So what you're saying is that the police forces would have to use old-fashioned police work and target individuals they suspect rather than mass collect everything? Yes, clearly that proves this is a wasted effort.
Yeah. They'll go for lower hanging fruit instead, and let the legislative bodies suffer from crimes that they "could have" solved had they enough "for a warrant" and all that stuff.
Remember, there are three pillars - you have the executive, the legislative, and the judicial (law enforcement). If the judicial branch doesn't have the tools necessary, they'll ask the legislative for a law.
E.g., if a pedophile decided that was a perfect mechanism for their stuff, all the police have to do is say "sorry, we don't have the tools - we can't wiretap or monitor them nor do we have evidence to do those things" and go about solving easier crimes. That causes "concerned citizens" to put pressure on the senators to enact laws giving them the tools to monitor stuff, and then we're back in the same place.
He's paying per MB downloaded . . . it costs him money for them to download their patches using his bandwidth, even if nothing else is going on.
Except he's fine with them updating after hours, when the demand on the connection is far lower.
Basically, he doesn't want updates to bog down the internet link during school hours and making everyone's experience slow and annoying (especially Apple updates - want a good speed test? Apple seems to push the bits out). But after hours when the link is idle, update away because no one else is likely to notice.
But beyond the idea that eventually hackers would find a path around such measures, it also opens the door to abuse by ÃoeLaw EnforcementÃ, who are notoriously unable to police themselves from both breaking the law and abusing the privileges they have been given.
Depends. the iOS 7 kill switch seems fairly effective - though it has an interesting side effect -some people have "found" lost phones and being locked out, gives them no way to actually return the phone.
And why would law enforcement want to kill your phone? If they're after you, they won't want to kill a very useful surveillance and tracking device that leads them to your location. And if you believe the hype, the ability to turn on the microphone and camera. Why would they want to disable that ability?
OK, maybe to go after cellphone bombs. Maybe. But since they could just turn off the tower in the first place... and the terrorists could wire it up so if the phone loses signal...
Either way, law enforcement wanting to disable it seems mighty unlikely given how useful it is to be able to use a currently active one for surveillance.
And yet, the single most basic thing you can do to protect your data gets overlooked by hundreds of millions of people, because it's just too burdensome to drag and drop from "My documents" to "My external drive". Viruses, malware, and crap like this would have gone the way of the dodo bird if people would just follow the most basic. advice. ever. regarding the maintenance of their computer. You wouldn't run your car out of oil after neglecting to change it for 15,000 miles, would you? So why do you do it to your computer?
Because it's dull and boring. Do you vacuum the floor of your house weekly? Or change the bedsheets? Clean the toilet? Dust (even just cleaning the dust out of your PC)?
The problem is it's a chore. A huge PITA to go and plug stuff in, drag and drop, and then unplug it.
The funny thing is that companies have been doing it the convenient way for ages - backups happen at night and all that stuff, with no intervention from the admin or users.
I happen to have current backups because all my PCs back themselves up over the network at night automatically. I don't do a single thing - it just happens. Once in a while they miss a backup because of an error, but it usually resolves itself in a couple of days. No muss, no fuss, it just works.
The real irony is Microsoft discontinued the software - Windows Home Server was perhaps the single most easy to use backup solution ever - once you install the connector software, the backups happen automatically overnight. And even better, it backs up network and disk drivers so as long as you have access to the backup via another system, you can copy the drivers so even if your PC is too new for the restore DVD, you can still instruct it to load the saved drivers (off USB key) and perform a network restore.
And it also was a de-dupe full image backup - you could restore to a blank hard drive and get back your system as it was, OS and all (and you can of course, browse a image backup by date and use Explorer to copy files off the backup if you only need to restore a few files or folders).
Honestly, one of the most slick backup solutions around for home use, and it's discontinued now.
The end effect I can see of countries forcing long warranties on products is that Apple essentially bakes in Applecare to the price.
There's no way a business can afford a longer warranty period without collecting for it somehow.
Another possibility is that Apple would become more stingy with repair/replacement, which would be a shame as it's really nice to go in and have them say "well, this just isn;t working, have a new one".
Actually, that's already what they do.
If you count the cost of AppleCare into the price of the device, then add taxes, you find that the EU and Australian prices aren't too far out of line anymore with the US prices. And make sure you count all taxes - including various duties (which can easily approach 50%) of import.
Of course, the AU and EU governments will still complain and whine that they're "gouged" but it appears that Apple is one of the least gouging companies around - at least when you compare like to like (add sales taxes to price, add extended warranty to price, etc).
And yes, it's things like this that people forget all about, and yes, Apple is at fault for selling AppleCare when you don't need it.
But it's not gouging when the law says an extended warranty is mandatory and companies build it into the baseline cost.
I went into a Target a couple years ago to buy a copy of GTA IV, and they insisted on scanning the barcode off the back of my driver's license. I refused to allow them to scan my driver's license, and they refused to sell me the game. (I'm 50 years old and with a grey beard, so it wasn't to be sure that I was old enough.) I haven't been into a Target since, so this story is no problem for me!:)
It doesn't matter these days - a lot of stores end up with policies of "we card everyone" even if you're definitely old enough. It's generally used so the cashier doesn't have to make a decision if the person buy is "old enough" (there are some people who really look way older than they really are) and accidentally sell to an underage.
Card everyone makes it much simpler than having to make a guess.
If they cared even remotely enough to do that, then they would have already hardwired the indicator light to the same power source as the camera so that one couldn't be run without the other regardless of the firmware.
