I tossed out my box of six smart phones from the last 10 years of upgrades. I expect to go down to about 25% the phone purchasing rate as the current generation is capable enough for my needs. Looks like smartphone makers innovated them right out of a job, that's progress!
- Unique install ID, sent when checking for updates
I agree that unique IDs can be problematic, but the devil is in the details. For example, I worked on some Kindle stuff for Amazon many years ago, and they went from telemetry that could be associated with every user to a unique but anonymous reporting scheme. Metrics are now supposedly logged in a way that research can be done on large population of users, but enough information is redacted in the telemetry to make it difficult to associate information with a particular account. It's not perfect, more of a high level of uncertainty. If you expected perfect privacy, then someone is going to lie to you instead of giving you the impossible.
PS- I always like that "const int one = 65536" quote. cracks me up every time.:-D
Safari - bundles more Apple crapware, UI is janky on Windows, Apple spies on you the same as Google does
I'm not sure Apple spies on you, and they are one of the better browsers in terms of privacy. But the ugly bit about Apple is that they will stop giving you updates to Safari if you aren't upgrading your hardware fast enough. OSX drops support for more older models every release, and Safari drops support for older versions of OSX.
Your best bet when it comes to browsers is use an iPhone, at least Apple maintains support for a very long time on older hardware and older OSes. Using an iPhone as your main system works assuming you only need to watch content and don't need to create anything yourself. (coding, photoshop, video editing, writing, publishing, composing, etc)
128 64-bit register = 32 256-bit values. Comfortable enough that you could hold two 4x4 matrices of them for a comfortable scalar & matrix -> matrix operation. Now if your architecture has primitives for 256-bit floats is another problem entirely. I think you'll be out of luck when it comes to 256-bit floats outside of supercomputer, ASIC, and FPGA designs. Because your desktop PC is Turing complete, you can totally perform the calculations at home, but they won't necessarily be all that optimal. Patience is a virtue, or at least saves you from buying costly hardware.
For a pure software implementation I'd be more apt to lean towards a higher precision variant of the DEC64 library and format. I think decimal formats are easier to wedge into scientific problems than binary formats, given the ease at specifying the desired rounding rules versus the binary formats.
A directly addressable "cache" of a small number of words (128) that is not shareable between cores is not good in my book.
Back in the old days of software we fretted over what was called Primary storage (memory) and Secondary storage (tape, disk). The more you could move into primary storage, the nicer it was to access from a programming language. We like regular old addressable "primary storage" memory, not lots of special access memories.
Architectures that can provide uniform access to all system resources are generally considered more elegant, even if the hardware is probably a pain in the ass to design and optimize.
Too many registers can be a burden when context switching. And in older ABIs it was a significant overhead for procedure calls. Register windows like in SPARC help quite a bit, but seemed to have died with that architecture.
Newer compilers with better algorithms for register allocation has improved utilization of the dozen or so registers on modern CPUs, to the point that I don't think having 128 registers would make as significant difference as using the same area to implement SMT/HyperThreading.
As a software developer (rather than a computer engineer), I want a CPU that has zero general purpose registers. And amazingly good cache performance. i'd rather keep my data as stack-relative temporaries. Just waiting for amazing good cache to be invented.
It's funny that it's a telephone app used to sell headsets.
And I can totally see installing root certificates as being the most direct way to solve their problems using authentication libraries on Windows. The wrong way, but the most direct. I guess a headphone company didn't want to pay to have their certificates signed, so they became their own authority. Best way to lose money is to cut costs.
I feel that the NSA should be paying contractors for this valuable service instead of always getting it for free. Someone ought to sue. First we need to organize an idiot software contractor's union. (ISCU)
I've never met a flatard that only held a single wacky idea. They're always excited to share a whole set of weird ideas with anyone who'd listen. The most entertaining people are the ones where a flat Earth is their least weird idea.
You're dropping the ball at the apex of the curve. And indeed if you move 1 inch over, you're still at the apex relative to the force of gravity. Because the center of mass is described as a point, and the force to the center does not form parallel lines. You can consider it perpendicular to the tangent of the surface of a sphere.
