How important is the impulse from the exhaust on modern passenger jet engines? I was under the impression that the giant fan was responsible for far more thrust. Lazy Googling seems to indicate an 80:20 bypass fan:core thrust ratio.
Doesn't matter. The problem isn't the specific impulse - the problem is energy/power density. The problem is that batteries are too heavy to replace fossil fuels as the store of energy while also still allowing passengers/cargo. The only alternative technology we currently have to jet engines is rockets which work by throwing mass out the back of the craft and rockets aren't efficient at all because they need to carry oxygen. A hybrid system (think locomotives) might enable some efficiency gains but wholesale replacement is currently just not feasible.
A majority of the thrust is produced by accelerating a large mass of unburned air to a speed just slightly higher than the airspeed of the aircraft.
You miss the point. The ONLY technology we have that can fly as fast as a jet engine (high or low bypass) is a rocket which involves throwing mass out the back of the craft. Electric motors combined with batteries lack the power density to drive any sort of fan or propeller sufficient to enable commercial applications. They are simply too heavy for the amount of power they can store right now. It might be possible to do a hybrid system similar to locomotives where the fossil fuels are used to power the electric motors for added efficiency but we currently have no batteries nor any near term likely batteries that can replace fossil fuels in that task.
More use of lighter than air craft. Blimps, zeppelins, etc.
We tried that. It didn't end well. It's a romantic idea but not a practical one for mass transportation. They have some niche uses but they aren't the answer you are looking for.
The firms are developing hybrid technology because fully electric commercial flights are currently out of reach.
And sadly likely to remain so. Two problems. One is that the energy and power density of current battery tech simply isn't there. Batteries are much too heavy currently. The other is that there is no current way to fly a plane at speeds comparable to a jet engine without throwing some material out the back of the aircraft. This means some form of fossil fuel based propulsion for the foreseeable future. While we might be able to get to a propeller driven electric plane for some commercial applications, I don't see any reasonable way to replace jets with electric motors across the industry. But it's perfectly reasonable that we might be able to use electric motors and batteries to make jets more efficient and that is still a good thing just like with automobiles.
It is like getting the video from the liquor store cameras to ID the bastard that just robbed it. It is exactly the same thing, information about your whereabouts from a third party. No warrant needed.
They are not the same thing. If a liquor store gets robbed THEY are the ones calling the cops and they are the one providing the tape. First party. The phone company isn't the one calling the cops so they are a third party. Can you not see the difference? Police can go and ask but the phone company should be under no obligation to comply without a warrant. Likewise if they suspect that a liquor store might have footage of the guy who robbed some other store nearby the police can ask but the liquor store should be under no obligation to cooperate unless served a warrant.
And if you think that only the Cell companies are tracking your every move, you're very mistaken.
True but irrelevant. Just because there are other datapoints about your location does not mean anything in this particular circumstance. My legal right to privacy doesn't change just because someone is nosy.
Which is why the police don't need a warrant - you ALREADY AGREED TO SHARE THAT INFORMATION.
I disagree.
Police need a warrant to wiretap a land line. I see no logical difference in what our civil rights should be required of them merely because the signal is carried over radio waves. These days the phone will be tapped at the central office anyway so it's not like they have to do something differently. If they have reasonable grounds to suspect someone of a crime then it shouldn't be hard to get a warrant.
I would have thought it clear enough but I'll endeavor to clarify.
What Tim Wu is suggesting is not "interpretation of law" and thus as you state, making case law, it is literally forcing the FCC to enforce regulations they are planning on repealing.
Because sometimes repealing regulations is not legally justified or proper or handled appropriately. It's not exactly difficult to make the argument that the FCC is being arbitrary and capricious in changing their policies nor is it difficult to argue that there would be real and tangible harm to consumers and content makers from their actions. There also seems to be some disagreement about what the FCC's role in this should be. This all absolutely is interpretation of law which at the end of the day is case law. You don't need to invoke the specter of judges inventing law out of whole cloth here because that isn't what is happening.
Courts interpret current laws and can only rule on the legality and constitutionality of a law. They cannot force regulating bodies to enforce specific policies, just because people on the Internet signed a petition.
