What small ISPs? The only people who are "small" are resellers as nobody can access the last mile.
Exactly. This talk of increasing ISP competition is smoke and mirrors because the big ISPs have their oligopoly already, and in some areas regions it's a monopoly. They own all the lines and get paid no matter who sells the customer the service. But honestly, that's fine by me... they put in the investments, it's inefficient to have multiple competitors laying separate fiber lines in the same streets, so I'm fine with letting them continue to deliver that vital service and reap the profits. But, instead of discussing regulating the vital ISP infrastructure like the public utility it is, we're stuck debating with lobbyists and ideologues about giving the oligarchs even more control over the internet content they deliver. We live in weird times....
Anyone about 50 or older is also part of the cable-never generation. They grew up on broadcast TV. Cable TV didn't really make a splash until the 1980s. So it's only those of us who were born between about 1970 to 2000 who have only ever gotten our TV through a cord.
Or if you currently live in or grew up in a rural area.* I am in my mid-30's and I never had cable TV until I went off to college (1998), because my parent's house is on a gravel road in rural New England. It was only 3-4 years ago that cable TV and internet even became an option for my parents. In fact, my parents never got a "cord" to cut, because they only hooked up to cable internet, kept using the antenna for local stations like they always did, and my wife and I had a spare device registry under our Netflix account we set them up on.
* - excluding satellite/Dish Network, which is often the only option in rural areas for "cable-like" TV service
Terraria. Hours played: 1000. Price: lets say $14.99, except paid way less. That's $0.01/hour. One you realise that AAA titles are more like hollywood productions than games, you'll understand why they are a waste of money.
I have nearly the same amount of time in Rocket League and I think I paid $20 for it. Top notch graphics and game mechanics suitable for casual to international competition level play. They have regular updates and new game modes. There are microtransactions for lootboxes and new cars, but they are purely cosmetic items.
You have to consider that maybe it would be cheaper to train anyone to do their job which is probably the case.
The company I work for has a seller-doer business model, which is also very common throughout industries like mine. High level people have a lot of experience in their field, but just as importantly they know people and people know them, which is how they "sell" and bring in more work for the rest of the company. The best "sales" and majority of good [read: most profitable] projects occur not by conventional marketing and inane shmoozing, but organically because someone knows someone who is an expert in something. You cannot train new people to know other people, and cannot separate these high level people completely from the work that is done, or they lose touch with changes in the field and their ability to sell the services. Implementing systems that hinder their ability to do work on projects and maintain connections outside of the company is a non-starter.
No the cost of retraining them to use a new email clients doesn't exceed 100k...
Are you sure? I work for a private ~5,000 employee engineering firm and I work with senior executives who have trouble navigating computer functions I find basic. Those same executives bring in new projects and manage projects that generate literally hundreds of millions of dollars for the company. I think somewhere there is a line where retraining these people to save $100k-ish on a Windows license, which is the industry standard and works just fine, becomes penny-wise and dollar-foolish.
Outlook and exchange are the tools of the managerial class. So if it's a choice between learning a brand new email/calendar application or blowing 100k-ish on an exchange/windows license. They'll cling to outlook.
What if the $100k-ish for an exchange/windows license allowing people "cling" to Outlook is more efficient/cost-effective than retraining the hundreds or thousands of "managerial class" [public or private] employees to use a different system? For many many people just altering an interface is enough to confuse and make them more inefficient even if the system capabilities are the exactly the same. This is particularly true for older generations who might be the more experienced workers with other valuable skills to focus their time on.
About 99% of the people who break their machine "fiddle" with it and install random crapware or betas or tweaks get better FPS. If all you want is Windows, Steam/Battle.net/GOG and games with auto-updates enabled using release drivers and auto-detect settings I'd say any difference is absolutely marginal.
