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Edit: The anti-piracy organizations say The Pirate Bay is committing a horrible crime, economically and morally, for copyright infringement. Then this anti-piracy organization infringes the pirate bay's copyright while making a site against copyright infringement. The Pirate Bay's response wasn't a hypocritical statement, it was a joke poking fun at the hypocrisy being played out by the CIAPC. It seems copyright is only a serious moral issue to anti-piracy organizations when it threatens the wallets of people who pay and support them. The Pirate Bay actually couldn't care less if someone infringed on their copyrights. They released their documentary free of charge as a torrent and encourage people to pirate it and share it. They encourage people to mirror their site. They even want more start-up competitor torrent sites. They are not asking anyone to protect anything of theirs, because they dont care about the business aspect of what they do. |
It's important that you brought up the balancing of public and private benefit. While we're at it what's up with the length of the copyright terms. Let's take an example, your average book makes practically all of its profits in ten years after its publication. If the author doesn't make money from it how in the world is it justifiable to have copyright terms like authors life plus seventy years? The author doesn't lose any money and it's the society in general that is hurt. It's preposterous. T
I mostly agree , And this is precisely the area where I think actual debate is warranted and worth while. I absolutely believe the general idea of copyright is beneficial to society as a whole, but I am 100% in favor of fine tuning the particulars in a way that most sensibly reflects the goal of creating such rights in the first place. It may be that life + 70 years is actually a socially destructive term length for copyright. In fact, I think it is. Frankly I think it should end at the death of the creator, or possibly just at a fixed length of time independent of the author's lifespan (especially given that in many cases a corporation is effectively the "creator" in the sense that a work is a collective enterprise of employees). I don't see why in a meritocratic society we arbitrarily award an author's children for the author's labor. They didn't earn that any more than I did. So why deprive the public of the benefit of public use? It doesn't make sense to me.
Similarly, I think that the sentencing guidelines for copyright violations are preposterous. While I want to discourage the theft of intellectual property, I don't think that in most cases it warrants more than a small fine and at worst a short stint in the county jail. The punishments being leveled are so far beyond the moral culpability as to be offensive. But just because the system has some small problems does not warrant throwing the whole thing out in my view. On balance it is a good system that does exactly what it sets out to do: it rewards creators while also maximizing public benefit. Getting rid of all property protections would be very unlikely to accomplish both those goals consistently. |
I would drop Comcast so fast if I could for better Internet. When I moved here they were my only option. I asked them why they charged so much more for slower speeds than their competitors and they said " we assure you are prices are lower or even with competitors and we have better service and speed. BITCH PLEASE that is a load of horse shit. I have lower speeds. Havnt one time hit the rated mark of my network and frequently get over charged. Award winning service? I got billed 3 times for the same months bill by Comcast in January and 5 of your customer service reps wouldn't refund it because nothing was wrong. Thankfully I got my bank to handle if because your service sucks. Theirs was great. I've never used a service as bad or overpriced as Comcast in my life. I HATE you Comcast with a passion. I can't wait till I get a new ISP. It astounds me how you also lie about how great the service is even when I call you out on it. |
This is the real root of the issue. But it's our own fault in many ways. The telecommunications industry needs smart regulation to ensure strong competition. Instead it's highly regulated with stupid regulations, meaning any company wanting to succeed in this space needs to navigate the political bureaucracy with bribes (“campaign contributions”). And we get this - lazy companies who are so good at pushing local governments around and bribing the president and Congress that they find it much easier to sign non competes with each other and funnel a small part of their massive profits into corruption.
An example of the stupid regulations we have is the 8:1 fees paid to small networks from large. When AT&T was broken up they decided small telephone networks (not AT&T) could be charged at most 1/8th what they can charge AT&T for traffic over their respective networks. This has evolved into free conference call and sex chat sites that setup a “telephone network,” then use the exorbitant fees AT&T and any other telco provider are forced to pay to fund the service. It was a good eye gouge early on but it needs to be replaced with smart regulation.
An example of smart regulation we're not getting is laws preventing oligopoly. No content distribution service - Time Warner, ABC, ESPN, Comcast, Hulu, or Netflix should be allowed to also make content - they should be forced to spin that off so that content needs to be sold on the open marketplace fairly.
Instead Time Warner Cable/Warner Brothers lock small upstarts out, along with Disney/ABC/ESPN. Comcast's CEO said in several interviews that he had to merge with a content network like Universal/NBC to compete. It's an obvious conflict of interest and a huge part of why there are still so few legal options to access content in the US, especially online.
Worse, I've read the FCC has actually blessed the non compete that lead Verizon to stop installing fiber - stop innovating and competing. |
The problem here is that TimeWarner benefits greatly from their monopoly position owning cables. Those cables - that tie to physical location - means that they have no competition to cable subscriptions on the ground. If TimeWarner was just a subscription streaming service, as was ComCast or NameYourWireProvider, they'd have to compete on costs, and may lose subscribers.
The wires give them market-power. Market power means you charge whatever you can get away with.
Side-note, they'd probably have to pay less to maintain cable infrastructure, if wired subscribers go down. But they'd also have to match market demand for more and faster internet, if that was their business. Content is easy profit. Asset management - especially one which demands frequent upgrades - is not their money-maker. |
You made the error of conflating rape with unethical business practices. There's probably a named logical fallacy for that, but either way, it's poor argument form. Attempting to compare a controversial issue to something that is universally (okay, widely) abhorred is a cop out for not having an actual point. Had you used the banking industry as a comparison, you would be slightly more correct, while still skirting around actually addressing the specific issues of the topic at hand. |
We have Verizon FiOS in our area (Baltimore, MD) and they provide FTTH.
There are still plenty of Comcast subscribers, myself included, because Comcast is trying to improve their speeds and is offering ridiculous deals. I used to be a Verizon customer, and Comcast brought me back. A sales rep came to my door (specifically because I was a Verizon customer who formerly had Comcast) and here's what he offered me:
$125/mo before taxes and fees ($146 after) for home phone, internet (25 down, 4 up), TV plus HBO/Showtime/Cinemax/Starz/NFL Network, a $300 bill credit (basically, first 2 months free and change), for a 2 year contract, price guaranteed for 24 months.
Where they can't compete with speed, they're competing with "look at all the shit we're going to give you".
Mind you, after 2 years it will probably go up to somethng outrageous like 200-250/mo or something, and at that point I'll just call Comcast and see what they will offer, then call Verizon and see what they will offer, then call Comcast, then Verizon, and just go back and forth till I get the best deal for the next two years. |
These type of internet threads about how people hate their companies and think Google Fiber is realistically better shows Reddit communities one true ignorance. Total lack of understanding about America's electrical, telephone, and cable infrastructure history, present, and where it is going in the future.
It's always 'OMG THE GRASS IS GREENER WITH GOOGLE", but you don't realize if google was actually trying to make a profit in KC, they'd be charging 2x-3x as much. KC google fiber is a fucked up sham marketing campaign to gain Google credit so they can start lobbying to get more subsidies in the future. They are not providing fiber optics at an affordable rate, they are just eating the loss in profits on current customers in order to try and shame other companies and get local government to give them subsidies.
It's all big corporate bullshit and ya'll are eating it hook line and sinker. |
I'm not missing the point. If you are saying that people living in New York City would never choose 4G over cable/dsl/fiber, I completely agree with you. You'd be stupid to do that. What I am saying is that general 'broadband' service is available for those that can't get the landline counterparts via wireless providers that almost equals the same 'broadband' experience. Of course it's a shared medium just like everything else is but so far, there aren't enough people with 4G phones/modems using it to make an impact on the service (yet). |
High-k gate materials are helping to mitigate tunneling effects to some extent. It's a major research area for Intel, TSMC, etc. My fabrication professor does work in this area as well. For anyone interested, [his book]( is a pretty great introduction to the challenges facing chipmakers today.
Optical lithography starts hitting a practical limit (though not necessarily a technical limit, given a nice enough stepper) below about 10 nm, though, quantum effects notwithstanding. I suspect this is the point when you'll start to see more three-dimensional designs; not just making features taller and narrower like the tri-gate stuff, but true multi-layer devices. But of course this presents plenty of its own engineering challenges, not least of which is cooling of the non-planar components.
Whatever happens, I can virtually guarantee what will not happen is some kind of sudden stagnation, where process engineers around the globe suddenly throw up their hands in frustration and declare that XX nm is the smallest feature we'll ever get. There are enough insanely high economic incentives to push computing to within an appreciable range of its theoretical limits, which is orders of magnitude smaller than the nanometer regime. |
As of last year 96% of Google's revenue came from advertising. |
This is awful. What "lost sale" or "harm" does free advertising for your video do? I mean, if you're worried about people using your stuff, go after the thousands of parodies and flash versions. Calm the fuck down.
