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You're a Republican, aren't you? Toyotas are some of the most fucking reliable vehicles on the road. I have a '95 Corolla with 240k miles on it, been hit a few times, did a 540 spin into a snowy ditch doing 60mph, and lord knows what other abuse it's taken, and guess what. Still runs great.
The problem has pretty clearly become driver error, not an unsafe car. The mat might catch the gas pedal. Guess what. That can happen in any vehicle with a floor mat. It can happen in mine. And it might. But you know what? If it does, I'm not going to panic, I'm not going to get my panties in a twist, and I most certainly am not going to baselessly accuse Toyota of suddenly making unsafe cars, because the car I've owned for two years did something unusual once . You know what I will do? Pop the car into neutral. Problem. Solved. If you are honestly afraid of a stuck gas pedal, you shouldn't be driving, because you have absolutely no knowledge of the vehicle, and if you don't know a damn thing about it, you cannot possibly give it the respect it deserves. |
It won't be up to me. I am not willing to stake anything on that. I think you are confused...
What I was meaning to say was that if the government started trying to have a technological war with it's people it wouldn't end well for the government. Sure, the government can censor a hackers internet. The hacker can in exchange shut down a power grid. I think there are a lot of things out there that hackers are capable of doing but choose not to because they have no reason, or don't want to get in trouble. But if Government started overstepping their bounds you might start seeing hacker terror. Hackers have their own "nukes" that they aren't firing but could fire if it came down to a technological war between a government and it's people. This is of course an extreme example but it could come down to it. |
You make great points and I agree with you. But it's important to look at why the Average Joe thinks that way. In my opinion, it's a big picture that involves the institutions of government, corporations (media/other), and religion, who are all hungry to consolidate power as a natural function of their existence. It seems to me that every organization has that goal, whether they realize it or not. The United States government has slowly over 200 years become bigger and bigger, despite the founding fathers intentions to keep it in check. Corporations, including media outlets, and banks, driven by profit motives have over time used every resource at their disposal to garner more profit by slowly chipping away and essentially have an overwhelming say in the legislation that is passed. Religion, too, is driven by power and profit.
It isn't out of some evil will/people that they act. They are made up of people who want to keep living in the manner they are accustomed to, who have to answer to other people (stakeholders, bosses) and perform well by doing everything that is the best interest of the organization. That is the force that drives them. And it leads to some horrible actions.
Anyway, those institutions, and the people that represent them, are the loudest voices in our society and they are incentivized to make people think what they want, what is good for that organization. And they are successful at it because people want answers, and those institutions provide them in spades. I find that the most common rhetorical tool they use is fear. The Average Joe thinks the enemy is everyone that doesn't think like him, and there is a lot of Average Joe's. |
Perhaps we should spell it out for you. You have no power. You have no ability to stop us. The lengths we go to circumvent your controls, possibilities you cannot dream of, are extensive.
out of all the bullshit and |
Even the US spin machine couldn't pull that off. |
I don't think I ever heard net neutrality rules suggested that prohibited packet privatization by type. Even in the current rules, Comcast will be able to prioritize VoIP traffic, but they can't prioritize their own VoIP traffic more than Vonage's VoIP traffic. They can prioritize Video On Demand (to the best they can detect and classify it) but they can't prioritize their own Video On Demand above Netflix's.
Of course, that only applies to stuff that comes over your internet connection. Comcast owns the last mile network and is going to divide that into Digital Cable/VOD, VoIP, and Internet. When you get VoIP from Comcast, they give you a second cable modem dedicated to the VoIP service. They'll still be able to do that. But when Comcast starts targeting your PC with VOD, they won't be able to play tricks to make their service better than, say, Netflix's. |
I'm not going to try and attempt to explain exergy here, so I'll explain as best I can without it.
If you take an electric heater, you approximately get the amount of heat out as electrical work you put in. Let's say this is equal to a first law Coefficient of Performance of 1 (COP = Q_out / W_in). The second law efficiency for a heat pump is the comparison of the first law efficiencies of your actual process, with the theoretical best process (reversible Carnot heat pump). In other words, the amount of the theoretical available energy you used. Now, for the Carnot heat pump, COP = 1 / (1-(T_L / T_H)), which for any temperature gradient is > 1.
Second law efficiency in this case is equal to COP_elec/COP_Carnot. Comparatively, a heat pump must have a COP > 1, making heat pumps always more efficient than electrical heating when they operate between the same two temperatures. |
Thoughts of what users want and what might be cool don't pop into my head.
Fair enough, but then you have to realize that what pops in your head might not be what pops into the average consumer's head either.
>They got complacent or other manufacturers caught up. I can't say which.
Neither (more on that in a sec), but what you're actually witnessing is that Android manufacturers realized that the only way they could compete on iOS was to diversify on various specs. So, for example, some people insist on a hardware keyboard, Apple's not interested, so HTC, Samsung, etc, pick up the slack. This is called market differentiation, and it's good for consumers, a mixed bag for the Android platform, but it's definitely not bad for Apple.
> They compete with each other, hence Android's innovative thinking
Innovative? Sure. Fragmented? Yes. I'll spare us both that endless debate, and simply say again that this is a most likely a benefit for the Android community, but that it doesn't matter to a lot of consumers. Your average smartphone user doesn't really care all that much about NFC, 3D whizz-bang shit and other brand new technology. Want the most conclusive proof of that? Here ya go:
> Even the 3GS was an "oh shit we better catch up" moment for them
Even now, two years later, the 3GS is the second best selling phone on the market, behind only the 4. As g33ks, we're probably shocked that consumers are buying older iPhones. Apple knows that consumers are fine with older technology as long as it works well...and they're laughing all the way to the bank.
> Apple people want an iPhone, no questions asked, Android people want Android
Except that's not entirely true. Apple's customer satisfaction ratings are, on average, usually 15-25% higher than for Android devices.
> Only when Android comes out with something huge (ala Nexus Prime) does Apple risk losing customers.
I'd argue that given the increasing adoption of smartphones as a whole, combined with some of those satisfaction numbers and the halo effect from iPads, Apple's got years of customer growth ahead of it.
> Apple used to be the innovator
Apple's still the innovator, they're just not completely revolutionizing entire segments of the worldwide technology industry every freakin year. I mean, look at the 4S. Sure, geeks obsessed with tech specs weren't drooling, but Apple used the opportunity to launch Siri, which I've argued from the beginning could be a gamechanger . Nowadays, there's still Siri jokes, but they're about her understanding and replying humorously or not being able to reply. Anecdotally, I've actually seen non-Apple folks using Siri to get shit done.
> But I will be getting a Nexus prime whenever the fuck it hits
...and therein lies the rub. To be honest, even this Apple fanboy is considering getting a Nexus Galaxy as a testing device – I'm an Android dev and the promise of a device that finally runs Android without lag is enough for me to take interest. That said, the fact that it's taken Google until ICS to get everything worked out says something, and I can't still buy one this second. |
I feel the same way when politicians get blasted for 'flip-flopping' after they change their minds on an issue. I mean, do people realize what they are criticizing? They're criticizing the ability to form a better opinion as more information becomes available. And as a result, we get government officials who view all criticism of their personal viewpoint as 'illegitimate'.
As far as I can tell, the 'flip-flop' suspicion comes from a fear that when the politician is elected, he will change his stance from the party platform over the course of his term. Of course, someone interested in making sure their party has power in the system wouldn't want that. But the very fact that the election of officials based on their loyalty to party platform instead of their willingness to represent the people of America as a whole betrays the skewed winner-take-all mindset of our 'democracy'... |
i don't think anyone really has a problem with getting it removed. What i do have a problem with, however is their method.
Sure starting local can get a lot of things in motion, but most of the people who hear it second hand won't stop to think, "oh, those parts of that site need to be removed and never be seen again." What they will do is start a crusade to basically lynch everyone who ever visits reddit, no matter if you knew of those subs or not, and no matter your opinion on the subject. Those people hear child pornography and immediately go on a witch hunt. They don't stop to think rationally, they just lash out and hope to catch a pedo in the midst of it all.
What they should do is keep bringing it up to people like Anderson Cooper. At least there is a greater likelihood that someone of that caliber will do enough research to get facts straight and not just crucify every reddit user because "its that one site that those perverts use" |
Listen, this is not a free speech issue. If there is CP on reddit or any website it needs to be eliminated immediately. These are children, ones that deserve to have a childhood.
That being said, this isn't about legality. Reddit gain credibility and was a force during the SOPA blackout. Reddit was shown to have influence and was show (for the first time to many people) as a voice of the "Internet". These accusations can and will ruin any and all credibility. People listened to us during SOPA, you have all shown that together we can work to influence the world around us.
