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I actually have been running Windows 8 on my desktop since the first Consumer Preview was released, and I like it even better than Windows 7. I'm pretty tech savvy, and I know I'm probably in the minority here, but it's just faster and more productive on my desktop. If you are terrified of the "formerly-known-as-Metro" interface, then keyboard shortcuts are your best friend. Boot up, log in, and press Win+D to jump straight to the desktop. Need to open a program? Hit Win, type the first few letters, and hit Enter. Need to change your "Shared" settings? Hit Win, type the first few letters, click "Settings", and it's right there. To me, this is so much faster than hunting through a constantly-rearranged Control Panel, hoping to end up in the right spot. Miss the Start Button on the desktop? Just tap Win--or click the bottom-left corner. Both bring you back to the Start Screen.
Aside from this, the universal search function is pretty amazing--you tell Windows what programs to include in any search (in the Settings->Change PC Settings menu), and when you pull up the Charms bar (Win+C) and click on the search button (Win+F), you can type in a search query and get results from different applications, files on your system, or results from online. All in one stop. It works really well.
Someone mentioned earlier that the boot time is faster--it is. I'm on an HP Envy x2, which is one of those tablet/laptop convertibles. So far, the fact that they run Atom processors is keeping people away, but this is pretty narrow thinking, really. I'm a teacher, and I've been using a 6-year-old Lenovo ThinkPad for the past three years. It runs Windows XP, and it takes ages to boot and longer still to get anything done. The HP boots in 12 seconds, and it runs all the applications that I need for work (Office, Adobe CS, Sibelius, Finale, Band-in-a-Box, etc) just fine.
I'm a music teacher, and I gig on the side, and last night I used the tablet to read all my charts. I just hopped from one song to the next using Metro-styled, PDF-reading apps. It was pretty awesome for that--fast, snappy, and I had 74% battery life after using it from 8-12:45 last night (75% brightness, internet on for an hour to give the crowd the countdown). The tablet gets around 6-7 hours of use, and the docking keyboard gives it another 6 or so--which completely trumps my old ThinkPad's measly ~3 hours of use.
Overall, Windows 8 is an OS that is faster booting, faster to use, more versatile (especially for convertibles), and usable on lower-powered systems without sacrificing hardly any performance. Power Users don't need to feel let down or that this is a watered-down, consumer-only release--on the desktop, right click the bottom-right corner (or hit Win+X) to get an administrative "Quick Start" menu with Device Manager, Control Panel, etc.
There's other good stuff about this release (syncing your account across multiple systems, remote desktop, new file explorer and task manager, SkyDrive integration, etc), but I've rambled on for far too long as it is. |
I never use the Mac App Store. All the applications I use are still distributed through traditional means (an installer downloaded from the app's website). Some examples are:
Chrome, Firefox, Cyberduck, VLC, SuperDuper, Handbrake, TeamViewer, Skype, Minecraft (and multiple variations), Sparrow, MS Office, Adobe CS6 (incl. Acrobat), Synergy KM, Dropbox, Google Drive, Audacity, and so on.
Once I was looking for a video converter in the App Store, but I didn't end up finding a good one there and eventually I just got Handbrake. |
As a computer technician, I hate Windows 8. It feels clunky not having a start menu, often taking more clicks to reach the desired menu. Even the all apps menu appears to be just a clusterfuck of every program that is installed on the computer when it used to be a nice organized menu making everything easy to find. Sure, there's a search feature, but Windows 7 had one too, and meanwhile organized everything in a coherent and understandable fashion.
There are also things in the background that changed that didn't need to. Printers are not just printers - for each printer there is a "software device" located in the device manager that governs whether or not it will appear in the "devices and printers" location, adding an extra component that can break and cause a printer to not work or appear, despite having the proper driver installed. Often to get this "software device" to reinstall, you will not only have to install the drivers but the entire printer software suite in order to get it to appear again. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of changes, but this is one of them. Making my work more difficult because something that used to be simple is now 2 or 3 times harder in Windows 8. This is relatively speaking of course, all in all I would say that Microsoft does a terrible job of making things simple. From a technician's standpoint, Apple is so much easier to help customer's with. With microsoft I get an error and search it online and find 20 different possible solutions many of which are obscure and a lot of work to implement. I get an error on a Mac, I search it and usually the first result is Apple's website telling me exactly how to fix it and 9/10 times it works.
Another thing that is absolutely terrible is the Mail App. This thing is god awful, requiring a Microsoft account to even work, and then it only supports IMAP and not POP. Some people like IMAP, but in my experience it is not nearly as reliable and responsive as POP is, and most mail providers focus their support on POP and IMAP is usually a second choice for them allowing people to use it. Getting IMAP to work with some providers is a chore to say the least, taking over an hour to get it even functional finding some obscure setting causing a problem. In contrast, Mozilla Thunderbird is free and often has the correct settings configured instantly, taking me less than 3 minutes to install and configure it. To me, it feels like this Mail App being so terrible was a ploy by microsoft to simply get people to buy their Outlook application, which "just works" in comparison to the mail app which rarely "just works". Yeah, if you have a hotmail account or msn account or something, it will just work. Fantastic, but for the rest of the people out there who use their ISP provider's email (bad idea to begin with, I know) the mail app is simply atrocious. The first 5 customers I had having trouble with the mail app I tried really hard to make it work, and often I got it to work, just not exactly how the customer wanted it (contacts wouldnt import because of the stupid as hell people app only accepting CSV and no other options, or other things). Now every customer that is having trouble with it I tell them I will just install Mozilla Thunderbird as it is so much better, will work with no hassle whatsoever and I can assure them it will continue to do so - many mail app users have a problem shortly after being set up.
Shoving this Metro Start menu down people's throat was totally the wrong move. Why not just include both styles of start menu? The metro start menu is a step back in productivity taking more time to open programs or multitask than ever before. I would normally install the latest windows so that I can be more knowledgeable about it to help customers, but the way it is I just can't justify installing it on my system and making things worse overall. |
One issue with this is that it defaults to programs only but does not skip to the next category if there are no matching programs . So if you're looking for something that isn't a program (I'm not at the computer I installed Win8 on right now, but I think "Control Panel" is one such search item) but does exist on your system, you'll just get an empty program page that says no matches, and you have to tab through the next category to see if it has any relevant results. |
I'm a pretty techinical user with a tablet and a laptop. We all do stuff that "the common user" does, like browse reddit. The tablet is so much more comfortable for that type of use. Right now, I'm laying sideways on a recliner chair with my legs at about a 60° angle. A tablet is much better for this use.
Plus the ipad is great for use in bed or to check something fast because it turns on instantly and is light. Plus, the retina display will turn you off any other screen. That's definitely my favorite feature. |
Lol no. Prices on SSD's have fallen to $1/GB or less, even on the really high quality drives, like the Intel 330 and the Samsung 840. Pretty much the only drives that'll run you more than $1.25/GB have a capacity of over 250GB ,and even those are falling in price. |
Windows 8 was/is a brilliant risk for MS. Time moves forward, and touch screens are being integrated into new computers. Within the next 4 years, I imagine 100%( or close to ) of all new laptops will be touch screen enabled, and 50% of Desktops. Windows 8 is premature -- MS did a bad job in Branding. They should have called it, "Windows Touch". But I can understand why they didn't -- "Tablet XP" didn't do so hot( but the problem there was the crappy hardware. The IBM ThinkPad X60 vs X61 is a great example. The X61 had poor graphics and major driver instability in the network card. So, few sold. The X60 was a reliable beast. Most companies put all the "experimental" tech together into a single package, so tablet buyers often got crappy PCs. )
If MS didn't do it, then Apple/Good will do it. Ubiquitous Touch Screen is coming, and everyone is getting ready. If MS doesn't do it, then when Touch becomes the new mouse, they'll feel super outdated. MS knows the traditional mouse-based PC is mortally wounded.
MS has shown real touch innovation. Not copying Apple, and Metro does work well on many touch devices.
I've used surface. It's quite good. Not "Newest iPad" good, but better than android good, and better than iPad 1 good. Windows 8 + touch together works really well. There are problems -- IME's aren't good enough. Lots of "pixel off" errors between where people touch and expect to touch. But these are fit/finish details that can all be patched with a service pack.
People will bitch and moan. Sales will be slow. This is because most people don't yet have touch enabled computers. Lots of "Legacy" hardware out there. Which is why MS didn't make a "full" version of Win 8 for direct sales. You can't buy Windows 8 Pro for new installs at the store -- they won't sell it to you. MS wants traditional PCs running 7, and touch enabled PCs running 8.
Where MS went wrong -- they shouldn't have called it Windows 8. Again, branding it "Windows Touch". Ideally, all new monitors ( laptop screens too ) would be touch-enabled. But how would they enforce that? With constant anti-trust pressure, they can't force Dell/HP to do it that way. So, they make Win8 new PC only, and they make surface to "encourage" OEMs ( with the implicit threat to enter the hardware business and eat their lunch if they sell non-touch laptops. ). Notice what they didn't do -- no "Surface Desktop" -- because they don't want to make that threat just yet -- because they know touch is harder sell on desktop. But notice the MS surface commercials -- the little girl painting on a 20" large tablet and skyping her dad. They want you to start thinking "Even large screens should have touch".
Now, I use Macs and IOS almost exclusively. I'm no MS fanboi, and the fanboi in me wants to say, "Switch to OSX" -- but that's not the point. MS strategy here is sound, and people without touch using Windows 8 are missing the experience. This OS wasn't meant for you. MS assumed, rightly so, that touch will be the new mouse. Everyone will use it. They have to get in front of it, or be killed with nearly 0 sales in laptops, tablets -- which already outsell Desktops. MS may even reverse brand -- "Windows Desktop" or "Windows Antique" for non-touch devices. Because in 4 years, that's what will happen if they didn't do Windows 8. Apple would eventually mac an "Air Touch", or Google would make a "Chrome touch", or something like that.
Lastly -- MS knows that corporate IT doesn't innovate. I once remember seeing a bug report about virus scanner from a corporate IT guy. He had a virus infected server, and had to reboot the machine to clean the virus. He went off the Deep end on MS. Why? Because he didn't believe the virus serious enough to require a reboot. It hurt his uptime metrics. Never mind that he has an infected server, and the AntiVirus product is the thing requiring the reboot, not windows. These people know how to complain. They know how to contain cost. But what they don't know -- is how to move ahead of the curve. The Corporate IT lament, "My users keep wanting to use the tech they have at home!" But even that is telling. MS knows -- "The user will ask for the tech they have at home. Eventually that user will be the CEO." They'll bitch and moan, "I'll never deploy this!" Until the day they're forced to, because the business requires it. If the CEO is running a "Macbook Air Touch" or something like that, in 4 years -- then where's MS?
