With DRAM as cheap as it is, I'm surprised that a 'modern' Tivo-type box couldn't use DRAM as its 30 minute buffer. 8GB Flash could be used for recordings. When a recording was complete, the HDD would be woken up, the recording dumped to HDD, the HDD powered off.
If you bumped flash to 16GB and applied some intelligence to flash management, there may be some people who seldom would watch a program from the HDD (ie, they watch mostly recently-recorded programs and only rarely go to flash).
I don't know what the power savings would be, but you might even copy programs from flash to HDD in the background as the program is started and spin down the HDD once completed and pretty much never use the HDD.
When I was last in Florida, I noticed that a lot of buildings built near the Gulf have kind of a "disposable" ground floor -- either nothing, used as a car port but open on both ends, or what amounted to the same with a garage doors (presumably with some passive system designed to blow out in the case of a tidal surge to keep the structure from being pushed off its foundation.
Why don't they engineer buildings in flood plains along the same lines? Put parking and other empty concrete structures on a lower level so that the damage from water infiltration is minimized.
Sure, not every structure can be built this way and cost/benefit for some structures won't make it worth while, but it would seem that a great many, especially commercial structures could be.
If you haven't figured it out, Apple is a consumer electronics company, not a provider of business systems. They presume their products are being sold to a dilettante market.
At one point, I think Apple did have some kind of "information system" desire, but by now it should be evident it's all about iPods, iPhones, and iPads. The computer platform is rapidly become obsolete for Apple's business.
Expecting the kind of equipment and systems stability you get in the business/enterprise market just isn't going to happen from Apple.
So if people were smarter, they wouldn't walk by the park and night which would keep them from being targets of mugging, which in turn will make muggers become more productive citizens?
I agree with the idea that capturing one group will result in a second group popping up, but the same is true with crime -- arresting people who commit $criminal_offense won't stop $criminal_offense from occurring.
I do believe, though, that there are a lot of people profiting on cyber crime who sit in the middle and make money off it, while being able to claim they aren't involved -- the banks, the credit card companies, the hosting companies, the ISPs who turn a blind eye and provide the air and water that criminals need to be criminals.
What I'd like to see are RICO prosecutions where the otherwise "legitimate" entities who claim ignorance get prosecuted. I think you'd quickly end up with a lot more self-policing by the passive beneficiaries.
I'd also like to see a little more regulation on the credit card side of things -- why can't I arbitrarily limit what countries or states my credit card is good in? If credit cards by default didn't work overseas -- you had to call 1-800 and get them enabled in the specific countries you wanted them to work in -- that would help, too.
If you can make it harder to charge a credit card overseas, wire transfer money, etc, you might make it harder to profit from these kinds of crimes.
I'm not sure it's possible to envision a replacement global currency for the dollar.
Until the 1980s, there was only the dollar. European currencies traded well and some had boutique value (Swiss Franc) or post-Empire utility (UK Pound), but were too small in total money supply to threaten dollar hegemony.
The Japanese Yen made a run at it, but the Japanese economy fizzled and the Koreans and Chinese economies soared and they weren't interested politically or economically in anything like Japanese hegemony.
The Euro looked formidable for a while, but with the debt crises and lack of British participation, the future of that synthetic currency looks foggy.
The Chinese Renimibi appears to be a possible replacement, but it's a manipulated currency on a technical level and it's not clear to what extent the Chinese will tolerate a large foreign money supply politically, which might shy people from "trusting" it.
Then there's the inertia of the sheer volume of physical dollar currency in circulation globally. The paper itself will wear out, but because there's so much business conducted in dollars with physical dollars, replacing that currency physically with another currency is a real challenge, especially considering that many of the transactions are small-scale and depend on the dollar as part of the trust level of the transaction.
If they can return 6%, why aren't people lining up to build them instead of needing the dept. of Energy to guarantee $2 billion in loans?
I'm all for alternative energy and believe in a Manhattan project for energy research, but there's a reason that big money capitalism isn't willing to invest that kind money -- there really isn't guaranteed money to be made there. If there was, they would invest.
