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As someone who formerly sold these phones, allow me to shed some light.
The actual price tag on iPhones is $500 greater than what you actually pay in the US. When you go to AT&T or Verizon or whatever, they ring it up and it comes up at the base price, say $699 for 16GB, and then they apply a $500 discount to the total. That discount is added for signing a 2 year contract in which the company basically has it's way with your wallet, more than recouping the loss they sold you the phone for.
This is also why you have to pay a large fee to end your contract early: you still gotta pay for the phone.
It's not an ideal system, but we asked for it. And it does have it's advantages, it's pretty tough to fork over $800 all at once. Just don't think about the fact that it's costing you maybe $1400 for the privilege.
And yeah, in Europe VAT is a factor, but not as much of one as the subsidy. Besides, in most states, you still gotta pay sales tax on it. |
They're pondering using the Pirate Browser as the only access point, removing the need for domains and making it some sort of peer-to-peer network (although i don't like to call it that since it may not be the right term). To take down TPB at that point, you would have to literally prevent anyone from using the browser and destroying all drives that stored the files.
<rant>
The US gov. (and others involved in past seizures of file-sharing sites) needs to realize that all these things they try to take down just do not behave like other websites/groups/systems. We have seen people risk their personal life to reveal gov. secrets (Snowden) and create "superpositional" systems to share data to anyone and everyone (TPB). It's both funny to watch futile attempts at seizure and frightening to see the government do such actions.
</rant> |
No matter where you stand on piracy, there's no way around this: it's too late to stop it. The bright side of piracy is that now the power is ultimately in our hands instead of record labels/movie studios/etc., and the whole paradigm is changing because of it.
In, let's say, 1995, you'd have laughed if I said "Madonna should let us listen to her whole album for free through AOL so we know if it's worth the $18 we're forced to pay for it in stores." (Oh, did you think we forgot that, you greedy bastards?)
But now it's common to stream major albums online. It's common for artists to say "Name your own price" to fans, for comedians to post their new album for $5.
The future will end up finding us somewhere in the middle ground between consumers' wants and businesses'. Even today, you see that 3D printing will put even more power in our hands. After decades of having us at their mercy, it's terrifying for companies (and a lot of consumers) that some huge industries rely on us to voluntarily give money for what we could have for free.
For what it's worth, I spend a lot of money on downloading music legally, and paying for media in general. I'm only saying that... |
You/we don't really have enough information to know exactly who did this and how, and neither of those terms have a real official technical definition, so forcing a distinction between them, especially in a case lacking information such as this, is just forcing a difference so people have something to argue about. |
Hey don't insult the scientist for the journalist's writing. From the cited author's paper:
>Broader context:
Rapid deployment of power generation technologies harnessing wind and solar resources has the potential to reduce the carbon intensity of the power grid. But
as these technologies comprise a larger fraction of power supply, their variable nature poses challenges to power grid operation. Storage technologies are an
obvious solution to provide grid flexibility to balance power supply with power demand. In this study we ask the question, ‘if the wind and PV industries had to
‘pay’ the energetic cost of deploying storage, would these industries be providing a net energy surplus to society?’ We employ a dynamic net energy analysis to
compare the annual electricity production by the wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) industries with the annual energy consumption in order to manufacture and
deploy new capacity additions by these industries when they must also ‘pay’ the additional energetic cost of also deploying storage. We find that the answer
depends very much on the type of generation and storage technologies.
> Our goal is to highlight the benefit of net energy analysis as a supplement to traditional
economic analysis.
>We also want to stress the importance for manufacturers of both storage and generation to explore means to further reduce the energetic cost
of their technology and continue the development of alternative technologies providing grid flexibility. |
Does MS just do good OS, bad OS, good OS, bad OS. It's like 2 steps forward, one step back. Progress, but gradual. I think perhaps it is necessary. People don't like change, even when it is good for them. So you when you punch them in the face twice, they then thank you when you just give them a good slap the next time.
We can all just chill out a bit. The OS was more or less perfected 10 years ago, everything else is either change for change's sake or window dressing. |
Is there no one in congress right now who legitimately support this type of reform?
That's a good point. As I understand it, those 5 races need to send a message, generate press and demonstrate to the doubters out there (including most of us supporting this) that this can really work. Congresspeople especially need to know they can be replaced if they're not on board. That stage 2 is a doozy, so I think all that will be necessary.
From [the plan](
>We are not looking for easy victories; nor are we looking for races in which different issues compete, and would make identifying the reason for victory difficult. We are looking for districts in which a victory would signal that conventional wisdom was wrong: that voters, that is, could be mobilized on the basis of this issue enough to dislodge even dominant incumbents.
> Who decides the details of the reform we fight for
I'm concerned about that as well. I suppose a lot of it is up to [the board]( and who they choose as the 5 initial candidates. I had a very positive view of Lawrence Lessig from his involvement in organizations such as EFF and the FSF. Read up on some of the people running the thing. There are people I definitely wouldn't support individually in there, but it might make the whole thing more likely to work, as it does not seem at all partisan.
In any case, I like the small(ish) first stage, as it could build trust in the organization that they're both serious and committed to what they say they are. I'm not sure how it can backfire / be used against the cause. I could see it all going for no gain if done poorly or if those leading it go corrupt or something. Worst case scenario in my mind is it fails and we're left thinking it's a hopeless cause, which isn't too far from where a lot of us have been recently. |
I emailed her to tell her about my support for "Obamacara" aka national health care similar to Canada, etc... |
Piratebay hosted its servers in countries that were more or less lenient on piracy, but also switched the actual website, though the servers with the magnet links remained in the same place. Also, the pirate bay was one of the first to use magnet links to let users find torrents, rather than the larger .torrent files.
Recently, due to more pressure from copyright holders and governments, they have decided to encrypt their data (most importantly, the magnet links), and send them to the cloud. The only thing that can be called a server now is the one (or many?) accessing that information from the cloud and hosting the actual website.
The Pirate Bay is now attempting to turn all of its data into magnet links, which can be accessed from a specific piece of software. Using that software (and no actual servers), one should be able to search for torrents straight from the cloud. More here site. This cannot be taken down, unless one first finds the server, which could be anywhere. |
I will not disagree with you, because, truly, in an ideal world and state of affairs, profit shouldn't be the driving force of innovation. My intention in this particular comment is not to make a statement about all industries, all scenarios, but specifically as to the topic of this thread. The context informs the scope of the statement, so I agree with you that if people take this statement and apply it to everything, then, yes, it will be overly broad.
That said, monopolistic structures have their own sets of problems. And, as another commenter mentioned, sometimes it's not a matter of monopolistic markets being better than competitive ones, but the reality that there are certain industries (e.g., those that benefit from economies of scale), which makes monopolies the only real viable/pragmatic choice .
I think people tend to judge harshly propositions that are not "perfect solutions". I don't know if life can really offer us as many "win-win" solutions as we need to solve our problems. Maybe life can really be that easy, if we can only discover those perfect solutions. But, in my experience, in an imperfect world, we have to make decisions, not just by looking at the "pros" or "cons" column individually, but by weighing them against each other, and making the best, if not perfect, decision.
As to my comment applying this bt analogy to other matters, I've explained the context of that as well in a post lower down the thread. |
Ok, i hope you got that out of your system, and I don't mind being a shock absorber because you were so upfront and nice about it.
I stand by what I said because I was speaking on a macroeconomic level. Free and open competition means that corporations who would otherwise have little motivation to improve their products are forced to listen to what consumers need.
This particular post reminded me of this because I know of people who feel like they've invested so much (time and money) in apple products that they somehow feel locked in (these are mostly people who have no time or patience to migrate to another platform), but who are envious of the increased utility of a much larger screen (i know this from personal experience because I am on call 24/7, and internet research and word processing on a small phone is a nightmare. I made the jump but others didn't).
Maybe Apple would have come out with bigger phones sometime in the future, but I do believe that the success of phablets was a good way to motivate Apple to finally release it.
Thus, end-users like those who weren't brave enough to venture into the Android platform can now have the "best of both worlds" so I definitely think this is "better for them".
As to broadband internet and, thus, access to the internet and ultimately to information , i am not going to argue with you about "human right" because I wasn't saying anything to the contrary. What i was saying is that, if there were more players in the field, they would be competing to provide better service at more affordable costs. Simple supply and demand.
A free and open Internet, as a platform, also works for the benefit of the end-users - i don't think there's any point belaboring this. It's the ultimate "marketplace of ideas" (hence, my analogy to an economic market), but only if the fundamental premise, net neutrality is presrrved. Otherwise, it would be a skewed market that will be dictated, not by the demand side, but by the gov't and the supply side. |
jailbreaking a device is legal
Jailbreaking a mobile phone is legal in the U.S. at least until 2015 thanks to an exemption in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but tablets and watches are not included in this exception since they are not technically considered as mobile phones. Jailbreaking your iPad or Apple Watch is currently a punishable offense under DMCA.
