AMD, I am going to help you here. ARM is nice, and yes, Windows RT might possibly prove every analyst wrong and come out a winner, with a tremendous demand for ARM devices.
But, as a long time advocate of your processors, and (now) your video cards, I'd like to take a moment, and ask if you wouldn't mind listening to what I, personally, would like to see from you in...16 months. Here's what I'd like: you to fix your Bulldozer design / work with Microsoft & the open source community to patch their code / threading models into something that can take greater advantage of this new design; then I'd like you to make a consumer CPU with 12 or 16 or 24 cores. Don't listen to the nay-sayers who say there is no demand for it; they also said there was no demand for your Phenom 2 X6 processors, and you know how wrong they were. That's it, unless you want to make us all really happy, and design some PCI express boards with 7990 GPUs stuck on them (for OpenCl computing); think daughterboards.
And if you could lean on Asus to release a new Crosshair motherboard when the new chips are ready, as well as to convince them that the tech community wouldn't mind them making it so we can stick...I don't know...256-512 GB of RAM into them, and for them to get away from Creative / Realtek (just use Xonar, it crashes Steam less).
Honestly, I don't care if you take two Phenom 2 X6s, and laser weld them together. I want more cores, and full-fledged ones if I can get them. I am a Computer Scientist, I write my own programs...trust me, those extra cores will be used.
There's always room for one more in the field of Computer Science. However, I should warn you that however much you dislike management, you'll hate them more when you're a Computer Scientist. Office politics goes from trying to get another server to alleviate a bottleneck issue to trying to explain to people who think they're smarter than you (and might be, as they're getting paid more and know / do less) why what they're asking for is insane ("Let me run this by you; we're spending a lot of money on Office licenses...how long would it take you to program us an application that does the same thing? And then we can sell it for cheaper than Office, and cut them out of the market").
There is this kind of paranoia that the common folk have, in which IT keeps things from them, or otherwise lies to them. I guess it's because so many other departments are so heavily engaged in power-grabs / finding new ways to steal from their company, that they assume IT is rife with the same problems. Doubly so since they don't understand half of what we're saying (they think we're speaking in code when we say the SCSI RAID array has gone down), and compare us to the theologians and their antics of yore. It's like having a Chemist try to explain the synthesis of some esoteric compound to a TSA employee; you say the phrase 'methyl group,' and the TSA thinks that's a clever way of saying you're cooking up methamphetamine. I imagine any Chemists on/. reading this comment right now have their mouths open in horror at the thought of that, and with reason.
We could, of course, explain to them that we have direct access to the accounting department's database, and, if we were so motivated (and good with numbers / technology) could easily extract large, but unknown quantities of money from the company on a whim, but have no innate desire to do so. That we could cut a check to pay off this month's mortgage, and the company accountants / auditors could never hope to find out. We could, also, explain to them that while we do have access to their email boxes / network shares / etc., that they simply do not lead an interesting enough life to warrant reading said emails without their permission, nor do we care, outside of company policy, about the illicit MP3s / movies / porn they have stashed in their Backup / 'Sales Projections 2010' folder, unless it happens to be particularly good stuff, at which point we'll be making a 'backup' to our external US hard drive for later perusal, when in the company of some tissues and lotion. But then, we're dealing with people who think we turn off their network ports over some trifling office politics (they plugged into a dud port), or that we swap in broken hardware to drum up demand for our services. Or that the reason we don't swap out the company firewall for an Airport Extreme is that we're out of touch with technology / want to purposefully make their Apple product appear to be a purchasing mistake when it fails to renew / grab a new IP address after resuming from a Hibernation operating.
Instead, we get to hear brain-dead morons spout off bullsh*t about how 'teh cloud' is going to somehow 'fix' everything ever wrong with computers / technology, and how they won't be needing a tech department for much longer ("Think of the savings!"). The kind of people, mind you, who gleefully rub their hands together while smiling, and getting all too close for personal comfort, accuse you of being afraid of 'teh cloud,' and how you 'won't have a job / power / whatever' for much longer. The kind of people who engineer buying a laser printer, which going against the grain, costs more per page than an inkjet printer, because they believe that computers won't need drivers installed to print to it (it's special!); and who, realistically speaking, wanted the damn thing because they're so captivated with the idea of being able to walk up the printer, and print something wirelessly.
