Excel still assumes you're entering text instead of numbers! It sucks to type "123+456" and the output is simply the string. Why assume a *spreadsheet* is used for text if you enter numbers?
It's not the spreadsheet way, you put 123 in one cell, 456 in a second cell and the formula in a third. If you just want the answer you might as well use the calculator. Also it's definitively not interpreted as text, if you've ever exported codes with leading zeroes you'd know that. It's Excel's attempt at being automagic, personally I wish they'd just use the text as-is and had a magic wand icon to try auto-interpreting everything.
I don't know about that - perhaps a cell I need to do a quick one-off calculation just because of the way the data is presented.
Of course, I know how to use spreadsheets, so 123+456 means I enter "=123+456" to turn it into a formula and have the spreadsheet do the calculation for me.
I came to this when I needed to do one-off calculations in a cell of two constants - basically the total amount of money, minus ONE of the two taxes paid on it. I needed to calculate it, and I could whip out the calculator, but it seemed stupid to do so when I was already using what was a pretty powerful calculator already. The rest of it was a spreadsheet so it made sense to not whip out the OS calculator and do my calculation, then copy the result into the spreadsheet, but just have the spreadsheet do it for me. It was already calculating other stuff anyhow.
Anyhow, I suppose Excel was probably better on Mac - to get around the 640K limit you had all sorts of tricks playing around with EMS in DOS. After all, the LIM team to get around the 640k limit was composed of engineers from Lotus, Intel and Microsoft. Once Windows happened with flat memory, such nasty hacks could be eliminated.
VW's patented setup sounds far less ideal than the well understood SCR/DEF setup everyone else uses. 20% of max power to burn out the NOx trap? No way in hell would I want that!
Most car engines run around that power - it's why car engines are small and powerful compared to many other engines. Think aviation and truck engines - sure those engines are big, but they also run at higher power settings for longer periods of time. Aviation engines especially - they're extremely big for the power. (160 cu. in., or over 5L, and it produces a mere... 140hp?).
The trick is, that plane engine has to develop that 140hp or a sizable fraction thereof (50-80% in cruise) continuously. The truck engine has to develop it for periods at a time, but never continuously. The car engine has to develop it for maybe a few seconds every trip.
The least power is used when cruising down the highway - the engine is basically developing very little power (and that's why highway mileage is generally better). Start and stop traffic is bursty - you need some power to get the car moving, but when you're stopped, the engine is developing hardly any power at all.
When you tow, you need more power to keep the towed vehicle moving, but that's why tow vehicles have bigger engines.
So for a small car, the 20% might not be as big a problem as you think. A little running about the city in traffic, and highway for the commute and those 20% limits might not be noticeable unless it happens when you need it (e.g., accelerating on an onramp, overtaking, etc). And if it's short, you might not even notice at a traffic light.
Anyhow, I think the problem was VW didn't want to use an AdBlue style system. Diesel particulates are also less of an issue now that both the US and Canada have switched to low-sulfur diesel - sulfur being one of the main problems with particulates. It's also why today a diesel engine runs a lot cleaner. Even old diesels are cleaner because of the switch. Canada switched first, which limited what kind of car you could drive in the US since there were very few with low-sulfur. But since it's mandatory now, it's a lot easier.
That is incorrect. Just last night I wiped a Win10 system to reinstall after upgrading. Got the key using produkey first. During install without an MS account, it required me to enter the key. I've done this multiple times and it always asks for the key when installing without an MS account. Even if you are correct, you are informing people to skip an easy yet possibly critical step. Get the key before wiping the drive.
If it's an OEM Windows 7/8/8.1 install, you don't need to handle the key at all.
FIRST - you MUST upgrade from existing Windows to Windows 10. Either use the Media Creation Tool to do create the image and upgrade in place, or the usual upgrader. I used Media Creation Tool as the upgrader never worked. Important - Make sure you check 'Upgrade this computer". You existing Windows must be activtaed.
Second - when Windows 10 is finished installing, make sure it's still activated. Doesn't need a MIcrosoft account or anything - what happens is during setup, your key is sent to Microsoft to be associated with Windows 10.
Third - clean install. Using the MCT, boot off the disc or USB key that was created. When it asks for the key, click the easily-missed SKIP text on the bottom right. It's super-easy to miss. Then when Windows 10 is installed and it again asks to be activated, make sure you click SKIP. It asks twice. Windows will go online and activate itself the second time.
It is VITAL to be online when doing the upgrade install because that's when your Windows 10 upgrade is linked.
It's also important to click SKIP twice.
I've clean installed Windows without having to deal without entering keys. It's a bit tedious since you're installing Windows twice, but it works - the first time you must upgrade in place.
There was a thriving market for web browsers which was developing in the early days of the web. Netscape (founded by the folks who made NCSA Mosaic) originally cost you $40. Then Microsoft pulled the rug out from that market by bundling IE for free - effectively using profit from Windows to subsidize development of their own browser and preventing any other browser maker from being able to financially compete with it. That's why Microsoft got tagged for anti-trust violations.
That also ignores another browser company destroyed by Microsoft.
Spyglass.
Microsoft needed a browser right quick, and they licensed it from Spyglass, Inc., one of the smaller vendors out there. Thinking it was a good deal, they licensed it on a percentage basis - however much money Microsoft made on their browser, Spyglass would be paid a portion.
So Microsoft gave away IE, which meant Spyglass was owed nothing. So not only did they go after Netscape, they destroyed the company who provided them the base also.
Back to the topic - the problem isn't "bundling", it's home screen advantage. We saw it first from other areas - if you want to ship Google apps, Google apps must be on the home screen. Alternatives may not be shown there.
In other words, if you wanted to ship Nokia's HERE maps, you couldn't put it on the home screen - Google Maps must be there, and your alternative map program is not allowed to be on the home screen at all. (I mention HERE maps because well, it happened last year - one OEM wanted to replace Google Maps with it, but Google explicitly said no - Google Maps must be front and center).
There are plenty of alternatives - Samsung has basically their own version of every app Google h as. But per the licensing agreement, Samsung's apps have to hide in the App Launcher and not be shown on the home screen.
A visual demonstration of the sillyness and pointlessness of emoji.
I've never used one. Why would I? I have words and, on occasion, an old-fashioned ascii smiley:>
Which is true, if you're limiting yourself to Western European languages. If you limit yourself to English, you can get rid of silly accented characters too.
The reason for the Emoji entering our lives really stems from Apple trying to be universal. The history of Emoji is that it comes from Japan, as Japanese carriers sought to differentiate themselves by adding little pictograms. Of course, Apple had to bring their iPhone to Japan, which mean Apple needed to support Emoji as well (and for a little while, the Emoji keyboard was Japan-only)
Emoji really entered our space when it was discovered that we can't represent Japanese text with Emoji in Unicode. It was not possible to convert because Unicode was lacking the Emoji codepoints to which you could convert to.
Which is why Unicode added a pile of Emoji - because the goal of Unicode is to be able to universally represent text - and Emoji was text that couldn't be converted to or from Unicode.
walked out when I realised it wasn't filmed on Mars.