Needless to say, I think you're all wildly optimistic about the kind of margins this project yields. It may be hugely beneficial for science or engineering but not as a financial investment.
I drive a Volvo S80 with "Collision Avoidance" which is very similar to the Mercedes technology; it uses some kind of radar, coupled with the car computer to figure out if your current speed/acceleration might result in a collision with the object in front of you, using the radar to measure its distance.
If you meet the criteria, it sounds an audible and visual warning and pre-charges the brakes
I thought it was kind of BS, but there have been a couple of incidents where I think it has saved me from rear-ending the car in front of me.
Both times it was in stop-and-go traffic where you'd speed up to about 40 before you had to come to a near complete stop, usually quickly, and in kind of overcast, flat lighting making the distance in front of you hard to judge, especially at low speeds with quick stops.
Does it enable jacking around with your cell or something? No, it only "works" when you're legitimately about to nail someone and it doesn't give you enough breathing room unless you're actually paying attention.
What do you recommend for phone insurance? Personally I like the concept, I just worry that any plan that looks financially reasonable ($3-4 per month max) will be ridden with loopholes and filing a claim will be impossible.
Beyond that price point, after two years, you're in the ball park for what you can get a new iPhone for with a new contract discount, making it something of a bad bet, although mid-contract replacement is probably the pricey risk you're actually insuring against.
But while I'm thinking out loud, what about homeowner's insurance? Shouldn't it cover that kind of a loss?
What would be hard about it? Does AT&T not sell iPhones to corporate customers? It can't be that hard to buy them from a business perspective.
Even if AT&T or Apple had some weird draconian "consumer only" rule, businesses could always just reimburse their employees for the phones plus the service.
The only way this seems to have a business advantage is if you insist on Apple devices and do international travel and want a local number/SIM -- my guess is that at this level of employee, the company eats AT&T roaming charges, buys the device overseas or the employee is compensated for using their personal device overseas.
The only way unlocking makes business sense is when the device is dual-mode/multiband and does high speed data on any carrier, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T or T-Mobile. My guess is that both AT&T and Verizon fear a totally unlocked dual mode/multiband iPhone as it will mean mass defections.
That's fascinating, but in the case cited in the NY Times article, it really seems like there's just too much authority and too much access to sensitive information for one person to have without any kind of check and balance to make sure it doesn't get abused.
Look, I recognize too much car is an obvious symptom of funny business, but it smacks of envy and vendetta that he's running random checks on fancy cars at a whim. My sense is he needs to do deep digging -- DMV databases, complete tax returns, possibly even bank subpoenas -- to really ascertain whether someone can "afford" a car.
I'm about the last guy that has sympathy for small-time big wheels who use a little success and a lot of cheating to act like swinging dicks -- hang 'em all -- but I'm also a little frightened that some guy is running around with completely unchecked using his tin star to enhance his small-time sense of moral righteousness.
When I read this story in the local paper (probably a NYT or AP version, likely shrunk) it made it sound like that many of these things they've already been doing but that they required "opening an official investigation" or something to that effect, which involved some oversight but a ton of bureaucracy and turning the wheels of process.
The net effect seemed to be that they could continue to do some of this stuff, except it would require less organizational oversight and more personal discretion.
THIS is the part I find shocking. I read a story recently about an IRS agent who makes a point of running plates on sports cars he sees on the streets and then checking to see if the people who own the car list enough income on their taxes to justify the ownership. If it seems fishy, he then does a criminal audit.
Even though the people may be cheating on their taxes, this strikes me as kind of rogue behavior that I'd hope the FBI would be restrained from.
Ha, I want to see "smart" appliances that can't get hacked or grid connections that filter control signals.
I get a discount from my power company for having a smart grid component ("Power Saver") in-line with my central AC compressor. As it turns out, though, the device is trivial to bypass. I haven't done it, but it wouldn't take much effort to bypass the power saver, keep the discount, and keep my A/C on.
There's apparently some commitment to only disable A/C during the day and I've never noticed it off during the evening or weekends, so I haven't bothered bypassing mine, but I would do it if I thought it was an inconvenience.
You must be in your twenties and project an aura of some financial success (not rich, but not struggling 20-something).