'Tis not that IT looks down on people, nor that we fault others for not knowing what we do. That's not why we're here. However, there are an awful lot of people out there that seem to enjoy digging 6 ft.deep holes, then look up and accuse us of looking down on them.
And the security folks need to get new jobs. If it isn't some sad attempt to drum up support for 'cyber-warfare,' then it's sowing paranoia about your local network administrator, and the need for someone 'who can be trusted' to lean over his shoulder; someone, mind you, who, on the official network hierarchy, does not currently have the right to look over said network admin's shoulder (your network administrator is your most trusted tech; the security guys, who only exist in some organizations, and who run audits, are NOT c
Hmm. In my case, I drop what I'm doing, and leave.
So far as I cam concerned, if I'm fired, the network / users are officially no longer my problem, as of that exact moment. I don't plot revenge; if I've been doing my job, and the firing is unjust, my absence will slowly deteriorate the network / machines into an unusable state (let the users solve their own driver installation problems, and good luck with the servers if / when the RAID goes down). If it is just, then I'm sure someone equally or more capable has / will be hired to maintain things.
You'd be surprised what happens when things are left to their natural tendencies (it usually takes 3 months before things have gotten bad enough to warrant a phone call).
Here's a question for you -> if you're in the Sales group for a company, and have spent years cultivating relationships with various clients. You're given a pink slip. A week later, you're working at a new company. Is it screwing over your old company if you contact those clients? What if you kept a copy of the Goldmine database from your former company?
And there in lies the problem. If I develop code, on my own time, that I reuse at the workplace, whose code is it? If I work for a new company, and the old company brings charges against me for the code I developed on my own time, with my own equipment, who wins? See, these kinds of polls are...inexact, to say the least. If someone has a pet interest in tarring IT, and drumming up a 'need' for security services to watch IT, for instance, could a poll, with vague phrasing, not confirm the need for said services if read one way, instead of another?
Depends. Supposedly, at the university I attended, Software Engineers took one course from every track, while Computer Scientists took 3 from two tracks (for a total of six). In my case, I took Operating Systems (threading + the linux kernel) and Machine Vision / Graphics (designing GUIs + implementing mathematical algorithms for drawing images...in Java *shudders*). I already had experience with OpenGl, so not having a class in it was not a major issue; although doing image work in Java nearly made me break down in (manly) tears.
But then, any capable Computer Scientist should be able to come up to speed with unfamiliar information fairly quickly, so the tracks aren't a major issue.
I do agree, however, that CS degrees need to be more...inclusive / deeper than they often times are. I find nothing more disturbing than a CS graduate who doesn't know, or appreciate, the difference between an Intel and an AMD processor. And they need to learn more IT, at least at the place I graduated from. But then, the material for many of the classes needs to be rewritten, but no one has the time or understanding how to actually improve it.
Computer Science was created by the foremost minds of yesteryear, with hideous amounts of resources, to solve problems that the human mind would find either tedious, impossible, or both.
To reiterate my point, it was created because the Physicists, Mathematicians, and Electrical Engineers of half a century ago had hit a brick wall, and needed something new to help themselves over it. I believe Einstein, Feynman, and friends were among those people, using computers to perform yield calculations (and borrowing a fair amount of silver for the wiring of it (since copper was in short supply)). I'd provide a direct link, but Google is being less than helpful.
So, yes, if you consider Einstein and Feynman to be not smart enough for a PhD in EE, sure, then Computer Science was created for the less intelligent. If you do think they are smart enough for a PhD in EE, then what does that say about your comment?
Computer Science is the melding of over seven different fields, with a lot of knowledge / wisdom unique to itself. It's not easy, which is why CS people, like EE and others (who are in equally demanding fields), are in such high demand, and the stuff you do in it is mind-bending to say the least. Trying to explain a data structure to a laymen is like trying to explain a Bose-Einstein condensate or thermodynamics to the same.
