He might sound like it, but I have no reason to either, and I've generally had pretty darn good experiences, both with consumer and with enterprise support. I've only dealt with enterprise support once, but it was super easy.
Sure, you might have to go through the effort and it might take you an hour with support, but you can't expect them to send out someone to replace a motherboard without asking questions. I've found, if you answer the questions correctly, act very cooperative, and try just a couple things they suggest without complaining, you can usually get what you want in 20 minutes or less.
You must realize, that for everyone that calls and actually knows what they are talking about, there are 10 that call and say their "hard drive box" is bad, get upset, and ended up not having the thing plugged in - or worse, someone of that level of intelligence that demands ram chips or something be fixed because their very knowledgeable nephew said so.
I live in a rural community that limited DSL through Verizon and cable through TWC. A company called Cinergy Metronet, now just Metronet, came in and started offering fiber-to-the-home. The day they went live, TWC doubled their advertised speeds and dropped their prices to match Metronet.
That's the idea behind a deterrent. If the fine is so low that people are willing to pay it and go on their merry way if they get caught, there's no point in it. The deterrent needs to be high enough to make people think twice before doing it and $120 per infringement, plus covering reasonable overhead costs is right about what it should be, otherwise why bother having copyright law at all?
I think the argument is what you define as "per infringement".
It is just as easy to share a whole library as it is to share a single song. Does that mean each sharing of a song is a single act of infringement? If so, someone's kid could still create a life-destroying event quite quickly. (5,000 songs x $120, plus other fees.)
However, if that is a single act of infringement, it's $120 plus other fees, which would still be double the cost of all the songs according to this panel.
One is a stiff fee and one is life-destroying amount for most people. Both results can come from a kid messing around on my computer for 10 minutes.
Maybe if you don't think $120 is enough of a deterrent, you could raise it to $500 or something, but I have a hard time believing each shared song should be considered a separate act. They certainly don't need a separate physical action to do, and if I steal a CD from the store it's a single act of shoplifting and not a separate act for each song on the CD. Even if I steal 2 boxed sets and 6 video games it's still one act, just one of higher value.
I like that idea, hey there must be a shortage of "C" level executives since they make so much, lets H-1B a bunch of them in from 3rd world companies. We should be able to drop the median CEO salary from ~500 times the average employee to ~50 times the average employee.
I don't know where you work, but in my experience C level management is continuously expanding, but it's not related to supply and demand. For the supply and demand system to work, you have to assume a level of intelligence - that these people are paid based upon the value they bring to the company. Once you reach a level where you "are" the company, I can't believe that's true.
In my opinion, government policy which expands the size of the labor force through immigration is bad policy when the country is experiencing a period of persistently high unemployment.
I don't totally agree with this statement, because I think immigration can be quite valuable to an economy, regardless of it's current condition.
However, these visas aren't immigration. It allows a company to bring in workers, tie them to said company as a condition of being in the states, and then eventually ships them home.
This program is good for immersive training so these workers can continue to work for said company through outsourcing when they go home and work for a lot less money, but have US living experience.
Immigrants, on the other hand, have a vested interested in their future here (since they don't plan on going home) so they will invest more money, time, and effort into making their new country a nice place to live.
You know why members of Congress are called Representatives?
Because they're supposed to represent us. They are supposed to stand up for our interests. Not because Americans are somehow cosmically more worthy than non-Americans, but because it's our fucking country and it is supposed to be run for the benefit of "ourselves and our posterity."
I certainly agree, but I don't think it's that black and white. I think skilled labor should be able to leave their home country and go somewhere else where they have a better shot at making it. America is pretty awesome, and it used to be a lot easier to have the dream of coming to America to make it big.
I've had a number of highly educated foreign friends (coming out of US universities) that found it staggeringly difficult to stay and work here. Most of them would have been great assets, and at least one would have started his own company here, but it's frustrating and hard, so they leave. I don't think we should make it this easy for companies to hire cheap workers using a complex system that the average person can't navigate. I think we should make it easier for these people to setup shop and actually become Americans.
