Slashdot Mirror

Yeah, some the articles don't really give the necessary details. The one I found that really discussed it is this.

Basically it is possible for the MCAS, in combination with other things, to put the airplane in a situation that is not easily recoverable without turning the system that the MCAS is part of back on. This is because the system that bypasses the MCAS isn't strong enough to turn the tail back to the right position. But when the electrical stabilizer system is turned back on, the MCAS just kicks in again and puts it right back in nose-down. There are ways to work it out but they require "non-checklist actions" as the article says. There is no way pilots can figure this out in less than a minute while the MCAS is driving them into the ground. So basically the whole idea that "they could just switch it off" only works in some circumstances. So now we see that it appears even the instructions to pilots were not properly tested.

...not included in post at time of posting this comment:

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/...

You underestimate the control they still have. Think about it: who in the world could confront Bill Gates over any substantive Microsoft issue (for example, CEO succession) without being summarily evicted from any relationship with Microsoft?

And how can one file criminal charge when the claim cannot pass a civil suit?

"According to the jury’s verdict, T-Mobile was not awarded any damages relating to the trade secrets claim and there was no award of punitive damages. Although the jury awarded damages under the breach of contract allegation, the amount was a small fraction of what T-Mobile requested. Huawei is a global leader in innovation, and respect for intellectual property is a cornerstone value in our business,” Huawei said in a statement after the verdict in 2017.

Neither they filed criminal suit against Steve Job (who misappropriated secret from Xerox)

As for this Huawei-T-Mobile case, how could one steal secret if he has signed the NDA and obtained the rights to that secret, as long as the secret is never reviewed to 3rd party. In fact, that verdict was not about trade secret theft at all and only about contractual obligation:

According to the jury’s verdict, T-Mobile was not awarded any damages relating to the trade secrets claim and there was no award of punitive damages. Although the jury awarded damages under the breach of contract allegation, the amount was a small fraction of what T-Mobile requested.

Of course, in the current trade war, the US will abuse the law and find every possible way to launch PR actions against major Chinese companies.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/11/28/1438250/&%23226;&%238364;oehttps://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-web-services-introduces-custom-designed-arm-server-processor-promises-45-percent-lower-costs-workloads/&%23226;&%238364;

Here is a corrected link without the garbage: https://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-web-services-introduces-custom-designed-arm-server-processor-promises-45-percent-lower-costs-workloads/

I'm rational enough to use and prefer Amazon for everything except hosting (Digital Ocean ftw). Hasn't stopped me from pointing out that they make over 100% of their profits from AWS: their businesses run below profitability and they shore them up with cloud computing services.

That's predatory pricing.

Boycotts don't work; but those people who talk about a boycott and don't bother doing it themselves? They'll talk. They'll talk about breaking AWS off from Amazon. They'll talk about Federal anti-trust investigations.

That works.

It works even if you don't have enough people to make a dent with a boycott anyway.

There's no evidence they used it for years. Geekwire says it was a "website and planned business called TitleTown Tech Solutions about a month before the Packers’ announcement."

If you actually use it for years, like the Nissan Computer guy you have a much better case.

It might have something to do with killing the a rosehip neuron, a new type just discovered that involved regulation of signaling.

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/...

Huh? Who gives a shit about gaming?

Looks like about 1.2 Billion people

If it weren't for games, I wouldn't be running Windows on my primary home computer. Unfortunately, while Linux support for games is getting better, many of the games I like to play are only Windows (and sometimes Mac as well).

But I am fortunate that I can run Linux on my work computer, since I'm doing web development and don't need any specialized programs. I do have a Windows VM I can fire up if I really need it (checking IE compatibility of the web-pages, for example), but I can't even remember the last time I've had to do that.

Because catalog orders were always going to be a limited volume business.

Yes, as we know Sears wasn't a thing and mail order catalogs aren't a thing today.

Ordering something by phone is actually quite a lot of work relatively speaking both for buyer and seller. It also requires distribution of expensive catalogs, having staff to take orders, and lots of other overhead and transactional friction.

