Okay Microsoft, we get the point. You really wanna be like Apple. You can stop copying Apple now, thx.
Having one major computer vendor with a user-hostile hardware division is more than enough. We should be DIScouraging this behaviour, not encouraging it!
Incidentally, has there been any progress on those 'right to repair' lawsuits I've read about?
There sounds like a whole story there that *isn't* being covered. Namely, what happened to that entire batch of IT technicians that were familiar with linux? It seems strange that they'd have such significant turnaround to lose all that experience. Worse still, why are they hiring IT people that "don't care" about linux?
Based on the parent's description, it sounds the technical problems they are experiencing are due to root causes that have nothing to do with linux.
The problem is that oil changes are relatively benign. Oil changes extend the life of your vehicle by reducing wear on the internal components.
Software updates make fundamental and permanent changes to the software on your computer, which means they're a lot more risky than oil changes.
This is further exacerbated by the fact that companies now-a-days feel that it's ok to throw whatever they feel like into patches, consequences be damned. Microsoft is a posterchild for this, where their "updates" add unwanted code like telemetry, or are insufficiently tested and risk causing your entire computer to die on you.
The Anniversary update hosed every lenovo laptop we had. Their DHCP update knocked half of Europe offline.
And then people like the blogger wonder why people are afraid to run updates? Is it really that hard to figure out that after you've bitten the user multiple times, they quite rightfully say, "Screw that!" and give up on updates entirely?
Every article I come across seems to involve the FCC getting slapped down over pretty much everything, especially when it risks a corporations profits.
If no one wants them to regulate anything. why even bother having an FCC at all at this point?
I didn't realize quite how stupid x86 architecture was, until I took a course on system370 assembly language. Switching to x86 assembly afterwards was trauma-inducing.
What do you MEAN I can only use a specific register if I need to do a memory operation?!
Why does there need to be a "final authority"? The anti-defamation league has declared it a hate symbol. Apple has now blocked it as inappropriate. There are plenty of more examples that can be found with a simple google search. To me, that means enough people believe it that that belief is causing a tangible impact in the world.
If you're expecting me to give an explicit quantity that defines "enough", you're missing my point and I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish.
"Enough" people believe that vaccines cause autism or a full of toxins or whatever bullshit, to be causing localized epidemics of diseases that had been effectively eradicated. Why don't you ask a parent whose child became encephalitic by measles, how many anti-vaxxers are "enough"?
Simple. I hate the headphone wires. It's like they're designed from the genetic material of certain ivy plans that cling to everything, including itself.
It's even more risky when I'm on a bicycle and my head needs unrestricted freedom of movement.
I'm actually about to buy an iphone 7 because I've discovered that it has a feature that no other phone has:
-bluetooth power class 1. (100mw)
Most devices are class 2 (10mw), which means they're good for approx 10 meters. If you don't live in an urban area where you are wading through an electromagnetic swamp, or only use your device indoors, your phone. If I walk outside, I'm lucky if I can go through a single song without the signal getting scrambled on me. It's incredibly annoying.
I tried looking for android phones that provide a similar capability, but absolutely nobody advertises what power class their device is, and I don't have the kind of time to search for the exact hardware chipsets for every phone model I'm interested in, and the research the capabilities of the bluetooth chip, nor should I have to.
I'll try to get one with a qualcomm chip though. Not so much for the bandwidth, but it looks like it can deal with a weaker carrier signal before cutting out, compared to intel.
Why are people so obsessed with wireless speed? We're already past the point where, unless your downloading very large files or whatnot, you can't possibly interact with the data faster than you're receiving it. Heck, you're probably spending more time waiting for the connection to the server to be made and respond to your request, than downloading the actual data.
Not only that, but depending where you live, most people can't even get an unlimited bandwidth plan, which means that even at current speeds, you could consume your entire monthly allotment in hours or maybe a couple days, without even trying.
IMO there are plenty of other problems with wireless technology that are far more impacting than the supposed lack of speed.
The problem is that enough people now believe that Pepe is now a symbol of white supremacists, that it might as well be. Hell, even the original creator of Pepe believes it to the point where he gave up on the character.
Lets face it... Pepe is now a symbol of hate. Whether it originated as a prank or not is irrelevant.
The swastika was a good luck symbol before the Nazis used it. Now you can get arrested in some parts of the world if you use it anywhere.
And now Pepe is receiving the same treatment. It's unfortunate, but there it is.
They made sure that no known *software* will run on Windows 10 S, so obviously Wannacry won't run.
The next generation of Wannacry though, is another story. Someone just has to use a fraudulent code signing certificate or whatever else Microsoft does with their store apps, or somehow masquerades as another application, and we're back to status quo.
