He refers to a certain period of manufacturing where lower quality capacitors were used, which resulted in failing computers within 3 to 5 years. If I remember correctly, that was around the P-IV / Athlon days. So, if manufacturers start using worse caps, the computers will die quicker and as such people will be forced to buy replacement machines earlier.
Good point. My mother in law never uses her computer any more. Totally shifted everything to her phone. I can't imagine to reply to even an email on my phone except for very short replies, but it works for her. So, one less computer sale. Her current computer stands in the corner gathering dust.
Really, it's just that: we're at a computing plateau. At least for most users. Twenty years ago, if you held onto your machine for 5 years, the machine was usually unusable with up to date software. These days? 5 years? No problem. I'm still using a i7-2630QM, which was introduced in 01/2011. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it and does anything I ask of it.
Same for my desktop, an AMD A8-3860, which was introduced in 07/2011. Does what I need, quickly enough.
Are these machines high end machines now? Absolutely not... However, the time of buying new toys just to have new toys, is over for me. Works for me, means: no reason to upgrade. Many people who are not into tech think that way. A few years ago, I helped a non-tech with her old desktop. It had died: caps gone up in smoke. I said: hey, it's about 5 years old, it had a good run. She: *only* five years? Non-tech people think differently (Ha!) These days I'd be pissed too if my machine died after 5 years of use.
I would say it is about 50/50 with porn and regular movies.
Which I don't understand. You can get porn risk free pretty much on all big platforms. Free porn is a solved problem. No need to go to shady websites.
Hell, it's in the interest of most porn providers to avoid infecting you because, they'd rather have you as a paying customer. Go to the big streaming porn websites, invariably there are payvideo on demand, webcam sites and dating sites behind them. They want you to pay for that. They don't want your credit card number to be lifted by some malware writing shady criminals...
So, that confirms just what I said: that the search space of word-based passwords, is very much smaller than a random 8 char password which needs to be brute-forced.
Ah, ok... I see... "brute force typical 8 char password", is what you mean. Sorry for the lapsus in my understanding because "brute force" does have a special kind of meaning to me, so I focussed on the combinatorics and assumed a random password. You mean, employ statistical analysis on typical non-random 8 char passwords. Yes, definitely, that will work.
Which search space? The 64^8 "random passwords" search space?
My point was that the search space of word-based variations is already significantly smaller than those of 64^8 "random passwords". Reducing the "dictionary-word-based" search space even further using other tools would make it even smaller and thus easier.
Or am I misunderstanding your comment?
There is no such thing as a typical "random 8 char password", or is there?
Now, of course, correct-horse-staple-battery style passwords, would theoretically be something like 4^1000000 (four words, 1M words to chose from), which is an insane search space. Even assuming the 100 most common words, still is a humongous search space. Perhaps statistical analysis would work on that.
Have you got any maths to back that up? Assume 64 valid chars ([a-zA-z0-9_-] over 8 positions, that means 64^8 combinations, which is about 2.8*10^14 combinations 280 trillion combinations.
According to WolframAlpha, there are about 1 million words in the English language. So, each word in the English language should generate 280 million new combinations based upon the patterns we tend to use. Colour me highly sceptical about that. I might be wrong, my maths are a bit rusty and I'm not all that much into password cracking. So, I am open to arguments showing that my thinking is flawed.
I have done this too, but let's be realistic. Since we know this, we can assume password crackers know this. Furthermore md5 is quick. So once they have a list of common-ish passwords, it becomes a matter of trying also md5(common_password), which exactly 1 pass more to test. That is basically not much added complexity. If more people start doing this, that extra pass will become worth it.
Now, brute forcing an md5-based password is unlikely, with 16^32 different combinations (16 characters, 32 positions), but that's not what is being done.
The Minecraft block *is* defined as being 1m x 1m x 1m. As for 2m feeling cramped, that is most likely true in reality too. Most rooms in modern houses, are 2.4m in height (in my basement it's 2.1m, the rest of the house 2.4m). Incidentally, I make my Minecraft rooms, 3 blocks high, and use half slabs on the top half of the third block, making my Minecraft rooms 2.5m high. This does not feel cramped and Endermen cannot enter/teleport in those spaces.
Ah, that makes more sense. I've never encountered anything other than Home Premium and Pro in the wild (well, and Enterprise, but that's a different kettle of fish). Thanks for the clarification.
