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While you might be correct and I've posed the same question myself at times, I believe the reasoning behind finding planets similar to our makeup is that it is known currently that these factors hold the key to being able to harbor life as we know it. |
Not assuming this is still the case, BUT IT COULD BE.
The user database had been compromised/sold at one point, and this could very possibly be the same thing. |
What you are seeing is what happens when technology (HFT and algorithms) and hedge funds have squeezed out all the competition, and record levels of idle personal wealth have to seek rents from new and yet-unheralded ideas before the big boys crowd everyone else out like everywhere else, even if the "idea" is simply a natural evolution of current taxi service and doesn't seem so ground-breaking to anyone else. |
There is so much fail in this thread it's mind-boggling. The situation is nothing like you said.
I'm a commercial litigator for a major firm. A huge part of my job is engaging in civil discovery of large organizations. Contrary to the EFF's PR, the NSA is not making a "novel" argument, it is related to an argument I see all the time.
Large organizations often have standing "document retention" or "document deletion" policies under which files are purged after a set time. Why? Because housing large volumes of data perpetually is fucking expensive.
Generally, when a lawsuit begins there is a duty to preserve evidence. Because discovery, particularly electronic discovery, is expensive and burdensome, the law concerning document collection balances between the utility or necessity of the documents requested and the burden of saving and providing them. Under the prevailing standard in the federal courts, the pendency of a lawsuit doesn't necessarily require a litigant to suspend routine systematic deletion, depending on the nature of the documents being deleted.
Say I have a lawsuit against a big clothing manufacturer. This manufacturer will likely have a system tracking warehouse shipments, which preserves data on shipments for a set period. The system will ultimately purge old data, however, because after a while it won't matter how many shirts shipped from X transfer center to Y warehouse on May 15, 2004, and maintaining this data is a needless cost.
I may request this data and demand that the manufacturer preserve all data from their warehouse system, but this might be expensive for them because the system wasn't designed that way and they'd have to purchase storage media. They are free to object on burden grounds, after which I would have to go into court to compel them.
That's the basic situation here. The NSA isn't "ignoring the law." The court agreed that demanding suspension of routine deletion was overly burdensome.
Keep in mind the data we're talking about, which is information collected by the program. This is information the NSA by design doesn't hold onto forever; the purpose of the system is, among other things, to allow the NSA to trace human networks, and the usefulness of this kind of data grows stale.
The EFF has asked the NSA to preserve data collected from targets in perpetuity. This is going to be a huge volume of data. The NSA likely doesn't have sufficient storage media on hand to preserve this data, and -- especially because the system was designed by government contractors who's main skill is securing government contracts -- I can imagine there not being a simple "stop routine deletions" switch the NSA can hit. We're talking potentially millions of dollars to modify the system and purchase storage media to house this data for the half a decade this case will wind through the courts.
And why? Remember, we're talking about private, personal information and metadata collected from wire users. The EFF's stated reason for needing the data is to identify who was subject to collection to establish standing. Can you imagine there being a less burdensome way to get these facts into evidence besides simply saving everything ? (For example, submitting a list of the identity of people whose information was collected.) |
I agree that emotional causes are manipulated for votes. But I also think certain issues are just emotional by nature, for people on both sides of the issue and the aisle alike. Like, "another tragic school shooting - lets ban all the guns, and nobody will ever get shot again!", or "Another teenage girl got pregnant - lets ban sex education, and nobody will ever get pregnant again!" Side by side, those look like pretty similar statements, would you agree? Appeals to emotion and their base.
So okay. I'm going to try and leave appeals to emotion out of this and stick to facts. I'm going to be winging it for portions, but not in an attempt to sway you - I just don't know a whole lot about where you live.
So from my perspective - the ideal for the internet is that it's just a piece of infrastructure, same as a highway. Just an impartial way for people and things to get around.
And you're absolutely right. Why would any business build it? Why would any business build a highway? You can't really monetize infrastructure. Companies can profit from it indirectly - you have to buy a car to drive, you can buy a billboard at the side of it, you can use on your way to a work site as a contractor - but the road itself? Not particularly profitable.
The government doesn't do everything well. They don't do a lot of things well. But infrastructure? They have proven the ability to pull that off. In America and across the world, we have roads, television, telephone cables. Mostly built by governments. And your tax dollars - while obviously not used as effectively as they always could be - are used in the creation of that infrastructure. It makes sense for the government to do it because it's a common utility, and they generally are expected to fill the void when something is needed but there isn't really any serious profit to be made directly.
Government tends to be progressively more inefficient as it scales away from local communities. Its sort of a fault by design - the scale of the issues you're tackling go up and you're further removed from the people you're actually helping (and they're probably not going to see you on the street). So in this case, the smallest level of government got the community together and agreed to increase taxes to build that infrastructure on a smaller scale. And they were told that they couldn't, by people who aren't in that community, who were taking money from companies that - to continue the analogy - think that although there's no money to be made from building highways, there's plenty to be made from the highways themselves. Maybe they can implement a paid lane, or that maybe they can put toll booths every twenty minutes down the road. The government and the companies are both looking for cash, sure - but the difference in how they go about getting it makes the difference in how functional that highway is. That's just my position on it and I'm not trying to attack your own perspective. |
wow this is the most retarded thing ive read on Reddit today.
Mojang, by its own admissions, [reported a profit of $100 million dollars last year]( So already we knew this guy is full of shit and has no idea what the fuck he is talking about.
> Remember: 1) This is a game that has yet to release a sequel, 2) Only one major partnership (Lego, and very limited at that) 3) Public partnerships (and revenue) have yet to be capitalized (Minecraft in the classroom) 4) dedicated userbase as rabid as Apple or Google's that creates free addon content to keeps the audience captivated in between major releases 5) for the youngest audience, Minecraft is their facebook and twitter and netflix all rolled into one 6) A server subscription model Realms still in infancy
Oh boy, so putting Minecraft in the classroom and free addon content makes the company worth $26 bn. Minecraft could also end up curing cancer and ending world hunger too making it even more valuable! |
A few days ago I would have completely agreed, but now I have a shred of doubt about AES after reading this presentation by Daniel Bernstein:
Making Sure Crypto Stays Insecure
( |
I find it completely bizarre that the very people who get spun up into hysteria about Ebola! ISIS at the border! Al Queda! Weapons of Mass Destruction! are the same ones criticizing the FBI for using the best tools available to look for leads.
We all need to take a pill, ignore the doom-sayers, and accept some risk of terrorism/ebola/whatever. Otherwise, the cost in dollars and lost liberty is too great. |
3) the government can issue a court order demanding Apple/Google hand over their code signing keys, similar to how they demanded Lavabit's SSL key. They could then use it to push an "update".
4) or your cell carrier's keys.
5) or they already have one of the ~200 keys trusted by Android and iOS by default.
6) Maybe they have a pile of 0-days that still haven't been patched. iOS 8 alone patched 56 vulnerabilities.
7) no one ever actually powers down their phone, and dumping DRAM isn't hard. |
You can build a compromised compiler that inserts whatever sort of vulnerabilities/malware you want into programs when they're compiled, selected based on as specific or general criteria as you like.
"Aha! I'll build the compiler clean from audited source", somebody might say. Unfortunately, the compromised compiler can detect when it's compiling itself or another compiler, and compromise the new build from clean source code. |
The reason the complaint numbers are small is because the ISPs are adding caps one small community at a time.
One city gets caps, and maybe the FCC will get a few dozen complaints, a few months later, they add caps to a different location, and the FCC get a few more complaints. By then, the first location has given up, and no longer complain. |
You know why the number of consumer complaints are small? It's simple.
AT&T has its limit set at ~150 GB depending on the service. Problem is, a lot of their customers are dependent on the quality of line they have and the distance they are from a hub, meaning a lot of them likely have shit for speed. They're going to be hard-pressed to hit that number. My mom was in this situation with speeds under 1MBps in a city of almost 50,000, until she went to the only other option, Comcast.
Now Comcast was known as the great devil that started all of this. It is very easy to get above their original 250GB cap, which my gf and I regularly do at our home. Most months we're over 500GB between all of our legal streaming. This would be a problem if Comcast decided to enforce its actual limit when was there. But Comcast instead decided it didn't want to bother with it...for now.
It's testing 300GB limits in markets where it's not likely to get a lot of complaints from customers in markets without a whole lot of competition and where people are more likely to not use streaming services or online options. |
Not super on topic, but I wanted to share my experience with AT&T recently regarding data caps. About a week ago, my phone finally shit the bed and I couldn't make or receive phone calls. It was an old phone, so I figured I would go in to AT&T and get a new one since I was due for an upgrade about two months ago. After I had chosen a new phone, the sales rep who was helping me saw that both my sister and I are still on unlimited data plans. The sales rep started telling me how I can be saving so much money by switching to a shared data plan. My sister and I both plan on holding on to our unlimited data plans with a death grip, but I decided to let the rep humour me since she was very adamant about how much money I can save. I ask her to explain to me exactly how much money I can save on my monthly bill. She punches some numbers on her calculator and I can see her face turn to confusion. Thinking she must have done something wrong, she starts her calculations over and once again, looks confused, almost disappointed. She then tells me that I can save a whole EIGHT DOLLARS a month by moving from the unlimited data plan to a shared data plan. I almost laughed in her face. Save eight dollars and get rid of my unlimited data? YEAH FUCKING RIGHT. And what happens when I go over on my shared data plan? Oh, that's a ten dollar charge? At least I'd have saved eight bucks that month... |
The reason they never finish "stuff" is because they are always improving it.
For example, remember "Google Wave". It was a fine product, in fact I used it during college to study for huge exams with my entire class.
Well, it was always in "beta" and it eventually got canned. In my opinion it was a shippable and profitable product that many other companies would have loved to have.
Google felt it wasn't of good enough quality to keep around. However, don't be suprised if the same codebase pops up in 5 years in some other product as a feature set.
GMail was in beta for years, but was widely used. It's also been updated continually, which takes a lot of resources. |
No, taxes funded upper-level management's bonuses and vacations business trips. But not a dime of it was spent on infrastructure upgrades.
It's such horseshit and companies like Verizon, Comcast, Bank of America, and any other that received a check/grant/bailout need to be held strictly accountable. Personally, I'm in favor of yearly audits for ten years after the companies get the money, to ensure its being utilized as written. |
I'll tell you a story about "unlimited data". My stupid ass cable company decided they didn't have time to bury my cable line so it was left run across my yard until I made another appt for them to come bury it. Needless to say i wasn't able to schedule another appt for a week and the line was run over by the lawn care company. Boom, no tv or internet for at least a week.
