OK, fair is fair. I just wandered over and looked at rate plans on att.com and I obviously got a really good deal at some point. Looks like about $30 is lowest I can get, so add $120 to that total assuming AT&T. Still only a bit more over the course of a year though.
I said I was using what I pay. I pay $125 a month for two iPhones with unlimited data, 750 minutes combined talk time, and unlimited text messages. Take out the $25 for unlimited text messages, divide the rest in half means $50 bucks a phone. I pay $30 for the data each, so roughly 20 for the voice. I listed limited talk time as a disadvantage for the cell and unlimited local calls as an advantage for the land line. It's a completely honest comparison.
The thing is that there are very few things you can do on a full sized computers that you can't do on a phone. There are some things they can't really do: I wouldn't want to edit photography on a phone for sure; and other things are definitely a bit more trouble: SSH works on my phone, but it's not exactly a ton of fun to use. None the less they *can* do almost everything that a computer can do, and do it adequately for most purposes in an emergency
If you're going quote me, quote everything relevant. Also consider the context of the discussion. The every next sentence I point out things that you can't do, or can't do as easily. This whole thread is comparing a phone to a netbook or really small laptop in mobile situations, not the workstation on your desk. Would you want to do most of that stuff on netbook in a cafe while traveling? In the restaurant on the weekend? Phones can do most of what computers can do *in an emergency*, and are quite a bit more portable and useful in many traveling type scenarios.
Would I want to produce my next briefing on my phone? No, but if I realized there was a mistake I could use my phone to correct it real quick. I'm going to produce it in my office. Would I want to admin all my servers through my phone? No, but if someone calls me in a panic I can fix problems through it (well technically *I* can't becasue none of my servers are connected to the Internet, but as a general use case). On the other had my phone can get me back to my car when I got slightly lost in Boston.
My phone knows where I am. Helpful in a city that I don't know well. Also useful was the app gave me full route planning capability. Sure I could have used the maps in the station. I could have walked to the corner and looked at the signs. This was a lot easier though. Not to mention that this was only one instance. It also helped me navigate on the streets. My turn by turn GPS apps does walking routes, it even knew the walking paths through the Commons that would save me time. Theoretically I don't *need* either a phone or a netbook. I navigated New York 10 years ago without either. Either one could make the trip easier and more pleasant though. In this case the apps and GPS, at least in my personal opinion, were a fine trade off for a slightly clunkier data entry process and slightly less powerful CPU. Plus I only had to carry one thing. The phone. Had I used a netbook I'd still need the phone to make and receive calls.
So they get 1 channel instead of three? Most people people outside the city can't get much free TV anyway... At least not here, to many mountains. Mountains are relatively easy to deal with for cell carriers, becasue towers are fairly short range anyway, a lot harder for TV. Anyone who can't get cable here pays for satellite if they can in any way afford too. Of course now we're getting to regional questions. Also the more rural the area, the less spectrum a tower needs to support the population. Conceivably you could work that into the plan (though to be fair, they probably won't). Personally, even here in the middle of Huntsville I can't get more than 5 or 6 channels unless I pay for cable, so I'm all for using the spectrum.
You don't need to support 350 million people on the spectrum. You need to support the number of people in range of any one particular tower. It'll always be a problem in New York City or Chicago, where there's always a ton of people in range of a given tower. In most places the spectrum is more than large enough to support average usage on any one particular tower. Luckily places like Chicago and New York are easier to wire for exactly the reason they're harder to support wirelessly. More population density. No one solution is perfect for everywhere, but this is a good solution for a lot of the country.
Even assuming that there's no incentives here forcing the wireless carriers to offer cheaper options (reasonably priced pay as you go data, for instance) in exchange for the new spectrum, let's do some math. I'm making some assumptions here some of which are probably not accurate in every case but seem sensible in the broad sense. You'll only have one smartphone per family (seems reasonable, since people usually only have one phone and computer per family), and there needs to be a way to make the smartphone a little more accessible in the sense of letting it hook to a keyboard/monitor setup for when you're just sitting and working. Most of this is based on what I currently pay for these things.
Smartphone/4G setup: We'll assume the iPhone 5 costs what the 4 does, that it can do 4G, and that you can hook it up to a keyboard/monitor. It could be an Android phone just as easily: iPhone5: $200 4G data plan: $30 a month voice plan: $20 a month cost over one year: $800 Advantages: Faster Internet. Can make and receive calls while using the Internet (remember we're assuming 4G here, the current iPhone can't do this). Has GPS and other assorted "extras" related to being a phone rather than a computer. Software tends to be much cheaper. Long distance is "free" (no more expensive than local calls). Disadvantages: Limited number of minutes for talk time. Lower computational power than even a relatively cheap "real" computer.