If you don't believe in gravity, or in mass. Then sure you can claim whatever you'd like. We'll think you're a crackpot, and many of your "students" probably make jokes about their one teacher that makes wild claims. Filtering and censoring evidence in order to "prove" your point to students is disingenuous, and nobody should be expected to take you seriously.
I don't really see the harm in your hobby as a polemist. It makes you a more colorful character.
We need to ignore them for the sake of life on Earth as we know it, and get back to science and scholastic veritas.
It's difficult to ignore people that we keep electing to office.
Denialists will always be there, chortling and being pests of no value.
I guess if things get really bad the denialists might be exiled or killed. Too late to matter by that point, but at least we can feel superior while we starve to death.
We need to cut them right out of the argument at the first lie they begin with.
I've given up debating them. The debate is over, and they failed to convince me. Even if they don't realize or accept that they lost, I've moved on.
I understand some denialists believe they are simply being skeptics. But at the same time so much information has been presented and so many models detailed yet so few self-described skeptics are using those models or presenting counter models. The simulations are correct to a point, in that we can predict short terms weather very accurately and even short term trends. The debate in the scientific community is where the models go past a certain point when things start to go off the rails, it's a debate about what numbers to plug into the simulation and how bad things will get and how soon things will happen.
everything you said about Trump reflects why the Democrats are so out of touch with their own base and why they still cannot soul search enough to understand why they lost the election to Trump.
I'm not a Democrat though, but what you say of Democrats being out of touch is probably true. In other forums and on twitter I've described the DNC as extremely arrogant, and I feel that arrogance translated in to their lost of the Presidency in 2016.
The whole "words of encouragement" from Trump is nonsense cherry-picking of facts. I don't really care to discuss that bit in too much detail because it's not true and you obviously aren't going to agree. The Blue Wave hit the mid-terms, that really happened. It wasn't as big as the hype, but what is ever as big as the hype? The 2018 mid-terms runs counter to your claims that "Democrats will continue to lose elections".
Every side has their spin doctors. And here I am, standing in the middle getting an earful from both for not "picking a side". To that I say: Fuck'em
Strangely, Tesla's went up over 6%, apparently on the same news.
It's not so strange. The view is that GM confirms that electric cars are a viable and growing market (duh). That Tesla has a leg up on it and already has a piece of the market is good news, even if an 800-pound gorilla enters the market to compete with them.
Tesla will chug along for a while, until Elon Musk is no longer in charge (*wink*). Then one of the major car manufacturers will buy Tesla and pick up patents and research teams. Question is if that purchase where be anywhere near the $60B market cap for TSLA. I think that's possible and maybe even much higher, up into the $200B range depending on what kind of stock swap deal can be worked out. Since most car manufacturers are cash poor, but assets rich.
Democrats consistently promise a much more sensible, viable and believable alternative of job training, reduced cost education, healthcare reform (which would increase career mobility) etc.
Trump voters like my Dad, uncles, older blue collar neighbors, etc. don't want to be retrained for a new job. They want the world to remain the same, so they can continue working the same job they've been at since the 1970's.
Hillary voters like my Mom, aunts, and retired neighbors want health care reform and want the next generation to have a shot at a good education that doesn't saddle young people with debt.
Given the chance, Democrats may deliver on some, all or none of these.
Oh I personally agree with that. I usually vote for the one offering something sane, even if they aren't likely to deliver everything. Some people voted for something insane because they were against any sort of "hope & change" party, especially the change part.
So on the one hand you have Trump promising with no evidence to restore an economic model that is a proven failure.
Remember, Trump voters view him as a successful person (rich) and he's been a household name for decades (famous). I don't know what the fallacy is called where a person ignores any evidence contrary to their own position, but it makes it impossible to have a rational debate with people who have drank the Kool-aid.
Proven failure? Or Possible success? I know which one I would choose, and which one I would expect a bunch of idiot Trump trash voters to chose.
Trump reflects America better than any politician of this century. He is confident in his superiority and importance, despite numerous failures and limited success. He is quite racist in speech and in action, but denies being so (just like America). He pines for a era that never really exists (he managed to tapped into the minds of middle aged white men that believe they've been disenfranchised, hoping to bring about an era where every man is a king of his castle). He blames everyone but himself for failures, usually the media, the immigrants, wall street (the jews), and sometimes "crooked" Hillary.