So I start to use my wifi hot spot for access and Netflix. After one day of use I get a text saying that I'm close to 5gb used and my speeds will be throttled. Next day even surfing simple pages takes FOREVER to load and Netflix was unwatchable. I never did a speed test, but I'm sure I wasnt even getting anything close to 4g speeds, probably like 1/10th that speed.
So for a week I basically had no internet in my new house and was definitely not able to use my "unlimited" data. |
doesn't help that people are unable to think critically about it.
"Oh nice 5MB/s, *never mind the fact that:
5GB cap / 30 days = .1666GB/d
.1666 / 24 hours = .00694/h
.00694 / 60 mins = .0001157/m
.0001157 /60 seconds = .0000019283 GB/s
.0000019283 * 1000000000 = 1928 bytes / s
that's a grand fucking total of 1.9KB / second
not 5 megs a second
about 3.4% of the speed of dial up |
Dad always complains his computer is slow, Sends it to a Computer repair shop. (Twice)......No fix. They sent it back with Ccleaner downloaded, he tries to use the internet..lol it wont even connect to our router they made it even worse. Fuckers
So he finally gives me a try... i system restore it first, oh internet is back, no suprise there. Download Malwarebytes Antimalware-Full scan and found 1,200+ viruses detected.
Recommended programs. (Jetclean and Malwarebyes antimalware) |
Generally you can get that information from a user if you ask them what specifically is slow. If not, starting up the computer and opening a webpage would run you through most of those things. Most of the time it is simply windows rot, which usually indicates a lot of installing things has been going on, which could mean bundled software could have been installed, which is why I usually use a malware scan/HJT as the first line of treatment. 90% of the time there is usually something that is found.
I usually try to educate them about safe browsing habits and on being careful with installers that include bundleware, and they are usually either okay with that or are complete dickwads about it. Almost all of the cases I've had to deal with within my own family have been the former, but I've dealt with the latter occasionally.
One of my stories about the latter: My friend (studying electronics engineering) was trying to fix something for a family member (trying to find out where the CD drive was/why it wasn't being recognized). He was asking me (studying computer science) for advice, and was clearly a bit frustrated with all of the adware popping up after every page. Things were going too slowly for my tastes, and my friend had to go out to eat dinner with them, so I offered to mess with it remotely, so we set up Teamviewer and I went to work. The thing had no less than 4 browser hijackers/adware applications installed. I saw Cytiweb, Stormwatch, Genius Box, and Pro PC Cleaner, and I am sure there was something else that I forgot the name of. I managed to get rid of them all using HJT, followed by a full scan in Norton (which was installed, and it managed to get rid of everything that I didn't eliminate already). Then when my friend came back, I had him give me the model number of the laptop, I looked it up, and found that the CD drive did not come with it and that it was $100-200 extra (it was a cheap laptop, and was on sale). I then had him try to lecture the client on safe browsing habits, and the response he received was something along the lines of "I think I have more common sense than you." Yeah, enough common sense to have 4 browser hijackers installed simultaneously when I have only had one for a few days across the lifespan of my last two computers. |
I actually found this paragraph one of the more interesting of the article. I had never stopped to consider the thermal implications of putting a case on a phone. Since phones are passively cooled (there's no nice fan transporting cool air in and hot air out), the ability for heat to travel to the case, and from the case to the ambient surroundings, is important. I would guess that cases serve as pretty decent insulators.
Regarding heat generation during charging; processors aren't the only component prone to generating a lot of heat (tho they are typically the most major culprit). Power electronics, for example regulators that control voltage and current, also generate their fair share. A good example is the power supply on your computer. Notice that for desktops there is almost always a fan built in. Therefore, heat is most definitely being generated during charging. You can even physically feel this by touching devices that are charging. They'll feel warm.
So the question now becomes, is it possible for the inside of a phone (remember, a phone will be much warmer on the inside than is evident on the outside) to surpass the recommended temperatures for Li Ion batteries while charging? I don't know the answer, but it certainly sounds plausible. And I can see how having a case could exacerbate the issue. 120 deg. F is really not that hot. And it could be lower depending on your source ([see here]( |
None, "gaming laptop" is not only oxymoronic but they simply don't exist as people expect them to.
Instead of spending $1,000 on a "gaming laptop" you could spend $200 on a normal laptop for word processing/web browsing etc and $800 for a very decent gaming PC that would crush all current "next-gen" consoles and quite expensive "gaming laptops".
"Gaming laptops" get crazy hot, have to be plugged in 100% of the time otherwise with any actual playing of games it will go from fully charged to flat in literally 20-odd minutes and the graphics will be vastly inferior for easily double the price. There are many other drawbacks too.
If you want a portable gaming computer, just build the PC using a Mini-ATX case and then it's just as portable as a laptop. |
What a joke. The FBI policing the equation group?
The equation group is the NSA's version of anonymous. They have access to all zero day exploits and have nearly unlimited resources.
This will go nowhere and quickly.. State secrets and homeland security get to rubberstamp all crimes done for Uncle Sam.
Hell, the FBI instructs police forces across the nation to IGNORE FOIA requests regarding stingray until they can tell the judge that it has to deal with national security. |
I understand that you're suggesting we wait to see what comes of the Oculus/Facebook venture, but I think that most of the people who have been watching Oculus from the beginning feel like the Facebook buyout stands in direct contrast to the values that gamers hold and to the ethics that Oculus seemed to preach.
Ergo, Oculus sold out literally and (in the eyes of excited tech-enthusiasts) figuratively, considering all of the anti-privacy/big-business issues that Facebook is associated with. The grass-roots movement for Oculus feels betrayed by the partnership and are suggesting that the industry position that Oculus is in right now (having their hand forced by Vive and Morpheus) is due in no small part to that partnership with Facebook. |
Because its an outside of the box thinking mechanism.
It's to say, if something happens once, you should always strives to ensure that it never happens again. However it it happens again, something has failed, either something hasn't been stopped or there is something more sinister going on.
Say you fall down the stairs at your friends house, this will happen once, as you sure as hell will make sure you don't fall down again.
Now lets work it up a level or so.
A man is found murdered and raped in a park. Once. The police never catch the person. a year later another, same circumstances. Now they have a reason to know it will happen a third time and so on and so forth.
So the |
My professor was a former Army intelligence officer and this was his story about U.S. intelligence.
When the Berlin Wall was being built the Russians gave the command that if the U.S. and its allies gave or showed any sort of resistance that the wall cease construction. Pretty much the Berlin Wall would never have been built. The U.S. actually intercepted this message. The catch though is the U.S. had caught hundreds to thousands of other messages that had to be decoded and/or translated. By the time my professor got to seeing the message about the Berlin Wall construction, it had been built already. Unless they were looking for a very specific thing/keyword, it was backlogged. |
However gathering all the calls prevents nothing. The mass of data is far to huge to cull actionable data from.
You may be overstating this slightly. Our SIGINT agencies have some pretty sophisticated methods for streamlining analysis. I've done some academic work on this area, though admittedly only on international (not domestic) surveillance and signals intelligence.
And of course there may also be a "chilling" preventative effect, though that's very difficult to quantify. That is, potential terrorists who know these programs exist may have to pursue other, more difficult methods of coordinating attacks. For example, a domestic terrorist who knows info on his international calls might be picked up may elect to attempt to source his explosives from areas within the US, rather than bringing it in secretly from overseas. This would probably make it easier for conventional police work to notice and stop them. This sort of data collection, on the international stage, is also why Al Qaeda uses in-person couriers rather than cell phones (and why bin Laden was almost entirely marginalized within the organization for the years immediately before his death). |
Here is a question: Do you believe in a free market? If yes, what do you say about the fact that Comcast has a legal monopoly? Does this change anything.
I am more interested in your opinion about the fact that he can not get Comcast internet, at all, at any price. Comcast should have told him that he had hit the limit, and he could get business service, if he signed a 1-3 year contract at $150 a month, and agree to the $3000 equipment upgrade charges. They are not doing that. They are saying, instead, if he had so much data to back up and upload, he should have done it over time.
My biggest problem is their legal monopoly, coupled with their refusal to sell him service at any price. Internet service as a right would still work if he had to pay $1/GB. The only reason they are so stupid is the fact that they have a legal monopoly. It is my opinion that shareholders should be able to sue Comcast for fiduciary ineptitude. They could make more money if they made hard caps (coupled with a dedicated - up to the minute meter on a webpage) and charged extra for any overages.
The arrogance and laziness afforded them by their legal monopoly is not only bringing negative press, which can lower stock prices, but is keeping them from doing the right thing by their share-holders, by charging extra for going over generous (in my opinion) caps.
Comcast's biggest qualm with this (by the way) is they are trying to leverage their monopoly to engage in unfair trade practices by not counting bandwidth that their IP based video on demand fare provides, but counting the VOD bandwidth used by their competition, such as Netflix and Amazon. |
Any tech company that deliberately limits their customers as Comcast is doing, and then defends their actions by saying they are “meeting the demands of the average customer” is doing a disservice to the tech industry and to civilization as a whole.
And it disgusts me that more Redditors do not see this.
At one time, average customer demand for technology was met by an 8086 IBM PC running a 2-color Hercules graphics adapter, with software such as WordStar and Excel 1.0 installed.
Color on a computer screen?
That was just for silly games… What purpose could an extravagance like a color screen possibly serve for a business? And the idea that computers could be used for something like video??? That was just a glimmer in some tech nerd’s eye…
Well, it turns out that color screens DID sell, and maybe they were mostly for games at first. Then, people realized that if you could color-code information in a spreadsheet, you could display more detailed information more easily…
This worked because there was fierce competition and low barriers to entry in the tech field at that time. If company “A” would not make and sell color computers at affordable prices, because they were “meeting customer demand” at the time, then company “B” would! Company “A” met demand, but company “B” drove and created new demand.
Fast forward to 2011… all the new cool tech services and abilities are about connectivity: what you might be able to do with it, and what you might be able to do if you had more of it. But we cannot explore this area as we did before, because we have a state-granted monopoly on connectivity services to only one company, and unfortunately it is the company that “meets customer demand.”
What this one guy was doing with his bandwidth, and whether it was a waste of time, is a moot point. Maybe most color screens sold were, at first, only used for silly CGA and EGA games. That is not the point.
The point is that once this pointless, only-for-gaming color technology started reaching a critical level of penetration in the tech industry, people started to find new uses for it that were actually very practical.
With bandwidth caps like this, experimentation of this nature will never take place in the area of connectivity and its true potentials. We will never know what we could do with “too much bandwidth,” because it will never be given to us. Imagine the tech industry today if it had been built on these principles? Remember Bill Gates saying that 640K of RAM outta be enough for anybody?