Oh, and Windows 8 is good. On touch devices. I wrote a touch application years ago using a Misubishi muti-touch/multi-user table ( It could track not just touch, but who touched. It could handle 200+ simultaneous touches. It cost more than some houses. ) There were no touch APIs at the time. You polled the device and got a data structure indicating the physical contact point and user ID. I learned so much about touch from that. How much error is there between perceived touch and actual contact. How fast motion could be. MetroUI is a work of art on a good device. Surface/Surface Pro and the OEM versions will become the new laptop standard. I mean "new laptop standard" literally -- with a year, all brand new laptops will have touch and will get Windows 8, and does work well in that case. The CEO will get a new touch enabled laptop, and will learn Windows 8. I.T. will be forced to deploy it about 3 years later.
In the alternative -- No Windows 8, but stay with a win 7 style interface, MS is done in 7-10 years. Apple already has the tablet crown, and Tablets are cheap enough that people buy them for home. The CEO already likely has an iPad. What happens when he starts seeing "Macbook air touch" devices, and maybe buys one "for his wife"? At some point, he might think, "hmm... We could buy $300 devices, and do almost everything! Our sales force can use this!" Then comes the Law department, who can use it. Then comes the accounting department. Then comes the whole company. Windows 8 is a "must" move for MS. It can't concede the touch market. |
When you're on a tablet it's a much nicer gesture than having to click in a very specific area of the screen, smaller than your finger.
If you're on a desktop, you should already be using Alt+F4 because the X is pretty much a waste of time if you take a moment to learn a few hotkeys. |
Fair enough, Launchpad is a bit weird, but it's also optional. Plenty of Lion users probably have no idea it exists. In addition, the fact that macbooks have touch pads makes using Launchpad a lot more intuitive.
Metro, on the other hand, seems to be forcing users to change their behavior without giving them an option. At best, it's inconvenient and at worst, it carries the pretention of "you've been doing it wrong".
This is the kind of change Microsoft has been wont to make, and it infuriates me. In high school, I got a Microsoft certification in Office XP. At that point, certifications for different versions of Office (2003, XP, 97, etc.) were all pretty valid, since Office's core functionality hadn't changed a ton in 10+ years. 18 months later, Office 2007 came out, made all previous certs obsolete, and costed users hours in terms of relearning to use software that hadn't improved very much. |
Windows 7 does need some fixing. It's the slowest worst os on the market compared to both Mac OS and popular Linux distros. Windows only redeeming quality is the plethora of software for it and it's huge market share. I'll admit the Mac's OS is nice but it'll be a cold day in hell before I shell out the extra money for an apple logo. Windows 8 speeds things up and has half-way decent security out of box (of course good luck seeing that past the silly UI).
I tried Linux Mint and Ubuntu recently. Both were hands down better than windows and took up less than one GB of hard drive memory. There was just one problem NONE OF MY DAMN GAMES WORKED RIGHT! Granted I was running through wine and that isn't 'really' Linux's fault that developers don't make games for it, but that was a deal breaker for me. In future I see all my old non-gaming hardware running Linux.
So no Linux didn't get to be a real option for me, but it did show me that Windows 7 could use some improvements. Unfortunately windows 8 went the way of Ubuntu and added an interface that (almost)no one likes. |
I can understand that in large companies, training users for a forced UI would be a major headache. But from my personal experience, Win8 is actually much faster on my system compared to Win7.
Again, this is simply my experience but my PC has become a whole lot smoother than it was with Win7. Boot time and shutdown time are at least a 100% faster and general OS use is much snappier. The Metro UI is a bit annoying and I am considering purchasing a Start8 license for myself. |
No one seems to like Windows 8. Sure, I've had my problems. But like any other decent OS, I've been able to modify it to meet my needs. Doesn't windows 8 run better in the background? Better than 7? If you can get your Win 8 machine to run like 7, but better, why not take the plunge!? |
A friend of mine working for [large east coast city] was saying that part of his job is writing new building codes in response to [large east coast storm]. However, the branch of government that employees my friend does not have access to the same resources other branches of government. Since the two branches of government don't get along, the engineers and architects getting paid by the one branch won't share engineering reports with the other branch. My friend has been using older, pirated versions of these documents because getting ahold of the current version is too expensive. |
Well, Apple set the bar for users a while ago, and kept it there. Android has been maturing nicely since 4.0, but there's still room for improvement. I have noticed a lot of developers like working with the less restrictions though. Blackberry, given the right execution, could take back its place on top. If they keep up what they've been doing, it won't bode well. But if they make the Blackberry a developer's AND a user's dream come true, there's no reason they can't succeed. |
I'll reply with best of my Knowledge.
You don't count as a active google+ member if you have a Google account, as you don't have a Google + account.
All his Co-workers don't count even though they are logged into the companies Google Mail account, as they don't have a Google+ account. |
I think this is mostly fluff traffic/usage. See, whenever someone signs up for a Youtube, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, or any other type of Google account, it automatically creates a Google+ account for them and logs them in for the first time. People use these other services and are still logged into their Google+ account, even though they aren't using the social network at all. |
First of all, I mostly had music and/or video (the general topic of this thread) in mind when I made my comment, but it appears as though you may be trying to attack the institution of copyrighting as a whole, which is ludicrous. I don't want to argue with you about why copyrighting exists because it's here and there's no feasible way to create another system in its place. What I would like to talk about, however, is the original topic of this thread and about the comment to which I replied.
InternetFree said that
> Quite obviously the laws are flawed and need to be changed if even the ones responsible for enforcing them are constantly breaking them.
The problem with this statement is that it's not logically sound. Laws should not be re-written simply because they are being broken - murder laws shouldn't be re-written because people murder and laws against corruption and embezzlement shouldn't be re-written because too many cases of insider trading take place. However, an interesting contradiction may be drug laws, a good example of which is marijuana use and recent legalization. I would argue that the main reason this law is beginning to change and be re-written by the states is not because some amorphous critical mass of people have taken up the habit and broken the law, but because we've begun to recognize weed as both a cultural phenomenon and medicinal substance. Copyright infringement (a candy-coated synonym for theft) cannot be construed as a cultural phenomenon and will probably never be an acceptable form of behavior, so claiming that marijuana and copyright laws should be similarly viewed is incorrect (just an example).
Furthermore, whether or not law enforcement agents are breaking a law is irrelevant when questioning the efficacy of that law, as agents are still, in effect, equally subject to the law. Now, you could try and make an argument claiming that FBI agents see themselves as being "above the law" and that this self-perception contributes to them breaking the law. This may be true in various circumstances, but again, this feeling has no bearing on the fact that they are ultimately held accountable in the same ways that other citizens are also held accountable. They are citizens of the state and should be given equal treatment under the law.
Copyright infringement (stealing) is a choice. A person chooses either to download that latest episode of The Walking Dead or to purchase access to the season on AMC's website. We do not have an inherent right to consume published content without paying the agreed-upon market value for that content. It's as simple as that, yet so many people try to justify their illegal behavior for one reason or another.
Whether or not you think that Mickey Mouse shouldn't belong to his parent company, Disney, is irrelevant and frankly, unrealistic. Disney the company owns the rights to that franchise, not Disney the person (Mickey "is the official mascot of the Walt Disney Company", Wikipedia), and the company will most likely exist for perpetuity. Also, on a personal level I would rather not see blasphemous, fake and unofficial recreations of Mickey all over the place (like you see in China), but that's just me. Reading the EULA is not what I meant by "moral integrity". I rather hoped that "moral integrity" in regards to copyright infringement would be interpreted as "the personal will to not steal shit."
However, I will agree with you that a single citizen should not be fined such an excess of money for copyright infringement violations. I don't have a proposal for how that punishment should be handled other than to suggest a 1:1 repayment of stolen content + some other "reasonable" penalty, whether that be jail time or an additional fine.
My argument in support of copyright would be this: please go out and create a 1) valuable and 2) unique item or piece of content and then try to market that content or item for profit without copyright privileges. I've already stipulated that you must create this content in order to make a profit and that it must be valuable, so no, any possible arguments stating that your shitty music is going to be free because everyone should be able to enjoy it are not acceptable. How would you realistically expect to protect your product without any enforceable copyright? EDIT: (I would like to add here that it is completely acceptable for you to refuse to copyright your material and release it in a Louis CK style of format, i.e. for a flat, reasonable fee. I honestly hope that independent publishing of this nature becomes more popular.)
Also, also: your factual statement that there are over 10K laws in the U.S. Code is nice, but does not provide any support for your claim that "everyone is a criminal if you look hard enough," which is bullshit. |
There is no question that I am very much against the institutionalized oppression of information that is copyright. Attacking copyright is only ludicrous to someone who can't understand why copyright and ownership of so-called intellectual property is unnecessary and counter-intuitive. Furthermore, it makes sense only to the oligarchy that forms to prevent freedom of information. Belief that there is absolutely "no feasible way to create another system in its place" is broad and specious.
> The problem with this statement is that it's not logically sound.
Wrong, but instead of actually arguing your case, you continued to spew rhetoric. If a law is so badly implemented that even the agents tasked with enforcing it refuse to obey, then it should be clear that the law is flawed and needs to be changed. I suggest you review your history regarding cannabis, but suffice it to say, the amorphous critical mass of people that took up the habit and "broke the law" is the very cultural phenomenon you claim in the same sentence .
Your paragraph about FBI and "above the law" is utter bullshit, and I won't bother to dignify it with an argument.
> We do not have an inherent right to consume published content without paying the agreed-upon market value for that content.
Really? Where I come from, we call that a library.
> Whether or not you think that Mickey Mouse shouldn't belong to [its] parent company [...] is irrelevant and frankly, unrealistic.
No, it's not. It is the very crux of the argument that you're dismissing without a second thought. Mickey Mouse was set to enter the public domain long ago, but due to abuse of the legal system, the right to use his likeness is threatened by an army of lawyers. Your personal feelings are acknowledged and summarily dismissed.
How could you possibly know what "moral integrity" is if you don't read the terms to which you agree? Your argument is cyclical but without justification. You equivocate "moral integrity" with "obeys the law." You would do well in 1930's Germany.
> I will agree with you that a single citizen should not be fined such an excess of money for copyright infringement violations. I don't have a proposal for how that punishment should be handled other than to suggest a 1:1 repayment of stolen content + some other "reasonable" penalty, whether that be jail time or an additional fine.
