Microsoft really should be listening to the device makers, not commanding them. Why is Microsoft still so friggin' arrogant towards its customers (a.k.a., product) and users? Hasn't the Windows 10 fiasco taught them any humility?
Device makers generally make "safe" devices. They'd churn out crappy ass laptops all day everyday.
It took Intel a couple billion dollars to get OEMs and ODMs to make more than just $500 craptops and start considering making higher end laptops with nicer screens, thinner form factors etc. (This became the "ultrabook" form factor).
But they were happy making $500 crappy laptops with crappy screens. Intel's investment let them build higher end machines that competed with Apple's machines and got people spending more money per laptop.
Microsoft's just trying to urge manufacturers to stop making just laptops and consider other form factors, as well as add features like IR cameras (Windows Hello requires it for biometric photo ID). Sometimes the best way to get what you want is to ask manufacturers to add certain features and then offer discounts on stuff like license fees.
Microsoft has also been encouraging PC makers to offer a "Signature Edition" not exclusive to Microsoft stores - these PCs have no crap ware installed at all and are basically Windows, necessary drivers and applications only.
And then, my French Apple account could be "moved" to Sweden, but I would have to "buy" everything again (then it would discover I already had a license for some content and not bill me). That's not ok either, as some apps where actually different versions and it did bill me for some. I paid twice for the same thing because of virtual borders online within EU.
That's an app developer thing. Apple allows app developers to limit the distribution of their apps, but by default Apple will sell your app to everyone.
This is in case the app has content restrictions - sometimes it cannot be made global because the app developer's license for it limits it to certain countries.
Likewise, the apps that you re-bought differently because the app developer released different versions for different countries. Raise the issue with the app developer. Apple actually has no control over it
This is actually far more useful than you'd imagine. I make all of my rectifiers out of LEDs now days, as I get a visual indicator of whether or not it's working entirely (You can see whether you're getting the full waveform without an oscope.) Parallel diodes? That's for redundancy in case one fails. Wire fuses are no biggie, and aluminum wiring is fine if you aren't doing some stupid high-amperage application.
Well, in not all cases where LEDs are used do they glow. Doesn't mean they don't have useful diode properties though.
As for paralleling diodes, that's never for redundancy - diodes have a tendency to either fail open or fail shorted (basically the semiconductor gets too hot and melts). If they're parallel then it's because the current carrying capacity of one is insufficient for the application. Though you usually need balancing resistors because inevitably one will carry a higher current and potentially exceed its ratings.
Given the prevalence of humans using 123456 as a "password", it's not that people are unaware; they simply don't give a shit enough to care.
It depends.
If it's a user on a forums, "123456" or "password" may be perfectly legitimate to use. I use them on sketchy websites I don't care if the account gets pwned - they get a junk email address and a junk password - big whoop. You want to post as me? Go right ahead since I signed up to log in once and forgot all about it.
If it's the admins, then it's a bigger problem.
I always laughed because one forum I visited decided to impose complexity rules and time based password changes. I simply asked them "if these rules were in place, would the forums still have been compromised?" The answer is almost always yes because it wasn't an admin account (and you can always require complexity on admin accounts) that was used, but a fundamental flaw in the software.
The only thing complexity does is make the password harder to crack and maybe take over sites if it was a compromised admin account (though since credentials are normally stolen through phishing, it doesn't matter).
Fundamentally, password complexity and not using stupid passwords are silly policies for sites people don't care about. A bank requiring it makes sense. On a random websites on the Internet, not so much.
That said, password storage systems shouldn't be so hard to implement - I don't know why all these frameworks just don't have a simple "password storage" type class to securely store passwords into a backing store.
While you could buy and use 32 bit ARM legacy chips in the future, it is unlikely that ARM will continue to develop them further.
True, 32-bit ARMs have stopped at armv7.
However, ARM will still have 32-bit cores based on it for a simple reason - ARM is used in a variety of locations. In fact, ARM has 3 separate families of processors. You have the A series ("application", or what most users see) which are the powerful processor line. You also have the M series ("microcontroller") which is a 32-bit small core typically running in Thumb mode (it's quite something to program a 32 bit processor knowing you have 8/16K of flash and 1-64k of RAM).
There's also an R lineup for real-time processors, though I haven't personally dealt with them.
The only 64 bit cores belong to the A family with no roadmap to add them to the M or R families.
I don't think many people go to Facebook to get news, it just comes down their feed because their friends keep clicking "like" and reposting on it. It's then just a case of being too lazy to go to a reputable site to figure out of it's true or not.
