Don't get me wrong, I used it quite a lot a decade ago. But anymore these days, it was basically only still on my system because it's pretty trivial to paste the username and password into Pidgin.
I guess Pidgin will just be for my ever-dwindling list of XMPP services, now.
Of course it isn't. You and I know that. And I'd be willing to bet that the people who are actually responsible for designing and deploying the networks know it too.
But if the lawyers can convince a city council that deploying LTE to replace the aging copper infrastructure is just as good as fiber, what financial department would approve the roll out fiber when they could approve a much cheaper, much higher margin LTE installation instead?
In the case of CenturyLink specifically, unless they want to go the MNVO route, they probably don't care what you do after their service becomes unusable. It sounds like they're just shoring up their business customer base so they can afford to bleed residential customers until they don't have any anymore.
In my experience, companies like CenturyLink and Frontier are where residential communications infrastructure goes to die.
They're only rolling out fiber where they're legally obligated to, and they are spending a lot of money on lawyers to get them out of those obligations, with varying degrees of success.
Smart watches are like tablets. The people who wanted one bought one when they came out. But now they have one and it works fine.
Adding new baubles might convince a few new people to buy one. And there are always people who will always run out to the Apple Store to stand in line for the latest iGadget. (Or whatever brand they prefer, if Apple isn't their game.) But that isn't most technology users.
There are two types of smartwatch companies: The ones who saw that the initial demand will wear off and are playing the long game, and the ones who wanted to make a quick buck cashing in on an new market that will drop the entire product line when the going gets tough. Which companies are which is left as an exercise to the buyer.
Why offer programming people want to see when you can just impose a "reasonable" 300GB/month cap on your internet-only offering for "network management" that magically goes away when you pay an additional $30-50/month or bundle in a TV package?
I feel like they're going for what they had when they owned Motorola. Basically stock Android with Google Apps and a few extras (like enhanced camera apps and the like.)
As long as they don't do things like bundle "special offers" as non-removable systems apps and continue with the Nexus update policy, I don't really see it as a problem. (New versions for at least 18 months, security updates for at least 36 months.)
Hopefully, this time, they won't sell it all to Lenovo.
If we go by that metric, then the fastest internet is satellite or cellular. Those are available in far more places than Comcast (or cable in general) is and are usually faster than a landline with a 56k modem. (Which, despite the copper network being largely left to rot be some phone companies, is STILL more ubiquitous than cable.)
1. Make in-home screens larger than 42 inches illegal. 2. Make in-home audio systems with more than two speakers illegal. 3. Make fast forward/skip and rewind/back buttons illegal. 4. Start embedding random phone ringing, talking and infant screeching in the audio tracks of Bluray and DVD. 5. Require that home systems 1% chance making a curtain appear in front of the left and right edges of the picture. (Make sure it's time based so restarting won't fix it.) 6. Require that home systems digitally add film scratches and artifacts when playing older movies.
With all these perfectly reasonable requests implemented, people should start seeing the value in coming to the theater more. Anything less is a dire threat to the world economy and entertainment industry, both of which are very clearly on the brink of collapse because of criminals who have been allowed to brazenly pirate elements of proprietary theater designs into so-called "home theater systems."
Logitech apparently actually uses 128-bit AES, though the question of how they generate their symmetric key isn't exactly answered in a way that's satisfying. http://www.logitech.com/images...
Not sure about Dell. Couldn't find much on their keyboards with my cursory Googling. They seem to mostly rebrand other people's wireless keyboards?
I always assume wireless keyboard are cheap consumer products built by the lowest bidder and designed by people whose primary interest is getting a product out the door in advance of or for the next big release of whatever their company's actual product is.
Most wireless keyboards' performance reflects that. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest their security is similar.
That reminds me of a conversation I had with a FiOS installer circa 2009.
"Er, can you run CAT5 instead of coax?" "No, you need coax for TV." "You're not installing TV, though. Just Internet. Can we run CAT5?" "You might get TV later." "Nope. I won't. And even if I did, you'd be sending out another installer anyway. Can we run CAT5?" "I don't know how to crimp CAT5..."
I remember that. Two years ago, they sent out emails saying "New subscribers will pay $9.99/month, but you'll be able to keep your $7.99/month price for two years."
I would say that the only reason browsing the web is "good" on a tablet is because browser and website authors have worked (to varying degrees of success) to make it so.
In the mid-to-late 2000's, when the touch screen smart phones were starting to take off, a lot of websites were not touch friendly at all. Many of them assumed that "hover" was a meaningful action you could take and incorporated things like Flash animations or menus that you had to hover over to activate.
Most of the things you mention that are "bad" are because little effort has gone into them other than trying to badly emulate the old ways. There's no reason you can't have a good touch screen game. But if you just throw a virtual D-pad and SNES buttons on the screen, you're gonna have a bad time.
