For someone with so much background I'm disappointed you have such a narrow view.
Yes, secure communication between security devices is a Good Thing. Totally agree there.
But there's no reason someone who owns their device and, given proper authentication, should be prevented from changing or re-issuing those device keys. If anything, this makes it MORE secure since only the user/owner has this ability and not the manufacturer.
A properly secured system does not need to obscure it's functions to remain secure.
It's easier to make a small device that's glued together for strength and has everything on one main board. Cheaper too if you discount repair.
The original iPod as an engineering marvel that utterly, completely trumped anything on the market. Not having to reinforce the case to include a battery door and removable battery significantly reduced size.
I'm NOT saying we should be prohibited from repairing out devices, but I'm OK with them being more difficult to repair as part of being made smaller/better/more durable/etc.
Locking me out of replacing parts with nonsense DRM though? That's inexcusable. Even the claims about security are BS. If you really are designing a secure system, then the user should own the DRM keys to the individual components, not the MFG. And with that ownership comes the ability to generate new keys and allow component replacement.
It's not though. Most of the tinkerer community has broken down, broken into, and hacked around the large majority of electronics these days.
The issue here is that Apple and others are using DRM to forcibly and actively prevent 3rd party repair. John Deere is a perfect example - they've DRM'd the tractor's computer so any maintenance, service, or repair explicitly requires going to an 'authorized' repair center which JD controls/owns/profits from. You literally cannot (without going to hacked firmware) do standard maintenance or normal repair yourself because of their ACTIVE intrusion and prevention of it. That's one of the more invasive examples but there's plenty of others out there as well.
There are already repair laws on the books, but manufacturers have actively worked to very intentionally circumvent them by incorporating things like DRM (yay DMCA etc.) which were never addressed in the original laws because they didn't exist.
DLP TVs were the dying gasp of the American, European, and Japanese TV industries, because they were so big & heavy, the shipping logistics ALONE made assembly within surface-transportation-range almost a necessity...
Actually if you read the article (hard, I know) the weight of cars has gone DOWN significantly, not up.
Reducing weight gives significant efficiency advantages along with making cars faster on a per-HP basis.
Yes, the safety equipment has added weight, but that's been more than counterbalanced by multiple innovations in construction and material use in modern cars.
Any modern (and even most 3rd world) countries have learned basic hygiene... so we handle our literal shit pretty well these days.
We handle chemical processes much better than 75 years ago when WW2 factories were dumping waste into municipal sewers or just open dirt pits.
Nuclear anything has been a boogie man for so long... we don't handle it at all. We put it on the shelf and argue about what we should do with it because someone might do Bad Things with it.
A public company generally needs to make a profit to stay in business. A government entity cannot make a profit (over any period of time) as far as I'm aware.
Also consider, that power plant had to be purchased or built somehow - costs are probably built into the electricity cost - but borrowing as a government body (bonds) is far cheaper than private/commercial lending so you have further savings there.
On the flip side, you see governmental waste in manpower and spending all the time since they DON'T have to turn a profit and often don't really have to stick to their budgets.
Observational data is what the SDCs use as their primary resource and will always trump any database records.
Your argument is classic straw man. If a no-left-turn sign is removed, then so is the restriction. You aren't risking a ticket, and there's no reason to expect a SDC would abide by a non-existent sign. And besides that, since you really want to use a nonsensical argument, the SDC wouldn't have planned a route that involved making a left hand turn that it already 'knew' was prohibited. So even before you get to your argument, it's moot.
Excusing the majority of your data set to only leave the minority of data points that directly support your conclusion IS misleading. Plain and simple....or are you vying for a job as a "reporter" and practising here?
The pros and cons of trump aside, if you don't think there's a huge amount of politics in being a billionaire businessman and running all those businesses you're sadly misinformed.
He certainly has a different style of politics compared to what we most often see today. Considering most people don't approve of the way politicians behave today in general...maybe change is good even if it's different/scary/uncomfortable.
You conveniently forget that she actually won the popular vote, so considerably more people wanted her than wanted Trump. She may have run a horrible campaign, but I couldn't really tell you because I can't actually recall any coverage during the election of Hillary Clinton's actual campaign. Furthermore, even if she had run a horrible campaign, it doesn't change the fact the margin of victory for Trump was so small that both Comey's actions and interference from Russian operatives were, each and independently, enough to change the result of the election. There are a lot of different reasons why the election turned out the way it did, focusing on one reason to the exclusion of all others is myopic no matter who does it.
