This kid at 20 while a CS student at UT of A sets up a web server in college and give unmonitored access. Some assholes post encrypted (how was that decrypted) porn on the server. That is what the feds are holding him on. They don't have shit. It wasn't his porn and they know it. Add another $10k to his student loans to teach him a lesson.
What happened? CIA was hacked and spectacularly. Got it. I would think it would take a team to accomplish this. How could you get this stuff out the door. One kid walks out with even code snippets after Snowden !? That is really hard to believe. I would have thought the doors were shut. Instead I would have expected a North Korean team pierced the security. They can't brag, so they post.
CIA investigators need to show progress, they find a kid who left CIA employment (with animosity for poor management, [imagine that]). They raid his place search all his stuff and find nothing. He was locked up and release on bail with instructions not to touch a computer. Give me a break. How can a millennial who makes a living on a computer, live without one. Busted for touching a computer and back in jail. His family is broke trying to defend their son.
Nothings moving so they sell him to the media as their prime suspect.
The Feds have nothing, so they are going to ruin another human being to protect their jobs. We wait another 45 days for charges and I bet you there will be no charges. They don't have squat and this kid rots.
I don't know the the guy, I have no connection to federal cyberspace, but if the entire weight of the federal prosecution system can't find anything but someone else's kiddy porn after holding him for a year, then the entire case is chick shit and Joshua Schulte is going to be burned at the stake by public opinion. My American Citizenship feels stained.
If anyone puts up a legit website to defend this kid and linked to his parents, they can have my $50.
This is the top search result for suicide on the web. The act is painless,inexpensive and generally safe. If you want to pass from this world, you should get acquainted with nitrogen masks.
Our atmosphere is 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 1% argon. We all breath in nitrogen with no impact. If we have too much carbon dioxide in our air our bodies try to pass the bad air and get rid of the CO2. To much CO2 in our lungs and we panic.
If we don't have oxygen, we get dizzy and pass out in a couple of breaths. Dead in 4 minutes. NO panic, rapid lose of consciousness. Death while unconscious.
I am not a fan of executions, but if the state wants to kill them, this is far more humane then lethal injection, electrocutions, hanging or firing squad.
They do need protocols. The nitrogen should be medical grade (ie not have any hydrocarbons) so once the act is finished spectators won't be impacted. The gas needs to be applied with a breathing mask, so the CO2 is removed with every breath and replaced with nitrogen to prevent any panic. The mask can be plumbed so the exhalations are removed such that they don't impact the O2 level in the room. There should be O2 level sensors in the room so any system failure would alert attending guards.
The execution can be designed such that the only the execution victim suffers oxygen deprivation. There is no need to remove oxygen from the whole room..
I am not sure anyone should be executed, but if they are going to be executed, I think this is the best way.
How is the load, now that you've been Slashdotted?
Is this still within a personal budget?
How about a report on how much this would cost the average Joe if he put it in the cloud and it went viral? Do you have a cost graph to go with the rest of the Azure Web App?
If you are going to chortle about the ease of Azure, perhaps you should be more specific about the pricing. I love the ease, but I fear the the cost.
As has been posted earlier mastering differential equations is an exercise in symbol manipulation, but the underlying equations are really important.
Mathematics is an ordering of nature via symbols. In the ordering of nature, Newton realized that most equations had a second level of ordering that described the original equation. These equations of differentiation and integration were achieved by making differencing ratios and approaching a limit. Differential formula can be used in every field of science. They are used regularly in Computer Science usually as an algorithm to optimize a process.
Learning to manipulate these equations in your situation is probably unnecessary. Understanding what these equations are used for in the real world is very useful. I suggest you consult Google for each equations use in real world situations, if only to give you some mnemonic for learning this stuff. (You can probably consult Google for the DE problem answers too.) If you know how the equation/formula is used in the real world you might see a use for the same concept in a program, hence it is good for a degree in CS.
On the flip side, a good teacher should be able to make this stuff come alive and be far less dry then you make it out to be. Your academic career will flourish if you spend a lot more time researching your teachers for next semester. Consider a different institution if the student consensus is that there are no good math teachers where you toil.
