I lived in the US as well, but I had a full banking account when I was 10 - I could both deposit and withdraw money. The bank I had offered it as a service to kids, and while I can't speak for others, I think it was great to get a feel for what working with money is like while the only thing on the line was my rather meager allowance.
It's actually considered essential education - an allowance helps kids develop essential money handling skills in a relatively safe environment. This includes skills like budgeting, saving, spending, and making money. Many banks offer accounts for kids to help facilitate this - which also helps show there's no magic money giving machine.
There is a very strong correlation between people who didn't have an allowance early in life and those who cannot manage money - ending up in severe debt because they didn't learn money management skills early in life.
It's why many banks offer no-fee youth accounts that let you do practically everything a normal account does - they realize demystifying money helps them become much better money managers later on and customers who are responsible.
Why wouldn't I want my boss to know that there are other people chomping at the bit to hire me?
As a manager, I don't expect blind loyalty, and I assume that all my subordinates are open to better offers. But if they are actively looking, and devoting time to sending out resumes and talking to recruiters, then I will be reluctant to give them important assignments that they may not be around to complete. If I need to make a headcount reduction or free up a desk for a new hire, then they will be at the top of the list.
When an employee starts looking for a new job, it is usually not just about the money.
The other reason is once you decided to start looking and have gotten offers, getting a counter offer is entirely unproductive - it does no one any good. Sure you may get what you want, but you've put up a pretty big beacon that you're leaving and you're looking around, which is a giant negative at getting future raises or opportunities. After all, you threatened to leave once, so there's no guarantee you won't do it again.
A smart boss would just cut you free - you got an offer, so take it already.
General wisdom is that you DON'T go for any counteroffer - whether you solicited one or whether you are presented one. Once you decided to actively search and have offers in hand, either jump, or just keep it quiet.
There is no reason to upgrade to chip cards except to benefit the card cartels. Forcing a small business owner to eat the fraudulent card charges is a big middle finger to these businesses, you can still fraudulently charge a chip card and the cost-benefit is just too insane for a business. Chip card transactions often not only cost more, but the readers and associated systems are a magnitude more expensive than their mag-stripe counterparts, for no good reason, I can get a Chinese chip card reader for $25, but the bank doesn't certify units under $250 and charge hefty monthly fees to use 'their' (same model) units.
At least with a mag stripe, a developer could interface with a verifiable fully secure API, now you have to trust the banks and manufacturers not to screw with the system. To the strict letter, they can't even be considered PCI compliant because the owners have no control to change the passphrase or keys on them.
Newsflash - retailers always had to eat fraudulent charges. This is true with swipe, and even the imprint machines (which are still used).
The chip machines shift the liability to whoever is least secure - if your bank still gave you a swipe card and the retailer can take chip, the liability shifts to the bank. If it is all the way, then liability shifts to the cardholder (for not protecting their card and PIN).
And yes, the machines are more expensive, but not by much, because everyone by now has been making chip-enabled machines for years. Heck, I'd be surprised if 90% of the readers actually had chip support, but was disabled because the rest of the world used chip. (In Canada, this happened a few years before the chip migration - and yes, retailers had to swap their "chip capable" machines with the exact same model, because the old unit had the chip unit disabled).
And yes, magstripe security. Yes, it was convenient to swipe at the POS and handle it all on one piece of paper. Unfortunately, Target, Home Depot, and dozens of other retailers have shown the folly of it. (Now the machines talk to the card machine and the amount is transmitted,and a success/failure is returned). The chip machines are a black box and communicate with the bank directly, so even stupid retailers can't be stupid anymore.
Talking about Amazon Canada here. Lately their shipping and delivery has been progressively shittier. Items can sit for a week before getting shipped, often just one day before promised delivery, and still pretend they can make it. They also started using a carrier that offers no tracking information, returns package for no reason, not to mention nearly always late. They also removed the 10 day price drop protection. Amazon used to be my exclusive online shopping destination. But now I have serious hesitation ordering from them. Recently started shopping from Bestbuy and found their shipping to be a lot better.
Amazon has always held packages back, usually 3 days to a week if you used free shipping. I don't care - I have Prime, because I hated spending hours looking for an item costing $1-5 to get free shipping, and the fact that with Prime, I just make individual orders (I don't know if Amazon does their "Combined" or "Individually Ship" question anymore).
But Amazon.ca prices are quite similar to retail B&M store pricing I've found. Best Buy often has the same item cheaper in-store (at least on release day). The only reasons I shop at Amazon is because they have the item (even at full retail price), or it's a book or more obscure DVD or something that Best Buy doesn't have. It pays to comparison shop, and I'm not surprised when I walk into Best Buy and purchase something cheaper there at the store than online. I've had to convince a few people of that fact too - Amazon isn't always cheaper. IN fact, it's almost always the same price. (Except maybe books, those usually get a across the board 20% discount).
I got Prime for the free 2-day shipping, and that only seems to happen once in a blue moon. I ordered some camping gear a week in advance of my trip, and only part of order was shipped. I received a notification the day before my trip that my other part of the order hadn't shipped yet, and wouldn't arrive until after my camping trip. They offer incentives for you to use slower shipping methods, they should give you credits toward your prime membership if you select 2-day shipping and the package arrives late.
