While you are correct on both counts, what this story illustrates is the irony of large organizations (in commercial industry and government alike) that say "we want innovators/bold thinkers/unconventional thinkers/people who think outside the box" (or similar feel-good sounding things) when what they really mean is "we want innovators/bold thinkers/unconventional thinkers/people who think outside the box but who also remain within the strict policies/structures/conventions of the organization."
Is it any wonder that people who perceive themselves as truly talented tend to want to go work for startups or perhaps create their own startup? The type of people places like the CIA and big companies claim to be seeking are precisely the type of people who look at places like that and say "no way am I going subject myself to all that bureaucracy." Stories like those sort of prove the point.
One or two free candy bars, to see how the thing works would be "innovators/bold thinkers". Taking $3,000 of snacks is stealing. I can hack the cafeteria at work. If I go in late afternoon when there's only one worker, I can wait for them to go on a smoke break when the place is deserted, and load up my backpack with all sorts of free snacks. But I don't. Because it's stealing.
I don't blame the GP. Slashdot's software will eat HTML tags if you're not careful. "<Sarcasm>Google isn't evil </Sarcasm>" has to be expressed as "<Sarcasm>Google isn't evil </Sarcasm>"
And further the above line had to be expressed as "&lt;Sarcasm&gt;Google isn't evil &lt;/Sarcasm&gt;"
The reason for the timetable is that most people are not very good at looking at their odometers, but they are capable of noting a future date in a calendar and taking action on that date. It's also why a lot of newer cars with computers in them will tell you when they need their oil changed instead of relying on a schedule.
My car's computer is based on 12 months or 10,000 miles, they the dealer always applies a sticker for 6 months, 5,000 miles. I usually end up changing it half way inbetween.
If your family has two cars, and can juggle the requirements, drop the car off of the night before, and pick it up later in the evening (frequently service closes at 5, but sales closes at 9, and can process payment for service). Alternatively I've dropped my car off at the dealer on the way to work, had a co-worker pick me up, then have them drop me off on the way home (I've also done the same for coworkers).
This won't work in 100% of circumstances, but working 8-5 doesn't necessarily limit you to Saturday only appointments. Plus you don't have to waste your time waiting around a dealer, and you can try to book the appointment as early as possible in the day, so they won't bump you from the roster if a job runs long.
99% of the people toying around with Raspberry Pis couldn't admin their way out of a wet paper bag. They load preconfigured blobs onto SD-cards and follow tutorials for the rest, tutorials written by people who figured stuff out by trial and error. If the tutorial says, open the port in the firewall so you can watch your videos on the go, a port will be opened in the firewall. It's just words to them, no meaning. You do this, you get what you want. So, nothing out of the ordinary. Just because it's Unix doesn't mean there isn't an average consumer at the keyboard.
The best way to encourage new users to learn more is to insult them!
I thought USA introduced "Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007", the "Incandescent ban". While Compact Fluorescent meet the requirements (along with halogen), good manufacturers had given way to cheap Chinese CFL manufacturers, which people bought because they were cheap, then complained when they wouldn't work upside down in enclosed dimmer fixtures. As well concerns over mercury waste gives LED an advantage.
Right now LED still seems to be in the realm of quality manufacturers, though I'm sure cheap manufacturers will flood the market with garbage before too long.
I'm currently satisfied with the performance of my Philips LED screw in bulbs, as I was 15 years ago with my Philips screw in CFLs. First the Philips "flat" LED bulbs, now this lamp which is one of the best 2700K bulbs I've seen, and has run in my enclosed (but not recessed) ceiling fixtures. The other benefit of LED over CFL is they don't yellow shades from UV emissions.
It also doesn't hurt that my electrical utility gives away rebates twice a year for LED lights (but stopped a few years back for CFL).
We also are approaching diminishing returns: Incandescent-CFL-LED: 60W-13W-9W. I am amazed in the commercial world where a 400W Metal Halide can be replaced with a 200W LED with three times the life.
Many electrical companies bill industrial customers based on PEAK power consumption, so it's in your interest to spread the load as widely as possible.
Demand billing is usually based on the highest average 15 minute window. The effect of less than 1 second inrush on demand billing is minimal. It is also a combination: Part of the bill is based on the Demand(kVA), part is based on energy (kWh). Given that you were probably down for a portion of that 15 minute window, it would be almost impossible to make it up in inrush.
I browse at -1 and see a lot of garbage. Biggest irritation with this is why isn't the comment truncated to "Read the rest of this comment..." earlier? It took 9 presses of Page Down to get past this. I've seen useful comments cut off earlier.