Except it was, sort of. The camera sensor has a line called STANDBY. When it's high, the camera is off and is not sending data to the USB chip. When it's low, the camera is sending image data. The LED is wired so when it goes low, the LED turns on.
The flaw is that the USB hardware firmware is on disk, so on boot, it's loaded into the controller's RAM. That firmware then configures the sensor. It turns out that there's a register setting that tells the sensor to ignore the STANDBY line. (Could be a debug bit - these camera sensors have tons of registers that are NOT documented - you're already looking at a good 500+ registers, and probably another 500 that aren't documented or whose presence isn't even known).
Only if Tesla stays in CA after the free money handouts stop and the "pay back to the people who made you rich and successful" part starts. If they up and move their primary manufacturing centers to the next sucker --- oops, I mean, "forward-looking business friendly state" --- to offer them free money/power/impunity once CA's generosity runs out, that mini-Detroit could end up wherever the leader in the national race to the bottom happens to be.
Except setting up a brand new factory from scratch is expensive. Tesla is in their current location because Toyota, the previous owner, wanted out. So Tesla bought the entire factory for a good price with equipment in it.
The cost to move means having to either re-buy all the equipment again, or move the equipment. Both are very expensive options with the latter involving a whole system shutdown.
Boeing, despite having moved their head office, still makes planes in WA state where their head office used to be, because all the expertise and equipment is there.
And this is why we have thousands and thousands of approximation algorithms. Computers do the work perfectly precisely, except when we are talking about decimal numbers, and if you do not need perfect precision you just program in an approximate algorithm.
I do not think you will ever do any better than picking the best mathematical algorithm for your problem, instead of just relying on lazy computers.
No, it's not. Approximation algorithms use exact computations and model approximation. The problem is using exact computations - it costs a lot of power to do so.
If instead you just needed to approximate, you can enable "approximate" mode on the calculation and the system gets you an approximate answer, which costs about 50% of the energy it takes to do an exact one.
For calculations like video and audio, that means the GPU consumes much less power as those applications are far more tolerant of approximate answers and the result is discarded in short while afterwards too.
If you don't care for the exact value, then you enable approximate calculations and save the energy of having to do an exact calculation. This is different from using an approximation algorithm on a normal computer where you calculate everything exactly and then fake approximation.
And yes, even when you're doing approximate calculations, there are times you need to do exact calculations - e.g., if you're iterating over lines of video, your iterator needs to be exact while the actual data may only need to be approximate. The proper CPU architecture has to allow for this.
According to news reports of the stops in Texas, peoples' breath was being sampled by officer-worn "non contact" breathalyzers before they were notified and without consent.
A surreptitious search is still a search. There SHOULD BE lawsuits over this.
Even more insufficient, because it's a vehicular stop.
As long as a vehicular stop is non-discriminatory (i.e., everyone has to pass through the checkpoint), it's a legal stop and all rules about plain sight apply.
And technically, you CAN smell alcohol on someone's breath. The breathalyzer just helps determine if you reek, but are under the limit and are legal, or if you need to be detailed.
Vehicular stops are special - if they're non-discriminatory, you can be searched "in plain view" (i.e., passenger compartment, no trunk nor glove compartment). Also, when asked to exit the vehicle, stand close to the front - if you're close enough to the trunk that you can reach it, that gives them the right to search "anywhere you can reach".
The Illustrated Guide to Law has a general good overview of what makes a vehicular stop special over any other sort of stop.
How dangerous is a space walk compared to, for example, a 100m depth scuba dive?
i.e.: If it wasn't so very expensive to send things up there, could space walking become a "leisure" activity?
I think it's quite dangerous - for many reasons. Hence for planned missions, they train extensively in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab - spending months practicing doing some task that will take them a day in space.
They even train for non-routine servicing - while they don't train for the specific scenario, they train hard on how to get around the ISS and all that so everyone is familiar (none more so than the commander).
Effectively, a spacewalk ends up being "routine" because the astronauts spent months practicing until it became routine. It's why it took over a week for this spacewalk - they had to come up with the scenario and figure everything out so it ends up still being well choreographed.
In effect, it's "safe" purely because everyone's done it before. And there are well know abort procedures - if something happens, abort immediately and return back to station. No "give me one more second and I'll have it" sort of things - abort means abort and get your ass back to the airlock.
I'm sure that 100m scuba dive could achieve similar results, had everything been practiced for months ahead of time and failure modes explored and abort modes followed. Of course, it sort of ruins the whole spontaneity of the thing and a lot of the fun in doing it goes away. (Plus, they're trained astronauts, so they work as a team and consider that primary over self).
Everyone who is SUPPOSEDLY using it as a currency just has it pegged to the US dollar with a live update.
I doubt it's everyone doing it with live updates - I'm fairly certain there are places that merely adjust the prices far less frequently. They may initially peg it at the current exchange rate, but adjusting it depends on how much they'd make or lose - if the value of BTC rises, they may adjust downwards a little bit, but not by much - preferring to profit form those who decide to do the "cool" thing and pay the sucker rate.
No, Apple is not packaging them up and putting them on iTunes. Apple doesn't own the copyrights. Apple Corps, the corporation founded by the members of the Beetles who do have the copyrights, is the one releasing them on iTunes.
When you have two entities that have almost the same name involved in the same story, it makes a different to differentiate the two to be absolutely clear. But this is Slashdot after all...