Hush now. Ridley Scott has secret access to the soundstage they were using to film Mars, and photos of Mars and other things.
It's close to the Moon soundstage.
I left this comment when I realized you couldn't have walked out on an unreleased movie.
Actually there were advance screenings at the TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). Ars Techinca was invited to the screening, and they did some followup articles as well.
TFA is confused and has almost no information. I work in this area, and even I don't know what it is on about.
There are a few different systems for reading smart meters. They are all proprietary to some degree. Some use mobile networks, some use Zigbee, some use other proprietary networks on sub-1GHz radio bands.
It's hard to see what someone could do to hack these devices. They are basically transmit only. They send meter readings, that's it. I suppose you could artificially inflate someone's bill or jam the ability of the electric company to take readings, but then they would just revert to the old system and read the numbers off a display on the unit. The units don't accept any commands at all - they are designed to be highly tamper proof because people have been trying to steal electricity from day one.
There is no open source software framework or network for this purpose. Wifi is far too short range and subject to massive amounts of congestion. TFA doesn't suggest anything.
I've seen smart meters use 3G networks (regular 3G, nothing special), as well as a "proprietary" 802.11g network. Quotes because it isn't true 802.11g (which uses ISM 2.4GHz), but instead uses the 900MHz band for better range.
Internally, the smart meter consists of two parts. The measurement part basically measures the power consumed and sends pulses every X kWh consumed. The "smart" part receives those pulses and is basically a counter. Periodically it transmits the count and other data over the network (which again, is one of many common RF technology). It is basically transmit-only since any configuration is typically done when the meter is installed.
The meter also pings the network periodically, in case it's in a bad signal area, or someone is trying to block the signal, or other issue.
Apparently they also have the ability to send a "last gasp" message - when your power goes out, it uses its stored capacitance to transmit a power outage notification. It isn't necessary since you can detect it when a large number of meters fail to check in - typically once every few minutes.
What does this mean? They have custom chips? Custom mods at the chip fab level? Or are they taking advantage of designed-in features that are locked out for normal chip users? Are they simply over-clocking? Or are there features that can be unlocked with money?
Basically, if you commit to buying a lot of chips, Intel will fab you modified versions of their existing product lines.
Remember back in the early days of Intel Macs, and Apple managed to get Intel chips that supported hardware virtualization, even though only the highest end model of the line supported it? Same idea - Apple was committing to buy a ton of chips with the feature enabled and Intel made it so.
You have to know that in modern chip fabrication, transistors are cheap, and when doing a chip line, you design the die once, and customize it as necessary. So Intel will design a die, and then through various configuration fuses, turn it into a whole pile of chips - i3s, i5s, i7s, locked and unlocked clocks, with certain features and without, etc. These form the standard Intel product line.
But if you are willing to commit, Intel will let you choose your own configuration and make a bunch of chips for you, as long as the die supports it.
Because a blockchain is something oh-so-innovative. IIRC it's just an implementation of a doubly-linked list. Wow. Those haven't been around since the dawn of the computing era.
It's a secure doubly-linked list. As in, once you add your node to the list, it's fixed - it cannot be edited without breaking the blockchain or forcing a majority to agree to the edit (this is where the bitcoin 51% issue comes into play).
Part of the input into the miners is the current hash of the blockchain (thanks to the way hashes work, you can incrementally hash so no one has to hash the entire blockchain every time), and the miners test many nonces to come up with a hash that meets certain requirements (e.g., the hash starts with a bunch of zeros). Once that nonce is found, it ends the current block in the chain and a new one is started, beginning with the hash of the blockchain with the new block. Thus you're hashing and locking in all the previous transactions and other things in the block - you cannot change it without breaking the hash, or having to recomputed new hashes and nonces. So older transactions get more secure as time passes.
That's the magic of blockchain - you cannot edit it without spending huge effort in not only recomputing all the transactions and hashes afterwards, but also convincing a majority of people that your modified blockchain is the correct version.
IOS is a walled in garden, closed source, and you have to PAY to be a developer. You have no choice as to your "app store" without jailbreaking your device. This was done to "protect" it's users with a secured, walled in, app store. Clearly this failed
Not anymore. XCode 7 adds the ability to deploy to any personal device for "free".
Quoted because you need a Mac to run XCode.
But as long as you compile the code yourself (way to go - a proprietary OS enforcing open-source!), you can load the code on your phone.
In fact, there are emulators out there (like provenance, gba4ios, etc) that people are using just fine on their iOS devices. All you need to do is get the code from a tarball or git/svn/etc, open in XCode, build and deploy to your iPhone or iPad or whatever.
No, it doesn't qualify as "Free" because the built binary is limited to running on your own devices.
And the iOS sandbox was not breached - the amount of information the malware could access without alerting users was pretty limited anyhow - you could get the date, time, application ID, UUID (which because of advertising, is now different per-app) and a few other things. If the malware tried to access contacts, photos, or GPS, an alert would show up asking if the user wanted to allow or deny the action.
Of course, if said iOS device was jailbroken, then the malware could get way more information because the sandbox would be broken.
As bad as it goes, the infected apps really get less information than a typical app which wants to do in-app advertising.
You probably already know this, but for those who may not, the polygraph is mostly an interrogative tool used in eliciting confessions or telltale behavior regardless of its real ability to gauge honesty. As for "beating" a polygraph, the charge is as spurious as the basic claim that it can gauge honesty. If it can't, and it's largely been demonstrated that it can't, there's no reason to hold anyone to the results it presents regardless of what the operator may believe they indicate.
Exactly.
The polygraph as a lie detector (two separate, independent objects) have been thoroughly debunked.
There are, though, lie detectors that are much more reliable - one based on fMRI, for example, is almost completely accurate. (fMRI, or functional MRI, detects which parts of the brain are being actively utilized, which is completely different from telling the truth (a memory recall activity), to telling a lie (which involves logic and creativity).
It seems unlikely. Most Canadian's are not paying attention to his anti-science policies, the money being thrown away fighting equality for Muslims, or any of the rest of the nonsense. They'll vote blue because they've always voted blue and because "lower taxes = good". The left is split down the middle and I predict yet another conservative minority.
It turns out it's a Tory thing. If you vote blue, you're unlikely to vote orange or red. On the flip side, the reverse is true too - if you're orange or red, you're unlikely to vote blue.
If you ever wonder why Harper does stupid things like waste millions on court cases he cannot win (Mohammed Arar, Insite (safe injection site), gun registry (Quebec), and now face coverings), it's not to appease the general Canadian, it's to rally a call for those Tory voters. It doesn't matter that minimum sentences or other stuff violate the Constitution (Canadian), the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or any other founding document.
The goal is to appease their core voters.
That's it. Harper doesn't care that it violates the laws - by the time the Supreme Court gets around to it, the election is over and it doesn't matter anymore. (It's how the gun registry debacle ended - the Tories had the records destroyed, so even if Quebec won, it's irrelevant).
Hell, he'll make laws that already are covered by other laws and are completely unnecessary (even the police say they don't need those powers). Again, vote-buying.
