cstross

94 ms·

811.
by cstross 13y ago
I don't know how Massachusetts law -- or US Federal law -- swings, but here in the UK there's a specific crime, magnificently called Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice, which covers everything from perjury to faking evide
812.
Trotskyite Singularitarians for Monarchism: A political speculation.(antipope.org)
7 points by cstross 13y ago|1 comments
813.
by cstross 13y ago
Go forth and ask random people whether (a) the earth revolves around the sun, or (b) the sun revolves around the earth. The proportion giving answer (b) will cause you to sob even more. (Yes, I have done this. Afterwards, I hid under my bed
814.
What scared H. P. Lovecraft?(antipope.org)
4 points by cstross 13y ago|0 comments
815.
by cstross 13y ago
Important note for readers from the US: while the UK has a legal right to free speech (via the Human Rights Act, which in turn is based on the EU Convention on Human Rights), it is diluted by opt-out provisions for public health and safety,
816.
by cstross 13y ago
What's your problem with Trotskyite news sources? I assume most folks here are smart enough to evaluate any given news site on the basis of its accuracy and to differentiate between editorial bias and factual incorrectness. If you real
817.
by cstross 13y ago
Interestingly, in the developed world it seems to be the Anglophone countries that have the shittiest attitude towards border control these days. The US is notoriously user-hostile at the borders. The UK is doing its best to catch up in a M
818.
by cstross 13y ago
Finally, I'm very uncomfortable with the way surveillance makes me want to self-censor. Congratulations: that makes you part of the second category, the under-privileged -- like the inmates of Bentham's original panopticon, felo
819.
by cstross 13y ago
To over-generalize wildly: two classes of people want anonymity on the net: * Those who want the freedom to abuse others anonymously * Those who want the freedom from abuse conferred by anonymity The debate over G+/YouTube or Facebook
820.
The next 3D printing revolution(antipope.org)
48 points by cstross 13y ago|15 comments
821.
by cstross 13y ago
You nailed it on the mark-up. Also, ad sales in print computer magazines fell off a cliff after 2001 and never recovered. (Last time I looked, the ad page count in CS had dropped to about 200 pages, from a peak of nearly 600 pages.) The dro
822.
by cstross 13y ago
It makes me think that these magazines are not actually designed to optimally interest their readers, but simply to grab their attention and then mold it to their advertisers interests. The whole point of the editorial content in trade
823.
by cstross 13y ago
Aren't Visa and MC going chip-and-pin in the USA next year?
824.
by cstross 13y ago
Dirty little secret: most people aren't content creators, even for values of "content" such as discussion topic comments.
825.
by cstross 13y ago
Microsoft's desktop supremacy hasn't been down to "it's got a nice, easy to use interface" for at least 20 years. Rather, Microsoft is (or was, in the pre-post-PC world) everywhere because of (a) licensing stitch-up
826.
by cstross 13y ago
Musk's hyperloop might or might not be workable in the right place, but it's simply not going to work in London. (Cost of new construction: prohibitive. Also, London's transport infrastructure is groaning at the seams -- it d
827.
by cstross 13y ago
I think you're making a correlation/causation error here. Housing benefit has crept up over the years because the property market was inflating steadily and no government dared bring it back down (middle-class home owners vote t
828.
by cstross 13y ago
The point of this piece is not that living in Barcelona and commuting to London is sensible -- it's that the North London property market has gone totally batshit insane. No, seriously: renting a 2 bedroom flat in a not brilliant sub
829.
by cstross 13y ago
Also note: Pages 5 has a File->Export ... option to export a Pages '09 version of the current file. So it's possible to get documents out of Pages 5 if you updated inadvertently and converted all your iCloud files, and go back
830.
by cstross 13y ago
Stuff I expected, under "one more thing ..." (or earlier): The Mac Pro ships with enough bandwidth to drive three 4K desktop monitors, yet Apple's most recent monitor -- the 27" Thunderbolt Display -- dates to 2011 and h
831.
by cstross 13y ago
Two words: job security. (Also: lots of folks really don't enjoy learning new stuff. Or new ways of working. No, they really don't. Even if the new techniques are vastly better and more efficient. Put this down to a human cogn
832.
by cstross 13y ago
Well, considering the original remit for perl (back in the pre-Perl 5, pre-OOP, pre-CPAN days) was to glue sed and awk together with a proper programming language and full access to the POSIX library, that shouldn't be a surprise. Aren
833.
by cstross 13y ago
Adds a whole new opportunity for "digital manipulation". (Sorry, I'll just get my coat ...)
834.
by cstross 13y ago
There is some more prize gibberish in that article: Saxena said IBM is ready to make a big a bet on Watson, as it did in the 1970s when it invested in the emergence of the mainframe. Leaving aside the grammatical error (it's probably
835.
by cstross 13y ago
Key point: for decades in the UK, school education forked at age 16 -- the point at which you specialized. Prior to age 16 you'd be studying for exams in 6-10 subjects: originally 'O' (ordinary) levels, then GCSEs. (School le
836.
by cstross 13y ago
Yup. See also: http://catb.org/jargon/html/N/NSA-line-eater.html
837.
by cstross 13y ago
Am I the only person around here who thinks that the correct solution to prompt textbook delivery around campus is a wifi or 3G network and an ebook reader, rather than a noisy flying machine of questionable safety? (Five stars for WTF-grad
838.
by cstross 13y ago
Yup. Me too. That's the principle I run on.
839.
by cstross 13y ago
Frankly, I hate advertising -- ALL advertising, not just web advertising -- and want the advertising industry to die in a fire. I recognize this is a bit controversial, especially with Americans (who seem unable to conceive of content indus
840.
by cstross 13y ago
There seems to be a chunk missing in the third paragraph: Or it can compress its body and stretch out its [???] these two beasts because they happen to belong to the same order as the gazelle

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