The courts absolutely can, do, and should force regulating agencies to enforce specific policies provided there is a legal basis to do so. Regulators don't get to enforce and/or ignore and/or undermine rules as they see fit without limits. This has nothing to do with whether people signed a petition and everything to do with law. If the FCC makes regulations that they were authorized to make and people depend on those regulations then it is entirely reasonable and proper for a court to hold the FCC to keeping those regulations in place. It's absolutely the job of courts to help ensure that regulators are not allowing arbitrary and capricious changes of policy when such changes clearly result in favoring the narrow interests of a few over the wider interests of most of the populace.
Let's not pretend here that Mr. Pai is attempting to be a neutral and honest arbiter of the law here. He's clearly got an agenda and it is perfectly reasonable to question his actions in a court of law.
It's a good idea if you mostly use it for storing your wealth, and doing occasional transactions
Bitcoin as a store of wealth? Maybe if you like a HUGE amount of risk on a highly speculative asset.
It's not a good idea if you want to run a national economy on it. I don't think anybody is trying the latter.
Listen to bitcoin advocates sometime. More than a few would like to replace all fiat currencies with bitcoin or something similar. Their arguments are largely unconnected to economic reality but they seem to believe them all the same.
Well no, he gets this exactly backwards. Network Neutrality was EXACTLY such a reversal, and here's Pai simply undoing what the FCC wasn't free to do in the first place. Pai is correcting the very transgression Wu is citing here.
If there is any disagreement as to whether the FCC has that authority it is the responsibility of the judiciary and/or congress to clarify the matter. I disagree that the FCC doesn't/shouldn't have the authority to enforce net neutrality but if there is disagreement on that point then the courts are a perfectly reasonable place to address the matter. To be frank with the current Congress and administration the judiciary is probably the only place to fight what Mr Pai is trying to do.
It was previously a longstanding rule--supported by law--that the FCC would have a hands off approach to the internet.
A hands off approach isn't an option. You either support the content makers or your support the ISPs and there are consequences either way. Elimination of net neutrality rules de-facto is favoring the interests of certain parties over others. There is no middle ground here and someone has to play referee. If not the FCC then someone else but I would argue that net neutrality is a vital policy that needs to be enforced. I think Ajit Pai's arguments against net neutrality are specious at best and corrupt at worst.
Pai is saying the FCC can't make such reversals.
Why not listen to what he actually said? Pai is CLEARLY in the pocket of those who favor elimination of net neutrality and has a long track record of favoring the interests of broadcasters over other parties. This is neither new nor a secret. His arguments are ridiculous and specious and transparently one sided.
Courts making laws and forcing regulatory bodies to enforce them is a path you don't want to go down.
Sigh... Courts make laws constantly in the form of case law. That is normal and proper. It is their job to make regulatory bodies adhere to the law when they overstep their authority. That is exactly the point of the judiciary. They are there to determine what the interpretation of the law should be in the event of an ambiguity or conflict. A judiciary that does not have the authority to create binding judgments and to correct regulatory bodies is worse than useless.
If a sitting judge can just decide whatever he wants, and make up new law and regulations on the spot, then they effectively become Legislative, Executive and Judicial all in one.
If a judge oversteps their authority that is why we have an appeal system and a supreme court. In the event they cannot handle it that's why we have Congress and an executive branch to provide a counterbalance. Sometimes judges get it wrong just like sometime congress passes laws that are wrong. That's ok as long as we have a mechanism to right the wrong.
Those numbers imply 17% to 23% of existing bitcoins, which are today worth around $9,700 each, are lost.
I guess that's one way to drive up the "value" of bitcoins. Fixing the money supply to a finite resource (real or calculated) is by and large not a good idea. Especially one that can be easily lost.
Right now the mainstream GOP is sticking to principle - ie that regulating either is bad and the status quo should stay.
The GOP only pretends to be against regulation. They just want THEIR regulations. They want regulations that reduce taxes but those are still regulations. They want individual freedom unless it is something like abortion or homosexuality that offends their sensibilities and then they are all about regulation. They want regulations that favor money making over clean air. They want regulations that hurt worker's rights to organize.
I think it's fair to assume Trump is not overly concerned with abstract principles.
True but he doesn't seem concerned with tangible principles either.
And the Net Neutrality advocates won't confront the fact that their argument for net neutrality should apply to Google and FB which are decidedly non neutral for political content.
