My landline phone (5 cordless handsets) "speaks" the Caller ID info, so no matter which room I'm in, I can figure out who is calling without having to touch or even look at a phone.
Great. Now imagine the exact same feature but it works all over the world, not just 5 rooms in your house.
Even if my mobile phone had such a feature, I wouldn't enable it since that would be weird any time I am away from home.
How? A phone call is a phone call. Why do caller identification requirements change just because you leave 5 designated rooms in your house?
Caller ID features most definitely are different for me in my home vs. away from home. In my home - phone is permitted to announce the caller's name. Away from home, I prefer discretion and will let my Pebble watch show me the caller. And that's fine because away from home I will happily be tethered to the phone + smart watch.
At home I don't carry my mobile phone with me. But since I have those cordless handsets distributed around the house, I can hear the Caller ID from anywhere without being tethered to the mobile phone.
In other words, different solutions for different problems. Your mileage may vary.
The piece of technology that I am waiting for, which is here but not yet polished, is for me to dock my mobile phone at home and have the cordless handsets take calls from it. My current system claims this feature, but it sucks.
I have noticed a trend on my answering machine at home is that no one bothers to leave a message. If there's no answer they just give up. The whole point of the answering machine is that I don't have to rush downstairs straight out of the shower to miss picking it up by a couple of seconds.
If I don't feel like answering the land line (or I'm simply not home), the caller can leave a message. If they don't leave a message, then it clearly wasn't an important call. Almost no telemarketing drones will bother to leave a message, which is great. I do appreciate when the pharmacy or a friend of the family leaves a message, since those are people whose messages are worth having voice mail for.
So, having a land line and answering system keeps me from missing things. When I'm home, my phone announces who's calling. If I don't recognize the name, I let the answering system respond.
A mobile phone does all this too, with the added benefit of much less cold callers. Problem. Solution.
My landline phone (5 cordless handsets) "speaks" the Caller ID info, so no matter which room I'm in, I can figure out who is calling without having to touch or even look at a phone. Even if my mobile phone had such a feature, I wouldn't enable it since that would be weird any time I am away from home. And even if I went to the trouble of enabling it while at home, then I have to tether myself to the mobile phone. F that, as dcw3 implied.
Sprawl is less efficient. People who live in dense cities consume much less than sprawl SFH suburbs - frequently 1/10th as much. We drive less (many of us use walking, bikes, or transit, or drive short distances) and use less energy.
Face it, we're better than you.
Yes, you urban types are better than we suburban and rural types. Good for you!
I'm happy to raise my kids in an environment where we have plenty of space and sunshine in our backyard to grow vegetables, and have lots of wildlife (birds, squirrels, rabbits and deer) roaming around. You can keep your view-blocking eyesore buildings.
And lest you think I am describing some backwoods place, my commute to work is 25 minutes into downtown San Jose. I will take that level of sprawl over some San Francisco or NYC or other high-density zoo.
First it says that the new PCIe SSDs achieve "much higher" speeds and "destroy the competition" and then it says that they don't really load anything faster and average consumers will hardly know a difference?
What?
I'm sure someone already did this, but...
Car analogy - 1. You have a Corvette (the PCIe SSD) and a Prius (the SATA SSD). 2. Targeted benchmark is a racetrack, where the Corvette beats the crap out of the Prius. 3. Normal consumer usage is driving from your house to the corner store, where the Prius is just as fast as the Corvette.
So the PCIe SSD is technically faster than its SATA counterpart, but you might not notice any actual difference in performance across your normal computer workload.
Dude you might want to look up "Intel SSD killswitch" as you do NOT want an Intel SSD, as instead of doing the logical solution if one finds failing sectors (which would be alert the user and turn it into a WORM drive so they can get their data off) Intel SSDs throw a killswitch and on next boot your drive and all your data is trashed as Intel's killswitch kills the drive....no matter how many good sectors you have left!
I did that search (with and without quotes) and found squat. Can you please provide a hint, such as Intel model number? A sweeping generalization as you have made hardly seems accurate, since Intel uses a number of different controllers/firmware in their SSDs. For example, the Intel SSDs that use SandForce controllers do not have any such behavior.
I have found (while reading through resumes trying to find candidates) that the response of most applicants to this phenomenon is to just apply for jobs for which they aren't really qualified at all, because no one is completely qualified. Which leads to probably the exact situation employers are trying to avoid (having tons of unqualified people apply)
Indeed. I post a job requiring 10 years' C development and I get new college grads applying. Come on!
I'm not sure how to solve it. Recruiters aren't the answer -- they're often the offenders in this case, editing the candidate's resume. I think the only "solution" would be to guarantee at least a phone interview to everyone who applies, just as a basic BS filter. That doesn't scale, but if candidates can't trust job descriptions and employers can't trust candidates, what's the fix?
