angdis

Yep, coffee has very little to do with actual "coffee" as a product.

Coffee is a ritual, and often, a social activity. You go somewhere sooth your mind on some coffee sipping, people watching, chatting with others, or just daydreaming, and then get on with your day.

OK, but even now Windows folks have largely given up on pressing <windows>/<All Programs> and looking for what they want.

There's simply too much stuff on a typical computer these days for a user to pick out what they want from a dropdown, yes, even if nested.

It is the same problem that Yahoo once had back in the day when it tried to "Categorize" the internet. At some point such attempts at categorization break down and you gotta look at more sophisticated strategies for search.

I think the underlying problem here is the expectation that you, the user, should be able to find stuff by looking "in" particular places. This is perfectly reasonable if you're dealing with a fairly limited set of files or executables, but that era has been slipping away for the last 5 years or more.

It is no surprise that the question comes from 2011. I believe that was near when Unity came out and Ubuntu did away with mouse menus to find "Programs" in favor of just searching for what you have. A lot of folks did not like it at first but I think its no longer an issue.

The comment you're responding to is about the political impetus for ever-increasing road construction to combat congestion.

Your "reverse" commute to exburbs/rural areas is likely not impacted much by congestion. You actually have a good reason to use a car.

That unending column of cars you see always headed in the opposite direction on your commutes is the actual subject at hand here.

Thanks guys, that helps me to understand. This stuff is usually explained either as utterly vague blanket advice or in technical shorthand terms. I think it is really important for people who might barely even know what https is to understand how and why the security of it is limited.

OK, but what about email read/composed on my personal gmail account using a work computer? When you say "personal email" do you mean @company.com email-- or do you mean _any_ personal email as long as it is read/composed on a company machine?

Is it safe to assume that the only way that that (or any https content) can be captured is by keylogging or some kind of desktop capture?

OK, that is what is "legally possible" in a worst-case scenario.

But IN PRACTICE, what is normal?

Your statement seems to indicate that IT staff can just browse personal communications, desktop displays, keypresses. I am sure that they can if necessary, but what kinds of scale and automation are we talking about? Doing such surveillance ad-hoc or without a very small number of targets seems like it would easily become intractable for any org with thousands of people.

I am not in an IT department, so I have no idea what goes on.

It seems the standard advice is always to take the most extreme precautions and to follow the corporate rules to the letter... but here I am typing this into a work computer on a chrome browser without a care in the world.

I hear this as "blanket advice" all the time, but very rarely is there a discussion about what is reasonable to expect from a "normal" employer who isn't draconian or looking to find an excuse to fire someone.

Its easy to conclude that but suppose you're a white high-income professional who is looking for a home in Baltimore city. You have your pick of any neighborhood. Would you choose....

A) A rowhome in a squalid neighborhood beset with heroin dealing, unsupervised youth, poor upkeep, and median household income of 10K, a main street of furniture rental shops, cellphone stores and liquor stores that sell mostly "40's".

or

B) A gorgeous house in a neighborhood of other professionals with meticulously maintained and upgraded houses, a mainstreet with a wine bar and coffee house that makes cappuccino's with the fancy swirly foam.

Whether you're black or white, you WILL choose B if you can at all afford it. The sad truth is there aren't enough African americans who can choose B enough to change the optics of this situation.

The pattern persists partly because large cities in the united states consist of the poor or the wealthy with very little inbetween. Middle income folks go to the exburbs because they can't afford the nice parts of the cities and can't afford private school for their kids (sending your kids to public schools in the cities is completely out of the question for any family that values education).

Having lived in Baltimore for 10 years, I can say that there are multiple causes for continuing segregation. There is no satisfying way to explain it and no end in sight.

You are right that this about far more than realtors steering people one place or another.

Yes. Although MAD doesn't necessarily require the end of the world (eg nuclear winter), or even the end of a regime. It just depends on consequences which are "unbearable" for either nation.

I've always felt that the best strategy against NK is to simply wait for the regime to collapse on its own (along with sanctions that isolate them, FWIW). This is fine as long as they don't try to invade South Korea, leading to swift US-backed retaliation. But perhaps now as they continue to develop and "show off" their nukes, they'll feel emboldened to "try something" before their time runs out?

The MAD doctrine seems to have worked with binary superpowers up through the 80's.

But, I think its an open (and rather scary) question as to whether MAD will continue to work with multiple parties some of whom are batshit crazy and have demonstrated utter disregard for the safety and well-being of their populace.

Is their leadership insane enough to sit in a well-stocked bunker while setting off an H-Bomb in South Korea or elsewhere.... umm yeah, I think so.

I think discussions about sobriety tend to ignore the vast middle-ground between "stone-cold-sober" and "shit-faced".

It is totally possible to enjoy one or two alcoholic drinks on a weekly night out without ruining finances, making a fool of one's self, and blowing-out the next day from a hangover. You don't have to choose one extreme or another.

Agree, although properly positioned monitor speakers which have been equalized by the listener for a particular spot in the room can sound really, REALLY nice (if you don't leave your listening chair !).

I agree that in terms of sound, digital is superior. But as the article describes there is very much a collectable "object appeal" to old media. Now that even CD's and their annoying jewel cases are becoming obsolete, there remains an attractiveness to vinyl for some folks that is unrelated to any technical characteristics (real or imagined).