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The title of the article makes it sound like Microsoft lied about the number of copies of Windows 7 it sold.
From what I can tell, Microsoft added some groups to the Windows division and two other divisions (there are [5 divisions]( meaning that those divisions' sales numbers increased and EDD's decreased. Whatever. |
how much training has your employer provided for you in the last 5 years?
Not much, but that was by my request.
They sent me to a 4 day ESRI GIS training in another town around three years ago. I loved the training, but I never had occasion to use it. A couple of years before that, They sent me to a .NET training that was excruciating and followed a book. I know better than that. These days, if I need training on new software, I load it up on my computer and start hitting the forums and websites. At work, I can learn new software within the context that I will be actually using it. I've also had good luck with some certification prep software. |
It should shape our laws & regulations. Laws & regulations should keep up with technological advances to ensure they represent society's opinion at all times (or most times). But they don't and that's another thing.
I'm pretty sure what you mean to say is "another tool in a set of tools for the douche government to do douche things with". When dealing with such a government, laws & regulations don't really matter that much as recent history has proven in the USA and Canada alike; douchebaggery will happen regardless.
Technology is neutral in the sense that it's application & policies makes it good, evil or boring. Yes, it can be used to follow citizens around, basically stalking them and building a huge database, say in the UK with their CCTVs. And then the database gets stolen. And then people's info is up for grabs and all kinds of nasty shit can happen. Yeah, that's not cool.
But then again, just as nasty stuff happened in countries under the URSS. People spying on people, people denouncing, undercover agents, arrests in the night, executions in the night. Literally books and books of information about like 1/5 of citizens in the country.
They didn't have this "Predator" technology. Would it have made it easier ? Of course. Would it not help lots for an oppressive modern government ? Yes. On the other hand, good guys in a modern oppressive modern also have technology on their side. Encrypted communication+stenography, mass collaboration via the Internet, government can be compromised via web-based attacks & infections (because they'll be using Windows forever).
Technology gets applied to evil or good purposes through human engineering. It all depends how many 'engineers' you have working for you or against you. Otherwise, it's akin to saying "damn the invention of steel, it makes these swords and knives, and I get stabbed with them". |
Nobel-laureate for Physics (1973) Dr. Brian Josephson seems convinced.
Even it is a blackbox, every reactor with this small geometric producing ~10kwh over a period of 18h rule out any known energy source. Chemical, battery or whatsoever..
.
Update: [Some facts from my point of view.](
. |
The comments in this thread put on display what should already be obvious.
Peoples' frustrations about their "voice not being heard" are really just shorthand rationalizations for "people disagree with me".
I fucking hate the PROTECT IP/E-PARASITE acts as much as anyone on here, but can we stop crying about our e-mails not getting read or our petitions not effecting change? What are you guys expecting? To get 5k signatures on a petition in a country of 300 million and immediately have a decades-old prohibition that's a major national hot-button topic repealed? Or to stop a bill that has not just a lot of money, but a lot of people backing it because their industry/livelihood is threatened?
Real change takes time. It takes time because you need to convince people. Not your representatives, but their constituents. Representatives DO largely vote along the lines of popular opinion, when popular opinion is vociferous enough.
Make your fellow citizens care. One e-mail to a congressman maybe puts it on the radar - a good start. Maybe a thousand makes them seriously consider their position. Their decision to support the bill doesn't have any consequence unless people care about their position on it. Make your citizens care. That's where it all starts. |
However, please remember as you write to him to let him know that you will be voting in a way that upholds your standards in and beliefs to do so in as many uncertain terms as possible. If you are too concise, or convey your point properly, then he will understand that you are not on his level. You must not convey your message succinctly lest you be overlooked. |
I never thought of mesh networks as a usable replacement for the "high-bandwith/low latency" internet that is used for video streaming, gaming, etc, thus rendering it unusable for most of the "casual" uses of the internet. At least not with the current technology, maybe in the future.
Where it excels though is the decentralized transmission of pure text information, since the file sizes would be really small and the high latency, while annoying, should not be too much of a hassle. The error many people make is that they assume that current mesh networks are a viable replacement for the current infrastructure, but they should rather think of it as an addition to the current network, used only for the transmission of important data. Like a safety net, in case the existing internet fails us and is censored/controlled. |
Of course not, but that's irrelevant, you don't have to mandrive the whole nation. That's really a dumbass argument, that's like saying we won't make drugs illegal because the DEA doesn't have the manpower to stop every incident of drug use. Of course they don't, that's a ludicrous requirement. I'm not saying they can shut this down completely, but I'm saying they will try, and that won't be fun for anyone. You don't enforce policies by catching every single person who breaks it, but you catch as many as you can and make the penalties harsh enough so that you can dissuade a large majority of the people from partaking. Since these networks are probably being used by terrorists and pedophiles according to our future media, I'm sure they could conjure up some pretty serious penalties. If you're having trouble picturing this, just ask yourself, "what would china do?"
Do you honestly have such a hard time seeing the government cracking down on this shit? No, they won't be able to completely stop it, but I don't really think that's going to stop them from trying. |
Based on his report, I would say we are going to need a whole new method of transmitting/recieving data as well as hardware to go with it. As mentioned earlier, mesh does work in small scale, but if you want it to truly work in the large scale, we need a whole new protocol designed purely for meshing. |
So I'm at work right now, so this is as specific as I can be right this second. |
That is pretty cool but still seems limited by needing 2 kinect cameras to function. A small step towards holograms though!
I was a bit more interested in the fact that they are using clear displays. He quickly brushed over having grocery stores use it on their freezers to list prices and ads and it blew me away. That's the shit you see in movies about the future coming to reality. A mall would have a ton of these on all the store windows highlighting things behind the glass. Maybe combine those with a camera overhead tracking your movements and adjusting the image for you. Plus they would/could be fully interactive. Put them outside restaurants and have a fully interactive menu that brought up pictures/reviews/nutritional facts! |
If someone cannot look past your username and take your words at face value, then the problem lies within them, not your username. Accordingly, you should be aware that most people may have this problem and thus, while your argument doesn't change, you'll have to deal with these people or have your voice silenced (down voted). |
It really saddens me that Netflix doesn't invest in new DVD or Blu Ray titles as heavily as it used to. People who only stream are really missing out.
Netflix used to carry practically everything that came out on disc. Now, I find that I have to turn to Blockbuster online rentals to get almost a more complete selection by having BOTH services now.
Streaming, in addition to never having everything as far as titles goes, never has any of the special features.
I love renting, as there are so many things I want to watch but do not want to own. And if I did want to own it, I might not be persuaded to buy it without renting it first.
I really like seeing the Blu Ray restorations of a lot of classic movies I've heard of but never seen, or only seen once under crappy conditions. I would not buy the Metropolis or Forbidden Planet Blu Rays sight-unseen at $30 each. Yes, I know restorations cost money, but not everyone is willing to spend. Netflix didn't carry them, I had to go through Blockbuster.
As much as I liked the movies, I really, really enjoyed the behind the scenes stuff and the documentaries on the movies and Sci-Fi in general on each disc. While the restorations might end up on streaming one day, these extras will likely stay disc-only.
And there are tons of material everyone would enjoy that will always be disc-only. |
I've worked as an assistant in Hollywood for the past three years. I started in the AV room where ripping DVDs was a job requirement. We have to have multiple copies of shows/movies that our clients have done, which are sent to other executives to get our clients more jobs. These executives are busy and don't have time to watch the "extras" in standard DVDs so we take them off. I didn't know how to use HandBrake, MPEG Streamclip, Toast or anything like that before working in the industry. There's some kind of legal loophole that allows us to do this if we label every DVD "please return when finished viewing." If we don't have a copy of a DVD and production won't send to us, then I have to download a torrent. |
Its silly that you think I do any downloading...
I work in Computer Security. I know computer security very very well. Encryption may eventually be cracked, but a new standard will be out way before it gets to the point that our data is free to be read. At that point you can upgrade to that. 128 bit wep was cracked, years before it was cracked, we upgraded to wpa encryption. DES encryption was hacked, way before that we upgraded, or started upgrading to AES. Then we will be moving to SHA-1 encryption. |
Web developer here, gonna try to shed some light on HTML5 for someone not so familiar with web developing.
I can only speak for myself, but these are very exciting times for web developers. Every week there emerges a new ground breaking site which utilizes the technology in a new way.
However, in terms of the actual experience, html5 is still years behind flash. And if we're gonna talk about actual benefits of html5 vs flash, the only tangible one is that it's not plugin based (such as Java/unity/flash), meaning it can be rendered on most handheld devices.
EDIT:
Also retina display niceness is a benefit
I'm gonna give you an example,
Launched in late 2008, (if i recall correctly), and is still way ahead of any html5 site I've seen so far.
I'm still a big spokesperson for html5, I almost exclusively work with html5 nowadays, but for someone that comes from a flash background I also feel very limited in terms of what I can actually make. The benefits of having applications that work on handheld devices is still such a huge benefit that the business has somewhat adapted into doing the best they can with the technology available. Mind you, html5 is still a work in progress and the uses and products of the language is getting better and better, I'm super stoked for what is to come. |
Here's something else I hate. Why when I go into a store are people always asking for something free?
Because we have left a society that proposes reasonable prices for reasonable products, and have entered a hardcore free market society, where no part of any cost is actually part of the pricing except for the lower bar of not losing money.