Originally catalogs weren't sent to each home, and it wouldn't be a great leap to have a post office today with a wall of catalogs. Meanwhile, nowdays everything can be automated with computers over the phone which greatly reduces the overhead.

Therefore the rule about having a physical presence actually was a reasonable compromise given the realities of catalog shopping. The internet has made shopping FAR easier, faster, and spreads out the infrastructure all over the place.

You mean Amazon. Amazon is losing money on shipping and that's the massive reason for the success of internet shopping. Otherwise, the overhead of individual shipping would eat most the savings in most circumstances. Add to that the relatively quick delivery times vs mail order of old. The simple fact is that Amazon has set the standard that "internet shopping" == "get it in a week". There's nothing inherent about catalog shopping that stops that.

Instead of calling a single call center you might be dealing with servers in one state, payment processing in another, inventory in a third, and staff in a fourth.

Again, behind the scenes none of that matters. The results are equivalent if it's phone or internet. Computers do 90% of the work. This push has been made since at least the 80s when it was viable to have relatively cheap computers everywhere. The internet definitely has changed the order of magnitude of management costs for information transferal, but having the computers and software exist that does the work has a lot more to do with it.

The practical realities of internet shopping are actually quite a bit different than catalog shopping. Catalogs never were going to drive brick and mortar stores out of business.

I wonder. How many kit houses and other such mail orders only grew the market instead of displacing other companies? How much "direct marketing" through 1-800 numbers (a direct marketing invention) and "Columbia Record Clubs" stopped local record shops before they started? I think you underestimate the degree of influence mail order had in the past and how much internet shopping is an evolution, not a revolution.

Probably because Google Domains has been doing it since the beginning.

Thank you for your lecture. I've been involved in cable franchise issues before. You seem to know about the act of 1984, but can't remember the followup federal law that prohibits exclusive franchises. Without an exclusive franchise, there is no government-granted monopoly.

Which law specifically are you referring to, as there were laws in the mid-90's that stated as much, but many of those previsions were stripped away in subsequent revisions to those laws or other federal acts passed at later dates. There likely were (and perhaps still are) laws that prevent a monopoly on internet service in a general sense, but those were easily circumvented as long as some telco was selling dialup. A de facto monopoly is just as good as a de jure monopoly.

Nothing necessitates a monopoly, and nothing there GRANTS a monopoly, either.

I somewhat picked Seattle at random as I am somewhat familiar with the internet situation there and their city code was easily accessible online. I don't live in Seattle, but I have several friends who still do and for a long while it was essentially Comcast only as far as cable (there was some DSL availability, but typically not something that anyone on /. would care to use) internet choices go. The city isn't required to grant anyone a franchise, so you can essentially create an unofficial monopoly if you've bought enough people to prevent competition from being permitted. There are plenty of new stories related to their problems with a lack of competition.

I will admit that I didn't read through the entire set of laws and was speaking in more of a general sense as most of the places I've lived over the years have had only a single choice for cable (and by extension internet) provider. You mention 14 ISPs serving Seattle, but I'm assuming you're speaking of the metro area and not the city proper. I'm also unsure as to what extent their coverage overlaps, but if there truly are 14 different companies offering service to the city, then I expect that consumers are getting much better deals than most other cities. You can't have 14 different companies competing for your money and making fat profits unless they're all colluding and engaging in price fixing, which would be quite hard with 14 different companies.

This has nothing to do with cable companies, and in any case does not create a government-granted monopoly. It's irrelevant.

A free market requires competition between entities. It doesn't matter if those are public or private entities, merely that they compete against each other and that consumers have choice. Any law that prevents some option for competition is harmful to consumers. If public entities have to play by the same rules as private companies and aren't themselves given special treatment, I fail to see how they cause harm.

Some free market advocates seems to think that this means outlawing any kind of publicly owned entities from participating in the market, but that's a short-sighted view as there's nothing that indicates a publicly owned entity must be given special treatment. It would be no different than giving private companies special treatment, which many cities have done. Perhaps you don't live in one where this is an issue, but if there's only one game in town and they're charging outrageous prices for a shit service, I have a hard time believing that it's because none of the other avaricious companies have decided that they're suddenly against swooping in to undercut the competition.