Everyone is freaking out about how they're so late to the party, what about security, etc etc, but lets hold on a sec.
Has anyone *actually* see this tool in operation? Does it *actually* expose the local file system, or does it just display files from applications that tie into some "File Manager" API?
I'm going to reserve judgement until I've actually seen this thing in action.
Also, I just want to say that anyone making fun of Apple's previous refusal to make the raw file system accessible to users, has clearly never had to do tech support where someone decided the best place for their personal files was in a system directly, which was then promptly wiped out during an upgrade. We have to remember that the people on slashdot are (typically) more tech savvy than the average consumer, and my expectation is that this file manager will be limited so that said average consumer won't shoot themselves in the foot.
Oh yes, of course. But that isn't an Apple exclusive problem. Every device with a permanent internal battery suffers the same problem, and almost all products by virtually all manufacturers are doing this.
This is the kind of thing that you need regulations for. But that would be anti-capitalist, so us average consumers can just go fuck ourselves.
To be fair, while there may be a huge amount of criticism over Apple's successive generations of laptops, battery life is not one of them.
Non-upgradable memory, storage, an annoying keyboard, and forcing you to buy a shitton of dongles due to a complete lack of every single most important port still in use today, on the other hand...
Sure, it's legal and all. But it sure has a chilling effect - no doubt that's the point. Watch what you say, watch what you think, watch what shows on your face - they're watching you. For your own good, you understand, like a big brother looking out for you.
Right, because heaven forbid we should be tolerant of racists and rapists. These people were flat out assholes, and now they are enjoying the consequences of their actions.
I understand your point... Thoughtcrime can be a very dangerous slippery slope. But this is just following the existing status quo, which has been demonstrated many many times before. There is no such thing as unbridled, consequence-free liberty. A guest in my house may be free to spew nonsense, but I am equally just as free to kick you out of my house because I don't want to deal with your bullshit.
Apart from the iMac Pro (which I'm afraid to see the price of...), their 'improvements' are no less a joke now than they were last year.
They barely count as incremental, and nothing that is truly important. Their $4000 machine still only has 16GB RAM, a 4GB graphics card, and still no way of connecting to *anything* externally without buying an armload of attachments.
I miss the days when their "Pro" laptops actually were. Apple is probably the singularly best example of what happens when a company replaced an Engineer CEO with an MBA. Cook needs to be fired and replaced with someone that can provide actual leadership instead of just coming up with new ways to milk the dongle dollar.
By local, I meant that the commands are processed locally on the data stored on the device, as opposed to the command AND all relevant data sent to the remote server.
So yeah, the remote server is still issuing the commands to the device. That's unavoidable. But as long as the actually data is processed locally on the device, that's what I was referring to as 'local'.
And I can't remember the details now as it's been a long time since I used an android device, but it was something along those lines. It was basically just a voice interface to google search, and wasn't able to do anything that involved data local to the device. I presume they fixed that at some point.
For me, the question is where does the remote part end and the local part stop.
It makes sense that Siri (and Cortana, Google whatever they call it) do their voice processing in a data centre cause there is simply not enough horsepower (yet) on the device itself to do that kind of work.
But... what happens after that? If the entire conversation involves the data center telling the phone what the user wanted, and the phone then delivers, it's still effectively local. I'm personally inclined to believe that this is how Siri works, because Siri responds very well to localized commands, such as "play such and such song" or, "create a reminder to do blah".
When I tried to do anything with google assistant, it just wouldn't handle those kinds of details, so to me that implies Siri is actually doing work locally, while google assistant is simply parroting a server response.
I don't know how Cortana works. I only tried it briefly, and then gave up when I asked "What is Avogadro's number?" and it's response was to say "I can't connect" and then lock the screen so badly I had to use task manager to sign out of my computer in order to regain control.
Anyways, I have no idea if anything I wrote above is actually true. It's based on my impressions during usage. I am also inclined to believe as the parent does, which is that Apple is trying very hard to maintain privacy. This is based on their previous actions. They were second only to blackberry in having full device encryption, and giving the user fine-grained controls on what 3rd party apps could do, for example.
Google did it because they were embarrassed into it, not because they wanted to.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay Microsoft, we get the point. You really wanna be like Apple. You can stop copying Apple now, thx.
Having one major computer vendor with a user-hostile hardware division is more than enough. We should be DIScouraging this behaviour, not encouraging it!
Incidentally, has there been any progress on those 'right to repair' lawsuits I've read about?
