The problem is that in our 'classless' society, we seem to believe that EVERYONE needs to be some sort of intellectual, enjoying reading Shakespeare or knowing the dates of important things in history. I mean, EVERYONE should go to college, right?
The fact is, of course, 95% of everyone could get along very nicely never doing either. In fact, we'd be far better off if we somehow 'decided' that knowing how to do plumbing, how to farm, or how to be an electrician was somehow just as 'valued' as Shakespeare?
So you would agree then that 95% of people don't give a crap about computers and just want to get stuff done? Or why they're eagerly snapping up tablets and smartphones because they're easier to use and less of a bother?
Remember, said electrician or plumber doesn't care about Shakespeare, and they don't care about computers either - other than what they need to know in order to fill out an invoice. And how to use it to get information, recurrent training and how to stay in touch with others. And is just as likely to care about GPL, FOSS and other stuff like freedom as much as they care about what Hamlet is about? Or even stuff about copyrights and DRM. As long as that Blu-ray movie plays in their player, it's good enough. Or that they can sit in front of an Xbox or Playstation and have a few games with buddies.
Except there's little evidence that the sort of users commonly described as "consumers" desire to "become more capable on average". They tend to choose convenience over flexibility, such as iPhone, iPad, and game consoles.
They become more capable in what interests them.
Tell me - would you want to be "more capable" by learning to read literature? History? Arts? These make you "more capable" in being able to appreciate the world. Or perhaps accounting. Or law (since we can't eve seem to get basic IP law of trademarks, copyright and patents (design and novelty) straight). Or have we gotten to naÃve to think that we know it all? (Given the level of commentary on/.). Or hell, what about mere basic spelling? Or about such niceties as etiquette? (How much are complementary studies courses hated as a "waste of time" when pursuing a degree?).
The thing is - the world is complex. There's way more to learn than one could ever know. And rather than try to learn it all, we specialize. We know IT inside and out (and not all of it - some know how to admin servers, others know how to write an OS, others still write applications that run on top, etc., including databases, web sites, etc.). Then there's designers, blah blah blah.
Well, other people don't care about computers. Being a modern world, you can't AVOID using a computer - there will always be useful websites on your choice of interest for which you can learn, and the Internet took off because no one needed to know how networks, TCP/IP, OSes, etc., worked, and it grew into this whole place where everyone can share information from computers to guns to cars to furries and porn.
The computer is a tool. The vast majority of people see it as a convenient way to access the internet, gather information, share information, keep in touch with family, friends and relatives, etc. It is to many like the car, or telephone, or television - they don't care how it works, just that it works and it enables them to go about their day. They don't care how a car works, they just twist the key and turn the wheel to arrive at their destination. They don't care how the phone works, the basics of circuit switching (or virtual circuits) or ODFM modulation, they just punch a few numbers and in a few seconds, they're talking with someone who can be next door or around the world. Likewise, they don't care about bits or bytes, what CSMA/CD does, or what QAM is - they know they can click an icon, and start perusing information they want to know, or to make contact with someone, etc.
The vast majority of people do not care to learn how to set up a web server just to put a few photos online - they'll use facebook, flickr, picasa or other service. Or if they want to write, they'll go open a Blogger account with Google. Some may want to go into business and create a website - you can do that to without knowing how HTTP works - just purchase some web hosting service, upload a few web pages, and enjoy. None of them need to know how to write an httpd.conf file, what/etc/init.d/httpd does, firewall configuration, etc.
And to be honest, if they had to know it, they'd go "cool" and end up doing things the old way that they always had because they can concentrate on getting stuff done, and not learning unrelated crap just to get stuff done.
That's why smartphones, tablets and consoles are popular - they're good at the "get your stuff done" part and hiding away the crap people don't care about.
And hell, let's say you wanted to learn Linux, so you install Ubuntu, open port 80 on your firewall, and put up some websites. Oh wait, your Linux box suddenly got compromised by some PHP bug and is now uploading at gigabit speeds. Of course, you don't know enough Linux to fix it, your websites are still working and you don't want to take those down (or you copy your stuff off, reinstall, put it back, get infected again...).
Is it me or does it seem like Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place now? They've spent months telling us about how the Kinect was mandatory and that it would be used by all their games moving forward! Now developers are going to have to acknowledge that it is optional and that a substantial portion of the population won't use it. Furthermore, people are going to ask, if it's optional, why are you forcing me to buy it?
For every one of these u-turns they make (after touting the features that these things apparently relied on), they just seem more and more boxed in.
This one isn't really a boxing in.
Developers code for Kinect like they always do. It's just that instead of getting the body data they get, well, they get nothing. So you code for Kinect, and if the gamer has it connected (face it - most people don't care and will leave it plugged in) then you get the voice recognition and gesture recognition data you need. Else, you don't and you play as always.
By forcing everyone to have a sensor, developers know that everyone has a sensor and they can add those features to the game. And yes, every game can be "enhanced" if not "controlled by" Kinect.
By enhanced, it still requires the controller, but you can do things easier. Perhaps in a team-based FPS, you use hand signals - well, you can simply gesture them with Kinect, or use some elaborate menu system to pick it out from a menu (or more likely, you won't be able to gesture it and have to communicate some other way). Or how Forza looks at your head movements to control where you look - if you don't have Kinect, no problem, you see the default view. If you have it great it works.
The only real change here is that you can unplug it if you feel you can't tolerate the spying.
So Xbox devs do what they always do - assume Kinect is there. If it isn't, they'll probably get some sensible default data that doesn't change. And voice recognition simply won't work - the game doesn't get the commands at all. Effectively, the game sees motionless, mute people without Kinect.
Of course, if the game requires Kinect or you need to make gestures, well, plug it in. I suspect the "Kinect less" mode won't be well tested since devs know everyone has a Kinect, but it's not always connected.