Not to mention the whole reason Apple Inc., was named that was because Jobs was a huge Beatles fan (well, Apple Computer, Inc. originally). And that Jobs and Woz couldn't come up with anything better.
True, and originally, the trademark dispute between the two was settled with a pittance and an agreement by Apple, Inc. not to sell music. However, they managed to win over a judge when iTunes came out and then wrest control of the trademark away from Apple Corps (perhaps better known as Apple Records) shortly thereafter.
Actually, the terms of the original agreement was to not do anything potentially related to music. So when Apple Computer released Macs with microphone support, they actually ran afoul of this. (Hence the old MacOS Classic sound "sosumi"). This was way back in 1991.
Of course, Apple managed to pull a Bill Gates and using one paragraph of the agreement, launch the iTunes store in 2003 - on the technicality that Apple (Inc.) can do it because it's a service, and not selling physical media under the Apple (Inc.) name (i.e., as long as iTunes didn't sell CDs, they were in the clear. Or that the CDs made (through iTunes burning) implied Apple sold them the CD). So Apple (Inc) won that lawsuit while Apple (corps) appealed (though the only thing they managed to do was reduce the damages from UKP2M to 1.5M).
Of course, in 2007 things basically wrapped up - Apple Corps., deciding that they really only had one asset, the lawsuits and everything really didn't do anything for Apple (Inc) and hurt Apple (Corps) financially. So they released the albums on iTunes - after all, they can still milk money off the albums still,
Because the people who download dodgy apps and sideload them, then click past the permissions list without even looking at it would selectively disable the permissions they didn't really want to grant?
The permissions problem you refer to is a really difficult one to solve. Oh, it could be solved for you, by giving you the ability to selectively disable permissions (which, BTW, you can actually do with a small amount of one-time effort), but face it, less than 1% of Android users would carefully vet and individually select the permissions. Probably much less than 1%.
The problem is in China, Google is not allowed, so Android phones do NOT ship with Google Play. Instead they ship with one or dozens of official Chinese Android app stores, which have poor quality control, often contain pirated apps (submitted by other people), and yes, tons of malware. (It's also a failure of competition as each store competes for business, so they end up wanting people to post as many apps as possible so they get used the most).
Asking the user about security is a big no-no these days, because the user will pick the option that gets them to their goal to the quickest. Or, put another way, users will pick dancing pigs over security any day. It's a failure of security policy to not recognize this (think about all the times people workaround IT security restrictions just to get their job done).
The Android permission system is basically that policy - pop up that huge list of permissions, the user's eyes glaze over and they want to pick the option that gets them "Candy Crush With Everything For Free" the quickest. Well geez, what are they going to do?
Same goes for any popular app - recommend them a cool app and they probably won't look at the permission list at all.
With this in mind, on iOS, there's no API to get at the SMS directly - you need to rely on OS flaws to do it. Even sending an SMS requires switching to the iMessages app - no app can send an SMS directly unless they implement SMS functionality within themselves (which means they can't use the cell network SMS facilities).
In that case, Apple simply makes it impossible for the user to "do the wrong thing" under the assumption that 99% of the time, any app wanting to do this will use it for evil. Sure it keeps innovative SMS apps off the App Store, but developers it turns out that for every innovative SMS app, there will be hundreds, if not thousands of other developers who would abuse the privilege. (Especially for say, advertising).
You'd actually be surprised to hear that mother's body prepares itself for giving birth by allocating a number of fecal bacteria to the vagina, which baby licks up on its way down the birth canal.
So yes, nature intends for babies to "eat shit". Because it's needed to establish appropriate gut flora. To the point where nowadays doctors take vaginal swabs and put them in baby's mouth if baby is born of cesarean section and cannot get these naturally.
It was also discovered that the infant immune system is intentionally suppressed during childbirth. Intentionally. It's not that they didn't have an immune system, it's that there's a hormone that suppresses it for the first couple of weeks.
And why do such a dangerous thing? Because the gut of a newborn is sterile. To help encourage bacteria to take up residence, the immune system is suppressed to let the colonies establish themselves.
An article by a digital musician I read recently claimed that although digital synthesis can approach the quality of a real orchestra, it's extremely time-consuming to shape every note to fit the mood and context of that note.
If you factor in the time and effort to "carve" the note to sufficient quality, it's not economical compared to a smaller orchestra, because experienced musicians do the same in real time, with 1 practice and 2 takes on average. The performing group gets it done in about an hour, while diddling a synth rendering can take weeks. Even though it's one dude or so, it's a LOT of one dude.
Plus, you risk "ear burn-out" from so many replays such that you cannot recognize quality anymore. One has to switch between projects and styles to keep their ears fresh, delaying the finished product.
Maybe the editing software eventually will get better and the computer can assist with more natural "guesses" to get closer to expectations to reduce customization, but at this stage if you want quality performances, synthesis is not fully competitive.
I think it's more than that - it's human imperfection being able to color the music so it feels "more right" or "more wrong" than normal.
This argument has been going on for decades, ever since computer synths came out. Especially on video game soundtracks, where the music is almost always synthesized.
The deal is, the synth feels, well, artificial. It's precise, it's correct, but it feels... not real. It's why there are plenty of VideoGameSymphonies out there that play with a real orchestra and are well attended.
And besides the live music, there are plenty of OSTs out there which come from the output of a high-end synth, and many re-releases where the composer took it to a real orchestra as well. Heck, there are video games that started out using synths then migrate to orchestras as well. And composers do it too - they take the video game scores they write, use it ingame with a synth, then later down the road, release an album done with a studio and orchestra.
