Yes, I have. Well, not exactly Windows 8, but Windows Server 2012, which is the same interface.
It took me 15 minutes to figure out where Windows Update was. This is a server and doesn't need a stupid touch interface that makes it impossible to find sysadmin tasks. If anything, it should be an option on RDP servers, and that's it.
I really wonder what the hell the devs were smoking when they put a touch interface on a server.
Tip: Use the bottom-right corner of your screen to find the search tool. Instead of clicking the Windows button and typing a search string. Oh yeah, the interface is so much better now. [/sarcasm]
My point was that when you introduce electronics into the mix it's hard to predict failure modes. Electronics can fail in pretty darn bizarre ways, as I'm sure you've seen.
While augmenting a lot of safety systems with electronics is the norm, it's far harder to do failure mode testing. If voltages or sensory inputs are a little bit off you may be in for a bit of a surprise.
In the case of the car I was talking about, it was a faulty sensor. It apparently failed in such a manner that the engineers had no fail safe for that particular type of failure. So basically, the electronics prevented me from applying the hydraulic brakes, which were in perfect condition with no issues. Had there been a car or a person in front of the car when it failed, they would definitely have hit, and in the case of a pedestrian, been in the hospital.
To those that say use the emergency brakes, it's not practical, especially if you're trying not to hit something. That car had a ratcheting brake system and required three or four pumps of the pedal to apply. That's how I did eventually stop, but it would not have helped me. It took ten seconds or more to apply it, and then it very slowly dragged off to a stop (about 30 metres.) I rolled right through an intersection before coming to a rest. This was at 10kph.
So yeah, the parking brake can stop you if you're in no danger of hitting something. How often does that happen? There's almost always something in front of you.
I'm not saying safety features are bad. Sure, it helps protect 99% of the people that don't know how to drive. It really sucks if you're in that 1% and it does something you have no control over.
It's possible to skid with engine braking (as I found out the hard way!)
If you have a manual transmission and choose the wrong gear (I accidentally went to first instead of third) the rotating mass may be too much for the engine to handle and it will lock everything: engine, transmission, drivetrain, tires and you go into a skid.:(
That's nothing. I still have the habit of having one hand at 12 o'clock on the steering wheel. I just got a car that has airbags two years ago.
I really need to break that habit. I've been driving manual transmission cars for 20 years, it's rather hard to change something you be been doing for that long...
I was in a vehicle in which the ABS system decided to malfunction. There's nothing like the feeling of standing on a firm brake pedal and noticing you're not slowing down. Thankfully is was at 10 kph. I was also glad there wasn't a pedestrian crossing the street at the time.
New technologies do have some issues. Although I really wish that system would have failed off than failing on (thinking I was in a skid.)
For an average person, saving money is a sure-fire way to lose money - the interest rates are less than the cost of living. Not a wise suggestion. Only way is to invest, and I'm not so sure I'd do that either. May as well just spend it all.
Of course, this affects the rich, but the impact is much higher on an average person.
I also have a hard time believing that everyone's rooting their phone. Hell, I'm a tech-y guy, and I didn't even bother rooting my phone until last week (I have the original Galaxy S, two years old now.)
I have having problems with the carrier's ROM crashing, and I found out there's only two extra steps to flash ICS to the phone rather than their stock ROM.
If I wouldn't have had an issue with Google Play crashing on the phone I wouldn't have bothered rooting it at all.
Well, in mythtv you can separate the recording backend from the frontend. For power usage reasons, I have everything that needs to be available 24/7 (recordings, files, tv tuners, etc.) are on a dedicated backend with a full raid setup and 4 tuner cards, which is always running.
The frontends are there only to connected to the backend for tuners, recordings, and files like music etc. Nothing wrong with using the frontends for gaming or other multiple purposes. The frontends are off unless actually in use.
I currently use one single backend with three frontends.
The power plants are not likely the source of all the problems, they can be upgraded or revised to generate more electricity. The actual infrastructure is. The GP is forgetting something: If almost everyone gets an electric car in the next ten years, there's absolutely no way the power costs will remain the same. Everyone will have to upgrade the infrastructure to transport this current to where it's needed. This is not cheap, we're talking new transmission lines and base stations to move this power around for the batteries in cars.
If everyone had electric cars our electric prices would skyrocket, possibly even to the tune of 20-30% to pay for the infrastructure upgrades, not the 2% that he's using in his calculations!
Well, look at this this way. When the publishers hoard their material and choose to not publish, it gets lost forever. At least if it's digitized, it'll survive.
Music is a good example of this. There's a lot of music 20+ years old that's no longer in print, and the labels are no longer around. If someone that had a copy didn't digitize it, it's lost forever.
I think I noted that if you can sleep the machines a lot then it doesn't make sense to upgrade since the duty cycle is pretty light.
