Are they safe? at least in Australia (VIC,SA,NSW) they are. What's this I read about dangerous levels of RF? C'mon, step away from your microwave, fella. Now on to the serious stuff that I felt like addressing.
Up until 2 years ago, I had worked for a reputable power company (if there ever was one!) in Australia for nearly 10 years and when I would speak to the customer service guys, they would always make fun of customers who wanted to know "What appliance is using all of my power??" and "I'm never home, how is my power bill so high???" and so forth -- This is where smart metering comes into affect. It takes 15 or 30 minute interval reads (depending on the meter model) as well as the power factor (kVa) and for someone working for the power retailer, they can export the data into an easy to read spreadsheet which allows for easy investigation as to what the hell is using a shit ton of power at 3am (whoops, forgot about that time switch for the pool heater!)
A lot of the smart meters in Australia do not give a general read-out of a users power consumption unlike the old 5 and 6 dial meters. They take interval reads and the information that is displayed on the meter, if anything, displays less information than what the older ones used to (usually displaying if it's online or not). I think some of the models don't even give you any readout unless the probe from the Meter Reader is inserted. (yes, smart meters here still have meter readers. We're still a while away from automatic reads)
Yes, prying eyes from those who work at retailers or DB's might be able to see your energy habits, but more importantly, the end customer can also see which means they can make more inclined choices of the appliances they use and the times they use some of these appliances (by the addition of Peak and Off Peak rates) -- If someone can see they get charged less per kWh between 8pm-8am, they're going to use their Washing Machine or Dryer at night. Without smart (interval) metering, this would not be possible. It also means people will start to take more notice of those silly "Energy Rating" stickers on appliances.
I hope this isn't too much shinfo but at least in Australia, there is a huge (mostly negative) misconception towards smart metering, usually thanks to the media.
Probably the best troubleshooting technique ever, aside from this classic:
"Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? Uh... okay, well, the button on the side, is it glowing?...yeah, you need to turn it on... uh, the button turns it on... yeah, you do know how a button works don't you? No, not on clothes."
HTC and Samsung along with countless others IMO fail to push updates quickly enough. I only got my official OTA update for my Galaxy Note about 3 weeks ago. Does Google try to enforce some kind of release schedule across manufacturers?
...And some are not. Note to self: Do not take a holiday during a leap second!
I had 2 Debian Squeeze Blade servers in Thailand kernel panic on me at 3am (AEST). What strikes me as odd as out of the 6 blades that we have Debian running on (all running squeeze and kernel 2.6.32 with identical packages) only 2 of them had a Panic, and so much for the advisory saying it only affects kernel 2.6.29. There might be more to it than the kernel but sheesh, I'm on holiday!
You're absolutely right! And 99% of the time I am not that person (for Christ sake, I sold my Macbook years ago to buy a Thinkpad and haven't looked back since!). However, I am basing my judgement on the overall look (the phone, OS and the shape) and I will go as far to say that judging by the design and the square edges, that phone would be a pain to hold on to for long periods.
I think someone at MS said "Oh, you know what, since our OS looks like giant tiles, lets make our phone look like an giant tile too!"
At least on my Galaxy Note with the ICS 4.0.4 update and it clearly states it's in Beta in the menu options. Not sure if it's also at Beta status on the SGS3 but honestly speaking, only a fool would rely solely on facial recognition.
Yep, and if you're happy to keep the containers loaded on a trailer 24/7, this could work, otherwise, be prepared to purchase or rent an top loader or reach stacker to lift those bad boys back onto the trailer in time before you and the containers get cooked.
You're not going to see the potential of SPDY before we have environments (browsers, CPU and your internet speed) that can take full advantage of it. Only in the most recent version of Firefox did we see SPDY support.
What's the moral of all this? It's early days yet. Let's talk in a few years when the rest of us catch up.
Over 20 years ago each classroom at my Primary School (Australian for Elementary School) had an Apple II and by the time I went into High school, they had an Mac in each room.
20 years later, my 7 year old nephew is proficient at working his way around his little Netbook running Debian with lxde, typing emails to me after school and putting together his Primary School grade projects using LibreOffice Draw and he can do it with his eyes closed. He's a smart kid but he's not alone. Many kids these days can muster this without batting an eyelid. Don't underestimate the kids!
For those of you who think that it is unreasonable to have someone at that young age to own a laptop, you need to get out more and get with the times. I think it's a great thing if the school has the opportunity to enable every kid to have his or her own laptop. This kind of thing (along with proper parenting and supervision) is what will make the kids of today absolute geniuses compared to us old farts of yesterday.
good luck with that since most macs won't boot from an USB stick unless the USB stick has an EFI partition that the macbook likes. I have a MBP 5,1 5,2 and 8,2 and they all refuse to boot from USB, even with rEFIt.
If you want to see how Ubuntu looks at that res, omgubuntu.co.uk have some screenshots. Needless to say, it looks stupid!
Like other Asian countries, it is near impossible to find a job in your desired field unless you're transferred to China from some multinational company.
