And now San Francisco and New York attorneys general are calling a 'Smartphone Summit' where representatives from Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft are due to meet and discuss the implementation of a industry-wide 'kill switch' system."
As other posts have pointed out, all the technology is already not just available but deployed. IMEI blocking and both OEM and 3rd party apps which can encrypt, track, remote wipe.
Of course, most of these suppose that the user opts in or activates in some way, but I think I'd prefer that than a mandatory, Govt.-sponsored option. It would probably work just as well as those fantastic 'smart' programs that block your credit card "for your protection" whenever you visit a new country. I can see it now, message appears on your screen when you get off the plane, "you have visisted an unauthorised destination...bricking phone for your protection"
Correct; typical example could come from counting, then plotting, discrete data. Number of children in a family, doors on a car... Note that whilst you might expect a normal distribution, with events (exam results) distributed evenly but randomly about the mean, the fact the the guy found something that certainly looks non-normal, (he did not do normality tests, but having looked at his results, I don't think he needed to), does not itself prove that the results were altered.
Imagine a 'perfect' exam, where the expected (average) result for the student population was 50 out of 100, or 50% Now imagine an (equally unlikely) 'perfect' candidate population. If you plotted the exam results, you could expect the population to be centered on a mean result of 50, with half the scores higher, half lower. If you had a (really getting unlikely now) 'perfect' education system, there would be a low standard deviation in your data, let's say 2% If the results could be modelled with the Gauss curve, then 99.73% of your distribution would be at +/- 3 sigma (standard deviations) from the mean. So lowest expected score of 50-2*3=46, with highest of 56.
Of course, candidate abilities could be much more varied than this, so sigma could be anything...5%, 10%
Anyway, getting to the point, if the mean of a what you *might* be expecting to be a Gauss / Normal curve is shifted sufficiently towards a 'hard' limit, (in our example, you cannot score less than 0%, or more than 100%, so both are 'hard' limits, or 'boundaries'), then the data (example results) do tend naturally to 'pile up' against the limit. (Think of a snow plough pushing snow aganist a wall - it's go nowhere to go, except up).
Thus you get a non-normal distribution, (typically better modelled with a lognormal or Weibull curve, not Poisson).
But WHAT can cause the mean to shift? For this example: - Either the exam is "too easy", or - The students are all very good (yeah, same thing,really), or - The marking system is biased. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one, but I've personally found that in India, (as in other places, including the USA), a little cash can go a long way...
But that was not the most compelling evidence of bias; that would be the very strange 'missing' data points, (especially close to critical scores such as the 35 pass./endoldstatsbore
Or there's gotta be a joke about 'throwing' them...
More seriously, what does this mean to the Windows & Office teams, which is still the core of MS's business? Big signal for the more talented and ambitious of them to jump ship, either internally or externally....
Isn't the point of TFA that Microsoft is changing course?
Changing course from scraping along the side of the iceberg to directly ramming into it, but still...
{chuckle} Nice one.
Although the pedant in me points out that some people think that the Titanic would have survived if she'd hit the 'berg head on. (I'm not so sure) Back on topic, since someone mentioned IBM here, it should be noted that they required both an internal crisis, and a new boss from outside, to start reinventing themselves. Maybe Microsoft needs such a shock. As GM found out, depending on the same old management often does not deliver the rapid change needed.
“I came into the office and I pressed my PC and it took me seven minutes to boot up,” he told attendees. “That’s government in the old world, that’s three days of the year I waste of my time booting up."
Urm, just gonna sit there and watch it boot, eh Steve? Go grab a coffee, make some calls...whatever.
"You wouldn't believe how much (it costs), I think the average cost of a desktop a year is about £6,000" So he "thinks" a "desktop" costs that....I wonder what the definition of "desktop" is? The PC, the PC & support? The PC, support & s/w? etc...
