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While I think the new opportunities that Kickstarter provides in terms of art funding are quite promising, having seen the financial side of the art world makes me realize that things like the NEA are quite important. True, it is a government bureaucracy, but as far as government bureaucracies go, the NEA is pretty good about funding things and people - after all, it only has so much money, so it has to be careful about where it goes. More importantly than that, Kickstarter has the problem of being funding from a personal, private perspective, and while that makes sense 90% of the time, the bottom line is that some quite vital art isn't "popular" to a lot of people - getting something like Sarah Kane's [ 4.48 Psychosis ]( onto a large-scale stage isn't going to happen if you have to appeal to the masses; people put things like Phantom of the Opera on the Majestic stage, not things like 4.48 . The NEA can represent the lifeblood of so-called avant-garde arts, for better or for worse; and relying solely on the charity and piety of the masses to put on or produce challenging, abstract, or otherwise risky art could very well mean the death of such forms in the US, which (in my opinion, admittedly) would be a tragedy.
This is exactly what ancient Sparta did: their ruler devalued (deliberately) their currency to the point that the populace no longer gained any benefit from its use. This essentially caused the businesses that dealt with luxuries to relocate, leaving only the essentials in Sparta. This meant the only jobs left (they got crops from slaves outside the city whose sole purpose was farming) were military, leading to a military-ruled communism.
But the carrier should be allowed to recoup the cost of their investment that was cut short by the customer, shouldn't they? Well, they've certainly convinced you of their reasonableness. Never mind that it depends entirely on the initial device value, and the monthly rate of service. We are, of course, taking the provider's word for it knowing full well that their motive is profit and not fairness. More so, you're assuming there was a high-value free phone at the outset. Not the case for some of us, especially who've renewed with no phone deal whatsoever (still have to pay handsome penalties if we opt out). I think if we deconstruct the costs of all things involved, it's clear the deck is stacked against the consumer. That's why the telecoms make record profits and pay their slut CEOs millions. The manufacturing of false fees (as we see in banks and most utilities) is a common thread throughout. Pushing some packets across the global network does not cost 15 or 30 or 80 dollars. As we learned recently, bank fees were never designed as a behavior sanction; they made huge profit on them simply because what they were penalizing didn't cost the banks anywhere near what they bilk the customers for. A fair case for federal intervention. (If we'd behave, they wouldn't have to!) Obviously, this is the fruit of capitalism and we can all accept it as such. But capitalism, especially of the cronyist, semi-monopolist flavor often has little to do with reasoned fairness to all involved. I would love to see statistics of Verizon's operation cost per user against what they charge each customer. I suspect one has very little to do with the other. But hey, it's good to be king.
Yes AND no. 60 fields per second is correct. That this always corresponds to 30 frames per second is not. Basically interlacing and fields was a very primitive "compression" technique which back in the analog days of the 70s allowed the video-broadcaster to chose either resolution or framerate. When you need fluid motion, you can get this, at the cost of vertical resolution. The result of this is often that digitized video, especially of music-channel broadcasts with the channels content (and fields) superpositioned on top of the music-video being displayed (with possible other usage of fields) it is impossible to get a clear image without blurry interlacing-artefacts or stuttering, or both.
I grew up in a rural town, I've had to learn to lead people along when I talk/write, or else they get lost. but you're right. I should have cut off the
because it's generally accepted that there is two kinds of file-sharing: actual, peer to peer torrenting for no cost, like TPB, and then monetised upload sites, like megaupload was. that's why I didn't get all up in arms when the FBI took down MU, they were committing blatant piracy. they were the much larger equivalent of people selling bootleg movies on the street. the dark, negative side of file-sharing that needs to stop if we want to gain legitimacy.
I've always done this. Even before Steam. If there was a game I was interested in, I would wait until it came down price before buying. The only time I would dish out full price for a game was if it was a game I was actually waiting on to come out. I do no different now. If it is one I'm just not that excited about, I'll wait for a steam sale if I buy it all. If it is one I really wanted (Skyrim for example) I bought it as soon as it was out. It's just about how long you want to patient.
Looked at your bill lately? I would imagine they are struggling to keep subscribers in the premium channel packages that include these channels. Continuing to pay for channels at the rates content producers are asking isn't supported by customer demand. One could argue that Directv doesn't need to charge their customers ~$150 a month for their best channel package but without seeing their accounting who knows? It could be a better representation of what a channel costs a provider since companies like Cox or Comcast subsidize their tv service with their excessively high Internet and VoIP fees (why those services are always pushed as a bundle).
This is the same thing that happened with G4TV. They wanted more money and DirecTV said no. Now there is no G4 on DirectTV. I'm calling today to find out when I'm paid up til. I'm gonna cancel it and if they don't have these channels back before my time is up I'll go back to Dish or Cable. I'm past being fed up with millionaires and billionaires and their companies demanding more money. CEO pay and bonuses keep going higher. The rich pay less % of their income in taxes and corporations sometimes don't pay any taxes. Maybe the "freemarket" shit isn't working and it's time to make some changes. Viacom CEO in 2010-2011 made $84.5 million for his "compensation package." The guy under him made $64.7 million. Let me say that again 84,500,000 and 64,700,000. Direct Tv CEO made 5.94 million in 2011. His big money came $32.93 million in 2010 when he got his initial multi-year stock and options awards when he joined the company. Meanwhile the average American worker made $41,673 in 2010. So if you have 2 earners in the house it would be about $83k. This kind of shit is not acceptable any more. These assholes aren't creating jobs. They are cutting their workforce so they can get bigger bonuses next year. This country can't survive much longer using the system we use now. It gets worse every year with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It won't change until we force it to change. The rich are going to have to pay their share of taxes and compensation for the executives is going to have to be capped to a certain % above the lowest paid workers wage. The main way we can help save the country is to outlaw lobbying and make corporations pay their taxes just like everyone else. I'm ready to move somewhere. I don't have any idea where it would be better to live. Greed and corruption is everywhere. Nobody seems to care anymore as long as they have their ipad or iphone and they can drive their cars to the movies and watch Batman in 3D.
It's a little more complex than that. This is all endemic of the paradigm shift we're seeing in the fees cable networks receive. Originally fees paid, while heavily based on ratings, was also based on the perceived "need" to be in certain basic subscriptions or premium packages. That's how ESPN can net $4.69 a subscriber while HGTV or Food are lucky if they can get $.45, even though ratings wise they're much closer than that. Providers, while vilified here for being constantly greedy, do in fact have tons of downward pricing pressure on their packages that makes it so it's hard to raise rates, especially when you consider most people's packages are tied to a 2-3 year contract. This shift we're seeing comes from the fact that over the air stations (your local FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS) have now been legally given the right to fees just like anyone else. Before it was assumed that because they were granted an FCC license to broadcast over the air for free, that it's also free for Time Warner and Comcast. The problem is they include these stations in packages they sell and they indirectly make a profit because viewership is still mainly on those big 4 channels, yet those channels received nothing before. The fees those big 4 netted initially were in the $.05 to $.10 range, but as contracts have come and gone in the past few years, most are earning between $.15-$.45, with new negotiations aimed at the $.75-$1.50 range. This is big because fees now are really being earned off the actual viewership rather than the perceived need to have X station on Y package. As such, the big 4 are due more and more in fees rightfully, meaning it's going to come out of the hands of people like Viacom and Disney, and they're going to get them. The big kicker is Disney kinda saw this coming. A number of their contracts were renewed in 2002-2005 and most of them were 10 year deals meaning, even though ESPN and Disney don't deserve $4.69 and $.89 per subscriber respectively, they're going to get that for the immediate future, which means there's less pie for everyone else. That's how it makes sense for these providers to get in these disputes because unless customers specifically call to get a credit, they're still taking in most of their package revenue while getting to save on fees for a few months. And by losing 20 million customers, everyday Viacom doesn't budge, they're losing ad revenue, subscriber fees, and viewers, meaning both sides eventually will meet at some compromise, probably more favorably towards DirectTV than Viacom. From the content providers' prospective, it makes tons of sense to keep trying to get these providers to sign onto large rate increases for a number of years. They're trying to hedge their bets because at the end of the day, the providers receive the flak because people can just go get DISH or Comcast and get Viacom shows, even though those providers will likely get into a dispute with Viacom at some point as well, it's just the timing of the contracts that staggers it out. Viacom, Disney, and the like know their goose is cooked now that FOX and co are due their fair share. That's why Direct's dispute with FOX last year was ended fairly quickly because while DirectTV tried to baulk at the new fees for all the FOX properties(which were HUGE), they know that FOX has the viewership that deserves those increases. Expect these kinds of disputes to pick up over the next few years because big 4 networks should be probably earning $2.50-$4 per sub based off their dominance in ratings, it's just taking time as each contract slowly builds on the one proceeding it. With some of the 5 year deals signed a couple years ago, before this ball got really rolling, I'd honestly expect this kind of turbulence for the next 10 years or so, until there's some equilibrium in the market. But hey if you think this is bad, just wait till Disney starts fighting tooth and nail to keep ESPN at $4+, when in actuality it probably deserves somewhere in the $1.50-$3 range, I'd expect some of those disputes to be fairly lengthy based off the importance of their content and the fact they've been raping providers for the last 10 years. Cue the popcorn... Source: I directly deal with retrans fees and retrans contracts for a company that owns local big 4 stations.
For those asking about an a-la-carte cable system: An a-la-carte cable system would be the death of your favorite niche networks. Niche networks have a very small fanbase when compared to the major networks. Of that very small fanbase, only a percentage of them are willing to pay, and another percentage is pirating their work. If niche networks went a-la-carte instead of getting bundled with the channels people are willing to pay for, they'd lose ratings -- many fans would be unwilling to pay for the product directly, and some would get their progrmming from Netflix, Hulu, TPB, etc. With lower ratings, they don't make as much money from advertising. Which means they'd have to jack up the prices for those who are willing to pay, causing some of them to drop the network. Which means even less money. It's a downward spiral. They wouldn't make enough money from the lowered advertising revenue and the percentage of people willing to pay to remain in business. Once the niche networks all drop off, the only ones who would remain in business are the major networks.
That's about what it is here for a 5Mbit internet and digitial TV (with select channels in HD). I don't have cable, but I pay $10 extra for faster download and upload speeds. Amazon Prime and Netflix are damn cheap, so cheap you could get Hulu premium account too if you felt the need. You'd have so much money left over after a year you could buy a dozen blurays of your favorite shows (and probably still have some money left) :/ I'm telling you, the cable companies are boning you.
