It's not about a single person ditching Facebook and thus becoming immune to such ridiculous laws, but rather about the ubiquity of social media as the root cause of said ridiculous laws.
The only reason a boss wants someone's FB credentials is because damn-near everyone is on there, posting every potentially incriminating photo or video, and sharing it with their 850 friends (only 10 of whom they've ever actually met.) If we turn down the social media overload, it would turn down a prospective employers desire to access your social media.
If you want to ballpark the average dispersion in 3d space, be my guest. I might later today, depending on how work goes.
If anyone knows a way -- either on Linux or Windows 7 -- to record a list of SSIDs which are visible over time, I'll run it on my bus ride and see how many unique networks are visible during the entire route.
I'd actually be interested in this as well. Hopefully there's a tool that doesn't require a "Smartphone forensics" degree. I only see a few networks whenever I look... but that doesn't mean I'm not passing through the range of many more. I intentionally set my phone to *NOT* pop up and ask me about every stinkin' wireless network it sees. Joins the ones I know, ignores the rest, and I add new ones manually... so maybe I'm missing the real quantity.
I'd also be interested in some real world tests of viable WiFi range. Sure the manufacturer puts their specs on, or their best guess... but I'd wager that you get significantly reduced signal through 5 floors of apartment building (with microwaves, cordless phones, and everything else in the way) as opposed to 50 feet of open field. Go Go Science. Looks like I have something to do this weekend.
P.S. I was being fairly honest with the interpersonal skills comment, only slightly snarky. I provide an SSID at home that a few of my neighbors use. We're all friends, and I trust them not to do anything immensely scandalous... or if they do, well, it provides plausible dependability for anything that I might be doing on the "same IP." Seems like a similar arrangement could be made all the easier in an apartment setting. Split the bill among 3 rooms, the middle room actually gets the service and shares with those on either side of him.
Either you work in a very very crowded area, or San Diego is seriously slacking in the Wireless department.
There are exactly zero visible wireless signal available from my office. My company's SSID is not broadcast, and it's a fairly large campus, so no others can make the trip in. From my home, I can see a few, maybe 3 or 4 on a good day (including my own.) Perhaps people in my neighborhood just keep their SSIDs hidden.
Some more napkin math time! Assuming you're on flat ground (because it's been a LONG while since I took advanced geometry... trying to figure this out in 3 dimensions would make my brain hurt at this hour) And giving each WAP an average range of 100 feet to your phone... the access points would have to be arranged in a perfect grid at roughly 30 foot intervals (starting with the one you're sitting on top of) in order for you to see 36 from the central point.
(100 ft radius = 31,400 sqft circle) / 36 chunks = 875 sqfeet per chunk... sqrt... 29 and change.
Certainly not impossible, though if you think that you need a separate access point from someone less than 30m away, I think that you need to work on your interpersonal skills;) (for reference, 30 feet is 8 - 12 paces, depending on the size of your stride.)
Windows 8 desktop mode is reasonably user friendly, but getting to it is kludgey, and feels like something that could easily be broken by any patch or Service Pack. Plus it lacks a lot of the functionality of 7. Not the user experience you should expect from a $150 piece of SW with over two decades of fine tuning. I do like the fact that I "can buy everything I'll ever need from the seamlessly built-in app store." That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
For the record : I created an automated task to run at startup that launches explorer.exe. It works, but begs the question... why is the newest version of this OS just a weaker iteration of the last version, requiring duct tape to achieve reduced functionality? It also begs the question, why isn't there a simple "Right-Click > create new Live Tile" option at the ugly new start menu/screen.
Also, I'd like to point out that I really don't care if your 8 year old figured it out. Doesn't make legos a viable computing platform. You did touch on a point I made further down. When you ran into a problem with Linux, you easily found the solution because a lot of enthusiasts use Linux, and work through similar issues. I can't see that type of ecosystem developing for Windows8.
Some napkin math, assuming he purchased the phone in July 2008 when 3G went on sale, and it's been in use constantly for the last 57 months... and ball-parking 30 days/month... he hit 40 Wi-Fi points and 36 cell towers every day.
Even with the assumption that these are not unique access points (i.e. his home WiFi is counted 3 or 4 times a day, depending on how often he comes and goes)... that's still an insane number. If we change the time-frame to 2 years, roughly the average lifespan between upgrades, he's up to 95 WiFi points per day.