Have you got any links about that? The Windows 7 Pro machines I upgraded, became Windows 10 Pro, and the Windows 7 Home Premium became Windows 10 Home. (Given the version jungle 7 has, I pretty much only encounter Pro and Home Premium versions). Now, do note that all machines I have upgraded, went the "image current 7" -> "upgrade to 10" -> "restore image from 7" route, simply to ensure that those machines won't become useless or unsellable in the future (January 2020). I didn't use them long: long enough to check whether they were activated. but that's in the same screen where the edition is shown.
Ok, so I opened LibreOffice 5 (which comes with Ubuntu 16.04LTS), created a new document, went to Format/Page, selected the radio-button "Landscape" on the "Page" tab, clicked "Ok". Then I went to www.lipsum.com, generated 5 paragraphs of "Lorem ipsum" and copy/pasted that in my newly created document.
At this point, I hit Control-P, followed by Enter, which gave me a totally fine landscape printed "Lorem ipsum" text, as it was displayed on screen.
How long a Microsoft representative goes on a friendly business lunch followed by a good golf game (or the Italian equivalent) with the people who make decisions?
These government switches rarely last long because it sets bad precedents. Luckily the decision makers in my government are so heavily convinced that proprietary software is "best of breed", what we'll never see any important use of open source software anywhere at the state.
I find that amazing. In the 16 years, I've had my car, I had it towed once and needed to drive asap to my mechanic once due to leaking coolant fuel. Reliabily has been awesome and I expect my car to drive me anywhere I want anyday I like. Including long trips.
Of course, I always did every maintenance required.
From what my mechanic tells me, the car is in perfect mechanical state (and the mandatory state inspection also says so)
The main reason why people have your stance is not because old cars are unreliable, but because they skimped on maintenance and want an excuse to buy new toys... Just as you need an excuse to buy a new computer, instead of investing a minimum to keep your decent machine in shape.
Luckily for the economy, more people are like you than me. (Discounting for the fact that with my car, at least I help the local economy because I give mechanics a job instead of corporations that funnel profits to tax havens)
I drive an Audi TT with 333000km on the counter. I would not hesitate a second to buy new tyres or a new battery or even the brakes. It is by definition cheaper to keep it running (especially, you stated "consumables" only) than to buy a new car.
For 250$ you can get that iMac running a few years longer, instead of shelling out 3x more for the smallest model today.
Do you really think that? The only people really seeming to care about it are hardcore gamers. Normal people, outside of IT not so much. Now of course, VR may turn out to be so awesome everyone wants it and need it for work and home...
2007 iMacs are user upgradable. You can get 3rd party RAM just fine, and cheap. Assuming something like this, you could get a memory upgrade for $35.5 0 to 4GB. (I am not affiliated with Kahlon.com, I just occasionally buy RAM there. Just get any PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (200-pin SO-DIMM) for your favourite vendor and you'll be fine.
The disk is a standard 2.5" Hard disk, so you can just replace that with modern SSD if you want. Apple lifted the ban on 3rd party SSDs a while ago.
Opening up an iMac is easy. The screen part is just held together with magnets, IIRC
Back in February 2007, I bought a Fujitsu Siemens Pa1510, which sported a AMD Turion TL-52. That was my first 64-bit machine and it came with XP and it was on sale because Vista was around the corner, and it seemed everyone at that time was convinced Vista would be a success.
That said, the Turion TL-52 was severely underpowered, and I did replace it with the above mentioned XPS.
Slashdot Mirror
See also: planned obsolescence.
Good point. My mother in law never uses her computer any more. Totally shifted everything to her phone. I can't imagine to reply to even an email on my phone except for very short replies, but it works for her. So, one less computer sale. Her current computer stands in the corner gathering dust.
Same for my desktop, an AMD A8-3860, which was introduced in 07/2011. Does what I need, quickly enough.
Are these machines high end machines now? Absolutely not... However, the time of buying new toys just to have new toys, is over for me. Works for me, means: no reason to upgrade. Many people who are not into tech think that way. A few years ago, I helped a non-tech with her old desktop. It had died: caps gone up in smoke. I said: hey, it's about 5 years old, it had a good run. She: *only* five years? Non-tech people think differently (Ha!) These days I'd be pissed too if my machine died after 5 years of use.
Which I don't understand. You can get porn risk free pretty much on all big platforms. Free porn is a solved problem. No need to go to shady websites.
Hell, it's in the interest of most porn providers to avoid infecting you because, they'd rather have you as a paying customer. Go to the big streaming porn websites, invariably there are payvideo on demand, webcam sites and dating sites behind them. They want you to pay for that. They don't want your credit card number to be lifted by some malware writing shady criminals...