Which reminds me. Nothing makes the engineers that I've known happier than having a computer scientist on their team (so they don't have to write their own code). I remember the EEs from my university receiving special dispensation to take one day out of a given senior CS class and give a presentation on their current projects, in an attempt to lure / persuade some CS people to join their teams and help fix their code. And they showed us some of their code, during that presentation...I want you to imagine 30,000 lines of if / else statements in C++. Had I the time, I would have helped them (senior year at my university, with my chosen tracks and lifestyle, was a little 'rough').
About six months ago, I was overexerting myself removing 'MyCleanPC' from a customer's computer. Apparently, the client in question was unaware that it was a piece of malware, written by Russian programmers whose only experience with computer programming involved a copy of Visual Basic 3.0 and MS BOB, and was responsible for Windows crashing all the time.
After removing 'MyCleanPC,' my client's computer ran 1000 times faster than before, and their credit card numbers were no longer mysteriously getting stolen.
Indeed. It's truly frightening to see how people have become so weak-willed about protecting their own rights from illegal infringement.
And yet they decry the very actions their government makes when it realizes that the people are so spineless, that it can get away with anything.
"Well, we have freedom of assembly to protest those actions, except that we can only assemble in predesignated areas while being continually monitored by LEOs wearing full riot gear and wielding pump shotguns, while various intelligence agencies infiltrate the crowds and attempt to sway them into damaging property / rioting, so that the LEOs can rush in the 'save the populace from those animals;" we have the freedom to ask our government, very nicely, if it will please stop doing these terrible things, which depending on a judge's decision, will decide if the government writ large ever hears that request, and if it doesn't, well, we tried."
This from a populace whose ancestors fought off the dominant power of the time (England) to free themselves from ever having to worry about this bullsh*t, and enshrined within their new government a 'poison pill,' in the form of the 2nd Amendment, to ensure it would never happen again. That poison pill exists for the sake of the US government as much as it does for the people -> we've all seen what happens when 'creative destruction' is subverted, and the eldritch horrors that result because of it -> a sick government that cannot reform itself because it killed off those components that allow itself to evolve, and yet it cannot die. Think of it as immortality without the eternal youth part -> you get older and older, becoming more decrepit with each passing year, with your eyes / ears / mind failing, but nothing can release you from that locked state.
Actually, it would be better to explain how trivial it is to construct a projectile weapon. Anyone who understand high-school level physics can build one from scratch (what is the rocket equation?).
It's only intellectual laziness among certain groups of people who assume that limiting the purchase of said weapons from large manufacturers will somehow prevent people who really want a projectile weapon from acquiring / making one.
You can make a gun from some length of PVC tubing and a compressed air tank, which is nearly as deadly / accurate as one made from metal and uses gunpowder.
Well, look at it this way: >75% of their users have probably pirated something at some point. Not all of them are heavy usage bit torrent users, many of them are the younger sons and daughters of affluent people (lawyers, doctors, senators, judges, etc.) who just wanted to put a few MP3s on their iPod.
With that in mind, if 75% of their users end up getting subpeonaed, they run the risk of losing 75% of their current revenue (mom and dad cancel the service, which includes the TV service as well). Not to mention said affluent people suing Comcast because "they didn't say it was illegal, or they showed commercials that seemed to show kids downloading music (temptation, fraud...a lawyer would eventually find something that would stick, and make off with a few hundred million)." Comcast would only survive that if they had common carrier status ("We are not responsible for what our customers / users download, and we do not want that responsibility."), and the legislation that the various IP lobbyists keep introducing into Washington DC lately has been quietly working to chip away at that (the IP people think it would be dandy if they could remotely search someone's computers to check for pirated content, which, in time, would be widened so that others (LEOs, intelligence agencies, etc.) would be able to do the same; which is something that the IP people probably don't want, but can't see where their half-baked attempts to 'fix' things will logically lead; and abuse at the hands of overzealous agencies tends to stifle creativity, which leads to economic decay...again, it requires some heavy analysis, but anyone with a higher than mode IQ should be able to understand it). It's a liability issue, and one that the legal department of any decent corporation would attempt to mitigate (before it becomes a problem).