Except that the lightbulbs don't use WiFi. They use zigbee, and are paired with a central hub through Ethernet. That central hub actually has a bunch of provisions including rate limiting (there's only so many commands you can send it). And each lightbulb is controlled individually so if you have your whole house wired with them, the attacker would hit the limit fairly quickly.
It's a problem because several have tried to sync the bulbs to music, or to be a cheap lighting system only to run into the rate limits. (The bulbs can only be paired with one hub, too).
That, and there's a failsafe in if you flip the switch off and then on again, the bulb goes into "full on" mode.
They're not quite wireless lightbulbs - they're really color-controllable lightbulbs - you can set them to emit a certain color rather than just white or a color temperature controlled white.
Like the GPL, the LGPL requires distributions of executable applications to provide "scripts for controlling installation" (2.1) or "Installation Information" (LGPLv3) for running an application with a modified library. Console makers have shown themselves unwilling to allow video game publishers to provide this sort of Installation Information to the public.
Actually, in general, console makers are against open-source period. Technically speaking, you COULD use GPLv2 code in your game (making it GPLv2), but pretty much all the console makers prohibit any sort of thing like that. In 2009, the ScummVM team found ScummVM used in 3 Wii games and then people realized their SDK agreement prohibited open-source.
And naturally, the installation information will never be public because it'll contain private keys that the console makers would rather keep private.
About the only code allowed for a console game is BSD or BSD like (zlib, apache, etc). where the developer has full control of the code.
Of course, the Wii U, Xbox One and PS4 will probably see hefty revisions to their developer agreements as AAA titles become de-emphasized and the next gen will be about indie games.
Why would a spammer bother? You know what's cheaper than running their own machines? Using someone else's machine. Most spammers use botnets and such for everything - less likely to get caught, there's so many out there that prices are low and many ISPs don't do egress filtering properly so port 25 outgoing makes life simple.
2) because the pods are meant to have the air sucked out of them. If anything happens to the tube which breaks the structure of the tube (tree falling onto it for example, then air is going to rush in and the pod wont be able to travel at 800mph even if it tried to, it makes a very easy to detect failsafe system, just have pressure sensors on the pods and in the tubes.
You also missed a rather brilliant failsafe as well - let's say the tube fails and thus, the vacuum fails. Your pod now has to battle onrushing air and is also being "sucked" backwards, thus forming a natural brake.
That's if the tube section ahead of you fails.
If it fails behind you, the onrushing air pushes you away from the broken section.
So safety is enhanced because your pod will end up being pushed away from the broken section.
Of course, there's a chance that you might run into the pod behind or ahead of you (depending if the broken section is ahead or behind you, respectively), but given some "leakage" of air around your pod, an air cushion could form that likewise slows your approach ahead. Assuming the pods weren't spaced out to begin with..
Because domestic turkeys are bred for the amount of meat they have, nothing else.
In fact, they're so big that they can't be put back in the wild - they're too big to even mate. Domestic turkey farms rely on artificial insemination in order to breed them.
Advertising on the internet is the most common route for malware by far. That's why I install ad blocking software everywhere. Marketers whine and complain about lost revenue and try to guilt you by saying they need that revenue to run the sites "for free"... but the truth is the way most advertising networks operate allow for "dancing, singing" ads -- that is, injectable javascript. Everything in the marketer's world these days is about using java to track, probe, manipulate, etc., web pages, with pop-overs, pop-unders, drive-bys, side to side scrollers, sound, motion, and anything else to get your attention.
Except well, how do you expect developers to eat?
Remember, the ad is loaded by the app, and given Android's fairly limited ways of monetization, developers would like to make some money back. If not through a 4rd party ad network, then through siphoning your user data off the phone to their servers.
At least on iOS, there's a decent chance to make money without ads, but on Android, it's a lot more iffy. Ads pretty much the only way to beat iOS at the revenue game.
Anything else as far as dieting is concerned is window dressing.
Except how to do it sustainably.
Sure the easiest way to lose weight? Stop eating. Since your body needs 2000-2500 calories a day, you should magically lose a few bounds over the course of the week.
Of course, you'll feel terrible and look just awful and temptation gets to you pretty damn quick.
So while the magic is to eat less than you consume, the real trick is doing so in such a way that you don't feel hungry all the time, and to do it so once you've lost the weight, you don't put it back on again (most people who diet end up getting the weight back - it's called yo-yo dieting and no, it's not healthy).
And of course, to counter human psychology - so you're not constantly craving "what you cannot have".
That's the real trick to dieting - and it's not as simple as it might appear. All diets work the same way and have the same goals - but each one has attempted to find a way to ensure that you stick with the diet, that you don't feel hungry all the time (and end up snacking excessively), that you don't fall into temptation and pig out on your favorite food, etc. And of course, to do so in a healthy way.
That's why there are so many diet books - each one tries to solve it a different way.
Here's my two weeks notice, the last reason to work here is gone!
They could offer healthier snacks - fruits and vegetables, for instance, rather than oversalted and oversugared treats.
They could offer healthier drinks as well.
Of course, the real reason they don't is that salty and sugary treats and soda are much cheaper, last forever, and everyone gets addicted to them because those treats were engineered to be liked by our lizard-brains.
It's ridiculous in this day and age that an OS can fail to make random numbers properly. That's one of the most basic operations. How lazy/incompetent are the Google programmers?
Especially since most SoCs used in Android actually have hardware cryptographic accellerators, and one feature of them was a hardware RNG.
Granted, hardware RNGs vary in quality, but most do a very decent job. Even several generations old CPUs have RNG instructions (Intel CPUs, for example - they've had RNGs built in since Core2 days I believe).
That's the beauty of it - passbook works because you don't need new equipment to handle it - your existing scanners should "just work" with it.