This. I finally realized, after several extremely BS'd resumes, that I need to phone screen candidates in order to not waste my team's time on interviewing such exaggeraters.
Also, most recruiters aren't the answer, as you said, but if you can find the *right* recruiter, it can really make your life easier. I finally found a decent recruiting agency, and they are feeding me much better candidates than any internal recruiters ever did.
An appropriate degree from a decent school tells me a lot about you, along with your past work experience. The lack of a degree isn't a dealbreaker but you better be damn impressive everywhere else.
I disagree. I have interviewed people with and without degrees, or with degrees in a different field (physics instead of CS, etc.), and there seems to be very little correlation between a qualified candidate and one who attended a decent school with the appropriate degree.
As for past work experience, many people embellish their resumes with their team's achievements, such that you need the interview just to figure out what they actually have done in their career. Same goes for the "skills" portion of the resume. So, you know assembly language? "Yes, I took a class in college." So, you have experience in Python? Oh yes, I've written several text processing scripts. I wish candidates would annotate their listed skills, such as "3 years Python development" to at least distinguish themselves from people who have simply heard they should put Python on their resume.
So by your logic, any CEO or famous actor who runs cannot be called a runner. Or one who plays golf cannot be called a golfer. Only if running or golfing *is* your claim to fame can you be called one of those terms.
How is a logic analyzer going to help? During bootup, the microcontroller is going to read encrypted firmware code from the flash, so snooping that will be useless. The decryption process itself will take place in the RAM internal to the microcontroller, which isn't exposed on any external pins, so no snooping.
If somebody REALLY wanted to rip off the firmware, they'd just unsolder the chip and buy a matching reader for about $50 from digikey.
I just posted this a few comments up, but applies here, as well: For microcontrollers that have firmware stored in an external flash, any company that values their IP will encrypt their FW before writing it to flash and decrypt it during boot up.
Most any project engineered by smart people will indeed have disabled JTAG for production units. To not do so is to invite security, IP and possibly liability issues.
The CPU is typically connected to external flash anyway. Worst case you have to unsolder the flash and read it that way.
Many microcontrollers have onboard flash, whose contents can be configured to not be readable by external means (i.e., address/data pins). For microcontrollers that have firmware stored in an external flash, any company that values their IP will encrypt their FW before writing it to flash and decrypt it during boot up.
Same here. I stopped wearing watches because I had allergic reactions to the metal, and for the past 15-20 years I used my cellphone as my watch instead. I don't often need to check the time, and when I do, odds are I'm behind a computer anyway. When I ordered my Pebble, I was a bit concerned because I didn't know how my skin would react to the plastic, but fortunately, the Pebble didn't provoke any reactions.
You can easily replace the Pebble's watchband, as it is standard 22mm. I hated the original silicone watchband and bought a nice leather one on Amazon for $20. Now the Pebble feels and looks nicer.
Actually, the smart customers can be the worst. There's a reason that they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Engineers work with customers. But if the customer want something unrealistic, the engineers push back. If what the customer wants is too far out of line, they don't merely advise, they refuse. Same with architects and physicians.
One of the hallmarks of being a professional is that the professional is expected to have experience and understanding and the autonomy to say "no". If you don't have that, you can't count yourself as a professional.
Agree 100%. My team and I have said no to some pretty big/important customers. However, the customer will occasionally escalate the issue, sometimes to 2 or 3 levels above me. At that point it's a coin flip as to whether upper management listens to engineering reason or to the customer.
TL;DR: Read more carefully, use both, and stop posting tirades. We'll all be happier, you included.
Nicely measured response! Usually such responses fall on deaf ears and only invite further flame from that guy, but it looks like you (to use that guy's lingo) destroyed him.:-)
It's not the web designers' fault! I'm a small time self employed web designer. When it comes to designing a website, we don't do what we want! We don't even do what the customer needs. We end up doing what he asks. Most of the time what they ask for sucks, and that's what they/you get.
If you have so little input into the process as that, you're not a technical professional, you're a prostitute.
Have you ever worked directly with customers? Not all customers are savvy or intelligent, and your advice to change their foolish request will fall on deaf ears. It is a genuine pleasure to work with smart customers, because they will generally listen to design advice and understand the concepts.
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Thank you for an informative and humorous post!
My landline phone (5 cordless handsets) "speaks" the Caller ID info, so no matter which room I'm in, I can figure out who is calling without having to touch or even look at a phone.
Great. Now imagine the exact same feature but it works all over the world, not just 5 rooms in your house.
Even if my mobile phone had such a feature, I wouldn't enable it since that would be weird any time I am away from home.