I believe this is where you really jumped the shark. You started by saying, "Laws should not be re-written because they are being broken." But when people break them, you say "I would agree that a single citizen should not be fined such money for copyright violations." Do you see the contradiction? Nobody has a good proposal for how intellectual property should be handled, but don't let that stop anyone from hastily throwing laws on the books.
There are plenty of people who perform a work for hire. In this case, the person who commissioned the work gets a pseudo-tangible good, and the creator is compensated for their work. Done. Copyright is no longer necessary. You're welcome. Oh, you're a musican? Put on a show and charge admission. You're a filmmaker? Hold a private screening. You're a writer? Sell autographed copies. To think that the only way you can make a profit is by making every other artist's life miserable with lawyers is insane. |
I'm glad they aren't motivated. The whole entertainment industry is anal about licensing and squeezing every dime out of its users. And by the way, this is coming from someone who has never pirated software, even when I was low on cash.
But I swear, if they start limiting what I can do with my software once I own it, like only being able to use it on one machine, or only while connected to the internet (like [ Steam ](
I've loved video games for so long, and I am so sad to see games like CoD fall through the cracks because the Dev team are idiots. What games need are variety, as in give us open areas, and closed areas.
Also, these big hitters charge TOO MUCH for DLC. As far as CoD goes, the DLC is $15 for 4-ish multiplayer maps. Normaly, I would be ok with this, because I play BF3, but the reason I haven't bought DLC since Black Ops is because the maps are SO FUCKING TINNY!
Anyways, I've rambled on a lot. |
I rarely buy used games.
Why?
Gamestop.
They offer next to nothing for trade-ins. The only way to maximize your value is if you're a habitual buyer. You'd have to be someone that buys a new game every week (speculation) in order to see any value at all. You'd then have to trade that game back in within the month it was released.
They sell back at absurd margins. They buy a title for $8-12 and then place it on the shelf for $40-$60? No.
They'll take anything, in any condition. I don't want a copy of a game I purchase to be scratched, marred, covered in jam, fingerprints, etc. I also want the whole experience - I don't want a disc. GS doesn't care what you trade in as long as some kid will buy it. I won't buy pre-owned unless the everything is included - booklet, case, etc.
Very low hygiene and dress standards of employees. Look, when I worked for one of the companies that GS eventually merged with/bought out, we dressed like sales people working retail. (Well, most of us.) Those that didn't were sent home or fired by management (Store level and District level.) Scruffy beards, gobs of tattoos, scruffy hair (yes, I know the difference between intentional and 'I just didn't care today',) and no ability to dress for work. Gamestop may be appealing to their target audience, and it's clear that I'm not it. I will gladly spend my money ANYWHERE but Gamestop because they have such low standards for themselves and their business. That's fine. I'm just one customer. I'm also one customer with peers who are parents. Until the kids can drive themselves, those same peers who share my opinion will also spend their money elsewhere. |
This. Let's look at where the technology really is: The cars have trouble with off ramps, snow, rain, and anything else that changes the way a road looks on video. The current technology uses a combination of sensors (video camera, GPS, and I think IR) to navigate. You know how those Google cars have been driving around taking pictures of everything? That was part of this. The cars use those pictures to see where the road is. Any changes indicate oncoming cars, pedestrians, road debris, etc. That's how it works. So it's not a panacea where you just punch a button, nod off, and arrive at your destination. You have to take the wheel from time to time.
edit: |
For starters, they'd probably have to re-do all the Bernoulli math to get the spring tension on the head-arms right for the different fluid density. (I have it on good authority, from songs in 1st year engineering, that fluid dynamics produces discomfort in the posterior.)
You then would have to make sure it's properly sealed, particularly around the circuit junctions and motor shaft. Or you'd have to put the spindle motor inside the sealed unit, so you just have circuits to seal.
Now you have to make sure it won't flex inappropriately with changes in atmospheric pressure; both weather and elevation to check there. |
I agree. As an example, a single loop to cool my 2600k cost me:
XSPC X2O 750 pump/reservoir - $60
XSPC RX360 radiator - $100
XSPC Rasa CPU waterblock - ~$30
PrimoFlex Pro LRT Clear Tubing -7/16in. ID X 5/8in. OD ~$10
Barbs, clamps ~$10
6x 120mm fans (push/pull) ~$60
NZXT Sentry Mesh Fan Controller ~$22
IandH Dead-Water Copper Sulfate Biocidal PC Coolant Additive ~$6
1 gallon of distilled water ~$2
Total = ~ $294
The time in which it took to build and test just the cooling over the past two years has been around 72 hours for me, because I like to leak test for around 24 hours (without anything else inside the case that can get leaked on) anytime I change anything around with the cooling. I've constructed or reconstructed mine 3 times since then, once to change the piping (it constantly kinked), once for maintenance and to change the piping again (clear piping turned yellow), and again for maintenance to change the piping and upgrade the rad to a push/pull.
I'll admit that a single loop can be constructed even cheaper than that, and with considerably less time, especially if you use one of those self contained water cooling loops like the Corsair Hydro series.
Was it worth it for me? Yes. My 2600k i7 doesn't have the magical overclocking properties that everybody else seems to have with them, but I am able to get a stable 4.8 ghz with 16 GB of RAM at 2200 mhz. I have prime tested for 72 hours straight without error and without going above 75 C on any core. It's also fairly quiet when mostly idle, due to the fan controller. |
If you are careful about it, know what hardware to use, use clamps, etc, and test your water cooling loop by running it for at least 24 hours inside your case before putting your hardware back in, then you can be pretty confident that you aren't going to spring any leaks. I've had mine up and running for 2 years without leaks, and I've taken it apart a few times for maintenance and upgrades. It has worked great for me.
However, if somebody doesn't use the correct hardware or doesn't test everything thoroughly, then it is easily possible to spring leaks. I've heard of people destroying all kinds of equipment due to something simple like not using clamps on the barbs, or use screws that are too long that end up cracking their radiator, and so on. |
With business models you are paying for the premium look/feel, stuff like an aluminum case vs. plastic. Also better support. I generally find that when you have business grade support you will have faster response time on the phone (different numbers) and on replacements I have had nothing but next-day delivers. Again you will pay a lot more however when you are talking a business that needs fast replacements they will pay for it.
My company buys most of are computers from HP. We also pay the premium for three year, next day support. For comparison we had an LG monitor that we picked up as a spare. Took three weeks for a replacement. |
In the context of the sentence it was incorrect. to make it verbose: "...capabilities and is expected to have an expected life span of 50 years."
an expected expectancy refers to a thought - "he expected the life expectancy of 50 years to be correct" or "stores between 300-1500GB with a life expectancy of 50 years" as he was referring to the product itself.
But in this case he is listing the features:
Cartridge
stores 300GB to 1500GB of data
has a life expectancy of 50 years. |
I cant help but be anxious of the consequences... it reminds me of an incident that happened a couple of years ago. I cant recall all the specifics now; ill try to find an article about this. Anyway, here is what I remember of the story:
A couple of years ago a big organisation started a huge charity-funded project to battle malaria in (i think?) South Africa. The idea was that they would develop an amazingly cheap, strong and reliable mosquito net that would be widely donated to developing regions.
A couple of months later a bunch of people donated to the charity, the goals were met, the mosquito nets were produced and eventually shipped off to said region, where they were successfully distributed. The project was pronounced a huge success, for there were very many happy people with a new mosquito net and they werent as many cases of malaria as before.
But that is only part of the story. Of course, in said region there were huge problems with malaria, but local entrepeneurs like Mr. Mozzynetmaker, had already started making a living out of mosquito nets; making them, selling them and repairing old ones.
Now imagine the oh so noble organisation flying in a few truckloads of extremely high grade mosquito nets, and starting to distribute them in front of Mr. Mozzynetmaker… for free!
Great news for many people, but not so good for Mr. Mozzynetmakers, because he has to quit his business and do something else.
All is well for a couple of years, but ofcourse the mosquitonets eventually break down (all at around the same time) and need to be fixed… but Mr. Mozzynetmaker and his friends are now successful businessmen doing other things, and wont go back to mozzynetfixing, because chances are that noble organisations will screw over their business again.
End result: everybody is happy for a couple of years, but after that the situation is even worse than before, with the mosquito-net-business in ruins and very many people without protection from malaria.
I hope this isn’t an allegory for future attempts to ‘fix’ problems like malaria with a one-fits-all-wonder-product.
Ofcourse its awesome to see that research results in such awesome products, that potentially could save alot of people! |
I would hate to think some things would be lost forever due to an unforeseen event. For better or worst, I think they should have unlocked it. I feel like in the not so distant future that most our personal shit is going to be almost public knowledge anyways unless your some kinda hermit who never does anything with an electronic device. I have honestly kinda accepted that by using facebook, a smartphone etc im giving up some personal information so in the end most what I would call private probably isn't really. So |
This is a not entirely true....I have seen first hand where the activation lock can be disabled. I worked at an Apple Store for almost 5 years and we have had customers come in and under extreme circumstances, a Manager does have the authorization to deactivate the activation lock. |
Honestly, yes. How would that be verified? I'd still say it couldn't be done, simply because that could create a precedent for people to submit false documents to scam things. As a business, I wouldn't make it policy to have to spend the time to verify such documents, which would absolutely be necessary and not at all worthwhile. You have the agreement with only that person, and it isn't property than should be transferred upon death. If I want my kids to have my account, I would tell them the password. |
throwaway.
I don't know how many people would be interested in this but I will put it here anyway.
So the reason why Apple started this Find my iPhone/iPad (FMi) lock was because there were tremendous amount of stolen/lost iphones being brought into Apple for service, and when I saw tremendous it's not a figure of speech, at one point the "resellers" accounted for about 40% of the traffic going to the apple repair locations.
there would be a centralised point of contact, let's call that person "boss", the boss would have a reliable source of incoming iPhones, then there will be some technical guy working for the boss that introduce fault to those iPhones, once it's done the boss would send in the "messenger" for the phone to be replaced by Apple.
This became a very serious issue like I said because it accounted for a large proportion of traffic, and everyone from Apple recognised those guys and knew what was going on, but there was nothing much Apple could do, because no one in Apple had the power to police, the best Apple can do is to deny repair, send them away, and they're free to try again in another store another day.
So this issue was escalated, time after time, day after day, and from iOS 7 Apple put in the activation lock. So basically unless the device has gone through a proper process of being erased (settings -> general -> reset -> erase all contents and settings), it will leave FMi on the Apple server, and the device won't get activated unless the password was put in.
Since the introduction of FMi the traffic from those resellers went from 40% to almost 0, because Apple won't (or is impossible) to service the devices with FMi on.
