That's kind of the ENTIRE point. All that is required is ONE use case for which the phone is woefully inappropriate and the advantage goes to the dedicated device.
Umm, no. It doesn't work like that. I know folks here on slashdot just love to find the one corner case and then declare that invalidates everything else but the real world doesn't work that way most of the time. I live near a park where people go running every day. Probably the majority of them are carrying some sort of smartphone with them, usually listening to music while they run and in cases like my wife as a safety measure. Not everyone of course but lots of them. They didn't all say "OMG a fitness tracker would totally be better here" and leave their smartphones behind. The fact that a fitness tracker would be more convenient in some cases turns out to be kind of irrelevant since they are going to take the phone with them anyway.
Dedicated cameras are far better at taking pictures but smartphones are good enough for most that it doesn't matter and you don't see a lot of point and shoot cameras anymore as a result. Fitness trackers have some use cases but for most people those use cases are better served by a smartphone even with the extra bulk and problems. Honestly a fitness tracker is really serving the same purpose that a smartwatch should serve. It's really nothing more than a sensor suite with some storage and a limited interface. That's a useful thing but in most cases the more general purpose device is going to win the day unless the use case is really unforgiving. For most people that is not the case here.
Phones are inconvenient compared to a fitness tracker.
Only in some circumstances. For general use as a pedometer I normally have my smartphone with me anyway so a fitness tracker would be redundant. The only time a fitness tracker is helpful is when the bulk of a smartphone makes carrying one prohibitive or when there is a risk of damage to the phone (sweat, impact etc)
First, I have to charge my phone daily, and my tracker can go at least a week
I charge my phone daily anyway. Not really seeing a problem here. Doesn't really cause me any problems
Second, I don't have to keep my phone in the bedroom. I suppose I'm just showing my age for not wanting my phone in my bedroom.
I use my phone as my alarm clock so different strokes for different folks I suppose. It's the only alarm clock that I can program to go off on a weekly schedule so that I don't have to remember to set it every damn night (I can be forgetful about that) and it's portable so I can have it with me easily no matter where I sleep.
Finally, I don't like running or exercising with my phone. My tracker weighs so much less, and I don't have to worry about it getting sweaty. Phones can do so much, but sometimes you just want a device which does less.
I don't like to carry anything while I exercise either so I can appreciate that. That is to my mind the primary use case for a fitness tracker. Actually I think it should be the primary use case for a smart watch. Basically a sensor suite that you carry with you that can give you some basic info.
But smartphones are a lot more expensive than fitness trackers.
Depends on how you measure it. I've already got a smartphone. It's a sunk cost. A fitness tracker would have minimal benefit to me at significant additional cost.
Moreover, they tend to be far more complicated devices.
Because they do a lot more. I don't think that is news to anyone.
Moreover, they are quite big and inconvenient to carry along when practicing fitness.
This is the one and only meaningful benefit to fitness trackers. Instead of carrying a full computer you are just carrying the sensors and some storage to log the data.
How much would it drop the price? The components that would make it a smart TV are pretty inexpensive nowadays.
Hard to say but the number is somewhere greater than $0.00.:-) I'd rather have the money in my pocket instead of theirs even if the amount is relatively small.
You can use drywall plugs. They weigh VERY little.
Still have to power it. Still have to run cables to it. (no I don't like the wireless options) Fairly expensive to do this if you don't want it to look ghetto. In my place I'd have to punch good sized holes in the ceiling, run a lot of cabling in hard to access places and get an electrician to put appropriate AC wiring in place. I know how to do it, I just don't think it's a good solution for my particular home.
Plus I've worked with a lot of projectors over the years. They tend to have more maintenance and calibration issues than I really want to deal with. The newer ones are better but not issue free.
Well, news flash (heh) - That's not news, and in fact conflating it with news is one of the very things that he harps on.
The hell it isn't. You think a broadcast pointing out that another news organization (Fox News usually) is twisting the facts isn't news? They report on all sorts of events of the day. Get a clue. The Daily Show IS a news show. The fact that it is on Comedy Central is irrelevant. The fact that they do a lot of satire is irrelevant. The fact that they make fun of the conventions of news shows is irrelevant. The simple fact is that at the end of the day they report on topics and present facts, often with an editorial viewpoint. They report on real facts and generally provide a serious (albeit funny) take on world events including how those events are reported.
I respect Mr. Stewart tremendously but I think any claim that The Daily Show isn't also a news show is completely false.
To be fair, it's not really a primary news source, since they don't do much of their own research, excepting correspondents who tackle actual stories for a piece.
Doesn't matter that it isn't primary source material. They still are reporting on issues of the day to people who potentially have not heard about what they are saying. It's still news even if it contains opinions.
That's not to say one can't glean enough from watching the show to be conversational on a variety of topics, but it's much closer to an editorial than journalism.
Of course it is editorializing. But that still is a subset of journalism.
Sure but I still have to pay for that extra electronics whether I use it or not. None of those extra features are free and all of them create opportunities for bugs and security issues.
Or are these new TVs completely useless without an internet connection?
A lot of them require an internet connection to apply patches. Some supposedly can upgrade HDMI versions from 1.4 to 2.0 once the spec gets settled. Stuff like that.