Considering their previous official attempts to make jailbreaking illegal under DMCA, it'll be interesting to see if this exemption is renewed in 2015 and if tablets and smartwatches are finally included.
Considering the recent "iCloud hack" and Apple's entrance into the mobile payment industry, I wouldn't be surprised if the exemption was allowed to expire at the end of next year in the name of "security and privacy" after more legal pressure from Apple. |
Reddit retains the exclusive right to your children's children's children's pet's children's internet jokes, comments, artwork, poems, songs, etc, their DNA, the puppy barking at that crow outside and all associated intellectual property, future ideas and concepts and all undefined metaphysical phenomena. Any attempts to defraud this clause will be met with Ayn Rand quotes about Atlas shrugging or squatting to shit, it starts to sound like babble after awhile. |
No. The data shouldn't be stored to begin with. Whether it's in the hands of private corporations or government agencies, so long as it persists, it will eventually get out. I don't care how much you trust AT&T (LOL!?) or the US Government - if that data gets out (or is passed, even in part, into the wrong hands), who KNOWS what could happen.
This is like handing a loaded gun to your 9 year old. Yeah, you might trust that he knows enough not to aim it at others and pull the trigger. But if the other kids at school find out he has it, there's absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it from ending up in another kid's hands. Or his parents'. Or any number of shady adults your kid passes by each day on his way to and from school, completely unsupervised. Peer pressure, bribery, bullying, threats, and assault - these are all tactics which remain effective, no matter what your age or station in life. So long as you have something others want (and it doesn't take much to realize that to some people the data they're hoarding is more valuable than all the money on earth), and they know you have it, you're going to lose it. ESPECIALLY if the item in question is entirely intangible and easily duplicated. |
And I bet all your phone calls are significantly more private and secure, if you only use land lines.
Probably not. Analogue is on the way out and all digital cellular is encrypted. If someone's going to listen to your phone conversation, they're going to tap a physical wire. This is pretty trivial to do to your home phone if you have access to the outside of someone's house. For a cell phone, you'd have to get access to the cellular provider. |
I'm not on the edge of modern technology, but just because it's not popular yet doesn't mean it's new. |
Its sad to think that a vastly misrepresentative demographic decide the way in which powerfully new and liberating technologies should be used. The vast majority of M.Ps are old, live on a sum of 60k a year with all the tasty perks and expenses, and were more often that not privately educated. It's like McCain in the U.S net neutrality battle, he is at the forefront of deciding its eventual outcome, despite the fact he openly admits to not really knowing what the internet is about. Mandelson is openly corrupt, and has I believe been sacked twice. The very fact that fickle ratty toff is back in an un-elected seat of decision making is a F*g travesty. If his proposed law goes through, which I hope based on human rights and SOMEONE assassinating him it won't, I will walk around my town, to every house and flat, with my 1tb hard drive stuffed to the brim with illegally downloaded films and will then begin wanking it into everything with a USB port. No one owns the internet, it is like Hovis telling Ford to stop making cars, because people are using them to drive around other brands of bread. |
Charlie Demerjian is to Nvidia what Bill O'Reilly is to Democrats.
While the GTX480 isn't what Nvidia had hyped it to be, they actually aren't that bad. The GTX470 performs between the 5850 and 5870 and it's price reflects that. The GTX480 performs between the 5870 and the 5970, and is priced accordingly.
It appears that Nvidia wasn't fucking around when they said that the cards were designed from the ground up for DX11:
Based on these results, I know which one looks more future proof.
Also, the "oh noes, it uses so much power" argument is stupid. So what? It's not like you have to manually pedal a generator to power your PC. Would anyone who is actually thinking about dropping $500 on a monster video card have anything less than a 600W power supply?
Also, as far as the heat goes: overclockers club reports getting mid-60s under load at 100% fan speed, and 80s under 70% fan speed with a 15% over clock. It looks like that monster heat sync actually does it's job. |
Security for "your own protection" contravenes everything awesome we can do when we're allowed to futz with our devices. If it were an open platform there would be no way to get rid the wikileaks app. and users wouldn't have to fear that keeping it might result in being penalized.
Walled gardens are a great way to prevent paid services from being superseded by free services, and to control whether users can replace native software with alternatives if they don't like what they're getting. Microsoft can't control the function of every browser that a user can potential download, but that doesn't give them the right to prevent me from using them, or to tell me that I can only use programs from an approved Microsoft list without jailbreaking my computer. If they did that we'd be up in arms about antitrust, but we've accepted it thus far with Apple since the devices that use this model have fallen more in the realm of consumer electronics than true "computers."
With the advent of the iPad, people are actually shopping for devices to use on a daily basis to replace their netbooks and laptops at work and at school, and because it provides a base level of functionality, they aren't concerned with the level of restrictions. Since Apple is just going to do whatever is profitable, there's no reason not to introduce a similar system on their other computing lines, and pretty soon you'll end up paying a major premium for an "unlocked" computer that allows you access the the outside of the Apple ecosystem.
Since I really don't want to be trapped, I continue to support platforms with an open philosophy that leave what I choose to do with my system up to me, for better or for worse, and since the only thing that any corporation understands is sales figures, I hope that enough of the market will continue to limit Apple's market share for as long as they continue using that model. |
On 9 (Nightly).
Seriously though -- the only negative thing about this rapid release thing is that addons are getting broken. They don't have to be: Add-On SDK .
Also, Firebug isn't broken... Do a little work and see the addons you use aren't broken. I know it's easy to use Firefox's built-in addon checker, but Mozilla's AMO takes while to update. On AMO, you can check the all versions .
Check the Firebug's [homepage]( Version [1.8.1]( is what you are looking for.
Moreover, extension developers have known for a while that this sort of thing was coming. From Firefox 4 onward, there has been big news about the rapid release cycle, and there is even a calendar for what's next. Yes, there are new features, yes, many aren't user-facing (because... you know, what does it mean for a user when a new major version is out? UI changes; whether or not it looks new.) Draw a parallel to IE6 and standards. It's been coming, and Microsoft knew yet.... But they ignored it. Who is really at fault at that point? Sure, IE6 maket share blah blah break the web (at 1999-2001, height of IE's success), but at the same length, can it be said that negligent addon developers are breaking Firefox..? (I don't mean to offend anyone here.)
Prepared developers know to at least update the MaxVersion of their addon to beta version (right now, version 7). Beta is a feature freeze. It's mostly at quality assurance stage. Nothing about the extension API is to change. If any bugs were to crop up, then they have time to fix it.
Also, more often than not, most addons would still work despite being a higher version. You can ask the many users who have used [Add-on Compatibility Reporter]( or [Nightly Tester Tools]( Or, disable extensions compatibility check in [about:config](
If someone would like to provide me a perspective of the development side that I am missing, please do. One addon dev that I know that had been hit by a lot of difficulty . This is when I agree that something is legitimately broken. |
My point was not that; i know that the iPad is a good product, and flash was just an example. I despise Flash as well.
What I meant was: in absolutely no way an iPad has the same functionality as a PC (or a Mac, for those that use it). iPads are not suitable for work, for anything that requires typing, for heavy stuff like cad softwares, simulation, video editing, gaming (not Zynga's stuff; actual gaming).
There are so many things that an iPad can't do that it's not even funny. |
Has nothing to do with cartoons
I think you need to read up more on Disneyland and the VAST amount of technology that goes into them. We studied Disneyland's layout in Network Engineering, because of it's intense complexity and design. The sound system is the most impressive probably, it plays music all through the park, but blends and changes PERFECTLY as you walk through using this gigantic network. It's insane. |
Network carriers care about their core network, and how loaded it is (core link utilisation), as if core links are saturating, you need to deploy more capacity as link congestion rapidly turns into shit customer experience.
Carriers don't want to provision additional capacity if they don't have to, as it's seriously expensive (hint; a gig of carrier grade switching capacity costs a whole lot more than a consumer grade gig switch), so they want to know what factors influence aggregate network usage.
If you are a carrier that provides residential Internet services and caps users usage, you have two knobs you can twiddle; users access bandwidth (their modem speed) and their usage cap. Changes to users data caps much more significantly effect aggregate network use than changes to access speed. |
Total and udder fucking bullshit! The two commenters above are an exact example of the hive mind in our country. The whole pre-emptive war strategy is what causes dictators to succeed in other countries. This is a Cyber Attack, regardless if it was carried out by cool ass James Bond motherfuckers it is still an attack and an act of war.
Now China and the Middle East can justify fucking with our Internet infrastructure solely on the basis of our indifference to do so. What happened to America being a beacon of
Light? You motherfukers watched too many movies growing up and bought into an America The Beautiful fucking screenplay of the world.