Yes, sorry, I saw that but it didn't register until after I posted. Sigh...
The Faronics Powersave utility I've installed is the best I've seen so far. Centralized power policies and detailed reporting, not to mention it uses wake-on-lan so if you need to do an update or change a policy you can tell the workstations to wake up, apply the policy, and go back into standby. If you have a very large organization it can literally save thousands of dollars in power costs, but the clincher is it will do up a report and actually tell you what you are saving, using what you pay for a kWh. You can even set up groups (sort of like OUs in Active Directory) and apply different settings to different machines, so in our case I have a separate one for laptops so users can put the things into presentation mode. The workstations themselves are locked so users can't change the power profile.
It's a really nifty tool. It's also helping our "green" policy as well.
Another IT guy working at a nonprofit (we have over 100 staff) - we did get the Kill-A-Watt. Most of our machines are asleep when not in use via Faronics Powersave, which actually tracks the times when the computers are on and off on a server, and you can set policies, and if you input what you pay for power it will generate a report for you.
We also have machines that are around ten years old. We just replaced one last week that was from 1998. All staff here do are email and writing reports. Things that need more power (like accounting packages) have newer machines.
Last I checked we are saving over $1000 in power costs due to this power management software. We aren't going to replace 100+ machines to save $2 in power per machine per year. Governments might, as they can't seem to do math or ROI, but we won't. We'll let them live out their useful life.
Yes, but don't forget the profit margin which Apple is famous for. Using AMD would mean more money in their own pockets. It's probably not a clear-cut decision.
I always return to gentoo for the package manager's flexibility. If I want to get a bleeding edge copy of something, I can install it from the package manager with certain supports built in, then remove it and build the bleeding copy from git or svn.
Yes, it's more work to maintain. But no matter how many times I've tried to switch away from gentoo, I always come back, usually because of the package manager I've attempted to switch to. It just seems there's no easy way to run git/svn software while maintaining dependencies. Hell, gentoo's package manager actually has git/svn copies in the repo that you can tell it to install; it'll grab the right dependencies, then connect to the bleeding edge repository, do a checkout/update, and build. I haven't seen any other package manager even attempt to do this. Whoever thought up the USE-flag system (used to trigger --configure options at build time) is a genius, and it's just so flexible it's not even describable. There are even ways to trigger global support for packages or just enable them for a single package, and it will drag in the dependencies as needed. Even if you need to patch something, it's built into the package manager, you create a directory that mimics the repo and place patches in it - the package manager will notice and automatically apply them before build time.
Every distro does have its own quirks and problems, though - gentoo is no exception to this.
I've been using gentoo since 2003, and every time I try to switch to something else, I always switch back for the flexibility of the package manager. Every. Single. Time.
Our power utility exports power at a higher rate than it charges locally.
So the rebate is for local customers - it helps them use less energy, which allows the utility to sell that energy saved elsewhere for more money. It is the people who are using our exported power that are paying for it.
People may not be aware of this, but there are two types of dimmer switches. Leading-edge dimmers are most commonly installed in houses. However, CFL and LED need trailing-edge dimmer switches to work properly.
I did change the two dimmer switches in my house when I put the LED bulbs in - they're still working today (a little over a year now) and they do dim like they advertise.
Using a standard leading-edge dimmer switch can dramatically shorten the life of the switch (apparently) and the bulb.
I can attest to this - I have retrofitted (over a year or so) my whole house with the Philips LED bulbs.
I have a fixture with multiple bulb sockets, I put in a 60W incandescent in one and the Philips LED in the other, and I could not see a difference in colour temperature at all. They stay warm-ish to the touch so you don't have to worry about spot heating problems in your home, they're great. Now they just need a bulb that can operate in an enclosed fixture.
It did help that our local power utility subsidized these bulbs, they're expensive - between $40 - $50 a pop. I got mine for half price because of the subsidy.
In my experience with ICEs, if you do not use them for long periods of time they are more prone to having the seals dry out and having leaks start... you'd want the engine to run at least a few times a week.
The most annoying one I actually have for KDE is the taskbar - opening and closing windows can trigger a bug in the window grouping code causing nonsimilar apps to get overlaid on top of each other.
Not only does it look bad, you can't click on both windows (it seems to realize they're separate apps) so you can only interface/click on whatever the buggy grouping code puts on top. Thankfully alt+tab still works.
I've found you can fix buggered grouping by opening a new app, usually the code sorts itself out then, but then when you go close another windows it's a coin-toss as to whether the buggy code gets tripped again. It's weird.
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You mean like doing their job? That should have been done when this patent was filed?
Yes, I have. Well, not exactly Windows 8, but Windows Server 2012, which is the same interface.
It took me 15 minutes to figure out where Windows Update was. This is a server and doesn't need a stupid touch interface that makes it impossible to find sysadmin tasks. If anything, it should be an option on RDP servers, and that's it.