This is the real world. We can change the game, but to do so, you have to be apart of it and play by certain rules. Some of the rules in our society can change based on context and situation, in fact very few are black and white across the board. This is one of them. You do NOT post, view, support and get anywhere within a 3 mile radius of CP. My tolerance is high, but this is one issue that myself and many others have 0 tolerence for.
Don't. Do. It. |
There's a difference between a picture of a 17-year old naked girl and a 8-year old naked girl. One is clearly not mature, one clearly--sexually--is.
I think our problem is that the 18+ porn law is so hard-defined that all of a sudden--in one day--a naked picture on the Internet becomes "legal". This, despite the fact that 17-year old girls can easily send someone naked pictures via text or the Internet.
I think most of Reddit can agree that a naked picture of a 10-year old girl is child porn. However, a picture of a 17-year old girl who was stupid enough to send a picture text to their 19-year old boyfriend?
The problem is the laws written suck. Remember, there was once a time in the world when men to actively court 14-year old girls without looking like a pervert. It was legal. I can actively court a 16-year old girl in most states--but the moment I take a picture of them, that is illegal. |
So, if a few people that use SomethingAwful forums were trading these kinds of pictures, would it be reasonable to contact churches, schools and reporters to get SomethingAwful labelled as a pornography hub?
Free speech and the legality of this aside, most people on reddit know that most people on reddit don't like or visit these subreddits . It's only a very, very small minority of people who visit, let alone defend them.
Because of the apathy of people here and the sickening deceit at SomethingAwful that has people so riled up, yelling and screaming and waving their pitchforks in the air, this may succeed in doing what Lamar Smith and the RIAA have spent years and billions of dollars trying to do.
So, should we happily let angsty SomethingAwful kids take their anger and jealousy out on reddit because we agree that some minute fraction of the site has bad things on it? If I had wasted money paying to be subscribed to a shitty forum, then discovered there were free sites like reddit that are often much more effective platforms for all kinds of communication, I would be pissed off and possibly try to "take the enemies down" too.
Please refocus this and make sure it's about SPECIFIC USER CREATED SUBREDDITS, not about all of reddit in general. If you let this be about all of reddit, you are implicitly putting yourself on the side of child pornographers... because you are a redditor and SA kids want to convince the world that all redditors are. |
The bottom of the issue? The bottom of the issue is that people don't raise their children. Nor do they trust their children. The problem is that we(I am an american) baby the ever loving shit out of our ENTIRE SOCIETY. Look CP which is child porn is wrong. I have no problem with child porn being illegal and banned. Children that take photos of themselves should have ever right to take photos of themselves. And Suicide should be fine. If you are 18 and decided you want to die FUCK OFF AND LET HIM DIE. It is his choice. As for drinks children shouldnt be allowed to buy them. Adults should and should be given the freedom to decide if their child can drink and smoke. If you dont like it. HAVE YOUR OWN KID AND DONT LET HIM/HER smoke. |
Once upon a time, there were three monkeys. Don't ask me where the other monkeys were, wiseguy. Maybe they didn't exist. As far as these three monkeys were concerned, they were the only ones in the vicinity.
Oh and speaking of vicinity, they were in a forest. Because that's where monkeys are in general. Otherwise we wouldn't have "sort-of cute" pictures of monkeys in various orientations on branches now, would we?
So three monkeys, in a forest. Let's make them chimps. [Because chimp = take over the world, right? RIGHT?](
Now, when we have three chimps in one place, these chimps need to have names. Why? Because I can go chimp, chimp, and chimp and you wouldn't know the difference.
So three chimps, one place, need names. Gwen, Shfven, and Bob.
Yes, those were the names of the chimps.
Now, Bob, was okay. He liked where he was, he liked being there, and he liked to stay there. Problem was, there were three monkeys. It wouldn't just be His place anymore. It wouldn't be Bob's place. [I am not Bob's annoying toothache.](
Bob decided, he didn't like the way how Gwen's nose was too flat. Chimps noses are flat. He knew that, but not in so many words. This was just too fucky creepy! He decided she must not exist, [because]( And so, he decided he must ban her. What he really wanted was to have sex with her because she was the only girl chimp around, and manly chimps have their manly needs.
Getting back, Bob wants to nail Gwen, but decides to end her.
But he has no weapon. At least, that is what he thinks. But he never saw this coming. The fates reward him with Poop, to encourage his budding megalomania. AT LAST! He had a weapon and a person to use it on. He had never had goals in his life, but this felt like it should be a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED moment. And so, he took Poop, balled it, and hurled it as hard as he could toward Gwen.
Now Gwen was content before all the shit-flinging started happening. One moment, she was happily spacing out (with that blank empty stare I assume characters without a plotline must have) and the next, shit hits her face. "WHAT THE FUCK?!", isn't just what I wanted to put in there for shits and giggles. It really was the first thought that Gwen had. If someone starts throwing shit on you, you'd throw shit back. So Gwen started throwing Poop of her own, granted by the coincidence creating skills of the Power of Rage, on Bob.
Fuck Bob.
She would have had sex with him.
Shfven tried really hard and squeezed out a little bit of Poop. He was okay with Bob and Gwen fighting. It was entertaining. He was okay with them being there with him too. Because he enjoyed it. If he enjoyed the fuck out of it, he would forget that he could have been fighting. And that was exactly why he tossed that little bit of Poop on both of them.
And enjoying the fuck out of it, made him want to do it more.
But it was okay...
Because it was FOR SCIENCE! |
There sure are a lot of SA goons in here crying for Reddit to be shut down. The majority of Reddit does not support CP, the Redditors know this. This reeks of sensationalism
>Unfortunately, the reddit community as a whole also harbors pedophiles and distributors of child pornography, including a man who goes by the name Tessorro
As a WHOLE? Really. It's highly suspicious when supposed Redditors turn against themselves in droves, especially to go so far as to agree with sweeping generalities like that.
Look at the threads that criticize this post's message and all the "shutup SA is better than Reddit" posts that follow or "Reddit is clearly wrong, admins are wrong, SA is right". Obvious SA agents. |
I support the elimination of cp but calling all Redditors pedophiles, as some of the folks on SA have, is ridiculous and ignorant. I think calling all of Reddit pedophiles because certain subreddits contained cp is like condemning every single German person a Nazi or calling every American some dirty redneck warmonger. I had no idea it was going on and I'm willing to bet dollars to dimes that many fellow Redditors did not as well. Why should we be held responsible for something that some of us literally knew nothing of? The administrators of Reddit are at fault for allowing this to happen no doubt. Should they be punished for this? Yes Should this have been prevented? Yes No question I would think and hope the most of the Redditors here would agree with me in saying that the administrators on our site messed up and just punishment should be dealt. However I get the feeling after reading about the first couple of pages of the SA thread that they want to label all Redditors on some child sexual offenders list. I don't like that at all and I feel like some people have just jumped on some moral high horse and want to run a crusade. Don't kill a person just because they have cancer. Remove the cancer and hope for the best that's all we can do as Redditors. |
Here's the thing: Reddit is a private entity. Yes, they are generally treated as a common carrier. That doesn't mean that the admins don't have the right to enforce community standards when they choose to do so. There is no 'constitution' of reddit, nor is there any requirement that it has to be exactly as permissive as US (or any other) body of laws. If the reddit admins have, under whatever pressure of lack thereof, decided to shutter certain subreddits and ban certain accounts, they are within their rights to do so. In doing so, they may risk an uprising amongst their user base and in so doing, their revenue.
That said, I (and many other redditors, it seems) have no problem with this particular move. There is the 'slippery slope' concern, but given their past caution, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that this isn't the beginning of some draconian reddit-police state. And if it does start going farther, many people will simply leave. Reddit does not have a monoply on social news, nor is there a significant barrier to migration. |
aaaaaanndd I'm creeped out this shit has to go. Terruso or whatever, you are sick; that's you DAUGHTER you taking extremely suggestive picture of such as "cutie shows some ass" that was Wong in so many fucking ways, but I'll only point out two 1. THAT'S YOUR FUCKING CHILID seriously who the fuck does that? You are a terrible person and a horrendous parent if you think that's ok. 2. Your putting yourself and reddit at risk for facing possibly criminal charges and at the least getting your children taken away. modarators please please please please please take jailbait like subbreddits of of the website because I don't want to be labeled a pedo for something someone else did because they're a fucked up person. |
Reddit already fulfills every legal obligation to keep CP off the website. That they would bend to pressure from these scaremongering, pro censorship groups is very disappointing.
I guess that's just the times we live in though. Where you can pretty much accuse anyone or any group of "EXPLOITING CHILDREN!!111" And the hysteria the accusation creates is enough to ruin them even if nothing illegal has occurred.