And if you're worried about the fact that large companies are using your intellectual property, then be proactive and take down ANYONE who uses it, not just when its a threat to your pocketbook. I uncerstand the urge to make money, but you didn't submit those to youtube SPECIFICALLY TO MAKE MONEY. |
Facebook sells it to whomever has the cash
[Citation needed]
I hate Facebook as much as the next guy, but Facebook doesn't sell your information. They collect your information and use it to show you ads that they think are relevant to your interests. They do the same thing that Google does, except they use the information you share with others on Facebook instead of web search keywords to determine what ads to show you.
I really hate Facebook too, but let's keep the facts straight. Facebook clearly doesn't sell your information to third parties. They use it to show you ads for things they think you might be interested in. Third parties come to Facebook and say, "Here's an ad. We'll pay you to show this ad to people with these interests who are this age and this gender and live in this place". That's all that's going on. I still think it's creepy that they keep all that information, but that's all that they're doing with it.
I don't know where/how this "Facebook seems your information" rumor started, but it just isn't true. I still don't like Facebook, but they aren't selling your information.
(Except for governments. They sometimes give information to governments, but that usually requires a warrant.) |
I routinely shear my Facebook contact list for people I don't like, it really isn't about being "a pussy" or "too chicken shit".
I hate it because it's intrusive and entirely monetized. It's not about deleting people or controlling your friends lists, it's about having your information bought and sold by the highest bidder. Everything has Facebook integration -- it's a completely ubiquitous service.
On the other hand, Google also collects an incredible amount of information, but they keep it all in-house. While Facebook sells it to whomever has the cash, utilizes it by posting obtrusive ads, while Google uses their own ad service to target you with unobtrusive ads and give you better search results. |
As a non-teen I deleted my Facebook account about 3 years ago. I had a fair number of "friends" and "really important people (family members/friends of the family/etc)" on there. When I deleted my account I felt a little anxiety about how will I keep in contact with them but after about a month I realized I don't really give a shit about those people.
If they're important to me I'll go out of my way to interact with them. Whether this means a phone call, email or just a text message. Otherwise I don't think about them. |
You're missing the point, the ads won't have to be on google+ whereas ads must be on facebook. Google has a whole little ecosystem going on, between Shopping, Videos, Apps, etc. It's quite different. They can rely upon a steady income of cashflow through those conduits, rather than forcing people to look at ads on the main social site, like Facebook does. Yes, it's all ad revenue in essence but it ends up having a slightly different impact overall on the end user, I believe. |
leaves many opportunities to interact with friends..."
Personally, for me it was always really vague general statements on facebook, like "how are you?" "I'm fine, how is everything going with...." It was hardly interaction, no real connections. Maybe it's better for other people, that form of interaction did not fly with me.
When interact I like to see people in person, talk to them, not have words lost in translation and not have others looking on to my conversation. Now without facebook, people just text me or I just text, "hey, let's hang out?" Bam, much more fulfilling experience for everyone.
But again, it could be best for people with distant relatives or friends, or people that like interaction at that level. |
Addiction doesn't imply you use something a lot. It means it is disruptive to your life. In that sense, some questions are actually a little flawed. For example:
>5 How often do others in your life complain to you about the amount of time you spend on-line?
What if you have few/no one in your life to complain about the amount of time you "spend on-line". Well you'd score pretty well on that question, but you'd probably score poorly "at life". Then again, who decides what a normal life is anyways?
Another example:
>7 How often do you check your e-mail before something else that you need to do?
>8 How often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of the Internet?
For me, these questions are in conflict with each other. I have a very flexible work schedule, but that means I need to check my e-mail frequently, sometimes interrupting chores and infrequently interrupting social activities. My job is highly dependent on the internet. But that says more about my job than it does my use of the internet. And I'd hardly call flexible job hours a bad thing. Quite the opposite. |
I didn't bother deleting Facebook, but I have no interest in checking it regularly. I login about once a month or once a season, but there's nothing interesting / important enough to keep me there for more than 10 minutes at a time.
It was a somewhat useful tool to have to tell people I was safe after a recent disaster, but I haven't used it since. |
Sounds like you are subbed to the wrong subreddits.
Or maybe you just don't like reddit, in which case find something else and stop complaining.
You should never have to see a whole front page of garbage if you manage what you sub to.
Also you seem to be missing the point, just because a subreddit is small or not a default doesn't make it good. You need to find ones that match your interests and that have communities that you don't find annoying. |
I despised facebook in highschool and post highschool. Once I deleted about 200 friends, people I didn't talk to or rarely talked to, the experience became 10 times better. My theory is that it really isn't Facebook, it's the people that you wouldn't normally connect with. |
I think you might be reaching a little bit here. "Back in my day" isn't implying any sort of negative connotation to your way of doing things, it's really only used to accentuate the fact that back then, things weren't so easy, so people just made the most out of what they had (ie "back in my day we didn't have rollerskates, and walked uphill in the snow to AND from school") |
In the last year, I've almost entirely stopped watching television on television. I've made a conscious effort to find shows that have been made specifically to be distributed through the internet using an ad model. I've found some really great shows.
Husbands
Booth at the end
STRIP SEARCH omg, this show is the absolute best - and normally I hate reality television.
Tabletop/Geek & Sundry
Wigs
Scripted content for netflix
The guild (although, I had known about this one for a long time)
I think it will be a while before I completely ween from network/traditionally distributed shows, but despite their tiny production values, a lot of the writing and acting on these shows is as good or better than what you would find on cable/network. Some of it totally sucks - cringeworthy even - although it's not like there isn't shitty tv on tv. But a lot of it is genuinely good.
And people can swear with impunity, which I didn't know bothered me, but after watching Strip Search and hearing people that actually talk like I do in real life, I realized just how artificial the dialog is on most shows.
If the distribution companies and major networks are going to be dicks about EVERYTHING and the cable companies have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, I say fuck them. I'll do my very best to just cut them out of my entertainment model entirely. I'll find people who are passionate about what they're doing, who are writing great stuff, who aren't total tool bags, and I'll support the hell out of them because they rock. Screw these assholes who are just out to make a buck. |
There are valid technical reasons why they are doing what they are doing. It requires extra effort to fabricate chips that withstand the over-clocking with any degree of assurance that it would continue to work correctly. 90% of their customer base don't care about this feature.
Almost all of that is simply wrong.
It does not take the least effort to produce a chip that can overclock. Every chip can overclock unless you prevent it, for technical reasons like the base clock of the new intel processors or simply because intel doesn't want it to happen, see locked multiplier.
Just take a look at the intel E6400, back then a hugely popular chip among overclockers, well known to go from 2.13GHz all the way beyond 3GHz without increasing voltage if you were lucky. Faster then 3GHz also meant it was faster then the $999 extreme edition as most apps didn't care much about the extra cache.
The reason it went so damn fast was not that intel wanted people to overclock it, they simply had a very large bin for that chip:
all chips with defective cache that were otherwise fine went there as it was the highest rated half cache chip
It had the same TDP as the faster variants to accomodate for high leaking currents, something overclockers don't really give too many shits about
It had the same voltage as the higher clocked variants to accomodate for chips that run slower, leading to increased clocks
Of course there was the slight possibility that you would get a slow chip that actually needed the voltage to run properly so the overclocking headroom would be reduced to what improved cooling has to offer, but that was rare.
The chip from the highest bins, the X6800 or so, had an unlocked multiplier. There were guaranteed near perfect die candidates so they were the chip of choice for snobs and hardcore overclockers. That has absolutely nothing to do with what most normal people would do.
>In any case most of the people I know who are over-clocking are idiots anyway
I consider myself pretty smart for buying a CPU in 2006 that ran 75% faster then stock back then and was fast enough for any game I could throw at it until I replaced it three years ago. I also consider most other people who did the same to be pretty smart, as they saved a shitload of money - even when factoring in the increased cost of mainboard and cooler
>For most use cases the CPU is not the bottleneck and it hasn't been in some time.
Yes, if you take a modern high end quad core you really have to search for real time applications that profit from overclocking. Does that also mean that a $80 sandy/ivy bridge CPU that could easily hit 4GHz if you are lucky and were it unlocked is fast enough for everything at stock speeds?
The reason you can't overclock anymore is that they coupled the base clock to some other things and there are actually good technical reasons for it. The locked multiplier is simply a measure in place to prevent people from getting high end speeds from budget processors, something any sane company would do (and they have been doing this for years)
It's just that all your arguments you brough up are balloney and you failed to mention this completely valid point. |
I'm willing to bet it's, overall, a bit more to manufacture them. Cost of actual materials and labor to make them, yeah, damn cheap. But they're well-engineered. I still have the wall adapter from my iPhone 3G, and except for a little wear on the USB side from ripping the cable out accidently while drunk, the thing still works fantastically.