When we get Cyber attacked or
bombed because of acts like this you will be beating your fucking war drums and thousands of innocent men women and children will die because of You(righteous Americans). The world is not our fucking military playground assholes. |
Except that people suck at updating their software so even exploits that were patched years ago are still infecting systems all the time. Zero day vulnerabilities get all the money but you can hardly say they are one time use exploits. |
so, can anyone give a break down of what the changes are? I tried reading the docs, but those things seriously need a " |
Why? In all honesty. If your scope of the platform is to install your own build of *nix, then there is a plethora of other hardware out there for you to do so. |
Your point? This is still competing on price.
My point being that Apple will, when there is market share to be won or lost, compete on price. |
The icons are huge, there's no taskbar (instead, windows are Exposé'd like in MacOS), there's a bigger padding in menu items and in the control panel, there's only the "X" button on windows. |
No. So I suppose I was wrong. The one I was thinking of is [aluminum magnesium]( and I don't know the specifics for the exact manufacturing process. I just knew that you could buy "magnesium" cases for PCs. |
Neither transformer actually functions as a laptop. They're more like a tablet with a keyboard (since they run Android software). Surface actually runs Windows 8 Pro, so it's a full laptop, but also a tablet.
If the Transformers switched to a linux distro when you plugged them in, with easy multitasking, desktop apps, etc, then it'd be more along the lines of the Surface. Ubuntu's working on something like this for smartphones, and Motorola's lapdock thingie is doing something similar (but really, really convoluted). |
Do you know nothing about the Network Vision rollout? They are upgrading their entire network and backhaul with updated 3G, as well as LTE, and consolidating it all into a more efficient and powerful package. If they make it through the next couple of years, they will have one of the better networks, much better than T-Mobile's. If you want more information about it, go to s4gru.com It's a great site, and the community is very helpful and knowledgable. |
I'm not aware that FoxFi does any of that kind of thing for you currently. The first method almost certainly does not. To the best of my knowledge, the most effective way of hiding from "tether detection" is to mimic the agent string used by the host (the device serving as the hotspot).
For example, every web browser, whether it is on a desktop or mobile platform, sends a user agent string along with its request for data. This string typically identifies the browser type, the operating system, what version each is, and in the case of mobile devices, the device type (among other data). |
I don't think that's how they're doing it. At least on my prepaid plan, I usually get a page redirect asking to add the tethering plan after meeting BOTH of the following conditions:
My monthly usage has exceeded 1GB (I get 5GB at 4g speed, throttled thereafter).
I am using Chrome Desktop browser.
I can avoid the page redirect through a user-agent switcher Chrome add-on OR by using Firefox. The interesting thing (and the part that indicates it's not the ESN that TMo is detecting but actually the browser user agent string) is that when I'm on my phone using the Chrome app and request the desktop version of a site -- again, after surpassing 1GB for the month -- I get redirected. |
The problem is that they probably don't have the capacity if everyone was fully utilizing their bandwidth to the cap. You can argue that it's misleading the customer (which it is), although it's also probably allowing them to sell it for much cheaper then what it would actually cost to give everyone the right caps since they can assume most people won't use up much but they can charge them for what they don't use. |
Care to elaborate ?
What is it you are selling ? What is your price point ? Is DRM involved ? How many of those illegal downloads do you think were by people who would never have purchased it at the price point you set ? How flexible is your business model, or do you impose artificial obstacles to sale such as regional pricing or exclusions ? |
If pirating actually caused any form of loss, I would agree with you. But I'm not negatively impacting the developers in any way by downloading from another source. No material or good is removed from them, no loss of work is inflicted.
People treat digital media like physical goods that require work to create each individual copy of, which is completely wrong. When I buy bread from the shop, I'm paying for the physical labor and material it took to grow the wheat, harvest it, transport and prepare it into food.
When I buy digital media, I'm only paying for the labor. There is no transportation cost, or material required to make it. You can create infinite copies for nearly no cost at all. What I'm giving you my money for, is to create more like this, or to continue updating this. When I buy a game, it's not because I feel like their efforts should be rewarded. It's because I want them to make more. I want a sequel, or at least another game from that studio.
Same goes for software. When I buy software, I buy it for the security of updates and the potential for more amazing software. I want you to continue doing what you do now, so that I can continue to buy quality software from you. |
You fail to understand the reason why they are loosing revenue. They are loosing revenue because in the digital age consumers don't want their time and daily lives to be dictated by the content distributors - the cable companies, the third party retailers. The content distributors make money off of the EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTION of content. For example, episodes of a TV series that I've watched religiously come out exactly 3 months after they were aired in the United States. Furthermore the show airs while I'm at work.
Given the option I would choose to purchase the entire show through iTunes or Amazon so I could watch it. However, it is not available on these platforms.
Collectively the vast majority of the world has this problem. They want their content when they want it - not sooner and not later. Piracy exists because it is more lucrative for the recording and motion pictures industry to sell content EXCLUSIVELY to CONTENT DISTRIBUTORS.
Most CONTENT DISTRIBUTORS aren't like Youtube, iTunes, or Amazon. Their (content distributors) business model is at risk from iTunes and Amazon. They cannot generate the same profits - who is willing to pay $60 a month for cable when you can pay $20 for the TV series you watch?
That is the problem that has driven piracy and will continue to drive piracy. Why do you think people are less inclined to pirate music now? You can buy almost any music you want conveniently and easily on iTunes for reasonable prices. No more spending $30 on an album when you only listen to 1 song. |
Demos doesn't always justify the game. I once tried the Burnout Paradise demo, and fucking hated it, then I read some reviews, and decided to try the full game out (I bought it btw.) and loved it. (I can without doubt say it's my best racing game)
Then there's RUSE, I played the demo a loooooot. Then when the game came out, I started playing other missions, and they sucked. I then read some reviews that shared my opinions of the game. |
Theoretically) easy solution: send false confirmation packets, authorize play session, keep going.
Alternatively, one poster in thread also mentioned playing pirated multiplayer games through a private server -- neat idea, less fucking around with code, however it does entail a certain hardware investment for the host.
This is why DRM just doesn't fucking work. See, DRM is essentially just a digital concept of restricting access. Like in the real world, this can be accomplished with a wide variety of techniques and most forms of digital access restriction work on the same principles.
The fundamental difference between the real and digital worlds:
Compromising a real world system can be astronomically difficult, expensive, and sometimes close to impossible. There are measures and countermeasures, methods of defeating one technology or construct, but ultimately it's a complex mess and we have a limited capacity for interaction with the real world. On the other hand a programmer acting on a digital construct has the ability to affect any abstraction and its constituents right down to the lowest level -- the bit. Everything digital comes down to 0 or 1.
The fundamental difference between programmers creating DRM and pirates defeating it:
The people creating a form of DRM are a finite team of programmers with a deadline working to create a form of digital access restriction that allows only the traffic of specific users. The pirates, on the other hand, are unhindered in respect to time and only limited in their number by the percentage of the population that both capable and motivated to compromise a digital system. This motivation might be a personal desire to access free media, a plan to monetize pirated software, adolescent expressions of anarchism, etc.
What this means for DRM:
The end result is an extremely limited team designing a system that will inevitably face a multitudinous army of keyboard warriors, all of whom share the same capacity to enact change in the system as the original design team. The game is rigged. |
The 3D printer idea the author has pisses me off.
I'm a Games Workshop fan (as in the company that makes little expensive wargame figures to fight a board game style battle) and I particularly enjoy the style of the GW models for their Warhammer 40,000 game.
3D Printing is seen as the Mecca for all Warhammer fans by pirates and people who think that Games Workshop are the Anti-Christ by charging money for their models and rules.
Now I'm not going to pretend for one minute that Games Workshop don't make a profit from their game, probably a very good one. However, compared to most hobbies the Games Workshop games aren't any more expensive than most mid level ones and actually offer a lot more replayability (for example, I am a scuba diver. I can go maybe once every 2 months and each time reduces the costs of my expensive equipment. However I can easily have 2-3 battles in a day and thus my wargaming is cheap in comparison).
Anyway I'm getting into an essay. People reckon that 3D printing will make Games Workshop cry bloody tears as their terrible old school ways ruin their company and make them destroy themselves. Is that the case? Perhaps.
What people seem to dance around is that if you pirate a 3D model, produce your own Games Workshop figures illegally at home, what happens to the company? Do these people seriously think that Games Workshop will continue to exist purely to produce rules? "Oh okay, so we're technically bankrupt but here's lots and lots of rules for units you can produce at home... for free".
Like fuck any one will play against each other if I say "Okay well Reddit reckons this unit hits on a 2+ so here's the Reddit army book." and the other guy says "Well actually, this forum says they only hit on 5+ so we're playing with these rules." It won't work. Who will become the authority? Random internet users? No fucking thanks! |
If we don't 'prop up' the music industry, what will take it's place? Blacksmithing collapsed due to the same service being available at a lower cost and requiring a lower skill set. Sure some people may have lost their jobs through this, but I imagine most of them would have moved on to the newer metalworking techniques.