Computer/dial-up setup: Computer: $400 Telephone service: $30 a month Dial-up Internet: $10 a month cost over one year: $880 Advantages: More computational power. Unlimited local talk time. Depending on the area, 911 service may be more reliable. Free software is available if you know where to look, and are willing to wait for downloads over dial-up. Diadvantages: Can't talk and use Internet. Much Slower Internet. Software tends to be more expensive (if you don't know about, or can't reliably download free software). Long Distance charges can add up. Non-portable
Now, you could tweak lots of these numbers. You could probably find a cheaper computer (or a cheaper smartphone), argue about 5 bucks either way on the monthly costs (which are partly dependent on region, cell provider, etc). Some companies limit your total downloads on wireless, but wireless is always on, blah, blah, blah... Overall it seems to me that, even here in the US, a smartphone and 4G Internet would be comparable in expense if not slightly cheaper than a computer and dial-up. Assuming you ditch your land line phone, and only have one smartphone per household (as most poor families would only have one land-line and/or computer). The trick is ditching the land-line. Those things are fairly expensive.
I could do it right now. My 3GS is out from under contract. You're only obligated to use anything for the terms of your contract. Buy a used iPhone, have an iPhone that's outside of it's contract period, get one of the many third party Android devices that come unlocked... Lots of ways to get a smart phone and not have a data plan. I personally like having mobile Internet (we're not allowed to use wifi at work, and my area is not as saturated with wifi as some) so I keep it, but I could cancel it.
I carried a 10 pound $800 lap top on my vacation to Boston a couple of months ago. I also carried my iPhone. Guess which one got used, and which one isn't going with me next time. This isn't an advertisement for iPhone either, everything I did with it I could have done on an Android, Nokia, or WebOS device. Phone apps helped me navigate the subway system, find fun things to do, walk where I wanted to without getting lost, keep in touch with the people I was visiting if we had to separate (My wife is living up there and had to go in to work a few of the days I was up), keep in touch with the people taking care of my dog back home, use the web to look up some more information about some of the stuff I saw...
One of the advantages of phones over netbooks is precisely that they aren't "real" computers. No one writes an app for Windows or stock Linux that helps you find the nearest T-station. Why would they? How many people are going to be wandering around with a full computer trying to find a T-station? Lots of people use phones for it though, or at least I have to guess they do given the 7 or 8 apps I had to chose from. The thing is that there are very few things you can do on a full sized computers that you can't do on a phone. There are some things they can't really do: I wouldn't want to edit photography on a phone for sure; and other things are definitely a bit more trouble: SSH works on my phone, but it's not exactly a ton of fun to use. None the less they *can* do almost everything that a computer can do, and do it adequately for most purposes in an emergency. They can also do lots of things most computers can't which are really nice while on the move (GPS, apps which just make more sense for a purely portable platform, etc)
This was my thought as well. There was very little information given about the type of blog, how anonymous it was, how locked down it was to outside readership, etc. A very locked down blog that a parent happened to get accidental access to (say from being "friended" by a friend or some such) would seem completely reasonable. A very public blog that was highly anonymous (say the only indication of who the author actually is being a small copyright notice at the bottom or something) would seem pretty reasonable. A fully public blog with her name plastered all over it, or (worse) students actual names in it would be much more obviously a breach of etiquette and/or rules. The article doesn't really give any information that might allow a reasonable judgment of the situation. For all we know she had a private blog with all anonymous stories that some overly industrious parent linked to her through subtle clues and complained about.
I didn't say I was OK with it, I said it was representative. You're conflating two ideas here. The requirement of a representative government is that it represents the will of the people. The requirement of an open government (and possibly a "free" government) is that we know what's going on. It's pretty clear at this point that super secret agencies with little or no accountability fall within the will the of the people. If we (as a group, not me or you personally) were really outraged about them, they'd be forced to change. If Congressmen were routinely being voted out of office becasue black ops organization exist and are funded, then they wouldn't be. I'm willing to bet that if you conducted a poll and asked something along the lines of: Do you think that black budget organizations should exist, or should there be some level of transparency to at least the highers echelons of the people's representatives? You'd get a range of responses, but the most common, maybe even the majority would be along the lines of: "I don't like them, but I feel they are necessary to defend our country".
Now do I, personally, feel that these organizations should exist and be accountable to essentially no one? No. I completely understand the need for secrecy in operational situations, but I think that at a minimum our elected representatives should have full access to budgets and transparency on requested information. As long as the President and Congress know, or can find out, what going on I'm content that I can't necessarily in certain circumstances. I also agree that things should be opened up when the need for secrecy has passed; though as someone who has dealt with secret information, I think you might be surprised at how long things do need to be kept secret in order to be effective in a lot of cases.