Sex partners weren't impossible to come by when I was in my 20s, but it wasn't always easy, and quite often the girls who were the easiest to get also were the least pleasant to be with.
o Weird self-esteem issues o More convenient than attractive o Unbalanced desire/need that usually left me feeling guilty (ie, they always wanted 'more')
I found that that most of the 'desirable' women -- ie, complete package, smart, good-looking, sexually engaged -- when I was in my twenties all were looking for way more than sex and at a minimum expected a relationship with some kind of long-term status, generally marriage, and they really favored people with some sense of financial success (good job/income).
I don't think that changes a ton as you get older. I think there may be some golden age between about 35-50 where women are divorced or decide that they don't want to be married and feel less sexually constrained.
This may be different "now" than it was when I was in my 20s, 25 years ago, but probably not a lot on average.
First of all, if casually observing someone driving was enough to determine sobriety, the police would hardly have an incentive to run checkstops. But back to your anecdotal observations...
But isn't weaving in/out of your lane, driving too fast/too slow, following too close, ie, otherwise not obeying the rules of the road/safe driving or other OBSERVABLE violations the standard for safe driving?
Although someone may meet some blood alcohol definition of "drunk", as long as they are operating their vehicle within the defined parameters of traffic safety why are they then guilty of a crime if you could not tell they were drunk without a breath or blood test?
It scares me that we justify all manner of invasive searches because "we can't tell if someone is doing something bad" -- well if we cant' tell because they aren't causing a disruption, is what they're doing bad?
Does seeing a high concentration of DUIs being with a first responder actually increase their overall statistical frequency, or does it merely make it feel like there are a lot of them?
And I mean specific -- "In order to interact with iCloud, we need OS function calls DoFooBarian and MangleDataButGood and built-in networking service XMLSmell" and not some generic "its older and less secure".
Whatever Apple is doing with iCloud probably is more in their code and less in Windows and probably has no real dependency on Windows 7.
My gut instinct is this is less about some technical need of iCloud on Windows but more about Apple making a cost benefit decision that providing the broader support (end users, installer packaging, etc) wasn't worth it.
At least now I have more motivation to replace my otherwise trusty Q6600 XP system.
What's worse is many trades require training and experience and testing AND certification beyond most any white collar jobs. I've known electricians doing work more complicated than anything I've done in IT in 20 years.
The energy inputs to the Prius are likely to be very inexpensive, very dirty energy sources -- like the coal the Chinese like to burn for electricity that powers much of the rare earth production that goes into Prius motors & electronics.
What amazes me is how many people buy into the CEO as savior idea. Microsoft is a many-headed hydra, no one person (especially a 50-60 year old white male with family legacy wealth already locked up) has the vision/skills/energy to overhaul it and make it something else.
Microsoft should be broken up. Apps & Servers, Operating Systems & Mobile, Gaming & Entertainment, with someone who is capable of providing a vision within those spheres and isn't burdened by monopoly lock-in requirements and ossified technology of their "partner".
It's certainly debatable whether the breakup makes sense along the lines above, or something else, but this seems workable.
Apps & Servers need no longer be tied to Windows OS -- Exchange for Linux/FreeBSD? Office for Linux?
OS fits mobile in that Mobile needs and OS and as we've seen with Apple, it's not hard to see iOS overtaking MacOS or at least overshadowing it, plus a new OS group would not be tied to some kind of corporate mandate to primarily be the basis for selling MS servers and apps.
Gaming and entertainment is the non-business business which is why it fits together and would allow such an entity to rebrand itself beyond the boring navy blue suit corporate image that probably helped doom Zune.
The question I have is, how long until Wall Street demands it?
Demanding growth in a saturated market. Rather than better phones, faster service, more quality services, they look for gimmicks for short term revenue gains.
Slashdot Mirror
With DRAM as cheap as it is, I'm surprised that a 'modern' Tivo-type box couldn't use DRAM as its 30 minute buffer. 8GB Flash could be used for recordings. When a recording was complete, the HDD would be woken up, the recording dumped to HDD, the HDD powered off.