And yes, note shaping is important - most movie scores are initially composed using a synth, but then performed with a small orchestra when recording the mix to be used in the movie.
And I'm sure the likes of deadmau5 and daft punk aren't doing purely synth - the artistry is not in the synth composition, but everything around it. The synth makes the notes, the artist shapes it to make the music. Plus, I'm sure they also do a ton of effects that are harder to do on a synth than to do "live" on a recording
The next is rediculously expensive. I use a Honneywell Wifi which is better. From what I know about the Nest from a lot of my friends that have it - the "smart" and "adaptive" stuff doesn't really work too well at all. The Honewell give you a basic schedule - and lets you access it remotely - which is what and all I really need. I don't need all the fancy display, UI, bells/whistles of the Nest. I hope/assume Google will go the "chromecast" route - in delivering an inexpensive, Wifi connected product that just works.
Funny enough, the Honeywell system I was quoted on cost twice as much as a Nest. Sure the thermostat was cheaper, but then you needed the gateway to connect its wireless to the network.
And all ti gave was a web page and stuff in the end.
Though, Nest and Honeywell are currently locked in a nasty patent battle over thermostats..
And I will say from experience - programmables suck - in practically every instance I've seen, people get all excited and program their thermostats when they get them, then after a couple of months, they don't bother. It's too cold? Override. Too hot? Override. In the end, the programmable thermostat reverts to a plain old one because no one can be bothered to reprogram the damn thing..
Dell, HP, Alienware and other company will do anything in their power to not comply with this standard. This means less chance to get money out of customers pockets. Most companies, and I point DELL this time, uses a very much different exagonal type of connection which makes universal adapters a pain in the ass to find while others like HP and other old Dell laptops are usually easy to find and replace at a very cheap price. When it's not possible, you have to call the company to get a remplacement charger for a high enough price. But I would love to see a standard in this as it would make my job much easier
I wonder how the standard will work though? Laptops require all sorts of different supplies because they take lots of power.
I mean, I have a Dell laptop with a 200W adapter. Yes, 200W. And Apple sells laptops with 65/75/85W capabilities (though, it's really stupid to buy anything other than the 85W since they're all the same price and bulk).
And every other company has similar things going - the same barrel plug accommodates multiple adapters of different power capabilities.
And because of this, lots of voltages are involved - at 200W, you need to be around 25-30V, while at 90W, you can work with 20V. The big problem is ampacity - how much current a conductor can carry. The higher the voltage, the lower the current and thinner wires or less losses are (IIR losses - they rise with the square of the current!).
In fact, most chargers are "smart" in that they contain chips to communicate with the laptop on what kind of charger they are so the laptop can decide if it's appropriate - use a low-power adapter and the laptop may simply issue an error message, while one that's barely adequate tells the laptop to not charge the battery, and the proper one lets it charge and power the system.
I think this originated from airplane power - where it provides just enough to run most laptops, but not charge them (and depending on the plane, you can trip the seat socket if your laptop attempts to charge and draw more than 75W).
It's good to have a universal adapter. The question is - how universal is it? Will it work with my 200W demanding beast of a laptop? But then you'd be lugging a 10 pound brick (If you thought the Xbox360 adapter was large...) just to be able to charge your dainty ultrabook as well?
I sense a whole lot more of them in Amazon's (near) future...
I wouldn't be surprised if most of the fetching is done via robot. However,there's still a few things a robot can't or doesn't do. The Kiva systems maintain the stacks and stock in the warehouse, but all they do in the end is fetch a pile of items and bring it to someone who takes the item and packs it.
I would be surprised if Amazon's warehouses in Germany aren't mostly robots - the big army of people are doing the jobs that haven't or aren't automated yet - picking the items off the shelf of goods the robot brings them, stuffing it int the box, adding the necessary filler and then sealing it. Even tasks like assembling the box aren't automated - so the packer has to pick the right box and tape it up or glue it together. And applying all the shipping labels to the box and all that.
And then there's loading the randomly-sized packages onto the truck - as full as possible.
Even though we're talking about 10k+ jobs total, the vast majority of them are doing those things 24/7. There aren't many of them wandering the warehouse searching for items - it's just packing, sealing, labelling and loading.
Oh, and the dozens of people monitoring the conveyor system because a jammed package can mean real chaos - when you're getting what, 300+ orders a second, stopping the line for a few minutes to clear the jam has real repercussions (and it'll take a few minutes since it has to be tagged out before starting the fix). The packers rapidly backup and the loaders run out of packages so the whole system is idle.
What? No. You've just invented the idea that the UK only recognises copyrights for works produced within the UK.
I'm not a lawyer, but I imagine the UK court would recognise a copyright infringement regardless of that the author was in California. Surely, if you infringe the Californian's copyright whilst in the UK, you've broken UK copyright law and can be tried in the UK.
By law, that's correct - each country only recognizes their copyright and do not generally respect those of other countries. In fact, during the early colonial days, many publishers got rich (including early American presidents) by pirating English works - music, books, etc. This was legal since English copyright was only enforceable within the UK, and any other country didn't have to respect it.
It's only because of the Berne convention on copyright that there are bilaterial treaties regarding copyright enforcement. Of course, it's only the copyright holder that can complain, but it means that the other countries have to listen to the complaint rather than ignoring it.
Here's a radical idea: why don't they fix the stupid exponential algorithm rather than papering it over by trimming the lists?