Not practical for my particular household. It's a fine solution in some cases (my sister has one) but I would have all sorts of construction costs to ceiling mount it (yes, necessary) and to get the picture to display nicely.
I think you don't understand the point then. You keep the outward facing stuff you don't trust away from your secured network. A DMZ is a tool (among many others) for doing that. A DMZ is where you place outward facing devices you don't entirely trust or which are likely to be attacked but still need to interact with. It helps you to limit the vectors of attack on your internal secured network.
Unfortunately above a certain screen size it's basically impossible to get a non-"smart" TV. Personally I can do without all the extra fluff and would prefer they just give me lots of input ports and great picture and drop the price a lot. If I want to stream something I'll get a separate device (Roku, Bluray etc) to do that. I already have a TiVo and it does pretty much 90%+ of what I want out of a TV.
Personally all I want is a huge screen with excellent picture and sound features and lots of input ports. Basically just a big monitor. Good luck getting that in 60+ inch screen size though...
I have been in the market for an HDTV for a while now, but haven't been convinced that any aren't massive security holes.
So quarantine it on the network just like you would any other untrusted machine. Firewall, DMZ, etc. I think it is only sane to regard devices like this as insecure and to behave accordingly. I think the same could be said for lots of so-called smart home devices. Anything you don't have a reasonable approximation of full control over should be treated as insecure by default
It's pretty clear that Stewart has had a profound effect upon how people born after 1980 get their news
I agree and while I'm older than that I'm very much a fan of his work. I think he and his team provide a breath of clarity and sanity to the news media. The only thing that annoys me about Stewart is his continued insistence that he is somehow not delivering news and isn't at least in part in that industry. I think that is false and frankly somewhat disingenuous of him. He knows or should know that lots of people listen to what he has to say precisely because it is news - just delivered more cleverly than most. While he isn't doing live reporting of events, he is very much providing editorial analysis of the news very much like that at CNN, Fox, MSNBC and even newspapers. In fact he goes further by providing commentary about the news making process itself which happens far too seldom. News organizations tend not to be very self reflective and when they are they tend to be overly self congratulatory. Stewart and his team have done a masterful job of pointing out when news organizations (especially Fox News) are spouting bullshit.
I wish Mr. Stewart well in whatever he does in the future. I think the world has been made a better place by his efforts.
Those business owners lived there, and that extra money, even if temporarily concentrated in their greedy rich hands, stayed in or near Senatobia. And it was eventually re-spent there, taxed both before and after the fact.
Ahh, the buy-local movement. All kinds of flaws in the economic argument there. First off, very little of the merchandise being sold is produced locally in all likelihood and little that is produced locally is generally sold there. Second off, it shows complete ignorance of comparative advantage. Third, both the local merchants and the megacorp can be taxed equivalently so unless a bad deal was agreed to there is no difference there. Fourth, you are completely ignoring labor mobility. There is nothing in the long run preventing most folks from moving to where there is better economic opportunity if things are so bad. If they want to hurt economically for sentimentality then that is their choice but it is an irrational choice. Fifth, the notion that the profits stay local is at most marginally true and generally false. Small businesses rarely are hugely profitable and what profits they have tend to go into the savings of the people who own the businesses. Do you seriously think most small businesses owners will never take their savings out of town with them when they retire?
Sorry but those folks basically set themselves up for an economic disaster. They had a bad business model based on a localized arbitrage that went away when a more efficient company came into the picture. That is exactly how capitalism is supposed to work.
Because you should be honest, and pay a fair price for goods, and not take advantage of your fellow man. Don't live off the charity of others.
That is self-contradicting nonsense. So let me get this straight. It's ok for a vendor to overcharge me for a commodity good but it's not ok for me to seek a better deal even though doing so is against my own self interest? I'm supposed to provide charity to a local merchant but the merchant can charge me whatever price they feel like?
Yeah, no...
If I buy shampoo from a merchant that transaction is a zero sum game. If I pay more then the merchant has more and I have less. I will not get that money back. It is out of my pocket and in someone else's. I would be foolish to not seek a better deal if possible. If the small merchant wants to provide me some sort of additional value (convenience, expertise, something else I value) then awesome but I'm not about to become a charity supporting local merchants. If they can't provide extra value then it should surprise no one when someone else comes into the economic picture who can. Any expectation to the contrary is foolish nonsense.
Being a millenial, I can attest to the fact that growing up interested in technology and science automagically branded you a nerd.
As someone a little older I can attest to the fact that getting branded as a nerd has very little to do with your specific interests and a whole lot to do with how you interact socially with others. I coach kids from 1st grade through 12th and have for over 20 years. What gets them ostracized pretty much never has anything to do with specific interests. People get ostracized for behaving oddly in combination with having nothing to offer others. Nobody gives a shit about the fact that you are interested in technology. What they DO give a shit about is what you can do for them. Can you help them socially? Are you someone who is kind to them when they need it? Can you help them with their homework? Are you fun to be around? These are things that matter in school.
You were picked on relentlessly, harassed and ostricized socially, and generally spent a lot of time avoiding direct contact with interpersonal engagements that did not pass a battery of personal safety tests. Chess club or magic the gathering at school was considered your Turing test for a friend.