This is true of PCs today. Gaming PC lifespans are comparable to console generations without upgrading parts. The PC hardware upgrading treadmill was a thing 10+ years ago, but it's slowed and is no longer a problem, although the myth/feeling persists. I upgraded my PC almost a year ago, but my prior PC lasted ~6 years without any upgrades. Techies can dive deep into PC upgrades and tweaks if they want, but relatively low-tech users (like myself) can get many years out of a PC with just the auto-updates. Cost-wise the amount I spent on the PC was comparable to a new console + controllers, and Steam sales typically make PC games cheaper over the lifespan, if one is patient enough to buy games on sale, YRMV.
Platform-specific games aside, PC's fall short mainly in because they are not well-suited to playing on the living room TV+couch and not suited playing in the same room with others, which are drawbacks PCs always had, with good reason. There are options now to connect or stream a PC to your TV so you can sit on your living room couch, but it's a technology step too far for most people.* Even if one does connect the PC to the living room TV, most PC games are not designed for playing with friends in the same room, so it doesn't fix that drawback.
*-Note, no opinion on if the logistics of connecting a PC to a TV really are too difficult. I am only saying most people don't do it, for whatever their reasons.
And little more perspective... This incident in India is similar to the 1948 Donora Smog event in Donora, PA, where steel factory air pollution and an unusual weather event created a smog that over the town that sickened thousands and killed 20 people. It was one of the key events that triggered the clean air movement in the US and eventually led to the Clean Air Act. https://www.sites.google.com/s...
"Zoombies" and "Zombeavers" are actual movies about zombie animals in a zoo and beavers, respectively... Zomsquitoes doesn't sound too far out there in comparison.
The racist comments are terrible too... That and what you said are the reason no one with actual technical knowledge of a subject posts in Slashdot forums anymore.
However the real problem is local people need to value their local news enough to pay for it in one way or another.
And to do that, they need to value their local community enough to take part in it.
Sadly, a lot of us have fallen into the trap of ignoring the things we can change on our own street, and paying attention to things we cannot change thousands of miles away.
Yup... and on that note don't forget to vote in your local elections today;-) [assuming you are US citizen].
All fair points. However the real problem is local people need to value their local news enough to pay for it in one way or another. When they do the news providers will come back.
I found that a Master's degree helped me get jobs. Especially early on when I didn't have a ton of experience.
This is even more true when the economy is doing poorly and the job market is competitive, like it was for ~4-7 years after the 2007 recession (depending on the field). Students then were riding out the economic recovery period in grad school and improving their resume with an MS. The economy is doing relatively well again and STEM-field companies are hiring BS degrees, so having an MS in today's job market isn't as valuable.
The economy is doing relatively well now and employers are hiring STEM students with a bachelor's degree, so the expense of getting an MS doesn't make the person much more competitive in the job market. I work for an engineering company and have been involved in hiring new staff prior to and after the 2007 recession. Prior to 2007 when the economy was doing well, entry-level applicants and hires were mainly BS degrees. Post-recession entry-level applicants and hires were mainly MS degrees, because students were riding out the economic recovery period in grad school school and the MS degree made them more competitive in a tough job market. The economy has is doing well again and we're back to seeing mainly BS degree entry-level applicants and hires.
It's also possible that the increased number of foreign grad students despite the economy doing well is because if they want to work at an American company they may need the MS to compensate for a lack in communication soft-skills of native speakers (e.g. language, writing, the interview, etc.), and/or overcome some degree of unconscious [or overt] employer bias/racism.
Bluetooth audio uses lossy compression too. I bet that sounds REAL good to listen to a lossy compressed MP3 that is lossy compressed Bluetooth audio on top. And you can completely forget about doing anything with lossless audio.
You are right, of course... However, this is a smartphone with mobile gaming in mind. How important is audiophile quality sound with those sorts of applications? And there is still a USB-C option. There are places for high and low quality sound.
These arguments about smartphone sound quality are similar to when audiophiles fault exercise/sport type ear buds because they don't sound as good as studio-grade cups. They are designed for different purposes/needs and should be judged accordingly.
Vaporise regolith into a vapor of (mostly) glass and use that to pressurize the interior....Not hard, but not low energy either.