Some of the problems are, I think, recursive. There aren't a whole lot of Win8 enthusiasts, so a lot of potential enthusiasts are turned off at the lack of literature... so that means there are less Win8 enthusiasts to write said literature. And really, no one wants to pioneer a Microsoft product. If you're forced out of your comfort zone to learn a new OS, might as well be a free and useful OS.
As for Windows itself, do you still have to download a 3rd party tool, in order to make Desktop Icons for the new version? The "Live Tiles." Barring that, have they implemented a quick switch for "Boot to normal desktop," so that we can use our own desktop icons like we've has since Win 3? Or is that still a suite of 3rd party tools and manual GPO fixes, and ugly work-arounds?
Windows 8 Metro interface is hideous. Worthless as anything beyond a child's coloring book. Switching to a reasonable facsimile of a real desktop is an arduous and incomplete process, designed intentionally to be arduous and incomplete so that you are forced to learn their happy new coloring book methodology. If you honestly think that touch-interfaces are what's coming up for administrative functions, or really anything beyond angry-birds, light web browsing and content consumption... I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. And truth be told, the content consumption only works because it requires less interaction with the GUI. Press a few buttons, music/movie playing, and you're set for several hours. When the best function of an OS is "the times when you're not actually using the OS," you might have an issue.
A decent rant, but let me advocate the devil. The issue becomes one of dubious intent. Caveman didn't invent/discover/harness fire with the express purpose of burning down his neighbors cave, or long term dominance of all cavemankind. With companies like google or montsano, I'm not so certain. In fact, I would be genuinely surprised if someone high up their respective chains of command wasn't steering the engineers in certain directions for explicitly nefarious purposes.
I don't doubt the engineers themselves, for the most part. The guys who created google glass or genetically engineered plants were probably just excited to accomplish something so monumental. But their boss, or their boss's boss... somewhere up that ladder, someone is driving the creation of ultimate privacy invasion devices or crops that will spread naturally (like plants do) and give their parent company legal dominion over LITERALLY wherever the wind blows it. And that mistrust leads to mistrust of other big companies. If I can't trust a search engine or farmers - companies that seems so innocuous at first glance - how can we trust a company attempting to harness the power of the atom in a stable version of potential mushroom-cloud generating devastation. Not that we trust coal fired plants either, but "the devil you know," as the saying goes...
Especially when everything HAS become so politicized. Building a nuclear plant, wind turbines, etc is much less about the electrical power they generate, but rather the electoral and monetary power. NIMBYs will protest anything that might reduce their property value, even if only in the short term, and politicians won't risk upsetting the NIMBYs for fear that they might not get reelected to their 32nd consecutive term. Unless, of course, the company proposing the build has stuffed all the correct pockets with enough money to offset the potential losses.
I wouldn't mind more innovation, as you suggested... but right now, all mankind seems to be able to innovate are new and creative ways to get rich and fuck the other guy.
I've used it. Fairly extensively over the past few months, much to my chagrin
Both of my younger sisters were gifted with Windows 8 laptops last Christmas, and figuring out how to set them up has been harder than learning Linux. And I'm an MCSE. Not that the cert means all that much, but I've always leaned Windows-way for the majority of my computing needs, only delving into *nix for some back end stuff and my HTPC.
Up until now, even the bad versions of windows (ME, Vista, etc) were at least functional and somewhat familiar. I could use them, even if they crapped their pants every hour or two. With windows 8, this is no longer the case. Maybe windows 9 will rectify this, but by then it might be too late.
Would you feel safer if they'd done a few whiskey shots on lunch? Alcohol is legal, but some how you don't fear it.
Your either guilty of spreading FUD, or victim thereof. I'll assume victim, benefit of the doubt and all.
The correct answer would be to treat any newly legalized substances the same way we treat booze. If you want smoke out while relaxing at home after a long day at work, go right ahead. If you want to have a party with friends on a Saturday night, and use MDMA to enhance that, where's the issue? But as with alcohol, don't drive or go acting a'fool while under the effects.
Atari? VHS? Is it too much to ask for technology to march forward a bit?