Trump promised coal would miraculously become a viable energy product that didn't harm the environment and tastes great after coffee. Trump lied.
And I'm not arguing otherwise. But what does Trump's promises and phenomenal misunderstanding of coal have to do with US factory jobs? nothing.
Trump is a proven liar, but don't get distracted by his nonsense. He promised things and failed to deliver. Hillary didn't even promise things. If people were really serious about keeping their factory job, I totally understand why they'd go for Trump's lies and hope he's not lying this time. Versus going for zero promises on this issue from Hillary.
But you need to stop falsely equivocating his lies as if normal. They are beyond even the abysmal norm we had before.
How is a politician over promising and under delivering not perfectly normal? It's probably the only normal thing Trump has done.
That's probably not a reasonable request at this time. I think the best right now are the mid-sized turbo-diesel trucks at around 25 mpg. By 2025 we'll probably see lots of 50 mpg+ hybrid trucks, if you're willing to wait several years. Expect to pay through the nose for one.
There's no law on who gets to call themselves a liberal or conservative. Any idiot can claim they are liberal, without even knowing what it means. Knowing that you should be more careful about making broad generalizations, unless your post was purely for pejorative pleasure.
ehhh. That's not really a fair comparison. It's not like Hillary promised to keep US factories opened. The choice was between someone who wasn't going to do it, and someone who said he would do it but failed.
I think the flaw is in voters who pick a President based on keeping car factories open. Globalization makes the automotive industry impossible for one person to control, outside of maybe the CEO of those automotive companies.
Slashdot Mirror
I tossed out my box of six smart phones from the last 10 years of upgrades. I expect to go down to about 25% the phone purchasing rate as the current generation is capable enough for my needs. Looks like smartphone makers innovated them right out of a job, that's progress!
Soon a Facebook account will be as useful of an indicator of someone's stupid politics as a MAGA hat or watching Faux News.
Even so, we'll still let idiots vote, because the Constitution says we have to and we can never change the document for any reason.
- Unique install ID, sent when checking for updates
I agree that unique IDs can be problematic, but the devil is in the details. For example, I worked on some Kindle stuff for Amazon many years ago, and they went from telemetry that could be associated with every user to a unique but anonymous reporting scheme. Metrics are now supposedly logged in a way that research can be done on large population of users, but enough information is redacted in the telemetry to make it difficult to associate information with a particular account. It's not perfect, more of a high level of uncertainty. If you expected perfect privacy, then someone is going to lie to you instead of giving you the impossible.
PS- I always like that "const int one = 65536" quote. cracks me up every time. :-D
Safari - bundles more Apple crapware, UI is janky on Windows, Apple spies on you the same as Google does
I'm not sure Apple spies on you, and they are one of the better browsers in terms of privacy. But the ugly bit about Apple is that they will stop giving you updates to Safari if you aren't upgrading your hardware fast enough. OSX drops support for more older models every release, and Safari drops support for older versions of OSX.
Your best bet when it comes to browsers is use an iPhone, at least Apple maintains support for a very long time on older hardware and older OSes. Using an iPhone as your main system works assuming you only need to watch content and don't need to create anything yourself. (coding, photoshop, video editing, writing, publishing, composing, etc)
Please regulate loot boxes, I want better drops.
Too bad anime plots seem computer generated these days.
128 64-bit register = 32 256-bit values. Comfortable enough that you could hold two 4x4 matrices of them for a comfortable scalar & matrix -> matrix operation. Now if your architecture has primitives for 256-bit floats is another problem entirely. I think you'll be out of luck when it comes to 256-bit floats outside of supercomputer, ASIC, and FPGA designs. Because your desktop PC is Turing complete, you can totally perform the calculations at home, but they won't necessarily be all that optimal. Patience is a virtue, or at least saves you from buying costly hardware.
For a pure software implementation I'd be more apt to lean towards a higher precision variant of the DEC64 library and format. I think decimal formats are easier to wedge into scientific problems than binary formats, given the ease at specifying the desired rounding rules versus the binary formats.