Music is different. It needs people to write, record and perform it. Some people may be able to do this for free, but the quality tends to be lower and their skills may be worse or they may have less time to work on it. Writing and recording takes huge amounts of time and recording can cost several thousand dollars for a good quality, along with mixing and mastering which can be just as much. By the time you've created the product, the musicians are already a couple of thousand out of pocket and need the sales to gain exposure and to make money. From this, they may be able to get a record deal, with will cover some of the costs for the next album. Meanwhile, the musicians will be touring and generally be living rough, or working or in education. This takes out a large portion of the time they'll have to work on the next album which usually needs to be done in the next year. It can get stressful very quickly and is by no means an easy lifestyle.
Then, aftef putting hundreds of hours into your work, people take copies of it for free. Some of these people may show up to gigs later on down the line, but a lot of them won't, meaning lost sales. I've heard of several bands that have had to quit due to low album sales and I'm sure there are even more. |
Ad hominem again in this post; but, this time your first sentence. How dare you question my integrity in fine dining knowledge.
I'm going to refer to your question and my previous response in which the question was applied to. I had stated not to use foods for analogies. Here's the point in what I said. Saying that the steak didn't have enough flavor is entirely up to the cook's knowledge in cooking steak; and not just in the steak. That chef can cook a steak medium rare, and it will be to absolute perfection in it's taste. That chef can also cook the steak to well done; and it will be dry and lacking in it's potential flavors. That's just cooking steak regularly. You can add valuable flavorings with the steak, such as a sauce or even a dry rub. After the food is cooked, you can only make it more "cooked"; and this is just saying burning it more.
Let's head to your question now and answer that; which if you read my previous post, didn't even mention a programer. A programer can make a product. This is just lines of text, in whatever "language" he or she typed it in. Months down the line, the product is considered done. This is up to the company or to the person's if they consider that product "finished". Now say after a while, lots of complaints are heard and they see the product still has a few bugs. That programer can either decide to patch the product and fix the bugs for the masses, or sell a new product under the guise of it being new. This new product is almost like the old; but with the previous bugs fixed. I'm going to skip the shit out of all of which occurs in how a product could be added onto and what not.
Compare the cook and the programer. The cook can only cook the food, or burn it to a degree until that food loses all taste and becomes just burnt and ruined. The programer can "program" a product, or write code until he think its finished. That product then becomes or does not become scrutinized for any bugs that were missed in the beta/alpha tests. The program can not be ruined like the food, it can be added onto indefinitely with ease. There comes a point when you added too much to food and it: a. becomes overwhelming, or b. the original intent of flavor is compromised.
Edit: |
A) RFID is not wi-fi.
B) NFC RFID chips placed in credit cards today broadcast less information than appears on the surface or the card or on the magswipe. Only the account number is broadcast, along with a security code. This is a different code than the 3 digits on the back (CVV2), and the cardholder name, expiration date, security code on the magswipe (CVV1), etc. are not broadcasted.
C) RFID chips in current credit cards have a security card that is dynamic. The credit card network (Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Discover) sends a unique challenge to the card and logs it. The card knows its secret (won't reveal it) and the issuer knows it. The RFID chip transforms the challenge and sends a unique response.
This makes challenge/response attacks impossible (barring some unseen break in the crypto). You would have to be close enough with equipment connected to get the challenge from the reader, issue it to the card, get the response, and then relay it back to the card reader. A guy working around with large enough antennas to read the cards at any meaningful distance as he tries to hold some mess of wires up to the reader is mighty obvious. |
I get what you are saying but cars are to driving like phones are to...what? Talking? Not really. Just talking is what phones used to be for, now they are for paying games, internet shopping, navigation, social networking. Mobile phone use is still evolving whilst the function of cars has always to get people from A to B (or from showing your neighbours how much you earn). So a 911 hasn't had much reason to change. Not so for the iPhone. |
I'd have to disagree with you there. When you're buying a new, high end sports car or a supercar, you want a bit more. You don't want to get something that looks exactly like the last one.
Sure, if you're buying a Nissan Micra or a Vauxhall Corsa, the purpose is to get you from A to B.
But if you're buying a Porsche, Ferrari, or a Lambo? It's to look good as well, and it's to have something that looks different from the last iteration. If you're going to spend that much money, it's got to do more than just transport you. I'm not sure if I've been watching too many episodes of Top Gear, but that's just how I feel.
I'm not calling the iPhone a design classic. The word 'classic' wasn't in any of my previous comments. What I was saying is that nothing's really changed aesthetically [i.e. how it looks]. It's the same icons on the same black background, on the same rectangular hunk of plastic and metal. |
Smartphones were around before people really cared about browsing. We can say smartphones have evolved, but I rather just say new phones focused around browsing aren't smartphones.
And the map app on iOS sucks. Try it on Android. Though seems Apple is fixing this in iOS 6.
What doesn't Android have that iCloud provides?
Contacts. Check, in version 1.
Calendars. Check, in version 1.
Photos. Any of the many cloud photo (picasa as an example) or storage apps.
Music. Any of the many cloud music (amazon, play music) or storage apps.
Apps. Android restored apps after a phone wipe since at least version 2.3. Likely earlier. |
Huawei u8800.
Definitely a little exaggeration on the "everything an iphone can do", and I apologise for that. More accurate would have been "everything I would do with an iphone if I had one" which, I think, is where android wins.
To use the car analogy, Apple will sell you a BMW 335i. That is the only model in their range, and it has almost no options.
With Andoid you have everything from a Chevy Aveo, to a Ferrari 458, to a Ford F-100 available, at every different price point.
If you want to just run SSH in a full featured terminal and use Aldiko/SMS - you can do that with a $100 phone. If your phone is your life and you do all your media consumption through it up to and including watching HD video on it in 720p, there are options for that.
All of this being said - The cachet of "iphone" still has some pull. Just like "BMW". Even though, arguably, there are much better alternatives. And at the end of the day, sometimes just being able to say "I have an IPhone" is worth more to some people (Like my sister, who recently got a 4S) than every advantage Android has. |
Except he obtained them legally.... then he essentially gave them to anyone that explicitly came looking for them. When you explicitly go to look for a torrent of a porno you are not the type of person that was going to but them anyways. Also to anyone that would actually buy porn, it would be a promotion for the production company.(assuming the movies were good) |
From what I remember of the article, it is reconstructing the password from a hash code it already has. So its kind of like taking a scrambled password and unscrambling it, and since they are just then matching it to the hash code, there is no limit on attempts per a day. Though to do this you already need to have the hash code. |
I doubt TWC can manage anywhere close to effective support of 1Gbps. I'm based in NYC, you'd think this would be an important an well supported market for TWC. I've had a 50/5Mbps Docsis 3 connection for well over a year through TWC. After about a year getting the pole-to-house (all of 150') connection to be reliable and as join/splitter-free as possible (I can absolutely rule out last-hop, modem to pole issues) I still get better, more reliable, stutter free, short-video playback from my iPhone over LTE than I do over my wired-in TWC Docsis 3 connection.
My metric is how loud my 1 year old son complains when he wants to watch his Sesame Street clip (Elvis Costelo - A Monster Went and Ate My Red Two) hosted by YouTube. He converts inverse effective network throughput directly to acoustic Dbs.
A less subjective but, by no means less accurate measurement, of network throughput can be determined by running a repeating trace route (mtr) to just about any site outside TWC's NYC intranet domain. The range of ping response times through various well defined points in the traceroute path within TWC's intranet as it gateways packets to the real world Internet is horrible. Flapping much.
Needless to say, TWC tech support only seem to be concerned with speed tests within their intranet and do not appear to care that the real world throughput of their flagship residential product can be beaten by a cell phone.
It's not about line bandwidth, it's about what you can do with the connection. It's not about how fat the pipe is, it's about how many blockages/throttles there are in the path. TWC have no idea how to run a network and have no clue how to effectively troubleshoot their routing issues. |
Fair enough. I thought it was self-evident.
Let's suppose that no election system can ever be 100% tamper-proof. We are as diligent as possible and design our ideal paper and electronic systems.
If the system is not 100% secure, there will always be the possibility of fraud and tampering happening.
The difference in the safety of either system is the scope of such a possible fraud.
In an electronic system, a relatively small change done by fraud can affect a massive outcome. Say, tampering with a regional reporting system after all of the fraudless local system have accurately tabulated all the votes. Change something at a higher level system and it could have a massive effect.
With a paper-based system, sure some local precinct could have corrupt scrutineers and irresponsible party watch-dogs to cause a particular polling station to not be accurate, but the chance of tampering being done on a large enough scale to affect the election is basically nil.