I was on our school chess club and played tons of games both computer and otherwise. I spent lots of my free time in the school computer labs and most of my close friends were rather on the nerdy side. I wore thick glasses, was something of an introvert and was painfully shy around girls. I have a name normally associated with the opposite gender and wasn't the most socially graceful kid ever to put it mildly. HOWEVER, I also was the captain of the cross country and wrestling teams. I also made some effort to be friendly and be interested in what others were doing. Sure I got picked on plenty but I also didn't make myself an easy target. I had something to offer others that was unique to me.
EVERYONE gets picked on. I got beaten up on the playground because of my name and the fact that I was a shy, emotional kid by some thugs a little older than me. You know what? I got over it. Anything that makes you stand out is likely to cause you to get picked on. The only thing you can do about it is to adjust your reaction. You can go sulk in a corner but if you are hoping for pity you will be disappointed. Nobody except maybe your parents gives a shit about you except for what you can do for them. Have something to offer. You will not get a job because you are a nice guy who works hard. You need to have something more than that to offer. Things are no different when you are a child. This is a rather good and frank article about what I'm talking about. Have something to offer the world and you'll find it a much more manageable place to be.
Billy Graham and the moral majority however were convinced you were the devil incarnate for playing the game, which was verboten in many schools despite its keen ability to teach logic and strategy.
I've never seen a school that forbid playing chess and teachers generally only give a shit about other games like MtG when they interfere with classes. Maybe you lived in a place where they were irrational about such things (sadly there are some) but that is certainly not the norm and I've lived in a lot of places around the US. Certainly enough to know that that is not the norm.
I for one wore a lot of black, kept to myself, made excellent grades, and played a lot of doom/heretic.
So you dressed oddly, didn't speak to anyone, didn't have anything to offer anyone else and you wonder why people might have thought you strange and wanted little to do with you? Sounds like you were a real self absorbed buzz-kill.
My prize to claim for having spoken a bit too loudly with friends about a quake match and my affinity fo
A deal with Apple makes total sense...b/c Radio Shack is so many places where Apple stores are not.
It's not about quantity of locations its about quality of locations. Apple chooses the locations for their stores VERY carefully. They aren't in 2000 strip malls for a reason. They would have to seriously compromise a lot of about what makes their product and sales experience different. Honestly I cannot think of any value in RadioShack's rotting carcass to Apple.
Amazon on the other hand... maybe. The biggest risk to Amazon is companies like Macy's or Walmart finally figuring out that stores can serve as warehouses. Amazon is building warehouses all over the place to get closer to customers but Macy's and Target and Walmart already have this. They just lack the back end IT that Amazon has. Amazon is working towards getting storefronts and if the price is right this might be a way to do it. Maybe...
RadioShack dabbled in Enthusiast PC hardware, but gave up on it. I found them to be fairly priced for getting stuff I needed "now"
Really? I have bought some stuff I needed "now" though RadioShack in the last few years. I pretty much always felt like they were gouging me on price and their selection generally sucked. The ONLY reason I ever had to go to a RadioShack was when I needed something right this minute and there were no other convenient options. I have a Microcenter across town but it's a 45 minute drive to get there. I can order from Amazon if I can wait until tomorrow. But the number of times when RadioShack actually was the best available option has been very few.
Let me ask you this: On the day Wal-Mart opened in your town, there was still a hardware store, and an independent grocery store, clothing and shoe stores,...
There is a Walmart 4 miles south of the downtown where I live. It sees plenty of business as does the Lowes right next to it. We don't have an independent grocery store in our downtown but we do have a Kroger there and two independent grocery stores within 3-4 miles of downtown. What do we have downtown? We have a hardware store, several boutique clothing stores, a shoe store, several good restaurants, a bakery, a coffee shop, and a bunch of other generally thriving small businesses. Walmart has hardly made a dent in their businesses because they aren't really competing with Walmart.
What we don't have is a bunch of businesses trying to compete with Walmart head on. If you want cheap stuff from China that's fine and Walmart is the place to go and nobody does it better. If you want an actual high touch shopping experience, you'll go somewhere else. Walmart is only a death knell to small business that try to provide the same services for higher prices. We have a local grocery store that provides a MUCH different experience than Walmart. They have a high quality butcher, they sell far better quality produce, they have baked goods you wouldn't dream of finding in Walmart, they have a greenhouse, and cooking classes, etc. If you want cheap kraft mac-n-cheese, they might have it but you'll get a better price at Walmart. They don't compete on price because ultimately there can only be one winner if you compete on price. They sell stuff you won't and never will get at Walmart and they're doing fine.
Did you still go to those places, and never go to Wal-Mart? Myself, I resisted, but soon those stores were gone. And one by one those employees went to work at Wal-Mart for half the money.
Sounds like those stores were only thriving because they were capitalizing on the fact that there was no price competition pre-Walmart. I have no love for Walmart but they serve a purpose which is to be a place to buy basic merchandise cheaply. Why would I spend more on the exact same shampoo or dog food elsewhere? Honestly I buy plenty of stuff from Amazon which is even better for me because I don't have to go anywhere. It just comes to me. But I still go to my local stores because they provide me things I can't get through Walmart or Amazon.