What makes it so hard is that China has pretty tough laws on employing foreigners, and those laws usually mean that you need to be working doing something that cannot be fulfilled by someone locally. Secondly, they need to pay you a higher minimum wage compared to Chinese Nationals. If I were you, I'd look at the teaching job as a means to an end for now and worry about finding something later once you're established. At least it's legal. And stay away from doing anything under the table, the consequences in China are a lot worse than somewhere like Australia or Canada.
Being someone who has migrated to Thailand, it's a huge step you're taking and the first couple of weeks are the hardest. Just stick to it and try stay motivated and remember to take everything with a grain of salt (or rice, so to speak!)
At least in Australia, many a Company is finally catching on to the benefits of FOSS and not just the positive financial aspects of it. Jobs are rolling in the desktop support market for Linux and it's great because it's an employees market at the moment. Companies here see that you can reduce 100 Windows licenses to 4 or 5 and run any win apps in a terminal session on their Linux machines. This makes it easier for support and easier on the wallet.
You're right though, Linux is inherently more secure than Windows given how permissions work, we know that. BSD is even better when using jails! And if something is contracted, it is going to be limited to your user, BUT even this can be wiped out with carelessness. Some examples are: Leaving ssh open with no pub/pri keys whilst not disabling root login (common in Debian/Ubuntu) on both workstations and servers or leaving the initial user in the sudoers group (common in Ubuntu) or Incorrectly set up samba shares and the list goes on.
My point is, even the most secure OS can be the most insecure OS when amateur hour is upon us.
If your camera has the capability to shoot raw, do it. I don't need to go into a huge essay as to raw vs JPEG but you'll get more out of your photos when tweaking them in Photoshop or light room. Also, store and index your photos properly. digital can be forever, don't rely on the cloud.
"The service will probably be ridiculously expensive to cover staff and equipment costs"
I highly doubt this, especially with so many people who would be inclined to offer their time and services free of charge.
I second this. I moved 100+ pc's to Linux at my company and for the older pc's (p4's 512mb) I installed Xubuntu as opposed to Ubuntu 10.04LTS on the new core2 i3/5 pc's and Damn, Xubuntu is a hell of a distro. All of the random printers and scanners that some pc's are hooked up to work out of the box. It just works no matter what machine I install it on.
Slashdot Mirror
Dr Emmet Brown called. His response. "Whoa.... This is heavy!"
Are they safe? at least in Australia (VIC,SA,NSW) they are. What's this I read about dangerous levels of RF? C'mon, step away from your microwave, fella. Now on to the serious stuff that I felt like addressing.
Up until 2 years ago, I had worked for a reputable power company (if there ever was one!) in Australia for nearly 10 years and when I would speak to the customer service guys, they would always make fun of customers who wanted to know "What appliance is using all of my power??" and "I'm never home, how is my power bill so high???" and so forth -- This is where smart metering comes into affect. It takes 15 or 30 minute interval reads (depending on the meter model) as well as the power factor (kVa) and for someone working for the power retailer, they can export the data into an easy to read spreadsheet which allows for easy investigation as to what the hell is using a shit ton of power at 3am (whoops, forgot about that time switch for the pool heater!)
A lot of the smart meters in Australia do not give a general read-out of a users power consumption unlike the old 5 and 6 dial meters. They take interval reads and the information that is displayed on the meter, if anything, displays less information than what the older ones used to (usually displaying if it's online or not). I think some of the models don't even give you any readout unless the probe from the Meter Reader is inserted. (yes, smart meters here still have meter readers. We're still a while away from automatic reads)
Yes, prying eyes from those who work at retailers or DB's might be able to see your energy habits, but more importantly, the end customer can also see which means they can make more inclined choices of the appliances they use and the times they use some of these appliances (by the addition of Peak and Off Peak rates) -- If someone can see they get charged less per kWh between 8pm-8am, they're going to use their Washing Machine or Dryer at night. Without smart (interval) metering, this would not be possible. It also means people will start to take more notice of those silly "Energy Rating" stickers on appliances.
I hope this isn't too much shinfo but at least in Australia, there is a huge (mostly negative) misconception towards smart metering, usually thanks to the media.
Probably the best troubleshooting technique ever, aside from this classic:
...yeah, you need to turn it on... uh, the button turns it on... yeah, you do know how a button works don't you? No, not on clothes."
"Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? Uh... okay, well, the button on the side, is it glowing?
HTC and Samsung along with countless others IMO fail to push updates quickly enough. I only got my official OTA update for my Galaxy Note about 3 weeks ago. Does Google try to enforce some kind of release schedule across manufacturers?
...And some are not. Note to self: Do not take a holiday during a leap second!
I had 2 Debian Squeeze Blade servers in Thailand kernel panic on me at 3am (AEST). What strikes me as odd as out of the 6 blades that we have Debian running on (all running squeeze and kernel 2.6.32 with identical packages) only 2 of them had a Panic, and so much for the advisory saying it only affects kernel 2.6.29. There might be more to it than the kernel but sheesh, I'm on holiday!
Yep, and that's why we now call him Sir Jonathan Ive.