There sounds like a whole story there that *isn't* being covered. Namely, what happened to that entire batch of IT technicians that were familiar with linux? It seems strange that they'd have such significant turnaround to lose all that experience. Worse still, why are they hiring IT people that "don't care" about linux?
Based on the parent's description, it sounds the technical problems they are experiencing are due to root causes that have nothing to do with linux.
The problem is that oil changes are relatively benign. Oil changes extend the life of your vehicle by reducing wear on the internal components.
Software updates make fundamental and permanent changes to the software on your computer, which means they're a lot more risky than oil changes.
This is further exacerbated by the fact that companies now-a-days feel that it's ok to throw whatever they feel like into patches, consequences be damned. Microsoft is a posterchild for this, where their "updates" add unwanted code like telemetry, or are insufficiently tested and risk causing your entire computer to die on you.
The Anniversary update hosed every lenovo laptop we had. Their DHCP update knocked half of Europe offline.
And then people like the blogger wonder why people are afraid to run updates? Is it really that hard to figure out that after you've bitten the user multiple times, they quite rightfully say, "Screw that!" and give up on updates entirely?
Every article I come across seems to involve the FCC getting slapped down over pretty much everything, especially when it risks a corporations profits.
If no one wants them to regulate anything. why even bother having an FCC at all at this point?
I didn't realize quite how stupid x86 architecture was, until I took a course on system370 assembly language. Switching to x86 assembly afterwards was trauma-inducing.
What do you MEAN I can only use a specific register if I need to do a memory operation?!
Why does there need to be a "final authority"? The anti-defamation league has declared it a hate symbol. Apple has now blocked it as inappropriate. There are plenty of more examples that can be found with a simple google search. To me, that means enough people believe it that that belief is causing a tangible impact in the world.
If you're expecting me to give an explicit quantity that defines "enough", you're missing my point and I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish.
"Enough" people believe that vaccines cause autism or a full of toxins or whatever bullshit, to be causing localized epidemics of diseases that had been effectively eradicated. Why don't you ask a parent whose child became encephalitic by measles, how many anti-vaxxers are "enough"?
Simple. I hate the headphone wires. It's like they're designed from the genetic material of certain ivy plans that cling to everything, including itself.
It's even more risky when I'm on a bicycle and my head needs unrestricted freedom of movement.
I'm actually about to buy an iphone 7 because I've discovered that it has a feature that no other phone has:
-bluetooth power class 1. (100mw)
Most devices are class 2 (10mw), which means they're good for approx 10 meters. If you don't live in an urban area where you are wading through an electromagnetic swamp, or only use your device indoors, your phone. If I walk outside, I'm lucky if I can go through a single song without the signal getting scrambled on me. It's incredibly annoying.
I tried looking for android phones that provide a similar capability, but absolutely nobody advertises what power class their device is, and I don't have the kind of time to search for the exact hardware chipsets for every phone model I'm interested in, and the research the capabilities of the bluetooth chip, nor should I have to.
I'll try to get one with a qualcomm chip though. Not so much for the bandwidth, but it looks like it can deal with a weaker carrier signal before cutting out, compared to intel.
Why are people so obsessed with wireless speed? We're already past the point where, unless your downloading very large files or whatnot, you can't possibly interact with the data faster than you're receiving it. Heck, you're probably spending more time waiting for the connection to the server to be made and respond to your request, than downloading the actual data.
Not only that, but depending where you live, most people can't even get an unlimited bandwidth plan, which means that even at current speeds, you could consume your entire monthly allotment in hours or maybe a couple days, without even trying.
IMO there are plenty of other problems with wireless technology that are far more impacting than the supposed lack of speed.
The problem is that enough people now believe that Pepe is now a symbol of white supremacists, that it might as well be. Hell, even the original creator of Pepe believes it to the point where he gave up on the character.
Lets face it... Pepe is now a symbol of hate. Whether it originated as a prank or not is irrelevant.
The swastika was a good luck symbol before the Nazis used it. Now you can get arrested in some parts of the world if you use it anywhere.
And now Pepe is receiving the same treatment. It's unfortunate, but there it is.
They made sure that no known *software* will run on Windows 10 S, so obviously Wannacry won't run.
The next generation of Wannacry though, is another story. Someone just has to use a fraudulent code signing certificate or whatever else Microsoft does with their store apps, or somehow masquerades as another application, and we're back to status quo.
It's a bit late the party at this point so I dunno how many people will see the parent, but I'm commenting to give visibility to an interesting post.
Everyone is freaking out about how they're so late to the party, what about security, etc etc, but lets hold on a sec.
Has anyone *actually* see this tool in operation? Does it *actually* expose the local file system, or does it just display files from applications that tie into some "File Manager" API?