It's Nintendo, the most oblivious game company out there, the company that could easily make a very pretty penny by putting their last two decades of games on Steam for a reasonable (keyword there) price. Does this really come as a surprise to anyone? Who really knows what they're thinking.
then you say
Ha. It's funny that the only way to Super Mario Bros. legally (outside of a used copy at a yard sale or something) is to spend $5 at the Nintendo eshop. Five dollars, for something that came out in 1985, literally 3 decades ago. That copyright should be long expired.
To me, you seem to have contradicted yourself - Nintendo is making money by selling their old games. And "reasonable price" is debatable - is $5 reasonable? Obviously Nintendo makes enough money from it that many people do, since the virtual console thing is extremely popular.
So while you might thing $5 is expensive, it's obvious a bunch of other people obviously don't.
Nintendo might not be doing things the way you like but it's their prerogative how they want to run their business. And that involves selling old Nintendo games over and over again, on their hardware.
they probably had lots of pressure from big brother on them. that's why i chose fake names that sound like real ones, only slightly more vulgar. it's less hassle. yours, peter le coq
Not big brother. The NSA? They probably can figure you out from your fake name G+ profile quite easily.
No, Google wanted it because it gave them better data to sell you as a product. Of course, Google could probably already track you around until you screwed up and used your real name with a Google service, then bingo.
Humans are simplistic - if they think Google can't match them up without "real names", then that's as far as they'll go to hide "their identify". Meanwhile, Google is laughing all the way to their customers because they've already linked you.
Have you seen the polls? Everyone's pretty much tied at the moment. If this keeps up we may have the first time in history (I'm assuming, I haven't looked it up) where 3 parties all have nearly equal seats in the house.
Regardless, Harper isn't the problem. He's a problem, but he's not the problem. I'm in the middle of reading a book called "Irresponsible Government" by Brent Rathgeber, who is a long standing elected member of the house that has recently resigned from the conservative party to run independent. He explains that the real problem in Canada is the consolation of power in the executive branch, specifically in the PM office. He goes through our history, the causes, and what we can do to solve this fundamental problem which obviously points to some level of legislative reform. Highly recommended reading if you want to understand how Harper has been able to push his personal agenda so effectively for so long.
First, polls don't mean crap. Thanks to First Past The Post voting system, even if you have a perfect 33.3% split, things like gerrymandering and others will guarantee one comes out on top.
Need more help? More people voted against Harper than for him in 2011. Harper keeps saying "the majority of Canadians" but if you look at the real numbers, he's wrong. The majority of Canadians did not agree with him.
In fact, here's a nice playlist that shows how elections are held. We love first past the post because it's conceptually simple, but like economics, there are lot of caveats that this simple system does not account for. (I recommend it because it also goes into the issues like gerrymandering and even how we attempt to fix FPTP. Heck, think about bribing the official that does the gerrymandering... and it can actually make things... better?)
Look down south to see FPTP taken to its logical conclusion - and you have to remember, when the US first started voting, there were a LOT of parties.
And while its true Harper wasn't the first to consolidate power in the PMO (it actually started with Trudeau, and yes, his son admits that), he does it most effectively.
In previous elections, the other parties will have their gaffes - some pretty big ones. But the Tories, no - because Harper runs a tight ship, and he spreads the messaging. If you wonder why Harper has a 3-question limit for reporters, or why he doesn't answer the question - it's because he's controlling the message. Back during the Duffy trial, Harper wouldn't answer any questions - he'd cut the question period short and basically deprive the journalist of any question-asking power if it related to the trial.
So while the NDP and Liberals get foot-in-mouth syndrome, the Tories pull ahead because they run a on-message campaign.
Things are more interesting this time around, because Harper decided to make it an extra-long election period (it's twice as long as average). The problem was, well, he couldn't control the message for that long - his first blindside was the Duffy trial which derailed him off his message because no one cared about what he was saying, but everyone cared about the next revelation coming from the trial.
Then there's the Syrian refugee crisis which caught him blindsided, especially since he enacted all the policies.
The goal was obvious - the NDP and Liberals, they don't have money for a long election, so the Tories would outspend outspend outspend. Except he also forgot that when he called the election, no one has candidates for all ridings (which is why the screening process failed and you have numerous people being kicked out on all parties - the ballots aren't set, and the candidates aren't all in yet).
And I'm getting really tired of Tory ads - they just say the same thing, same quotes, same points, probably same people. Just different clips. I get the "repeat it enough times and it's true" but when you're rehashing the same quotes ove
I don't really get when people say that software isn't compatible with touch. All a mouse does is points and clicks, which you can do with your finger. I use a remote desktop app called 'Jump' on Android and it works on a regular desktop just fine.
Touch, keyboard and mouse, joysticks are different UI paradigms. In fact, it took Apple to do in one try what Microsoft did several times.
Sure, one can emulate the other, but there are limits to the emulation. (Linux contains a very competent mechanism for emulation)
First off, let's get rid of the right mouse button, because touch screens don't have "right" or "left" clicks. Just "touch" (which most UIs emulate left mouse). Take a normal Windows app and then monitor how many times you have to right-click. Now imagine not being able to do so - this will render quite a few apps unusable. Sure, we can emulate a right click - either through touch-holds or pressure, but it's somewhat... fiddly. Yes, I know about "3D Touch" and all that, but you can bet even with Apple's refinements, there will be parts of the screen easier to do "right touch" than other parts.
Second, the mouse is a fine pointing device. With it, you can precisely hit small targets (the limit is a pixel). Touch, even with a stylus, is reasonably crude - the smaller the target, the more frustrating it is to hit, and it's possible that it's not possible to hit them. So you need to accommodate the relatively low resolution touch gets you.
On the other hand, gestures are remarkably easy with a touchscreen - flicks, swipes, pinches, etc., relatively easy. On a mouse, not so much. The mouse is crude, and bulky and hard to do these things with. Impossible if you want to multi-touch.
It's all these little things that make huge differences in the user interactions
I recently moved from console gaming to PC gaming. And I really, really wanted to move to SteamOS because I do NOT want to deal with Windows when I want to simply sprawl out on the sofa and play a game.
And I waited ever since they announced the thing to see how it does. The thing is, they're never getting those big titles to work natively on Linux. Small games? Sure. "Indy" games? Maybe. But the big ones? No way.
I consider myself a casual gamer (if anything). I play those games where you can get immersed for a few months. I don't play the little and indy games. And they will/never/ get a Skyrim ported to Linux. Or Fallout 4, or Mass Effect, or Assassin's Creed. Furthermore, there's a very spotty record of EA games showing up on Steam to begin with - and why would they when they have their own service?
SteamOS (and other Linux, by extension) have a lot of games now, but they're mostly not very good ones, and not the big titles. If that's what you're into then that's great, but it's no competition at all to Windows or Playstation/XBOX.
The problem is, PC gaming is mostly indie games now. The big AAA games rarely make it to the PC. You can partly blame piracy for that - when PCs still routinely draw 90% piracy rates, the most people hope for when doing a PC port is to make back the money spent on the port. There's a few pockets of holdouts though - FPS and online games, where license keys can be verified by servers do find strong PC sales.
