Is it always necessary? For example, if the attacks to the Sony PSN network were left undone, where would we be now? We can't tell for sure, but possibly the network would be humming along just fine, no one would have their credit card numbers stolen, and Sony would have avoided the cleanup of all the mess. So would the world actually be collectively in a better state?
Or just an illusion of one.
Sony shut down PSN when they discovered that a bunch of hacked PS3s were accessing and downloading DLC via the developer network. For free.
Investigations into the system then revealed that hackers have been going in and out and retrieving "securely stored data". It was found post-hack, not released pre-emptively. Sony found out people were downloading stuff for free, shut down their network to prevent it from happening, Then in an attempt to fix it, discovered they've been breached.
Or, the breach happened, and Sony failed to detect it. Even then there were vulnerabilities - until Sony started changing how PSN logins were handled, people could login to PSN from hacked consoles and cheat online.
If it weren't for the greedy people downloading free DLC, everything would be humming along fine, and people would be wondering why their credit cards and such were being charged, or extra bills appearing the mail, etc.
Or the other hacks and such - like credit card processors being breached. We know about them because it's reported, but it oculd've been covered up, giving a false impression that things are fine.
So - would you rather not know if your information has been compromised but things appear fine, or know that it was?
I think the issue is that the number of computer users, and the number of users that are concerned with being in control of their computer has become a smaller percentage of the overall user base. Media cartels and governments favor walled gardens, and the value in pleasing them has risen. So, we've got more users that don't care, and more pressure from important partners to take away user freedom. The angry nerds are no longer a real concern for these companies.
Exactly.
First off - the computer is a valuable TOOL. So valuable, that no modern economy can run without them, and I don't mean stuff like HFT. I mean basic jobs and tasks all involve a computer in some way. From the machinist using a CNC machine (someone has to program it), to the mechanic diagnosing what's wrong with your car, to the cook using it to organize their business and menus, a computer ends up being involved.
Most of these people don't give a hoot about their computers - they want their computers to do the job they were bought for. Jobs were lost for computerization (e.g., typing pools, secretaries), so people have to use them.
It's true that computers require maintenance - all tools do. But people jump for things that require lower maintenance - newer tools, like newer cars and such. And right now, the general purpose computer is a very high maintenance piece of equipment. Software updates, malware removal, antivirus, "don't click that link", etc. And people still get infected with stuff like "spear phishing" (see RSA hack that got the RSA token keys), social engineering, etc.
Hell, the PC you use for your job may be locked down hard by corporate IT to prevent such things from infecting their computers.
The war is basically that people end up wanting something simpler - to do the stuff they need without having to worry about crap. Like for example, online banking, online shopping, etc.
Users don't care because they're inundated with stuff they should and should not do with their computers that they can be afraid to use them. And everytime you roll your eyes at your parents and siblings when they ask you to fix their computers, drives them towards the walled garden even more. Everytime you mock them for bringing their PC to Geek Squad makes them want to see those locked down machines.
If you read the whole article you will see that there are many computing intensive benchmarks, where Linux outperforms OSX by nearly a factor of two. Saying that there is no noticeable difference is simply wrong (see Page 11, Page 12).
That makes sense. Mac OS X is a "microkernel" based system and does a lot stuff passing around Mach messages.
OS X is also inefficient in that each process gets its own address space - for a 32-bit process, that's 4GB of address space it can use all of (no 2/2 or 3/1 user/kernel split - every process, including the kernel gets it's own independent 4GB area). The problem with this is that in order to access application buffers (system calls, say), the kernel must map the buffer into its address space first, which is far more expensive than translating a pointer and dereferencing that.
OS X should be slower purely because it's a higher overhead OS.
I heard a rumor, I'm not sure if it was urban legend or real, that some company pirated apple's rom into their apple 2 clone and it went to court. And in court, they had brought in a clone computer that was "not infringing" and the prosecution asked them to type "VERIFY" and hit return. The message that displayed on their machine closed the case.
Basically, because the Apple II schematics were in the box, Franklin claimed they could build a clone and use Apple's software, which existed only as machine-readable binary (the copyright of which was unknown). That one case basically locked down the status of object code being copyrightable.
Bell and Howell however obtained a license from Apple to clone it.
That's entirely false actually. It's not only doable, but fairly simple not to use Google if you're more paranoid about them than about the alternatives, which is the statement being made here.
Instead of Google, use something like DuckDuckGo. Instead of Gmail, use Thunderbird with a private mail server. Go to YouTube with private browsing through a proxy and don't comment, or use something like Vimeo/DailyMotion/whatever. Use Android without connecting a Google account, or get an iPhone.
Nah, the thing is that it's much easier to whine about things than to do something about it.
OK, so you don't use Google's front services.
What about their back services? Every ad you see is practically powered by Google (either directly through AdSense, or indirectly through Google-owned companies like DoubleClick and the link).
Practically every website uses Google Analytics. Or Google APIs. Or has some G+ thing. Or uses Google's CDN. Or dozens of other services Google offers.
If Google (and associated companies) were to suddenly disappear off the 'net tomorrow, the whole Internet would be broken - you'd be able to load up one of the few self-contained websites, while everyone else's would be broken in some way.
Google literally does know everything and practically everywhere you surf.
The whole point of most security systems -- even alarm systems -- is to pose a deterrent. Most break-ins are crimes of opportunity, not elaborate schemes planned over periods of months. Alarm systems are fairly inept nowadays: when you last heard your neighbour's alarm go off, did you drop in to investigate, or just presume it was broken again?
The ones that are unmonitored are generally considered noisemakers. This includes car alarms as well.
The only way a security system can provide any protection is if it's actively monitored by a company, and yes, that can include paying alarm fees and licenses. The better ones provide direct voice links to the monitoring center so sounds of breakin can be verified ahead of time.
How about making the modding tools run on consoles? Today, consoles have: - Hard Drives - Internet connectivity - Keyboard and mouse support - Good resolution displays - Powerful enough CPUs for editing tools - Sufficient memory for editing tools
10 years ago this would not be possible. But today it is entirely feasible. There is a marginal cost to having to Q&A the tools, but it might be worth while because you can then sell the tools as DLC. Or release it later on for free to revitalize sales of the existing game.