A directly addressable "cache" of a small number of words (128) that is not shareable between cores is not good in my book.
Back in the old days of software we fretted over what was called Primary storage (memory) and Secondary storage (tape, disk). The more you could move into primary storage, the nicer it was to access from a programming language. We like regular old addressable "primary storage" memory, not lots of special access memories.
Architectures that can provide uniform access to all system resources are generally considered more elegant, even if the hardware is probably a pain in the ass to design and optimize.
Too many registers can be a burden when context switching. And in older ABIs it was a significant overhead for procedure calls. Register windows like in SPARC help quite a bit, but seemed to have died with that architecture.
Newer compilers with better algorithms for register allocation has improved utilization of the dozen or so registers on modern CPUs, to the point that I don't think having 128 registers would make as significant difference as using the same area to implement SMT/HyperThreading.
As a software developer (rather than a computer engineer), I want a CPU that has zero general purpose registers. And amazingly good cache performance. i'd rather keep my data as stack-relative temporaries. Just waiting for amazing good cache to be invented.
It's funny that it's a telephone app used to sell headsets.
And I can totally see installing root certificates as being the most direct way to solve their problems using authentication libraries on Windows. The wrong way, but the most direct. I guess a headphone company didn't want to pay to have their certificates signed, so they became their own authority. Best way to lose money is to cut costs.
I feel that the NSA should be paying contractors for this valuable service instead of always getting it for free. Someone ought to sue. First we need to organize an idiot software contractor's union. (ISCU)
Games like tic-tac-toe are solved, and I believe Checkers/Draughts is solved as well. Maybe Chess and Go will be solved in the near future.
Nethack may remain the one unsolved game for the foreseeable future.
I've never met a flatard that only held a single wacky idea. They're always excited to share a whole set of weird ideas with anyone who'd listen. The most entertaining people are the ones where a flat Earth is their least weird idea.
You're dropping the ball at the apex of the curve. And indeed if you move 1 inch over, you're still at the apex relative to the force of gravity. Because the center of mass is described as a point, and the force to the center does not form parallel lines. You can consider it perpendicular to the tangent of the surface of a sphere.
If you don't believe in gravity, or in mass. Then sure you can claim whatever you'd like. We'll think you're a crackpot, and many of your "students" probably make jokes about their one teacher that makes wild claims. Filtering and censoring evidence in order to "prove" your point to students is disingenuous, and nobody should be expected to take you seriously.
I don't really see the harm in your hobby as a polemist. It makes you a more colorful character.
We need to ignore them for the sake of life on Earth as we know it, and get back to science and scholastic veritas.
It's difficult to ignore people that we keep electing to office.
Denialists will always be there, chortling and being pests of no value.
I guess if things get really bad the denialists might be exiled or killed. Too late to matter by that point, but at least we can feel superior while we starve to death.
We need to cut them right out of the argument at the first lie they begin with.
I've given up debating them. The debate is over, and they failed to convince me. Even if they don't realize or accept that they lost, I've moved on.
I understand some denialists believe they are simply being skeptics. But at the same time so much information has been presented and so many models detailed yet so few self-described skeptics are using those models or presenting counter models. The simulations are correct to a point, in that we can predict short terms weather very accurately and even short term trends. The debate in the scientific community is where the models go past a certain point when things start to go off the rails, it's a debate about what numbers to plug into the simulation and how bad things will get and how soon things will happen.
everything you said about Trump reflects why the Democrats are so out of touch with their own base and why they still cannot soul search enough
to understand why they lost the election to Trump.
I'm not a Democrat though, but what you say of Democrats being out of touch is probably true. In other forums and on twitter I've described the DNC as extremely arrogant, and I feel that arrogance translated in to their lost of the Presidency in 2016.
The whole "words of encouragement" from Trump is nonsense cherry-picking of facts. I don't really care to discuss that bit in too much detail because it's not true and you obviously aren't going to agree. The Blue Wave hit the mid-terms, that really happened. It wasn't as big as the hype, but what is ever as big as the hype? The 2018 mid-terms runs counter to your claims that "Democrats will continue to lose elections".