Feh. I work in federal contracting. Passwords must be 14 characters long, contain at least 2 *each* of uppercase letters, lower case letters, numerals, and specials, must be changed every 60 days, and cannot be repeated for 12 changes. My friken *life* is resetting people's password. It's completely ridiculous. Add to the complexity requirements the fact that most of these people have accounts at multiple sites, all of which use the same standard, and which rarely require changes at the same time... You can imagine that unless they're some sort of savant most people are completely incapable of keeping track of it all.
Arguing with the DSS (different DSS than your obviously) reps is like talking to a wall (to fair, they don't make policy and can't change anything anyway), and no one with the ability to change anything is interested in the opinion of some contractor sys admin or security guy.
And if Congress passed a law saying "You can't do that" and the President signed it, they would have to stop. The money they use for black ops comes from Congress. They could probably self fund for a little while using dirty tricks, but without Congressional backing they'd be in the same boat as the rest of the government. That won't happen though, becasue Congress, like the majority of people they represent, believe that having our own little secret "dirty tricks" division is a worthwhile risk. There's noting unrepresentative about the CIA. Their mandate and funding came from and continue to come from our representatives. Most of whom are doing exactly what the majority of their constituents would want in continuing that mandate and funding.
The fact that you don't think those types of organizations should exist, or be as secretive as they are, is immaterial to the general question of representative democracy. I often disagree with what the government does. So I try to vote different people into office. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but in all cases the guy in Congress represents the majority of people in his district's choice. Everything he does will almost certainly *not* represent the views and priorities of any one particular individual in his district.
there weren't listening devices small enough to be carried by something dragonfly sized in the '70s. At least none that I know of. I freely admit that those CIA guys are clever buggers (ha ha I made a pun) and they may have had something that would work
Gosh that looks an awful lot to me like I was saying that I "wasn't aware" of any. I made no authoritative claim there. Damn. Gosh you'd almost think I was hedging my bet against the fact that I was ignorant of something that would work.
I only wonder what something that small could have carried in the 70's
And there right before the first quote you take out of my post, "I wonder". Almost like I don't know and I'm, ya know, wondering. God damn. As to the "Hardly a concept of digital audio and video" I admitted I was exaggerating a bit. I *meant* the tiny digital audio devices of today that would actually fit on something this small. Yes, with enough gear you could encode and store digital audio in the 70s. It wouldn't fit on a tiny robot though.
My point was not and is not that technology popped into being, and you're right the major change in the last 40 years has been the size of transistors. Considering we're talking about something the size of a god damned insect, that's a pretty damned relevant change wouldn't you say? As others have (nicely) pointed out there are some potential devices that could have worked. That's interesting. I posted becasue I was vaguely curious and I may have learned something. Regardless of whether they planned to use something like "The Thing" it's a cool bit of tech, especially for the time. those were the kind of posts I was hoping to get. So thanks very much for being a superior asshole.
Care to provide a link to this ultra small transmitter which would fit (with audio gathering equipment, power, and an antenna) in a dragonfly in the 70s? I'm looking at "tunnel diode transmitter" on Google and most of the stuff that's coming up doesn't look like it would fit (again with power, mic, and antenna) into a small enough space. Regardless, I never claimed to an expert on 40 year old technology, and my whole post is more a matter of curiously wondering what they were planning to do with it, not declaring that there wasn't anything they could have done. So stop being an ass.
Yes, the theory for digital sound existed, forgive me for exaggerating a bit, I forgot that/. is such a literal place. It required (for the time) fairly massive amounts of computational power to encode and decode though, and small scale storage for it didn't really exist. My point was that you couldn't have fit the required computational and storage capability on such a small device unless the CIA had technology *much* more advanced than the rest of the world. Like, decades ahead.
Well yeah, but again, unless your sibling is right about that Russian capacitance listening device being small enough (and to me the picture makes it look way to big, especially the antenna) there weren't listening devices small enough to be carried by something dragonfly sized in the '70s. At least none that I know of. I freely admit that those CIA guys are clever buggers (ha ha I made a pun) and they may have had something that would work, but given that such items are commonplace now I can't see why they wouldn't declassify it too so we could see the pieces as a package.
I have to admit this is really cool. I only wonder what something that small could have carried in the 70's. I mean with today's near microscopic cameras, mics and storage or transmission devices, it would be able to do some half decent surveillance; but 40 years ago even smallish "bugs" were fairly decent sized items. I have trouble believing even the CIA was THAT far ahead of the technology power curve. Maybe a microfilm camera for a few still shots could be fitted onto it; but there wasn't even hardly a concept of digital audio or video, let alone high density storage to hold the data.