Net neutrality has NOTHING to do with political bent of content makers. It is about giving control of the content to the companies that own the wires rather than those actually making the content. Google doesn't control the wires in most places and they aren't a monopoly anywhere. Contrast with Comcast which is basically the only wired provider of internet service to my house. (Wireless is not a viable option for various reasons) I don't have to use Google and I don't use Facebook but I have limited choices in internet service providers even if I include wireless options in the mix. It is trivial for me to use a search engine that isn't Google but it is nigh impossible for me to switch ISPs. You don't seem to grasp the importance of that distinction.
It's hard to sympathize much with either side really.
Only if you don't understand what net neutrality is. I want my ISP and backhaul providers to stay the hell out of deciding whose content should get priority. That should be my decision, not theirs.
And it's more likely that both the Democrats and Republicans decide on regulation based on whether it helps companies that donate to them and hurts ones who don't than that they're acting out of anything resembling principle.
Of course they do. But as long as that results in the right thing happening then we can live with it. The good news is that there are probably more companies in favor of net neutrality than against it including some heavy hitters in the tech world.
The best chance to keep Pai from doing damage to net neutrality was last November. As long as Trump is in the White House it is probably going to be difficult to keep net neutrality as the law of the land. Best hope right now is to use the courts to mitigate the damage and drag out the process until a new administration can be put in place and Pai can be replaced.
Ha! Thanks but no need. Most of the problems I deal with are not so bad and I enjoy what I do. I make a decent and steady living fixing problems of people who get way too comfortable doing something a certain way without ever questioning whether there is a better approach. The biggest challenge is usually getting them to spend just a little money now for a big payback in time savings. Successful small business owners tend to be rather tight fisted with cash even when it hurts them. It's a good impulse to be careful with cash but it's easy to take it too far. I actually had a customer once ask me to make a ROI presentation to justify a $400 laser printer to replace a bunch of inkjets. (FYI it paid for itself after the first toner cartridges) I make a living saying "did you know you could..." and then finishing the sentence. I get a paycheck and an endless stream of (usually) interesting problems to fix and that makes my inner engineer happy.
Same company I mentioned also had been leasing a number of pieces of tooling since 1985 (no joke) and had paid for the tooling probably at least 5 times over. Saved them a decent amount of cash each month with a ROI of around a year. Now they own all their tooling and aren't needlessly bleeding cash. But it took me about two years to convince them that spending a bit now to buy it out would be worth it. Stepping over a dollar to pick up a nickel...
Having written just a simple customer billing program for a customer service department, I'm well aware of this. Corporate customers billed by the month, by the minute, N free calls per month before billing at X rate, free first 10 minutes of support, all support summed up and billed by the hour....it was a fucking nightmare. But prior to that, all the CS staff were just logging it in Excel, and sending it to the manager to sum up each month.New manager took one look at that process, shit their pants, and called IT in to create a solution.
Sounds familiar. I've seen ad-hoc "solutions" like that far too often. (I'm both an industrial engineer and a certified accountant so I get to fix stuff like that routinely) My latest employer had a system where they would take trial balances out of their accounting system, do a bunch of manual calculation on paper tape calculators, enter some number, see what was still wrong and repeat the process for 4-5 days until the books balanced. As a stop gap I made their spreadsheets talk directly to the database via ODBC and with an overly complicated spreadsheet got the books to close in 45 minutes. Eventually we moved to a proper accounting system but they had been doing that ridiculous process for 20 years.
Classic example of people using Excel for tasks which it technically can do but for which it is poorly suited. I don't think most IT folks really appreciate just how much finance/accounting people use Excel to solve every problem they run into even when doing so isn't actually a good idea.
Would you allow someone without a medical license to operate on you?
Under normal circumstances no but sometimes circumstances aren't normal. Sometimes the people with the medical license are prohibited from helping you by law or it costs too much to hire them. Sometimes people are curious or desperate or delusional. Sometimes people see a profit in doing things without a license. Quackery is a real thing (see homeopathy). If you have a condition that will kill you and the people with medical licenses won't help you, chances are good you'll look at other options you might not normally consider.
If Adobe can't find COTS software that meets their needs, it blows my mind why they wouldn't develop it and sell it. They are a software company.
The people at Adobe doing the financial analysis work are decidedly NOT software developers. That has a lot to do with it.