That old gag...it amazes me that people are still fixated on the popular vote like it actually indicates something meaningful. Since individual votes don't matter and voter turn-out was only about 55% of the overall population, using that as some way to just who "really" won is disingenuous at best and outright stupid if you're even pretending to be objective. Change the law and let candidates go by popular vote, but expect a very different election process.
The rest of your statement is pure conjecture or just nonsensical except the very last bit. Trump won 304 to 227 on electoral votes which are the only ones that count. That's hardly a small margin of victory.
Yes, it's certainly myopic to think one reason changed the election. Overall, Trump connected with more people, while Clinton connected with more ideology... ideology that not everyone subscribes to as strongly in reality as they claim in public. So yes, the "right" message that clinton gave was still the wrong one.
You're a few years out of date my friend (or perhaps not from the US)...most cell providers have gone the route of separating the phone and service prices these days.
They will also finance it over 2 years for you but the effect is the same and you can pay it off any time.
Besides that, the phones were never free. You just paid more each month to cover it...and continued to do so once you were out of contract as well.
This is enough that they can identify what ads to show you to influence your opinion
But do they know that I use an adblocker? Only time I've seen an ad online this century was when I switched browsers and had to download a new adblocker for the new browser. That must have been the best part of 20 minutes when I could see ads this century....
Of course they know you use an ad blocker. That's one more data point they have about you..
And it's why all the FB ads are basically "news" in your feed now.
People are tired of politicians being totally above the law and doing whatever they wanted.
There was a reasonable belief that clinton intentionally abused the email server situation. When she was absolved of guilt (among some rather damming evidence and various political infighting) it simply made her look worse, not innocent.
In managing to 'get away' with that whole mess, Clinton simply made it clear to the average joe that she could, would, and does whatever she wants irrespective of the law. People are tired of corrupt politicians and she couldn't have given better proof. Trump, despite being rather coarse and uncouth, was Something Different.
*Plus taxes and fees, surcharges, and the not-infrequent misbilling. Also, DVR service is included for 12 out of your 24 month contract and after 12 months bills at $29.95/month plus $19.95/month DVR rental fee. Be prepared to waste 8-12 hours trying to return the DVR and get a (working) normal cable box which will then break and require a service call with a 8AM-8PM window and 3 minute notice of arrival with $150 fee if an adult can't get to the door within 7 seconds of them ringing the bell.
I've been tempted with similar a few times over the decade+ i've not bothered with cable tv...and it's never been worth the hassle.
You can buy a cable modem for $50-100 (or less depending on the lanes you need) and your ROI is under a year. Not sure why anyone pays such a premium for a commodity device.
My crystal ball says that cable providers will start jacking up rates on unbundled internet even more and introducing data caps (or more restrictive ones) as the cable subs drop so they can balance. $200/month internet service (and per-GB usage fees) here we come. Despite cell providers finally moving away from that nonsense.
Maybe cell providers eventually replace cable providers?
Every generation fucks up education more than the one that preceded it. Just wait what kind of monsters the Millennials will produce.
They won't. They're too busy protesting for equality in the pupae stage for the northern woodland spotted butterfly or somesugh stupidity to have children. Hipsters though...watch out for them.
On a slightly more serious notes, very often the educated, intelligent, successful people are having fewer (or no) children while the poor uneducated are having many. There's a day of reckoning coming.
They shot themselves in the foot ~10 years ago when they all "went digital" to help "provide better service" which basically meant they could charge tons of extra fees for cable boxes, DVR, etc. which were locked to their system...and where you couldn't just plug in a TV and watch.
They should have jumped right on the streaming bandwagon from day one. They had (have) the tech to do so after all - digital cable isn't broadcast like old school analog (where all channels are there all the time and you tune the one you want). But no...they wanted to preserve a dying business model just like MP3s over CDs and music streaming services over radio.
And ever since all the content producers basically gave netflix (Etc.) the finger for so much...they went to make their own content. And guess what? It's working.
Cable TV is a joke these days. 100's of bundled channels that no one wants. "options" to unbundle that just just adds significant cost. Overpriced cable box/DVR rental, limited computer/mobile device viewing options, etc. etc. etc. I gave up on TV a long time ago. Between a few streaming services and BT I've no need for it.
Except you're confusing your limited cases with the broader industry.
The large majority of people outside of gamers have no need for discreet graphics. Even on the occasions that something goes more slowly, the trade-off in cost/weight/size balances in favor of accepting the slowness.
There certainly ARE laptops with discreet graphics. Nice ones too. But even so it's a niche market, costs more, and has other trade-offs. Manufacturers are going to focus on the masses by default.