As a Canadian, I fully trust Elections Canada to get it right every time. Their organizational structure is tried and tested and their track records speaks for itself. I'm not saying they're perfect, but read up on Elections Canada if you'd like to know more about how to run a successful and secure national election. |
I don't know I thing a lot of good people run for office and a lot win. But it is hard to stand against the flow. You stand behind your principles and try to make things better but no one will stand with you unless you do X for them. So you say hey I'll compromise this 1 time an help mr douchbag cause he will then help me with my thing. Then you start using this argument more and more and suddenly you have been swept up in the system that churns out more shit than a sewage plant. Throw in the fact that you need to be reelected so often and thus need more money. |
The company which provided the punch card ballots was also trying to sell electronic paperless ballots. [There was a report which showed how they screwed their own company on purpose](
Now contrast that to OPTICAL scanning paper ballots which have been ROCK solid for decades. In fact they are so good that in many counties they save money because when there is a recount the numbers usually don't change (perhaps by one vote sometimes). So the number of recounts with optical scanning ballots is lower as politicians know that the recounts will be about the same and would have to pay for getting the same thing back. |
You make an interesting point, however you should try checking out the Cox Report: The overview is fairly short if you want the general idea. |
I do agree with you, some companies just seem to garner a "fanboyism", if you'll allow the term, that no other company does. Apple and Google being the contemporary examples of that.
However, Google, unlike Facebook, unlike others with access to our information, has at least attempted (it may be argued successfully, I think they could do better, though) to provide some transparency in their methods, and the data they collect.
Now, an argument can be made that, the mere fact that they are collecting this information should be cause for concern, and I don't disagree, but what allows them to keep doing this is that they provide things their 'customers' want.
Google Fiber is a prime example of this. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong that it might be a very big privacy breach waiting to happen, but they are helping the deplorable state of Internet access in the US. They're proving that, indeed, the infrastructure/money to actually provide cheaper internet is there, ISPs are simply refusing to do so. This is a great thing for the consumers, but it's also great for Google (faster internet, with no caps, equals more people on the internet doing more things, hopefully, seeing more of our ads).
Trying to drive the point home of that last paragraph, what makes Google so great for the zealots, and even for the average consumer (by that I mean non-tech-savvies), is that providing the best user experience IS in Google's best interest. Everyone wants faster, cheaper internet. So does Google, because it allows you to look at more of their ads, and allows them to collect more information on you. Everyone wants smaller, less in-your-face ads. So does Google, because then you (maybe?) won't adblock them. Open-source folks want more open-source software. So does Google, because it allows good chunks of their software to be coded/debugged by a great number of qualified people.
( |
This is quite smart if you ask me. Each OS has their flagships. When you think of premium ios experience you think of iphone, when you think of premium android experience you think of the nexus, when you think of the premium windows phone experience....nokia? Nokia manufactures amazing phones but theyve also saturated their device lines with tons of midrange to featurephone devices. |
Which makes sense if you look at the current pricing models, growth potential, and generational improvements for the mobile platform vs the PC industry.
Right now, my laptop from 2008 does most everything I need just fine. I can browse the internet, watch videos, and do work. Why go out and get a new computer if the one I have does everything I need? It's even more exaggerated because the current console generation dragged on so long I could get away with outdated graphics cards. PC sales will remain sluggish until there is either a change in pricing models, or something new comes along that encourages people to upgrade their specs. I see a lot of businesses with 5+ year old PCs clunking along because there is no big reason to get new computers.
So why are mobile devices increasing? First off, you're seeing much more year to year improvement of the technology since it's less mature than the PC industry. This makes it easier to show people how different the new generation is from the previous. You also have a much bigger potential for growth. You're not going to find many households without a computer, but you will find plenty without a tablet. This will not last forever, but it looks good now.
Then how come you see big sales of smart phones even when there aren't huge changes from one version to the next? The first reason is you have low prices subsidized by the phone companies. You have contracts that allow you exchange old models in after a year or two. Their pricing plan allows for much better sales numbers.
So that is why I think PC sales are not moving a whole lot while mobile devices are soaring. I think PC sales can see a large resurgence once the tablet market becomes heavily saturated. There just has to be a good reason for the corporate world and consumer to feel like they have to upgrade. For example, over the next year or two, you will probably see a small rise in PC sales. The next generation of consoles are coming which means software developers will be free to upgrade the required specs for their games. So my 2008 laptop probably wont cut it any longer.
Anyway sorry for the |
No WE DIDN'T the politicians who are bought and paid for by the MPAA and RIAA did. Unfortunately that's probably the majority of the leadership in the Democratic Party. |
As a former IT Project Manager, I can state with confidence that this will not end well. Almost everything that can doom a project has been checked off here, e.g., constantly changing requirements, inadequate testing, unclear lines of accountability, etc., etc.
I would imagine a discussion has already taken place about whether it would be better to start over or just try to patch everything as it breaks, and that they've decided to just go with the patches. Good luck with that.
Ironically, folks not being able to access the ACA website might be a blessing in disguise, as it's preventing a lot of data entering the system that will likely need to be scrubbed at some point down the road. |
I'm afraid the answer is disappointing.
Most WiFi routers are about 100mW. The most power these things can "supply" is based on the power of microwave source. You can't get more power out than the router supplies, and these devices can only get at most 37% of whatever power is being emitted.
So, you basically need powerful transmitters to have something that delivers some serious power - like for example the orbital satellite beaming down microwave power which they mentioned. |
You want the Guardian to release all of their information because otherwise they are not credible. The whole point of Snowden going to respected newspapers and journalists was that the information didn't just get dumped in a torrent somewhere for everyone to read. These things, shocking as they may be, still contain sensitive information that are not meant for the general public.
No. You are repeating a straw man that I have already pointed out and refuted. I am literally going to quote the post directly above:
The wrath of the UK government and national security? But they are already describing the contents in their own words. How on earth can you say that they are prevented by national security from releasing documents when they then go on to describe the contents of those documents? Why would it be any less of a security concern or less of a wrath concern to describe the contents of a document compared to actually releasing it?
Privacy and operational concerns: A basic redaction would take five minutes. I could literally go through a page a minute.
Twenty pages, twenty minutes. This is not a defense.
ALL of their documents? Straw man - I am just asking for the 2-3 other documents they claim they are using as a source.
Stop using straw man arguments. It makes you evil.
>If the Guardian, the New York post and all the other newspapers that release articles based on Snowdens documents would just dump it they would get shut down. Not only that but they could face criminal persecution.
Again, a repeat of the straw man, and unjustified rationale. What article of the law would they face criminal persecution under? POINT TO THE LAW. Why does that article allow describing the contents but not impact releasing the contents?
>You should read up on your journalism ethics.
You should explain where in "journalism ethics" it is explained why it IS acceptable to describe the contents of a document, whilst it IS NOT acceptable to release the documents with sensitive details redacted.
As it is, when you simply claim this is the case with handwaving and 'trust me' and 'just read up on this and you'll see', you are similarly obscurantist. |
Stick with popular file formats that everyone uses and that aren't controlled by one company
>Save and store documents in .docx, .doc, .pdf , and .html. For photos, go with .jpg and .png. For music, .mp3 and .wav.
Isn't the pdf format owned by adobe? Wouldn't Ogg Vorbis (open source) be better than mp3(Fraunhofer's) ? And .jpg, to me archiving in a compressed and lossy format doesn't seem like a good idea: if we loose the algorithm we end up with very randomish and low quality information, while it is easier to reverse-engineer a way to read uncompressed data.
meh... I think they got it wrong. |
Well, in a broad sense, digital assets represent an investment on the part of the person who owns them. These ships, their cargo, their weapons, and the avatars that pilot them, are the collective result of thousands of man-hours of work/play and money in the form of subscription.
But the values posted here are not based on complex analysis of the player investment. They are based on a rudimentary financial exchange which allows players to effectively purchase the in-game currency (ISK) with out-of-game currency (such as USD).
Players may spend real money to purchase an in-game item called PLEX (Pilot Licence EXtension), which is effectively a redeem code for one month of game time. The code is actually an item in the game, and can be bought, sold, traded, and blown the fuck up, like any other item in the game. Because this item has an in-game value (in ISK, determined by the in-game markets), and an out-of-game value (in USD, a fixed amount), it provides a fixed point from which the value of in-game items can be extrapolated to real-world markets.
The pricing isn't as arbitrary as it seems, either. The price of PLEX in-game is controlled by classic supply and demand. Players who buy PLEX with cash are only willing to sell them for an ISK amount that's acceptable for the amount of real-world work that $20 took for them, and players buying PLEX in-game for ISK are only willing to pay the amount of ISK that's acceptable for the amount of time they get (30 days). Individual prices vary by player, and averages fluctuate, but in the end it is relatively stable at an amount that best encapsulates the amount of ISK (representing investment in the game) a $20 subscription is worth to all players.