I've learned to do verbal calculations with my Android phone. Just say the calculation you want into voice search and Google will return the results. There is no need to carry both a phone and a calculator, and speaking the formula is much easier than trying to use a miniature calculator keyboard.
Henry Newman may know SSD drives but he doesn't know enterprise storage. Henry, enterprise shops don't talk about MB/s unless they are streaming video or working on their laptop.
All IO in the a storage networked enterprise are random. Most important IOs are usually small block (databases). There is no concept of MB/s of bandwidth except to gauge channel capacity. Any one who does enterprise storage works in IOPS. SSD drives smoke for random IOPS to the tune of 50x for writes and 200x for reads (MLC vs same size 15k RPM drives). These are significant numbers. Even if we lost 1/2 the write IOPS to wear leveling, that would be 25x faster. Want your database to scream.
RAID controllers will only be able to do RAID 10. Most RAID controllers can do RAID 10 in their sleep. The bottle neck will now be the channels in and out of the controllers. The first roll out of SSD storage in the enterprise will be direct attached SSD trays to bus attached controllers with the most external channels (bandwidth).
SSD drives are going to choke SAN channels. In a couple of years when administrators want to network their SSD drives there will be a really big push to get better pipes in the SAN. I wonder if inifiniband will get back in the mix?
This kind of disruptive technology keeps us employed.
This is low level non-ionizing radiation, so the only real effect is body heating. Generally body heating is dispersed (except in the eyeballs and testicles) by the flow of body fluids. It takes a lot of power to heat a human body (even eyeballs). There probably isn't enough heat being generated in your body by radio wave absorption to be measured.
However you do sleep in one position. These types of antennas are highly directional and they could have hotspots. Cell towers operators don't care about RF hazards except to satisfy the FCC. If you are worried, you could put some grounded foil on the wall between your bed and the antenna and make a modified tin foil hat.
Nor does MS make it easy to write 3rd party drivers. There documentation is usually incorrect and the samples inoperative. If MS can't get their drivers to work, how is a vendor suppose to do it.
As for beta drivers, forget it. This guy expects every vendor to spend hours of dev time making drivers for a growing tree. No. No. No.
Nobody even tried to write a driver for 2008 until it was RTM, and that isn't much of a window.
Henry Newman is talking about PC storage not enterprise storage. He discusses all disk IO performance in MBs/sec, meaning sequential. When in reality, very little (disk level) IO for the enterprise is sequential. The numbers here are flawed as is the characterization of storage.
Storage is where we keep our data. Keeping data is a central requirement of information technology. It will never be a peripheral feature.
Presently the real IO bottleneck is the spinning platter and the requirements of getting a read/write head to the right place quickly. Newer solid state storage devices will alleviate this bottleneck in the very near future. Perhaps PCM is the solution, but I for one will wait for a GB/$ threshold at which time the winning solid state storage will be available to everyone.
Mr. Newman talks about inter-computer bus speeds as not keeping up with CPUs and memory, when in fact they keeping up. The place where data transport still can't keep up, is serially on a single transport, (wire or optical). Networked (switchable) data needs to be serial single transport for a number of obvious reasons. Like the platter, this is a physical limitation and not easily surmounted.
If and when we get +10GB/sec consumer networks, storage networks (transporting SCSI blocks) will become a thing of the past as we pass and store all our data in an application aware protocol.
An Air Force document specified that the capsule's seats are to swivel such that "the longitudinal axis of the seat is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft" regardless of where the capsules are facing.
The statement is pretty convoluted. I would think that the longitudinal axis of a seat is vertically through the seat (the long way). I know the longitudinal axis of a plane, but a seat really doesn't have a defined longitudinal axis. I suspect they are talking about beds.
Are they trying to say that no matter how this thing is installed, all the seats can be slept in and the brass can face there feet (or head) forward?
Why? If they do sleep why must so much space be wasted so each seat can do the longitudinal thing regardless of the capsule orientation?
I suggest they bolt them to the wall, and force the capsule so the wall is perpendicular to the aircraft longitudinal.
Everyone is different and in your case, the lure of gaming lead to a career in technology. Thats great.