This has effectively eroded customer confidence in fair pricing, and thus reintroduced a harsh bartering culture; one centering around expanding the package more than on redefining an individual price. |
DNS shows your computer where to get "stuff" on the internet by matching addresses that are easy to remember e.g. (www.example.com) to the actual address of the "stuff" which is in a number format.
When opening a website your computer checks some places to find the number format address, it does this in some form of priority with the hosts file high up in that priority list.
Adding this:
127.0.0.1 c.youtube.com
to your hosts file makes you computer think the actual address of the "stuff" located at "c.youtube.com" is 127.0.0.1, 127.0.0.1 is actually the address of your own computer, so that your computer never gets the "stuff" and so your video is never throttled! |
Cheap enthusiast/overclocking hardware has only been able to exist (as we have known it in the past) because of the volume of ‘regular CPUs’ that manufacturers produce for normal PC builders. To understand this, we need to have a bit of background on how chip manufacturing works. I will give a rough and perhaps oversimplified description of CPU manufacturing before coming back to my main point.
The way lithography works, is that when you print a whole wafer (silicon disk) of dies, not all of them come out with the same quality level. Out of that whole batch, only a ‘handful’ will be of perfect quality, with the remaining having varying levels of flaws. A simple example would be if a wafer contains 100 dies, depending on how good the yields are, perhaps 10 will have critical flaws in at least one core. This means, if you were to sell that chip as a full-fledged i7 CPU, anytime the customer were to use that core, they’d get a blue screen of death. That being said, engineers are clever, and instead of just tossing these in the trash, they’ll take them and disable the broken portions of the die. This allows them to still make lower grade (think i3 or i5) CPUs with these dies, and recoup some cost.
Going to the other end of the quality spectrum, out of that whole batch of dies, a small percentage will stand out as being ‘exceptional quality’. These have little or no detected flaws, and as a result they can safely take advantage of the engineering guard bands for voltage, heat, and frequency. From the consumer perspective, this means you can run these select chips at 4GHz, instead of 2GHz, without overheating or blue screens of death.
Now, going back to my original point, you can see that the ‘enthusiast’ CPUs exist in part, as a by-product of all these other consumer grade PC chips that the manufacturer is selling. Think of it like this: The sale of all those i3/i5s help further divide/distribute the cost of the wafer, bringing down the price of the i7 as a result. The problem of recent years, is that the PC market has been stagnant, and in some cases retracting. This is because average people are not buying the i3/i5 desktop CPUs anymore. They’re buying laptops, tablets, etc. That means the enthusiast chip has to bear the brunt of the wafer cost. |
Same thing happened with /r/kateeowen (nsfw): she hired a company to send all websites that host her material (including reddit) DMCAs to remove the content. Problem is that the videos keep sprouting up everywhere so it's absolutely not working. She isn't even that special, I mean she has a great body and a nice pair of tits but all she does is strip and dance a bit, no hardcore content. It's a great strategy to be honest: she can now go on webcam in MFC and get a 500 dollar tip just for farting. She's probably the most popular webcam girl of the moment.
DMCA we received for having her in our CSS (which is hosted on reddit):
She used to 'protect' her content:
>Websites that you may have never considered are monitored by PiracyPitbull: sharing forums, torrent sites, image boards , and more. We’ve made it our business to infiltrate the less savory parts of the internet where most infringements occur and to take away infringing material uploads as quickly as they are shared.
So far I've learned that most websites are partly susceptible to these DMCAs: imgur removes content, so does youtube, xhamster, xvideos, redtube, etc. All the big porn sites remove her content after getting DMCAd but a mirror immediately sprouts up and it doesn't get taken down until a DMCA is sent.
I'm surprised that minus.com allows pictures and gifs of her. So instead of posting pictures of her on imgur, people can simply use minus, problem solved. Oh and 'torrent sites' please.. nobody can fight that, her torrents have been around for ages and they have never disappeared. |
They are fundamentally incomparable. A transistor is an electronic switch and doesn't "hold" anything, not even a bit. Transistors can combine with a little connecting technology to form one bit, but never a qubit.
A qubit is a piece of quantum information, but because of entanglement, it's not simple. It's value is either 1 or 0 or a quantum-entangled state that can become 1 or 0 with certain probability but which is influenced by the other qubits it's entangled with. There's exponential qualities to information in a set of qubits, but there's also restrictions on how you work with this information, as you can only retrieve one answer out of all the possibilities represented internally. |
I initially began working with Linux machines in 1995, when a customer of mine requested help with it. In 1999 Linux had very poor hardware support. Today it is well supported, but it was a headache getting new hardware to work under Linux correctly even through the early 2000s.
Also, that quote of yours is referring to a pre-release version of Windows NT 3.1 from March of 1992, not even to the actual release that occurred 15 months later in July of 1993.
If we compare it to Linux at the same time frame, March of 1992... Linux was on version 0.95 and had just managed to port X Windows. It is perhaps more telling to list what Linux 0.95 did not support at that time:
Streams
Interprocess Communication
POSIX P1003.1 / P1003.2
incomplete virtual file system
incomplete SCSI support
You should really stop arguing that old Linux (pre 2.4 kernel) was all that and a bag of chips. Especially given that in version 2.0 (circa 1996) of the kernel, only one task could be executing in the kernel at a time. The 2.2 kernel (circa 1999) fixed this with a notorious global spinlock called the BKL... but that led to some very interesting scaling/scheduling issues... which is why the BKL was phased out (though it is still sparingly used) in the 2.4 kernel (circa 2001).
Modern Linux is great and I fully support its use in server environments. But I never recommend it to non-techies. |
This has been tried and largley failed. FON had a system in Europe where you'd make your wifi open, and that would give you to other FON open wifi's. Turns out internet is cheap, people fear liability/legal issues, and having a bunch of kids torrent off your line opens you up to lawsuits and makes your line too slow for high bandwidth or low latency applications.
On top of it, wifi doesn't penetrate far. If there's drywall between you and your neighbors, yeah, but stone, brick, steel, concrete, etc not really. Its not like you're going to be able to serve anyone who needs it. Your signal isnt reaching the tourists at the train station.
Lastly, nationwide 3/4G is here and Europeans are making roaming charges obsolete, so there's even less of an incentive now. |
Oh. In which case.
There really is no point in having a huge database of SSID/key pairs. The only function of they pairs is to access a particular wifi network. As I mentioned, there are other, faster ways to get a specific network's SSID/key pair. And once you have access to the network, well, there's not a hell of a lot you can do. I mean, you could try to hack one of the local computers, but you could reasonably do this over the internet, as well.
In fact, there are so many attack vectors for your local network that are more convenient that it just doesn't make sense to try to filter through the massive list of SSID/key pairs for a few that look like your network and sequentially try them. Just think about how many networks titled 'linksys' there are.....
If they wanted to attack your network, a few more palatable options include cracking the network encryption with FOSS tools, using an exploit over the internet (perhaps a man-in-the-middle attack redirecting you to a phony website that downloads a rootkit or something), or simply walking into your house and plugging in directly.
Now, the supposed database would be immense, and there is generally value in large collections of data. These SSID/key pairs are really username/password collections, in a different context. There are a lot of username/password lists floating on the internet, so it's not like this is hot stuff. You could probably feed the data into a network auditing toolkit to enhance a dictionary attack on a specific network, but that's about all the use I can come up with.
The fact is, we're remarkably vulnerable to a dedicated attacker. While this could be an attack vector, my inexpert opinion is that we're better off worrying about locking our doors and not pissing off the spooks than making sure Google can't log onto our wifi. |
I saw this guy once on Nat Geo I believe, in that show about Psychopathy with Eli Roth, a couple years back.
His method of detecting Psychopathy was questionable, in my opinion. He would derive his PET scans by showing people images of traumatic events that would normally cause the Amygdala and prefrontal cortex to "light up". These images were of random events, unconnected to them.
The problem is that it doesn't necessarily suggest Psychopathy. There are loads of people that wouldn't respond to traumatic images of random people, and not be psychopaths.
Take for instance, people who have deadened their emotional response by watching too much Ogrish type stuff, for the explicit purpose modulating their response to them. Watching random people suffer won't set off their emotional response, but you better believe that them seeing pictures of their family members suffering would set them off.
Now, there's no way to correct for that, because nobody is going to have submitted in advance to this study, picture of their relatives coming under harm. Nor did he correct for things of that nature, because he found his own scan in there, and I'm pretty sure he didn't show himself pictures of dead family members.
I'm not saying he's incorrect with his own scan, but he's making the assumption that psychopathy is manifest in everyone who does not have those specific brain areas light up with his specific experiment. |
When will people understand that:
Breivik is in Norway, not Denmark. Also he was already convicted, where as the TPB Guy's case is still being investigated/build.
He can get books etc. if he wants to. He just can not get HIS OWN copies of HIS OWN books.
He's a freaking cry baby. Danish jails/prisons is a damn hotel compared to most countries. Even solitary. Source: I'm Danish and I've been through it myself.
Also he's been in Danish jail since December only! About a month! It's not like he has been there for a year.
Petitions won't change a thing. Especially since most people signing it is from other countries who are missinformed and have no idea about the actural conditions of being in prison in Denmark.