Get off the bandwagon people. The fact of the matter is subreddits that hosted LEGAL CONTENT were forced to be shut down because the majority didn't like them. If that's not oppression of free speech then I don't know what is. I've already seen elsewhere in this, and the other thread people asking for even more legal subreddits they don't like to be shut down. Where does it stop? What authority gets to decide if not the law? If the Christian right get to choose, then say goodbye to all internet porn.
If enough people complain about a particular subreddit are we correct in thinking will Reddit pull the plug on it too because of the bad publicity? |
When a local BBS restarted their tradewars map I set up a nice little pocket and slowly worked my way out. After a few weeks I'd built up a sizable force and was happily trouncing other players until I reached this one sector with an astonishing defense setup.
Not willing to let that stand I brought my entire Armada down to bear on them just as I ran out of turns. The next day I came on missing a good half my forces, by now it became personal. I exhausted the entire stike force but got the planet.
Next day the other guy had taken it back, and did a pretty good number on some of my weaker planets, but it'd obviously cost them dearly.
Finally we decided to call a truce (it was costing us too much to fight each other) and agree to leave each other alone. Eventually the game fell to just the two of us until the sysop reset the map again.
We had a BBS meetup the next month and I asked around trying to find this other guy (I had serious respect for somebody who could match me in TW)...and it turned out it wasn't a he, but a she..and she was a hot Asian chick to boot. I was stunned, went over and talked, later we started going to LAN parties together, you can imagine the rest.
That was right at 20 years ago. We still game together (well she's hacking away crap in Skyrim, I'm sure we'll fire up Killing Floor tomorrow). |
I imagine Microsoft pays them a shitload of money to sty WP-Exclusive, another explanation comes not to mind.
Nokia having the choice between Android, WP and MeeGo might even have considered using WP, but completely abandoning the Android market which shows the by far biggest growth of these system is just plain stupid.
So is rendering the efforts of the past years useless by declaring MeeGo dead. MeeGo being a Linux distribution would draw quite some attention from the developers.
Of course Nokia drove all developers away from MeeGo by basically declaring it dead on arrival.
(This is very speculative, just a thought that come to my mind.
Microsoft would benefit from MeeGos death:
MeeGo being a full Linux distribution means the Mobile apps would run on desktop computers as well, which means more user friendly applications and casual games for a free product directly competing with Windows.
But that idea is somewhat crazy.) |
People didn't want them to go with android. What everyone seems to forget is that Nokia spent a lot of money developing their own OS, an open source platform called Meego, to be their next smartphone OS after Maemo. Then, Microsoft did a takeover when Steven Elop, an ex Microsoft Office exec became head of Nokia, and he starting laying a bunch of people off, abandoning previous work, and making windows phones so that Microsoft could have the large handset manufacturer that they needed to make windows phones. No other manufacturer is and was going to touch Windows Phone 7, given how well Android was doing, and how it's free and open, and easy for the carriers to modify. |
The risk is always there.
This is just plain silly. Using civilian nuclear power to make weapons materials is more expensive, difficult, and obvious than making a clandestine graphite pile (or a bunch of clandestine centrifuges), which will safely and (relatively) cheaply produce the necessary materials for which the working weapon design blueprints are freely available.
Subverting a power facility for weapons material production will cost you more, and will give out your intentions since it is obvious. So how is it a risk?
Or are you claiming that in THEORY it MAY BE POSSIBLE, which means that risk in therefore there by definition? In that case you should be wary of sea water, since there is low tech and cheap way to extract uranium from it, which then can be used in a clandestine pile to make WG-Pu using textbook methods. |
I'm completely unfamiliar really with this style of responding to a legal threat — I've never really seen it before."
Proper response, try to deny over $100,000 to charities. This. Fucker. Must. Burn.
Edit: People seem to be missing out on how exceptionally ignorant this comment makes Mr. Carreon seem. Not because he is unaware of the internet, no. But because this is not at all an uncommon tactic. In fact it is exceedingly common, with variations used in hundreds of major legal cases.
What Matthew Inman has done is a bit of creative PR. Public Relations, plain and simple. A fairly common tactic when one well known party comes under legal assault by another. The aim of such PR, is to move the battle into a more favorable arena and force back the legal aggressor by attacking their sales and image while glorifying their own. Inman has done just that, and done it with flying colors.
Now here Mr. Carreon had a choice. He and FJ could have stayed quiet and continued on with their lawsuit. After all, the case doesn't care one way or another about some charity or the furious cries of The Oatmeal's fanbase. The facts of the case alone decide the outcome. However, Mr. Carreon didn't sit quite. Instead he blundered senselessly into Mitthew Inman's arena, under the incredibly daft assumption that he was still playing on a legal field. And there he flounded.
This article was a PR abomination. Carreon accomplished nothing in the way of furthering his or Funnyjunk's image. He justified, but failed to defend the allegations against The Oatmeal. Then, to make matters worse, he attacked a Charity. In doing so he assaulted not only The Oatmeal, but every single person who donated to that cause.
Funnyjunk has felt the impact. Mr. Carreon has felt the impact. Whether or not they realize it, he has almost certainly cost Funnyjunk more than they could ever hope to recoup in court, and rallied yet more support to Michael Inman's side. Hence, Charles Carreon is the most immense of fools. |
Before I begin, let me just say this post is not meant to attack you, AmbientTech, someone I do not know or wish to offend. It is meant to address widespread misinformation about what 4chan is. 4chan is a place for people to post pictures of shit and troll each other. What it is not, is an elite group of skilled hackers just waiting for someone like you to give them a cause, to which they will then voluntarily dedicate their efforts. There is a group of vandals that go by the name Anonymous, which derives from their affection for the anonymity afforded by 4chan's lack of a login system, but they have nothing to do with 4chan.org beyond some overlap in the user base. Even if you did manage to contact the handful of twelve year old "hackers" that still hang out there, they'd just link you to goatse and tell you to fuck off. |
As one who used to frequent Funnyjunk almost daily, this just makes me happier that I left.
Funnyjunk for those who do not know has a 'thumb' system, and it works much like reddit's upvote/downvote system. After a while, everyone on the site became obsessed with getting higher thumbs, and I was understanding of that. I did not enjoy the literal whoring in some sense that went on for thumbs but I thought: "whatever, I don't care." Then people started to repost all kinds of stuff without giving any credit to the creator, many times including Oatmeal stuff. Finally I decided to leave the site for good when I logged on one day to see the frontpage of Funnyjunk filled with either horribly used memes, boring and reused ragecomics, and a metric shit-ton of copyrighted comics with no credit given to the creator. But I will say, that site had a damn good NSFW area with some nice fapping there! |
This is a great example of bad research.
First of all, large parts of the work have been done, but not at that cost.
Second, fundamentals:
Flash LiDAR exists. low cost scanning LiDAR exists. The issue is not the LiDAR device, really.
The problem with these systems is not the LiDAR. It is getting pose on the scanner as it moves.
a. you need very accurate pose - outdoors this is hard though you have GPS and can use IMU's with a calibration process. Indoors there is no GPS and it is VERY VERY hard.
b. some systems use progressive build to back calculate position (e.g. flying down a corridor, find wall, fit wall, use wall as an orientation clue). This doesn't work in rough or highly variable environments.
c. you absolutely MUST have a high quality IMU. These cost a LOT of money.
Even assuming you fix those problems, then you still have a huge data volume issue. Sure, you can render the point cloud. But making shapes? Not trivial at all. Even with normals making shapes from point clouds is an unfinished research problem.
Finally, many companies are doing active work in this area (Neptec, Leica, Bentley, AutoDesk, Terrapoint, Optech, ...) and the holy grail is a cheap fast airborne scanner with semi-automatic building... I work in this area (have for 5-6 years) and it is not easy at all. |
We went through this in Wilson, NC.
Town: We need high-speed Internet. Hey Time-Warner! Can you move a node out here?
TW: Nahh. Too expensive, not enough people.
Town: Okay, how about Embarq (now CenturyLink), can you come out here?
Embarq: Nahh. Too expensive, not enough people.
Town: ANYONE?!?!?
chirp-chirp-chirp
Town: Screw it! [We'll do it ourselves!]( Yo! Level3, we need a fat pipe, we're rolling fiber to the house!
Embarq & TW: [Oh, HELL no!](
Town: WTF?!? Are you going to come out here?
E & TW: Well....no. But we don't want you to roll your own, either. And we're going to pay our [politicians to make sure it doesn't happen.](
Town: GO SUCK AN EGG! |
Am I the only one around here who does not give a fuck about this modern hightech-crap? Dammit, I still am trying to get over my hatred for the mobile phone! I wonder whether this will turn our like the smartphone and create a hype, or will recede into a niche like the e-ink reader. Propably the bloody things will end up as the Ipad did: the newest ultimate symbol of mental retardation combined with waste of money, in short "Look at my douchebag-glasses, I'm so modern" |
First reddit complained that this case shouldn't have been decided by people who knew nothing about patents or tech.