LOL... Not being low energy is what makes that idea very hard to do... on the moon no less. You'd have to mine raw materials and refine into a suitable fuel, or land a nuclear power plant on the moon.
And the irony is the high ticket prices are going to drive consumers to depend more heavily on online reviews before buying that expensive ticket. Hollywood is it's own worst enemy but they refuse to admit it and scapegoat everyone else.
Personally, the high price of movie tickets has driven me to only go to the theater for movies with special-effects that benefit from the big screen/sound. Dramas like Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea may be fantastic, but those types of movies have little to no benefit to theater prices over a RedBox rental at home. Hollywood will probably say I'm another bad audience member who doesn't value real movie art, but the free market reality is not every movie is worth the $15+ theater experience, and it's their fault for fixing movie prices like they do.
Certainly there's lag between technology in the lab and consumer retail, however if one steps back and looks at consumer battery [or other] technology over a relatively short 10 year period the individual improvements are incremental, but occur often/quickly that are significant overall. If people don't notice the changes it's because they aren't paying attention (but that's typical).
...this is definitely an abuse of the DMCA...PDP should counter sue...He definitely has the money and the law on his side. The only way the corporations learn to behave and respect the rights of others is when one of them gets a 10% haircut off the bottom line.
I think this is in the realm of potential abuse of DMCA rights, not definitely an abuse. There's a place in the law for artists/companies to act when they feel their work is being associated with ideas/speech that could lead to their physical or financial harm. So, I would like that lawsuit happen to see how it shakes out in court. It could be an important precedent for future similar cases.
I have a suspicion that the real goal was to go out in a spectacular "suicide", in order to create publicity. Nothing wrong with that, but be open about it.
I don't think the goal was publicity, but I'm sure they don't mind the publicity either. If you read the article at the end it mentions there was science to be done that could only be obtained [hopefully] by a suicidal plunge through the atmosphere. Previously the probe could never get close enough to Saturn to record its exact magnetic tilt or directly analyze the atmosphere, both of which they are hoping to get readings of from Cassini's final descent. With the limited fuel remaining the suicide run was probably the most reliable means to safely "dispose" of the probe which obtaining new scientific data they couldn't before. If it gets a little public attention too, all the better, but I don't think that was the main goal.
Furthermore, in my personal pessimistic opinion, I think saying this is a publicity stunt is giving the general public's interest in NASA/science way too much credit; and any positive PR made will fade long before there is any near-term benefit for NASA. The general public will forget about Cassini (if they paid attention at all) as soon as a Kardashian tweets something, or some athlete throws/kicks/carries a ball to score a point, or Putin says "boo!"...
The bigger issue... is nuclear waste management....completely falls apart if you consider the future costs of storing the nuclear waste over hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
Your assumption that a nuclear waste management solution today must be essentially eternally effective is incorrect. Realistically, we only need an interim solution to contain nuclear waste until a foreseeable time when technology, resources, and knowledge advances to handle the waste more effectively. There are similar waste management examples in use too.... for example lead based paint and asbestos in buildings is dangerous to occupants, but an acceptable remedy is sealing/encapsulating it in the building, with the assumption the hazardous materials will be properly handled during future renovation/demolition. Or placing contaminated fly ash below roadways. The stakes are higher with nuclear waste, but the concept is similar. We can still debate if the benefits of nuclear power today outweigh risks/costs later, but we don't have to have an eternal waste solution now.
A large part of the problem, though, is pet food feeding guidelines. If you feed a typical pet what the bag says, 90% of the time you'll get an obese pet. Heck, if you feed most active dogs what the bag says, you'll get a fat dog.
Yes. The feeding guidelines on dog food bags are typically double what an average dog actually needs, even for active dogs. The dog food companies have a financial incentive to try to make the serving size larger and there are no organizations watching them to verify their recommendations are legit (like the FDA for human food). And then some owners give lots of treats and table scraps to dogs but rarely track the amount, so it's no surprise many dogs get obese.
Slashdot Mirror
What small ISPs? The only people who are "small" are resellers as nobody can access the last mile.