Yes, the 2% of the desktop/laptop world is the "only" relevant question here./sarcasm
No one actually cares. This laptop is targeted at the basic user who wants an ultra-light device but not a tablet (see: win 10 S). You aren't the intended market segment at all so that question is literally irrelevant (in the literal sense of the world literally).
Anecdotal of course...but I live in the backwater of NYC and it's certainly NOT uncommon to see check engine lights on in Taxis.
It's also incredibly COMMON for taxi's to be horrible drivers (exactly as stereotyped) and either drive much too fast, much too slow, or take routes that make no sense (other than to increase fares), be on the phone despite the prohibition, and so on. Sure, NYC has plenty of rules and a complaint system...but it also requires you going to testify. Who has time for that just to back a complain that your drive decided to go around the block an extra time and was on his BT? Oh, and that assumes 'Muhammad' is actually driving with his own license, not the one he shares with his 3 cousins.
I'm not saying it's impossible to manage taxi's properly, but your perspective doesn't align with reality by a long stretch.
Granted, Costco is suing for a declaratory judgment that they're not infringing in response to a complaint.
To say that Costco is stealing all the R&D that went into the balls is rather laughable. Acushnet is known for suing new competitors out of business to protect their own. Beyond that, golf balls are not nearly as high tech as modern electronics so it's not like there's multi-billion dollar fab investment or expensive rare earth metals involved.
If they have patents that are actually being infringed upon (and not nonsense stuff like omg balls with more/less dimples just to renew an expired patent) then costco should lose and pay up. The fact that costco sued for a declatory judgment tells me that's probably NOT the case and they probably ARE in the clear...and they probably don't want to deal with someone suing THEM and seeming like the bad guy so they're doing it first.
If you're getting something for free then you're probably the product, not the consumer.
Ladies night at the bar? No, you aren't drinking for free. You're the product being sold to the men.
Free email? No, you aren't getting a service that millions are spent to develop and run for free. You're the product being sold to the advertisers, data conglomerates, and so on.
So, in reality you have a very distinct, real-money recurring value. You may not be able to personally realize direct monetary income from it, but you're certainly giving 'it' to google to sell.
Slashdot Mirror
For someone with so much background I'm disappointed you have such a narrow view.
Yes, secure communication between security devices is a Good Thing. Totally agree there.
But there's no reason someone who owns their device and, given proper authentication, should be prevented from changing or re-issuing those device keys. If anything, this makes it MORE secure since only the user/owner has this ability and not the manufacturer.
A properly secured system does not need to obscure it's functions to remain secure.
That's because of the drive to smaller devices.
It's easier to make a small device that's glued together for strength and has everything on one main board. Cheaper too if you discount repair.
The original iPod as an engineering marvel that utterly, completely trumped anything on the market. Not having to reinforce the case to include a battery door and removable battery significantly reduced size.
I'm NOT saying we should be prohibited from repairing out devices, but I'm OK with them being more difficult to repair as part of being made smaller/better/more durable/etc.
Locking me out of replacing parts with nonsense DRM though? That's inexcusable. Even the claims about security are BS. If you really are designing a secure system, then the user should own the DRM keys to the individual components, not the MFG. And with that ownership comes the ability to generate new keys and allow component replacement.
It's not though. Most of the tinkerer community has broken down, broken into, and hacked around the large majority of electronics these days.
The issue here is that Apple and others are using DRM to forcibly and actively prevent 3rd party repair. John Deere is a perfect example - they've DRM'd the tractor's computer so any maintenance, service, or repair explicitly requires going to an 'authorized' repair center which JD controls/owns/profits from. You literally cannot (without going to hacked firmware) do standard maintenance or normal repair yourself because of their ACTIVE intrusion and prevention of it. That's one of the more invasive examples but there's plenty of others out there as well.
There are already repair laws on the books, but manufacturers have actively worked to very intentionally circumvent them by incorporating things like DRM (yay DMCA etc.) which were never addressed in the original laws because they didn't exist.
DLP TVs were the dying gasp of the American, European, and Japanese TV industries, because they were so big & heavy, the shipping logistics ALONE made assembly within surface-transportation-range almost a necessity...
I think most car manufacturers would disagree.
Also, Japan is an asian country last I checked...
Actually if you read the article (hard, I know) the weight of cars has gone DOWN significantly, not up.
Reducing weight gives significant efficiency advantages along with making cars faster on a per-HP basis.
Yes, the safety equipment has added weight, but that's been more than counterbalanced by multiple innovations in construction and material use in modern cars.
And we continue to learn and improve.
Any modern (and even most 3rd world) countries have learned basic hygiene ... so we handle our literal shit pretty well these days.