Don't underestimate the power of this. Even people who think they are immune are influenced by the endless torrent of stories pushing a particular angle, unless they get a regular dose of counter views.
You'd be surprised then. True, they don't go to Facebook to look at news specifically, but they get exposed to it and thus believe they've got the news.
I've known several friends who basically eschewed traditional MSM and get all their world events knowledge through Facebook and Reddit. If it didn't happen there, it didn't happen, period.
Why are professional level tests being taken on a personal laptop? Shouldn't these tests be taken on the test company devices? Sort of like, I don't know... the SAT, ACT, GRE, and every other test?
It's an interesting situation. What happens is you, the test taker, downloads a piece of software that contains the test. It's keyed to you, and you can only download it once. You don't run the application until its test time, and the application asks you questions and you answer them. I'm not sure if answers are gathered with USB sticks or just transmitted through wifi.
The funny thing is, the touch bar is entirely programmable, so if you're running this special examination app, the app can easily take over the touch bar and lock it down for the duration. It's how apps can modify the touch bar as needed depending on the application.
(I'm still waiting for a modified version of gVim for macOS that turns it into a giant ESC bar).
One of the things was they will allow another download of the test app if you happen to have this macbook.
Have you never taken a road trip with a friend or SO and drive in shifts?
Considering everyone in the car gets restless around the same time, no. Driving in shifts I understand, but perhaps that's a young person sport because I kind of enjoy my 1/2 hour breaks to get out and stretch legs every couple of hours, as does everyone else in the car.
Yes, it could be pushed, but really being able to unfold oneself and take rest stops turns a start of a vacation from a rush to a more relaxed experience. And yes, I've done the road trip in both a car and an RV, and it's still nicer to stop and walk.
And the dogs enjoyed the rest stops as well - they could just sleep through it, but it makes them visibly happier for them when we stop after a couple of hours of driving and give them a quick walk and a pee break.
I'm still waiting for Microsoft to collapse. Like I've been predicting since 1988 when I learned that they weren't even competent enough to write DOS, they had to trick a competitor into selling it to them.
Bah, Microsoft.
This story is about Apple, a company that's been going out of business for just over 40 years now.
I loved E16 back in 1999 (I used it as a window manager for GNOME though which gave me the best of both worlds). Tried E17 maybe 5 years ago and wasn't impressed with it as a standalone desktop. I though probably give it another try though, thanks for the reminder.
Think about it this way - it's so configurable, it became a mobile OS.
(Tizen is heavily based on Enlightenment, apps generally use the Enlightenment Foundation LIbraries).
Another way is to use steel studs, which have pass through holes for conduit punched out of them, and install PVC conduit, then feed wires through that. That's a somewhat more fire-resistant method of construction overall (the wires are already required to be jacketed with PVC by code, so no real difference there) and it permits changing out of wiring later without ripping out the drywall.
I'd like to see that done with modern Romex.
Romex is solid core, so unless it's a straight cable run, any bend going to make it impossible to remove just by pulling.
And steel studs suck, the only thing they save you is drilling holes. But it also means you have to install grommets on those holes or you are creating a fire hazard (the wire rubs against the steel hole, eventually it'll work its way through the insulation as the wire moves from expansion/contraction and general circuit use (magnetic fields are fun!).
In most cases if you're doing any in-wall wiring where the cables do not go up or down to the subfloor or ceiling, you're going to rip drywall.
In California the way it works is that you can do it, but you have to have it signed off by a licensed contractor before you can get it connected.
And in a lot of places, the work just has to be overseen by a licensed professional. The professional doesn't have to be the one that does it, but he has to oversee the work.
Yes, many companies abuse this by having one licensed electrician cover a whole bunch of houses at once, but it's also a way for apprentices to get the experience they need.
Other times you do need a professional, in which case they're used as little as possible - e.g., in Australia, an electrician is needed to wire lighting. So what happens is the electrician wires up a bunch of sockets in the ceiling, and someone else comes around and installs lights that terminate in standard plugs (you don't need an electrician to plug in lights). So the overhead fixtures don't terminate in pigtails, but in a normal plug that plugs into a socket in the ceiling.
Why bother? It is not like those servers can compete with ASIC mining anyway...
That's only if you're trying to make a profit out of mining and you have expenses like real estate, electricity, the mining hardware, etc.
If you didn't have all that overhead, CPU based mining is more than adequate, especially if you have free real estate, free electricity and free hardware. Sure you'll mine slowly, but it's all profit.
Some ransomware does this, as do many malware - when you have a botnet of 500,000 for free use, bitcoin mining isn't terribly bad, especially since it's all free to you.
