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I might get a couple and hook them to old laptop LCD panels I would install around the house, just to use as a HUD when I'm in the kitchen/bathroom/working in the garage.
Throw together a webapp to select content modules (such as calendar appointments, weather, big ol' clock, torrent activity, network usage etc. plus a main panel for articles) that you can control via a smartphone.
Found a cool recipe? Copy the link, paste into the webapp, and fold down the screen in your kitchen and you're good to go. |
This isn't wholly untrue, as a Southerner. PC isn't the thing down here that it is up North, so people feel less need to couch their bile in socially acceptable language.
That being said, Southerners tend to live and work alongside minorities in a way that would be considered weird up North and the mindset is weirdly insular in such a way that you'll find die hard racists who have close friends of other races because people you personally know are different from all of them . |
The rudeness comes about due to the proliferation of trolls online. Eventually, you simply respond to anyone like they are trolling. It's actually quite cynical, and I must apologize for it.
I am actually quite confused as to what we were supposed to be disagreeing over. We agree that we are indeed "living in the future", and that technology will indeed have an impact on the future. I initially believed you disagreed on such a point, and now realize the error of that assumption. However, I believe you are making a similar error.
I make no claim that the singularity will occur in as little as thrirty years as proposed by futurists such as Kurzweil, but rather that something like what people refer to as a singularity will eventually occur if we do not destroy ourselves. In other words, I agree that our technology will eventually fundamentally change the human condition (elimination of death via uploading, etc, etc), however, I claim no belief to seeing it within my lifetime, nor to I cling to the idea that my life will extended to the point I can survive to see such amazing developments. |
Thats because its not really "Anonymous". This is an identifiable group of people who are keeping their identities secret. Which is, uh, yeah, anonymous, but it's not the same kind you seem to referring to.
The internet's anonymous is a concept, not a group or people, originating from imageboards like 4chan. You'd do stupid and sometimes offensive stuff because you were Anonymous, unknown, unidentifable, untrackable. and it was funny. You could say bad words, do questionable content with other people on the internet, and go to work/school the next day with a smile on your face. That was the motivation behind being Anonymous.
Collecting people's interest in a "raid" or something was a simple idea, something easy you can do that would end in a hilarious result. Raid a children's flash game MMO, go on a super-conservative forum and argue with folks, call in a talk-show and say naughty things, stuff like that you'd do alone would be a drop in the bucket. But doing it with an unknown vast amount of people from /b/ or something.. you would be an ocean. (of piss) That was the power behind Anonymous.
Flash game MMO raids, to trolling forums/website comments, to HACKING or DDoSing sites is what gained Anonymous infamy. People got scared for some reason? I don't know why. Everybody was Anonymous, nobody was anonymous. You could "join" them by simply doing what everybody's eyes were on. That was the rise of Anonymous.
Then the Scientology raids came around and that was a big fucking leg up for it's reputation. It first started as a joke because Scientology and it's believers were so ridiculous and over-reactive about their religion that you couldn't help but take part in threads that involved trolling them. Then some image started floating around about doing a protest in front of their buildings across the world on Nov 5th. This got around everywhere, using the guise of Anonymous. That was the evolution of Anonymous
So now everybody is getting in on this protest, but it quickly turned from "lulz" to an appeal for humanity against Scientology (they were not only stupid, but they had a ridiculous entrance fee, brain washing, and even questionable espionage such as suspected kidnapping). That was all fine and dandy but Anonymous was now a "hero of the internet" instead of a bunch of bored morons who wanted to entertain themselves before bed. This reached into the REAL world and people actually dressed up and got in their cars/buses/bikes/whatever and spent a portion of their day doing something beneficial for the world. Despite all this good, it was still considered the fall of Anonymous.
After that, the concept Anonymous turned into a identity and people would start calling themselves "Anonymous" and make videos and go to protests, then this group I keep hearing about comes along and starts hacking websites of those with evil/stupid intentions. Places that once thrived with Anonymous pride now shamed it (ANOON EES LEGIUN!! xDD), looking at videos of Anon IRL "raids" were cringe-worthy to watch at most and people just forgot about it's original idea. That was the death of Anonymous.
Now, I'm not shitting on whoever these guys are, good on them, they're lettin' god sort em out. But I'll see comments like this saying "Wow these dudes use to be so bad!" and I'm just like, "ECH." No offense to you. |
Serious. If you can't understand that there are dozens of sects of Christianity in the world, all with doctrinal differences, and that educated people are aware that the Gospels have been translated (and re-translated) into various languages to support political and social goals, even to the point of suppression of original text.
Some sects view the Bible as the literal Word of God, but most don't. It's considered inspired by God by most. I mean, there have been numerous ecumenical councils throughout history trying to determine what is the most appropriate interpretation of the Bible.
Just because someone is a Christian doesn't make them a mouthbreathing idiot who thinks that wearing make-up is a sin, and that a literal following of the Bible (especially the Old Testament, which is informed by Jewish law and tradition, not Gentile) is something we should all be doing. |
Never heard of this church prior to today. Read it a few times on the front page. |
Forget bead sprites... I'd be printing up stupid video game characters and coasters, and portal cubes... I have no need for such things, but other than stupid crap, I can't see any reason I'd buy a 3d printer. All I know, is I want one regardless... |
For $80 a month on the otherside of the pond I can pay for both my broadband and mobile service where I get 100mb/s down 20mb/s up completely uncapped/unlimited on my home service, and I then get unlimited/uncapped tethering 4G on my mobile. Even then compared with a number of other countries I'm getting a raw deal. |
I use Cox Communications. A few months back I started getting popups in my browser (for many sights including Amazon and Netflix) stating that the Cox email service was down (as if I would ever use an ISP's email service, meh). When I called Cox to complain that this was a gross invasion of my privacy, I was passed along until finally reaching a manager who was aware of the script injection. He told me that Cox was trying to let customers know that they were aware of the outage and were working on a solution, and that he didn't see what the big deal was. I told him that what they were doing was equivalent to UPS or FedEx opening packages to insert paper notices in your boxes. After that one, he stalled and said that he could see how this might concern Cox customers and he would pass on my concerns. Never heard back from anyone at Cox. |
No, that would be "normal" so it wouldn't arouse any suspicion. The reference to Bing alone is only slightly suspicious. Adding the Surface instead of "tablet" shows author's hand too much.
>Henkel switched to his Android-powered phone to see if some kind of malware was affecting his personal Mac; the ads also appeared on the phone. He accessed websites from a Surface tablet; the ads were there.
Notice the author is careful to cover all the bases, building future defense against /r/hailcorporate accusation: "wanted to convey it happens across all platforms."
I argue that the following text would cast equal suspicion on Google (hypothetical story about something that would merit dramatic writing style of the article - DigiNotar root ca compromise):
> He was sure he had connected to GMail via when visiting his parents, and thought this meant his incriminating chat session had been protected. But how did they know what he said to Bill? He brewed a pot of blue mountain coffee and settled in to trace the chain of trust. After hours of silent meditation and frantic searching Yahoo! on his Galaxy , everything checked out. His stomach sank. What if the DigiNotar root CA had been compromised, what did this mean about his *.google.com wildcard cert? And what did it mean for humanity?
As in article, the Yahoo! stands out as suspicious, but paves the way for 1) using Galaxy instead of just "tablet" and 2) plausible deniability of fanboyhood
I also like how they talk about Chrome functionality and Fiddler. Author is thorough!!! |
Ah yes, regulating a 3D printer. That is going to be about as easy as regulating alcohol back during prohibition...except a LOT harder. You can make 3D printers out of just about anything these days. All you need is the technological know-how and you can assemble one. I bought a Makerbot a couple of years ago and have helped several friends print of the material for their Repraps (open source 3D printer).
The hardware for a 3D printer can basically be any random set of motors, power supplies, and computers. It all just depends on how crazy your control schemes need to be. The technological requirements to building a 3D printer can generally be divided into several categories.
*Power supply.
*Power Transmission (belts, gears, etc).
*Motors.
*Motor Controllers.
*Computer.
*Structural/Wiring Components.
*Software.
Power Supply
Assuming you are not doing anything particularly strange, all you really need is a PC desktop power supply. Should you need something more powerful, it probably wont be that hard to find. While these would be easier to regulate when compared with later items on this list, it just wouldn't happen.
Power Transmission
It is likely that you will require gears, belts, and other assorted mechanisms to take the motion of your motors and get it to where you need it. These are rather easy to obtain primarily because EVERYTHING uses them. The government trying to regulate these would be akin to them trying to regulate how many breaths you take a day. From a technology standpoint, this is doable, the cost alone of attempting this would make it impossible. This of course ignores the revolution that would occur over the attempt.
Motors
A 3D printer requires 4 motors for X, Y, Z, and plastic extruding control. These motors will have some requirements (how much torque they have, etc) but in most cases you can buy childrens toys and use those motors. We shall assume a worst case, where each of these four motors are different and unique motors. A machine CAN operate with motors of different strengths and powers, this is just a matter of tuning the program running the machine to recognize this and take it into account. This takes some amount of trial and error (especially if you cannot easily research the abilities of the motors), but that is not much of a problem.
Motor Controllers
Depending on what type of motors you have (stepper, DC, etc) you will require different motor controllers. If you have a DC motor, this is rather easy from a hardware standpoint, there are plenty of devices out there that you can steal parts from or you could craft these yourself. Stepper motors will require somewhat more specialized controllers, but again these are used in many many places, so regulation on these just wont happen. The difficulty of crafting your own is a bit higher than for DC control, but still doable. Even for the more exotic motor types, you can still obtain these as a result of hobby shops.
Computer
Lol, cause any attempts to do so have been working out well for them so far.
Structural/Wiring Components
This is sort of the 'other' category. This category is largely impossible to control. They would need to regulate the sale of just about every product known to man in some way to ensure they couldn't be used in a 3D printer.
Software
This is truly the only real bottleneck I can see. And even then it is sort of like calling the grand canyon a bottleneck for the Colorado river. You will require basically 3 sets of software for a printer to operate. Your modeling software for the parts you are designing, the slicer (it takes the information about your model and your printer and generates the code to run the printer to make your object), and the actual printer control software itself. The internet is vast, it would require shifting to a China-esque control system to prevent this software from spreading online. But then there is still the old fashioned method of CDs.
In summary, it is impossible to actually regulate 3D printers in any meaningful way. They might be able to establish some system for the companies with really capable printers, but I feel that will be shot down by the idea that people own printers that are "good enough" to do the sort of things everyone is going nuts over already, and that these are spreading in an untraceable way. |
On top of that, for effectively the same price of a Replicator 2X, you could purchase a small Mill and an add-on CNC kit that would be capable of making a real firearm that would fire every time you wanted to, possibly for centuries . If you went old-school and skipped the CNC kit, the same amount of money would get you a small mill and a small lathe, capable of much fancier work. |
You're paying your ISP. That would be like saying you already payed Nissan for your car, so you better be able to have free fuel and never be charged a toll for any road. Not a perfect analogy, but its also not too far off.