The crime he is being investigated for in Denmark has nothing to do with the Swedish case. He hacked a Danish police database which had info like social security numbers, wanted people, drivers licenses and so on., with the intent to comit fraud or sell the information to others who would comit fraid, all over the world. A very serious offense. The hacking happened ongoing over a period of 5 months (from april to august of 2012). It is called the biggest hacking case in Danish history. And the reason he's being held like this is that he's a flight risk, seeing as he has lived in other countries and are known to not show up for trials. Just watch the TPB video if you want to see. Also they don't want him to influence witnesses or remove evidence.
It has already been established that the hacking happened from his PC. He admitted to this himself and apoligised for it. He just claim he wasn't the one using it and he knew nothing about it. Yeah right. The superhacker have no idea who hacked a Danish goverment database using his PC. If you believe that, I understand why you feel sorry for him.
Read about the case here if you can understand Danish (Or use a translater): |
we are paying extra: by purchasing higher-speed plans. Speed tiers is how you sell your service, so we pay extra for more bits/bytes per second, and we expect to be able to use that rate we paid for. When a letter shows up at our door warning about excessive usage, we don't know what you're complaining about, because even if we were using every bit/byte per second from the start to the end of the month, we'd be using the rate we pay for and you agreed to! |
I have no problem what so ever with this CEO's philosophy on usage. He runs a company, and said company wants to make money. The problem, is lack of competition.
If I don't like AT&T, I can swap to Verizon, T-Mobile, who ever. If I don't like what apple offers for a price, I can buy a samsung.
For utilities, this is different. Utilities, I.e ComED, sell electricity. It's regulated, and fair prices are decided. If I don't want power from ComED, I don't have another choice.
Internet is the same. If I don't like comcast, I don't have any other choice. It's either their inflated rate, or nothing. |
There's a big difference between the available capacity between a major datacenter in Ashburn, VA and a major datacenter in Chicago than the capacity between your cable modem and your provider's cable termination system.
Your local cable company didn't design their system to offer every client 100% of their rated speed the entire time. They oversell the fuck out of the last-mile under the assumption that not everybody will need all the bandwidth technically offered to them.
That business model doesn't work if your clientbase using a constant 5Mbps between 8 and 10 PM every night via Netflix. |
I think we should pay less or get better service for the same prices we pay now but APPARENTLY ISPs are awful in general. As a consumer, there are hardly any options. As far as I know I'd prefer them being classified as a utility or telecomm that has more clear cut pricing and better service. |
i'd be fine with this just to stick it to the fat fuck mother fucks who show on computer hardware forums telling us how they need AT LEAST a 1 TB harddrive because of all the movies and TV shows and media they download.
then they go on to tell us how they won't settle for anything less than 1080P screen, regardless if the laptop has just a 13" screen, because low res screens suck.
I imagine people like that literally don't even interact with the real world beyond doing whatever they do to acquire money.
and there's the rub in life. rich people aren't paying attention. poor people aren't paying attention. middleclass aren't paying attention.
if nobody is paying attention, then who the FUCK is voting?
Society is literally fucked, and yet people like, walk around pretending it's not or are just ignorant as fuck because, surprise surprise, they aren't paying attention. Wow. |
The issue is that even if they are making 150k a year, 45% of that is being taxed making their effective take home, 75k.
Facepalm
That's not how it works. Each bracket of their income is taxed at a certain rate. They don't get taxed a fixed percent on all of their income.
If you make exactly $8,925 in a year, you get taxed at 10 percent. If you make $8,926, the first $8,925 get taxed at 10 percent, and the next dollar gets taxed at 15 percent.
You will never effectively earn less money by raising your income. The system does not work that way. I can't believe I have to explain this, or that nobody else has said anything.
And I know you said it wasn't the point, but the highest tax rate is currently 39.6 percent, for any dollars over $400,000. The $87,850 to $183,250 bracket is taxed at 28 percent. |
That is just plain wrong... The cost for putting up the service (and the global cost for the planet) is data transference, not bandwidth, just as the cost of driving a car is gasoline usage, not estimated average liters/gallons spent by km/mile.
ISP are selling you data tranference, that is their product and what you use and consume, and what is correlated to energy expenditure (real wealth consumption) -- The speed is just an average of what the system can handle. |
But the back story of technology isn't really technology.
Still misses the point that people who are interested in technology are likely also interested in the business, economics, and politics of large technology players.
If I was interested in just the tech itself I'd likely subscribe to /r/gadgets and some other product specific subs.
Counter-point: If I really cared about the company I could subscribe to /r/teslamotors . |
But the back story of technology isn't really technology.
Still misses the point that people who are interested in technology are likely also interested in the business, economics, and politics of large technology players.
If I was interested in just the tech itself I'd likely subscribe to /r/gadgets and some other product specific subs.
Counter-point: If I really cared about the company I could subscribe to /r/teslamotors . |
Probably not in the way you're thinking. A supercomputer is pretty much just a computer that does many things at once, as opposed to most computers which do one thing at a time but switch between jobs many times a second. (Though these days, it's not uncommon for normal computers to be able to do 4 things at once.)
A supercomputer would be a great match for running Cleverbot, but I doubt they needed it. 42 searches isn't a whole lot, depending on how complex their comparisons are, so they may have been able to do it with a single server. Most likely they just ran it on one computer per person, which could probably be done by almost any decent rig these days.
Then again, many separate computers running the same task at the same time is essentially just a supercomputer anyway. |
I agree with the complaints in this article, spare one:
> 1. It's not a "supercomputer," it's a chatbot. It's a script made to mimic human conversation. There is no intelligence , artificial or not involved. It's just a chatbot.
(emphasis mine)
This author is falling into the same trap that the Turing test was supposed to get us away from, namely that no one can know "other minds", and that, when your friend seems intelligent, you have know way of knowing if she is "really thinking" (the way you feel you do) or just reciting some internal script / response mechanism.
It's called "behaviorism" and, to me, it's a pretty strong case for why we can't ever subjectively declare... "This person is thinking but this machine is not". If you can't tell the difference via their behavior , isn't that a strong enough criterion for claiming "Okay, it's thinking"???
And if you say no, well then replace "thinking" with "intelligent".
This journalist is being just as muddy: "A script can't be intellingent but a sumpercomputer can!!" Give me a break. What about a big script on a sumpercomputer?
Please understand that I'm not saying that this article is dross. It's 95% correct-- I don't think "The Turing test was passed" either.
But his point about what kinds of machines might really pass it and what kinds clearly can't because of some arbitrary level of "I think that kind of machine couldn't be"... is ridiculous. |
If I know that you think that poker is a pure game of math, then I know that you assume that I play a mathematically sound game.
With that information in mind, I can make mathematically unsound plays and still turn a profit because you will be reading my range based on a mathematical standpoint, and therefore would make mistakes in over-representing / under-representing your own perceived range. |
My story: I received a call one day on my drive home from work from Comcast offering to double my internet speed and add TV service ( I only had internet at the time) w/ 2 HD DVRs. If I agreed to all of these upgrades, by bill would be reduced by $5/month. I had no interest in the TV service (I'm a cord cutter), but for double the internet speed and cost savings I agreed to the terms. I was assured that I could simply return the cable boxes as soon as they arrived (they would be shipped to me) and be subject to no charges.
More than a month goes by, I have received nothing in the mail and my internet speed has not increased at all. Finally, close to two months later, I received a package in the mail with 1 standard definition cable box. This was not at all what I was promised (2 HD DVR boxes), but since I was cancelling the TV service immediately and returning the boxes I figured it wasn't a problem. Several days later I received another cable box, and then about a week later a third. My internet is still the same speed.
About 3 weeks after the first package arrived, I made a trip to my local Comcast store to return the hardware. No problems. My internet is still the same speed. I get my first bill and notice that not only has my bill not decreased by the $5 as promised, but it has increased by more than 30%. I am being charged for the cable boxes and TV service.
At this point I decide it's time to contact Comcast to dispute the charges. They tell me that they will remove the TV service from my bill, but I will need to return the boxes to remove them from my monthly bill....the boxes that I have already returned. Admittedly, I made a mistake by not retaining the return receipt. At that point in time it didn't even cross my mind that I'd need it.
This is where the real fun starts. Over the next 6-8 months each and every bill included unlawful charges. I would call multiple times each month and escalate each call as far as I could. The initial support tier would insist that I return the equipment and refused to even acknowledge me when I told them it had been returned. I would eventually escalate to someone kind enough to actually listen to me and believed me. They would promise to put my service back to how it was before I got that fateful call (internet only) and refund me all overages to date. They would call me back within 24 hrs. The callback actually happened 1 out of 5 times, but the charges remained. The only effect that my calls had was to change the amount of the inflation of my bill. Items (various services, charges, equipment) would appear, disappear and appear again each time I contacted Comcast. The additional frustration of having to start over each time with a new support agent was increasingly infuriating.
At this point it is useful to know that I worked out of my home and rely very heavily on this connection. It is because of this that I used autopay and thus each month I paid the bill in full. I could not afford them cutting me off for non-payment. I sucked it up each month with hopes that they would eventually sort it out and refund me. After all, I have been a customer for many years.
Eventually I became so incredibly frustrated that I decided it just wasn't worth it anymore. I called AT&T and had uverse installed (a whole other misadventure). I ran the services concurrently for several months because i had trust issues with AT&Ts level of service, but after 3-4 months I decided i could safely cancel comcast. On my final phone call, I was able to get them to write off the boxes they claimed I had never returned, but I didn't see a dime of the now ~$600 that I had overpaid.
