Sometimes you need a tractor trailer to do a job, other times you need a Dump Truck. Both can haul hundreds of tons of material. But they do it differently.
Oh it is. That is the same with all Certification programs. However the advantage of Certified engineers working on your stuff, isn't that they are smarter or better then what anyone else could do with. But what it does do is keep the work rather consistent.
I am not a networking guy myself. If given a job to do networking, I can probably get it to work, but in the future when the real networking people come in they will look and be scared about the insane job I did, where it could had been done much more easier.
That is all fine and good, unless your networking needs is different then what Amazon or Netflix needs are. Cisco can normally rattle off names of companies in your industry who are successful with their product.
We are able to get switches and routers for cheap for a while. Many have the same features that Cisco offers. The reason most companies stick with Cisco, is because they are able to find Certified Staff to work on their products.
If a company tried to upgrade to Amazon Fire Sale Switches, then you need to find staff willing to maintain them and do it properly with best practices in mind, may be difficult. You can probably get Cisco Certified staff to work on them, however if there are any differences there may be an issue.
The PC upgrade cycle has also became longer then before too.
1989 8088 1993 486DX 50 MHZ 1997 Pentium 200 MHZ 2001 Pentium 3 1ghz (Technically I switch to a powerbook at the time, but that would be the competing processor) 2006 Core II Duo 2012 Core I7 3rd gen Sandy Bridge That is where I am at now The 8th Gen Chips seems nice, but I will probably upgrade next year..
But before when upgrading after every 4 years I have gotten a noticeable improvement in the computer. Then by 2008 With the great recession, and also the popularity of mobile systems, While they are still keeping up with mores law, the usefulness of old systems seems to be lasting much better now.
The issue is, for a lot of people their Phones and Tablets have been more then good enough for their computing use. The people who do real work on their computers actually have been taking advantage to the fact companies like Microsoft, and Apple and the others have been working dilgantly trying to get their bloated apps optimized for mobile devices, that the PC applications have been getting updates which work faster then before, saving us from getting an upgrade.
However we are reaching a point now where things are catching up and our 6 - 8 year old computers are starting to show their age and are due for an upgrade.
However as I have ranted many times before, We are no longer really looking for a PC, but a Workstation. The PC Functions have fallen to our mobile devices, were real work and processing is more of Workstation thing.
The problem with Regulating technology. Is that advanced tech today will be cheap an mainstream in a decade. And with or without regulation it will be too cheap and easy to enforce.
That is kinda the point, if you consider the Facebook App bloatware (which is rather common size app) then your phone isn't really up to date. This isn't saying it is bad, or you should upgrade, it is just the base line for low end applications. Which for most people is more then enough.
You shouldn't feel like you have to justify to others why you got a $100 phone compared to someone who got a $1000 phone. If it fits your life style why should we care.
I have a 7 year old laptop, with integrated graphics. Just as long as I don't play modern games on it, it is perfectly fine, and I have no reason to upgrade. If I was a bigger gamer, I may want a more powerful newer laptop.
As with most technology the price goes up exponentially for a linear set of features added to it. $50.00 phone is out of date new. In essence what you got on it is what will work. $100.00 phone is the baseline low end for most modern stuff. $200.00 phone This is the good enough for most things, the best choice for a budget phone. $400.00 phone This is the normal sweet spot for phone, in this range you have enough power to do most everything quite well without sacrificing much. $800.00+ phone The Premium models with all the bells and whistles you will ever need for the next decade.
You must be new on Slashdot. I remember back in the Early 2000's every minor Linux kernel release got a front page story. It was darn annoying.
That being said, Apple is the only major player, offering a Non-Windows Laptops. While Apple hasn't been offering a major Redesign in appearance, the Hardware upgrade is actually the more important part then the appearance.
Especially as the Macbook pro line is still arguably the industry standard on the "Premium" Laptop which the likes of Asus, Dell, Lenovo are all trying to copy off of.
In all fairness The current Macbook pro isn't that much different then for the Titanium Powebook back in 2002. Thinner, more powerful, but still a Gray Metal Laptop With a clamshell design, with a keyboard and a track pad.