I don't like ads, and I am "guilty" of running ad-blocker at least for now, but it is very true that blocking all forms of revenue for ads will not sustain the current model. Given that we know for sure the US government is gathering damn near everything on us anyway, I think I can tolerate ad companies knowing what games and porn I prefer. From what I understand, it's not gathering anything identifiable anyways. |
As someone who was involved in the industry in my country for a good number of years, all I can say is fuck everyone in the advertising industry with a tire iron, and here's why:
some small business owners (more than half in my experience) - they expect to get a gazillion impressions and the best spaces for almost nothing because they don't understand the internet at all and the work that goes into making quality stuff online (they think that anyone can make a website, even the secretary's kid, even they could do it, but don't have the time). Despite that, they know it's cool to be online and they need to be there. They expect to receive the advertising first and pay later and a lot just don't pay. No, you can't sue them, because it costs a lot of money, maybe more than they owe and some, just open another company when they accumulate too much debt. BTW, the justice system here is a joke.
big businesses with marketing departments - most people working there are incompetents, they know nothing about advertising, especially internet advertising and are there just to spend the company's money on whoever takes them to the most BBQ's and gives them the best freebies and gifts
the client's ad agency - they expect 40-50% discounts off the price list, then they expect a "rebate" at the end of the year of another 10-20% and they also expect all sort of freebies and nice gifts, just to give you some ads (major ass kissing involved and some bribery). Once they're on-board and you agree to the above rape, they push for the most odious ads several megs in size (overlays, full-site branding, interstitials and all that shit). They give you the most unclickable ads (which gives them fantastic brand awareness, but very low CTR - click through rate) and expect to pay cents for tens of millions of impressions. If you refuse these campaigns you will be punished and you won't get any campaigns for a while (or forever). They also don't speak to sites directly because that would be too much trouble for the "creatives", so, as a site owner, you have to sign with an:
ad agency for websites - they are the interface between you and the client's agency. They don't pay on time (delays of 2-3 month are quite common, the biggest delay was over a year in our case). The worst was when the biggest and most trusted agency in the country was bankrupted on purpose and the owners made off with the money.
some site owners . Some are really unscrupulous and see their users as walking dollar signs. They steal content, they spam, they harass the users with all sorts of overlays and horrible ads - the majority of users have pretty low standards and are pretty naive and don't fully understand what's happening on screen and are tricked into visiting these shit holes over and over again just to see the fluffy kittens and last year's 9gag's memes.
users who use adblock, noscript and all that shit on sites that are free to use and well behaved . Just fuck you, you self-entitled assholes.
So, what are your options as an honest publisher, beside rolling over and dying?
You can try to keep things small - get together with a couple of friends, find a niche, do the best that you can and hope to survive from Google ads and/or by selling some select related merchandise and/or maybe selling the users a subscription for some extra features/content. If you do a good job and are lucky you might make enough to make a decent salary (that's my case for now at least)
Get acquired by some fund and work for them. Watch as your site gets its soul and personality stripped from it and then die a miserable slow death until the fund finds a new toy to play with and fires you (that's the case of my competition from back in the day)
Embrace the darkside - editors need to be paid, you and your family have to eat so you forget about morals and quality and become one of those webmasters Reddit loves to hate.
Forget working on your own and get a job in a shitty corporation working shitty hours for peanuts
The above applies to my country, I don't know about other places, but I'd sure like to find out. |
Patents != copyright.
Let's, for example, pretend I've written a story. Here's the basic outline, as generic as it can be:
Bad guy kidnaps character B whom character A loved.
Character A sets off to a quest to find and free character A from the bad guy.
During his search, character A meets a forest witch that tells him that the bad guy keeps character B in a tower at $location.
[insert handful of notable events here, I'm jumping straight to the end]
Character A finds the bad guy and orders him to free character B.
Bad guy starts raging against the machine character A, shouting: "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!"
Seeing no other way, character A kills the bad guy. He still doesn't have a clue where the tower door is and how to get up there.
Character A (then finds a quarter furlong of rope), climbs the tower and saves the character B.
Insert 'happily ever after' ending.
This story is ©xternal7, 2013 All rights reserved dont u dare 2 copy mah story. Here's what you can't legally do, given the story is copyrighted:
copy it word by word and publish it as your own work
torrent the shit out of it
IANAL but plagiarism sounds like something you shouldn't do either.
And here's what you can do, given the story is under copyright:
You can write a story that recycles some parts of my story. For example, it's totally legal to you to write a story where character A and B go on a quest to rob the shit out of some bad guy.
In that story, friend of some bad guy kidnaps character B. Character A finds friend of some bad guy, kills him because that friend of SBG didn't tell him where character B is. So he looks for character B, finds him atop the tower, grabs the famous quarter furlong of rope, climbs the tower, saves character B. They then proceed to rob the shit out of some bad guy.
Because that's fundamentally different story. You can publish it, you can earn money on it and I can't do shit about it.
That was copyright . Now, let's focus on patents . Software patents, to be precise. This might be a slight over-generalization for pros but it will do for a layman. The thing is, you can't patent your program, but you can patent almost every single idea behind how the code gets executed. To continue with the story analogy, imagine that I could patent certain aspect of the story. For example, I patent this plot twist: "character A kills character B with a weapon or magic for any reason". Another example would be me patenting "character A climbing a tower in order to save character C". Now I've successfully patented these two things, you can't legally use them in a story . What's the implication of this? See the story I said you could write above, given my story is under copyright you could still make money off your story because it's distinct enough from mine. But if I patent those two things, you can't legally write any story that would contain an element like the two examples I gave above and if you do, I can sue you for using my patented plot parts.
And now we return back to software patents, which are (for the most part) about as ridiculous as the examples I gave you. Slide to unlock, patent for drawing a line, patent for drawing a square, one-click purchase patent, patent for embedding content on websites, et cetera... To name the most ridiculous bunch. Nothing about preventing you from torrenting stuff. Abolishing software patents would mean that you wouldn't be able to get sued for embedding stuff on your webpage or putting something ridiculously trivial in your program. It wouldn't mean you'd get a green light at pirating software. |
Look at it this way. If you could broadcast the actual thing, it can't be an invention, but it should be copyrightable.
I can't send you an actual piano or replicate it a million times costlessly. It's an object, which was invented out of raw materials and built.
Even if it incorporated earlier inventions (keys, strings, finished wood, etc.) it's an invention because raw materials were put together in a way that hadn't been before to make a new object.
Software is just a string of 1's and 0's. It's information, it is not a thing someone invented. It is the same as words, or as written sheet music. It's symbolism that equals instructions, but it is NOT a thing someone invents. Each new line of code may be a masterpiece, but it is a thing someone wrote, not something they invented.
EDIT: |
The box is UNchecked by default.
Maybe true for you but not for all.
From the article I linked:
>Uncheck the checkbox. Unless it’s already unchecked — in which case, leave it unchecked. Oddly, some people are saying they’re opted out by default; others say they find it checked. |
Multinational corporations are often legally collections of corporations. There are a large number of consultancies that get paid very well to understand exactly how legal structures can be set up to minimize tax burden by shifting income and recognizing it in lower tax countries. I would be shocked if most of those corporations you mentioned were not structured to minimize tax burden already and many UK companies recognized an excess of income in lower tax nations. I didn't see in the article where it mentioned the exact ways loopholes were being closed, but I'd guess changes in how tax reciprocity will work. If that happens, I doubt they'll argue too much about taxes being paid in higher tax countries (e.g. most major economies) but rather try to put a minimum taxation rate on money recognized in lower tax countries. |
First of all, copyright =/= patent. Secondly, the notion that we should treat the business of making art any differently than anything else is idiotic. Sixty-six percent of small businesses fail within two years. You said in another post that the government should support artists and art should be in the public domain, but why stop at art? and what do you consider art? How about the chef? How about the guy who designs cars for Ford? How about the guy who blows glass dildos? Are you saying that those peoples' work should just be in the public domain, that anyone who wants to make money off of your work can just take it because the government has already given you what it deems artists are worth?
And what about other jobs? After all, I have a mechanic friend who is struggling. Why don't we have the government pay him, and we all get car repairs for free?
The only people who truly think that copyright is truly evil are people who are shitty artists who can't get read or seen and people who are too cheap to buy shit. They are either bitter or they see no value in intellectual property. Even guys like Corey Doctorow maintain rights over his material. He gives books away, but also sells them, and I'm sure if I decided to make a movie of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom without paying him he would have something to say about it.
Look, just because you want something doesn't mean you get it. The guy who wrote this script would probably never steal a book full of these writings, but he has no problem stealing the content. What he says by his actions is that he values the guys who bind and print the book over the guys who own the content of the book.
Of course, the content owner sounds like a complete Wang, but that doesn't give you the right to steal his shit. I have yet to see any HBO shows because I don't agree with their policies on how they release content. That doesn't mean I get to steal it. It means that, because I disagree with them I don't buy their shit. |
I don't blame independent developers who only build apps for the App Store. Apple pays out nearly $5 Billion per year to developers. Google doesn't report their payouts but I don't think it's even close. It's only worth the time and effort when App Store downloads begin to dip—especially for small teams. To make matters worse, only 8% of Android users have the latest OS version installed. It's a mess. Compare that with nearly 90% of iOS users having the latest version installed. |
Point I'm making is that the only part they targeted in the video portion of the laptop is not even attached to the video signal. Furthermore the video signal is high frequency and high bandwidth and unlike a mouse and keyboard, would not be practical to store and retrieve data later and instead would rely on ['realtime monitoring of RF emissions' with a van outside.]( |
Patent litigator here. This ruling is narrow and won't affect 99% of trolls out there. Look at the facts the judge ruled on. The troll was blatantly obvious about putting things in writing like the fact that settlement demands would increase as the defendants filed responsive papers, and how they were going to put the defendants through expensive litigation and protracted discovery. They were basically extorting them in writing and making it very obvious.
It's very easy to patent troll without doing any of the above. Defendants are well aware that litigation and discovery is expensive - a patent troll doesn't have to put that in writing and make threats. All that happened here is that a sloppy troll was caught. All patent attorneys are now forwarding this case to one another and making a mental note to never put any of this kind of stuff in writing from here on out so that this case cannot be used against them as precedent. |
Windows 8 was unusable as a one-app-at-a-time interface.
Dunno what you're talking about. You've been able to use multiple apps at a time since day 1.
> Microsoft Office is unusable with a "ribbon" toolbar and no conventional menus.
Which is both a good and a bad thing. The ribbon's not a bad idea, it's just horribly contextual. Conventional menus aren't a great choice here either.
You know, it seems like most of the complaints about Microsoft's recent products have just been "It's different!"