If you tell an Indian guy he can live here for a few years and work, but then he'll have to go home, he will work for cheap and think he's doing pretty well compared to the same job back there. If you tell him he can work and live here forever, he might work cheap for a while, but the American sense of entitlement, rights, and equality appear quite quickly.
In a democracy *the people* are the arbiters of what is 'nonsense' and what is not. Not some jumped up bureaucrat or an AC fascist apologist. While I might not agree with the Death Star petition, nor the Sharia for USA petition, it doesn't mean that people shouldn't have the chance to put anything to their fellow citizens and have the White House consider them without raising the threshold to un-democratically restrictive levels.
I think people should be allowed to put anything forward, and they still can, the threshold is just bigger before the White House will recognize it.
Given how these have taken off, I don't feel like this is unreasonable or in any way undemocratic. If it only takes about a week to get 25k, it seems like 100k should be in reach if its a half decent petition.
I mean, isn't that around 0.03% of the population? Up from around 0.008%?
On the other hand, very few infantry have ever used tanks or nukes as their primary weapons - largely because tanks makes you Armour (not Infantry), and nukes makes you Air Force (or Navy or Strategic Rocket Forces or whatever they call the guys who have the nukes in your country of choice).
I sincerely doubt the founding congress considered the impact of what they were writing on what would have been insane nonsensical ideas like tanks, nukes, or the Air Force.
You seem to make the mistake that anything up to but not including outright confiscation is A-OK. You see it time and time again on the mainstream media, they're proposing registration, bans on production, bans on transfer, extra taxes, etc. Under many of the laws the next generation won't even ever have the guns we have in the first place making taking them away impossible, but as long as it's not outright confiscation they slyly say "We're not trying to take your guns away." as if you're acting paranoid.
The 2nd amendment says "Shall not be infringed.", not "Your guns shall not be taken away.".
The second amendment says
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
You seem to make the mistake that the writers of the constitution were concerned with unlimited gun rights, when they were really concerned about having a well regulated militia to protect the state
In a different time the same amendment was used to tell people that they were required to buy guns and supplies to arm themselves so they could protect the State if it were threatened, without the State contributing financially to anything.
Which some people seem to think is okay. Yet one reason this right exists is to allow us to protect ourselves from our government. And as our government has no limits on their available firepower, I resent any limitations on what I can have. This applies perpetually. If phasers get invented, the government will have them so I better be able to have them. Otherwise I will be unable to defend myself from the government and eventually that is something they will use against me.
I hear this a lot, and I have all my life, but I still don't know that it's true. The actual text, and the background of how the second amendment was introduced and implemented, it doesn't appear like this is the case.
Minute-men had a huge impact and militias were 100% vital in the USA coming into existence, but the second amendment was written to keep the USA in existence. They wanted a well-regulated milita (a well-trained, armed force) to be able to bear arms to protect the security of a free State (essentially, the ability to train, and be called on, to protect the USA.)
I'm not against the idea that a little rebellion now and again is good for a state, but it doesn't seem to be historically accurate to connect it to the second amendment
I believe early on it was used to justify telling gun manufacturers they had to create weapons of certain sizes and required men of a certain age to own a gun and other equipment, and was sometimes used to justify drafts before we had a true organized national military.
Also interesting that you would consider yourself and the government as two very separate entities. And the idea that, if the government has a weapon you don't, then they will use it against you. I believe our founding father's believed, above all else in government, that this government would be of the people and that the structure setup would ensure that it would stay that way.
Disclaimer: My wife is a mental health nurse for a state-owned mental hospital.
Most states have already, or are in the process, of massively downscaling their state-owned/state-run mental health facilities. Several states have simple closed them all and dumped everyone on the street. On top of that, the process has shifted from being one of "healing" to "management".
Now patients come in by court order, get drugs, maintain their drugs, show some sign of improvement on paper, get discharged, stop taking drugs, re-commit some sort of crime, come in by court order....and the process repeats.