Exactly. This talk of increasing ISP competition is smoke and mirrors because the big ISPs have their oligopoly already, and in some areas regions it's a monopoly. They own all the lines and get paid no matter who sells the customer the service. But honestly, that's fine by me... they put in the investments, it's inefficient to have multiple competitors laying separate fiber lines in the same streets, so I'm fine with letting them continue to deliver that vital service and reap the profits. But, instead of discussing regulating the vital ISP infrastructure like the public utility it is, we're stuck debating with lobbyists and ideologues about giving the oligarchs even more control over the internet content they deliver. We live in weird times....
Anyone about 50 or older is also part of the cable-never generation. They grew up on broadcast TV. Cable TV didn't really make a splash until the 1980s. So it's only those of us who were born between about 1970 to 2000 who have only ever gotten our TV through a cord.
Or if you currently live in or grew up in a rural area.* I am in my mid-30's and I never had cable TV until I went off to college (1998), because my parent's house is on a gravel road in rural New England. It was only 3-4 years ago that cable TV and internet even became an option for my parents. In fact, my parents never got a "cord" to cut, because they only hooked up to cable internet, kept using the antenna for local stations like they always did, and my wife and I had a spare device registry under our Netflix account we set them up on.
* - excluding satellite/Dish Network, which is often the only option in rural areas for "cable-like" TV service
Terraria. Hours played: 1000. Price: lets say $14.99, except paid way less. That's $0.01/hour. One you realise that AAA titles are more like hollywood productions than games, you'll understand why they are a waste of money.
I have nearly the same amount of time in Rocket League and I think I paid $20 for it. Top notch graphics and game mechanics suitable for casual to international competition level play. They have regular updates and new game modes. There are microtransactions for lootboxes and new cars, but they are purely cosmetic items.
Good point.
You have to consider that maybe it would be cheaper to train anyone to do their job which is probably the case.
The company I work for has a seller-doer business model, which is also very common throughout industries like mine. High level people have a lot of experience in their field, but just as importantly they know people and people know them, which is how they "sell" and bring in more work for the rest of the company. The best "sales" and majority of good [read: most profitable] projects occur not by conventional marketing and inane shmoozing, but organically because someone knows someone who is an expert in something. You cannot train new people to know other people, and cannot separate these high level people completely from the work that is done, or they lose touch with changes in the field and their ability to sell the services. Implementing systems that hinder their ability to do work on projects and maintain connections outside of the company is a non-starter.
No the cost of retraining them to use a new email clients doesn't exceed 100k...
Are you sure? I work for a private ~5,000 employee engineering firm and I work with senior executives who have trouble navigating computer functions I find basic. Those same executives bring in new projects and manage projects that generate literally hundreds of millions of dollars for the company. I think somewhere there is a line where retraining these people to save $100k-ish on a Windows license, which is the industry standard and works just fine, becomes penny-wise and dollar-foolish.
Private business has a lot of these people too, even technology-focused ones.
Outlook and exchange are the tools of the managerial class. So if it's a choice between learning a brand new email/calendar application or blowing 100k-ish on an exchange/windows license. They'll cling to outlook.
What if the $100k-ish for an exchange/windows license allowing people "cling" to Outlook is more efficient/cost-effective than retraining the hundreds or thousands of "managerial class" [public or private] employees to use a different system? For many many people just altering an interface is enough to confuse and make them more inefficient even if the system capabilities are the exactly the same. This is particularly true for older generations who might be the more experienced workers with other valuable skills to focus their time on.
About 99% of the people who break their machine "fiddle" with it and install random crapware or betas or tweaks get better FPS. If all you want is Windows, Steam/Battle.net/GOG and games with auto-updates enabled using release drivers and auto-detect settings I'd say any difference is absolutely marginal.