It's been over a year now since I've used comcast, but I'll never get that taste out of my mouth |
I live in the Netherlands. I do have great options for ISPs, but the cables in the ground in my area are so far away from the installations I can't get much more than 10 mbit/s. If only we'd get something like Google Fiber over here!
(Before anyone tells me to sign up for fiber: |
I live on the West coast, and five years ago I decided that I didn't want to be a part of Verizon anymore. Paying $60.00 for a phone with unlimited text and minutes, but zero data, and a contract, was stupid. With the intent to leave Verizon, I waited for my contract to end so I wouldn't be charged for an early termination. Unluckily for me, my non-smart phone's keypad broke 4 months before I could avoid a $200.00 termination fee. 3 non smart phones later, and 3 years later I emailed Verizon in a bit of frustration when the final phone started 'acting' on it's own before breaking down completely. In the e-mail I vented about the quality of phones they offer, keeping people like me in a cycling contract renewal process to get a new phone. Fast forward two weeks later, I get paid and think "Okay, I need to pay that bill, even though I hate these guys." So I go on to Verizon's website to pay the pill, only my information brings up the error "This account has been deleted". Only I didn't do that. With no response to my email, or any contact at all they apparently had deleted my account. "Good! Someone was sensible for once." I thought. Now I have some Texas-based debt collections asking for $260.00 as "Three months of unpaid service." If everything I've said is true, 3 months of $60.00 a month is $180.00 so where is that extra $80.00 coming from? Here is my opinion. They deleted my profile and broke the contract which becomes a $200.00 charge to me, along with that month that I intended to pay for which is $60.00.
This wasn't my only experience with Verizon, or other big business types that left me with a bad impression. In the past before social justice became a thing, I'd threaten spreading the story of "screwing over the little man" around to local papers to these guys, and got the service I was demanding only then. Brighthouse, Verizon and Union Bank are all the culprits I have experienced, Union Bank (though not being a big bad media company) even had a class action settlement on the problems that forced me to end my banking with them. |
I'm currently in my own battle with Comcast. They sent a letter out advising us to upgrade our modem free of charge, and stated clearly that we should dispose of the old modem properly. I filled out the online form, received a confirmation that a new modem would be shipped, and about a week later got an empty box delivered. Contacted customer service, they said the box was for returning the old modem, and that there was a $9.95 charge for the new one.
Went to the customer service center, where they contradicted every point of the black-and-white letter that I was holding in my hand. Finally left with a new modem. Installed new modem with no connection. Contacted tech support. They said it wasn't registered. They transferred me to someone else, who said the problem was in the house and not with their equipment (lines functioned just fine prior to new modem), and said a service tech would be available six days from that date. I said that was unacceptable and that I needed to speak with someone who could escalate my trouble ticket. She disconnected the call.
Called back, angry as one could imagine, got another guy on the phone who sent a reset signal that fixed everything but the phone. Fine. We decided to work on the phone issue another day.
Called about the phone issue yesterday. Tech told us it must be the new modem, to bring it in and get another one. Okay, did that. Same problem setting up the new one. Called customer service, got the same ETA on a service tech. Told them it was unacceptable, give me a supervisor. Supervisor told us that their equipment never fails , and it must be an installation error on our part. All we did was plug the damn thing in. They refused to send a reset signal because "it is not online so it will not make a difference." We've been without a phone for a week at this point, and now we have no cable or internet. The "best" they can do is get a tech out by Thursday. I've never been so furious in my life. |
I'm stuck in that purgatory as we speak. Not at your extent, but constant outages (8 in 3 weeks) and I've tried to contact everyone and their mother to have it fixed, cancelled, repaired or otherwise.
I can't get out of it, my only hope is to downgrade to a much crappier service (DSL) or live through the $180 bills for shoddy internet and lackluster cable service.
It pisses me off that there is no competition for these behemoths, they're nothing but selfish assholes swallowing up small companies and then turning them into lumbering menaces that don't give a shit about their customers.
If this TWC merger goes through, there are going to be millions more people added to the ridiculous hell that is Comcast. Google needs to get clearance.. all the way around and just take over this shitty situation for all involved. |
Same here. No other options. I recently moved and had to contact them about hooking service up. After being told that service already was active at the house, I had to wait almost a week for them to turn it on. My livelihood depends on a connection.
I spoke to more than 12 people who all said something different. A couple days later, a tech missed his appointment and I had to wait further. Then I was charged for equipment and a tech service fee that I never received. |
When I first attempted to get an ISP (dial up with BT the former GPO) I got through 5 CDs attempting to get their Surf package. I ended up with a pay as you go bill one telephone respondent thought a reasonable rate.
As it happened it was but it wasn't the deal I was supposed to be on. I wrote a letter.
To the company chairman.
I got an immediate result and they held on to my money. They do that.
So I surfed for free until that money ran out. (A fried in a similar internet newbie hell with them got a voucher to spend the money they owed him in any of 4 or 5 national stores. They CAN do that apparently.
Oddly I stayed with them a while until moved to broadband.
I can go on about Internet suppliers. AOL never told me they were going to be taken over by our Comcast (Talk Talk) and I lost all my AOL e-mails. |
I know people love their highspeed internet, but it's about time we started BOYCOTTING Comcast. I recently cancelled it and switched to Century Link and couldn't be happier.
Hell, my Android just tethered with Tmobiles unlimited data plan and it's AWESOME. Torrenting, World of Warcraft on two systems raiding, etc.
You'd be surprised how well you can do without cable. We need to teach these fucks a lesson. Cancelling feels WAAAYY too good. |
Ok, listen up guys, I'm going to write this out and hopefully it makes sense.
I worked for a huge telecomm company here in canada that offers TV, Internet, Cell Phone and house phone services to the majority of Canada.
The sheer amount of business that goes into this company is insane. Literally. I worked in several departments but it's when I tried out the "billing" department that I realized how much of a clusterfuck it all is.
First of all, I'm going to tell you straight up that the only way comcast or any other huge telecomm company could ever treat their customers right is if there are 5 people supervising each other for EVERY CALL A CUSTOMER MAKES.
I'm saying this because as soon as 1 employee (who is about to quit or who just doesn't give a shit or just doesn't know how to properly do his job) fucks something up, it creates a huge chain of clusterfuckness that will never get resolved.
Here's a good example:
I once a had a customer call in because he had a "FAV 5" plan where you get to call 5 numbers for free at any time during any day. Well here is the fuck up, the idiot who set up his account forgot to mention that you actually have to GIVE US THOSE 5 FUCKING NUMBERS so that we put them in the system.
Well, the customer had no idea and thought that our billing system would just take the 5 numbers he used the most and do the math with that. Wrong obviously but how is the customer suppose to know.
So he calls me up, of course, after he gets his first bill which obviously had overcharges of about 500 dollars. The guy was calm and composed and just kept telling me "but I have the FAV5 plan".
So I looked into his account, and yes he did, but wait, the slot where the 5 numbers should be are completely empty so I'm like "cool sir, I'll get all this credited, just give me a minute to confirm with my manager."
Here is where it gets fucking evil.
I go see my manager and explain everything.
She tells me "No, it's the customers responsibility to inform us of the 5 numbers."
But Miss, he was never aware that he had to provide us with that info.
"Doesn't matter, he has to pay, and make sure you enter the numbers in now."
I ended up being able to credit half his balance. I'm not sure if he ever took it further than that afterwards because I quit about 2 weeks later, not before handing credits like free candies to every single person who called. |
I had a similar situation with unreturned equipment fees. Fortunately I had returned the box via mail with tracking so I was able to provide the date and time and person who signed for my package. I had also copied all the numbers on the equipment so I could verify everything I sent back. It was a hassle, but I learned to always document everything you do. |
basically. I have trouble getting the idea of a market of large numbers across to even my parents. My mothers an accountant and I can't get her to see why, for example with movies or tv, if you drop the price and open up availability using the internet it's win win. would I rather 600 million people pay me 1$ on a whim or 60 million pay me 7$. I know I'm abusing the numbers a bit for sake of example but I'll take the larger base any day. Even if the earnings are about equal, my client base will be an order of magnitude bigger making me more stable in the long run while also making sure my company has the most amount of eyeballs on it increasing regional and global influence. i'd also be positioned to take advantage of when these huge populations in the Asias move more towards equity with our way of life in the west. Now I can charge 550 million 3$ for the product and make off like bandit or keep it at 1$ and use my good will and increasing median incomes to sell to 1.5 billion people. Everyone is happy, no new laws were needed to crush people into compliance, I don't have to advertise as heavily... where the hell is the downside!? |
Nothing will ever prevent me from typing whatever my brain comes up with into a computer and giving it to someone else for free." -Theo De Raadt |
Im new to posting on reddit (in fact thats my first post) - pls explain what you mean by " |
Director of National Intelligence: |
I disagree. For the simple reason that tons of people need to touch and feel before they buy. Nerds are one of the few demographics that predominately do not care about this part of the purchase.
I worked at Best Buy for what felt like an eternity. A huge portion of their customers were people that knew they were getting ripped off, but they needed to physically examine and use the product and were willing to pay a higher price for that. Also, only about 1 in 3 people actually purchased something. Many of the people who came into our store were testing the product out locally before buying online. |
Well, kinda. In Canada, Circuit City bought them from InterTAN and rebranded it "The Source by Circuit City" (weird - I've never seen a Circuit City here...) Then the real Radio Shack cried foul and decided to move into Canada themselves (slowly) and compete with The Source, which was sold to Bell - the biggest broadcast and telecom company in the country. |
Okay, I have been waiting forever for a chance to tell this story. It's kind of relevant here.