As it turns out, programming a functional and useful general purpose accounting and finance system is the very definition of a non-trivial endeavor. I say this as a a certified accountant and have done this sort of work professionally. Seriously, it's a lot harder than you think. People get very upset if you mess up the software that tracks the money. Replacing spreadsheets is going to be near impossible for a lot of tasks. Plus you need a tool that is flexible enough to roll with all sorts of unexpected business processes and analysis.
Despite it's many flaws, nobody has come up with a better general purpose tool for ad-hoc analysis and reporting than a spreadsheet and most finance geeks use Excel. There also is a strong whiff of "if the only tool you have is a hammer every problem becomes a nail". Finance people go to spreadsheets because it's the tool they already know how to use and have available. Yes sometimes there are better ways to do things but when you are asked to get the job done in some absurdly short time frame (which happens ALL the time in finance/accounting) you're going to go with what you know even if it isn't ideal. That said, Excel and other spreadsheets could do a LOT better job integrating with data sources and adapting to the real world needs of financial professionals. Frankly Microsoft (and Libreoffice) have been quite lazy in this regard. It remains an unnecessarily huge pain in the ass to pull data from outside sources into spreadsheets. And even when you can do it it is quite fragile and easy to break.
Actually if you really want to be depressed, you would be amazed at how many accountants still use paper tape calculators even when they have a spreadsheet available to them. Good luck getting those people to move to a custom designed piece of software.
All data security is essentially security through obscurity. Vault combinations, cryptography, keys, etc are all rely on various forms of information that is not widely known. The security comes through obscure information. Now there are forms of "security" through obscurity which are trivial to figure out and thus effectively worthless but even the most robust cryptography is still security through obscurity at its core.
When I worked at Dell, our director made me get rid of my IBM Model M.
Given that Dell sells Dell branded keyboards that's hardly shocking. It's reasonable for companies to like their employees to show some brand loyalty for products they use on the job.
Careful there, you're dangerously close to noticing a crack in your own logical facade.
Nothing embarrassing about my financial info. There are reasons to worry about security but embarrassment shouldn't be one of them. Safety of physical person or assets is a reasonable argument. Embarrassment is not. If you have something embarrassing on your phone perhaps you should consider removing it from the phone.
I've been completely blackballed throughout entire corporations just because of the brand of mouse I chose to buy, or the fact I refuse to use Facebook.
Oh bullshit. No corporation will give a shit about what brand of mouse you use unless you are a flaming asshat about it or somehow manage to violate their corporate IT rules. I don't use Facebook either and I have yet to run into a corporation that gives a shit about that even a little bit. Even if what you say is true that sounds like it is you that is the issue.
If you can't imagine anything in your phone (or not in it, for that matter) that anyone would take offense to, I suggest you either must not use it or you're just really naive.
If you work in a workplace that is THAT hypersensitive then I suggest you find a new and better employer. I can confidently say that there is absolutely nothing on or missing from my phone that I'm even a little worried about my coworkers getting offended over. That would be equally true of every employer I've ever worked for which at my age is quite a few of them. I would have some concerns about them getting access to some banking and financial info but that is the worst of it. Nothing there I'm the least bit embarrassed about including the contents of my emails and correspondence. I'm concerned about serious things like identity theft. That's not to say some people don't have some personal things they need to hide sometimes but if access to your phone is a concern then I suggest you keep such data off your phone.
Big companies generally devolve into popularity contests.
If you think that then I think you have serious social issues that no one here can help you with.
Think TouchID or FaceID like a lock on your front door. Yes it can be hacked and bypassed. Sometimes in ways you might not expect. It's low grade security. But that isn't the point. The point is to keep out the majority of less determined individuals out while being a reasonable balance between security and convenience for typical usage. If you want greater security there are features (passwords, etc) you can utilize to strengthen the system. Most of the time these are overkill but sometimes they are a very good idea. Anyone expecting TouchID or FaceID to provide iron clad security has incorrect ideas about what they are for and what their limitations are.
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How important is the impulse from the exhaust on modern passenger jet engines? I was under the impression that the giant fan was responsible for far more thrust. Lazy Googling seems to indicate an 80:20 bypass fan:core thrust ratio.
