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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: September 12th, 2023

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  • But help me understand how it’s possible that our “free market” is enabling this, unless it’s just a controlled market charading as free?

    • There are very few markets in the US that actually achieve Adam Smith’s “perfect market” (perfect competition)

    • The more expensive the individual item, the harder it is for there to be competition (costs of standing up factories, distribution and support, low volumes of sales etc), it’s extremely expensive to set up in opposition to John Deere

    • There are other market statuses other than “controlled” and “free” - the vast majority of US markets are Oligopolies (few sellers many buyers). Processed / packaged foods for example - 99% of market volume is done by a couple of players.

    • A century ago there were many farm machinery manufacturers - the individual machines were less expensive in real terms, and the complexity much lower. A virtual monopoly (one very large and a few smaller players) has formed through insufficient regulation to protect competition - the big ones gobble up the small and competition gradually dwindles



  • Setting aside the fact that legally a corporation actually is a person, there is such a thing as a corporate culture, and a corporate ethos.

    Let’s start with an old microsoft ethos: embrace extend extinguish

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

    Now don’t try to tell me I made it up, there’s enough evidence for it to have its own wiki page.

    Similarly there’s FUD an approach they most certainly didnt invent but did an excellent job of weaponising to a fine art.

    And so on and so forth. Those of us who have been around a while know the true shape of it, and that leopard has never changed its spots.

    I got my MCSE on NT4 back when CNE was much more respected. I still work in IT so yes I too use both windows & linux, that doesn’t stop me having a clear eyed view of them.

    They’re also not the worst by a long chalk, google, meta, palantir are all far less principled and far more detrimental to society.

    M$ still arent good though, and its woven into their culture





  • <sigh> I used to be one of those sysadmins, and the short answer is appropriate risk management, better network controls a locked down OS and immediate action to push out the patches for serious issues.

    I quite frankly detest M$ but keeping your pc patched isn’t propaganda.

    If you know enough to manage the risk (including proper network firewalls and good internet hygiene) then sure, keep going for a while. Zero days aren’t daily, they’re a handful per year.

    On the other hand if you have no clue about ITSec then you genuinely need to upgrade asap because you’re metaphorically running around with your genitals exposed.

    Your comment leads me to suggest you probably dont have the skills to do an appropriate risk assessment.

    But you do you. I’m not your Dad