So should your parents have just thrown in the towel and let you play games without having to work for it? Would you be a better person for them having given in to your juvenile urges? Were your parents cruel and vindictive tyrants?
Probably not.
You probably didn't turn out so bad and their attempts to demonstrate family values, didn't hurt you.
By the way, my kids, who aren't interested in technology at all have been told that if they could circumvent my internet restrictions, (spoof MACs) then they could have unfettered access. This was sort of a learn technology carrot that they aren't interested in. Go figure.
Otter Escaping North has this just right. This isn't a small problem. This is a parenting exercise and not a technical one.
For my kids, I have a router that blocks their access at individually scheduled times for each MAC address. I won't let them on the internet unless I'm awake. My rule to my children, regarding access, is that all browsing, IM and email are public to me. On a weekly basis, I walk in, have them get off their machine and see what they are doing.
Every now and then I catch them doing something in appropriate and they loose access for some length of time.
For the mother who ask, if she doesn't have the skill sets to manage router access, then put the computer in a common area of the house and check it regularly. Take the cords to bed with you and threaten severe punishment if the child powers the machine up with spare cords. If your worried about the child going to the other house, then go check out the other house. If the parents there aren't interested in watching their children, don't let them go.
I've read the newsgroup thread and I am sort of surprised that this got to Slashdot.
If I had a guess, I would think that the audio access to the disk is causing problems with their file copy access. I don't see any perfmon stats captured, nor do any of the newsgroup participants indicate, what threads are running, with how many IO, by using Process Explorer or Task Manager. This could be DRM, but no one has come up with any clear explanation.
I know MS brings fear and loathing to most Slashdotters, but until someone, who has a decent understanding of Vista, announces a DRM issue, and explains the problem clearly, this sort of thing should be ignored for the FUD it is.
As to the actual side the gas cap goes on, I don't care. Cars are designed and manufactured for which side of the road they drive on. I don't see British cars on the Autobahn (much). So designing where the gas cap goes, can be market specific.
You do make a good point about the muffler and perhaps it should be away from the curb. If so, put all gas caps on the passenger side.
I'm only looking for consistency (within a market segment) to minimize traffic hassles at the petrol station.
I've never been in an accident, I take responsibility for my actions, and I take exception to being called stupid, by some self-proclaimed NEO-"pathological-techno-fetishist-with-social-def icit", who probably doesn't have anything more than a driver's permit.
If a majority of the population sees the value in such a proposition, and convinces their administration to create driver UI standards, than this is probably for the greater good. Whereas you would probably apply your anarchistic rant to driving on the same side of the road as everyone else.
Exactly. I'm not really picky on the actual standardization, but standardization of the driving interface would be good for most drivers.
As to some of the less important controls, you noted.
Gas Cap: How often is there congestion at the pump because everyone is going either left or right of a pump to get gas. If all the caps were on the driver side, this sort of confusion would be eliminated. I can't see any value in having a special gas cap placement. There is also the release for the gas cap. At several gas stations, I've had to stop and RTFM just to open the gas cap. (And to the AC, yes I can peruse a manual as can most \.ers)
Cruise Control: This is the one control I invariably forget to learn prior to driving a car away. I have a bad back and find holding the gas pedal painful, so I reach for the cruise control, but they are always different. Why? I have to stop and learn the control or if I'm late suffer the backache.
Window controls: I once drove a PT Cruiser and pulled up to a toll booth. The window controls were on the center console, where I would never have expected them. I ended up climbing out of the car to pay the toll.
I hadn't thought about the defogger, but it too should be a simple, clear and consistent control.
It is great that the software in cars will be standardized, but how about the driving experience.
I drive different rental cars every week and I am amazed at how dissimilar the controls are.
I suggest that the automakers, or our government, make the controls and indicators for: gear shifter, emergency brake, lights, turn signals, wipers, speedometer, fuel gauge, pedals, gas cap, side mirrors, window controls, emergency flasher, panel dimmer, power locks and cruise control, standardized on all cars.
How many accidents have occurred because the driver was looking for or trying to use a control incorrectly.
What it says is not all price flooring is automatically illegal (per se). If the pricing is used to generate services or differentiate the product within a market to be competitive then why not.
