I am not as worried as other people are about Facebook, and here is why:
a) Facebook has less users not more, while they always emphasize their user growth I come across more and more people in real life who simply don't have a Facebook-Account, and those are social people. I am careful about basing too much on my own experience ofc, but this was very seldomly the case 4-5 years ago and now happens to me very often.
b) More and more users are disillusioned with Facebook to some extent. Due to some minor reasons I keep a Facebook account (various purposes, among those domain-specific groups to get questions answered and log in maybe once a month) and I see among my peers many who aren't really using it for much anymore. The occasional photo update with minor interaction via comments, the occasional posting of a music video, or the few users in between with heavy political activism on their timeline who apparently don't realize that next to no one will read it anyways and sigh about that crap. Facebook simply isn't cool anymore, so many don't care for most of its features and instead all they want is something to easily chat with people, aka WhatsApp.
c) Facebook certainly has trouble with attracting younger users and this won't stop. A social media platform where it takes a few days after account creation til your grandfather sends you a friend request and you have to answer to your parents about what you just posted? Definitely the cool place to be. Similar things probably can be said about WhatsApp to some extent. WhatsApp is what used to be normal SMS functionality in a way, while probably everyone has it cause everyone has it, it certainly isn't something exiting anymore.
d) Those who in my opinion over-estimate Facebook's role grossly under-estimate how fragile companies are and how easy (in my opinion) something like Facebook could start to fail. It happened to companies before, it will happen again. I don't know when, I don't know exactly why (though many possible reasons are viable). Everyone being on Facebook instead of just your 10 coolest friends might be what kills it in the end for young people for example, who knows what comes along and might attract user growth. The mobile market has made that certainly more dynamic via Apps, it's easier for a new chat App to gain traction than for a new social media website and WhatsApp with 1+ Billion users might not be bold enough to explore what the next big feature is people yet don't know they want. I know Facebook owns WhatsApp, I know Facebook invests in VR, I know their revenue is extreme and they have money stockpiled, I also know that isn't a guarantee of anything...
After thought: Anyone believing in the mighty power of Facebook should put their money where their mouth is and invest heavily in the stock, if Facebook is this monster of a multinational all-controlling company led by this young genius, a company with only growth ahead and such a minimal risk of failing then it shouldn't be a tough decision to make right?
But the person has to realize that this won't help him/her at all, only comes off as being a little bit whiny, maybe even a little bit desperate. Yeah, it happens, but it's only virtual points on an Internet site we are talking about... who cares who submitted it in the end.
EDIT: Hope I haven't offended anyone, I am usually not the judgemental type, couldn't help wondering in this case.
Maybe I downplayed it a little bit too much, probably can't deny it, but it was in reaction to people making (imo) too big a fuss about it, while criticising a project which - with limited resources and manpower - does an extraordinary job on the whole (as many - myself and most likely you included - could agree on).
A lot of people who utilize OpenBSD like you do most likely have the skill-set to deal with it in a similar manner as you have though, or can pay for commercial support. Thanks again for the insight!
OpenBSD does not try to be everything for every person and I think it's fair to put some things in context. Just because other systems provide binary patches for security issues (and I haven't so far named and will continue to not name other OSs, but many have a lousy track record of doing so to begin with), that does not make them automatically more secure than OpenBSD, which has so many active pro-security measurements built in from the start and where updates are provided, but not officially via binary patches. I think a lot of the comments did not acknowledge the circumstances and see the greater picture and my sense of a need for some further context was justified.
But your original comment was: "Does it seem a little embarrassing to anyone else that this is necessary? OpenBSD is supposedly the most secure nix platform available, and yet users have to resort to third-parties to get functionality that is available on nearly every other nix system by default."
So no, I don't consider it to be embarrassing for a little project that does so much in so many ways (part of it being that every single security issue is addressed and patched swiftly across multiple architectures, full disclosure is practised et cetera) to not provide binary patches while having an experienced community accepting of this. This last part actually what makes OpenBSD such an efficient catalyst for innovation, since people accept breaking backwards compatibility, turning on security mitigations while it might brake some stuff here and there, et cetera...