Indeed. Comcast defending the end user? Next they'll be uncapping their monthly quotas and unbundling channels.
Of course, they're probably doing it to ultimately head off a future problem, where copyright holders begin buying political support that mandates ISPs must put even more resources into policing the end user's traffic, resulting in decreased revenues and shareholder value. Seeing how SOPA / CIPA had the potential to ruin their business model, where I them, I'd begin defending end users as well. Got to get those precedents in there, before they really start losing that common carrier status (and God help them if they do...the lawsuits would be catastrophic).
Well, look at it from Ballmer's standpoint. He thinks that the desktop / laptop markets are going to disappear (he really, really believes the bullsh*t that comes out of Marketing's 'This Shiny Thing is the hotness!' butthole), and is trying to maneuver the company into a financially stable long term position.
The key here is that he really believes that the desktop / laptop markets are going to disappear. Feel free to take this *facepalm*, and apply it to your forehead.
Any idea what happened? I feel like the CEO, Chairman, or some other major player resigned, and the VP from Marketing is trying to play fast and loose with the customers ("Charisma is all we need folks! And when they are trying to return an item, try to upsell them on some new stuff!" I'm a libertarian, and I am thinking something is so wrong with NewEgg that I'd venture siccing a government agency on it as a solution. That's bad. Bad enough that the FBI could probably gather all the evidence they need just by walking into the main office, and asking to see the receptionist. Agent Bob -> "Are those...are those women being held against their will in that break room? One of them just put up a sign, which says 'Help me, they're holding me for ransom!'" Agent Smith -> "Hmm. I don't think I've ever had a case as easy as this. How about a friendly wager what we'll find in the warehouse?"
Indeed. I am typically a fan of NewEgg, having seen them fill a much needed spot after EggHead got bought out. I have had many pleasant dealings with them...and yet lately, something seems to have changed with the company. They aren't stocking the exotic pieces of hardware like they used to; they are shipping refurbished or used items to people who bought new goods; the goods received sometimes aren't the ones you ordered.
They say that it's all a mistake, that someone accidentally grabbed parts from the used bin instead of the new one, but it sounds like slime. It sounds like they are trying to get away with shipping used parts that have been shipped back as damaged or defective, pulling a Dell (there was a major issue, at one time, with Dell rotating server parts, or so I've read). Did they switch CEOs recently? WTF is going on with their warehouses? Did the staff unionize or something?
My options for getting parts from other places is somewhat limited, in that other sites typically are not all-inclusive for one-stop tech shopping like NewEgg has been. I suppose I could begin patronizing Amazon for more than books...still Amazon's site leaves a lot to be desired, in terms of finding tech parts.
Mobile phone companies -> "Let's sell customers new cell phones that eat through their data allotment in under a week." I mean, why upgrade their towers? It's not like bandwidth isn't going for knockdown prices, and it's not like they don't already have the equipment to lay a fiber trunk as thick as my leg that will never be completely saturated, even if every person in the US were to use that one particular tower, and all for the corporate equivalent of a few cents.
"But what if the tower's radio spectrum can't handle that number of users?" -> Put up some more towers in the trouble areas. Hell, you could be really evil, and put up a lot of towers with WiFi antennas / components, then force the phones to use 802.11n or something when using that particular tower (You're out in Nebraska? Use the regular transmission method; You're in NYC? Switch to 802.11n for data (or even voice) and use the nearest WiFi cellphone tower).
Checking Wikipedia, 802.11n is good for up to 820 feet, with 802.11y good up to 16,404 feet.
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AMD, I am going to help you here. ARM is nice, and yes, Windows RT might possibly prove every analyst wrong and come out a winner, with a tremendous demand for ARM devices.
But, as a long time advocate of your processors, and (now) your video cards, I'd like to take a moment, and ask if you wouldn't mind listening to what I, personally, would like to see from you in...16 months. Here's what I'd like: you to fix your Bulldozer design / work with Microsoft & the open source community to patch their code / threading models into something that can take greater advantage of this new design; then I'd like you to make a consumer CPU with 12 or 16 or 24 cores. Don't listen to the nay-sayers who say there is no demand for it; they also said there was no demand for your Phenom 2 X6 processors, and you know how wrong they were. That's it, unless you want to make us all really happy, and design some PCI express boards with 7990 GPUs stuck on them (for OpenCl computing); think daughterboards.