I consider it good policy that I don't rate countries or companies based on profitability
Not sure what countries has to do with it but the profitability of a company says a lot about how successful a company is and it has a lot to do with whether the company will be able to continue as a going concern. Profitability is not the only thing that matters but it DOES matter. A lot. It matters if you are an owner/investor for obvious reasons. It matters if you are an employee because profitability tends to equal opportunity, both financial and otherwise. It matters if you are a vendor or a customer because that can impact your own profitability. It matters if you are merely a part of the community because it affects tax revenue and charitable contributions and employment figures.
From my perspective, there's only one question worth asking. "On average, are they better to work for?"
Plenty of companies that are great to work for go out of business because they weren't very good at making money. You are thinking purely as an employee which is fine if you have no further ambitions in life. I think of companies from the standpoints of employees, investors, management, customers, vendors as well as society at large and then come up with an opinion about how good a company it is. Looking at a company solely from the standpoint of whether you'd want to work there misses a lot of important stuff. Generally speaking you really don't want to work for a company that isn't profitable or has no reasonable prospects to become so.
It's still amazes me how slow the carriers and the device manufacturers are to put their bloat shit into a distro, test it and get it released.
Why would that surprise you? The carriers have pretty much zero financial incentive to update existing phones. They just want to sell you a phone and they would actually prefer that you buy a new one rather than eek more life out of your old one. Same with lots of device makers.
Google and Apple (and a few others) actually understand that providing timely updates for phones in the field actually improves customer loyalty. But carriers and from what I can tell the majority of Android device makers haven't figured that out or don't give a shit. If they don't think that you are likely to buy another one of their devices (and chances are you won't) then why would the bother updating it? Stupid short term thinking but that seems to be the reality.
seemed to show that large companies with female CEOs "achieve up to 18% higher revenue per employee than male CEOs."
Let's assume that is true for a moment. The important question is WHY? The second question is whether the higher revenue is due to the efforts of the CEO or merely a second or third order effect of something else. Merely noting that some category of people tends to run companies with higher revenue means nothing by itself. They are spouting a fact and trying to goad people into drawing unwarranted inferences about the reason why. This is a top notch troll.
The study, titled "She’s the CEO and She’s Sensational," used financial data Mintigo collected on 20 million companies, and determined CEOs' genders by analyzing first names, so it was not subject to survey vagaries but was a straight data analysis job.
My first name is normally associated with the opposite gender and I'm male. This is a stupid way to determine gender. I speak from a lifetime of firsthand experience.
Plus with a title like that I'm fairly confident that there is a built in bias at work here.
Could this be a case of correlation and causation being unrelated?
Gee you think?
It's also possible that the revenue per employee figures are affected by the fact that female CEOs are more common in healthcare and non-profit organizations, while men dominate manufacturing and construction
Let's add in the fact that female CEOs are generally under-represented in large companies and companies that choose female CEOs might be better at promoting the most talented person instead of their golfing buddy.
As an anarcho-capitalist, libertarian / objectivist I support free market, thus any government intrusion into private affairs of individuals and their business is oppression and an unwelcome development, but obviously you are within your rights to support whatever government oppression you like but that conflicts with your 'libertarian fucktardness'.
So what you are saying is you prefer to get raped by companies instead of governments. Fair enough. Personally I prefer approaches that minimize the chance of me getting raped by either governments or companies but to each their own.
No, that's step 2. There's always a step 1 with emotional appeal to create the regulatory power, so that that power can then be used for steps 2-N without further involvement from anyone elected.
Last I checked the FCC already exists. Furthermore no emotional appeal is necessary here. Treating the ISPs (Comcast, AT&T, etc) as the monopoly utilities they are is pretty much business as usual and frankly a good idea on its merits. We already do it for telephone service because a monopoly of a vital service without regulatory oversight = abuse. Plus the rules for telephone service regulation pretty much predate the internet. This is just catching up to the state of technology.
To which I would, very politely reply, "that might be true, I'm not a lawyer and honestly don't know. I'll have to consult with my lawyer and get back to you. Rest assured it is my intention to comply with the law, but I need to know what the law is first and my lawyer is the professional who advises me of that"
To which they would likely respond by putting you in a jail cell until such time as you were able to consult your lawyer and then proceed with the search with or without your help. Probably would charge you with obstruction of justice at a minimum.
On the other hand, I don't hand out business information to anyone who just walks into the door, at least not without a court order.
Laudable but not necessarily possible.
May I say... the whole idea of dealing with anyone from the government, be police or FBI, is to show respect for their position and for the law, I find that goes a long way towards having friendly conversations.
You're presuming the government representative will be friendly in return. They might but there are countless examples of them being anything but friendly.
Tear it up and shred it, it is just a letter that has no power.
Right. Enjoy your trip to prison if you truly believe that. The available case law does not support your opinion on this presently. I hope that chances but your assertion that "it is just a letter that has no power" is not presently supported by the facts.
I'm well aware that most large companies just comply, they don't care... I do, I consider NSLs to be unconstitutional, get a judge to issue a warrant and I'll be willing to comply.
I agree with you that they are (or should be) unconstitutional but that does not mean you can ignore them without consequences.