We handle chemical processes much better than 75 years ago when WW2 factories were dumping waste into municipal sewers or just open dirt pits.
Nuclear anything has been a boogie man for so long ... we don't handle it at all. We put it on the shelf and argue about what we should do with it because someone might do Bad Things with it.
They do subsidize, but not how you're thinking:
A public company generally needs to make a profit to stay in business.
A government entity cannot make a profit (over any period of time) as far as I'm aware.
Also consider, that power plant had to be purchased or built somehow - costs are probably built into the electricity cost - but borrowing as a government body (bonds) is far cheaper than private/commercial lending so you have further savings there.
On the flip side, you see governmental waste in manpower and spending all the time since they DON'T have to turn a profit and often don't really have to stick to their budgets.
Observational data is what the SDCs use as their primary resource and will always trump any database records.
Your argument is classic straw man. If a no-left-turn sign is removed, then so is the restriction. You aren't risking a ticket, and there's no reason to expect a SDC would abide by a non-existent sign. And besides that, since you really want to use a nonsensical argument, the SDC wouldn't have planned a route that involved making a left hand turn that it already 'knew' was prohibited. So even before you get to your argument, it's moot.
Excusing the majority of your data set to only leave the minority of data points that directly support your conclusion IS misleading. Plain and simple. ...or are you vying for a job as a "reporter" and practising here?
The pros and cons of trump aside, if you don't think there's a huge amount of politics in being a billionaire businessman and running all those businesses you're sadly misinformed.
He certainly has a different style of politics compared to what we most often see today. Considering most people don't approve of the way politicians behave today in general...maybe change is good even if it's different/scary/uncomfortable.
You conveniently forget that she actually won the popular vote, so considerably more people wanted her than wanted Trump. She may have run a horrible campaign, but I couldn't really tell you because I can't actually recall any coverage during the election of Hillary Clinton's actual campaign. Furthermore, even if she had run a horrible campaign, it doesn't change the fact the margin of victory for Trump was so small that both Comey's actions and interference from Russian operatives were, each and independently, enough to change the result of the election. There are a lot of different reasons why the election turned out the way it did, focusing on one reason to the exclusion of all others is myopic no matter who does it.
That old gag...it amazes me that people are still fixated on the popular vote like it actually indicates something meaningful. Since individual votes don't matter and voter turn-out was only about 55% of the overall population, using that as some way to just who "really" won is disingenuous at best and outright stupid if you're even pretending to be objective. Change the law and let candidates go by popular vote, but expect a very different election process.
The rest of your statement is pure conjecture or just nonsensical except the very last bit. Trump won 304 to 227 on electoral votes which are the only ones that count. That's hardly a small margin of victory.
Yes, it's certainly myopic to think one reason changed the election. Overall, Trump connected with more people, while Clinton connected with more ideology ... ideology that not everyone subscribes to as strongly in reality as they claim in public. So yes, the "right" message that clinton gave was still the wrong one.
This chart is hugely telling of just how badly Clinton missed the mark. Popular vote or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You're a few years out of date my friend (or perhaps not from the US)...most cell providers have gone the route of separating the phone and service prices these days.
They will also finance it over 2 years for you but the effect is the same and you can pay it off any time.
Besides that, the phones were never free. You just paid more each month to cover it...and continued to do so once you were out of contract as well.
They know all that...
But do they know that I use an adblocker? Only time I've seen an ad online this century was when I switched browsers and had to download a new adblocker for the new browser. That must have been the best part of 20 minutes when I could see ads this century....
Of course they know you use an ad blocker. That's one more data point they have about you..
And it's why all the FB ads are basically "news" in your feed now.
There's also the obvious but unwritten:
People are tired of politicians being totally above the law and doing whatever they wanted.
There was a reasonable belief that clinton intentionally abused the email server situation. When she was absolved of guilt (among some rather damming evidence and various political infighting) it simply made her look worse, not innocent.
In managing to 'get away' with that whole mess, Clinton simply made it clear to the average joe that she could, would, and does whatever she wants irrespective of the law. People are tired of corrupt politicians and she couldn't have given better proof. Trump, despite being rather coarse and uncouth, was Something Different.
It's $2 less* now.
*Plus taxes and fees, surcharges, and the not-infrequent misbilling. Also, DVR service is included for 12 out of your 24 month contract and after 12 months bills at $29.95/month plus $19.95/month DVR rental fee. Be prepared to waste 8-12 hours trying to return the DVR and get a (working) normal cable box which will then break and require a service call with a 8AM-8PM window and 3 minute notice of arrival with $150 fee if an adult can't get to the door within 7 seconds of them ringing the bell.