Compare that to the literal dozens of, say, Belkin, chargers I've owned over the last few years. Granted, I lost a few, but many of them have just stopped working. One even shorted out my outlet. |
It really shouldn't. This stock is a speculator's game. If you're investing intelligently -- doing background research and looking through public filings, etc -- you won't be looking at stocks like these. Any company worth investing in will have professional firms running analyses on it, using data [they pay for] which you won't even have access to until it's too late. The game is severely rigged against non-professional investors. I'm not saying you can't be successful, but you do have to be a little lucky. |
The co. close price was up 684.62%. Numerically, what does that mean? Previous day close price: .01, todays close price: .0510 with a volume of 14,358,359. |
The total money flow was only 700K on the day... which might seem like a lot of money but when you consider it, it really isn't. It was probably a half dozen bored retirees who like to gamble with their money, trading with each other in a good day's circle jerk. |
The stock market is much less important than the bond market. The bond market in the U.S. alone is valued at ~$38 trillion. The stock market is valued at ~$18.7 trillion (interesting note-in the 80's the market was valued at ~$11 trillion). As you can see, the stock market is about as important as what the media makes it. Stocks are sexier since stock brokers earn more than the average salary. This whole infatuation with the stock market is not all that important. The bond market, on the other hand, is of VITAL importance. |
but there is the funny thing, if the exchange rate crashes, it does absolutely nothing to bitcoin itself. If anything there would be a bubble that people freak out about, sell sell sell, and then the value comes right back up as Bitcoin does not gain it;s value because of the exchange rate, it gains it's value from what it can do (near instant person to person value exchange, no reversibility, no central control, world wide) and what it can not do (can not be confiscated arbitrarily or easily, is as semi-anonymous as cash, is not tied to any state/country, etc) |
A hash enables you to enumerate data without storing the entirety of it. By necessity, you cannot generally recover the contents of the hash from the hash because you discard data.
A cryptographic hash does this process so well that you cannot reasonably expect two values to. hash to the same result. Other hashes may not guarantee uniqueness. Think of this simple hash: train a toddler to look at images and categorize them 1 if it contains a cat and 0 if it does not. The hash of the image is known but the uniqueness of the image is not guaranteed. You can't tell which picture was categorized, but you know whether or not it had a cat in it.
Google is doing something similar: their end hashes may not be unique (they could store a SHA 3 hash of each image too), but they encode data that can be used for comparison. They might first categorize by number of people based on facial recognition. Then they categorize the image by flesh tone percentage. Then by artifacts left by a camera to catch source defects. All of these get compared and provide a better comparison than pixel by pixel, compression analysis, or visual inspection. In fact, they are harder to fool. You can't recover the image from all this data, and the hash surely isn't unique, but it shares enough data to be usable and fast for comparison. |
Maybe, but we also need to do a better job at evaluating new technologies for their inherent dangers rather than just blindly adopting each new innovation. Any time a new technology comes into use, we give up something even as we gain something. At this point, privacy and confidentiality have been abandoned de facto , and we're just along for the ride.
I'm guessing that at this point, or sometime very soon, Google and its associates could take a random picture of my face, scan it, and, given that I've been using the internet in some form for nearly two decades, use their technologies and databases to generate a terrifying wealth of information about my life. I'm not sure that's technology that should exist, no matter whose hands it's in or what their purported intentions are for employing it. |
Original image? From the hash? There are multiple (similar) images that hash to the same hash. It's just like finding MD5 collisions. Basically you could blow up the hashed image and any image that has the same mean coloured pixels would hash to it. |
So, solar panels are extremely inefficient. Let's say that a car can fit 1 sq meters of solar panels over the entire car. Now, sunlight provides right around 1004 watts of power per sq meter.
Except, in optimal conditions (pointed at the sun, correct temperature, no clouds) the very best solar panels announced (not commercially available and expensive as hell) are around 40% efficient.
So let's say that we only get around 20% considering the panels available currently. That means only 200 watts of power are generated by those solar panels.
746 watts are needed for every HP. A Tesla model S has a 316kW motor, rated at 416hp. So, you need 316,000 watts to run the motor, and your solar panels are providing you 200 watts or 0.0633% of the power the engine needs. Even if we bump the efficiency of solar panels to 50%, that means we get 500 watts from the solar panels, with 0.158% of the power the car uses being generated by the panels. With 100% efficiency, you still only get 0.316%. Even bumping the area to 4 sq meters only gives you 1.27% at 100% efficiency. |
This engine exploits that fact and works like a cross between a rocket and a propeller.
No.
Basically, if we go to high school physics: Imagine a box. On the top of the box pointing upwards is an arrow of magnitude two- F2. On the bottom is an arrow pointing downward of magnitude one- F1. The vector sum is up, so the box has a net acceleration in the up direction.
Now if I told you these were ropes, that's totally fine. But what if I told you there was a rubber ball bouncing around inside the box and the force of the rebound was causing the force? How does the rubber ball bouncing create unequal forces?
Their argument is based on special relativity. I haven't studied theoretical physics, so I've no idea whether or not this can happen, but essentially they're claiming that by adjusting the optical properties of the container they're bouncing microwaves in, the force as the waves hit the top is greater than as they hit the bottom. This creates thrust.
A propeller works by pulling or pushing something through a medium, like an oar. This is not what's happening (according to their theory paper).
A rocket works by shooting a reaction mass out, like a balloon with its knot untied. This is also not what's happening (again, according to their theory paper).
Edit 1: My problem with this test: They got thrust from the thing that shouldn't produce thrust. Imagine you have a thermometer. You want to see if your oven is working, so you attach it as per instruction and you get a reading of say, 350 F. "Wow!" you say, "my oven works!" But then to test it, you also put your thermometer outside in the middle of winter. It reads 350 F.
You can draw a few different conclusions:
1) My oven worked, my thermometer worked, and I better not go outside.
2) My thermometer is broken and I better try some more tests.
3) My oven works because I really, really want biscuits right now! Oh, the thermometer thing? Pfft, that's not important.
One thing I noticed: they did this test in a steel vacuum chamber... full of air at 1 atm. What might happen (which would be cool):
1) effects on the air causing minor thrust
2) effects on the vacuum chamber from the plasma causing minor thrust
but those are reasonable and explicable without using relativity. |
The EmDrive and Cannae drive are both based on Roger Shawyer's work and are based on the same hypothesis. |
I'ma need a |
1) the HQ gifs crew works in all sorts of things.
Mostly After effects and photoshop are the prime tools. I know I personally use After Effects to edit down and add/animate text to my source material and then put it in to photoshop where I trim frames and send it out in to the world
some of us use 3d animation to enhance gifs and I've seen some AMAZING work done that's especially subtle and well done.
2) I think that the changeover to gifv will really only enhance the size/quality of gifs and maybe a little bit in length. Before, a long gif would be too large for imgur. Before, some gifs had to be shrunk down or lowered in quality in order to fit in imgur parameters.
But overall the system isn't going to change. Imgur still imposes limits (which makes gif making fun) and long gifs might as well be videos. So overall it'll just be a straight quality upgrade
IE: Something like [This]( can be put on imgur now. It's not particularly long, it's not particularly fancy. but it's 15m which is larger than imgurs old capacity for pro users like myself.
while something like [this]( would benefit from a lot more cleanliness and resolution while benefitting from imgurs new limits |
The biggest benefit to mp4 vs gif is not time or speed or quality, it's the amount of energy and carbon admissions that will be saved. 1mb of data can produce as much as 11g Co2e, the equivalent to boiling one cup of water. When you multiply this by the millions of gifs watched every day then the savings will be in the orders of magnitude. Source - I read it somewhere once and I'm too lazy to search for it right now, perhaps someone from /r/askscience can confirm?! |
If I download a file with a specific file extension I expect to be able to use this on every player that claims to support this format. If a format instead can be one of two incompatible things it would be harmful for the acceptance of that format. |
wait i live in Colorado springs and |
So this may get buried, but I haven't anyone provide some context yet. The city of Boulder was interested in having Google come in and install broadband, like in Kansas City and elsewhere. Some portion of public funds would probably be used to develop the broadband service. However, the city lacked the legal authority to do this. This ballot measure gives the city the authority it needs to develop broadband in partnership with a corporation like Google. |
The first part is absolutely true, but they're not contradicting themselves. A statistical entity can never contradict itself; it's a nonsensical idea. You're thinking of a statistical entity as a single body if you think like that. There is one exception to this rule, and that is if you are actually keeping track of the number of opinions vs the number of entities in the body, and you can clearly see that the number of explicit oppositions to one issue outnumbers the number of explicit oppositions and withheld opinions of the polar opposite issue. There are so many people on reddit with such varying intrests and levels of activity that the withheld opinions number is extremely high, such that it's so unlikely so as to be impossible that this will ever happen.
Additionally, don't ignore the fact that people are much more likely to express criticism than favor. What seems like a contradiction is usually the opposition being very loud and the support being relatively quiet on both polar opposite issues. |
Look it's your lucky day! You said the magical words "NASA engineer" so here I am. I work at JPL and am actually currently working on the M2020 rover which will be heading to Mars in (surprise) 2020.