This is presumably so you can't block ads via plugins.
Soon you'll have to use google's proxies, which will automatically insert appropriate and life-changing ads into any network stream you use.
Well, considering Google owns online advertising, I don't think there's much to do to add ads to the network stream - because the places you go already use one of Alphabet's ad networks anyways.
And the sites that don't, well, it's because Alphabet's ad networks refuse to touch them anyways.
So practically all the ads you see (legitimate ones anyhow) are owned through Alphabet in the end.
If it's so terrible it certainly hasn't assuaged Google, Github, and a huge number of other big services from using it. Many of they are still ADDING support for it. If you're afraid of the government pretty much nothing is going to stop them. If you're just looking for general "good security," SMS will work fine.
The problem with SMS is well, you're assuming a person has a phone which has a phone number.
NIST wrote guidelines against it because a "phone has a phone number" is no longer accurate. A phone number may not refer to *A* phone, but maybe multiple phones. Or hijacked along the way (including the phone itself).
Google's switched to the Google Authenticator app, so while they can use SMS, it's a legacy thing.
Anyhow, this isn't true two factor authentication. You're really just using another password to log in - either use your site login, or log into facebook to change it if you forget it. There is no second factor in play (what you know, what you are, what you have). You either know the site password, or your facebook password.
Who thought it was a good idea for essential systems like this to be online in the first place?!
This is why the Internet of Things is such a horrible concept. Most things don't need to be online and connected to everything else, and the cost of trying to be trendy is huge increases in risks to the privacy, security and reliability of everyday items.
Closed networks do just fine for these kinds of systems, don't actually need to cost that much more, and have none of the vulnerabilities.
And guests perhaps want the convenience of using their phones as room keys, perhaps?
Some hotels do offer it as an option - you can get 1 room key, and/or choose to link your phone to the room.
Customers do like it as they don't have to carry their room key with them, and it offers the chance to have a room key for everyone linked to what they already have with them anyhow, especially if they step out and forget to collect the key.
It's the same reason why hotels moved away from keys to electronic keys - first, the keys no longer bear the room number (a good idea these days to prevent people from rummaging with a found room key), second, the key cards are decoupled from the rooms and can be activated and deactivated remotely. Some guests, after all, do copy keys.
Yes, IoT has security issues, but to dismiss it as "we don't need it" really eliminates any sort of discussion as to why people are using it in the first place.
For many years, I sold some software to small businesses (people smart enough to successfully run their own business). We sold the software for $149 or $189. Our competitor rented theirs for $59/month. This is software that businesses would use for years, so the comparison was: $149 to buy it and use it for three years $2,124 to rent it for three years
We had MANY potential customers choose the "cheaper" competitor even though we loudly explained the huge price difference on our web site amd anywhere pricing was mentioned. Potential customers asked us for a monthly option. Eventually we relented and offered the choice, while clearly telling new customers that buying costs a whole lot less. A lot of people chose the monthly option.
And maybe your customers weren't so dumb and realized if they paid $60/month, they can get you on the phone to FIX THEIR PROBLEM NOW rather than paying you once and then being a drain on profits when they have a problem?
I assume your pricing included some support with it, but if you're paying monthly, there's a presumed higher level of support given since why else are people wanting to pay you $60/month versus $150 outright?
Perhaps they looked at your competitor and they offered 24/7 support for the price? And you offered email "when we get around to it" style support? Doesn't matter if no one ever bothers because no one has a problem
Then there's the whole "what it costs thing" - if your software is so critical to my business, it would probably cost a lot, right? In which case maybe people felt your product was "too cheap" and thus missing important things.
The timings of the updates are only part of it. I'm running linux at home, but previously used Windows 7 and still do at work. When an update is due, Windows goes all wobbly. Last week's update, which didn't reboot, left me unable to connect to the interweb due to a 'socket error'. Updated, rebooted and all fine.
Now this could be good ol' coincidence, but it follows on from years of similar flaky performance when delaying an update. Not all of them, but plenty enough to plot on a graph and have confidence in a line of best fit.
It's why updates require a reboot. And the situation behind it can and does happen on other OSes that don't require an update.
Windows tends to require it because of their file locking semantics which helps try to minimize flakiness, while on Linux, it's entirely possible to happen.
Consider this scenario - an update (ignoring OS) updates a library. That library communicates with itself in some way. Because the communication system is private, no care is taken with binary compatibility.