It is very expensive, but there is a decent section of the population that just don't and shouldn't function in normal society. They need help and there is increasingly few places to turn for help if your family member is in that situation. Even if they are, it's hard to get help unless you are either rich, or the court has mandated it. Many places will not accept patients except through court order.
Why would anyone pay for online courses for UC general reqs at the regular UC prices when most of California's community colleges offer online courses for a tenth of the price, all of which are transferable. Whoever thought this up needs to spend some time out of their ivory tower.
I would consider paying $1,400/class for an online class through UC. It would look better than my community college and would be taken more seriously than a lot of 100% online colleges. However, not for the few crappy classes they offer. The course catalog only has a few courses, and they all are entry level and non-serious.
As a professional, I would be willing to pay $1,400 for an upper level finance course from a respected university, but Pre-Calc, intro psych, and "climate change" are all courses that don't matter where they are from.
What chinese kid with $1,400 hasn't already taken all the courses they offer?
Hey, why doesn't someone make a gaming PC, but without all the pesky mouse and keyboard to get in the way?
Hey, why doesn't someone cram an ipod, a cell phone, and a web-browser all together?
Hey, why don't we create a website where people can only post messages 140 characters long?
Hey, why doesn't someone create a website where people can post normal photos, but we put them through a filter to make them look old?
Hey, why doesn't someone make a device that runs like a pc but you can hold like a portable gaming device, with an extra removable battery, so my kids can play mainstream games in the back seat?
Indeed. Whoever gave the okay on this was insane. It would have been one thing if this was an Android device, since a market for touchscreen games exists on that platform, but Windows 8 has virtually no touchscreen games to think of (or, at the very least, I can't think of a single one). Why bother making a touchscreen device if, as they show in their gallery, you'll need to hook it up to the separately sold controller, dock, or keyboard accessories in order to play the games it's meant to play?
While I don't expect the Surface Pro to do well, I don't see how you can expect to compete head-to-head with that while targeting an extremely niche/non-existent market and expect to come out intact.
Hopefully Razer kills this before it ever ships.
Hopefully, you are wrong. These are the same people who thought, "hey, let's make a normal mouse with a bunch of buttons, then let's add 12 thumb buttons on the side." I'm sure it sounded stupid, but it's a nice mouse.
I've asked the question for a long time. Sure, this isn't going to play everything well, but it is going to be able to play mainstream games in the back of the car like you would use a DS.
People don't buy these to save money, and for the money it would be silly to buy an air, as you get better gaming on a cheaper system. That's not the point. People will pay for an innovative device and buy accessories. Consoles come with one controller and you have to buy extra, and pay a premium for games, and have a million accessories you can buy. People buy them when they are nice. There is a market, and when you are the first to market, you generally have a good chance to shape it and eventually profit.
Yet another poorly thought out tablet aimed at cashing in on the market. The problem is it seems to be aimed at "hardcore gamers", which rarely ends well. Most of us already have tablets to browse & play touch based games, so I don't see what this will add other than a hole in your bank account.
This one actually had a lot of input from the market it is aiming for.
Since when does hardware aimed at hardcore gamers rarely end well? Razer does alright at that. I would not like using a Razer Naga Epic here at work, but I don't want anything else for an MMO at home.
This has some features not available in any other form, and for that reason I think it could sell. A full PC in a tablet size that has several input configurations (making it like a laptop, a tablet, or a gameboy-style device) and two different ways to hang on an additional, removable battery. It's pretty nice for the market and the purpose it was designed.
If you aren't a hardcore gamer, why would you think you would like it, if it was being made for you to play your basic tablet touch-based games?
Regarding herd immunity; Herd immunity works great if the entire population has a perfect immunity. the more varied (trending downward) the immunity levels of the populous, the greater likelihood you have actually helped spread the virus.
I like your argument for the sake of the general population. Americans overuse antibiotics and generally ignore the beneficial impacts of occasionally getting sick and exposed to a wide variety of viruses, illnesses, etc.
However, that doesn't hold true for healthcare workers. Some hospitals that might not be as clean have less MRSA, but it doesn't mean they have less bacteria. People might still get infections in those hospitals, it's just easier to treat.