I don't see where I said otherwise. I said that to succeed, they'd need to chose engineers with guts, vision, and backing from on high, I never said that those traits weren't possible to find. Indeed in my second paragraph I mention that if Microsoft really pushes they likely will find them. The problem isn't that engineers lack guts or will power, it's just a question of whether Microsoft current has any senior engineers with the right combination of vision and guts, and whether they'll actually be willing to empower them if they do. If you were that guy, would you have stayed at Microsoft this long? Knowing that the business side has been more and more running the show for years if not decades now?
I curse at Linux. All. The. Time. Just becasue it is a somewhat more stable and secure OS does make it completely stable and happy. Nor does it prevent hardware problems from manifesting in ways that make you convinced something is screwed up the OS (until you dig deeper). For that matter it doesn't prevent me from making typos or misremembering commands or options that cause the computer to something other than what I intended. Indeed, thanks to the fact that I work far more in Linux than Windows, I probably curse it far more as well.
It's rarely that simple in large organizations. The head guy can say "Invite this engineer guy to your meetings", but that in and of itself doesn't mean much. Did you chose a good "engineer guy"? Did you chose someone with a strong will, who is willing to stand up to bunch of alpha male type business people? Did you give the "engineer guy" any teeth? Or just throw him in to "advise" (read: give advice that we will ignore becasue he can't do anything about it)?
Merely putting engineers into senior positions isn't enough if he doesn't pick the right engineers with the right vision; and make sure they have the will and corporate backing to make the vision reality. GP's post simply states that he doesn't think MS has that kind of engineering leadership sitting around waiting to be picked. That may be true, they've bled a lot of visionary engineers over the years. On the other hand they have a ton of money, and (love them or hate them) lots of interesting work going on. If they really went all out to find the right people (ignoring seniority, going out side the company, etc), and then empowered those people to really make decisions, it could work.
There's quite number of configurations where this won't be a problem; laptops, which almost universally only use one HDD, are mentioned above also. That's why the request to keep shipping makes a lot of sense. The only questionable part is whether manufacturers will only ship those configurations. I mean, surely no motherboard manufacturer has ever produced something that violated the chipset maker's recommendation. No computer manufacturer has ever produced something that violated the motherboard maker's recommendation.
Still and all, it makes sense to keep producing. Most configurations won't have a problem here, and it seems silly to stop production for a bug that only affects a minority of systems. Just be careful when buying new hardware for the next little while if you think you might want one of the problematic configurations.
It was quite popular about 8-10 years ago for various media outlets to declare the "year of the Linux Desktop". I can't be arsed to look up specific examples, but they definitely existed. The irony being that Linux has improved dramatically as a desktop OS since most of those claims were widely circulated, yet no one expects it anymore. As far as I can tell, three things have ended the hype:
1) Probably most important: People have realized that what most desktop users want is something Linux will probably never give them. Hand holding and a person to call when things break. Windows' monopoly created a huge pool of reasonably skilled amateur technicians; as well as an ecosystem of professionals ranging from the guy with fliers on the apartment bulletin board, to Best Buy's Geek Squad, to highly skilled consultants and everything in between. Apple answered that with their Genius Bar and highly rated customer service. Linux has answers to it as well, but people don't like searching web sites and such. Red Hat and a few others actually have excellent customer service and tech support, but buying from them (in small volumes, they're way cheaper than MS for high volume sales) makes Linux as expensive as Windows.
2) A credible alternative to Windows on the Desktop emerged in OSX. Sure the hardware is kinda premium, but Apple released an easy to use Unix based OS on fairly affordable hardware. They also tied this with the launch of their retail stores and Genius Bars which provided the kind of hand holding and quick fix solutions that people are used to on Windows.
3) Software and hardware vendors never saw value in cooperating. Next to to the lack of hand holding, this is probably the biggest issue. No thanks to the vendors, the hardware situation is much better than it used to be, but software remains a major hurdle. There are analogs and replacements for a lot of stuff, but they're rarely quite as good, always require a learning curve (on top of learning the new OS), and often times have file conversion issues. Apple got around this because they've always been Microsoft's "see, we're not a really a monopoly" hitching post so a lot of vendors (including MS themselves) have always maintained a MacOS version. Apple's recent success just means that they're making money on it.
So now the Linux vendors concentrate on the server space (which has always been their strength), while producing steadily more polished Desktop OSes that don't get nearly the hype they used to. Meanwhile increasing numbers of tablets, smartphones, and PDAs may make the whole thing irrelevant in ten years. Not that desktop or laptop computers are going anywhere, but portable platforms will probably overtake them in usefulness for non-technical people at some point in the next decade.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, fair is fair. I just wandered over and looked at rate plans on att.com and I obviously got a really good deal at some point. Looks like about $30 is lowest I can get, so add $120 to that total assuming AT&T. Still only a bit more over the course of a year though.