What SCOTUS is arguing is that price flooring needs to be decided on it's merits (rule of reason). They say, it is still illegal to have price flooring within a manufacturing cabal. It is also illegal to have price flooring for a monopoly (as if that makes any difference). Generally price flooring is illegal if it is anticompetitive and legal of it is pro-competive.
As to the sale of handbags, anyone can make a handbag and thousands do. In this case the manufacturer had floor pricing to maintain marketing material and consumer cache. This manufacturer wanted a small botique feel to the sale of their products and not a Walmart experience. The retailer in question just wanted to boost sales by under cutting smaller shops and make their margin on volume. The retailer had signed agreements to price floors.
In this case, I too favor the manufacturer. SCOTUS has not thrown out the Sherman act, but merely noted that price flooring in certain circumstances can be OK. I'll still buy handbags at WallyWorld.
As a business owner I have been upset with Google Maps because their maps didn't correctly position my establishment. With this new feature, I immediately fixed their map location, added 10 pictures, an intro blurb and several other pieces of metadata. This can only improve my business's visibility.
The end result should be a very accurate database => Google's value rises. This database entry is very happy. All in all a win-win situation.
I wonder how I fix my stuff on Yahoo and any other search engine.
Slashdot Mirror
What do the Feds have?
This kid at 20 while a CS student at UT of A sets up a web server in college and give unmonitored access. Some assholes post encrypted (how was that decrypted) porn on the server. That is what the feds are holding him on. They don't have shit. It wasn't his porn and they know it. Add another $10k to his student loans to teach him a lesson.
What happened?
CIA was hacked and spectacularly. Got it. I would think it would take a team to accomplish this. How could you get this stuff out the door. One kid walks out with even code snippets after Snowden !? That is really hard to believe. I would have thought the doors were shut. Instead I would have expected a North Korean team pierced the security. They can't brag, so they post.
CIA investigators need to show progress, they find a kid who left CIA employment (with animosity for poor management, [imagine that]). They raid his place search all his stuff and find nothing. He was locked up and release on bail with instructions not to touch a computer. Give me a break. How can a millennial who makes a living on a computer, live without one. Busted for touching a computer and back in jail. His family is broke trying to defend their son.
Nothings moving so they sell him to the media as their prime suspect.
The Feds have nothing, so they are going to ruin another human being to protect their jobs. We wait another 45 days for charges and I bet you there will be no charges. They don't have squat and this kid rots.
I don't know the the guy, I have no connection to federal cyberspace, but if the entire weight of the federal prosecution system can't find anything but someone else's kiddy porn after holding him for a year, then the entire case is chick shit and Joshua Schulte is going to be burned at the stake by public opinion. My American Citizenship feels stained.
If anyone puts up a legit website to defend this kid and linked to his parents, they can have my $50.
This is the top search result for suicide on the web. The act is painless,inexpensive and generally safe. If you want to pass from this world, you should get acquainted with nitrogen masks.
Our atmosphere is 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 1% argon. We all breath in nitrogen with no impact. If we have too much carbon dioxide in our air our bodies try to pass the bad air and get rid of the CO2. To much CO2 in our lungs and we panic.
If we don't have oxygen, we get dizzy and pass out in a couple of breaths. Dead in 4 minutes. NO panic, rapid lose of consciousness. Death while unconscious.
I am not a fan of executions, but if the state wants to kill them, this is far more humane then lethal injection, electrocutions, hanging or firing squad.
They do need protocols. The nitrogen should be medical grade (ie not have any hydrocarbons) so once the act is finished spectators won't be impacted. The gas needs to be applied with a breathing mask, so the CO2 is removed with every breath and replaced with nitrogen to prevent any panic. The mask can be plumbed so the exhalations are removed such that they don't impact the O2 level in the room. There should be O2 level sensors in the room so any system failure would alert attending guards.
The execution can be designed such that the only the execution victim suffers oxygen deprivation. There is no need to remove oxygen from the whole room..
I am not sure anyone should be executed, but if they are going to be executed, I think this is the best way.
Listen to the RadioLab podcast:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/91721-oops/
In particular the first segment: "Be Careful What You Plan For".