The truth is comment sections on threads like this are actually pretty depressing for me. Most of the time I'm on the same side as the tide of reddit opinion, but in threads like these I get to feel what it's like to try to change reddit's mind about something. It's not easy. Here are dozens if not hundreds of what appear to be educated people with just enough knowledge to realize how difficult it is to get to Mars, but without quite enough knowledge to realize how possible it is. Comments like "In other breaking news, water is wet." are at +557 while for me to come up with a few reasons why Mars One is likely not a scam require thousands of characters.
I don't have the time or will to find a engage with every "well duh it's a scam" comment, but you seem to be thinking about it in a reasonable way, so I figure I at least try to educate one person. Let's pick out some examples of common misconceptions among the casual space-enthusiast:
First of all /u/Ivashkin is entirely correct in his comment above. Getting to Mars is not something that would require 5% of our GDP like it did in the Apollo era. Because of this it is no longer the exclusive ability of governments but well within the grasp of private groups and the super-rich, if they were so motivated. If you're interested in a cost estimate I did one [here](
Below /u/OlanValesco points out the oh-so-common issue of "cosmic rays" (ironically calling it an often overlooked problem). Radiation in deep space, while significant compared to levels on Earth, is not nearly as much of an issue as the public perceives it to be. Misconceptions about radiation stem from many sources, such as the that surpassing the recommended limits for astronauts set by NASA means they will die (actually that's just where cancer risk starts to increase above ~3%), or that because Mars has little atmosphere and no magnetic field that you're basically "out in the open" as far as radiation is concerned (Mars does a decent job of shielding). Also people picture a solution to this problem as either heavy shielding made of lead or some magical technology yet to be invented. Neither is needed because in reality we just use moderately large pieces of aluminum and almost all radiation can be blocked out. Other than a small (<5%) increase in cancer over your lifetime, the only real risk is if the spacecraft is hit directly by a solar flare and the crew does not have a rad-shelter like the one on the ISS. The odds of this are low and I believe this is a risk Mars One is willing to take. If you're interested in learning more about radiation in general check out this [cool video by Veritasium](
/u/LizzyKitten brings up an issue that I think only really became well known in the public sphere after the release of the famous "7 minutes of terror" [youtube video]( where they say something along the lines of Mars having an atmosphere "too thick to ignore" but "too thin to finish the job". Of course these are true statements, but a lot of people seem to treat them as absolutes, when in reality everything is relative. For instance of course a parachute at Mars is not going to slow you down as much as it would on Earth, but that doesn't make it useless. Also Lizzy claims that: "...the amount of fuel required to do even a mixture of burning and parachuting and slow a capsule full of humans and supplies would make the whole project weigh far too much to ever realistically get off Earth." What are the odds that she did a full simulation of the propellant budget for a Mars mission? Maybe she did, and the numbers didn't work out, but I know there are others who have made the numbers work. I would point towards Zubrin's plan [Mars Direct](
Lastly /u/richandbrillant points out what is actually likely the most relevant issue. Which is the lack of gravity for astronauts during the trip and the need for some kind of artificial gravity. If you notice Zubrin's plan does involve spinning the vehicles, but there are other options as /u/russianpotato correctly points out that this effect can be held off using exercise equipment and that it's not as much of an issue since they don't plan to come back to Earth anyway since they only need to be able to handle the transition from microgravity to the 1/3 Earth-g gravity of Mars. NASA has made large strides in improving the work-out techniques and technology for it's astronauts and have nearly eliminated the bone density deterioration. Right now there are astronauts on the ISS planning on staying there for an entire year. Lastly anyone going to Mars on a one-way trip will likely have to just accept some amount of bone density deterioration (similar to increased risk of cancer). Yet despite all of this /u/russianpotato has a negative score on all his comments below.
Anyway, as you say you'd be glad to eat your words if they somehow pull it off. I would never bet on them being able to pull it off, but it bothers me when people try to justify borderline libelous statements through some Mars facts they learned watching a few NASA PR youtube videos. |
There is a nice video by NASA where an astronaut guesstimates the mission requirements of a Mars mission by scaling up the Apollo Missions. The bottom line is that just to get six people to mars and back you would need to construct a craft roughly the size and cost of the international space station. Additionally, you would need another space craft just to get the first one up to speed. |
Going to Mars would be kind of cool if you were in a stage in your life where you had no serious attachments and were the adventurous sort, even dying there wouldn't be too bad.
The issue is what you'd die of and how soon. Lack of oxygen/water/food a few hours/weeks/months after landing isn't too great, and that's the optimistic scenario for Mars one.
The |
I had this very thing happen to me from an upgrade that I installed. no fault, just upgrading. Suddenly my Win7 wasn't validated any more it told me.
_
I resolved this in 5 minutes by calling the toll free number stated in the "help me" section and inputting my original Key, then getting their "unlock key series" back and inputting that. |
yup. dell sold those to half of the hospitals in texas med center. i've literally changed out thousands of those boards. it actually led me down a damn good career path. i had just showed up in houston with little experience and got a job with a small company that was subbed out to handle dell warranty overflow. that of course put me in some of the top IT departments in the city. i'm an amicable fellow, so job offers came in and were willing to overlook my lack of formal education and certifications. |
Where does it say these things make 7 less productive?
Example;
>Although the Quick launch toolbar can be manually enabled in Windows 7, it gets disabled and its order reset after every restart, making it unusable
Ri-ight, because the new quickbar is completely pointless...
What happened to all those people complaining about XP being rubbish when Vista came out? Did XP suddenly become an uber-OS? I mean in terms of 'it's-shite-it's-shite-it's-shite-omg-it's-best-it's-best-I've-never-had-a-probem-with-it (etc.)'. People talked like this about 98SE when 2000 came out too - 'I like things the way they were, I'm not changing, M$ will just have to adapt to me....oh, where has everyone gone?'. |
Also a teacher here - mind you a tech teacher so my interactions may be different from ^SoPoOneO. I'm far more fond of an LCD projector attached to my comp. While a SMART board is ~$3500 and is finicky w/ drivers etc..., a simple LCD projector can be gotten on sale for as low as $400 bucks. I'm a firm believer in technology in the classroom and even a school board that has low income can slowly outfit its rooms (over a few years) with LCD projectors (I show mine on my white cinderblock wall and it works just fine). I'll often project something on the wall, and then go over and interact with the projected image (kind of like an overhead). If there are notes/markings that are super-important then I sometime (rarely) take a picture of it and post that to my course webpage (wikispaces.com - free for educators BTW). |
Although on one hand I agree with your justification for blacklisting Sony products, I choose a different form of protest. I buy their products without concern, but only when it is the right product. No, I don't own any of their tv's, dvd players, cd players, laptops, camera's, cellphones... so hear me out.
What I do own is 2 PS3's and 2 PSP's. One pair are not modded, the others are. This redundancy is to allow me, without fear of any material repercussions, to continue to learn how to mod their devices for personal use purposes. I share and demonstrate my knowledge what the true capabilities of their hardware products are to all with an open mind.
Don't get me wrong... I'm not a pirate or profiteer. I own over 100 boxed PS3 games, plus hundreds of dollars of DLC (mostly rockband/guitar hero tracks... but I digress). Their hardware kicks ass, but is inversely proportionate to their trust in consumers.
Poor analagy warning: If I was to buy a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo because of how awesome it's technical specs were, but when I brought it home I found out it had be governed to not exceed 200km/h, I'd still love my car. However, I'd be looking to reprogram the the onboard software ASAP to remove that BS limitation. Yes, it's technically not legal to drive faster than 120km/h anywhere that I know of in North America... on public roads. But is it illegal to have a street legal car that's capable of a rolling infraction? Not currently. What if I'm on a track? Or what if I'm partaking in a ralley or race that has the support of local law inforcement?
Yes it's true that you can vote with your money by not purchasing their products. There are still more than enough people in the world who still will that ensure this approach will not work. We need to stand up to them and say "No, fuck you, I'm going to do it anyway. And I quite frankly don't care if you ban my modded products from your closed networks, that's not what I want them for anyway. We can do better."
I tip my hat to folks like GeoHot who are the public face of this movement. Dude must need a wheelbarrel for his balls. |
While it's true that just about any technology can be miniaturized, there is a physical limit to the size of radio antennas that makes it very difficult to have a fake-tooth radio transmitter or receiver.
In layman's terms, the size of the antenna has to be proportional to the size of the radio wave (i.e. the "wavelength", which is inversely proportional to the frequency).
It's quite simple really, if you use long wavelengths (low frequencies) you need a very big and bulky antenna, such as the one attached to your car radio or portable AM/FM radio. If you use short wavelengths (high frequencies) you can use a very small antenna, even one smaller than a tooth.
So why don't we just use higher frequencies then? There are two main problems that arise from this:
A) As the frequency of the radio wave increases, the amount of energy needed to propagate the wave (i.e transmit it) increases. In other words, the smaller the wavelength, the more battery power is needed to transmit.
B) As the wavelength is decreased, the wave's ability to travel through obstacles is significantly reduced. For example, a radio wave that is 20 meters long can pass through houses and buildings. A shorter radio wave that is 5 mm long will have trouble passing though even sheets of cardboard for example.