All the big devs have realized this - probably perked up around the original Xbox era, and reinforced through the last-gen PS3 and Xbox360 consoles that console gaming is where the money is made. And the PC then fell by the wayside - home to terrible console ports because the PC version was effectively "do it as cheap as possible" meant to milk out a few extra bucks long after the game stopped being on store shelves.
At the same time, indie developers rose in popularity. From the availability of development tools, easy publicity, easy distribution over the Internet, they made games. A few brilliant ones garner a bit of press and even more wannabe developers come in.
And the tools make it easy to make it multiplatform - you supply the content, the tools supply the multiplatform runtimes. And it's no wonder at the time the biggest tool was Macromedia Flash (aka Adobe Flash). These days, they've evolved into many game engines like Unity, Unreal Engine, etc.
In fact, it got so successful that it was hard to stick out - indie games suffer from a visibility problem, thus many developers want DRM-free - because it's better they play for free than having their game languish on some corner of the Internet, unknown.
So yeah, you're going to get very few AAA games ported to OS X, nevermind LInux. Lots of indie games, yes, but that's because PC gaming is now about the indie, not the AAA. Few AAA titles will come to the PC, usually heavily delayed from the console releases. The exceptions would be those like Battlefield or Call of Duty, who enjoy robust online multiplayer modes, a huge fanbase, and also to inflate the numbers of sales.
Indie games are probably split between PC and mobile - there's seems to be a lot of crossover where popular mobile games get ported to PC, and popular PC games get ported to mobile.
Seriously, WHY? Why "bring him home"? Who gives a fuck about him? Why should anyone care about bringing HIM home at this point? There's no attachment for the audience to that character. Emotional or otherwise. Poster tells NOTHING about that character. It goes out of its way to say nothing with that face expression of his, or the lack thereof. Unless the idea is that we should "bring him home" because "Matt Damon"? And that's just... stupid. Like cheering when Amon Goeth murders Jews because "OMG! Ralph Fiennes is SO FIIIINEEEES!"
Why should someone who hasn't read a book or seen the movie care about bringing that mongoloid home?
Seriously? Are you so devoid of empathy or concern for your fellow man that you're willing to go "screw him"? Do you also wonder why people spend godawful amounts of money on search and recovery (not rescue) operations? And a lot of that money is provided by you, the taxpayer, too.
Marines call it "Semper Fi" (Semper Fidelis - Always Faithful) - you don't leave a man behind. It doesn't matter that two random Marines might not know each other, or even trained together, or even fought together - the principle is universal - you bring the guy home. (If you want to comment about movie inaccuracy, wonder how Semper Fi plays out when the on-screen Marines die and everyone else carries on - in Sci-Fi, it's almost always "Space Marines" (never space soldiers or whatever).
Heck, even NASA went to the ends of the earth trying to bring back Apollo 13 successfully, even though they prepared for the worst.
More related to The Martian, why bring Mark Watney home? Well, you've got this team of people together who trained for months and years together. And you had to leave one behind. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do (he was dead, and while you'd certainly want to bring back the body for the family (see search and recovery above), if it's not possible, it's not possible. On the other hand, leaving a person behind is probably the worst nightmare any leader has - the guilt will easily compromise even the most stoic of leaders.
Point is - even if you do not care for someone, there's still a innate human desire to bring them home. Even if they're dead. Or, at the very least, to do right and give them a proper sendoff. If they're alive, then it becomes moving heaven and earth to get them back and not leave them.
Heck, Watney is an ass through the book. You're not supposed to completely like him. But you still want to get him back, just because.
And based on what evidence do you claim that most people are using AVG because of some mythical "computer guy" versus just downloading it themselves because some random website recommended it or it was simply preloaded by the OEM of their computer?
Preloaded AV is almost always McAfee or Symantec - these companies pay the OEM lots of $$$ in order to preload 30-day, 6 month or even 1 year trial subscriptions onto new PCs. OEMs love it because it subsidizes the price of the PC (which is why Windows PCs cost less - the Windows license is paid for by the preloaded trialware), and the less clueful customers love it because their PC comes with "useful" software out of the box.
The "computer guy" in this situation is usually the store flunky - said user comes in and wants to see if there's a cheaper way to get his AV, because it's alerting them the subscription is almost over and either renew online or buy a new copy. Store flunky points to the racks of AV software, and picks out AVG as "better than what you have".
Alternative is person asks someone else and gets AVG as "it's good, and it's FREE - you don't have to pay for it".
Didn't Trump say he could finance his whole campaign himself?
Well, he could, but if people are throwing money your way without strings, you'd be stupid not to take it. And given Trump's fortune, being stupid in business is something Trump doesn't do.
If you can spend other people's money instead of your own, it's obvious which is the way to go in business.
The cable companies, not wanting us to stop paying, cry "But a la carte means there will be fewer channels, because some won't survive a subscription basis!" Well, do we need those channels then? Why should they force me to subsidize Oprah's channel when I've no interest in watching it?
If a website doesn't provide content valuable enough to generate revenue or to be supported by the crowd, perhaps it doesn't have a good argument for its own existence?
Thing is, there's a lot of good speciality channels that are hurt by this. Because now instead of subscribers, they have to compete for eyeballs. Which means instead of producing good programming, they have to produce popular programming. Which means what shows were previously just about certain subjects now have to add in "drama" and "conflict" because that stuff gets the eyeballs. (Think lowest common denominator).
So what was a factual recount of say, 9/11, turns into one where you see wives all worried and crying and other "reality TV" things because those sell eyeballs.
Oh, and cable networks are adapting. The leading shows are being spread out through the various channels, so subscribers that only watched one channel now have to catch their favorites on 4 or 5. This is on top of the "dramatization" of documentaries and such.
Hell, just think what the previous CEO of Discovery Networks did - he went and made all the shows less science, more showy. Guess what? A la carte guarantees that because showy gets eyeballs.
I love how every time the concept of Alacarte cable comes up, the industry tells us that it would mean higher bills for everyone and much less money going to content producers. The cable industry is telling us to our face that if we want to choose channels they'll rip us off as much as possible, and that's a lot because they are a monopoly. I believe them too. They've been a monopoly for so long they don't even know what customer satisfaction is anymore.
It's not THAT bad. In Canada, a la carte is the rule, but that doesn't mean cable companies can't offer packages. So what happens is people end up with packages that have a few of the channels they want, then if they only want one channel out of another package, they can get that.
With a subscription, you are entitled to newer versions of their products; the fall-back license is permission to continuously use that (possibly) outdated version indefinitely.
The fallback license is for the version that was current when the subscription started So if when you bought the 12 month subscription, or 12 monthly subs are up, you will get a key to use the version that was current a year ago. So if it's January 2016 and XYX was at version 1.2, and they released 1.3...1.5, then in January 2017 (if you bought monthly, or Jan 2016 if you bough annual) you will get a key to use version 1.2. If 1.3 came out in March 2016, then in March 2017, you will get a key to use 1.3 as well. If January 2017 they release 2.0, well, you get a key for that in 2018. The permanent key is valid for the version that was released 12 months prior. This way if you want to use the version released in the past 12 months, you have to keep your sub. Or just pay up for a new 12 month sub.