Apple has just as much if not more fragmentation then Google's ecosystem for Android. You then go on to complain about changing from the 30-pin to a 19-pin connector, leaving out both the reasons for using a 30-pin connector in the first place (audio, video, and power, not just data connectivity) and the fact that they've had the same connector for over a decade. And as for accessories, you can walk into pretty much any gas station in the western world and find accessories for an iPhone. To get a case for a specific model of Android phone you have to order it direct from the manufacturer. I can select from hundreds of different cases for my phone. >I hope you have fun carrying around two seperare chargers for your iPad and your new iPhone toy. They'll still both charge via USB. One charger, two cables. Just like carrying a Kindle and an iPhone. I fail to see how this is a mark against the iPhone. >There's also app fragmentation which is becoming even worse on iOS. I admit that there are features on the iPhone 4 that weren't available on the 3GS because of hardware features, and the faster processor on the 4S which makes Siri available there and not on the 4. But you can get turn-by-turn directions on the 4 or 3GS through any number of free or paid third-party apps. But if you want a Twitter app, you have dozens to choose from and don't really care which phone or version you're running. Because the iPhone has standard resolutions apps all work the same. No stretching or squeezing of the display, no buttons that are too small to push, no apps that simply don't work because the carrier decided that you don't get a certain version of the OS.
I definitely agree with this decision. For those who want some backstory, basically a child died from eating a few neodymium magnets and the CPSC issued a voluntary total recall of all of them. Their reason was that "The Ages 13+ label is insufficient and not clear enough." An equivalent action would be for the CPSC to recall all Lego products ever because there are not enough choking hazard warning signs on the boxes. Considering the target market for these products is mostly office workers / people who want a desk "widget/toy," I find the already present safety label perfectly suitable.
People generally try to blanket ban stuff because they're afraid of them. People are generally afraid of things because they don't understand them. CPSC needs to understand magnets.
i'm familiar with the overall story, but could you
Original Equipment Manufacturer. In short: Someone who builds something for someone else to use. If you buy an HP or Dell or even a prebuilt mom-and-pop-shop PC, the person you're giving the money to is the OEM. If you build your own, there's no OEM, no middleman. OEM Windows licenses are cheaper because the Microsoft warranty/support is worse or nonexistent and the license more restrictive. In turn, the OEM (ostensibly) provides their own support for the customer to make up the difference. Sort of like how you can buy a Seagate or WD hard drive and get warranty from Seagate/WD, but if you have a broken Seagate/WD drive inside your HP, you have to go through HP. Doesn't matter who made the drive, they sold it to HP on the cheap in exchange for not having to do warranty on it. HP takes the warranty burden in exchange for getting something cheap. Since no one who can successfully build their own PC calls Microsoft support anyway (and you can't return software), there's not much reason for them to buy the expensive fancy Retail one with the provided phone support. They want the cheap one and get it on the assumption that they'll fix their own software problems. OEM license Windows is supposed to only be sold in bulk to the OEM and distributed piecemeal with new PCs: You're not buying Microsoft Windows per se, you're buying HP Windows, or Newegg Windows, or Mike's Discount Computer & Welding Supplies Windows. Microsoft just happens to make the thing. If you want Microsoft Windows, you go to Walmart, have them get the big box out of the display case, and pay $200-$400. That's how it's SUPPOSED to work. Various shops and online retailers get around that using loopholes and Microsoft's generally lax enforcement. Fictitious example: if Microsoft said OEM Windows must be sold with hardware it's installed on, then the reseller can say that the envelope they send it in counts as "hardware" which it was "installed into". It probably wouldn't hold up in court, but it's just a CYA and as long as MS is making money off every sale, they're not too picky. They realize if they start forcing the twice-as-expensive retail edition on people, sales will go down and piracy will go up. (Because, again, the same people who build their own PCs know what The Pirate Bay is.) So up until now, they've winked at Newegg et al buying thousands of copies and selling them alone. Now they're trying to legitimize what's been going on for over a decade ANYWAY and make a few bucks extra per sale. There's another side to it, too. OEMs have legal agreements with Microsoft with their own requirements (Like NEVER installing Windows without a valid original license key.) and the license agreement's legalese (the thing you never read before clicking "agree" that first time you boot Windows) is tailored more to that. Without the OEM some of the assumptions make less sense, like trying to run a wedding ceremony with one bride and no groom. But I'm no lawyer so that part is hazy to me at best. (EDIT: I be smart. I typo make. Fix. Add more words, too. More words good. Hit words with club.)
I don't like your blame the victim approach. People have a tremendous amount of things to worry about, their jobs, their health, their children, etc. etc. and you can't expect everyone to be an expert on every aspect of modern life. Also, I have heard that about half of all people are below average in intelligence and that this has always been the case. Yes, people are imperfect and they will always be imperfect BUT we can and should overhaul the system because the system is broken and it is easier to fix the system than to make everyone experts at privacy protection. In 1965 Ralph Nader published "Unsafe at any speed." The thesis of the book was that it is a waste of time blaming people for being shitty drivers and that the system was broken. He correctly claimed that there are always going to be crappy drivers, but if we want to reduce traffic fatalities we need better traffic laws and better safety features in cars. The crusade to make people better drivers had a negligent effect on traffic fatalities. Following the publication of the book the US saw widespread adoption of seat belt laws (and many other forms of reform) that saved a tremendous amount of lives.
This probably wont be seen at this point, but something I've been mulling over is proactive privacy legislation. Yes, we live in a surveillance society (Hi!), but what about something that acknowledges it instead of pretending we can roll it back? Say, for instance, a bill that goes "Yes, every piece of information that passes by us will be collected and sorted [as already happens], but this information may only be accessed, viewed, and/or used by humans with authorization from a court judge." In theory, we already have this guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, but our current legislation is woefully outpaced by changing technology. Reinforcing/codifying protections for a digital age without impacting information gathering may be necessary to provide any privacy at all as information gathering gets easier and easier.
I've never had a bad time using IE9, but I only use it when the site requires me to, or when on a user's PC that doesn't have an alternate installed. I just.. I need my add-ons, man. AdBlock Plus, some web music Scrobbling addons for my Last.Fm, NoScript, and Grab-And-Drag for my tablet. Besides that, it's got great security, Phishing awareness, and not NEAR as many pages break as in 6 (Though I've seen some).
I got given a free copy of BF3 by EA because of this. That day a few weeks ago when it was $10, I bought it, or at least thought I did at around 7pm. I was wondering why the email took so long but eventually got to doing something else and forgot about it. The next day the price was back to $39.99 so I was like "fuck it, guess it didn't go through then". Fast forward a couple more days and I receive an email from EA saying "hey just thought you know that your purchase of BF3 has been canceled for non payment". So I'm already kinda in a wtf mode about not getting it when I did the entire transaction process seemingly for nothing but now they're trying to say I didn't pay up? Fuck that. So I open a support ticket explaining what happened, or at least what I think happened and wait another day or so when their customer service guy sent me a shittily formatted email saying basically along the lines of "not our problem take it up with paypal" even though I've used Paypal with steam, amazon, gog etc and never had a single issue and then he closed the support ticket. This is when I start raging now. I TRIED to purchase your fucking game EA, but you're trying to lay the blame on me like its MY FAULT? So I open a new ticket with the note to phone me and very firmly point out that I was getting fucked here. I don't consider my customer support ticket closed, until I fucking close it myself happy that my issue is resolved, which it clearly wasn't. I wasn't impolite but I very firmly assured the guy on the other end of the phone that I was pretty fucking unhappy with their customer service and he basically is like "alright man sounds like our guy couldn't even really understand what the issue was, I'll credit your account the game, log out and log back in." So yeah I got BF3 for free, when I was actually willing to pay for it.
Passwords are inherently flawed as anything which requires you to give away your secret to authenticate is. One of the first things I wrote as a young teenager in high school during the 80's was a fake login screen (networked BBC Micros) which captured password as the flaw was obvious even to my young mind. Personally I think public/private key pairs on encryption dongles are the way to go. This way even you don't need to know the secret. You could have several (banking, porn, etc.) dongle to switch between. Just as importantly, it keeps the keys away from all software including the OS which is subject to orders from entities such as the NSA who represent less than 5% of the global population. This could be achieved through "virgin" mass produced USB dongles that are sold through retail chain and programmed (initialised) on first use. Or it could be done wirelessly (possibly even NFC) which still require proximity even if they aren't directly connected. The higher end keys would incorporate bio-metric secondary locking making them much more secure than the keys that guard your house and car. It's not the handful of people around you that pose the main security concern. It's the billions of people on the other end of the line seeking to remotely compromise you that you need to be wary off, and encryption dongles would prevent them any scale of success.
What is this, an article for ants? Seriously, why even post this 3rd grade level shit.
I'm so fucking important because I write in bold .
The turn by turn honestly sucks in comparison to Apple Maps. The voice navigation is a lot less descriptive: "turn right" rather than "in 0.5 miles, turn right onto 35th st north". It also tells you to turn about two blocks away from your actual turn. So if you've got the phone in your lap and aren't looking at it, you've got the potential to turn early. For someone directionally impaired, such as myself, these are important details.
At the risk of getting downvoted to hell.. He didn't die for this. He died because he committed suicide. He (likely) succumbed to the pressure and depression of being prosecuted in court. Its not like he had a choice between this leak and death. Don't get me wrong, I understand the significance of his death. I understand that he was persecuted under the guise of law. The crushing weight of an out of control witchhunt was too much for him to bear. I just believe this should not be taken out of context. People are making the guy sound like Jesus or something. He was a nice guy. He was a quirky internet activist that did a lot of important work in the field. He did fight. I value his contribution. However, he wasn't killed fighting. He did himself in as a result of being victimized. I don't view him as less for that. It just rubs me the wrong way. I think that socially important events and figures should not be taken out of context. It somehow makes them less. it cheapens them when people twist them and their legend in a way that it fits their own agenda or cause. Ugh, I shouldn't even post this. I feel like it's a half formed explanation at what I really mean..