From there you can extrapolate the value of these battles by comparing the ISK value of the items involved to the value of PLEX. $200,000 is roughly 10,000 PLEX, or 300,000 hours of subscription time. I think the average is roughly 620,000,000ISK/PLEX, so, very roughly, 6,200,000,000,000 ISK worth of damage. Actual market metrics are MUCH more precise than that, and I doubt that number is anywhere near accurate. |
I don't think the author of this website understands what a meritocracy is... Nobody gives a fuck HOW you got good, all that matters is that you ARE good. And if you aren't as good as the other person, they will get the job, not you. Thats all there is too it. OF COURSE the good schools produce the most people who are good, THATS WHY THEY ARE GOOD SCHOOLS.
> "That means the founders had held a senior position at a big technology firm, worked at a well-connected smaller one, started a successful company already, or attended one of just three universities — Stanford, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
So people who get high positions have already proven themselves. DUH. Thats common sense, you wouldn't hire someone if you weren't sure they would do a better job than all other applicants. To do otherwise is stupid. You are also going to have a much clearer picture of someone you have worked with, or trust the positive words of someone you trust who vouches for them. It's only common sense.
> "The analysis ... generally supports academic research showing that tech entrepreneurs are substantially wealthier and better educated than the population at large."
Smarter people do better? NO SHIT!
> One of the most prevalent defenses against claims of gender bias and sexism in the tech industry is that , where the smartest, most skilled engineers and the best ideas rise to the top. Following this logic, the people with the most merit just happen to be almost all white men.
Well what the fuck do expect when almost all the people actually participating in the industry are white men? If more gay black women were participating then they would be better represented. It's just common fucking sense.
> The data also supported other claims of race, gender and class bias.
But it doesn't support the ones you just made even... The fact statistics show a bias in gender/race does not indicate there is some kind of negative predjudice there. It just indicates there are less women/minorities or whatever. It makes no comment on WHY that is. This is basic fucking stats interpretation.
> "This mythology ... denies the role of personal connections, wealth, background, gender, race, or education in an individual's success,"
Gender/race yes, the other stuff no. The other stuff are all indicators of skill. If you have better connections that will vouch for you then you probably have proved yourself to more people. If nobody is willing to risk their reputation to say you are good, it's probably because you have not proven it to anyone. If you are not rich then it demonstrates you have not proved your superior skills through application (which would have made you richer than other people of lesser skill). If you do not have a better education you have not proved your superiority by meeting the more rigorous standards they are known for and have demonstrably had lesser tution from lesser educators. All of this points to you not being as skilled as the other person.
> A lack of diversity means fewer ideas, perspectives and pushback that come with a varied and eclectic group of folks at the table.
Perhaps, but this is also not a guaranteed recipe for success. It's also a demonstrably proved recipe for increased conflict and inability to work cohesively. The more like people are in thought process the better they will synergize. The less the worse typically because their methodologies conflict. They might work well alone but it doesn't mean they will as a team. This is a perfect example of that, why would any guy want to work with the author of this article? I would actively avoid her out of fear she would go off on some rant about how my beard oppresses her because of it's masculinity or some other inane bullshit. This is also exactly why Adria Richards got fired. Because she was too busy doing the OPPOSITE of her job because of her petulant outrage cause some guys privately made a "dongle" joke and laughed at the "forking repositories". These women are their own worst enemies but they are too busy getting butthurt over imaginary shit instead of doing their fucking jobs. They mistake their own incompetence for "oppression" and blame everything on everyone but themselves.
> And the consequence of starting a pattern of white males-only rooms is that patterns tend to repeat themselves — after patterns and norms are well-established, it would take a lot of imagination for some of the boardrooms and lunchrooms in Silicon Valley to try to look or feel drastically different.
A) False. Patterns don't just repeat themselves "Because". If it's repeating it's because it works. if it didn't they wouldn't fucking be doing it and they sure as hell wouldn't be successful. B) Why should they try to look and feel different. Why take unnecessary risks? It's not good business sense, hence why nobody does it.
If it's such a brilliant magical panacea to solving all your problems, why not go employ a mix of people from varying genders, ethnicities, educations etc. to form a super ultimate company to end all companies and take over the world? Oh right, because apparently being an asian woman somehow magically makes the author unable to do such a thing because "white men".
> If the people solving tech problems are mainly white, male and privileged, then what problems aren't they solving?
The ones that aren't getting solved by anyone else? If you have something you need solved then come up with your own solution. Why is it white mens responsibility to solve your problem for you? Take some responsibility for your own fucking life instead of expecting white men to do everything for you. If you aren't good enough to do that then thats your fault, not theirs. They didn't magically steal your ability to learn or succeed. The only person stopping you is you.
Should one of the most influential forces of the global economy be driven by only the perspectives of a certain slice of our population?
If they are the only people willing to do anything then sure. It's not like these people have a responsibility to solve anyone else problems. The VAST majority of them simply want to earn a check so they can eat and sleep in places that aren't dumpsters and cardboard boxes. Some might have the luxury of doing shit just for fun but that is because they are fucking smart and put the work in to EARN that right. They weren't just handed it cause of quotas or some bullshit.
How can individuals and institutions support more systemic change?
Individuals (i.e these women and minorities) can support it by fucking participating. stop crying about it and just do it. If you can't do well enough then either learn more and get better or realise that you just aren't very good at this job and find a new one like every white guy who isn't good at it. Meritocracies don't work by quota, they work by having merit. If you don't then you fail, plain and fucking simple.
> Tell Me More is devoting the month of March to talking about women in tech
Of course they are, just like companies and institutions promote it non stop and put out scholarships just for women etc. Women get a FUCKLOAD of encouragement, financial incentive, unfair advantages and more in this industry. They have NO EXCUSE except their own disinterest in the field. |
Depending on how far the technology goes it definitely has the capability to transform the world.
They key being that 3d printing will allow local manufacturing of products. Even to the point of within a household.
That being said.. the whole dynamic of trading goods globally will essentially diminish. |
IT is my profession so for me the question becomes "how can you not have one?!".
I treat my household like any organization, ze netwerk-ka vil form ze backbone , ach!
I am not at all sure why german me took over there. |
worlds first.
Who cares? We will see 1tb in no time. It's just a waiting game. This is no accomplishment.
Do you think anyone will be saying "remember how sandisk made the first 128gb micro sd card?" in 5 years when there will be 100 other "worlds first" releases?
I'm willing to bet money on the fact that companies have this technology and release it like diamonds... |
outside the top universities, indian engineering schools are nothing more than degree factories. where the kids learn the equations but don't understand the rationale of how the equation became to be or how to manipulate the equation when there are different factors. American Engineers are very good at the actually thought process. This all came from a very smart Indian chemical engineer I worked with. |
Space does not move and cannot be objectively observed. Nasa's Eagleworks Lab's [research includes] ( the creation and use of what you describe as "a wave of distorted space".
Now that I have your attention I want to clear a few details up about FTL travel.
We don't need FTL travel to reach an object X light years away in less that X years(keep reading for clarification).
NOTHING CAN GO FASTER THAN C. (C is the speed at which all particles without mass travel in a vacuum)
Now that we have that out of the way lets get to clarifying why FTL travel is unnecessary. This is easiest to understand (like most of modern physics) with an over simplified metaphor(these metaphors also lead to misconceptions such as the one I am currently attempting to address).
For simplicity lets say light speed is 100 mph and your destination is 500 miles away. Some easy math tells us that our destination is 5 hours away at light speed. This is only correct if you have no mass. However a massive object traveling at 99.99999999999999 mph can traverse 500 miles in roughly a minute. How? Special relativity. As you approach light speed space-time(not the same thing as space or time) shortens in the direction you are traveling. The difference a fraction of one meter per second speed increase can have on your travel time a 99.99999999999% the speed of light is rivaled only by the force it takes to accelerate an object traveling 99.999999999999% the speed of light a fraction of one meter per second. This relative space-time constriction is unending as you can always go a little faster.
IRL light speed is the point which space-time constriction reduces the distance between you and your destination and consequently any destination to 0. In other words a massive object traveling at light speed would be everywhere at once and as such would encompass the entirety of the universe. |
You have a car, and it can only go so far on a tank of gas.
You can add more gas, but then you have to add more fuel tank, and the car gets heavier, so you don't go as far with the extra gas as you did with the original gas.
So you add more gas, but then you have to add more fuel tank, and you run into the same problem. |
Astrophysics, huh? Crossing my fingers for something that might lead to an F |
Aliens arrive seconds after the initial testing with their fully functional gift-wrapped peace offering F |
just about any basic problem like that has already been documented by someone
Sounds like you're describing Linux there. Between the Ubuntu Forums, Arch Wiki, and many other great resources, Googling Linux problems is just as, if not more successful than doing that in Windows. I've Googled the crap out of an error code regarding the update to Windows 8.1, and the error code was a generic one that's been around since Vista, and none of the solutions I could try worked (including the Win8 specific solutions). I'm still on 8.0 because of that. Plus, my 8 product key won't work to fresh install 8.1 , so I'm stuck. At this point, my only hope would be to reinstall 8.0 and try the update again and pray that it worked. |
Not really, because once you get off the train, how do you get around? Sure for the UK you could walk or bike everywhere, but many cities in the US are a huge sprawl with mass transit that could be described as Slightly less painful than a root canal." on a good day.