The Fine Jounalist challenges the £6K figure. "According to my estimations – verified by a CIO – this figure should be less than £1,000 per year taking into account the cost of the hardware, office suite, and support and server costs over a three-year period"
Seems more reasonable, but does not say it's a like-for-like comparison. Support costs for Govt. PC may include additional security, network and application maintenance, which for Govt crapware can be insanely costly.
Could only find one other article here, but really just the same information...
I thought it was running Window 8 and/or Android on same system; nope. Detachable screen is in fact an andoid tablet; when you plug it into the 'docking station' that's actually a full-spec Win PC sitting in the keyboard / chassis. If your use cases including running both a tablet and an ultra-PC, could be temping I guess, but hardling a tech breakthrough.
Learn the basis of managing comms on a Arduino, Pi, whatever, (but load of easy add-on stuff for Arduino if breadboarding is not your thing...so far), then grab a cheap Roomba or suchlike.
Well, now it's OK to sell " hardware and software that pertain to the Internet...basically, all things digital" I guess the flights to Iran will be full of salesmen. Of course, big business will be taking care that the right stuff will not fall into the wrong hands, eh? After all, look what happened last time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Contra_Affair#Indictments Oh wait, looks like they all got a presidential pardon...
Meanwhile, I'm sure that the regime in place will continue to control access to everything, and the chances of this trickling down to the populace are nil. Better to get the CIA, USAID or whoever to dish out free stuff (satphones, encrypted laptops...) on the borders for smuggling in; compared to the billions we're pissing away in Iraq & AfPak, I'm sure the "coalition" could spare some millions for that.
Also, change your teacher and/or materials, (or more probably get additional help). I really struggled with advanced maths & stats until I got a prof who made things easy; now I (sometimes) teach them. And I'm far from being a genius - just an average guy. Also, I find this knowledge useful on a regular basis, in many ways & areas.
I don't believe it's useful to ask "will I ever need 'x' particular tool?"; you cannot know. Think more along the lines of "a broad understanding of these concepts & tools will help me become a more-rounded and performant practitioner".
So, don't give up! If you are intelligent, which I assume you are, then the problem is not with you, it's with your teacher. Find someone to make it easy for you, and you'll go from hating it to enjoying it. There's few things in life more satisfying than getting over this kind of difficulty.
In plenty of juristictions, you can be in trouble if you're in possession of car keys whilst under the influence of drink or drugs. (BTW, are they not the same thing? Why the distinction? But I digress...)
How would this work with a 'smart' gun?
Your car keys are on the table when the cops bust the bar. You've just finished your 10th strong drink. No problem; someone (sober) in your entourage was going to drive you home. Your 'smart' gun, (why do I dislike that term so much?), is on the table. Hmmm...kinda hard to convince the law that someone else is in charge of it.
Because that's exactly the argument they use to bust you when you are "drunk in charge"...of just a set of car keys.
Mind you, I suppose you could argue that if you go out drinking with a gun, you deserve all you get. Or you live in Detroit.
Looks like Linux wins, with Android a close second.
The best part is that this is all for one person living alone.:)
Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but it seems that they're saying that in 2004, MS had a majority, but this is now changing and thus the bug can be closed. With your enumeration you simply give anecdotal evidence to this.
"living alone"
Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but massive geek points aside, sounds like OP needs to get out of the basement more...
Easy fix; stop doing stupid things that are driving people to Mint etc. and get back to what a lot of people, (including me) were hoping for at the beginning - a decent distro that "just works" that we would could confidently install at friends, family, neighbours, SOHO whatever, without support nightmares at evenings and weekends. (Yes, I've been dicking around with BSD etc. for years, but I do need some time with my family...)
With MS busy pissing people off with Win8, they've missed a great opportunity. I had some success 'converting' people with Linux skinned as XP; c'mon Mark; where's Ubuntu Win7 edition?
Makes sense. Also, using the parachute as primary braking system would allow for less fuel for boosters, making the entire thing more plausible and manageable, as well as safer.
While they were at it, why not also include wingsuit capabilities?