Some games do have basic modding tools - Halo (Halo 3 onwards) included a "forge mode" which was basically a map editor, and a ton of people create some very interesting maps out of it. Some of it for online multiplayer (standard FPS style, but also more unique racing games and other goal-oriented ones), some others created interesting Rube-Goldberg style machines, etc.
The hardest part really is how you get the mods distributed, since you often cannot get the files out of the game onto a USB stick and reimported the same way. (Halo has a special file sharing service for this - you upload your files to it and others can download it via their consoles).
Of course, I guess a developer will get punished if they wanted to release modding tools as DLC - after all, it's supposed to be free...
First Mac, then Windows... Windows Mobile... What if it mutates and becomes human-human transmissible??!!! SAVE US!!!
I'm surprised it doesn't have adb and look for an attached Android phone to infect as well.
Though, given it's multiplatform, it's also interesting that it skips out having a Linux vector - you'd think if you went to al lthe trouble of making a Mac OS X version, you'd also do Linux for not-very-much-more effort. Scanning for VMs on Linux and infecting those is also pretty profitable (especially if you go after VMWare AND VirtualBox).
Here's what I think happened: MS decided (along with half the industry) that tablets will gradually replace desktop computer and decided they had to invent a new GUI paradigm that made Windows tablet-friendly.
Which, I would argue, is true! If you've ever tried to use Windows 7 "tablet edition" on a tablet (we own one, it sucks) you can see immediately that the desktop environment is not appropriate for touch devices. Not even a little bit.
It's also why the iPad was more successful than previous tablet PCs. Apple realized UI paradigms are different and designed a different UI for iOS, knowing you can't stack OS X on a touch-primary device and have it work well.
Of course, I think what happened is Steve Jobs got immensely successful with iOS and ended up punking the rest of industry into thinking that tablets and smartphones were the future, that Windows and such were dinosaurs, and that Apple was getting rid of OS X in favor of iOS.
End result, everyone was trying to "follow Apple" and falling over themselves to tout their tablet OS (Android, usually, but also Windows Phone) as the desktop OS of the future.
So Microsoft blindly goes forward, while all Apple does was add a few iOS touches to OS X, but otherwise keeping things the same (save the scroll bars). For the most part, the iOS bits in OS X are ignorable - other than scroll bars (and the ability to disable "natural" scrolling... though to be honest, I never actually saw what the fuss was about - it worked fine for me. Though if I plugged in a mouse and the scroll wheel went opposite, I'd be pissed, which I think happened).
I would be a bit surprised if T-Mobile didn't have the iPhone after the upcoming release.
Well, if they have unlimited data, I'd say they wouldn't be getting it. Only Sprint has kept unlimited data around - AT&T and Verizon switched to capped plans shortly after the iPhone after seeing the bandwidth used by iPhone users (who seem to really use it. There may be more Android users, but a good chunk don't seem to really use their data plan).
So what distinguishes Slackware from other distros? No public bug tracking. Closed development process. A primitive character-mode installer. All administration is done from the command line. No dependency tracking. Minimal feature set.
Could somebody who uses this thing explain why they prefer it to a more modern and open distro?
Slackware I've considered to be more "pure" in the sense you administer it the same way you administered a UNIX box - at the command line and all that. None of the fancy distro-specific administration tools or anything.
For me, it's a good way to learn the ins and outs of it but it's really a hacker's OS to play around with, screw things up and fix them, and have complete control. If that's your thing, great.
The other more popular distros which use tools are more for people who want to get stuff done with minimal fuss and call it a day. Sure you need some Linux knowledge, but most of your day-to-day stuff is taken care of for you so you can get your work done without having to mess with your system continually.
It's probably the closest to Linux from Scratch without having to compile and build everything yourself, or building it all yourself like Gentoo. Of course, this also means you can customize your system exactly the way you need to with just the libraries you need and not what the distro requires.
It makes me wonder... it has always made me wonder why Apple gear is increasingly a completely sealed box with no removable anything. That is the main reason I will not buy any more Apple stuff unless it is user servicable. Is Apple's reason for doing so their employees? Or customers? Both? My initial thought was to prevent creating 3rd party markets for batteries and other compatible parts... and I still think so. But this practice also puts customers at further risk of exploitation... and as has been acknowledged since time immemorial......corruption is a crime of opportunity.
Or that Apple figured out that the vast majority of its customers (i.e., not you) don't really do stuff that requires user-servicability?
I mean, I'm pretty sure most car owners don't service their cars - the hood could be welded shut for all they care - they'll take it in for service when it needs it, they'll go to the oil change place to change the oil. They'll take it to Costco to change their tires (or a tire-change place). All operations they could do themselves, but don't. The only "maintenance" they seem to do is put gas in it.
Apple saw the same. What's the point of offering a memory slot if the majority of people buying it never change it out? SUre they COULD do it, but they don't bother (doesn't help that when it comes time to upgrade, adding more memory to a depreciated laptop (especially when it's older memory and more expensive) makes little sense).
Same with hard drives - at best they'll simply get an external USB drive and be done with it - they won't actually bother doing an internal drive upgrade.
Ditto batteries - by the time the battery wears out, your laptop's usually 2 years old. You're lucky to be able to find ANY replacement battery for it - other than perhaps "new old stock" ones which may be dead to begin with (Li-Ion/Li-Poly batteries age - after a couple of years, if the low battery protection circuit hasn't disabled the battery, it's probalby not going to hold as much charge either).
In the end, those who clamor for upgrades are extremely few. The rest seem content with getting a new laptop. And with the way technology changes, if you don't upgrade your PC the moment you buy it, it's not worth changing because the old parts it takes will be obsolete and much more expensive.
All Apple's doing is catering to the 90+% or so market that doesn't upgrade their computers after they buy it (short of buying external hard drives and such). Which means they're free to experiment with other formfactors and designs and not hindered by the need to fit stuff like slots and SATA bays and what not.
Apple's been doing this many times - they got rid of the floppy drive in the iMac (much to the horror of many people), and went all USB with it (at the time when USB-anything meant 1.1 and $expensive compared to stuff that used legacy ports).