That is incorrect, pc sales have dropped for a variety of reasons, hardware stagnation is only one reason. The classical Desktop Allround PC is indeed dead. Simply because it has been replaced by a series of devices that can do everything it can, "better". For instance, everything office related can easily be done on laptops and Pads.. anywhere. Entertainment; music, videos etc smartphones/Pads have completely taken over that role. Gaming, well, luv my mouse n keyboard, but, consoles have made the pc redundant, and soon meta consoles (ouya, steam box, pads (ios/andoid) in general will take over that market completely. Thus, who needs a "classical" pc anymore? CAD & Renderers, though, lets be honest, all of that work can be completed on a tab and processed in a cloud, and as soon as a newer generation will enter the market that is whats going to happen. So yeah, its not that PC hardware has stagnated for physical reasons, its that the PC concept itself has become obsolete, with dedicated devices such as consoles following in its wake. Eventually we will end up with one multi-purpose device that can wirelessly interface with periphery, my guess its going to be something akin to a smartphone or rather a fold-able pad or smart glasses. (In this decade at least)
PCI ran at 133MBytes/second. IDE wasn't that fast. Source:
The desktop as a home's digital nerve center has been an idea for a long time, but it hasn't taken off because everyone makes it so complicated. It should store your files, especially media. It should connect to the TV and stereo, play movies and music and photos, run the phone system, home security, and much more. It needs to be always on, and quiet, and super-duper easy to use. All of this can be done now, but you have to know how to put the pieces together yourself.
I've never met a casual PC user who wasn't disappointed / frustrated with windows 8. Scrolling through 8 different windows to get to the one fucking thing I want? Genius! Making me have to scroll over to the main window, then having to type into the search bar for the control panel just to change a setting? Brilliant! Obviously people who just want to check their email and play online games want even more fucking hoops to jump through to do something simple, and forcing a shitty touchscreen ap / advertisement display that can't be disabled (I'm talking about Metro....) as the main interface is obviously what the consumer wants! And even more so it's what IT wants. And when it comes to upgrading to Windows 8, the IT department will be all for retraining their staff and the entire fucking user base they support how to do new things, making sure Windows 8 is quickly implemented into the workplace! It's not Fanboy hate. Windows 8 is a piece of shit from every point of view other than the perspective of "Oh, white space shiny touchscreen buzzword I want" brainless users.
I think you're just bad at having a computer dude.... hes running dX10 which has significantly lower processing requirements thus it improves performance in all aspects.. also most dx11 games that don't detect a dx11 go down to dx9.
This is really only part of the answer and in reality, the role of the desktop in the consumer world has shifted. What really happened is that new products dis-aggregated consumer consumption. Sounds fancy, but what does it really mean? Think back 5 years (give or take) and your only access point at home was either a laptop or a desktop, so regardless of your level of sophistication, you only had one source for a computing. Today, we have much more specialized hardware and mobile: tablets/smartphones for consumption only / light-input users laptops are necessary for only those individuals that truly need to be simultaneously productive and mobile desktops are becoming only necessary for power users, i.e. gamers and/or heaving processing So, the average person at home has very little need for a desktop. At best, they become glorified storage/back-up for multimedia (yes, you should back up your phone/tablet/laptop today!) Now, add in what's happened to prices. Laptops cost the same today as desktops used to cost several years ago. If you need to replace your current desktop, most entry-level configurations will more than provide the necessary computing power and, the marginal cost for a laptop means that more people will opt for the benefits of mobility. So, you're left with a piece of hardware that needs direction and, more importantly, demand from consumers. So why do people still by desktops? It's usually for very specific (and ever decreasing) needs: Powerful-processing (structural demand that will persist) Price (structural demand, but not attractive to manufacturers) Full-size screen / keyboard (weak argument with the trends in peripheral prices) Lastly, while its not offered yet, I can see the world of the virtual desktop. Basically, people just have screens and keyboards connected to servers.
I think tablets will revitalize the desktop industry. The whole reason people migrated from desktops to laptops was because laptops were more portable and (though providing less power) were able to do most stuff that most people need to do most of the time. For the few big applications that few people use a few times (i.e. data processing, video processing, etc.) people had a desktop. However, now hardware has gotten SO small that A LOT of what we want to do on a computer we can/will be able to do on a tablet in a few years. Most of our computer time is spent on the internet, MS office products(word, excel, etc.), music, videos, chatting and other things that don't require a lot of processing power. I think when tablets finally become useful enough that the things you CAN'T do on it are too unimportant, we will once again migrate to the more portable option. At THAT point, laptops will become quire irrelevant since they aren't as portable as tablets and aren't as powerful/long lasting as desktops. It will then only take a few companies to realize this to reboot the desktop industry. Also, if we can increase our network speeds in the country, I think remote desktop-ing might also be a very fantastic option. Even a tablet as old as the Asus Infinity demoed by letting people play skyrim on it through a remote desktop. The tablet and network were fast enough that the game didn't lag. If that was the case a few years ago, i suspect in a few years we could quite easily have tablets which we could use to remote desktop to our desktops and use for the things that require higher level of processing. In that case, laptops would become entirely useless as suddenly desktops would in be kind of "portable".
You were downvoted not once, but twice, and I'd like to explain why as neither were from me. WoW's entire, yearlong cost is $180, should you purchase month by month. WoW is an MMO, which means it is a time sink, as is every other form of entertainment. The concept that WoW somehow costs more money than other forms of entertainment is untrue. Movie goers will pay a lot more, theatre lovers will eat up just as much, etc, etc. In terms of money spent vs time entertained, a WoW subscription is one of the most cost-effective forms of entertainment. In fact, the WoW players I know have very, very good hardware; higher than the average. Since WoW's requirements are near unchanging, they don't need to upgrade their rigs very much versus other forms of gaming. A machine that played Oblivion on high just fine will need a lot of updating to play Skyrim on medium. Edit: the illusion that WoW costs more than other games is created when viewed from the perspective of free-to-play gaming. However, you get what you pay for, and there are very good reasons why they are free to play.
Does the concept of market saturation no longer exist in tech? I find it pretty awful that all of these manufacturers expect their sales to continually move north, or even to remain stable, when people should be able to buy one and just have it last for a reasonable period of time. I find it kind of offensive that when an industry finally manages to make a tech product that remains stable and performs well for under a decade, that this is somehow a sign of the "death" of the product, rather than just and indication that tech has finally slowed down to where we can all leave it alone for a few years. Also, in PC purchasing, I think most of us have figured out that component upgrades can keep a PC alive for a lot longer, rather than running to some shitty reseller for a whole new machine.
Don't just pick the "best reviewed" parts, though. I am definitely a layperson and I started by picking the parts with the best ratio of reviews/price that I could find, but then I took that part list to literally dozens of pc building forums/communities ( /r/buildapc ) and got advice and alternative options on a lot of the parts I found. My PC still runs great 5 years later so even if it's anecdotal, I think it's a good strategy.
Exactly. Look at home networking. It NEVER works easily. Setting up router connections, MAC addresses and fuck knows what else. It is too much for the average person. Hell, I like computers and it is too annoying. That's why Macs sell. That's why I recommend Macs to people who don't know anything about computers. Whether you like it or not, in my experience Macs are just easier to use for 90% of the population. They aren't perfect, but they will do. Example: Want to install an Application? Drag the icon to the Application folder. Want to get rid of it? Drag the icon to the bin. (that's if the app is well behaved, of course).
People keep saying consoles are obsolete pieces of crap, but I'm on the opposite end. I can't understand how these little boxes of old timey-time hardware can produce what is arguably really pretty graphics, admittedly not at 60fps/1080p, but still. Upscaled 720p doesn't look BAD on my 42" 1080p TV. It just looks "less good".
This is very wrong, there's tons of stuff that uses open standards. Almost all AV equipment(tvs, receivers, blu-rays, even apple's appleTV and googles failure copy of it) has the same standard inputs and outputs such as RCA jacks, HDMI, VGA or whatever. They all output standard signals that can go from device to device. Control of everything is done with thing like infrared, rs232 or more modernly IP. These are old well defined standards that everyone uses. Controllable blinds, garage doors, doorlocks and stuff like that use standard contact closures with standardized voltages. Buy something other than the cheapest security panel and you can get serial adapter that let you talk to it via RS232. Camera DVRs are controllable via RS232 or IR and output comonent, composite or HDMI. There's not information coming from your 120v electricity because it's just that 120v electricity. You can run it through all sorts of switches and dimmers that are controlled all sorts of ways. Why would you put a device like a light switch or a controllable blinds on something like a IP network, where it has IP adresses and packets and protocols and all sorts of bullshit when the only thing you can do to it is switch on or off. Something like a low voltage trigger is much cheaper and more reliable. Dumb wireless for things like shades, AV stuff, door locks, light switches, etc..., is being standardized under the ZWave consortium. One thing that's needed is a big market that drives down the price of control system boxes that have all the RS232, IR, relay, IP and IO ports on them. The hardware is currently very expensive, like in the thousands of dollars for a whole house control system. Also everybodies house it different with different things to control. For the software to work right you have to define out rooms and what devices are in which rooms, this is basically custom programming, although it theoretically can be made very simple(and the stuff that exist is relatively simple, but beyond the effort that most people would put in it). Other standards like DLNA will make the software part easier, but currently it blows hard for many reasons. Control system programmers for a system like Crestron, a company that makes devices that can control almost anything and everything you could think of that's controllable, will cost you $100-$200 per hour. The programming is usually quick if it's cookie cutter, but at that price it still adds up quick. You also need a shitload of wires and connections, at some point the complexity is beyond the effort that most people would be willing to put in. Wireless stuff and packet switched networks(IP) make it really easy, but if you have 50 to 100 devices on a network, especially stuff throwing around audio and video, or shitty devices constantly polling stuff on the network constantly you need to know a little basic stuff to get the network right. Even a 10 gigabit network wont fix a lot, you need stuff like QOS and VLANS. Again not that hard, but more effort than most people would put in to it. It's not as easy as plug and play.
Death to FOX, ABC, NBC, and every other major distributor out there. Nobody wants you or will miss you when you are gone. You are the ones that are destroying the entertainment industry. Who owns FOX? News Corp -- the same people that own 20th Century Fox. Disney owns ABC , NBC is part of NBCUniversal, which owns Universal Studios; and CBS owns Viacom. The distributor IS the producer in all of the cases you listed, plus CBS. Don't get me wrong, A/NBC, FOX, and CBS do need to stop having full lateral control of their markets. My point is: currently it isn't a case of the distributor being the one holding everybody back, it's the owners, advertisers, and the companies that acctually bring the content to you (i.e. Cable companies such as Comcast or DISH).