Many, many studies have shown that this type of method is less effective than proper training and motivation. Would be better to find out why the people are not washing their hands, and fix that problem. Lack of knowledge, facilities?
Here's an article about a better way to do it; looking at the entire system and finding ways to make getting good hygiene simple and faster. (OK, it's from a hand-dryer company, but still illustrative of the approach.) http://www.exceldryer.com/presskit/CaseStudy-NMH.php
Half an hour to 'boot', then more to load yer pgm & data... I liked the night shift, since you could read a good book whilst listening for the ominous 'clunk' when a card got rejected and everything ground to a halt. Mixing up the cards was a traditional welcome for the newbies.
Things improved when we got a 2MB hard disk. Yup, that "two" whippersnappers.
What did it teach me that's relevant today? Urm, don't drop a box of hundreds of unnumbered cards into the snow? More seriously, carefully planning your logic and data flow (on a piece of paper those days) really helps you create clean and compact code. Think about what you want to do before you start on the 'how' bit./getoffmylawn
Plants can only migrate at a certain rate. Similarly for animals. Most won't be able to adapt, causing ecosystem failures.
Indeed. This is why, from the start, some scientists argued that we should be coming up with mitigation strategies, since they did not believe that mankind would be able to get its collective act together and slow, let alone reverse, global warming/climate change.
They were howled down by the majority of activists, who claimed - understandably - that such a strategy would just give a cop-out to both the denyers and world leaders. Still, despite some glacially-slow progress, nothing much has been done.
Looks like we're going to have to give nature a hand to fix the mess we are busy creating...progress has been made, and continues, with drought and disease-resistant crops, for example.
Been using MS office for years, never had much trouble with it, apart from weird formatting issues that we all know about, (try copying & pasting between Word and PPT, for example).
Same with Open/Libre Office. Never had any stability problems, and in one notable case, was able to open a 'critical' word document for a customer in OO when the various versions of MS could not. Strange.
As for Google docs, yup, until it matures, and maybe is better linked to stand-alone apps, (not everyone has permanent access to the internet), is not likely to satisfy power users.
But that's missing the point - O/L Office and/or Google docs are more than enough for most users - and anyway the point here is about the document format, not the applications(s). One of the problems most of the people here report is the inability of O/L Office to satisfactorily read the formatting of MS Office docs, (hardly surprising; it's a nightmare). But again, for most users, is all that weird formatting and animation really needed?
Forcing a single, truly interoperable document format standard accross Govt. sounds a great idea to me.
"Westerners can pay anything from $10,000 (£6,600) to $100,000 (£66,000) for permits to climb the mountain and guides to accompany them..."
So, $2k extra seems modest. I'm sure this argument could be quickly solved by an apology and payment of the $2k retrospectively.
Reminds me one time I was skippering a ship for some friends in the Caribbean; the mooring fees seemed pretty high to me, (just to tie up to a small buoy for the night; no other amenities). When I commented on this to the official, he said "you've got a yacht, you can afford it". I looked out of the window of his grubby shack at our (rented) 42' boat. Yeah, he was right.
Slashdot Mirror
And now San Francisco and New York attorneys general are calling a 'Smartphone Summit' where representatives from Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft are due to meet and discuss the implementation of a industry-wide 'kill switch' system."
As other posts have pointed out, all the technology is already not just available but deployed.
IMEI blocking and both OEM and 3rd party apps which can encrypt, track, remote wipe.
Of course, most of these suppose that the user opts in or activates in some way, but I think I'd prefer that than a mandatory, Govt.-sponsored option.
It would probably work just as well as those fantastic 'smart' programs that block your credit card "for your protection" whenever you visit a new country.
I can see it now, message appears on your screen when you get off the plane, "you have visisted an unauthorised destination...bricking phone for your protection"
Correct; typical example could come from counting, then plotting, discrete data. Number of children in a family, doors on a car...
Note that whilst you might expect a normal distribution, with events (exam results) distributed evenly but randomly about the mean, the fact the the guy found something that certainly looks non-normal, (he did not do normality tests, but having looked at his results, I don't think he needed to), does not itself prove that the results were altered.