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That's kind of the ENTIRE point. All that is required is ONE use case for which the phone is woefully inappropriate and the advantage goes to the dedicated device.
Umm, no. It doesn't work like that. I know folks here on slashdot just love to find the one corner case and then declare that invalidates everything else but the real world doesn't work that way most of the time. I live near a park where people go running every day. Probably the majority of them are carrying some sort of smartphone with them, usually listening to music while they run and in cases like my wife as a safety measure. Not everyone of course but lots of them. They didn't all say "OMG a fitness tracker would totally be better here" and leave their smartphones behind. The fact that a fitness tracker would be more convenient in some cases turns out to be kind of irrelevant since they are going to take the phone with them anyway.
Dedicated cameras are far better at taking pictures but smartphones are good enough for most that it doesn't matter and you don't see a lot of point and shoot cameras anymore as a result. Fitness trackers have some use cases but for most people those use cases are better served by a smartphone even with the extra bulk and problems. Honestly a fitness tracker is really serving the same purpose that a smartwatch should serve. It's really nothing more than a sensor suite with some storage and a limited interface. That's a useful thing but in most cases the more general purpose device is going to win the day unless the use case is really unforgiving. For most people that is not the case here.
Phones are inconvenient compared to a fitness tracker.
Only in some circumstances. For general use as a pedometer I normally have my smartphone with me anyway so a fitness tracker would be redundant. The only time a fitness tracker is helpful is when the bulk of a smartphone makes carrying one prohibitive or when there is a risk of damage to the phone (sweat, impact etc)
First, I have to charge my phone daily, and my tracker can go at least a week
I charge my phone daily anyway. Not really seeing a problem here. Doesn't really cause me any problems
Second, I don't have to keep my phone in the bedroom. I suppose I'm just showing my age for not wanting my phone in my bedroom.
I use my phone as my alarm clock so different strokes for different folks I suppose. It's the only alarm clock that I can program to go off on a weekly schedule so that I don't have to remember to set it every damn night (I can be forgetful about that) and it's portable so I can have it with me easily no matter where I sleep.
Finally, I don't like running or exercising with my phone. My tracker weighs so much less, and I don't have to worry about it getting sweaty. Phones can do so much, but sometimes you just want a device which does less.
I don't like to carry anything while I exercise either so I can appreciate that. That is to my mind the primary use case for a fitness tracker. Actually I think it should be the primary use case for a smart watch. Basically a sensor suite that you carry with you that can give you some basic info.
But smartphones are a lot more expensive than fitness trackers.
Depends on how you measure it. I've already got a smartphone. It's a sunk cost. A fitness tracker would have minimal benefit to me at significant additional cost.
Moreover, they tend to be far more complicated devices.
Because they do a lot more. I don't think that is news to anyone.
Moreover, they are quite big and inconvenient to carry along when practicing fitness.
This is the one and only meaningful benefit to fitness trackers. Instead of carrying a full computer you are just carrying the sensors and some storage to log the data.
How much would it drop the price? The components that would make it a smart TV are pretty inexpensive nowadays.
Hard to say but the number is somewhere greater than $0.00. :-) I'd rather have the money in my pocket instead of theirs even if the amount is relatively small.
You can use drywall plugs. They weigh VERY little.
Still have to power it. Still have to run cables to it. (no I don't like the wireless options) Fairly expensive to do this if you don't want it to look ghetto. In my place I'd have to punch good sized holes in the ceiling, run a lot of cabling in hard to access places and get an electrician to put appropriate AC wiring in place. I know how to do it, I just don't think it's a good solution for my particular home.
Plus I've worked with a lot of projectors over the years. They tend to have more maintenance and calibration issues than I really want to deal with. The newer ones are better but not issue free.
Well, news flash (heh) - That's not news, and in fact conflating it with news is one of the very things that he harps on.
The hell it isn't. You think a broadcast pointing out that another news organization (Fox News usually) is twisting the facts isn't news? They report on all sorts of events of the day. Get a clue. The Daily Show IS a news show. The fact that it is on Comedy Central is irrelevant. The fact that they do a lot of satire is irrelevant. The fact that they make fun of the conventions of news shows is irrelevant. The simple fact is that at the end of the day they report on topics and present facts, often with an editorial viewpoint. They report on real facts and generally provide a serious (albeit funny) take on world events including how those events are reported.
I respect Mr. Stewart tremendously but I think any claim that The Daily Show isn't also a news show is completely false.
To be fair, it's not really a primary news source, since they don't do much of their own research, excepting correspondents who tackle actual stories for a piece.
Doesn't matter that it isn't primary source material. They still are reporting on issues of the day to people who potentially have not heard about what they are saying. It's still news even if it contains opinions.
That's not to say one can't glean enough from watching the show to be conversational on a variety of topics, but it's much closer to an editorial than journalism.
Of course it is editorializing. But that still is a subset of journalism.
Couldn't you just not connect to the Internet?
Sure but I still have to pay for that extra electronics whether I use it or not. None of those extra features are free and all of them create opportunities for bugs and security issues.
Or are these new TVs completely useless without an internet connection?
A lot of them require an internet connection to apply patches. Some supposedly can upgrade HDMI versions from 1.4 to 2.0 once the spec gets settled. Stuff like that.
