I'll keep the DC lighting circuit (there's a DC refrigerator on its own circuit, too) because I like to have options. My inverter blew a control board once and while it was being repaired I only had the generator for AC - and it's not healthy for electronics to run directly off a generator. I still had lighting and refrigeration running directly off the batteries.
Two options - don't run any low-voltage DC. PV + batteries + inverter to produce 240VAC for everything (plus a backup generator, of course). There are efficiency losses converting PV/battery DC to AC, and losses again when charging batteries, but you don't have to worry about losses in the cable runs. Also, 240VAC cable, lights, and appliances are CHEAP, compared to 24VDC cable, lights and appliances. I should know, I live in a house dual-wired for 24VDC and 240VAC. 24 volt light bulbs either halogen or LED are not cheap, and 24 volt CFLs are non-existent. I've started re-wiring each 24 volt light socket as the 24 volt bulb dies - to take 2 x 12 volt bulbs in serial. 12 volt bulbs are cheap and plentiful.
The other option is to use 240 volt cabling for your DC. Forget the earth wire, and use multiple cable runs. The cost of domestic 240 volt cable is tiny compared to equivalent-rated DC cable. You can afford to put multiple cable runs per room. A 10-amp cable doesn't care whether it carries DC or AC, you just need to make sure the total load doesn't exceed 10 amps. Losses over long runs are still an issue, but that can be calculated in the design, and if your losses are going to be a problem, you can either decide to spend big on heavy-gauge DC cable, or revert to option #1 above.
That's how my place was wired by the original builder. The only heavy-gauge DC cable are the runs from the roof PV to the batteries downstairs. I used to be worried about upgrading light bulbs from 60 or 75 watts to 100 watts, but since drop-in LED Bi-pin bulbs have become available, it's not a concern any more.
Climate/ecology doesn't care who's the biggest "per capita" producer of pollutants. It's the total amount produced world-wide, with localised effects where humans have decided to let large cities grow in smog-prone locations.
At least until recently, Australia is/was a bigger "per capita" producer of CO2 and other greenhouse gases than the USA, but its total contribution to greenhouse gases is miniscule compared to India (or China).
"Per capita" figures are really only useful within 2 or 3 orders of magnitude, at least in this discussion. It's not useful to compare per capita of Australia vs. India when the total amounts produced is what's causing the problems associated with climate change.
$BIGNUM invested in the reduction of emissions in India will have a much greater effect overall than the same amount invested in Australia, or the USA. I'd argue that {$BIGNUM sufficient to reduce Australia's emissions to zero} would be helpful, but that amount would do a better job for the planet if it were spent in India.
Geez, it's in the first line of the article: "Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a "desktop-as-a-service" (DaaS) offering."
And it'll be up to a court to decide liability. Nothing in a EULA or even arbitration clauses can remove your right to sue. If someone else assumes the decision-making power over the uptime of your emergency services comms gateway (e.g. the PC mentioned above), they can assume the responsibilites, too.
Judge: "Let me make sure I understand this. Your company decided that the emergency services comms gateway would shut down to complete updates at 2:17am on the 10th ?" MS Lawyer: "Yes, your honour" Judge: "During the wildfire?" MS Lawyer: "My client didn't know about the wildfire" Judge: "Did they not think to ask? Why not use a - what do they call it?" Prosecutor: "A dialogue box, your honour. It presents a question and the ability to answer 'no' or 'yes'." Judge: "Ah, yes, a dialogue box" MS Lawyer: "Only a small percentage of people have their computers in use at that time. It causes the least disruption." Judge: "Tell that to the dead firefighters and their families. In fact, tell it to 999 when your house is on fire. I find for the plaintiff. Case closed."
I bought 5.5 after 6 had been announced, so I got a box with 5.5 discs, and an upgrade code to 6.
It also had a version 4 disc "to assist 32-bit users to transition to 64-bit".
So I got 3 versions for the price of 1, no way Adobe is going to get more of my money - I can continue running them in Win 7 (as a guest under Debian when this hardware craps out).
There will be lawsuits by the hundreds, if not thousands, when your "managed desktop" causes downtime in excess of the EULA, or if, in your case, an emergency cannot be managed properly because the damned computer went down for an update, and one or more people die as a result.
I imagine emergency services will be told to buy redundant systems so that computer "A" can update while computer "B" maintains services - or something along those lines.
If Microsoft want control of your desktop, they can damn well pay for the consequences.
I will run Win 7 as a guest under Debian until the heat death of the universe. If I'm ever required to run software that will only run under Windows Managed Desktop, it too will run in a VM. I'm learning a lot about iptables these days.
I used to enjoy them, my best was 16 minutes and screaming abuse at the end, but I got 4 in one day, so I blocked all incoming international calls. They dropped off for a while, but now they're spoofing local numbers. Sometimes I answer, sometimes I don't.