Then reddit went ballistic when it turned out that one of the jurors actually knew something about tech patents because he had one. |
I bought my first Logitech G5 when they shipped this orange-ish colored edition. Fast forward three years or so, the cord came off the mouse (literally). Contacted support, they sent me a new G5v2 for free.
Fast forward another year, thats when my G5v2 breaks down. That's when they sent me a G500, again, for free.
Eventually the scroll button on my G500 broke, but 7 years (or so) after buying my first G5, they told me they couldn't replace it. Instead they gave me a 35% & free shipping coupon to use on their site. bought myself a new G500. |
All things Razer break down so fucking quick. All three of my Diamondback mice, both the regular and 3G (I kept on using them since I was already so accustomed to it I couldn't bear switching) cords broke which were an easy fix, fortunately, but my Razer Onza has been dismantling itself as well over the past couple of months. |
I have a few Razer devices, and the software exists but is not required. I don't install any of the Razer software - and it works fine.
The only reason for getting this software is if you want to change things that the operating system doesn't have the ability to change. Razer devices have a programmable chip inside of them that the software programs, so - for instance - with the Razer Mamba, you can do things like changing the DPI of it's sensor at different setting levels. Since you have a toggle that provides a button where you can increase/decrease your mouse sensitivity in-game. For instance, I like to slightly decrease it while sniping or I turn it up higher than usual in StarCraft 2.
This all works without the software, but if you want to fine-tune the sensitivity settings or remap buttons (things that I personally do not do) then you would want the software. |
EVERYONE is missing the point of this software. Synapse 2.0 uploads your drivers, macros, and preferences to the cloud. THAT'S IT. This way your mouse and keyboard will work on ANY computer you put Synapse on. This allows razor to use less on board memory on the devices and keep prices stable while offering more capabilities on the device.
Edit: In regards to the title of this post. How can you do anything right with the coud without an interent connection? |
I disagree with the frustration over the initial setup. I understand the frustration if the transition from online to offline mode causes functionality problems. Once it is set up, it should be able to function offline perfectly, if not, it needs to be fixed ASAP.
Similar story when I set up my new Logitech Harmony remote. The servers were overloaded and I wasn't able to set my new remote up (shortly after Dec. 25th). I was frustrated at the inability to get my remote to work. Then I realized that this is the most obnoxious thing to get upset about, went back to working with multiple remotes as I did before, and later got the remote up and running.
The benefits long term outweigh the negatives. When I upgraded my Harmony remote, I was able to download everything necessary to retrieve my profile, and setup was a breeze. I assume the same experience when you replace a Razer mouse. |
Please let me tell you all about how bad Razer is as a company and why I do not buy their products:
In 2005 I was lucky enough to get to go to E3 in LA. I worked for a small company called Good Work Systems, this company made an interesting alternative style mouse called the R2 which sported the ONLY on board memory on a mouse at the time and its own scripting language called PAL. Allowing users to script everything from button presses to mouse movements. The company was so small that the mice were actually put together in the CEO's basement by hand.
Razer was a much larger company than us, their booth was very fancy. They had multiple demonstration kiosks each manned by an official Frag Doll that you could go head to head at Quake with and a couple thousand dollars worth of advertisements. Our booth consisted of a few folding tables and two computers with demo mice we used MS Paint to demonstrate the scripting technology, a printed sign of the mouse logo we had made at Kinkos the night before and our home made shirts which sported the same logo.
On our breaks my co workers and I were allowed to wonder the floor and visit other booths get free shit and just enjoy ourselves. We headed over to the Razer booth, mostly to talk to the Frag Girls and play Quake. We started playing Quake with the Frag Girls and we start talking to them about E3 and how cool everything has been. We were there for no more than 5 minutes when security shows up and asks us to leave the building. They told us that the Razer people said we were trying to steal publicity from them because we had our home made R2 logo shirts on and were at their booth and that we had to leave. These shirts were made with puffy paint and magic marker. They had easily 10 thousand dollars worth of professional advertisements on their booth, lights, tv screens, music, smoke machine the whole nine but we were messing up their fung shui with our shirts that had a competitors logo on them.
So security is escorting us out of the building when our CEO sees us. He comes over and we tell him whats going on. He talks to security and gets them to let us stay to work our booth on the condition that we stay away from the Razer booth.
Later that same E3 Razer announces their new mouse, the Copperhead, a mouse with 32 bytes of memory. They claim they are the first company to create a mouse with on board memory. This is not true our small company had been selling our R2 with on board memory for more than a year at that point. Of course without the money Razer has to advertise their product no one knew about the R2. So Razer got all the ohs and ahs while our company was getting stepped on by Razer. |
Their more expensive mice are a waste in my opinion, but I have used standard microsoft mice and I have a hard time going back to them after using my death adder for years (only $45ish, so not too bad). It's not just the extra buttons I like. It also tracks better, fits my hand better, and clicks more easily. Normal mice actually have a lot of resistance to clicking. |
I actually use a Razer mouse and keyboard for gaming and do game offline at times. Really, I just deactivated it and woosh it's gone. Not a big deal. I don't know why people are up in arms about this. I don't have to be online for my mouse and keyboard to work. You're right though. |
I bought an Onza right when they got popular. I loved it so much, it made me play better. Then, after about 2 months, the analog sticks started messing up. I started looking up (in game) when my thumbs were off the sticks, or I walked backwards (again, in game) when my thumbs were off the sticks. It wasn't subtle either, it made my games unplayable. I sent it in and got a new one, which did the same thing in about 2 months. I went through 4 different controllers (only playing for 1, mind you) and they all did the same thing.
I've had my current standard black Xbox controller that comes with the console for about 1.5 years now and it just started doing this, but it's very, very subtle and usually doesn't affect my playing. Sometimes it makes it so I can't run effectively but this only happens after long play sessions. |
There is a lot of confusion, yes. The problem mainly is your software. The cloud backup service should have been made optional and unobtrusive. There should be no need to register yet another account just be able to change the DPI or mouse keys. You took a step backwards in terms of usability.
For instance for the razer blade, you have to login to synapse to be able to use the switchblade ui. This would be a pain in the ass if I were to setup multiple user accounts on the same computer for different people.
Also, your combination of the numpad + page navigation keys into one app is frustrating when you want to use the computer while text processing. I had to rebind all of the keys in that program onto a custom page in the UI. Doable for me, but frustrating when you realize that anyone who uses a text editor for more than basic work is also going to encounter the issue.
Why do you need me to update the synapse 2.0 software so much, if even outdated drivers for my mouse work perfectly?
Also, in what world is it OK to keep your API behind a mailing list? Are you that ashamed of general developers getting hold of it that you must hide it away? Do you really expect a strong development presence with this kind of mentality?
Also your website is pretty awful (the cult). It is not obvious that the different "sections" are simply filters on the content. I would expect to see a different layout or at the very least a section heading or underline of the link I clicked for each of those sections when I click on them not the same exact page with the other articles removed. I had to click 6 or 7 times to realize what was actually happening.
All of these issues are related to your software in one form or another. |
I recently got a laptop and thought it would be cool to get a nice wired mouse to go with it. (With my desktop I use a Sidewinder X8)
So I plug in my new Deathadder black, install Synapse and it all works okay, it's only when I get somewhere and plug in my mouse does it make me rage. By default the mouse runs at 3500 DPI, which is ridiculous especially when it doesn't properly detect that you've plugged it in and are desperately trying to move your mouse 1 mm at a time to click the synapse logo. |
In my case, the left analog stick rubber started coming off since I jammed my left thumb's nail in it when I had to point it down quickly.
After that, RT would randomly stop working properly, when I checked the calibration screen, it would jump back and forth and only went all the way down when I held it as hard as possible. And then RB stopped working properly, so I had to readjust to using the second RB modifier button.
I managed to salvage RT by opening the controller and fucking with it, cleaning, etc.
Also, the cord near the connector broke, so I had to tape it to the connector itself to keep it in a position that it would work in.
Had a regular wired Xbox controller before that for 1.5 years, minor scratches on the left analog stick and that's it, everything else works just fine. |
Considering this only happens on the .com site, it seems to be a local bug, rather than anything intentional.
The US (aka .com) is Google's test ground. |
This could just be a bug in their user agent or feature detection. Why don't we all calm down for a bit to see if Google responds or rectifies this.