I purchased a GoPro a few months ago and I've been pretty shocked at how poor that thing is for the price people pay for it. To put simply, the manufacturer doesn't give a shit about the users. I pre-ordered a GoPro 3 and when I received it, I spent a few days trying to figure out how to turn on the wifi streaming feature. This is the feature that was plastered all over the website and heavily advertised. I finally realized I can't figure out how to turn it on because it's NOT THERE. The only mention of this was buried deep on GoPro forums. Several months after release, they finally put up an update that enabled this feature. The latency of the stream is on the order of 10 seconds, absolutely useless. The iOS/android apps that connect to the GoPro don't let you do anything other than preview the stream and change settings. Wanna watch recorded videos or photos? Too bad, they don't give a shit. Whatever, I decided I'll try time lapse. The battery lasted for about 2 hours. What the fuck? Well, turns out that since the very first GoPro, the time lapse function didn't put the CPU to sleep so it just sat there eating power to do absolutely nothing. Even though [a hack]( was detailed which increased the time lapse battery life by around 10x without any extra batteries, the same problem is present in the latest GoPro. The biggest insult? This is a software issue which is trivial to fix. They just don't give a shit. Last but not least, this camera doesn't shoot uncompressed images. You can't even touch compression settings. You get jpegs with heavy artifacts. Could they give you the option to write png or tiff or even raw? Sure? Will they? No, they don't give a shit.
You're see it the way the telcos want you to see it. They don't discount the phone, they just jack up the price of the plan incredibly. T-Mobile is offering unlimited data, text and 100 minutes / mo for 30 bucks. The same plan on the other telcos is at least 60 dollars. So you're paying 30 dollars a month for your phone. Over 2 years, that's $720.00 + whatever initial fee they charged you for the phone. Not only that, but you STILL keep paying the $30 a month after you are finished paying your phone. (They'll try to give you another discounted phone to re-sign the contract, but w/e). Now, let's look at some unlocked phones: Android, Nexus 4: $350.00 top of the line (16 GB model) Apple, Iphone 4: $450.00 (16 GB) Apple, Iphone 5: $700.00 (16 GB). Carriers are charging between 200 - 300 dollars for these, + the 720 dollars from your contract. Thats about 900-1K for the cheapest plans.
Wow this guy is cool because he swears in public. I'm going to "stop the bullshit" and give him a lot of my money because of his cool swears.
When the carrier says "Unlimited", they have a limit to the data where they come out profitable. If you use less than 5GB (hypothetical number) of data on your unlimited plan, they come out on top. If you use more than 5GB, they come out unprofitable. Essentially, the carriers were betting on how much data you were going to use. The reason there were fees for tethering is that once you start tethering, the average amount of data that you use goes up, way up (I can blow 500mb browsing reddit alone tethered to my computer). The carriers know this so they therefore charge for tethering plans thus giving them more room to come out profitable/break even (with the extra charge it might be 7 or 8GB at which point they start loosing money). The reason most carriers did away with unlimited data finally is most modern phones were consuming so much data that they weren't making a profit every month, with apps like netflix and YouTube, you could blow through 10-15GB/month in data.
It's ironic that everything they accuse their U.S. competitors of their mother company Deutsche Telekom does in Germany. >Two year contracts: check >High prices: check Also: >Suppressing competition: check >Responsible for low internet speeds: check They just recently announced traffic caps for home internet like the ones in the U.S. and Canada, something that to this degree hasn't existed here until now.
Why in the world are unlocked cell phones still so expensive? Let's take an unlocked Galaxy S3. It costs $470 on amazon. Now let's take something like the Nexus 7 tablet. Specifications-wise, compared to the 4g nexus 7 model, they are roughly identical. The Nexus 7 has a slightly bigger screen, but is lacking a rear camera and the ability to make phone calls. A rear camera and the ability to make phone calls makes it cost over 50% more dispite the much smaller screen?
For those saying it isn't subsidized..I can't see where you get that from. You aren't financing the phone over 3 years, you are signing an agreement stating that you agree to exclusively use their service over the three years. Cancellation fees and data fees are to recoup costs of the phone itself if you decide to cancel. That's why you see a lot of companies (in Canada at least) require minimum payments of $50 (voice and data combined) for at least the first year of service, so they can pay the salesman, and the companies like Walmart and Target that sell them as a 3rd party (through residual income).
No, they are not. You're confusing what a device can do in relation to what we already have around us, rather than actual production cost. Aside from being able to shit these phones out all day long, on what's obviously borrowed tech (little or NO r&d required), it's not like you can play the latest Bioshock on 'em, or efficiently run office products (keyword - efficient). They're all just touch screen doodads that can't really accomplish what a full blown PC can. Sure, they make an effort, and can physically do some/most of these things. But if i had to replace my PC at work with the best smart phone out there, i'd either pitch that phone through the wall, or fucking shoot myself.
Just ran into this shit show when I tried to add the Verizon Jetpack. Wanted to have WiFi on the train for my morning commutes so I could stream Netflix. Here were my options: 1GB Monthly Data: I could watch a half hour's worth of HD Netflix on my iPad. Then my data would be gone for the month. $50/month . $600 a year. 2GB Monthly Data: I can watch an hour of HD Netflix on my iPad per month. $60/month . $720 a year. 4GB Monthly Data: I can watch two hours of HD Netflix in a month! Maybe I'll get in two episodes of Game of Thrones! 70/month . $840 a year. And it goes up and up. The sales representative finally suggested the 50 GB data plan. This would allow me to watch one hour long episode per work day. Still not really enough. But guess the cost for that? 375/month . That's nearly $5k per year.
It's more like universal / socialized healthcare. Everybody who has the same carrier shares in the cost for everyone to own the latest and greatest smartphone. Except in this case, it's like universal Galaxy / iPhone care.
The basic has a limit before going to a reduced speed. For $10 more, its 2gb. For $20 more, its unlimited (completely). So $70/mo (for the very first line only) for unlimited data, text, and minutes. The second line is an additional $30/mo, and another unlimited is another $20. Grand total for two phones, unlimited everything, is $120/mo. The third line (and up) is $10/mo, an unlimited is, again, $20/line. So another $30. 3 smartphones, with unlimited everything, $150/mo. $180 - 4 phones, unlimited everything $210 - 5 phones, unlimited everything
Except he's full of shit too. Before their change over on plans, T-Mobile had an Internet-only 100 minutes, unlimited text, and unlimited data prepaid plan for $30/month. Now I have to pay an extra $40 every month for voice minutes I don't use, or can circumvent using VoIP over LTE? And when he bashes other "carriers", what about Sprint, who offers the exact same prepaid plans at the same price for individuals, in addition to their normal plans? And in the US, a no-contract plan doesn't mean "carrier choice" or any meaningful competition unless you buy a new phone MORE often than once every 2 years. The wireless bands the carriers operate on are all different, and most phones are specialized for a particular carrier. Even for LTE, each carrier uses different frequency bands. So the ONLY people T-mobile's new plans mean shit for is: (1) People that will want a new phone (on a different carrier) earlier than 2 years, (2) people that want to stay with their current phone for more than 2 years. If they really wanted to shake things up - they should create an easy to use VoIP app that resolves to a real number, exclusive to their customers for free, and pair it with a plan available only in their new LTE cities, of $30 unlimited data, and $0.05/minute per use of backup voice when no data connection available. (And they already have Wi-Fi calling available, but where it still uses minutes despite your phone operating over your own home Wi-Fi network. So they are technically set up for the above scenario.)
So....here's my thing. I'm half deaf. When I talk on the phone, it consumes all of my focus. I can't do anything else or else I miss what the person is saying and I have to ask "what?" a bunch of times. I'm also all over the place, constantly doing multiple things at once so when my focus is solely on a phone conversation, I have to stop everything. I hate it. I MUCH prefer texting. Currently, I've used 3/450 anytime minutes and sent 512/unlimited texts with 16 days left until it resets. I don't consider myself to be shallow.
Well you do need to have something on scientific record. Studies like these exist for more substantial studies to follow them up. That's how psychology works, you start with the correlational then you use that data to set up lab experiments to provide evidence for directionality. You have to do this study because when you get to the experimental you aren't allowed to cite "c'mon everyone already knows this". One of my biggest pet peeves is people saying something isn't worth studying, you can never know that and without reading the actually study I'm going to safely guess that they had credible sources to back up the logic behind their research.
It's very important to note that this is a correlational study. While the article makes it sound like frequent texting causes shallow thinking, it is equally as likely that being a shallow thinker makes people text more.
Let me say that I believe this is an example of a news website sensationalizing an interesting and impressive story for the purpose of making money. This article is terrible. First off, the first line is "Have we found the next tech millionaire genius?" This is a terrible opener and it draws comparisons to the founder of tumblr. While it is great and interesting that he built a basic functioning submarine, it is 2 plastic tubes, electronics and a piece of plexiglass. Im assuming he designed everything and assembled and wired it himself, which is not easy but not terribly difficult. IMO what defines a "tech millionaire genius" is someone who fulfills a need or potential need with services/products that either have not existed before, or are heavily improved upon or modified. This submarine is impressive, but not something completely new. He did not invent the submarine. for example, It would be akin to saying that Jose, an uneducated mexican immigrant who designed his own amazing house, and built, wired, and ran his HVAC and plumbed it himself for a fraction of the cost of a "retail" house could be a "millionaire tech genius". Jose did not invent the idea of the house, nor did he invent wiring systems or HVAC and plumbing systems or practical uses of electricity. It is remarkable, but not something out of the ordinary. Then the article makes comparisons for the cheapest consumer available submarine. I believe this retail submarine is overpriced, but there is no comparison in terms of features. Justin's submarine can dive approx 30 feet. The retail sub is designed for 150 feet. Also, Justin's viewing window appears to point straight up. The retail sub offers a 360 degree viewing bubble, and also 150 minutes of air. I somehow doubt justin's system can come close to this. Now, if the sub were nuclear powered, or had some distinct advantage or new feature that Justin had invented over the retail sub (aside from price, which is completely arbitrary) then it would be something very interesting.