The Unibomber had his personality fried by the US government. If I had been tortured like that I am sure I would be just as asocial as Ted.
The whole story has implications for all the other torture done by the US Goverment in the "War on Terrorism".
Mat notes how Azure is handling the load after the first few hours:
http://www.matvelloso.com/2015...
Mat,
How is the load, now that you've been Slashdotted?
Is this still within a personal budget?
How about a report on how much this would cost the average Joe if he put it in the cloud and it went viral? Do you have a cost graph to go with the rest of the Azure Web App?
If you are going to chortle about the ease of Azure, perhaps you should be more specific about the pricing. I love the ease, but I fear the the cost.
Ropati
As has been posted earlier mastering differential equations is an exercise in symbol manipulation, but the underlying equations are really important.
Mathematics is an ordering of nature via symbols. In the ordering of nature, Newton realized that most equations had a second level of ordering that described the original equation. These equations of differentiation and integration were achieved by making differencing ratios and approaching a limit. Differential formula can be used in every field of science. They are used regularly in Computer Science usually as an algorithm to optimize a process.
Learning to manipulate these equations in your situation is probably unnecessary. Understanding what these equations are used for in the real world is very useful. I suggest you consult Google for each equations use in real world situations, if only to give you some mnemonic for learning this stuff. (You can probably consult Google for the DE problem answers too.) If you know how the equation/formula is used in the real world you might see a use for the same concept in a program, hence it is good for a degree in CS.
On the flip side, a good teacher should be able to make this stuff come alive and be far less dry then you make it out to be. Your academic career will flourish if you spend a lot more time researching your teachers for next semester. Consider a different institution if the student consensus is that there are no good math teachers where you toil.
Why use keypads?
I've learned to do verbal calculations with my Android phone. Just say the calculation you want into voice search and Google will return the results. There is no need to carry both a phone and a calculator, and speaking the formula is much easier than trying to use a miniature calculator keyboard.
Henry Newman may know SSD drives but he doesn't know enterprise storage. Henry, enterprise shops don't talk about MB/s unless they are streaming video or working on their laptop.
All IO in the a storage networked enterprise are random. Most important IOs are usually small block (databases). There is no concept of MB/s of bandwidth except to gauge channel capacity. Any one who does enterprise storage works in IOPS. SSD drives smoke for random IOPS to the tune of 50x for writes and 200x for reads (MLC vs same size 15k RPM drives). These are significant numbers. Even if we lost 1/2 the write IOPS to wear leveling, that would be 25x faster. Want your database to scream.
RAID controllers will only be able to do RAID 10. Most RAID controllers can do RAID 10 in their sleep. The bottle neck will now be the channels in and out of the controllers. The first roll out of SSD storage in the enterprise will be direct attached SSD trays to bus attached controllers with the most external channels (bandwidth).
SSD drives are going to choke SAN channels. In a couple of years when administrators want to network their SSD drives there will be a really big push to get better pipes in the SAN. I wonder if inifiniband will get back in the mix?
This kind of disruptive technology keeps us employed.
If the hospital is tax payer funded, then you have every right as a taxpayer to take this memo to the board.
I would suggest that you gather a number of like minded taxpayers (and voters) and make a visit to the board to explain your stance.
You might want to do some research and find that your IT director got a free beer (golf trip) out of this. Fodder for the meeting.
George probably has it right.
This is low level non-ionizing radiation, so the only real effect is body heating. Generally body heating is dispersed (except in the eyeballs and testicles) by the flow of body fluids. It takes a lot of power to heat a human body (even eyeballs). There probably isn't enough heat being generated in your body by radio wave absorption to be measured.
However you do sleep in one position. These types of antennas are highly directional and they could have hotspots. Cell towers operators don't care about RF hazards except to satisfy the FCC. If you are worried, you could put some grounded foil on the wall between your bed and the antenna and make a modified tin foil hat.
WTF,
MS still hasn't fixed the storport driver with an OS release:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968675.
Nor does MS make it easy to write 3rd party drivers. There documentation is usually incorrect and the samples inoperative. If MS can't get their drivers to work, how is a vendor suppose to do it.