I worked in a small, locally owned electronics store a few years back. One time, we had a sale on Bluray players for $250. This was not long after Bluray had taken down HD-DVD, so it was a pretty good deal.
This guy comes in to buy it, and I remind him that he'll need an HDMI cable to get HD from his new player. The regular sales pitch is to show them the most expensive cable (at $250), tell them why it's so unreal, then back down one step, and say, "This is one is almost as good, and it's $100 cheaper." Didn't work every time, but it worked sometimes.
This guy bought a $250 cable to go with his $250 Bluray player. I felt terrible taking his money from him because he was obviously trying to get a good deal, but just didn't know much about the subject. I was actually going to tell him not to bother, but my manager saw and told him that he had the same cables at home (he didn't) and that they were the best. |
Bracing for downvotes, but I have to say:
I buy almost everything on the internet, but every once in a while I do the go-to-the-actual-store-for-buying-stuff thing. Usually it's because it's an emergency (I need this thing THIS AFTERNOON) or because I want to actually feel/try something (like a mouse) in a physical tactile sense before I buy it.
I mean, I know the Monster cables, protection plans etc. is bullshits, but that's a trap for stupid people, and I feel Best Buy is probably the best there is- certainly 100 times better than the other options like Wal-Mart or Radio Shack. |
I'm probably way too late for this. But here's my two cents:
I work for Best Buy Mobile. It's a store-within-a-store. We sort of run things our own way. I've only worked in that department while working for BBY (2.5 years now). I came out of another cell phone retailer so I have experience in that field. And only that field...and my management knows this.
As a cell phone retailer, I think Best Buy has the model down. It's the only place you'll find non-commissioned salespeople who sell all major cell carrier and prepaid services. Plus there's no mail-in rebate. Plus the protection plan (which, I know, gets silly on a lot of items else where in the store) is pretty great. Your cell phone goes with you everywhere. If you break it, it can be really expensive to replace because of the fact that the carriers price phones so high when not signing a contract.
While I'm aware that cell service is really expensive, and that's a whole new issue in and of itself, you can get better help at a Best Buy since there's no incentive to sell Verizon over AT&T or to have a customer get more minutes. So I think the experience in Mobile is where Best Buy flourishes. I understand that the people who are smart enough to show at Newegg will. And you should. But cell phone service can be a nightmare and I really think that Best Buy will do well in their stand-alone stores for Mobile. |
I came in here expecting hot booth babes, but all I got was some chubby chum. Can someone do a |
Samsungs model is archaic and barbaric. Should we go after the handlers? yesish/no. We (when it hits public) prosecute such practices as crimes against humanity (ok, maybe a little much, but without a doubt crimes against human brethren) More so, since we can't very well take down a corporation, we should (though I hate to say this due to the fact I want samsung to with the apple/samsung bullshit case) call out those in charge and the people pressured into following said orders.
I was pressured by my superiors to kill 2 innocent people. But it was my superiors that told me to do it. |
Let me relate to some parts of your comment because I feel pain even reading it.
>Nokia WP device sales have doubled for the last 2 quarters now so it's moving forward.
I'm interested where you're getting those numbers from?
> Steve Ballmer offered them $1 billion,
Which they were doing almost for any WinPhone producer in the past. Yes - Microsoft was paying YOU to produce their phones. What kind of product (ie. software - they're selling Windows Phone licenses) needs this kind of "sponsorship"? Drugs maybe.
> full OS customization
like you can't do this with Android. Like they didn't had their own flagship OS (Symbian) already being prepared for modern UI (Qt) and like they weren't ready with next-gen OS (Maemo/Meego).
Nokia N9 (which is basically almost 1:1 Lumia) sells a lot of better than this WP7 "experiment"
> and was open to new ideas, this is why Nokia went with Windows Phone.
And now they are completely screwed because of that "sugar layer" (money and offers) they thought they'll get. Microsoft dumps Nokia hardly. In new phones you'll not get Nokia Maps but MS Bing. Nokia was preparing for tablet launch (before Microsoft) now they're screwed even more because their own partner goes for competing here. Even more - you will NOT get WP8 in phones already being sold. What kind of deal was that OS change decision? Did they went mad?
> Turning Titanic the 180 degrees doesn't happen overnight
Yeah. But that's needed just when you want go back home not move forward. OTOH sinking it overnight is quite easy. I don't remember ANY company loosing so much money and going from being one of dominant companies on the market to "crap" (stocks evaluation) in such short time.
I'm not saying Nokia should go full Android. I think they should at least try. IMVVHO they should stay were they already had lots of experience. Nokia N9 was finished almost against their own managers. Nokia technical lead (Rich Green) resigned because of that (switch) decision - as huge amount of their best people.
I also advice for reading some analyst blog like :
this is the guy who from many years is able to give almost perfect estimations of phones being sold and companies position on the market. |
McDonald's coffee lawsuit is an example|
Actually, look into that. I agree there are way too many silly lawsuits, but that wasn't one of them. That lady got burned pretty bad, and that store was warned several times that the coffee was too hot to serve in paper cups. |
Anybody with the |
If you actually read the indictment it clearly states that MU was massively compliant with take-down notices. The indictment then classifies all of the take-downs MU did as "not really counting" because they said that since the way DeDupe file sharing worked that removing the users version of the file and not the master file (which would delete many users who had legally uploaded their files legitimate files). Then never told MU that this was an going to be an issue and used it as a shady reason to make a trumped up indictment that "sounds really bad", which has now been thrown out of court as being completely ridiculous. |
Here are the current broadband plans for the EU:
For |
People will pay money to see or get anything that makes them feel better or brings them pleasure or importance. Why do people buy lottery tickets? The odds are outrageous for a piece of paper that you are more likely to get nothing or break even than ever win anything of real value. Yet, people still come buy 30-60 of the same damn ticket or buy more tickets with their winnings. I had someone buy over $300 worth of scratch offs from me while I was working the other day. He had just turned in $46 worth. I can't even fathom doing that. On the other hand, if you never play, you'll never win big. Sorry for that tangent. |
That's a fine comparison to bring a gigabyte to layman terms.
No it isn't, it's fuckin' retarded - which by my calculations is a hunnert times more than average retarded.
How many sheets of paper in a 500 page e-book? How many in a 12 page blog? That's how fuckin' retarded it is.
Answer for those not paying attention: "Enough to stretch all the way to the moon and back, or circle the earth 367 times! WOW! That's a LOT!" |
I don't mean this as an insult but Alberta certainly helped. Sorry guys, I really like Alberta! You are just our most conservative province! You also have the most money, so it makes sense you are conservative! EDIT: Alright, alright! Alberta didn't get the most Conservative votes. I was just trying to show how powerful Alberta is. It's also mostly Ontario's fault. Can we all be friends again?
Also in the last election, for the first time in a long time Quebec gave the Bloc Quebecois party(I) a big "fuck you" and decided to vote for the NDP(II). The only problem is that Quebec forgot to let the rest of the Country know that they were voting NDP! Since NDP (and no one other party, other than the Liberals(III) or Conservatives(IV)) ever wins the opposition, no one really voted for the NDP. This means the left leaning vote was pretty much divided by the Liberal Party and the NDP (with a little smattering of Green Party votes) so the Harper government won AGAIN. The cool thing is that, in part because of Quebec, the NDP was voted in an the opposition for the first time ever. Canada has (at least as far back as I can remember) acted like a two party system with the Conservatives and Liberals fighting for the country's leadership.
(I) Bloc Quebecois Party: a party committed to representing Quebec's unique issues (since they are the only official french speaking province) and are also the "Vive le Quebec Libre!!" separatist party
(II) NDP: New Democratic Party: a party committed to social issues (Gay rights, international peace, even environmental stewardship) among other things. Was led by Jack Layton until he died of cancer in 2011. Sort of our far left.
(III)Liberal Party: our center left party. They've held power the longest in Canada and the longest of any party in a developed country in history. They aren't the leaders or opposition now, for the first time ever.
(IV)Conservative Party of Canada: They are our "right" wing party, but are usually positioned more towards the center. Stevie Harper is probably a robot and we like to complain about him like he's our George Bush. He's bad but not that bad. At least we can still have our gay sex within a marriage and abort all of our not gay babies!!!YAY! Sorry, that joke was in poor taste. I'm pro-choice and pro-equality. |
As a person from Michigan, we are trying. He has spent shit tons of money in advertising and lawyers to try to convince people that the bridge is useless and a waste of money despite us not paying for it. Every time I drive by that bridge it has miles of trucks backed up waiting to cross. |
I've been dealing with this crap for WEEKS. They've merged checkout into wallet which is fine, except my information was apparently out of date and now I have to verify my account.
How do you do that?
Send them a scan of some sort of ID and a utility bill or bank statement with my address.
How can that go wrong?
Monday I got this:
>Thank you for taking the time to send us these documents. However, it appears that the information you provided does not match what is on file in your Google Wallet account.
>In order to complete the account verification process, please log in to submit the documents that match the billing information you provided in your Google Wallet account.
>We appreciate your attention to the matter. We will notify you directly once we have verified your information.