FYI, this is just Samsung Electronics revenue. Samsung the conglomerate is even larger - FY2010 generated 280 trillion KWN (~245 billion USD). I wasn't able to find FY2012 revenue for Samsung the conglomerate, but FY2010 Samsung Electronic revenue was 154.63 trillion KWN (~134 billion USD), so everything else equal, Samsung the conglomerate generated at least 289 billion USD for FY2012, but most likely much more. Here's a list of Samsung subsidiaries:
Sorry, should have been more specific. First, kids don't WEAR SHIRTS that say "Fuck," because of the dress code. Second, I was talking about DIRECTLY CONFRONTING a teacher. Caps to make things easier to see. Also, you made a mistake on your "
Ding Ding Ding. When I was a senior in private high school (5 years ago), I had a Resource Officer walk into my school in full tactical gear and interrogate my little brother until he was shaking and crying, then swore a warrant for my arrest. Apparently some kid at the public school was pursued by the officer off of school grounds, was caught with a dime bag of weed, and got out of it by convincing the officer that I was "trafficking in mass quantities of marijuana and cocaine and manufacturing LSD (I can't make this up) by the gallon in a clandestine lab in the father's basement." I did not even have a basement. What happened was some punk kid started making up shit to get out of trouble, and the officer asked for the source of the weed using my full name. His suspicion came about because my brother's friend who attended that school had a hypersensitive allergic reaction to Excedrin PM and everyone thought he was on acid. The officer verbally and physically assaulted my brother (handcuffing him in front of his peers in my father's chemistry class) and accused him of being my "drug mule". My brother had never used any drug other than marijuana and to this day still has a crippling, irrational fear of the police. The mother of one of the students unleashed hell as did my father and principal, demanding that the officer be fired and no resource officers could enter our grounds without the headmaster's explicit permission or a signed warrant. The officer received 2 months of paid leave to finish up the school year and was transferred to the other major high school in our county the following school year.
So yeah this is bad, but in reality you do need to watch what you post online. I don't get why people get angry if they get in trouble for underage drinking, stealing, partying, etc... In the real world your employers and colleges look at your Facebook and anything linked to it. Posting stupid shit to a public database is just asking for trouble. I was in high school when Facebook came out and many people got in trouble for posting stuff.
The only news here is that somebody wrote a script to help schools track their students. Dont you people realize Jonathan Postel and his friends have benn watching everything everybody does online since the beginning of the internet? He has to know this stuff or the internet would have fallen apart long ago.
For those of you throwing out "1st Amendment" and "Freedom of Speech" like they will protect/explain why this is a bad thing, please do a little research. Specifically: 1) The 1st Amendment does NOT protect ALL speech. Libel, fighting words, provocations to violence, and obscenity are all UNprotected. In other words, bullying on Facebook or Twitter is NOT protected. 2) Publicly available. There is no invasion of privacy here. And even if the settings were such that only the offender's friends could see them, I think the school would have a pretty good argument that there still wasn't a perception of privacy. 3) The rights given under the 1st Amendment are different for adults and school kids. As in, children K-12 have fewer rights, period. There is a greater need for the schools to protect and discipline students, and overall maintain order, than the need of some kid to express him/herself. The purpose of this project is to protect students, not to infringe on privacy.
I assume you are saying that there is freedom of expression in schools, which I disagree with for a few reasons (and others): School dress codes. If a student were to wear a shirt that said "Fuck the Government," he/she would be told to cover it to avoid offending anyone who didn't like the word "fuck." Though you can easily justify taking this right, that doesn't mean you're not taking a right. I will say that I do not know whether or not a student would be forced to cover a campaign shirt, e.g. "Obama - Biden." No ability to criticize the school staff. Most student hand books have a simple, vague "Students must respect the teachers/other staff." This sounds good on paper, but I saw the rule used to send students out of class for respectfully (at least my definition of "respectfully") criticize the teacher's methods, as well as give a student detention for criticizing a school lunch that was served. The only thing that makes these not a complete violation of rights, is the fact that you "technically" don't have to go to school (You can home-school, no one does it). I also assume that you don't have any argument against my assertion that there is no due process in schools. A student does something the teacher doesn't like, the office personnel take the teacher's word for what happened 99% of the time, and the student is punished with no chance to prove his/her side of the story.
Risk management department? Every student bring a risk management department with them: it is their legal guardian(s)/parent(s). If the kids are tweeting inappropriate stuff and it leads to an incident, the ultimate responsibility falls on the parents. If an incident happens at school and they could have caught it via social media the night before, it should still fall on the parents not watching what their children are tweeting ; however, in this lawsuit-centered "I nor my child is at fault"-society, schools have to waste money on "risk management departments." This would be solved easily by making parents sign a form at the beginning of EVERY school year that they are responsible for their child, their child's actions, and their child's possessions while on or near campus. The school is nullified of all responsibility of the actions or words of the child after hours and off campus.
So a lot of comments already, and this will probably get lost in the shuffle, but here goes anyway. I am a teacher at a private high school near St. Louis, MO. Although I am unsure about whether or not I want my school to adopt this type of system, I can see its merits. I noticed a lot of posters (most of whom I'm assuming are current students or recent high school grads) who very adamantly stated that the school's responsibility begins and ends in the classroom. I could not disagree with them more. If I am leaving my students behind as soon as the bell rings, I am doing them (and myself) a huge disservice. If I don't take an interest in what my students are doing with their lives, why are they going to care what I am trying to teach them in the classroom? Why should they care about me and what I am teaching? By supporting and attending their sporting events, band concerts, reading their school newspaper, and investing some of my free time into what they care about, I hope to give my students some reason to listen to me other than because it's required by law that they stay in school until they're 18. I also coach basketball at our school. We had a coaches meeting before school started and a sports psychologist from a D1 school asked us whether or not we should follow our players on twitter. Most of us said we shouldn't for various reasons. He made some pretty compelling arguments for why we probably should be following them. He challenged us to check our players' social media activities, and ask ourselves how well we really know our players. I know of at least one coach who found out he didn't. This is a coach who does more than probably any other at our school to get to know his players on a personal level off the court and off the field and outside the classroom. The sports psychologist also mentioned that just about every single D1 coach that he knew was following their players and recruits on twitter. Now for them, it's more money driven. They need the public image of their programs to be solid and upstanding, and this includes what their players and recruits are saying publicly. But there is also the motivation to teach the students what they say and do can mean for themselves and others; the motivation to teach these young people how to be public citizens. It's generally accepted that a company is not doing its due diligence if they don't check out what their applicants (and possibly their employees) are doing online. I think the same argument can be made for a school and its students. I would love for all of my students to graduate high school with an appreciation for and the ability to problem solve, understand basic algebraic and statistical concepts, to be able to manipulate numbers and tables and graphs, to apply some basic mathematical concepts into their daily lives. But what is more important than that (for me) is that these students graduate better understanding who they are and where they live. That everyone has a camera in their pocket. That everything they post on the internet or email to their friend (whether it's "public" or "private") will never go away. That bullying someone physically, verbally, or emotionally is not positive behavior. That they should treat other people (online or elsewhere) with respect. That success isn't about their GPA or their test scores or their 40 time: it's about being a problem solver; it's being someone that people can trust; it's about thinking before we act, but still not being afraid to act. If monitoring my students' and my players' social media activities can help me do this at all, I will. I'm not trying to be their parent. I'm not trying to be their friend. I'm just trying to help them in anyway I can as a mentor, teacher, and counselor. Does every teacher and educator feel this way? Probably not. But more do then we give credit for sometimes.
It goes without saying tho, that if a student gets punished for something said on social media, or something they do outside of school, those parents have every right to sue the school, and the parents will win. You are absolutely wrong . In some circumstance , and in some jurisdictions , a student may prevail in a lawsuit against the school for disciplinary action taken as the result of off-campus and/or online speech. But it is far from certain, and in many cases, the odds are actually that the school will win (again, obviously depending on circumstances). The Robbins case you keep citing to (a) has no precedential value, and (b) is pretty much completely distinguishable from the issues at hand here. If you want to take a look at some cases which ARE directly relevant to this issue, you will find your understanding of the law is severely incomplete, and that you cannot go on making these claims. In Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools (4th Cir. 2011), a high school student in West Virginia created a Myspace page (on her own time) which was allegedly for the purpose of bullying another student. The school took disciplinary action under its anti-harassment/bullying policy, and the student sued. Relying on the Tinker case, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals noted that schools have the authority to punish speech that "disrupts classwork, creates substantial disorder, or collides with or invades the rights of others," so long as the speech in question causes a material and substantial interference with school operation. The 4th Circuit went on to hold that bullying creates a substantial disruption, and that the student intended (and should have realized) that the speech would reach school grounds. Result: the punishment was upheld. Later, in D.J.M. v. Hannibal Public School District No. 60 , the 8th Circuit similarly held that off-campus speech which could reasonably have been foreseen to reach the school gates and cause a substantial disruption, and in fact do. These opinions were issued at the appellate level, which means that in the 4th and 8th Circuits, schools will not have much impediment to punishing students for off-campus speech, except if they do so in cases of speech that clearly pose no threat of substantial disruption (and make no mistake - school administrators are very good at imagining ways in which things they don't like can cause disruption). The 3rd Circuit (which includes PA), is still somewhat undecided. In the somewhat recent Layshock and Blue Mountain School District cases, the circuit exhibited a split between those judges believing that off-campus speech is protected at the same level as ordinary citizens' speech, and those who believe that off-campus speech which causes a disruption at school may be punished. The one principle they did all agree on, however, was that a school cannot punish speech merely because it is crude or causes some discomfort. We will have to wait for another case to come along to see how the 3rd Circuit will rule.
Narcotics officers that chose that profession specifically? Yes. But the overwhelming majority of cops in general? Absolutely not. My particular town had some nasty cops but the surrounding areas had some really great guys as a rule, not an exception. When I was 19 and back visiting I was robbed at gunpoint by an old classmate who had lured us to walk the quarter mile to his house. We ran and called the sheriff and they were unbelievably helpful. They gave me a ride home and sent a car for me to testify at the hearing. One detective offered his personal number for counseling and even had the DA call me for my opinion on the guy's plea deal when it was clear I wouldn't show for a subpoena. Fast forward 4 years and I got a call last month from the detective in charge. They had found my cash on the side of the road from where I grabbed it and ran, gunshots whizzing past my head, and he was cleaning the evidence locker and found the cash and managed to contact my school's alumni association and get my contact number. I picked up the cash the following day.