If innovation in the tech industry had been limited to only “serving current customer demands” as they existed in the early 1980s, do you think that Reddit would even exist today?
We are having this conversation because somebody, somewhere, saw beyond meeting customer demand, and dreamed of what might be possible. To see so many tech-savvy people in here, essentially arguing that it is okay for this demand-creating, demand-driving model of tech innovation to be murdered by state-granted corporate monopoly is sickening. |
I had to switch back to Time Warner Cable internet from AT&T Uverse because it would take me at least 10 min just to load up netflix...then, after selecting something to watch, it would take another 10 minutes to load and repeatedly prompted with "the network connection is too slow..." then, after playing in ultra low-res for about 5 minutes it would switch to HD.
It was the same story for Hulu.
When I switched back to TWC i still had the uverse hooked up so I tested both of them...TWC loaded it up and played in HD almost instantly, while the uverse service was up to the same old tricks.
pretty frustrating considering my uverse was supposed to be something like 28mbps. |
Although I can see that it is a lot of spitting venom in the article, one point that I feel is made is the fact that the death of Steve Jobs would be approved by Steve Jobs. It's good publicity, and gives some drama for the company to cash in on.
But at the same time, this isn't about Apple. This is about how the media turns this into a show, and books, and other media, and people who didn't even know him setting up memorials to him, which he wouldn't give a damn about if he was looking down on them. And that's not an attack on him; I wouldn't care either, I have people I knew to do these kinds of things for me. |
I have lost respect for them over my time in college with a dell xps m1530.
First every time something goes wrong and had to be replaced its a pain in the ass to get it done. Then usually takes more time to ship out parts and have w/e person come and replace the parts.
2nd reson being the blatant lies/stupidity they have to common sense with some of these problems. The story starts with the 8600 gt m gfx card in my laptop is overheating, so I recorded to temps lowest and peaks before speaking to dells customer support about getting it replaced.
So for reference, the average temp was about 68-70 celsius idle at the desktop. Peak temperature was in the high 80's, with the highest I ever recorded at being 91 celsius.
Dell's support people told me crap I already knew was false information before the next sentence they typed as it was through live chat support for the laptop. What they told me was: its a perfectly normal temperature for when any multimedia is playing.
Which eventually I got them to replace it somehow, and when speaking to the repair person whom came to replace my laptops parts agreed with me that it shouldn't ever get that high of a temp regardless of it running a game or not. |
I don't see what the difference would be if 49% did this, or 51%. It's not like this is a vote. Majorities have little to do with anything in actual science. 50% is a nice round number, and we are conditioned to think it is important because we live in a democratic system, but it is an arbitrary threshold, and being on one side or the other is usually of no consequence.
My point was to ask where all the piracy advocates who rationalize their actions with the reasons I listed (DRM, game isn't good, etc) fall on this. I can't imagine none of them pirated it. Even if these people only constituted 30% of overall piracy, I am still asking that 30% to justify themselves. Or admit that they just want shit for free. 30% is substantial, even if it isn't a majority. I have been addressing a specific subset of pirates: pirates who can in theory afford the software but choose to pirate instead, for various reasons.
And you are correct that many people finance their computers over time. And yes, I was only referring to internet piracy. The calculated 4.5 million pirated copies of Witcher 2 were estimated from torrents, so that number completely ignores offline piracy. They aren't part of my discussion, or any of this math, as there is no way to collect data on these numbers. Don't expect an unreasonable amount of study to go into the piracy of a single game. Humanity lacks the resources to do so. That doesn't mean we can't postulate and approximate from larger sets of data, and make inferences. |
I've tried telling Apple about the Sales of Goods Act - which provides more protection for the consumer than their standard warranty - and got politely told to fuck off.
My girlfriend's iPhone 3GS stopped working one day, and went in to recovery mode. Trying to restore it prompts an error message, which some digging shows it's a hardware fault. I took it back to Apple as it was about a year and a half old, and got told that as it is more than a year old I would have to pay £140 for a replacement. The "Genius" so very kindly explained that if it's a few days outside of the 1 year warranty, he might be able to swing it, but unfortunately 180 is a lot bigger than 7. It was fortunate I had a "Genius" on hand to explain such a difficult concept as though I was 3 years old.
All this without even taking the phone out the box to look at it. I said I wasn't happy with his response as the sale of goods act states it should last a reasonable amount of time, and you can get the phone on a 2 year contract, so it's reasonable that the phone should last that long. To which the guy gave me the phone number of their legal team. Based in America.
I've not even bothered phoning them up as I would rack up a larger bill than the repair fees, and probably get nowhere. I would like to take them to a small claims court however I can't find any useful information about how to get in contact with them.
I realise I've gone off on a bit of a rant, but their treatment of paying customers really makes my blood boil. I'm not asking for Apple to hand me a refurbished phone there and then, but they could have offered to send the phone off to have a look at it and determine the cause of the problem, and then take it from there. |
On the surface of it, it would be very nice if the USA had these sorts of required warranty laws. However, I would argue that the lack of these warranties is what makes the American technology market so great.
When a manufacturer is forced to include a longer warranty on its products, it's not going to grit its teeth and do it. The price of the product is going to go up. Go to any european electronics site, and you'll find prices way, way above those in the states, especially for Apple products. The price of the product internalizes the cost of the warranty. Even if they do make the product with higher quality just to target the European market, this means charging higher prices across the board, which is not something companies like to do.
Secondly, it means that the product lifecycle is longer. "Planned obsolescence" seems annoying, but it's rapid product iteration that makes new, more exciting, products cost effective. If the company were forced to provide a guarantee for all their products, it wouldn't put them out as quickly. Even if they do maintain such a rate, there would be much higher costs associated with this, which leads to my final point.
The European market is not the primary market for most technology companies. Some technology companies don't even treat it as a first-class market. Apple's entire supply chain is optimized for American distribution, not least because the USA has a more laissez-faire policy toward technology companies. Many companies sell in the USA and Asia, and treat the European market as a secondary priority. |
If the TVs are breaking in the US before they should, there are still plenty of laws that protect the consumer.
They are not paying extra for the 2 year warranty, there is no such thing as free. The price of the TV is just higher in the EU as the warranty has to be included in the price instead of as an optional upgrade. In the US, anything decent will come with one year and the option to pay what an EU person would pay and get the two years. If you want it cheaper and have a one year warranty, you can get it cheaper.
[See this comment of mine and EricWRN's response.]( |
You're the embodiment of what Y-Combinator will absolutely not accept into their program, or any tech incubator for that matter.
The whole point of these startup programs is to build businesses that take basically no capital to start, and help as many of them as possible get through. Everyone going in has a clear idea of what they want to do, and everyone on the team has some critical part of making it work. There is no room for "the idea guy", there is only room for people who actually build the product. There is no money for "research", there is basic capital available for you and your business partners to survive on ramen, get a few VPSs, code the shit out of something for 60 hours a week each and tell every god damn person you run across everything about your product in the desperate hope that someone will give you further funding if you succeed in building what you want to.
I'm sorry for ranting or offending you but I just went through a tech incubator and I know dozens of people exactly like you who all want to also be in it, and I have regularly had to explain to all of them that they're never going to make it.
Beyond that your idea is actually pretty infeasible, not for any technology reason, but because music is created by people and crafted to suit a feeling or emotion. You're really talking about developing pretty sophisticated AI to express things like emotion or thought and we don't even have AI basic enough to do things like determine if you're alive or not from looking at you. |
Don't know anything about music but once was part of a project, that tried to film a web series on no budget (meaning around 5000$)and let me tell you, the basic equipment e.g. camera, sound and editing tools weren't the expensive part. We nearly got these for free, but other things like lights, food and travel expenses really cut into our budget.
We even had been able to get back nearly all our investment into the first 20 episodes (around 60min of content all in all), by selling it to a start up platform for web series, that was heavily financed by one of the biggest telecom players.
And guess what: that platform never took of, because the broad masses are still quite content with the product and distribution system Hollywood has to offer.
I just hope, that with the growing connection between the internets and viewing devices like TV/Smartphones/Consoles the average guy will be more accepting on offers that are not delivered to him by the traditional channels. |
So some parents gave their child unrestricted internet publishing abilities and everyone is surprised something bad happened. If I ever have a daughter she's not getting a computer or a smart phone until she's 18. This is why the Amish don't have telephones, because women gossip incessantly. |
The standards in those cases are generally applied as follows:
Fraser applies to speech made by students that would not be limited if it was an adult speaking. It is regularly held in almost all courts to be limited to only "indecent, vulgar, or lewd" speech, and the power of the school to restrict that speech does not stretch beyond "the schoolhouse gate." Courts have interpreted this to extend to only the school premises and while the students are involved in school events and activities where a connection can be made to school grounds.
Kulhmeier applies only to speech where the school has not created a public forum, the forum is school sponsored, and it can be reasonably mistaken that the student's speech is that of the school.
Morse applies to activities in which the student is at a school-sponsored and approved event, under the reasonable control of the school, and where the message promotes some dangerous/illegal activity (some courts have further restricted to only promoting drug use). The students in Frederick were not on school grounds, but were at a school-approved and supervised event, during school hours.
If none of these apply, then the Tinker standard is applied. Tinker allows a school to limit speech only if: It intrudes on the rights of other students, it causes a substantial disruption to the school, or it can be reasonably forecast to cause a substantial disruption. The general test adopted is whether a) the student intended or could forsee for the speech to come onto campus and b) the speech concerned the school.
Tinker however, is regularly applied to the school's right to limit speech outside of school if it meets those standards.
If none of these are met, the girl has a valid First Amendment claim.
In fact, two 3rd Circuit cases this past summer actually found that students who made MySpace profiles vulgarly parodying their principals could not be punished because, in one case, the speech occurred on a home computer and was not applicable under Fraser , and in the other that there was no substantial disruption and courts are loath to extend the power of the school to limit student speech under Tinker into the home of the student without more than the fact the speech may cause some discomfort.
There's a good challenge here for this kid, depending on the exact wording of the post. Check out, if you can find it, the en banc opinion in Snyder ex rel Snyder v. Blue Mountain School District , which sounds amazingly like the information given in this case, where the 3rd Circuit conclusively ruled in favor of the student. It does, of course, depend on facts we may not know simply from the article... |
I almost got expelled from my middle school because I brought a pocket knife to the bus stop, I never took it on the bus, it was never on school grounds and they were half way through the paper work before I pointed that out and then all they did was suspend me for a week which I still don't get, they said that the bus stop becomes school property for the hour up to and after the bus comes and wouldn't budge even after I brought the guy who actually owned the land. |
Great analysis. Thank you.
Typical law school professor - " |
Late to the party, so this is going to get buried, but whatever...