Doesn't matter. The problem isn't the specific impulse - the problem is energy/power density. The problem is that batteries are too heavy to replace fossil fuels as the store of energy while also still allowing passengers/cargo. The only alternative technology we currently have to jet engines is rockets which work by throwing mass out the back of the craft and rockets aren't efficient at all because they need to carry oxygen. A hybrid system (think locomotives) might enable some efficiency gains but wholesale replacement is currently just not feasible.
A majority of the thrust is produced by accelerating a large mass of unburned air to a speed just slightly higher than the airspeed of the aircraft.
You miss the point. The ONLY technology we have that can fly as fast as a jet engine (high or low bypass) is a rocket which involves throwing mass out the back of the craft. Electric motors combined with batteries lack the power density to drive any sort of fan or propeller sufficient to enable commercial applications. They are simply too heavy for the amount of power they can store right now. It might be possible to do a hybrid system similar to locomotives where the fossil fuels are used to power the electric motors for added efficiency but we currently have no batteries nor any near term likely batteries that can replace fossil fuels in that task.
More use of lighter than air craft. Blimps, zeppelins, etc.
We tried that. It didn't end well. It's a romantic idea but not a practical one for mass transportation. They have some niche uses but they aren't the answer you are looking for.
The firms are developing hybrid technology because fully electric commercial flights are currently out of reach.
And sadly likely to remain so. Two problems. One is that the energy and power density of current battery tech simply isn't there. Batteries are much too heavy currently. The other is that there is no current way to fly a plane at speeds comparable to a jet engine without throwing some material out the back of the aircraft. This means some form of fossil fuel based propulsion for the foreseeable future. While we might be able to get to a propeller driven electric plane for some commercial applications, I don't see any reasonable way to replace jets with electric motors across the industry. But it's perfectly reasonable that we might be able to use electric motors and batteries to make jets more efficient and that is still a good thing just like with automobiles.
It is like getting the video from the liquor store cameras to ID the bastard that just robbed it. It is exactly the same thing, information about your whereabouts from a third party. No warrant needed.
They are not the same thing. If a liquor store gets robbed THEY are the ones calling the cops and they are the one providing the tape. First party. The phone company isn't the one calling the cops so they are a third party. Can you not see the difference? Police can go and ask but the phone company should be under no obligation to comply without a warrant. Likewise if they suspect that a liquor store might have footage of the guy who robbed some other store nearby the police can ask but the liquor store should be under no obligation to cooperate unless served a warrant.
And if you think that only the Cell companies are tracking your every move, you're very mistaken.
True but irrelevant. Just because there are other datapoints about your location does not mean anything in this particular circumstance. My legal right to privacy doesn't change just because someone is nosy.
Which is why the police don't need a warrant - you ALREADY AGREED TO SHARE THAT INFORMATION.
I disagree.
Police need a warrant to wiretap a land line. I see no logical difference in what our civil rights should be required of them merely because the signal is carried over radio waves. These days the phone will be tapped at the central office anyway so it's not like they have to do something differently. If they have reasonable grounds to suspect someone of a crime then it shouldn't be hard to get a warrant.
Over time, the volatility will get less, and the value will stabilize.
That is a statement of faith, not of fact and is unsupported by any evidence that we could likely agree upon.
Right now, the risk is high, but potential rewards are high too.
Yes you can profit from volatility. That however is in direct opposition to the idea that bitcoin is reliable as a store of wealth.
I am puzzled at your reaction
I would have thought it clear enough but I'll endeavor to clarify.
What Tim Wu is suggesting is not "interpretation of law" and thus as you state, making case law, it is literally forcing the FCC to enforce regulations they are planning on repealing.
Because sometimes repealing regulations is not legally justified or proper or handled appropriately. It's not exactly difficult to make the argument that the FCC is being arbitrary and capricious in changing their policies nor is it difficult to argue that there would be real and tangible harm to consumers and content makers from their actions. There also seems to be some disagreement about what the FCC's role in this should be. This all absolutely is interpretation of law which at the end of the day is case law. You don't need to invoke the specter of judges inventing law out of whole cloth here because that isn't what is happening.
Courts interpret current laws and can only rule on the legality and constitutionality of a law. They cannot force regulating bodies to enforce specific policies, just because people on the Internet signed a petition.