I've got some hindi swear/abuse phrases ready to go (stuff like "you're the result of a toilet cleaner fucking a goat"), but my best was asking the girl from "Windows technical department" what her mother would think of her activities. She went silent for about 10 seconds, then hung up.
This is marketed as a high-performance laptop, yes? The sort of machine to be used for heavy workloads like video editing, so why wasn't it tested under the workloads it's supposed to be good for?
Video editing is exactly one of the things this is aimed at. Rendering is a normal part of VE, so it's not a very specific scenario, nor is it an artificial workload.
It's impossible to empathise with a robot. When it's a human up there, even a human stunt performer made up to look like the hero or villain, and we know they're well-trained and well-paid, there's that little touch of engagement between us and the performer.
If it's a robot, who cares if the stunt goes wrong, it falls, and breaks its head?
I don't have a deep understanding about this, but doesn't it come down to the protections afforded to carriers that they aren't held responsible for the traffic they carry?
IOW, if you want the privilege of protection from carrying illegal content, e.g. child pron, you have to have a "hands off" approach to the traffic. Once you start examining that traffic to decide whether to carry it or not, you assume some of the responsibility for that content.
Don't the big ISPs want that protection but *still* be able to examine traffic (for shaping/throttling/billing purposes)?
IIRC Rowling signed over everything but the copyright on the books to WB. I think there's a statement in the closing credits saying something like "all characters, placenames, etc,etc are copyright warner Brothers. All books are copyright J.K. Rowling"
She has rights to create new works in the world, but not to exploit the original books any further than to promote their sales.
Not everyone has the latest and greatest hardware, or a decent, let alone high-speed internet connection. 1.5MBit/s is common around here. Nor - like a lot of my retired customers - do they have the money for the latest and greatest. I haven't seen a 486 for a while, but core2duos with Vista are still common. Do I tell them to upgrade? Sure I do. But they're mostly pensioners and have better things to spend the money on. I also tell them what will happen if malware gets in. Then I do a performance tuneup as best I can.
Now - I've seen chrome freeze, then crash the entire browser. Happened on my ex-wife's computer a few weeks ago. You're lucky it hasn't happened to you. Although it's a good idea in theory, anything can and does happen.
It's not the requests every hour that I mind so much (IME hourly checks simply aren't necessary for domestic users), but that so many programs think they need to do it at logon - while the owner waits, staring at a spinning hourglass. It's simply not necessary. If there was a trigger in MS Task scheduler that said "10/20/30 minutes AFTER logon", that'd be great. I like the option in Windows services to have an automatic but delayed start. it's not available for all processes.
It's a BIG perceived and actual performance gain if I can defer those checks until sometime after logon. FWIW I've not seen a virus, ransomware, or other malware infection for months. IMO the security suites are generally getting better at resisting these attacks. I make an educated assessment of their risk based on questions, needs, and other metrics, and then I tune their computers accordingly. Kids who surf lots of gaming and probably questionable websites? Turn the security up to 11. Ditto businesses with indifferent backup strategies (and don't think I don't berate people for not having dependable offsite backups). Pensioners who look at the weather and the sports results, and nothing else? Performance starts to take a higher priority. I'm approaching 60 myself and life is too short to spend waiting on pre-emptive URL scanning from FUD-loaded security suites. AVG I'm looking at you.
Every time I see the sheer quantity of chrome or google processes on a PC, I cringe. Why does chrome need 4 processes before it displays a home/start page? Why does google schedule update checks once at logon and then *every hour*?
Everytime I run a perforamance tuneup on someone's PC, the first place I check is Windows Task Scheduler. Change the frequency of google's updates back to once per day, and NOT at logon. Ditto Adobe's products, and a bunch of Microsoft updates/uploads/telemetry.
NASA, an organisation with decades of experience with space-related matters, and decades of data from manned and unmanned missions, some fuckups but mostly glorious successes, or the ex-CTO of a company with a reputation for, well, a reputation like Microsoft's?
Microsoft have been known to produce some good products, but they should *never* be first port of call when seeking technical solutions, or considering software.
He probably wants counter-asteroid systems to all be running some version of Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
" Weight, even on something as weight insensitive as a ship at sea, will become an issue with this kind of energy density differential."
Perhaps the batteries can replace some of the ballast?
I'll keep the DC lighting circuit (there's a DC refrigerator on its own circuit, too) because I like to have options. My inverter blew a control board once and while it was being repaired I only had the generator for AC - and it's not healthy for electronics to run directly off a generator. I still had lighting and refrigeration running directly off the batteries.