When I was in high school I got a job a t a movie theater near my school. It was my first job. One of the things I bought with my money was a paintball gun. I started playing here and there, and long story short, wasn't that good so I gave it up. I had a couple of friends from school and a coworker that I liked to play paintball with, and when we were both stuck at the ticket booth we'd talk about previous games and what have you.
Well, fast forward a few months. I'd quit the movie theater job due to issues with scheduling, and was in my drawing class working on a self portrait when I get called down to the school's security office. I figured I just needed to move my car or something so I head down. The school resource officer ( a local cop) pulls me into his office and starts asking me odd questions, like:
"Have you ever said something that could make somebody uncomfortable or worried?"
"Do you like it here?"
and to be honest a bunch of other stuff that was tangentially related to the issue. After about 15 minutes of interrogation my Dean comes in, and starts to continue this weird line of questioning. After like three answers I finally got irritated enough to ask what was the deal, and was informed that there had been an anonymous tip delivered about me. Somebody has tipped the police that me and that coworker from before wew planning another Columbine; we had been overheard discussing "plans" and "the number of exits" and the SRO and my Dean were convinced it was legit, and (I figured out later that day) were basically trying to intimidate me into a confession. Anyways I broke down, asked for my counsellor, who I saw weekly and trusted pretty well, and she excused me from classes for the day. I got to go home early, and when my parents found out they were pissed and called the school. My dad spoke to the SRO and basically the conversation was my dad trying to figure out what was going on, while the SRO tried to intimidate HIM (threatening to search my locker, my car, our house, etc.). Long story slightly shorter, the school had no case, and the issue was dropped.
I found out that the tip was submitted by one of the managers at my old job. I suppose I had given them motive by quitting on the spot right before school holiday break, but I quit because they were unable to schedule me inside my availability. The overheard conversation that caused the whole thing? Paintball conversation from the booth, misinterpreted. |
Something similar happened to me at my school.my swim team had a group page just for the guys it was a "secret group" and a girl saw it on someones FB while he was on his phone saw something that upset her about a coach(think they called her a stupid coach) then since i had gotten in a fight with the a kid the day before over him spreading rumors about a girl(said she was a whore) i was on "probation" they brought me in to a emptied room at the school. said give us your Facebook password we heard there was a website made against the coaches.If i did not give them my pass i would have been off the team.As a result they looked at a secret Facebook page made by a bunch of 14-17 year old boys half the team got suspended from county and 4 thrown off the team for jokes such as "damn moormans" witch was directed at me as an inside joke(im mormon) they never asked me if i was offended just threw my friend off the team or "cept john fuck john" direct at a guy in the group again as a joke.The best of all though was one individual was suspended for LIKING A COMMENT were the individual said "lets rape this team tonight do your best boys" that individual was suspended. Any advice on what i should have done instead of giving them my password? |
No judiciary due process
$35 filing fee to appeal from an unclear independent person
Puts burden of proof on subscriber
Ominous 'education', eg calling making a copy of a file deceptively as 'theft'. At subscriber's expense.
Higher subscriber costs
It's tyranny. It's not happening immediately. Gradual implementation of loss of liberty just because Hollywood publishers are allegedly losing money.
Reference: DMCA abuses. Suing dead grandmothers. etc.
Bonus: The major ISPs are content deliverers. They have a vested interest in seeing other content providers exit the market. |
I have Cox now. They're way better than TimeWarner, who can't seem to route a packet in less than 30 hops. I couldn't run traceroute as a useful diagnostic for anything because it would give up without even getting out of TWC's infrastructure. This absurd routing frequently lead to pings of almost 1 second.
The best ISP I've had was Charter. They were generally faster than what I paid for, seldom had problems, and had excellent customer support when I did have problems. The only problem I ever had was that I randomly stopped being able to get an IP address. After checking everything on my end and determining it must be their DHCP server, I called support. In less than 10 minutes, the front-line rep transferred me to someone who actually knew what DHCP was, verified the problem on their end, and got me back up within another 10 minutes. |
Apple has a weird stance on immoral or unapproved content--specifically their former stance on not allowing PDFs to be read on iOS because they believed all content on an non-jailbroken phone was representative of their views as a company. This means that if I like reading erotica on my iPhone, Apple therefore condones sexually explicit forms of entertainment. (really wish I could find an article to cite this)
No one drew the same conclusion and Apple finally wised up with the release of iBooks 1.1, which finally allowed PDFs to be read, and decided that not all content on an Apple device is their responsibility. |
screening our internet activity watching for copyright" is almost as vague to me as saying "police are going to start screening for criminals"
Can someone enlighten me with the technical details of this please?
TFA says they Graduated Response to RIAA/MPAA requests but that is a totally different thing than screening anything themselves. It looks to me like ISP's will just take increasingly harsh responses to increasing complains of copyright infringment by users such as warning them, throtting their speeds, and after repeatedly having to deal with copyright infringment complaints (over a period of time) for a specific user just suspending their service.
It says you have 6 strikes, after getting busted for copyright infringement 6 different times I can sort of see why there would be pressure on your ISP to suspend your account. Most people have never been caught let alone 6 times.
Please just fill me in on what I am missing instead of mindlessly downvoting me. I am sure other people would like answers to a lot of the same questions about this.
Edit : From [arstechnica]( "American Internet users, get ready for "six strikes." Major US Internet providers ... have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won't filter or monitor their own networks for infringement . And after the sixth "strike," you won't necessarily be "out." |
You see this all the time as technologies become more accessible. I carry no less than 4 cameras on me at all time (2 on my phone, 2 on my tablet) and sometimes as many as 6 (2 p&s, no slr)...
I am not a professional photographer and I would never presume to be one. However...
If you'll recall the mid 90's, there were all of these books that would teach you the latest hot technology in 21 days or 24 hours or 72 hours, or maybe you could take a boot camp ... and yes, they are still out there and there's still assholes that pay shit for actual work and they get shit work.
This happens all the time ... |
Come on, their entire day. Reddit hardly ever discusses the topic
> And I also don't get why gathering information about their consumers so that they can make money while offering a free service is a bad thing.
Even if you assume Google is an entirely virtuous organization, the information they gather is a honeypot of massive value. For instance, it recently emerged as an incidental fact that the British culture secretary used a Gmail account for government business, while he was making a decision about whether to allow News Corp to take over a massively profitable British satellite TV provider. Putting aside the idiocy of doing such a thing, his decision was worth probably £10bn, and access to his email could well have swung it one way or another. While I would never dare to suggest that News Corp would act with such amorality, the incentive for the company to get access is huge. Another example would be the [Chinese government wanting to get access to the accounts of Chinese activists](
Moving away from Gmail, any company which tracks users on the internet has some power to be able to give clues, for instance, as to who visits a particular website. If Google is connecting that information to other information, as they are strongly incentivized to do, they might well be able to tie that visit to an email account (Gmail) or a mobile phone number (Gmail or Android).
Now, Google may well have excellent security, but we should be under no illusions that a company in their position will need it. And really, the incentives are not set up very well in our (the users) favour. Google want us to reveal as much information as possible, and get us to allow them to make as much of that available to advertizers as possible. Protecting that information is incidental, something which only damages their business if the leak becomes public, or if they cannot manage the public relations outcome. |
As a New Zealander we kind of are as far as I'm aware due to the Berne convention and WIPO treaties. We have to observe the legality of U.S copyright law, not to mention they played a significant role in helping draft our recent copyright amendment bill, more or less including similar provisions as found in the DMCA. Also on top of this the current secretly discussed Trans pacific partnership agreement under negotiation that will further force U.S law on us in such areas as extending the term of copyright till death of the author plus 70 years etc. |
In the "good old days" there was big competition between x86 processor makers (like Intel, AMD) to provide the most MHz (later GHz). The more cycles per second a processor had, the faster (better) it was. This was a direct correlary and it was easy to see the gains from faster clocks in pretty much everything a processor did (load a program, load a game, boot up, render a video).
Over time, it became harder to grind more cycles out of a processor as the technology used to manufacture the chips just could not allow for stock clocks that reach above, say, 4GHz. Overclockers with custom systems can reach higher, but the manufactuerer's vanilla deployment cannot really fab chips with the sort of arms-race mentality they once did.
To cover up for this failure, they are pointing to "more cores" as the thing they want customers to pay attention to. Why? Because with die shrink, they can continue to produce more cores, even if those individual cores cannot produce high clocks.
Juginabi is pointing out the lament of some computer enthusiasts, which is that we know more "cores" does not mean more "clocks" and while more clocks (more GHz) produces better performance across the board, more cores does not.
More cores only helps in a situation when a program or game has been created to be massively parallel. If the program/game/whatever isn't made with parallelism in mind, it will not use the multiple cores, or it will do so ineffectively and without optimization. This means that the plethora of cores does not translate directly into performance gains. +1 core does not directly constitute a similar performance gain the way +1GHz would.
And so the problem is, unless you're doing something like constantly zipping/unzipping files or rendering video/animation with a program that supports parallelism, the "more cores" (or as Intel put it once 'dual core, do more') is just a marketing gimmick. It's a smokescreen designed to cover up the truth of the situation which is: x86 just can't support real performance increases the way it used to. Hopefully this will change in the future, though. |
Wait, wait - are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that the Republicans are the party of "Internet Freedom"?
The same party as Lamar Smith (introduced SOPA to House of Representatives) or Lindsey Graham (senator that supported PIPA and general douche)?
The same party that blindly supported Bush's eradication of the civil liberty laws established after the civil liberty trampling from Nixon?
Bullshit. They just don't want to pass THESE bills. But I promise you, when it's their turn, they will be putting forward even more draconian bills in the name of patriotism and liberty. How do I know this? Because they've done it with every goddamn civil liberties issue that doesn't involve firearm possession. |
How about this line of thought?
While I will admit that the Republicans can and do tend to vote in lockstep, at least, more so than the Democrats, let's try to remember that there are politicians that we can support and others that we probably shouldn't.