> I applaud Microsoft for experimenting and creativity. However their withdrawal from a base of ageing individuals who invested a lot of time learning how to use traditional interfaces has left them isolated in the technology world.
>Instead of maintaining a successful business they've been desperate to catch up with Google first, then Apple and the youth market.
The problem is that their "successful business" has been in decline for years. The trends in the industry aren't looking good for ye olde traditional desktop, which is the only place such traditional UIs are even functional.
> Meanwhile I've personally decided to abandon Windows once Windows 7 goes end-of-life. Xubuntu is my chosen operating system - which gives me an interface similar to Windows but with more power and flexibility.
Which is a silly decision, though obviously yours to make.
> |
I can't watch that video right at this moment, so you want to just |
I have. Anti-VM features just mean the payload doesn't execute inside virtual machines. If malware could escape VMs it'd be REALLLLY bad for companies that hosted VPSes as anyone could just infect one and compromise massive amounts of data.
Consider this situation: You purchase access to a VPS from DigitalOcean. They use VPSes for throttling speeds, preventing their physical server hardware from getting damaged by users, and some other stuff. Say the physical server has access to a 10 gigabyte per second line and the VM limits each VPS to 100 megabits and you have to buy access to 1 gigabit. If you were able to execute malware on your VPS that could escape the VM you'd be able to launch massive DDoS attacks using DigitalOcean's physical servers. |
Weaponized malware" in this context, means little more than "This is a live round of ammunition." or handing someone a knife by giving them the blade-end (good etiquette is to hand them the hilt while you hold the blade). This isn't a perfect analogy as both of those items are run-of-the mill for you and I, the "weaponized" bit would mean, perhaps, a round of ammo with a high-explosive impact-sensitive slug, or a knife with an integrated taser (or a spring loaded knife). |
I would think they are designed to not be easily detected, so the average person(or even somewhat tech savvy people) wouldn't even know what to look for. These program might be able to penetrate beyond the virtual layer of your software/hardware. If the head IT/security employees if the targets aren't able to detect it, then the average reddit users chances aren't very good. |
you are generalizing literally infinite possible combinations of gridded lights. 100 years of 3D modeling won't teach you anything about developing visual systems. I am a musician.. I play 8 different instruments... I cringe every time an old "expert" tells me analog sound is better then digital. The Universe just doesn't work that way no matter how much you "feel" something. An "artist" is just someone that displays computational thinking without the need for full core descriptions.
Source: "Artist"
Edit: |
I'll go ahead and venture in to explain how wrong you are with your points:
First it's an allegation of an IP address != a person according to Canadian law.
>On this point, it is also important to remember that previous cases in Canadian law have seen judges rule that an IP address is not a person. (See this TorrentFreak article about the 2011 precedence-setting case here.)
Source:
Further info:
>A possible landmark ruling in one of the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the U.S. may spell the end of the "pay-up-or-else-schemes" that have targeted over 100,000 Internet users in the last year. District Court Judge Harold Baker has denied a copyright holder the right to subpoena the ISPs of alleged copyright infringers, because an IP-address does not equal a person.
Source:
Secondly, at most in Canadian law a person could only be fined at max for a civil violation $5000.
Source: /u/EhSynth:
>Close, but not quite I'm afraid. While I agree with your statement about IP Address != person, the per-instance was amended I believe. It is now all infringements in a "single proceeding" and can range upwards to $5000 and is as low as $100 for statutory damages.
>The bill limits the availability of statutory damages in cases of infringement for non-commercial purposes, and caps their amount at between $100 and $5000 for all infringements in a single proceeding for all works.
>Source: Legislative [Summary of Bill C-11. 2.5.1 Damages (Clause 46)](
Third, I read the article where it clearly points out that there at least 2 parts where they are 100% incorrect with their grounds for a lawsuit.
>These threats are additionally misleading, as they intend to lead Canadians who receive the notices to believe that the rights-holders already have their personal information and could pursue a case against them, which is not the case. Because of the way in which our notice-and-notice system is designed, these organizations would have to seek a court order to first get the private information attached to the IP address where the alleged infringement occurred.
Source:
So aside from your attempting to talk down to me with your "you're mot a lawyer" talk, do you have anything to back up why in the hell the UN would even consider listening to someone's allegations of someone somewhere in another country may at one time have downloaded a song? |
Yes, but not through the master cylinder as originally mentioned. Passing through the can bus is an acceptable small amount of risk and is still mechanically separate from the brake system. |
I don't know about the other carriers but I have T-mobile and if you're on a WiFi connection they automatically route all your calls through that connection instead of through your normal signal.
Note: not sure if the words I used to describe the process are right or not. |
As someone with over a million miles driving a truck, I think this article paints an unrealistic scenario but what will probably be an eventual one. You simply can not totally remove drivers from the equation in 5 to 20 years without huge changes in the entire system though.
Drivers perform inspections and minor maintenance daily and the trucks need it. Driving up to 2800 miles while dragging around up to 80,000 lbs around is a lot of wear and tear that needs to be checked often. Tires, hoses and lines, lights, fluids, placards, and a host of other things need to be checked often.
Backing can be a very delicate task. You have to deal with a lot of elements and while I think the system is capable of doing it eventually it would require a lot of changes. This is a lot more complicated and I have not explained it well here. The truck is capable but you also have coordination with the warehouse to consider along with elements of things below like safety and waiting. There are also places where illegal (even if they are generally ignored) maneuvers are required and I think finding a programmer to take that liability could be difficult.
Security is a part of a drivers job. You can throw a big lock on a load and send it on its way but thieves will get wise to it quickly. Without an active system in place a truck can become a lot easier to hijack without a human in the equation.
Safety is another concern. What happens when a safety problem does arise? If a self-driving truck blows a tire it can generally just pull over on the shoulder. What happens if the bearings burn out and the entire wheel comes off? That is a lot harder for a computer system to handle. They can not warn other drivers or place hazard triangles/flares out to let people know.
Mountains are a tough one. Drivers maintain a fine balance between a safe speed for traffic behind them and a safe speed so their brakes do not over heat.
Waiting. Where does a self-driving truck wait? I have waited in turn lanes, the side of the road, on and off ramps, the end of dead end streets, empty lots, and dozens of other places a system would probably not be allowed or able to do.
Weather is going to be hard. National systems can take a long time to become properly updated. High winds, ice, dust storms, blizzards, and the like are all probably going to be hard for a system to deal with and decide when they need to stop.
There are more but I decided to stop here. The rest are kind of minor like loading/unloading and paperwork involving deliveries.
That isnt to say there are not fixes for every problem but some are harder than others.
Inspections and minor maintenance can be handled at fuel stops. It would require no new facilities but without someone to check the work it would require a lot more trust.
Backing could be handled a couple of ways. A trailer drop system where a trailer is dropped off and a yard truck backs it in and pulls it back out (this would require equipment and possibly employees a large number of places simply do not have but would be useful in high volume areas) or a special system at docks and in trucks to coordinate the proper door/dock a truck is meant to back into (which would again require more equipment at the warehouse/store/whatever location).
Security can always be beefed up but making tougher doors and adding more metal cuts into the profits possible on every trip made because of weight restrictions. Cameras would help as well but would not be perfect. You still have a truck that could be an hour from the closest city with no chance of help arriving.
Safety is a hard one. I suppose you could add extra lights just to signal an emergency. It would add more work for mechanics though. There would not be anyone to diagnose the problem so mechanics would have to show up (possibly driving an hour each way) and diagnose then decide what needs to be done.
Mountains could be handled with special lanes on steep grades and requirements that trucks go very slow. You would probably have to ban cars from the right lane and would need to add several sensors that would need a lot of cleaning and maintenance because of their location.
Waiting is practically impossible. The truck would have to have designated places to wait and a very large number of places simply do not have it. Without adding a lot of mileage and a lot of wait times (which a LOT of places hate doing) it is going to practically impossible to address. The only option I can think of is a system of paid lots (there are several of these across the country) but that is going to be a lot of money in large cities where property, especially open property, is at a premium.
Weather is going to require a lot of tracking and I think it will become a major source of accidents until it is figured out well. The only option I see early on is to stop traffic in any questionable weather situation. That is going to cost time and money though.
This is the worst case no driver situation though. I think a MUCH more likely scenario is having drivers become lower paid passengers for the most part. Low paid escorts who spend the majority of their time filling out a computer log, backing, and dealing with shippers and receivers. This would solve a lot of the problems that having no human involved would bring up but would ruin the majority of truck drivers who are used to making a lot more money.
(I wrote a lot and I am not going back to proofread. I hope it is coherent.) |
There's an app for that" |
Did the same thing. Went into the dealership to buy a new (not preowned car) and was bait and switched, they DIDNT have the car I was looking for, and pressured into buying a previous model year for the same price.
Told the guy I had a quote from another dealership for basically the same price ($300 more on a $24k car), on the exact car I was looking for, and if he wanted to keep my business, stand behind our initial deal. Guy tried the sleazy used car salesman trick of talking down his competition, how he couldn't promise he'd be able to meet my exact needs, saying our deal was null because he sold the car, and the new offer wouldn't last.
Noped out of there, and went to the other dealership. The guy had the audacity to call me on my drive and try and berate me for wasting his time, as well as playing the sympathy card 'needing to put on the table for his kids', and offering to make me a better deal, on the exact car I wanted. At that point, I was willing to pay a little extra for an honest deal/dealership than one that was conning me from the get go. |
RE: ["Keep Your Head Up, Gray"]( post on Gizmodo.
>Hey man, I know things seem really tough right now. We had mixed feelings about writing the story of how you lost the prototype, but the story is fascinating. And tragic, which makes it human. And our sin is that we cannot resist a good story. Especially one that is human, and not merely about a gadget—that's something that rarely comes out of Apple anymore. But hopefully you take these hard times and turn things around. We all make mistakes. Yours was just public. Tomorrow's another day. We will all be cheering for you.
How transparent was that public letter of condolences? You knowingly purchased an iPhone from someone who didn't own it. This could be excused had you returned it to Apple after realizing it was a genuine prototype device (something that breaking it open surely proved.) But you didn't. You kept going. Not only did you post photos and video of the device itself, you pounded to a pulp every last ounce of journalistic integrity your blog had left when you publicly outed its guardian.
In your laughable explanation, you claim to be "cheering" for Gray. You attempt to sympathize with his situation, saying, "We all make mistakes. Yours was just public." Yes, Gizmodo, how unfortunate and entirely out of your hands this all was. The problem, though, is that it wasn't a public mistake . It was a private mistake you publicized . If every mistake made in a bar were suddenly considered to be public and worth gossiping about on Gawker's blogs, I'd suggest that a large percentage of the population would be out of a job. You could have easily returned the phone to Apple and let them deal with the situation internally, but instead you lusted over page views.