Also, infrared cut filters for SLRs are $20 on Amazon. I suspect it won't take long for someone to make one that fits discretely over a phone camera lens (perhaps as part of a phone case) that blocks the relevant wavelengths.
I'm sure their management will deny up and down that this had anything to do with the case they just lost and that the timing is "purely coincidental."
But I suspect that their legal department emailed someone in management an Excel spreadsheet detailing the costs of losing that case and how much it would cost to defend similar cases now that there is precedent. The manager probably multiplied that number by some number that may or may not reflect the actual number of users with similar claims and said "Shit, that's actually a lot of money. Maybe we should stop."
Still doesn't change the fact that they spent the last 11 months gleefully burning the modicum of trust in Windows Update they had had managed to build up over the last few years.
A year ago, if someone said to me "I disable Windows Updates on all my computers," I would have called them an idiot. Now, I just shrug as I understand why they do it.
Do I know about alternatives that are fairly effective at blocking the forced upgrades? Sure. But I'm not willing to take on an additional support burden to help maintain Microsoft's security posture.
If Microsoft wants to throw away years of trying to convince people that Windows Updates won't fuck their computers up, let them.
When discussing what source control system to use for any new project, how often does BitKeeper even come up as a suggestion?
In my experience, most conversations of that nature start out with git versus Subversion. Mercurial might get thrown in if git is "too hard." Microsoft's solution might get suggested if it's a Microsoft-centered project. CVS might get brought up by the C-level who read about it in a magazine in the 90's and/or is a year or two from retirement. But BitKeeper? Never even seems to come close to the list.
It was one of the first things I disabled. I disabled it for the same reason I disabled the Amazon search integration in Ubuntu.
I've never quite understood why I would want my application launcher to search the web.
Now, if Microsoft did something dumb like make it so you can't disable Cortana, that might just be enough to make me replace Windows with something else. (Haven't wanted to put in the effort, but they are really making it hard to justify not putting the effort in. That might be the proverbial straw.)
Slashdot Mirror
TOC2 has been shut down for years, last I checked.
Don't get me wrong, I used it quite a lot a decade ago. But anymore these days, it was basically only still on my system because it's pretty trivial to paste the username and password into Pidgin.
I guess Pidgin will just be for my ever-dwindling list of XMPP services, now.
Of course it isn't. You and I know that. And I'd be willing to bet that the people who are actually responsible for designing and deploying the networks know it too.
But if the lawyers can convince a city council that deploying LTE to replace the aging copper infrastructure is just as good as fiber, what financial department would approve the roll out fiber when they could approve a much cheaper, much higher margin LTE installation instead?
In the case of CenturyLink specifically, unless they want to go the MNVO route, they probably don't care what you do after their service becomes unusable. It sounds like they're just shoring up their business customer base so they can afford to bleed residential customers until they don't have any anymore.
In my experience, companies like CenturyLink and Frontier are where residential communications infrastructure goes to die.
I think you mean LTE.
They're only rolling out fiber where they're legally obligated to, and they are spending a lot of money on lawyers to get them out of those obligations, with varying degrees of success.
Pretty much.
Smart watches are like tablets. The people who wanted one bought one when they came out. But now they have one and it works fine.
Adding new baubles might convince a few new people to buy one. And there are always people who will always run out to the Apple Store to stand in line for the latest iGadget. (Or whatever brand they prefer, if Apple isn't their game.) But that isn't most technology users.
There are two types of smartwatch companies: The ones who saw that the initial demand will wear off and are playing the long game, and the ones who wanted to make a quick buck cashing in on an new market that will drop the entire product line when the going gets tough. Which companies are which is left as an exercise to the buyer.
Why offer programming people want to see when you can just impose a "reasonable" 300GB/month cap on your internet-only offering for "network management" that magically goes away when you pay an additional $30-50/month or bundle in a TV package?
I feel like they're going for what they had when they owned Motorola. Basically stock Android with Google Apps and a few extras (like enhanced camera apps and the like.)
As long as they don't do things like bundle "special offers" as non-removable systems apps and continue with the Nexus update policy, I don't really see it as a problem. (New versions for at least 18 months, security updates for at least 36 months.)
Hopefully, this time, they won't sell it all to Lenovo.
True. They do eventually stop when people stop putting money in the machine, though.
Er... what?
If we go by that metric, then the fastest internet is satellite or cellular. Those are available in far more places than Comcast (or cable in general) is and are usually faster than a landline with a 56k modem. (Which, despite the copper network being largely left to rot be some phone companies, is STILL more ubiquitous than cable.)
How to enable to movie theaters to compete:
1. Make in-home screens larger than 42 inches illegal.
2. Make in-home audio systems with more than two speakers illegal.
3. Make fast forward/skip and rewind/back buttons illegal.
4. Start embedding random phone ringing, talking and infant screeching in the audio tracks of Bluray and DVD.
5. Require that home systems 1% chance making a curtain appear in front of the left and right edges of the picture. (Make sure it's time based so restarting won't fix it.)