They do. Just call 'em up and complain.
In fact, if your entire order was in stock and they still didn't ship it all, you can call them and they WILL credit you.
So far, I've gotten extra months of Amazon Prime, as well as $30 off. It's there for your asking.
I have prime in Canada because of the free 2 day, but primarily because of the unlimited nature - a lot of stuff I buy is under the free shipping limit and I find I spend hours trying to find something to bring it over. Prime lets me just order it - doesn't matter that it's $24.99 or less - free shipping. I do enough of them that I can justify it as not having to by craploads of crap.
*Not you, personally. I'm sure you can see the difference on your 80" 4k OLED curved set with deep color. I meant the rest of us with normal eyes and typical equipment. You know, the 99.9% of us who don't calibrate every TV in our house to 8 different times of the day so that we can watch with the correct color balance depending on the room lighting.
Apparently, HDR is actually noticable if you have sets that properly support it. The 4K not so much, which isn't a huge loss since most movies are 2K only (2048x1080, just a bit wider than normal 1080p), so they've been somewhat upscaled for UHD. (You do get some benefit - a 2K movie uses all 1080 lines for movie information, unlike a Blu-Ray where you have letterboxing taking up about 120 of those lines.) Reason is most VFX is only done at 2K.
But HDR is the big thing going to BT.2020 colourspace. (HDTV uses BT.709 which is very similar to sRGB).
It's a very obvious trend. When I studied engineering as an undergraduate in the 1980s one of the highlights of the computer science subjects (apart from very easy credits) was that we got to meet girls. Even with quite a few of the 90+% male demographic of engineering students sneaking in the CS subjects most of them still had very close to 50% females enrolled. They were most definitely interested in I.T. These days I see more women working in mines, chemical plants, power stations, oil refineries and foundries than in I.T. Even underground mines less than a decade after women were allowed to work there at all. An incredibly obvious trend. Reader, if you can't see it I really have more questions about you and why you are saying it has not happened than anything else because it is so obvious. I probably have to be as blunt as to suggest to people here that they should be considering this issue in terms of reality instead of pushing some political barrow based on nonsense. Flag as Inappropriate
You might actually be able to blame this on Nintendo and the Video Game Crash. If you remember the advertising back then for video games, it was a family gathered around the console playing games, including moms, dads, sons and daughters. It was a fairly inclusive mix.
But then the crash happened. Then Nintendo. And part of the problem is many retailers had given up on videogames - being burned so completely thoroughly during the crash that they wrote off pretty much everything video games (and dumped it all in a landfill in New Mexico, etc. etc. etc).
But Nintendo was doing well with their Famicom, and wanted to bring it to the US. But retailers were shy about videogames. In a brilliant marketing move, Nintendo rebranded it not as a videogame console, but as a toy. The next step was what kind of toy - was it for boys, or was it for girls? Remember, the toy stores were (and still are) segregated - you had boys toys on one side, girls toys on another and neither the twain shall meet. Additionally, no one made toys for both sexes - it was either for boys, or girls.
Nintendo chose to market the NES as a boy's toy, and from then, it's likely the cast has been set that video games are a boy's business. And by extension, computers. Hell, you see the same thing today - people still believe that videogames are for kids - despite adults being the largest gaming segment. And yes, the attitude that only boys play videogames still persists, despite the actual game playing population to be about even.
I wonder what the emotional response to upgrading to a newer version will be.
If you feel nothing more than when you upgrade your phone, what level of emotional attachment can the robot really have achieved? On the other hand if you're so attached that you don't want to upgrade, there's no long term business model.
Perhaps the answer will be to treat upgrades as body transplants, so the "personality" or your robot is simply moved to a new shell.
Given Japanese culture, I suspect quite a bit.
Given shrines were set up to mourn the Sony Aibom the Japanese can get quite attached to their robots. I mean, after those Aibos started dying, and shrines set up so their owners can mourn them, there are businesses set up to fix them. Given the reason Sony stopped servicing them was a lack of parts, those dead Aibos often donate their "organs" to keep others alive.
And given it uses a smartphone as a backend, I suspect this Toyota bot will not be upgraded for some time, but even so, I imagine many people would buy one and keep it a long time. Sony had several models of Aibo, after all.
How did the math work out for internal combustion engines in the 1400s? Metallurgy and a lot of other fields weren't there yet. Give it time and change the math.
Except solar panels are generally equivalent. And the current math, using actual numbers provided by solar roadways, as well as numbers provided by people with PV installations nearby (there are websites where you can share your green-ness - how much electricity your PV array produces can be made public). And the best figures are the solar roadways will get 50% of an equivalent PV installation on a roof. And that already includes PV inefficiency based on solar insolation
The technology just doesn't work - the panels are expensive to install in roads (and we're not even talking about the infrastructure to support it - just the panels for the road. You still need to wire the panels together and then to the grid).
And waiting for newer technology? Well, there's nothing special in a roadway itself - so any improvements in PV technology can be directly applied to PV roof installations as a bigger bang per buck. This is one of those things where any improvements can be directly applied to competing technologies and make you even further behind.