If Gray loses his job because of this, I hope you all consider yourselves to be partly responsible. The original mistake was, admittedly, his own, but your subsequent actions and cloudy ethics exacerbated Gray's birthday blunder. If this wasn't all just a large stunt developed by Gawker, Apple, and the countless intermediaries in between, it's shameful journalism. Regardless, I'll never be visiting any Gawker site again. |
I couldn't find a single good reason to do this. Why should we force portable electronics manufacturers to increase the audience of radio? And how the hell does radio increase the knowledge of artists more than the Internet? Almost none of the songs I listen to have been or will be played on any FM radio station. If there's a new album out that you might purchase, you're more likely to hear it on internet radio than FM radio, because the music is tuned to your preferences.
Oh, and the quality of FM radio is absolute shit compared to most streaming digital audio. |
It depends on what you want to use the TV for.
If you want to use it for watch 3D movies and TV, then no it's a pointless buy as there are only about a dozen or so 3D movies at all and some of those aren't worth buying or watching again. It's way to fucking expensive, just buy an amazing projector in the same price range instead, it would be a much better buy.
HOWEVER!
Most 3DTVs are 120Hz capable, this is needed for 3D to work, normal TVs have around 50-60Hz. This means that it's capable of updating what it's showing 120 times a second. This means nothing if you're just watching normal TV since the source material is usually in only 50-60Hz but it does if you're playing video games on it. This is because games are rendered in real time. So you can basically double our maximun fps count, meaning games will look a lot smoother. This is of course assuming that you're computer is capable of generating the game's graphics in 120Hz. You can also buy [a little thing from Nvidia]( which allows you to make virtually any modern 3D video game into actual 3D. Since this capabilty is due to how graphics are rendered in modern computers and not whether or not the makers of the game like 3D glasses or not, which is the case with movies, you'll have a great deal more use from the 3D capability of you TV. |
This was a geat documentary when it was released, but not entirely relevant anymore because of the renewed attention in alternatives to gasoline-only vehicles. Now we have the fully electric vehicles like the Tesla Roadster and Nissan Leaf on the road and getting high levels of attention, plus many more companies are soon to release EV versions of their regular cars like the Ford Focus, Mini Cooper, etc.
I also hate to say, though I really enjoyed this documentary when it first came out, the fact that manufacturers are still struggling with cost and weight issues associated with using batteries more than a decade after the EV1 was developed, it really makes you think that EV cars weren't viable back then in any way. Battery technology has increased substantially over that decade (compare the beast of a battery in your old Nokia to the relatively small one powering your smartphone today). |
I would think that somehow they could get a lawyer to draft something up that is legal and will satisfy both parties.
What you say sounds good, but without seeing the relevant law, we can't say anything either way. In my experience (which admittedly is roughly equivalent to probably the first year of law school, where you study the basics of the legal system and such), in areas of the law where consumer protection is involved, it's very difficult if not impossible to sign your rights away.
It's not an exact comparison, but if the law is drafted in such a way as to prevent waivers, it'd basically be like signing yourself into slavery -- wouldn't last a second in the courts, and even if somehow there were a good case for it, at the very least there'd be a long and costly legal battle. Hypothetically, imagine signing a waiver saying you wouldn't hold the manufacturer liable for the car not having seatbelts -- do you think the courts would enforce that? What happens when you resell the car to someone else? There's no legal agreement between the 3rd party buyer and the manufacturer, so if they suffer injury because of the lack of seatbelts, there's at the very least an open question about whether that new owner can sue the manufacturer.
Even if the law doesn't explicitly forbid such legal waivers, it's still difficult to estimate the cost to the manufacturer. Let's go back to the actual case of the electric car. If the cars get resold to someone who hasn't signed a waiver, they would probably have a prima facie case against the manufacturer -- especially if they get into an accident because a part which couldn't be replaced was the source of the failure. Sure, the manufacturer might be able to clear its name after a long arduous battle in the courts -- but it'd still have to foot the bill to its lawyers. Costs, costs, costs up the wazoo. It's not hard to see why the safer option might be to never sell the cars.
And this isn't just because the US has a messy tort system -- I'm pretty sure that at the very least English/Commonwealth law would treat the whole issue in roughly the same way. The issue of reselling in particular is a killer. (You may say that the right to transfer the car's ownership could be waived, but again, the issue is whether you can waive your right to dispose of your own property. For hopefully obvious good reasons, the law generally does not look kindly upon contracts forbidding the rightful owner from doing something so fundamental as selling/gifting their property -- and in any case, this just kicks the can down the road, to what you would do about the owner's heirs, who did not sign an agreement with the manufacturer.) |
I was very interested in this article until a window popped up, fullscreen, asking for my email so I could be subscribed for their newsletter. Although I would have probably liked to continue reading the article, I closed the tab in disgust.
I had read up to 40 to 400 miniature CPUs in the home/office. Can anyone give me the |
Google, IBM, and the other FOSS white-knights should realize that they can't have it both ways:
They can either hoard patents like Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle, and engage in the IP-insanity that defines US software patents, or they should come clean and call shenanigans on the whole system.
Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle are just playing according to the rules of a corrupt system in which they think they have the upper hand.
If Google, IBM, and other ethical software companies really want to fix the problem, they should encourage research into the financial costs of the broken US software patent system. |
Because Google makes it's money off of selling you the user to it's real customers, the advertisers. So any 'device' business (cell phones/tablets) it gets into it can simply give away the platform because they have little financial gain from the platform itself, they want it on everything so that more people are funneled into Google services.
Google is driven by the same profit drive Apple or Microsoft is, the difference is those other companies rely on device/platform profits more because that's a large part of where they make their profits because they are not an advertising/marketing sales business at their core.
So since Google has the ability to undercut any platform that exists by giving theirs away (or even paying them to use it) the other companies can't compete because they are not advertising/marketing companies...they are device and platform companies. So they use what THEY have, which are patents.
Google can stifle as much innovation from other companies by giving it's platform out for free (something those other companies can't do because they don't have the insane advertising revenue Google does). Instead of cost of entry barriers being set high by the price of patent licensing, Google instead can set the cost of entry barrier so low that others (without the ad revenue advantage) can't profit off of their platform enough to maintain the business. |
BTW: pretty much the same thing happened to a German company in the US. They built a windmill for the US market and when they introduced it were sued for patent infringement. The case documents oddly included pictures taken inside of the prototypes in northern Germany.
It turned out that the NSA was using Echelon to monitor the companies communication (mostly fax at the time). They heard of their plans to go to the US market and informed an American competitor. They also got accesscodes for the prototypes from some faxes and passed them on. The Texan competitor hired a private intelligence company to all information on the prototype.
This and some other incidents are all well documented. When EU parliament heard of the NSAs involvement and echelon many discussions on the topic started and the media was full of reports. Then suddenly it all stopped. No more mentions in news reports and no more discussions in parliament. The only thing ever reported again on this was a 2002 recap of the events by respected weekly newspaper Die Zeit. |
It happens with medicine left and right and I don't see any socialized health care systems giving up their ability to manufacture cheap ass drugs just because corporations in other countries spent millions developing them. Additionally even if they copy drugs from America it doesn't stop them from attempting to revolutionize medical procedure on their own. Similarly I don't see hospitals around the world simply ignoring advances because some group in America or the UK or wherever made a tool for a bunch of cash that helps quicken the healing process. No, no... a doctor in Thailand would rather recreate some revolutionary heart valve than import the original if they knew it was easy to do. A burn cream in Egypt will cost 10x less than the same mixture in the USA because chemists there realize the formula is simple and there is no need to pay some company to ship it to them from 10k miles away. The reason for both is three-fold, because it is cheaper, easier and quicker for the patient/doctor. Other technology works the same way and unless some company is willing to manufacture in each nation interested in their products then their products are bound to be copied if only to remove the cost of import. In some places the cost of importing and paying the price demanded by a company may be too much to make adoption of a tech even possible. Should farmers in India not get solar power because it costs a ton to buy it from Germany? I think they should get it and if an Indian company steals the design and sells it for cheap to Indians then that is perfectly fine because it's not like the Germans were going to break into the market anyway. The Germans don't lose any money but their technology is appreciated far and wide. |
Yeah, that is a problem that is already sorted out (memory issue with Graphics). If you have a higher RAM (DDR3-1600) you will get a performance boost on the APU in Gaming and other tasks that can do Hardware Acceleration. |
Actually it says, "Federal presidential constitutional republic".
And that is the way it is structured. But money rules politics and even its real rulers admit at least that it is a [plutonomy](
The [ |
i can't upvote you enough.
if the product is being made in slave factories to lower costs, then why are the cost savings not being passed along to the consumer? it amazes me the ignorance of the core apple consumers as to how they don't understand they are being ripped off, and at the same time contributing directly to the current problem of slave labor/forced labor. |
I am saying just because techdirt said CISPA and SOPA are similar doesn't make it true. The hitler line was poke at the way Glen Beck uses weak connections between dissimilar things to Hitler as a method of fear mongering.
Techdirt connected the dots form CISPA and SOPA with: "the department that includes ICE and its ongoing domain seizures—CISPA creates the very real possibility for this information to be used as part of a SOPA-like crusade to lock down the internet"
OK, so what does that even mean? If the government sent a sobpena to Reddit now for my IP Reddit would comply. If I sued reddit for doing it, I would probably lose. This legislation changes nothing in the scenario but raises the likelyhood of me losing the lawsuit against reddit for complying with the governent request. I am failing to understand how that is going to "lock down the internet". |
Dear Reddit: Fuck you. It is not the same. It is not even similar. Are they both bad? Yes. But Jesus fuck, read. If you just keep acting like some knee-jerk retard, you're no different than the people you constantly make fun on here on Reddit to hit the front page (durrrr, ignorant republicans, they hate gays and change so I hate them...why u no in touch old white men?!?)
SOPA was about setting the precedent for businesses to legally shut down websites by claiming copyright infringement.
CISPA is about the US govt and your privacy rights. |
Today I talked to [my congressman, who was a co-sponsor of SOPA]( and now a cosponsor of CISPA.
I asked him how he could stand in front of a group of us and talk about how we need to hold back the stifling hand of big government, how we can't have government stifling innovation and small business when he has his name all over both those bills.
His response? "Oh, well, those don't have any effect on domestic business."
I couldn't even get him to comment on the parts of CISPA that basically amount to warrantless domestic spying.
I will, however, say that he was at least able to look me in the eye when he was lying to me, for whatever that says about him.
One of my friends that was also there said his aide was "complaining about 'some tall computer guy that made him tremble'", so I must've struck a nerve. Good riddance.
I'd like to publicly apologize to everyone here for voting for him twice. There won't be a third time, I can assure you.
He's actually running opposed this year, and I got to meet the woman running against him. Bob Goodlatte's response to "why won't you debate your opponent Karen Kwiatkowski?" was met with a pretty standard "Oh, I want to get my message out" attempt at skipping the question. No one in the room was letting that one slide and about half a dozen of us called him out. He still wouldn't answer.