I seriously doubt they would do this against WP users. The more people that use their core services, the better for them. Android doesn't make much money for them. It is open source and the licensing agreement for use of the market and Google apps to manufacturers isn't even that large. The real money maker for Google is the fact that all android users primarily use Google services and search for that matter. Android is a metaphorical moat on which their core Google services sit. |
Microsoft may not be good competition in the consumer space but for thousands of organizations, they're invaluable. And I'm not talking about just windows. A lot of Microsoft technologies power the backbone of the internet a majority of the web services on the internet. Major companies that are data driven rely on Microsoft technology based servers to crunch and deliver all of that data. Their RnD department has stuff in the pipelines that would blow your head with amazement. The most impressive one is a touchscreen prototype they've been working out that will make Android phones and iPhones look like Etch-A-Sketches.
Microsoft offer services that are mostly the same as Google and then some. Google would fall flat on it's face if it were to attempt to break into gaming. They are primarily web based and any attempts they've made to try something different has not been well received (eg. Chrome Apps).
Windows 8 may not be good on a computer but on a mobile phone it's brilliant. Were they not so late in entering the game, they would probably be number 1 on the cell phone popularity charts.
I'm a diehard iPhone user and also have an Android phone. But fuck me, I want a Lumia so bad. |
I don't think you're looking at either company by the right standard. What you seem to be saying is "If you're not perfect, you're terrible". But there's something to be said for a gaming company that clearly offers better customer service than any of their competitors by a large margin and there's something to be said about a software company that has done more to promote openness/internet-freedom/solid privacy practices than any of their major competitors (by a large margin).
I don't really like that Google's main product is Ads, nor do I like that Valves main product is a DRM distribution method--but it's not like you see any major game companies not using it these days. If you're not willing to give Valve any credit for treating it's customers right or Google any credit for the stuff they do, you give their competitors no incentive to take those same sorts of steps and become better. |
um.. because you are going to two different places.
you are going to a mobile version of google maps is actually a totally different system than the normal google apps webpage.
the mobile google maps webpage detects if you are on a webkit brower and if not redirects to the mobile google search which is also different site than teh google search that you go to on your desktop PC.
Yes perhaps the targeted behavior should be a redirection back to the NORMAL(non mobile) google maps site, or at least give all browsers the chance to actually try to access the site anyways.. which they do for us with virus infected sites which they redirect to the warning page.
None of these facts nor the one you just presented actually proves that google is maliciously targeting windows phones.
hey they probably are, but it still has not been proven as they are different actual apps. |
Yes, and Windows isn't considered a Monopoly because Mac is considered a viable alternative. Just because Google Maps works well and is popular, doesn't make it a Monopoly. If it were to disappear tomorrow there would already be a ton of alternatives that work just as well for most people.
Would you consider Facebook to be a Monopoly? |
Can you run firefox instead of chrome on google chrome os
Chrome OS doesn't have apps in the same way that Android/Windows Phone/IOS has apps.
Apps in Chrome OS are just run by the browser. You could, theoretically, port Firefox to run as a web app, but that seems a bit nutty :)
The reason you can't install a native Firefox browser (or any other app) on Chrome OS is a technical limitation.
The reason that Firefox/Chrome aren't on Windows RT is because someone at Microsoft made a business decision to not allow them to do so. |
If you paid full price for it, sure, its not fair. If you didn't, which I'm assuming is the case, then Verizon paid for a fair bit of the cost of the phone, with the expectation that they will be able to get that money back by having more customers on their network. The ban on unlocking phones exists to prevent the practice of buying up phones in bulk on contract in countries where the ETF is low, unlocking them, and reselling them unlocked elsewhere for profit. IIRC, the ban doesn't apply once your contract has expired anyway. |
You truly are an idiot aren't you? I'm not going to dignify your ignorance by taking the time to find the sources again, however top iranian officials have spoken about how they would like to wipe Israel off the map. The implication of that statement would be that they are looking for a way to do so.
But I know you can't be reasoned with, you probably won't believe it until they launch missiles at Israel, but then I wouldn't be surprised if you defended them by saying that they only developed the nukes they were forced too. |
He should be investing in nanotech BCIs mostly, bodies are largely useless once you can separate your mind from your body.
Why have a body when you can exist in a virtual/artificial world or worlds? And people always get hung up on the whole "you're just copying yourself" argument in the context of mind uploading, which is important, but there's an obvious answer to that. And the answer is that you must connect and network your billions of neurons via nanotech BCIs to a computer network, which will expand your consciousness to another substrate. Once that network is up, your consciousness will be distributed, hence the name "distributed consciousness." Once a dialogue has been established between your neurons, which will probably have to be moded somehow, and another computational substrate you will have become a mostly free moving consciousness. It might even feel like dying to your human mind or what's left of it at that point, but think of it like you are just systematically turning your neural communication from a wired process to a wireless process. After that happens, the next problem you will be forced to face will be finding reliable and stable substrates that can't be easily corrupted or damaged like a human brain or computer hardware, or at least the type of computer hardware that exists today. But at this point your brain should be billions of times faster or even more than that, which means you'll have a perspective on life that probably is just not easy to perceive at this point in time, which means there's little reason to try to think past this point as you literally cannot. The only use of physical bodies I could think of is to build and maintain the substrates that hold your consciousness, which is sort of what you want to move away from since it’s just moving the problem somewhere else. |
I apologize if this sounds obnoxious but, most software companies aren't looking for "the average high school student". They are looking for disciplined and motivated people who can solve hard problems.
I'm not saying self taught is everything. Plenty of self taught guys aren't all that great. But, it is a strong indicator of motivation and passion. I'm also not saying that college is un-important. I've known plenty of guys that never touched a computer before college who became great programmers after discovering it.
Can't believe I did this
> I apologize if this sounds obnoxious but
I'm going to say something obnoxious..... Just as bad as the old "don't mean to sound racist but,....." |
There have been fake reviews on EVERY website since the people started purchasing things online.
Can't say I'm not proud of it cause I made a good amount of money in college using black hat techniques to game a system that wasn't yet fleshed out right after the bubble burst in the late 90's. I also had a very loose moral compass at that time to say the least. Learned quite a bit from it (way more than I did in college) and now have a very awesome and legitimate job in Silicon Valley.
Insider tip: Many (and by many I mean pretty much all) product based companies have a list of influencers that they give their product to for free in exchange for good / better reviews - so it's now nearly impossible to tell the difference between a fake or doctored review and a real one. I actually just came back from a trade show where I met with two different reps from companies that specialize on locating these influencers not just for Amazon, one was specifically for Instagram. They don't come out and say exactly what these influencers do, but everyone in the industry uses this type of system whether it be internal (illegal and if the Internet catches you, you're so fucked), outsourced to a 3rd party, or they locate them on their own. I could go deeper but I'm already in |
Yea, you'd be surprised at the number of folks with advanced degrees taking blue collar type jobs out there. Before I got out of the miltary, I was talking with a guy who ran the base's new airman arrival training. He had a group of a dozen and a half junior enlisted come through and of the 18, all but 4 had finished a bachelor's degree before getting into the USAF. Two of them had a PhD and came in to make use of the student loan repayment program along with 3 others with a Master's. |
Technology is a double edged sword.
Labor in the U.S. was once in so much demand that a uneducated worker could buy land, a house, a car, and still have some leftover.
Certainly technology has raised our standard of living but denying its negative effect on the value of human labor os foolish.
As a civilization we need to decode quickly what a person os entitled to just for being alive. We are just a couple breakthrough s away from having computers smarter tjan we ever could be.
At that point we will either share in the prosperity created by machines or all become less than slaves to the people who own the patents to these revolutionary technologies. |
So please don't spread wrong information when you don't have enough expertise in one area.
Can I ask your background, because to be blunt, you sound like you don't know what you're talking about. You seem to have decided I'm wrong based on things which I've already said don't apply to our concrete. Just because something is in a thesis, doesn't mean that it applies to every situation where concrete is used...
The picture you posted is v small, so doesn't show that they can print high.
The video you posted of a block built wall doesn't prove they can print the same height because pumping weakens the concrete and it stays weak for a few minutes. Allow me to explain again.
When you shear this type of concrete, it loses shear strength (goes runny). Then even once it has been deposited (pumped out of nozzle), it takes a while to regain all of its shear strength. They let their concrete sit for 20 minutes between adding layers, which is plenty of time for it to regain its shear strength. Not to mention, that once they pour it into the mould, there is essentially 0 shear from that point onwards. There is shear stress once they put it in the stack, but no shear (particles moving in relation to one another).