That said, the changes are actually pretty decent. You still get permanent licenses, and you get long term discounts. And if they try to screw you, you're not stuck.
Have to admit, I'm pretty impressed with the changes. Not often you get a company that not only listened to feedback, but actually implements it in a customer-friendly way.
Actually I bet they do let a similar app from Google in the store, should Google ever put one out, simply for the reason that it would be less of a PR headache and would save them from potential litigation.
Granted, the nature of such an app would probably mean that the app really needs to come from Samsung or HTC or LG or something and they might tell those guys to fuck right off but if Google does it they might allow it
Well, according to the Switch to Android instructions, while it's not one app, Google recommends you switching to the cloud to do it. As in you install the full suite of Google applications to help migrate your contacts, photos and email to Google's cloud services, at which point your Android device will pick it all up automatically.
So it's not quite one app, and it will be very inconvenient to use on iOS because of the way the OS protects users privacy. E.g., when the app migrates contacts, the user will be asked if the app can access their contacts. When the app migrates photos, they get prompted for location services (because photos can be a proxy for GPS location - take a photo, then try to access it to get GPS. iOS still treats it as the app is trying to get location information without trying to use the GPS). Email and messages, I'm not entirely sure if iOS even lets apps access that stuff...
Then again, given the general poor quality of Google's apps, I'm sure Apple will love to approve it and have Google deal with the users who have the app crash, or failed to transfer their contacts and stuff.
Heck, given the number of obvious crashing issues in Google's apps, one almost thinks Apple just gives Google a green light and doesn't even bother reviewing them.
Why do people think are entitled to other people's money?
We've already seen what numerous entitlement programs have done to the USA. Our labor participation rate is the lowest it's been in my lifetime and I was born in the 70s. This is what happens when you over regulate an economy, over legislate entitlement programs, and don't require people to be productive in order to live.
Are there people that are truly down and out through no fault of their own? Absolutely! Is it really half of the US population? (47% don't pay federal income tax) Hell no. Maybe 5%. Let's scale back all of the unnecessary entitlements and get people being productive and working again.
Actually, basic minimum income does work.
And it really is a minimum - it's basically just enough for rent and food. There's no money for anything else.
If you want more money, you work for it - and there's the trick - for every dollar you earn (after tax), your basic income gets cut less (say, 50%, so if the basic income is $20,000/yr, and your job pays you another $20,000/yr, your total income is $30,000).
So yes, you'll live, and you can be lazy. In which case you'll live and that's it. The encouragement to work comes from the ability to make more money and be able to use it to enjoy life a little bit.
And people have done studies on it - governments have implemented it. I believe a province in Canada did it in the mid-60's, and for 5 years, the societal indicators all went up, except crime rates, which fell dramatically. The years after minimum income was abolished, all the indicators went back to their pre-minimum income rates.
Yes, for a lot of more conservative types, it's a bit odd since it's like encouraging people to be lazy. But the thing is, if you do the minimum, well, you get the minimum. If you see your neighbour Joe get a new TV, well, basic minimum won't let you get a new TV, so if you want it, you have to work for it. And, there's no need to steal for basic survival anymore since the money provided is sufficient for a roof over your head and food.
Right now, we have welfare which is a poor substitute, and because of the way welfare is clawed back, it ENCOURAGES people to stay on it. Why work when it means your welfare money goes away when you do? If welfare's not enough to feed your family, steal the money or food.
It's one of those loony ideas that sounds like it should never work, yet when it was tried, it does work. And it also means if someone wants something, they need to get off their ass and work. Right now, welfare, workfare and other social safety nets don't work because they generally encourage you to stay put. Here, basic income means you get livable housing (but not necessarily private - you could very well be sharing a dorm room), and 3 meals a day (sufficient for nutrition, but nothing fancy). And for some, that's all they really want out of life. For others, they ability and desire to move into a more private housing (condo, apartment, bungalow, etc), and the human drive to want to be better means they will work for it.
You can also apply basic necessities as well - a phone? There's a phone line you can use, but if you want to have your own cellphone, you'll have to work for it.
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I don't know about that - perhaps a cell I need to do a quick one-off calculation just because of the way the data is presented.
Of course, I know how to use spreadsheets, so 123+456 means I enter "=123+456" to turn it into a formula and have the spreadsheet do the calculation for me.
I came to this when I needed to do one-off calculations in a cell of two constants - basically the total amount of money, minus ONE of the two taxes paid on it. I needed to calculate it, and I could whip out the calculator, but it seemed stupid to do so when I was already using what was a pretty powerful calculator already. The rest of it was a spreadsheet so it made sense to not whip out the OS calculator and do my calculation, then copy the result into the spreadsheet, but just have the spreadsheet do it for me. It was already calculating other stuff anyhow.
Anyhow, I suppose Excel was probably better on Mac - to get around the 640K limit you had all sorts of tricks playing around with EMS in DOS. After all, the LIM team to get around the 640k limit was composed of engineers from Lotus, Intel and Microsoft. Once Windows happened with flat memory, such nasty hacks could be eliminated.
Most car engines run around that power - it's why car engines are small and powerful compared to many other engines. Think aviation and truck engines - sure those engines are big, but they also run at higher power settings for longer periods of time. Aviation engines especially - they're extremely big for the power. (160 cu. in., or over 5L, and it produces a mere... 140hp?).
The trick is, that plane engine has to develop that 140hp or a sizable fraction thereof (50-80% in cruise) continuously. The truck engine has to develop it for periods at a time, but never continuously. The car engine has to develop it for maybe a few seconds every trip.
The least power is used when cruising down the highway - the engine is basically developing very little power (and that's why highway mileage is generally better). Start and stop traffic is bursty - you need some power to get the car moving, but when you're stopped, the engine is developing hardly any power at all.
When you tow, you need more power to keep the towed vehicle moving, but that's why tow vehicles have bigger engines.
So for a small car, the 20% might not be as big a problem as you think. A little running about the city in traffic, and highway for the commute and those 20% limits might not be noticeable unless it happens when you need it (e.g., accelerating on an onramp, overtaking, etc). And if it's short, you might not even notice at a traffic light.
Anyhow, I think the problem was VW didn't want to use an AdBlue style system. Diesel particulates are also less of an issue now that both the US and Canada have switched to low-sulfur diesel - sulfur being one of the main problems with particulates. It's also why today a diesel engine runs a lot cleaner. Even old diesels are cleaner because of the switch. Canada switched first, which limited what kind of car you could drive in the US since there were very few with low-sulfur. But since it's mandatory now, it's a lot easier.
If it's an OEM Windows 7/8/8.1 install, you don't need to handle the key at all.
FIRST - you MUST upgrade from existing Windows to Windows 10. Either use the Media Creation Tool to do create the image and upgrade in place, or the usual upgrader. I used Media Creation Tool as the upgrader never worked. Important - Make sure you check 'Upgrade this computer". You existing Windows must be activtaed.
Second - when Windows 10 is finished installing, make sure it's still activated. Doesn't need a MIcrosoft account or anything - what happens is during setup, your key is sent to Microsoft to be associated with Windows 10.