So you're using applications using this library and an update happens that fixes a bug, but changes the communications. Now, in Windows, because the file is locked open (applications are using it), it will not be updated. On Linux, this can happen because deletes are two-part (you mark file for deletion, you actually unlink it), so even though an application is using the library, it can be updated.
Now you start another application that uses the library. It opens, and then opens the communications channel with... itself? It's now ambiguous - it may reopen the communications channel created with the old instance or it may close and reopen a new communications channel, and the old instances talk to the new channel.
But binary compatibility was not maintained, so now the two versions try to talk to each other and bad things happen. If you're lucky, it's just oddities. If not, you can be seeing all your applications mysteriously crash (And then there's also one program written defensively so it doesn't crash, but keeps the old library open causing all the reopened apps to keep crashing even though they use the new library).
On Windows, it's slightly more complex to have this happen but you can think of private APIs that change semantics - as in you have two libraries A and B, and A is open, but B is not, so B gets updated while A is scheduled for updating on reboot. Old A talks to New B and all sorts of strange things happen
As systems get more complex with dependency graphs spreading out everywhere, the easiest thing is often to just reboot, and start everything over from a known quantity
Be careful with vigilante action. I have zero problem if you hit the right person, but... well, hitting the right person isn't that easy.
Even worse, the person may go after YOU, the owner for harassment and damages and the police may have to arrest you for criminal behavior.
In Canadian law especially, the response has to be in proportion - if you shoot a guy in the back as he's running away, you can be charged with manslaughter, even if the guy pointed a gun in your face a few minutes prior. (He's deemed no longer a threat, and thus you can only catch him, not kill him).
If you start posting all sorts of stuff on social media about the "thief" and it damages them beyond the cost of a laptop, you can be held liable for the extra damages
That's the main impetus for the warning - you don't want the owner to go off half-cocked and the police then have the VERY unenviable task of arresting the legitimate owner because he did something totally stupid.
An electrical specification which allows multiple, software-controlled supply voltages, but does not require connected devices to tolerate the highest available voltage.
What could possibly go wrong?"
It's happened before. The FireWire ports of Macs can actually supply max FireWire voltage (48V). Guess what? A certain Firewire hub couldn't take that, so it was well know if you bought one of those, it wouldn't work in your Mac. In fact, your Mac would let the magic smoke out.
The reason for this was a Firewire card in a PC, due to PC limitations, would only ever supply up to 12V (PC power supply rails only max out at 12V). So the hub assumed it only needed to tolerate 12V, even though the spec said you ahve to handle 48V. Naturally, the QA was done on PCs instead of the platform most likely to use them
But is the industry really being held back all that much? Compare today's newest phones to phones from just two or three years ago.
Given that, I fail to see how anyone can state Qualcomm's dominance is "holding the industry back".
The only "holding back" that Qualcomm's market share seems to be doing is preventing the likes of Apple and Samsung from making even more money off their phones. AKA sour grapes.
Easy - if you want the best modem chipsets around, they're from Qualcomm. No other modem manufacturer has anything that can touch them.
The belief is that Qualcomm refuses to license the patents that makes those chipsets better - there was an article where Apple uses both Intel/Infineon modems and Qualcomm modems in the iPhone 7, and the Qualcomm ones are not only faster, but stay that way even as the signal weakens. In fact, people believe Apple has throttled the Qualcomm modem so it performs "about the same" as the Intel modems based on speed tests, and knowing that other phones with the same modem can go faster.
And we're not talking about CDMA here anymore - CDMA-like technologies are already present in LTE which is why Qualcomm is still around - they still own the core technology.
They can follow the Apple model. Have three tiers of phones at different price levels. The middle tier is basically last year's design, the low tier the design from two years ago.
They are following the Apple model. In every way except software support. A Pixel gets 24 months of software updates, followed by 12 months after that of pure security updates.
Granted, 3 years of support is extraordinary for Android (Nexus gets 18 months from end of sale), but compared to iPhones, it's starting to be a bit... short. Apple's software support is somewhat legendary even though in later versions you really just get security updates and it does get bloated down, but Apple seems to provide a good 5 years.
My first trip to Montreal on my way to get back to the airport I asked the hotel concierge for a taxi that accepts credit cards. I even showed the driver my American Express card and he said yes yes (oui oui). Get to the airport and I hand him my card and he says no no no cash only. I had zero cash. He still didn't accept credit card. He didn't speak very good English, and I didn't speak anything meaningful in French so I just kept saying I have no cash. Finally he just got my bags out of the trunk and sent me on my way. I felt bad, but come on, what is it about these taxis that they don't have even semi-modern tech? Or even one of those old carbon copy card sliders? Don't blame uber for your demise when you won't even try...