In contrast, when you pump concrete, it is going through a metre or two of pipes, which shears it a LOT. The mix can go from very stiff in the hopper(enough to build towers like they did) to very weak once it has been extruded out of the nozzle. Remembering again that crucially, it takes time for it to regain its shear strength so building on top of weaker layers is a bad idea, as it can lead to slump of the lower layers. |
Keeping track of your donations, like in Folding@home or World Community Grid, is probably more enticing though:
> Learn more at charitywater.org
>
> Charity: water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
One Today charity Android and iOS app by Google
Reputation and points systems
You could probably get more people to donate if you register nonprofits with Google One Today.
>"Your One Today profile also includes information based on your usage of One Today, such as which projects you've donated to."
Reputation and points systems can affect motivation, and may be the only source of motivation for some people to do something charitable.
Combine competition with cooperation
People by nature can be mostly status-conscious, self-interested, and competitive. Either you have a system that allows people to satisfy their ego by spending money on the purchasing of charity points, or you let people continue to flaunt their wealth through expensive cloths, cars, jewelry, etc.. |
It's pretty straight-forward what happened.
Samsung saw how successful and profitable Apple had become thanks to the iPhone.
Samsung decided to rip off Apple's designs to try to emulate this success.
Apple didn't take kindly to being so blatantly copied, and so it initiated lawsuits to protect its intellectual property.
Samsung didn't like being called out for its behavior, so it decided to return fire and go on the offensive.
Samsung didn't have any design or utility patents it could use against Apple, so it decided to scrounge around for whatever weapon it could find. It decided to play dirty and use its FRAND patents, which is a big no-no.
This began a long-term war that has engulfed the entire industry ever since. |
Privacy in any meaningful way is not "Thriving". Your browser, for the average user - well, the majority really has a unique fingerprint. The moment you log into an account with an email address, that email is tied to an IP and as an extension an address through your ISP and log files.
Your facebook page that you may have "deleted" something from - it's still their, just not displayed I'd wager. Deleting files takes processing time to actually remove from a database or hard drive - easier to leave it their and flag it as not vissible or empty. Versions of posts can be kept - and it's cheap and easy to store text. And worth the time of facebook for data mining and associating you or disassociating you with individuals.
With your email address or any account, or ad network - you can be singled out on virtually any system the moment you log into an account tied to an email address. And you can be followed around the web, and the world with a little technical know how between cookies, and data sharing between corporate entities.
If you want privacy - you need to work for it, and be willing to give up some convenience. The ToR browser bundle is a good place to start. A VPN can prove helpful, as can setting up a proxy server at home to act as a middle man between you and the web - regardless of where you are. |
Here are some other well known companies, for comparison:
[Apple Profit Margin (Quarterly):22% for March 31, 2014
](
[Microsoft Profit Margin (Quarterly):28% for March 31, 2014
](
[Google Profit Margin (Quarterly):22% for March 31, 2014
](
[Samsung Profit Margin (Quarterly):14% for March 31, 2014
](
[Honda Motor Profit Margin (Quarterly):6% for March 31, 2014:
](
[Activision Blizzard Profit Margin (Quarterly):27% for March 31, 2014:
](
[Nike Profit Margin (Quarterly):10% for March 31, 2014:
](
[Kraft Foods Group Profit Margin (Quarterly):12% for March 31, 2014:
](
[General Mills Inc. Profit Margin (Quarterly):9% for March 31, 2014:
](
[Exxon Profit Margin (Quarterly):9% for March 31, 2014:
](
[Chevron Profit Margin (Quarterly):8% for March 31, 2014:
](
[Nikon Profit Margin (Quarterly):9% for March 31, 2014:
]( |
There simply aren't amy altermatives. If you don't like service from one company, there is maybe, MAYBE 1 other option, and that option sucks. A lot. In my area, we used to have three internet providers. Earthlink, Time Warner and ATT. Well, TW bought up Earthlink and now we have two. Time Warner has speeds up to 30 Megs in my area. ATT caps out at 3. I actually had a customer service guy from ATT tell me that because their internet goes through fiber cables that 3Mb/s through ATT would be faster that THE SAME SPEED on Time Warner. What a crock of shit. I told him as much and then told him where he could stick those megabits. Now I use the library internet because Time Warner is no longer an option for me for personal reasons that I don't really care to get into. |
Not acting in the best interest of the shareholders could be considered a breach of fiduciary duty. How to act in the best interests of the shareholders is up to the board, which is generally protected in those decisions by the business judgment rule. So long as there is no self interest and the judgment is vaguely rational, the board is protected. |
This seems like the place to post it, so here's my most recent Comcast story:
I'm a Comcast customer now. Before, I had Charter service; I paid $70/month for 100Mbps, and I loved it. Customer service was top notch, and yhe service rarely had problems. Then I moved back home. Comcast was my only option, and to get the same service, I'd have to pay $145/month, with the added "bonus" of getting Norton with it. I opted for the $70/month 50Mbps service. I specifically asked for the 50Mbps service, called the "Blast Package." After five visits to my house, Comcast finally sends out the maintenance crew to install a tap, and I have internet; all is good.
About six months later, my girlfriend has troubke connecting to WiFi in the other room; I run a speed test, and I'm only getting 28Mbps. I call Comcast, and they inform me that even though I've been paying for the 50Mbps service, I've only been getting the 30Mpbs plan.
I get on the horn with Sales, and they tell me that if I want the service I requested SIX MONTHS AGO, I have to pay an additional $10/month, due to the fact that I've been paying a new contract fee for the 50Mbps, and to get the problem sorted out out, I'd have to pay the upgrade fee, since I've had the "Performance Package" for six months. |
Am I the only one that doesn't hate Comcast? All I see is hatred in their direction. While I'm a totally content customer. Their customer service has done great with me, they go out of their way to fix problems, I had a wonderful experience with them sigh my parents and have now had a wonderful experience in my own place. 50 bucks a month for 50mbps and 50 HD channels. I couldn't ask for better service. I've had 100% uptime with not a glitch. Their phone service made me drive 3 miles to a location for nothing because I wanted to upgrade to HD and my box clearly said HD but they gave me a bunch of coupons for buying movies and aren't charging me for HD service to make up for it. |
Why don't we have a Kickstarter for an Internet-owned public ISP? If the gov't and the companies aren't going to do it, maybe we should do it ourselves. |
I just wanted to say that, as someone who has worked in customer service for some giant shitty company, we all know how badly the company's customers are getting fucked. We're not allowed to tell you that the company fucked up except in very rare circumstances, and we're not allowed to agree with you that something is unfair no matter how obviously unfair it is.
When you work that job for a while, all you can do when a customer calls in with a legitimate complaint is stick to the script. You can't discuss it like a person because you're literally not allowed to. It's nothing personal though, it's just a job. |
This doesn't make any sense actually. Are they implying they look at the content that's being streamed and thus charge people more for it? Also, if I have a subscription to Netflix, or Amazon or some other movie streaming site, what damn business is it of theirs to be charging me extra for content I already paid for. |
Plain and simple... everyone needs to place requests that google fiber gets installed in their area. I hate comcast. A couple of weeks ago I had an "upgrade" so it would lower my bill.. btw that is the only way to lower the bill without slowing down internet or losing channels. I was told there would be a $99 upgrade fee of which $50 woulfd be waived. I got my bill. No $50 waiver plus a $40 fee for a tech to come install it, which I was never informed about.. I called back. Lady said $40 should not have been on bill, and she would fix it along with $50 waiver. 5 days go by still not on my online statement. It took me 4 times of calling back and dropped calls to get it fixed. Wtf. Get ur shit together. |
In Ontario, the two primarily providers are Rogers (cable) and Bell (DSL). However there are non-competition agreements where in some areas, another company will manage cable, such as Shaw or Cogeco. When I got Cogeco, I got internet only. I'd gladly pay for cable, but to get HD, and even have two TVs, it was basically $80-100/mo. Instead, I just got a decent internet-only package (as recently as last week, compared to all alternatives I'm still getting the best deal in my area) and legally pay for sports via the leagues directly. But that's a tangent.
When I ordered the service, they told me someone had to come by to set it up. At the time, I was still moving in from my parents so most of my stuff was still with them until I painted, did some basic maintenance and upgrades. So I had no computer of any kind at the house. Still, I was told it was mandatory. For a $35 fee, of course.
I got someone to be at the house for me as I couldn't be off work that day, and so the guy came, plugged it into the wall, and left. But not before "doing something" in the basement. When I got home, I went to inspect.
The house had one cable coming into the house, which was split four ways to a living room and three bedrooms. I wanted the modem in one of the bedrooms. He had disconnected all four cables from the splitter, took the incoming cable to the house, and had that go to a 2-way splitter where one outgoing cable went to the bedroom with the modem, and the other outgoing port had a kind of metal cap, like some kind of little metal Chinese finger trap that you couldn't remove without some kind of special tool.