Scan a barcode that passbook displays and you're done.
Of course, I wonder how good NFC is at longer distances (anything RF can be came to work at longer than designed for distances). I mean, if you have an NFC reader, can you extend the field somewhat so you can track people using NFC? I mean, I'm presuming there's at least an ID aspect to it...
If not, bumping into people's butts and purses would be a swell way to read dozens of credit card information (you get all the track 2 data via NFC).
Also, since the communication is now international --- it now falls under lawful interception; because the NSA is free and expected to snoop on international communications, this bit about using an overseas provider essentially in all likelihood guarantees the NSA will receive a copy of the metadata... whereas, otherwise, it would not be so certain
I've wondered - why do people want to make their e-mail even more suspicious? The truth is, despite the saying, you're not all that special. The people you send email to aren't all that special either (for the most part - assuming most people don't correspond with "interesting people" with shipping orders on munitions or such).
By encrypting, using offshore services, etc, it puts your messages into the "interesting" category - something to examine in depth.
By doing what everyone else does you fall under the radar because you've become the background noise. It's not steganography because you're not trying to hide communications, you're just going about your day simply not caring and making your correspondence look just the same as everyone else's.
Or take it this way - do some people watching at a busy street and listen to other people's conversations. You'll find the vast majority are really quite dull and boring and you'll have to sift through days worth of phone calls before you can find the one nugget of interesting.
It's why metadata analysis is more interesting (and technically legal - a pen recorder in the old days could be had without a warrant, but actually recording phone calls required a warrant). Mapping a web of people and their interactions produces interesting behavior patterns. Even meta data analysis like whether it's encrypted can produce interesting results.
When you do malicious things to Sky's customers, wouldn't it make you just as or perhaps even more oppressive than the people already controlling their content?
Depends on what happens.
If it merely means the site is unreachable, then well, not much (sites go down all the time). If it means you get a scary looking page that says "you've access a site hosting illegal materials" then conversations get started.
Blocking big sites that can do this can generate some buzz, and the worst part is, you can't really tell WHICH site did it.
Imagine someone wanting to visit the BBC, getting the scary page, then maybe they entered it wrong. Try again, scary page. Google it - well, Google's got a scary page as well.
Eventually someone will figure out which ISPs seem to be generating false scary pages and avoid them.
A game of whack a mole - they block a site, that site blocks another site, now Sky has ot figure out ways around it, etc. Eventually someone will make a mistake and allow through a blocked site's IP.
Regional limitations? Not on iTunes and/or Amazon, or held back for weeks/months? Edited from original (SyFy does this to DW)?
Except for the last point - so what if it's delayed? Is there some law that states you have to get it in your preferred form the day it's released?
Or consider it this way - if you want it the day of, you pay "first mover" prices - cable+HBO. It's the same as in technology - the latest and greatest that comes out is the most expensive. A few months later, it's in the bargain bin. Likewise, if you don't want to pay for cable+HBO prices, you can wait for iTunes or Amazon or the DVD/Blu-Ray to release a cheaper version of it.
Just like I'm not entitled to get a SGS4 at "free with contract" even though in a few months, that'll be possible.
Or like I can demand the people working on Linux to implement my pet feature for free quicker.
Yeah, try that from oh say Canada, or really any European country.
Canada's iTunes gets Game of Thrones. Amazon's reluctance to get into Canada is more about business case than anything (face it - Amazon.ca prices suck - I can find it cheaper at my local B&M store).
As does Europe and Asia. In fact, I think Australia gets GoT on iTunes earlier than in the US - they had several season 3 episodes last I checked a few months ago.
And if you're complaining about the Apple monopoly - perhaps it's time to ask why Apple dared enter in the Canadian market and no one else has.
You know, cellphones also use the.. um., cellular bands. It's only a matter of time before the stores use the cellphone frequencies as passive receivers to get unique IDs and such and track you that way.
Tracking by MAC addresses is just easy. However, your phone still has a nice trackable serial number.
Unless you turn your phone off in the store, that is.
Perhaps that's what people should do - just put your phone in airplane mode. There you go, tracking denied!
No, you don't turn UEFI off. What you do is activate the CSM, which emulates older BIOS calls and maps them to UEFI functionality.
Exactly.
And it's been a long while since you could get a native BIOS motherboard - it's been (U)EFI since the Core series of processors were first released by Intel. Prior to this, Intel released both BIOS and EFI code for the processors. Since then, it's been (U)EFI only. It's just that since 2006 or so, by default the EFI boots into a BIOS emulator that gives you the BIOS you know and love.
It's only in the past 2 years or so has the actual UEFI interface been accessible to users (other than through an Apple Mac, that is). Intel has provided EFI code since the turn of the millennium, as well, so it's actually older than you think.
Initially, Apple's Boot Camp utility installed the BIOS emulator on early Macs because they shipped without it and thus couldn't boot Windows. Later Macs have it baked into the firmware and you can just boot it directly. Hell, Apple even slipstreams the drivers into the OS image now so you don't have to install afterwards.
Linux has supported EFI boot since I don't know when. IA-64 (Itanium) definitely, but it got ported to x86 a long while back too. Of course, you could really only use it on a Mac until recently...
The problem I have with Google products is the one of constant reinvention. Every 6 months - 1 year they roll out the next Gmail, due to the next "A-team" developer group working on reinventing web email.
Youtube post google-buyout is the worst, they reinvent the website, ignore the actual common problems people experience from the service. They just now, in the past month, added a play icon to show which tab was playing a video. They will never fix the oddities with the buffering and streams until they actually sink some serious dev time into HTML5 (and better) video player logic. I personally have to fight with my Youtube quality setting because it doesn't understand how and when to switch quality settings. But god help them they'll redesign the way you can roll over videos on your intro page. Every god damn update.