This isn't the 80s anymore. We have the technology, we can rebu- no wait... we can emulate! I'm not a SW monkey, so maybe someone else can answer this : how hard is it to take an existing game and transpose it into emulator language? Or, for some outside the box thinking... what's stopping Sony from just finding some guy on the internet who wrote a Playstation emulator, and paying him a couple grand for the rights to use it? Say 50k. That's probably less than some Sony VP get paid for taking his morning dump, and the whole thing becomes a non-issue. Done and done.
The real problem is logistics. I have a limited number of ports on my television, and a limited amount of usable shelf space. If I'm required to have 2 or 3 systems per "tech tree," plus my HTPC, plus a cable box, I am going to run out of real estate in a big hurry. Not to mention the act of training my wife and kids: "To watch a DVD you want *that* playstation, it's on HDMI 3... no dear, Pretty Princess Pony plays on *that* system, it's connected to component 2... no no, that's the HTPC remote."
I can really only see it going 1 of 2 ways. Either the biggest number that's technically possible, carefully tracking all all cores, threads, and processors as separate, also counting double if the person has 2 windows open with Crood-related tasks in both... or the wildest-ass-guess the could muster. "We have 3000 computers, working for 3 years. There are 365.25 days in a year, 24 hours in a day... soooo 78.9M... eh, just round up.
The biggest difference at this point is precedent and legality.
Other networks are doing everything they can to make it illegal for you to break contract and take your phone with you. T-Mobile's stance, with this latest announcement, seems to be a much more reasonable "It's your phone, do what you want," (with the obvious CDMA/GSM limitations.)
Pot smoke is significantly less carcinogenic than tobacco smoke. In fact, lab studies have shown THC to inhibit carcinogens in mice, while nicotine drastically increases carcinogens.
Secondly, it's a matter of cost to reward. If I can pay $5 for a joint (or just grow my own), compared to billions spent on research and hundreds levied against my insurance company for a few pills that have the same effect but with less drowsiness... I'd pick the joint any day. Shouldn't we at least have that choice, or is the billion dollar pharma industry the only group that knows what's good for me?
The 90s dotcom bubble was run by nerds, with tons of big ideas for what the Internet should be, but little business sense, and even less long-term work ethic. They were given boat-loads of cash, with little to no strategy for long-term success. The really good ideas stuck around (see Google, Amazon, eBay) while most fell by the wayside.
The current bubble seems more like an intentional inflation, trying to catch the same lightning-in-a-bottle. Except this time it's being run by more business minds, less nerds. People who were perhaps old enough in the late 80s to grasp Gordon Gecko's "Greed is good" mantra, but not old enough in the 90s to catch the dotcom wave. They want to recreate that magic and just pocket all the free money. Thus your observation that the "heartwood has given out." There are no eBays or Amazons this generation, just faux-photo filters and Pissed-off Poultry.
The main reason it's illegal is big pharma. Those doctors you mention work for companies that spend billions on inventing new ailments that require expensive medication. Never mind the litany of side effects. (May cause anal leakage, suicidal thoughts, hives or death)
How many medical conditions could be either treated, or at least managed, with an occasional blunt. Arthritis? This will help ease the pain. Antisocial? Have a it of this and you'll start talking people's ears off. Depressed? Replaced with a case of the giggles. All for cheap, and something you can grow in your backyard.
If nothing else, it's significantly less dangerous than our current recreational substance of choice : alcohol.
I can not agree more. In fact, THAT should be the subject of TFS/TFA, not general placebo use.
The fact that doctors will occasionally prescribe sugar pills to check psychosomatic issues is unsurprising. Hell, I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case... but the fact that they're putting antibiotics out into the wild, willy-nilly, is alarming. Even more alarming is their target audience here. Patients who require placebos are likely patients who do not trust their doctor, or do not follow instructions very well. Certainly not the crowd to be pumping half-full of unnecessary antibiotics
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that it's occurring is not a surprise to anyone.
What we have here is a full on name and shame. Now things get interesting.
I'd even take it a step farther : I hope that we never find out how they got their hands on this data, whoever they are.
Just so long as they keep doing good works, I for one hope they stay anonym- ... *ahem* under the radar
I dare say you missed the point, AC old chap.
It's not about a single person ditching Facebook and thus becoming immune to such ridiculous laws, but rather about the ubiquity of social media as the root cause of said ridiculous laws.