Every side has their spin doctors. And here I am, standing in the middle getting an earful from both for not "picking a side". To that I say: Fuck'em
Strangely, Tesla's went up over 6%, apparently on the same news.
It's not so strange. The view is that GM confirms that electric cars are a viable and growing market (duh). That Tesla has a leg up on it and already has a piece of the market is good news, even if an 800-pound gorilla enters the market to compete with them.
Tesla will chug along for a while, until Elon Musk is no longer in charge (*wink*). Then one of the major car manufacturers will buy Tesla and pick up patents and research teams. Question is if that purchase where be anywhere near the $60B market cap for TSLA. I think that's possible and maybe even much higher, up into the $200B range depending on what kind of stock swap deal can be worked out. Since most car manufacturers are cash poor, but assets rich.
Democrats consistently promise a much more sensible, viable and believable alternative of job training, reduced cost education, healthcare reform (which would increase career mobility) etc.
Trump voters like my Dad, uncles, older blue collar neighbors, etc. don't want to be retrained for a new job. They want the world to remain the same, so they can continue working the same job they've been at since the 1970's.
Hillary voters like my Mom, aunts, and retired neighbors want health care reform and want the next generation to have a shot at a good education that doesn't saddle young people with debt.
Given the chance, Democrats may deliver on some, all or none of these.
Oh I personally agree with that. I usually vote for the one offering something sane, even if they aren't likely to deliver everything. Some people voted for something insane because they were against any sort of "hope & change" party, especially the change part.
So on the one hand you have Trump promising with no evidence to restore an economic model that is a proven failure.
Remember, Trump voters view him as a successful person (rich) and he's been a household name for decades (famous). I don't know what the fallacy is called where a person ignores any evidence contrary to their own position, but it makes it impossible to have a rational debate with people who have drank the Kool-aid.
Proven failure? Or Possible success? I know which one I would choose, and which one I would expect a bunch of idiot Trump trash voters to chose.
Trump reflects America better than any politician of this century. He is confident in his superiority and importance, despite numerous failures and limited success. He is quite racist in speech and in action, but denies being so (just like America). He pines for a era that never really exists (he managed to tapped into the minds of middle aged white men that believe they've been disenfranchised, hoping to bring about an era where every man is a king of his castle). He blames everyone but himself for failures, usually the media, the immigrants, wall street (the jews), and sometimes "crooked" Hillary.
They mean "cracked" in a difference sense. For example you can crack an egg, or a tech journalist can be addicted to crack.
Trump promised coal would miraculously become a viable energy product that didn't harm the environment and tastes great after coffee. Trump lied.
And I'm not arguing otherwise. But what does Trump's promises and phenomenal misunderstanding of coal have to do with US factory jobs? nothing.
Trump is a proven liar, but don't get distracted by his nonsense. He promised things and failed to deliver. Hillary didn't even promise things. If people were really serious about keeping their factory job, I totally understand why they'd go for Trump's lies and hope he's not lying this time. Versus going for zero promises on this issue from Hillary.
But you need to stop falsely equivocating his lies as if normal. They are beyond even the abysmal norm we had before.
How is a politician over promising and under delivering not perfectly normal? It's probably the only normal thing Trump has done.
I want a 50mpg truck.
That's probably not a reasonable request at this time. I think the best right now are the mid-sized turbo-diesel trucks at around 25 mpg. By 2025 we'll probably see lots of 50 mpg+ hybrid trucks, if you're willing to wait several years. Expect to pay through the nose for one.
Electric car research is how you get investors excited and stock prices up. Perhaps some executives at GM are looking to cash out!
There's no law on who gets to call themselves a liberal or conservative. Any idiot can claim they are liberal, without even knowing what it means. Knowing that you should be more careful about making broad generalizations, unless your post was purely for pejorative pleasure.
ehhh. That's not really a fair comparison. It's not like Hillary promised to keep US factories opened. The choice was between someone who wasn't going to do it, and someone who said he would do it but failed.
I think the flaw is in voters who pick a President based on keeping car factories open. Globalization makes the automotive industry impossible for one person to control, outside of maybe the CEO of those automotive companies.
First a Tesla Roadster is launched into space, and now NASA has landed a Honda Insight.
These car ads keep upping the ante.