It's a problem of "shiny shiny". If you don't do any shiny overhauls, you get tarred as "old and tired". Take iOS, for example, or OS X - almost everyone complains that the launcher and Finder are tired and old because they haven't had a significant visual overhaul in ages. Whereas Windows and Android are "fresh" and "new" because every version looks different. (Yes, and we have iOS7, whose new and shiny brings about a whole new pile of problems).
Ignoring the fact that users probably prefer a UI that doesn't change annually - they get used to doing something one way and all of a sudden it changes, annoying the heck of everyone.
And the YouTube changes - it doesn't even work given I use Flashblock. Where it seems it's essential for one reason - it keeps YouTube videos from auto-playing! Yes, I often open new tabs to YouTube videos, and would like to not have to switch to them to click Pause.
Every other video site seems to at least wait for you to click on the video before they start playing, and embedded YouTube videos do the same. Why can't anyone believe that you might click on a YouTube link and not want to watch it immediately?
If the blocks are applied to any IP address pointed to by a blocked site, maybe as a demonstration a blocked site should add the IP addresses of all of the major UK political parties, BBC iPlayer, Youtube, Netflix, lovefilm etc. If mainstream media sites get (automatically) blocked then perhaps the backlash might force TPTB into either removing the requirement to block or require the ISPs to use a blocking mechanism with less potential for collateral damage.
Exactly. Though I would put the BBC, Google, Facebook and other big sites on the blocklist. Maybe even the UK government IPs.
Put the big major sites on the list. Hell, blocking Google.co.uk ought to generate a sufficient amount of backlash. Ditto Facebook. Basically any site that everyone gets access to. Maybe even Amazon.co.uk.
Technology can never solve a societal problem. Whether its surveillance, piracy, spamming, scamming, violence or other issue.
Remember, technology is inherently morally neutral, and this system still doesn't solve the metadata problem.
The point of running a home email server, at least from an NSA masspionage perspective, is to avoid the issue of third party storage, because the SCOTUS' 3d party doctrine is what makes these things not unconstitutional
You do realize that SMTP is a store-and-forward protocol, right? That a host you send an email to could have an intermediary server? Or perhaps they use a third party hosting company that also handles their email? (Or more commonly, a spam filter provided by a third party). Or perhaps they use Google Apps for Domains? All the NSA has to know is they see an email from you to said server and subpoena it.
Heck, in "the old days" email could get forwarded through intermediaries.
Wireless is one of the biggest shams ever perpetrated upon the willfully ignorant consumer.
Yeah, just like laptops.
Oh wait. it's convenient.
Consumers LOVE wireless because its... got a lack of wires. They can take their device throughout the house and use it without having to be tied to however long the cable is.
And for many, the convenience of wireless outweighs the fact it's slower, less secure, etc. because they can now get their fix of cat videos anywhere within range.
Convenience is also why laptops have outsold desktops for the better part of a decade - despite being slower, less expandable and more limited.
Given that (in terms of vendor margins, and thus price elasticity under hardball negotiations) MS licenses are probably the most flexible component that goes into a Wintel box (with Intel CPUs being the other one), any negotiation strategy that works at scaring MS a bit is probably worth a great deal of money indeed.
Don't forget the crapware business - the Windows license is basically paid for by Symantec, McAfee, etc., when the OEM preloads that stuff on the PCs they sell.
Indeed TFA makes the assumption that those in power don't understand, so that they demonize hackers. Which is incredibly naive, because people in power are usually *better* than the average at getting and rating information.
Once they get this information, they reason like: "how is this going to affect my career?" and take the necessary steps to profit from the information, just like parent said.
The problem is communications. I'm not sure if it's just a biased point of view, but it seems the IT industry is full of anti-social types who do these things, but worse yet, cannot communicate worth a crap. Sure they can speak English and string a bunch of words together, but it seems lost on them that it's not just what you say, but how you say it.
It could be the fact that a lot of hackers/programmers/whatever tend to be introverts or never brought up with proper social skills (or never bothered learning). Or it could be the insular nature of the person who discounts such "frilly" topics that don't involve computers in a low level way. (How many people wish universities stopped doing "complementary studies" type requirements where students in science and engineering are forced to take classes in arts (say, philosophy, English literature, history, whatever), or business?). How would you like it if Arts and Business majors stopped being required to take science and engineering courses?).
The end result is poor communications skills. And that leads to people being able to attack the messenger and the message itself. You may be technically correct and your report makes sense to everyone in the technical field. But your report isn't being presented to the technical field, it's being presented to journalists (who need soundbites) and the rest of the world. And technical gobbledegook does NOT work well at all.
You want to know why journalists hate PR people? Because companies (and smart engineers and the like) know never let engineers talk openly with journalists. Unless you're specifically trained on how to deal with the media, stay out of the spotlight, don't open your mouth, and simply pass the journalist on to a representative who can talk to the press.
We groan at how bad journalism is - well, the problem is trying to explain technical details to someone who doesn't care - hence media training, prepared statements and press releases. Of course, journalists hate getting stuff sanitized for their consumption, so they hunt for people behind the scenes, knowing they'd get more information. And knowing said people rarely if ever get media training, they can get "the real scoop". Of course, they don't understand it, twist it around, and now you end up looking like a complete babbling idiot. (Even worse is a journalist with an agenda).
Then there's the general public who have different concerns and priorities from the tech sector. Technology to them is a tool to help them through life, not a means to an end. It's a way to make their life easier so they can concentrate on their woodworking, stamp collecting, metalworking, fixing up cars or other hobbies.