I've been tempted with similar a few times over the decade+ i've not bothered with cable tv...and it's never been worth the hassle.
Jailbroken firestick for one ... or did you not want to include piracy (arrrr)? :)
bit torrent is another
BYoM.
You can buy a cable modem for $50-100 (or less depending on the lanes you need) and your ROI is under a year. Not sure why anyone pays such a premium for a commodity device.
My crystal ball says that cable providers will start jacking up rates on unbundled internet even more and introducing data caps (or more restrictive ones) as the cable subs drop so they can balance. $200/month internet service (and per-GB usage fees) here we come. Despite cell providers finally moving away from that nonsense.
Maybe cell providers eventually replace cable providers?
Every generation fucks up education more than the one that preceded it. Just wait what kind of monsters the Millennials will produce.
They won't. They're too busy protesting for equality in the pupae stage for the northern woodland spotted butterfly or somesugh stupidity to have children. Hipsters though...watch out for them.
On a slightly more serious notes, very often the educated, intelligent, successful people are having fewer (or no) children while the poor uneducated are having many. There's a day of reckoning coming.
They shot themselves in the foot ~10 years ago when they all "went digital" to help "provide better service" which basically meant they could charge tons of extra fees for cable boxes, DVR, etc. which were locked to their system...and where you couldn't just plug in a TV and watch.
They should have jumped right on the streaming bandwagon from day one. They had (have) the tech to do so after all - digital cable isn't broadcast like old school analog (where all channels are there all the time and you tune the one you want). But no...they wanted to preserve a dying business model just like MP3s over CDs and music streaming services over radio.
And ever since all the content producers basically gave netflix (Etc.) the finger for so much...they went to make their own content. And guess what? It's working.
Cable TV is a joke these days. 100's of bundled channels that no one wants. "options" to unbundle that just just adds significant cost. Overpriced cable box/DVR rental, limited computer/mobile device viewing options, etc. etc. etc. I gave up on TV a long time ago. Between a few streaming services and BT I've no need for it.
Nah, they charge every time you buy a new PC and throw away the old windows license that's tied to the hardware.
Except you're confusing your limited cases with the broader industry.
The large majority of people outside of gamers have no need for discreet graphics. Even on the occasions that something goes more slowly, the trade-off in cost/weight/size balances in favor of accepting the slowness.
There certainly ARE laptops with discreet graphics. Nice ones too. But even so it's a niche market, costs more, and has other trade-offs. Manufacturers are going to focus on the masses by default.
Yes, the 2% of the desktop/laptop world is the "only" relevant question here. /sarcasm
No one actually cares. This laptop is targeted at the basic user who wants an ultra-light device but not a tablet (see: win 10 S). You aren't the intended market segment at all so that question is literally irrelevant (in the literal sense of the world literally).
Anecdotal of course...but I live in the backwater of NYC and it's certainly NOT uncommon to see check engine lights on in Taxis.
It's also incredibly COMMON for taxi's to be horrible drivers (exactly as stereotyped) and either drive much too fast, much too slow, or take routes that make no sense (other than to increase fares), be on the phone despite the prohibition, and so on. Sure, NYC has plenty of rules and a complaint system...but it also requires you going to testify. Who has time for that just to back a complain that your drive decided to go around the block an extra time and was on his BT? Oh, and that assumes 'Muhammad' is actually driving with his own license, not the one he shares with his 3 cousins.
I'm not saying it's impossible to manage taxi's properly, but your perspective doesn't align with reality by a long stretch.
Granted, Costco is suing for a declaratory judgment that they're not infringing in response to a complaint.
To say that Costco is stealing all the R&D that went into the balls is rather laughable. Acushnet is known for suing new competitors out of business to protect their own. Beyond that, golf balls are not nearly as high tech as modern electronics so it's not like there's multi-billion dollar fab investment or expensive rare earth metals involved.
If they have patents that are actually being infringed upon (and not nonsense stuff like omg balls with more/less dimples just to renew an expired patent) then costco should lose and pay up. The fact that costco sued for a declatory judgment tells me that's probably NOT the case and they probably ARE in the clear...and they probably don't want to deal with someone suing THEM and seeming like the bad guy so they're doing it first.
If you're getting something for free then you're probably the product, not the consumer.
Ladies night at the bar? No, you aren't drinking for free. You're the product being sold to the men.
Free email? No, you aren't getting a service that millions are spent to develop and run for free. You're the product being sold to the advertisers, data conglomerates, and so on.
So, in reality you have a very distinct, real-money recurring value. You may not be able to personally realize direct monetary income from it, but you're certainly giving 'it' to google to sell.