What they don't seem to understand is that their whole 'Think of the children!' approach will end with everyone being treated like children, themselves included -- except of course the Watchers themselves, who will be the only people left on the planet who are anything even close to being adults anymore.
I'll be over here, waiting patiently for the tipping-point to occur, when all you 'I have nothing to hide!' and 'I don't care who knows what I buy/where I go/what I do so long as I get a discount' people who have deprecated the whole concept of privacy have finally had enough of companies (and in this case, doctors and maybe insurance companies) poking their noses into your business. Those 'loyalty club' cards you've been using for years? Because you never cared about your own privacy, you never thought to ask for the contract you agreed to by accepting the card and the discount, which gave them the right to collect all sorts of personally-identifiable data on your purchasing habits, did you? Did you really think they were giving you a discount on everything you bought there out of the goodness of their hearts? Because they're such nice people? Because 'insuring your continued business' was enough of a reason for them? HA! Enjoy having your doctor up your ass constantly, after all you got a whole $0.10 off that box of cereal you bought so it's worth it, right?
You don't need a 'smart home', you need a 'common sense homeowner'. Besides which there are already 'smart home' systems out there that don't need to be connected to the goddamn Internet, just use those.
Are you kidding me? I've been riding motorcycles for 35 years and I'd stand in line for a chance to own something like this, and I've owned some fast bikes. Zero to 60 in 4 seconds? And it does it quietly? Hell, yes! Fewer moving parts to wear out? Hell, yes! No massive amounts of heat generated? Hell, yes! For 100,000 miles the only thing that would likely need replacing are brake pads and tires? Oh HELL YES!
You, on the other hand? As others have pointed out, sounds like you want compensation for something you're lacking, buddy, not necessarily a motorcycle. Midlife crisis much?
Google may or may not accomplish this goal, but the real question is, how long after that will it be before Comcast does a hostile takeover of Google and fuck it all up for everybody?
Sounds to me like something the NSA would come up with, a universal database tracking everyone's access to every little thing on the internet, and the so-called 'restrictions' are as meaningless as the 'do not track' flag in a web browser, it only works when everyone is playing by the same rules.
This. All over the place I see kids and even young engineers that may be geniuses when it comes to anything digital, but you ask them to design a crystal radio without cheating a looking online and most of them are completely lost, let alone being able to design the RF portion of, say, a wifi adapter, or really understand how an op-amp works or what to use it for. Online I see kids playing around with Arduinos and the like, thinking they're 'working with electronics', when in fact what they're doing is putting lego blocks together and writing some code. I've run into more than one person who thinks you can't do anything at all without using some sort of microcontroller, including something as simple as flashing an LED; you try to show them something as basic as a transistor oscillator and they think you're just kidding with them and that that couldn't possibly do anything at all. What's worse is what I see as a growing sentiment that anyone who uses a discrete or analog approach to a problem, even a small, simple problem, is somehow backwards or unintelligent, or that anything less complicated than a microcontroller is somehow trivial and therefore should be disregarded. Little do they understand that all their microcontrollers wouldn't operate at all without a humble crystal oscillator, which at it's roots is analog in nature.
If you're going to advocate civil disobedience on the level of outright violence you could at least put your name to it you goddamn pussy. Nobody is going to put their necks on the line when you're clearly not willing to yourself.
The 'government agencies' that we're concerned about the most don't give a flying fuck about what 'courts' or 'judges' have to say, they're going to do whatever the hell they want to do, regardless; that's the nature of organizations who deal in 'secret' things, and it's the nature of the cancer that plagues our current government.
Now, the question is: What should we use as chemo to cure this cancer?
I in no way meant to imply that. They obviously aren't upgrading the core of their networks, which is where the bottlenecks occur. It's exactly like how cable companies advertise "1080p HD", but what they don't tell you is that they've compressed the living hell out of the video, so while it's technically 1080p, it's so blocky and grainy that it's irrelevant what the resolution is. They can and will sell someone 100mbps to their house, but what's the point when their own core network and/or backbone connections are too small and/or overbooked to the point where it only takes a fraction of people using what they are paying for to load down the network as a whole to the point where it's noticeably slower.