Hell, Lion went and did away with "Save" and "Quit" as vestigal bits that harkened from earlier computing days when saving meant minutes-long waits to the floppy or tape drive, and manual memory and process management was required because automatic systems were not available (or efficient).
Ditto stuff like Mac App Store, Gatekeeper and the like - to most people, the computer is a tool - a somewhat stylish box that sits on a desk and lets them get work done, communicate with friends, family and other people, play games, etc. They don't want to be "system admins" or "computer technicians" - they just want to use it as a tool to facilitate their lives, just like a car facilitates transportation for most people (and likewise, they don't care about what makes it go or that they can tinker with the ECU to make it peppier or diagnose the "check engine" light.)
Hell, some people use Linux because they need to get work done. If some program isn't installed, they won't apt-get it, they'll ask someone what to do (which usually ends up being apt-get something). Recompiling the kernel? Not likely. Hell, they may not even install updates (which can flash in the menu bar all day).
I AdBlock everything. One, I dislike looking at ads. Two, I dislike business models that are based on ads.
I don't care if AdBlock destroys the Internet as we know it. The Internet as we know it could use a little constructive destruction.
So what will you use to search? Or will you use an iPhone?
After all, Google owns practically ALL the ad networks out there, from the text ads that made Google famous, to the popover/under/flashy/rich-media ones by DoubleClick.
And almost Google's entire revenue stream comes from ads. Though, you are right that if Google dies, the Internet really WILL be destroyed because of all the stuff Google hosts all over the web. Not just the obvious YouTube videos, but Google's CDN, javascript scripts, and of course, serving up practically all the ads around (those sites will either shut down or paywall).
Of course, without Google, Android development won't proceed much - sure there'll be the various bits of AOSP work like Cyanogen, but that's about it. Google's been doing most of the driving of Android development.
And of course, well, how would we search? Can't Google anything anymore, and while Bing works to a limited extent, it often inadvertently relies on Google search results as well.
As for the days before ads - the Internet was limited - finding information was hard. Want to check out the specs on that new car? Well, if the manufacturer didn't have a web site, you'd have to get off your ass and get yourself to a car dealership. Plus no real way of researching black book values, etc. What you can do today barely compares to what you could do back then.
Considering that I haven't seen new hardware in the home or "prosumer" level (and only "occasionally" at the server level) with a serial port for years, I think that's a pretty poor assumption for them to make.
Most have serial ports if they have a real docking station (read: not USB). I've got a new-ish Dell i7 laptop with a serial port in the dock that works great.
Of course, there are other debug methods available - serial being the old standby, but I would be surprised if GDB didn't support firewire debugging, or soon thunderbolt (both firewire and thunderbolt can give access to the internal bus and memory, which is the basics of debugging).
BitCoin's supposed to be this anonymous fiat currency system. Yet they're going through a decidedly non-anonymous regular payment card network (MasterCard).
I understand it makes the handling much easier for regular transactions, but doesn't this really sorta make it non-anonymous?
Though, I suppose since it's really just a currency enchange between bitcoin and whatever you use, though given it's volatility (and speculators don't help), it seems dangerous - one wrong swipe of the card and what was supposed to be a 1BTC/$15 USD exchange turns into a 1BTC/$4USD exchange because some hacker decided to cash out 40,000 BTC or something at that time. Remember the currency exchange on a credit card happens at the time of the transaction...
(And whoever is cheering the day BTC becomes the popular currency - remember there is no protection against the ills of the financial industry. Speculation, HFT (including arbitrarge amongst exchanges), etc.).
Whenever I need to restore data from an archive backup, I need it RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
I don't. It'll be at least a few hours until FedEx arrives with the new server hardware in the best case, and a few weeks before we get a new building and our clothes stop smelling of smoke (and zombies) in the worst case.
Interesting question though: if I submit a retrieval job, how soon do I have to actually download the associated data? Can I wait a few hours or days?
That's why people have onsite and offsite backups. If you need it right now, use the onsite backup, if it's not already available from online or nearline storage.
But it's also good to have offline backups, in case your building gets hit with an airliner or something. In which case, having absolute immediate access to that data may not be as high a priority as executing the disaster recovery bringup plan. (If you have an offsite backup datacenter, well, why aren't you mirroring?).
This service is for those companies who may not be big enough to afford to go tape storage (big investment), but may only have a few TB they store on backup hard drives and such. Rather than having to arrange for offsite storage, they can use Amazon to do it cheaply and effectively. I also see it as a play for Amazon as a virtual business - Amazon handling all your IT and server needs between EC2/S3/etc so a business doesn't actually have exist anywhere - employees work from home, a token post office box is the street address, etc.
Though it is a good question - once a job is submitted and the data is ready a few hours later, how long is it available for?
Is there a reason that there 'almost has to be a markup'(beyond the costs of shipping)?
Depends on the laws of the land, actually.
In Europe, for example, import duties (25%+) and VAT (20%+) are added on to the cost of a good you see. When the price tag says $700, you pay $700. Not like North America where it's $500+tax.
Of course, the other reason is local distributors are often the cause. You see, a manufacturer rarely if ever sells direct to the retailer. Instead, they sell to local distributors, who usually get exclusive distribution rights to a geographic region. Usually a country-sized portion, sometimes a continent, othertimes much smaller. Depends how big the manufacturer is, and how much product gets moved - the more popular, the smaller the regions tend to be.
That distributor is who determines the local price based on the MSRP and what they sell to retaliers at. And often times, that distributor enforces the distribution agreement for multinational retailers. Exceptions usually are the likes of Amazon (who may shift US inventory to other countries), or Walmart (who has their own huge logistical department who may receive goods from many distributors at a central warehouse in another region). Or have sufficient muscle to be able to shut out a local distributor if they try to gouge (e.g., Wal-mart).
In Canada, the retailers are often complaining that the Canadian distributors are the ones marking up the goods - they can't really move too much on prices because they're paying more.
And yes, I've seen many small businesses complain - they often will admit that a customer can buy the same product from Amazon.ca cheaper than what the store can get it from their distributor (which is why the store doesn't stock the product).
And there can be multiple layers of distributors as well. When some store claims to "cut out the middleman", they're lying. There's always a distributor somewhere along the line (and if there isn't, on of the existing distributors will offer it, if possible).