More to the point things are expensive for a reason. When you sell a product to the wider market, even for cheap you need to have a particular quality standard. And the cost to run a business is more then the cost of the parts. Quality/price often falls on an exponential scale. Such as the difference between a Timex watch and a Rolex watch.
I can write a program to solve a problem I have in a matter of minutes. But I wouldn’t be able to sell the program or would have any interest in the open source market because the program would be unpolished, could have security risks or just hard to use. For this simple program to be deployed for wider use the few minute program could take a week to a month.
If we take a toxin that kills us, but had passed Animal Testing, then it is just God playing trick on us. But if it is something that an algorithm didn't realize to check then it is the fault of man. And some poor grad student will get hit with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit for not realizing such a chemical is harmful.
This is actually with my Tongue in Cheek response. But also a reflection of our culture and its intolerance for mistakes, to a point where we are being held back on progressing, because there could be new mistakes made, even though overall it is a much better solution.
Ummm Yes it is invading privacy. License Plates, and other ID, are meant to verify that you are who you say you are, and that such tools and devices are under the the laws and regulations of the particular state. They are not meant for tracking. If something is up like someone is wanted or a car is reported stolen, then we could put an alert for that ID and if it is found to be reported. However this is tracking everyone to see if they are up to something. The government doesn't need to know where I am shopping, my political view. Because they are tracking innocent citizens. Because we are all Innocent unless are proven guilty. This warentless tracking is wrong.
I do not use 1Password but only One Password "BluePotato#8" so it will not affect me or the "security" of my Data. That statement above is of course false.
The real problem is how bad Passwords are in general. We need to trust the people who is asking for the password to the system to have it stored in a way that it isn't accessible by a data breach, Often Secured Hashed with Salt and Pepper but that is with vendors who care about security. Often there are Startups with Programmers who are just out of 2 year school, who are happy that they their code can read the database and match a password in plain text. Then get deployed and used without ever fixing the security. Then we have the fact we need multiple of them to counteract not trusting sources for your password. Making it harder to keep track of and forget, often making your own insecure database on a computer that you may bring to the local coffee shop. Then your password needs to be complex enough not to be guessed or brute forced, however you need to remember it.
If you actually feel safe about the security of your data, you are probably already compromised. Password Managers are not the end all bee all for security, but what they do is fix some problems with passwords, if 1Password is a reputable and secure solution you are probably better off then without it. However you are still not secure.
It really depends on how and when people made their wealth. Normally you are considered rich when you have enough money that your return on your investments exceeds the money you make doing a job. Some people got there with a long term plan to become wealthy (often sacricing a lot of personal opportunities in the mean time). These will probably get rich again unless they assume these trade offs for wealth were not worth it. Some had been given a large sum of money say a few million dollars after graduating college from rich parents. They have a safety net that allows risk taking and plenty of extra to save in case of a mistake. These people if to start over may not make it again as they never knew how to live poor and wouldn’t be able adjust their life style. Then there are rich because of luck. They happened to have a good idea that people actually wanted it at the time, and they are riding the wave of its success. Starting over again would probably need that luck to happen again.
Now that hypothetical situation of taking everyone’s wealth away and start over will need to find a way to clear everyone’s reputation as well
The idea of balance is a philosophy not science. We don’t have antigravity to oppose gravity. The mass of proton is much larger then the electron. There seems to be more matter in the universe then antimatter.
There is no debate that it is man made. There is a lot of debate on the rate it is changing, what effects it will cause and forecast.
Climate scientists are not just sitting in a grant funded hotel. Awaiting the biggest I Told you so in History. They are trying hard to figure out what the actual rate will be, how will it effect different areas and practices to help save the planet.
C/C++ isn’t horrible especially with its more modern versions. That said it isn’t the best language for a lot of needs. My work I need to make a lot of small apps developed quickly. The C language including C, C++, Java, C# often require a lot of overhead for many of the small get it done jobs. However if it a bigger development project where speed, and lower level access is needed as well needing a bigger development staff it becomes more useful over the scripting language like Python.