And like people in general, what you say really only counts for 10-30% of the full message - how you say it (body language, exprssions, etc) count for the rest. Come off as a crazy rager and people think you're a lunatic and your message is lost. Come off like a conspiracy theorist and yes, people will think you're one as well. But dress well (in a suit if need be - yes, people look good in suits), facial hair in check, tattoos tasteful or covered up, come off as a calm, collected person who makes relatable arguments, and suddenly people are way more receptive. Even better, show empathy - people relate better to someone who understands them.
You want to know why people cared about SOPA and all that? Because it showed the true effects - that despite all the raging before most of the public just ignored such legislation. Or how p
I built a new gaming PC for $1500 last year. It has the second most powerful consumer CPU at that time, tons of RAM, an SSD, 3TB of hard drive space, and a mid to high-end GPU that plays most games maxed out at 1920x1080.
$700 should get you a 'moderate' gaming PC. After all, most PC games are ports of consoles with hardware equivalent to about a five-year old PC.
Better yet, get a 'moderate" PC for $200 (which runs basically most games for PC anyways) and pick up a used PS3 for under $200. Or Xbox360, if you prefer.
This will get you the AAA titles on PS3 (or Xbox360). And the PC can be used for gaming.
$200 for a gaming PC? Yes. Because most PC games (except the AAA titles) really don't need more than Intel graphics.
The AAA titles have moved to consoles and PCs are just crappy ports where it's almost pointless since invariably, the PC version comes later (blame piracy, blame low sales, but I'd be surprised if many PC game ports made up their porting costs - save PC-exclusive gaming companies like Valve). What has exploded on PCs is the indie games which don't have heavy graphics requirements, heavy processor requirements, and more importantly, are *fun*.
The outgoing console generation was about HDTV. In the meantime, PC games migrated from AAA titles to indie titles, some of which are extremely good (some? Yes, some, as 90% of it is crap. However, the number of indie games on PC is... mind-blowingly large so even the tiny fraction that's good is still hundreds, if not thousands, of games).
iOS and Android have been a huge boom for indie devs as well - offering extremely low entry points (the cost to develop a good mobile game isn't that high, and that's good games, not Farmville like ones).
In fact, this upcoming generation of consoles will be defined more by how they're going to get indie devs moreso than AAA titles. The AAA titles will always be there. But it's the indie developers that'll be the ones who make the platform.
Xbox Live Arcade and PSN Store were merely feeble entries into the indie market.
Anyhow, Microsoft is arrogant because the Xbox360 was wildly successful compared to their main competitor (and considering it surpassed the Wii a couple of years ago, it's "the winner"). Of course, this next generation resets the entire playfield - remember how Sony was arrogant about the PS3?
The thing we should consider is that we have competition. Microsoft's already made some changes (though they really should bring back the sharing/lending/selling of digital downloads feature - no other "app" store has that ability. Even if a portion goes to the publisher, it still beats Steam and other systems where it's locked to your account. Of course, if you have a physical disc, then it's the same as always).
Imagine how bad gaming would be if Microsoft never entered and Sony continued the PS2 with the PS3 unopposed. Well, Microsoft should be put back in their place as well after beat Sony (who was "winning" for what, a decade and a half?).
Slashdot Mirror
So you would agree then that 95% of people don't give a crap about computers and just want to get stuff done? Or why they're eagerly snapping up tablets and smartphones because they're easier to use and less of a bother?
Remember, said electrician or plumber doesn't care about Shakespeare, and they don't care about computers either - other than what they need to know in order to fill out an invoice. And how to use it to get information, recurrent training and how to stay in touch with others. And is just as likely to care about GPL, FOSS and other stuff like freedom as much as they care about what Hamlet is about? Or even stuff about copyrights and DRM. As long as that Blu-ray movie plays in their player, it's good enough. Or that they can sit in front of an Xbox or Playstation and have a few games with buddies.
It's the same way all around.
Oh, and Shakespeare is more interesting when you read it in the original Klingon, I'd say.
They become more capable in what interests them.
Tell me - would you want to be "more capable" by learning to read literature? History? Arts? These make you "more capable" in being able to appreciate the world. Or perhaps accounting. Or law (since we can't eve seem to get basic IP law of trademarks, copyright and patents (design and novelty) straight). Or have we gotten to naÃve to think that we know it all? (Given the level of commentary on /.). Or hell, what about mere basic spelling? Or about such niceties as etiquette? (How much are complementary studies courses hated as a "waste of time" when pursuing a degree?).
The thing is - the world is complex. There's way more to learn than one could ever know. And rather than try to learn it all, we specialize. We know IT inside and out (and not all of it - some know how to admin servers, others know how to write an OS, others still write applications that run on top, etc., including databases, web sites, etc.). Then there's designers, blah blah blah.
Well, other people don't care about computers. Being a modern world, you can't AVOID using a computer - there will always be useful websites on your choice of interest for which you can learn, and the Internet took off because no one needed to know how networks, TCP/IP, OSes, etc., worked, and it grew into this whole place where everyone can share information from computers to guns to cars to furries and porn.
The computer is a tool. The vast majority of people see it as a convenient way to access the internet, gather information, share information, keep in touch with family, friends and relatives, etc. It is to many like the car, or telephone, or television - they don't care how it works, just that it works and it enables them to go about their day. They don't care how a car works, they just twist the key and turn the wheel to arrive at their destination. They don't care how the phone works, the basics of circuit switching (or virtual circuits) or ODFM modulation, they just punch a few numbers and in a few seconds, they're talking with someone who can be next door or around the world. Likewise, they don't care about bits or bytes, what CSMA/CD does, or what QAM is - they know they can click an icon, and start perusing information they want to know, or to make contact with someone, etc.
The vast majority of people do not care to learn how to set up a web server just to put a few photos online - they'll use facebook, flickr, picasa or other service. Or if they want to write, they'll go open a Blogger account with Google. Some may want to go into business and create a website - you can do that to without knowing how HTTP works - just purchase some web hosting service, upload a few web pages, and enjoy. None of them need to know how to write an httpd.conf file, what /etc/init.d/httpd does, firewall configuration, etc.