The flu, on the other hand, is okay for some, bad for others, and terminal for some. Nurses might interact with elderly cancer patients, immuno-compromised children, and very sick, homeless, drug-addicts - all in the same day. Every effort should be made to keep what is afflicting patient A from affecting patient B. Hand-sanitizers are by every door in a hospital not so the patients can sanitize their hands but so their handlers can.
They regularly put themselves in high-risk situations and should make every effort to minimize risk. If they aren't alright with that, they should find a different place to work. Not every nurse has to get a flu shot at all establishments, but it is becoming more popular - just as hand-sanitizing and gloves have in the past couple decades.
Of all the things that money is completely wasted on, this doesn't seem like one of them.
Sure, it might not be necessary, but it could be useful. If roads are being rebuilt anyway, the cost can't be that much greater given the size and scope of building roads. It seems like this would be useful when going around curves and helping to see where the road is when it is not directly in front of you, as would already be illuminated by your headlights.
I've always wished that they would spend a little money on developing some of these technologies. With little incremental cost we could do some cool things when rebuilding roads, like experimenting with power distribution, conduits for fiber runs, etc. It never makes sense to redo roads to put these in, and it's too expensive to build test roads, but if the cost isn't that great we could do a lot of experimenting when we're making new ones.
Fact of the matter is this - instead of being the leader of the citizens of the United States of America, Obama chooses to be a crowd pleaser.
Instead of concentrate the limited resource available to make America strong - by spending them on R&D and also space programs - Obama opted for spending the money for welfare to feed the crack addicts and those who are too lazy to work
The president doesn't make these decisions. You might think he's supposed to lead by telling congress what to spend money on, but you would be just another person enabling congress to continue to suck. The president is designed to hold back congress from doing crazy stuff. That's why he has the veto power - and nothing more. Congress sets the budget and congress fails when the budget is wrong. There are 535 people with their own leadership structure. When they fail it's not the presidents' fault, no matter who it is.
Blaming the president for Congress' failing through lack of leadership just enables the executive branch to assume more power and the legislative to point more fingers.
Did anyone expect better from Dell? They have a history of doing this with Linux laptops.
With only linux laptops?
I buy a lot of dell machines, and I can tell you today what I pay for one, and you will go search for it, and find a different price. Navigating the dell website for a deal is like throwing darts in the dark. It depends on what links you click on, which base model you chose, which "store" you are in, and what software is on it.
Right now you can look at the Dell "Home" store and see Windows 7 clearance machines. These machines are about $50 more than the same machines with Windows 8 in the Cyber Week deals. Both places are cheaper than if you go through the "non-deal" links and build the exact same system on your own.
Anyone who thinks that Dell will sell a machine for exactly $50 difference hasn't purchased many Dell machines. It might be $50 today, for a base with an i5 and an SSD. It might be $200 difference if you start with a base machine that you have to upgrade to an i5 and an SSD.
Stop whining on Slashdot for a few minutes and write your Senator and Congressman.
Last time I wrote my senator (Dan Coats) it was to express my disapproval in what he was doing and how he was acting on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
I got a letter back in the mail, which started out "Thank you for your letter supporting me in my disapproval of how the Obama administration is handling the Bengazi incident. As you may or may not be aware, I sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee..."
You can write, call, speak, campaign, but it doesn't really matter. Everyone that gets elected seem to think they have a "mandate" and do whatever they want until someone else gets elected and continues on in the same manner.
Competition is nice, but I don't live in Seattle or Kansas City, so it probably won't affect me. ATT will probably just come up with a new plan where my family can share just a little bit less data for a little bit more money than I'm already paying.
Slashdot Mirror
You still sound like a shill.
He might sound like it, but I have no reason to either, and I've generally had pretty darn good experiences, both with consumer and with enterprise support. I've only dealt with enterprise support once, but it was super easy.