I have an MBA and I never had a study to show any advantages of the Open Office vs Closed Offices. There are a lot of Upper Management folks without the MBA Discipline really making MBA's look bad. From my MBA Studies what makes employees more open, isn't a physical layout, but a top down culture of openness and trust of the employees. A Culture where an employee feels empowered to walk into the CEO, or their manager, or the management in different departments, and be able to speak their concerns and ideas without getting throne under the bus, or punished because of a disagreement or difference in ideas.
You can have an open office, or everyone in little cells the layout doesn't change openness, if you know your opinion is not valued, and could be punished for conflicting.
Actually is is more complex then that. Factor 1: Money, A website will normally make its money by the number of people using the site. Vs an Application that needs people to buy it. So to get more money out of the customer you make an app and add new features they may or may not need, just so people will pay for the upgrade.
Factor 2: You deploy to everyone. A feature will normally be a trade off of some sort. So you can't use a website at version 3 while someone else uses version 2 unless you have a complex set of compatibility layers going on. Which in itself causes probable because version 3 has 4 feature that version 2 doesn't and the guy on version 2 really wants that one feature added to his version. However the others on version two doesn't. For the application owner if they are on version 2 they can wait for version 4 which fixes the problem in version 3 that they didn't like.
Factor 3: Wider audience. Just as Slashdot beta has such a backlash, when there is a big audience the minority is bigger and has a much louder voice. If you have 100 users 1% hates the upgrade you get one annoyed customer which you can deal with. If you have 1,000,000 customers then that 1% would be 10,000 annoyed customers, who will then gang up and be a real force to recon with. Vs not changing stuff then the people who want new stuff would be arguing what in particular they want.
Factor 4: What is broke for some is fine for others, and also what is fine, may actually be a problem in the future. The old Slashdot in the late 1990's didn't have the DOM comment system. You clicked on Reply it would bring you a reply screen, once you were done it would then reload all the comments back. Taking a lot of bandwidth that isn't needed for a few kilobytes of data saved.
Slashdot Mirror
Sometimes you need a tractor trailer to do a job, other times you need a Dump Truck. Both can haul hundreds of tons of material. But they do it differently.
Oh it is. That is the same with all Certification programs. However the advantage of Certified engineers working on your stuff, isn't that they are smarter or better then what anyone else could do with. But what it does do is keep the work rather consistent.
I am not a networking guy myself. If given a job to do networking, I can probably get it to work, but in the future when the real networking people come in they will look and be scared about the insane job I did, where it could had been done much more easier.
That is all fine and good, unless your networking needs is different then what Amazon or Netflix needs are.
Cisco can normally rattle off names of companies in your industry who are successful with their product.
We are able to get switches and routers for cheap for a while. Many have the same features that Cisco offers.
The reason most companies stick with Cisco, is because they are able to find Certified Staff to work on their products.
If a company tried to upgrade to Amazon Fire Sale Switches, then you need to find staff willing to maintain them and do it properly with best practices in mind, may be difficult. You can probably get Cisco Certified staff to work on them, however if there are any differences there may be an issue.
I think Laptop Computers a now classified as a PC nowadays too.
The PC upgrade cycle has also became longer then before too.
1989 8088
1993 486DX 50 MHZ
1997 Pentium 200 MHZ
2001 Pentium 3 1ghz (Technically I switch to a powerbook at the time, but that would be the competing processor)
2006 Core II Duo
2012 Core I7 3rd gen Sandy Bridge
That is where I am at now The 8th Gen Chips seems nice, but I will probably upgrade next year..
But before when upgrading after every 4 years I have gotten a noticeable improvement in the computer. Then by 2008 With the great recession, and also the popularity of mobile systems, While they are still keeping up with mores law, the usefulness of old systems seems to be lasting much better now.
The issue is, for a lot of people their Phones and Tablets have been more then good enough for their computing use. The people who do real work on their computers actually have been taking advantage to the fact companies like Microsoft, and Apple and the others have been working dilgantly trying to get their bloated apps optimized for mobile devices, that the PC applications have been getting updates which work faster then before, saving us from getting an upgrade.
However we are reaching a point now where things are catching up and our 6 - 8 year old computers are starting to show their age and are due for an upgrade.
However as I have ranted many times before, We are no longer really looking for a PC, but a Workstation. The PC Functions have fallen to our mobile devices, were real work and processing is more of Workstation thing.