Get a projector.
Not practical for my particular household. It's a fine solution in some cases (my sister has one) but I would have all sorts of construction costs to ceiling mount it (yes, necessary) and to get the picture to display nicely.
DMZ is the opposite of a secured network.
I think you don't understand the point then. You keep the outward facing stuff you don't trust away from your secured network. A DMZ is a tool (among many others) for doing that. A DMZ is where you place outward facing devices you don't entirely trust or which are likely to be attacked but still need to interact with. It helps you to limit the vectors of attack on your internal secured network.
Unfortunately above a certain screen size it's basically impossible to get a non-"smart" TV. Personally I can do without all the extra fluff and would prefer they just give me lots of input ports and great picture and drop the price a lot. If I want to stream something I'll get a separate device (Roku, Bluray etc) to do that. I already have a TiVo and it does pretty much 90%+ of what I want out of a TV.
Personally all I want is a huge screen with excellent picture and sound features and lots of input ports. Basically just a big monitor. Good luck getting that in 60+ inch screen size though...
I have been in the market for an HDTV for a while now, but haven't been convinced that any aren't massive security holes.
So quarantine it on the network just like you would any other untrusted machine. Firewall, DMZ, etc. I think it is only sane to regard devices like this as insecure and to behave accordingly. I think the same could be said for lots of so-called smart home devices. Anything you don't have a reasonable approximation of full control over should be treated as insecure by default
It's pretty clear that Stewart has had a profound effect upon how people born after 1980 get their news
I agree and while I'm older than that I'm very much a fan of his work. I think he and his team provide a breath of clarity and sanity to the news media. The only thing that annoys me about Stewart is his continued insistence that he is somehow not delivering news and isn't at least in part in that industry. I think that is false and frankly somewhat disingenuous of him. He knows or should know that lots of people listen to what he has to say precisely because it is news - just delivered more cleverly than most. While he isn't doing live reporting of events, he is very much providing editorial analysis of the news very much like that at CNN, Fox, MSNBC and even newspapers. In fact he goes further by providing commentary about the news making process itself which happens far too seldom. News organizations tend not to be very self reflective and when they are they tend to be overly self congratulatory. Stewart and his team have done a masterful job of pointing out when news organizations (especially Fox News) are spouting bullshit.
I wish Mr. Stewart well in whatever he does in the future. I think the world has been made a better place by his efforts.
Those business owners lived there, and that extra money, even if temporarily concentrated in their greedy rich hands, stayed in or near Senatobia. And it was eventually re-spent there, taxed both before and after the fact.
Ahh, the buy-local movement. All kinds of flaws in the economic argument there. First off, very little of the merchandise being sold is produced locally in all likelihood and little that is produced locally is generally sold there. Second off, it shows complete ignorance of comparative advantage. Third, both the local merchants and the megacorp can be taxed equivalently so unless a bad deal was agreed to there is no difference there. Fourth, you are completely ignoring labor mobility. There is nothing in the long run preventing most folks from moving to where there is better economic opportunity if things are so bad. If they want to hurt economically for sentimentality then that is their choice but it is an irrational choice. Fifth, the notion that the profits stay local is at most marginally true and generally false. Small businesses rarely are hugely profitable and what profits they have tend to go into the savings of the people who own the businesses. Do you seriously think most small businesses owners will never take their savings out of town with them when they retire?
Sorry but those folks basically set themselves up for an economic disaster. They had a bad business model based on a localized arbitrage that went away when a more efficient company came into the picture. That is exactly how capitalism is supposed to work.
Because you should be honest, and pay a fair price for goods, and not take advantage of your fellow man. Don't live off the charity of others.
That is self-contradicting nonsense. So let me get this straight. It's ok for a vendor to overcharge me for a commodity good but it's not ok for me to seek a better deal even though doing so is against my own self interest? I'm supposed to provide charity to a local merchant but the merchant can charge me whatever price they feel like?
Yeah, no...
If I buy shampoo from a merchant that transaction is a zero sum game. If I pay more then the merchant has more and I have less. I will not get that money back. It is out of my pocket and in someone else's. I would be foolish to not seek a better deal if possible. If the small merchant wants to provide me some sort of additional value (convenience, expertise, something else I value) then awesome but I'm not about to become a charity supporting local merchants. If they can't provide extra value then it should surprise no one when someone else comes into the economic picture who can. Any expectation to the contrary is foolish nonsense.
Being a millenial, I can attest to the fact that growing up interested in technology and science automagically branded you a nerd.
As someone a little older I can attest to the fact that getting branded as a nerd has very little to do with your specific interests and a whole lot to do with how you interact socially with others. I coach kids from 1st grade through 12th and have for over 20 years. What gets them ostracized pretty much never has anything to do with specific interests. People get ostracized for behaving oddly in combination with having nothing to offer others. Nobody gives a shit about the fact that you are interested in technology. What they DO give a shit about is what you can do for them. Can you help them socially? Are you someone who is kind to them when they need it? Can you help them with their homework? Are you fun to be around? These are things that matter in school.
You were picked on relentlessly, harassed and ostricized socially, and generally spent a lot of time avoiding direct contact with interpersonal engagements that did not pass a battery of personal safety tests. Chess club or magic the gathering at school was considered your Turing test for a friend.