I said I was using what I pay. I pay $125 a month for two iPhones with unlimited data, 750 minutes combined talk time, and unlimited text messages. Take out the $25 for unlimited text messages, divide the rest in half means $50 bucks a phone. I pay $30 for the data each, so roughly 20 for the voice. I listed limited talk time as a disadvantage for the cell and unlimited local calls as an advantage for the land line. It's a completely honest comparison.
The thing is that there are very few things you can do on a full sized computers that you can't do on a phone. There are some things they can't really do: I wouldn't want to edit photography on a phone for sure; and other things are definitely a bit more trouble: SSH works on my phone, but it's not exactly a ton of fun to use. None the less they *can* do almost everything that a computer can do, and do it adequately for most purposes in an emergency
If you're going quote me, quote everything relevant. Also consider the context of the discussion. The every next sentence I point out things that you can't do, or can't do as easily. This whole thread is comparing a phone to a netbook or really small laptop in mobile situations, not the workstation on your desk. Would you want to do most of that stuff on netbook in a cafe while traveling? In the restaurant on the weekend? Phones can do most of what computers can do *in an emergency*, and are quite a bit more portable and useful in many traveling type scenarios.
Would I want to produce my next briefing on my phone? No, but if I realized there was a mistake I could use my phone to correct it real quick. I'm going to produce it in my office. Would I want to admin all my servers through my phone? No, but if someone calls me in a panic I can fix problems through it (well technically *I* can't becasue none of my servers are connected to the Internet, but as a general use case). On the other had my phone can get me back to my car when I got slightly lost in Boston.
My phone knows where I am. Helpful in a city that I don't know well. Also useful was the app gave me full route planning capability. Sure I could have used the maps in the station. I could have walked to the corner and looked at the signs. This was a lot easier though. Not to mention that this was only one instance. It also helped me navigate on the streets. My turn by turn GPS apps does walking routes, it even knew the walking paths through the Commons that would save me time. Theoretically I don't *need* either a phone or a netbook. I navigated New York 10 years ago without either. Either one could make the trip easier and more pleasant though. In this case the apps and GPS, at least in my personal opinion, were a fine trade off for a slightly clunkier data entry process and slightly less powerful CPU. Plus I only had to carry one thing. The phone. Had I used a netbook I'd still need the phone to make and receive calls.
So they get 1 channel instead of three? Most people people outside the city can't get much free TV anyway... At least not here, to many mountains. Mountains are relatively easy to deal with for cell carriers, becasue towers are fairly short range anyway, a lot harder for TV. Anyone who can't get cable here pays for satellite if they can in any way afford too. Of course now we're getting to regional questions. Also the more rural the area, the less spectrum a tower needs to support the population. Conceivably you could work that into the plan (though to be fair, they probably won't). Personally, even here in the middle of Huntsville I can't get more than 5 or 6 channels unless I pay for cable, so I'm all for using the spectrum.
You don't need to support 350 million people on the spectrum. You need to support the number of people in range of any one particular tower. It'll always be a problem in New York City or Chicago, where there's always a ton of people in range of a given tower. In most places the spectrum is more than large enough to support average usage on any one particular tower. Luckily places like Chicago and New York are easier to wire for exactly the reason they're harder to support wirelessly. More population density. No one solution is perfect for everywhere, but this is a good solution for a lot of the country.
Where do you get a phone line for $10 a month? Bare minimum service with no long distance here is $30-35.
Even assuming that there's no incentives here forcing the wireless carriers to offer cheaper options (reasonably priced pay as you go data, for instance) in exchange for the new spectrum, let's do some math. I'm making some assumptions here some of which are probably not accurate in every case but seem sensible in the broad sense. You'll only have one smartphone per family (seems reasonable, since people usually only have one phone and computer per family), and there needs to be a way to make the smartphone a little more accessible in the sense of letting it hook to a keyboard/monitor setup for when you're just sitting and working. Most of this is based on what I currently pay for these things.
Smartphone/4G setup:
We'll assume the iPhone 5 costs what the 4 does, that it can do 4G, and that you can hook it up to a keyboard/monitor. It could be an Android phone just as easily:
iPhone5: $200
4G data plan: $30 a month
voice plan: $20 a month
cost over one year: $800
Advantages: Faster Internet. Can make and receive calls while using the Internet (remember we're assuming 4G here, the current iPhone can't do this). Has GPS and other assorted "extras" related to being a phone rather than a computer. Software tends to be much cheaper. Long distance is "free" (no more expensive than local calls).
Disadvantages: Limited number of minutes for talk time. Lower computational power than even a relatively cheap "real" computer.