So basically, the only way to have such a small transmitter would be to use a very high radio frequency (say higher than 60 Ghz), but as a result the battery would die very quickly and the transmission would basically only work if there was a direct line-of-sight connection to the receiver.
For receivers, the same principles apply... The antenna must be approximately proportional to the wavelength in order to get a good signal and higher frequencies are easily blocked by any small obstacles in the way.
The best way to imagine a small radio wave is to think of visible light. Light is really just a high-frequency radio wave. Note how light waves get blocked and cast a shadow on anything behind the obstruction. Now imagine yourself trying to send a Morse code signal with a tiny key-chain flashlight to a person who is across the room, in your backyard or across the street from you... that's kind of what it would be like to use high frequency radio waves on such a small scale. |
Dropbox is a US corporation and is required to comply with the law (which includes court orders). If the government comes calling with a court order, your data is theirs. This is the case in every nation on Earth.
The author of the story points this out and goes out of his way to say that there is nothing to fear.
First paragraph of the story:
>"This is nothing groundbreaking, but Dropbox has updated its security Terms of Service to say that if the government asks, they will have to decrpyt user's files and turn them over."
Second paragraph of the story:
>"That's standard practice for any online storage service from Gmail to Amazon..."
Last paragraph of the story:
>"Again, this won't affect most users, so don't sweat it." |
Ya actually I watched it a couple of times and I think I understand what's happening now. What they were essentially showing off was the new start menu which means that the task bar is still around (and not just for legacy apps which was the rumor). This is good. New start menu looks interesting. So long as they include a search function I'm all for it.
As touch -> mouse, I'm afraid and almost convinced they're going to solve that problem with mouse gestures and hidden mouse over pop up bars. Now I realize this is purely opinionated but I hate gestures and I'm not to fond of mouse over bars either. God willing they'll just give us a scroll bar and be done with it. |
To me, tablets are constrained by the current concept of a 'tablet' OS. I've thought for a long time now that there should be a lot more tablets on the market running Windows 7. With Windows 8, that concept will be even better.
The issue with Android/iOS is that they're both closed systems. Yes, Google has declared time and time again that Android is an open system, but then they also took all of Yongzh's emulators off the market and shadow banned his account. With a Windows OS I never had to worry about silly things like that, and the concept of a 'closed' OS never even crossed my mind.
Having said that, that's all just idealistic crap. As far as real tasks, the full desktop programs are simply better. Word processing, media editing (sound, video, images), video games, productivity programs, etc. are all infinitely better on a PC. Yeah, web browsing might be a bit more convenient on an Android device or an iOS device, but at the end of the day, Windows can simply be modified to be just as good if not better, while still being amazing at everything else. Also I know that you mentioned development work, but as a programmer I simply need to stress this: If I think that a task can easily be automated through programming, I can code it in any way I want, in any language I want, as well as run, test, and distribute all on the same platform. This is something that a mobile OS will never compete with.
Windows 8 looks like it has set out to accomplish exactly that, and once it comes out I'm jumping ship from my Android smartphone and possibly tablet to a WP7 phone and Windows 8 tablet. |
This looks horrible. The GUI reminds me of something Fischer Price would make for 4 year olds. Basing your entire OS on widgets and scrolling javascript menus sounds like a recipe for lagging and wasted desktop space to me. Just because people prefer that kind of interface on a phone does not mean they want it on a 25 inch+ screen. Are they even aware that the distinction between what is a 'monitor' and what is 'TV' barely exists anymore? Do they think we're still using 19" CRTs?
Despite promises of a legacy Win7 UI and app support, I have serious doubts that I'll still be able to run half the old games and DOS programs that I can today under 7. I would need to see the Win8 control panel to be sure, but based on the past few releases of Windows, I'm sure we'll all have even less control over the installation of drivers and hardware than the already decreased functionality (vs. XP or even Win98 for that matter) that Vista and 7 provide today. This kind of forced obsolescence by these hardware and software companies is one of the major, persistant things plaguing the PC and OS industries since their inception 30 years ago.
"Post-PC Era" ? Who the fuck is MS to just decree this to be true? They don't get to decide that. (ESPECIALLY not them, even)
I had no idea there were so many MS fanboys and paid marketing shills on reddit. I wonder what small percentage of those accounts are real. It's amazing there isn't a /r/microsoft so they can all circlejerk about how MS is the gentle hand guiding us into the future and not just a bunch of profit-minded marketing people, half-assed programming guys who picked up a little bit of C++ in college, and Chinese and Indian wage slaves coding to make a few extra yuan so they can buy food this month. |
What I like in OS X over Windows, and I use both, is the lack of colour in OS X. Windows looks like a book cover at all times, but it should look like a car dashboard so that the user isn't distracted from driving. There are many little details in Windows that I can never like or convince myself to ignore. Here's an exampe: in the above posted vid, the guy starts right from the beginning and up pops the user's account. The icon moves off to the top right of the screen. Ok, fine, so far. The name next to the icon has the womans first name, Julie, in a font size 2&1/2 times bigger than her surname. Fucking why? who makes these decisions? Just write the damn user account name in 12pt Helvetica ffs. It seems so stupid but it irks the fuck out of me. Aslo the way Windows Explorer works, totally fucking retarded imo. |
Railways seem to die down everywhere when a significant portion of people can afford cars.
They recover some of their appeal when private transportation becomes to much of a trouble - this is tied to population densitiy.
In Germany, the railways make profit only on the transportation of goods, transportation of people is mostly a loss factor. That's probably a killer for the US where subsidies are the devil.
The main problem with railways systems is lack of redundancy, cost and duration of disruptions.
I still see that a high speed railway system makes sense for the high cluster / sparse infrastructure of the US. The biggest problem in Germany is that high speed doesn't make much sense on most routes - due to limitaitons of urban areas and construction, it's often just saving 15 minutes on two hours.
However, a railway system does not work well by itself. You need at least some redundancy for alternate routes and you need a strong public transport in the connected cities.
-- |
I take Amtrak to NYC and back to Boston once every two weeks. The Acela is faster than the Regional by only 40 minutes. The advantage to the Acela is that amount of time and getting the convenient train slot. You can take a train to NYC from Boston for $68. Minimum for Flying to JFK from Logan is $98. Plus $20 for the grey cab to Manhattan. No anal probes from the TSA and all the airport waiting time is another bonus. |
Avast, fellow train lover! OP is still comparing apples to oranges. The Amtrak train in the photo is not a high-speed train.. several of the others he's comparing to them are.
Trains such as Amtrak provides do fill a need -- they aren't meant to be "commuter" trains in that the system isn't designed to bring people to work every day in a short period of time (at least not in Florida). It's meant as an alternative to driving a distance -- normally for trips to visit family or friends.
I took the train back home this past weekend -- it took the same amount of time as driving would've taken (3.5 hours) and cost the same as gas would've cost, but at least I was able to get blasted in the diner car on warm beers some hobo brought on the train in his backpack. |
Deregulation killed almost all the unprofitable airlines and 9/11 pretty much finished the job(Braniff, TWA, Pan Am, Northwest anyone?) yet the US still has a ton of pretty big airlines(Delta, United/Continental,AA,USairways,Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, jetBlue, Virgin America, Frontier, Spirit,Southwest). Why? Because they fill a niche that doesn't exist in any other country due to how the US's population is distributed; cheap travel between pretty far distances. Each JR company only covers around 600 miles yet manages to connect a ton of population centers. 600miles almost gets you from LA to SF with no large population centers in between(sorry central valley).
The US has plenty of rail lines connecting many of the largest population centers in the US(How else does Hyundai get cars to the Heartland?). If it was profitable to go against the airlines someone(cough Branson cough) would've tried to do it. Add NIMBYs and envirmentalists and the fact that airplanes are much faster than trains after a certain distance and you can see why even SRB hasn't tried to make a Virgin AmericaRail ;). |
No, we don't need this. It has become much more expensive than originally projected. Expected revenue is also lower than expected costs, so it would have to be subsidized by the state for as long as it operates. It is not a "LAX/SFO" train, it is an LAX-Burbank-Sylmar-...10 stops until SFO. This, coupled with the fact that CalHSR plans on sharing conventional freight rail for a decent portion of the route rather than construct dedicated HSR for the entire journey means speeds will not be maintained as advertised. If the price of a ticket is low, the HSRA will not make their money back. If the price of a ticket is high, people will fly. People will still fly even if the price is equal to a plane ticket because its faster to fly. I go to school in the bay area and live permanently in LA. I will still fly because my goal is to get home ASAP, and planes allow this, even if it costs a little more (which it really wouldn't, as long as your ticket is booked in advance). HSR in CA is a good not bad idea. But the politics behind this project, as well as the factors I listed make me really opposed to this specific plan. |
Well you beat me to it but I have been curious as to why wouldn't one (or more) of the wealthiest top 1% make this happen? (I'm thinking bill gates or warren Buffett here). Ala Rockefeller, ie contribute something back to this society that has helped make the two of them so wealthy. Plus I'm sure they could turn a profit on it.... I was hoping for this or rebuild our Internet infrastructure to handle 100gpbs or 100mb to the last mile for everyone :(. |
I love how conservatives see flying/driving as the libertarian ideal, without acknowledging the ginormous amount of public subsidy required to get our road network going, and to maintain it. Same with our airports. Government planning converted our cities to automobile utopia/human hell. Codes require garages on houses (goodbye cute bungalows and porches), and set huge minimum number of parking stalls businesses are required to have per square foot of building. Government density limits make public transit uneconomical and relegate it to a social service in most places. When new development occurs, the public foots the bill into perpetuity for the car infrastructure.