As for beta drivers, forget it. This guy expects every vendor to spend hours of dev time making drivers for a growing tree. No. No. No.
Nobody even tried to write a driver for 2008 until it was RTM, and that isn't much of a window.
Kevin has this right, what an obtuse article.
Henry Newman is talking about PC storage not enterprise storage. He discusses all disk IO performance in MBs/sec, meaning sequential. When in reality, very little (disk level) IO for the enterprise is sequential. The numbers here are flawed as is the characterization of storage.
Storage is where we keep our data. Keeping data is a central requirement of information technology. It will never be a peripheral feature.
Presently the real IO bottleneck is the spinning platter and the requirements of getting a read/write head to the right place quickly. Newer solid state storage devices will alleviate this bottleneck in the very near future. Perhaps PCM is the solution, but I for one will wait for a GB/$ threshold at which time the winning solid state storage will be available to everyone.
Mr. Newman talks about inter-computer bus speeds as not keeping up with CPUs and memory, when in fact they keeping up. The place where data transport still can't keep up, is serially on a single transport, (wire or optical). Networked (switchable) data needs to be serial single transport for a number of obvious reasons. Like the platter, this is a physical limitation and not easily surmounted.
If and when we get +10GB/sec consumer networks, storage networks (transporting SCSI blocks) will become a thing of the past as we pass and store all our data in an application aware protocol.
The article says:
An Air Force document specified that the capsule's seats are to swivel such that "the longitudinal axis of the seat is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft" regardless of where the capsules are facing.
The statement is pretty convoluted. I would think that the longitudinal axis of a seat is vertically through the seat (the long way). I know the longitudinal axis of a plane, but a seat really doesn't have a defined longitudinal axis. I suspect they are talking about beds.
Are they trying to say that no matter how this thing is installed, all the seats can be slept in and the brass can face there feet (or head) forward?
Why? If they do sleep why must so much space be wasted so each seat can do the longitudinal thing regardless of the capsule orientation?
I suggest they bolt them to the wall, and force the capsule so the wall is perpendicular to the aircraft longitudinal.
Thank you for the excellent translation.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/saturdayspin/254057_sorbos31.html
Ash,
Everyone is different and in your case, the lure of gaming lead to a career in technology. Thats great.
So should your parents have just thrown in the towel and let you play games without having to work for it? Would you be a better person for them having given in to your juvenile urges? Were your parents cruel and vindictive tyrants?
Probably not.
You probably didn't turn out so bad and their attempts to demonstrate family values, didn't hurt you.
By the way, my kids, who aren't interested in technology at all have been told that if they could circumvent my internet restrictions, (spoof MACs) then they could have unfettered access. This was sort of a learn technology carrot that they aren't interested in. Go figure.
Good luck with your own kids.
Otter Escaping North has this just right. This isn't a small problem. This is a parenting exercise and not a technical one.
For my kids, I have a router that blocks their access at individually scheduled times for each MAC address. I won't let them on the internet unless I'm awake. My rule to my children, regarding access, is that all browsing, IM and email are public to me. On a weekly basis, I walk in, have them get off their machine and see what they are doing.
Every now and then I catch them doing something in appropriate and they loose access for some length of time.
For the mother who ask, if she doesn't have the skill sets to manage router access, then put the computer in a common area of the house and check it regularly. Take the cords to bed with you and threaten severe punishment if the child powers the machine up with spare cords. If your worried about the child going to the other house, then go check out the other house. If the parents there aren't interested in watching their children, don't let them go.
Parenting is a way of life.
I've read the newsgroup thread and I am sort of surprised that this got to Slashdot.
If I had a guess, I would think that the audio access to the disk is causing problems with their file copy access. I don't see any perfmon stats captured, nor do any of the newsgroup participants indicate, what threads are running, with how many IO, by using Process Explorer or Task Manager. This could be DRM, but no one has come up with any clear explanation.
I know MS brings fear and loathing to most Slashdotters, but until someone, who has a decent understanding of Vista, announces a DRM issue, and explains the problem clearly, this sort of thing should be ignored for the FUD it is.
Gas caps are almost always on the opposite side from the muffler per Click and Clack, the Tappit Brothers.