And to be honest, if they had to know it, they'd go "cool" and end up doing things the old way that they always had because they can concentrate on getting stuff done, and not learning unrelated crap just to get stuff done.
That's why smartphones, tablets and consoles are popular - they're good at the "get your stuff done" part and hiding away the crap people don't care about.
And hell, let's say you wanted to learn Linux, so you install Ubuntu, open port 80 on your firewall, and put up some websites. Oh wait, your Linux box suddenly got compromised by some PHP bug and is now uploading at gigabit speeds. Of course, you don't know enough Linux to fix it, your websites are still working and you don't want to take those down (or you copy your stuff off, reinstall, put it back, get infected again...).
This one isn't really a boxing in.
Developers code for Kinect like they always do. It's just that instead of getting the body data they get, well, they get nothing. So you code for Kinect, and if the gamer has it connected (face it - most people don't care and will leave it plugged in) then you get the voice recognition and gesture recognition data you need. Else, you don't and you play as always.
By forcing everyone to have a sensor, developers know that everyone has a sensor and they can add those features to the game. And yes, every game can be "enhanced" if not "controlled by" Kinect.
By enhanced, it still requires the controller, but you can do things easier. Perhaps in a team-based FPS, you use hand signals - well, you can simply gesture them with Kinect, or use some elaborate menu system to pick it out from a menu (or more likely, you won't be able to gesture it and have to communicate some other way). Or how Forza looks at your head movements to control where you look - if you don't have Kinect, no problem, you see the default view. If you have it great it works.
The only real change here is that you can unplug it if you feel you can't tolerate the spying.
So Xbox devs do what they always do - assume Kinect is there. If it isn't, they'll probably get some sensible default data that doesn't change. And voice recognition simply won't work - the game doesn't get the commands at all. Effectively, the game sees motionless, mute people without Kinect.
Of course, if the game requires Kinect or you need to make gestures, well, plug it in. I suspect the "Kinect less" mode won't be well tested since devs know everyone has a Kinect, but it's not always connected.
Actually, in general, console makers are against open-source period. Technically speaking, you COULD use GPLv2 code in your game (making it GPLv2), but pretty much all the console makers prohibit any sort of thing like that. In 2009, the ScummVM team found ScummVM used in 3 Wii games and then people realized their SDK agreement prohibited open-source.
And naturally, the installation information will never be public because it'll contain private keys that the console makers would rather keep private.
About the only code allowed for a console game is BSD or BSD like (zlib, apache, etc). where the developer has full control of the code.
Of course, the Wii U, Xbox One and PS4 will probably see hefty revisions to their developer agreements as AAA titles become de-emphasized and the next gen will be about indie games.
You also missed a rather brilliant failsafe as well - let's say the tube fails and thus, the vacuum fails. Your pod now has to battle onrushing air and is also being "sucked" backwards, thus forming a natural brake.
That's if the tube section ahead of you fails.
If it fails behind you, the onrushing air pushes you away from the broken section.
So safety is enhanced because your pod will end up being pushed away from the broken section.
Of course, there's a chance that you might run into the pod behind or ahead of you (depending if the broken section is ahead or behind you, respectively), but given some "leakage" of air around your pod, an air cushion could form that likewise slows your approach ahead. Assuming the pods weren't spaced out to begin with..
Because domestic turkeys are bred for the amount of meat they have, nothing else.
In fact, they're so big that they can't be put back in the wild - they're too big to even mate. Domestic turkey farms rely on artificial insemination in order to breed them.
Except well, how do you expect developers to eat?
Remember, the ad is loaded by the app, and given Android's fairly limited ways of monetization, developers would like to make some money back. If not through a 4rd party ad network, then through siphoning your user data off the phone to their servers.
At least on iOS, there's a decent chance to make money without ads, but on Android, it's a lot more iffy. Ads pretty much the only way to beat iOS at the revenue game.
Except how to do it sustainably.
Sure the easiest way to lose weight? Stop eating. Since your body needs 2000-2500 calories a day, you should magically lose a few bounds over the course of the week.
Of course, you'll feel terrible and look just awful and temptation gets to you pretty damn quick.
So while the magic is to eat less than you consume, the real trick is doing so in such a way that you don't feel hungry all the time, and to do it so once you've lost the weight, you don't put it back on again (most people who diet end up getting the weight back - it's called yo-yo dieting and no, it's not healthy).
And of course, to counter human psychology - so you're not constantly craving "what you cannot have".
That's the real trick to dieting - and it's not as simple as it might appear. All diets work the same way and have the same goals - but each one has attempted to find a way to ensure that you stick with the diet, that you don't feel hungry all the time (and end up snacking excessively), that you don't fall into temptation and pig out on your favorite food, etc. And of course, to do so in a healthy way.
That's why there are so many diet books - each one tries to solve it a different way.
They could offer healthier snacks - fruits and vegetables, for instance, rather than oversalted and oversugared treats.
They could offer healthier drinks as well.
Of course, the real reason they don't is that salty and sugary treats and soda are much cheaper, last forever, and everyone gets addicted to them because those treats were engineered to be liked by our lizard-brains.
Especially since most SoCs used in Android actually have hardware cryptographic accellerators, and one feature of them was a hardware RNG.
Granted, hardware RNGs vary in quality, but most do a very decent job. Even several generations old CPUs have RNG instructions (Intel CPUs, for example - they've had RNGs built in since Core2 days I believe).
That's the beauty of it - passbook works because you don't need new equipment to handle it - your existing scanners should "just work" with it.
Scan a barcode that passbook displays and you're done.