Third - clean install. Using the MCT, boot off the disc or USB key that was created. When it asks for the key, click the easily-missed SKIP text on the bottom right. It's super-easy to miss. Then when Windows 10 is installed and it again asks to be activated, make sure you click SKIP. It asks twice. Windows will go online and activate itself the second time.
It is VITAL to be online when doing the upgrade install because that's when your Windows 10 upgrade is linked.
It's also important to click SKIP twice.
I've clean installed Windows without having to deal without entering keys. It's a bit tedious since you're installing Windows twice, but it works - the first time you must upgrade in place.
That also ignores another browser company destroyed by Microsoft.
Spyglass.
Microsoft needed a browser right quick, and they licensed it from Spyglass, Inc., one of the smaller vendors out there. Thinking it was a good deal, they licensed it on a percentage basis - however much money Microsoft made on their browser, Spyglass would be paid a portion.
So Microsoft gave away IE, which meant Spyglass was owed nothing. So not only did they go after Netscape, they destroyed the company who provided them the base also.
Back to the topic - the problem isn't "bundling", it's home screen advantage. We saw it first from other areas - if you want to ship Google apps, Google apps must be on the home screen. Alternatives may not be shown there.
In other words, if you wanted to ship Nokia's HERE maps, you couldn't put it on the home screen - Google Maps must be there, and your alternative map program is not allowed to be on the home screen at all. (I mention HERE maps because well, it happened last year - one OEM wanted to replace Google Maps with it, but Google explicitly said no - Google Maps must be front and center).
There are plenty of alternatives - Samsung has basically their own version of every app Google h as. But per the licensing agreement, Samsung's apps have to hide in the App Launcher and not be shown on the home screen.
Which is true, if you're limiting yourself to Western European languages. If you limit yourself to English, you can get rid of silly accented characters too.
The reason for the Emoji entering our lives really stems from Apple trying to be universal. The history of Emoji is that it comes from Japan, as Japanese carriers sought to differentiate themselves by adding little pictograms. Of course, Apple had to bring their iPhone to Japan, which mean Apple needed to support Emoji as well (and for a little while, the Emoji keyboard was Japan-only)
Emoji really entered our space when it was discovered that we can't represent Japanese text with Emoji in Unicode. It was not possible to convert because Unicode was lacking the Emoji codepoints to which you could convert to.
Which is why Unicode added a pile of Emoji - because the goal of Unicode is to be able to universally represent text - and Emoji was text that couldn't be converted to or from Unicode.
Hush now. Ridley Scott has secret access to the soundstage they were using to film Mars, and photos of Mars and other things.
It's close to the Moon soundstage.
Actually there were advance screenings at the TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). Ars Techinca was invited to the screening, and they did some followup articles as well.
I've seen smart meters use 3G networks (regular 3G, nothing special), as well as a "proprietary" 802.11g network. Quotes because it isn't true 802.11g (which uses ISM 2.4GHz), but instead uses the 900MHz band for better range.
Internally, the smart meter consists of two parts. The measurement part basically measures the power consumed and sends pulses every X kWh consumed. The "smart" part receives those pulses and is basically a counter. Periodically it transmits the count and other data over the network (which again, is one of many common RF technology). It is basically transmit-only since any configuration is typically done when the meter is installed.
The meter also pings the network periodically, in case it's in a bad signal area, or someone is trying to block the signal, or other issue.
Apparently they also have the ability to send a "last gasp" message - when your power goes out, it uses its stored capacitance to transmit a power outage notification. It isn't necessary since you can detect it when a large number of meters fail to check in - typically once every few minutes.
Basically, if you commit to buying a lot of chips, Intel will fab you modified versions of their existing product lines.
Remember back in the early days of Intel Macs, and Apple managed to get Intel chips that supported hardware virtualization, even though only the highest end model of the line supported it? Same idea - Apple was committing to buy a ton of chips with the feature enabled and Intel made it so.
You have to know that in modern chip fabrication, transistors are cheap, and when doing a chip line, you design the die once, and customize it as necessary. So Intel will design a die, and then through various configuration fuses, turn it into a whole pile of chips - i3s, i5s, i7s, locked and unlocked clocks, with certain features and without, etc. These form the standard Intel product line.
But if you are willing to commit, Intel will let you choose your own configuration and make a bunch of chips for you, as long as the die supports it.
It's a secure doubly-linked list. As in, once you add your node to the list, it's fixed - it cannot be edited without breaking the blockchain or forcing a majority to agree to the edit (this is where the bitcoin 51% issue comes into play).
Part of the input into the miners is the current hash of the blockchain (thanks to the way hashes work, you can incrementally hash so no one has to hash the entire blockchain every time), and the miners test many nonces to come up with a hash that meets certain requirements (e.g., the hash starts with a bunch of zeros). Once that nonce is found, it ends the current block in the chain and a new one is started, beginning with the hash of the blockchain with the new block. Thus you're hashing and locking in all the previous transactions and other things in the block - you cannot change it without breaking the hash, or having to recomputed new hashes and nonces. So older transactions get more secure as time passes.
That's the magic of blockchain - you cannot edit it without spending huge effort in not only recomputing all the transactions and hashes afterwards, but also convincing a majority of people that your modified blockchain is the correct version.
Not anymore. XCode 7 adds the ability to deploy to any personal device for "free".
Quoted because you need a Mac to run XCode.
But as long as you compile the code yourself (way to go - a proprietary OS enforcing open-source!), you can load the code on your phone.
In fact, there are emulators out there (like provenance, gba4ios, etc) that people are using just fine on their iOS devices. All you need to do is get the code from a tarball or git/svn/etc, open in XCode, build and deploy to your iPhone or iPad or whatever.
No, it doesn't qualify as "Free" because the built binary is limited to running on your own devices.
And the iOS sandbox was not breached - the amount of information the malware could access without alerting users was pretty limited anyhow - you could get the date, time, application ID, UUID (which because of advertising, is now different per-app) and a few other things. If the malware tried to access contacts, photos, or GPS, an alert would show up asking if the user wanted to allow or deny the action.
Of course, if said iOS device was jailbroken, then the malware could get way more information because the sandbox would be broken.
As bad as it goes, the infected apps really get less information than a typical app which wants to do in-app advertising.
To be fair, all Ashley Madison has to do is basically say a few pick-up lines. Beyond that you have to pay and by then it's too late.
Exactly.
The polygraph as a lie detector (two separate, independent objects) have been thoroughly debunked.
There are, though, lie detectors that are much more reliable - one based on fMRI, for example, is almost completely accurate. (fMRI, or functional MRI, detects which parts of the brain are being actively utilized, which is completely different from telling the truth (a memory recall activity), to telling a lie (which involves logic and creativity).
It turns out it's a Tory thing. If you vote blue, you're unlikely to vote orange or red. On the flip side, the reverse is true too - if you're orange or red, you're unlikely to vote blue.