One guy even offered to let them use his office to host the debate. |
In all honesty, I couldn't give less of a damn how Anonymous started, or what the predecessors on 4chan claim it was started for. They were a hacker group who did it for teh lulz? Awesome, good for them. In my eyes, a group meant for amusement turned into a hacktivist group who relentlessly do what people like myself wish to. Wrapped in the red tape of bureaucracy, we can only hope that some lobbyist pulls the right strings and helps a bill get passed that maybe, MAYBE will throw some sickos in jail for less than 2 years. These guys and gals of Anonymous streamline an inefficient process and give the rest of us hope for humanity.
Because of the nature of who Anonymous is targeting, it gets media attention, i.e. gets spread around. The pointless hacking for amusement probably still happens all the time, but no one is going to start a thread about it because after the 100th comment of "d00d that was awwwwweeeesome" it gets a tad repetitive.
I'll climb off my soapbox, but let me say this. For all you who are still bitching about the "good ol' days" of Anonymous via 4chan, you are the same as the grown man who never quite got over the glory days of college. The world has changed, and so have the people of Anonymous. I'm not saying join or die, but if you want to get shit like this done without Anonymous, I dare you to come up with a feasible solution. |
I think they, and I, would prefer non-existent, not "unregulated."
Also: I don't think you understand what regulated and unregulated mean. Unregulated implies a lack of RESTRICTIVE laws and or government organisations. I'd say it being outright illegal in all forms and having the police arrest anyone involved could be considered more than a little restrictive. |
I'm not a huge religeos nut, i just believe its kind of going against nature, not on an abortion scale but i mean, you know our genes are even coded to kill us off at some point. In every cell their is a mechinism inside your DNA that is there for a way to kill you. (has other uses too but DNA is supposed to be that versatile)
Who knows the reason why its there, but this way of trying to prolongue your life is kind of going against a natural phenomenon, and that kind of sounds sickening. of course "what if everyone didn't have to die" sounds like a dream come true, but lets not even get into that whole discussion it will be so immense and keep going down the same spiral.
None of that is actually possible, there is no way to preserve brain cells and everything that comes with a brain to the point where "they work like a brain" for an extended period that you're thinking of due to the physical structure of your brain on a molecular scale.
Al ot of "aging" occurs from cell mutations over the prolongued life you lived (along with so many other things it would be hard to explain it all), there's no way to stop the DNA mutation process as the process is the basic steps on how your body works, keeps it alive, etc.
Almost every process in your body was influenced by the mechanism that reads/writes DNA in cells, and this process goes through Thousands of mutations in Genetic material. Its more of a matter as when you get older they just add up, and cells start loosing structure / You have used these biological systems so much they have changed over the years (We aren't built like machines, we're human :) )
personally i think there's a reason this is there, honestly, i mean nobody lives forever, nobody should for the sake of being a living being. Just my opinion. |
Well, let me sum up my answer to you with a brief: You're wrong, on all counts.
Firstly, right now we're wasting resources at an unbelievable rate. If we don't have enough to go around, why are we throwing what we have away at unbelievable rates instead of being frugal with it?
A money- and profit-based society has a concept called "economic growth". What that really translates to is "maximized resource usage" - we build garbage quality products designed to fail in months so they are discarded and re-purchased in an, if possible, even lower quality version.
Quite aside from that, right now we spend (if we're still talking in monetary terms) the equivalent amount of money that would feed the entire world for a full year - on 8 days or so of funding our combined militaries. The same militaries that exist solely because we've subdivided our race into multiple competing tribes that sit on their own resources and protect them with borders and weapons instead of using them in rational ways.
Our world today is unbelievably insane and evil. It is that way because we're still living in a feudal society, essentially, and it was set up so that the barons and kings could subjugate the peasants and make the peasants work to keep the overlords in abundance while they starved.
The overlords have changed and are now called "corporations" and "the wealthy", and the peasants in some nations have more than they used to (houses and the opiate of mindless entertainment) as well as some minor choice in their wage slave master if they can find another job besides the one they have now - but slaves we still are, and we're still abusing the starving people in the so-called third world nations to try to feed the rapacious beast that is our money-based ultra-wasteful society.
Those same poor people, btw, are the ones who are breeding the most. The people with the least amount of resources, the ones who get to watch their children starve to death, breed more than anyone else, partly because paying for contraceptives is beyond their means but also partly because they're uneducated and women in those areas aren't given any say.
In many parts of the western world, say Europe, there are areas where populations are actually shrinking because - obviously - educated women who are equal partners aren't interested in pumping out kids. It's dangerous, painful and they don't need to have more than one of two because most kids grow into adulthood.
So |
To those who say it's 'too simple' or that they (maybe) paid too much for the design. A lot goes into rebranding such a well known company and here is (in my eyes as a professional designer) what this logo says to me.
Equity from their old mark (the window panes and same colors)
Current up to date look becoming more relevant with todays society (This is HUGE since society is all about the 'here and now'. This really connects with the market and says "Hey, we're bring the future to you.")
Holds similar design to their Windows8 (Metro) GUI to maintain design/brand continuity
The soft gray compared to the previous black gives it a softer feel and not so in your face and more 'user friendly'
This new design still using the same 5 colors (the gray is a tint of black) and with a simpler design it yields more application capability (applied to packaging, electronic devices, web, etc)
The 4 perfect squares represents a well rounded company as the colors I would assume express a certain attribute of the company and this creates a holistic feel. Crucial as it's a large company. In addition, it's more 'electronic/techy' feeling which more accurately communicates what the companies service is
And finally, it merely is just a refreshment to look at something new since their previous mark has been tainted by bad rep. I'm not saying it isn't deserved or that it's magically vanished. What I'm saying is that the new look now makes you take an extra second or two and re-evaluate who Windows is and what they can do for you. |
I worked for 6 or so months working in a factory doing electronic assembly for a power equipment manufacturer (they make all kinds of products for the power grid). These things aren't cheap. Highly engineered, extensively tested and incredibly reliable. They have even started bringing the manufacturing of some of their components in-house. Not just plastics either. At the time I left they were starting to evaluate their options with manufacturing their own high performance relays (which are critical to much of their hardware). This company does all of their electronics manufacturing here in the United States. They do have a branch in Mexico, but they only build cabinets and equipment houses and not any of their equipment that goes in them. All of this stuff is expensive. Several thousand dollars for even their "cheapest" stuff. With how much they sell and how much profit they make on each device they are able to easily afford manufacturing here in the States. They want to keep it that way too. They have more control over the manufacturing process, quality, etc. We can easily make iPhones and whatever electronic devices we want here in America. The fact of the matter is though, people don't want to pay the extra money for the products to get made here. That's why it will never happen. If you notice, a lot of the high tech manufacturing that does happen here in the States is with stuff where the entire process is almost completely automated. Motorola did this with their factories. The only time the product would be touched was as it was coming off the line for quality testing. The labor costs don't mean as much when this is the case but it also increased the device cost because of all the machines to buy and maintain.
Well I feel like I have just kind of rambled, so |
I've gotten a notice from an ISP provider before (US here). At least for me, they told me specifically "the copyright holder of UFC 3 has found your ISP to be downloading copyrighted content" so it all depends on copyright holders forwarding these to the ISPs. Anything legal should be fine. And the first letter is usually a "friendly notice to protect your router access" anyway, at least from every account I've heard in the past. Now music on the other hand... |
Well, there's a different viewpoint that you get pushed into when you start working with expensive high-risk Hollywood projects where everything has to be just right or the film could flop, and sometimes it does flop anyway. It's easy to say that DRM, unfair one-sided copyright tribunal systems, a disgusting level of political familiarity between Hollywood and Congress, squeezing Netflix for every penny they have because they came up with a better business model than you, and ever-increasing size, scope, and length of copyright, are all bad things when you're the consumer. But when it costs $100 million to make Tom Cruise fart dynamite or get Adam Sandler to puke all over the film for a few hours, you go into an extremely defensive mode where you're willing to compare and equivocate the financial failure of your artwork to the [violent rape and murder of Boston housewives in the 1970s]( When it's your money, blood, sweat, and tears going into a project, you're going to defend it's fiscal viability by any means necessary, even if they are by highly questionable or downright unethical means.
Or in other terms: Hollywood is going to keep pushing unethical means to protecting their livelihood so long as their films cost craploads of money. They're mentality is "Well I gotta eat too", except that they eat giant bowls of western high-class privilege. There's a certain level of income at which your idea of what is cheap and expensive elevates to unreasonable levels, and in the minds of a lot of people in the film industry the "I can't afford it" idea doesn't hold water to them because of this. Well that, and the whole "I wanna get paid" thing.
As for the progressiveness in their political leanings, it's more of a feel-good charade than anything which could become politically actionable ever since McCarthy decided to browbeat Hollywood to within an inch of their life. |
Well if that's really the only thing you use bitorrent for, the you should check out DVD43 (free decrypting program), imgburn (for making .iso files from decrypted disks, and handbrake (free and powerful transcoding program which is useful for all kinds of stuff). Handbrake also has a really great used base and a good wiki. With these three programs you can rip a DVD from your personal library and transcode it into a number of formats for playback on iPods, iPads, nexus7, you name it. The best part it that it doesn't require an internet connection for any part of the process so you want run afoul of an goofy ISP rules. Also the entire process is PROTECTED by copyright laws under the terms of fair use. The benjfits of doing this cannot be overstated. Its free, simple, legal, and gives you much greater flexibility with the formats and quality of digital media you end up with. |
we have had this in New Zealand for more than a year now, and i have received no notice yet. the problem is the ISP charges the music producer or whoever an administration fee for them to send out only a warning notice. this is because the ISP doesn't care what we use the internet for, as long as we pay them money (ie they would loose customers if they terminated pirates internet) |
1 i is an imaginary number. Which, if memory serves, are the result of doing square roots of negative numbers - 1 i is, I believe, the same as sqrt(-1).
Telling someone that you give 1 i fucks about something is actually worse than telling them you give no fucks, because it's basically saying "I give no fucks, but feel free to imagine that I do if it makes you feel better." |
No they can't "simply print it". I bet you fancy yourself as someone who understands this stuff yet clearly you don't. Printing money has an impact on said money. Taxing will also have an effect.
Further, you're being overly simplistic. Yes, if the government were simply one big entity and corps another big entity then one might say the government was more powerful. But the government is made up of lots of people, each of which enjoys money. So a corporation can't buy "the government" but it can certainly buy key people within the government. Which is what people actually mean when they say "buy the government". |
Yes. I consider it an improvement of ideas already out there. I had an HTC Wizard with Windows mobile 5 and I loved it. It had everything I needed in a phone with a stylus, a QWERTY, and a touch screen (albeit not capacitive). I played solitaire during shit breaks like it was nobody's business.
