As people -- and corporations -- unite to produce open standards and throw off the yoke of proprietary products, there is always pain for the guys profiting from the dying stuff. It is an inevitable cycle, and the holders of the morbid proprietary technology would do best to cut their losses and invent something truly new that provides value people are willing to pay for. When any technology based on software becomes widespread, it is only a matter of time before someone produces an unencumbered free version.
Yes, it is becoming simpler, louder and more repetitive. The drum machine pounds out a repetitive four-bar pattern. The melodic background is a loop from a synthesizer. The human singer just chants four or five words over and over while a machine keeps him or her in tune with the synthetic background. There are very few actual musicians working in pop music these days. All a producer needs is one keyboard player and a looping recorder.
If the name "tea" came from oceanic trading with China and the name "cha" came from overland trading on the Silk Road, than why do the Portuguese refer to this beverage as "sha"? They were the major oceanic power at this time and certainly did most of their East Asian trading on the sea.
If I purchase a piece of hardware, I plan to use it for anything I damned well please, as long as it is not in violation of any laws. And, NVIDIA telling me that I can't use part of the hardware in my data center is not a law. It's like a car manufacturer telling a small business that it can't use a small SUV to make deliveries, and that it has to purchase a more expensive delivery truck for that work. It's nonsense.
Once the Internet of Things takes off, we will be even more vulnerable to this sort of threat from our ISPs: Don't be bad or we'll turn off your refrigerator and make all your food spoil. What about that 200 pounds of venison in your freezer, eh?
I was a scientific researcher and later I was an engineer. It's great to stare out the window and ruminate, and many good ideas are germinated that way. But, nothing is accomplished without the pressure of some kind of deadline. And, there is a big difference between formulating a new theory and actually executing the development of something.
One Silicon Valley CEO always asked candidates if they thought having great ideas or having great execution skills was the most important. He was adamant that execution was more important -- even with a mediocre idea, you can produce something. That's better than having a lot of great ideas that are never realized.
The landline phone business and cable TV businesses are both dying. I cut the cable a couple years ago for my TV. When I traded my landline for an IP phone about seven years ago, I discovered that I was almost the last among my Silicon Valley co-workers to do it. The Republican tax plan doesn't have anything to do with this; it is just the dying gasp of a couple obsolete businesses.
Windows 10 already contains the infrastructure and tools needed to monitor everything employees do with their government computers and silently report it to Big Brother.. Of course the government prefers this.
The FCC can say that states can't mandate net neutrality -- but the federal government has already said that marijuana is illegal, too. If the states can pass drug laws that contravene the federal government's will, then they certainly can pass laws liberating the Internet for their citizens and freeing us from the monopolistic manipulation of two or three big corporations.
I stopped paying attention to broadcast TV and print newspapers years ago, just as many others have. We don't need to worry about monopolies in broadcast media because nobody is watching anyway. They're all walking dead and just don't know it yet.
One goal of AI is to mimic human thought and behavior in a machine. The problem is, machines tend to be consistent and logical. Therefore. it is not logical to expect them to conform to rules of political correctness that are fundamentally illogical and change intermittently in both content and application.
If the cameras show no difference in the number of complaints against police even when there are now video records of what happened, this could mean that the police were not doing anything wrong before, and the cameras are just proving that. Would that be so surprising? The police have undergone endless training programs and public scrutiny for accusations of overly-violent behavior for many years now. Maybe their accusers are just not telling the truth.
Apple continues to force customers to buy their hardware and service by punishing customers who go to third-party repair services or put third-party components on their phones because the standard ones have broken. This is the same crap AT&T tried to pull before the local phone network was deregulated, remember? All those "non-standard" phones would damage the network and therefore couldn't be allowed. But even AT&T did not destroy the third-party equipment that was installed. And how did that all work out for AT&T? Apple has always insisted on total control of hardware and software in the equipment they sell, and thereby total control of their customers.
I agree completely. The publishers have a crappy business model. There is no reason for the public not to have free access to the results of research funded with public money.
Yesterday, I received an email from Equifax warning me that my personal data may be at risk on the "Dark Web" and offering to SELL me some sort of monitoring and protection for this. This is quite different from the free credit services publicly announced in the article referenced here. What's going on?
This is one of the major reasons that I stopped using Apple products many years ago. They charge a premium price for a device that is welded shut and can't be repaired. They cover their elitist attitude by flattering potential users with claims that their customers are somehow more artistic and creative than the hoi polloi. It's nonsense. They are all about selling as much overpriced hardware as possible.
It sounds as though Amazon knows what it's doing in negotiations. Why is this surprising or even interesting? They negotiated from strength and got the deal they wanted. Whole Foods got paid and won't go bankrupt. It's a win for both sides.
It would not be difficult to establish that a Desert Eagle.50 caliber bullet would be capable of penetrating a book -- quite a few books, in fact. It is sort of like jumping off a building to demonstrate how well you can fly.
These mayors want to clean up the environment and conserve resources; that is a good thing. Are they also going to take on Obama's commitment to send billions of dollars to third-world countries to atone for our "exploitation" of the world? I doubt it.
Throughout my working life I have amazed that people with good jobs would be willing to jeopardize them for nickels and dimes -- stealing stationery, fudging expense vouchers, and now, apparently, cheating a company vending machine. Don't these people realize that they are putting their livelihoods at risk by stealing from their employer?
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Everyone who used to work on the assembly line will have nothing to do but sit around eating donuts, so the donut shops will need more employees.
