kamjam

As a user who has just bought their first computer, would you a) like to go to the shop and spend money to buy more software b) try to figure out this thing called FTP, maybe going to the library to read up on it even though you have never heard of it so don't know what you are looking for c) just use this thing called "Internet Explorer" that sounds like what you want to do, is free and already installed on the computer you just turned on for the first time?

Or, just wrote you name, number and email on some stickers and put them on the bottom of the laptop. It doesn't have to be high tech, and in this story the woman who took the laptop could have got in touch much sooner.

When the vote is as close add it was, there is no high ground. It's a win/loss by a tiny majority. If remain had won I would like to think that people would have had enough sense to know that almost half the population is disgruntled and done something to make them happier instead of throwing insults everytime "they complained".

I guess no one will truly now know.

I assume you're talking about the triggering of Article 50 - the decision of the Supreme Court case which we are still waiting for on whether Parliament needs to vote before it can be triggered or the Prime Minister can trigger it using Executive Powers.

So possibly, but there is talk of Teresa May rewording the Bill and forcing it through. Democracy eh!

Yes, because becoming a tax haven has always done wonders for shifting money from the uber rich to the working class people. /sarc

The UK really needs to sort out it's internal policies and spread the wealth around the country and the not just keep pushing "the London agenda"

Maybe you've misunderstood how democracy works with a dictatorship. Just because your "side" lost the vote does not mean you cave in and blindly follow down a blind alley.

By your reasoning, the other opposition parties (Labour, Liberal Democrats et al) should just sit idly by and not question or argue against any Tory policies for that term of Government?

I agree with you that the vote has been cast, the UK is leaving the EU. But to state people are not allowed to have a voice on the terms of leaving is naive at best. Had the result of the vote been the other way (48% leave, 52% remain) would be be having a "hard remain" and telling the leavers to shut up?

What happens when something like nuget.org/npm/other equivalents that you have a dependency on from your code/build system go down?

Unless you are self-hosting everything then there is a reliance on 3rd parties. Even when you self-host, you have a dependency on your IT team for maintenance - 100% uptime is impossible for anyone, servers sometimes need to undergo routine maintenance or an upgrade. Yes, I understand the difference being it's on your own timeframe, but often it's just been one of those things.

Even with these small outages, would be interested if anyone is able to keep higher uptime themselves.

> Simple explanation would be that activists use Signal.

But why do activists simply not use WhatsApp, instead of Signal? If both were suppose to be fully encrypted and secure, why not use the tool that is available. I assume the needing encryption is to prevent the government snooping and eavesdropping on your plans rather than "liking the UI/UX of one system over the other"?

Maybe the activists know something we did not, and are right to be paranoid...

I've never understood this "UK is creepy cos of all the cameras they have". Yes, there are a lot of them in the built up cities, most are privately owned and a lot are probably directly controlled by the government (and related agencies as well).

The large paranoia towards the UK probably stems from "The UK has more CCTV cameras per person than anywhere else in the world" but no ones knows this to be true for certain[1][2].

It may well be true, but don't think that you're being filmed any less in any other first world country. Also worth noting that most of the statistics are based on "per person". There may well be countries with a much higher population and much higher CTTV camera count.

1. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cctv_cameras_per_capi... 2. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/spy-britain-six-million-cc...

What about selling them very very cheaply as an Amazon Add-on item?

It's also worth bearing in mind that America, the godfather of capitalism, have just had their crazy election. People were saying they as a nation had been left behind due to globalization. Isn't the capitalist market supposed to self regulate and spread the wealth? If US citizens are feeling left behind, how exactly are other nations supposed to feel when western nations "come to liberate them and give them democracy"?

"There's a principle of ideology that we must never look at our own crimes. We should on the other hand exult in the crimes of others and in our own nobility in opposing them."

I believe the quote is from Noam Chomsky but couldn't find any references. Some interesting debate in this thread, but as you and the OP say, there is no black and white, good vs evil, just many shades in between with many actors playing many roles simultaneously. Fidel Castro was certainly no saint and at times was the devil, but there were also those other times inbetween.

That's the same for any country, not just Cuba. The wealth distribution of the US or any other western society is not evenly distributed and the pay gap is growing even more rapidly.

Did not know the limit had been increased, and agree about checkout staff having no clue when the pin does not work (happens a fair amount with foreign cards).

I've seen a lot of people in the US not sign their card and instead write "ask for ID", which seems like a much smarter move!

In the UK at least, all our payments in store above £20 require a PIN to be used (payments below £20 you can use the fairly recently introduced touch pay which just requires you to touch the card to the payment machine).

If you are purchasing online, all my credit and debit card payments require me to enter 3 random characters from my (previously set up) password.

Not sure what the system is like elsewhere in Europe/worldwide.