If you bumped flash to 16GB and applied some intelligence to flash management, there may be some people who seldom would watch a program from the HDD (ie, they watch mostly recently-recorded programs and only rarely go to flash).
I don't know what the power savings would be, but you might even copy programs from flash to HDD in the background as the program is started and spin down the HDD once completed and pretty much never use the HDD.
When I was last in Florida, I noticed that a lot of buildings built near the Gulf have kind of a "disposable" ground floor -- either nothing, used as a car port but open on both ends, or what amounted to the same with a garage doors (presumably with some passive system designed to blow out in the case of a tidal surge to keep the structure from being pushed off its foundation.
Why don't they engineer buildings in flood plains along the same lines? Put parking and other empty concrete structures on a lower level so that the damage from water infiltration is minimized.
Sure, not every structure can be built this way and cost/benefit for some structures won't make it worth while, but it would seem that a great many, especially commercial structures could be.
If you haven't figured it out, Apple is a consumer electronics company, not a provider of business systems. They presume their products are being sold to a dilettante market.
At one point, I think Apple did have some kind of "information system" desire, but by now it should be evident it's all about iPods, iPhones, and iPads. The computer platform is rapidly become obsolete for Apple's business.
Expecting the kind of equipment and systems stability you get in the business/enterprise market just isn't going to happen from Apple.
So if people were smarter, they wouldn't walk by the park and night which would keep them from being targets of mugging, which in turn will make muggers become more productive citizens?
I agree with the idea that capturing one group will result in a second group popping up, but the same is true with crime -- arresting people who commit $criminal_offense won't stop $criminal_offense from occurring.
I do believe, though, that there are a lot of people profiting on cyber crime who sit in the middle and make money off it, while being able to claim they aren't involved -- the banks, the credit card companies, the hosting companies, the ISPs who turn a blind eye and provide the air and water that criminals need to be criminals.
What I'd like to see are RICO prosecutions where the otherwise "legitimate" entities who claim ignorance get prosecuted. I think you'd quickly end up with a lot more self-policing by the passive beneficiaries.
I'd also like to see a little more regulation on the credit card side of things -- why can't I arbitrarily limit what countries or states my credit card is good in? If credit cards by default didn't work overseas -- you had to call 1-800 and get them enabled in the specific countries you wanted them to work in -- that would help, too.
If you can make it harder to charge a credit card overseas, wire transfer money, etc, you might make it harder to profit from these kinds of crimes.
I'm not sure it's possible to envision a replacement global currency for the dollar.
Until the 1980s, there was only the dollar. European currencies traded well and some had boutique value (Swiss Franc) or post-Empire utility (UK Pound), but were too small in total money supply to threaten dollar hegemony.
The Japanese Yen made a run at it, but the Japanese economy fizzled and the Koreans and Chinese economies soared and they weren't interested politically or economically in anything like Japanese hegemony.
The Euro looked formidable for a while, but with the debt crises and lack of British participation, the future of that synthetic currency looks foggy.
The Chinese Renimibi appears to be a possible replacement, but it's a manipulated currency on a technical level and it's not clear to what extent the Chinese will tolerate a large foreign money supply politically, which might shy people from "trusting" it.
Then there's the inertia of the sheer volume of physical dollar currency in circulation globally. The paper itself will wear out, but because there's so much business conducted in dollars with physical dollars, replacing that currency physically with another currency is a real challenge, especially considering that many of the transactions are small-scale and depend on the dollar as part of the trust level of the transaction.
If they can return 6%, why aren't people lining up to build them instead of needing the dept. of Energy to guarantee $2 billion in loans?
I'm all for alternative energy and believe in a Manhattan project for energy research, but there's a reason that big money capitalism isn't willing to invest that kind money -- there really isn't guaranteed money to be made there. If there was, they would invest.
Needless to say, I think you're all wildly optimistic about the kind of margins this project yields. It may be hugely beneficial for science or engineering but not as a financial investment.
Yeah, but you don't get 100% of the power bill for the construction of the plant.
Think double or triple your pay off period once you factor in ongoing labor, maintenance, etc. 30 year payoff.