By thinking in terms of Democrats and Republicans, we lose sight of which Democrats are inline with our thinking and beliefs as well as which Republicans are also working towards goals that we feel are appropriate. |
Politicians always have policy advisers on a vast array of topics. This bill was certainly not completely written by Lieberman and Collins or read in full by everyone that voted on it. Instead, it's likely that it was written by the advisers to Lieberman and Collins, reviewed by them for meaning, then passed around to other advisers in the Senate. I don't have time to fully trace the bill's route through the legislature, but it's likely that it started in committee with hearings held where industry experts testified to the benefits and detriments of it. |
Occupy had a moment, however it had no Koch brothers-style huge cash infusion to astroturf it into solvency. The current political system requires a vast amount of money and resources. If the mainstream media is portraying the movement as having no real goals and it has no corporate backing or Fox News talking heads to champion it then it will be exceptionally difficult to reach mainstream. Really the only person even remotely close to mainstream who talked about OWS and consistently framed it and put it in context was Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!, but I use the term "mainstream" very loosely there. The biggest blow to OWS was an inability to get all unions/labor on board in a constructive manner that could have reinvigorated the American labor movement and granted OWS more permanence. |
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I would like to hire you to |
Ah, my second to last line was explaining that I found an ultrabook at the same price with 128gb SSD and an i5. The same price, better storage, (maybe?) same processor (I'm afraid I don't have the specific model of i5 handy) and the i7 256gb version is heavier. I don't know how much the i5 version is but I believe it might be lighter. It certainly has better battery life than the i7 version, which was rated at 4.5 hours.
I misread and quoted the size/weight of the super version of the $900 one. I was just covering my ass.
My argument is more about what you said about paying for form factor. I automatically assume this to mean you're paying for size (cramming all this tech goodness into a small package). If you're talking about something else, my apologies. This laptop is a tenth of an inch thicker (which I assume is taken up by the mechanical keyboard) and, proportionally, weighs the same. I'm also curious how much thickness the smart cover with the keyboard adds. It seems to cost ~$120 dollars, so perhaps comparing the surface to the higher-end laptop IS fair? At that point it's a difference of only 80 bucks.
The Surface Pro is, at a google glance, 10.6 inches large. The laptop I was looking at was 14. Now, if you ABSOLUTELY NEED to have a device that is 1.5 pounds lighter and 4 inches shorter, then by all accounts, get the Surface. But that's such a minor amount, in my mind, that I wouldn't be able to justify it. |
The original iPod only had a 3 hour battery life and people still bought it.
The original iPad had less functionality (and apps) than an iPod touch.
Microsoft are chasing a business market where people will save photos and documents, neither of which take up much space. Those people will also not be using the surface as a laptop/desktop replacement, in much the same way that the iPad is not a laptop/desktop replacement.
Plus, the surface has expandable memory through MicroSD. So you can add at another 64GB of removable space if you want it. Also, Microsoft will be pushing SkyDrive as a cloud storage system.
This isn't the best tablet product on the market, but it's probably the most versatile, plus being windows there is the compatibility factor with users existing computers.
I wouldn't count out the surface just yet. It's not great, but it will improve with time.
EDIT: ITT a bunch of complainers who probably wouldn't buy a Surface anyway. Every new technology product doesn't have to be the greatest thing ever made. If you wan't an iPad, buy an iPad. If you want an Android Tablet, buy one. Just because Microsoft isn't releasing a product for YOU, doesn't mean it won't appeal to someone. For most people buying a surface, the questions will be: Is it lighter than a laptop? Does it run windows? Can I use it for email on the go? Will it let me run presentations in business meetings? Is it compatible with my existing Office/Windows products?
The surface pro gets YES to every single one of those questions. This isn't designed as a powerful laptop replacement - Nor is it an iPad competitor. It's aiming at a completely different market which doesn't happen to be you. People endlessly bitched about the original iPad when it came out... no 3g, no camera, 4:3 ratio screen, no apps, price too high, crappy display, no accessories, crappy battery life, too heavy, storage space, tablets aren't new... blah blah blah. It has become one of Apple's flagship products, but the early adopters basically were buying a novelty overpriced piece of shit.
If the surface doesn't meet your requirements, then it's not designed for you. Buy a Nexus, or an iPad, or wait until the surface 2 is released with improved Specs. It would be stupid for Microsoft to release something too powerful too quickly. Apple's strategy is planned obsolescence, and Microsoft is doing the same. Building a mediocre product and gradually releasing new versions every year with incremental improvements in speed & storage so people upgrade their hardware. You might not like it, but that's how the tech industry works now days.
I don't plan to buy a Surface, but I appreciate that other people will. Because it is a tool for a job. If people are willing to pay for an iPad, then they will be willing to pay for a Surface if it suits their needs. |
Ipods are different entirely. When you buy an ipod, you're buying it according to how much space is available for songs. 8gb with 6 available should indeed be advertised 6Gb
Personal computers on the other hand, aren't for the common idiot. If you buy a 64GB tablet, you're buying a tablet with a 64gb SSD inside. If the majority of that is missing due to the OS, Apps, and Recovery, then delete the stuff you don't want. Throw ubuntu on it, delete the recovery, and thin out your applications. |
While I don't agree with the dramatic portrayal of the post you were responding to, I doubt that is the main reason for the mistake made at microsfot, what he describes is not far fetheched. Honestly it is painful banal.
Picture Ballmer as a middle manger. The board, the manager above him in my analogy, does not spend all their time second guessing him. They likely don't care at all about the people 2,3 levels below themselves unless a problem comes up. Any unscrupulous but competent middle manager can easily ensure that their position is not threatened, can mange their employees so that they promote "the right kind" of people at the expense of the company and the company never knows.
The board cares about the company as a whole and the interpersonal politics surrounding themselves. They care about what other boards he is on & what impact he has, what would happen if they outsted him and lord only knows what else. |
a) male are vile, chauvinistic, insolent pigs with no regard to people's (womYn's feelings!) b) CS is a inbred society full of insecure, ugly males who couldn't talk to a girl for their life
reminds me of a post i read a while back in a local subreddit. a woman was talking about how she hates the "creepers" at local nude beach/lake thing that just sit out there supposedly just to stare at her, but that she found the swingers there fun and easy-going to be around...
it's like...you get offended by uncool people that may or may not be there to do nothing but stare at boobies, but are totally cool hanging around with a group that are openly advertising the fact that they're there to have casual sex and share/trade their partners for it.
it's the classic "know your role" enforcement of social structures. if you're cool and have the confidence to drop a crude pick-up line on a woman you might get rejected or dissed, but it's all in good fun. if you're not cool...don't you fucking DARE you creepy fuck!
Curious what other fields are like. Something tells me things are quite a bit worse at, say, a lawyer convention or something, but god forbid that nerds try to act like they know what a penis is for. |
I find that women like Adria give other women a bad name.
I'd agree, for the reason that I think she's stealing your agency for her own purpose. Reading her own account of the incident, it seems clear that Adria wasn't offended as a woman , but as a person - that is, she didn't feel offended for her gender, but because the joke offended her personal sensibilities at that moment. As the backlash swirled up, she offered up an ex post facto justification of "feminism" that only seemed to work if you agreed that women shatter like glass upon hearing a sexual (not sex- ist , but merely sexual ) joke, and relied heavily on a suggested juxtaposition of big mean men making a little girl cry with sex puns.
Now, sexual comments were clearly out-of-line according to PyCon's CoC (though so was Richards' photography and method of reporting), and can create a hostile work environment, but that's not a gender issue. Unless the comments are expressly sexist, a HWE can be created for persons of any gender or orientation, because the issue is one of a person's comfort with sex, not anything to do with their gender . A man can be made the victim of a HWE as easily as a woman, and it's really only been seen as a "women's issue" in the past due to the societal expectations regarding sexual expression in men and women. Women were expected to be "chaste" or even fearful of sex, and men were expected to be sexually comfortable and even aggressive. However, we've since learned that there's no reason gender should dictate sexual comfort, as Richards should well know, so her idea that the little girl in her scenario would be scared off by any mention of sex at all in the workplace is, itself, staggeringly sexist. So, obviously, it wasn't women she was protecting when she started her public lynching, but herself . Which would be fine, as far as it goes (you could still disagree with her actions), if she didn't then go on to attempt to use feminism as a veil to disguise her true motives and protect herself from criticism. |
She was just attention whoring it seems. She also posted she was playing cards against humanity at pycon so clearly she is a hypocrite. She intended to get a few back patting retweets but now apparently is in hiding after she realized she really fucked up.
It's already been over 6 hours so I guess in internet time this story is over. |
Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.
We don't know the precise circumstances, so i'll go by what she has written on her blog as being true since her perception is probably the more extreme possibility and anyway is what she's reacted to.
She doesn't seem to be claiming that their conduct fell into any of the above categories in the pycon code of conduct. She also says she pulled someone else up earlier in the day for making comments that may have fallen into those categories. By the time she's reached the talk where this later incident occurred I think she's already put herself in a victim mindset and was looking, consciously or not, for someone to smack. I am a bit surprised that looking back at it later she doesn't leave any room for this and seems to feel justified in taking the actions that she did.
I am not an apologist for people who sexual harass others. I just don't think what they did (according to her) was harassment or even offensive to a reasonable person in that situation. Childish, certainly, but i don't accept that the mere presence of women makes such comments harassment when they are neither directed towards an individual nor made with regard to a particular gender.
I've worked with many women in the IT industry over the years and many of them initiate similar banter as well as join in with others. I don't think any of them would have felt slighted in the situation Adria found herself in. |
thank you for asking.
okay, i thought i was pretty clear, but apparently not, please allow me to elaborate, and i will answer your questions.
> Why does there need to be more women in IT, computer science or networking?
well, first and foremost, because (i'm american) if we as a nation, don't start making more scientists, programmers, mathematicians, etc. in general, we're going to lose our edge. (our edge, imo, being that, as americans, we value even crazy ideas, which makes for pretty serious innovation)
and as such, what i meant to convey (and apparently failed at) was that more women should be encouraged to go into STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) in general to increase the pool of talent.
we need more brains (zombeeeeeeeeees)
also, more women should study STEM because those skills lead to better career options than other fields of study and present less volatility with respect to the economy.
i fucking love IT and i want to share.
i look at my nieces and young cousins and think "jesus, i know that being an actual nerd is not cool, but why is it especially so for girls?" these kids are being patted on the head and told it's okay not to study those big scary things. it pisses me off. they're told by everyone that only hot chicks need apply.
my phone rings at least twice a day with headhunters offering me work, i want that for the next generation, both for my son and for my daughter, my nieces, nephews, etc.
>Women are getting educated, but are interested in different things than men.
on face value, this would seem to be the case.
however, the fact is that women are actively discouraged from going into STEM.
[a good overview backing up my point of view with some research and some numbers](
so, saying that women aren't interested is not the whole story. it's the same reason you don't see many male nurses.