Imagine a 'perfect' exam, where the expected (average) result for the student population was 50 out of 100, or 50%
Now imagine an (equally unlikely) 'perfect' candidate population.
If you plotted the exam results, you could expect the population to be centered on a mean result of 50, with half the scores higher, half lower.
If you had a (really getting unlikely now) 'perfect' education system, there would be a low standard deviation in your data, let's say 2%
If the results could be modelled with the Gauss curve, then 99.73% of your distribution would be at +/- 3 sigma (standard deviations) from the mean.
So lowest expected score of 50-2*3=46, with highest of 56.
Of course, candidate abilities could be much more varied than this, so sigma could be anything...5%, 10%
Anyway, getting to the point, if the mean of a what you *might* be expecting to be a Gauss / Normal curve is shifted sufficiently towards a 'hard' limit, (in our example, you cannot score less than 0%, or more than 100%, so both are 'hard' limits, or 'boundaries'), then the data (example results) do tend naturally to 'pile up' against the limit. (Think of a snow plough pushing snow aganist a wall - it's go nowhere to go, except up).
Thus you get a non-normal distribution, (typically better modelled with a lognormal or Weibull curve, not Poisson).
But WHAT can cause the mean to shift? For this example:
- Either the exam is "too easy", or
- The students are all very good (yeah, same thing,really), or
- The marking system is biased.
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one, but I've personally found that in India, (as in other places, including the USA), a little cash can go a long way...
But that was not the most compelling evidence of bias; that would be the very strange 'missing' data points, (especially close to critical scores such as the 35 pass. /endoldstatsbore
Or there's gotta be a joke about 'throwing' them...
More seriously, what does this mean to the Windows & Office teams, which is still the core of MS's business?
Big signal for the more talented and ambitious of them to jump ship, either internally or externally....
Isn't the point of TFA that Microsoft is changing course?
Changing course from scraping along the side of the iceberg to directly ramming into it, but still...
{chuckle} Nice one.
Although the pedant in me points out that some people think that the Titanic would have survived if she'd hit the 'berg head on. (I'm not so sure)
Back on topic, since someone mentioned IBM here, it should be noted that they required both an internal crisis, and a new boss from outside, to start reinventing themselves. Maybe Microsoft needs such a shock. As GM found out, depending on the same old management often does not deliver the rapid change needed.
A few gems:
“I came into the office and I pressed my PC and it took me seven minutes to boot up,” he told attendees. “That’s government in the old world, that’s three days of the year I waste of my time booting up."
Urm, just gonna sit there and watch it boot, eh Steve? Go grab a coffee, make some calls...whatever.
"You wouldn't believe how much (it costs), I think the average cost of a desktop a year is about £6,000"
So he "thinks" a "desktop" costs that....I wonder what the definition of "desktop" is? The PC, the PC & support? The PC, support & s/w? etc...
The Fine Jounalist challenges the £6K figure.
"According to my estimations – verified by a CIO – this figure should be less than £1,000 per year taking into account the cost of the hardware, office suite, and support and server costs over a three-year period"
Seems more reasonable, but does not say it's a like-for-like comparison. Support costs for Govt. PC may include additional security, network and application maintenance, which for Govt crapware can be insanely costly.
Could only find one other article here, but really just the same information...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10097514/State-workers-spend-three-days-a-year-waiting-for-PCs-to-start.html
I thought it was running Window 8 and/or Android on same system; nope.
Detachable screen is in fact an andoid tablet; when you plug it into the 'docking station' that's actually a full-spec Win PC sitting in the keyboard / chassis.
If your use cases including running both a tablet and an ultra-PC, could be temping I guess, but hardling a tech breakthrough.
Try these for more info:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/03/asus-announces-the-transformer-book-trio-likens-it-to-a-laptop/
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/157253-asus-unveils-dual-os-dual-cpu-jekyll-hyde-transformer-book-trio
Great post. Thanks for sharing your experience and passion. Cannot mod as have already posted...