Of course the downside is causing issues like reported in the article, but on the other side it is discouraging phone theft because if those phones cannot be replaced or activated, there's little to no resale value for the phones. |
It's not about what apps exist, but rather what apps will exist. The idea that as a developer I could make a game once, and it would be on desktops and laptops, tablets, and phones with a single store upload, that is extremely appealing. Not to mention the Xbox One, which is an app platform that iOS and Android can never offer.
This smells suspiciously like the Kinect nonsense MS was shopping around at E3. The whole idea of "Teh Potential", no real world practical applications.
The reality is there is no selling point of this functionality right now so its basically just vaporware nonsense being sold by PR or doe eyed MS apologists. |
Thats not your iPhones fault either; it's fucking apple. Jackasses make the updates slow down older hardware so you will have to buy their newest shit. Greedy fuckasses. I'm going back to android after my contract is up.
I traded my Galaxy Note II with my girlfriend as she really wanted a better phone so I took her iPhone 4(I love my girlfriend okay). All I can say is the limited customization options, ringtone selection, and wallpapers are terrible. Apple insults my intelligence with it's shitty software and horribly obvious updates to outdate their old handsets; because it's "Optimised for iPhone 5". |
I never said I was cheering, I'm just pointing out that sports teams are no different from companies in terms of any logic involved with cheering either.
When I watch the Olympics, for the most part, I can appreciate what the athletes have been able to accomplish and celebrate the diversity in culture and stories involved with the participants.
But take any NFL, NBA, MLB team, and they're just corporations with a strong focus on profits, with employees who are usually focused on their own personal salary compensation above all else (winning is part of that compensation). I don't see much of any player "doing it for the team, for the city, for the fans". The whole sports industry is just massively dollar driven. Sure, it can be fun, exciting, and enjoyable to watch or participate in, but at the end of the day, it's corporations versus other corporations under one parent corporate network riding on tax exemptions and operating in tax payer facilities. At the end of the game, one team wins, one loses, players make a lot of money, owners make a ton of money and Budweiser sold a ton of beer.
Sure, people take notice of individual players and their accomplishments, but you see far more Go Niners! or Go Lakers! or whatever. When players move from team to team, you don't see many followers.
For Apple vs Google vs Microsoft, there are several things going on. One is actually very pragmatic and practical, that is, for some people, there is an investment in hardware, software, education and sometimes development around a specific platform. Rooting for their platform to succeed or dominate is rooting for the ecosystem for that platform to grow and prosper thus returning benefit on their investment in that platform.
Another factor that goes into this is actually cheering for the employees whether that's xenophobia or simply being glad that those who worked hard on something to make a difference paid off for them.
For others it may just be a recognition of the innovation. I see a lot of people applauding new products and services that demonstrate innovation and cheering for their success which is often at odds of being underdogs in the industry.
Sure, there are many people who are cheering one platform or company over another due to justifying their own purchasing decisions or feeling compelled to have everything be an us versus them, but again, I don't really see this as being any less logical than cheering for your local sports team.
As for me, I'm not so likely to cheer for an Apple regional manager, but I do see leaders in the tech industry (and others) who I like either on a personal level or for what they've accomplished and root for their success.
Case in point, the other day when Bill Gates was identified as being the richest man in the world again, that brought some degree of delight to me because that means billions of dollars going to improve the world as directed by a very brilliant and competent man.
When I see Apple succeed, it brings me some delight because I'm well aware of the narrative behind Apple thus far and the people involved with it. I've benefited from the work they've done and hope to continue to do so. |
Article doesn't say (amazingly), but I'm pretty sure the figures they cite include heater use, which is probably the main reason for the reduced range.
As an aside, I love how the Los Angeles Times seems to think its readership is concerned with freezing weather.
EDIT: [Here's a real study on the subject.]( |
Drones are capable of automation. A helicopter that you fly with an RC controller is a radio-controlled helicopter, but it is not a drone. Photographers have been (legally) taking photos with high quality RC copters for years. But if they were to try to do the same with a drone copter they would be in violation of the FAA's (nonexistent) regulations regarding commercial use. The fact that most drones are capable of receiving RC input just like normal non-drone copters does not mean they are regulated the same as RC copters. |
just a proposition at the moment
Yeah, in the same way that Linux is just a proposition at the moment. "Just a proposition" that just so happens to exist, to have been implemented, and people use it and it's working just fine for those who use it.
> an unclear one on top of that
What part of "Do Not Track" do you not understand?
> that's simply stating the facts
It's "simply stating the facts" that you want to be an antisocial asshole with this for as long as you can possibly get away with it without going to jail or having to pay large fines. The Gods forbid you end up respecting your visitors' wishes without the government forcing you to! |
I'm gonna get down-voted to all hell for this, but the MPAA is somewhat correct here. They might be a bunch of cunts, but there is a valid business reason why reselling hurts artists.
Reselling, obviously, cuts into profits the producers make. Instead of buying new with x% of your dollars going to the producers and the artists, 100% goes to the reseller. With fewer profits and a lower margin, producers have to be more selective in who and what they make. No longer can they afford to take a risk on a wild new idea because if it fails, they might fail too.
Movies already are in this boat. Reboots, sequels, remakes, rehashes, blatant copies abound. The reason is a movie's cost is now so high a production house is betting its future on the next release, so they cannot afford ANY risk, only $$$ proves ideas are acceptable anymore. Like for example New Line went "all in" with the Hobbit movies, to the point if the movies failed they were going straight to liquidation.
Video games are very much in the same boat, with Game Stop selling used copies for $5 less than new, Game Stop is suffocating the industry since a resales are sniping the studio's new-sale customers. Games are pretty derivative lately too, arn't they?
The point being, when the venture is no longer profitable, nobody will make it anymore. When the venture is very thin on the profits nobody will try anything new. Reselling absolutely cuts into profits for content producers and actually forces higher prices on "new" copies. Unlike physical products there is literally 0 loss of quality for a 2nd hand digital...so why would anybody buy new? So yes, reselling hurts innovation. Innovation needs fat profit margins because there reality is only a small percentage of new ideas are actually good.
That being said the MPAA and RIAA are forcing the issue here and slowly ruining their own business. They think they can still control the market like a dog on a leash like they did in the 1980's, but with the internet they can't. They can't force you to play 3, 4, even 5 times what you want to pay for content anymore when its available for free. By trying to force high prices they in turn make customers far more selective with their dollar, which in turn hurts innovation since you are not likely to be a full day's pay on something you have never even heard of before. No you are gonna grab the latest sequel because the first one was good...
They could lower prices to the market demands, and then try and offer better, more comprehensive service. Like for example they could really embrace licencing where you buy the right to listen to a song. (which is what buying a CD really is, a licence to listen and a handy copy of the media for your convenience) Then they offer it in every possible file format for download (and maybe streaming too) so you can enjoy it on any device anytime. But they don't, they are stuck in the 1980's still trying to sell "copies" happy to make you buy that song again because you wanted FLAC instead of MP3.
But they won't, because they have their heads up their asses.
And we wonder why people are willing to risk jail time, hacking attempts, and virues to go pirate.
But |
Yeah a lot of the big bands I used to go see live even told people to just torrent their music because they don't make anything off those anyways.
They make money from ticket sales and buying shirts and stuff at their booths there.
So |
Honestly I kinda have to agree with the MPAA on this one. If it were legal to resell a digital movie, then resellers will make all the money instead of the content creators.
Imagine: I make a movie, and I sell a digital copy for $5. The a reseller pops up, buying digital copies for $2.50. The sell it back at $4. No one has any reason to buy from me any more, because they can get the same thing from the reseller for a dollar cheaper. Suddenly there's a lot of money in the online digital resale buisiness (which aids nobody).
And it could get worse. What if I have trouble proving that the reseller actually owns the copies it's selling? Suddenly it's not just pirating, but pirate and resale. You'd have tons of ads for these now legal "resale" sites that are selling copies of a movie they don't own.
The original maker can't keep up with these advertised sites that make all their money from stealing my content and selling lower than I can afford to. Because they don't have to pay for making the content, they will make more money and be more successful than the people who actually made it.
Why is this different than physical video?
1) It's a lot easier to tell if a physical video is a couterfeit copy. (It's a bunch of work to make a convincing case, print the image on the DVD, etc.)
2) Less inefficiencies on resale. (To sell physical copies you have to own a store. That's expensive. Servers are cheap)
3) Things will get resold many times. (A physical copy has at least several days turnaround through a reseller, usually much more. A digital copy could go through the reseller in a matter of hours.) |
This is just wrong .. On so many levels. First, search is not a map. Search is closer to a white pages. Second, IP infringement is not remotely analogous to river pollution (you did read the judgement .. Yes ?). Even if we stick with the naive map analogy, the closest analog would be a disputed county .. and a mapmaker who ignored international law and referred to a disputed territory by an illegal name. Now in that case a judge may very well order a mapmaker to stop producing that map ... And it'd be a valid decision. |
Justice Fenlon is a judge on the supreme court of the province of BC. As such, this ruling can be appealed by one of the parties to not only the BC Court of Appeals, but also to the federal courts. (Federal court if they determine that they have jurisdiction, supreme court of Canada if it decides to hear the case)
In addition to this, Google can also decide to create a court case about this. |
I'm usually skeptic about all future bikes and whatnot but this one actually looks pretty good. I mean, it does look kinda slim and fast and still have all those features.
But.
It's all integrated. Nice thing about bikes is you can pretty easily just change things if something breaks or isn't quite right for you. Good luck finding parts for this in your local hardware store.
Then there are some unnecessary complications. The lock. The idea is quite nice, but how exactly is it any better than any lock you often find in bikes? Lights. For front, I would rather have one that fits your purpose better and that you can remove. I don't find brake lights very useful in a bicycle. Maybe if it could predict your braking, but with working brakes you can stop so fast that anyone behind you will crash you before they can react. Or if you are just slowing down they would notice this anyway. Turning lights are kinda sorta nice, maybe.
Automatic gearbox? Why the hell would I want one? Seriously, isn't it up to the rider what he/she likes for a given situation? And how does that work without the battery? And that "minimal" fender. Those frames don't look very minimal to me. Could as well put some plastic fenders in place that cover the whole thing and that you can remove fast and easy if you want.
Yeah, so what have we here? Electric bike with somewhat nice storage system. Pretty good looking electric bike if you ask me. A real basket would've likely made the thing look worse. But with greatly better functionality. |
The USA is not strictly a democracy - we're a democratic republic / representative democracy.
And the problem is that the people in government were supposed to represent us, but now they just represent people that are unimaginably rich instead, and since everybody involved is in on it -- including the only people with the legal power to change the rules -- nothing's going to change.