Nope... the average home price in Seattle jumped $43K in March 2018, to an average price of $819K.
The market continues to be red hot despite increasing interest rates.
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/...
If phucking phantastic news to those of us who already own.

How much did Magic Leap pay you to publish this?
Magic Leap Sucks it Colleagues and staff dry.

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

https://variety.com/2016/digit...

https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/1...

I found another article that has a link showing Mr Steven (the catcher boat) and the fairing (which Mr. Steven missed this time, but the fairing, er, faired quite well landing in the ocean).

But do the ability to do so because you leaked company information? I'm not sure the courts would agree on that one.

Courts already have agreed with that one. Here's but one recent example: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/...

At least this happened with the new Merlin Series 5 redesign, scheduled for flight next year.

Exactly. That's important-- this is the next generation engine, not the one currently flying.

Some alternate sources, some with more information:
https://www.space.com/38712-spacex-rocket-engine-test-explosion.html
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/next-generation-spacex-rocket-engine-goes-flames-texas-test/
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/an-experimental-spacex-rocket-engine-has-exploded-in-texas/
https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

Amazon and Microsoft contribute to making Seattle a MISERABLE place to live. The world, not just Seattle, needs better city management. (Posting this again, with improvements.)

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (February 19, 2013)

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012) The Microsoft headquarters is in Redmond, part of the Seattle metropolitan area.

Seattle: Together with Amazon, Microsoft, and inadequate city management, Seattle is an extremely miserable place:

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Important questions for city managers and residents of Amazon's new city: 1) Do you want to invite a company to your city that has a history of abusiveness? 2) Could the managers of Amazon's new city manage Amazon's growth, or would it be almost completely out of their control?

Microsoft's history is filled with abuse:

One fact about Microsoft under Satya Nadella gives a useful overall view. Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." Nadella has been CEO of Microsoft since 2014.

The management of Microsoft by Satya Nadella seems, to me and many others, UTTERLY incompetent: CNET Editor Rails Against Non-Consensual Windows Updates.

Possibly Satya Nadella was chosen as CEO of Microsoft partly because he was the least socially annoying manager.

Microsoft has a long history of being abusive to everyone, not just customers. Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book.

Ballmer was worse?

Satya Nadella is apparently not as destructive as Steve Ballmer. Ballmer was rated the worst CEO in the United States.

Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

Bill Gates still manages Microsoft:

See the Jan. 27, 2017 Charlie Rose TV interview, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Quoting from the transcript:

08:40 Charlie Rose: How much time do you spend at Microsoft?

08:42 Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part.

Part of "R and D" at Microsoft is Windows 10 putting ads on screens while people are in their offices trying to work. The Microsoft managers who participated in that are amazingly lacking in social ability, in my opinion.

Microsoft's primary location, Seattle, is a miserable place:

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Google is also badly managed.

To me, the management of Google seems less and less competent. Wikipedia says Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google was given that position in October 24, 2015. The reorganization of Google into Alphabet was completed on October 2,

I thought CenturyLink had deployed fiber throughout Seattle a couple years ago. What became of that?

Seattle Misery: Together with Microsoft and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place:

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (February 19, 2013)

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

$1.5 billion of stock isn't a "massive stock sale"?

https://www.geekwire.com/2015/...

In fairness, this administration did reinstate the National Space Council https://www.geekwire.com/2017/president-trump-signs-executive-order-reactivate-national-space-council/. Unfortunately, it appears that they aren't going to do much and what is on their agenda is at best deeply misguided.

Buy a used CDC-6500. Program it via punch cards. Wipe the memory between each job. I'd love to see malware that can attack a punch card deck.And you' d also have to know how to program a CDC-6500.

https://www.geekwire.com/2013/...

But very few Alexa owners actually use it for shopping. Only 10% use it to order things.