The only reason a boss wants someone's FB credentials is because damn-near everyone is on there, posting every potentially incriminating photo or video, and sharing it with their 850 friends (only 10 of whom they've ever actually met.) If we turn down the social media overload, it would turn down a prospective employers desire to access your social media.
If anyone knows a way -- either on Linux or Windows 7 -- to record a list of SSIDs which are visible over time, I'll run it on my bus ride and see how many unique networks are visible during the entire route.
I'd actually be interested in this as well. Hopefully there's a tool that doesn't require a "Smartphone forensics" degree. I only see a few networks whenever I look ... but that doesn't mean I'm not passing through the range of many more. I intentionally set my phone to *NOT* pop up and ask me about every stinkin' wireless network it sees. Joins the ones I know, ignores the rest, and I add new ones manually ... so maybe I'm missing the real quantity.
I'd also be interested in some real world tests of viable WiFi range. Sure the manufacturer puts their specs on, or their best guess ... but I'd wager that you get significantly reduced signal through 5 floors of apartment building (with microwaves, cordless phones, and everything else in the way) as opposed to 50 feet of open field. Go Go Science. Looks like I have something to do this weekend.
P.S. I was being fairly honest with the interpersonal skills comment, only slightly snarky. I provide an SSID at home that a few of my neighbors use. We're all friends, and I trust them not to do anything immensely scandalous... or if they do, well, it provides plausible dependability for anything that I might be doing on the "same IP." Seems like a similar arrangement could be made all the easier in an apartment setting. Split the bill among 3 rooms, the middle room actually gets the service and shares with those on either side of him.
Either you work in a very very crowded area, or San Diego is seriously slacking in the Wireless department.
There are exactly zero visible wireless signal available from my office. My company's SSID is not broadcast, and it's a fairly large campus, so no others can make the trip in. From my home, I can see a few, maybe 3 or 4 on a good day (including my own.) Perhaps people in my neighborhood just keep their SSIDs hidden.
Some more napkin math time! Assuming you're on flat ground (because it's been a LONG while since I took advanced geometry ... trying to figure this out in 3 dimensions would make my brain hurt at this hour) And giving each WAP an average range of 100 feet to your phone ... the access points would have to be arranged in a perfect grid at roughly 30 foot intervals (starting with the one you're sitting on top of) in order for you to see 36 from the central point.
(100 ft radius = 31,400 sqft circle) / 36 chunks = 875 sqfeet per chunk ... sqrt ... 29 and change.
Certainly not impossible, though if you think that you need a separate access point from someone less than 30m away, I think that you need to work on your interpersonal skills ;) (for reference, 30 feet is 8 - 12 paces, depending on the size of your stride.)
Windows 8 desktop mode is reasonably user friendly, but getting to it is kludgey, and feels like something that could easily be broken by any patch or Service Pack. Plus it lacks a lot of the functionality of 7. Not the user experience you should expect from a $150 piece of SW with over two decades of fine tuning. I do like the fact that I "can buy everything I'll ever need from the seamlessly built-in app store." That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
For the record : I created an automated task to run at startup that launches explorer.exe. It works, but begs the question ... why is the newest version of this OS just a weaker iteration of the last version, requiring duct tape to achieve reduced functionality? It also begs the question, why isn't there a simple "Right-Click > create new Live Tile" option at the ugly new start menu/screen.
Also, I'd like to point out that I really don't care if your 8 year old figured it out. Doesn't make legos a viable computing platform. You did touch on a point I made further down. When you ran into a problem with Linux, you easily found the solution because a lot of enthusiasts use Linux, and work through similar issues. I can't see that type of ecosystem developing for Windows8.
Some napkin math, assuming he purchased the phone in July 2008 when 3G went on sale, and it's been in use constantly for the last 57 months ... and ball-parking 30 days/month ... he hit 40 Wi-Fi points and 36 cell towers every day.
Even with the assumption that these are not unique access points (i.e. his home WiFi is counted 3 or 4 times a day, depending on how often he comes and goes) ... that's still an insane number. If we change the time-frame to 2 years, roughly the average lifespan between upgrades, he's up to 95 WiFi points per day.
Quite the busy bee.