How? A phone call is a phone call. Why do caller identification requirements change just because you leave 5 designated rooms in your house?
Caller ID features most definitely are different for me in my home vs. away from home. In my home - phone is permitted to announce the caller's name. Away from home, I prefer discretion and will let my Pebble watch show me the caller. And that's fine because away from home I will happily be tethered to the phone + smart watch.
At home I don't carry my mobile phone with me. But since I have those cordless handsets distributed around the house, I can hear the Caller ID from anywhere without being tethered to the mobile phone.
In other words, different solutions for different problems. Your mileage may vary.
The piece of technology that I am waiting for, which is here but not yet polished, is for me to dock my mobile phone at home and have the cordless handsets take calls from it. My current system claims this feature, but it sucks.
I have noticed a trend on my answering machine at home is that no one bothers to leave a message. If there's no answer they just give up. The whole point of the answering machine is that I don't have to rush downstairs straight out of the shower to miss picking it up by a couple of seconds.
If I don't feel like answering the land line (or I'm simply not home), the caller can leave a message. If they don't leave a message, then it clearly wasn't an important call. Almost no telemarketing drones will bother to leave a message, which is great. I do appreciate when the pharmacy or a friend of the family leaves a message, since those are people whose messages are worth having voice mail for.
Well said, man. Agree 100%.
So, having a land line and answering system keeps me from missing things. When I'm home, my phone announces who's calling. If I don't recognize the name, I let the answering system respond.
A mobile phone does all this too, with the added benefit of much less cold callers.
Problem. Solution.
My landline phone (5 cordless handsets) "speaks" the Caller ID info, so no matter which room I'm in, I can figure out who is calling without having to touch or even look at a phone. Even if my mobile phone had such a feature, I wouldn't enable it since that would be weird any time I am away from home. And even if I went to the trouble of enabling it while at home, then I have to tether myself to the mobile phone. F that, as dcw3 implied.
Sprawl is less efficient. People who live in dense cities consume much less than sprawl SFH suburbs - frequently 1/10th as much. We drive less (many of us use walking, bikes, or transit, or drive short distances) and use less energy.
Face it, we're better than you.
Yes, you urban types are better than we suburban and rural types. Good for you!
I'm happy to raise my kids in an environment where we have plenty of space and sunshine in our backyard to grow vegetables, and have lots of wildlife (birds, squirrels, rabbits and deer) roaming around. You can keep your view-blocking eyesore buildings.
And lest you think I am describing some backwoods place, my commute to work is 25 minutes into downtown San Jose. I will take that level of sprawl over some San Francisco or NYC or other high-density zoo.
Very well done, sir.
First it says that the new PCIe SSDs achieve "much higher" speeds and "destroy the competition" and then it says that they don't really load anything faster and average consumers will hardly know a difference?
What?
I'm sure someone already did this, but...
Car analogy -
1. You have a Corvette (the PCIe SSD) and a Prius (the SATA SSD).
2. Targeted benchmark is a racetrack, where the Corvette beats the crap out of the Prius.
3. Normal consumer usage is driving from your house to the corner store, where the Prius is just as fast as the Corvette.
So the PCIe SSD is technically faster than its SATA counterpart, but you might not notice any actual difference in performance across your normal computer workload.
Dude you might want to look up "Intel SSD killswitch" as you do NOT want an Intel SSD, as instead of doing the logical solution if one finds failing sectors (which would be alert the user and turn it into a WORM drive so they can get their data off) Intel SSDs throw a killswitch and on next boot your drive and all your data is trashed as Intel's killswitch kills the drive....no matter how many good sectors you have left!
I did that search (with and without quotes) and found squat. Can you please provide a hint, such as Intel model number? A sweeping generalization as you have made hardly seems accurate, since Intel uses a number of different controllers/firmware in their SSDs. For example, the Intel SSDs that use SandForce controllers do not have any such behavior.
Some dude on Slashdot who writes long posts with the goal of discrediting others. Initially entertaining, but ultimately just boring.
TL;DR - just visually skimming your post, I thought for sure it was from apk. Same style to a tee.
Loved that last exclamation mark. Made me LOL!
I have found (while reading through resumes trying to find candidates) that the response of most applicants to this phenomenon is to just apply for jobs for which they aren't really qualified at all, because no one is completely qualified. Which leads to probably the exact situation employers are trying to avoid (having tons of unqualified people apply)
Indeed. I post a job requiring 10 years' C development and I get new college grads applying. Come on!
I'm not sure how to solve it. Recruiters aren't the answer -- they're often the offenders in this case, editing the candidate's resume. I think the only "solution" would be to guarantee at least a phone interview to everyone who applies, just as a basic BS filter. That doesn't scale, but if candidates can't trust job descriptions and employers can't trust candidates, what's the fix?