Like this guy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-13NSDqIzA
Learn the basis of managing comms on a Arduino, Pi, whatever, (but load of easy add-on stuff for Arduino if breadboarding is not your thing...so far), then grab a cheap Roomba or suchlike.
Sorry no mod points today;made me smile
Well, now it's OK to sell " hardware and software that pertain to the Internet...basically, all things digital" I guess the flights to Iran will be full of salesmen.
Of course, big business will be taking care that the right stuff will not fall into the wrong hands, eh?
After all, look what happened last time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Contra_Affair#Indictments
Oh wait, looks like they all got a presidential pardon...
Meanwhile, I'm sure that the regime in place will continue to control access to everything, and the chances of this trickling down to the populace are nil.
Better to get the CIA, USAID or whoever to dish out free stuff (satphones, encrypted laptops...) on the borders for smuggling in; compared to the billions we're pissing away in Iraq & AfPak, I'm sure the "coalition" could spare some millions for that.
Also, change your teacher and/or materials, (or more probably get additional help).
I really struggled with advanced maths & stats until I got a prof who made things easy; now I (sometimes) teach them.
And I'm far from being a genius - just an average guy. Also, I find this knowledge useful on a regular basis, in many ways & areas.
I don't believe it's useful to ask "will I ever need 'x' particular tool?"; you cannot know.
Think more along the lines of "a broad understanding of these concepts & tools will help me become a more-rounded and performant practitioner".
So, don't give up! If you are intelligent, which I assume you are, then the problem is not with you, it's with your teacher.
Find someone to make it easy for you, and you'll go from hating it to enjoying it.
There's few things in life more satisfying than getting over this kind of difficulty.
Linked articles not very informative...one of the many SoCs available, I suppose. A little more info here, but not much.
http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/05/29.aspx
Not sure why they need the Android layer; what does that bring above the many distros already available? (Thinking of things like Pi, Arduino...)
What next, DARPA play store?
BTW, for those of you wondering, ODM=Original Design Manufacturers...
Mod up...
Because it negates their entire current direction, which btw is also in opposition to their original published values.
Not going for 'funny' points here, but still.
In plenty of juristictions, you can be in trouble if you're in possession of car keys whilst under the influence of drink or drugs.
(BTW, are they not the same thing? Why the distinction? But I digress...)
How would this work with a 'smart' gun?
Your car keys are on the table when the cops bust the bar. You've just finished your 10th strong drink. No problem; someone (sober) in your entourage was going to drive you home.
Your 'smart' gun, (why do I dislike that term so much?), is on the table. Hmmm...kinda hard to convince the law that someone else is in charge of it.
Because that's exactly the argument they use to bust you when you are "drunk in charge"...of just a set of car keys.
Mind you, I suppose you could argue that if you go out drinking with a gun, you deserve all you get.
Or you live in Detroit.
Not in my house it doesn't.
1 Win 7 laptop
1 MacBook Pro
1 Chrome Book
3 Raspberry PIs running Raspbian
1 Android tablet
1 Android phone
1 blackberry playbook
1 Apple TV
Looks like Linux wins, with Android a close second.
The best part is that this is all for one person living alone. :)
Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but it seems that they're saying that in 2004, MS had a majority, but this is now changing and thus the bug can be closed. With your enumeration you simply give anecdotal evidence to this.
"living alone"
Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but massive geek points aside, sounds like OP needs to get out of the basement more...
Like this one:
#461000 General populace ignorance of Ubuntu
Easy fix; stop doing stupid things that are driving people to Mint etc. and get back to what a lot of people, (including me) were hoping for at the beginning - a decent distro that "just works" that we would could confidently install at friends, family, neighbours, SOHO whatever, without support nightmares at evenings and weekends. (Yes, I've been dicking around with BSD etc. for years, but I do need some time with my family...)
With MS busy pissing people off with Win8, they've missed a great opportunity.