And yes, said distributor can often be a subsidiary of the company - e.g., Canon USA, Canon Canada, Apple Australia, etc. Or a separate company (e.g., Ingram Micro, Digikey). Sole distributorships are also possible (e.g., comic books and stuff are practically only available through Diamond).
And yes, they often do rather monopolistic things as well - like refusing to honor grey-market warranties - they'll suggest you send it back to the store you bought it from).
You mean, the US, with its state of the art, best of breed health care is worse than covering everyone with crappy care that doesn't offer nearly the same care as available in the US?
100% coverage that is crappy isn't an improvement.
It's a supply-and-demand problem.
Canada and Mexico healthcare is basically "free" so demand is high, while supply is limited. Naturally standard of care goes down in order to increase supply. It's also why you get waiting lists and all that.
US healthcare is expensive, and supply is high, but demand is low (as fewer can afford it, though I thought Obamacare was supposed to fix that). Hence lots of money to spend on shiny new toys to fix people, and no waiting lists. (Of course, there are other costs as well - like people delaying trips to the doctor so they can get more ailments before seeking treatment...).
Unfortunately, I don't think anyone's figured out where the curves meet, probably because it's considered a basic necessity for a functioning society
The problem is that Google's attitude is that web sites have to make their own money from visitors
And Google offers a ton of various ad subsidiaries for that exact purpose, from AdMob for mobile, DoubleClick for your popover/popunder/flash ad needs, and probalby dozens of other ad networks they also own.
Google is your friend - just subscribe to one of Google's many ad companies and you'll get paid.
But the market has changed. Kids nowadays, and Joe Public who isn't a computer expert at all - well they really don't give a damn about keeping their options open. They want a neat little package that works with as little hassle as possible. The things I value in a computer are not the things they value in a computer. And unfortunately as I age, I am slowly but surely moving into a very niche market.
That's because you're using a computer for the sake of using a computer. You grew up when computers were neat novel things that often required "computer users" to own and operate.
These days, computers are also tools. People are forced to use computers in their every day lives. Your mechanic needs a computer to diagnose a modern car. Your dentist needs a computer to manage their patient records. And so on. These people don't care about computers - they care about getting work done. If it's a sealed box that magically does what they need, as far as they care, that's all they need.
Same with all the kids and smartphones - they don't care about processors or what not, they care about communication, communicating and socializing with other people, and they don't care about how it really works underneath. They don't care about that - just what it enables.
It's just like cars - some people spend hours on the driveway fixing their cars or doing othe rmaintenance, while others on the road barely get an oil change every year or two. A car is a tool for many people - get from point A to point B. Some people get fancy cars to get there in style, others get boring econoboxes to get there cheaply and efficiently. And others spend their whole time restoring ancient classic cars.
Computing has changed from the niche geeks-and-nerds thing to something the whole population has to use. As such, the geeks-and-nerds will see the masses not care about what they care about, which is fine.
Take a look at where computers are used and realize that not everyone cares because they use computers to get work done. As long as it's getting work done, they're happy. If it's broken, they're more than happy to call in someone to fix it, just like they'd call a plumber to fix their plumbing, an electrician to fix the electricals, a mechanic to fix their engines and vehicles, etc.
You might not like it, which is completely fine. However, think of it this way - the next time you visit the dentist, wonder how much you're willing ot pay for them to learn how to upgrade the OS, install more RAM, change the CPU on their patient record system. And be billed for it. Ditto your mechanic - would you pay your mechanic to recompile the kernel while fixing your car?
Then realize that if every computer required someone skilled inside and out to operate, we'd still be with mainframes and time sharing systems. Instead, we have wonderful new technology and new innovation spawned by the ubiquitousness of computing poewr. Most of it is crap, but others make the world a more connected place and much less isolated.
Just how often does a spammer go back to see if his comment posted or not, or if his email got through? Rarely. Spam works on the basis of mass volume. Put a billion adverts on a billion websites and your sales will increase somehow. And the price of those adverts is next to zero after the first few thousand.
Or not.
Yes, most spammers do it on a mass basis and most don't bother to actually check if it's posted. As far as they care, their spamming tool signs up for an account (rarely, if ever, do they reuse an account), makes the postings using that account, and leave, permanently.
Spammers are paid by the volume, and they're prepaid in advance. The spammer and the content being spammed are rarely the same person - instead, a business needing "marketing services" comes up to a spammer, pays them the $100 or so, and that's it. Spammer gets paid if successful or not - they don't care if the customer ever comes back because there's plenty more.
It's arguable that Apple has ever innovated in the first place. Steve Jobs used to brag about how he was the best thief in the industry. And to his credit, he was. He even went so far as to fly the Jolly Rodger above Apple headquarters.
Technically, that is correct from a technology sense. Apple never innovated too much in technology - they usually purchase technology.
What Apple does do is innovate in making technology usable. If you want a really technically advanced phone, Japan sells 'em with hundreds of features that we've not thought of, heard of, or could find a use for. Of course, it would have a crap UI filled with pages and pages of tiny icons representing said features, and each feature would have dozens more cryptic icons to configure it.
It's where Apple tends to be - they aren't at the forefront of technology (and never have been), however they are the ones who are putting emphasis on stuff that others aren't. UI, systems integration, etc.
Take the iPod - it wasn't the best player out there, but it incorporated stuff to make it usable. Putting music on it was a simple and quick process, and iTunes helped automate the whole process of taking your existing CDs and dumping it on. Add to that a scroll wheel and you have a compelling package. Scroll wheels, firewire, CD rippers, they all existed before the iPod, it's just the combination of them and the one-click nature of the use case made it really popular. No more "OK, put CD in drive and start ripper, then modify the file names to conform with blah, plug in your device (over serial/parallel or USB 1.1), then run this other program, import the files you ripped, then click sync".
Of course, it's this part of the innovation that gets lost in the mix, and it's actually very difficult to get this sort of protection as most people consider the UI, man-machine interfaces, human-factors, etc., to be completely orthogonal to innovation and an afterthought.
I mean, how many people think designing a website is easy? Once you add how users will try to see it, it gets nasty, quick. Or UIs - it's easy for a programmer to come up with a UI, but a useful one is much harder, especially ones aimed at people who are not programmers and don't get how programmers think.