If you ever wonder why Harper does stupid things like waste millions on court cases he cannot win (Mohammed Arar, Insite (safe injection site), gun registry (Quebec), and now face coverings), it's not to appease the general Canadian, it's to rally a call for those Tory voters. It doesn't matter that minimum sentences or other stuff violate the Constitution (Canadian), the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or any other founding document.
The goal is to appease their core voters.
That's it. Harper doesn't care that it violates the laws - by the time the Supreme Court gets around to it, the election is over and it doesn't matter anymore. (It's how the gun registry debacle ended - the Tories had the records destroyed, so even if Quebec won, it's irrelevant).
Hell, he'll make laws that already are covered by other laws and are completely unnecessary (even the police say they don't need those powers). Again, vote-buying.
Odd.
You say
then you say
To me, you seem to have contradicted yourself - Nintendo is making money by selling their old games. And "reasonable price" is debatable - is $5 reasonable? Obviously Nintendo makes enough money from it that many people do, since the virtual console thing is extremely popular.
So while you might thing $5 is expensive, it's obvious a bunch of other people obviously don't.
Nintendo might not be doing things the way you like but it's their prerogative how they want to run their business. And that involves selling old Nintendo games over and over again, on their hardware.
Not big brother. The NSA? They probably can figure you out from your fake name G+ profile quite easily.
No, Google wanted it because it gave them better data to sell you as a product. Of course, Google could probably already track you around until you screwed up and used your real name with a Google service, then bingo.
Humans are simplistic - if they think Google can't match them up without "real names", then that's as far as they'll go to hide "their identify". Meanwhile, Google is laughing all the way to their customers because they've already linked you.
First, polls don't mean crap. Thanks to First Past The Post voting system, even if you have a perfect 33.3% split, things like gerrymandering and others will guarantee one comes out on top.
Need more help? More people voted against Harper than for him in 2011. Harper keeps saying "the majority of Canadians" but if you look at the real numbers, he's wrong. The majority of Canadians did not agree with him.
In fact, here's a nice playlist that shows how elections are held. We love first past the post because it's conceptually simple, but like economics, there are lot of caveats that this simple system does not account for. (I recommend it because it also goes into the issues like gerrymandering and even how we attempt to fix FPTP. Heck, think about bribing the official that does the gerrymandering... and it can actually make things... better?)
Look down south to see FPTP taken to its logical conclusion - and you have to remember, when the US first started voting, there were a LOT of parties.
And while its true Harper wasn't the first to consolidate power in the PMO (it actually started with Trudeau, and yes, his son admits that), he does it most effectively.
In previous elections, the other parties will have their gaffes - some pretty big ones. But the Tories, no - because Harper runs a tight ship, and he spreads the messaging. If you wonder why Harper has a 3-question limit for reporters, or why he doesn't answer the question - it's because he's controlling the message. Back during the Duffy trial, Harper wouldn't answer any questions - he'd cut the question period short and basically deprive the journalist of any question-asking power if it related to the trial.
So while the NDP and Liberals get foot-in-mouth syndrome, the Tories pull ahead because they run a on-message campaign.
Things are more interesting this time around, because Harper decided to make it an extra-long election period (it's twice as long as average). The problem was, well, he couldn't control the message for that long - his first blindside was the Duffy trial which derailed him off his message because no one cared about what he was saying, but everyone cared about the next revelation coming from the trial.
Then there's the Syrian refugee crisis which caught him blindsided, especially since he enacted all the policies.
The goal was obvious - the NDP and Liberals, they don't have money for a long election, so the Tories would outspend outspend outspend. Except he also forgot that when he called the election, no one has candidates for all ridings (which is why the screening process failed and you have numerous people being kicked out on all parties - the ballots aren't set, and the candidates aren't all in yet).
And I'm getting really tired of Tory ads - they just say the same thing, same quotes, same points, probably same people. Just different clips. I get the "repeat it enough times and it's true" but when you're rehashing the same quotes ove
Touch, keyboard and mouse, joysticks are different UI paradigms. In fact, it took Apple to do in one try what Microsoft did several times.
Sure, one can emulate the other, but there are limits to the emulation. (Linux contains a very competent mechanism for emulation)
First off, let's get rid of the right mouse button, because touch screens don't have "right" or "left" clicks. Just "touch" (which most UIs emulate left mouse). Take a normal Windows app and then monitor how many times you have to right-click. Now imagine not being able to do so - this will render quite a few apps unusable. Sure, we can emulate a right click - either through touch-holds or pressure, but it's somewhat ... fiddly. Yes, I know about "3D Touch" and all that, but you can bet even with Apple's refinements, there will be parts of the screen easier to do "right touch" than other parts.
Second, the mouse is a fine pointing device. With it, you can precisely hit small targets (the limit is a pixel). Touch, even with a stylus, is reasonably crude - the smaller the target, the more frustrating it is to hit, and it's possible that it's not possible to hit them. So you need to accommodate the relatively low resolution touch gets you.
On the other hand, gestures are remarkably easy with a touchscreen - flicks, swipes, pinches, etc., relatively easy. On a mouse, not so much. The mouse is crude, and bulky and hard to do these things with. Impossible if you want to multi-touch.
It's all these little things that make huge differences in the user interactions
The problem is, PC gaming is mostly indie games now. The big AAA games rarely make it to the PC. You can partly blame piracy for that - when PCs still routinely draw 90% piracy rates, the most people hope for when doing a PC port is to make back the money spent on the port. There's a few pockets of holdouts though - FPS and online games, where license keys can be verified by servers do find strong PC sales.
All the big devs have realized this - probably perked up around the original Xbox era, and reinforced through the last-gen PS3 and Xbox360 consoles that console gaming is where the money is made. And the PC then fell by the wayside - home to terrible console ports because the PC version was effectively "do it as cheap as possible" meant to milk out a few extra bucks long after the game stopped being on store shelves.
At the same time, indie developers rose in popularity. From the availability of development tools, easy publicity, easy distribution over the Internet, they made games. A few brilliant ones garner a bit of press and even more wannabe developers come in.
And the tools make it easy to make it multiplatform - you supply the content, the tools supply the multiplatform runtimes. And it's no wonder at the time the biggest tool was Macromedia Flash (aka Adobe Flash). These days, they've evolved into many game engines like Unity, Unreal Engine, etc.
In fact, it got so successful that it was hard to stick out - indie games suffer from a visibility problem, thus many developers want DRM-free - because it's better they play for free than having their game languish on some corner of the Internet, unknown.
So yeah, you're going to get very few AAA games ported to OS X, nevermind LInux. Lots of indie games, yes, but that's because PC gaming is now about the indie, not the AAA. Few AAA titles will come to the PC, usually heavily delayed from the console releases. The exceptions would be those like Battlefield or Call of Duty, who enjoy robust online multiplayer modes, a huge fanbase, and also to inflate the numbers of sales.
Indie games are probably split between PC and mobile - there's seems to be a lot of crossover where popular mobile games get ported to PC, and popular PC games get ported to mobile.
Seriously? Are you so devoid of empathy or concern for your fellow man that you're willing to go "screw him"? Do you also wonder why people spend godawful amounts of money on search and recovery (not rescue) operations? And a lot of that money is provided by you, the taxpayer, too.