Because the product is obsolete and will be out of support in 4 months?
That's like replacing the air conditioner In a car that's about to be sold or scrapped.
Now, if you're talking about WIndows Vista or 7, then yes, it's a good idea to fix it. But for something already out of date and will be EOL'd, there's less justification.
The problem is the money wasted every time they move the goalposts to "save money." This happens constantly at NASA. I wonder how much cheaper it would be to actually finish some projects as planed, instead of redesigning to cut costs halfway through each time?
The problem is the projects take far longer than politicians are in power for - you're looking at easily a decade from conception, design, test and launch. The Mars rovers are an anomaly as they're generally done "on the cheap" just to see what was possible, but it still took a long time to actually plan out and do it all.
And with NASA's budget and goals being at the whim and fart of politicians, well, it can't be helped.
If you ever wonder why NASA spends so much on public relations, that's probably the only thing keeping base funding alive - just having public awareness they exist and that space is interesting means they get some funding.
As for TFA the answer is....they BOTH SUCK, you should buy a PC instead. You can get a damned nice PC cheaper than ever, controllers? hundreds to pick from. Games? There is easily a dozen different places you can buy them and thanks to actual competition (a free market instead of a monopoly? What a concept!) prices have never been better and you can find sales all the time.
Cost? Lots of PC games cost $60. Oh look, same as console games! (This only happened the past couple of years).
And games? Well, if you want Minecraft and the like, yeah. But GTA 5? Spring 2014. Perhaps if you were a shooter fan, BF4, yes.
The problem with the PC is that piracy has killed a lot of the lucrativeness of it. So the PC version is "just a port" because the devs are really only looking to recoup their porting investment when 9 out of every 10 copies played is pirated.
That's why people have gone console - the money's better there. The only ones left on the PC are the indies, and while we can argue all day which is better (90% of it is crap, but that still leaves a ton of good indie games).
It's why this round of the console wars is not going to be defined by AAA games (they already won that - the PC ports are just a formality), but by which company offers a better indie developer policy - they've been accustomed to the Apple model of doing things and are anxious to continue. (They'd love the Android model, but they are realists and really do know what happens when a crap release comes out and bombs their ratings).
Hell, if "consolification" wasn't important, why are there things like Ouya, and why has Valve started looking at consoles? Valve is traditionally a PC developer first, own the PC "app store" market (which, mind you, isn't really any better than Microsoft or Sony's - it's just as hard to get in, the only benefit is updates are trivially easy. Apple still holds the crown for walled gardens, while Steam is probably close behind).
Bingo. Does anyone NOT have 'show linked images' turned off? Pretty sure most email clients have it disabled by default these days.
Most webmail does it too - at least Hotmail and until now, Gmail. Heck, even personal webmail things normally block linked images by default.
That's right, Gmail is going to enable loading of linked images with this change.
It's a setting - you can switch it back, but who knows how long Google will keep that option available... Just that the default setting is show all images now. (And default settings are important - few actually bother changing default settings).
Do we categorize Argon as a non-noble gas, or do we redefine what a noble gas actually is?
Neither.
A noble element is one that has its valence shell full. That's it. That's why it's in that column of the periodic table.
It doesn't mean it won't react, it's just got less reason to (atoms normally bond to fill up their valence shell with electrons by sharing them with other atoms). That just means that two noble elements are not likely to bond together (no sharing going on). However, that doesn't mean some other element short of electron(s) won't want to bond with a noble element in order to "borrow" its electrons.
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Yeah. They'll go for lower hanging fruit instead, and let the legislative bodies suffer from crimes that they "could have" solved had they enough "for a warrant" and all that stuff.
Remember, there are three pillars - you have the executive, the legislative, and the judicial (law enforcement). If the judicial branch doesn't have the tools necessary, they'll ask the legislative for a law.
E.g., if a pedophile decided that was a perfect mechanism for their stuff, all the police have to do is say "sorry, we don't have the tools - we can't wiretap or monitor them nor do we have evidence to do those things" and go about solving easier crimes. That causes "concerned citizens" to put pressure on the senators to enact laws giving them the tools to monitor stuff, and then we're back in the same place.
Except he's fine with them updating after hours, when the demand on the connection is far lower.
Basically, he doesn't want updates to bog down the internet link during school hours and making everyone's experience slow and annoying (especially Apple updates - want a good speed test? Apple seems to push the bits out). But after hours when the link is idle, update away because no one else is likely to notice.
Depends. the iOS 7 kill switch seems fairly effective - though it has an interesting side effect -some people have "found" lost phones and being locked out, gives them no way to actually return the phone.
And why would law enforcement want to kill your phone? If they're after you, they won't want to kill a very useful surveillance and tracking device that leads them to your location. And if you believe the hype, the ability to turn on the microphone and camera. Why would they want to disable that ability?
OK, maybe to go after cellphone bombs. Maybe. But since they could just turn off the tower in the first place... and the terrorists could wire it up so if the phone loses signal...
Either way, law enforcement wanting to disable it seems mighty unlikely given how useful it is to be able to use a currently active one for surveillance.
Because it's dull and boring. Do you vacuum the floor of your house weekly? Or change the bedsheets? Clean the toilet? Dust (even just cleaning the dust out of your PC)?
The problem is it's a chore. A huge PITA to go and plug stuff in, drag and drop, and then unplug it.
The funny thing is that companies have been doing it the convenient way for ages - backups happen at night and all that stuff, with no intervention from the admin or users.