And if you could lean on Asus to release a new Crosshair motherboard when the new chips are ready, as well as to convince them that the tech community wouldn't mind them making it so we can stick...I don't know...256-512 GB of RAM into them, and for them to get away from Creative / Realtek (just use Xonar, it crashes Steam less).
Honestly, I don't care if you take two Phenom 2 X6s, and laser weld them together. I want more cores, and full-fledged ones if I can get them. I am a Computer Scientist, I write my own programs...trust me, those extra cores will be used.
Doctor Who.
There's always room for one more in the field of Computer Science. However, I should warn you that however much you dislike management, you'll hate them more when you're a Computer Scientist. Office politics goes from trying to get another server to alleviate a bottleneck issue to trying to explain to people who think they're smarter than you (and might be, as they're getting paid more and know / do less) why what they're asking for is insane ("Let me run this by you; we're spending a lot of money on Office licenses...how long would it take you to program us an application that does the same thing? And then we can sell it for cheaper than Office, and cut them out of the market").
I'll save you some effort. My IP address is 127.0.0.1. Come and get me! ;-)
There is this kind of paranoia that the common folk have, in which IT keeps things from them, or otherwise lies to them. I guess it's because so many other departments are so heavily engaged in power-grabs / finding new ways to steal from their company, that they assume IT is rife with the same problems. Doubly so since they don't understand half of what we're saying (they think we're speaking in code when we say the SCSI RAID array has gone down), and compare us to the theologians and their antics of yore. It's like having a Chemist try to explain the synthesis of some esoteric compound to a TSA employee; you say the phrase 'methyl group,' and the TSA thinks that's a clever way of saying you're cooking up methamphetamine. I imagine any Chemists on /. reading this comment right now have their mouths open in horror at the thought of that, and with reason.
We could, of course, explain to them that we have direct access to the accounting department's database, and, if we were so motivated (and good with numbers / technology) could easily extract large, but unknown quantities of money from the company on a whim, but have no innate desire to do so. That we could cut a check to pay off this month's mortgage, and the company accountants / auditors could never hope to find out. We could, also, explain to them that while we do have access to their email boxes / network shares / etc., that they simply do not lead an interesting enough life to warrant reading said emails without their permission, nor do we care, outside of company policy, about the illicit MP3s / movies / porn they have stashed in their Backup / 'Sales Projections 2010' folder, unless it happens to be particularly good stuff, at which point we'll be making a 'backup' to our external US hard drive for later perusal, when in the company of some tissues and lotion. But then, we're dealing with people who think we turn off their network ports over some trifling office politics (they plugged into a dud port), or that we swap in broken hardware to drum up demand for our services. Or that the reason we don't swap out the company firewall for an Airport Extreme is that we're out of touch with technology / want to purposefully make their Apple product appear to be a purchasing mistake when it fails to renew / grab a new IP address after resuming from a Hibernation operating.
Instead, we get to hear brain-dead morons spout off bullsh*t about how 'teh cloud' is going to somehow 'fix' everything ever wrong with computers / technology, and how they won't be needing a tech department for much longer ("Think of the savings!"). The kind of people, mind you, who gleefully rub their hands together while smiling, and getting all too close for personal comfort, accuse you of being afraid of 'teh cloud,' and how you 'won't have a job / power / whatever' for much longer. The kind of people who engineer buying a laser printer, which going against the grain, costs more per page than an inkjet printer, because they believe that computers won't need drivers installed to print to it (it's special!); and who, realistically speaking, wanted the damn thing because they're so captivated with the idea of being able to walk up the printer, and print something wirelessly.
'Tis not that IT looks down on people, nor that we fault others for not knowing what we do. That's not why we're here. However, there are an awful lot of people out there that seem to enjoy digging 6 ft.deep holes, then look up and accuse us of looking down on them.