Marines call it "Semper Fi" (Semper Fidelis - Always Faithful) - you don't leave a man behind. It doesn't matter that two random Marines might not know each other, or even trained together, or even fought together - the principle is universal - you bring the guy home. (If you want to comment about movie inaccuracy, wonder how Semper Fi plays out when the on-screen Marines die and everyone else carries on - in Sci-Fi, it's almost always "Space Marines" (never space soldiers or whatever).
Heck, even NASA went to the ends of the earth trying to bring back Apollo 13 successfully, even though they prepared for the worst.
More related to The Martian, why bring Mark Watney home? Well, you've got this team of people together who trained for months and years together. And you had to leave one behind. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do (he was dead, and while you'd certainly want to bring back the body for the family (see search and recovery above), if it's not possible, it's not possible. On the other hand, leaving a person behind is probably the worst nightmare any leader has - the guilt will easily compromise even the most stoic of leaders.
Point is - even if you do not care for someone, there's still a innate human desire to bring them home. Even if they're dead. Or, at the very least, to do right and give them a proper sendoff. If they're alive, then it becomes moving heaven and earth to get them back and not leave them.
Heck, Watney is an ass through the book. You're not supposed to completely like him. But you still want to get him back, just because.
Preloaded AV is almost always McAfee or Symantec - these companies pay the OEM lots of $$$ in order to preload 30-day, 6 month or even 1 year trial subscriptions onto new PCs. OEMs love it because it subsidizes the price of the PC (which is why Windows PCs cost less - the Windows license is paid for by the preloaded trialware), and the less clueful customers love it because their PC comes with "useful" software out of the box.
The "computer guy" in this situation is usually the store flunky - said user comes in and wants to see if there's a cheaper way to get his AV, because it's alerting them the subscription is almost over and either renew online or buy a new copy. Store flunky points to the racks of AV software, and picks out AVG as "better than what you have".
Alternative is person asks someone else and gets AVG as "it's good, and it's FREE - you don't have to pay for it".
Well, he could, but if people are throwing money your way without strings, you'd be stupid not to take it. And given Trump's fortune, being stupid in business is something Trump doesn't do.
If you can spend other people's money instead of your own, it's obvious which is the way to go in business.
Thing is, there's a lot of good speciality channels that are hurt by this. Because now instead of subscribers, they have to compete for eyeballs. Which means instead of producing good programming, they have to produce popular programming. Which means what shows were previously just about certain subjects now have to add in "drama" and "conflict" because that stuff gets the eyeballs. (Think lowest common denominator).
So what was a factual recount of say, 9/11, turns into one where you see wives all worried and crying and other "reality TV" things because those sell eyeballs.
Oh, and cable networks are adapting. The leading shows are being spread out through the various channels, so subscribers that only watched one channel now have to catch their favorites on 4 or 5. This is on top of the "dramatization" of documentaries and such.
Hell, just think what the previous CEO of Discovery Networks did - he went and made all the shows less science, more showy. Guess what? A la carte guarantees that because showy gets eyeballs.
It's not THAT bad. In Canada, a la carte is the rule, but that doesn't mean cable companies can't offer packages. So what happens is people end up with packages that have a few of the channels they want, then if they only want one channel out of another package, they can get that.
The fallback license is for the version that was current when the subscription started So if when you bought the 12 month subscription, or 12 monthly subs are up, you will get a key to use the version that was current a year ago. So if it's January 2016 and XYX was at version 1.2, and they released 1.3...1.5, then in January 2017 (if you bought monthly, or Jan 2016 if you bough annual) you will get a key to use version 1.2. If 1.3 came out in March 2016, then in March 2017, you will get a key to use 1.3 as well. If January 2017 they release 2.0, well, you get a key for that in 2018. The permanent key is valid for the version that was released 12 months prior. This way if you want to use the version released in the past 12 months, you have to keep your sub. Or just pay up for a new 12 month sub.
That said, the changes are actually pretty decent. You still get permanent licenses, and you get long term discounts. And if they try to screw you, you're not stuck.
Have to admit, I'm pretty impressed with the changes. Not often you get a company that not only listened to feedback, but actually implements it in a customer-friendly way.
Well, according to the Switch to Android instructions, while it's not one app, Google recommends you switching to the cloud to do it. As in you install the full suite of Google applications to help migrate your contacts, photos and email to Google's cloud services, at which point your Android device will pick it all up automatically.
So it's not quite one app, and it will be very inconvenient to use on iOS because of the way the OS protects users privacy. E.g., when the app migrates contacts, the user will be asked if the app can access their contacts. When the app migrates photos, they get prompted for location services (because photos can be a proxy for GPS location - take a photo, then try to access it to get GPS. iOS still treats it as the app is trying to get location information without trying to use the GPS). Email and messages, I'm not entirely sure if iOS even lets apps access that stuff...
Then again, given the general poor quality of Google's apps, I'm sure Apple will love to approve it and have Google deal with the users who have the app crash, or failed to transfer their contacts and stuff.
Heck, given the number of obvious crashing issues in Google's apps, one almost thinks Apple just gives Google a green light and doesn't even bother reviewing them.
Actually, basic minimum income does work.
And it really is a minimum - it's basically just enough for rent and food. There's no money for anything else.
If you want more money, you work for it - and there's the trick - for every dollar you earn (after tax), your basic income gets cut less (say, 50%, so if the basic income is $20,000/yr, and your job pays you another $20,000/yr, your total income is $30,000).
So yes, you'll live, and you can be lazy. In which case you'll live and that's it. The encouragement to work comes from the ability to make more money and be able to use it to enjoy life a little bit.
And people have done studies on it - governments have implemented it. I believe a province in Canada did it in the mid-60's, and for 5 years, the societal indicators all went up, except crime rates, which fell dramatically. The years after minimum income was abolished, all the indicators went back to their pre-minimum income rates.
Yes, for a lot of more conservative types, it's a bit odd since it's like encouraging people to be lazy. But the thing is, if you do the minimum, well, you get the minimum. If you see your neighbour Joe get a new TV, well, basic minimum won't let you get a new TV, so if you want it, you have to work for it. And, there's no need to steal for basic survival anymore since the money provided is sufficient for a roof over your head and food.
Right now, we have welfare which is a poor substitute, and because of the way welfare is clawed back, it ENCOURAGES people to stay on it. Why work when it means your welfare money goes away when you do? If welfare's not enough to feed your family, steal the money or food.
It's one of those loony ideas that sounds like it should never work, yet when it was tried, it does work. And it also means if someone wants something, they need to get off their ass and work. Right now, welfare, workfare and other social safety nets don't work because they generally encourage you to stay put. Here, basic income means you get livable housing (but not necessarily private - you could very well be sharing a dorm room), and 3 meals a day (sufficient for nutrition, but nothing fancy). And for some, that's all they really want out of life. For others, they ability and desire to move into a more private housing (condo, apartment, bungalow, etc), and the human drive to want to be better means they will work for it.
You can also apply basic necessities as well - a phone? There's a phone line you can use, but if you want to have your own cellphone, you'll have to work for it.