I have never used mine to order anything. I buy toilet paper in bulk at Costco, not online, and the things I do buy from Amazon are rarely consumables.

So what do I use it for? First thing every morning while I am making tea: "Alexa, news report". While I am making dinner: "Alexa, set a timer for 5 minutes" and "Alexa, play a Willie Nelson song". I also use it to connect to my IoT hub: "Alexa, turn off the sink light" and "Alexa, lock the front door".

A rose by any other name is still a rose. Last year Amazon changed the job title of Andy Jassy and Jeff Wilke to CEO along with Jeff Bezos.

As far as I can tell, in reality Andy Jassy is still VP of AWS and Jeff Wilke is VP of everything else ("Worldwide Consumer") and Jeff Bezos is still CEO. Calling a VP a CEO is stupid IMO.

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/a...
http://fortune.com/2016/04/07/...

Google basically did the same thing when it re-organized under Alphabet where Larry Page still oversees all the "CEOs" that are actually VPs of Calico, CapitalG, DeepMind, Google, Google Fiber, GV, Jigsaw, Nest, Sidewalk Labs, Verily, Waymo, and X.

There are companies with more than one CEO who actually share the job. Whole Foods and Chipotle tried it, but it didn't work out for them and they switched back to a single CEO. Oracle has two CEOs in name atm, but from what I've heard Larry Ellison is still running the show and its another case of bad titles. I don't think there are any major American businesses that still have multiple CEOs, but it apparently is more common in other countries like Germany. I don't really know anything about German business though.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/m...
https://www.fool.com/investing...

Perhaps, but based on this I think there is political pressure:

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/w...

It could also be that Microsoft has it in the back of their minds that they're going to have some "must have" feature and need the OS to be ready when the time comes, thus they maintain it. Or at least, this is what they've hinted at by saying that they don't want to release just another phone when (indirectly) commenting about surface phone rumors. Though I don't really see what they could pull off that hundreds of other OEMs (especially Google, Samsung, and Apple) won't think of. Supposedly continuum was going to be that "must have" feature, but it didn't really do them any favors, mainly due to practicality. Namely, who is going to carry around an extra keyboard and mouse on the off chance that they'll find an unused monitor that they can connect to? Likewise, including x86 support seems like an equally pointless thing to do. It's just an ill-conceived idea because it completely breaks the point of being mobile, IMO, and as an end user you're better off just carrying around a laptop.

It's a bit like how Microsoft (and its fans) kind of assumed that any device that ran Office would just immediately win out over its competitors for business customers, but to think so is to not understand mobile (Balmer admitted as such after he wrongly predicted that the iPhone would fail because, among other things, it doesn't have a physical keyboard.) That, and Microsoft overall has this mindset that any product can succeed if you throw billions of dollars at it.

News stories I've found indicate what you said is correct:

Seattle: Together with abusive companies and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place.

Houses in Seattle are expensive: Seattle bumps Boston as the most expensive U.S. housing market that's not in California.

Rent is expensive: Seattle rent is 5th most expensive in U.S.

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (February 19, 2013)

News stories I've found indicate what you said is correct:

Seattle: Together with abusive companies and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place.

Houses in Seattle are expensive: Seattle bumps Boston as the most expensive U.S. housing market that's not in California.

Rent is expensive: Seattle rent is 5th most expensive in U.S.

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (February 19, 2013)

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (February 19, 2013)

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

Seattle: Together with Microsoft and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place:

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

I have a dial-up modem at home that only connects at 26.4k since there a universal SLIC between me and the CO

I know Seattle has had serious problems with home Internet speeds in the past due to some "director's rule" about rights of way that was unfriendly to tenants and neighbors of absentee landlords and neighbors of vacant lots. But I thought the rule was changed at the end of 2014, opening the door for CenturyLink to deploy gigabit fiber. Did it not reach your home?