They cry and moan communism when parking gets taken away for things like bike lanes, or parking meters get added. Free parking is subsidized private vehicle storage in the public right of way. |
This is a terribly misleading post, its an amtrak train, who in fact have one of the nicer trains in the northeast, the Acela line. Do a quick google search and see that the image you depict as 'murica's train does not represent the "best" train of the US, while the other images are top of the line for each country.
Also good luck trying to free up any money to do such projects when one side is complaining about excessive spending, and the other is complaining of not investing enough in creating jobs. Whilst in a pre-election year. Hah. |
Bullshit waste of taxpayer money.
Edit: I said that at first sight and through the lens of a conservative. If its economically feasible, and made business sense, why not leave it to a cooperations and competition to build high speed rails? Like the first time around? I just thought that, while this employs a crap ton of people, it's also quite ambitious, and the end product doesn't do much more that provide a few with slower than normal transportation (compair to flying) for a still pretty hefty price (if current prices are anything to go by). The thing about technology and advances in it are that, once a new way is found, the old way dies. Air travel is more flexible, fast, and economical than building an entire infrastructure from the ground up for an old technology reinvented. If you want green, develop clean fuels and engines for planes. This is just what first came to my mind when I heard about the high-speed rail idea, because just saying bullshit waste of taxpayer money seemed like a bit of a cop-out. I haven't really researched any of this, so if you know better, tell me. |
Like, I really want high speed rail too, but you need to calm down and stop being hyperbolic. "we can put a man on the moon, but we cannot X" is almost as bad as godwin at this point. It's utterly meaningless. Those are unrelated things.
Also, if you think we're "nearly 3rd world", you've got absolutely no idea what the 3rd world is. |
More importantly, what the hell do you want a communication satellite for anyway? What's wrong with a 'pirate radio' ship? Or several? You don't have to deal with limited satellite bandwidth, handoff issues between different satellites, not to mention the immense expense. In fact, what's wrong with setting up a darknet? It's just as easy to sniff or jam a satellite as it is to shut down a darknet or raid a ship in international waters. You still need encryption for the satellite. If you're worried about coverage you can easily employ repeaters rather than expensive satellite transceivers. Why bother? |
sigh
OK, only because you drove me to it.
GEEK CRED
First computer used: Nicolet NIC-80 with a teletype and paper-tape punch.
First programming language: PASCAL on an MTS mainframe.
First microcomputer programmed: PET 2001.
First microcomputer owned: Atari 400.
First paid job as a computer geek: 1995
Current Full-time job: Unix Architectural Systems Administrator.
Current salary: You wish you made this much!
Glasses?: Yes. -4.25/-4.0
iPHone: Um...no. I've got an LG from 2003 which will probably get replaced with something Android this summer. |
I'll try to voice why I think many people are against the new UI on desktops but can't put into words exactly why.
Microsoft is obviously trying to go for a new modern look and has scoped in on mobile interfaces as a source of inspiration. I'm not entirely fond of this style even on cell phones, but it makes a lot more sense because of physical restrictions. Big icons make a good substitute for small icons with text. Things are easier to click on, and information is presented easier for the user . This is the central problem users are having with the Windows 8 UI.
Let's start by comparing information displays on mobile devices. Say, instead of Android having an application drawer, it had a start menu that opened up in the same manner as the application drawer. Would this be either usable or better? Well, to start, if each row is only one application like in start menus, it is probably going to take up more space due to the width of each row in order for reasonable space for the user to tap. In this case, the information (applications) isn't being displayed better than having 3 or so per row with large icons. A big ol' list doesn't seem to be the answer.
Now apply this same method of thinking to a desktop installation of Windows 8. Does the metro UI display information better than the old start menu? Having large tiles for all programs actually makes the presentation worse. Because there is more retail space to work with in terms of resolution (assume 1920x1080^1), a lot of space looks to be wasted with solid colors. Wasted space also applies to the setting menus, but for just the start screen, what is displayed in a full screen overlay can easily be organized in a corner of the screen. Sure it looks pretty the first few times you use it, but within a day I can guarantee everyone will press the windows key, and start typing to find the program they want. |
Here's a link to Twitter's announcement: [Keeping our users secure](
Incidents like this are always a great time to remind others to use stronger passwords. Here are a [few tips on creating strong passwords]( |
Not without giving away my secret superhero identity. Sorry yo.
Other non-my-profession uses:
I have two kids that love art, and would freaking love to see their drawings and ideas turned into 3D models to play with in the dollhouse I built for Christmas.
Custom jewelry. You could mount beads and crystals and other embellishments into the plastic. You could even make beads and charms from the 3Doodler.
Holiday decorations/Christmas ornaments.
School projects: Model making for Science class without buying $900 worth of foam balls. You could build your own model car out of it, rolling wheels, axles and all.
I could make a new battery cover for my phone, since it disappeared when I dropped it. wee!
Pretty grippies as an alternative to Plasti-dip.
Custom, awesome picture frames.
Shoe repair. Fuck yeah. My soles are always separating and glue just doesn't hold up when it's hot out.
Fashion. Lose a button? Make a new one.
Repairing broken plastic objects. My dog is constantly chewing up my kid's toys, or we step on something and break it.
You could make your own goddamn [pentamino set](
Dude, I could repair my miniblinds, and the stupid clippy things on the stupid Venetian blinds in my apartment that my dog keeps ripping off. |
Short answer: no.
I have worked with a plastic tool similar to this (it was on an actual 3D printer, not hand-held). We only over used it for plastic.
All food was printed with a different tool-head, the syringe tool-head. Which can be replicated by hand using a syringe for a lot less than this costs. |
NEWSFLASH: thinking of anything to do with this pen is not the same as actually being able to achieve the desired results . It is not a matter of having "0 creativity", it is a matter of being realistic.
I too can come up with a bunch of creative uses for this, such as crafts and things of that nature, but the practical uses you are listing are pure fantasy.
The output from this pen will be brittle as shit ! Every "repair" you think you're going to make is going to be woefully inadequate.
The output is highly imprecise and sloppy. Did you even look at the pics of printed examples? And you expect to make a practical battery cover or a "fashionable" button with this thing? And you think this brittle plastic will work better than glue for shoes?
Your miniblind "repairs" that you think you're going to make is going to wind up being a sloppy brittle piece of shit that will easily break off and potentially choke your dog. And with a tip that heats up to 270 degrees, is it really something kids should be playing with? |
Most "privacy advocates" commenting here are people who have never ran a free, non-subscription based website. They seem to have no idea how the web ecosystem works and are totally underestimating the cost of hosting content and maintaining servers. So I would like to clear up several misunderstandings:
No, web devs are not philanthropists. They need to make a living too.
If a site is free, it needs to run ads. And yes, running ad-blocker is hurting them. You have the right to control what you see, but just remember that websites you visit could also shut down at any time.
Yes, targeted ads = more money and removing targeted advertisement WILL hurt the web devs directly. In fact, blocking third party cookies will hurt small sites way more than Google/Amazon, since those sites are treated as "first parties" by Mozilla and has free reign over your browsing habits.
Yes, reddit doesn't use targeted ads and no, reddit is not profitable ( So the argument "why can't everyone do what reddit does" is not a logical argument.
And finally, blocking third-party cookies does not stop third party tracking. There are many ways of tracking users and this is just the tip of the iceberg (such as using flash cookies, cache timing side channels, visited link sniffing, or even contacting the host page directly). |
I'd just like to add my data point here: I didn't buy Windows 8 specifically because there was no legal way to download it and burn my own DVD.