. I do, however, have a problem with my accelerator or brake system being controlled by some external device rather than my hard-wired foot pedal. For what it's worth, many military aircraft are triple-redundant, meaning that your flight stick is primarily fly-by-wire, but in the event of a failure your flight stick is also directly connected to hydraulic lines to control the flight surfaces, so if all else fails you can put some muscle into your flight stick and control the flight surfaces by wire like a WWI byplane.
Incorrect. The brakes have always been hydraulic and barring loss of hydraulic fluid, will always work (and if applied sharply so they don't fade, will stop a car with a racing engine).
Throttle though has been disconnected - you may have something called "cruise control" in which the car computer controls the speed - well, you're putting the throttle control in front of the computer. (Brakes are considered too safety-critical though).
As for aircraft - a modern fighter is too unstable to control manually - if the computers die out, there is no choice BUT to eject because it's uncontrollable. And many of the larger planes cannot be controlled by hand - the flight surfaces are too hard to move without assistance, and often times, do not work as expected (most airliners don't use ailerons once cruising - to turn, they use spoilers instead as ailerons are too draggy and can stall).
Plus, mechanical overrides are nice in theory, but there have been enough instances where hydraulic fuild is lost, or cables get pinched so mechanical control is locked up tight. Fly by wire (or really, fly by network as you need two-way connectivity) surprisingly increases reliability.
Amen. Nothing kills productivity like frequent meetings. Nothing worse than a manager who wants to find out how the team is doing by getting everyone together for an hour. "How's it going, Mr. Manager sir. It isn't because you keep dragging us into fucking meetings."
There was one manager I had... who scheduled meetings around 8AM that frequently lasted to 1PM or later. And it was weekly, every Friday.
The more annoying part was those he felt did "important work" got the ability to drop in and out - the QA lead, the productoin guy, etc. He either got to them first and they were out in half an hour or they got pulled in as-needed for 10 minutes.
The rest of us had to sit around beyond lunch.
Of course, after the meeting everyone departed for lunch and by the time you got back, it was only a couple of hours before quitting anyhow, so effectively, it was a wasted day. We learned to add 25% to our work estimates to counter the loss of an entire day.
When you have airlines offering flights from as low as 18 pounds (random price I found on the site of one of the UK discount airlines), it can be harder for someone to justify the extra cost of the high speed trains no matter how much better they are.
That's a price that's basically following hte American tradition of charging for everything. It basically gets you a seat. Carry ons beyond your jacket? Well, if's another few dollars (each). Can't control yourself? Five pounds per toilet visit. Not during a slow part of the week? Pay up. Etc. Etc. Etc.
It's a brilliant system much in the tradition of the US - offer a very compelling price, but forget that taxes/fees/additional amenities will cost extra so by the time the nickle and diming is finished, you'd pay the same as a normal economy seat. Very few to none at all pay that rate in the end. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they charged fuel as part of that (not fuel surcharge, but *fuel*).
Slashdot Mirror
Or just an illusion of one.
Sony shut down PSN when they discovered that a bunch of hacked PS3s were accessing and downloading DLC via the developer network. For free.
Investigations into the system then revealed that hackers have been going in and out and retrieving "securely stored data". It was found post-hack, not released pre-emptively. Sony found out people were downloading stuff for free, shut down their network to prevent it from happening, Then in an attempt to fix it, discovered they've been breached.
Or, the breach happened, and Sony failed to detect it. Even then there were vulnerabilities - until Sony started changing how PSN logins were handled, people could login to PSN from hacked consoles and cheat online.
If it weren't for the greedy people downloading free DLC, everything would be humming along fine, and people would be wondering why their credit cards and such were being charged, or extra bills appearing the mail, etc.
Or the other hacks and such - like credit card processors being breached. We know about them because it's reported, but it oculd've been covered up, giving a false impression that things are fine.
So - would you rather not know if your information has been compromised but things appear fine, or know that it was?
Exactly.
First off - the computer is a valuable TOOL. So valuable, that no modern economy can run without them, and I don't mean stuff like HFT. I mean basic jobs and tasks all involve a computer in some way. From the machinist using a CNC machine (someone has to program it), to the mechanic diagnosing what's wrong with your car, to the cook using it to organize their business and menus, a computer ends up being involved.
Most of these people don't give a hoot about their computers - they want their computers to do the job they were bought for. Jobs were lost for computerization (e.g., typing pools, secretaries), so people have to use them.
It's true that computers require maintenance - all tools do. But people jump for things that require lower maintenance - newer tools, like newer cars and such. And right now, the general purpose computer is a very high maintenance piece of equipment. Software updates, malware removal, antivirus, "don't click that link", etc. And people still get infected with stuff like "spear phishing" (see RSA hack that got the RSA token keys), social engineering, etc.
Hell, the PC you use for your job may be locked down hard by corporate IT to prevent such things from infecting their computers.
The war is basically that people end up wanting something simpler - to do the stuff they need without having to worry about crap. Like for example, online banking, online shopping, etc.
Users don't care because they're inundated with stuff they should and should not do with their computers that they can be afraid to use them. And everytime you roll your eyes at your parents and siblings when they ask you to fix their computers, drives them towards the walled garden even more. Everytime you mock them for bringing their PC to Geek Squad makes them want to see those locked down machines.
That makes sense. Mac OS X is a "microkernel" based system and does a lot stuff passing around Mach messages.
OS X is also inefficient in that each process gets its own address space - for a 32-bit process, that's 4GB of address space it can use all of (no 2/2 or 3/1 user/kernel split - every process, including the kernel gets it's own independent 4GB area). The problem with this is that in order to access application buffers (system calls, say), the kernel must map the buffer into its address space first, which is far more expensive than translating a pointer and dereferencing that.
OS X should be slower purely because it's a higher overhead OS.
It's true, but not quite that cut-and-dried.
It was Apple Computer v. Franklin Computer (yes the Franklin of "spelling ace" and other handheld device fame).
Basically, because the Apple II schematics were in the box, Franklin claimed they could build a clone and use Apple's software, which existed only as machine-readable binary (the copyright of which was unknown). That one case basically locked down the status of object code being copyrightable.
