linuxhansl

Let's please not throw out the baby with the bathwater and dismiss all fact checking as political, biases, or agenda-driven.

Not agreeing on basic facts in the prime problem in our current political discourse. Disagreement is usually a good problem to have and leads to testing the complete problem space.

What we are seeing now, though, is the absence of the problem space exploration. Instead any discussion is just dismissed by calling the other party's information "fake news". In that fact-checkers are crucial.

Can the fact checkers be wrong? Sure. Could they have an agenda? Sure. Let's fix that. Let's not dismiss them outright as some of the comment here suggest.

No it isn't. Not at all. The author is mixing systems of project governance with monetary incentives.

Open source is a system is project governance and maintenance, whether engineers are paid for working on those is a completely orthogonal question.

The log4j vulnerability is a perfect example. Software has bugs. Open source is no exception. But instead of this being hidden inside some corporate closed code we all now about it, and a fix was already out when the story.

I do (strongly) agree with the Author on the fact that "freeloading" open source software does not work. In the end to some extent you get what you pay for.

Personally I am lucky enough to be paid to work (in part) on open source software.

The better question is: Can we trust Microsoft with .Net Open Source?

Open source that is somewhat close to a core of a what a company is doing is always a fine line to walk. See: ElasticSearch, MongoDB, MySQL, Databricks' Deltalake, Oracle's GraalVM, et al.

This development is (generally) very unfortunately, and for those using .Net very annoying.

But let's not forget, overall Open Source is great, and it's great that Microsoft has (finally) turned in that direction. There are a lot of other, successful Microsoft Open Source projects.

Over 50 here...

Maybe I was lucky... I have straddled both IC and management and was allowed to move between these freely. I've been an engineer, architect, VP (60+ team), and architect again (we have VP, SVP, EVP level architect roles).

I've also worked in many areas. I've automated physical things like oil refineries, worked business appservers, databases, networking, distributed system, and highly scalable data systems, et al.

Need to stay flexible and open to learning and changing. That is exactly what is so much fun working in software! There is always something new to pick up, some new to learn, something new to figure out. The stuff I'm thinking about now did not exist 5 years ago, and what I will be working on in 5 years likely does not exist, yet. Maybe my roles now are not exactly dev, but definitely IC.

While I had my usual ups and downs during my over 30 years in software, I love what I do and will do this as long as I can.

As a lay person in this area... There are more navigation systems around: The EU Galileo, Russia's GLONASS, etc.

Assuming it's unlikely that all system are down/jammed/compromised in the same area at the same time, receivers for multiple systems should be OK...? (Again lay person here)

Fair points. (I hope nobody downvoted you)

I somewhat disagree on your general point, though. Pellet reactor (mostly?) solve the spent fuel issue. Also, I believe that due to unreasonable negative opinion we're behind a few decades where we could be in terms of research.

And as I said in my earlier comment, it is exactly this lack of public support that had (and has) us running old timer nuclear plants (like Chernobyl, Fukushima, and most of the currently operated plants in the US, the EU, and elsewhere).

But I agree 100% that the problems you cite need to solved, and these solutions have to be communicated.

Good. Due do skewed and unreasonable public opinion it is currently almost impossible to start new nuclear power projects. As a result instead of modern, safe (passive cooling, etc) nuclear plants we're running 30-40 year old, unsafe old timers!

Thorium pellet reactors, et al, are promising technologies for safe and local power generation.

I believe the right answer is a mix of (safe) nuclear, renewables, together with energy storage such as pump hydro storage, can solve our energy needs. Then again, I'm a lay person in this area.

Usually I am more inclined to hire someone who discusses time off during an interview. It shows that they think about their life-work balance.

I do not need heroes, I need reliable folks who do not burn themselves out.

Or to put it in a cliche... I need people who work to live rather then live to work.

As a Linux user for the past 20 years or so I agree 100%.

The first few years it was actually some work - compiled my own custom kernels, installed a lot of extra software I needed from source. But over the years that became less and less necessary. Kernels just work, all software I need is already packaged.

These days I just install Fedora (in my case, I assume Arch, Ubuntu, etc would have the same results) on my Desktops/Laptops and it just works.

Now, for work I still happily use a MacBook, but that Laptop is not mine anyway; I am aware and do not mind that my employer and Apple control it for me.

Similarly my private phone is an unlocked Pixel and my workphone is an iPhone.

I love the idea of the Framework and for my next laptop I will definitely check it out.

One topic, though, that I just cannot let stand without comment is the notion that Thinkpads are bad now. I have a Thinkpad X1 Extreme (gen2) and - apart from the stupid name - it is hands down the best Linux Laptop I ever had.

There simply is no "...secretive Nvidia graphics cards, strange BIOS rubbish...". At least with Fedora it just works (including rendering offload to the NVidia card if you want that.)

Personally I think it should be perfectly acceptable to provide a serology test that shows you had Covid in lieu of a vaccination.

That is a statement about the past: "I am immune and here's proof. (either by vaccination or serology test)"

What we do about the future to contain the pandemic is separate question. If you're not a immune you should get a vaccine now.

That is the statement about the future: "I will get vaccinated, because I am not yet immune."

In an ideal world we'd be done here. Together these two statements make perfect sense to me.

Unfortunately there is some inexplicable (again, to me) resistance to getting the vaccine in some people. And hence it is not wise to end here.