Full story:
Earlier this year, I decided I wanted to finally upgrade my computer, so I bought all the parts and waited like a little kid until the computer came in. While waiting, I thought about what OS I wanted, and since Windows 8 was actually pretty easy to use and I wanted to help support the adoption of more Metro apps, I decided I wanted 8, and I don't mind paying for the OS as then my old computer could keep a legitimate key and I could resell it for more. So the day everything is supposed to arrive comes, and I decide to finally buy windows 8 online and burn a DVD, like I had done with Windows 7 through their student program. Lo and behold, there is no way to legally download Windows 8. The evaluation copy is free, but after the trial period, you HAVE to reinstall. Well, shit. So, I decide to try my luck and use my original Win 7 key and disc on the new computer and hope I get another activation, and I guess I'm in luck because it works and instead of paying over a hundred dollars for an OS, I pay none and now my old computer will have Ubuntu or I'll just sell it for slightly less. |
HAHAHAHAHa. require? Law enforcement? This is a philosophical debate. This was dealt with 30 years ago when the fourth amendment was sacrificed on the altar of 'law and order'. If you think this supreme court (or at least 4 members of it and Kennedy will probably go along with them) won't give LEOs anything they want you are deluded. |
Here in Germany we have clear laws (and usually obey them) - and even here they trample our constitution (etc.) and just store unjust data/use unjust methodes to aquire it. It is probably even worse, as german corts can use illegaly aquired evidence in trail (I think that was different in the US). And there are no punishments for employing these illegal techniques. |
Glad to.
After a friend of mine got involved in the "Venus Project", he started inviting me to some of these screenings for The Zeitgeist: Addendum film, which he rented out a small theater in my town to play at for those he invited. After watching the film, I became interested in the subject matter. I wasn't interested in the conspiracies presented throughout the film, but rather the man portrayed in it, Jaques Fresco. Who claims on his resume ( and in the film to have been a designer, for Northrop Grumman, and
credits himself with the design of Single Fixed Wing aircraft that brought us aircraft like the F-117, and the B-2. He also credits himself with De-Icing and rotorcraft designs for aircraft while working at the "Raymond DeIcer company", and "Rotorcraft Helicopter company" in LA. I called the LA city Tax and Finance board to verify a business license for either of those companies. The woman I spoke with confirmed that there has never been a business license leased for either the De-Icer company, OR the Rotor Craft company, nor has there been similar names in their records.
He states he was a co-founder of the Revel Plastics company, and knew Lou Glasser personally. An Inquery into this, and a call to
the Revel Plastics Company PR quickly told me this was not the case. There is no such person who has ever worked for, or helped
co-found the company. Lou Glasser never knew a Jacque Fresco of any kind.
His resume is full of lies like this. He said he wants to get rid of the Monetary Economy, but then why does he have an online store that charges so much?? lol
I have a very long transcript that I saved from when I started emailing questions about his resume to his contact page, and was met with a Ms. Meadows who was his PR lead of the time (might still be, I dunno). I would be happy to share if interested? |
Search results seem like a Boolean thing to me.
Either you found a page (or pages) that answer your question, or you didn't.
If you didn't, you rephrase the search, not "I wonder if Bing somehow knows". |
While Steam is a form of DRM, it gives you more stuff than it takes away by having the DRM. Steam has user chats, automatic updates, forums for each specific game easily accessible, a store system and a number of other features that make its specific DRM much more palatable, as it gives you much much more than it takes away by being there.
Most DRM solutions do the opposite, they take away by being there, but do nothing to better the experience for the consumer to make up for that fact. |
I love movies. I love going to the movies. I love indie flicks and have a decent collection.
But your arguement "You wouldn't steal from Wal-mart" doesn't make sense. If all i had to do was click on a button and have a wal-mart toaster delivered to me within minutes, at zero cost, then yes i would steal from wal-mart.
This is a failure of the movie industry to create a new business model that matches the times. This applies to indie films that can't think of a good way to get money from their product outside of DVD sales. Kickstarter is a great idea for this type of stuff if you ask me. The film maker only needs to invest a small amount to make a teaser trailer, then set up a kickstarter fund and off people tickets based on the amount they donate. Once the goal is met and the budget set, make the movie, give the investors what they want, and don't worry about the piracy. In fact, treat the piracy as marketing for the film maker, so their next flick gets even more kickstarter investors. |
Good read
>
In other words, Facebook reserves the right to use your information however it sees fit, as long as it is “in connection with the services and features” it provides. What “services” or “features” mean, well, take a guess.
>Bottom line: This section is extremely vague, and should make you wary about having a Facebook account at all.
Basically, It never suggests to users what it is doing with your information. In theory everyone waived there rights, to go as far as to disclose that it is giving your information to the Goverment, I would expect that to be in the terms related. The Goverment using a backdoor to untellingly gather information about you, to me is a breach of privacy. Our Goverment is here to serve and protect us, taking information that could be used against us serves little to no purpose in protecting us. There could raise the arguement, that if someone was abducted, then it makes it relatively easier to track them down with who they may have spoke to etc, but in such cases those should be left to the disrection of the user, relative, or signifigant other allowing them to have access.
I am at Work I can not actually read over there TOS about this. Best source someone else who has. Can be biased and lacking so I do not take credit of the review of the TOS. |
It's such a hard thing to say who doing good in mobile from the world wide market share by shipments numbers, Apple looks to be doing horrible, but a good percent of that market share isn't very if at all profitable, and in markets like the North America and the UK they re doing great. I'd say we don't have any front runners way out ahead of everyone, Apple needs to profitable on a small percent of the market it's how they have always operated, Google needs to be everywhere with a massive reach not really having to care if its a quality S4 or a resistive screened ZTE, they just need people using their products so they know what they like and want so they can advertise better. I think the passion you see from commenters comes from what we saw with Windows, no one wants to see a platform control 99% of the market in every country. Everyone is right where they want to be, Apple is growing in profitable high margin places, Google's platform is also growing around the world, allowing them to get an understanding for markets that might be better off in the future as they grow into there own modern age. |
Does it matter how much the US IT industry will lose in legitimate business when the US government can quietly support them by giving them their International competitor's trade secrets?
Once you can intercept all digital communications, then business is no longer a level playing field. If NSA can spy for [DEA and IRS]( then why wouldn't they also help keep their good friends at Microsoft, Google, and facebook in a job that works for all of them? |
Kind of ... in the US censorship happens at the workplace or at schools.
There are a few reasons for this, but chiefly it is security.
When people in your network can download anything from the internet, you're basically going to spend all your time playing trojan whack-a-mole. However, in the workplace there is also the matter of "productivity." If we have people on ebay and facebook all day, they won't get much done. They also filter anything that someone might find offensive - porn and generally NSFW material.
Your private ISP for your home, however, is not supposed to be censoring anything. |
Gotta remember how the internet works. Whenever you go to a page, click a link, or "download" anything, your browser/torrent client/whatever sends out a request to a server. For sensitive info the message body is encrypted, but the to/from IP addresses must be unencrypted (or else packets wouldn't go anywhere). For HTTP requests (web browsing), you basically send something like this:
Hi I'm [my IP address] and I want to download [path to page].
HTTP (not sure about HTTPS) doesn't encrypt the request headers (aka what you're asking to download), so if the FBI logs the traffic at a given node and looks at the packet, they can clearly see YOUR IP address requesting CP (or, whatever it is you requested).
So as a general rule to be safe, every single TCP/IP request has potential for the to/from and request headers being read by every single router between you and the server.
Using torrents is even "worse", as you literally broadcast your IP address saying "connect to me and we can send each other these files". |
Might be good in a purely economical sense
Yes.
>but that isn't good for all the people who don't make a living wage in order to provide China's growth as a whole.
You mean unlike in the US? ;)
Considering that: You do realize that China is still a developing nation while the US claims to be the most developed nation on the planet?
Also: You are simply wrong. It's better for everyone. Just that the effects will become visible long-term . Long-term planning being a concept unknown to democracies, which is why China will eventually win and people will quickly develope a quality of life comparable to everyone else (especially as the communist party - or at the very least state capitalist party - is vastly superior to corporate leadership).
China would never be as successful with a democratic government.
And you also seem to be under the delusion that the egocentric "American" mindset is normal. Most people in China have a much different view of themselves and their society. Talk to almost anyone in China and you will understand that they are very patriotic and love to see their country succeed, because they understand that future generations will live a better life in the most powerful country on the planet, even if that means that today they can't have the quality of life they might have when working for themselves.
Actually, the only people I can think of who adopted that shitty "I want to reap profits for myself"-mindset are the rich people who think that money and power should rather sink into their own pockets rather than the future of their country. Which is the reason why there should never be a democratic revolution in China as these people would be enabled by it and their country would quickly turn into a corporate-capitalist shithole like the US.
>Its a country that doesn't accept dissenting ideas.
First of all: You are wrong and should educate yourself much more about this topic.
Secondly: The same is true for the US just that as suppression of dissent is handled differently. People in the US also are inherently more deluded. Personally I prefer Orwellian oppression to Huxleian oppression, as people suppressed by an Orwellian system know of their suppression.
At least China doesn't lead attack wars and slaughters civilians on other continents after fabricating reasons and shoots and incarcerates and tortures people without due trial on a daily basis. But, oh well, complaining about their censorship while leading a delusional and apathetic life at home totally makes them worse. |
There's definitely something to be said for a tyrannical government
Are you implying that the Chinese government is "tyrannical"?
If yes... what is the US government (which happens to be called "democratic")?
>My friend in China won't post anti-government or even talk badly about it in public.
Why not? Most likely because all-in-all he can ve really satisfied with his government and doesn't really feel the need to.