It's almost always more about wanting a cash sale than not having a credit card machine - the technology for charging credit cards mobile has been around practically forever. There is no excuse anymore (if you want, your chip and pin reader will have 3G if you request it)
This is especially true for cabs since you really cannot assume anyone has more than $20 on them, and a good cab ride can be at least double that. So being forced to take a card isn't optional - it's mandatory because society has made it such that we're mostly cashless - everyone either whips out their credit card and charges it or whips out their debit card. Unless it's under $20 where most people will probably have a few bucks to pay in cash. ANything over and you have to take credit/debit out of necessity.
Why is it that companies that are nominally in competition with each other, and even face off against each other in court, can so easily co-operate with each other on new tech initiatives? I know that they're not enemies in the traditional sense, that it's all just business, and that they're stronger and likelier to succeed when they pool their expertise and resources. But given their competitive positions, I still I find these relationships curious. Is it the equivalent of family infighting, where siblings can be ruthless with each other yet still circle the wagons and defend each other against outsiders? Or is it something else? I'd really like to understand it..
Because, believe it or not, cooperation generally is the better path to reaching your goal. If you're constantly fighting to the death, you're wasting resources fighting, If you're working together, those resources you spend don't have to be spent by the other people, and thus advancing the knowledge base.
This happens throughout nature - and even human history when we stopped fighting to survive and starting cooperating for our general survival.
Business is simply an optimization of this - work together on the basic goals and then fight over the small differences you'll inevitably encounter. E.g., Facebook and Google may feel to put their AI in the cloud, while Apple wants to protect user privacy, and put AI in the user's devices
Heck, until the 20th century, warfare was mostly collegial in nature - they'd fight during the day, then the enemies would congregate at the local pub and have their jollies together all night.
I don't see why they would release VR without getting to 5K per eye? Or fine, 4K per eye. At resolutions below 4K per eye.. the screen door effect is far too prominent to stand for more than a few minutes (10 minutes being the Guiness world record, do not attempt -- the poor guy puked to death afterwords). Anyway, my point is that VR is basically not usable until we have the technologies to display, at absolute minimum 120 fps at 4K per eye. And that's for enthusiasts.. if it is for the mainstream we need it to be 180fps and 5K per eye.
Today, we are at less than HD resolution at 90 fps.. it's irresponsible to release a product half baked so early.
In other words, make VR even MORE inaccessible to people.
First, we don't yet have the display technology for 4K per eye. But let's assume we do.
Next you want to do dual 4K at 120fps. We can't even do that with top of the line video cards in PCs - 4K60 is still unachievable and you already want to do 4 times that. And we're using top of the line $1000 video cards. If we assume we can do it with 4 cards in an SLI configuration, that's $4000 worth of video cards. Right now the configuration requires just one higher end card $600-800 or so.
All told, you can spend anywhere from $1500-2000 for a new PC and VR headset that's released too early. With your requirements, we'd be looking at $5000+ for a new PC and headset. And as enthusiastic as people may be, that's in the range of flopping.
People already have a hard time justifying the existing cost, and it's why people are flocking towards the cheap smartphone route. It sucks, but it's cheap and accessible.
Waiting for display technology and graphics cards, and VR will be the next 3D TV - on the wane.
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Device makers generally make "safe" devices. They'd churn out crappy ass laptops all day everyday.
It took Intel a couple billion dollars to get OEMs and ODMs to make more than just $500 craptops and start considering making higher end laptops with nicer screens, thinner form factors etc. (This became the "ultrabook" form factor).
But they were happy making $500 crappy laptops with crappy screens. Intel's investment let them build higher end machines that competed with Apple's machines and got people spending more money per laptop.
Microsoft's just trying to urge manufacturers to stop making just laptops and consider other form factors, as well as add features like IR cameras (Windows Hello requires it for biometric photo ID). Sometimes the best way to get what you want is to ask manufacturers to add certain features and then offer discounts on stuff like license fees.
Microsoft has also been encouraging PC makers to offer a "Signature Edition" not exclusive to Microsoft stores - these PCs have no crap ware installed at all and are basically Windows, necessary drivers and applications only.
That's an app developer thing. Apple allows app developers to limit the distribution of their apps, but by default Apple will sell your app to everyone.
This is in case the app has content restrictions - sometimes it cannot be made global because the app developer's license for it limits it to certain countries.
Likewise, the apps that you re-bought differently because the app developer released different versions for different countries. Raise the issue with the app developer. Apple actually has no control over it
Well, in not all cases where LEDs are used do they glow. Doesn't mean they don't have useful diode properties though.