I hope you're not implying that ISPs already have all the bandwidth they need and that we're paying fair prices for it? Are you for or against net neutrality?
If there's sufficient bandwidth for everyone then net neutrality won't be a problem now will it? Either someone light a fire under these goddamn ISPs and make them stop stalling on upgrading shit, or force them to stop lying to their customers about how much bandwidth they're actually paying for. Also Cisco is a shit company and can go fuck themselves.
Aww, poor NSA, their systems are too complex for them to control according to the law? What a terrible 1st world problem to have! Fear not NSA, I have a solution that will take this horrible burden off your shoulders, and make the rest of us happy at the same time: simplify your goddamn systems to the point where you can 'control' them and be in accordance with the law. Either that or maybe we need to take a chainsaw to your 'systems' and just chop them down to a reasonable size. Here, here's an abacus, that's about all I'd trust you motherfuckers with at this point.
I think whatever focus group recommended this to Mercedes has trolled them very successfully. I'd think that this 'feature' would freak out people riding in the car and not be pleasurable.
Tell me again why we even need 'smart TVs' in the first place? I'd rather spend the money on a basic TV with better picture quality and get the 'smart' part from what I connect to it (DVR in my case).
Slashdot Mirror
I was rolling; when you're rolling you don't use paragraphs. =).
What they don't seem to understand is that their whole 'Think of the children!' approach will end with everyone being treated like children, themselves included -- except of course the Watchers themselves, who will be the only people left on the planet who are anything even close to being adults anymore.
Being an AC the only form of intelligence you'd have would have to be the artificial kind, that's for sure.
I'll be over here, waiting patiently for the tipping-point to occur, when all you 'I have nothing to hide!' and 'I don't care who knows what I buy/where I go/what I do so long as I get a discount' people who have deprecated the whole concept of privacy have finally had enough of companies (and in this case, doctors and maybe insurance companies) poking their noses into your business. Those 'loyalty club' cards you've been using for years? Because you never cared about your own privacy, you never thought to ask for the contract you agreed to by accepting the card and the discount, which gave them the right to collect all sorts of personally-identifiable data on your purchasing habits, did you? Did you really think they were giving you a discount on everything you bought there out of the goodness of their hearts? Because they're such nice people? Because 'insuring your continued business' was enough of a reason for them? HA! Enjoy having your doctor up your ass constantly, after all you got a whole $0.10 off that box of cereal you bought so it's worth it, right?
You don't need a 'smart home', you need a 'common sense homeowner'. Besides which there are already 'smart home' systems out there that don't need to be connected to the goddamn Internet, just use those.
Isn't that what got Clinton in so much trouble?
Are you kidding me? I've been riding motorcycles for 35 years and I'd stand in line for a chance to own something like this, and I've owned some fast bikes. Zero to 60 in 4 seconds? And it does it quietly? Hell, yes! Fewer moving parts to wear out? Hell, yes! No massive amounts of heat generated? Hell, yes! For 100,000 miles the only thing that would likely need replacing are brake pads and tires? Oh HELL YES!
You, on the other hand? As others have pointed out, sounds like you want compensation for something you're lacking, buddy, not necessarily a motorcycle. Midlife crisis much?
'Cryptocoin mining'.
Google may or may not accomplish this goal, but the real question is, how long after that will it be before Comcast does a hostile takeover of Google and fuck it all up for everybody?
Simple solution to that little problem, my friend: don't buy a so-called 'smart' TV.
THANK YOU! For once I'm not the one who has to make a post filled with common sense! Hear, hear!
Sounds to me like something the NSA would come up with, a universal database tracking everyone's access to every little thing on the internet, and the so-called 'restrictions' are as meaningless as the 'do not track' flag in a web browser, it only works when everyone is playing by the same rules.