Two options - don't run any low-voltage DC. PV + batteries + inverter to produce 240VAC for everything (plus a backup generator, of course). There are efficiency losses converting PV/battery DC to AC, and losses again when charging batteries, but you don't have to worry about losses in the cable runs. Also, 240VAC cable, lights, and appliances are CHEAP, compared to 24VDC cable, lights and appliances. I should know, I live in a house dual-wired for 24VDC and 240VAC. 24 volt light bulbs either halogen or LED are not cheap, and 24 volt CFLs are non-existent. I've started re-wiring each 24 volt light socket as the 24 volt bulb dies - to take 2 x 12 volt bulbs in serial. 12 volt bulbs are cheap and plentiful.
The other option is to use 240 volt cabling for your DC. Forget the earth wire, and use multiple cable runs. The cost of domestic 240 volt cable is tiny compared to equivalent-rated DC cable. You can afford to put multiple cable runs per room. A 10-amp cable doesn't care whether it carries DC or AC, you just need to make sure the total load doesn't exceed 10 amps. Losses over long runs are still an issue, but that can be calculated in the design, and if your losses are going to be a problem, you can either decide to spend big on heavy-gauge DC cable, or revert to option #1 above.
That's how my place was wired by the original builder. The only heavy-gauge DC cable are the runs from the roof PV to the batteries downstairs. I used to be worried about upgrading light bulbs from 60 or 75 watts to 100 watts, but since drop-in LED Bi-pin bulbs have become available, it's not a concern any more.
Splitting things between different contractors is just going to end up with people pointing fingers at each other.
"It's not out fault, talk to {other provider}"
At least with a single provider you can pin them down.
Climate/ecology doesn't care who's the biggest "per capita" producer of pollutants. It's the total amount produced world-wide, with localised effects where humans have decided to let large cities grow in smog-prone locations.
At least until recently, Australia is/was a bigger "per capita" producer of CO2 and other greenhouse gases than the USA, but its total contribution to greenhouse gases is miniscule compared to India (or China).
"Per capita" figures are really only useful within 2 or 3 orders of magnitude, at least in this discussion. It's not useful to compare per capita of Australia vs. India when the total amounts produced is what's causing the problems associated with climate change.
$BIGNUM invested in the reduction of emissions in India will have a much greater effect overall than the same amount invested in Australia, or the USA. I'd argue that {$BIGNUM sufficient to reduce Australia's emissions to zero} would be helpful, but that amount would do a better job for the planet if it were spent in India.
You must be a son of a silly person. /knnnnnnniggit
Geez, it's in the first line of the article:
"Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a "desktop-as-a-service" (DaaS) offering."
And it'll be up to a court to decide liability. Nothing in a EULA or even arbitration clauses can remove your right to sue. If someone else assumes the decision-making power over the uptime of your emergency services comms gateway (e.g. the PC mentioned above), they can assume the responsibilites, too.
Judge: "Let me make sure I understand this. Your company decided that the emergency services comms gateway would shut down to complete updates at 2:17am on the 10th ?"
MS Lawyer: "Yes, your honour"
Judge: "During the wildfire?"
MS Lawyer: "My client didn't know about the wildfire"
Judge: "Did they not think to ask? Why not use a - what do they call it?"
Prosecutor: "A dialogue box, your honour. It presents a question and the ability to answer 'no' or 'yes'."
Judge: "Ah, yes, a dialogue box"
MS Lawyer: "Only a small percentage of people have their computers in use at that time. It causes the least disruption."
Judge: "Tell that to the dead firefighters and their families. In fact, tell it to 999 when your house is on fire. I find for the plaintiff. Case closed."
I bought 5.5 after 6 had been announced, so I got a box with 5.5 discs, and an upgrade code to 6.
It also had a version 4 disc "to assist 32-bit users to transition to 64-bit".
So I got 3 versions for the price of 1, no way Adobe is going to get more of my money - I can continue running them in Win 7 (as a guest under Debian when this hardware craps out).
Yeah, you paid a bucketload of $$$ per month for maintenance, but at least you got service.
Well, back in the good ol' days (tm). IBM's service was pretty good.
There will be lawsuits by the hundreds, if not thousands, when your "managed desktop" causes downtime in excess of the EULA, or if, in your case, an emergency cannot be managed properly because the damned computer went down for an update, and one or more people die as a result.
I imagine emergency services will be told to buy redundant systems so that computer "A" can update while computer "B" maintains services - or something along those lines.
If Microsoft want control of your desktop, they can damn well pay for the consequences.
I will run Win 7 as a guest under Debian until the heat death of the universe. If I'm ever required to run software that will only run under Windows Managed Desktop, it too will run in a VM. I'm learning a lot about iptables these days.
And three hard-boiled eggs.
I used to enjoy them, my best was 16 minutes and screaming abuse at the end, but I got 4 in one day, so I blocked all incoming international calls. They dropped off for a while, but now they're spoofing local numbers. Sometimes I answer, sometimes I don't.