At home I only use Firefox (on my Linux machines). For many (not all) sites Firefox is actually the fastest choice.

Being reminded today I also just installed Firefox on my - relatively new - work machine. Somehow I am more tolerant there running Chrome than on my own machines.

I assume they mean top %1 in income (not net worth).

Apparently that put your yearly income at $361,020 (according to some searching I did). To be in the top 1% net worth wise you'll need $11,099,166.

The first seems strange to me. At $361k/year I do not see many avenue to find tax loop holes. You'll get a salary, maybe some RSUs, and you'll just duly be taxed.

If, on the other hand, your net worth is $11m, you'll probably be able to find many avenues to save on taxes (maybe all you have is long term capital gains, or whatever).

But since the talk about income in the article, I'm somewhat confused.

Don't get me started.

- 9/11 was a one-time thing, it only worked because the passengers would assume that as long as they cooperate they would get out alive. Without that "cooperation" 9/11 would have not happened (remember the 4th plane that was brought down because the passengers learned what happened)

- Liquids. There was the potential that someone could mix together some liquids to make an explosive. It never actually happened, and the possibility was solidly debunked later. Yet, our lotion is still taken from us... And dumped right in the garbage near the most populous location in an airport.

- Shoes. One failed attempt. One. Years, later we still need to take our shoes off.

It's a security theater. Some of it obviously necessary, some of it just to make us feel safe.

Meanwhile way more people die on their drive to the airport than from any flight related incidents.

> Dismantle the Sparks Group, Which Allegedly Caused Tens of Millions of Dollars in Losses Resulting from Pirated Films and TV Shows

Smells like false math or at least the false assumption that every consumer of the copyrighted content would have paid otherwise.

Same here. IMHO ThinkPads are still the best laptops (again, IMHO), and I've been running nothing but Linux since 1999.

I still buy ThinkPads and run Linux on them.

I run a recent X1 Extreme (Gen 2) with Fedora as OS and aside from the the weird naming have zero complaints about it.

Putting over 1bn people under general suspicion? I fail to see how this will solve anything.

I agree with most of the rest you said... This is about markets and it is about the protection of IP.

Edit: Spelling

If 100% of all people are vaccinated that 100% of all hospitalization would be from vaccinated people. That says nothing about effectiveness of the vaccines.

78.8% of the population we're talking about here are vaccinated.

More data here: https://twitter.com/jsm2334/status/1427465003007942659?ref_s...

Oops. Yes.

R0 is for the delta variant is 6 - 7, ergo herd immunity (1-1/R0) is 0.833 - 0.857.

So, yes, it kinda works like that.

A question that would take 2-3 minutes of Googling to answer. I did not downvote that question, but I still think it didn't have any place here.

I'm afraid I do not follow...

1. 21.2% of the population (unvaccinated people older than 12) make up 40% of the hospitalizations. It's even more stark when you remove the immune compromised from the statistic.

2. For the delta-variant we need a higher vaccination rate to reach herd immunity. Estimates vary, but most put this around 85%.

3. While vaccinated people still can get sick (and why won't they, the immune system can only start to act after encountering the pathogen), but... the time of being infectious is lower and (see above) hospitalization and death rates are much lower.

Upon (very basic) scrutiny the numbers from Israel point to the high efficiency of the vaccines not the opposite.

And last, what would have us do instead?

Because this hypothesis has already been shown to be false numerous times.

Before anyone draws the wrong conclusions...

78.8% of the population above 12 are vaccinated. The remaining 21.2% make up about 40% of all hospitalizations.

The vaccines are incredibly effective and the situation in Israel does by no means indicate that they are not.

Edit: Fixed 11.2% to 21.2%.

I read somewhere (truly forgot where, sorry) that we humans are mostly just lazy, that we avoid thinking as best as we can and rather gravitate towards that (people, circle, or news) which confirms what we already believe so that we do not have to think.

"Confirmation Bias" does not quite capture it. Really just laziness. :)

The other part, being decisive... I can definitely relate to that. I noticed that I often have a hard time making decisions and realized it's because I tend look at the world in terms of what I can possibly lose instead of looking at something new in terms of excitement.

Cool. I'll watch that one!

(Case in point that everything I have ever thought of has been thought of already by someone else. :) )

Imagine an asteroid would be on trajectory to collide with earth in (say) 2025.

Possible order of hypothetical events:

1. Scientist discover the asteroid. Calculate risk of collision.

2. Asteroid comes closer, probability of impact is calculated as high.

3. People will start saying that we cannot let our economy be controlled by the specter of an asteroid.

4. The asteroid becomes visible. You can see it with your bare eyes.

5. Still people start claiming it's fake news: The scientists are lying, it's a great conspiracy, it's all just to control us all.

6. Destroying or diverting the asteroid is estimated to be so expensive that it will change our way of life.

7. Anti-Asteroid-Action demonstrations would start all over the planet, to protest any expensive actions against the asteroid.

8. News outlets will be asked to be keep the bias out of their reporting, because they would support "asteroid believers".

9. Countries will create treaties to stop the impact by 2030, or perhaps delay it to 2040.

10. Scientists report new data. Impact is certain. Models about consequences are increasingly accurate and dire.

11. These scientists are labeled as alarmists.

12. The rich countries refuse to take the financial burden, because they feel it's unfair.

13. Impact is now a few weeks away. Nothing happened. Nobody did anything.

Update: Layout and spelling.