and reforming our immigration system to legally come here, but even with that we should be choosy about who we let in, only those that will benefit the US and show they will be likely to meld into the melting pot and become US citizens.

We need to set up system around work that will pretty much lock out ANY person here that is not here legally....I hate the thought of a national ID, but if something similar to it had to be in place to root out all the illegals, make it impossible to work and live here, I'd be for it.

And maybe we need to amend the constitution and ONLY count citizens and ONLY allow most things for citizens....let's make it as unattractive and difficult as possible for illegal immigrants.

The moon is fake! The woke commie Dims turned the rigged puck-lamp too high!

Three we are going to see a bump in immigration to the US as the Republican's have made immigration enforcement a total disaster...

Disaster?

I hardly think so....they have gotten the PR wrong in many cases, but I and lots of folks appreciate the efforts and accomplishments so far.

The main problem is, we're not rounding up and deporting illegals fast enough in large enough numbers.

But progress is progress and we're already starting to see some change in good numbers.

One nice side effect will be, hopefully, if we can deport enough NON citizens, they won't be counted in the next census and the reapportionment of house seats to more represent actual CITIZENS in states will come about....

Open up more housing to citizens with illegals gone out of places....and take huge fiscal burden off our government services (education, medical, etc)....with them off the roles being a burden.

The value I see in Xbox:

1) Their vendor agreements re: distribution and sales for games.
2) The OEM hardware channel profits/relationship.

Frankly? I see 2 options.

AMD is doing great. They're the only big players in the market I can see that understands how to grow a business instead of simply loot it. Xbox would potentially give AMD a big market leg up in their other product lines (namely, low power CPU/GPU). Xbox itself has always heavily depended on AMD hardware integration to run well. AMD excels at buying things and making them feed their entire pipeline - and that model works extremely well for Xbox.

It would just depend on what kind of deal they could get on the company, and Windows use (if they'd even want it).

Failing that... maybe Valve.They're already trying to turn SteamDeck and SteamOS into something that runs and works on everything. They've got obscene amounts of money. Xbox could be a great already-installed base as well as give them additional studios to make games for their platform. Though this seems less likely than AMD.

Considering how easy it is to port or support a game on Linux or Mac these days with WINE (with vibe coding), even Windows support seems a diminished quality for gaming.

I've personally taken 2 old games and made them playable on MacOS just vibing them. One was Homeworld, and the other was an indie game (the name of which I can't remember, but it was in the theme of Thief).

There was a time not that distant from now when Microsoft was getting a significant percentage of their revenue from gaming. This seems like they're slaughtering their sacred cow.

I can't see much upside for Microsoft in the future. They're basically moving cloud-only for most products, except for Windows itself. I understand how that works on the books, but I don't see how well that works for their customers. They're shrinking their market substantially to cater to larger and larger enterprises.

(THeir GPU investments have largely been a loss leader for their other cloud services... "data has inertia" or however that saying goes: storage, compute, and network activity on their cloud which wouldn't have gotten used if not for people moving data to the cloud to process it, subsidizes the discounted GPUs. All the cloud providers are doing this.)

Yeah, but why not? You're clearly not doing anything with the property. Might as well let someone get good use out of it.

Microsoft seems intent on destroying every one of their valuable properties with enshitification, trying to pull the last dollar out of existing products instead of innovating or providing anything for their customers.

As for Xbox being a loss leader... what are they smoking? The boxes themselves have been for a long time, that's just game industry economics. They've already divested from that, pushing the hardware cost onto manufacturers, which is sure to make the platform price go up. But the software side of that business? It's always been incredibly lucrative.

What have MS done, lately? The only things that come to mind are increased "vertical integration", pushing their customers to the cloud while at the same time increasing the licensing costs and decreasing the quality and usability of all of their self-hosted products. Managing Windows has become increasingly difficult, and once useful tools don't even work. The tools that do work, Powershell, usually don't even work, with constant drift across products as to what works and what doesn't.

There are further cultural observations to make specifically related to Xbox, but I'm sure that would get some people in a tizzy.