Yes, getting a phone company to let them have creative control was a big step, but again, I think this was more of an advertising deal. The iPhone was developed before they were on board, AT&T saw the appeal, to techies and the masses. Now getting AT&T on board was actually a death sentence to other companies, they essentially started selling iPhones and demanded the other tech companies like Motorola, HTC, Samsung, etc. to start milling out blatant copies of the iPhones design to offer to their customers to free, everyone knows they were crap, but again, they were dictated in the form of requirements from the mobile phone excecs to manufacture something appealing regardless of quality and at the time those companies would rather do that than lose sales. All of this happened before Android, then Google realized it was a feasible option to advertise on a mobile platform and greenlit Android into full development. Yes they had a Google excec inside Apple and had the idea in development for a while, but the OHA (Open Handset Allicance) which was formed to unify handset software was launched just one month after the first iPhones shipped. So to say they only had it in development because of Apple is stupid (no offense). They had it in development for advertising and revenue reasons, not product hardware like Apple. Apple beat them to launch with a much better (at the time) and polished product.
Regardless of that the original was $599, and in 2007 I bought a 32" Samsung flat screen for $650 so that much for a phone was INSANE to me.
Yes, again I agree that the biggest thing was the software, like I said, they took a turd and polished the shit out of it, literally. Apple had a unifying solution to a mobile phone platform and at the time it was new, innovative and exciting. But, again, like I said, they seem intent on milking this to the end. They did not invent it, they polished it to a level that was appealing to app makers and consumers.
Yes, again, at the time it was a great design, and it did, and does continue to serve them well (again, milking it or sticking with your guns, it doesn't matter). It has also served as a basis for almost every other phone design since then. But as far as innovating its been pretty lackluster in my opinion. I personally didn't like the iPhone 4 or 4S styling but I did see its appeal, I feel almost the same about the 5 but think it is an improvement. If im going to shell out money every few months for a new phone, I want more than a new camera and a retina display. I went from an HTC G2 to a Samsung Galaxy S III recently and the difference were leaps and bounds both in hardware and software. Not a few subtle differences. |
One of my friends had this rule, just with "friggin," though. I never understood. To me, friggin is its own word (as is dangit). When someone says "friggin" to me, I don't immediately think "fuckin" in my head. I think "friggin." It was odd, because she could say "freakin" but not "friggin."
I found this out because I said "friggin" to her one time and she was all "ooooh you said a bad word!" I was really confused, had to stop and think and then asked, "What? Friggin?" She said that it was different than freakin because friggin is only used as another word for fuckin... I don't understand that logic. That's like saying, "Don't say 'OH FIDDLYDIDDLYSTICKS!' Because that's the same as saying 'OH SHIT!'" |
Richard C. Hoagland is regarded as a pseudoscientist by actual scientists. He seems easily confused by what photographs can capture, how they are transmitted from space, and how useful they are to actual scientists. |
Since he has not been charged yet, he is merely held while the police investigates.
I assume it is similar to Norway, except they can detain him for longer with less proof (I have not checked this, so I might be wrong). In Norway, the police can take any person and put him in a cell at a police station for three days. If they want to contain the person for longer, they can ask the court to put him in prison for up to three months without a charge. Remember, Norway is VERY strict when it comes to things like this, beyond reasonable doubt is beyond reasonable doubt, doing this is taken very seriously by the court.
This only happens if they fear the person would try to leave the country or city, if they suspect he would destroy evidence or threaten witnesses, he is a danger to the society, or he wants to go to jail. |
I'll just paste my reply in here from another comment. He is held in Sweden, has not been charged, and is not in solitary confinement.
Since he has not been charged yet, he is merely held while the police investigates.
I assume it is similar to Norway, except they can detain him for longer with less proof (I have not checked this, so I might be wrong). In Norway, the police can take any person and put him in a cell at a police station for three days. If they want to contain the person for longer, they can ask the court to put him in prison for up to three months without a charge. Remember, Norway is VERY strict when it comes to things like this, beyond reasonable doubt is beyond reasonable doubt, doing this is taken very seriously by the court.
This only happens if they fear the person would try to leave the country or city, if they suspect he would destroy evidence or threaten witnesses, he is a danger to the society, or he wants to go to jail. |
Actually, I believe you should learn about today's vocabulary word: "context". I was clearly addressing the post entitled "Petition asking Obama to legalize cellphone unlocking will get White House response". To which you said that he could . |
See, right there you hit a nail in the head: I write my posts very hastily, on the go, write as fast as I can think (and I type very quickly, never stopping). I very, very rarely look back at what I write.
The actual quality comments (not this piece of rubbish) are the things that I go back five minutes after and tinker with the errors. However, I do not 'nail down purpose' or actually restructure/erase whole sentences. That's a problem. Furthermore, this is my first time using bold.
This post could have been well-summarised in three paragraphs. Instead it's a bloody mess that spiralled out of control. As usual, people rush to seize certain points from within the text and rightfully pointing them out as utterly wrong. That is correct - without the context and the qualification, they are incorrect. I tend to hold nuanced views in debates usually - unless I am going through a violent reaction post (this). They don't work well in Reddit format that encourages more cogent expressions. People don't want to slog through a sea of words |
There's more [here]( I must say, though, that it would be best if we all get back to living up to Aaron's ideals and doing the work he is no longer here to help us with.
I'm willing to make exceptions for those who had personally met him, and even those who know someone who had met him. People in those categories are probably going to take a very long time to process their grief, and quite understandably so.
But the rest of us (myself included) should just stop. I almost didn't post the link, but it's hard to resist when it's bookmarked.
My (very possibly faulty, IANAL) understanding of the situation, after reading the material at the link not that carefully (see above), is that there was the possibility that Aaron's attorney could get him off on a technicality, because supposedly the prosecution had been sloppy in handling evidence and then had lied about it. His attorney seemed to be very excited about this. Aaron, on the other hand, might very well have found this news rather depressing (pure speculation on my part). At least it would not be the clean clearing of his name that I would have desired if I were in his position. |
What are your thoughts on these people that game the system and stifle innovation by bringing in these lawsuits against said start ups? They obviously don't have the resources to fight these and when you can file motion after motion before even getting to the real trial how can they retaliate? |
First of all, get some basic terminology
>[Monopoly]( = The exclusive possession, control, or exercise of something
and
> [Legal Monopoly]( = a monopoly that is protected by law from competition
and
> [Patent]( = a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention.
and
> [Exclusive Right]( = a de facto, non-tangible prerogative existing in law to perform an action or acquire a benefit and to permit or deny others the right to perform the same action or to acquire the same benefit. Exclusive rights are a form of monopoly.
Furthermore if you get a patent on Widget X, then you do indeed have a legal monopoly on the market for Widget X. You can prevent imports of Widget X in to your country. You can stop other people from making, selling, and using Widget X. It is in every practical way a monopoly on Widget X, and that monopoly is enforced by law. |
Except for the part where your argument is flawed.
> Playing a game involves a vast amount of compute and coordination, not to mention very specific things like the appropriate type of video/sound card to play the game in the first place. Playing a game remotely (cloud gaming) is an extremely different technology than playing a game over remote desktop.
What I'm talking about isn't cloud gaming, since your single home machine is, inherently, not a cloud of any kind. What I am talking about is streaming the game to, say, a phone or tablet and being able to interact similar to how a remote connection works. I admitted that it would be inherently difficult to do this with action and FPS games, but a game like Civ5 would work splendidly (since the small amount of lag doesn't really matter in a turn based game). There are literally dozens of games on my computer at home that would qualify for this type of interaction; none of these games would run natively on my phone or a tablet. You can leverage the horsepower of a gaming rig to render everything and then stream it (under relatively loose compression) to another device. There are already devices and software that can do this on a local LAN (surprise! it's gigabit too!) with very low latency. The extra 50ms or so wouldn't kill the experience for a lot of games. You claim that you can't even launch a game when on a remote connection to the host machine, but I do it several times a week when I'm away from home. As I indicated on an earlier post, the quality and frame rate are terrible, but the games load and are playable (to varying degrees); this is specifically due to bandwidth (none of my processor cores come close to maxing out from the remote access).
> Video has a similar problem, though not quite as noticeable because there's much less dependance on the video card. But again even at home on a 1Gbps connection, you're going to notice some lag, still nothing to do with the connection, you're talking about entirely different sets of technology here. Video/audio codecs, processing, coordinating the timing and sending out to video... None of that is done properly over remote desktop.
Streaming audio and video doesn't have to be done over RDP. There are many applications available that would do the same thing. I streamed a movie from my home desktop computer to a remote location using a Raspberry Pi (small ARM based linux computer costing $35). The quality was decent at 1080p, there was no issue with audio and video syncing, and it only stuttered 2 times (because my wife was torrenting at home at the same time). It was streaming at all of 3Mbps, since that was all my home upload could handle; I would venture to say that this would be vastly improved by increased bandwidth (higher bitrate, no stutters, multiple streams). Instead of storing media on phone/tablet, you could access your entire library of media that is at home. That is a current, real world application that I use on a daily basis (long commute) that would benefit right now from the speeds offered by Google Fiber.
> Home security camera's can be setup to securely allow you to stream the feed to your device very easily so why would you need to remote in to a desktop to see it?
I never said remote into a desktop to see the feed. But feeding video is bandwidth intensive, especially if you have decent cameras on the other end. A 16 channel camera setup with 1080p cameras is going to use a lot of bandwidth. Now try streaming those all to a remote location and let me know how that goes on a 3-5Mbps upload connection.
> Again, not arguing against the need for Google Fiber, just trying to inform people more about the technology . There's a lot more going on to video/gaming than just more bandwidth. Very specific processing types are necessary that's why we have video cards and sound cards in the first place. A network card is simply not going to be able to provide the type of processing necessary to deliver high speed video/gaming.
You seem to miss a fundamental step in the logic here. The processing power is not the issue with gaming; it is the issue in displaying the output over a WAN. Having a home machine to do the "very specific processing types" and then stream it to a remote device means that you don't have to have a gaming PC everywhere you go; your home one will work fine as long as you have a display and input controller that will work with it. And your argument about a "network card" not being able to provide the type of processing necessary is baffling. The network card simply sends the information across the network, and most current ones (even integrated ones) run at 1000Mbps, which matches pretty closely with the speed of Google Fiber.
I already stream gaming from my computer (through twitch.tv). I am limited in the quality I can stream because of my 5Mbps upload speed. This is a limitation I already have in the real world. It may not be something everyone does, but I do and it is something for which Google Fiber would help with. It is virtually impossible to get 2 streams (mine and my wife's) running at the same time (at 1080p) with any decent quality. That has 0 to do with "processing power" and everything to do with WAN upload speed.
On a stream at twitch, the delay is 4-6 seconds or so. This delay is due to the fact that the video is uploaded to the twitch server and then sent out to viewers. If I could stream directly (easy enough to do in the software), that delay is virtually gone. I wouldn't want to do that with dozens of viewers, but it illustrates the potential for real time streaming of a desktop.