The free press was one of the safety valves built into the country's structure, but even that is owned by the same wealthy people, so it's just become another cog in the machine. |
Usually supply and demand will take care of the market. Right now, regulation is just used to support local monopolies, such as Comcast.
Under the free market principles, some one else with better service and cheaper price could replace Comcast for a local market. However, regulations do not allow that. Hence, Government is picking the winners and losers, rather than the free market economy.
To break it down in |
I know that this isn't a story about a tech company, but look into Ferrari banning automotive reporter Chris Harris;
IIRC, he condemned Ferrari's practice of having a team of engineers accompany each review car, setting it up for specific tests before journalists were allowed to drive it (track, road, top speed/acceleration tests all had different setups). Ferrari then basically banned him from reviewing their cars for ages for outing this procedure. I'm not sure whether or not it's been lifted yet, nor whether other companies do it too, but I do know that little story. |
Nobody has yet mentioned the coolest thing about this. RRAM is so fast, so high capacity, yet still non-volatile (turn off the power and the data stays) that it will replace all other forms of storage in most computers .
When I said storage, you thought HDDs, SSDs, BDs, right? Well, include your RAM in there too. RRAM will erase the boundries between temporary (RAM) storage and permanent (SSD) storage. The implications of this are huge .
Currently all software, from the OS kernel up, are built around the idea of having to load data from disk into memory to work with it, and then save it back again afterwards. With RRAM, software will have no need to do that. Installed software can be run in place. Turn off your computer at any point, it doesn't care! When you turn it back on, it will be literally exactly at the same point it was when you turned it off (some hardware initialization minutae notwithstanding). No need for hacks like sleep and hibernate.
This will drastically reduce power consumption in a number of ways. RRAM itself uses less power for all operations. The non-volatility could lead to phones which turn off completely when the screen is off (with a small co-processor keeping the basics running?). Hell, power will be saved by a lot of programs simply executing drastically faster. No time spent pissing around copying data back and forth and back again.
EDIT: I want to emphasize this point. Anyone who has done an upgrade from HDD to SSD (and installed their OS on the SSD) will understand that Input/Output performance is by far the most important type of performance for desktop computing . Modern CPUs are so much faster than storage that they will often spend the majority of the time literally doing nothing, waiting for the data they requested to arrive from the HDD - SSDs are better, but still slow in CPU terms! Storing everything in superfast RRAM will allow the CPU to spend one hell of a lot more time actually doing work, making computers feel hugely faster.
A lot of paradigms that programmers have learnt from day one will become irrelevant. Basically every piece of software will have to be rebuilt from the ground up to truly take advantage of RRAM, due to the pervasiveness of the assumptions made in current software regarding storage and memory. HP has made a fork of linux designed for RRAM already, and is developing a true RRAM OS for a few years time. Still, thats only the very beginning of the vast work ahead.
In the meantime, software will be adapted, RRAM won't make old style software useless - they'll just be doing stupid things like copying data from one location in memory to another for no reason, and old style OSs will piss about a lot with loading and memory managing processes unnecessarily.
Whoa, this turned into quite an essay. |
That's not true. A lot of people are aware of the extent that google monitors them. I am. I just don't care enough not to use their services. I've never met anyone who did. The reality of it is their data mining has never negatively impacted me, where as their products have greatly benefitted me. Google has to make money some how, this is how I pay them for their services. People voluntarily give up a ton of shit. |
Im just going to throw this out there, at the time of the last midterms Congress had a 14% approval and a 95% re-election rate. If we don't like the fact that it's legal to bribe a politician so long as the bribe is large, than we have nobody to blame but ourselves. |
This article is misleading. Google has been relatively quiet in the current push for net neutrality. While it's possible they could be pushing behind closed doors, we still have FCC ex parte records, and those don't show much activity. The blind assumption Google stands to benefit from net neutrality is itself disputable given that they are entrenched leaders who could pay for fast lanes, and given that they are now an ISP via Google Fiber and presumably aren't dying to be regulated. Yes, they made that comment about pole attachments in the case of being regulated under Title II, but that was a conditional statement and not an endorsement. Google has been far more quiet this time than they were in the lead up to the 2010 Order. The article also lazily assumes that an increased lobbying spend automatically went into net neutrality rather than immigration, copyright reform, privacy reform, health tech standards setting, vehicular regulation reform, or any of the other priorities that money could have gone into. |
It's not exactly an argument. It's anti competitive action on the part of car manufacturers who know that if Tesla succeeds, they wil go out of business, and also oil companies who want to continue making money as well. Lack of education here allows politicians to convince the general public that our hyper-capitalistic economic system is what being a democracy is all about. Also that Ronald Regan died for our sins. |
I'm going to share a viewpoint more from a macro economic/wealth inequality standpoint.
One very good thing that a franchise/dealer model does is distribute wealth to marginally more individuals (employees/dealership owners/partners/creditors). In a direct-to-consumer model all profits are owned by the manufacturer and thereby shareholders.
Theoretically, a d-t-c operation would employ less people because there would be an efficient, centralized group employed by the manufacturer to manage many aspects of the dealership such as appointments, marketing, advertising, and training. Additionally, most shareholder-based companies have significant pressure to reduce expenses which may, for this example, result in fewer staff.
On the flip side, I'm sure that this a traditional dealership model results in a higher cost to the consumer who must end up paying more for the resultant inefficiencies that a traditional dealership has, as well as them meeting their profit goals. |
Say they go to factory direct. All Chrysler dealerships then become a place where you go to order your new car, or where it is dropped when you order your car online and that is where you go to pick it up.
All the dealership does is sell used cars, provide service work (warranty) on the cars that Chrysler sells direct, and maybe does all the massive amounts of paperwork involved in a car sale and preps the new car for delivery.
They have to be paid somehow for those services, but that is the manufacturers problem.
So you order your new Truck. You want a Big Horn package in Flame Red with Navigation and heated seats. So the order goes through and the manufacturer pulls your exact truck off of some large central storage lot. It gets loaded up and in 4 weeks you get your truck (hopefully you don't mind waiting).
Now the price was set in stone, no negotiation. But lets look at all the costs the manufacturer had to absorb to sell you the truck over the old model.
They had to build the vehicle and store it (not that difficult since they have large tracts of land). But they also had to have all that built inventory sitting on their books, whereas before the cost of the inventory was the dealers burden. Not an insignificant amount when you consider that most dealers have over 200 new cars on the lot, and you multiply that out.
Waiting to build the car when it is ordered wouldn't work because what would the plants do during downtime? Layoffs? The more likely result would be fewer choices. Instead of picking and choosing your options it would be 3-4 trim levels and that is it. You want navigation but no leather? Sorry can't be ordered that way.
Also the designated ordering centers (formerly dealerships) would have to have models on hand to be driven, but they would get a lot of miles on them so that would be another sunk cost because the manufacturer would eventually have to sell them as used cars.
The consultants that show you how to operate your new car and help you order it would have to be paid somehow as well.
Personally I would love it if my 4 stores were just used car lots and factory service centers. It would remove a lot of stress from my life and my income would be more or less guaranteed. Profits come from service work and used cars, while I am paid by the manufacturer instead of the consumer for new cars? I would take that deal in a heartbeat.
You know what else I would do? I wouldn't stay open nearly as late if I had the choice. What would be the point? More time off sounds good to me as well. |
I don't understand how running the apps in 64-bit mode improves anything, or even how it works. Good links anybody?
Apps have access to 64b address spaces instead of 32b (regardless of the kernel's addressing), which means they can use more than 4GB of VMEM per process (which isn't possible with 32b apps, even with a PAE-enabled kernel). Even if you don't have more than 4GB of physical RAM, having a process handle more than 4GB of VMEM is very nice for e.g. huge mmap (mmap maps to virtual memory, if your process is limited to 4GB of VMEM, then your mmap limit is 4GB - (VMEM already used by your software)).
Furthermore, 64b apps should have access to the 8 extra x86_64 registers and the extra SSE registers, giving the compiler more optimization options (esp. on the register-starved x86). 32b apps don't get that. |
Because the kernel can't use more than 4GB of RAM (or 16GB if the kernel uses PAE)
PAE handles up to 64GB (not 16), and every version of OSX since 10.4.4 (the first one running on x86) has full PAE enabled. |
Repair guys are prone to this kind of behavior, especially at independently owned shops
IME it's as much large shops as small ones.
When I was a kid in my early 20s, I happily snooped in my boss's office when I worked the weekend shift. On occasion he gave me a reason to go in there, but one time I mentioned having seen something in one of his drawers and gave myself away. He commented on it too quickly and I was left obviously guilty, before I was able to say "well, actually, I ran out of biros" or "you wanted me to put together that furniture one time, and told me there might be a screwdriver in there".
This anecdote it relevant because I wouldn't fucking dream of doing that now.
Not only would I be terrified of getting caught out the same way - accidentally opening my gob to reveal myself as having snooped when working on my customers computers - but computing is a field which I worked to get into, and professionalism is important to me. |
i just saw it and said to myself "ahhh the jokes probably hidden somewhere, |
I highly doubt someone who's just doing email, video chat and looking at pictures needs that much maintenance. |
I've actually had some decent experiences there with two big purchases in the past year: a laptop and a camera. The laptop was a brand new Toshiba model, a Best Buy exclusive that's now selling for $120 more on Amazon (I got it for even less with a trade-in and a sales tax holiday!) Yeah, it had bloatware, but that took about 2 minutes to remove. The camera's sale price was about $50 higher than I would have paid on Amazon, but I didn't think that was too bad, especially since I wasn't sure I had the time to wait for mail-order. In both cases, I appreciated having a place to go and try out the equipment hands-on (all the cameras were fully powered up, unlike at the Staples down the street) since I'd be using it ALL the time.
I also bought a new laptop hard drive after it died a couple of months ago (physical shock to the laptop, not a defective part). It was nice to be able to drive 10 minutes down the road (yes, I'm in suburbia) and pick one up rather than wait for it by mail.
I've never had any of the crazy interactions that other Redditors flame about. They haven't been too pushy, and are generally pretty helpful. Of course, many of their customers aren't like me - they're the young couples I see who walk in looking for a computer with no clue as to what they want. I don't know how well they fare, or if they're being ripped off (but I would intervene if I saw that they were). I've found that once they see that I'm the kind of shopper that carries around a notepad, they more or less leave me alone.