This.
All over the place I see kids and even young engineers that may be geniuses when it comes to anything digital, but you ask them to design a crystal radio without cheating a looking online and most of them are completely lost, let alone being able to design the RF portion of, say, a wifi adapter, or really understand how an op-amp works or what to use it for. Online I see kids playing around with Arduinos and the like, thinking they're 'working with electronics', when in fact what they're doing is putting lego blocks together and writing some code. I've run into more than one person who thinks you can't do anything at all without using some sort of microcontroller, including something as simple as flashing an LED; you try to show them something as basic as a transistor oscillator and they think you're just kidding with them and that that couldn't possibly do anything at all. What's worse is what I see as a growing sentiment that anyone who uses a discrete or analog approach to a problem, even a small, simple problem, is somehow backwards or unintelligent, or that anything less complicated than a microcontroller is somehow trivial and therefore should be disregarded. Little do they understand that all their microcontrollers wouldn't operate at all without a humble crystal oscillator, which at it's roots is analog in nature.
If you're going to advocate civil disobedience on the level of outright violence you could at least put your name to it you goddamn pussy. Nobody is going to put their necks on the line when you're clearly not willing to yourself.
The 'government agencies' that we're concerned about the most don't give a flying fuck about what 'courts' or 'judges' have to say, they're going to do whatever the hell they want to do, regardless; that's the nature of organizations who deal in 'secret' things, and it's the nature of the cancer that plagues our current government.
Now, the question is: What should we use as chemo to cure this cancer?
I in no way meant to imply that. They obviously aren't upgrading the core of their networks, which is where the bottlenecks occur. It's exactly like how cable companies advertise "1080p HD", but what they don't tell you is that they've compressed the living hell out of the video, so while it's technically 1080p, it's so blocky and grainy that it's irrelevant what the resolution is. They can and will sell someone 100mbps to their house, but what's the point when their own core network and/or backbone connections are too small and/or overbooked to the point where it only takes a fraction of people using what they are paying for to load down the network as a whole to the point where it's noticeably slower.
I hope you're not implying that ISPs already have all the bandwidth they need and that we're paying fair prices for it? Are you for or against net neutrality?
If there's sufficient bandwidth for everyone then net neutrality won't be a problem now will it? Either someone light a fire under these goddamn ISPs and make them stop stalling on upgrading shit, or force them to stop lying to their customers about how much bandwidth they're actually paying for. Also Cisco is a shit company and can go fuck themselves.
NEVER use what Comcast provides, buy your own equipment and don't allow ANYONE else access to it!
More importantly, can we reconfigure it to emit a tachyon pulse?
Probably not, but I'd lay odds we could manage to get a coherent graviton beam out of it.
20KW? Sounds to me like the Elephant In The Room is a small on-board nuclear reactor to power the craft.
Aww, poor NSA, their systems are too complex for them to control according to the law? What a terrible 1st world problem to have! Fear not NSA, I have a solution that will take this horrible burden off your shoulders, and make the rest of us happy at the same time: simplify your goddamn systems to the point where you can 'control' them and be in accordance with the law. Either that or maybe we need to take a chainsaw to your 'systems' and just chop them down to a reasonable size. Here, here's an abacus, that's about all I'd trust you motherfuckers with at this point.
Actually, I want to amend my suggestion:
"If a computer can explain why a joke is or is not funny, then it's intelligent."
How about this for 'raising the bar' on Artificial Intelligence:
"If a computer can understand why a joke is (or is not) funny, then it's intelligent"
I think whatever focus group recommended this to Mercedes has trolled them very successfully. I'd think that this 'feature' would freak out people riding in the car and not be pleasurable.
Tell me again why we even need 'smart TVs' in the first place?
I'd rather spend the money on a basic TV with better picture quality and get the 'smart' part from what I connect to it (DVR in my case).