It was about users being able to go into a mode indicating they wanted to receive compressed video at lower resolutions in exchange for not having it apply to their cap, (or in some cases, using their allotment less quickly). The "deals" made with content providers were contractual agreements, available to every content provider, even the tiniest of startups, at no cost. The agreement with the providers was either 1: do nothing, and if we notice you streaming HD video to a binge-on user, we'll try to compress/reduce it; but user still pays normal data rates. 2: work with us so we can know when data you serve up is streaming video, then we'll compress/reduce it when sending it to Binge-on users, and user gets free bandwidth. 3: Compress/reduce the video yourself, work with us so we can know when you're sending compressed video to binge-on users, and promise that you'll only send decent quality compressed video with binge-on users; and user gets free bandwidth 4: let us know you're opting out and that we shouldn't try to compress your data, regardless of the user requesting video being compressed by nature of being in binge-on mode.

You gave a much better description than I did

Arguably, there are problems with this offer, but it's far from the preferential-treatment anti-competitive deals that really get people up in arms about net-neutrality.

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/d...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/to...
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/s...

I believe there is even a few Slashdot article about it as well.

8 million units doesn't sound like a market failure.

http://www.geekwire.com/2017/8...

The fact is that the Echo and Alexa are a market failure.

Their cumulative sales passed 5 million in November, and it is estimated that they sold another million during the holidays. That is pretty good for a product in a category that didn't even exist a few years ago. I have an Echo, and I am mostly pretty happy with it, although there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Free advice: Do NOT switch to calling it "Computer". The name "Alexa" was specifically chosen as a trigger word because it is a sequence of phonemes that is unlikely to occur in a normal conversation, and even so, we have had an occasional false trigger. In a nerd household, "computer" will come up way, way more often.

5.1M is considered a failure?

Everyone I know with one personally likes. I bought our Echo on pre-order as a Prime member and have since bought 2 dots. One for my office and one for my shop. Companies are

It has a lot of problems, it's nowhere near Star Trek's but it's a really good Alpha. They are adding a lot of tools and it's pretty trivial to setup your own. I use HomeAssistant to run our smart switches.

Seattle: Together with Microsoft and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place: Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.) Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Yes, Seattle is horrible. DO NOT COME HERE! There's nothing to see or do. No work. No food. No housing. um, ...did I mention it rains all the time and you'll be depressed and need Vitamin D shots or risk committing suicide? It's a wasteland and at best just the demo version of San Francisco. Move there!

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (February 19, 2013)

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

Seattle: Together with Microsoft and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place:

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Well, to be fair, just about any big city is a Democrat stronghold. So, yeah, I guess? Not too surprising, as it seems like many tech millionaires lean to the left.

You should see who my neighbors in Seattle keep electing. It's pretty entertaining to see left-leaning Democrats on the city council being berated by hard-core Socialists also on the council for not being liberal enough. Did you know they actually spend city money to paint crosswalks in rainbow colors? Hooray, right?! Yet a lot of Seattleites still can't get decent internet, largely because of local laws, bureaucracy, and corporate foot-dragging. Seriously, in Seattle. Rather entertaining to watch from a slight distance, so long as I don't have to actually live in the city itself!

The Echo is a hit? Citation, please.

I have my doubts too, but apparently it is so...

Amazon Echo turns into a sleeper hit, offsetting Fire's failure

Amazon Echo sales reach 3M units as consumer awareness grows, research firm says

She has a name': Amazon's Alexa is a sleeper hit, with serious superfine

How Amazon's Echo Ended Up a Surprise Hit

The Amazon Echo Is Winning the Race to a Screenless Future

Quantity != Quality.

A game developer friend of mine just left Amazon for greener pastures. There are many reasons he left but the two biggest were:

* Compensation for good work is lacking,
* Amazon still uses stack ranking.

I asked him about this Amazon piece and he sadly agreed with it:

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/o...

So yeah, that's great Amazon is on a hiring spree for now. What's the turn over rate going to be in 1 - 5 years?
How many people will enjoy what they are working on in 2+ years?

--
"Show me your code and I'll guess at your data,
Show me your data and I'll know your code."

Generation X - 4-5 TV/day.

Today - 11 hours/day.