As to the actual side the gas cap goes on, I don't care. Cars are designed and manufactured for which side of the road they drive on. I don't see British cars on the Autobahn (much). So designing where the gas cap goes, can be market specific.
You do make a good point about the muffler and perhaps it should be away from the curb. If so, put all gas caps on the passenger side.
I'm only looking for consistency (within a market segment) to minimize traffic hassles at the petrol station.
I've never been in an accident, I take responsibility for my actions, and I take exception to being called stupid, by some self-proclaimed NEO-"pathological-techno-fetishist-with-social-def icit", who probably doesn't have anything more than a driver's permit.
If a majority of the population sees the value in such a proposition, and convinces their administration to create driver UI standards, than this is probably for the greater good. Whereas you would probably apply your anarchistic rant to driving on the same side of the road as everyone else.
Fred,
Exactly. I'm not really picky on the actual standardization, but standardization of the driving interface would be good for most drivers.
As to some of the less important controls, you noted.
Gas Cap: How often is there congestion at the pump because everyone is going either left or right of a pump to get gas. If all the caps were on the driver side, this sort of confusion would be eliminated. I can't see any value in having a special gas cap placement. There is also the release for the gas cap. At several gas stations, I've had to stop and RTFM just to open the gas cap. (And to the AC, yes I can peruse a manual as can most \.ers)
Cruise Control: This is the one control I invariably forget to learn prior to driving a car away. I have a bad back and find holding the gas pedal painful, so I reach for the cruise control, but they are always different. Why? I have to stop and learn the control or if I'm late suffer the backache.
Window controls: I once drove a PT Cruiser and pulled up to a toll booth. The window controls were on the center console, where I would never have expected them. I ended up climbing out of the car to pay the toll.
I hadn't thought about the defogger, but it too should be a simple, clear and consistent control.
It is great that the software in cars will be standardized, but how about the driving experience.
I drive different rental cars every week and I am amazed at how dissimilar the controls are.
I suggest that the automakers, or our government, make the controls and indicators for:
gear shifter, emergency brake, lights, turn signals, wipers, speedometer, fuel gauge, pedals, gas cap, side mirrors, window controls, emergency flasher, panel dimmer, power locks and cruise control, standardized on all cars.
How many accidents have occurred because the driver was looking for or trying to use a control incorrectly.
If you follow the update KB article, you'll find MS has already found issues with the update.
.NET 2.0, reinstall .NET 2.0 and try to update again. Sounds kind of cyclical to me.
See:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928365/
Which leads to:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923100/
and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934711/
and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923101/
and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934793/
and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931846/
923100 says if you get hosed doing the update, uninstall
We can all read the SCOTUS decision: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/06-48 0.pdf
What it says is not all price flooring is automatically illegal (per se). If the pricing is used to generate services or differentiate the product within a market to be competitive then why not.
What SCOTUS is arguing is that price flooring needs to be decided on it's merits (rule of reason). They say, it is still illegal to have price flooring within a manufacturing cabal. It is also illegal to have price flooring for a monopoly (as if that makes any difference). Generally price flooring is illegal if it is anticompetitive and legal of it is pro-competive.
As to the sale of handbags, anyone can make a handbag and thousands do. In this case the manufacturer had floor pricing to maintain marketing material and consumer cache. This manufacturer wanted a small botique feel to the sale of their products and not a Walmart experience. The retailer in question just wanted to boost sales by under cutting smaller shops and make their margin on volume. The retailer had signed agreements to price floors.
In this case, I too favor the manufacturer. SCOTUS has not thrown out the Sherman act, but merely noted that price flooring in certain circumstances can be OK. I'll still buy handbags at WallyWorld.
Granular decision making: Good
Other than Google having accurate data that it can sell, the only cost is time filling out the web forms.
As a business owner I have been upset with Google Maps because their maps didn't correctly position my establishment. With this new feature, I immediately fixed their map location, added 10 pictures, an intro blurb and several other pieces of metadata. This can only improve my business's visibility.
The end result should be a very accurate database => Google's value rises. This database entry is very happy. All in all a win-win situation.
I wonder how I fix my stuff on Yahoo and any other search engine.