I've got some hindi swear/abuse phrases ready to go (stuff like "you're the result of a toilet cleaner fucking a goat"), but my best was asking the girl from "Windows technical department" what her mother would think of her activities. She went silent for about 10 seconds, then hung up.
But that's who/what the laptop is aimed at.
So, specific, but not unusual.
"very specific scenarios" "artificial workloads"
This is marketed as a high-performance laptop, yes? The sort of machine to be used for heavy workloads like video editing, so why wasn't it tested under the workloads it's supposed to be good for?
Video editing is exactly one of the things this is aimed at. Rendering is a normal part of VE, so it's not a very specific scenario, nor is it an artificial workload.
Or does it cover each and every third-party domain, e.g. all the advertising domains pinged by landing on a web page?
Those domains are just as dangerous, if not more so, than the domain shown in the address bar.
It's impossible to empathise with a robot. When it's a human up there, even a human stunt performer made up to look like the hero or villain, and we know they're well-trained and well-paid, there's that little touch of engagement between us and the performer.
If it's a robot, who cares if the stunt goes wrong, it falls, and breaks its head?
I don't have a deep understanding about this, but doesn't it come down to the protections afforded to carriers that they aren't held responsible for the traffic they carry?
IOW, if you want the privilege of protection from carrying illegal content, e.g. child pron, you have to have a "hands off" approach to the traffic. Once you start examining that traffic to decide whether to carry it or not, you assume some of the responsibility for that content.
Don't the big ISPs want that protection but *still* be able to examine traffic (for shaping/throttling/billing purposes)?
Australia's No-Broadband-Service can't cope with existing loads. What's this going to do to peak-time speeds?
Yes, but this is talking specifically about *facial recognition*.
If enough people start wearing anti-surveillance clothing:
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
it just might reduce the success rate below "justifiable cost"
IIRC Rowling signed over everything but the copyright on the books to WB. I think there's a statement in the closing credits saying something like "all characters, placenames, etc,etc are copyright warner Brothers. All books are copyright J.K. Rowling"
She has rights to create new works in the world, but not to exploit the original books any further than to promote their sales.
Thanks. It's good to keep learning new things. Now I've got a bit more knowledge to help me make decisions. Cheers
Not everyone has the latest and greatest hardware, or a decent, let alone high-speed internet connection. 1.5MBit/s is common around here. Nor - like a lot of my retired customers - do they have the money for the latest and greatest. I haven't seen a 486 for a while, but core2duos with Vista are still common. Do I tell them to upgrade? Sure I do. But they're mostly pensioners and have better things to spend the money on. I also tell them what will happen if malware gets in. Then I do a performance tuneup as best I can.
Now - I've seen chrome freeze, then crash the entire browser. Happened on my ex-wife's computer a few weeks ago. You're lucky it hasn't happened to you. Although it's a good idea in theory, anything can and does happen.
It's not the requests every hour that I mind so much (IME hourly checks simply aren't necessary for domestic users), but that so many programs think they need to do it at logon - while the owner waits, staring at a spinning hourglass. It's simply not necessary. If there was a trigger in MS Task scheduler that said "10/20/30 minutes AFTER logon", that'd be great. I like the option in Windows services to have an automatic but delayed start. it's not available for all processes.
It's a BIG perceived and actual performance gain if I can defer those checks until sometime after logon. FWIW I've not seen a virus, ransomware, or other malware infection for months. IMO the security suites are generally getting better at resisting these attacks. I make an educated assessment of their risk based on questions, needs, and other metrics, and then I tune their computers accordingly. Kids who surf lots of gaming and probably questionable websites? Turn the security up to 11. Ditto businesses with indifferent backup strategies (and don't think I don't berate people for not having dependable offsite backups). Pensioners who look at the weather and the sports results, and nothing else? Performance starts to take a higher priority. I'm approaching 60 myself and life is too short to spend waiting on pre-emptive URL scanning from FUD-loaded security suites. AVG I'm looking at you.
Every time I see the sheer quantity of chrome or google processes on a PC, I cringe. Why does chrome need 4 processes before it displays a home/start page? Why does google schedule update checks once at logon and then *every hour*?
Everytime I run a perforamance tuneup on someone's PC, the first place I check is Windows Task Scheduler. Change the frequency of google's updates back to once per day, and NOT at logon. Ditto Adobe's products, and a bunch of Microsoft updates/uploads/telemetry.
NASA, an organisation with decades of experience with space-related matters, and decades of data from manned and unmanned missions, some fuckups but mostly glorious successes, or the ex-CTO of a company with a reputation for, well, a reputation like Microsoft's?
Microsoft have been known to produce some good products, but they should *never* be first port of call when seeking technical solutions, or considering software.
He probably wants counter-asteroid systems to all be running some version of Windows.