milesf

Pics or it didn't happen.

This was such a simple problem to fix for United. They offered vouchers for people to volunteer. No one accepted. So keep raising the offer until 4 people accepted. Problem solved.

Instead they chose violence.

I will never fly United Airlines again.

Aaaand... it's been corrected :) I wonder now if the author meant to do that? Are they iterating even on blog posts?

Clever title :) By releasing the article early, the typo is spotted quickly.

I'm actually not saying the future will be negative. Maybe it will be. Maybe it won't. But savvy and smart seems a bit too self-congratulating to those who have managed to negotiate this.

Like Stan Lee said in Spider-Man "with great power comes great responsibility". If anyone who currently has this type of power abuses it, they could really do some damage to others. Uber's CEO is already throwing a lot of red flags.

We shall see what happens.

FTA: "That’s due in part to the dual-class share structure that savvy tech founders have come to embrace in recent years... with smart management techniques when setting up a board to guarantee control in perpetuity."

Though "savvy" and "smart" today, tomorrow other words might be used to describe this type of behavior.

Couldn't have said it better myself :)

How do you know this is scam-ware? Looks plausible and possible to me. What am I missing?

It's not the addition of the touch bar I don't like. It's the removal of the magsafe and forced "dongle-spaghetti" I need to use the USB Type-C.

This is a common practice among sales organization here in British Columbia, as it was championed by Jimmy Pattison. He started in car sales, and now owns billions in assets here in BC. Having worked in sales, I understand the logic behind it. I disagree with it, but I understand it.

The mantra seems to be "when you have great sales, you can commit many sins". Not exactly the best motivator for an ethical institution.

An alternative, and more effective sales methodology IMHO, is Jim Collin's "Good to Great" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_to_Great

You may agree or disagree with my views, but if you're a company that fires the bottom 10% on a regular schedule, I can promise you this: I will never work for you.

Gregg Pollack, the other half of the "Rails vs." videos, has a tribute page to him:https://www.greggpollack.com/remembering-jason-seifer/

I remember meeting Jason many times at conferences. Always jovial, always encouraging, and always very funny. You will be missed.

Time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. I've watched the tech community battle back many times: PGP, SCO Unix vs Linux, WebStandards.org, etc.

How do we fight this using software? Remember that many of the innovations came from single individuals. Is there a way to have a fully private, fast communication between two computers when we know everything we do is being saved and analyzed? Because that's all the Internet really is, whether one of those computers is a web server and the other a browser or any other infinite combination.

My favourite is to explain interruptions of any kind are like teleporting me 1 hour away. You may have "just a quick question", but as soon as you walk away I now need an hour to travel back to get to where I was.

For some people it's much shorter, but I find saying 1 hour gets the point across. Otherwise folks may think "bah, it only takes them 15 minute... I think it's worth interrupting him".

Bottom line: we need to teach awareness to those who are ignorant, set boundaries, and defend those boundaries once they are set. Otherwise you are dealing with disrespect. I can tolerate many things, but I do not, and will not, tolerate disrespect.

It cool, yet at the same time it's a bit... unnerving.

Good point, although in this instance of "argumentum ad verecundiam" Snowden has the credibility and has stated a common objection in such a succinct way that I think it bears repeating provided it is stated accurately.

Appealing to authority can be a fallacious way to reason, however it can also be done correctly, and is a powerful way to influence people. I love your visual of phone/quote/mic drop - that'd definitely be the wrong way to do it :)

Yeah, you're right. But frankly, I don't care what people think about me. If what I am saying is true, they can think I am crazy, but (hopefully) the words will stick in the minds of some, and in time those words will be proven right.

Of course, there is also a risk that sometimes I am wrong. There are things that I believed to be true that were not, and I've gone back and told people so. Pursuing truth and being transparent about my mistakes and missteps builds trust.

People may not like me, and I'm fine with that. I would rather have their respect than their admiration. If they do not respect me, then I will do them the courtesy of keeping my opinions to myself. I don't waste my breath on cynics.

Either a troll or a shill.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

- Edward Snowden

The problem with Google and Facebook is they lack context. Let's say you doing a search for school on Islamic State. How do they know the difference between you and a member of this terrorist organization?