This is true of PCs today. Gaming PC lifespans are comparable to console generations without upgrading parts. The PC hardware upgrading treadmill was a thing 10+ years ago, but it's slowed and is no longer a problem, although the myth/feeling persists. I upgraded my PC almost a year ago, but my prior PC lasted ~6 years without any upgrades. Techies can dive deep into PC upgrades and tweaks if they want, but relatively low-tech users (like myself) can get many years out of a PC with just the auto-updates. Cost-wise the amount I spent on the PC was comparable to a new console + controllers, and Steam sales typically make PC games cheaper over the lifespan, if one is patient enough to buy games on sale, YRMV.
Platform-specific games aside, PC's fall short mainly in because they are not well-suited to playing on the living room TV+couch and not suited playing in the same room with others, which are drawbacks PCs always had, with good reason. There are options now to connect or stream a PC to your TV so you can sit on your living room couch, but it's a technology step too far for most people.* Even if one does connect the PC to the living room TV, most PC games are not designed for playing with friends in the same room, so it doesn't fix that drawback.
*-Note, no opinion on if the logistics of connecting a PC to a TV really are too difficult. I am only saying most people don't do it, for whatever their reasons.
And little more perspective... This incident in India is similar to the 1948 Donora Smog event in Donora, PA, where steel factory air pollution and an unusual weather event created a smog that over the town that sickened thousands and killed 20 people. It was one of the key events that triggered the clean air movement in the US and eventually led to the Clean Air Act. https://www.sites.google.com/s...
"Zoombies" and "Zombeavers" are actual movies about zombie animals in a zoo and beavers, respectively... Zomsquitoes doesn't sound too far out there in comparison.
The racist comments are terrible too... That and what you said are the reason no one with actual technical knowledge of a subject posts in Slashdot forums anymore.
However the real problem is local people need to value their local news enough to pay for it in one way or another.
And to do that, they need to value their local community enough to take part in it.
Sadly, a lot of us have fallen into the trap of ignoring the things we can change on our own street, and paying attention to things we cannot change thousands of miles away.
Yup... and on that note don't forget to vote in your local elections today ;-) [assuming you are US citizen].
All fair points. However the real problem is local people need to value their local news enough to pay for it in one way or another. When they do the news providers will come back.
I found that a Master's degree helped me get jobs. Especially early on when I didn't have a ton of experience.
This is even more true when the economy is doing poorly and the job market is competitive, like it was for ~4-7 years after the 2007 recession (depending on the field). Students then were riding out the economic recovery period in grad school and improving their resume with an MS. The economy is doing relatively well again and STEM-field companies are hiring BS degrees, so having an MS in today's job market isn't as valuable.
The economy is doing relatively well now and employers are hiring STEM students with a bachelor's degree, so the expense of getting an MS doesn't make the person much more competitive in the job market. I work for an engineering company and have been involved in hiring new staff prior to and after the 2007 recession. Prior to 2007 when the economy was doing well, entry-level applicants and hires were mainly BS degrees. Post-recession entry-level applicants and hires were mainly MS degrees, because students were riding out the economic recovery period in grad school school and the MS degree made them more competitive in a tough job market. The economy has is doing well again and we're back to seeing mainly BS degree entry-level applicants and hires.
It's also possible that the increased number of foreign grad students despite the economy doing well is because if they want to work at an American company they may need the MS to compensate for a lack in communication soft-skills of native speakers (e.g. language, writing, the interview, etc.), and/or overcome some degree of unconscious [or overt] employer bias/racism.
Bluetooth audio uses lossy compression too. I bet that sounds REAL good to listen to a lossy compressed MP3 that is lossy compressed Bluetooth audio on top. And you can completely forget about doing anything with lossless audio.
You are right, of course... However, this is a smartphone with mobile gaming in mind. How important is audiophile quality sound with those sorts of applications? And there is still a USB-C option. There are places for high and low quality sound.
These arguments about smartphone sound quality are similar to when audiophiles fault exercise/sport type ear buds because they don't sound as good as studio-grade cups. They are designed for different purposes/needs and should be judged accordingly.
Vaporise regolith into a vapor of (mostly) glass and use that to pressurize the interior....Not hard, but not low energy either.