I'm going to reserve judgement until I've actually seen this thing in action.
Also, I just want to say that anyone making fun of Apple's previous refusal to make the raw file system accessible to users, has clearly never had to do tech support where someone decided the best place for their personal files was in a system directly, which was then promptly wiped out during an upgrade. We have to remember that the people on slashdot are (typically) more tech savvy than the average consumer, and my expectation is that this file manager will be limited so that said average consumer won't shoot themselves in the foot.
Oh yes, of course. But that isn't an Apple exclusive problem. Every device with a permanent internal battery suffers the same problem, and almost all products by virtually all manufacturers are doing this.
This is the kind of thing that you need regulations for. But that would be anti-capitalist, so us average consumers can just go fuck ourselves.
To be fair, while there may be a huge amount of criticism over Apple's successive generations of laptops, battery life is not one of them.
Non-upgradable memory, storage, an annoying keyboard, and forcing you to buy a shitton of dongles due to a complete lack of every single most important port still in use today, on the other hand...
It doesn't call you "Moles" by chance, does it? :)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
Except this is an actual product, unless far too many things on Kickstarter.
Sure, it's legal and all. But it sure has a chilling effect - no doubt that's the point. Watch what you say, watch what you think, watch what shows on your face - they're watching you. For your own good, you understand, like a big brother looking out for you.
Right, because heaven forbid we should be tolerant of racists and rapists. These people were flat out assholes, and now they are enjoying the consequences of their actions.
I understand your point... Thoughtcrime can be a very dangerous slippery slope. But this is just following the existing status quo, which has been demonstrated many many times before. There is no such thing as unbridled, consequence-free liberty. A guest in my house may be free to spew nonsense, but I am equally just as free to kick you out of my house because I don't want to deal with your bullshit.
Apart from the iMac Pro (which I'm afraid to see the price of...), their 'improvements' are no less a joke now than they were last year.
They barely count as incremental, and nothing that is truly important. Their $4000 machine still only has 16GB RAM, a 4GB graphics card, and still no way of connecting to *anything* externally without buying an armload of attachments.
I miss the days when their "Pro" laptops actually were. Apple is probably the singularly best example of what happens when a company replaced an Engineer CEO with an MBA. Cook needs to be fired and replaced with someone that can provide actual leadership instead of just coming up with new ways to milk the dongle dollar.
Being cruel to employees violates laws? Well clearly, those laws shouldn't be in place then!
Laws that protect employees are just big brother socialism!
By local, I meant that the commands are processed locally on the data stored on the device, as opposed to the command AND all relevant data sent to the remote server.
So yeah, the remote server is still issuing the commands to the device. That's unavoidable. But as long as the actually data is processed locally on the device, that's what I was referring to as 'local'.
And I can't remember the details now as it's been a long time since I used an android device, but it was something along those lines. It was basically just a voice interface to google search, and wasn't able to do anything that involved data local to the device. I presume they fixed that at some point.
I think it would be easier to simply list the things he *does* understand. That should be an incredibly short list.
I'm assuming "tying my own shoes" probably aren't on that list.
For me, the question is where does the remote part end and the local part stop.
It makes sense that Siri (and Cortana, Google whatever they call it) do their voice processing in a data centre cause there is simply not enough horsepower (yet) on the device itself to do that kind of work.
But... what happens after that? If the entire conversation involves the data center telling the phone what the user wanted, and the phone then delivers, it's still effectively local. I'm personally inclined to believe that this is how Siri works, because Siri responds very well to localized commands, such as "play such and such song" or, "create a reminder to do blah".
When I tried to do anything with google assistant, it just wouldn't handle those kinds of details, so to me that implies Siri is actually doing work locally, while google assistant is simply parroting a server response.
I don't know how Cortana works. I only tried it briefly, and then gave up when I asked "What is Avogadro's number?" and it's response was to say "I can't connect" and then lock the screen so badly I had to use task manager to sign out of my computer in order to regain control.
Anyways, I have no idea if anything I wrote above is actually true. It's based on my impressions during usage. I am also inclined to believe as the parent does, which is that Apple is trying very hard to maintain privacy. This is based on their previous actions. They were second only to blackberry in having full device encryption, and giving the user fine-grained controls on what 3rd party apps could do, for example.
Google did it because they were embarrassed into it, not because they wanted to.
Wow, that was fast.
Seriously? Shut down the internet for the entire country, *just for exams*?
Sweet pterodactyl projectile diarrhea on a dreidel, how many different kinds of wrong could have gone into a decision as boneheaded as that?
Do businesses in Ethiopia not depend on the internet for anything?