Some people wanted bin-patches apparently, openbsd is heavily focusing on using its resources as efficiently as possible and doesn't provide them, a reliable 3rd party stepped up providing them for free, charging for binpatches for older versions (a service model built on top of open source software, nothing wrong with that)
A few points:
-) since mtier here tries to basically sell you something, they make it sound harder than it seems, checking the errata page, writing a 20 line script to get notified if the page is updated, that's enough
-) not every bug found is critical towards your own security, not every bug does need you to update (you can decide on an individual basis)
-) micro-managing (as one comment stated) is pretty much the opposite of what you do with openbsd, openbsd is secure by default, if you want to have anywhere near the same amount of security with some other OS have fun reading tons of documentation to harden the box yourself (and you still won't have all the same security mitigations)
-) updates are trivial: update, re-compile, reboot, if the bug is not critical for you then don't, or use -current (rolling release "development branch"), or use the bin-patch by mtier
-) I doubt some of the people here criticising "having to use" 3-rd party binpatches practice the same scrutiny in day-to-day life regarding it-security (seeing how other OSs deal with security they would probably be using openbsd by now then if they were)
-) considering the size of the openbsd project and how many critical pieces of security-focused utilities they maintain (openssh, libressl, opensmtpd, ...), how many security mitigations they implement, how well they do in regularly auditing their code and actually addressing bugs across multiple architectures quickly with patches provided (especially compared to so many so much larger projects), it's somewhat ridiculous for an outsider to criticise how they spend their time or resources (because in my opinion and in the opinion of many others, they actually do hell of a great job!)
It might not be "perfect code", but I find it fascinating what certain institutions do to create bug-free and easily testable code, institutions which are involved in work where small errors can quite literally ruin billions of dollars of investment.
For example Coding Standards from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for C[1] and Java[2]
This will also give you an idea of just how tedious it is to do so
I am not even sure if enforcing those strict standards leaves a Turing-complete language
I remember when the Soylent-Creator was on the Colbert Report, and he clearly marketed it as a 100% food replacement. Saying that you don't have to replace food with it completely is smart, it opens up additional customers, makes sense. Their Soylent promotional video however makes the claim that 1) it can replace any meal 2) while not having to replace every meal, it certainly insinuates it can (which is way different from other supplements).
Fair, they were a small operation back then, but even if it might not tell you how they work now, it certainly shows you how low the standards are. Their facilities don't even have to be inspected, ... at all.
So you are too tired to cook, but fit enough to run? And usually I have to get dressed, have to shower, pack up my things, work over my schedule, read some mails, activities where I can have something on the stove at the same time. If something needs 10 minutes to cook I am not staring into the pot for the duration.
The composition of the ingredients does not tell me how they know, where they buy, anything in beyond. I rather see food, touch it, smell it, know where it's from, I don't really bother about whether the fish I just bought has 1 gram fat more or less, that's not the "quality" in food I am looking for.
I am going by how they market it, not by how you use it. If company makes market claim "x", which is ridiculous and I criticize that claim, someone then saying that he personally hasn't bought it because of claim "x" does not make my point invalid at all.
1) We differ there, I can well get all of my calories from normal food without being annoyed by eating.
2) But it's marketed as complete food replacement, not as a simple nutritional supplement. Though I don't fancy the supplement industry either.
3) I think it's stupid to consider this time as waste instead of time well spent.
I had rice with fresh salmon today: Wash rice, put it in the rice cooker with 1 1/2 parts of water and some salt - wait 15 minutes (you can do whatever you want there) - use a non-stick pan, some olive oil, fry the salmon, use some spices, in between you can start cleaning up whatever kitchen equipment you have used - 5 minutes later rice is cooked, salmon finished, arrange it on a plate, some soy sauce and Wasabi on the side. Total time of work maybe... 8 minutes? Total time to clean up... 2? Total time to eat (quick eater)... 5?! And that's a pretty decent dish I think, I have my go to foods too, when I really can't be bothered. I can easily have a banana, an apple, eat some peanuts (100 grams have 620 calories, important and healthy fats, 25 grams of protein), can make some hard boiled eggs (can make them in the morning, eat them during the day), I can just take some bread, butter, tomatoes, and salt, sit in front of the computer watching something and eat during that. Takes no time really, and in the end you don't have much to clean. Food allows for creativity, be creative.
Have we all forgotten how to deal with real food?!
I hate to go to the store to buy, what I can I buy in bulk, sometimes I buy things frozen (it's often incredibly healthy food, when immediately frozen the nutritional value is great) and when I really can't avoid making an effort, it's not a waste considering what I get out of it.
4) Standards for food production are higher, I can touch it, I can see it, I can ask where it's from. Not sure where you have been buying your food. A banana I eat is not the product of a badly regulated industry, where hobbyists create mixtures of their liking.
5) It's the same point you made with 2)
6) It's an argument I have encountered multiple times, and it's also something I remember from the early days of Soylent. "It only costs x dollars a day and is all you need" (see my intro)
7) You mean "revolutionary"? It's not revolutionary by any means, if you mean it's revolutionary because it has taken something previously not used as mainstream food and marketed it as such, then yes maybe. I don't think that's a great achievement.