Some of the problems are, I think, recursive. There aren't a whole lot of Win8 enthusiasts, so a lot of potential enthusiasts are turned off at the lack of literature ... so that means there are less Win8 enthusiasts to write said literature. And really, no one wants to pioneer a Microsoft product. If you're forced out of your comfort zone to learn a new OS, might as well be a free and useful OS.
As for Windows itself, do you still have to download a 3rd party tool, in order to make Desktop Icons for the new version? The "Live Tiles." Barring that, have they implemented a quick switch for "Boot to normal desktop," so that we can use our own desktop icons like we've has since Win 3? Or is that still a suite of 3rd party tools and manual GPO fixes, and ugly work-arounds?
Windows 8 Metro interface is hideous. Worthless as anything beyond a child's coloring book. Switching to a reasonable facsimile of a real desktop is an arduous and incomplete process, designed intentionally to be arduous and incomplete so that you are forced to learn their happy new coloring book methodology. If you honestly think that touch-interfaces are what's coming up for administrative functions, or really anything beyond angry-birds, light web browsing and content consumption ... I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. And truth be told, the content consumption only works because it requires less interaction with the GUI. Press a few buttons, music/movie playing, and you're set for several hours. When the best function of an OS is "the times when you're not actually using the OS," you might have an issue.
A decent rant, but let me advocate the devil. The issue becomes one of dubious intent. Caveman didn't invent/discover/harness fire with the express purpose of burning down his neighbors cave, or long term dominance of all cavemankind. With companies like google or montsano, I'm not so certain. In fact, I would be genuinely surprised if someone high up their respective chains of command wasn't steering the engineers in certain directions for explicitly nefarious purposes.
I don't doubt the engineers themselves, for the most part. The guys who created google glass or genetically engineered plants were probably just excited to accomplish something so monumental. But their boss, or their boss's boss ... somewhere up that ladder, someone is driving the creation of ultimate privacy invasion devices or crops that will spread naturally (like plants do) and give their parent company legal dominion over LITERALLY wherever the wind blows it. And that mistrust leads to mistrust of other big companies. If I can't trust a search engine or farmers - companies that seems so innocuous at first glance - how can we trust a company attempting to harness the power of the atom in a stable version of potential mushroom-cloud generating devastation. Not that we trust coal fired plants either, but "the devil you know," as the saying goes ...
Especially when everything HAS become so politicized. Building a nuclear plant, wind turbines, etc is much less about the electrical power they generate, but rather the electoral and monetary power. NIMBYs will protest anything that might reduce their property value, even if only in the short term, and politicians won't risk upsetting the NIMBYs for fear that they might not get reelected to their 32nd consecutive term. Unless, of course, the company proposing the build has stuffed all the correct pockets with enough money to offset the potential losses.
I wouldn't mind more innovation, as you suggested ... but right now, all mankind seems to be able to innovate are new and creative ways to get rich and fuck the other guy.
I've used it. Fairly extensively over the past few months, much to my chagrin
Both of my younger sisters were gifted with Windows 8 laptops last Christmas, and figuring out how to set them up has been harder than learning Linux. And I'm an MCSE. Not that the cert means all that much, but I've always leaned Windows-way for the majority of my computing needs, only delving into *nix for some back end stuff and my HTPC.
Up until now, even the bad versions of windows (ME, Vista, etc) were at least functional and somewhat familiar. I could use them, even if they crapped their pants every hour or two. With windows 8, this is no longer the case. Maybe windows 9 will rectify this, but by then it might be too late.
Would you feel safer if they'd done a few whiskey shots on lunch? Alcohol is legal, but some how you don't fear it.
Your either guilty of spreading FUD, or victim thereof. I'll assume victim, benefit of the doubt and all.
The correct answer would be to treat any newly legalized substances the same way we treat booze. If you want smoke out while relaxing at home after a long day at work, go right ahead. If you want to have a party with friends on a Saturday night, and use MDMA to enhance that, where's the issue? But as with alcohol, don't drive or go acting a'fool while under the effects.
Simple.
Regulation is better than prohibition.
Baby steps.
Atari? VHS? Is it too much to ask for technology to march forward a bit?