And the security folks need to get new jobs. If it isn't some sad attempt to drum up support for 'cyber-warfare,' then it's sowing paranoia about your local network administrator, and the need for someone 'who can be trusted' to lean over his shoulder; someone, mind you, who, on the official network hierarchy, does not currently have the right to look over said network admin's shoulder (your network administrator is your most trusted tech; the security guys, who only exist in some organizations, and who run audits, are NOT c
Depends on the people.
Hmm. In my case, I drop what I'm doing, and leave.
So far as I cam concerned, if I'm fired, the network / users are officially no longer my problem, as of that exact moment. I don't plot revenge; if I've been doing my job, and the firing is unjust, my absence will slowly deteriorate the network / machines into an unusable state (let the users solve their own driver installation problems, and good luck with the servers if / when the RAID goes down). If it is just, then I'm sure someone equally or more capable has / will be hired to maintain things.
You'd be surprised what happens when things are left to their natural tendencies (it usually takes 3 months before things have gotten bad enough to warrant a phone call).
Here's a question for you -> if you're in the Sales group for a company, and have spent years cultivating relationships with various clients. You're given a pink slip. A week later, you're working at a new company. Is it screwing over your old company if you contact those clients? What if you kept a copy of the Goldmine database from your former company?
And there in lies the problem. If I develop code, on my own time, that I reuse at the workplace, whose code is it? If I work for a new company, and the old company brings charges against me for the code I developed on my own time, with my own equipment, who wins? See, these kinds of polls are...inexact, to say the least. If someone has a pet interest in tarring IT, and drumming up a 'need' for security services to watch IT, for instance, could a poll, with vague phrasing, not confirm the need for said services if read one way, instead of another?
Give them a $10,000 bonus severance, on the basis that they return / destroy all materials.
Treating people like thieves will occasionally nab a thief, but will also alienate / tempt the non-thief variety to seek revenge.
Depends. Supposedly, at the university I attended, Software Engineers took one course from every track, while Computer Scientists took 3 from two tracks (for a total of six). In my case, I took Operating Systems (threading + the linux kernel) and Machine Vision / Graphics (designing GUIs + implementing mathematical algorithms for drawing images...in Java *shudders*). I already had experience with OpenGl, so not having a class in it was not a major issue; although doing image work in Java nearly made me break down in (manly) tears.
But then, any capable Computer Scientist should be able to come up to speed with unfamiliar information fairly quickly, so the tracks aren't a major issue.
I do agree, however, that CS degrees need to be more...inclusive / deeper than they often times are. I find nothing more disturbing than a CS graduate who doesn't know, or appreciate, the difference between an Intel and an AMD processor. And they need to learn more IT, at least at the place I graduated from. But then, the material for many of the classes needs to be rewritten, but no one has the time or understanding how to actually improve it.
Computer Science was created by the foremost minds of yesteryear, with hideous amounts of resources, to solve problems that the human mind would find either tedious, impossible, or both.
To reiterate my point, it was created because the Physicists, Mathematicians, and Electrical Engineers of half a century ago had hit a brick wall, and needed something new to help themselves over it. I believe Einstein, Feynman, and friends were among those people, using computers to perform yield calculations (and borrowing a fair amount of silver for the wiring of it (since copper was in short supply)). I'd provide a direct link, but Google is being less than helpful.
So, yes, if you consider Einstein and Feynman to be not smart enough for a PhD in EE, sure, then Computer Science was created for the less intelligent. If you do think they are smart enough for a PhD in EE, then what does that say about your comment?
Computer Science is the melding of over seven different fields, with a lot of knowledge / wisdom unique to itself. It's not easy, which is why CS people, like EE and others (who are in equally demanding fields), are in such high demand, and the stuff you do in it is mind-bending to say the least. Trying to explain a data structure to a laymen is like trying to explain a Bose-Einstein condensate or thermodynamics to the same.