The courts absolutely can, do, and should force regulating agencies to enforce specific policies provided there is a legal basis to do so. Regulators don't get to enforce and/or ignore and/or undermine rules as they see fit without limits. This has nothing to do with whether people signed a petition and everything to do with law. If the FCC makes regulations that they were authorized to make and people depend on those regulations then it is entirely reasonable and proper for a court to hold the FCC to keeping those regulations in place. It's absolutely the job of courts to help ensure that regulators are not allowing arbitrary and capricious changes of policy when such changes clearly result in favoring the narrow interests of a few over the wider interests of most of the populace.
Let's not pretend here that Mr. Pai is attempting to be a neutral and honest arbiter of the law here. He's clearly got an agenda and it is perfectly reasonable to question his actions in a court of law.
The speculation bubble of gold has been surviving for thousands of years.
Which has a lot to do with why we don't base our money supply on the gold standard anymore.
It's a good idea if you mostly use it for storing your wealth, and doing occasional transactions
Bitcoin as a store of wealth? Maybe if you like a HUGE amount of risk on a highly speculative asset.
It's not a good idea if you want to run a national economy on it. I don't think anybody is trying the latter.
Listen to bitcoin advocates sometime. More than a few would like to replace all fiat currencies with bitcoin or something similar. Their arguments are largely unconnected to economic reality but they seem to believe them all the same.
Well no, he gets this exactly backwards. Network Neutrality was EXACTLY such a reversal, and here's Pai simply undoing what the FCC wasn't free to do in the first place. Pai is correcting the very transgression Wu is citing here.
If there is any disagreement as to whether the FCC has that authority it is the responsibility of the judiciary and/or congress to clarify the matter. I disagree that the FCC doesn't/shouldn't have the authority to enforce net neutrality but if there is disagreement on that point then the courts are a perfectly reasonable place to address the matter. To be frank with the current Congress and administration the judiciary is probably the only place to fight what Mr Pai is trying to do.
It was previously a longstanding rule--supported by law--that the FCC would have a hands off approach to the internet.
A hands off approach isn't an option. You either support the content makers or your support the ISPs and there are consequences either way. Elimination of net neutrality rules de-facto is favoring the interests of certain parties over others. There is no middle ground here and someone has to play referee. If not the FCC then someone else but I would argue that net neutrality is a vital policy that needs to be enforced. I think Ajit Pai's arguments against net neutrality are specious at best and corrupt at worst.
Pai is saying the FCC can't make such reversals.
Why not listen to what he actually said? Pai is CLEARLY in the pocket of those who favor elimination of net neutrality and has a long track record of favoring the interests of broadcasters over other parties. This is neither new nor a secret. His arguments are ridiculous and specious and transparently one sided.
Courts making laws and forcing regulatory bodies to enforce them is a path you don't want to go down.
Sigh... Courts make laws constantly in the form of case law. That is normal and proper. It is their job to make regulatory bodies adhere to the law when they overstep their authority. That is exactly the point of the judiciary. They are there to determine what the interpretation of the law should be in the event of an ambiguity or conflict. A judiciary that does not have the authority to create binding judgments and to correct regulatory bodies is worse than useless.
If a sitting judge can just decide whatever he wants, and make up new law and regulations on the spot, then they effectively become Legislative, Executive and Judicial all in one.
If a judge oversteps their authority that is why we have an appeal system and a supreme court. In the event they cannot handle it that's why we have Congress and an executive branch to provide a counterbalance. Sometimes judges get it wrong just like sometime congress passes laws that are wrong. That's ok as long as we have a mechanism to right the wrong.
Those numbers imply 17% to 23% of existing bitcoins, which are today worth around $9,700 each, are lost.
I guess that's one way to drive up the "value" of bitcoins. Fixing the money supply to a finite resource (real or calculated) is by and large not a good idea. Especially one that can be easily lost.
Right now the mainstream GOP is sticking to principle - ie that regulating either is bad and the status quo should stay.
The GOP only pretends to be against regulation. They just want THEIR regulations. They want regulations that reduce taxes but those are still regulations. They want individual freedom unless it is something like abortion or homosexuality that offends their sensibilities and then they are all about regulation. They want regulations that favor money making over clean air. They want regulations that hurt worker's rights to organize.
I think it's fair to assume Trump is not overly concerned with abstract principles.
True but he doesn't seem concerned with tangible principles either.