Of course, I wonder how good NFC is at longer distances (anything RF can be came to work at longer than designed for distances). I mean, if you have an NFC reader, can you extend the field somewhat so you can track people using NFC? I mean, I'm presuming there's at least an ID aspect to it...
If not, bumping into people's butts and purses would be a swell way to read dozens of credit card information (you get all the track 2 data via NFC).
I've wondered - why do people want to make their e-mail even more suspicious? The truth is, despite the saying, you're not all that special. The people you send email to aren't all that special either (for the most part - assuming most people don't correspond with "interesting people" with shipping orders on munitions or such).
By encrypting, using offshore services, etc, it puts your messages into the "interesting" category - something to examine in depth.
By doing what everyone else does you fall under the radar because you've become the background noise. It's not steganography because you're not trying to hide communications, you're just going about your day simply not caring and making your correspondence look just the same as everyone else's.
Or take it this way - do some people watching at a busy street and listen to other people's conversations. You'll find the vast majority are really quite dull and boring and you'll have to sift through days worth of phone calls before you can find the one nugget of interesting.
It's why metadata analysis is more interesting (and technically legal - a pen recorder in the old days could be had without a warrant, but actually recording phone calls required a warrant). Mapping a web of people and their interactions produces interesting behavior patterns. Even meta data analysis like whether it's encrypted can produce interesting results.
Depends on what happens.
If it merely means the site is unreachable, then well, not much (sites go down all the time). If it means you get a scary looking page that says "you've access a site hosting illegal materials" then conversations get started.
Blocking big sites that can do this can generate some buzz, and the worst part is, you can't really tell WHICH site did it.
Imagine someone wanting to visit the BBC, getting the scary page, then maybe they entered it wrong. Try again, scary page. Google it - well, Google's got a scary page as well.
Eventually someone will figure out which ISPs seem to be generating false scary pages and avoid them.
A game of whack a mole - they block a site, that site blocks another site, now Sky has ot figure out ways around it, etc. Eventually someone will make a mistake and allow through a blocked site's IP.
Except for the last point - so what if it's delayed? Is there some law that states you have to get it in your preferred form the day it's released?
Or consider it this way - if you want it the day of, you pay "first mover" prices - cable+HBO. It's the same as in technology - the latest and greatest that comes out is the most expensive. A few months later, it's in the bargain bin. Likewise, if you don't want to pay for cable+HBO prices, you can wait for iTunes or Amazon or the DVD/Blu-Ray to release a cheaper version of it.
Just like I'm not entitled to get a SGS4 at "free with contract" even though in a few months, that'll be possible.
Or like I can demand the people working on Linux to implement my pet feature for free quicker.
Canada's iTunes gets Game of Thrones. Amazon's reluctance to get into Canada is more about business case than anything (face it - Amazon.ca prices suck - I can find it cheaper at my local B&M store).
As does Europe and Asia. In fact, I think Australia gets GoT on iTunes earlier than in the US - they had several season 3 episodes last I checked a few months ago.
And if you're complaining about the Apple monopoly - perhaps it's time to ask why Apple dared enter in the Canadian market and no one else has.
You know, cellphones also use the.. um., cellular bands. It's only a matter of time before the stores use the cellphone frequencies as passive receivers to get unique IDs and such and track you that way.
Tracking by MAC addresses is just easy. However, your phone still has a nice trackable serial number.
Unless you turn your phone off in the store, that is.
Perhaps that's what people should do - just put your phone in airplane mode. There you go, tracking denied!
Exactly.
And it's been a long while since you could get a native BIOS motherboard - it's been (U)EFI since the Core series of processors were first released by Intel. Prior to this, Intel released both BIOS and EFI code for the processors. Since then, it's been (U)EFI only. It's just that since 2006 or so, by default the EFI boots into a BIOS emulator that gives you the BIOS you know and love.
It's only in the past 2 years or so has the actual UEFI interface been accessible to users (other than through an Apple Mac, that is). Intel has provided EFI code since the turn of the millennium, as well, so it's actually older than you think.
Initially, Apple's Boot Camp utility installed the BIOS emulator on early Macs because they shipped without it and thus couldn't boot Windows. Later Macs have it baked into the firmware and you can just boot it directly. Hell, Apple even slipstreams the drivers into the OS image now so you don't have to install afterwards.
Linux has supported EFI boot since I don't know when. IA-64 (Itanium) definitely, but it got ported to x86 a long while back too. Of course, you could really only use it on a Mac until recently...
It's a problem of "shiny shiny". If you don't do any shiny overhauls, you get tarred as "old and tired". Take iOS, for example, or OS X - almost everyone complains that the launcher and Finder are tired and old because they haven't had a significant visual overhaul in ages. Whereas Windows and Android are "fresh" and "new" because every version looks different. (Yes, and we have iOS7, whose new and shiny brings about a whole new pile of problems).
Ignoring the fact that users probably prefer a UI that doesn't change annually - they get used to doing something one way and all of a sudden it changes, annoying the heck of everyone.
And the YouTube changes - it doesn't even work given I use Flashblock. Where it seems it's essential for one reason - it keeps YouTube videos from auto-playing! Yes, I often open new tabs to YouTube videos, and would like to not have to switch to them to click Pause.
Every other video site seems to at least wait for you to click on the video before they start playing, and embedded YouTube videos do the same. Why can't anyone believe that you might click on a YouTube link and not want to watch it immediately?
Exactly. Though I would put the BBC, Google, Facebook and other big sites on the blocklist. Maybe even the UK government IPs.
Put the big major sites on the list. Hell, blocking Google.co.uk ought to generate a sufficient amount of backlash. Ditto Facebook. Basically any site that everyone gets access to. Maybe even Amazon.co.uk.
Technology can never solve a societal problem. Whether its surveillance, piracy, spamming, scamming, violence or other issue.
Remember, technology is inherently morally neutral, and this system still doesn't solve the metadata problem.