Plus with the car you have the freedom to stop where you want, when you want. Pass some random museum or hiking trail or world's biggest [X]? DETOUR!
So while it is somewhat comparable, it's not really the same. And I believe most people would agree that with America's vast amount of land, such a system of intra-national trains would flop because nobody would want to use them. |
Tickets can represent revenue for governments, but let's not forget the main goal is and always has been safety . The result of reckless driving is far more costly to the US, where accidents alone are estimated at about $164.2 billion. The safer the roads, the less accidents and incidents, the less police will have to focus on road safety and will be able to focus on far more important things.
If tickets revenues go down due to safety, the government should be seeing monumental savings in other areas, and that elected government should distribute the wealth properly including investing in law enforcement.
I work for a state government in dire need of a better economy, and currently working on a government wide e-ticketing project. It's interesting to see how some tickets spiked revenue for a time and then went down as citizens became more aware and educated about the topic (or simply got tired of getting the tickets) and took precautions (for example, seat-belts tickets represented a high revenue for a while, but as citizens became more aware and educated, they start buckling up and those revenues started going down). Safer roads is a good thing: with less accidents occurring and more citizens surviving any accidents unharmed, this puts a lot less stress on families and communities, it costs the system a lot less as well, and the citizens can remain productive, which is one of the benefits for society as a whole. |
It was during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII in 1994 2004, in which Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed together. At the end of one song, Timberlake pulled on a portion of her dress, and it came away exposing her breast (with the nipple itself covered). She grasped the dress and appeared to be shocked, and the incident was later called a 'wardrobe malfunction'- that it wasn't intentional. The FCC received a large number of complaints, and the incident dominated the news for weeks afterwards, resulting in the FCC fining CBS a half-million dollars, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court.
The backlash from the incident was pretty severe, with people arguing about the 'morality' and lack thereof on television, and the cost of fines for indecency were increased. At the same time, the Guinness Book of World Records recorded the event of the "most Searched in Internet History" and the "Most Searched for News Item" and it was the most replayed moment in TiVo history. Also as a result, Jackson was blacklisted from many sales and performance venues, which significantly impacted her career. |
It's only considered a bad idea in countries where the ruling elite stand to suffer from any change in their current system. Just like how we're taught in the USA public school system that China's system of governance and economic regulation is a terrible thing, and yet they're rapidly outpacing and outmaneuvering the western world in both technological advancement and economic growth, despite the corruption present in their government. Their government's ability to guide corporate interests has allowed them to plan far ahead in the future, whereas we over in the US hold back our technological advancements for 50 years because its more profitable to string them out over time. |
This reply has taken me a while to formulate in my mind, and packing for a vacation tomorrow hasn't helped. However, I think I have the gist of what I want to say down.
I respect any pure system as long as the edge conditions are, blunted, so to say. That being said, pure systems, like most things that are expressed in nearly pure mathematics, people start trying to substitute values into it to create the most extreme results. Capitalism is a lot like this, and that is the reason we need regulations to be strong and not paper tigers because in the blood sport that is the economy, players do not pull punches or play fair.
I would obviously fight against something that I felt to be unfair, unjust or unjust with respect to my business. Yes, I would try to have a law repealed or changed so that it more closely followed my own ethical standard and moral compass. What I would not do, however, is compromise those ethical or moral standards to improve the performance of my business.
The reason for this is simple: I'm a human and capable of making decisions based on human morality and emotions that contradict the pure end goal result of capitalism. As you have pointed out so well, the point of capitalism is to win by having the most money/power/influence/whatever. If you introduce the range of humanity to the game, you will have some combination of a sociopath, genius and megalomaniac , perhaps they will not restrain themselves in their pursuit of success; after all that is the name of the game, right?
That's the problem with human beings and pure philosophical ideas. Our nature precludes us from ever being able to achieve, on anything other than a very small scale, a state where the sociological construct (socialism, capitalism, insertyourownism...) can come to be in a sustainable way. There will always be some guy that figures out the formula, finds the way to win, and breaks it. Those people generally want to be in power as well, so in the case of capitalism, they infest both the ranks of CEOs and policy makers.
I was trained as an engineer so here's an example anyone were to ever come up with a system for a bridge that was nearly flawless. It's cheap, beautiful and fast to build. Caveat, however, is that in a very special set of circumstances that only a crazy person would ever try and bring about, the bridge will collapse. Would someone build that bridge? |
As a Brit it's weird to think that this is the first news report I've seen that specifically talks about big non-tech business being in favour of net neutrality. The very thought of a tiered internet, with the tiers being decided by a predetermined and closed group of colluding businesses, should be something that strikes fear and fury into any business outside of the tier-determining group. It will either mean paying favor/ransom money (that they're not currently paying) or losing out in income and/or private infrastructure. How many non-tech companies depend on the internet or the underlying networking technologies for the vast majority of their business needs?
I don't believe that if, in the US, the internet is not classed as a utility it will mean the end of the internet as we know it but it will set the US back many years in terms of development and innovation while a workaround is found or a better technology is born. It may also mean bad overseas business for US companies as if this impacts services that tech companies can provide for the rest of the world then customers will simply look elsewhere.
The internet has so far been driven by US companies and innovation but getting strangled at home by a legal oligopoly will open up the internet for the rest of the world to take over and become leaders. This should frighten other Western-style democracies for political and economic reasons.
All businesses need to lobby for net neutrality whether they do it in secret or openly. The stakes are too high to risk otherwise. |
PSA: a few days ago there was a reddit post asking what comment people consistently downvote. Things like "this" and others that don't contribute were at the top
Ever since, I have yet to see a positive voted "this", among another few. |
But if I, Mr Middle Manager, get my short-term "efficiencies" before the long term effects become apparent, then I get my bonus and referral onto my next gig! |
I have a similar story. I work for a small start-up company that creates medical software for plastic surgeons. I was hired because of they were getting massive amounts of support calls which the development team had to take care of. I was their only technical support hire. Our company currently has 2,000 clients worldwide.
When I started working here they used (I shit you not) sticky notes when taking support calls. One of the first things I did was setup a JIRA ticket system for support calls. I also designed a dashboard to make it easy for our account representatives to log support tickets. This significantly helped but as a lone tech support person this created a massive amount of work for me.
I was drowning in support tickets and I was on the phone from the time I walked in the door until the time I left at night. The majority of the calls I took were with angry doctors or their equally angry office managers. It made my life a pure hell. Many calls went un-returned for nearly 24 hours or longer due the bulk of calls that I received. I begged management to hire some help but their excuse was that it was far too expensive to hire another IT person.
After months of drowning my bosses received numerous phone calls from clients threatening to quit using our system. This caused an "Internal Investigation" into the matter from management. They finally agreed to hire some help. So they ended up hiring a part time college student who they can pay next to nothing.
The person they hired was not qualified for the job but was hired because they "Interviewed well". It took me over four months before I felt comfortable with this new hire answering phones and troubleshooting clients software.
The company was recently purchased by a major medical company from California. They decided to cut costs by having me and my part time help take over logistics on top of our current responsibilities and they decided to take away my part time student help and make her an account representative so they didn't have to hire a new one. They promised me that they would hire another full time technical support specialist to help me as well as give me a raise. After three months with no help and no raise I was finally fed up. The turnaround time on support calls had increased the clients were getting angry and demanding refunds yet again. Management was just ignoring the problem all together. I was skipping lunch multiple times a week and working late hours with no overtime. To top it all off I had not received a raise or any benefits and I was working well below the average technical support salary.
I started having panic attacks at work which lead to complete breakdown one day after dealing with an incredibly difficult client. I walked into my bosses office and told him I was going to quit. I broke down crying in his office which was an extremely humiliating experience. They begged me to stay and told me they would give me a very large raise with benefits. They also said they would hire me a new technical support person to help me out. I thought things were looking up but, it took over a month before I received my raise which I had to remind them about for two pay periods before it was included. I have yet to see any benefits and they just barely hired me some help which is another part time, under qualified student whom they will pay next to nothing.