I had some success 'converting' people with Linux skinned as XP; c'mon Mark; where's Ubuntu Win7 edition?
Makes sense. Also, using the parachute as primary braking system would allow for less fuel for boosters, making the entire thing more plausible and manageable, as well as safer.
While they were at it, why not also include wingsuit capabilities?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingsuit_flying
Although it should be noted that jumps from this height have not been so ambitious, if that is the right word...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner
I'm pretty sure that if anyone could have done this with added rockets, wingsuits and head-mounted lasers it would have been Red Bull & Felix.
Many, many studies have shown that this type of method is less effective than proper training and motivation.
Would be better to find out why the people are not washing their hands, and fix that problem.
Lack of knowledge, facilities?
Here's an article about a better way to do it; looking at the entire system and finding ways to make getting good hygiene simple and faster.
(OK, it's from a hand-dryer company, but still illustrative of the approach.)
http://www.exceldryer.com/presskit/CaseStudy-NMH.php
Here's the Sex Pistols!
https://www.google.com/search?q=Never+Mind+the+Bollocks%2C+Here's+the+Sex+Pistols+torrent
Half an hour to 'boot', then more to load yer pgm & data... I liked the night shift, since you could read a good book whilst listening for the ominous 'clunk' when a card got rejected and everything ground to a halt.
Mixing up the cards was a traditional welcome for the newbies.
Things improved when we got a 2MB hard disk. Yup, that "two" whippersnappers.
What did it teach me that's relevant today? Urm, don't drop a box of hundreds of unnumbered cards into the snow? /getoffmylawn
More seriously, carefully planning your logic and data flow (on a piece of paper those days) really helps you create clean and compact code.
Think about what you want to do before you start on the 'how' bit.
Well done guys.
Clear message here kids; next time sell the exploit in a black hat forum.
Paypal, proudly fucking you over since 1998.
Plants can only migrate at a certain rate. Similarly for animals. Most won't be able to adapt, causing ecosystem failures.
Indeed. This is why, from the start, some scientists argued that we should be coming up with mitigation strategies, since they did not believe that mankind would be able to get its collective act together and slow, let alone reverse, global warming/climate change.
They were howled down by the majority of activists, who claimed - understandably - that such a strategy would just give a cop-out to both the denyers and world leaders. Still, despite some glacially-slow progress, nothing much has been done.
Looks like we're going to have to give nature a hand to fix the mess we are busy creating...progress has been made, and continues, with drought and disease-resistant crops, for example.
Been using MS office for years, never had much trouble with it, apart from weird formatting issues that we all know about, (try copying & pasting between Word and PPT, for example).
Same with Open/Libre Office. Never had any stability problems, and in one notable case, was able to open a 'critical' word document for a customer in OO when the various versions of MS could not. Strange.
As for Google docs, yup, until it matures, and maybe is better linked to stand-alone apps, (not everyone has permanent access to the internet), is not likely to satisfy power users.
But that's missing the point - O/L Office and/or Google docs are more than enough for most users - and anyway the point here is about the document format, not the applications(s). One of the problems most of the people here report is the inability of O/L Office to satisfactorily read the formatting of MS Office docs, (hardly surprising; it's a nightmare). But again, for most users, is all that weird formatting and animation really needed?
Forcing a single, truly interoperable document format standard accross Govt. sounds a great idea to me.
From this article, (well worth the read, BTW)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22680192
"Westerners can pay anything from $10,000 (£6,600) to $100,000 (£66,000) for permits to climb the mountain and guides to accompany them..."
So, $2k extra seems modest. I'm sure this argument could be quickly solved by an apology and payment of the $2k retrospectively.
Reminds me one time I was skippering a ship for some friends in the Caribbean; the mooring fees seemed pretty high to me, (just to tie up to a small buoy for the night; no other amenities).
When I commented on this to the official, he said "you've got a yacht, you can afford it".
I looked out of the window of his grubby shack at our (rented) 42' boat. Yeah, he was right.