Bell and Howell however obtained a license from Apple to clone it.
OK, so you don't use Google's front services.
What about their back services? Every ad you see is practically powered by Google (either directly through AdSense, or indirectly through Google-owned companies like DoubleClick and the link).
Practically every website uses Google Analytics. Or Google APIs. Or has some G+ thing. Or uses Google's CDN. Or dozens of other services Google offers.
If Google (and associated companies) were to suddenly disappear off the 'net tomorrow, the whole Internet would be broken - you'd be able to load up one of the few self-contained websites, while everyone else's would be broken in some way.
Google literally does know everything and practically everywhere you surf.
The ones that are unmonitored are generally considered noisemakers. This includes car alarms as well.
The only way a security system can provide any protection is if it's actively monitored by a company, and yes, that can include paying alarm fees and licenses. The better ones provide direct voice links to the monitoring center so sounds of breakin can be verified ahead of time.
Some games do have basic modding tools - Halo (Halo 3 onwards) included a "forge mode" which was basically a map editor, and a ton of people create some very interesting maps out of it. Some of it for online multiplayer (standard FPS style, but also more unique racing games and other goal-oriented ones), some others created interesting Rube-Goldberg style machines, etc.
The hardest part really is how you get the mods distributed, since you often cannot get the files out of the game onto a USB stick and reimported the same way. (Halo has a special file sharing service for this - you upload your files to it and others can download it via their consoles).
Of course, I guess a developer will get punished if they wanted to release modding tools as DLC - after all, it's supposed to be free...
I'm surprised it doesn't have adb and look for an attached Android phone to infect as well.
Though, given it's multiplatform, it's also interesting that it skips out having a Linux vector - you'd think if you went to al lthe trouble of making a Mac OS X version, you'd also do Linux for not-very-much-more effort. Scanning for VMs on Linux and infecting those is also pretty profitable (especially if you go after VMWare AND VirtualBox).
It's also why the iPad was more successful than previous tablet PCs. Apple realized UI paradigms are different and designed a different UI for iOS, knowing you can't stack OS X on a touch-primary device and have it work well.
Of course, I think what happened is Steve Jobs got immensely successful with iOS and ended up punking the rest of industry into thinking that tablets and smartphones were the future, that Windows and such were dinosaurs, and that Apple was getting rid of OS X in favor of iOS.
End result, everyone was trying to "follow Apple" and falling over themselves to tout their tablet OS (Android, usually, but also Windows Phone) as the desktop OS of the future.
So Microsoft blindly goes forward, while all Apple does was add a few iOS touches to OS X, but otherwise keeping things the same (save the scroll bars). For the most part, the iOS bits in OS X are ignorable - other than scroll bars (and the ability to disable "natural" scrolling... though to be honest, I never actually saw what the fuss was about - it worked fine for me. Though if I plugged in a mouse and the scroll wheel went opposite, I'd be pissed, which I think happened).
Apple punk'd the whole industry.
Well, if they have unlimited data, I'd say they wouldn't be getting it. Only Sprint has kept unlimited data around - AT&T and Verizon switched to capped plans shortly after the iPhone after seeing the bandwidth used by iPhone users (who seem to really use it. There may be more Android users, but a good chunk don't seem to really use their data plan).
Slackware I've considered to be more "pure" in the sense you administer it the same way you administered a UNIX box - at the command line and all that. None of the fancy distro-specific administration tools or anything.
For me, it's a good way to learn the ins and outs of it but it's really a hacker's OS to play around with, screw things up and fix them, and have complete control. If that's your thing, great.
The other more popular distros which use tools are more for people who want to get stuff done with minimal fuss and call it a day. Sure you need some Linux knowledge, but most of your day-to-day stuff is taken care of for you so you can get your work done without having to mess with your system continually.
It's probably the closest to Linux from Scratch without having to compile and build everything yourself, or building it all yourself like Gentoo. Of course, this also means you can customize your system exactly the way you need to with just the libraries you need and not what the distro requires.
Or that Apple figured out that the vast majority of its customers (i.e., not you) don't really do stuff that requires user-servicability?
I mean, I'm pretty sure most car owners don't service their cars - the hood could be welded shut for all they care - they'll take it in for service when it needs it, they'll go to the oil change place to change the oil. They'll take it to Costco to change their tires (or a tire-change place). All operations they could do themselves, but don't. The only "maintenance" they seem to do is put gas in it.
Apple saw the same. What's the point of offering a memory slot if the majority of people buying it never change it out? SUre they COULD do it, but they don't bother (doesn't help that when it comes time to upgrade, adding more memory to a depreciated laptop (especially when it's older memory and more expensive) makes little sense).
Same with hard drives - at best they'll simply get an external USB drive and be done with it - they won't actually bother doing an internal drive upgrade.
Ditto batteries - by the time the battery wears out, your laptop's usually 2 years old. You're lucky to be able to find ANY replacement battery for it - other than perhaps "new old stock" ones which may be dead to begin with (Li-Ion/Li-Poly batteries age - after a couple of years, if the low battery protection circuit hasn't disabled the battery, it's probalby not going to hold as much charge either).
In the end, those who clamor for upgrades are extremely few. The rest seem content with getting a new laptop. And with the way technology changes, if you don't upgrade your PC the moment you buy it, it's not worth changing because the old parts it takes will be obsolete and much more expensive.
All Apple's doing is catering to the 90+% or so market that doesn't upgrade their computers after they buy it (short of buying external hard drives and such). Which means they're free to experiment with other formfactors and designs and not hindered by the need to fit stuff like slots and SATA bays and what not.
Apple's been doing this many times - they got rid of the floppy drive in the iMac (much to the horror of many people), and went all USB with it (at the time when USB-anything meant 1.1 and $expensive compared to stuff that used legacy ports).
Hell, Lion went and did away with "Save" and "Quit" as vestigal bits that harkened from earlier computing days when saving meant minutes-long waits to the floppy or tape drive, and manual memory and process management was required because automatic systems were not available (or efficient).
Ditto stuff like Mac App Store, Gatekeeper and the like - to most people, the computer is a tool - a somewhat stylish box that sits on a desk and lets them get work done, communicate with friends, family and other people, play games, etc. They don't want to be "system admins" or "computer technicians" - they just want to use it as a tool to facilitate their lives, just like a car facilitates transportation for most people (and likewise, they don't care about what makes it go or that they can tinker with the ECU to make it peppier or diagnose the "check engine" light.)