Which reminds me. Nothing makes the engineers that I've known happier than having a computer scientist on their team (so they don't have to write their own code). I remember the EEs from my university receiving special dispensation to take one day out of a given senior CS class and give a presentation on their current projects, in an attempt to lure / persuade some CS people to join their teams and help fix their code. And they showed us some of their code, during that presentation...I want you to imagine 30,000 lines of if / else statements in C++. Had I the time, I would have helped them (senior year at my university, with my chosen tracks and lifestyle, was a little 'rough').
About six months ago, I was overexerting myself removing 'MyCleanPC' from a customer's computer. Apparently, the client in question was unaware that it was a piece of malware, written by Russian programmers whose only experience with computer programming involved a copy of Visual Basic 3.0 and MS BOB, and was responsible for Windows crashing all the time.
After removing 'MyCleanPC,' my client's computer ran 1000 times faster than before, and their credit card numbers were no longer mysteriously getting stolen.
Hmm. If only we could get another Stargate SG-1 series. I think even the military could get behind that, as SG-1 did more for them than Top Gun.
They just need to remember that the campy humor SG-1 had is what kept the thing going as long as it did.
Indeed. It's truly frightening to see how people have become so weak-willed about protecting their own rights from illegal infringement.
And yet they decry the very actions their government makes when it realizes that the people are so spineless, that it can get away with anything.
"Well, we have freedom of assembly to protest those actions, except that we can only assemble in predesignated areas while being continually monitored by LEOs wearing full riot gear and wielding pump shotguns, while various intelligence agencies infiltrate the crowds and attempt to sway them into damaging property / rioting, so that the LEOs can rush in the 'save the populace from those animals;" we have the freedom to ask our government, very nicely, if it will please stop doing these terrible things, which depending on a judge's decision, will decide if the government writ large ever hears that request, and if it doesn't, well, we tried."
This from a populace whose ancestors fought off the dominant power of the time (England) to free themselves from ever having to worry about this bullsh*t, and enshrined within their new government a 'poison pill,' in the form of the 2nd Amendment, to ensure it would never happen again. That poison pill exists for the sake of the US government as much as it does for the people -> we've all seen what happens when 'creative destruction' is subverted, and the eldritch horrors that result because of it -> a sick government that cannot reform itself because it killed off those components that allow itself to evolve, and yet it cannot die. Think of it as immortality without the eternal youth part -> you get older and older, becoming more decrepit with each passing year, with your eyes / ears / mind failing, but nothing can release you from that locked state.
Actually, it would be better to explain how trivial it is to construct a projectile weapon. Anyone who understand high-school level physics can build one from scratch (what is the rocket equation?).
It's only intellectual laziness among certain groups of people who assume that limiting the purchase of said weapons from large manufacturers will somehow prevent people who really want a projectile weapon from acquiring / making one.
You can make a gun from some length of PVC tubing and a compressed air tank, which is nearly as deadly / accurate as one made from metal and uses gunpowder.
Well, look at it this way: >75% of their users have probably pirated something at some point. Not all of them are heavy usage bit torrent users, many of them are the younger sons and daughters of affluent people (lawyers, doctors, senators, judges, etc.) who just wanted to put a few MP3s on their iPod.
With that in mind, if 75% of their users end up getting subpeonaed, they run the risk of losing 75% of their current revenue (mom and dad cancel the service, which includes the TV service as well). Not to mention said affluent people suing Comcast because "they didn't say it was illegal, or they showed commercials that seemed to show kids downloading music (temptation, fraud...a lawyer would eventually find something that would stick, and make off with a few hundred million)." Comcast would only survive that if they had common carrier status ("We are not responsible for what our customers / users download, and we do not want that responsibility."), and the legislation that the various IP lobbyists keep introducing into Washington DC lately has been quietly working to chip away at that (the IP people think it would be dandy if they could remotely search someone's computers to check for pirated content, which, in time, would be widened so that others (LEOs, intelligence agencies, etc.) would be able to do the same; which is something that the IP people probably don't want, but can't see where their half-baked attempts to 'fix' things will logically lead; and abuse at the hands of overzealous agencies tends to stifle creativity, which leads to economic decay...again, it requires some heavy analysis, but anyone with a higher than mode IQ should be able to understand it). It's a liability issue, and one that the legal department of any decent corporation would attempt to mitigate (before it becomes a problem).