Sure, you might have to go through the effort and it might take you an hour with support, but you can't expect them to send out someone to replace a motherboard without asking questions. I've found, if you answer the questions correctly, act very cooperative, and try just a couple things they suggest without complaining, you can usually get what you want in 20 minutes or less.
You must realize, that for everyone that calls and actually knows what they are talking about, there are 10 that call and say their "hard drive box" is bad, get upset, and ended up not having the thing plugged in - or worse, someone of that level of intelligence that demands ram chips or something be fixed because their very knowledgeable nephew said so.
.
Maybe Amazon should consider moving to the cloud...
I live in a rural community that limited DSL through Verizon and cable through TWC. A company called Cinergy Metronet, now just Metronet, came in and started offering fiber-to-the-home. The day they went live, TWC doubled their advertised speeds and dropped their prices to match Metronet.
That's the idea behind a deterrent. If the fine is so low that people are willing to pay it and go on their merry way if they get caught, there's no point in it. The deterrent needs to be high enough to make people think twice before doing it and $120 per infringement, plus covering reasonable overhead costs is right about what it should be, otherwise why bother having copyright law at all?
I think the argument is what you define as "per infringement".
It is just as easy to share a whole library as it is to share a single song. Does that mean each sharing of a song is a single act of infringement? If so, someone's kid could still create a life-destroying event quite quickly. (5,000 songs x $120, plus other fees.)
However, if that is a single act of infringement, it's $120 plus other fees, which would still be double the cost of all the songs according to this panel.
One is a stiff fee and one is life-destroying amount for most people. Both results can come from a kid messing around on my computer for 10 minutes.
Maybe if you don't think $120 is enough of a deterrent, you could raise it to $500 or something, but I have a hard time believing each shared song should be considered a separate act. They certainly don't need a separate physical action to do, and if I steal a CD from the store it's a single act of shoplifting and not a separate act for each song on the CD. Even if I steal 2 boxed sets and 6 video games it's still one act, just one of higher value.
I like that idea, hey there must be a shortage of "C" level executives since they make so much, lets H-1B a bunch of them in from 3rd world companies. We should be able to drop the median CEO salary from ~500 times the average employee to ~50 times the average employee.
I don't know where you work, but in my experience C level management is continuously expanding, but it's not related to supply and demand. For the supply and demand system to work, you have to assume a level of intelligence - that these people are paid based upon the value they bring to the company. Once you reach a level where you "are" the company, I can't believe that's true.
In my opinion, government policy which expands the size of the labor force through immigration is bad policy when the country is experiencing a period of persistently high unemployment.
I don't totally agree with this statement, because I think immigration can be quite valuable to an economy, regardless of it's current condition.
However, these visas aren't immigration. It allows a company to bring in workers, tie them to said company as a condition of being in the states, and then eventually ships them home.
This program is good for immersive training so these workers can continue to work for said company through outsourcing when they go home and work for a lot less money, but have US living experience.
Immigrants, on the other hand, have a vested interested in their future here (since they don't plan on going home) so they will invest more money, time, and effort into making their new country a nice place to live.
You know why members of Congress are called Representatives?
Because they're supposed to represent us. They are supposed to stand up for our interests. Not because Americans are somehow cosmically more worthy than non-Americans, but because it's our fucking country and it is supposed to be run for the benefit of "ourselves and our posterity."
I certainly agree, but I don't think it's that black and white. I think skilled labor should be able to leave their home country and go somewhere else where they have a better shot at making it. America is pretty awesome, and it used to be a lot easier to have the dream of coming to America to make it big.
I've had a number of highly educated foreign friends (coming out of US universities) that found it staggeringly difficult to stay and work here. Most of them would have been great assets, and at least one would have started his own company here, but it's frustrating and hard, so they leave. I don't think we should make it this easy for companies to hire cheap workers using a complex system that the average person can't navigate. I think we should make it easier for these people to setup shop and actually become Americans.
If you tell an Indian guy he can live here for a few years and work, but then he'll have to go home, he will work for cheap and think he's doing pretty well compared to the same job back there. If you tell him he can work and live here forever, he might work cheap for a while, but the American sense of entitlement, rights, and equality appear quite quickly.