You do realize that SMTP is a store-and-forward protocol, right? That a host you send an email to could have an intermediary server? Or perhaps they use a third party hosting company that also handles their email? (Or more commonly, a spam filter provided by a third party). Or perhaps they use Google Apps for Domains? All the NSA has to know is they see an email from you to said server and subpoena it.
Heck, in "the old days" email could get forwarded through intermediaries.
Yeah, just like laptops.
Oh wait. it's convenient.
Consumers LOVE wireless because its... got a lack of wires. They can take their device throughout the house and use it without having to be tied to however long the cable is.
And for many, the convenience of wireless outweighs the fact it's slower, less secure, etc. because they can now get their fix of cat videos anywhere within range.
Convenience is also why laptops have outsold desktops for the better part of a decade - despite being slower, less expandable and more limited.
Don't forget the crapware business - the Windows license is basically paid for by Symantec, McAfee, etc., when the OEM preloads that stuff on the PCs they sell.
The problem is communications. I'm not sure if it's just a biased point of view, but it seems the IT industry is full of anti-social types who do these things, but worse yet, cannot communicate worth a crap. Sure they can speak English and string a bunch of words together, but it seems lost on them that it's not just what you say, but how you say it.
It could be the fact that a lot of hackers/programmers/whatever tend to be introverts or never brought up with proper social skills (or never bothered learning). Or it could be the insular nature of the person who discounts such "frilly" topics that don't involve computers in a low level way. (How many people wish universities stopped doing "complementary studies" type requirements where students in science and engineering are forced to take classes in arts (say, philosophy, English literature, history, whatever), or business?). How would you like it if Arts and Business majors stopped being required to take science and engineering courses?).
The end result is poor communications skills. And that leads to people being able to attack the messenger and the message itself. You may be technically correct and your report makes sense to everyone in the technical field. But your report isn't being presented to the technical field, it's being presented to journalists (who need soundbites) and the rest of the world. And technical gobbledegook does NOT work well at all.
You want to know why journalists hate PR people? Because companies (and smart engineers and the like) know never let engineers talk openly with journalists. Unless you're specifically trained on how to deal with the media, stay out of the spotlight, don't open your mouth, and simply pass the journalist on to a representative who can talk to the press.
We groan at how bad journalism is - well, the problem is trying to explain technical details to someone who doesn't care - hence media training, prepared statements and press releases. Of course, journalists hate getting stuff sanitized for their consumption, so they hunt for people behind the scenes, knowing they'd get more information. And knowing said people rarely if ever get media training, they can get "the real scoop". Of course, they don't understand it, twist it around, and now you end up looking like a complete babbling idiot. (Even worse is a journalist with an agenda).
Then there's the general public who have different concerns and priorities from the tech sector. Technology to them is a tool to help them through life, not a means to an end. It's a way to make their life easier so they can concentrate on their woodworking, stamp collecting, metalworking, fixing up cars or other hobbies.
And like people in general, what you say really only counts for 10-30% of the full message - how you say it (body language, exprssions, etc) count for the rest. Come off as a crazy rager and people think you're a lunatic and your message is lost. Come off like a conspiracy theorist and yes, people will think you're one as well. But dress well (in a suit if need be - yes, people look good in suits), facial hair in check, tattoos tasteful or covered up, come off as a calm, collected person who makes relatable arguments, and suddenly people are way more receptive. Even better, show empathy - people relate better to someone who understands them.
You want to know why people cared about SOPA and all that? Because it showed the true effects - that despite all the raging before most of the public just ignored such legislation. Or how p
Better yet, get a 'moderate" PC for $200 (which runs basically most games for PC anyways) and pick up a used PS3 for under $200. Or Xbox360, if you prefer.
This will get you the AAA titles on PS3 (or Xbox360). And the PC can be used for gaming.
$200 for a gaming PC? Yes. Because most PC games (except the AAA titles) really don't need more than Intel graphics.
The AAA titles have moved to consoles and PCs are just crappy ports where it's almost pointless since invariably, the PC version comes later (blame piracy, blame low sales, but I'd be surprised if many PC game ports made up their porting costs - save PC-exclusive gaming companies like Valve). What has exploded on PCs is the indie games which don't have heavy graphics requirements, heavy processor requirements, and more importantly, are *fun*.
The outgoing console generation was about HDTV. In the meantime, PC games migrated from AAA titles to indie titles, some of which are extremely good (some? Yes, some, as 90% of it is crap. However, the number of indie games on PC is ... mind-blowingly large so even the tiny fraction that's good is still hundreds, if not thousands, of games).
iOS and Android have been a huge boom for indie devs as well - offering extremely low entry points (the cost to develop a good mobile game isn't that high, and that's good games, not Farmville like ones).
In fact, this upcoming generation of consoles will be defined more by how they're going to get indie devs moreso than AAA titles. The AAA titles will always be there. But it's the indie developers that'll be the ones who make the platform.
Xbox Live Arcade and PSN Store were merely feeble entries into the indie market.
Anyhow, Microsoft is arrogant because the Xbox360 was wildly successful compared to their main competitor (and considering it surpassed the Wii a couple of years ago, it's "the winner"). Of course, this next generation resets the entire playfield - remember how Sony was arrogant about the PS3?
The thing we should consider is that we have competition. Microsoft's already made some changes (though they really should bring back the sharing/lending/selling of digital downloads feature - no other "app" store has that ability. Even if a portion goes to the publisher, it still beats Steam and other systems where it's locked to your account. Of course, if you have a physical disc, then it's the same as always).
Imagine how bad gaming would be if Microsoft never entered and Sony continued the PS2 with the PS3 unopposed. Well, Microsoft should be put back in their place as well after beat Sony (who was "winning" for what, a decade and a half?).