Once I had a PC hooked up, I checked my speeds, which were what they should be, then went down and basically undid everything he did. I now got anywhere from 40-80 free channels on all TVs (digital), about 10 analog channels (which has since ceased), and saw no change to speeds when I retested the internet connection. |
I use a VPN like 8 of 9 hours at work, if not more. And some at home for the same reason.
...I'm configuring grocery stores' refrigeration controls.
Torrents are actually blocked by our network admin. Meanwhile, if I do torrent anything, I do it at home without a VPN. |
So much this. Conflating a democracy which places elective power in the hands of the people has no relationship to a perceived level of internet freedom. The populace can either not want internet freedom (e.g. prioritise national security more highly, not necessarily actively dislike 'freedom'), or frankly just don't care on the topic such as it doesn't influence policy. It doesn't make a country and more, or less democratic.
Indeed, if this actually represents the will of the people (such as opinion polling supporting the action) versus the will of some hypothetical utopic voter that prioritises freedom above everything else, it's actually democracy working properly . |
Of course the more reviews the more accurate a source will be, but to create that source we need anecdotal evidence.
No, you don't. You browse on the internet for technical analysis, an expert review or statistics.
User reviews are only useful if they indicate a systemic problem. E.g. if lots of people found a certain ticking noise within weeks of purchasing. That would indicate a problem in their QA/factory.
However, this is not the case with current Seagate drives. Yes, the backblaze study is useful and shows that Seagate in general is a tad worse, but not much. The 1.5TB drives were refurbished, so more likely to fail, and in the end it's only a few percentage points. From reading these comments, people are making it sound like Seagates are 50% likely to fail within a year. They're not that far from the competition.
Lastly, a big reason why your notion of "many bad reviews means a product is bad" doesn't work regarding RMAs (they do work for product properties, like a flimsy keyboard on a laptop) is: market share. If a particular drive is by far the cheapest of its generation, then it will sell like hot cakes. If it has the same fail rate as the more expensive competitor, it will still have more drives failing, since the same percentage of more drives sold equals more drives being RMA. Thus, the more popular drive would have many more people complaining about failed drives, even if it's just as good as the competitor. |
I don't know why you're being downvoted, but you're right; the RFID is only a ID number which gives officials access to your database files, it's useless without a direct access to it. In order for this "technique to be successfull", one should also be able to modify the database profile information. And I guess these are protected by more then a RFID tag. |
Maybe, maybe not.
The reason for this is because it would infringe on the rights of radio and electronics enthusiasts/hobbits which has a long standing tradition in America, all the way back to the early days of radio.
The carriers would have one hell of a fight on their hands if they try to extend the laws into the homes. They would be up against the entire hobbyist group (which is actually quite large), the retailers that sell the equipment, and 100 years of tradition.
Pretty much, any radio transmitter that produces less than 1 watt of power and does not cause interference with standing licensed signals outside of your home is legal and protected by the FCC.
Considering that carriers are experimenting with similar devices, trying to change regulation would be biting their own hand.
Such a revision in the law would also make RF modulators illegal, which would kill an entire multi billion dollar industry. |
I think it's going to be interesting to go from hub architecture, like USB, to peer-to-peer architecture. Sure its only one connector on your PC, but every single peripheral is going to have to have two connectors and enough advanced circuitry to actually keep the link at max speed throughout the daisy-chain.
Say you put one not-quite-so-good device between your pc and your TV, it would slow down everything else on the chain, possibly degrading your picture.
Or, how expensive/complicated will it be to implement all of that in peripherals? Will there be a glut of one Thunderblot port devices that will only operate as the terminal (or only) device on the chain. |
The difference is that Google+ is a free web service with low barriers to entry and exit. If I don't like it, I can simply stop using it. Or, I can use it alongside Twitter or Facebook or whatever.
When I'm deciding on a smartphone platform, I'm only going to choose one and I'm only going to choose once. WP7 has issues that I don't want to put up with - why should I when I can buy something that doesn't have those problems? If I make the wrong choice it will cost me hundreds of dollars to buy a new phone. Carrying around a second phone would just be stupid. |
This is a good point, but it involves two different entities: the destination website and online advertisers.
If you go to www.xyz.com and create an account there using your real name, then XYZ has lots of potential to sell and cross-reference your info. From my experience, online advertisers never see this information... (too expensive to buy, no one wants to share it for ethical reasons, etc). Instead, the data is gathered under an arbitrary ID number, and although your general geographic location can be guessed (...and I mean VERY general, as in "this user lives in Seattle, that user lives in Kansas somewhere") it doesn't provide an actual physical address. |
It's amazing how US legislators keep trying to control the Internet at the direct expense of civil liberties, human rights, and democratic ideals. Until steps are taken to reduce the influence of $$$, this sort of legislation will keep being pushed by both parties.
If you value free speech (and democracy), channel your rage/disappointment by taking the actions listed in the OP's link.
But don't stop there, consider joining the call for reform of the US political system to decrease the influence of money. Otherwise, this will be a never-ending fight. I'll look to fellow Redditors of both parties for good suggestions on reforming US politics. |
hello reddit,
Some close friends of mine have decided to buy out a company called [moneyclamp]( they are trying to find creative ways to promote the product and places to sell it.
they also offered to setup one of the following discounts if i can make it popular enough:
15% off entire purchase
free engraving with purchase
but i need support from this awesome community to make it happen.
below is the clamp that was made especially for me. which brings us to another unique feature. The told me that if Reddit itself was interested they would look into some sort of contract with selling them in the Reddit store with the Reddit alien on them. however i would need an actual Reddit employee to message me in regards to this. |
Well, let's go through their list ....
Air: They will never have any range that would make them praticable.
Biofuel: No way we can produce enough bio fuel for our gasoline needs.
Hydrogen: As mentioned before: Hydrogen actually uses even more energy than EVs, also has a lot higher risk due to having compressed hydrogen in your car. It would be an alternative but eletricity already has a lot better infrastructure than hydrogen. Still, possibly the only alternative
Concept: it's just a concept. let's maybe talk about this again in 10 years or so
Human: ....
Hydrogen Petrol: "in the process of devising". Might be something nice, no idea but I suppose we might hear more about this in the future. |
I work with MS and Apple products, I have seen the same hardware failures, the same stupid users, and the same software problems (respectively: crashes/driver issues/virus infections).
It boils down to the person using it, I've never had any issues I didn't personally create from tinkering with *nix MS or Apple. I refuse to use Apple based on principle, I'm not saying MS is a white knight... but Apple is known for not giving anything back to society and exploiting the 3rd world. |
Actually the current legal battle over the iPad trademark and the temporarily halted sales of the iPhone 4 over in China are limiting that penetration while Samsung swoops in to snatch up the spoils. Given the cost of living over there and how much the average citizen makes I'd wager to say most Chinese citizens don't upgrade their electronic devices every year.
Of course the link covers just smart phones. It'll be interesting to see how this trademark dispute plays out. |
Saying solar energy = wind energy is just as poorly thought out as Tomatoes = Ketchup is. From solar energy to wind energy is jsut as far as a step as saying solar energy = fire since all burnable material needed the sun to grow (alternatively: as saying solar energy = life since all life needs the sun to exist). |
I disagree, I've actually come to rely on Siri as a makeshift personal assistant. Yes I did ask it how much would a wood chuck could chuck when I first got it, but when the novelty of that wore off I started to see how useful it is. It's great at finding locations for me and quickly, changes songs without having to touch my phone (if my earbuds with a mic are connected), send messages, create reminders, it really does make my life easier.
Now I wouldn't go as far as to tell someone to spend extra to upgrade from the 4 to the 4S, but if you are not tight on money it is a great investment.
Not an apple employee, just someone who thought Siri would just be used as sort of a clever bot, but now I'm actually catching myself fall in love with it. If/when the iPhone 5 comes out I really hope they include Siri. |
not mastered yet.
-FTFY
An approach to adding this 'feature' would be using a database if human interations and codify(as in the researchers report) the intentions of those involved and allow the machines to figure out what is important using facial recognition, body recognition, object recognition and voice analyzing software. Let the computes find the correlations and then compile them into a database. Then robots with this database (and the same detection tools) can just match their assessment of the situation with the closest scenario in their database to 'guess' someones intentions.