Can't use Google, Bing, DDG (Bing), Startpage (Google), Yahoo (Bing), etc. Is dogpile still around?
Didn't dogpile just aggregate Google, Yahoo, and Excite or something like that?
The only one who need lots of upload speed are content providers -- not consumers. You'll be fine at 10mbit you seeding pirate
Sounds like he would be happy at 10 up, but he's 10 down, probably on the lowest rung cable connection, and probably only has 768k or 1 up.
In a democracy *the people* are the arbiters of what is 'nonsense' and what is not. Not some jumped up bureaucrat or an AC fascist apologist. While I might not agree with the Death Star petition, nor the Sharia for USA petition, it doesn't mean that people shouldn't have the chance to put anything to their fellow citizens and have the White House consider them without raising the threshold to un-democratically restrictive levels.
I think people should be allowed to put anything forward, and they still can, the threshold is just bigger before the White House will recognize it.
Given how these have taken off, I don't feel like this is unreasonable or in any way undemocratic. If it only takes about a week to get 25k, it seems like 100k should be in reach if its a half decent petition.
I mean, isn't that around 0.03% of the population? Up from around 0.008%?
It reminded me of that group that bought cases and cases of the Harry Potter books so they could burn them. A publisher's dream...
On the other hand, very few infantry have ever used tanks or nukes as their primary weapons - largely because tanks makes you Armour (not Infantry), and nukes makes you Air Force (or Navy or Strategic Rocket Forces or whatever they call the guys who have the nukes in your country of choice).
I sincerely doubt the founding congress considered the impact of what they were writing on what would have been insane nonsensical ideas like tanks, nukes, or the Air Force.
You seem to make the mistake that anything up to but not including outright confiscation is A-OK. You see it time and time again on the mainstream media, they're proposing registration, bans on production, bans on transfer, extra taxes, etc. Under many of the laws the next generation won't even ever have the guns we have in the first place making taking them away impossible, but as long as it's not outright confiscation they slyly say "We're not trying to take your guns away." as if you're acting paranoid.
The 2nd amendment says "Shall not be infringed.", not "Your guns shall not be taken away.".
The second amendment says
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
You seem to make the mistake that the writers of the constitution were concerned with unlimited gun rights, when they were really concerned about having a well regulated militia to protect the state
In a different time the same amendment was used to tell people that they were required to buy guns and supplies to arm themselves so they could protect the State if it were threatened, without the State contributing financially to anything.
Which some people seem to think is okay. Yet one reason this right exists is to allow us to protect ourselves from our government. And as our government has no limits on their available firepower, I resent any limitations on what I can have. This applies perpetually. If phasers get invented, the government will have them so I better be able to have them. Otherwise I will be unable to defend myself from the government and eventually that is something they will use against me.
I hear this a lot, and I have all my life, but I still don't know that it's true. The actual text, and the background of how the second amendment was introduced and implemented, it doesn't appear like this is the case.
Minute-men had a huge impact and militias were 100% vital in the USA coming into existence, but the second amendment was written to keep the USA in existence. They wanted a well-regulated milita (a well-trained, armed force) to be able to bear arms to protect the security of a free State (essentially, the ability to train, and be called on, to protect the USA.)
I'm not against the idea that a little rebellion now and again is good for a state, but it doesn't seem to be historically accurate to connect it to the second amendment
I believe early on it was used to justify telling gun manufacturers they had to create weapons of certain sizes and required men of a certain age to own a gun and other equipment, and was sometimes used to justify drafts before we had a true organized national military.
Also interesting that you would consider yourself and the government as two very separate entities. And the idea that, if the government has a weapon you don't, then they will use it against you. I believe our founding father's believed, above all else in government, that this government would be of the people and that the structure setup would ensure that it would stay that way.
Disclaimer: My wife is a mental health nurse for a state-owned mental hospital.
Most states have already, or are in the process, of massively downscaling their state-owned/state-run mental health facilities. Several states have simple closed them all and dumped everyone on the street. On top of that, the process has shifted from being one of "healing" to "management".