8) You are only addressing part of my ending here, talking about the high profit margins and that I think they are acting in bad faith was part of the larger point, that what they are doing is fundamentally easy and a lot of it is simply improvised, they don't really know themselves, but they claim to know. They buy it in, they mix it, dress it up, and market it. Anyone can do it, I can't however raise cattle, grow tasty bananas, peanuts, and catch delicious fish every day. So talking about profit margins, I think their profit margins are quite higher than people realize, their expertise is lower than what people think, their claims are 100% marketing, what they do is easier than people give them credit for.
I will comment on Soylent as a product, not the 1.6 update specifically, sorry, just want to make a few points (I think some of you are in for a tough ride, just passionate, not my intention to attack anyone personally):
-) psychological value: eating has a great psychological value, it's pleasure (if not, you should eat better food)
-) social value: you probably won't go out with friends to have a glass of Soylent, would you?
-) Arguments about "increased productivity" because of less food preparation are ridiculous... if you can work all day long without needing a break, congratulations, you are everything common sense and science tells me is not possible. We need breaks, regularly, and why not use that to cook something. And cooking doesn't take hours a day.
-) Health: Because the supplement industry is such a thoroughly regulated and well behaving industry? If you believe that, do your research. I want to know what I am eating, and I don't when buying this mix of various powders they most likely buy in themselves. Would you give this crap to your children? Do you think we already have unlocked the key towards the perfect nutrition? (spoiler: no, we haven't, studying this is hard)
-) You can't cook: It's not hard, have you ever really tried? You don't need a Michelin star to cook solid and good food.
-) Unhappy with your current diet? Then change it, why ditch food altogether?
-) Cost, so it's not about productivity or health now, but about saving a few bucks? I doubt you save much if anything at all, it's not that expensive to buy good food, and isn't this mainly marketed towards high income people to begin with? You can afford it.
-) Soylent is revolutionary: It's not, 100% food replacements have been used in medicine for decades (just no one was crazy enough to ditch real food for it if not needed) - you can even buy it, it's far more expensive though than this, and of course I am still not for it as a food replacement for healthy adults.
-) Trust your body: Every body is different, the reason we have cravings for food is because the body tells us what it needs. This can fail us, for example when we eat too much sugar and our blood sugar levels are creating massive cravings for more down the line (I am not making a case for Coca-Cola here though), but all in all, it's an incredibly accurate and needed thermostat. If you eat more, you will ditch your blanket at night subconsciously to burn more calories by cooling down, if you eat less you will feel more cold and not do so. It's downright arrogant to think that some individual having read some studies and reports knows what is absolutely best (besides commonplace arguments like "sugar is bad", "being overweight is incredibly unhealthy", no proper doctor would ever make such bold and arrogant claims)
My opinion: This is part of a not well regulated industry, a repackaged and cleverly marketed mix of food supplements that have been available for decades, sold with incredibly high profit margins. They buy in their stuff, they mix it, prep it up with some nice fancy talk, sell it, and see dollar signs in their eyes.
Everyone should be able to do whatever he wants to as long as he is not harming others. If you think Soylent is great, then by all means, I won't stop you, I am passionate about food and am disgusted just looking at this. If someone thinks this is healthy (spare me your cherry-picked study citations), then - with all due respect - you are delusional
But people not only "bubble" themselves, Google and Facebook (everything personalised to one's liking) heavily encourage that, so using the "bubble effect" as justification for removing radical content is really strange.
I remember Reuters for years refused to use the term "terrorist(s)" because "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" (that's how I remember it), current guidelines see [1]
The same applies here, is a violent political organization fighting an authoritarian regime by means of terrorist attacks an "extremist organization" worth blocking, or people fighting for freedom? A good recent example for how hard it can be to distinguish is what happened in Egypt with the Muslim brotherhood [2]
This will just reinforce the sense of people with unpopular opinions and populist movements that they are being discriminated against because of political correctness [3]
I don't doubt the story at all and I am sad to hear that, but I have to make the following points:
-) Even if no fingerprints are taken, the other points I made stand.
-) Anecdotal evidence is weak/no evidence, though I will not disregard it completely.
-) Not sure where this happened, call me biased (I really don't want to open a can of worms here), but I have more believe in the police of Austria compared to many other (including the USA for example) countries. [1]
[1] I don't mean to imply the capabilities are different, I want to say that I think the police in the USA, especially on the level of "normal" police officers, seems to get away with far more misconduct / inappropriate behaviour than a police officer in Austria ever would. Crime rates also have a huge impact, in areas of high crime rates or under-funded police especially "smaller" cases will not be investigated properly, et cetera...