As for paralleling diodes, that's never for redundancy - diodes have a tendency to either fail open or fail shorted (basically the semiconductor gets too hot and melts). If they're parallel then it's because the current carrying capacity of one is insufficient for the application. Though you usually need balancing resistors because inevitably one will carry a higher current and potentially exceed its ratings.
It depends.
If it's a user on a forums, "123456" or "password" may be perfectly legitimate to use. I use them on sketchy websites I don't care if the account gets pwned - they get a junk email address and a junk password - big whoop. You want to post as me? Go right ahead since I signed up to log in once and forgot all about it.
If it's the admins, then it's a bigger problem.
I always laughed because one forum I visited decided to impose complexity rules and time based password changes. I simply asked them "if these rules were in place, would the forums still have been compromised?" The answer is almost always yes because it wasn't an admin account (and you can always require complexity on admin accounts) that was used, but a fundamental flaw in the software.
The only thing complexity does is make the password harder to crack and maybe take over sites if it was a compromised admin account (though since credentials are normally stolen through phishing, it doesn't matter).
Fundamentally, password complexity and not using stupid passwords are silly policies for sites people don't care about. A bank requiring it makes sense. On a random websites on the Internet, not so much.
That said, password storage systems shouldn't be so hard to implement - I don't know why all these frameworks just don't have a simple "password storage" type class to securely store passwords into a backing store.
True, 32-bit ARMs have stopped at armv7.
However, ARM will still have 32-bit cores based on it for a simple reason - ARM is used in a variety of locations. In fact, ARM has 3 separate families of processors. You have the A series ("application", or what most users see) which are the powerful processor line. You also have the M series ("microcontroller") which is a 32-bit small core typically running in Thumb mode (it's quite something to program a 32 bit processor knowing you have 8/16K of flash and 1-64k of RAM).
There's also an R lineup for real-time processors, though I haven't personally dealt with them.
The only 64 bit cores belong to the A family with no roadmap to add them to the M or R families.
You'd be surprised then. True, they don't go to Facebook to look at news specifically, but they get exposed to it and thus believe they've got the news.
I've known several friends who basically eschewed traditional MSM and get all their world events knowledge through Facebook and Reddit. If it didn't happen there, it didn't happen, period.
It's an interesting situation. What happens is you, the test taker, downloads a piece of software that contains the test. It's keyed to you, and you can only download it once. You don't run the application until its test time, and the application asks you questions and you answer them. I'm not sure if answers are gathered with USB sticks or just transmitted through wifi.
The funny thing is, the touch bar is entirely programmable, so if you're running this special examination app, the app can easily take over the touch bar and lock it down for the duration. It's how apps can modify the touch bar as needed depending on the application.
(I'm still waiting for a modified version of gVim for macOS that turns it into a giant ESC bar).
One of the things was they will allow another download of the test app if you happen to have this macbook.
Considering everyone in the car gets restless around the same time, no. Driving in shifts I understand, but perhaps that's a young person sport because I kind of enjoy my 1/2 hour breaks to get out and stretch legs every couple of hours, as does everyone else in the car.
Yes, it could be pushed, but really being able to unfold oneself and take rest stops turns a start of a vacation from a rush to a more relaxed experience. And yes, I've done the road trip in both a car and an RV, and it's still nicer to stop and walk.
And the dogs enjoyed the rest stops as well - they could just sleep through it, but it makes them visibly happier for them when we stop after a couple of hours of driving and give them a quick walk and a pee break.
Bah, Microsoft.
This story is about Apple, a company that's been going out of business for just over 40 years now.
Think about it this way - it's so configurable, it became a mobile OS.
(Tizen is heavily based on Enlightenment, apps generally use the Enlightenment Foundation LIbraries).
I'd like to see that done with modern Romex.
Romex is solid core, so unless it's a straight cable run, any bend going to make it impossible to remove just by pulling.
And steel studs suck, the only thing they save you is drilling holes. But it also means you have to install grommets on those holes or you are creating a fire hazard (the wire rubs against the steel hole, eventually it'll work its way through the insulation as the wire moves from expansion/contraction and general circuit use (magnetic fields are fun!).
In most cases if you're doing any in-wall wiring where the cables do not go up or down to the subfloor or ceiling, you're going to rip drywall.
And in a lot of places, the work just has to be overseen by a licensed professional. The professional doesn't have to be the one that does it, but he has to oversee the work.
Yes, many companies abuse this by having one licensed electrician cover a whole bunch of houses at once, but it's also a way for apprentices to get the experience they need.