This. I finally realized, after several extremely BS'd resumes, that I need to phone screen candidates in order to not waste my team's time on interviewing such exaggeraters.
Also, most recruiters aren't the answer, as you said, but if you can find the *right* recruiter, it can really make your life easier. I finally found a decent recruiting agency, and they are feeding me much better candidates than any internal recruiters ever did.
Hiring is a tricky business.
Agreed!
An appropriate degree from a decent school tells me a lot about you, along with your past work experience. The lack of a degree isn't a dealbreaker but you better be damn impressive everywhere else.
I disagree. I have interviewed people with and without degrees, or with degrees in a different field (physics instead of CS, etc.), and there seems to be very little correlation between a qualified candidate and one who attended a decent school with the appropriate degree.
As for past work experience, many people embellish their resumes with their team's achievements, such that you need the interview just to figure out what they actually have done in their career. Same goes for the "skills" portion of the resume. So, you know assembly language? "Yes, I took a class in college." So, you have experience in Python? Oh yes, I've written several text processing scripts. I wish candidates would annotate their listed skills, such as "3 years Python development" to at least distinguish themselves from people who have simply heard they should put Python on their resume.
So by your logic, any CEO or famous actor who runs cannot be called a runner. Or one who plays golf cannot be called a golfer. Only if running or golfing *is* your claim to fame can you be called one of those terms.
Yep, makes sense to me!
How is a logic analyzer going to help? During bootup, the microcontroller is going to read encrypted firmware code from the flash, so snooping that will be useless. The decryption process itself will take place in the RAM internal to the microcontroller, which isn't exposed on any external pins, so no snooping.
If somebody REALLY wanted to rip off the firmware, they'd just unsolder the chip and buy a matching reader for about $50 from digikey.
I just posted this a few comments up, but applies here, as well:
For microcontrollers that have firmware stored in an external flash, any company that values their IP will encrypt their FW before writing it to flash and decrypt it during boot up.
Very often the JTAG port is simply left open.
Most any project engineered by smart people will indeed have disabled JTAG for production units. To not do so is to invite security, IP and possibly liability issues.
The CPU is typically connected to external flash anyway. Worst case you have to unsolder the flash and read it that way.
Many microcontrollers have onboard flash, whose contents can be configured to not be readable by external means (i.e., address/data pins). For microcontrollers that have firmware stored in an external flash, any company that values their IP will encrypt their FW before writing it to flash and decrypt it during boot up.
(T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Formerly known as (T)aking (S)uckaz (A)ssets
Same here. I stopped wearing watches because I had allergic reactions to the metal, and for the past 15-20 years I used my cellphone as my watch instead. I don't often need to check the time, and when I do, odds are I'm behind a computer anyway. When I ordered my Pebble, I was a bit concerned because I didn't know how my skin would react to the plastic, but fortunately, the Pebble didn't provoke any reactions.
You can easily replace the Pebble's watchband, as it is standard 22mm. I hated the original silicone watchband and bought a nice leather one on Amazon for $20. Now the Pebble feels and looks nicer.
Actually, the smart customers can be the worst. There's a reason that they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Engineers work with customers. But if the customer want something unrealistic, the engineers push back. If what the customer wants is too far out of line, they don't merely advise, they refuse. Same with architects and physicians.
One of the hallmarks of being a professional is that the professional is expected to have experience and understanding and the autonomy to say "no". If you don't have that, you can't count yourself as a professional.
Agree 100%. My team and I have said no to some pretty big/important customers. However, the customer will occasionally escalate the issue, sometimes to 2 or 3 levels above me. At that point it's a coin flip as to whether upper management listens to engineering reason or to the customer.
TL;DR: Read more carefully, use both, and stop posting tirades. We'll all be happier, you included.
Nicely measured response! Usually such responses fall on deaf ears and only invite further flame from that guy, but it looks like you (to use that guy's lingo) destroyed him. :-)
It's not the web designers' fault! I'm a small time self employed web designer. When it comes to designing a website, we don't do what we want! We don't even do what the customer needs. We end up doing what he asks. Most of the time what they ask for sucks, and that's what they/you get.
If you have so little input into the process as that, you're not a technical professional, you're a prostitute.
Have you ever worked directly with customers? Not all customers are savvy or intelligent, and your advice to change their foolish request will fall on deaf ears. It is a genuine pleasure to work with smart customers, because they will generally listen to design advice and understand the concepts.
You are REALLY a going to be unhappy in 6 months, when they release the Dell Venue 8 7000 2...
Best laugh I had all day! Thank you for that.