So, using cameras and audio recording in malls, in which scenario is the school more justified in intervening: a student tells his/her friends something in a crowded food court and a school administer overhears it or the student posts something online and Geo Listening catches it? In both cases, it's publicly available content. And in both cases, anyone who wants to listen, can. The difference is intentionality. The school administer accidentally overhead the conversation and Geo Listening was purposefully looking for it. One of the things we're talking about here is defining the rights of public space and expression. Do we have a zone of privacy even in public? Can anything we say outside the home be considered public? What and where is private? Is home considered private? If I talk too loudly at home, is it now public? Should it be used against me? The other thing we're talking about is the intentionality of gathering personal information. Does the active gathering of personal information infringe on privacy and personal rights? Both of the previous examples (mall, online) are subcategories of public space. The question I have for you is: if both in the mall and online are considered public space, why is there any difference in terms of privacy? What makes online transmission less private than being physically out in public? In addition, who is the agent of action in blurring the lines of privacy? Is the student to blame for posting on an public forum or is the school district to blame for purposefully seeking out this information? I agree that in both scenarios, it is the responsibility of the transmitter to be responsible and careful with the message, including opting for the 5th amendment if necessary. I also think that it is the responsibility of other people to allow for privacy. What we're doing with this active surveillance is building a country full of paranoid schizophrenics. The same thing happened during the Cultural Revolution here in China: anything you said anywhere was public and could be used to drag you or your family off to prison camps, jail, or execution. As a result, people became isolated, paranoid, divided, and uncooperative. It still persists today, 40 years later. This is what happens when you shift the entirety of responsibility of information transmission onto the transmitter. Now, the good part about America is that we can have these kinds of open debates, which hopefully will prevent any American Cultural Revolutions from taking place (God, I hope so). The only thing detrimental to democracy are blanket statements like this one and yours that there exists a privacy difference between various channels of public transmission. Your statement and statements like it shift the entirety of the responsibility onto the transmitter, and have the potential to create an isolated, paranoid, divided, and uncooperative country.
The idea of this system is a good one, but there are several major flaws with it. Being a student myself, I feel that my tweets/facebook/reddit/etc. posts should be my own. It's none of anyone's business, especially some third party I have never met or seen, to pry into my private life, aggregate my social media info, and then hand it to administrators who barely understand how the internet works. IMO, the concept as a whole is pretty flawed. Most of the time, social media from students will almost never be about their private life. Unless they have a separate/anonymous account (like this site here), I doubt any student would want to say they are being bullied publicly where the very same bully could see it, and even cause more problems. Ignoring that fact, to what effect will this system be? I'm going to take a guess and say none at all. From my experience with administrations (and I am taking experience from private schools here, however I get this impression from public schools as well), they almost never know how to use technology properly. I've had teachers and administrators alike that can barely use computers. How can you have a system to check on student safety when the people who should be looking at the data don't understand that data? I will say that I think the idea is good. The execution is just bad. There are many other ways to help students who are being bullied -- the first is going out and trying to find those bullies. There is a giant lack of this in most schools anyhow. Another method you could use, instead of silently collecting student's social media data, is simply having an anonymous method of reporting incidents. While the proposed system has this, it is overshadowed by the other details. You wouldn't even need a specialized system -- a school could simply open a subreddit where students could post these incidents and more completely anonymously. No student would ever find out what poster is what, unless they manage to backtrack IPs and the like, but I doubt that any one bully knows how do that that.
Sadly schools don't waste money on risk management. And its not the students that are a risk, its those dam employees that district have to worry about. When a Student get hurt we call the parent or the ambulance and generally thats the end of it. We have to really have to legitimately screwed up negligently for public schools to be liable for a student. Using actual data, we proved that our risk manager regularly saved enough money in futures workman's comp claims that her recommendations were expanded to other departments of the district. More important to me, I got about 70000 to open up another classroom the first year. They primarily reduced workman's comp claims and wrongful firing claims, which on average were costing in excess of $25000 for each incident. Bogus stress leave and worker injuries claims were successfully fought or reduced because we could prove that staff failed to follow training or procedures. I am sure some of the tweeting/social media they will be watching is that of staff. We had a teacher completely violate special education law and document it on their Facebook. Another teacher used class time to update their website with their vacation photos, taken while they took sick time. They thought since it was a "private" account that the district couldn't see the traffic. They were wrong. Both were fired, sued to try to fight it, committed perjury, and then found themselves with attorney who was requesting to be dismissed from the case when our disclosure was provided. When a student get hurts on campus it rarely cost us more than taking the time to be compassionate and a single sheet of paper which is scanned and distributed. When an employee gets hurt we pull out the forms. Then there is an investigation. The employee is paid for sick days, but is not out of their sick time. Medical bills are paid on top of their medical insurance which we also pay for. Then there is the cost of the substitute, the entire time they are on limited duty. Then there is mileage expense. Then the lawyers both their and ours. Etc.
Okay, I'm going to try to explain this as I see a lot of incorrect explanations of quantum teleportation here. First thing you need to know is the no cloning theorem . Basically if I have an arbitrary quantum state, it is impossible to duplicate it. If you measure it in order to try to learn about the state and make your own, you can destroy it. (This part is somewhat misleading, but more or less correct) That means in a sense, each piece of quantum information is somewhat unique. If your information is stored on a physical system like an atom, you can point to a specific atom and say "that one has my information" and not that atom next to it. If you want to transport quantum information, you'd then have to send your atom (or photon or whatever) to whoever you want. By physically moving the particle containing the information, you have therefore moved the information. Quantum teleportation is interesting because it allows a quantum state to be transferred. If Alice has quantum state A, and Bob has quantum state B, we know from the no cloning theorem that Bob cannot simply duplicate his state B to send to Alice. However, if Alice and Bob already share an entangled set of particles, it is possible for Bob to perform measurements with particle B and entangled pair particle, and then send the information (in the form of "classical" bits) to Alice. The measurements will destroy the quantum state of B, but Alice can now transform her quantum state A into quantum state B. We call this transmission of the quantum state "teleportation". To summarize a bit, quantum teleportation is when a quantum state is transferred from one place to another without actually traveling between the two places. This isn't quite teleportation in the normal sci-fi sense, but it's important for quantum information processing.
Another analogy that might help. Imagine a special pair of dice. When rolled, they will always add up to 7, but only on the first roll after touching each other. Now you have no way of encoding information onto the dice, but you can use it to create an encryption key. Say you roll a 4, you know the other die reads 3. Do it with a 2nd pair of dice and you might get 1 and 6. This gives you a 'one-time-pad' to use to encrypt your message. This is unbreakable, with out the matching pad. The main useful point here is the single roll factor. If someone were to steal the die on the way and roll it, they would now have the pad. The proper receiver would get random garbage. If you are willing to sacrifice some of your pad, you can check for someone eavesdropping. As for the faster than light communication element, you need to make the analogy more complex. You no longer have a matched die, but a matched die and coin. The problem is that using either one will break the entanglement. If you flip the coin, the die randomises, if you roll the die, the coin flip randomises. Take this system and vary from rolling the die to flipping the coin. The receiver measures both. You later tell them which you did on each turn. The one they did will match up, the other will be random. However, you chose which you would do, AFTER they were split! This means they must have communicated! This effect is instantaneous. Unfortunately, without the knowledge of which was chosen, you cannot decode the results. This is, in effect the opposite of the first case. In the first you were sending a 1 time pad via the entanglement, allowing you to encode a message with it over normal (sub-C) channels. The second is the reverse, you can send a message faster than light, but it is encrypted with a 1 time pad, that must be sent slower than light.
In 1997, quantum bit teleportation was successfully achieved," Oh, so this is old news ??? . . . > "but as I said just now, it was only achieved in a probabilistic sense." Well, I didn't read or hear you say it, but, okay, so this is new news - cool . . . >In 1998, we used a slightly different method to succeed at unconditional, complete teleportation." 'Unconditional' == 'absolute,' meaning you absolutely accomplished it. Wait, so it is old news :-/ . . .??? >But at that time, the state sent wasn't a quantum bit, but something different. Right, it's clear now, you 'probably' achieved it, but now you're sure . . . or something like that? > "Now, we've used our experimental technology, which was successful in 1998, to achieve teleportation with quantum bits." So, now you've succeeded doing something you didn't but probably did not unsuccessfully achieve in 1997 or 1998. I think I'm beginning to understand, except that I don't, but I told you that. > "The title of our paper is "Hybrid Technique," and developing that technique is where we've been successful." I see. You developed a new title for a paper, and now you've developed a new, previously successful technique that fits under that title. Sounds cool - and I have little to no idea what it means. Sigh.
That was actually a really good read. Got into a lot of the details without getting too messy with unfamiliar terminology. Thanks! (also, I'd say this is basically the
I think this is exactly his point. Who logically reads a post about one brand and its suspect manufacturing and then tries to justify it by saying others do it too. It seems like someone took offense to something negative coming out about their favorite product. I get it, I do it with the Detroit Lions all the time. Was the original post false? I think what we have here is the sports team mentality of Sony vs Microsoft. The same reason [this]( was eaten up as fact. The majority of Reddit wants Sony to "win".
I think it's important to differentiate that the article about the xbox "720" was released in may, and the article here was written (as was its chinese source) in the last few days. If you don't think it's news that Sony is assembling at foxconn so be it, but I fail to find the bias you do in the article. They're the exact same article. I think they both have a point to single out each developer and they don't have a responsibility to list ever other foxconn abusers, these articles are about specific buyers of the labor. I also find it petty to make a separate reddit post like this literally calling out the original topic and "debating" it with an article five months old.
No, but it seems like these cases always pop up for huge projects with an upcoming global release. I can't prove this, but here's how I believe it works: Foxconn accepts big project (i.e., iphones, PS4, etc...something that's going to be sold globally and that people really want so they need to make a ton) Foxconn needs more workers to meet final deadlines, but does not want to hire more workers and then fire them again a few months later when the final rush is over. Schools offer (or perhaps Foxconn asks for, no way to be sure) to solve this problem by providing Foxconn with short-term laborers that cost nothing and cannot quit but will disappear without complaining once the final stretch period of production is over. Foxconn pays school officials a kickback (basically, a bribe) in return for this, so the students aren't totally "free", but they're still way cheaper than hiring actual workers and unlike real workers they're not going to whine and protest when they're out of work two months later. I don't think it's likely Sony had anything to do with the decision to use interns on this project, and I don't believe I implied anything like that in my article. However, I also don't think Sony cares much this is happening, and as I see it the company is still responsible in a couple of ways: Sony chose to work with Foxconn, despite the fact that (as I mentioned in the original article) Foxconn has a history of doing this, having done it at least twice before that I can remember (and probably many more times) with similar projects (tight, immovable deadlines and huge global demand). At the very least, Sony either (a) was aware that this sort of thing might happen or (b) was extremely negligent in its research of Foxconn as a manufacturing partner. I think the former is far more likely than the latter. Sony obviously wasn't following the manufacturing process very closely, or it was but didn't give a shit about this "internship" program. Again, given that Foxconn has had so many very public issues very similar to this in the past, it seems odd that if Sony cared about this, it would not have been watching closely enough to discover it happening and stop it.