I happen to have current backups because all my PCs back themselves up over the network at night automatically. I don't do a single thing - it just happens. Once in a while they miss a backup because of an error, but it usually resolves itself in a couple of days. No muss, no fuss, it just works.
The real irony is Microsoft discontinued the software - Windows Home Server was perhaps the single most easy to use backup solution ever - once you install the connector software, the backups happen automatically overnight. And even better, it backs up network and disk drivers so as long as you have access to the backup via another system, you can copy the drivers so even if your PC is too new for the restore DVD, you can still instruct it to load the saved drivers (off USB key) and perform a network restore.
And it also was a de-dupe full image backup - you could restore to a blank hard drive and get back your system as it was, OS and all (and you can of course, browse a image backup by date and use Explorer to copy files off the backup if you only need to restore a few files or folders).
Honestly, one of the most slick backup solutions around for home use, and it's discontinued now.
Actually, that's already what they do.
If you count the cost of AppleCare into the price of the device, then add taxes, you find that the EU and Australian prices aren't too far out of line anymore with the US prices. And make sure you count all taxes - including various duties (which can easily approach 50%) of import.
Of course, the AU and EU governments will still complain and whine that they're "gouged" but it appears that Apple is one of the least gouging companies around - at least when you compare like to like (add sales taxes to price, add extended warranty to price, etc).
And yes, it's things like this that people forget all about, and yes, Apple is at fault for selling AppleCare when you don't need it.
But it's not gouging when the law says an extended warranty is mandatory and companies build it into the baseline cost.
It doesn't matter these days - a lot of stores end up with policies of "we card everyone" even if you're definitely old enough. It's generally used so the cashier doesn't have to make a decision if the person buy is "old enough" (there are some people who really look way older than they really are) and accidentally sell to an underage.
Card everyone makes it much simpler than having to make a guess.
Except it was, sort of. The camera sensor has a line called STANDBY. When it's high, the camera is off and is not sending data to the USB chip. When it's low, the camera is sending image data. The LED is wired so when it goes low, the LED turns on.
The flaw is that the USB hardware firmware is on disk, so on boot, it's loaded into the controller's RAM. That firmware then configures the sensor. It turns out that there's a register setting that tells the sensor to ignore the STANDBY line. (Could be a debug bit - these camera sensors have tons of registers that are NOT documented - you're already looking at a good 500+ registers, and probably another 500 that aren't documented or whose presence isn't even known).
Ars Technica has a nice technical writeup - http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/perv-utopia-light-on-macbook-webcams-can-be-bypassed/
Except setting up a brand new factory from scratch is expensive. Tesla is in their current location because Toyota, the previous owner, wanted out. So Tesla bought the entire factory for a good price with equipment in it.
The cost to move means having to either re-buy all the equipment again, or move the equipment. Both are very expensive options with the latter involving a whole system shutdown.
Boeing, despite having moved their head office, still makes planes in WA state where their head office used to be, because all the expertise and equipment is there.
No, it's not. Approximation algorithms use exact computations and model approximation. The problem is using exact computations - it costs a lot of power to do so.
If instead you just needed to approximate, you can enable "approximate" mode on the calculation and the system gets you an approximate answer, which costs about 50% of the energy it takes to do an exact one.
For calculations like video and audio, that means the GPU consumes much less power as those applications are far more tolerant of approximate answers and the result is discarded in short while afterwards too.
If you don't care for the exact value, then you enable approximate calculations and save the energy of having to do an exact calculation. This is different from using an approximation algorithm on a normal computer where you calculate everything exactly and then fake approximation.
And yes, even when you're doing approximate calculations, there are times you need to do exact calculations - e.g., if you're iterating over lines of video, your iterator needs to be exact while the actual data may only need to be approximate. The proper CPU architecture has to allow for this.
Even more insufficient, because it's a vehicular stop.
As long as a vehicular stop is non-discriminatory (i.e., everyone has to pass through the checkpoint), it's a legal stop and all rules about plain sight apply.
And technically, you CAN smell alcohol on someone's breath. The breathalyzer just helps determine if you reek, but are under the limit and are legal, or if you need to be detailed.
Vehicular stops are special - if they're non-discriminatory, you can be searched "in plain view" (i.e., passenger compartment, no trunk nor glove compartment). Also, when asked to exit the vehicle, stand close to the front - if you're close enough to the trunk that you can reach it, that gives them the right to search "anywhere you can reach".
The Illustrated Guide to Law has a general good overview of what makes a vehicular stop special over any other sort of stop.
I think it's quite dangerous - for many reasons. Hence for planned missions, they train extensively in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab - spending months practicing doing some task that will take them a day in space.
They even train for non-routine servicing - while they don't train for the specific scenario, they train hard on how to get around the ISS and all that so everyone is familiar (none more so than the commander).
Effectively, a spacewalk ends up being "routine" because the astronauts spent months practicing until it became routine. It's why it took over a week for this spacewalk - they had to come up with the scenario and figure everything out so it ends up still being well choreographed.
In effect, it's "safe" purely because everyone's done it before. And there are well know abort procedures - if something happens, abort immediately and return back to station. No "give me one more second and I'll have it" sort of things - abort means abort and get your ass back to the airlock.
I'm sure that 100m scuba dive could achieve similar results, had everything been practiced for months ahead of time and failure modes explored and abort modes followed. Of course, it sort of ruins the whole spontaneity of the thing and a lot of the fun in doing it goes away. (Plus, they're trained astronauts, so they work as a team and consider that primary over self).