Context is everything.

Which is why I use ddg.gg (DuckDuckGo). They don't track you.

People are starting to wake up to the implications of a world without privacy. I carry around Snowden's quote on my phone and repeat it verbatim when people say they have nothing to hide:

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say".

Do not be discouraged. Just keep educating people one-by-one and we will win this fight. We have to, otherwise our ancestors who fought and died for freedom and liberty will have done so in vain.

Why don't you follow this software developer's advice who also happens to be earning millions a year? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

I'll have to read that as well. Thanks for the tip :)

I would love to hear more about your experience there (my email is miles at coderpath dot com), and would like to learn more about R.G. My only knowledge about him was through his autobiography.

I'm so surprised that people have not heard of the late R.G. LeTourneau. The man was a mechanical genius, and the father of modern earth moving machinery.

Here's a video of his Concrete House Machine from 1946: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpWjyZO2lPU

This was 70 years ago! I read about them in his autobiography "Mover of Men and Mountains". He went with concrete because it was cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter. Seems to me the "Not Invented Here" mentality has been around for a very long time.

Give me some better ways to derive morals and explain to me how, from an atheistic worldview, the acceptance or rejection of those morals is anything other than my own personal choice to accept or reject them?

I've done it. The best way I found was to setup a Minecraft Server and let them manage it. Keeping it up and running touches on every skill you need.

The problem with this line of argumentation is atheism does not explain or give reasons for the most basic questions we have as human beings. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going?

Also, in the realm of morality, everything atheism purports to be true is completely optional. We can all agree that murder is wrong, but what's to stop an independent person from asking the logical question "who says?". Objectively, why is murder wrong? Societies are very delicate things, and it does not take much to spin them out of control. When chaos rises, people will trade their freedoms for order, and there will be guns in the street. Just look at the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

Have a look at the series "How Should We Then Live?" by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer. His insights into art, music, and architecture being a reflector and record of history is fascinating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Hr0RLHxnI&list=PLl7doUcMOr...

So people may very well give up their beliefs, for a time, but then the pendulum will swing back the other way hard, and societies will be grasping at some other explanation to answer those basic questions: who am I? why am I here? where am I going?

This is all very well trodden territory. People chase their tails their entire lives trying to live without God, and end up being right back where they started at the end of their lives, just like Bertrand Russell did.

I'm not British, I'm Canadian, and my mom was a breeder of Pekingese. She never made money at it, she simply loved the breed. I have known many Canadian vets, and have been around dogs my whole life. So I can speak to this issue with a degree of informed opinion that is higher than some others.

All of these concerns about brachys breeds has been known for centuries - yes, literally hundreds of years. Pugs and Pekes are very old breeds, are cherished by most owners I know, and in fact used to only be owned by wealthy families. But now that they are popular everywhere, the issue of these breeds being owned by people who are not fully aware of their limitations is an important discussion.

I can see veterinarians being concerned about general trends of a populace not giving due care (concerned only about the fact that they're "cute"), but to say that these breeds are doomed to suffer their entire life in the hands of a responsible owner is a point of view I believe to be incorrect.

Anything that can help the well being of canines I'm in favor of. Dogs truly are man's best friend. I'm even willing to endure some scorn and tolerate the occasional sensational article, because I don't think just anyone ought to own a dog. My pugs Bailey and Maya are not just pets, they're family to us.

But to accuse me of being cruel because I want these breeds to continue as they have for centuries? No. I don't buy it. You and the British vet society have not convinced me. Go scorn others who breed dogs to fight to the death or those that eat them.

I feel no guilt or shame whatsoever. I love pugs, and I hope to have many more in my life, maybe even be a breeder myself someday.

The "S" in IoT stands for security :)

You can believe my choice to own pugs is unethical and cruel, but I am not persuaded by your reasoning. I do not believe I have done anything wrong, and my dogs Bailey and Maya are not suffering. I will now end any further engagement with you.

If you want to engage in spirited debate with people and learn to persuade people to your point of view, have a look at this clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0dCTvX0wzs&feature=youtu.be...