Is it total character count? Is is number of lines? Somehow one line paragraphs make it worse. I shouldn't have to do more than one "Page down" to get past a -1 AC.
Doesn't everyone use closed transition (make before break) transfer switches these days? Failing that even with shit batteries I'd think a break before make transfer switch should be able to be absorbed by weak batteries on a double conversion UPS, or by power supplies on the computer hardware running with UPS in bypass (or a standby UPS).
I have seen the following oddities with emergency power devices (oddly all Eaton): ~10 years ago an Eaton(IIRC) closed transition transfer switch with a firmware bug. There was planned work taking utility power down, so the generator (2MVA) was fired up, load shifted to generator, then when utility lost power it crashed and the load lost generator power.
Eaton Powerware... not the 9155 but looks close to it, maybe 9355?. Anyways 10kVA double conversion UPS with external bypass switch and included 460-120 stepdown transformer:
-With utility failure shit batteries cause the breaker to trip shortly after switching to battery, and the UPS to fault. Upon restoration of utility power, the load fails to come up until manual intervention on the UPS.
-Eaton service guy comes to service the UPS. Places the external bypass switch to bypass (I think it was on transition to bypass, may have been transition from bypass), UPS dumps the load. Bypass should have been activated on the soft keys on the menu to match the desired state before throwing the manual switch. If it was going back to normal, I think it was switching from bypass, to service is fine (which allows control power to the UPS), allow it to power up, put the soft menu to bypass, then move the switch to normal, then move soft keys from bypass to normal.
Regardless even an event like that shouldn't cause a multi-hour failure.
I wonder that too. I still have my $250 16GB Nexus 4 from 2013. It takes crappy pictures, but otherwise suits me fine.
Moto G was a surprise hit because it was targeted at developing countries but provided decent performance at a decent price when bought unlocked. I can't speak to the new Moto G.
Acer Zest is also available with seemingly decent specs, at decent unlocked prices, but I can't comment one way or the other on the quality.
So what would actually happen if we limited copyright to 15 or 20 years?
This is the first thing that should happen. Life + 70 years is a ludicrous term. Patents, which are (potentially) useful inventions have a term of 20 years, while entertainment media is life + 70.
I used the TI-89 in University (10 years ago). I searched high and low for a good Android calculator. I don't do complicated math, I just want decent keypad layout, brackets, and history. About 4 years ago I came across Graph 89 and stuck with it ever since. Though I hate the Ti-89 Titanium skin (and the actual calculator keypad). I set to the "Default" skin, and in the TI, I disable the "Home" screen, and set approx answers (or remember to add a "." after any number).
I try to avoid watching trailers. Usually the best action scenes, and all the plot twists are shown in the trailer. I usually try to look at a brief synopsis, and look at user rating (not the reviews themselves) on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. Even better is when someone else picks out a movie.
As far as the cost, if I want to go to the theater, I'll go Tuesdays when tickets are $6 rather than the full price $12.
4.) "Windows POS Ready 2009" is the SKU you're referring to. As the name suggests it was intended for Point of sale devices, and was released in 2009. This Microsoft Lifecycle page shows the lifecycle of embedded products. POS Ready was based on the "Windows Embedded Standard 2009", which is the last revision of XP embedded, with a similar end of life date.
A lot of these "embedded" XP systems were probably released between 2001- 2009 (the original hey day of XP) and didn't include a SKU that would be released in the future with longer support. Even if they included "Windows XP Embedded", "Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 3" support ended in 2016.
I believe they have them shipped in advance, and meet them by airplane. Here's a company that ships them. They talk about roll-on, roll-off. This might be via the same ships used to transport new cars from Europe to North America.
8.x was OK after installing Classic Shell. 10 never added anything. The "returned start menu" is a shrunkdown version of the 8.x start screen. Classic shell gave a usable start menu to 8.x (able to see the nested folder version of the start menu).
10 still has an identity crisis. Half the control panels are Desktop control panels, half are metro. 10 also makes you lose control of updates, telemetry, etc. It forces Cortana on you.
It took 10 to make 8.x look good. At least you get the under the hood improvements without losing all control of your computer.
Sequential operations on an SSD can max out a SATA port, but random won't. Random I/O in also where SSDs beat HDDs, and offer a massive performance boost (why for example boot times are so quick), but until the drive manufacturers max out Random I/O, SATA isn't the limit.
Why would you support an operating system that no longer gets security updates at all?