Other times you do need a professional, in which case they're used as little as possible - e.g., in Australia, an electrician is needed to wire lighting. So what happens is the electrician wires up a bunch of sockets in the ceiling, and someone else comes around and installs lights that terminate in standard plugs (you don't need an electrician to plug in lights). So the overhead fixtures don't terminate in pigtails, but in a normal plug that plugs into a socket in the ceiling.
That's only if you're trying to make a profit out of mining and you have expenses like real estate, electricity, the mining hardware, etc.
If you didn't have all that overhead, CPU based mining is more than adequate, especially if you have free real estate, free electricity and free hardware. Sure you'll mine slowly, but it's all profit.
Some ransomware does this, as do many malware - when you have a botnet of 500,000 for free use, bitcoin mining isn't terribly bad, especially since it's all free to you.
Well, considering Google owns online advertising, I don't think there's much to do to add ads to the network stream - because the places you go already use one of Alphabet's ad networks anyways.
And the sites that don't, well, it's because Alphabet's ad networks refuse to touch them anyways.
So practically all the ads you see (legitimate ones anyhow) are owned through Alphabet in the end.
The problem with SMS is well, you're assuming a person has a phone which has a phone number.
NIST wrote guidelines against it because a "phone has a phone number" is no longer accurate. A phone number may not refer to *A* phone, but maybe multiple phones. Or hijacked along the way (including the phone itself).
Google's switched to the Google Authenticator app, so while they can use SMS, it's a legacy thing.
Anyhow, this isn't true two factor authentication. You're really just using another password to log in - either use your site login, or log into facebook to change it if you forget it. There is no second factor in play (what you know, what you are, what you have). You either know the site password, or your facebook password.
This is more along the lines of Wish it Was Two Factor.
And guests perhaps want the convenience of using their phones as room keys, perhaps?
Some hotels do offer it as an option - you can get 1 room key, and/or choose to link your phone to the room.
Customers do like it as they don't have to carry their room key with them, and it offers the chance to have a room key for everyone linked to what they already have with them anyhow, especially if they step out and forget to collect the key.
It's the same reason why hotels moved away from keys to electronic keys - first, the keys no longer bear the room number (a good idea these days to prevent people from rummaging with a found room key), second, the key cards are decoupled from the rooms and can be activated and deactivated remotely. Some guests, after all, do copy keys.
Yes, IoT has security issues, but to dismiss it as "we don't need it" really eliminates any sort of discussion as to why people are using it in the first place.
And maybe your customers weren't so dumb and realized if they paid $60/month, they can get you on the phone to FIX THEIR PROBLEM NOW rather than paying you once and then being a drain on profits when they have a problem?
I assume your pricing included some support with it, but if you're paying monthly, there's a presumed higher level of support given since why else are people wanting to pay you $60/month versus $150 outright?
Perhaps they looked at your competitor and they offered 24/7 support for the price? And you offered email "when we get around to it" style support? Doesn't matter if no one ever bothers because no one has a problem
Then there's the whole "what it costs thing" - if your software is so critical to my business, it would probably cost a lot, right? In which case maybe people felt your product was "too cheap" and thus missing important things.
It's why updates require a reboot. And the situation behind it can and does happen on other OSes that don't require an update.
Windows tends to require it because of their file locking semantics which helps try to minimize flakiness, while on Linux, it's entirely possible to happen.
Consider this scenario - an update (ignoring OS) updates a library. That library communicates with itself in some way. Because the communication system is private, no care is taken with binary compatibility.
So you're using applications using this library and an update happens that fixes a bug, but changes the communications. Now, in Windows, because the file is locked open (applications are using it), it will not be updated. On Linux, this can happen because deletes are two-part (you mark file for deletion, you actually unlink it), so even though an application is using the library, it can be updated.
Now you start another application that uses the library. It opens, and then opens the communications channel with... itself? It's now ambiguous - it may reopen the communications channel created with the old instance or it may close and reopen a new communications channel, and the old instances talk to the new channel.
But binary compatibility was not maintained, so now the two versions try to talk to each other and bad things happen. If you're lucky, it's just oddities. If not, you can be seeing all your applications mysteriously crash (And then there's also one program written defensively so it doesn't crash, but keeps the old library open causing all the reopened apps to keep crashing even though they use the new library).
On Windows, it's slightly more complex to have this happen but you can think of private APIs that change semantics - as in you have two libraries A and B, and A is open, but B is not, so B gets updated while A is scheduled for updating on reboot. Old A talks to New B and all sorts of strange things happen
As systems get more complex with dependency graphs spreading out everywhere, the easiest thing is often to just reboot, and start everything over from a known quantity
Even worse, the person may go after YOU, the owner for harassment and damages and the police may have to arrest you for criminal behavior.