I don't want to say you are wrong, I just want to clarify further:
Not only was the UK "completely independent 50 years ago", the UK (for the moment let's not care if the UK is a country or a political union) is a completely separate and independent(!)[1] country already and always has been. Parliament can do and undo any(!) law (the principle of "Supremacy of Parliament"), including all the laws that made UK a member of the EU to begin with and all further laws that tangled up the UK closer with the EU. The difficulty is in negotiating a viable exit strategy (because of economic and political consequences), but there is no dispute in the slightest, that the UK is (easily) able and has a full right to simply leave.
The UK always during the last 50 years was sovereign, with every new EU regulation that was "imposed upon them" (they were and are represented in EU parliament, it's not like they had not a say, democracy means compromise) they could choose. Of course having advantages means also accepting decisions of other states in some cases, but they always weighed pro and contra and never ever were obliged to stay. I am not exactly sure how the legal framework in the USA is (I understand it's a heavily federal system), but I doubt it's anyway near the situation of UK sovereignty.
The referendum was not needed, it's not even legally binding. Members of Parliament could have simply made the decision to leave at any given point in time.
[1] It's only not independent in the sense that it of course depends on surrounding countries regarding economic stability, so if one says the UK wasn't independent, then the same is true for any country that has any import/export to other countries and some trade agreements. And in that sense of course UK never was nor will be independent.
The UK is not as entangled with the EU as other countries and it is possible, "Supremacy of the Parliament" + "Lisbon Treaty Article 50", the latter of which is not detailed, but certainly provides for the possibility of exit.
Leaving a political union like the EU compared to a state of the USA leaving the USA, apples and oranges! A state in the USA does not have a central bank, its own currency, such an independent (meaning the variety of businesses and services[1]) economy, its own military, its own intelligence agency, I could go on and on and on... you really can't compare that. The UK is a permanent member of the UN security council(!), among many other things.
[1] The UK has agriculture, technology companies, a well developed banking sector, car industry, steel industry, all kinds of services, its own telephone and broadband companies, and and and...
Edit: Your comparison is closer to possible Scottish Independence, though even here the circumstances are different in some crucial areas, for example the EU could be willing to have Scotland as a member state, Scotland could adopt the Euro, Scotland was part of the EU (so it's not like starting from scratch, Scotland basically follows some crucial EU regulations already), what would be the equivalent of such a path for a state in the USA that wants to leave the country? There is none.
a) Facebook has less users not more, while they always emphasize their user growth I come across more and more people in real life who simply don't have a Facebook-Account, and those are social people. I am careful about basing too much on my own experience ofc, but this was very seldomly the case 4-5 years ago and now happens to me very often.
b) More and more users are disillusioned with Facebook to some extent. Due to some minor reasons I keep a Facebook account (various purposes, among those domain-specific groups to get questions answered and log in maybe once a month) and I see among my peers many who aren't really using it for much anymore. The occasional photo update with minor interaction via comments, the occasional posting of a music video, or the few users in between with heavy political activism on their timeline who apparently don't realize that next to no one will read it anyways and sigh about that crap. Facebook simply isn't cool anymore, so many don't care for most of its features and instead all they want is something to easily chat with people, aka WhatsApp.
c) Facebook certainly has trouble with attracting younger users and this won't stop. A social media platform where it takes a few days after account creation til your grandfather sends you a friend request and you have to answer to your parents about what you just posted? Definitely the cool place to be. Similar things probably can be said about WhatsApp to some extent. WhatsApp is what used to be normal SMS functionality in a way, while probably everyone has it cause everyone has it, it certainly isn't something exiting anymore.
d) Those who in my opinion over-estimate Facebook's role grossly under-estimate how fragile companies are and how easy (in my opinion) something like Facebook could start to fail. It happened to companies before, it will happen again. I don't know when, I don't know exactly why (though many possible reasons are viable). Everyone being on Facebook instead of just your 10 coolest friends might be what kills it in the end for young people for example, who knows what comes along and might attract user growth. The mobile market has made that certainly more dynamic via Apps, it's easier for a new chat App to gain traction than for a new social media website and WhatsApp with 1+ Billion users might not be bold enough to explore what the next big feature is people yet don't know they want. I know Facebook owns WhatsApp, I know Facebook invests in VR, I know their revenue is extreme and they have money stockpiled, I also know that isn't a guarantee of anything...
After thought: Anyone believing in the mighty power of Facebook should put their money where their mouth is and invest heavily in the stock, if Facebook is this monster of a multinational all-controlling company led by this young genius, a company with only growth ahead and such a minimal risk of failing then it shouldn't be a tough decision to make right?