If you had enough users, why wouldn't you? While the OS isn't getting patched, the system, sitting behind a firewall (even a residential router) isn't going to magically get compromised. However web browsers (and associated plugins like Java, Flash, and Adobe Acrobat) are a huge attack surface, and an updated web browser will do a lot more for that than an updated OS.
It is completely understandable that Mozilla has moved toward Chrome in terms of UI, features and extensions. If Firefox and Chrome are too different, then any normal user trying Firefox after coming from Chrome will be confused, and not stay. This includes ex-Chrome users wanting their favorite Chrome extensions to work in Firefox. This interoperability may help Firefox steal users who have become disenchanted with Chrome. This is their only long-term path for survival.
Firefox was the defacto browser. It was theirs to lose. Users migrated to Chrome in spite of the UI being significantly different than FF or IE. Since version 4 they've been too busy fucking around with useless shit instead of making it better, and their marketshare follows this trend. Extensions, and unlimited customization was the only reason to keep FF. With every version they make the extensions harder and harder to work. Why keep running a cheap copy (Firefox) instead of the real deal (Chrome)?
GIMP criticism is different to some of the other projects. GIMP is trying to make an artists tool and the problem is unless they completely rip off Photoshop's interface they will always face criticism for not being photoshop. Art tools are like religions.
The funny thing with GIMP is not only did they target it as a Photoshop replacement, they targeted it only as a professional tool, and get annoyed when "casual" users are using it. Look on their forum where they get annoyed at users for getting annoyed at their fucked up save menu. Of course much like their application where they fuck things up for no apparent reason, their forum is now fucked up, so I had to resort to archive.org.
It's too bad Paint.NET isn't available as a cross platform free tool. Much more usable than GIMP.
[Core user group activities include] high-end photo manipulation; note the word ‘high-end,’ this is in results that can be achieved with GIMP and workflow it supports; high-end is not mid-or low-end: touching up some holiday photos a couple times a year is not what GIMP is made for;
Slashdot Mirror
While you are correct on both counts, what this story illustrates is the irony of large organizations (in commercial industry and government alike) that say "we want innovators/bold thinkers/unconventional thinkers/people who think outside the box" (or similar feel-good sounding things) when what they really mean is "we want innovators/bold thinkers/unconventional thinkers/people who think outside the box but who also remain within the strict policies/structures/conventions of the organization."
Is it any wonder that people who perceive themselves as truly talented tend to want to go work for startups or perhaps create their own startup? The type of people places like the CIA and big companies claim to be seeking are precisely the type of people who look at places like that and say "no way am I going subject myself to all that bureaucracy." Stories like those sort of prove the point.
One or two free candy bars, to see how the thing works would be "innovators/bold thinkers". Taking $3,000 of snacks is stealing. I can hack the cafeteria at work. If I go in late afternoon when there's only one worker, I can wait for them to go on a smoke break when the place is deserted, and load up my backpack with all sorts of free snacks. But I don't. Because it's stealing.
I don't blame the GP. Slashdot's software will eat HTML tags if you're not careful. "<Sarcasm>Google isn't evil </Sarcasm>" has to be expressed as
"<Sarcasm>Google isn't evil </Sarcasm>"
And further the above line had to be expressed as
"&lt;Sarcasm&gt;Google isn't evil &lt;/Sarcasm&gt;"
At least I didn't need Unicode characters.
Some other file manager instead of windows explorer might not trigger the exploit, assuming autoplay is disabled? Maybe?
If I'm forced to use Windows, I like to use Far Manager. It's a text mode file manager so I can stroke my neckbeard while I use it.
The reason for the timetable is that most people are not very good at looking at their odometers, but they are capable of noting a future date in a calendar and taking action on that date. It's also why a lot of newer cars with computers in them will tell you when they need their oil changed instead of relying on a schedule.
My car's computer is based on 12 months or 10,000 miles, they the dealer always applies a sticker for 6 months, 5,000 miles. I usually end up changing it half way inbetween.
I usually do drop-off, pickup service.
If your family has two cars, and can juggle the requirements, drop the car off of the night before, and pick it up later in the evening (frequently service closes at 5, but sales closes at 9, and can process payment for service). Alternatively I've dropped my car off at the dealer on the way to work, had a co-worker pick me up, then have them drop me off on the way home (I've also done the same for coworkers).
This won't work in 100% of circumstances, but working 8-5 doesn't necessarily limit you to Saturday only appointments. Plus you don't have to waste your time waiting around a dealer, and you can try to book the appointment as early as possible in the day, so they won't bump you from the roster if a job runs long.