> Why is it inherently a good thing to hire women?
this is more specific to engineering and computers -- if you're building products meant to be consumed by the general public, having a population more in line with the general public would seem to make sense. i think so, but that's certainly debatable.
what's not debatable is that our industry needs more qualified people in general, and discouraging young women from the profession works against us on a very real level.
speaking from only my experience :
i've worked in nearly all-guy shops and places with a mix. the ones with a mix are much more fun, but that's not the point.
some would argue that women have some sort of unique or special point of view but that's bullshit; i've met many clueless women over the years.
also, let's debunk the idea that women are beholden to kids. that's bullshit too. my wife is a high-level accountant in major firm and as such works long hours, and so the pressures of balancing work and family fall on my shoulders, which i love. i am by no means alone in this. (i get a little sick of work/life balance being a woman's issue, but i digress).
also, the stereotype that a bunch of guys always coalesces into a tight-knit group is also bullshit. serious male nerds can be some seriously catty, cliquey bitches. if you've never had a dude get freakishly defensive and nasty when you question his coding style... well, trust me, it's common.
the only thing that matters is that we just need to develop our homegrown pool of talent.
> Shouldn't the goal be to hire the best person for the job regardless of gender?
of course. i work in IT and i don't care where you're from where you studied or even what you studied, any of that.
i'm only concerned that you can grok code, have original ideas, and can communicate clearly with others.
what i am saying that the more women there are studying STEM, the more will make the cut, the more talent doing cool things here.
> If there needs to be more women in IT, then I think there should be more women dying on Alaskan crab fishing boats or in mines, professions that men generally have to do. How about it?
from deadliest catch fan wiki
> Question:Has there ever been a woman deckhand fishing during the crab season?
> Answer: Yes, I have heard captains telling stories about women working as deckhands. Yes, and I've met some of them. I know of one that is on these forums
from [Deadliest Catch Fan Wiki](
a bit dated [Coal mine](
> Carol A. Wisnasky , 39, a coal miner for the Monterey Coal Co. in Albers, Ill., is more pessimistic.
> "Women in the mines are seeing a wall coming up in front of them, and they'd better find some other kind of job because it's coming to an end, said Wisnasky, a miner for 12 years who installs roof support systems underground. "It seems to me that if you haven't been in the mines for a minimum of 10 years, you'll be laid off, and, no one wants to hire women anymore; they don`t even have to make excuses about why when it's done on seniority alone." |
Problem is you say
> Did I say it was inflection if one would transfer the concept to the information delivered by the word? yes.
Which is flat false. And gender attributed insults can be misogynistic. So, you make a disanalogy, and then follow it up by failing at analytic decomposition. |
This reminds me of the novel "Blood Music" by Greg Bear. |
It not extortion or blackmail. If he owns the patents to 2 way auth and people are using it without his permission, how is asking them for compensation extortion?
Its the same concept as if someone punches you in the face and you give them two options: help me punch the neighborhood bully OR I'll make you pay me money as compensation.
It's not extortion, its negotiating. Lawyers are damn good at negotiating and he has damn good lawyers. Its safe to assume that his lawyers aren't dumb enough to try extortion. |
Well, that will drive some ad revenue. Man I don't know how we got by with that anti-sensationalist nonsense when popular media was selling snake oil on healthcare. It's so much better to sell media to panicking people who don't question what they're reading.
begin generic reddit tech media rant...
We absolutely love it when private companies like Google spy on us for commercial gain but we get furious when law enforcement uses the court system to wiretap persons of interest in criminal investigations. This is really scary for some reason.
We freak out when "evil companies" like Microsoft use computer vision to drive an interface because of the mere imagination that it could be abused if Microsoft broke its own privacy policies but we're ELATED when Google wants to stick cameras on our faces and send everything we're seeing and hearing to their information-gathering servers. We freak out about the kinect being able to record things while carrying around constantly connected and poorly secured Android-based recording devices in our pockets THAT WE FUCKING LOVE.
Somehow anger over DRM has driven people to become excited about a slightly more locked down version of the PS3 loaded to the gills with DRM and sold by a major media publishing firm instead of the obvious conclusion which is to game on open publishing platforms like the PC and to support gaming on Linux. Even Nintendo is more pro-consumer than Sony.
So, we're anti-sensationalism when it is not in line with the groupthink programming you've received but when it is, you immediately dive for the most cinematic version of the truth. The version of the truth that feels most like the narrative you want to represent the world you live in.
How do you think delusions are born? Why do you question everything offered to you by the only people who are actually accountable to you (the government) and then happily accept everything sold to you by people who have actual monetary incentives to lie to you and spy on you and ZERO accountability? |
In Sweden, you have the right to make copies of works you bought and distribute them to "friends and family". Aka, if I buy some digital music, I can legally send a copy to some friends, my mother or my brother etc. The definition is a little fussy on what a limited . The same goes for movies and etc.
This is was the tax was originally created for, when basically the only reason for the common Joe to be buying a blank tape was to record music of the radio or copying vinyl records. If this was fair is a matter of debate.
However, today there is thousands of reasons to buy blank media other than to copy your bought media to. If I buy a USB stick to move my work files on, that's taxed. If I buy an external HDD to keep my games on for my laptop, that's taxed. If I buy a new SSD for my computer, that's taxed. |
I'm personally willing to let a machine catch key words in my conversation if it means that people won't be killed violently
I don't think this can be proved to be the case as alternate means were not explored. Given the breadth of powers of surveillance they had, why would they use other, more discriminatory tactics? We have no means to test whether the unsuccessful terrorist plots would've been avoided by using other intelligence and methods that do not require removing personal privacy on this scale.
Let's talk more about the false positives and the "pre-emptive actions" these cause and the effect these have on increasing the likelihood of strengthening any terrorist cause.
False positives: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - this is thought to be said by Cardinal Richelieau, but the attribution is disputed. Nevertheless, it rather grandiosely states a problem that lies at the heart of this, that given all this data, it is easy to find actionable motive on any person. This means, sadly, that not one person can claim immunity saying they have "Nothing To Hide". They just might have less to hide than others and would hope to avoid the attention of a field agent. [This paper [PDF download]]( from 2007 examines the fallacy of "Nothing To Hide" well.
There is also an excellent [video]( by a law school professor and former criminal defense attorney on the importance of the 5th amendment, and why you should never talk to a police officer for any reason, even if all you do is deny involvement or claim an alibi.
The problem with mass surveillance by automated algorithms is that we are all under investigation at all times, but all the data they have to go on is our online and computerised footprints. While text-mining and intelligent agent research has come on in recent years, the cutting edge of research is still disapointing and is not as near perfect as we would want or - in this case - as perfect as we need.
"Pre-emptive actions": when profiling causes a set of actions or prejudicial barriers to be put in place. No-fly lists, prisoners held without charge indefinitely, kettling of protests, stop-and-search on the streets or at borders, voting rights, drone strikes, and so on.
How much collateral action are you willing to accept? Are you really going to risk that some data on you, when taken out of context, makes an algorithm judge you to be a higher-than-average risk for terrorism and places you on a no-fly list? And that you have no way to find that out? Or more simply, when [this data is mis-used or mis-handled in a more human way? Where four year olds end up being treated as terrorists due to these lists?](
Finally, what is the effect of all these actions, whether they are pre-emptive or reactive? It is naive to think that they happen in a vacuum and they are just reacting to the outside world. Their, or more accurately, our actions and inactions are an inextricable part of why events are unfolding as they are. The events are truly human and complex, driven by feelings of revenge, loyalty, pride and anger, and can be utterly irrational and misdirected. I feel sick when my friends tell me they are going to be posted to Afghanistan. Why should they suffer and potentially be killed because someone capable of making an IED does so in an act of revenge against 'the enemy'? Martyrdom is a powerful manipulator and should never be underestimated.
** |
I'd just like to say that I think the "105 years in jail" is almost certainly a reporter screwing up federal sentencing. I'm not an expert in it, but I'll direct you to a couple posts at Popehat talking about how federal sentencing works. They are worth reading.
[The first one, about a 67 year possible sentence for a sushi trader](
[The second one, about a possible 2 year sentence for stealing meatballs]( |
Well if you use double-buffer vsync and have a 120Hz display, it's not an issue.
gsync's only(and quite) noticeable advantage is with 60Hz displays.
What really dumbfounds me is how this is such an expensive solution, and proprietary ontop of that. It's like nVidia wants AMD or Intel to make a cheap open standard to crush it.
Dynamic-Sync and JustInTime-Sync have been around for a while.
With Dynamic you're streaming the drawing straight to the panel through DVI or DP as they're being rendered.
With JIT you're shooting frames to the panel slightly buffered so there's quick smooth updates.
The data is just packeted data over a typical DVI/DP connection.
This requires no expensive proprietary hardware at all since the graphics card is doing all the work, and there's no performance hit for the card beyond a few MBs more VRAM used.
Things like high-speed cameras and monitors do this, as well as professional AV so there's no frame syncing issue. |
Like most knee jerk reactions, this feel-good move would be mostly ineffective. A domestic "German" internet would be almost completely worthless at halting government spying while creating massive costs to Germany and German industry.
What about the servers and routers that connect the internet? Are the Germans going to require they all be made in Germany? If not, then the spies will just infect those. If the Germans were to require specifically vetted German servers, software, and routers, Germany would face terrible trade sanctions and losses in the WTO. German industry would face retaliatory trade sanctions, likely upheld by the WTO.
In truth, most spying on Germans is probably being done by the German domestic government, not the US. Just because there hasn't yet been a German "Snowden" with enough balls to tell the truth about what their own government is doing, doesn't mean it is not happening.
The Iranians have already stated their goal of having a domestic internet. The problem is that just one externally connected node is enough for many spying operations. This is why the US government doesn't trust their own air-gapped DOD network. |
North American OTA is MPEG-2, and very rarely above 15Mbps (absolute limit if they got rid of all the subchannels is below 19Mbps).
H.264 used by Netflix is 5-11x better compression for the same quality, depending on the amount of motion. So it would take less than 2Mbps to match the OTA. |
Networks investing in interlaced HD equipment for entire production and post production pipelines when it was on the bleeding edge are to blame for 1080i. Switching to 1080p is not as simple as just doing it. Huge amounts of time and money were spent on implementing 1080i broadcast networks. Huge amounts of money were spent on broadcast and cable frequency licensing. Huge amounts of money will be required to replace every mpeg-2 based cable decoder in the USA for ATSC 1080p. |
H.264 used by Netflix is 5-11x better compression for the same quality, depending on the amount of motion. So it would take less than 2Mbps to match the OTA.
You are being silly, 2Mbps would give you a 480SD stream on Netflix, not even HD.
> |
Get ready for a wall of text...
HP is laying off a lot of people but it's not really laying someone off. What they do is they give you a 3 week grace period to find another job within HP, in a different tower, or you do get let go. The majority (about 99%) of the time the only people this happens to are those that can't keep up with the technology that needs to be learned in order to perform your daily duties (they offer classes for these). Another scenario is you aren't a productive worker, don't fit in your current tower, or you work with old tech that is no longer supported/utilized and don't know anything else and haven't made an effort to learn something else. So it's really standard business practice.