The article also mentioned nothing about the drug being sold on the website either. I presume they must have had to go to a doctor to get a prescription which they would then take to a pharmacy to get the drug... so going to the doctor and saying "I took this questionnaire and it said I have X. I need drug Y" means there are problems elsewhere in the system.

I agree with you totally. I'm sure the author feels some responsibility for having some played some part of this, but it's the pharma company that should be ashamed.

With regards to advertising, I'm from the UK so we don't get much medical advertising, but in the US it is crazy. Half the adverts in commercial breaks seem to be for medicines with half a dozen potential side effects.

> Then, if a visitor could prove they had a prescription, they were given access to a patient portal with more specific info about the drug.

I assume that it was just further information about the drug. In the UK only a doctor can prescribe controlled medicines. I assume it's the same in Canada... if so it's for the doctor, who has had years of training in this field, to prescribe the correct drug. Yes, some drugs cause side effects for some people, and medicines need to be adjusted/changed as a result. We don't know how many people died as a result of the medicine, but that's what government regulation should deal with not allowing untested drugs to be sold.

> We’re approaching a time where software will drive the vehicle that transports your family to soccer practice. There are already AI programs that help doctors diagnose disease. It’s not hard to imagine them recommending prescription drugs soon, too.

For me this was the most (and only) important paragraph of the post.

Maybe buy a height-adjustable standing desk. I used one of these for about 10 months working on a project in Denmark where the motorised versions seemed very common. Gives a break from sitting down all and useful for huddling a couple of colleagues around.

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/campaigns/home-office/standing-des...

I stopped using the FB App back in 2014 when the upgrade required a whole heap of additional permissions - the ones you mention. It then forced the update along with separating out the Messenger app.

The mobile web version gave me everything that I needed when using FB - checking some occasional updates, messages and people posting baby pics. Nothing that requires a separate app, and nothing that requires an app, esp since you need to be connected to the internet to see anything. I really don't see (from my perspective) the point of any FB app.

The mobile view was awesome for me. This move blows. Since the messaging is still available on the desktop browser version, this literally means zero extra development time.

FU FB.

If a company made a life saving drug and then released the patent say after 5 years of exploitation, I'd agree with the argument as well.

In my experience of using the service, and Montreal is a much smaller city than London (where I am from), you don't want a car every weekend. I was usually able to find a car for hire as long as I booked in advance (esp for Bank Holiday type weekends) but sometimes it meant going to a different location than the one right next to me. As the system get's more popular and more people use it then they are able to purchase more cars.

> It doesn't save on cars that's for sure

I disagree. Several of my friends also used the service, just between us that saved having several cars. If you need a car all weekend, every weekend then the service is probably not for you. But if, like me, you needed it every so often then it saved a lot of money over the course of a year.

When I was living in Montreal for a couple of years I signed up to a community car share scheme. No insurance, no maintenance, no road taxes so it worked out cheaper to "rent a car" just when I needed it: https://www.communauto.com/index_en.html

With a good, cheap, reliable public transport system with this as backup I could easily get rid of my car if I lived in an urban area but still needed to get around at the weekends.

There is not I'm afraid, you have to mark the ballot paper. So the way round it is to mark the paper outside of the boxes, thus making it an invalid vote.

> Why does it have to appeal to 4 year olds, who have zero understanding of or interest in what it does?

You realise that those 4 year olds grow up right? And that by possibly catching their attention and imagination at an early age it might even make them more interested in the area and maybe, gosh, make them want to become researchers and scientists when they grow up and tackle issues like climate change.

And the very people objecting to it now will be retired, dead or moved onto a more senior position and then care less about it.

> My other objection is that Boaty McBoatface, somehow represents the will of the people. No it doesn't. It represent the will of people who bothered to vote on an issue most people likely don't give a dam about. If a choice was demanded of the whole population then Boaty McBoatface would never have won.

This can be said about the election in pretty much all western societies. There have been several occasions where I myself have not voted in the UK elections. Does it make those elections any less valid? Same can be said for the US as well, where even those who voted found that majority rule didn't matter in the end [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...]

Maybe we should follow the Australian way where people are forced to vote or face a $100AU fine. But then democracy right, it should give you the right to not vote.

It's in the 2nd paragraph, linked from "called Server Fault" text.

Exactly. At _best_ most people will just say "well, it's the government, _of course_ they can crack it". If it was some 15 year old kid in his bedroom, then that's a different matter...

The reference to the Australia stats reminds me of the Jim Jefferies sketch on Gun Control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR9IaXH1M0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UFyNy-rw4

I'll second OneNote. I haven't used EverNote since 2011 due to a revamp if their UI which didn't sit well with me. OneNote is pretty simple and basic at it's core, but the ability to have multiple books gives separation between work/personal, multiple tabs allows separation between projects and multiple pages allows separation between tasks. It helps me structure things fairly well.

I put my money on this guy: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/hoverboard-duru-1.3270569