99% of the people toying around with Raspberry Pis couldn't admin their way out of a wet paper bag. They load preconfigured blobs onto SD-cards and follow tutorials for the rest, tutorials written by people who figured stuff out by trial and error. If the tutorial says, open the port in the firewall so you can watch your videos on the go, a port will be opened in the firewall. It's just words to them, no meaning. You do this, you get what you want. So, nothing out of the ordinary. Just because it's Unix doesn't mean there isn't an average consumer at the keyboard.
The best way to encourage new users to learn more is to insult them!
I thought USA introduced "Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007", the "Incandescent ban". While Compact Fluorescent meet the requirements (along with halogen), good manufacturers had given way to cheap Chinese CFL manufacturers, which people bought because they were cheap, then complained when they wouldn't work upside down in enclosed dimmer fixtures. As well concerns over mercury waste gives LED an advantage.
Right now LED still seems to be in the realm of quality manufacturers, though I'm sure cheap manufacturers will flood the market with garbage before too long.
I'm currently satisfied with the performance of my Philips LED screw in bulbs, as I was 15 years ago with my Philips screw in CFLs. First the Philips "flat" LED bulbs, now this lamp which is one of the best 2700K bulbs I've seen, and has run in my enclosed (but not recessed) ceiling fixtures. The other benefit of LED over CFL is they don't yellow shades from UV emissions.
It also doesn't hurt that my electrical utility gives away rebates twice a year for LED lights (but stopped a few years back for CFL).
We also are approaching diminishing returns: Incandescent-CFL-LED: 60W-13W-9W. I am amazed in the commercial world where a 400W Metal Halide can be replaced with a 200W LED with three times the life.
Stromasys provides enterprise grade emulation of old DEC hardware. Very pricey licences too. Like $20K.
Many electrical companies bill industrial customers based on PEAK power consumption, so it's in your interest to spread the load as widely as possible.
Demand billing is usually based on the highest average 15 minute window. The effect of less than 1 second inrush on demand billing is minimal. It is also a combination: Part of the bill is based on the Demand(kVA), part is based on energy (kWh). Given that you were probably down for a portion of that 15 minute window, it would be almost impossible to make it up in inrush.
I browse at -1 and see a lot of garbage. Biggest irritation with this is why isn't the comment truncated to "Read the rest of this comment..." earlier? It took 9 presses of Page Down to get past this. I've seen useful comments cut off earlier.
Is it total character count? Is is number of lines? Somehow one line paragraphs make it worse. I shouldn't have to do more than one "Page down" to get past a -1 AC.
Doesn't everyone use closed transition (make before break) transfer switches these days? Failing that even with shit batteries I'd think a break before make transfer switch should be able to be absorbed by weak batteries on a double conversion UPS, or by power supplies on the computer hardware running with UPS in bypass (or a standby UPS).
I have seen the following oddities with emergency power devices (oddly all Eaton):
~10 years ago an Eaton(IIRC) closed transition transfer switch with a firmware bug. There was planned work taking utility power down, so the generator (2MVA) was fired up, load shifted to generator, then when utility lost power it crashed and the load lost generator power.
Eaton Powerware... not the 9155 but looks close to it, maybe 9355?. Anyways 10kVA double conversion UPS with external bypass switch and included 460-120 stepdown transformer:
-With utility failure shit batteries cause the breaker to trip shortly after switching to battery, and the UPS to fault. Upon restoration of utility power, the load fails to come up until manual intervention on the UPS.
-Eaton service guy comes to service the UPS. Places the external bypass switch to bypass (I think it was on transition to bypass, may have been transition from bypass), UPS dumps the load. Bypass should have been activated on the soft keys on the menu to match the desired state before throwing the manual switch. If it was going back to normal, I think it was switching from bypass, to service is fine (which allows control power to the UPS), allow it to power up, put the soft menu to bypass, then move the switch to normal, then move soft keys from bypass to normal.
Regardless even an event like that shouldn't cause a multi-hour failure.
I wonder that too. I still have my $250 16GB Nexus 4 from 2013. It takes crappy pictures, but otherwise suits me fine.
Moto G was a surprise hit because it was targeted at developing countries but provided decent performance at a decent price when bought unlocked. I can't speak to the new Moto G.
Acer Zest is also available with seemingly decent specs, at decent unlocked prices, but I can't comment one way or the other on the quality.
So what would actually happen if we limited copyright to 15 or 20 years?
