If you work at McDonalds, you probably fed a soldier or a weapons designer, or CIA field operative. You'd have to drop out of productive society entirely to escape this dynamic.
Readit Newsjimfl commented on I want to write software that helps kill people. gist.github.com/zmaril/53... · Posted by u/edsu
Dead Comment
jimfl commented on The Summly deal makes no sense philosophically.com/the-s... · Posted by u/thomseddon
I kind of agree with the author. Have I been engineer in Yahoo, I would ask myself question "Why is he paid so much, where we could do it in house better and spend this money on bonuses for employees?". Especially given that fact, that Summly doesn't even own this technology just licences it from SRI.
The only explanation I see, is that what Yahoo actually really bought is the great licensing deal (flat fee? exclusivity?).
Yahoo! engineers probably could do this. Yahoo! middle management not so much.
We wrote our own shell when I was at university (which was completely offensive, not at all obedient and generally no help whatsoever) and chsh'ed them if they left a terminal open :)
(for ref, we had to do very naughty things to SunOS 4 to add it to /etc/shells)
/usr/games/worms is the best shell ever.
jimfl commented on March 16, USPTO switches from 'first to invent' to 'first to file' jdsupra.com/legalnews/top... · Posted by u/seats
This dynamic seems to give an advantage to corporations who have a systematic, always-full pipeline of patent applications. The barrier to entry for a single inventor for filing a patent is pretty large.
jimfl commented on Stop pretending cyberspace exists salon.com/2013/02/12/the_... · Posted by u/wamatt
If nothing else, cyberspace can be delineated economically.
In meatspace, the economic leverage of a traditional business is scarcity and the leverage of traditional parasitic distribution business is distance. The economics of cyberspace can be based on neither of these things, because once a single instance of something is created, it is everywhere without scarcity. Traditional business attemts to create artificial scarcity and distance, but this is madness.
jimfl commented on Limiting passwords to 12 characters is "secure enough" forums.stardock.com/43980... · Posted by u/Jayschwa
Security red flag: passwords are "secure enough."
jimfl commented on U.S. Senator Questions Attorney General about Aaron Swartz cornyn.senate.gov/public/... · Posted by u/danso
Cornyn has been gunning for Holder for a little while, asking for his resignation earlier last year.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cornyn+holder
Edit: spelling
jimfl commented on New Year's Resolutions: Improve Habits With an RPG ocdevel.com/node/568... · Posted by u/lefnire
It would be cool to have an external source of quests/bounties, such as user stories to be implemented, trouble tickets to be addressed, etc.
jimfl commented on Game of Thrones Most Pirated TV Show of 2012 torrentfreak.com/game-of-... · Posted by u/Pr0
I have a DVD player, and a broadband connection. Without getting into something (cable, set top streaming, torrents) for which there are investments in time, energy, and money, there is no legal way for me to watch the second season of game of thrones.
Once I get into something, there's a lot of other content available. Cable is the least flexible. Streaming is buying into a walled garden which might disappear in a year, or change TOS, or some other distasteful eventuality. If some popular show drives me to piracy, and I make that investment of time and energy, then that's how I'm going to get all the rest of my content from then on out.