You can say that nobody "needs" the speeds of Google Fiber, but don't you dare say that "today's technology cannot make use of Gigabit fiber at all period", because there are many use cases you are unfamiliar with. Having that technology would allow me to do most of the things I listed immediately upon being hooked up. I could run a modest web server that could actually have decent upload speed without slowing my WAN connection to a crawl. I could send videos directly to family members (or stream them). |
I'm one paragraph in, and I've already found my favorite part:
> “...most U.S. homes have routers that can’t support the speed already available to the home.”
What decade is this guy living in? Does he not know what the "100" in "100BASE-T" means? Or that this has been the standard for at least the past 10 years? Or that almost every consumer-level router for the past 3 years (at least) supports gigabit? How many ISPs in the US provide standard service of more that 100Mbps?
What about the fact that most standard service can't even match the speed of 802.11b wireless protocols? Which are quickly being replaced!
/rant |
Twist: they don't.
Before you down vote me, do the math on what it would take to use a Gig connection. 1000 people in an office building usually have trouble getting a peak (YES, A PEAK!!) at 1Gb. Let alone sustaining it for any significant amount of time.
>herp derp 4k video derp
Again, math.
The most hardcore bandwidth usage you'll see on Netflix right now is about 4Mbps for full HD and good audio quality. Poor compression with some services could mean ~7-8Mbps (this is ridiculously rare, you'd be hard pressed to find it) So a 4k video has about 4 times the pixels (~8MP compared to ~2MP for 1080p) of 1080p video. So even though it would actually be less after compression we'll assume it uses exactly 4 times the bandwidth. So the absolute worst case you're looking at ~30Mbps or .03% of a 1 Gb connection.
Source: Fucken Knowledge |
I use corporate VPN 100% of the time and I don't need Fiber for that...
Clearly people are not understanding what I meant by a desktop can't handle 1Gbps. You don't have to look far, think about transferring a 5GB file to a standard HD. That hard drives throughput has MAYBE 100MB/sec capacity, but more likely it's something like 50MB/sec. Translate that to Mbps and you've got about 400. Assuming of course you're able to use 100% of that drives capacity for that file transfer which is of course never the case because the OS is always doing something, other apps you're using are doing something. But even in a best case scenario the absolute best you can hope for is 400Mbps on a standard drive.
It's not that "desktops get crushed by 1Gbps" it's that they simply don't use 1Gbps they use some lower number on a 1Gbps capacity. So if you're looking at bandwidth utilization (which was my overall point of the argument to begin with) it's much lower than 100% it's more like 10% or less. And if you look at bandwidth capacity over any period of time, say a week or a month it's abysmally low something like 0.01% of capacity.
10Gbps Ethernet is "new" but nobody is actually using it today because most deployed technology can't yet even make use of it and company X isn't going to spend millions of dollars buying all new network equipment, cabling, servers, and desktops just to make use of 10Gbps. Plus what purpose would it be anyway? If you can't make use of that 1Gbps connection what benefit does 10x that give you? The only use case that I've seen is actually valid and makes use of a significant amount of a 1Gbps connection is something like a link between sites where there are several hundred or thousands of intense users working on a daily basis. In that case you can get utilization up to something like 40% with spikes here and there to 80-90%.
If there was still any doubt, I've done tests where I monitored a server with 6x15k SAS drives imaging 50 desktops. This basically means the server is streaming down a 3GB image to a desktop, done individually 50 times. In this case I was able to get that server to use ~800Mbps consistently during that transfer, but that's a pretty special case of a single machine making use of 1Gbps, and it lasted only 10 minutes or so before dropping back down to 1% utilization. |
People need the internet and want the best possible option. I live in Kansas City and Time Warner is preaching the same testament as Comcast. Though coincidentally they started offering their KC subscribers a "super speed savings" deal- 50mb for 50 bucks a month to try and cope with the mass exodus posed to happen once Fiber becomes more widely available around the KC Metro area. For 50 dollars more I can have Google Fiber and for another 20 on top of that I can have the much looked over Google Fiber TV service. (Which is awesome/innovative by the way, and you get a free Nexus as your TV remote) Its like asking if you'd rather drive a Honda or pay a little extra and drive a Benz. |
20 Mbit/s is good enough for pretty much any application. 1080p youtube videos consume about 4-5Mbit/s each.
With the home internet the speeds and latency are not guaranteed and they fluctuate a lot. Many factors contribute to that, but mostly it's the provider's network, its load and/or its connections to backbones that make things slow. That's why with the two providers advertising the same speed one may be okay and another may be a nightmare. |
Tried recently to upgrade my wired speed with Comcast. They were happy to bump it to 50mbps, provided I also paid for the cable service irrevocably bundled with the upgrade. I've lived happily without cable three years now, don't ever see myself going back. I explained repeatedly I had no interest in tv service, wanted only a bump in speed, no such offers available. I saw no reason to pay for a service I wasn't going to use, and am stuck paying over $64/month for barely 25mbps. |
WE decided? MY best interest? How can you know what MY best interest is? How can you say what MY best interest it? |
He says "most websites can’t deliver content as fast as current networks move" but I would say that most websites don't deliver because of limitations on some users networks. They're trying to approach a broader audience. If everyone were running 1 gbps that would allow websites to improve upon the content they deliver. |
You're SUPPOSED to. I know people who have given out their HBO password and username to activate the app on, say, someone else's 360, who doesn't even have a cable subsciption, let alone HBO. Apparently this is a "federal" crime, or so I saw on an article on here the other day, but I doubt they activley track this sort of thing down. |
Oh my god their twitter support is incredible .
STORY TIME! A few weeks after Halo 4 came out I had finally gotten a hard drive for my Xbox as I only had the wireless one with only a built in hard drive. Anyway, I installed the game and said "I'm only going to play multiplayer for half an hour." So I start up multiplayer and get into a game. Bam. Freezes. I can still bring up the Xbox guide so I realize it's my Internet. I wait for it to come back up and try again, same thing happens. Now I'm getting annoyed. Third time, same thing. Fourth, fifth, sixth time, all same instance. By this time I'm seething with anger. I go on twitter and scream at their twitter account "FIX YOUR FUCKING INTERNET." And less than ten minutes later one of their representatives mentions me. I explain what was happening and he said he'd look into it.
My families connection was getting dropped so often they actually had a higher up call and explain what was wrong. This is important because we live around the Comcast HQ. They fixed our Internet connection and upped our download speed/bandwidth for free, it still hasn't changed our bill after almost 6 months. |
Sure, and all you really need out of a car (in the US) is 80mph. Yet if we were limited to that in a choice rich environment, nearly every car we would buy would go faster than that.
Question: As a company, why would you wait until you have basically hamstrung your customer base? Are they going to be able to roll out gigabit service AS SOON AS the first websites start requiring it? The second? Half the internet?
Answer: They're not following the typical business model because they're essentially a monopoly. They've bought government subsidized lines, or privatized previous government infrastructure for dirt cheap. And then took government money to lay fiber infrastructure, and decided since all the government required was the actual "laying", good ol' copper was more profitable.
The model is flawed, and they're fighting tooth and nail to stay relevant for as long as possible. |
It's becoming a rarity due to hardware and engineering issues. The demand for bandwidth literally doubles every year, forcing the FCC to license bandwidth that's already been relegated (I swear to god if they let mobile carriers take the bandwidth that's left for wireless microphones and sound systems I'm going to go insane).
Everyone wants a smartphone that can watch the football game live while texting and tweeting about it... The problem is we have a finite bandwidth that current technology can operate on. The answer is in using new manufacturing processes to make chips out of Galium-nitride instead of silicon, which can operate at higher frequencies and have better power characteristics.
There are a couple problems with that... Firstly there are only 3 or 4 companies in the world that have the ability to mass produce GaN wafers, and the industry is hyper competitive due to demand, but heavily regulated and controlled due to defense applications. Semiconductor manufacturing is inherently expensive and takes immense capital and years of development to work at all, which means it can't currently keep up with demand making the components expensive. Not to mention this is a worldwide issue and much of that cyber espionage you hear about coming from china is centered around this industry... |
I guess no one will ever see this since this whole thread has been downvoted into oblivion (appropriately, I think, given the vitriolic tone in your first post), but you followed up with something a bit more thoughtful so I think I owe you the same.
Yes, calling this an overreaction is fair. And the idea that a major publicly-traded company with so much riding on the success of the Xbox One platform would expose themselves to both liability and a tarnished public opinion by spying on their users is simply absurd. But a lot of previously-absurd things have been happening in the US lately: major telecoms complicit in mass-surveillance of US citizens (and last time this happened, at AT&T, it's worth noting they were shielded from any prosecution or liability after the fact), indefinite detention without trial, extraordinary rendition, execution of US citizens without trial, torture, and so on...
Unfortunately for Microsoft the introduction of their platform happens at a time when attention is focused on this, and some of the innovations that make Xbox One a unique and exciting device intersect with the concerns many people suddenly have about their privacy and government overreach. But given the current climate, can you blame anyone for finding an always-listening, always-connected device even slightly creepy?
Specifically regarding not saying anything illegal while you're on -- I think there are some pretty major problems with that position. First, the part where you're right: it would be a bad idea to say anything regarding illegal activity while knowingly communicating over some electronic system. Government surveillance is only one of many avenues for negative consequences in that scenario. And people who deliberately and publicly post pictures of themselves engaging in illegal activities, or boasting or about a crime they've committed, are just asking to get caught. That's another category entirely, and those people aren't worth much consideration in my view. At the very least that's a completely different conversation.
There's a big difference between deliberately publishing content, or having a phone or chat conversation for some well-defined time period, versus having something parked in your living room that may, at any time, be recording what you say or do. It's no longer a deliberate act of pushing a button to begin publishing your voice and actions; publishing becomes an implicit possibility until you take specific (and presumably temporary) action to prevent it. There's a big difference.
To simply brush aside the concerns people have around this kind of eventuality is a statement that the machine's capacity to entertain is the only priority, and its potential for abuse is inconsequential. It's an acceptance of society heading down that path, and disrespect and dismissal for anyone who views this as a Bad Thing.
Again, this is all pretty far-fetched and paranoid. And even if this crazy worst-case scenario happened, it's still not quite the 1984 dystopia... If 1984 is being legally obligated to submit to constant surveillance or be punished, 1983 is voluntarily placing a government-controlled functioning surveillance device in your home, and 1982 is putting the necessary hardware for government surveillance in your home but without the program code installed to turn it into such a thing, Xbox One puts us at about 1982 on the proverbial timeline. And it only takes one government-mandated auto-update to roll over to 1983. Given what's been going on in the news lately, isn't that at least worth thinking and talking about?