I really wonder what the hell the devs were smoking when they put a touch interface on a server.
Tip: Use the bottom-right corner of your screen to find the search tool. Instead of clicking the Windows button and typing a search string. Oh yeah, the interface is so much better now. [/sarcasm]
My point was that when you introduce electronics into the mix it's hard to predict failure modes. Electronics can fail in pretty darn bizarre ways, as I'm sure you've seen.
While augmenting a lot of safety systems with electronics is the norm, it's far harder to do failure mode testing. If voltages or sensory inputs are a little bit off you may be in for a bit of a surprise.
In the case of the car I was talking about, it was a faulty sensor. It apparently failed in such a manner that the engineers had no fail safe for that particular type of failure. So basically, the electronics prevented me from applying the hydraulic brakes, which were in perfect condition with no issues. Had there been a car or a person in front of the car when it failed, they would definitely have hit, and in the case of a pedestrian, been in the hospital.
To those that say use the emergency brakes, it's not practical, especially if you're trying not to hit something. That car had a ratcheting brake system and required three or four pumps of the pedal to apply. That's how I did eventually stop, but it would not have helped me. It took ten seconds or more to apply it, and then it very slowly dragged off to a stop (about 30 metres.) I rolled right through an intersection before coming to a rest. This was at 10kph.
So yeah, the parking brake can stop you if you're in no danger of hitting something. How often does that happen? There's almost always something in front of you.
I'm not saying safety features are bad. Sure, it helps protect 99% of the people that don't know how to drive. It really sucks if you're in that 1% and it does something you have no control over.
It's possible to skid with engine braking (as I found out the hard way!)
If you have a manual transmission and choose the wrong gear (I accidentally went to first instead of third) the rotating mass may be too much for the engine to handle and it will lock everything: engine, transmission, drivetrain, tires and you go into a skid. :(
That's nothing. I still have the habit of having one hand at 12 o'clock on the steering wheel. I just got a car that has airbags two years ago.
I really need to break that habit. I've been driving manual transmission cars for 20 years, it's rather hard to change something you be been doing for that long...
I was in a vehicle in which the ABS system decided to malfunction. There's nothing like the feeling of standing on a firm brake pedal and noticing you're not slowing down. Thankfully is was at 10 kph. I was also glad there wasn't a pedestrian crossing the street at the time.
New technologies do have some issues. Although I really wish that system would have failed off than failing on (thinking I was in a skid.)
For an average person, saving money is a sure-fire way to lose money - the interest rates are less than the cost of living. Not a wise suggestion. Only way is to invest, and I'm not so sure I'd do that either. May as well just spend it all.
Of course, this affects the rich, but the impact is much higher on an average person.
You mean like:
I also have a hard time believing that everyone's rooting their phone. Hell, I'm a tech-y guy, and I didn't even bother rooting my phone until last week (I have the original Galaxy S, two years old now.)
I have having problems with the carrier's ROM crashing, and I found out there's only two extra steps to flash ICS to the phone rather than their stock ROM.
If I wouldn't have had an issue with Google Play crashing on the phone I wouldn't have bothered rooting it at all.
Well, in mythtv you can separate the recording backend from the frontend. For power usage reasons, I have everything that needs to be available 24/7 (recordings, files, tv tuners, etc.) are on a dedicated backend with a full raid setup and 4 tuner cards, which is always running.
The frontends are there only to connected to the backend for tuners, recordings, and files like music etc. Nothing wrong with using the frontends for gaming or other multiple purposes. The frontends are off unless actually in use.
I currently use one single backend with three frontends.
The power plants are not likely the source of all the problems, they can be upgraded or revised to generate more electricity. The actual infrastructure is. The GP is forgetting something: If almost everyone gets an electric car in the next ten years, there's absolutely no way the power costs will remain the same. Everyone will have to upgrade the infrastructure to transport this current to where it's needed. This is not cheap, we're talking new transmission lines and base stations to move this power around for the batteries in cars.
If everyone had electric cars our electric prices would skyrocket, possibly even to the tune of 20-30% to pay for the infrastructure upgrades, not the 2% that he's using in his calculations!
Well, look at this this way. When the publishers hoard their material and choose to not publish, it gets lost forever. At least if it's digitized, it'll survive.
Music is a good example of this. There's a lot of music 20+ years old that's no longer in print, and the labels are no longer around. If someone that had a copy didn't digitize it, it's lost forever.
I need more coffee - I thought this post was talking about the iPhone 5. Imagine my confusion.
Yes, sorry, I saw that but it didn't register until after I posted. Sigh...