I was on our school chess club and played tons of games both computer and otherwise. I spent lots of my free time in the school computer labs and most of my close friends were rather on the nerdy side. I wore thick glasses, was something of an introvert and was painfully shy around girls. I have a name normally associated with the opposite gender and wasn't the most socially graceful kid ever to put it mildly. HOWEVER, I also was the captain of the cross country and wrestling teams. I also made some effort to be friendly and be interested in what others were doing. Sure I got picked on plenty but I also didn't make myself an easy target. I had something to offer others that was unique to me.
EVERYONE gets picked on. I got beaten up on the playground because of my name and the fact that I was a shy, emotional kid by some thugs a little older than me. You know what? I got over it. Anything that makes you stand out is likely to cause you to get picked on. The only thing you can do about it is to adjust your reaction. You can go sulk in a corner but if you are hoping for pity you will be disappointed. Nobody except maybe your parents gives a shit about you except for what you can do for them. Have something to offer. You will not get a job because you are a nice guy who works hard. You need to have something more than that to offer. Things are no different when you are a child. This is a rather good and frank article about what I'm talking about. Have something to offer the world and you'll find it a much more manageable place to be.
Billy Graham and the moral majority however were convinced you were the devil incarnate for playing the game, which was verboten in many schools despite its keen ability to teach logic and strategy.
I've never seen a school that forbid playing chess and teachers generally only give a shit about other games like MtG when they interfere with classes. Maybe you lived in a place where they were irrational about such things (sadly there are some) but that is certainly not the norm and I've lived in a lot of places around the US. Certainly enough to know that that is not the norm.
I for one wore a lot of black, kept to myself, made excellent grades, and played a lot of doom/heretic.
So you dressed oddly, didn't speak to anyone, didn't have anything to offer anyone else and you wonder why people might have thought you strange and wanted little to do with you? Sounds like you were a real self absorbed buzz-kill.
My prize to claim for having spoken a bit too loudly with friends about a quake match and my affinity fo
A deal with Apple makes total sense...b/c Radio Shack is so many places where Apple stores are not.
It's not about quantity of locations its about quality of locations. Apple chooses the locations for their stores VERY carefully. They aren't in 2000 strip malls for a reason. They would have to seriously compromise a lot of about what makes their product and sales experience different. Honestly I cannot think of any value in RadioShack's rotting carcass to Apple.
Amazon on the other hand... maybe. The biggest risk to Amazon is companies like Macy's or Walmart finally figuring out that stores can serve as warehouses. Amazon is building warehouses all over the place to get closer to customers but Macy's and Target and Walmart already have this. They just lack the back end IT that Amazon has. Amazon is working towards getting storefronts and if the price is right this might be a way to do it. Maybe...
RadioShack dabbled in Enthusiast PC hardware, but gave up on it. I found them to be fairly priced for getting stuff I needed "now"
Really? I have bought some stuff I needed "now" though RadioShack in the last few years. I pretty much always felt like they were gouging me on price and their selection generally sucked. The ONLY reason I ever had to go to a RadioShack was when I needed something right this minute and there were no other convenient options. I have a Microcenter across town but it's a 45 minute drive to get there. I can order from Amazon if I can wait until tomorrow. But the number of times when RadioShack actually was the best available option has been very few.
Let me ask you this: On the day Wal-Mart opened in your town, there was still a hardware store, and an independent grocery store, clothing and shoe stores, ...
There is a Walmart 4 miles south of the downtown where I live. It sees plenty of business as does the Lowes right next to it. We don't have an independent grocery store in our downtown but we do have a Kroger there and two independent grocery stores within 3-4 miles of downtown. What do we have downtown? We have a hardware store, several boutique clothing stores, a shoe store, several good restaurants, a bakery, a coffee shop, and a bunch of other generally thriving small businesses. Walmart has hardly made a dent in their businesses because they aren't really competing with Walmart.
What we don't have is a bunch of businesses trying to compete with Walmart head on. If you want cheap stuff from China that's fine and Walmart is the place to go and nobody does it better. If you want an actual high touch shopping experience, you'll go somewhere else. Walmart is only a death knell to small business that try to provide the same services for higher prices. We have a local grocery store that provides a MUCH different experience than Walmart. They have a high quality butcher, they sell far better quality produce, they have baked goods you wouldn't dream of finding in Walmart, they have a greenhouse, and cooking classes, etc. If you want cheap kraft mac-n-cheese, they might have it but you'll get a better price at Walmart. They don't compete on price because ultimately there can only be one winner if you compete on price. They sell stuff you won't and never will get at Walmart and they're doing fine.
Did you still go to those places, and never go to Wal-Mart? Myself, I resisted, but soon those stores were gone. And one by one those employees went to work at Wal-Mart for half the money.
Sounds like those stores were only thriving because they were capitalizing on the fact that there was no price competition pre-Walmart. I have no love for Walmart but they serve a purpose which is to be a place to buy basic merchandise cheaply. Why would I spend more on the exact same shampoo or dog food elsewhere? Honestly I buy plenty of stuff from Amazon which is even better for me because I don't have to go anywhere. It just comes to me. But I still go to my local stores because they provide me things I can't get through Walmart or Amazon.