Finally, I think Xbone is getting attention for this mainly as a coincidence of timing, being announced right as the NSA leaks come out, and for its always-listening-in-your-living-room functionality. But there are a couple other devices that we've all used for a long time that make a much more effective dread-telescreen: the laptop you carry with you from room to room, and the cellphone you take with you fucking everywhere that's decked out with an array of sensors. So maybe we are talking about the wrong thing after all and we should leave the entertainment box alone... Or maybe it's a good thing to have the right conversation about the wrong device. I don't know. |
T-Mobile, one of US largest telecoms decided to take their most valuable customers and their least valuable customers on a vacation to a paradise island in the middle of the pacific. While there, T-Mobile, will get the two groups to play a game of chess with sea shells that they found on the beaches.
The sand on beaches of that island is billions of years old, presumable also has dinosaur bones and half man half pig skeletons. I was there once, and I remember picking up a half man half pig skeleton but i was water boarded as soon as I landed in US. Anyhow, Tmobile, took these two groups in the middle of the ocean and made them play chess with sea shells. |
Ninite user/customer here.
The website creates a single download that installs everything you tell it to, in a batch, refusing any toolbars and other junk. You can run that same downloaded file again later at any time to update those apps without visiting the website. It's a portable/standalone program.
The Pro version (Starts at $20/month for up to 100 machines) caches downloads and can create offline installers, if you want.
I wrote and maintained a Nullsoft Installer script a couple of years ago to do exactly what you wanted. It worked well enough, but I could never get it fully automated. For instance, at least one free version of an anti-malware app doesn't have the same command-line parameters for silent install as its paid counterpart. So I'm not sure if a repository of freeware installers bundled with installation batch files (or just the batch files) would work as well as whatever magic Ninite is pulling off. |
ATT was my carrier, bought a unlocked nexus 4 (just went down to 199 usd) went to Tmobil, and my bill is not wrong in ATT favor every fucking month.
ATT is pure evil, they lie every month on your cell bill, if you call and change it they just tack on extra stuff next month... its just theft pure and simple. Their "data" charges are based in no physical realm the litteraly just make shit up, left my phone completely off for two months when traveling not using a phone and got large data charges both months...
I have Tmobil now and friggin love it, cheaper much better phone accurate billing and, NO CONTRACT (Nexus 4 is the shit, it works unlike the maps on my ATT I phone) |
I have done quite a bit of outsourcing myself even though I live in the US just because it was much easier for me to get jobs online. I have worked with a number of Indian developers and designers. All of them were very intelligent and good at problem solving. So in my experience the problem wasn't with the Indians. There were however very serious problems with most of those projects, starting with the understanding of the scope of the project by the business person and project manager. They would also use a type of modified waterfall process where they tried to think of everything ahead if time except for the things they didn't think of which were sort of crammed in at the last minute. So the timeframe to complete all of those projects might have started out adequately but there were always new features or changes sucking any and all extra time out of the project. When it is obvious that there isn't adequate budget to complete the existing features and more and more features or changes are being added them you options are to get the software working for the most part and deliver it untested or to just deliver about half of what they are asking for. And the thing is the way these sites work and with all of the competition its very easy for them to just not pay you if you try to tell them the truth and refuse to cram in all of those features. |
actually, they probably do. its not like the hardware is anything special in a macbook. its exactly the same as what is in 90% ultrabooks. |
And I'm one of them! What a terrible company. I would drop them completely if my neighborhood in Brooklyn had ANY OTHER OPTION for high-speed internet, but alas, TWC has a solid monopoly. I now binge on my parents' Netflix, watch content that isn't available on Netflix on NoobRoom, and pirate anything I can't stream for less than half what I was paying. I want to cancel my service and sign up under my girlfriend's name to drop the price even lower.
Just a little anecdote from the cancellation phone call: I ring them up (because you can't cancel services online...) and tell them I'm cancelling the TV service. The guy immediately transfers me to loss prevention, where I get a snarky, sarcastic twat that was essentially trying to guilt me into staying on board. When I kept telling him, "NO!" it seemed like he got personally offended and starting attacking my decision to live without television. Like, personal, ad hominem attacks. THIS GUY IS IN LOSS PREVENTION? DA FUK TWC
He FINALLY offers me a better deal on the 2-service bundle (like 92 dollars instead of 115), but keeps neglecting to mention "equipment rentals" and other taxes and fees, so that the "new" price was closer to $100 anyway. I ask him why I can't get the promo rate for new customers since I've been a loyal customer for three fakn years, paying almost $120 a month.
His response: "Well, sir, those are for new customers only. We have deals for existing customers."
"Ummm, where are they? I haven't seen ANY deals ANYWHERE."
"Sir, you have to call the office to request to hear deals. Why would TWC just give you deals? lol"
"Because you're bleeding hundreds of thousands of customers...?"
"Anyway, sir, you're not a very loyal customer are you? Cancelling your TV subscription." (Those last four words were said with probably the most condescending tone of voice I've heard from anyone in my entire life. Like the South Park cable guys. For real.)
"Dude.... fuck you. Cancel my service, now"
"/SIGH Okay, I'll transfer you to service cancellation"
Edit: I'd like to say that I don't regret it for a minute. I haven't missed cable once, there hasn't been a single time where I say, "Gee, I wish I had cable right now!" To anyone who is considering it, DO IT! You can fill that time other ways, and I have to say, to not have a TV constantly blaring in the background (and no commercials, ever, when I do stream stuff) is very peaceful. Some stupid show with Charlie Sheen would be on in the background when I got home. Now it's peace and quiet, and only what I want to watch, when I want to. |
I think it's easy for most of us who live in urban environments to find worthwhile alternatives to a cable or satellite subscription. People who live in rural areas of the United States really only have satellite services (for both TV and internet) to rely on - and these can be exponentially worse in terms of service, pricing, and reliability.
The length of commercial breaks on broadcast (or even cable) television is almost longer than the actual episode segments themselves! This is because most of America is still stuck with satellite/cable television subscriptions simply because they have no feasible access to high speed broadband internet. These people and the commercials they are forced to watch have effectively become these companys' life support...
Moreover, internet in rural areas of the U.S. tend to come with datacaps that often max out at 10-15 gigs, unless a family wants to pay hundreds of dollars for satellite internet alone. My parents fall under this unfortunate category, and when I needed to work there over Christmas (I work with media) I found that I nearly met their cap almost 3 days into my visit. Forget about streaming video or even music, for that matter. My dad got in trouble for downloading his music over the Amazon cloud, and is basically blocked from doing so due to these datacaps... |
Their service is utter shit, too. I scheduled install 2 weeks in advance. When the install date rolls around for my new place, no one shows up. I called them, was on hold forever, and they treated me like shit. Additionally they ended up charging me twice and "couldn't find record of the payment."
I canceled. Went to Verizon FiOS and got a 500% increase in bandwidth for 50% the cost. They also gave me a $500 rebate (yeah, seriously) for switching from Time Warner. Customer for life now, until I can get my hands on Google Fiber. |
This is just a vent- I hate time warner!! I just moved to California and knew how terrible the customer service was with TWC, they are literally famous for it! I just moved to studio city and there's literally no other option for internet and TV other than Time Warner (for where I live apparently). Ideally I'd like to go with Uverse but the fastest they can get my connection is 1.5MB for $40 a month!!! They even told me they couldn't believe it! So I was stuck with time warner. I ordered internet and they never showed up to install it. I called to ask where they were and the person told me they couldn't get into my building. They never even came nor attempted to call me. They then said they couldn't come for another week and a half. In that time I tried to find an option for basic tv channels and time warner was it. I called to add standard TV (everything but sports and premiums) and they told me it was 64.99 + 5.99 a month for the modem. They also told me I would be getting a box for on demand and such. TWC actually showed up when they were supposed to but didn't bring the box. After literally arguing with me about the box being free and telling me I only ordered broadcast, and after customer service hanging up a total of 5 times on each of us, and 4.5 hours later, I had the cable and the internet I ordered. As soon as the technician left all my channels got turned off except for broadcast. I called to have them resend the signal and they told me if I wanted those channels (that I ordered) I would have to pay an extra $30 a month. About 5 hang ups later, I politely told them to shove the box up their ass and to come get it immediately or it would be in several hundred pieces in the street. At exactly 8:00 am the next morning they picked up the box. I plugged in the cable to my tv after canceling and low and behold i had expanded basic. |
They are seriously The Worst. The kept charging my friend's autopay for 3 months after she'd canceled her account. Then she couldn't log into the My Service/Autopay manager because she was no longer a customer and no longer had an account. The first month it happened she called, they assured her it had been resolved and they would refund her money. Then it happened again the next month. She ended up having to request a letter verifying that her account was closed to give to her bank in order to get a stop payment. Idk how long it took for them to cut her a check for the money they owed her. |
I haven't had much problem with time Warner. Every time I call to bitch about pricing, they either lower it or give me free services. Don't let yourself be taken by them. Complain about promotional service ending, and they will extend it. Tell them what the competition is offering, and they will match or do better (unless you have Google Fiber). Most people are too lazy or pessimistic to complain, but when they do, Warner comes through. I have cable and internet through them, and the customer service is awesome if you take advantage of it. |
So this kinda shit is a problem in America too? here in the Philippines, SkyCable, the largest provider, has slowly been cutting channels from people who didn't buy their "digibox" - basically a badly done cable box. Just a couple of weeks ago they cut service to people without the digibox entirely. I'm switching to another company, but i'm kinda irked as it has less channels - and ads intended for the Indian market, but those are actually kinda hilarious. |
Who cares?
I worked for a top investment bank and now at a large private equity firm; my clients included many of the top telcos (AT&T, etc.) and cable providers (TWC, DISH Network, etc.). With that, losing 215k TV viewers in a competitive industry is not a surprise for the cable industry. However, cable providers know that their death is greatly exaggerated and the investor community have LOVED cable providers (esp. Charter and TWC) over the past couple of years because (i) despite declining customers, they have incredible margins and cash flow generation, which they often use for dividends and share repurchases (think return on capital) (ii) bundling means that customers who want internet will say fuck it, I'll pay the extra for video because why not? and (iii) Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO, etc. all provide important services and will probably overtake cable video one day, but that movement is slower than you think. |
Yeah, doing multithreading in a game like this scales really really badly and is rarely done. Single tasks also aren't guaranteed to fully utilize one core and you may end up having to wait for one core/task which does more work than the others, so you have 3 idling cores while one does work. Usually you'll find a hybrid solution where one or more cores are dedicated for long running tasks that will use up the core, and the other cores crunch in a thread pool on small jobs each to fully leverage the cores and to also scale to more cores as they become available.
But then again, multithreading isn't "easy" at all, not even for games with clear task distinction. A lot of effort goes into it, and if done wrong, it can even have a negative impact on performance due to implicit synchronization because of false sharing and other nasty things. There are also things like lock contention, and the fact that it's really hard to achieve determinism and of course it's really hard to debug and bugs can go unnoticed for months before they creep up on you (and if you are really unlikely, it's incredibly hard to reproduce them, or it's a timing issue and your debugger and logging interferes with that and you can't get it to reproduce) |
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