>We appreciate your attention to the matter. We will notify you directly once we have verified your information.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Gayle
>The Google Wallet Team
My Response:
>Gayle,
>
>
>In the last few years I've moved several times and it's possible that my information in my google wallet is out of date and cannot be verified. Please advise as to how I should proceed. I have lived at my current address for almost 2 years, but I have no idea when I populated information to my google wallet profile. I've had a google account for a long time and I have had 4 different mailing addresses in the last 5 years. How can I verify my identity and information? I sent you a driver's license and a bank statement, but if they don't match information that hasn't been updated in years then I don't know what to do.
>
>Nate
I thought that seemed like a reasonable request: I don't live at the address you have on file. How can I prove I'm me and start buying apps and putting $$ onto my google voice account to make $0.10/min international calls?
Yesterday I got this:
>Hello,
>
>I am unable to provide answers regarding issues outside of your account reinstatement. If you have questions about refunds, technical troubleshooting, or other concerns regarding your Google Wallet account, please visit support.google.com/wallet.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Gayle
>The Google Wallet Team
I'm TRYING TO REINSTATE MY ACCOUNT , not have a pleasant chat. How is this not your department, Gayle?
I simplified it and sent this yesterday:
>
>I need to know how to reinstate my account if the information in the account is out of date and I no longer live at the address on file. Please advise. |
Places like Reddit and Facebook and Myspace before it have lulled people into thinking they're even a little safe on the internet. Just have to remember that it can all be copied and saved for later. |
This is something I think about every time I see acquaintances post bigotted anti-gay comments.
What if everyone living through the civil rights era had a searchable history of the thoughts they had at the time.
In 10 years (give or take) when the vast majority of people have moved past homophobia, these people are going to have a record of their horrible thoughts and even if their positions have evolved, this shit is going to haunt them.
I'm friends with the son of the Texas railroad commissioner and I already she how his dad has taught him to talk in politics and avoid discussion, but on "family values" both of them are very outspoken on FB, though his dad is a little more careful. But I could see this guy going into politics one day, and even in Texas, I don't think the shit he has said will fly in 15-20 years. |
Yes, private the board of directors usually cares more about the company because usually they helped start it. Public has a large amount of shares, so they boost profit margins so that other people buy in increasing the worth of their shares. It also allows them to give larger dividends which line their pockets and make uber rich people want to buy in. A good example of this is Walmart. They were a pretty top notch company until they went public. Now they're know for their huge margins, slave labor and white trash customers. You can see it in Google. They are putting things like Fiber, Glass and the self driving cars way into the media while cutting back on the smaller less impressive things. The public goes oooOOOooo look at that impressive thing. This gives people hope for Google and increases share price. The issue is that stuff requires large margins to sustain, so they stop giving their engineers as much free time. This increases margins more than is necessary for the other projects and also increases appeal of the share. |
protect?
What they can gather:
Anything that goes through the internet may be captured, linked to you and a profile built if you are within three steps of someone that is under an investigation.
Anything on the internet that uses "cloud" storage may be accessed and stored.
Search terms and patterns of usage, websites/forums/social media profiles and any other online presence.
Phone call patterns, duration, time, called/received numbers, location information,text logs. Not substantiated but posited is voice phone calls that are stored as text when key words are used(making people ground zero for the three layers of checking).
Billing, bank accounts, credit information, car ownership details, licence information.
Online medical information, pictures and fitness trackers.
How:
Prearranged methods set up with standing legislation through direct liaison with companies providing services.
Including but not limited to direct access through portals, encryption keys being provided by the vendors of software to a more laborious ticket system.
Direct searching of openly available information
More intensive legally ambiguous searching using various hacking tools
Direct interception through the hardware of the internet/phone/satellite systems.
Actual bugging and overt surveillance using physical assets when something has triggered specific interest. Posited but not substantiated is subverting mobile phones as bugs/tracking devices/video feeds/covert cameras always on even when they are physically "switched off" using the power button. |
The US is not the only country doing it, they are just the ones in the media spotlight.
The UK has different rules for instance and is less picky. They also have standing arrangements to share with the US.
Some other European democratic countries are overtly doing it and it is expected and understood.
China directly monitors forums on its version for example with people getting visits in real time as an example of one of the facets.
M$ provided the keys to internet software for the NSA, so access to information regardless of country of origin on the "windows" platform was more easily read.
The internet is also [physical]( with the bulk of it connected through relatively few entrance and exit pipes.
It has points where your ip and what you are looking at are put [together]( these are in relatively few [locations](
So in a totally invisible way your requests could be lined up with your computer only requiring access at the [choke points]( They could be mirrored or to use the prism joke split into two paths.
I have not given specific links to exact hardware as it is generally high level stuff not the periphery but the [deep down guts]( of the [internet](
It has been a point of contention in US political circles that the control of the internet and its naming conventions as well as addresses were being possibly taken out of US control.
It might be of interest to you that a large proportion of international domains are kept on US servers.
The information Snowden was trying to get across was more to let people know that
(A) The US government was scooping the information wholesale
(B) The US government are using multiple contractors with access to a large proportion
of the total information in most formats of telecommunication.
(C) It seems that there is little oversight or limiting to the surveillance
I am not assuming everything is being spied on, I am saying that everything that passes through the internet or the phone lines(including mobile networks) can be spied on.
Most standard computers attached to the internet could be compromised if you become of interest(to the third degree of separation in the phone details according to information on court documents) including but not limited to direct monitoring. |
A small german company called CargoLifter tried this a few years ago. They went full-on Bond villain and built the largest free-standing dome on the world as an assembly hall for their zeppelins. They went bankrupt, and people decided to put AN ENTIRE FUCKING ISLAND into that dome. I'm not even kidding, it's a holiday resort now. |
Who is to say that they will let anyone know what they're doing at all? They don't have to block Netflix/whatever entirely, just randomly degrade its performance while ensuring their own alternative performs well.
Even if the tech savvy realize that they're doing that, the vast majority of people won't and will only have the experience that Netflix is slow, laggy and occasionally won't run at all while Verizonflix is always available and fast. |
Good thing it's fake and designed to scare and manipulate you. ISPs COULD do all sorts of things. They COULD spy on you. They COULD force you to only buy their products. They COULD throttle your speeds at peak times. Everyone gets all antsy about what they COULD do under the law, but no one thinks about why it doesn't make sense for them to do those things.
They know the future of their business hinges on broadband services, not content. There's relatively little profit margins in content. It's in their best interest to keep the justice department and the FCC off their dicks and let you do as you please on an open platform.
The primary reason they fight net neutrality is because the law will almost certainly bring on a lot of frivolous lawsuits and additional expense when they feel the justice department and FCC already have the power to police them in the event of unfair business practices. |
Dismissing a moral concern as "whiny" is extremely flippant. Companies are collectives of people, not unconscious amoral monstrous entities. Seeking profit is fine, but they should have limits placed to prevent some of the more egregious problems we have today. |
What I don't get is that game theoretically it would make more sense for all 4 or 5 of the 'big providers' to gravitate towards net neutrality. Why? Well let's say they all move towards non-net neutrality. You have a bunch of pissed off consumers looking to find a service that doesnt fuck them hard. So ATT (hypothetically) realizes this and moves towards net neutrality. You'd have a bunch of consumers moving towards their service and Verizon & Co. losing a ton of money.
It makes way more sense for net neutrality to remain the status quo unless they're colluding. Which is extremely illegal. |
It means (if it ends in favor of the telcos), that you will see fewer small companies and fewer new companies on the internet. More of those you see will be related to/owned by the telcos. Over a longer amount of time, you might see new companies only able to survive long enough to compete when they grow in countries with net neutrality laws. Over that long term, Silicon Valley may just lose its importance in the internet world. Maybe it could result in more jobs overseas?
The reasoning: Imagine if you wanted to start a business on the internet and your competitors sites loaded for consumers really quickly and yours took a couple seconds per page load, because your competitors can afford the overhead of paying the telcos to make their content load faster. Big overhead sucks for small businesses. Alternatively, imagine that your site is slow and your competitor is owned by the same company that owns the telco. They might not even let you pay enough to compete because they want their horse to win. |
This is why terrorists exist.
Tonight, after all things Flyers hockey and Breaking Bad.. I sat down upstairs in front of my computer and loaded up Netflix to watch some LOST. The episode was stuck in the lower quality (after just upgrading my modem to a DOCSIS3). I hit ctrl+alt+shift+S and selected the 3000kbps stream.
After millions of years (time enough to watch Talking Bad live) it finally loaded - in the wrong place - I backtracked a little and bam, 0% buffer with another several minutes to load.
Xfinity's STREAMPIX, on the other hand, loaded the HD stream almost instantly....
Is Comcast already prioritizing packets? |
If your Internet is slow, it's a problem with the cable signal 90% of the time. Usually (but not always) if the modem fails, it's completely dead. Typically the issue is local at the house, sometimes it's an area issue. Upgrading to a Docsis 3 modem can help because it bonds with multiple channels and can range to a different frequency if one has an issue. Slow or intermittent speed is usually low signal, (less than about -10dbmv) high transmit, (over 51db), or ingress in the system. A technician can fix this. (if they know what the hell they're doing). Check the modem diagnostic page for receive and transmit power and SNR above 34. The most comcast will charge is $60 for a service call... But it's entirely up to the service tech whether or not you get charged.