Hell, some people use Linux because they need to get work done. If some program isn't installed, they won't apt-get it, they'll ask someone what to do (which usually ends up being apt-get something). Recompiling the kernel? Not likely. Hell, they may not even install updates (which can flash in the menu bar all day).
So what will you use to search? Or will you use an iPhone?
After all, Google owns practically ALL the ad networks out there, from the text ads that made Google famous, to the popover/under/flashy/rich-media ones by DoubleClick.
And almost Google's entire revenue stream comes from ads. Though, you are right that if Google dies, the Internet really WILL be destroyed because of all the stuff Google hosts all over the web. Not just the obvious YouTube videos, but Google's CDN, javascript scripts, and of course, serving up practically all the ads around (those sites will either shut down or paywall).
Of course, without Google, Android development won't proceed much - sure there'll be the various bits of AOSP work like Cyanogen, but that's about it. Google's been doing most of the driving of Android development.
And of course, well, how would we search? Can't Google anything anymore, and while Bing works to a limited extent, it often inadvertently relies on Google search results as well.
As for the days before ads - the Internet was limited - finding information was hard. Want to check out the specs on that new car? Well, if the manufacturer didn't have a web site, you'd have to get off your ass and get yourself to a car dealership. Plus no real way of researching black book values, etc. What you can do today barely compares to what you could do back then.
Most have serial ports if they have a real docking station (read: not USB). I've got a new-ish Dell i7 laptop with a serial port in the dock that works great.
Of course, there are other debug methods available - serial being the old standby, but I would be surprised if GDB didn't support firewire debugging, or soon thunderbolt (both firewire and thunderbolt can give access to the internal bus and memory, which is the basics of debugging).
BitCoin's supposed to be this anonymous fiat currency system. Yet they're going through a decidedly non-anonymous regular payment card network (MasterCard).
I understand it makes the handling much easier for regular transactions, but doesn't this really sorta make it non-anonymous?
Though, I suppose since it's really just a currency enchange between bitcoin and whatever you use, though given it's volatility (and speculators don't help), it seems dangerous - one wrong swipe of the card and what was supposed to be a 1BTC/$15 USD exchange turns into a 1BTC/$4USD exchange because some hacker decided to cash out 40,000 BTC or something at that time. Remember the currency exchange on a credit card happens at the time of the transaction...
(And whoever is cheering the day BTC becomes the popular currency - remember there is no protection against the ills of the financial industry. Speculation, HFT (including arbitrarge amongst exchanges), etc.).
That's why people have onsite and offsite backups. If you need it right now, use the onsite backup, if it's not already available from online or nearline storage.
But it's also good to have offline backups, in case your building gets hit with an airliner or something. In which case, having absolute immediate access to that data may not be as high a priority as executing the disaster recovery bringup plan. (If you have an offsite backup datacenter, well, why aren't you mirroring?).
This service is for those companies who may not be big enough to afford to go tape storage (big investment), but may only have a few TB they store on backup hard drives and such. Rather than having to arrange for offsite storage, they can use Amazon to do it cheaply and effectively. I also see it as a play for Amazon as a virtual business - Amazon handling all your IT and server needs between EC2/S3/etc so a business doesn't actually have exist anywhere - employees work from home, a token post office box is the street address, etc.
Though it is a good question - once a job is submitted and the data is ready a few hours later, how long is it available for?
Depends on the laws of the land, actually.
In Europe, for example, import duties (25%+) and VAT (20%+) are added on to the cost of a good you see. When the price tag says $700, you pay $700. Not like North America where it's $500+tax.
Of course, the other reason is local distributors are often the cause. You see, a manufacturer rarely if ever sells direct to the retailer. Instead, they sell to local distributors, who usually get exclusive distribution rights to a geographic region. Usually a country-sized portion, sometimes a continent, othertimes much smaller. Depends how big the manufacturer is, and how much product gets moved - the more popular, the smaller the regions tend to be.
That distributor is who determines the local price based on the MSRP and what they sell to retaliers at. And often times, that distributor enforces the distribution agreement for multinational retailers. Exceptions usually are the likes of Amazon (who may shift US inventory to other countries), or Walmart (who has their own huge logistical department who may receive goods from many distributors at a central warehouse in another region). Or have sufficient muscle to be able to shut out a local distributor if they try to gouge (e.g., Wal-mart).
In Canada, the retailers are often complaining that the Canadian distributors are the ones marking up the goods - they can't really move too much on prices because they're paying more.
And yes, I've seen many small businesses complain - they often will admit that a customer can buy the same product from Amazon.ca cheaper than what the store can get it from their distributor (which is why the store doesn't stock the product).
And there can be multiple layers of distributors as well. When some store claims to "cut out the middleman", they're lying. There's always a distributor somewhere along the line (and if there isn't, on of the existing distributors will offer it, if possible).
And yes, said distributor can often be a subsidiary of the company - e.g., Canon USA, Canon Canada, Apple Australia, etc. Or a separate company (e.g., Ingram Micro, Digikey). Sole distributorships are also possible (e.g., comic books and stuff are practically only available through Diamond).
And yes, they often do rather monopolistic things as well - like refusing to honor grey-market warranties - they'll suggest you send it back to the store you bought it from).
It's a supply-and-demand problem.
Canada and Mexico healthcare is basically "free" so demand is high, while supply is limited. Naturally standard of care goes down in order to increase supply. It's also why you get waiting lists and all that.
US healthcare is expensive, and supply is high, but demand is low (as fewer can afford it, though I thought Obamacare was supposed to fix that). Hence lots of money to spend on shiny new toys to fix people, and no waiting lists. (Of course, there are other costs as well - like people delaying trips to the doctor so they can get more ailments before seeking treatment...).
Unfortunately, I don't think anyone's figured out where the curves meet, probably because it's considered a basic necessity for a functioning society
And Google offers a ton of various ad subsidiaries for that exact purpose, from AdMob for mobile, DoubleClick for your popover/popunder/flash ad needs, and probalby dozens of other ad networks they also own.