Computer/dial-up setup:
Computer: $400
Telephone service: $30 a month
Dial-up Internet: $10 a month
cost over one year: $880
Advantages: More computational power. Unlimited local talk time. Depending on the area, 911 service may be more reliable. Free software is available if you know where to look, and are willing to wait for downloads over dial-up.
Diadvantages: Can't talk and use Internet. Much Slower Internet. Software tends to be more expensive (if you don't know about, or can't reliably download free software). Long Distance charges can add up. Non-portable
Now, you could tweak lots of these numbers. You could probably find a cheaper computer (or a cheaper smartphone), argue about 5 bucks either way on the monthly costs (which are partly dependent on region, cell provider, etc). Some companies limit your total downloads on wireless, but wireless is always on, blah, blah, blah... Overall it seems to me that, even here in the US, a smartphone and 4G Internet would be comparable in expense if not slightly cheaper than a computer and dial-up. Assuming you ditch your land line phone, and only have one smartphone per household (as most poor families would only have one land-line and/or computer). The trick is ditching the land-line. Those things are fairly expensive.
It was September, I guess it was more than "a couple" months ago... doesn't seem like that long.
I could do it right now. My 3GS is out from under contract. You're only obligated to use anything for the terms of your contract. Buy a used iPhone, have an iPhone that's outside of it's contract period, get one of the many third party Android devices that come unlocked... Lots of ways to get a smart phone and not have a data plan. I personally like having mobile Internet (we're not allowed to use wifi at work, and my area is not as saturated with wifi as some) so I keep it, but I could cancel it.
I carried a 10 pound $800 lap top on my vacation to Boston a couple of months ago. I also carried my iPhone. Guess which one got used, and which one isn't going with me next time. This isn't an advertisement for iPhone either, everything I did with it I could have done on an Android, Nokia, or WebOS device. Phone apps helped me navigate the subway system, find fun things to do, walk where I wanted to without getting lost, keep in touch with the people I was visiting if we had to separate (My wife is living up there and had to go in to work a few of the days I was up), keep in touch with the people taking care of my dog back home, use the web to look up some more information about some of the stuff I saw...
One of the advantages of phones over netbooks is precisely that they aren't "real" computers. No one writes an app for Windows or stock Linux that helps you find the nearest T-station. Why would they? How many people are going to be wandering around with a full computer trying to find a T-station? Lots of people use phones for it though, or at least I have to guess they do given the 7 or 8 apps I had to chose from. The thing is that there are very few things you can do on a full sized computers that you can't do on a phone. There are some things they can't really do: I wouldn't want to edit photography on a phone for sure; and other things are definitely a bit more trouble: SSH works on my phone, but it's not exactly a ton of fun to use. None the less they *can* do almost everything that a computer can do, and do it adequately for most purposes in an emergency. They can also do lots of things most computers can't which are really nice while on the move (GPS, apps which just make more sense for a purely portable platform, etc)
This was my thought as well. There was very little information given about the type of blog, how anonymous it was, how locked down it was to outside readership, etc. A very locked down blog that a parent happened to get accidental access to (say from being "friended" by a friend or some such) would seem completely reasonable. A very public blog that was highly anonymous (say the only indication of who the author actually is being a small copyright notice at the bottom or something) would seem pretty reasonable. A fully public blog with her name plastered all over it, or (worse) students actual names in it would be much more obviously a breach of etiquette and/or rules. The article doesn't really give any information that might allow a reasonable judgment of the situation. For all we know she had a private blog with all anonymous stories that some overly industrious parent linked to her through subtle clues and complained about.
I didn't say I was OK with it, I said it was representative. You're conflating two ideas here. The requirement of a representative government is that it represents the will of the people. The requirement of an open government (and possibly a "free" government) is that we know what's going on. It's pretty clear at this point that super secret agencies with little or no accountability fall within the will the of the people. If we (as a group, not me or you personally) were really outraged about them, they'd be forced to change. If Congressmen were routinely being voted out of office becasue black ops organization exist and are funded, then they wouldn't be. I'm willing to bet that if you conducted a poll and asked something along the lines of: Do you think that black budget organizations should exist, or should there be some level of transparency to at least the highers echelons of the people's representatives? You'd get a range of responses, but the most common, maybe even the majority would be along the lines of: "I don't like them, but I feel they are necessary to defend our country".
Now do I, personally, feel that these organizations should exist and be accountable to essentially no one? No. I completely understand the need for secrecy in operational situations, but I think that at a minimum our elected representatives should have full access to budgets and transparency on requested information. As long as the President and Congress know, or can find out, what going on I'm content that I can't necessarily in certain circumstances. I also agree that things should be opened up when the need for secrecy has passed; though as someone who has dealt with secret information, I think you might be surprised at how long things do need to be kept secret in order to be effective in a lot of cases.