As people -- and corporations -- unite to produce open standards and throw off the yoke of proprietary products, there is always pain for the guys profiting from the dying stuff. It is an inevitable cycle, and the holders of the morbid proprietary technology would do best to cut their losses and invent something truly new that provides value people are willing to pay for. When any technology based on software becomes widespread, it is only a matter of time before someone produces an unencumbered free version.
That I will never allow into my home.
If they won't deny giving all this data to the government, of course it means that they are.
Another reaffirmation of my decision never to have one of these spy devices in my home.
Yes, it is becoming simpler, louder and more repetitive. The drum machine pounds out a repetitive four-bar pattern. The melodic background is a loop from a synthesizer. The human singer just chants four or five words over and over while a machine keeps him or her in tune with the synthetic background. There are very few actual musicians working in pop music these days. All a producer needs is one keyboard player and a looping recorder.
If the name "tea" came from oceanic trading with China and the name "cha" came from overland trading on the Silk Road, than why do the Portuguese refer to this beverage as "sha"? They were the major oceanic power at this time and certainly did most of their East Asian trading on the sea.
If I purchase a piece of hardware, I plan to use it for anything I damned well please, as long as it is not in violation of any laws. And, NVIDIA telling me that I can't use part of the hardware in my data center is not a law. It's like a car manufacturer telling a small business that it can't use a small SUV to make deliveries, and that it has to purchase a more expensive delivery truck for that work. It's nonsense.
Once the Internet of Things takes off, we will be even more vulnerable to this sort of threat from our ISPs: Don't be bad or we'll turn off your refrigerator and make all your food spoil. What about that 200 pounds of venison in your freezer, eh?
I was a scientific researcher and later I was an engineer. It's great to stare out the window and ruminate, and many good ideas are germinated that way. But, nothing is accomplished without the pressure of some kind of deadline. And, there is a big difference between formulating a new theory and actually executing the development of something.
One Silicon Valley CEO always asked candidates if they thought having great ideas or having great execution skills was the most important. He was adamant that execution was more important -- even with a mediocre idea, you can produce something. That's better than having a lot of great ideas that are never realized.
The landline phone business and cable TV businesses are both dying. I cut the cable a couple years ago for my TV. When I traded my landline for an IP phone about seven years ago, I discovered that I was almost the last among my Silicon Valley co-workers to do it. The Republican tax plan doesn't have anything to do with this; it is just the dying gasp of a couple obsolete businesses.
Windows 10 already contains the infrastructure and tools needed to monitor everything employees do with their government computers and silently report it to Big Brother.. Of course the government prefers this.
The FCC can say that states can't mandate net neutrality -- but the federal government has already said that marijuana is illegal, too. If the states can pass drug laws that contravene the federal government's will, then they certainly can pass laws liberating the Internet for their citizens and freeing us from the monopolistic manipulation of two or three big corporations.
I stopped paying attention to broadcast TV and print newspapers years ago, just as many others have. We don't need to worry about monopolies in broadcast media because nobody is watching anyway. They're all walking dead and just don't know it yet.
One goal of AI is to mimic human thought and behavior in a machine. The problem is, machines tend to be consistent and logical. Therefore. it is not logical to expect them to conform to rules of political correctness that are fundamentally illogical and change intermittently in both content and application.
If the cameras show no difference in the number of complaints against police even when there are now video records of what happened, this could mean that the police were not doing anything wrong before, and the cameras are just proving that. Would that be so surprising? The police have undergone endless training programs and public scrutiny for accusations of overly-violent behavior for many years now. Maybe their accusers are just not telling the truth.
Apple continues to force customers to buy their hardware and service by punishing customers who go to third-party repair services or put third-party components on their phones because the standard ones have broken. This is the same crap AT&T tried to pull before the local phone network was deregulated, remember? All those "non-standard" phones would damage the network and therefore couldn't be allowed. But even AT&T did not destroy the third-party equipment that was installed. And how did that all work out for AT&T? Apple has always insisted on total control of hardware and software in the equipment they sell, and thereby total control of their customers.
Maybe we could just do it with cartoons, so that everybody didn't need to read English. Think of how the audience would be expanded!
I agree completely. The publishers have a crappy business model. There is no reason for the public not to have free access to the results of research funded with public money.
Yesterday, I received an email from Equifax warning me that my personal data may be at risk on the "Dark Web" and offering to SELL me some sort of monitoring and protection for this. This is quite different from the free credit services publicly announced in the article referenced here. What's going on?
This is one of the major reasons that I stopped using Apple products many years ago. They charge a premium price for a device that is welded shut and can't be repaired. They cover their elitist attitude by flattering potential users with claims that their customers are somehow more artistic and creative than the hoi polloi. It's nonsense. They are all about selling as much overpriced hardware as possible.
However, the global temperature dropped 0.3 degrees Celsius because of reduced hot air emissions.
It sounds as though Amazon knows what it's doing in negotiations. Why is this surprising or even interesting? They negotiated from strength and got the deal they wanted. Whole Foods got paid and won't go bankrupt. It's a win for both sides.
It would not be difficult to establish that a Desert Eagle .50 caliber bullet would be capable of penetrating a book -- quite a few books, in fact. It is sort of like jumping off a building to demonstrate how well you can fly.
These mayors want to clean up the environment and conserve resources; that is a good thing. Are they also going to take on Obama's commitment to send billions of dollars to third-world countries to atone for our "exploitation" of the world? I doubt it.
Throughout my working life I have amazed that people with good jobs would be willing to jeopardize them for nickels and dimes -- stealing stationery, fudging expense vouchers, and now, apparently, cheating a company vending machine. Don't these people realize that they are putting their livelihoods at risk by stealing from their employer?