This isn't the 80s anymore. We have the technology, we can rebu- no wait ... we can emulate! I'm not a SW monkey, so maybe someone else can answer this : how hard is it to take an existing game and transpose it into emulator language? Or, for some outside the box thinking... what's stopping Sony from just finding some guy on the internet who wrote a Playstation emulator, and paying him a couple grand for the rights to use it? Say 50k. That's probably less than some Sony VP get paid for taking his morning dump, and the whole thing becomes a non-issue. Done and done.
The real problem is logistics. I have a limited number of ports on my television, and a limited amount of usable shelf space. If I'm required to have 2 or 3 systems per "tech tree," plus my HTPC, plus a cable box, I am going to run out of real estate in a big hurry. Not to mention the act of training my wife and kids: "To watch a DVD you want *that* playstation, it's on HDMI 3 ... no dear, Pretty Princess Pony plays on *that* system, it's connected to component 2... no no, that's the HTPC remote."
...
I was trying for +Funny... ended up +Insightful.
That's a bit +Depressing
huh ... and all this time I thought agnostics were just atheists with commitment issues.
Perhaps it has something to do with a vocal minority of atheists just being agnostics with anger management issues.
I can really only see it going 1 of 2 ways. Either the biggest number that's technically possible, carefully tracking all all cores, threads, and processors as separate, also counting double if the person has 2 windows open with Crood-related tasks in both ... or the wildest-ass-guess the could muster. "We have 3000 computers, working for 3 years. There are 365.25 days in a year, 24 hours in a day ... soooo 78.9M ... eh, just round up.
You seem to have picked up an extra R along the way.
It says compute-hours, not computer-hours
Can decide if this person should get down-voted for being an idiot, or up-voted to ensure the idiocy is on display and thoroughly mocked.
The biggest difference at this point is precedent and legality.
Other networks are doing everything they can to make it illegal for you to break contract and take your phone with you. T-Mobile's stance, with this latest announcement, seems to be a much more reasonable "It's your phone, do what you want," (with the obvious CDMA/GSM limitations.)
Pot smoke is significantly less carcinogenic than tobacco smoke. In fact, lab studies have shown THC to inhibit carcinogens in mice, while nicotine drastically increases carcinogens.
Secondly, it's a matter of cost to reward. If I can pay $5 for a joint (or just grow my own), compared to billions spent on research and hundreds levied against my insurance company for a few pills that have the same effect but with less drowsiness... I'd pick the joint any day. Shouldn't we at least have that choice, or is the billion dollar pharma industry the only group that knows what's good for me?
The 90s dotcom bubble was run by nerds, with tons of big ideas for what the Internet should be, but little business sense, and even less long-term work ethic. They were given boat-loads of cash, with little to no strategy for long-term success. The really good ideas stuck around (see Google, Amazon, eBay) while most fell by the wayside.
The current bubble seems more like an intentional inflation, trying to catch the same lightning-in-a-bottle. Except this time it's being run by more business minds, less nerds. People who were perhaps old enough in the late 80s to grasp Gordon Gecko's "Greed is good" mantra, but not old enough in the 90s to catch the dotcom wave. They want to recreate that magic and just pocket all the free money. Thus your observation that the "heartwood has given out." There are no eBays or Amazons this generation, just faux-photo filters and Pissed-off Poultry.
You're close, but not quite there.
The main reason it's illegal is big pharma. Those doctors you mention work for companies that spend billions on inventing new ailments that require expensive medication. Never mind the litany of side effects. (May cause anal leakage, suicidal thoughts, hives or death)
How many medical conditions could be either treated, or at least managed, with an occasional blunt. Arthritis? This will help ease the pain. Antisocial? Have a it of this and you'll start talking people's ears off. Depressed? Replaced with a case of the giggles. All for cheap, and something you can grow in your backyard.
If nothing else, it's significantly less dangerous than our current recreational substance of choice : alcohol.
We still like XKCD around here, right?
I can not agree more. In fact, THAT should be the subject of TFS/TFA, not general placebo use.
The fact that doctors will occasionally prescribe sugar pills to check psychosomatic issues is unsurprising. Hell, I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case... but the fact that they're putting antibiotics out into the wild, willy-nilly, is alarming. Even more alarming is their target audience here. Patients who require placebos are likely patients who do not trust their doctor, or do not follow instructions very well. Certainly not the crowd to be pumping half-full of unnecessary antibiotics