In the meantime there are countless of people speaking out against the Chinese government as that's not something problematic at all. The only thing that's problematic is making statements about how people should organize to protest and dismantle it. That would fall under "disturbing the peace".
>We need to put an end to domestic spying before lose our freedoms and become no better than China.
Personally, I think the US population already has lost countless of freedoms and the situation in the US is worse than in China. And I'm neither from the US nor China.
The problem with the US situation is that people still have delusions of choice and power and freedom. It's a Huxleian dystopia. In China people are completely aware of the ways they get controlled. They are aware of the good aspects of how their country is organized as well as of what's shit and needs to be changed. The difference is that Chinese people can look forward to a much better and constantly improving future... while the US - compared to the rest of the world - is quickly falling behind in relative terms and the population's/the country's future is fucked up by its "democratic" leadership and the corporate capitalists at the very top who don't give a shit about the country or the people.
I have been to both countries several times but at this point I'm actually scared of going to the US. Actually, considering all the comments I made on the internet I'm probably on several lists. That is fucked up. |
My understanding is that US export restrictions on encryption forced Korea to create [their own encryption standard]( that ended up being used for banking. Since it was only really used inside Korea, it wasn't supported by major vendors, and could only be used through an ActiveX plugin for IE6. Korea just ended up mandating that everyone use IE with that plugin for secure banking since it was the only implementation of SEED for browsers they maintained. Firefox actually only added support for SEED in 2009, just before they allowed the use of normal SSL ciphers. [There was an article written about it a couple years ago]( |
I realize this may not be a popular opinion, but I think UAC was actually a brilliant and well executed decision, and it was both necessary and useful.
See, most people run their computer with administrative access. Until UAC, if you didn't run two accounts -- one admin, one normal -- and only elevate when you specifically needed admin access (e.g., "runas /user:admin install.exe", or change accounts for every task), you generally always ran as admin.
Code signatures help to some degree, but these can often be purchased cheaply. The problem is that once some malicious party attempts to execute a file on such a system, they're home free. It now has admin access, with no clear indication that it has run.
On Linux systems, the solution has generally been to require "sudo" access. That is, normally non-admin accounts in a "wheel" group, or listed in a configuration file, can temporarily elevate to run a command the requires such access. The other Linux solution is "su", where you elevate and become basically the root user. Both of these usually require passwords.
Windows Vista's UAC took a page out of the Linux handbook here, but due to differences in the underlying architecture, they were able to simply ask the user for permission; no password is necessary unless you are not actually running as an administrator, in which case it gives you a chance to authenticate as a user that works.
I would argue that this is actually a really good solution to a real problem, namely the ability to easily run administrative tasks in the context of an otherwise non-administrative user. It is a bit easier than the linux equivalent, I would say, since it doesn't necessarily require a password (some linux distros, to my knowledge, cache this temporarily, but my experience is mostly with headless servers).
Vista also added a suite of important security changes, including introducing Bitlocker for drive encryption, an improved firewall, streamlined VPN integration, ASLR, improved cryptographic cipher support, and improved DEP with hardware support. These all significantly improved the security of the system overall.
The tradeoff is a relatively minor inconvenience to users (having to click a button to allow...). They also added a bunch of fanciness to the GUI, but that isn't really necessary to use the system, and to be fair users had grown accustomed to non updating their computers since XP was out for so long. Jumping from Windows 3.1 to 95 actually had a more significant change in terms of system requirements than from XP to Vista, to my memory. |
And the pictures saved localy. It's a known issue with deleting files, and a company that guarantees deleting files should actually do so.
It would take a whole 5 minutes of code to get that done. Why isn't it being done? The extra writing operation? Or an agreement with law enforcement. The extra operation seems more likely, who's to say.
Bottom line is, the idea within snapchat is to be safe to send wathever picture you want to people you trust, and be warned if they breach your trust (although they don't advertise it that way they don't hide it). But not even that is managed, because the implementation is poor, something as simple as basic encryption, or even overwriting files would guarantee that:
Files actually get deleted (or become inaccessible) from the server as soon as they expire.
Files get deleted (or become inaccessible) from both the senders, and all of the receivers phones.
As an added bonus, encryption would make the whole process more safe between ends. And even safe on unopened images, but that isn't part of what they promise so no big deal.
Add to that the wonderful api that allowed phone numbers to get associated with accounts by anyone. |
I could certainly see the police searching the data on the glasses to see if the movie was recorded (with proper permits of course).
Not sure if you read the article or the original post the guy made, but he actually tried to prove that he hadn't recorded anything by showing them what was stored. The problem was that they wouldn't look at it for 4 hours, but as soon as they finally did, they let him go immediately. |
I get your point but its certainly different than bringing in a phone. Google glass in on your face and is supposed to see what you see, which means that if you're watching a movie, so is Google glass. Now, 4 hours seems much too long to be detained, but I could certainly see the police searching the data on the glasses to see if the movie was recorded (with proper permits of course).
Think of it this way - if you went into a theatre with a camera, and held it facing the screen during the movie, even if it wasn't turned on you would be questioned and likely detained. And really that's what this guy did, whether or not that was his intent. They're treating it just like they would any other person with a camera pointed at the screen, because to them its the same thing. |
Read the thread! I'm not about to write an essay about what you can find below. |
well if you want actual feed back here goes..the first three lines were full of negativity, and belittlement. I don't like apple as much as the next guy but within those three lines i decide this guys a tool. Obviously you view yourself above everyone else in existence and i find it a natural response to insult your kind as often as possible..and your blog sucks cheers. |
In a word... nope.
A lot of people are wasting a lot of time trying to go down this path with meshnets and such. There are several problems that make this more or less an impossibility.
The radio spectrum is limited. The more radios that are broadcasting, the more they interfere with each other. Even in crowded metro areas, wifi is terrible due to so much interferance.
Radio has limited span. The stuff that regular people can operate without a special licence isn't going to bridge any large gaps of over a couple hundred feet.
Radio is slow. Sure it's not slow in small areas but once you start talking in terms of long distances, fiber is necessary.
Too many nodes = impossible slowdown. One of the reasons our speeds are fast as they are today is because your traffic gets moved to fast lines with nothing but high speed networking equipment in the way. When I send a packet to Reddit, it can cross the country in miliseconds. If this was done via mesh, it would takes thousands of hops and probably get stuck in the process. |
Maybe not. [Ultra Density Optical]( discs can store 60GB on a 5.25" / 133mm cartridge, and they're write-once.
According to Sony's 2014-04-30 press release per square inch, for a rewritable storage maximum per cartridge of 185 TB. [LTO tapes]( are 102.0 × 105.4 × 21.5 mm or approximately 4" x 4.13" x 0.85".
So if by "raw surface area" you mean physical size-in-hand, tape wins by a landslide. If I misunderstood, and you meant physical length of an optical track vs. meters of mag tape, I'm sure you're right, since optical storage track width is measured in hundreds of nanometers. |
As cool as it is to "hate on marketing," as someone who actually has had to deal with becoming compliant with this it is an absolute crock of shit and the responsible parties need to be slapped upside their head.
It is important to separate out individual companies who have shitty email practices and annoy/harass us all from those that email responsibly and to an audience that has actually requested the email explicitly (such as some transactional emails that may include some relevant content).
Those companies that are actually "ok mailers" can still easily run afoul of CASL and face ludicrous penalties.
"Oh...you're just blowing it out of proportion..."
Well, how does a potential $10 million PER EMAIL sound? Again, I realize this is great for maybe stopping some of those companies that abuse email, however for every one of those there are 10 responsible emailers, possibly mom and pop shops. And these companies might be incredibly reliant on email, but if they don't go to the absurd lengths necessary to filter out and obtain explicit consent from existing list members, they could be open to a business-killing suit.
"Oh, but they'll just go after the big offenders."
Sure, initially the government will. However after the three year grace period it is fair game for private suits from individuals. Then you can just watch as every bottom-feeding lawyer in Canada comes out of the woodwork to represent people who are looking for violations from companies just large enough to have money, but small enough where they have no choice but to settle. |
I got conned out of my unlimited data plan when I got my iPhone. I had a blackberry which I was actually very happy with but it was dying a slow sad death. So I joined the rest of the sheeple and got an iPhone. I told them I just wanted to put it on my old plan and the girls response was "I'm sorry you can't put an iPhone on your old blackberry plan, we just can't do it." So after some arguing and debating, I reluctantly agreed. No sooner had I signed the paper work and activated my phone when I posed a question, "So there isn't anything thats going to change on the new plan? Will I be able to get data use updates and stuff just the same?" Her response made my blood boil- "Oh no sir, there's no difference in the data plan you have now and the one you had."
I nearly lost my fucking mind. I know my face turned 3 shades of red when she said that. I said wait are you serious and with a smile she nodded. I stormed out and needless to say was PISSED. This is only one of the numerous times I have been in a Verizon store that ruined my day/nearly sent me on a bloody rampage. |
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