I doubt it's everyone doing it with live updates - I'm fairly certain there are places that merely adjust the prices far less frequently. They may initially peg it at the current exchange rate, but adjusting it depends on how much they'd make or lose - if the value of BTC rises, they may adjust downwards a little bit, but not by much - preferring to profit form those who decide to do the "cool" thing and pay the sucker rate.
Not to mention the whole reason Apple Inc., was named that was because Jobs was a huge Beatles fan (well, Apple Computer, Inc. originally). And that Jobs and Woz couldn't come up with anything better.
Actually, the terms of the original agreement was to not do anything potentially related to music. So when Apple Computer released Macs with microphone support, they actually ran afoul of this. (Hence the old MacOS Classic sound "sosumi"). This was way back in 1991.
Of course, Apple managed to pull a Bill Gates and using one paragraph of the agreement, launch the iTunes store in 2003 - on the technicality that Apple (Inc.) can do it because it's a service, and not selling physical media under the Apple (Inc.) name (i.e., as long as iTunes didn't sell CDs, they were in the clear. Or that the CDs made (through iTunes burning) implied Apple sold them the CD). So Apple (Inc) won that lawsuit while Apple (corps) appealed (though the only thing they managed to do was reduce the damages from UKP2M to 1.5M).
Of course, in 2007 things basically wrapped up - Apple Corps., deciding that they really only had one asset, the lawsuits and everything really didn't do anything for Apple (Inc) and hurt Apple (Corps) financially. So they released the albums on iTunes - after all, they can still milk money off the albums still,
The problem is in China, Google is not allowed, so Android phones do NOT ship with Google Play. Instead they ship with one or dozens of official Chinese Android app stores, which have poor quality control, often contain pirated apps (submitted by other people), and yes, tons of malware. (It's also a failure of competition as each store competes for business, so they end up wanting people to post as many apps as possible so they get used the most).
Asking the user about security is a big no-no these days, because the user will pick the option that gets them to their goal to the quickest. Or, put another way, users will pick dancing pigs over security any day. It's a failure of security policy to not recognize this (think about all the times people workaround IT security restrictions just to get their job done).
The Android permission system is basically that policy - pop up that huge list of permissions, the user's eyes glaze over and they want to pick the option that gets them "Candy Crush With Everything For Free" the quickest. Well geez, what are they going to do?
Same goes for any popular app - recommend them a cool app and they probably won't look at the permission list at all.
With this in mind, on iOS, there's no API to get at the SMS directly - you need to rely on OS flaws to do it. Even sending an SMS requires switching to the iMessages app - no app can send an SMS directly unless they implement SMS functionality within themselves (which means they can't use the cell network SMS facilities).
In that case, Apple simply makes it impossible for the user to "do the wrong thing" under the assumption that 99% of the time, any app wanting to do this will use it for evil. Sure it keeps innovative SMS apps off the App Store, but developers it turns out that for every innovative SMS app, there will be hundreds, if not thousands of other developers who would abuse the privilege. (Especially for say, advertising).
It was also discovered that the infant immune system is intentionally suppressed during childbirth. Intentionally. It's not that they didn't have an immune system, it's that there's a hormone that suppresses it for the first couple of weeks.
And why do such a dangerous thing? Because the gut of a newborn is sterile. To help encourage bacteria to take up residence, the immune system is suppressed to let the colonies establish themselves.
I think it's more than that - it's human imperfection being able to color the music so it feels "more right" or "more wrong" than normal.
This argument has been going on for decades, ever since computer synths came out. Especially on video game soundtracks, where the music is almost always synthesized.
The deal is, the synth feels, well, artificial. It's precise, it's correct, but it feels ... not real. It's why there are plenty of Video Game Symphonies out there that play with a real orchestra and are well attended.
And besides the live music, there are plenty of OSTs out there which come from the output of a high-end synth, and many re-releases where the composer took it to a real orchestra as well. Heck, there are video games that started out using synths then migrate to orchestras as well. And composers do it too - they take the video game scores they write, use it ingame with a synth, then later down the road, release an album done with a studio and orchestra.
And yes, note shaping is important - most movie scores are initially composed using a synth, but then performed with a small orchestra when recording the mix to be used in the movie.
And I'm sure the likes of deadmau5 and daft punk aren't doing purely synth - the artistry is not in the synth composition, but everything around it. The synth makes the notes, the artist shapes it to make the music. Plus, I'm sure they also do a ton of effects that are harder to do on a synth than to do "live" on a recording
Funny enough, the Honeywell system I was quoted on cost twice as much as a Nest. Sure the thermostat was cheaper, but then you needed the gateway to connect its wireless to the network.
And all ti gave was a web page and stuff in the end.
Though, Nest and Honeywell are currently locked in a nasty patent battle over thermostats..
And I will say from experience - programmables suck - in practically every instance I've seen, people get all excited and program their thermostats when they get them, then after a couple of months, they don't bother. It's too cold? Override. Too hot? Override. In the end, the programmable thermostat reverts to a plain old one because no one can be bothered to reprogram the damn thing..
I wonder how the standard will work though? Laptops require all sorts of different supplies because they take lots of power.
I mean, I have a Dell laptop with a 200W adapter. Yes, 200W. And Apple sells laptops with 65/75/85W capabilities (though, it's really stupid to buy anything other than the 85W since they're all the same price and bulk).