6. Require that home systems digitally add film scratches and artifacts when playing older movies.
With all these perfectly reasonable requests implemented, people should start seeing the value in coming to the theater more. Anything less is a dire threat to the world economy and entertainment industry, both of which are very clearly on the brink of collapse because of criminals who have been allowed to brazenly pirate elements of proprietary theater designs into so-called "home theater systems."
Based on my cursory Googling:
Microsoft keyboards have been broken for a while.
http://arstechnica.com/securit...
Logitech apparently actually uses 128-bit AES, though the question of how they generate their symmetric key isn't exactly answered in a way that's satisfying.
http://www.logitech.com/images...
Not sure about Dell. Couldn't find much on their keyboards with my cursory Googling. They seem to mostly rebrand other people's wireless keyboards?
And Apple keyboards all seem to be bluetooth.
I always assume wireless keyboard are cheap consumer products built by the lowest bidder and designed by people whose primary interest is getting a product out the door in advance of or for the next big release of whatever their company's actual product is.
Most wireless keyboards' performance reflects that. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest their security is similar.
That's amazing. My tech at least had the tools to do the job.
That reminds me of a conversation I had with a FiOS installer circa 2009.
"Er, can you run CAT5 instead of coax?"
"No, you need coax for TV."
"You're not installing TV, though. Just Internet. Can we run CAT5?"
"You might get TV later."
"Nope. I won't. And even if I did, you'd be sending out another installer anyway. Can we run CAT5?"
"I don't know how to crimp CAT5..."
If there's some specific feature I need for something or other, then yes.
That almost never happens.
I remember that. Two years ago, they sent out emails saying "New subscribers will pay $9.99/month, but you'll be able to keep your $7.99/month price for two years."
Two years later, here we are.
I would say that the only reason browsing the web is "good" on a tablet is because browser and website authors have worked (to varying degrees of success) to make it so.
In the mid-to-late 2000's, when the touch screen smart phones were starting to take off, a lot of websites were not touch friendly at all. Many of them assumed that "hover" was a meaningful action you could take and incorporated things like Flash animations or menus that you had to hover over to activate.
Most of the things you mention that are "bad" are because little effort has gone into them other than trying to badly emulate the old ways. There's no reason you can't have a good touch screen game. But if you just throw a virtual D-pad and SNES buttons on the screen, you're gonna have a bad time.
Also, infrared cut filters for SLRs are $20 on Amazon. I suspect it won't take long for someone to make one that fits discretely over a phone camera lens (perhaps as part of a phone case) that blocks the relevant wavelengths.
Didn't we do this with stoplights at some point?
Didn't they have to pass laws banning normal people from having the devices that changed the lights?
I mean, how hard would it be to modify one of these to send out the camera-disabling signal?
https://www.adafruit.com/produ...
I'm sure their management will deny up and down that this had anything to do with the case they just lost and that the timing is "purely coincidental."
But I suspect that their legal department emailed someone in management an Excel spreadsheet detailing the costs of losing that case and how much it would cost to defend similar cases now that there is precedent. The manager probably multiplied that number by some number that may or may not reflect the actual number of users with similar claims and said "Shit, that's actually a lot of money. Maybe we should stop."
Still doesn't change the fact that they spent the last 11 months gleefully burning the modicum of trust in Windows Update they had had managed to build up over the last few years.
A year ago, if someone said to me "I disable Windows Updates on all my computers," I would have called them an idiot. Now, I just shrug as I understand why they do it.
Do I know about alternatives that are fairly effective at blocking the forced upgrades? Sure. But I'm not willing to take on an additional support burden to help maintain Microsoft's security posture.
If Microsoft wants to throw away years of trying to convince people that Windows Updates won't fuck their computers up, let them.
GP is thinking of the Nexus 7 2012 model. The one without the back-facing camera. That was the one that was stopped.
The Nexus 7 2013 model is still getting updates.
Lest we forget that there were two tablets called "Nexus 7." For some reason.
When discussing what source control system to use for any new project, how often does BitKeeper even come up as a suggestion?
In my experience, most conversations of that nature start out with git versus Subversion. Mercurial might get thrown in if git is "too hard." Microsoft's solution might get suggested if it's a Microsoft-centered project. CVS might get brought up by the C-level who read about it in a magazine in the 90's and/or is a year or two from retirement. But BitKeeper? Never even seems to come close to the list.
It was one of the first things I disabled. I disabled it for the same reason I disabled the Amazon search integration in Ubuntu.
I've never quite understood why I would want my application launcher to search the web.
Now, if Microsoft did something dumb like make it so you can't disable Cortana, that might just be enough to make me replace Windows with something else. (Haven't wanted to put in the effort, but they are really making it hard to justify not putting the effort in. That might be the proverbial straw.)