Google is your friend - just subscribe to one of Google's many ad companies and you'll get paid.
Seems like it's working fine for me.
That's because you're using a computer for the sake of using a computer. You grew up when computers were neat novel things that often required "computer users" to own and operate.
These days, computers are also tools. People are forced to use computers in their every day lives. Your mechanic needs a computer to diagnose a modern car. Your dentist needs a computer to manage their patient records. And so on. These people don't care about computers - they care about getting work done. If it's a sealed box that magically does what they need, as far as they care, that's all they need.
Same with all the kids and smartphones - they don't care about processors or what not, they care about communication, communicating and socializing with other people, and they don't care about how it really works underneath. They don't care about that - just what it enables.
It's just like cars - some people spend hours on the driveway fixing their cars or doing othe rmaintenance, while others on the road barely get an oil change every year or two. A car is a tool for many people - get from point A to point B. Some people get fancy cars to get there in style, others get boring econoboxes to get there cheaply and efficiently. And others spend their whole time restoring ancient classic cars.
Computing has changed from the niche geeks-and-nerds thing to something the whole population has to use. As such, the geeks-and-nerds will see the masses not care about what they care about, which is fine.
Take a look at where computers are used and realize that not everyone cares because they use computers to get work done. As long as it's getting work done, they're happy. If it's broken, they're more than happy to call in someone to fix it, just like they'd call a plumber to fix their plumbing, an electrician to fix the electricals, a mechanic to fix their engines and vehicles, etc.
You might not like it, which is completely fine. However, think of it this way - the next time you visit the dentist, wonder how much you're willing ot pay for them to learn how to upgrade the OS, install more RAM, change the CPU on their patient record system. And be billed for it. Ditto your mechanic - would you pay your mechanic to recompile the kernel while fixing your car?
Then realize that if every computer required someone skilled inside and out to operate, we'd still be with mainframes and time sharing systems. Instead, we have wonderful new technology and new innovation spawned by the ubiquitousness of computing poewr. Most of it is crap, but others make the world a more connected place and much less isolated.
Or not.
Yes, most spammers do it on a mass basis and most don't bother to actually check if it's posted. As far as they care, their spamming tool signs up for an account (rarely, if ever, do they reuse an account), makes the postings using that account, and leave, permanently.
Spammers are paid by the volume, and they're prepaid in advance. The spammer and the content being spammed are rarely the same person - instead, a business needing "marketing services" comes up to a spammer, pays them the $100 or so, and that's it. Spammer gets paid if successful or not - they don't care if the customer ever comes back because there's plenty more.
Technically, that is correct from a technology sense. Apple never innovated too much in technology - they usually purchase technology.
What Apple does do is innovate in making technology usable. If you want a really technically advanced phone, Japan sells 'em with hundreds of features that we've not thought of, heard of, or could find a use for. Of course, it would have a crap UI filled with pages and pages of tiny icons representing said features, and each feature would have dozens more cryptic icons to configure it.
It's where Apple tends to be - they aren't at the forefront of technology (and never have been), however they are the ones who are putting emphasis on stuff that others aren't. UI, systems integration, etc.
Take the iPod - it wasn't the best player out there, but it incorporated stuff to make it usable. Putting music on it was a simple and quick process, and iTunes helped automate the whole process of taking your existing CDs and dumping it on. Add to that a scroll wheel and you have a compelling package. Scroll wheels, firewire, CD rippers, they all existed before the iPod, it's just the combination of them and the one-click nature of the use case made it really popular. No more "OK, put CD in drive and start ripper, then modify the file names to conform with blah, plug in your device (over serial/parallel or USB 1.1), then run this other program, import the files you ripped, then click sync".
Of course, it's this part of the innovation that gets lost in the mix, and it's actually very difficult to get this sort of protection as most people consider the UI, man-machine interfaces, human-factors, etc., to be completely orthogonal to innovation and an afterthought.
I mean, how many people think designing a website is easy? Once you add how users will try to see it, it gets nasty, quick. Or UIs - it's easy for a programmer to come up with a UI, but a useful one is much harder, especially ones aimed at people who are not programmers and don't get how programmers think.
Incorrect. The brakes have always been hydraulic and barring loss of hydraulic fluid, will always work (and if applied sharply so they don't fade, will stop a car with a racing engine).
Throttle though has been disconnected - you may have something called "cruise control" in which the car computer controls the speed - well, you're putting the throttle control in front of the computer. (Brakes are considered too safety-critical though).
As for aircraft - a modern fighter is too unstable to control manually - if the computers die out, there is no choice BUT to eject because it's uncontrollable. And many of the larger planes cannot be controlled by hand - the flight surfaces are too hard to move without assistance, and often times, do not work as expected (most airliners don't use ailerons once cruising - to turn, they use spoilers instead as ailerons are too draggy and can stall).
Plus, mechanical overrides are nice in theory, but there have been enough instances where hydraulic fuild is lost, or cables get pinched so mechanical control is locked up tight. Fly by wire (or really, fly by network as you need two-way connectivity) surprisingly increases reliability.
There was one manager I had ... who scheduled meetings around 8AM that frequently lasted to 1PM or later. And it was weekly, every Friday.
The more annoying part was those he felt did "important work" got the ability to drop in and out - the QA lead, the productoin guy, etc. He either got to them first and they were out in half an hour or they got pulled in as-needed for 10 minutes.
The rest of us had to sit around beyond lunch.
Of course, after the meeting everyone departed for lunch and by the time you got back, it was only a couple of hours before quitting anyhow, so effectively, it was a wasted day. We learned to add 25% to our work estimates to counter the loss of an entire day.
That's a price that's basically following hte American tradition of charging for everything. It basically gets you a seat. Carry ons beyond your jacket? Well, if's another few dollars (each). Can't control yourself? Five pounds per toilet visit. Not during a slow part of the week? Pay up. Etc. Etc. Etc.
It's a brilliant system much in the tradition of the US - offer a very compelling price, but forget that taxes/fees/additional amenities will cost extra so by the time the nickle and diming is finished, you'd pay the same as a normal economy seat. Very few to none at all pay that rate in the end. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they charged fuel as part of that (not fuel surcharge, but *fuel*).