I've had good experiences buying tech (including a laptop) online, too, and will continue to do so when it's appropriate. I also find good deals at Staples/OfficeMax, etc. But if you catch the right sales, I've found Best Buy is not a bad place to shop. |
here's the simple facts about most situations involving software and hardware and what you are allowed to do and what they care about:
The companies don't care what you do with the software or hardware as long as it doesn't threaten their business model, or allows pirating or other illegal activity that they can be liable for.
Price of Ringtones are BS,
Price of Text messaging is BS, but they fund the overall business model that allows consumers to have reduced prices on phones and such., and the infrastructure that is being used less and less for voice, and more for data and texting.
We are just constantly in the process of negotiating the prices and features we want and what we will pay for them.
I'm still using a nice all you can eat edge dataplan for like 10 bucks. That's what a data plan is worth to me. |
I don't think it's a liability issue as much as a warning to non-techies that if they can't grok the tutorial they shouldn't blindly start sort of following it because the forum is not part of [insert-phone-manufacturer] and does not offer support ( though they'd likely try to help ).
It's not so much a CYA from lawsuits as it is a CYA from crazy people yelling about not getting support from an unofficial forum. Ever take a look at the support forums for FREE open-source apps? It's filled with people yelling and yelling about poor support. There are a lot of people out there who feel entitled to support, even if it's for FREE community driven stuff. |
Because they're bought by the media industry.
This method was originally intended to have another way to settle those cases, beside going to court. Media companys pay lawyers some money so they would serve a notice and collect a fine. Lawyers soon noticed that they could demand basically any fine they wanted (assuming some filesharer would upload a movie or album several thousand times....) and made a deal:
Instead of media companies prosecuting copyright infringements, lawyers would do so with a permanent mandate. Instead of the media companys paying fees to their lawyers, these lawyers share the profit - only the profit, not possible losses! - with their "clients", so both sides earn a fortune without any real work involved. The paranoia among german politicians, law-and-order philosophy and distrust against anything internet-related served this case very well. Add two courts that - for whatever reason - give permission to do about anything when its about copyright infringement and you have a criminal syndicate backed up by our government.
Also one needs to know that our politicians usually come from one of two groups: lawyers and teachers. Lawyers will do anything but harm their colleagues and teachers are usually dumbfucks. I know of people who couldn't apply to police service, because their IQ is below 90. Now they're becoming teachers and do remarkably well, as their degree program is ridiculously easy. |
Yeah, every time I hear about some brand new file sharing technology that's "impossible to shut down", I get a chuckle. It's not as if people haven't considered this idea before (hello there Gnutella, circa-2001!). The concept of "de-centralizing" the service is great, but the buck has to stop somewhere . At some point, you have to communicate with some sort of "central" server, if for no other reason than to give you a list of de-centralized peers.
Until there's a protocol out there that just randomly scans IP addresses looking for sharing nodes, this won't work. And if someone did invent such a system, it creates a few pretty significant problems:
It would be ripe for abuse. There would be malware all over the place masquerading as legitimate nodes. Even if there was a feedback mechanism to deal with that aspect of it, the signal to noise ratio of malware nodes to legitimate nodes would eventually get ridiculous, leading to users abandoning the service. You also have to deal with the counter-insurgency aspect of spammers upvoting their own nodes while downvoting legitimate ones. Any feedback system can be gamed.
ISPs would get wise to the fact that your IP address was sending out random UDP packets, probably on a well known port (it would almost have to be), probably also with a fairly well defined payload (thousands of "are you a node" messages). The protocol would, by its very nature, have to be very chatty. The overhead that this caused, if it were to gain widespread adoption, would be vast. And if there's one thing ISPs don't like, it's stupid amounts of protocol overhead taking up all their bandwidth.
Random IP scanning would never work in IP Version 6 due to the unimaginably vast address space out there. And with IPv4 address space essentially exhausted right now, this would become a problem very, very soon . Most ISPs are already handing out both version 4 and 6 addresses right now, and some are going to cease v4 soon.
De-centralized searches would be a problem. You would get incomplete search results or searches of varying quality. This can be addressed by setting up "Super Node" type services, but even if you keep a good index of results you still can't constantly monitor the health status of every single file being shared with any real accuracy. This would lead to a lot of dead torrents that show up as alive in the index, or vice-versa. You also have the spammer problem discussed in point 1. |
Interesting points, if I could, I'd like to respond to them.
This isn't really a problem. Even if there are malicious nodes, they wouldn't be able to participate in swarms or publish search results for very long. Any shared data would fail hash checks very quickly and the node would lose the trust of peers/become ignored.
This can be a problem, yes. It's similar, if not exactly the same as the problems that exist with throttling/packet shaping now, however.
There's some interesting ways around this. One example is, if you only permit superpeers to be within known IP ranges (v6/v4 doesn't matter) then you've decreased the search space dramatically for new joiners to find the network. Even then, after a certain critical mass of the network, you only need to find 1 peer , not even a superpeer.
All searches on any and all search engines are distributed searches. The only differences I can see with this implementation would be that node stability and communication latency are much more variable due to the network being much more heterogeneous - even still, that only slows the search down, not the quality of the results. |
Ok, hold up. I hear those sorts of statementes a lot, and it stems from a very common misconception about our freedom of speech and press. To clarify, let me explain [ how censorships actually works ]( for you:
The basics
Censorship doesn't work by preventing everybody from accessing all sources.
Its mechanism is in fact twofold:
1 - It works by preventing sources from reaching most people .
2 - It works by discouraging most people from seeking out specific sources.
To explain the genius behind this, let's use the Chinese internet filter as an example. As most of us know, the Chinese government censors the internet. It's a rather complex technical story how it precisely works, but let's oversimplify, and say that they stop ('block') websites and content from reaching computer users. The information exists - it just never shows up for most people.
Circumvention
Of course, a small subset of the Chinese people try to seek out this blocked content by circumventing the censors (by various means, Tor, for example).
Most people however won't be able to do this, or simply won't due to apathy, lack of awareness and fear.
Fear? Yes - this is where the 'discouragement' part comes in.
The government uses its control over information to tell people that
This information is blocked for a very good reason, which causes apathy: no need to seek it out, the government is just watching out for me.
Those people that do seek it out, are 'dissidents' and 'spies' and other 'bad things'. These people are subject to harsh punishments. This causes fear, preventing many people from trying to circumvent the censorship.
It's the filteronomy, stupid!
Now, and this is where the true nefariousness of censorship lies, even if every Chinese person would in fact try to circumvent the filters, it doesn't matter!
How so? Simply because censorship forces people to intentionally target and seek out specific sources and content, instead of allowing such sources from reaching them effortlessly (which is how people normally get informed).
So basically, the Chinese internet filter isn't there to stop stuff entirely - it's there to stop just enough stuff most of the time for most people.
Giving yourself away
In fact, and this is where it really turns ugly, recently the Chinese censors have taken it a step futher: they secretly don't mind a small set of people circumventing the filters, because that allows them to monitor who is doing it! Those circumventers are obviously 'dissidents' endangering the status quo. So their search for information actually gives them away before they ever get to actually organis any real action against the state!
The guys who make Tor gave a really interesting speech about this during the last Chaos Communication Congress: How governments have tried to block Tor [28C3]
So, sure, you can build a 'darknet', and sure, this would allow some people from communicating some information some of the time - but it's utterly besides the point. |
For desktops and laptops, Im sure Windows 8 (and beyond) will work out ok.
But by the time that desktop and laptop conditioning takes effect, MS will have fallen that much further behind, and IMO Windows will not achieve the tablet penetration it has been so desperately designed for. |
You admit to violating their terms of service (that you presumably agreed to when you got API access) and then complain when Google enforces them? It's not Google's fault that you built your business on a violation of the ToS you agreed to. And just because lots of people are doing it doesn't mean that Google should have to say, "Aw, shucks. Guess we have to let it go now." On the contrary, if it's just a handful here and there, Google might think it's not worth the effort, but with "hundreds of millions" as you say (though I disagree, because the hundreds of millions didn't agree to the API ToS -- you and the companies that actually run these sites did) doing it, they could see it as a concern and start doing something about it.
As far as Google bending over backwards for the RIAA, that could be the case. But, as someone who commented on the original article pointed out, Google also loses money on this too, because they lose ad revenue. Or maybe they have been threatened by the RIAA and figured enforcing rules clients have already agreed to beats a legal battle. Who knows? |
I left Digg for good after I tried to correct someone for messing up one of the comment-sing-a-longs... in the first line of the song. Immediately got downvoted (or whatever it used to be called there) into oblivion. |
Unlikely that it would hit him in thw face really. Also unlikely that this would do any long term damage, in the context of young people doing plenty pf things that are far more likely to damage hearing.
Spot on about the bathtub tho. That and the shower curtain makes it much louder. If it was in the garden it would be much less funny. |
I liked him as a politician. He was consistent, actively tried to stick to the constitution, and seemed like the most intelligent politician around in 08...so I voted for him in the primary, donated $20 and even bought a coffee mug and bumper sticker.
Something must've changed in me between 08 and 12 because I think he's way too extreme and way too gung-ho about abolishing huge chunks of the government. |
I was there when she set sail on her maiden voyage in all her text-like glory and I was there when she hit that 4.0 berg that tore her cleanly in two. As the refugees and I rowed away to better shores, we stared on helplessly as the slow eventual sink began. In our hearts, we knew, begrudgingly, that an era had passed. Now the deed's finally done, I can only shed but a sigh. What a sign of the times. |
I'm 31 and still an idealist. How you describe it, that's how i've seen it for the last 15 years or so. Eventually they "grow up" or people get nailed down to commitment (career or family), sometimes not even to themselves. As i grow older, i'm less cynical towards those that do things out of "necessity" like this, but i still dont feel like going back all on my beliefs, and having none. I'm still trying to hold my integrity, but you will lose friends doing it. Because everybody seems to lose it eventually, and even though i like those friends still, my idealism ends up appearing childish or alien compared to their paradigm at that point and they eventually move on. I actually have always kind of just gotten younger and younger friends to fill my company. But at my age, you can look like a creep hanging out with a bunch of college age kids, and if i don't now i will in 10 more years. Maybe i'm just explaining this because i dont want my guess that you're younger than me to sound like ageist bigotry. I'm saying, i dont think old people "can't see bullshit", or that young people are better at it. I think part of the reason clear-thinking adults that don't quite have an idealist fervor anymore would give isn't that they are giving up, but that their experience has lead them to believe that the entire problem is more complex than a simple solution or ideal can solve. So, going into my adult years, i can say that liberalism still appeals me as an ideal, yes. But i'm starting to believe that cutting the wrong people with the blade of progress is inevitable, and that we should be damned careful with what we do with it because the internet has sharpened it battle-ready before we ever thought it would be. People who are older than me generally don't get that - they think the world is doomed. Those assholes are all gonna die off. I know a bunch of them I've seen em dying. That leaves me and you, and we want progress. |
Where does the regress end?