I consider it good policy that I don't rate countries or companies based on profitability
Not sure what countries has to do with it but the profitability of a company says a lot about how successful a company is and it has a lot to do with whether the company will be able to continue as a going concern. Profitability is not the only thing that matters but it DOES matter. A lot. It matters if you are an owner/investor for obvious reasons. It matters if you are an employee because profitability tends to equal opportunity, both financial and otherwise. It matters if you are a vendor or a customer because that can impact your own profitability. It matters if you are merely a part of the community because it affects tax revenue and charitable contributions and employment figures.
From my perspective, there's only one question worth asking. "On average, are they better to work for?"
Plenty of companies that are great to work for go out of business because they weren't very good at making money. You are thinking purely as an employee which is fine if you have no further ambitions in life. I think of companies from the standpoints of employees, investors, management, customers, vendors as well as society at large and then come up with an opinion about how good a company it is. Looking at a company solely from the standpoint of whether you'd want to work there misses a lot of important stuff. Generally speaking you really don't want to work for a company that isn't profitable or has no reasonable prospects to become so.
It's still amazes me how slow the carriers and the device manufacturers are to put their bloat shit into a distro, test it and get it released.
Why would that surprise you? The carriers have pretty much zero financial incentive to update existing phones. They just want to sell you a phone and they would actually prefer that you buy a new one rather than eek more life out of your old one. Same with lots of device makers.
Google and Apple (and a few others) actually understand that providing timely updates for phones in the field actually improves customer loyalty. But carriers and from what I can tell the majority of Android device makers haven't figured that out or don't give a shit. If they don't think that you are likely to buy another one of their devices (and chances are you won't) then why would the bother updating it? Stupid short term thinking but that seems to be the reality.
seemed to show that large companies with female CEOs "achieve up to 18% higher revenue per employee than male CEOs."
Let's assume that is true for a moment. The important question is WHY? The second question is whether the higher revenue is due to the efforts of the CEO or merely a second or third order effect of something else. Merely noting that some category of people tends to run companies with higher revenue means nothing by itself. They are spouting a fact and trying to goad people into drawing unwarranted inferences about the reason why. This is a top notch troll.
The study, titled "She’s the CEO and She’s Sensational," used financial data Mintigo collected on 20 million companies, and determined CEOs' genders by analyzing first names, so it was not subject to survey vagaries but was a straight data analysis job.
My first name is normally associated with the opposite gender and I'm male. This is a stupid way to determine gender. I speak from a lifetime of firsthand experience.
Plus with a title like that I'm fairly confident that there is a built in bias at work here.
Could this be a case of correlation and causation being unrelated?
Gee you think?
It's also possible that the revenue per employee figures are affected by the fact that female CEOs are more common in healthcare and non-profit organizations, while men dominate manufacturing and construction
Let's add in the fact that female CEOs are generally under-represented in large companies and companies that choose female CEOs might be better at promoting the most talented person instead of their golfing buddy.
As an anarcho-capitalist, libertarian / objectivist I support free market, thus any government intrusion into private affairs of individuals and their business is oppression and an unwelcome development, but obviously you are within your rights to support whatever government oppression you like but that conflicts with your 'libertarian fucktardness'.
So what you are saying is you prefer to get raped by companies instead of governments. Fair enough. Personally I prefer approaches that minimize the chance of me getting raped by either governments or companies but to each their own.
No, that's step 2. There's always a step 1 with emotional appeal to create the regulatory power, so that that power can then be used for steps 2-N without further involvement from anyone elected.
Last I checked the FCC already exists. Furthermore no emotional appeal is necessary here. Treating the ISPs (Comcast, AT&T, etc) as the monopoly utilities they are is pretty much business as usual and frankly a good idea on its merits. We already do it for telephone service because a monopoly of a vital service without regulatory oversight = abuse. Plus the rules for telephone service regulation pretty much predate the internet. This is just catching up to the state of technology.
To which I would, very politely reply, "that might be true, I'm not a lawyer and honestly don't know. I'll have to consult with my lawyer and get back to you. Rest assured it is my intention to comply with the law, but I need to know what the law is first and my lawyer is the professional who advises me of that"
To which they would likely respond by putting you in a jail cell until such time as you were able to consult your lawyer and then proceed with the search with or without your help. Probably would charge you with obstruction of justice at a minimum.
On the other hand, I don't hand out business information to anyone who just walks into the door, at least not without a court order.
Laudable but not necessarily possible.
May I say... the whole idea of dealing with anyone from the government, be police or FBI, is to show respect for their position and for the law, I find that goes a long way towards having friendly conversations.
You're presuming the government representative will be friendly in return. They might but there are countless examples of them being anything but friendly.
Tear it up and shred it, it is just a letter that has no power.
Right. Enjoy your trip to prison if you truly believe that. The available case law does not support your opinion on this presently. I hope that chances but your assertion that "it is just a letter that has no power" is not presently supported by the facts.
I'm well aware that most large companies just comply, they don't care... I do, I consider NSLs to be unconstitutional, get a judge to issue a warrant and I'll be willing to comply.
I agree with you that they are (or should be) unconstitutional but that does not mean you can ignore them without consequences.