Source: Been a cable guy for 6+ years. (please don't hate me, I'm one of the good ones. I swear) |
I] am consistently losing more faith in Apple's ability to sustain innovations in their products. At some point, they're going to need to stop polishing that turd and make something new.
And what are other companies "innovating" that are really blowing your mind right now? Has Samsung or Google released some new hardware that just blows Apple out of the water?
Consumers are constantly craving for something new and exciting, but the smartphone as we know it has pretty much been perfected. Of course there are improvements that can be made to it, but never again -- for any smartphone from any manufacturer -- will people get excited about a new phone like they did with the launch of the original iPhone.
When Apple comes out with something crazy awesome, it changes industries (think the iPod, or the original iPhone, or the iPad). Everyone is amazed by it and can't wait to see what Apple comes up with next.
But what happens when they've perfected an area?
For example, when Apple introduced the third-gen iMac back in 2005, they found the best form factor -- to build the whole computer into the display. What a simple idea for an all-in-one, it's amazing no one else had done it. And since then, they haven't changed the design of the iMac very drastically because that is the perfect design! Sure they've made it thinner and prettier over the years, but I don't see them changing the design of the iMac just for the sake of changing the design.
So then Apple goes off an reboots an entire industry by introducing an iPhone, or makes a new TV or designs a car or something. Everyone falls in love with the new product, and Apple's previous products become commonplace. To put it in perspective, who gets excited anymore when Apple updates the iPod? Anyone... anyone? No -- no one cares anymore because cool new toys like the iPhone and iPad have come along. Sure the iPod is still cool, but Apple perfected it already -- any changes to it are typically pretty minor and everyone has one by this point.
So these days, people are always clamoring for the "next big thing." And everyone turns to Apple to reinvent the wheel and replace it with something crazy awesome.
But the thing is, smartphones (of all brands) are starting to hit a wall, I think. This industry has already been perfected. Any improvements are going to be incremental -- a little faster, a few new features, etc. But people are craving for more, and they've just come to expect that Apple will deliver. But when it's not an industry-changing product, people get all disappointed. (Which kinda sucks, because what else is Apple supposed to do? I mean really, it's a sucky position to be in, because there's not much Apple can do about it. And then all of Apple's competitors use that to their advantage by bashing them in ads, etc.).
So all that being said… I do think these updates are pretty impressive (and honesty, for an "S" update, they are). |
It wasn't a key to decrypt emails, it was a key to snoop on internet connections between users and lavabit (over A unique secret key is generated for such connections, but a known public key and a secret private key are used to exchange that secret key between server and client when the connection is set up. And the public/private key pair is associated with the domain name (because it is also a part of determine that you're encrypted connection is with whom you think it is.) The NSA wanted that private key so they could ease-drop on all connections between lavabit and their users. |
Well put. Perhaps a better visual would be if a US bank decided to open up a movie-plot-Swiss-Bank style deposit box. That is, if you open an account, the bank gives you a super hard to forge key and a serial number -- no names, no paper work. And the boxes have thermite in them to destroy the contents if the lock is drilled (this comes with a hefty safety deposit, I'm sure).
In this analogy, the court decides they want to see the contents of Bob's box. The bank demonstrates they can't possibly know which box is Bob's. The court then asks to see the contents of all the boxes to see which contains Bob's stuff. The bank complains about invasion of privacy, and notes they couldn't do that if they wanted -- opening a box without the key would destroy the contents.
So the court then says "fine -- give us the keys and your wardrobe so we can impersonate you, and go home. We'll pretent to be you, look at everyone's stuff when they open their boxes, and keep doing it until we see Bob's stuff in one of the boxes".
The banker complains -- this is effectively seizing everyone's stuff, not just Bob's. The banker is held in contempt for not complying. Oh, and he better not tell anyone about any of this, because it's sealed court case, so he'll be arrested if he tells anyone about handing over the keys or the searching.
So what's the banker do? He hands ofter the keys, walks outside, and paints a huge sign that says "the bank is closed, sorry". |
That was the longest |
Big promises, questionable assumptions.
For one, the VASIMR project makes claims about using a power source "equivalent to a nuclear submarine", which sounds good until you realize that is 20,000 times more power than any space based nuclear source ever launched and nuclear powered subs have the infinite heat sink of the planet's oceans, a spacecraft has nothing of the sort.
For another, the VASIMR plume diverges drastically from the nozzle opening, it looks like the plasma is actually following magnetic field lines back around to the origin which would mean zero net thrust in reality.
Another one was the concept relies on high temperature superconducting magnets, which do not exist. The reason VASIMR engines have only been run for a few seconds at a time is any longer would melt the magnets they're using. |
To answer many of the questions in this thread.
Start with the wiki page:
AdAstra, the guys who make the thing.
A rather in depth and technical explanation of the potentials of these thrusters
Power: Many people expressed concerns and questions regarding powering these thrusters. The current module being placed on the ISS in 2015 (according to current planning). Is a 200kw unit. The ISS produces 84kw of nominal power ( They will trickle charge the thruster's battery so that it can operate for 15 minutes at a time.
This means that we can easily power one of these thrusters with technology that we have today (it wouldn't be a stretch in regards to technology to build/launch a larger solar array in/into orbit).
Now the bad news. To do any of the larger weight missions the power needs go quite a bit higher. Proposed Mars missions require in the range of 1-2MW. This is an amount of power not currently feasible with solar arrays on a space ship, not to mention the reduced efficiency of the arrays as the distance from the sun increases. For these missions AdAstra is banking on using nuclear power. The energy density of a nuclear reactor is about the only thing we have today that would allow us to power a bank of these thrusters powerful enough to get a ship anywhere near the velocity discussed in this news article.
Summary: Pretty cool system for unmanned lightweight ships, station keeping bursts of thrust in LEO and potentially really cool if we can get enough power up there. As it stands, the thruster is probably good to go, but the power systems need a ways to catch up. |
Hey guys! I'm a scientist! The problem here is that, while you do get small thrust that adds up over time, it's not as simple as traveling in a straight line and accelerating at a constant rate. The fact that everything is in orbit around the sun (or the Earth, or whatever) complicates things quite a bit. Basically, it is much, much worse than you think. I can provide some examples for earth orbiting satellites if you like.
edit: So, examples, because why not. This is the simple case of a low thrust continuous burn vs. a pair of impulsive (high thrust, short burn) maneuvers.
So, I guess I'll just do the case of LEO (Low Earth Orbit) to GEO (Geostationary orbit). What I will give you is the Delta V (change in velocity) you need to go from one place to another. These are the numbers you would use to find out how much acceleration you need for how much time, or similarly how much propellant you need to expel.
First of all, the orbital velocities:
ISS altitude (370 km) - 7690 m/s
Geostationary orbit (35786) - 3075 m/s
Delta V using low thrust continuous burn - 5928 m/s
Delta V using 2 impulsive maneuvers (Hohmann transfer) - 3866 m/s
This really highlights several of my points. First, you are forced to use less efficient trajectories when you use low thrust, continuous burns. This, overall, tends to hurt your performance. However, what is low thrust is relative to the other forces acting. In this case, the acceleration due to the thruster must be very small compared to the acceleration due to gravity of the craft at a certain altitude.
Second, in orbital dynamics, the change in velocity is NOT NEARLY AS SIMPLE AS YOU THINK. The article says VASIMR will accelerate a craft to 35 km/s. This is an absurd statement without context. If VASIMR is able to achieve a minimum escape trajectory from earth it will travel at the same speed with respect to the sun as the earth does. The earth is orbiting the sun at ~30 km/s. If I do a burn to SLOW DOWN, I will fall towards the sun. If I plan to get to mercury, by the time I get there, I will be going 42 km/s, just from falling . Orbital mechanics does not work like accelerating in a straight line without other forces acting like in freshman physics. If the gravitational forces are relevant (Hint: they almost always are), then they complicate things quite a bit.
Silver Lining
The reason the Mars trip takes 300 days is this. The (simplified) plan: Do one really big burn to put you on a path to Mars, then coast, and let the sun do all the work. At this point, you are just in an orbit, and you let it happen. Then, when you get there, you do another burn to insert into Mars orbit (otherwise, you end up back where the Earth was when you left, but it's not there anymore!). Then, you chill at Mars for awhile, do your shit, and then do it all in reverse. The reason this takes so long is that your burns are short, and you're really just in orbits the whole time. Half of the trip you're almost doing what the earth does, and you're doing it for half an orbit (read, half a year).
To make these trips better, what we need is a thruster we can leave on for longer periods of time without using too much propellant, and whose thrust is very large compared to influences from the Sun. For some frame of reference, the Sun exerts about 6 Newton's of force for everyone 1000 kg of mass at 1 AU from the sun. That means you don't need much force!
However!! The VASIMR engine produces 5 N of thrust, at a specific impulse of 5000s. This means that you expel 100 mg of fuel every second that it's running. For a continuous 40 day burn, you'd burn 345.6 kg of propellant, and with an initial craft mass of 4000 kg, you'd get a Delta V of 4432 m/s (Not even enough to go from LEO to GEO, although, again, this can be a misleading comparison).
For those who are familiar with orbital dynamics, I have simplified many things in my explanations intentionally. If you feel I have made a real error, let me know. Otherwise, please don't bother me about how it's not really half a year or this and that. I know. |
Hahah, you really cracked me up. I was thinking maybe with all these negative people claiming I'm wrong, maybe I don't remember my aerospace classes as well as I thought. But I thought about it, and then you link this neat program that shows exactly what my intuition was - it is extremely difficult to find a trajectory launched from earth that lands in a stable solar orbit. Practically everything you do ends in a non-orbit!