Before it begins. The counterclaim is not the opposite of the claim made, it's the sum of the probability of every conceivable claim that contradicts with the claim.
> The rest of your post
You did not indicate to what point you bothered to read. Curious how someone who believes people should take an active approach to truthfinding at all times can't even be bothered to read a reddit post thoroughly.
Don't worry though, the fact you've done that proves you at least subconsciously know how to distribute attention depending on how useful a source is expected to be.
So, all I need to do is ask you: Would you think it was better if my comment was easier to understand? Do you think it was wrong of you to dismiss my claims because the evidence was hidden in a "rambly undergrad waffle"?
If your answers are "yes" and "no", you already agree with me. You just lack the perspective to realize how it looks when you're on the rambly and untransparent side. |
Well, let me just list sources I follow, foreign or not, institutions or individuals. I thought about explaining why I follow each one, but it quickly became too heavy. I'll add more as I remember them.
Investigative:
[Nir Rosen](
[Jeremy Scahill](
[The Bureau of Investigative Journalism](
[ProPublica](
[The Center for Investigative Journalism](
[Center for Investigative Reporting](
Allan Nairn
Commentators/analysis/current events:
[Le monde diplomatique](
[Haïti Liberté](
Andrew MacGregor Marshall
[Afghanistan Analysis Network](
Trita Parsi
Upsidedown World
Christopher Soghoian
Rabble
[100 Reporters](
[La quadrature du net](
[Electronic Frontier Foundation](
[Public Intelligence](
Owni
[Egypt Independent](
[Al Akhbar](
[Al Jazeera English](
[The New Yorker](
[@Drones twitter account]( These guys tweet everything they find about drones of all kinds, very interesting.
[McClatchy DC](
Citizen journalism / new media / open government initiatives
La Mula
[Nieman lab](
[Liberation tech mailing list](
[Nulpunt](
Rue89
[The Center for Civic Media, MIT](
Expository/critique/inquiry:
[The New Inquiry](
[Frontline Club](
Accountability/censorship monitoring
[Newsdiffs](
I also read a lot of primary documents and reports from various sources. My view is, it's a much better investment of time to actually think about your own information priorities, and to really go in depth. If you're just ' |
Does anyone on Reddit have a clue as to how Apple, iTunes, and copyrighting actually works? These rules are not Apple's doing. They don't own the music either. It goes back to the copyright holder.....the big record companies. The record companies are so fucktarded when it comes to understanding technology in the 21st century (I thought everyone on Reddit agreed on this), they told Apple in order to sell their music they had to put rules like this in place. Steve Jobs was opposed to it from the get-go. But go ahead, call me whatever names you want, ignore the facts, downvote, and keep making idiotic comments about how evil Apple supposedly is.
Edit: Here. Straight from the [Google Play TOS](
>Sale, Distribution or Assignment to Third Parties. You may not sell, rent, lease, redistribute, broadcast, transmit, communicate, modify, sublicense or transfer or assign your rights to Products to any third party without authorization , including with regard to any downloads of Products that you may obtain through Google Play. Use of any tool or feature provided as an authorized part of Google Play (for example, “Social Recommendations”) shall not violate this provision so long as you use the tool as specifically permitted and only in the exact manner specified and enabled by Google.
But wait, I thought Google was the Bees Knees and Apple was vile despicable shit?
Read on.
>Third-Party Provisions. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in these Terms, the third parties who license their musical or other content to Google as Music Products or for other use in connection with the Google Play store (including Providers in the case of Agency Sales) are intended third party beneficiaries under these Terms solely with respect to the specific provisions of these Terms that directly concern their content (“Third-Party Provisions”), and solely for the purpose of enabling such third parties to enforce their rights in such content. For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in these Terms confers a third-party beneficiary right upon any party, with respect to any provision that falls outside the Third Party Provisions, which includes but is not limited to any provisions or agreements incorporated by reference, or that may be referenced without incorporation, in these Terms. |
because the first and last time i ever bought a dvd
it didn't let me play it on the tv-out of my video card.
let it sink in: a BOUGHT dvd did not allow me to use it.
funny, the movie i downloaded right then and there worked perfectly. |
Maybe we don't have money, do you expect me to pay for music rather than food? I don't think so.
Do you expect me to pay for music rather than buying a new computer? I don't think so.
Do you expect me to pay for music rather than Internet? I don't think so.
Do you expect me to pay for music rather than rent? I don't think so.
Until I have enough money to not have to worry much about money, then, yes, I won't pay for music. Until then I will keep downloading music for free and probably games too, thankyouverymuch. |
I simply don't buy Big Media content; I only purchase from the (mostly indie) artistes. Big Media doesn't deserve my money (I wouldn't even waste money on postage to send a package of shit to them), and I can listen to their stuff FOR FREE on sites like Youtube because hordes of unthinking idiots will keep uploading their stuff. |
Hold two of them in the fingers of your right hand like you would chopsticks. That is what you use to pull any troublesome turds the rest of the way out of your sphincter. You have to remember that Taco Bell in the future is 80% fiber and 20% grease.
The use of the third sea shell varies by culture. Some use it as a form of bidet and splash toilet water on their anus until clean. More civilized cultures wipe once with the shell and rinse it off in the toilet between each use.
The most civilized cultures live entirely on Taco Bell, and their feces is now Enchirito™ sized pellets that do not require wiping. With a digestive tract properly greased from sphincter to sphincter, it no longer gets in the way of watching the latest episode of Ow, My Balls! |
As a PC repair tech, I assure you that people who don't know they can change their homepage NEVER have msn.com or Windows Live as their homepages. Ten minutes after they get on the internet, their homepage will be changed via popup box agreement or predatory installer packages.
In related news, this is exactly why Yahoo's site ranking is so high. That fucking toolbar is bundled with everything and force-changes the homepage, alongside various "Would you like to change your homepage to yahoo.com?" checkboxes in other installers. |
Something not happening doesn't explain why they would fix it.
If, on the other hand, it was fixed already, then that would explain why i don't see it. |
I think we're seeing a replay of what happened when Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985 only now there is no hope of him ever making a comeback. With Apple suing everyone over rectangles and the shape of a friggin' leaf . You also have to consider that Apple's products aren't really even that much better than anything else: iOS still doesn't support Flash and their computers and laptops are far more expensive than similarly-powered alternatives running Windows/Linux/etc. They've managed to get around this so far by marketing themselves as a sort of fashion accessory but once the hipsters have had enough of all the lawsuits flying around it won't be "cool" to have Apple stuff anymore. |
Calli Cox and Lex Steele both have college degrees. that's just off the top of my head. I bet you'd be surprised how many went to school. |
I went back and averaged all the ones I would not bang. |
No shit, really? And I said "I" felt dirty reading that. I never stated that the individuals/sex were dirty/bad. You misinterpreted my comment. Just because I felt a cringe at the shear magnitude of partners, this was not a reflection of my attitude towards sex or the person's character. Let me be more clear so that you can understand my feelings and then maybe, just maybe, stop trolling.
I find that sex is more than just a physical act. So having sex with over a thousand people would get to a point where you'd never remember any one person. And I truly wonder if the allure of passionate love making fades and the act becomes one of necessity due to occupation. One that you just repeat over and over again and instead of truly enjoying you become less stimulated each time and need more and more to truly quench your sexual desires. That is my explanation for feeling "dirty." Also, while I'm sure each individual gets thoroughly tested before they shoot a movie/scene, some things may be missed.
Are they dirty? No. They get dirty as a part of their job, but after a shower and some mouthwash they're as clean as any of us. This is, again, obviously assuming that both individuals are free from STDs and the like. Which I'd like to assume that the more professional organizations screen the participants to ensure a safe working environment.
Are they and/or sex "bad"? Are you retarded? First of all sex is fucking awesome. Second of all, Since I made NO mention to the individual's character in my original post, I don't understand where you pulled this from. Oh wait, you assumed I was using retard logic so you thought it would be funny to sarcastically use a similar form of logic as a clever response to me. Well I'm sorry, but no. |
The random numbers are generated from a key. Most programming languages you create a random number generator and "seed" it with a key/seed number. So for example new Random(50).nextInt() might give you 12345, and new Random(51).nextInt() might give you 920, completely unrelated. If you took say rng = new Random(50) and then ran a loop printing out rng.nextInt(), the numbers might be 12345, 250, 1, 16, 298... If you then said again rng = new Random(50) and ran the same loop, it would print out the same exact numbers in the same exact order. Now it's probable that the seed given is generated by some formula based on the password, not the same seed for each or it would be unnecessary, but so that every time it hashes the same password, it gets the same seed. |
This is a really bad/dangerous suggestion. If a hacker brute-forces your password on one site and figures out that it is "Reddit 29Ojf6n3q0f72a" then you had better believe that they will try "Gmail 29Ojf6n3q0f72a" to get into your email. It doesn't matter that the hashes will be different or that the entropy is apparently more. In fact, if this ever becomes a thing then adding "Reddit" or "Gmail" as a prefix when password cracking becomes really easy. This article even talks about how common prefixes/suffixes can easily be added. |
Eh, I work in IT.
I've done a bunch of random things in an around it. I know how computers work, I know how passwords work.
But my fucking corporate gig requires me to have a new password every 30 days, that isn't one of the last 18 passwords I've used. So I have a generic password and put the month + year after it.
There's also the element of caring, if someone hacks my LinkedIn account they can't do a lot with it except see where I've been working (and they did hack linkedin) so my password was relatively weak, but my Paypal account is relatively strong. |
it is not difficult if they use a simple MD5 hash. It gets significantly more complicated if the hash is "salted" from what I understand. He does talk about this in the article as well.
The problem I see is that the databases of some of those random internet message boards you are registered at might not have this added security. So a hacker might find your e-mail address and a matching, easy-to-crack hash when they steal the database of some old forum. The next step would be to retrieve the password from the hash and see if you used the same password on your Paypal account with the same e-mail address. Do this with a sufficiently large number of password/e-mail combinations and I think you will get a few hits.
Or maybe your paypal account is more secure, but you used the same password on facebook. If the hacker is really determined to get you, he could log in there, find out what your mothers maiden name was, and then click on "i forgot my password" on every other site. |
Well you could also use [this]( but the thing about streaming people don't realise is that's it's the same as downloading but worse. When you stream anything, your computer downloads it as a temp file for viewing then deletes it after.