The Faronics Powersave utility I've installed is the best I've seen so far. Centralized power policies and detailed reporting, not to mention it uses wake-on-lan so if you need to do an update or change a policy you can tell the workstations to wake up, apply the policy, and go back into standby. If you have a very large organization it can literally save thousands of dollars in power costs, but the clincher is it will do up a report and actually tell you what you are saving, using what you pay for a kWh. You can even set up groups (sort of like OUs in Active Directory) and apply different settings to different machines, so in our case I have a separate one for laptops so users can put the things into presentation mode. The workstations themselves are locked so users can't change the power profile.
It's a really nifty tool. It's also helping our "green" policy as well.
Another IT guy working at a nonprofit (we have over 100 staff) - we did get the Kill-A-Watt. Most of our machines are asleep when not in use via Faronics Powersave, which actually tracks the times when the computers are on and off on a server, and you can set policies, and if you input what you pay for power it will generate a report for you.
We also have machines that are around ten years old. We just replaced one last week that was from 1998. All staff here do are email and writing reports. Things that need more power (like accounting packages) have newer machines.
Last I checked we are saving over $1000 in power costs due to this power management software. We aren't going to replace 100+ machines to save $2 in power per machine per year. Governments might, as they can't seem to do math or ROI, but we won't. We'll let them live out their useful life.
Yes, but don't forget the profit margin which Apple is famous for. Using AMD would mean more money in their own pockets. It's probably not a clear-cut decision.
Steve let the iPhone be released with a shitty antenna design.
Given his history we would just tell everyone "You're using it wrong." Then silently post job positions to fix it.
I'll limit my focus to desktop - I don't use Windows at home, unless I can't get a game to run under Wine (or just couldn't be bothered to try.)
Redhat -> Debian -> Redhat -> SuSE -> gentoo -> Redhat -> gentoo -> mandrake -> gentoo -> ubuntu -> gentoo -> kubuntu -> gentoo
I always return to gentoo for the package manager's flexibility. If I want to get a bleeding edge copy of something, I can install it from the package manager with certain supports built in, then remove it and build the bleeding copy from git or svn.
Yes, it's more work to maintain. But no matter how many times I've tried to switch away from gentoo, I always come back, usually because of the package manager I've attempted to switch to. It just seems there's no easy way to run git/svn software while maintaining dependencies. Hell, gentoo's package manager actually has git/svn copies in the repo that you can tell it to install; it'll grab the right dependencies, then connect to the bleeding edge repository, do a checkout/update, and build. I haven't seen any other package manager even attempt to do this. Whoever thought up the USE-flag system (used to trigger --configure options at build time) is a genius, and it's just so flexible it's not even describable. There are even ways to trigger global support for packages or just enable them for a single package, and it will drag in the dependencies as needed. Even if you need to patch something, it's built into the package manager, you create a directory that mimics the repo and place patches in it - the package manager will notice and automatically apply them before build time.
Every distro does have its own quirks and problems, though - gentoo is no exception to this.
I've been using gentoo since 2003, and every time I try to switch to something else, I always switch back for the flexibility of the package manager. Every. Single. Time.
Our power utility exports power at a higher rate than it charges locally.
So the rebate is for local customers - it helps them use less energy, which allows the utility to sell that energy saved elsewhere for more money. It is the people who are using our exported power that are paying for it.
People may not be aware of this, but there are two types of dimmer switches. Leading-edge dimmers are most commonly installed in houses. However, CFL and LED need trailing-edge dimmer switches to work properly.
I did change the two dimmer switches in my house when I put the LED bulbs in - they're still working today (a little over a year now) and they do dim like they advertise.
Using a standard leading-edge dimmer switch can dramatically shorten the life of the switch (apparently) and the bulb.
I can attest to this - I have retrofitted (over a year or so) my whole house with the Philips LED bulbs.
I have a fixture with multiple bulb sockets, I put in a 60W incandescent in one and the Philips LED in the other, and I could not see a difference in colour temperature at all. They stay warm-ish to the touch so you don't have to worry about spot heating problems in your home, they're great. Now they just need a bulb that can operate in an enclosed fixture.
It did help that our local power utility subsidized these bulbs, they're expensive - between $40 - $50 a pop. I got mine for half price because of the subsidy.
In my experience with ICEs, if you do not use them for long periods of time they are more prone to having the seals dry out and having leaks start... you'd want the engine to run at least a few times a week.
A metric dozen is 14, duh.
Yeah, at about 182 I might raise an eyebrow!
The most annoying one I actually have for KDE is the taskbar - opening and closing windows can trigger a bug in the window grouping code causing nonsimilar apps to get overlaid on top of each other.
Not only does it look bad, you can't click on both windows (it seems to realize they're separate apps) so you can only interface/click on whatever the buggy grouping code puts on top. Thankfully alt+tab still works.
I've found you can fix buggered grouping by opening a new app, usually the code sorts itself out then, but then when you go close another windows it's a coin-toss as to whether the buggy code gets tripped again. It's weird.