They are consolidating resources in the Americas for specific teams into a singular location and give people currently in those teams a chance to move to said location or, once again, find another job in another tower.
So I believe this article is taken out of context. I have worked with a lot of IT MSP companies before and HP is easily the best, by far, to work for.
Source: I work for HP now. |
My favourite HP India employee was a fellow that never listened to anyone on the conference calls. About 20 minutes in, you could rely on him to ask a question that was settled 10 minutes earlier. After we backtrack to cover what he didn't understand, he would then repeat our recommendations like they were his idea.
I was happy to see him no longer attend...
I also recall the complaint tickets for the [Interactive troubleshooting guides for tech support agents]
At a menu like this:
[PC Power Troubleshooting]
"Try to turn on the computer and monitor"
[Power light on computer is on, power light on monitor is on]
[Power light on computer is off, power light on monitor is on]
[Power light on computer is on, power light on monitor is off]
[Power light on computer is off, power light on monitor is off]
They complained that having four options was too complicated, and wanted us to "simplify" it.
When HP introduced their touchscreen desktops, we did an analysis of the "special support team" assigned to those customers. Their only job was supporting these units... but that didn't stop them from servicing "drive tray will not open" on a slot loading drive , or selling a PCI modem to install in a computer that had no PCI slots .
It was the first time I ever wrote in a report "as far as we can tell, these agents have never even seen one of these computers"
That said, not everyone from India centres were bad, but a lot of them didn't know or didn't care to know what they were doing; depending on the contractor. |
The comparison is made based on their existences as political entities, which all large organisations inevitably are to some extent. As political entities, they need to establish a base of relations and a culture that meshes with it. This is usually simply that of its creator; Yale and Harvard started in the US, so they're based in the US, they just happen to be some of the most prestigious schools in the world. You want to study there, you learn the language, get your ass over there, and adapt to the local culture.
I'm not saying that Nintendo is being selective, I'm saying that Nintendo , like any political entity, has to do something to retain both its cultural identity and its base business relations. Human relations tend to be geographically bound, especially up until the telecoms tech of the past couple of decades, and it still mostly is. Yale objects to some views on freedom of speech in my country, so they have reservations about setting up a liberal arts school here. Is my country's position objectively wrong? No, it's a perspective, same as Yale's. Different political entities will have different positions, based on the cultural identity they adopted, and the political position they are in by necessity. Yale might just decide not to open a liberal arts college here because it's not in line with their values. It is because it's not profitable to them? No. But more power to them, if they can be true to their beliefs instead of just chasing profits, it gives their mark of quality, or at least their branding, more credibility.
Nintendo could simply do this in a domestic branch and set up separated offices overseas. Would that prevent dilution of the company culture? No. But it would mitigate it. How much? Wouldn't know until you try it, but you can just look at other MNCs and how they tackled the issue of having different faces in different cultures. Off the hook, the only company I can think of that has mostly stayed true to its product values regardless of geography is Coca Cola. Games are a much more culturally sophisticated product that a drink. You change a drink's taste to suit a local culture, and internally you can just call it a different product. To make a really good game for a different culture, you have to think like other cultures, get to know them really well, bring native teams in whom may not share your corporate culture, which after all is based in your origins, your geographical culture. You produce a product that may not be adapted easily to other cultures. Sometimes it is, like those games people are clamouring for. Most of the time they aren't, like the vast majority of games that are made in Japan, as other people have already pointed out.
Thank you for noticing the crux of my point. Most other people here get caught up in pointing out that Hollywood does produce movies with consideration for the Chinese market, happily ignoring that that is beside the point. You don't want Nintendo to produce games with consideration for you. It wouldn't be enough. It's not a matter of snapping your fingers to produce stuff that works across different cultures, it's mostly industrial trial and error. Make a game that's popular internationally like Pokemon, jackpot. Otherwise it's usually stuff that works within a certain context, and that context is essentially from the sum of the experiences of whomever is producing the product, which until very recently is a very geographically-bound cultural experience. Games work within certain cultures, just like any product with cultural value. And Hollywood might make some effort to consider the Chinese in making business decisions, but they don't give the Chinese say, 40% of their attention even if they could make up 40% of their market. It doesn't translate so absolutely, because Hollywood is based in the US. |
I don't game besides PC and I don't follow the consumer console market besides blurbs like this I see on reddit. Honestly, I always though Wii U was Wii University. I had no idea it was a new console. Come to think of it, I have no idea why there would be a Wii University. Makes no sense. But I never really thought about it until now. |
I think the wii platform had way more potential than nintendo was able to exploit. The controllers should have come with the wii-motion-plus built in. You couldn't do anything other than waggle the thing or use the IR without it, and 3rd party developers couldn't count on players owning the motion plus dongle. |
It seems like there was a mix of issues.
I think at the forefront of the problem is the fact that Nintendo did get caught up on bow successful they were with the Wii to the casual gamer. Here was a market where they were extremely successful and they didn't have to rely on the hardcore gamers and high end specs that would drive the price of the console up.
So they attempted to recreate that success this time, again opting to stay away from the "spec" war of the consoles and instead again go for something unique that was for the casual gamer. However they've missed the mark and like the article said, they missed their audience too. The core of the Wii audience was casual.
Casual gamers over the last few years have done one of a few things:
*Moved on to easier and quicker games to play on devices like smart phones and tablets. A large portion of the best selling games were pick up and play. You could play for a few minutes and have no problems, but the portability of the mobile os environment trumps a home system in this case.
*Graduated to a more advanced system. This is more like the people who were kids when the Wii came out and their parents bought one for them because it was cheap. As skill grew and taste matured in games these people would've wanted something with more depth joining the ranks of the "hardcore" and probably looked into PC/ps4/Xbox one this generation.
*Moved on and stopped playing games, or just don't need a new system. Lots of old people bought the Wii and played it, it brought people together and families could easily play games together. And the older people playing these games don't need anything new or fancy.
Nintendo has a great first party line up of games as everyone knows and the faithful will continue to support their system because, for the most part, nintendo still makes great games. Their strategy was focused on a market that has moved on however and not the people who want to buy their games. (Nintendo has notoriously in recent generations had weak starting line ups, but this is just added on top of the points I just made). |
To any of you saying there is a bias, I have a question.
Does some bias in the article somehow change that Nintendo had to cut their sales forecasts by 70%? Here's the thing, no matter how much you like the system and its games it is not selling well. Enjoy the games but don't try to rationalize this away.
Nintendo has a few major problems here. Piss poor marketing, no 3rd party developers, an under powered system, the BIG games are still yet to come (Mario Kart, Smash Bros), shoehorned in/lazy online play and the worst problem of them all..a name that doesn't make you think you need to replace the Wii. It sounds like an add-on, and if you don't use the Wii much, why would you buy the Wii U?
If all you want are Nintendo franchises, its a no brainer to pick one up. Unfortunately that isn't enough to get huge commercial success now. The only area where 1 game sells systems is the handheld market but that is because nobody has ever put anything out that even challenged Nintendo but even that might change. The people who were young kids when Pokemon started are growing up, or have grown up. At some point they may lose interest too.
Nintendo is relying on the past and nostalgia to sell systems. If you love Nintendo this should scare the crap out of you. There is no long-term plan, its just keep doing more of the same. I want to see them survive and thrive but at this rate its not unreasonable to me to question if they will. The most similar company in recent times has been Blackberry. They kept doing what they were doing with just slight tweaks while everyone else ran laps around them. Blackberry isn't dead but they are on life support. Do you want to see Nintendo that way? If not, stop defending every little thing they do. NO company is beyond criticism. |
Only EA pulled their support because Nintendo doesn't "sell" their games. If you pay attention to E3 2012, ME3 was barely mentioned in their presentation and got about 3 seconds of screen time. |
Licensing. Early games had publishers, but there weren't any agreements between the other rights holders on who was going to get paid if the game was redistributed decades in the future digitally on a different console.
They just never considered it so who knows who gets the money? Obviously Nintendo won't get to keep 100%... but who gets what percentage? Do the writers get a royalty? What about the programmers? Do the original distributors get paid even though there's no distribution costs anymore? What if the company is out of business?
Anybody who believes any billion dollar company like Nintendo is "stupid"...is stupid. Do you think that they just "don't want money" or "want to screw the consumers"? Of course they fucking don't. It's just a lot of legal issues. And legal issues take YEARS of work.
Hell, it took Apple 5 years straight to get the Beatles catalog on iTunes even though Apple wanted it and the remaining Beatles members wanted it. It's just that everybody wants to get paid and there's legal issues when dealing with content that didn't have contracts which clearly states what the fuck happens when goods are digitally distributed. |
Which one of the very few titles should I play? Pikmin? Great game but 10 hours of play time doesn't exactly make me overjoyed. Monster Hunter? Great game, lots of content hours of gameplay... Oh, that's third party and is also on the 3DS with the fourth installment also being on 3DS. Super Mario Bros Wii U? The exact same game that's been released on 3DS and and Wii for the past few years with slight updates; who, coincidently, have almost the exact same end game boss fight in every game. How fun to drop bowser in lava... Again. Maybe I'll pick up Wind Waker. That was a fun and innovative game in 2002. Maybe I should look around the virtuastore and spend money on games I can get on an emulator for free just because they where fun and innovative 10+ years ago.
Unfortunately, I've been loyal for far too long. I don't care if Super Mario 3D World is innovative and new with the same old tired characters. Its taken them far to long of my time stringing me along with one great game every now and then to impress me and I've had enough. I'm sure they'll just port it to the 3DS anyways. I mean, SSB is going to have a handheld port. What's the point? If my console is so far behind its competitors that I can directly port its content to my handheld with dumbed down graphics there is nothing to salvage from it save a few neat games. An HD cartoon is still just a neat looking cartoon. Not saying all games have to be realistic but my phone can run all the indie off beat games with cartoony characters I want along with my computer. And guess what? Braid, Super Meat Boy, Binding of Issac, Mechanarium, World of Goo, Bastion and Sword and Sorcery are all great looking games I can get for super cheap on my phone or computer and area All games with more depth and innovation or mindless fun than most games Nintendo can churn out. There is literally no need for a Wii-U unless you are just new to gaming and you can experience Mario and gang for the first time. I love those characters. Their games are fun but have become formulaic. They had their day and I'm glad I was a part of it; but, its over and I'll be seeing them released year after year collecting dust just like the next sonic installment until Nintendo takes a Dreamcast to the heart and goes strictly software and handheld.
So again, what game should I pick out seeing as I own all of the ones mentioned and they are all almost EXACTLY THE SAME except for third party who, fun fact, don't HAVE to develop for one system? None. Its all worthless. You can get your platforming in better quality somewhere else.