You're absolutely right! And 99% of the time I am not that person (for Christ sake, I sold my Macbook years ago to buy a Thinkpad and haven't looked back since!). However, I am basing my judgement on the overall look (the phone, OS and the shape) and I will go as far to say that judging by the design and the square edges, that phone would be a pain to hold on to for long periods.
I think someone at MS said "Oh, you know what, since our OS looks like giant tiles, lets make our phone look like an giant tile too!"
VPN provider profits skyrocket!
Seriously, that has got to be one of the ugliest phones I have seen in quite a while.
apt-get install youtube-dl (deb, ubuntu) pacman -S youtube-dl (arch)
At least on my Galaxy Note with the ICS 4.0.4 update and it clearly states it's in Beta in the menu options. Not sure if it's also at Beta status on the SGS3 but honestly speaking, only a fool would rely solely on facial recognition.
...do you mean a fuckton of weed? Because if common sense ruled, you would know that PROPER off-site backup and insurance is the answer.
Yep, and if you're happy to keep the containers loaded on a trailer 24/7, this could work, otherwise, be prepared to purchase or rent an top loader or reach stacker to lift those bad boys back onto the trailer in time before you and the containers get cooked.
You're not going to see the potential of SPDY before we have environments (browsers, CPU and your internet speed) that can take full advantage of it. Only in the most recent version of Firefox did we see SPDY support.
What's the moral of all this? It's early days yet. Let's talk in a few years when the rest of us catch up.
C'mon, some people clearly run Excel in Wine!
Over 20 years ago each classroom at my Primary School (Australian for Elementary School) had an Apple II and by the time I went into High school, they had an Mac in each room.
20 years later, my 7 year old nephew is proficient at working his way around his little Netbook running Debian with lxde, typing emails to me after school and putting together his Primary School grade projects using LibreOffice Draw and he can do it with his eyes closed. He's a smart kid but he's not alone. Many kids these days can muster this without batting an eyelid. Don't underestimate the kids!
For those of you who think that it is unreasonable to have someone at that young age to own a laptop, you need to get out more and get with the times. I think it's a great thing if the school has the opportunity to enable every kid to have his or her own laptop. This kind of thing (along with proper parenting and supervision) is what will make the kids of today absolute geniuses compared to us old farts of yesterday.
good luck with that since most macs won't boot from an USB stick unless the USB stick has an EFI partition that the macbook likes. I have a MBP 5,1 5,2 and 8,2 and they all refuse to boot from USB, even with rEFIt.
If you want to see how Ubuntu looks at that res, omgubuntu.co.uk have some screenshots. Needless to say, it looks stupid!
Like other Asian countries, it is near impossible to find a job in your desired field unless you're transferred to China from some multinational company.
What makes it so hard is that China has pretty tough laws on employing foreigners, and those laws usually mean that you need to be working doing something that cannot be fulfilled by someone locally. Secondly, they need to pay you a higher minimum wage compared to Chinese Nationals. If I were you, I'd look at the teaching job as a means to an end for now and worry about finding something later once you're established. At least it's legal. And stay away from doing anything under the table, the consequences in China are a lot worse than somewhere like Australia or Canada.
Being someone who has migrated to Thailand, it's a huge step you're taking and the first couple of weeks are the hardest. Just stick to it and try stay motivated and remember to take everything with a grain of salt (or rice, so to speak!)
At least in Australia, many a Company is finally catching on to the benefits of FOSS and not just the positive financial aspects of it. Jobs are rolling in the desktop support market for Linux and it's great because it's an employees market at the moment. Companies here see that you can reduce 100 Windows licenses to 4 or 5 and run any win apps in a terminal session on their Linux machines. This makes it easier for support and easier on the wallet.
You're right though, Linux is inherently more secure than Windows given how permissions work, we know that. BSD is even better when using jails! And if something is contracted, it is going to be limited to your user, BUT even this can be wiped out with carelessness. Some examples are: Leaving ssh open with no pub/pri keys whilst not disabling root login (common in Debian/Ubuntu) on both workstations and servers or leaving the initial user in the sudoers group (common in Ubuntu) or Incorrectly set up samba shares and the list goes on.
My point is, even the most secure OS can be the most insecure OS when amateur hour is upon us.
He could be proving a point? I bet my bollocks to a barn dance that this was not done for any financial gain.
You could be even more ambitious at the Self Serve check-outs! (especially here in Australia)
If your camera has the capability to shoot raw, do it. I don't need to go into a huge essay as to raw vs JPEG but you'll get more out of your photos when tweaking them in Photoshop or light room. Also, store and index your photos properly. digital can be forever, don't rely on the cloud.
Yep, and I can say the same about OSX ripping off FreeBSD.
"The service will probably be ridiculously expensive to cover staff and equipment costs" I highly doubt this, especially with so many people who would be inclined to offer their time and services free of charge.
I second this. I moved 100+ pc's to Linux at my company and for the older pc's (p4's 512mb) I installed Xubuntu as opposed to Ubuntu 10.04LTS on the new core2 i3/5 pc's and Damn, Xubuntu is a hell of a distro. All of the random printers and scanners that some pc's are hooked up to work out of the box. It just works no matter what machine I install it on.