LOL... Not being low energy is what makes that idea very hard to do... on the moon no less. You'd have to mine raw materials and refine into a suitable fuel, or land a nuclear power plant on the moon.
...are even lazy at hacking.
...and charging really high ticket prices...
is hostile to consumers.
^ There.
And the irony is the high ticket prices are going to drive consumers to depend more heavily on online reviews before buying that expensive ticket. Hollywood is it's own worst enemy but they refuse to admit it and scapegoat everyone else.
Personally, the high price of movie tickets has driven me to only go to the theater for movies with special-effects that benefit from the big screen/sound. Dramas like Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea may be fantastic, but those types of movies have little to no benefit to theater prices over a RedBox rental at home. Hollywood will probably say I'm another bad audience member who doesn't value real movie art, but the free market reality is not every movie is worth the $15+ theater experience, and it's their fault for fixing movie prices like they do.
Certainly there's lag between technology in the lab and consumer retail, however if one steps back and looks at consumer battery [or other] technology over a relatively short 10 year period the individual improvements are incremental, but occur often/quickly that are significant overall. If people don't notice the changes it's because they aren't paying attention (but that's typical).
...this is definitely an abuse of the DMCA...PDP should counter sue...He definitely has the money and the law on his side. The only way the corporations learn to behave and respect the rights of others is when one of them gets a 10% haircut off the bottom line.
I think this is in the realm of potential abuse of DMCA rights, not definitely an abuse. There's a place in the law for artists/companies to act when they feel their work is being associated with ideas/speech that could lead to their physical or financial harm. So, I would like that lawsuit happen to see how it shakes out in court. It could be an important precedent for future similar cases.
I have a suspicion that the real goal was to go out in a spectacular "suicide", in order to create publicity. Nothing wrong with that, but be open about it.
I don't think the goal was publicity, but I'm sure they don't mind the publicity either. If you read the article at the end it mentions there was science to be done that could only be obtained [hopefully] by a suicidal plunge through the atmosphere. Previously the probe could never get close enough to Saturn to record its exact magnetic tilt or directly analyze the atmosphere, both of which they are hoping to get readings of from Cassini's final descent. With the limited fuel remaining the suicide run was probably the most reliable means to safely "dispose" of the probe which obtaining new scientific data they couldn't before. If it gets a little public attention too, all the better, but I don't think that was the main goal.
Furthermore, in my personal pessimistic opinion, I think saying this is a publicity stunt is giving the general public's interest in NASA/science way too much credit; and any positive PR made will fade long before there is any near-term benefit for NASA. The general public will forget about Cassini (if they paid attention at all) as soon as a Kardashian tweets something, or some athlete throws/kicks/carries a ball to score a point, or Putin says "boo!"...
The bigger issue... is nuclear waste management. ...completely falls apart if you consider the future costs of storing the nuclear waste over hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
Your assumption that a nuclear waste management solution today must be essentially eternally effective is incorrect. Realistically, we only need an interim solution to contain nuclear waste until a foreseeable time when technology, resources, and knowledge advances to handle the waste more effectively. There are similar waste management examples in use too.... for example lead based paint and asbestos in buildings is dangerous to occupants, but an acceptable remedy is sealing/encapsulating it in the building, with the assumption the hazardous materials will be properly handled during future renovation/demolition. Or placing contaminated fly ash below roadways. The stakes are higher with nuclear waste, but the concept is similar. We can still debate if the benefits of nuclear power today outweigh risks/costs later, but we don't have to have an eternal waste solution now.
A large part of the problem, though, is pet food feeding guidelines. If you feed a typical pet what the bag says, 90% of the time you'll get an obese pet. Heck, if you feed most active dogs what the bag says, you'll get a fat dog.
Yes. The feeding guidelines on dog food bags are typically double what an average dog actually needs, even for active dogs. The dog food companies have a financial incentive to try to make the serving size larger and there are no organizations watching them to verify their recommendations are legit (like the FDA for human food). And then some owners give lots of treats and table scraps to dogs but rarely track the amount, so it's no surprise many dogs get obese.