Feh. I work in federal contracting. Passwords must be 14 characters long, contain at least 2 *each* of uppercase letters, lower case letters, numerals, and specials, must be changed every 60 days, and cannot be repeated for 12 changes. My friken *life* is resetting people's password. It's completely ridiculous. Add to the complexity requirements the fact that most of these people have accounts at multiple sites, all of which use the same standard, and which rarely require changes at the same time... You can imagine that unless they're some sort of savant most people are completely incapable of keeping track of it all.
Arguing with the DSS (different DSS than your obviously) reps is like talking to a wall (to fair, they don't make policy and can't change anything anyway), and no one with the ability to change anything is interested in the opinion of some contractor sys admin or security guy.
And if Congress passed a law saying "You can't do that" and the President signed it, they would have to stop. The money they use for black ops comes from Congress. They could probably self fund for a little while using dirty tricks, but without Congressional backing they'd be in the same boat as the rest of the government. That won't happen though, becasue Congress, like the majority of people they represent, believe that having our own little secret "dirty tricks" division is a worthwhile risk. There's noting unrepresentative about the CIA. Their mandate and funding came from and continue to come from our representatives. Most of whom are doing exactly what the majority of their constituents would want in continuing that mandate and funding.
The fact that you don't think those types of organizations should exist, or be as secretive as they are, is immaterial to the general question of representative democracy. I often disagree with what the government does. So I try to vote different people into office. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but in all cases the guy in Congress represents the majority of people in his district's choice. Everything he does will almost certainly *not* represent the views and priorities of any one particular individual in his district.
there weren't listening devices small enough to be carried by something dragonfly sized in the '70s. At least none that I know of. I freely admit that those CIA guys are clever buggers (ha ha I made a pun) and they may have had something that would work
Gosh that looks an awful lot to me like I was saying that I "wasn't aware" of any. I made no authoritative claim there. Damn. Gosh you'd almost think I was hedging my bet against the fact that I was ignorant of something that would work.
I only wonder what something that small could have carried in the 70's
And there right before the first quote you take out of my post, "I wonder". Almost like I don't know and I'm, ya know, wondering. God damn. As to the "Hardly a concept of digital audio and video" I admitted I was exaggerating a bit. I *meant* the tiny digital audio devices of today that would actually fit on something this small. Yes, with enough gear you could encode and store digital audio in the 70s. It wouldn't fit on a tiny robot though.
My point was not and is not that technology popped into being, and you're right the major change in the last 40 years has been the size of transistors. Considering we're talking about something the size of a god damned insect, that's a pretty damned relevant change wouldn't you say? As others have (nicely) pointed out there are some potential devices that could have worked. That's interesting. I posted becasue I was vaguely curious and I may have learned something. Regardless of whether they planned to use something like "The Thing" it's a cool bit of tech, especially for the time. those were the kind of posts I was hoping to get. So thanks very much for being a superior asshole.
Care to provide a link to this ultra small transmitter which would fit (with audio gathering equipment, power, and an antenna) in a dragonfly in the 70s? I'm looking at "tunnel diode transmitter" on Google and most of the stuff that's coming up doesn't look like it would fit (again with power, mic, and antenna) into a small enough space. Regardless, I never claimed to an expert on 40 year old technology, and my whole post is more a matter of curiously wondering what they were planning to do with it, not declaring that there wasn't anything they could have done. So stop being an ass.
Yes, the theory for digital sound existed, forgive me for exaggerating a bit, I forgot that /. is such a literal place. It required (for the time) fairly massive amounts of computational power to encode and decode though, and small scale storage for it didn't really exist. My point was that you couldn't have fit the required computational and storage capability on such a small device unless the CIA had technology *much* more advanced than the rest of the world. Like, decades ahead.
Well yeah, but again, unless your sibling is right about that Russian capacitance listening device being small enough (and to me the picture makes it look way to big, especially the antenna) there weren't listening devices small enough to be carried by something dragonfly sized in the '70s. At least none that I know of. I freely admit that those CIA guys are clever buggers (ha ha I made a pun) and they may have had something that would work, but given that such items are commonplace now I can't see why they wouldn't declassify it too so we could see the pieces as a package.
I have to admit this is really cool. I only wonder what something that small could have carried in the 70's. I mean with today's near microscopic cameras, mics and storage or transmission devices, it would be able to do some half decent surveillance; but 40 years ago even smallish "bugs" were fairly decent sized items. I have trouble believing even the CIA was THAT far ahead of the technology power curve. Maybe a microfilm camera for a few still shots could be fitted onto it; but there wasn't even hardly a concept of digital audio or video, let alone high density storage to hold the data.