Doesn't the data need to be stored in order to match your identity?
It shouldn't be wildly distributed. But if you want your biometrics to unlock your phone or laptop or open a door for you, then it needs to be stored.
The problem with Regulating technology. Is that advanced tech today will be cheap an mainstream in a decade. And with or without regulation it will be too cheap and easy to enforce.
That is normally how it goes.
Those who can do, do.
Those who can't, regulate.
The Constitution was created before the invention of the Photograph Camera.
I am sure biometrics tracking wasn't considered an issue at the time.
That is kinda the point, if you consider the Facebook App bloatware (which is rather common size app) then your phone isn't really up to date. This isn't saying it is bad, or you should upgrade, it is just the base line for low end applications. Which for most people is more then enough.
You shouldn't feel like you have to justify to others why you got a $100 phone compared to someone who got a $1000 phone. If it fits your life style why should we care.
I have a 7 year old laptop, with integrated graphics. Just as long as I don't play modern games on it, it is perfectly fine, and I have no reason to upgrade. If I was a bigger gamer, I may want a more powerful newer laptop.
As with most technology the price goes up exponentially for a linear set of features added to it.
$50.00 phone is out of date new. In essence what you got on it is what will work.
$100.00 phone is the baseline low end for most modern stuff.
$200.00 phone This is the good enough for most things, the best choice for a budget phone.
$400.00 phone This is the normal sweet spot for phone, in this range you have enough power to do most everything quite well without sacrificing much.
$800.00+ phone The Premium models with all the bells and whistles you will ever need for the next decade.
You must be new on Slashdot.
I remember back in the Early 2000's every minor Linux kernel release got a front page story. It was darn annoying.
That being said, Apple is the only major player, offering a Non-Windows Laptops. While Apple hasn't been offering a major Redesign in appearance, the Hardware upgrade is actually the more important part then the appearance.
Especially as the Macbook pro line is still arguably the industry standard on the "Premium" Laptop which the likes of Asus, Dell, Lenovo are all trying to copy off of.
In all fairness The current Macbook pro isn't that much different then for the Titanium Powebook back in 2002. Thinner, more powerful, but still a Gray Metal Laptop With a clamshell design, with a keyboard and a track pad.
More to the point things are expensive for a reason.
When you sell a product to the wider market, even for cheap you need to have a particular quality standard. And the cost to run a business is more then the cost of the parts.
Quality/price often falls on an exponential scale. Such as the difference between a Timex watch and a Rolex watch.
I can write a program to solve a problem I have in a matter of minutes. But I wouldn’t be able to sell the program or would have any interest in the open source market because the program would be unpolished, could have security risks or just hard to use. For this simple program to be deployed for wider use the few minute program could take a week to a month.
If we take a toxin that kills us, but had passed Animal Testing, then it is just God playing trick on us. But if it is something that an algorithm didn't realize to check then it is the fault of man. And some poor grad student will get hit with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit for not realizing such a chemical is harmful.
This is actually with my Tongue in Cheek response. But also a reflection of our culture and its intolerance for mistakes, to a point where we are being held back on progressing, because there could be new mistakes made, even though overall it is a much better solution.
Ummm Yes it is invading privacy.
License Plates, and other ID, are meant to verify that you are who you say you are, and that such tools and devices are under the the laws and regulations of the particular state. They are not meant for tracking. If something is up like someone is wanted or a car is reported stolen, then we could put an alert for that ID and if it is found to be reported. However this is tracking everyone to see if they are up to something.
The government doesn't need to know where I am shopping, my political view. Because they are tracking innocent citizens. Because we are all Innocent unless are proven guilty. This warentless tracking is wrong.
I do not use 1Password but only One Password "BluePotato#8" so it will not affect me or the "security" of my Data.
That statement above is of course false.
The real problem is how bad Passwords are in general.
We need to trust the people who is asking for the password to the system to have it stored in a way that it isn't accessible by a data breach, Often Secured Hashed with Salt and Pepper but that is with vendors who care about security. Often there are Startups with Programmers who are just out of 2 year school, who are happy that they their code can read the database and match a password in plain text. Then get deployed and used without ever fixing the security.