I'm right handed. I wear my watch on my right hand.
I do that too. Right hander, I need my watch on my right hand. Doing otherwise feels wrong to me.
"alot" is not a word. Obligatory The Oatmeal link
So, that confirms just what I said: that the search space of word-based passwords, is very much smaller than a random 8 char password which needs to be brute-forced.
Ah, ok... I see... "brute force typical 8 char password", is what you mean. Sorry for the lapsus in my understanding because "brute force" does have a special kind of meaning to me, so I focussed on the combinatorics and assumed a random password. You mean, employ statistical analysis on typical non-random 8 char passwords. Yes, definitely, that will work.
My point was that the search space of word-based variations is already significantly smaller than those of 64^8 "random passwords". Reducing the "dictionary-word-based" search space even further using other tools would make it even smaller and thus easier.
Or am I misunderstanding your comment?
There is no such thing as a typical "random 8 char password", or is there?
Now, of course, correct-horse-staple-battery style passwords, would theoretically be something like 4^1000000 (four words, 1M words to chose from), which is an insane search space. Even assuming the 100 most common words, still is a humongous search space. Perhaps statistical analysis would work on that.
According to WolframAlpha, there are about 1 million words in the English language. So, each word in the English language should generate 280 million new combinations based upon the patterns we tend to use. Colour me highly sceptical about that. I might be wrong, my maths are a bit rusty and I'm not all that much into password cracking. So, I am open to arguments showing that my thinking is flawed.
Now, brute forcing an md5-based password is unlikely, with 16^32 different combinations (16 characters, 32 positions), but that's not what is being done.
The Minecraft block *is* defined as being 1m x 1m x 1m. As for 2m feeling cramped, that is most likely true in reality too. Most rooms in modern houses, are 2.4m in height (in my basement it's 2.1m, the rest of the house 2.4m). Incidentally, I make my Minecraft rooms, 3 blocks high, and use half slabs on the top half of the third block, making my Minecraft rooms 2.5m high. This does not feel cramped and Endermen cannot enter/teleport in those spaces.
They raid French businesses all the same. With SWAT teams. Used to work for one that got raided.
Why does anyone in their right mind couple an i5 with 2GB RAM?!?
Well, you still can be the driver.... for now...
Ah, that makes more sense. I've never encountered anything other than Home Premium and Pro in the wild (well, and Enterprise, but that's a different kettle of fish). Thanks for the clarification.
Have you got any links about that? The Windows 7 Pro machines I upgraded, became Windows 10 Pro, and the Windows 7 Home Premium became Windows 10 Home. (Given the version jungle 7 has, I pretty much only encounter Pro and Home Premium versions). Now, do note that all machines I have upgraded, went the "image current 7" -> "upgrade to 10" -> "restore image from 7" route, simply to ensure that those machines won't become useless or unsellable in the future (January 2020). I didn't use them long: long enough to check whether they were activated. but that's in the same screen where the edition is shown.
At this point, I hit Control-P, followed by Enter, which gave me a totally fine landscape printed "Lorem ipsum" text, as it was displayed on screen.
So, uhm... what's wrong?
These government switches rarely last long because it sets bad precedents. Luckily the decision makers in my government are so heavily convinced that proprietary software is "best of breed", what we'll never see any important use of open source software anywhere at the state.
Of course, I always did every maintenance required.
From what my mechanic tells me, the car is in perfect mechanical state (and the mandatory state inspection also says so)
The main reason why people have your stance is not because old cars are unreliable, but because they skimped on maintenance and want an excuse to buy new toys... Just as you need an excuse to buy a new computer, instead of investing a minimum to keep your decent machine in shape.
Luckily for the economy, more people are like you than me. (Discounting for the fact that with my car, at least I help the local economy because I give mechanics a job instead of corporations that funnel profits to tax havens)
For 250$ you can get that iMac running a few years longer, instead of shelling out 3x more for the smallest model today.
Do you really think that? The only people really seeming to care about it are hardcore gamers. Normal people, outside of IT not so much. Now of course, VR may turn out to be so awesome everyone wants it and need it for work and home...
Allow me to be very sceptical about that...
The disk is a standard 2.5" Hard disk, so you can just replace that with modern SSD if you want. Apple lifted the ban on 3rd party SSDs a while ago.
Opening up an iMac is easy. The screen part is just held together with magnets, IIRC
That said, the Turion TL-52 was severely underpowered, and I did replace it with the above mentioned XPS.