And the Net Neutrality advocates won't confront the fact that their argument for net neutrality should apply to Google and FB which are decidedly non neutral for political content.
Net neutrality has NOTHING to do with political bent of content makers. It is about giving control of the content to the companies that own the wires rather than those actually making the content. Google doesn't control the wires in most places and they aren't a monopoly anywhere. Contrast with Comcast which is basically the only wired provider of internet service to my house. (Wireless is not a viable option for various reasons) I don't have to use Google and I don't use Facebook but I have limited choices in internet service providers even if I include wireless options in the mix. It is trivial for me to use a search engine that isn't Google but it is nigh impossible for me to switch ISPs. You don't seem to grasp the importance of that distinction.
It's hard to sympathize much with either side really.
Only if you don't understand what net neutrality is. I want my ISP and backhaul providers to stay the hell out of deciding whose content should get priority. That should be my decision, not theirs.
And it's more likely that both the Democrats and Republicans decide on regulation based on whether it helps companies that donate to them and hurts ones who don't than that they're acting out of anything resembling principle.
Of course they do. But as long as that results in the right thing happening then we can live with it. The good news is that there are probably more companies in favor of net neutrality than against it including some heavy hitters in the tech world.
The best chance to keep Pai from doing damage to net neutrality was last November. As long as Trump is in the White House it is probably going to be difficult to keep net neutrality as the law of the land. Best hope right now is to use the courts to mitigate the damage and drag out the process until a new administration can be put in place and Pai can be replaced.
You have my sincere condolences.
Ha! Thanks but no need. Most of the problems I deal with are not so bad and I enjoy what I do. I make a decent and steady living fixing problems of people who get way too comfortable doing something a certain way without ever questioning whether there is a better approach. The biggest challenge is usually getting them to spend just a little money now for a big payback in time savings. Successful small business owners tend to be rather tight fisted with cash even when it hurts them. It's a good impulse to be careful with cash but it's easy to take it too far. I actually had a customer once ask me to make a ROI presentation to justify a $400 laser printer to replace a bunch of inkjets. (FYI it paid for itself after the first toner cartridges) I make a living saying "did you know you could..." and then finishing the sentence. I get a paycheck and an endless stream of (usually) interesting problems to fix and that makes my inner engineer happy.
Same company I mentioned also had been leasing a number of pieces of tooling since 1985 (no joke) and had paid for the tooling probably at least 5 times over. Saved them a decent amount of cash each month with a ROI of around a year. Now they own all their tooling and aren't needlessly bleeding cash. But it took me about two years to convince them that spending a bit now to buy it out would be worth it. Stepping over a dollar to pick up a nickel...
Having written just a simple customer billing program for a customer service department, I'm well aware of this. Corporate customers billed by the month, by the minute, N free calls per month before billing at X rate, free first 10 minutes of support, all support summed up and billed by the hour....it was a fucking nightmare. But prior to that, all the CS staff were just logging it in Excel, and sending it to the manager to sum up each month.New manager took one look at that process, shit their pants, and called IT in to create a solution.
Sounds familiar. I've seen ad-hoc "solutions" like that far too often. (I'm both an industrial engineer and a certified accountant so I get to fix stuff like that routinely) My latest employer had a system where they would take trial balances out of their accounting system, do a bunch of manual calculation on paper tape calculators, enter some number, see what was still wrong and repeat the process for 4-5 days until the books balanced. As a stop gap I made their spreadsheets talk directly to the database via ODBC and with an overly complicated spreadsheet got the books to close in 45 minutes. Eventually we moved to a proper accounting system but they had been doing that ridiculous process for 20 years.
Classic example of people using Excel for tasks which it technically can do but for which it is poorly suited. I don't think most IT folks really appreciate just how much finance/accounting people use Excel to solve every problem they run into even when doing so isn't actually a good idea.
Would you allow someone without a medical license to operate on you?
Under normal circumstances no but sometimes circumstances aren't normal. Sometimes the people with the medical license are prohibited from helping you by law or it costs too much to hire them. Sometimes people are curious or desperate or delusional. Sometimes people see a profit in doing things without a license. Quackery is a real thing (see homeopathy). If you have a condition that will kill you and the people with medical licenses won't help you, chances are good you'll look at other options you might not normally consider.