Real World Data Point:
I drive a Volvo S80 with "Collision Avoidance" which is very similar to the Mercedes technology; it uses some kind of radar, coupled with the car computer to figure out if your current speed/acceleration might result in a collision with the object in front of you, using the radar to measure its distance.
If you meet the criteria, it sounds an audible and visual warning and pre-charges the brakes
I thought it was kind of BS, but there have been a couple of incidents where I think it has saved me from rear-ending the car in front of me.
Both times it was in stop-and-go traffic where you'd speed up to about 40 before you had to come to a near complete stop, usually quickly, and in kind of overcast, flat lighting making the distance in front of you hard to judge, especially at low speeds with quick stops.
Does it enable jacking around with your cell or something? No, it only "works" when you're legitimately about to nail someone and it doesn't give you enough breathing room unless you're actually paying attention.
The phones are easy to get, it's the "IT procurement teams" and their short-sighted bureaucracy that makes it complicated.
What do you recommend for phone insurance? Personally I like the concept, I just worry that any plan that looks financially reasonable ($3-4 per month max) will be ridden with loopholes and filing a claim will be impossible.
Beyond that price point, after two years, you're in the ball park for what you can get a new iPhone for with a new contract discount, making it something of a bad bet, although mid-contract replacement is probably the pricey risk you're actually insuring against.
But while I'm thinking out loud, what about homeowner's insurance? Shouldn't it cover that kind of a loss?
What would be hard about it? Does AT&T not sell iPhones to corporate customers? It can't be that hard to buy them from a business perspective.
Even if AT&T or Apple had some weird draconian "consumer only" rule, businesses could always just reimburse their employees for the phones plus the service.
The only way this seems to have a business advantage is if you insist on Apple devices and do international travel and want a local number/SIM -- my guess is that at this level of employee, the company eats AT&T roaming charges, buys the device overseas or the employee is compensated for using their personal device overseas.
The only way unlocking makes business sense is when the device is dual-mode/multiband and does high speed data on any carrier, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T or T-Mobile. My guess is that both AT&T and Verizon fear a totally unlocked dual mode/multiband iPhone as it will mean mass defections.
That's fascinating, but in the case cited in the NY Times article, it really seems like there's just too much authority and too much access to sensitive information for one person to have without any kind of check and balance to make sure it doesn't get abused.
Look, I recognize too much car is an obvious symptom of funny business, but it smacks of envy and vendetta that he's running random checks on fancy cars at a whim. My sense is he needs to do deep digging -- DMV databases, complete tax returns, possibly even bank subpoenas -- to really ascertain whether someone can "afford" a car.
I'm about the last guy that has sympathy for small-time big wheels who use a little success and a lot of cheating to act like swinging dicks -- hang 'em all -- but I'm also a little frightened that some guy is running around with completely unchecked using his tin star to enhance his small-time sense of moral righteousness.
I hope they give admin rights to Iran. It'll dovetail nicely with Libya having been the head of the UN Human Rights commission.
Agile is like "flexible" -- it's just another word thrown around that enables enough ambiguity to allow people to have it both ways.
When I read this story in the local paper (probably a NYT or AP version, likely shrunk) it made it sound like that many of these things they've already been doing but that they required "opening an official investigation" or something to that effect, which involved some oversight but a ton of bureaucracy and turning the wheels of process.
The net effect seemed to be that they could continue to do some of this stuff, except it would require less organizational oversight and more personal discretion.
THIS is the part I find shocking. I read a story recently about an IRS agent who makes a point of running plates on sports cars he sees on the streets and then checking to see if the people who own the car list enough income on their taxes to justify the ownership. If it seems fishy, he then does a criminal audit.
Even though the people may be cheating on their taxes, this strikes me as kind of rogue behavior that I'd hope the FBI would be restrained from.
Ha, I want to see "smart" appliances that can't get hacked or grid connections that filter control signals.
I get a discount from my power company for having a smart grid component ("Power Saver") in-line with my central AC compressor. As it turns out, though, the device is trivial to bypass. I haven't done it, but it wouldn't take much effort to bypass the power saver, keep the discount, and keep my A/C on.