A similar database approach was used for detecting emotion in verbal language. Although this phenomenon is more complex, the approach should work in this situation as well. |
Yes, he uses a Macbook Air, but still thinks the rest of the Macbook line are nothing special:
He also doesn't like/use OS X, he's using OpenSUSE but he'd like to switch if only he could find another linux distro that works with the Air hardware: |
Can I just say that Samsung should spend less money in court battles and more on fixing the god-awful software that you have to use if you want to connect your Samsung phone to, I dunno, your computer? As a (current) holder of a Samsung phone, I'm qualified to fuss. Hey, maybe they could trade that patent to Apple for some sweet-ass programming help. |
Perhaps Samsung desperately want to do what you are suggesting, but can't because they have to keep defending themselves in BS patent lawsuits or face having all their products banned. |
Just checking, so Samsung helps brainstorm and actually manufactures the Apple tech, for the money, correct? So Apple is their biggest customer? Damn. So if Samsung pulls something, Apple can just back out, and Samsung loses a huge customer and lots of money in wasted material. So no chance on boycotts, or a refusal to work with them. Couldn't Samsung just claim those ideas as their own they are lending to Apple? Or does the original patent say some BS and Apple owns it? |
from the article:
wired broadband in the US has become a duopoly:
> The practice of tying one service to another is rightfully frowned
upon in antitrust situations. Given that wired broadband service is provided by just two companies (one cable provider and one DSL provider) in almost every area of the country, it's clear we're dealing with a duopoly that should be subject to antitrust rules.
broadband internet has become a utility, and needs to be held to the same standards as electrical companies and the postal system:
> At the end of the day, businesses will get away with as much as they can -- that's what they're supposed to do to make profits. But certain types of providers are essentially public utilities -- Internet access these days is as essential as water, electricity, telephone, and postal mail -- and need to be more accountable to the public good.
the actions of these companies threaten more than just youtube and [cordcutters](
> Left to their own devices, they will skew their services in a way that will stunt if not destroy Internet video services, then threaten other bandwidth-using services such as cloud storage, telemedicine, and remote computing. In other words, they won't stop at Internet video.
something needs to be done about this. legislation seems to be an option, but considering senators bragging about how they know a total of jackshit about the internet during the SOPA fiasco and the FCC being almost entirely a puppet of lobbyists and teleco companies, i don't know how effective that would be.
[darknetplan]( was created in part to deal with things like this, but as far as i know the technology still hasn't come far enough to allow us to entirely replace the internet.
we need to do something reddit, or they're gonna teyk'r inn'net
**edit: [i've made a comment here outlining what i think we can do about this.]( |
beautifully put.
as someone in the IT field as a non-professional, this is something that affects me personally as well.
i think too many people view internet access as something used to screw around on social sites (cough reddit cough) or just to check email, when in reality it's already moved past that into a fundamental piece of infrastructure for economies, communication and knowledge.
we've seen what the internet can do for education with the growth of online open coursework through MIT and other universities, and we've seen what it can do for creating democracy and public awareness in the arab spring. who knows what capabilities or evolutions are in the future if we maintain an open internet?
we cannot let the internet be trampled under the greed of the telecos and ISPs.
**edit: [i've made a comment here outlining what i think we can do about this.]( |
and that is the difference between a somewhat-strict society with strict driving tests and great penalties for bad driving and a somewhat trust-based society that just decides who can drive by what kind of person you are and once you are allowed to drive, you are simply trusted for good driving because people of good character can be trusted for driving as well. the latter is sort of like "i know you are a good person. i'm sure you will drive well." and when that person causes some accident, then it's like "you are not a bad person. you are just a good man who did some mistake.", that society is full of trust in men and absolute exclusion of people of "bad character" such as women. To borrow words from [this askreddit thread]( in Saudi Arabia, men are "good people who may make bad choices" who can be trusted and women are simply "bad people" who should be excluded or tracked. on the other hand, the society with strict driving tests and strict penalty for bad driving is like "i don't care if you are good or bad. if you want to do X, pass some test and get a permit for X", that is a kind of strict society, equally strict for everybody, equally distrusts everyone. |
Not paranoid at all. Even if they don't do anything evil, I still do not want people analyzing my likes and dislikes in order to trick me into buying yet more shit I don't need. They trick you into giving away your information, trick you into thinking they don't collect your information, and trick you into buying their customer's products
Advertisers are Google's customers. You are their products. I am not comfortable using anything made for the sole purpose of manipulating me. They control so much information that they could completely shape my perception of the world, and I don't want an advertiser shaping my perception of the world. Even if it isn't malicious, targeted ads and filter bubbles affect me more than I am comfortable with.
I was so unnerved by the fact that I started seeing dozens of car-related ads immediately after an email exchange with my mechanic that I have not used a Google product since. I use a search engine called Startpage, which is more or less Google throuh a proxy, always browse through a proxy, and never use my real name or information for anything. It may seem paranoid, but I can't see any reason anyone shouldn't be that careful. |
He is a traitor to them because of his attempt to expose their abuse of power and also because he is directly challenging their power. If he reaches trial, they risk further exposure of their filth and the failure of their original attempt to silence him. |
You want sources? Here you go.
Are you really so dense as to believe that I was contesting whether or not the RIAA/MPAA has funded studies before? Your entire post is an irrelevant straw man argument.
What I was (and still am) contesting is statements like these:
"A large volume of alternative third party research... which the IFPI paid for no doubt."
"Almost every time a study finds that piracy is harmful, I see that they worked with or got their source data from one (or more) of the media companies."
...neither of which have a shred of evidence to back them up.
Your paltry handful of links does not even BEGIN to lend credence to these aforementioned claims that all or most studies/information/evidence to the contrary was funded by self-interested/biased content entities. To make THAT claim with any credibility at all you would have to do A LOT of research, taking great care to be as comprehensive as possible. Otherwise, grand claims like this aren't worth the electrons they're printed on.
The FACT is...neither you, nor Natanael, nor Shantak, have done anything close to the amount of research that these assertions would require. In other words, all three of you are irrefutably, monumentally... full of shit .
The worst part is, Google funded studies on piracy like [this one]( and and [this one]( both of which were heavily reposted on Reddit, don't face the same level of scrutiny despite the identical conflict of interest at play. |
Theft (n) the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale). Here is another definition of theft which shows theft can apply to piracy. You are consuming a product that someone spent time making hoping to earn money for without paying. Just because you found a definition that technically does not include the idea of ideas as a property does not mean you are right. People will always justify their actions even if they know they are wrong. There is a reason that people are brought to court for copying others blueprints that are copyrighted. Just because people wouldn't buy something if they didn't pirate it doesn't mean it is alright for them to pirate it. Not saying I'm perfect here I probably do the same thing (justifying immoral things I do) but pirating is theft. Downvote me whatever it doesn't matter because piracy is theft |
Defragmentation is not enough (or naïve defragmentation)
file placement is crucial, since seek time and reading speed depends on that (closer to the beginning of the disk HD are faster).
Having a MFT in stellar condition (best placement + contiguous) is also important (since for reading a file you first read the MFT, so the MFT must be close to the most used files in your system). |
There are several others I could also list as well. The reason I didn't list something similar to yours and several others is because I do not think they could gain the support of the general public.
As someone who has to work with this issue, I can tell you that even when it comes to the uneducated masses, there is a line to be drawn. People have no problems when it comes to things that affect other people , but when it comes to directly affecting them? Not a chance in hell. Something like what you're proposing would never have a chance to gain popular support.
TOR would be easy. Most people have never heard of tor, and let's be realistic....there is a lot of illegal activity there. It would be very easy to gather popular support to ban a network that the general public has never heard of by saying that it's a kiddie-porn haven, making it political suicide to vote against. People would support it because they think it's "that network that the pedos use". Boom, insta-ban.
Lack of anonymity? A lot of people post on numerous sites with their real Facebook accounts anyway. Combine that with the "If you've got nothing to hide..." attitude, and this would easily pass in today's climate if it's advertised properly.
Locked down devices? Again, you've got things like X-Box, PSN, Iphones, Ipads, etc. that are all locked down. Sure, they can all be jailbroken, but your average user either doesn't know how to or can't be bothered. They wouldn't even notice if this became the norm. And we already have X-Box Live and PSN that block jailbroken devices from connecting to the service. X-Box One takes it to a new level and while it's wildly unpopular right now, you and I both know it'll fly off the shelves anyway on release day. Then you add "Trusted Computing" to the mix. Etc. Etc. etc. I could easily see locked down devices becoming the norm, and ISPs blocking jailbroken devices within the next 10 years, and most people either wouldn't realize, wouldn't care, or actually be happy about it because "I don't get viruses any more", "protect the children", etc. etc. etc.
But asking them to turn over fingerprints and biometric data? Even the uneducated masses draw the line there. In the districts I work in alone, we had numerous policies that we wanted to implement that would have required the collection of student pictures, biometric data (And as someone who has firsthand knowledge of the policies, I can honestly say that we had no intention of storing or selling the data, and had plans to destroy it when the students leave the district). The backlash we got from parents was intense , and we had to abandon those plans almost instantly. Further programs that involve similar data are now dismissed out of hand without even being seriously discussed because of the backlash. |
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