Microsoft's business is now based on inertia. Most people just want to "do stuff" on their computer and the thought of changing to something different is literally scary. This is one of the most powerful reasons why people won't even consider switching from Microsoft Office or Windows. Touchscreens was the new tech on the block. Apple obviously had a massive advantage with a similar feel in their phones and tablets and Linux was threatening to look more technologically advanced with Ubuntu Unity clearly being written with touch in mind. Microsoft dearly wanted to break into the phone and tablet market, but hadn't been too successful. So, they had an idea. What if they could translate their users' intransigence on the PC to the mobile? People have shown that they'll simply ignore better technology in favour of what's familiar. So if MS could pull it off, they could nab significant market share with an inferior product. The hitch was that Windows as was, was unsuitable for phones and tablets (some would bitchily say "desktops too!") All (haha) they needed to do was to get everyone using a new, different-looking (and therefore IP protected) Windows that also was on the phone. If they pulled that off, people would make the easy choice of having a phone where everything worked like in Windows (and presumably there would be some cool ideas about integrating the two). Microsoft would have cracked the mobile market in a way with which Apple was unable to compete, trading on the loyalty inertia of their existing dominance in the PC market. However, live by the sword, die by the sword. A customer base with strong inertia is nearly as inert towards you as your competition. The use of XP shows this. This is where MS failed. People were quite happy with the desktop interface on their desktop and hated the new touch-screen biased one, partly because most didn't have touch-screens or even want touch screens and partly because it's horrible. Once it is the de facto standard, it doesn't matter how horrible it is, you have a self-sustaining business, which is the secret of Microsoft's continued success. However, MS were faced with the problem of towing their user base into clear water which they could then fill with IP lawyer sharks. They were successful in doing that with the ribbon in Office, but that was a smaller change that business forced people to learn. This change had to come from customers because businesses upgrade their operating systems far more slowly than applications and they didn't want Apple interfaces to be standard for the mobile market. It looks like MS have lost the battle with inertia and have caved on the desktop.
yeah sure. no wonder, you hate everyone at your job. instead of actually hearing about the problem, you will bitch about why people don't accept your solution. here is a real life tip for you. if you keep solving a different problem than what requires a solution, people will keep whining. so, try and understand the actual issue, if you wish to solve it. or else, just keep wondering why no one cares about your stupid solutions.
IT guy here. One of the things I do is build custom PCs for offices. Simply because a PC built from parts will always be cheaper, faster, prettier and will have better warranty than anything from the big OEMs. The distributors where I buy my parts all still have Windows 7 and 8 for sale. It depends on the situation what I use. For normal office computers, it makes sense to buy Windows 8 Pro, but install Windows 7 Pro. Since you're downgrading, you can use any 7 install key you like, instead of having to crawl underneath a desk to read a sticker. Also, it makes them slightly more futureproof, although I don't expect any of my customers to ever upgrade to 8. One customer, however, specifically needs Windows XP. The reason why isn't terribly relevant, but they specifically need XP. Hence, for them I get Windows 7 Pro, allowing for a downgrade to XP, and to later upgrade to 7 for free, if needed. Occasionally, I build a consumer machine (not too often), and usually, I'll use 7 Home for those. I tend to consult with the consumer in question about this, but nearly always, they'll be happier with 7 than 8.
Shortly after the Note first came out, I knew about its existence but hadn't seen it. I went to view a house and we were meeting the agent, a short chubby lady. Right as we walked up she got a phone call and pulled the Note out of her giant purse and stuck it to her face, and I burst out laughing for a few seconds. Honestly it was really awkward, but it was RIDICULOUS. It looked so fucking stupid with how large it was, and plus she was so small... it really was exactly like a normal sized person sticking a full tablet to their face. It was like a 5'0 tall cowboy climbing out of a truck lifted 4' off the ground... it's just hilarious.
OpenGL didn't do what was needed. Just ask Carmak after he ported Quake to a mini OpenGL implementation on 3dfx Voodoo. A game custom designed for one video card, and not a cheap one. That is exactly the problem that needed solving. DirectX didn't require consumers to upgrade their hardware every few years, and a lot of consumers benefited. It took years before only the most expensive cards had a full OpenGL implementation. Exactly the problem we need to avoid. And with the excellent driver model change starting in Vista, the world is a much better. Virtualized 3D hardware allows multiple 3d apps running at high speed. Bulk of driver code pushed into userland, where buggy video card drivers cannot crash the kernel. Video card can be reset on the fly if it stops responding. Meanwhile, OpenGL was 4 years behind DirectX in technology (shaders in DirectX 8 in 2000, and Open GL 2.0,in 2004)
Off of the legal portion of their website: "The inclusion of any products or services on this website at a particular time does not imply or warrant that these products or services will be available at any time"
This is wrong. Tracking happens because when you request a page, the website can take a note with your IP, a timestamp and the exact URL you requested. This kind of logging is widespread and won't go away (as it's used to fight spam, take statistics, etc), but it can be used to correlate your IP address to a given access pattern ("Tracking"). Some people use proxies, VPNs or Tor to prevent their usage to be tracked this way, but they can insert in their log any other information they have about you, such as cookies, your browser fingerprint (see panopticlick . Some extensions can be used to block access to certain servers, so you never contact them in the first place (eg: if you block access to ads, ad networks won't be able to track you). Note that you can't block access to the website you're viewing. Other extensions may aim to limit the amount of data that your browser exposes. You can limit this data a little by changing browser settings too (such as not accepting cookies, or deleting them when the browser closes). It may have a limited efficacy: if you follow the panopticlick link I gave, it shows how much a website you enter can identify you by things like which browser you use or which fonts are installed in your computer. Which is to say, a lot. Tracking is more harmful when it's done between many sites. For example, if you enter a blog with Google ads and then enter another, Google now has in its logs both accesses, and can use them to create a profile of your browsing habits. Extensions can help mitigate this - but they can't prevent reddit to track your browsing inside the site itself. And they indeed track this, in order to show the "recently viewed links" in the bottom of the sidebar, and perhaps do other things we don't know about. I suppose they do a lot of statistics too (such as: which subreddits sends a lot of people to subreddits they have never visited before?) No extension prevents you to be tracked by the site you're visiting. I would expect that if I set DNT in my browser, reddit won't show me "recently viewed links" because this feature clashes with my privacy preferences, regardless of what's in the "show me links I've recently viewed" in reddit's settings. (also: if I use two browsers to access the same account, one with DNT and other without, it should show such links only from the browser that doesn't have DNT) edit: note that setting DNT give sites more information about you! Using the statistical techniques seen in panopticlick above, opting for DNT makes it easier for sites to track you, and in general giving information about your preferences (any kind of preference) to every website you visit makes you less anonymous . It has no advantages too, since nobody is going to honor DNT in any meaningful way.
I feel like this is going to get downvoted deeper than backdoor sluts 9 but I have had google fiber for about 2.5 years now (I live in one of the first trial cities) and it honestly is not all everyone makes it out to be. It frequently disconnects, is often slow, and is only fast if you use an Ethernet cable on the router (which tremendously slows down the wireless speed for other users). Google comes in about 2 times a year and upgrades the hardware, which honestly doesn't fix the speed for more than a week. I just got back from college and the internet is unusable, we are just going to subscribe to new internet.
Cox is the only real option in my area. They have always been very helpful, and offer 150 mbts package which is very fast for this area (unfortunately.) It's way better than the 25 down you get from AT&T. Their service is good, and they can be reasoned with over stupid charges like $60 for some guy to come out, sit in his truck, and then come in and reset my modem.... Yeah, could have done that myself! I have even convinced them to give me a super deal on the 150 down package. I'm paying $79/month, mainly because I talked to the manager (several transfers up the phone chain.) Come to find out, I'm one of very few in my area to take this top tier internet package. I told this person that their internet was good, and I feel they are at a precipice in this ISP game. They can choose the dark side like Com Warner, or go the direction of google, and actual expand and increase their infrastructure.
I dont think people think of it as "hippie anarchism". I think the notion of these actions have been degraded. For example, riots can just be people trying to make violence sound meaningful, like the London riots. The vast majority where just looters. As for over throwing a government, most of the people you see mention that on forums such as reddit seem to think you can just march into the governments head quarters, gun everyone down, and life will just be great, and seem to ignore the fact that any such actions could be cataclysmic for the stability of a nation. I mean for one disagreeing with the law a politician supports doesnt sentence them to death, and starting some kind of civil war over a matter such as this isnt worth it. If it was a situation of dire circumstances maybe it would be a legitimate option, but something like this isnt worth killing people and creating choas.
Oh, no it doesn't. I understand these things pretty well and I am trying to help you. I just wanted to know the limits of your understanding before I offered anything up. See you can't actually weaken an algorithm, so much. Because random numbers don't truly exist you can do things from hardware/software perspectives that can reduce how random they are. For example, an android bug had bad seed generation so some folks were generating predictable private keys. Intel chips have built in capabilities that provide random generators - RDRAND. However, Linux uses an large pool of entropy and it actually turned out the way they implemented RDRAND still strengthened the pool in spite of NSA's successful attempts to weaken it at the hardware level.. So that's a software and a hardware example. Algorithms are just math. When someone says encryption is weakened it usually means part of the algorithm has been affected and it is less random or more predictable. I wouldn't necessarily call it significantly easier. If the NSA can do it other people can do it. Plus, the NSA has developed their own standards. It would be stupid for them to use technology they know has weaknesses - as anyone can use them. Finally, most of the time the NSA just subpoena's the key or certificate owner and forces them to just fork over their private keys. This is known as the "Monkey Wrench" vector. It's equivalent to beating you with a monkey wrench until you give up your keys. If you want to know what kind of toys the NSA is playing with watch Jacob Appelbaum's "To Protect and Infect Part 2" from the Chaos Communication Convention. Anyway, we can guarantee crypto has not been weakened because algorithms are peer reviewed, many times a day for many years straight. The NSA can't force you to implement a failed algorithm, though you might mess it up yourself. The only thing they can do is tamper with the things that contribute to the algorithm and use thuggery - oh and the cases where vendors have purposefully put backdoors in their hardware for them, Apple, Cisco, Western Digital, Maxtor, HP, Dell, the list goes on. *
Your logic is true except for the chip & pin portion. It's very hard to say "all these guys are bad, all these other guys are good!", I understand that, but to say that chip & pin implementation would have been slacked on by the retailers is an outrageous statement, especially in the banking world. Banks had the chance to implement C&P systems, they chose not to. Retailer used sub-standard data security practices, was hacked. Those are the only 2 facts that matter. If the banks had implemented C&P systems, then their hands would be 100% clean and litigation would be a very clear option because you can argue pure negligence on the retailers for not upgrading their systems. But the moment that banks didn't implement C&P, their hands are dirty as well.