I don't see where I said otherwise. I said that to succeed, they'd need to chose engineers with guts, vision, and backing from on high, I never said that those traits weren't possible to find. Indeed in my second paragraph I mention that if Microsoft really pushes they likely will find them. The problem isn't that engineers lack guts or will power, it's just a question of whether Microsoft current has any senior engineers with the right combination of vision and guts, and whether they'll actually be willing to empower them if they do. If you were that guy, would you have stayed at Microsoft this long? Knowing that the business side has been more and more running the show for years if not decades now?
I curse at Linux. All. The. Time. Just becasue it is a somewhat more stable and secure OS does make it completely stable and happy. Nor does it prevent hardware problems from manifesting in ways that make you convinced something is screwed up the OS (until you dig deeper). For that matter it doesn't prevent me from making typos or misremembering commands or options that cause the computer to something other than what I intended. Indeed, thanks to the fact that I work far more in Linux than Windows, I probably curse it far more as well.
It's rarely that simple in large organizations. The head guy can say "Invite this engineer guy to your meetings", but that in and of itself doesn't mean much. Did you chose a good "engineer guy"? Did you chose someone with a strong will, who is willing to stand up to bunch of alpha male type business people? Did you give the "engineer guy" any teeth? Or just throw him in to "advise" (read: give advice that we will ignore becasue he can't do anything about it)?
Merely putting engineers into senior positions isn't enough if he doesn't pick the right engineers with the right vision; and make sure they have the will and corporate backing to make the vision reality. GP's post simply states that he doesn't think MS has that kind of engineering leadership sitting around waiting to be picked. That may be true, they've bled a lot of visionary engineers over the years. On the other hand they have a ton of money, and (love them or hate them) lots of interesting work going on. If they really went all out to find the right people (ignoring seniority, going out side the company, etc), and then empowered those people to really make decisions, it could work.
There's quite number of configurations where this won't be a problem; laptops, which almost universally only use one HDD, are mentioned above also. That's why the request to keep shipping makes a lot of sense. The only questionable part is whether manufacturers will only ship those configurations. I mean, surely no motherboard manufacturer has ever produced something that violated the chipset maker's recommendation. No computer manufacturer has ever produced something that violated the motherboard maker's recommendation.
Still and all, it makes sense to keep producing. Most configurations won't have a problem here, and it seems silly to stop production for a bug that only affects a minority of systems. Just be careful when buying new hardware for the next little while if you think you might want one of the problematic configurations.
It was quite popular about 8-10 years ago for various media outlets to declare the "year of the Linux Desktop". I can't be arsed to look up specific examples, but they definitely existed. The irony being that Linux has improved dramatically as a desktop OS since most of those claims were widely circulated, yet no one expects it anymore. As far as I can tell, three things have ended the hype:
1) Probably most important: People have realized that what most desktop users want is something Linux will probably never give them. Hand holding and a person to call when things break. Windows' monopoly created a huge pool of reasonably skilled amateur technicians; as well as an ecosystem of professionals ranging from the guy with fliers on the apartment bulletin board, to Best Buy's Geek Squad, to highly skilled consultants and everything in between. Apple answered that with their Genius Bar and highly rated customer service. Linux has answers to it as well, but people don't like searching web sites and such. Red Hat and a few others actually have excellent customer service and tech support, but buying from them (in small volumes, they're way cheaper than MS for high volume sales) makes Linux as expensive as Windows.
2) A credible alternative to Windows on the Desktop emerged in OSX. Sure the hardware is kinda premium, but Apple released an easy to use Unix based OS on fairly affordable hardware. They also tied this with the launch of their retail stores and Genius Bars which provided the kind of hand holding and quick fix solutions that people are used to on Windows.
3) Software and hardware vendors never saw value in cooperating. Next to to the lack of hand holding, this is probably the biggest issue. No thanks to the vendors, the hardware situation is much better than it used to be, but software remains a major hurdle. There are analogs and replacements for a lot of stuff, but they're rarely quite as good, always require a learning curve (on top of learning the new OS), and often times have file conversion issues. Apple got around this because they've always been Microsoft's "see, we're not a really a monopoly" hitching post so a lot of vendors (including MS themselves) have always maintained a MacOS version. Apple's recent success just means that they're making money on it.
So now the Linux vendors concentrate on the server space (which has always been their strength), while producing steadily more polished Desktop OSes that don't get nearly the hype they used to. Meanwhile increasing numbers of tablets, smartphones, and PDAs may make the whole thing irrelevant in ten years. Not that desktop or laptop computers are going anywhere, but portable platforms will probably overtake them in usefulness for non-technical people at some point in the next decade.