Yeah, we watched the boob tube a lot - but it's not even close to today's consumption.

"Be the Next Microsoft Employee" (2012): "The show will debut online on Tuesday morning. It pits four veteran SQL Server gurus, selected from more than 100 applicants, in a series of head-to-head technical challenges designed to test their ability to develop business-oriented database solutions. A new episode, each about 13 to 14 minutes long, will be rolled each week until the winner is revealed in the finale on Aug. 21. And yes, the person who prevails actually does win a job at Microsoft."

Seattle misery: HUGE problems with traffic. New construction makes the traffic worse. Amazon and Microsoft abusing employees. Shockingly slow internet connections.

I've been in Seattle for a lil while. Traffic does suck. The roads here are very poorly planned. Some friends in the DOT contracting business have shared that the companies are milking contracts for all their worth and dumping them (hearsay) ... The internet is getting better. Centurylink adopted a debunked fibre installation in the city and had it up and running at near 1gig speeds just a few months after adoption (about 800mbits is the max I've ever seen while streaming a linux distro in a torrent app) ... It's better than getting your internet from Comcast with their obvious price-fixing and anti-competitive behaviour - there was a slashdot about this not too long ago.

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Yet, they produce a continuous stream of what we locals call "am-holes" ... their employee-fucking is widely known yet they somehow keep attracting young talent. As the owner of a startup, I find it extremely hard to poach amazon employees. What I offer in freedom doesn't trump their offer of stability. I'm pretty sure they conscript people secretly by paying off their student loans in exchange for longish contracts with gag clauses. Just a hunch. What's really worse than their treatment of their employees is their treatment of the local ecosystems. Their disruption is so profound it turned a major borough of the city into their shitty little playground, and they're moving to other boroughs.

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

Not to mention one of the biggest DRM manufacturers west of the Atlantic. I loved Doctorow's lecture to MS about it (http://www.craphound.com/msftdrm.txt)

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

There are ways around the traffic. And it's not waze. You really just have to take specific roundabout routes with less/little traffic and you get there quicker. The main roads are for suburbanites too fucking lazy to take the beautiful trains which head in from pretty much every direction, with huge park & ride lots for commuters. I personally believe the traffic problem is a problem with the personalities of the body politick. They are quite anti-social, fear human contact (in my observation), and take every precaution to not talk to strangers. It's really odd. We 'transplants' call it the "seattle-freeze" - which is something I warn anyone moving to the area about.

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Seattle misery: HUGE problems with traffic. New construction makes the traffic worse. Amazon and Microsoft abusing employees. Shockingly slow internet connections.

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Seattle misery: HUGE problems with traffic. New construction makes the traffic worse. Amazon and Microsoft abusing employees. Shockingly slow internet connections.

Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

If your machine lacks an optical drive, and the best home Internet connection in your area is satellite or cellular with a cap on the order of 5 to 15 GB/mo, good luck carrying your console and a monitor into town every time you want to install a game, even if you aren't using online multiplayer. Many rural users are in this situation due to the DSL distance limit. And in Seattle, Washington, the Director's Rule requires a supermajority of nearby landowners to approve any construction, where failure to respond counts as a no vote, and vacant properties also count as a no vote.

What fact? Seattle is ranked very high for Internet. Real proof: http://www.geekwire.com/2013/w...

Specifically, which hardware from Microsoft is bad? Give examples of how and why it is bad.

Zune in general, Zune Brown in particular.

http://www.geekwire.com/2011/fond-memories-microsoft-zune-brown/

Kin Phones

http://www.wired.com/2010/06/four-reasons-why-microsofts-kin-phone-failed/

Tablet PC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC

MSN Direct Smart Watch

http://www.smartwatchnews.org/2004-microsoft-spot-watch-smartwatch/

> iPad Pro - it's a cheaper version of the Surface Pro
> with a mobile OS instead of a laptop OS. A misstep

Yeah, it's such a huge misstep that Apple only sold 25% more iPad Pros than MS sold Surfaces in the last quarter. Doooooooomed!

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/n...