This is the first thing that should happen. Life + 70 years is a ludicrous term. Patents, which are (potentially) useful inventions have a term of 20 years, while entertainment media is life + 70.
Corporate IT has a way of destroying anything.
Agreed. I've bought surplus work computers, and they went from being dogs that took 10 minutes to boot, to being decent systems.
I used the TI-89 in University (10 years ago). I searched high and low for a good Android calculator. I don't do complicated math, I just want decent keypad layout, brackets, and history. About 4 years ago I came across Graph 89 and stuck with it ever since. Though I hate the Ti-89 Titanium skin (and the actual calculator keypad). I set to the "Default" skin, and in the TI, I disable the "Home" screen, and set approx answers (or remember to add a "." after any number).
I try to avoid watching trailers. Usually the best action scenes, and all the plot twists are shown in the trailer. I usually try to look at a brief synopsis, and look at user rating (not the reviews themselves) on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. Even better is when someone else picks out a movie.
As far as the cost, if I want to go to the theater, I'll go Tuesdays when tickets are $6 rather than the full price $12.
4.) "Windows POS Ready 2009" is the SKU you're referring to. As the name suggests it was intended for Point of sale devices, and was released in 2009.
This Microsoft Lifecycle page shows the lifecycle of embedded products. POS Ready was based on the "Windows Embedded Standard 2009", which is the last revision of XP embedded, with a similar end of life date.
A lot of these "embedded" XP systems were probably released between 2001- 2009 (the original hey day of XP) and didn't include a SKU that would be released in the future with longer support. Even if they included "Windows XP Embedded", "Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 3" support ended in 2016.
I believe they have them shipped in advance, and meet them by airplane. Here's a company that ships them. They talk about roll-on, roll-off. This might be via the same ships used to transport new cars from Europe to North America.
8.x was OK after installing Classic Shell. 10 never added anything. The "returned start menu" is a shrunkdown version of the 8.x start screen. Classic shell gave a usable start menu to 8.x (able to see the nested folder version of the start menu).
10 still has an identity crisis. Half the control panels are Desktop control panels, half are metro. 10 also makes you lose control of updates, telemetry, etc. It forces Cortana on you.
It took 10 to make 8.x look good. At least you get the under the hood improvements without losing all control of your computer.
Sequential operations on an SSD can max out a SATA port, but random won't. Random I/O in also where SSDs beat HDDs, and offer a massive performance boost (why for example boot times are so quick), but until the drive manufacturers max out Random I/O, SATA isn't the limit.
McAfee has done something like this before As I recall it impacted Intel.
Why would you support an operating system that no longer gets security updates at all?
If you had enough users, why wouldn't you? While the OS isn't getting patched, the system, sitting behind a firewall (even a residential router) isn't going to magically get compromised. However web browsers (and associated plugins like Java, Flash, and Adobe Acrobat) are a huge attack surface, and an updated web browser will do a lot more for that than an updated OS.
It is completely understandable that Mozilla has moved toward Chrome in terms of UI, features and extensions. If Firefox and Chrome are too different, then any normal user trying Firefox after coming from Chrome will be confused, and not stay. This includes ex-Chrome users wanting their favorite Chrome extensions to work in Firefox. This interoperability may help Firefox steal users who have become disenchanted with Chrome. This is their only long-term path for survival.
Firefox was the defacto browser. It was theirs to lose. Users migrated to Chrome in spite of the UI being significantly different than FF or IE. Since version 4 they've been too busy fucking around with useless shit instead of making it better, and their marketshare follows this trend. Extensions, and unlimited customization was the only reason to keep FF. With every version they make the extensions harder and harder to work. Why keep running a cheap copy (Firefox) instead of the real deal (Chrome)?
GIMP criticism is different to some of the other projects. GIMP is trying to make an artists tool and the problem is unless they completely rip off Photoshop's interface they will always face criticism for not being photoshop. Art tools are like religions.
The funny thing with GIMP is not only did they target it as a Photoshop replacement, they targeted it only as a professional tool, and get annoyed when "casual" users are using it. Look on their forum where they get annoyed at users for getting annoyed at their fucked up save menu. Of course much like their application where they fuck things up for no apparent reason, their forum is now fucked up, so I had to resort to archive.org.
It's too bad Paint.NET isn't available as a cross platform free tool. Much more usable than GIMP.
[Core user group activities include] high-end photo manipulation; note the word ‘high-end,’ this is in results that can be achieved with GIMP and workflow it supports; high-end is not mid-or low-end: touching up some holiday photos a couple times a year is not what GIMP is made for;
Here's a demonstration of a 1403