And just for clarification I think the 3DS is an amazing system. The fact that it ports Wii-U games is more of a testament of its strength and the Wii-Us weakness. And honestly, if those games where on my 3DS instead, I wouldn't mind nearly as much. But this is an expensive, static CONSOLE. It should offer more than a bigger TV for my handheld games. |
As someone who was never a really big nintendo fan... this kinda sorta makes me hurt inside. I am a gamer of the 90's generation, I remeber Sega and it's final mark in our most wonderful comunity. Is this what the Wii-U has become? The tombstone that marks it's empires grave? 3rd consecutive year end profits not on par. That's a tragic blow.
If Nintendo goes down, perhaps now we can get a really cool Monster Hunter on higher end platforms or even on PC and have a better multiplayer (for jeebus sake!) Have a next gen Link with some intense imagery, and maybe The Mushroom kingdom will feel like the size of one in the next Mario World. Admit it, we all wanted nintendo to become truely super in it's performance.
Pikmin will still be pikmin, but with more resolution and smoother shapes.
Lastly, I've always admired on true thing about Nintendo's consoles... They were, infact, consoles... Not entertainment systems with different OS's... they only played games and had a disc for when you wanted netflix, because like mountain dew,doritos, and taco bell, Netflix now belongs to the gamers. |
Honestly if Nintendo failed or went third party it would be bad news for gaming.
I disagree - forcing gamers to purchase multiple pieces of proprietary hardware just to experience a handful of titles that could easily work outside of those branded ecosystems is, in my mind, bad for gamers/gaming.
Now, I just want to be clear that I have no disdain for Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft. I have owned multiple consoles from each manufacturer (in addition to a sega genesis + sega CD), this isn't some PCMasterrace type stuff - But I do think the PC platform CAN be the best for gamers - especially if it ever moves to more open systems like Linux. That's because users don't have to be tied to a particular set of hardware, or upgrade at arbitrary junctures and anyone can develop for it.
I think Nintendo brings unique intellectual property and game design, but I think it's pretty obvious that most gamers are pretty uninspired by their hardware. Many on this thread are saying that they'd only buy a Wii U once the new Smash Bros. comes out - this is a game that didn't use Wii's motion controls in any compelling way and most likely won't use the Tablet in a compelling way either.
Nintendo is producing lackluster hardware but forcing gamers to buy it just to play games that honestly don't require their "innovations". |
Game designer/developer here. Nintendo is an odd case.. for one they hold the belief that graphics aren't important to gameplay and having fun, which for the record I do agree with. I have loads of fun playing indie titles with little to no graphics. Then there is the fact that they only have a few "life jacket games," Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, Smash, etc... most of these are legacy games that have been around for quite sometime and are more or less why people buy Nintendo. Which to be fair is a lot of firepower in your arsenal, but when your going against consoles that have a multitude of studios developing new exciting games for it, those titles get a chink in their armor.
The fact is, really no third party developers build games for the Wii U (comparably). Here you have the PC, PS4, and XBone with these next generation ideas and graphics that are just as fun as the games Nintendo is putting out every 4 years, but they are coming out at a much faster rate and are NEW IDEAS. So fast even, that's its really hard to keep up with all of them. Not to mention the indie studio boost. I play just as many or even more indie games as I do AAA, but Nintendo really doesn't have this option.
So what do we have at the end of it? We have the Wii U, a console that people buy for a few specific games, but not a heavy hitting "main" console. Sure you may buy a Nintendo console, but if your really into games and the industry, I bet that will not be the only console you own...the problem is, PC, PS4, and XBone can be the only console you own because it offers everything (ton of games, graphics, indie titles, great online community, etc.).
Yes, the marketing could have been done A LOT better, but honestly marketing isn't everything. Shit, look at Beyonce's new album (not to say the industries are the same, but its a good example). I understand there are exceptions to everything and not everything I said here is the only reason Nintendo is starting to fail. These are just some of the factors that come into play. |
I'm honestly not surprised at this. Nintendo has put too much stock into the casual gamer market. They think that by making more and more casual games and game hardware, that they will in turn get more and more customers. That philosophy is true to an extent, but it ends when the people they've lured into gaming realize that Nintendo only caters to the casual gamer, who will always just be that; casual. They most likely will not be following Nintendo closely to see when the next Zelda, Metroid, Mario, or Super Smash game comes out. The customers who stay are the hardcore gamers. And that demographic is the one with the most money in it. For example, just look at Sony or Microsoft. They cater mostly to hardcore gamers, and profit massively from it; They don't have to worry about whether or not they'll make a profit on their merchandise because they have chronic customers who come to them year after year. This isn't so for the casual gamer who will probably buy a few games when they first get their console, but then take about two years until they get another game. |
And that's a bad thing? Nintendo was generally always about exclusive titles, that's what got the systems to movie and that's where they got majority of their success from.
One of the problems with the Wii U were the launch titles, besides Nintendo Land, NSBMU and Zombie U, majority of them were late multiplaform games, or just weak offerings. I honestly don't see why they wasted their time releasing Mass Effect 3 and Arkham City on the Wii U, especially ME3 since it's apart of a very story driven franchise and releasing only the third one is pretty pointless, especially since they just released the anthology for the 360 and PS3. It also didn't help that they kept delaying potential system sellers, which quite frankly should have been released at launch if they really wanted to move systems. |
The software that runs these data centers is written by Microsoft in the US. Not runs on them, runs them.
Not just Windows, Microsoft also writes the virtualization software that underlies all the other software that runs on these machines. This means that not only does Microsoft US have physical ownership of their data centers in the EU and elsewhere, Microsoft US pwns them. No matter what procedural hurdles are put in place, Microsoft US cannot possibly be kept out.
If Microsoft US is told by the US government to reveal information stored on servers located outside the US, they have to provide the information. Any individual refusing such an order or publicizing such an order could be jailed. National security letters and secret court orders cannot be publicized.
Even if giving away the data on EU servers violates German, Dutch, or Swedish laws, MS employees in those nations will never be told. Absent a whistle-blower in the US, those nations will never learn the data has been shared. Those in the nation of the data center can never be told without the US employees risking jail time.
Yes, national security letters are terrible and likely unconstitutional, but they still exist. As long as national security letters and secret court orders exist, Microsoft cannot promise they will not give data to the US government, even if it's stored in Europe. |
Yes, however identity theft can be just showing up a false Id card, while social engineering is about talking to people and manipulate them into doing stuff that results into security breach. |
As a programmer myself, I agree. This is stupid.
I think we're getting caught up over the word "language". Programming languages are simply a way of abstracting human logic in a way that computers can process, so we can get computers to do the things we need them to do. We call them "languages" because that's the best word we have for them, but they're not really languages in the same way that Spanish and Japanese are languages.
Learning at least the fundamentals of another human language is essential for understanding how your own language works. The 2 years of Spanish I had in high school (also in KY) have never put a dime in my pocket directly, but they made me a better reader and writer of English, which I have definitely leveraged to my benefit when writing cover letters, going to job interviews, etc.
Human languages are also more of a challenge to learn than computer languages, honestly. Computer languages are always interpreted literally, and their domain of expression is narrow by design. Also, the vast majority of them are based on English anyway, so to an English speaker they're not "foreign" in any sense. |
frankly, learning a foreign language has no value. mostly because the curricula sucks.
the problem is that there is no value in learning transliteration for things you don't willfulyl use, or know about, but that is day one lesson. i saw my first chalkboard when i 17, but the word was taught in 'japanese', but they didn't use the term for paper or save_file. that stuff needs allot of adaptation and specialization.
in universities you don't get taught a language, but how to implement the language in a context. you learn business relevant terminology, or the mythos/ethnic personality (so you can natively interpret ancient poems), or the academic grammar for translation/transliteration, or the history. and by focusing on some 'need/goal' they get deeper faster than how highschool classes are structured.
highschool should be about exposure and intrigue. and the class don't oreient themselves towards fluency but to fact regurgitation. which reduces fluency. if they want to do that, then they should structure it differently and away form language bias.
they should teach a general course of linguistics with various individualist bias. for example, there should be a citizen of the world class, where you learn how to express and interpret basic logistic information in all of the top 10 languages, from asking where the bathroom is, to how to get someplace (like an embassy or airport), to basic question structures.
another course should focus on basic literacy in the top 5 languages. and another course should be on etymology and grammar of the top 5 (madarin, farsi, english, spanish, arabic, possibly german).
but they don't aim at those general things but require one to pick an ethnicity and go with it. generally the ethnic expression is so vacuous, and facile sophistry. the anthropological comprehension of students who go through these classes doesn't increase much (if at all) until the very end when they are consuming native media.
but if you arrn't able to get it so you have the diverse understanding at the shallow level you have to consider if the shallow caricature is worth anything at all. and i think the critics are right, that having one (and only one) course taught would grant greater benifit through logical reasoning, than the transliterations of technologies you haven't seen.
you could learn japanese through fashion, myths, and lore. or learn contemporary Japanese with a bias towards anime. and from either you would have enough comprehension you could learn more about the stuff which interests you less. but you can't have a vague goal of 'learning japaneseness' and expect any result. by contrast, critical thinking or a vague course on many ethnic bias would at least meaningfully inform people. if you choose a meager and shallow course, go with logic or software, if you want a shallow course which carries a ton of utility cast wide so people can recognize which language is spoken, and at least express some limited ideas to their target.
this is coming from someone who is learning arabic (great grammar), and mandarin (not sure what is good about it but i'm curious about it's diacritic structure and tonality); and who also can code. |
I don't know too much about Esperanto. That said, as far as I can tell, Esperanto is more of a man-made creole than a traditional conlang.
I've never studied Esperanto, I've never studied a Romance language, yet I can sort of get the gist of some Esperanto just because the grammatical structure feels somewhat familiar to me.
I don't know how far it would go towards teaching that initial acquisition cognition needed to pick up future languages, but it reads slightly more organically than many other conlangs. |
The current system in America is hilariously bad.
Over the weekend my visa debt card thing was rejected. I got home and noticed a bunch of transactions I didn't authorize - several thousand dollars of shit I didn't buy from places in Floridia (I live in NY).
I callled the bank (BoA) and they told me that because the transactions were still listed as 'processing' they couldn't help me ..... wonderful
In Australia where cards have chips, pins and don't accept signatures I had a similar thing happen to me - only that time my bank called me (CBA) told me they noticed some suspicious transactions and asked me to confirm them - they then wiped them off straight away, no impact on my balance. |
Not unless you're on Time Warner which is being bought by Comcast or have Google Fiber. |
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