I recently overheard a conversation where my boss said that I was a "terrorist" who made un-reasonable demands and "Not a team player". Pardon me for wanting a decent salary. I used to love working in the IT field but I have become so jaded that I go home at the end of each shift angry and frustrated. It takes every ounce of energy I can muster to go to work each morning. My anxiety is at an all time high and quite frankly I don't know what to do about it. |
Shut up and take my... most private and personal communications, break down their content like gmail, produce a consumer behavioral profile to be sold at advertising auctions, and ultimately forfeit this information to the government in the name of national security. |
Wow, this perfectly describes how the group project I did last week played out. I was in a group with a bunch of kids who aren't exactly stupid, but they're a bit slow. While working with them, I quickly learned I'd never be satisfied with the final product unless I made sure everything was perfect, so I told them that indirectly by saying, "By the way, guys, I'm gonna polish the living fuck out of this the next few days, so if none of you even work on it, I don't care because I'm gonna be making it absolutely perfect anyway." Two of the other three worked on it just a little bit, and their work was super rough, so I ended up doing about 95% of the project, and it honestly doesn't bother me. When you're in a group of people who can't do something well, I'd rather do it myself and like the end product than be pissed that it doesn't turn out well because someone isn't good at something that I could've easily done myself. It really isn't their fault, and if I find their work inadequate, I might as well correct it or just do the whole damn thing. |
There's pros and cons for both:
Monocrome Laser:
Generally very simple to use
Laser copy paper, in general, is nicer.
Toner lasts a long time
Newer monochrome lasers are getting wireless printing
Higher up-front costs (toner is more expensive than ink that first visit; you can generally find a monochrome laser itself on sale for the same price as an inkjet)
Most monochrome printers for home use do not have a scanning capabilities (they are out there, just more expensive)
There are limits when it comes to specialty paper, if you choose to use them (like glossy or transparency). They are also more expensive to buy at a store.
Color Inkjet:
Prints in both B/W and color
Modern inkjets will print small batches of jobs almost as fast if not faster than a laser
Lower up-front costs (the first set of ink is cheaper than the first set of toner most of the time)
Can use specialty papers and envelopes much more easily (if you use that sort of thing); in fact, some papers are meant ONLY for inkjet printers (like transfer papers).
Modern inkjets feature wireless printing, scanning, and many have fax built in
Ink is EXPENSIVE in the long run if you do any sort of regular printing.
More maintenance required (change cartridges, clean print heads, etc.)
In general, their standard life is ~2-3 years.
While many inkjets do a fine job printing, the sheer quality of a good print is lower than a laser
The copy paper for inkjets is terrible |
The patents, yes. The talent and human resources were scrapped when the executive gutted the company and sold it out, a few years back. I used to work next to their headquarter office, too, and had such high hopes for them. It's just been a shell of itself, keeping the lights on for subscriptions.
I can't stand Sony, though, and pretty much vowed never to trust the, after the CD Rootkit fiasco and learning about the format wars in the 90's and before. I refuse to be locked into any of their ecosystems.
I built a spare game worthy Pc for $350 last week, which will last for several years, and now I can play ANY of my 450+ pc games at will in my home or at my GF's place. If I bring my laptop, I can just play the game there via Steam In-Home Streaming. I've never had to rebuy a game on the PC platform, unless it was to gift a license to someone else. For these reasons, plus the fact that the games frequently grow with us as our technology grows (scaling up the resolutions, allowing mod's, etc), I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Pc Gamer. |
Granted it is obvious that such propoganda is happening, it shouldn't be used to discredit every single idea that might stand in defence of Russia or its people. As an ethnic ukrainian, and quite anti putin, I know a lot of folks who aren't willing to see anything beyond their side. For example: Crimean "referendum" was portrayed very heavily as a total injustice and that it was unfair. It was totally unfair and illegal and in violation of many international laws BUT, anyone trying to tell you that the majority (be it slight) doesn't want to return to Russia doesn't know enough about the area. It wouldn't have been 90%, but 60% and anyone trying to say that these people have been scooped against their will are poorly informed. |
Ehh from someone that looks at this as his job, it's becoming less of a war of ecosystems but more of a war of running everything on anything and being able to integrate that into a working stack. |
Well, if you are interested in programming and in business, it's a good story... And if you want, there is even an illustrated slideshow that looks pretty much like a childrens book, for all the |
Not quite. I try to suppress my pedantic tendencies but the history of Hitler's rise to power is worth studying.
The Nazis managed to obtain a decent representation in Parliament and install Hitler as Chancellor, but the Chancellor had little power in the Weimar Republic. With a two-thirds majority in Parliament they could pass an Enabling Act that would give Hitler emergency powers, which were normally reserved for the President.
Hitler convinced President Hindenburg to dissolve Parliament, which automatically triggered new elections. Six days before the election, the Reichstag fire gave Hitler a pretext to suppress the Communist Party--the biggest threat to Nazi rule--and remove their representation in Parliament. With the Communists out of the picture, Hitler got his Enabling Act and gained control of Germany.
That sort of thing would be quite a bit harder to pull off in the USA, since we don't have anything like a built-in mechanism for one man to gain total control over the country . |
51 Long lists of things that start off somewhat amusing, and become |
At least TW doesn't give a damn what or how much you download. If you were on Comcast, you would be able to get your connection cut off in 6 hours using it at its fullest. On TW you can max it 24/7 and they won't say a word. You paid for that, after all.
Not true at all. I have Time Warner at my house sure, but my parents have Comcast with 20mbps... and I love when I visit them for torrenting reasons. I downloaded 50-60gb of movies over the course of 10 days at my parents house with Comcast. Got up to 5.5mbps just on torrents, ALL WHILE playing Xbox live and everyone could still surf the internet.
Time warner on the other hand... who I've also had for a very long time and am on the most expensive tier (7mbps) will very often limit me to under 800kbps for my torrents and no one can use xbox live at all, browsers barely function when I'm torrenting.
Worst part is my parents pay far far less than I do. |
Actually, Cingular bought ATT wireless. Then later they just adopted the name, because AT&T had a better name on the east coast than Cingular did.
Edit: Actually, it's all the same thing in the end. Cingular was always owned by SBC, which was partly AT&T before AT&T broke off into SBC and AT&T wireless. Cingular buys att wireless. SBC, which used to be AT&T proper buys Cingular. Technically, Cingular was never bought by AT&T wireless. |
AT&T and Bell dumped a shitload of tech into computers and the internet as well.
Digging through one of my fathers old Bell Operations manuals, i found documents detailing ARPANET, various other protocols, and a shitload more.
Not to mention MULTICS, UNIX, and Plan 9. All saw significant contribution from Bell/AT&T. |
Those beautiful fools. They never tire of kicking themselves. Lets get some dirt on the people responsible, glossy head shots that we can hold up and exclaim "Glad this isn't me" |
the new law would allow the government to target any site that has “only limited purpose or use” other than infringement (by the government’s definition).
We're HOPING to prevent "the Great FireWall of America" use any excuse at all to cut people off from the tap of knowledge the Internet has become. This legislation does away with the OCILLA protections .
[PLEASE go here]( to help fight for our rights and against this abusive legislation! |
Not a world whose energy use grows at an exponential rate, indefinitely.
I've read that extracting the energy we currently use from fossil fuels, from renewables instead, would alter the climate more than greenhouse gas emissions have (albeit temporarily: let the renewable energy back into the troposphere, and the climate would probably mostly go back to normal...not so with carbon emissions). And economists tend to favor expanding our energy supply, somehow. |
This comment in the link is fucking win:
"Rowena Cherry-
You do understand that in your selfish (albeit legitimate) desire to make money on your work, you're selling out the American people's freedom of speech. No one is saying people should be allowed steal other's work, but the solution is not to give unquestionable power to a wealthy few and/or a politician to decide.
YOU'RE TRYING TO OPEN A BANANA WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER.
Please look at the bigger picture here."
edited: |
I was 3rd in line to get the Nintendo Wii waiting in freezing November weather. 364 Days later when my wii broke I had the awesome experience of talking to the "blond" women tech support @ Nintendo about my broken wiimote - it went something like this.
Her: "Okay, please go get your Wiimote and press the A button to turn it on"
Me "Nothing's happening - like I said, - it only turns on when I get up, remove the battery cover and sync it."
Her "Please replace the batteries."
Me "The batteries aren't the problem, it only turns on when I sync it."
Me "I have $200 of downloaded games I bought from your store, I have an extended warranty through Best Buy - I want to just go have them replace it to fix it. How do I transfer my account?"
Her "You can't do that."
Me "What should I do?"
Her "I can't help you. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
Me "....."
SOO, I go to Best Buy and it's 5 or 6pm - I figure I'd rather get my Wii replaced and loose my purchased downloads than spend $50 for a new Wiimote... I get to Best Buy and explain that my Nintendo isn't working right and the women working at customer service informs me
Her "Our corporate center is closed."
Me "But you're open, and it's been broken for a while now."
Her "I can't do a replacement."
So much for my Best Buy Warranty, and shit customer service from Nintendo - this is how legitimate customers are treated - I hope you burn Nintendo - you let me down.
Long Live Steam!!!!! |
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