While there are programs that allow you to save the temp file before deletion, you could then just torrent it instead and save yourself the trouble. |
Modern Language Association's MLA Style Manual:
> To form the possessive of a plural noun ending in s, add only an apostrophe: photographers' exhibit
>
>To form the possessive of any singular proper noun, add an apostrophe and an s: Dickens's reputation, Descartes's philosophy, Marx's precepts, Venus's beauty
>
>To form the possessive of a plural proper noun, add only an apostrophe: the Dickenses' economic woes, the Vanderbilts' estate
So it would be Steve Jobs's house , but the Jobses' family home . Bill Gate's computer, or the Gateses' computer.
There is also the Associated Press Guide, Chicago Manual of Style, Fowler's, and so on, which have their own prescriptions. |
Chill the fuck out man. All this raging with CAPS and |
On a cryptographically secure system, the disk is filled with random noise. The hidden volume should be completely undetectable. However there are problems.
I recently had a hidden volume [all of my porn] get corrupted. I blame Windows... I never had any problems before when running Linux. I expect that Windows tried to defrag the drive when the outer volume was mounted and broke the hidden volume. |
What you say about Verisign is not true. The key exchange for an connection is encrypted with data derived from the private key that goes with the public key that is part of the certificate for the site.
This private key is never sent out by the maker, not even to to make the cert. To make the cert, Verisign (or whichever certificate authority) just signs the self-generated public key/cert to be used for the site.
So no, the NSA cannot decode your connections by getting Verisign (or any CA) to modify their keys.
They would either need the private key that goes with the cert of the site or they need to generate their own (forged) certificate for the site and then substitute that in when you make the connection with a man-in-the-middle attack. Note this is also detectable, although your browser quite possibly won't tell you even though it could. |
I got half way through and decided you probably know what you're talking about. Skipped to the |
Since the NSA happens to be the topic, I'll point out that HTTPS isn't of any use if the NSA either already has access to decrypted information a company holds (Google, Apple), or even worse, if the NSA gets the decryption keys from the holders such as VeriSign, which the NSA is actually trying to do. If the NSA forces certificate holders like VeriSign to divulge the decryption keys they'll be able to decrypt all HTTPS traffic that they capture, meaning they can read that traffic at the ISP level instead of at the source company level.
This isn't right.
The private keys used to set up the encryption are always held by the web server and solely by the web server. The public key is part of the SSL certificate, and only that is [transmitted in the certificate request](
Where a CA compromise comes in is in impersonation . Verisign does absolutely nothing for the encryption of your connection, their one job is to prove that the website claiming to be google.com is actually owned by Google. If a Certificate Authority mistakenly or intentionally gives out a fraudulent certificate for a website, then -- for example -- totally.not.hacking.your.starbucks.wifi.biz can pretend to be Amazon and intercept all of your credit card information. Or iz.in.ur.isp.not.bein.disclosed.gov can pretend to be Gmail and intercept your communication without Google's involvement.
Decrpying SSL traffic after-the-fact requires obtaining the server's private key, which would require cooperation, legal action upon the server owners, or illegal action (hacking) on the server itself. Even then, if the security is configured in [certain ways]( then prior communication is still unbreakable, only future communication with an active intercept.
And if the NSA is breaking into Gmail to get its private key, then they would just go after your e-mails directly .
( |
Dear Verizon:
Have fun when you finally get a court and the FCC to slap "common carrier" status on the internet, and fail miserably.
Ok, so that's just me being overly optimistic.
It's the best potential outcome. They've argued for a long time that they, the ISPs, fall under Title II of the communications act, which they actually don't and have only been able to make semantic arguments over the years, and are running out of fodder to throw at the courts.
This could put the nail in that coffin. Also, the Computer Inquiries are grossly out of date at this point(1998), and shouldn't be held in any authority what so ever in how the modern internet and internet commerce works. The pursuant "stacking of service" that gives them a loophole is also a gross dinosaur that needs to be done away with, ie: if internet information is stacked upon the network of a tel-com network; such as a cable provider or VerizonFiOS in this case; pursant to shittacular FCC rulings, this means that the telecom/ISP combo is no longer a "common carrier", but a combined information service. Since they are now "one in the same" and there is almost no use of the telephone networks to communication information any longer(broadband having taken over), this means they ISP can now openly discriminate and dodge the common carrier clause. |
I find this comment very ironic, as it's supporting a comment talking about people not understanding what they are reading, but yet the comment is actually wrong as well. The correct idea would be "hear, hear" not here here!
Perhaps before supporting arguments of discouraging discussion until they have read the materials, should look at themselves before doing so. |
I'm actually up voting because you make a good point, but it's not fully right.
See it's very different when you have your website. You host data on your servers and choose what to do with them. When you choose to block a user, or delete a post on your website, you are deleting things that are in your servers is perfectly valid. It would be akin to a radio show cutting a call, or not playing every cd/tape/mp3 they are given: they are content owners and can choose to shape this content as they wish.
ISPs are more channel conduits. It would be akin to people being able to create roads and then impose any rule they want on them. It would be like telephone companies deciding to cut or make certain calls of lower quality over others (really think of the implications of this).
The fact is that neither side is fully right. In previous media we see a middle road. It's understood that a channel may be designed and optimized for certain use, VOIP may have different requirements than HTTP requests, which have different requirements from bit torrent streams. Compromises can be made to improve the system. No one complains of the fact that a 911 call can make another normal call drop (on either wire or cell networks) it's understood as making sense.
Any abuse for business reasons, to censor services, or promote related services, should be handled as 1st amendment and anti-trust issues. You pay for access the the whole internet and should be able to connect to any machine in any way, the contract should specify the limitations of such connection, but should not be able to remove or censor anything. It should not limit any connection either without a valid reason. So if you have a 1Gbit connection, you should get 1Gbit no matter what you are connecting, but VOIP or HTTP may be optimized a bit further. Maybe certain type of connections (if the internet is used to issue warnings, amber alerts, and such) would have priority over anything else, but it should be a requirement of the law, not of the service provider.
So there has to be limitations on the system. It is hardly what ISPs want. It's understandable, companies will demand as much as they can, and will always seek the situation that puts things in their favor. Every company wants to become a monopoly with no limitations by law, and have people required to pay them, society stops them pretty good (since no company has achieved the above yet, unless you consider the IRS a company).
There is another problem: the power of the internet over every other communication system. It can be different and do all kinds of things, that is it's power. Lets use another system that is about as flexible for example: the (snail) mail. There is control, letters and packages work differently. There are tiers, higher payed packages may be treated with higher priority (but they do not affect the normal packages negatively, the lower packages have their own guarantees kept, so this is very much like tiers nowadays). But imagine if companies would limit mail and forbid anything but letters going through? Or limited (by simple attrition, never giving any attention) to markets such as packages, and lost an opportunity for business there? This isn't a decision of ethics as much as simply the US needing to make sure that they can't limit the ability for the internet to promote economical growth, allowing another nation to use it to it's full potential and supersede the US in economical power.
The solution becomes for ISP to become utilities. And that brings us to the reason they are asking for so much more than simply regulating. Why bring in the first amendment? There is nothing Verizon is saying, they are merely forwarding data. Could Fedex or UPS use the first amendment to choose to not mail my cards? How could they, if it's not their writing?
ISPs want to argue they are owners of the data of the internet. They paint themselves as the creators. They want to have the power TV has, were Cable can alter the content of the channel, and argue that (on the first amendment) they are selling this altered version, and by first amendment they have rights. TV content providers could defend themselves with copyright, but they can't because they signed a contract when they sold the content to the Cable middlemen, ceding their rights.
ISPs do not do this, they want to argue they do, because it's the best of all solutions for their bottom line. |
No its not, you are not renting property from Verizon
I'm not practicing my religion in their church either.
>they are providing you a service.
Yes, exactly. They are providing a service. So is a landlord when you rent an apartment from him. A landlord is allowed to make certain restrictions on what you can and cannot do with his service, but he is not free, nor should he be, to write in any terms whatsoever. He's allowed to say "No Pets"; he's not allowed to say "No Atheists"
What Verizon wants is the authority to say "We can pick and choose what data we pass over our network. If we don't like the particular internet application you're using, we have the right to degrade it however we see fit."
>If you really want to play the analogy game then roads would be the better one. Are HOV lanes wrong because they discriminate against cars with a single occupant? Are states that restrict trucks & buses from the left lane wrong because they do so?
Ok, sure. Much better analogy. Yes, lane restrictions are acceptable. This would be like prioritizing UDP traffic ahead of TCP/IP traffic. UDP is used in applications that require low-latency and can tolerate some loss of data. VoIP and Gaming, for instance. It doesn't matter if you drop a few packets on Skype; you might hear a bit of distortion now and then, but you're still able to finish your call. Essentially, UDP = low latency.
TCP/IP is used for applications that cannot tolerate any loss of data. Web browsing, email, file transfers, etc. Drop a few packets from these and your data is irreversibly corrupted - missing packets must be re-sent. Essentially, TCP/IP = high-reliability.
Yes, it is appropriate for Verizon to shape bandwidth in this fashion - to prioritize the transmission of a low-latency packet ahead of a high-reliability packet to ensure the perceived quality of the service they provide. But that's NOT what they are asking for.
Let's go back to the freeway analogy. Verizon already possesses the authority to install as many "lanes" as they want. They could install one cell in a city servicing 100,000 people, or they could install 10 towers on every city block in that city. The number and location of the towers they decide to provide is entirely up to them.
The same with the network bandwidth connecting them to the internet - they can buy as little or as much bandwidth as they want from network peers and exchanges. The more they buy, the more expensive, but the less they buy, the more "traffic jams". Ostensibly, when they don't buy enough, everyone suffers connection problems. When they buy too much, it cuts into their profits. They want to cut a reasonable balance.
What Net Neutrality proponents want them to do to fix this is buy more bandwidth from peers and exchanges and expand their own networks. This is expensive but fair to all of their customers.
What Verizon and other ISPs want is the right to arbitrarily shape their bandwidth. They want to be able to prioritize Verizon email ahead of Gmail. They want to be able to prioritize Verizon-owned web providers ahead of non-verizon services. They want to be able to demand money from high-bandwidth content providers who have already bought their bandwidth from peers and exchanges. Going back to the freeway analogy, they want to be able to be able to clear the road for cars headed to Verizon City by sending everyone headed to Netflixville straight off a cliff. The end user sees Verizon's streaming video services work well, even when Netflix appears to be having problems.
And once they have this authority, they have a strong disincentive to expand their network capabilities. They can either offer competing services in-house and demand concessions from their competition, or they can force competitors to get into a bidding war to get Verizon to favor one of the services over the other. |
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