If Adobe can't find COTS software that meets their needs, it blows my mind why they wouldn't develop it and sell it. They are a software company.
The people at Adobe doing the financial analysis work are decidedly NOT software developers. That has a lot to do with it.
As it turns out, programming a functional and useful general purpose accounting and finance system is the very definition of a non-trivial endeavor. I say this as a a certified accountant and have done this sort of work professionally. Seriously, it's a lot harder than you think. People get very upset if you mess up the software that tracks the money. Replacing spreadsheets is going to be near impossible for a lot of tasks. Plus you need a tool that is flexible enough to roll with all sorts of unexpected business processes and analysis.
Despite it's many flaws, nobody has come up with a better general purpose tool for ad-hoc analysis and reporting than a spreadsheet and most finance geeks use Excel. There also is a strong whiff of "if the only tool you have is a hammer every problem becomes a nail". Finance people go to spreadsheets because it's the tool they already know how to use and have available. Yes sometimes there are better ways to do things but when you are asked to get the job done in some absurdly short time frame (which happens ALL the time in finance/accounting) you're going to go with what you know even if it isn't ideal. That said, Excel and other spreadsheets could do a LOT better job integrating with data sources and adapting to the real world needs of financial professionals. Frankly Microsoft (and Libreoffice) have been quite lazy in this regard. It remains an unnecessarily huge pain in the ass to pull data from outside sources into spreadsheets. And even when you can do it it is quite fragile and easy to break.
Actually if you really want to be depressed, you would be amazed at how many accountants still use paper tape calculators even when they have a spreadsheet available to them. Good luck getting those people to move to a custom designed piece of software.
Security by obscurity
All data security is essentially security through obscurity. Vault combinations, cryptography, keys, etc are all rely on various forms of information that is not widely known. The security comes through obscure information. Now there are forms of "security" through obscurity which are trivial to figure out and thus effectively worthless but even the most robust cryptography is still security through obscurity at its core.
When I worked at Dell, our director made me get rid of my IBM Model M.
Given that Dell sells Dell branded keyboards that's hardly shocking. It's reasonable for companies to like their employees to show some brand loyalty for products they use on the job.
Careful there, you're dangerously close to noticing a crack in your own logical facade.
Nothing embarrassing about my financial info. There are reasons to worry about security but embarrassment shouldn't be one of them. Safety of physical person or assets is a reasonable argument. Embarrassment is not. If you have something embarrassing on your phone perhaps you should consider removing it from the phone.
My mistake. I thought the point was so a cop could shove it in your face and have it unlock itself for him.
Make the password required and it's a non-issue.
I've been completely blackballed throughout entire corporations just because of the brand of mouse I chose to buy, or the fact I refuse to use Facebook.
Oh bullshit. No corporation will give a shit about what brand of mouse you use unless you are a flaming asshat about it or somehow manage to violate their corporate IT rules. I don't use Facebook either and I have yet to run into a corporation that gives a shit about that even a little bit. Even if what you say is true that sounds like it is you that is the issue.
If you can't imagine anything in your phone (or not in it, for that matter) that anyone would take offense to, I suggest you either must not use it or you're just really naive.
If you work in a workplace that is THAT hypersensitive then I suggest you find a new and better employer. I can confidently say that there is absolutely nothing on or missing from my phone that I'm even a little worried about my coworkers getting offended over. That would be equally true of every employer I've ever worked for which at my age is quite a few of them. I would have some concerns about them getting access to some banking and financial info but that is the worst of it. Nothing there I'm the least bit embarrassed about including the contents of my emails and correspondence. I'm concerned about serious things like identity theft. That's not to say some people don't have some personal things they need to hide sometimes but if access to your phone is a concern then I suggest you keep such data off your phone.
Big companies generally devolve into popularity contests.
If you think that then I think you have serious social issues that no one here can help you with.
Think TouchID or FaceID like a lock on your front door. Yes it can be hacked and bypassed. Sometimes in ways you might not expect. It's low grade security. But that isn't the point. The point is to keep out the majority of less determined individuals out while being a reasonable balance between security and convenience for typical usage. If you want greater security there are features (passwords, etc) you can utilize to strengthen the system. Most of the time these are overkill but sometimes they are a very good idea. Anyone expecting TouchID or FaceID to provide iron clad security has incorrect ideas about what they are for and what their limitations are.