Indeed. Comcast defending the end user? Next they'll be uncapping their monthly quotas and unbundling channels.
Of course, they're probably doing it to ultimately head off a future problem, where copyright holders begin buying political support that mandates ISPs must put even more resources into policing the end user's traffic, resulting in decreased revenues and shareholder value. Seeing how SOPA / CIPA had the potential to ruin their business model, where I them, I'd begin defending end users as well. Got to get those precedents in there, before they really start losing that common carrier status (and God help them if they do...the lawsuits would be catastrophic).
Web 2.0 and 4G. Everything a server needs.
Well, look at it from Ballmer's standpoint. He thinks that the desktop / laptop markets are going to disappear (he really, really believes the bullsh*t that comes out of Marketing's 'This Shiny Thing is the hotness!' butthole), and is trying to maneuver the company into a financially stable long term position.
The key here is that he really believes that the desktop / laptop markets are going to disappear. Feel free to take this *facepalm*, and apply it to your forehead.
Typical masochist / sadist relationship.
Dude, it's NewEgg. They are making more than enough to employ teams of people to handle RMAs.
They aren't a small mom and pop shop; they're making a few billion in revenue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newegg
Granted, that's revenue, and not profit, but you can bet your bottom that they're making at least $100 million in yearly profit.
Ah, so it isn't me.
Any idea what happened? I feel like the CEO, Chairman, or some other major player resigned, and the VP from Marketing is trying to play fast and loose with the customers ("Charisma is all we need folks! And when they are trying to return an item, try to upsell them on some new stuff!" I'm a libertarian, and I am thinking something is so wrong with NewEgg that I'd venture siccing a government agency on it as a solution. That's bad. Bad enough that the FBI could probably gather all the evidence they need just by walking into the main office, and asking to see the receptionist. Agent Bob -> "Are those...are those women being held against their will in that break room? One of them just put up a sign, which says 'Help me, they're holding me for ransom!'" Agent Smith -> "Hmm. I don't think I've ever had a case as easy as this. How about a friendly wager what we'll find in the warehouse?"
Bah. Installing a new OS on a computer is not to be considered uncommon.
But more importantly, the hardware was defective. So, it has to be sent back to the manufacturer anyway.
Indeed. I am typically a fan of NewEgg, having seen them fill a much needed spot after EggHead got bought out. I have had many pleasant dealings with them...and yet lately, something seems to have changed with the company. They aren't stocking the exotic pieces of hardware like they used to; they are shipping refurbished or used items to people who bought new goods; the goods received sometimes aren't the ones you ordered.
They say that it's all a mistake, that someone accidentally grabbed parts from the used bin instead of the new one, but it sounds like slime. It sounds like they are trying to get away with shipping used parts that have been shipped back as damaged or defective, pulling a Dell (there was a major issue, at one time, with Dell rotating server parts, or so I've read). Did they switch CEOs recently? WTF is going on with their warehouses? Did the staff unionize or something?
My options for getting parts from other places is somewhat limited, in that other sites typically are not all-inclusive for one-stop tech shopping like NewEgg has been. I suppose I could begin patronizing Amazon for more than books...still Amazon's site leaves a lot to be desired, in terms of finding tech parts.
Sadly, I agree.
Mobile phone companies -> "Let's sell customers new cell phones that eat through their data allotment in under a week." I mean, why upgrade their towers? It's not like bandwidth isn't going for knockdown prices, and it's not like they don't already have the equipment to lay a fiber trunk as thick as my leg that will never be completely saturated, even if every person in the US were to use that one particular tower, and all for the corporate equivalent of a few cents.
"But what if the tower's radio spectrum can't handle that number of users?" -> Put up some more towers in the trouble areas. Hell, you could be really evil, and put up a lot of towers with WiFi antennas / components, then force the phones to use 802.11n or something when using that particular tower (You're out in Nebraska? Use the regular transmission method; You're in NYC? Switch to 802.11n for data (or even voice) and use the nearest WiFi cellphone tower).
Checking Wikipedia, 802.11n is good for up to 820 feet, with 802.11y good up to 16,404 feet.