In Canadian law especially, the response has to be in proportion - if you shoot a guy in the back as he's running away, you can be charged with manslaughter, even if the guy pointed a gun in your face a few minutes prior. (He's deemed no longer a threat, and thus you can only catch him, not kill him).
If you start posting all sorts of stuff on social media about the "thief" and it damages them beyond the cost of a laptop, you can be held liable for the extra damages
That's the main impetus for the warning - you don't want the owner to go off half-cocked and the police then have the VERY unenviable task of arresting the legitimate owner because he did something totally stupid.
It's happened before. The FireWire ports of Macs can actually supply max FireWire voltage (48V). Guess what? A certain Firewire hub couldn't take that, so it was well know if you bought one of those, it wouldn't work in your Mac. In fact, your Mac would let the magic smoke out.
The reason for this was a Firewire card in a PC, due to PC limitations, would only ever supply up to 12V (PC power supply rails only max out at 12V). So the hub assumed it only needed to tolerate 12V, even though the spec said you ahve to handle 48V. Naturally, the QA was done on PCs instead of the platform most likely to use them
Easy - if you want the best modem chipsets around, they're from Qualcomm. No other modem manufacturer has anything that can touch them.
The belief is that Qualcomm refuses to license the patents that makes those chipsets better - there was an article where Apple uses both Intel/Infineon modems and Qualcomm modems in the iPhone 7, and the Qualcomm ones are not only faster, but stay that way even as the signal weakens. In fact, people believe Apple has throttled the Qualcomm modem so it performs "about the same" as the Intel modems based on speed tests, and knowing that other phones with the same modem can go faster.
And we're not talking about CDMA here anymore - CDMA-like technologies are already present in LTE which is why Qualcomm is still around - they still own the core technology.
They are following the Apple model. In every way except software support. A Pixel gets 24 months of software updates, followed by 12 months after that of pure security updates.
Granted, 3 years of support is extraordinary for Android (Nexus gets 18 months from end of sale), but compared to iPhones, it's starting to be a bit... short. Apple's software support is somewhat legendary even though in later versions you really just get security updates and it does get bloated down, but Apple seems to provide a good 5 years.
It's almost always more about wanting a cash sale than not having a credit card machine - the technology for charging credit cards mobile has been around practically forever. There is no excuse anymore (if you want, your chip and pin reader will have 3G if you request it)
This is especially true for cabs since you really cannot assume anyone has more than $20 on them, and a good cab ride can be at least double that. So being forced to take a card isn't optional - it's mandatory because society has made it such that we're mostly cashless - everyone either whips out their credit card and charges it or whips out their debit card. Unless it's under $20 where most people will probably have a few bucks to pay in cash. ANything over and you have to take credit/debit out of necessity.
Because, believe it or not, cooperation generally is the better path to reaching your goal. If you're constantly fighting to the death, you're wasting resources fighting, If you're working together, those resources you spend don't have to be spent by the other people, and thus advancing the knowledge base.
This happens throughout nature - and even human history when we stopped fighting to survive and starting cooperating for our general survival.
Business is simply an optimization of this - work together on the basic goals and then fight over the small differences you'll inevitably encounter. E.g., Facebook and Google may feel to put their AI in the cloud, while Apple wants to protect user privacy, and put AI in the user's devices
Heck, until the 20th century, warfare was mostly collegial in nature - they'd fight during the day, then the enemies would congregate at the local pub and have their jollies together all night.
In other words, make VR even MORE inaccessible to people.
First, we don't yet have the display technology for 4K per eye. But let's assume we do.
Next you want to do dual 4K at 120fps. We can't even do that with top of the line video cards in PCs - 4K60 is still unachievable and you already want to do 4 times that. And we're using top of the line $1000 video cards. If we assume we can do it with 4 cards in an SLI configuration, that's $4000 worth of video cards. Right now the configuration requires just one higher end card $600-800 or so.
All told, you can spend anywhere from $1500-2000 for a new PC and VR headset that's released too early. With your requirements, we'd be looking at $5000+ for a new PC and headset. And as enthusiastic as people may be, that's in the range of flopping.
People already have a hard time justifying the existing cost, and it's why people are flocking towards the cheap smartphone route. It sucks, but it's cheap and accessible.
Waiting for display technology and graphics cards, and VR will be the next 3D TV - on the wane.