And every other company has similar things going - the same barrel plug accommodates multiple adapters of different power capabilities.
And because of this, lots of voltages are involved - at 200W, you need to be around 25-30V, while at 90W, you can work with 20V. The big problem is ampacity - how much current a conductor can carry. The higher the voltage, the lower the current and thinner wires or less losses are (IIR losses - they rise with the square of the current!).
In fact, most chargers are "smart" in that they contain chips to communicate with the laptop on what kind of charger they are so the laptop can decide if it's appropriate - use a low-power adapter and the laptop may simply issue an error message, while one that's barely adequate tells the laptop to not charge the battery, and the proper one lets it charge and power the system.
I think this originated from airplane power - where it provides just enough to run most laptops, but not charge them (and depending on the plane, you can trip the seat socket if your laptop attempts to charge and draw more than 75W).
It's good to have a universal adapter. The question is - how universal is it? Will it work with my 200W demanding beast of a laptop? But then you'd be lugging a 10 pound brick (If you thought the Xbox360 adapter was large...) just to be able to charge your dainty ultrabook as well?
I wouldn't be surprised if most of the fetching is done via robot. However ,there's still a few things a robot can't or doesn't do. The Kiva systems maintain the stacks and stock in the warehouse, but all they do in the end is fetch a pile of items and bring it to someone who takes the item and packs it.
I would be surprised if Amazon's warehouses in Germany aren't mostly robots - the big army of people are doing the jobs that haven't or aren't automated yet - picking the items off the shelf of goods the robot brings them, stuffing it int the box, adding the necessary filler and then sealing it. Even tasks like assembling the box aren't automated - so the packer has to pick the right box and tape it up or glue it together. And applying all the shipping labels to the box and all that.
And then there's loading the randomly-sized packages onto the truck - as full as possible.
Even though we're talking about 10k+ jobs total, the vast majority of them are doing those things 24/7. There aren't many of them wandering the warehouse searching for items - it's just packing, sealing, labelling and loading.
Oh, and the dozens of people monitoring the conveyor system because a jammed package can mean real chaos - when you're getting what, 300+ orders a second, stopping the line for a few minutes to clear the jam has real repercussions (and it'll take a few minutes since it has to be tagged out before starting the fix). The packers rapidly backup and the loaders run out of packages so the whole system is idle.
By law, that's correct - each country only recognizes their copyright and do not generally respect those of other countries. In fact, during the early colonial days, many publishers got rich (including early American presidents) by pirating English works - music, books, etc. This was legal since English copyright was only enforceable within the UK, and any other country didn't have to respect it.
It's only because of the Berne convention on copyright that there are bilaterial treaties regarding copyright enforcement. Of course, it's only the copyright holder that can complain, but it means that the other countries have to listen to the complaint rather than ignoring it.
Because the product is obsolete and will be out of support in 4 months?
That's like replacing the air conditioner In a car that's about to be sold or scrapped.
Now, if you're talking about WIndows Vista or 7, then yes, it's a good idea to fix it. But for something already out of date and will be EOL'd, there's less justification.
The problem is the projects take far longer than politicians are in power for - you're looking at easily a decade from conception, design, test and launch. The Mars rovers are an anomaly as they're generally done "on the cheap" just to see what was possible, but it still took a long time to actually plan out and do it all.
And with NASA's budget and goals being at the whim and fart of politicians, well, it can't be helped.
If you ever wonder why NASA spends so much on public relations, that's probably the only thing keeping base funding alive - just having public awareness they exist and that space is interesting means they get some funding.
Cost? Lots of PC games cost $60. Oh look, same as console games! (This only happened the past couple of years).
And games? Well, if you want Minecraft and the like, yeah. But GTA 5? Spring 2014. Perhaps if you were a shooter fan, BF4, yes.
The problem with the PC is that piracy has killed a lot of the lucrativeness of it. So the PC version is "just a port" because the devs are really only looking to recoup their porting investment when 9 out of every 10 copies played is pirated.
That's why people have gone console - the money's better there. The only ones left on the PC are the indies, and while we can argue all day which is better (90% of it is crap, but that still leaves a ton of good indie games).
It's why this round of the console wars is not going to be defined by AAA games (they already won that - the PC ports are just a formality), but by which company offers a better indie developer policy - they've been accustomed to the Apple model of doing things and are anxious to continue. (They'd love the Android model, but they are realists and really do know what happens when a crap release comes out and bombs their ratings).
Hell, if "consolification" wasn't important, why are there things like Ouya, and why has Valve started looking at consoles? Valve is traditionally a PC developer first, own the PC "app store" market (which, mind you, isn't really any better than Microsoft or Sony's - it's just as hard to get in, the only benefit is updates are trivially easy. Apple still holds the crown for walled gardens, while Steam is probably close behind).
Most webmail does it too - at least Hotmail and until now, Gmail. Heck, even personal webmail things normally block linked images by default.
That's right, Gmail is going to enable loading of linked images with this change.
It's a setting - you can switch it back, but who knows how long Google will keep that option available... Just that the default setting is show all images now. (And default settings are important - few actually bother changing default settings).
Neither.
A noble element is one that has its valence shell full. That's it. That's why it's in that column of the periodic table.
It doesn't mean it won't react, it's just got less reason to (atoms normally bond to fill up their valence shell with electrons by sharing them with other atoms). That just means that two noble elements are not likely to bond together (no sharing going on). However, that doesn't mean some other element short of electron(s) won't want to bond with a noble element in order to "borrow" its electrons.