There's apparently some commitment to only disable A/C during the day and I've never noticed it off during the evening or weekends, so I haven't bothered bypassing mine, but I would do it if I thought it was an inconvenience.
You must be in your twenties and project an aura of some financial success (not rich, but not struggling 20-something).
Sex partners weren't impossible to come by when I was in my 20s, but it wasn't always easy, and quite often the girls who were the easiest to get also were the least pleasant to be with.
o Weird self-esteem issues
o More convenient than attractive
o Unbalanced desire/need that usually left me feeling guilty (ie, they always wanted 'more')
I found that that most of the 'desirable' women -- ie, complete package, smart, good-looking, sexually engaged -- when I was in my twenties all were looking for way more than sex and at a minimum expected a relationship with some kind of long-term status, generally marriage, and they really favored people with some sense of financial success (good job/income).
I don't think that changes a ton as you get older. I think there may be some golden age between about 35-50 where women are divorced or decide that they don't want to be married and feel less sexually constrained.
This may be different "now" than it was when I was in my 20s, 25 years ago, but probably not a lot on average.
So we arrest people now for their potential to cause accidents?
Will we be pulling people over strictly on a statistical basis now?
First of all, if casually observing someone driving was enough to determine sobriety, the police would hardly have an incentive to run checkstops. But back to your anecdotal observations...
But isn't weaving in/out of your lane, driving too fast/too slow, following too close, ie, otherwise not obeying the rules of the road/safe driving or other OBSERVABLE violations the standard for safe driving?
Although someone may meet some blood alcohol definition of "drunk", as long as they are operating their vehicle within the defined parameters of traffic safety why are they then guilty of a crime if you could not tell they were drunk without a breath or blood test?
It scares me that we justify all manner of invasive searches because "we can't tell if someone is doing something bad" -- well if we cant' tell because they aren't causing a disruption, is what they're doing bad?
Does seeing a high concentration of DUIs being with a first responder actually increase their overall statistical frequency, or does it merely make it feel like there are a lot of them?
And I mean specific -- "In order to interact with iCloud, we need OS function calls DoFooBarian and MangleDataButGood and built-in networking service XMLSmell" and not some generic "its older and less secure".
Whatever Apple is doing with iCloud probably is more in their code and less in Windows and probably has no real dependency on Windows 7.
My gut instinct is this is less about some technical need of iCloud on Windows but more about Apple making a cost benefit decision that providing the broader support (end users, installer packaging, etc) wasn't worth it.
At least now I have more motivation to replace my otherwise trusty Q6600 XP system.
100 percent accurate. All of it.
What's worse is many trades require training and experience and testing AND certification beyond most any white collar jobs. I've known electricians doing work more complicated than anything I've done in IT in 20 years.
Is the dollar cost of energy the right metric?
The energy inputs to the Prius are likely to be very inexpensive, very dirty energy sources -- like the coal the Chinese like to burn for electricity that powers much of the rare earth production that goes into Prius motors & electronics.
What amazes me is how many people buy into the CEO as savior idea. Microsoft is a many-headed hydra, no one person (especially a 50-60 year old white male with family legacy wealth already locked up) has the vision/skills/energy to overhaul it and make it something else.
Microsoft should be broken up. Apps & Servers, Operating Systems & Mobile, Gaming & Entertainment, with someone who is capable of providing a vision within those spheres and isn't burdened by monopoly lock-in requirements and ossified technology of their "partner".
It's certainly debatable whether the breakup makes sense along the lines above, or something else, but this seems workable.
Apps & Servers need no longer be tied to Windows OS -- Exchange for Linux/FreeBSD? Office for Linux?
OS fits mobile in that Mobile needs and OS and as we've seen with Apple, it's not hard to see iOS overtaking MacOS or at least overshadowing it, plus a new OS group would not be tied to some kind of corporate mandate to primarily be the basis for selling MS servers and apps.
Gaming and entertainment is the non-business business which is why it fits together and would allow such an entity to rebrand itself beyond the boring navy blue suit corporate image that probably helped doom Zune.
The question I have is, how long until Wall Street demands it?
Demanding growth in a saturated market. Rather than better phones, faster service, more quality services, they look for gimmicks for short term revenue gains.