Now patients come in by court order, get drugs, maintain their drugs, show some sign of improvement on paper, get discharged, stop taking drugs, re-commit some sort of crime, come in by court order....and the process repeats.
It is very expensive, but there is a decent section of the population that just don't and shouldn't function in normal society. They need help and there is increasingly few places to turn for help if your family member is in that situation. Even if they are, it's hard to get help unless you are either rich, or the court has mandated it. Many places will not accept patients except through court order.
Why would anyone pay for online courses for UC general reqs at the regular UC prices when most of California's community colleges offer online courses for a tenth of the price, all of which are transferable. Whoever thought this up needs to spend some time out of their ivory tower.
I would consider paying $1,400/class for an online class through UC. It would look better than my community college and would be taken more seriously than a lot of 100% online colleges. However, not for the few crappy classes they offer. The course catalog only has a few courses, and they all are entry level and non-serious.
As a professional, I would be willing to pay $1,400 for an upper level finance course from a respected university, but Pre-Calc, intro psych, and "climate change" are all courses that don't matter where they are from.
What chinese kid with $1,400 hasn't already taken all the courses they offer?
Hey, why doesn't someone make a gaming PC, but without all the pesky mouse and keyboard to get in the way?
Hey, why doesn't someone cram an ipod, a cell phone, and a web-browser all together?
Hey, why don't we create a website where people can only post messages 140 characters long?
Hey, why doesn't someone create a website where people can post normal photos, but we put them through a filter to make them look old?
Hey, why doesn't someone make a device that runs like a pc but you can hold like a portable gaming device, with an extra removable battery, so my kids can play mainstream games in the back seat?
Indeed. Whoever gave the okay on this was insane. It would have been one thing if this was an Android device, since a market for touchscreen games exists on that platform, but Windows 8 has virtually no touchscreen games to think of (or, at the very least, I can't think of a single one). Why bother making a touchscreen device if, as they show in their gallery, you'll need to hook it up to the separately sold controller, dock, or keyboard accessories in order to play the games it's meant to play?
While I don't expect the Surface Pro to do well, I don't see how you can expect to compete head-to-head with that while targeting an extremely niche/non-existent market and expect to come out intact.
Hopefully Razer kills this before it ever ships.
Hopefully, you are wrong. These are the same people who thought, "hey, let's make a normal mouse with a bunch of buttons, then let's add 12 thumb buttons on the side." I'm sure it sounded stupid, but it's a nice mouse.
I've asked the question for a long time. Sure, this isn't going to play everything well, but it is going to be able to play mainstream games in the back of the car like you would use a DS.
People don't buy these to save money, and for the money it would be silly to buy an air, as you get better gaming on a cheaper system. That's not the point. People will pay for an innovative device and buy accessories. Consoles come with one controller and you have to buy extra, and pay a premium for games, and have a million accessories you can buy. People buy them when they are nice. There is a market, and when you are the first to market, you generally have a good chance to shape it and eventually profit.
Yet another poorly thought out tablet aimed at cashing in on the market. The problem is it seems to be aimed at "hardcore gamers", which rarely ends well. Most of us already have tablets to browse & play touch based games, so I don't see what this will add other than a hole in your bank account.
This one actually had a lot of input from the market it is aiming for.
Since when does hardware aimed at hardcore gamers rarely end well? Razer does alright at that. I would not like using a Razer Naga Epic here at work, but I don't want anything else for an MMO at home.
This has some features not available in any other form, and for that reason I think it could sell. A full PC in a tablet size that has several input configurations (making it like a laptop, a tablet, or a gameboy-style device) and two different ways to hang on an additional, removable battery. It's pretty nice for the market and the purpose it was designed.
If you aren't a hardcore gamer, why would you think you would like it, if it was being made for you to play your basic tablet touch-based games?
Regarding herd immunity; Herd immunity works great if the entire population has a perfect immunity. the more varied (trending downward) the immunity levels of the populous, the greater likelihood you have actually helped spread the virus.