Thanks for linking that!
Go ahead and try it yourself since you didn't seem to bother before suggesting it. Let's see how many examples you can find of velocity/trajectory combinations using the Sun, Planet, Comet set where the comet starts near the earth and ends up in orbit. I'll make you a bet that for every one you can come up with I can come up with 5, hell, 10 trajectories that do not. Go for it!
The orbit of the comet is extremely susceptible to colliding with the sun or getting thrown out of the solar system, there are very few stable orbits (you'll only be able to find them if you're careful and know exactly what to look for). Proves that it is not "hard" to hit the sun at all, but it IS hard to find a trajectory off the Earth that results in a stable orbit of the sun for such a satellite. All you KSP fanboys on reddit really need to stop telling other people what you think you know because you played a game. And go back and do more reading about what a delta-v is and how it is determined, that will help. No one spouting off about delta-v values seems to understand at all how they are calculated, why they are calculated that way, and the limitations that calculation has on THIS particular question. |
Have fun with samshit, your are paying for so much shit your can't even use on those phones. Like half that processor you can't even use. S4's are poorly optimized, with proper optimization you could easily get a full day to a day and half out of its stock battery with normal use. So your basically saying :
I'm going to buy samsung who is the new apple because I can get this new battery, when in reality a properly optimized phone with large battery will easily do the same thing. Your point makes no sense? |
In my opinion, I feel like the advancement in the phone war has slowed down. There hasn't been a phone released in a while that makes a huge impact in the retail market. It seems that phone companies are becoming complacent. They have their fans, followers and intense loyal supporters. For example, apple took the smart phone market and revolutionized it. Now they have slowed down tremendously. Each phone they come out with has very minor changes (speaking in revolutionary ways.)
Apple knows they have a loyal fan base that will buy their newest product even if they recently bought the design prior. Same thing is happening in the android product line. Each phone comes out with minor changes like a bigger screen, small upgrades in memory and processor.
Sadly this happens in almost every industry that is based on innovation and advanced design. The auto industry for instance had this happen in the last twenty years. American vehicles were the top of the line best sellers and had a huge following and loyal fan base. Ever hear your grandfather say he was a Chevy or ford man? Well eventually these companies became complacent and their designs became bland and bleak. People slowly left their trusted and favorite companies for ones that were making waves with new innovation and advancements.
Hopefully there will be a battery war. If so we will see some amazing things happen with these companies who have slowed down. If not from them, then new companies will rise up and change the industry, sparking a flame under the ass of apple and android companies. Then finally the momentum we once had will return. |
No yeah, everything can be effected by bad news. It's just silly to think the tech industry will suddenly crumble tomorrow based on a temporary stock drop when most of the people here had never bothered to look at that same stock beforehand.
The reality is so long as people keep buying product (and for now they are) the stock may drop but it'll come back. Stock holders care about a companies health first and it's health runs in line with it's customer base. When they pull out due to news it's because the company might decline some not because it will decline and not because it's doomed. |
I think you are right, but that doesn't mean that this is uncalled for.
The problem is that this bootcamps promise to be an alternative to school. They promise all the same benefits and claim to be a good schooling system, but can't back up their stance.
Bootcamps are great, but they are not replacement for school, I see it more like a complement to traditional school. It works great for those that need something more hands on like bootcamps, but it isn't as great for those that need to understand the theory to get into something (they'd benefit from normal school). If bootcamps sold themselves more like seminars and less like private schools I think this problem wouldn't happen.
And yes, I expect a teacher to have a BA at least. I think that Mark Zuckerberg would be a horrible programming teacher, he would have a lot of business insight. In programming he'd have a very pragmatic view that doesn't give a lot of insight into programming on its own, without business or real world requirements. Pure CS.
Yes I believe its useful to know this theoretical non-practical view even if you never really use it: an expert's knowledge should go a little deeper than he ever really needs, that extra depth gives context and insight. And this is what I expect to have of a full class on a subject.
Do I expect that from a seminar? No, I expect something more pragmatic, something to open my eyes to how things are done and leave me at a starting point. I don't expect to get deep understanding from a seminar, I expect to need a deep understanding to get the best of a seminar.
So in short ( |
I recommend linux mint (cinnamon edition). The desktop is really close to what win7/vista is like. The installation process is easy. All the applications you need to function are included at installation.
There is a lot of support for Linux Mint as well. Mint uses all the same software as Ubuntu so if you have any issues you can use the Ubuntu resources and bug fixes as well.
The only downside with linux mint that I see is the same downside that occurs in all linux distros. If you bought specific software, (AAA games, Microsoft products) then there is a chance they won't work well. If you need to use that specific software suite and you are not tech-savvy then you should stick with windows.
Generally if you were doing something with windows then there is an alternative on Linux. For many things (music, internet browser, email, chat) each distro can have their own unique application for! Wow, i'm not even just talking about mint now. |
Windows XP is "enough" for many users. It runs fast enough. It does enough. It is familiar enough. It is comfortable enough.
These may be people who still have VCR's for a video collection, who have a 16*9 flatscreen TV and think that "HD" is a stretched SD image, who buy a car when the old one dies, or who don't slobber uncontrollably when the latest, greatest widget is released. :) They may still occupy their time with books and hobbies that don't involve the internet. "Smart" phones for them might be phones with ten number redial and an address book.
When they went in to look at Windows 7 machines a few years back, their thinking may have been something like "hmmm, it looks a lot like Windows XP, but my computer runs XP just as 'fast' as this computer. My computer browses the web, checks email, and plays my games. My computer is enough."
Now they go in, and maybe they've finally decided to bite the bullet. What do they find? Windows 8.1, big goofy tiles, touch screens, and a way of interacting with the machine that is different from what they're used to.
What about Mac, you ask? At the risk of kicking the ant hill, all I will say is that the price range for these people is somewhere between "as cheap as possible" and "as cheap as possible, and maybe a hundred dollars extra." Apple products do not usually meet this description.
We go back to the uses these folks have: web, email, games, and video. Elegant or not, they know how to get to these functions on XP. 8.1 might seem like too steep a learning curve for them, especially remembering that some people are fiercely intimidated by computers.
They manage to get on the web with the help of a salesperson, who ooohs and aaaahs at all of the new "features", but to the buyer their mind is saying "my computer's still fast enough, and this is too different."
Oh, and maybe then they see a tablet that does the same thing as the Windows 8.1 machine they just looked at, but is a few hundred dollars cheaper.
It's as perceptually fast as their XP box too, and cheap, and it does everything that new Microsoft box does. "Heck, it's completely different from Windows, but there are still icons, and I could learn to do stuff a different way for something I can use on the couch, or on the porch, or in bed, with no wires . And it's fast enough."
The sale goes to Apple (please see my above point), or more likely a second tier Android tablet manufacturer.
They don't care about gigabytes or gigaHertz, polygon counts or shader units, terabytes of storage space, or touch. They care about their perception of "enough." |
It wasn't the the carriers who decided to redefine the definition of 4G, it was everyone. When the standard was created the technology existed but was economically unfeasible to deploy by basically anyone. And I'm not even talking just cell towers, I'm talking radios in phone itself. It's no surprise that the countries that have LTE-A are small, have a high population density and only support a select number of flagships. |
I'm confused by this. As someone who used to work at a cell phone store, we sold unlocked phones all the time.
I'm really confused by what would constitute as bulk unlocking.
If I, a cell phone service dealer, bought 10 phones, unlocked them, and then sold them, this sounds like bulk unlocking.
However, it states "import and bulk unlock". So a loophole is to unlock your phone outside of the country, or buy them already unlocked.
2 business entities, entity 1 sells phones to entity 2. Entity 2 unlocks the phone and sells it back to Entity 1, charging for the unlock service. Entity 1 sells the phone to the end user. Is this bulk unlocking? |
I just don't understand why they don't allow tethering and whatever the hell you want but just cap your speed severely over, say, 2GB.
Because I'm in a stupid situation where I have unlimited but with zero tethering. Normally I'd think that was reasonable, but one day I was stuck with some urgent work emails to send (say, 100kb worth), and decided to tether for a few minutes. They gave me a warning email (fair enough!). But then I was without internet one month when I moved apartments, so decided to download some TV shows and movies. I used 15GB (don't worry, all overnight and at non-peak times), and no warning email. |
Actually, I support basic income and I believe it would free people's minds from having to meet basic survival needs and allow them to focus their attention on what they find interesting or what they're passionate about. Maybe I am optimistic, but if everyone had a 30k income for nothing, I don't think they would just sit around the house and watch TV all day. Sure, some people might, but I think a vast majority of people would get pretty damn bored and start getting hobbies.
When I was growing up I never had a job and basically had a free income through my parents (as most children do). I never had to worry about food or clothes or shelter. The only thing I had to worry about was going to school for 6 hours a day. I had an enormous amount of free time compared to what I have today. I spent a lot of it playing games and watching TV, yes, but I also spent a lot of time contributing to online games by making pixel art. I was very passionate about making great video game art and I did it for free, for fun. Now I have to work a 9-5 job just to survive and when I get home I'm tired and burnt out. If I didn't need to work, I would go back to my passion and be a lot happier for it. This is just one single example, but I feel like a lot of people out there would be quite similar to me. |
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