Then we have the fact we need multiple of them to counteract not trusting sources for your password. Making it harder to keep track of and forget, often making your own insecure database on a computer that you may bring to the local coffee shop.
Then your password needs to be complex enough not to be guessed or brute forced, however you need to remember it.
If you actually feel safe about the security of your data, you are probably already compromised. Password Managers are not the end all bee all for security, but what they do is fix some problems with passwords, if 1Password is a reputable and secure solution you are probably better off then without it. However you are still not secure.
It really depends on how and when people made their wealth.
Normally you are considered rich when you have enough money that your return on your investments exceeds the money you make doing a job.
Some people got there with a long term plan to become wealthy (often sacricing a lot of personal opportunities in the mean time). These will probably get rich again unless they assume these trade offs for wealth were not worth it.
Some had been given a large sum of money say a few million dollars after graduating college from rich parents. They have a safety net that allows risk taking and plenty of extra to save in case of a mistake. These people if to start over may not make it again as they never knew how to live poor and wouldn’t be able adjust their life style.
Then there are rich because of luck. They happened to have a good idea that people actually wanted it at the time, and they are riding the wave of its success. Starting over again would probably need that luck to happen again.
Now that hypothetical situation of taking everyone’s wealth away and start over will need to find a way to clear everyone’s reputation as well
The idea of balance is a philosophy not science.
We don’t have antigravity to oppose gravity.
The mass of proton is much larger then the electron. There seems to be more matter in the universe then antimatter.
There is no debate that it is man made. There is a lot of debate on the rate it is changing, what effects it will cause and forecast.
Climate scientists are not just sitting in a grant funded hotel. Awaiting the biggest I Told you so in History.
They are trying hard to figure out what the actual rate will be, how will it effect different areas and practices to help save the planet.
So we should invest into solar energy now. Because we can get more solar energy per day because of the increase solar output.
C/C++ isn’t horrible especially with its more modern versions.
That said it isn’t the best language for a lot of needs.
My work I need to make a lot of small apps developed quickly. The C language including C, C++, Java, C# often require a lot of overhead for many of the small get it done jobs.
However if it a bigger development project where speed, and lower level access is needed as well needing a bigger development staff it becomes more useful over the scripting language like Python.
I have an MBA and I never had a study to show any advantages of the Open Office vs Closed Offices. There are a lot of Upper Management folks without the MBA Discipline really making MBA's look bad.
From my MBA Studies what makes employees more open, isn't a physical layout, but a top down culture of openness and trust of the employees. A Culture where an employee feels empowered to walk into the CEO, or their manager, or the management in different departments, and be able to speak their concerns and ideas without getting throne under the bus, or punished because of a disagreement or difference in ideas.
You can have an open office, or everyone in little cells the layout doesn't change openness, if you know your opinion is not valued, and could be punished for conflicting.
Actually is is more complex then that.
Factor 1: Money, A website will normally make its money by the number of people using the site. Vs an Application that needs people to buy it.
So to get more money out of the customer you make an app and add new features they may or may not need, just so people will pay for the upgrade.
Factor 2: You deploy to everyone. A feature will normally be a trade off of some sort. So you can't use a website at version 3 while someone else uses version 2 unless you have a complex set of compatibility layers going on. Which in itself causes probable because version 3 has 4 feature that version 2 doesn't and the guy on version 2 really wants that one feature added to his version. However the others on version two doesn't. For the application owner if they are on version 2 they can wait for version 4 which fixes the problem in version 3 that they didn't like.
Factor 3: Wider audience. Just as Slashdot beta has such a backlash, when there is a big audience the minority is bigger and has a much louder voice.
If you have 100 users 1% hates the upgrade you get one annoyed customer which you can deal with. If you have 1,000,000 customers then that 1% would be 10,000 annoyed customers, who will then gang up and be a real force to recon with. Vs not changing stuff then the people who want new stuff would be arguing what in particular they want.
Factor 4: What is broke for some is fine for others, and also what is fine, may actually be a problem in the future. The old Slashdot in the late 1990's didn't have the DOM comment system. You clicked on Reply it would bring you a reply screen, once you were done it would then reload all the comments back. Taking a lot of bandwidth that isn't needed for a few kilobytes of data saved.