I like your argument for the sake of the general population. Americans overuse antibiotics and generally ignore the beneficial impacts of occasionally getting sick and exposed to a wide variety of viruses, illnesses, etc.
However, that doesn't hold true for healthcare workers. Some hospitals that might not be as clean have less MRSA, but it doesn't mean they have less bacteria. People might still get infections in those hospitals, it's just easier to treat.
The flu, on the other hand, is okay for some, bad for others, and terminal for some. Nurses might interact with elderly cancer patients, immuno-compromised children, and very sick, homeless, drug-addicts - all in the same day. Every effort should be made to keep what is afflicting patient A from affecting patient B. Hand-sanitizers are by every door in a hospital not so the patients can sanitize their hands but so their handlers can.
They regularly put themselves in high-risk situations and should make every effort to minimize risk. If they aren't alright with that, they should find a different place to work. Not every nurse has to get a flu shot at all establishments, but it is becoming more popular - just as hand-sanitizing and gloves have in the past couple decades.
Also, it is a waste of money.
Of all the things that money is completely wasted on, this doesn't seem like one of them.
Sure, it might not be necessary, but it could be useful. If roads are being rebuilt anyway, the cost can't be that much greater given the size and scope of building roads. It seems like this would be useful when going around curves and helping to see where the road is when it is not directly in front of you, as would already be illuminated by your headlights.
I've always wished that they would spend a little money on developing some of these technologies. With little incremental cost we could do some cool things when rebuilding roads, like experimenting with power distribution, conduits for fiber runs, etc. It never makes sense to redo roads to put these in, and it's too expensive to build test roads, but if the cost isn't that great we could do a lot of experimenting when we're making new ones.
Fact of the matter is this - instead of being the leader of the citizens of the United States of America, Obama chooses to be a crowd pleaser.
Instead of concentrate the limited resource available to make America strong - by spending them on R&D and also space programs - Obama opted for spending the money for welfare to feed the crack addicts and those who are too lazy to work
The president doesn't make these decisions. You might think he's supposed to lead by telling congress what to spend money on, but you would be just another person enabling congress to continue to suck. The president is designed to hold back congress from doing crazy stuff. That's why he has the veto power - and nothing more. Congress sets the budget and congress fails when the budget is wrong. There are 535 people with their own leadership structure. When they fail it's not the presidents' fault, no matter who it is.
Blaming the president for Congress' failing through lack of leadership just enables the executive branch to assume more power and the legislative to point more fingers.
Did anyone expect better from Dell? They have a history of doing this with Linux laptops.
With only linux laptops?
I buy a lot of dell machines, and I can tell you today what I pay for one, and you will go search for it, and find a different price. Navigating the dell website for a deal is like throwing darts in the dark. It depends on what links you click on, which base model you chose, which "store" you are in, and what software is on it.
Right now you can look at the Dell "Home" store and see Windows 7 clearance machines. These machines are about $50 more than the same machines with Windows 8 in the Cyber Week deals. Both places are cheaper than if you go through the "non-deal" links and build the exact same system on your own.
Anyone who thinks that Dell will sell a machine for exactly $50 difference hasn't purchased many Dell machines. It might be $50 today, for a base with an i5 and an SSD. It might be $200 difference if you start with a base machine that you have to upgrade to an i5 and an SSD.
Stop whining on Slashdot for a few minutes and write your Senator and Congressman.
Last time I wrote my senator (Dan Coats) it was to express my disapproval in what he was doing and how he was acting on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
I got a letter back in the mail, which started out "Thank you for your letter supporting me in my disapproval of how the Obama administration is handling the Bengazi incident. As you may or may not be aware, I sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee..."
You can write, call, speak, campaign, but it doesn't really matter. Everyone that gets elected seem to think they have a "mandate" and do whatever they want until someone else gets elected and continues on in the same manner.
Competition is nice, but I don't live in Seattle or Kansas City, so it probably won't affect me. ATT will probably just come up with a new plan where my family can share just a little bit less data for a little bit more money than I'm already paying.