No no no no, no no no. As someone working in the business encryption field, this is inherent fault of banks and credit card. Ignore this lawyer talk of who is at legal fault, cause that's just blame game that will not help consumer. To create a secure system, the technical aspects mean you must originate from the banks and CC. You do not want retailers dabbling in customers accounts or security thereof. Customer and retailers should be both double blind in security aspects, meaning your financials should be safe regardless what is happening at the POS. We already have the technology. Apple pay is a start. The slow adoption to Chip and PIN is because banks and CC in the US had no need to. To say it blunt, most American are dumb as fuck on their personal finances. Banks and CC have been exploiting this fact for years. 2014, year of the data breach, has finally pushed PR cost and liability cost enough for banks and CC to kind of show they care. They have always been fully aware of the risk they are taking, not some innocent doe. And guess what, banks and CC also knew full well that shit was gonna hit the fan soon (in hindsight, reality was sooner). EMV is already going to mandate Chip and PIN by 10/2015, finally US has caught up. So when get your mailed replacement of new Chip cards, don't thank them, they are just bringing you decades old patch. It would maybe take another 5 years before US culture shifts to accepting PIN'Chip, so banks and CC aren't really helped by it. By then 2020, it would have been better if we just leap frog the whole thing.
I can't find any assertions by Merchant Consumer Exchange (MCX), the makers of CurrentC, as to why they need this information. Here's some likely theories, though: When paying with a paper check at a retailer, they'll ask for similar information, usually drivers license to get the DL number. I believe this is used to check a history of previous transactions. E.g., if you've bounced checks recently, the retailer will be less likely to take check as payment. I have read that retailers can use some information to do account verification before submitting the ACH transaction. This is intended to limit the possibility of the transaction bouncing back due to non-sufficient funds. Of course, there's always the possibility of something a little less untoward. We know that the details of transactions with CurrentC will be known to the retailer and possible MCX as well. That data is a veritable gold mine to advertisers and retailers. They use it to determine purchasing habits and consumer preferences, ultimately building profiles to "better engage customers", i.e., sell stuff. With more information available, the profile is the more accurate and precise. The practice of compiling this information is called "data mining". Here's one interesting case of data mining techniques , the retailer now has that information, possibly along with the purchase history at other retailers, which gives even further detail to the consumer profile. Now, what does this have to do with SSNs and DL numbers? Having these things enables CurrentC to pull together even more transactions that it otherwise wouldn't be able to relate to a consumer's profile. Imagine that MCX forges a data trading relationship with a car dealership. Now, new car loans can be related to a consumer's CurrentC profile. After buying a new car, the next time the consumer goes to a retailer and pays with CurrentC, the retailer would be able to print out coupons related to the car purchase (e.g., for seat covers or interior cleaner), which makes the consumer more likely to come back to that retailer, thus increasing profits for the retailer. Thinking about this sort of interaction at a large scale leads to some pretty Orwellian conclusions. Credit card and NFC payments, on the other hand, keeps all of this information with the card processor (e.g., Visa) and the card issuer (e.g., the bank). Both of these entities have far less incentive to participate in the data sharing than retailers. Also, iirc, NFC payments also generate a random, one-time code for use as the payment transaction identifier. This means that all the retailer sees is random numbers, which are useless for identifying multiple separate transactions by the same consumer, which hamstrings their profile building efforts.
If you're an American citizen you have rights and the states are not supposed to be allowed to take them away. Well, before incorporation of rights (14th amendment iirc), that was the point. The federal government couldn't pick a religion, or restrict arms or whatever, but the states could (as they were sovereign states in a defense pact and economic alliance similar to the EU today). Then again, that was back when people didn't travel more than 50 miles in their lives.
One the other hand, the article says that the banks have used covering the risk of information theft as justification for higher fees the banks charge the merchant any time a credit card is used. This can [hurt small businesses]( more than the large ones. It seems as though small businesses are helping to subsidize big businesses poor security. If making the big retailers partially responsible for credit card information theft helps make the transaction fees go down, or at least not go up, this would be good for small businesses.
But it really isn't. If it really were "extremely dangerous" no one would do it. I get it, millions of traffic deaths per year, etc. etc, preventable, sure. But that doesn't make it inherently more dangerous than other activities like, say, bungee jumping or skydiving. The problem is that 1) driving is an activity that (especially in the US) is a huge part of our lives. A large percent of our time is spent on the road and in huge numbers. Considering the total person-hours spent on the roads in giant hunks of metal traveling at high speeds adjacent to other hunks of metal traveling at the same speeds in other directions, injury rates are incredibly low, and keep getting lower all the time. Keeping ourselves safe while drive is absolutely a science at this point. 2) There are many different ways in which people can drive, and this affects injury statistics massively. Obviously driving while drunk, fatigued, no seatbelt, no child seat, no airbags, etc.etc.etc. will have a massive effect on your final outcome as a driver. This is not to mention traffic rules and conventions themselves and how they are massively different in developed countries (check out Thailand sometime... I've seen a family of 5 on a single moped while visiting, no helmets naturally). Potholes, guard rails, infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure -- it almost doesn't even make sense to apply a single word like "driving", there are so many different ways to do it.
Of course I'm being downvoted. Reddit's hivemind skews toward lower wage workers that have never owned or operated a business. Income != Profit. The profit will likely stay roughly the same, the premiums will be lower because there is less payouts in a lower risk situation. I can get insurance against a ninja attack that occurs after 3PM on Tuesdays pretty fucking cheap, but I bet the profit on that is going to be about the same for the insurance company as a more likely event that could occur, because of the increased risk of having to payout have a higher premium.
Why wouldn't they? They'll get sued, they'll pay out $3 million (literally nothing to Google), use it to fix the bug, and then move on. How many times will this happen? 100 times in the first year? That's $300 million, which is nothing more than a moderate-sized startup acquisition for Google, they make a dozen of these a year. How many in the second year, 25? Year three, maybe ten? By year 5 they're getting like one of these a year and they've just disrupted like 25 different industries worth a combined $100 billion.
As I understand it, Moore's Law deals specifically with our current silicon-based chip design. There are limits to how small components can be made. If they're small enough, the standard model of physics no longer applies. At that point, the parts are governed by quantum mechanics, which are unpredictable and can't be used to run computers. We'll reach the point where components are made that are as small as they can get and computers can't be made any more powerful or efficient using current, methods. That would be the end of Moore's Law. New methods of computing will need to be introduced after that. Right now there's quantum computing which utilizes the unique properties of quantum physics. It's only being used by governments and large corporations for very specific purposes. It's still very experimental, it's expensive, and doesn't have practical applications as far as most people are concerned. As it's developed, though, quantum computing might eventually come to replace our current method. As far as AI and the Singularity, futurists hypothesize that Moore's Law (the exponential improvement of microchips) is part of a larger exponential trend. They argue that the development of all technology is exponential. New technologies are created using their predecessors (for example, quantum computers wouldn't be possible without the calculation power afforded by electronic computers), and since we have those tools and the knowledge used to make them, new technologies can be made much more quickly than it took to make the older ones. So each new paradigm comes about more quickly. The hunter-gather paradigm lasted tens of thousands of years, the agricultural for thousands, the industrial for hundreds, and our current computer-age paradigm is about to come to an end after only a few decades. If that trend continues like the singularitarians propose it will, then paradigm shifts will happen in a matter of years, then months, and so on until it's impossible to differentiate between them. So Moore's Law is just a small part of that.
Alright I can give some perspective. At one point in my career I was a government scientist working for a national laboratory. I won't say which one, but everything we worked on was classified. It is the very nature of science and forensics types to want to collect data,we had a large budget, and while we weren't wasteful if you asked us to study a subject we were going to throw every test we could at it. Often times you would find yourself ordering tests, not because it answered your core question, but because it sated your innate curiosity as a scientist. A couple of times I remember looking at the results of a $2,000 test and thinking "geez I really didn't need this data". Now give an truly unlimited budget to a bunch of computer scientists and data analysts at the NSA along with carte blanche to tap into the back end of just about any network and you have the perfect recipe for bulk collection of data. I don't agree with the spying policy, but I don't think it's all nefarious purposes to live 1984 or to control the population from rioting because whoever wanted that. It's because you gave a bunch of nerdy scientists like myself a budget that didn't end and tell them "go collect everything on terrorists", and those scientists and data analysts were stoked to have huge statistically significant data sets that they can probably tap in real time and all sorts of modeling and analysis to help pinpoint who's a baddy and what they do. Problem is you just created a needle in a needle stack and now everytime some guy on free republic talks about how awesome it would be to blow up obama he's on a list somewhere and you suddenly have millions of false positives and no way to determine actionability or seriousness.
EDIT : Correcting numbers once again. Differential in the summer: 7 cents. Differential in the winter: 4 cents. Average: 5.5 cents. (It should probably be lower, because people use more power in the winter.) So the $2,000 is back when you have used about 2,000/0.055 ≃ 36,400 kWh. Lets assume you use 10 kWh per day. I guess that is a about right for a house that is interested in keeping the power bill low. Assuming you ONLY use power in peak time and ONLY charge the battery and off-peak time (which is the best condition), it will take about 10 years before your investment is returned. That is a lot of time. What is the value of not having all that money all that time? I'll pull a number out of my ass and say "2% interest rate". It should probably be more. This translates to about 11 years before you've save that too.
So what about pale Swedes with platinum blonde hair? Very little contrast among those type of people considering their eyelashed, eyebrows, skin, hair, lips, and teeth are all relatively the same shade. These people are likely picked up fine on this type of software and are plainly visible on most webcams. Drop your whole 'contrast' argument because it has a huge flaw in it. I'm black and I usually have to adjust the lighting in my room when I use a webcam since if it's too dark all you see are floaty eyes and a mad grin hovering around the screen. It's obviously not racism (I don't think anyone with a brain would jump to that conclusion. Even the guy in the video has a good sense of humour about it), it's just a case of poorly planned software and programmers not taking into account the fact that non-white people might buy the product. Simple, if unfortunate, oversight. Obviously the fault is based in some very specific technical oversight, don't try to oversimplify it with your first reasoning, obviously based on instinct rather than thought.