Not really. Git doesn't treat binaries any different from text. In fact, in an uncompressed repo, both are stored entirely as a whole - unlike RCS/CVS/SVN, each version is not stored as a diff of another version (either store the latest and maintain diffs of previous versions, or store the initial and maintain diffs going forward. The data model of Git stores everything as-is.
Later versions of git stored the repository as a giant tarball which means text docs have a compressability advantage
You got the road part backwards. When the roads are iced over, then its a good time to drive, the problem time is during the spring thaw, when the roads turn to a soupy mess.
Not just spring thaw, but winter too. Polar vortices, el nino, all screw up the winter road system.
If you want to see this in action, it's well documented on the TV show "Ice Road Truckers". The last few seasons of which have exclusively focused on Canada. It's amazing since most of the driving has been below the arctic circle. Also, being from BC, I never knew there was such a thing going on in the winter - I'm guessing the mountains here pretty much make the entire province passable year round. If there is a winter road system, it's not well known.
That said, we do have our own hellish weather documented on "Highway Thru Hell" in the winters, but it's mostly all paved except for some forestry access roads.
PLEASE tell me you have a choice and don't have to summon it by saying "OK, Google". I refuse to use Google Now because of that. Seems such an egotistical launch phrase to pick.
Well, it would be rather fun since I apparently can't help BUT trigger that every time I combine "OK" and "Google".
"Are you OK?" "Google this and you'll get your answer" - I'll reliably trigger every Android phone in earshot. Yes, I can be mean and do "OK Google call 911" and get a few phones dialing as well.
I guess that's why Amazon called theirs Alexa and Apple "Hey Siri". No company name or egotism there, just a friendly name.
I suspect that liability is one of Apple's motivations. They don't want to be responsible for being the custodian of all of their customers' data.
Yes, and that's why Apple's also one to not offer "cloud everything". A lot of services rely on iCloud yes, but there's plenty that doesn't and Apple has even been moving stuff off from iCloud and into personal computation.
It's not just encryption, but just not having the data period. So an iCloud backup is easy and convenient, but is not a full iPhone backup - it lacks authentication information and other things that Apple doesn't want to have. Apple doesn't want your email, wifi and other passwords stored on their service where they'll be vulnerable to giving it up. So iOS basically doesn't even back it up. Heck, an unencrypted iTunes backup won't have that information either (in case the computer gets compromised). The only way you can back up everything is an encrypted iTunes backup, where it's not stored on Apple's servers (and vulnerable to a warrant), and is held local to your hardware.
Similarly Apple has reduced the amount of stuff that is done by their servers - like the latest iPhoto dfoes all the processing on-device rather than in-cloud to prevent uploading sensitive photos. And why it works differently across devices because each one independently executes.
But why did they program it to shut off on impact? Who cares if it might be damaged and short-circuited by the impact, it's end of life anyway, might as well see if if some parts of it survive the impact and send back something useful. No, they intentionally programmed it to go into "safe mode" and basically shut off at the moment of impact. A "clean end" to the mission, they called it. I think they should have gone for some "dirty" pictures instead. Better than nothing, and what does the probe have to lose? It may have bounced around for hours with all its sensors shut off while it was still perfectly capable of sending back more data.
First off, Rosetta is not Philae. It was never designed to "land" - just orbit. The moment of impact it was going to be destroyed You have to remember that they're only strong when they were folded up - once everything's unfolded it's quite fragile. At the moment of landing, the solar panels would've collapsed - they are long parts and it was only strong when it was folded up for launch, so it would've twisted and bent.
And there's no power once that happens - Rosetta was dying - its onboard fuel is nearly depleted and its far from the sun so its power reserves are diminished. This lets it do some final science using its onboard sensors and relay some final data before impact.
Additionally, the antenna would've collapsed on impact so it will no longer be pointing towards earth so even if they kept Rosetta "on", there would be no way to receive anything because the antenna would be pointed in a random direction.
It must be a uniquely American thing to equate massive levels of attention with good service. As a Brit now living in the US, all the unwanted interruptions you get when you're just trying to enjoy a slow, peaceful restaurant meal really took some getting used to.
I swear servers actually wait for you to fill your mouth before they comes over and ask "Is everything OK" every 30 seconds.... and whats with the rush to clear plates from the table? especially even before everyone at the table has finished eating? That's considered the height of bad manners in pretty much every other country I've ever lived in or visited.
Well, it's American to not spend hours on a meal, actually. I know, I traveled to Italy and had many great meals, and spent a couple of hours or more at the restaurant. That was fine, I was on holidays and was enjoying the leisurely experience.
Back home, well, things are a bit more rushed, so having efficiency really helps. I don't want to have to look for a waiter to call over so I can have my glass refilled. Just like I don't want to have to wait 10 minutes to get a waiter to get me my bill. (Yes, I like it when they automatically come and refill my glass, as well as print me out my bill and leave it at the table. Of course, if they hover around waiting for me to pay it, that's another thing, but if they drop it off and let me deal with it when I'm able, I'm happier.
Having to get the attention of a waiter can be the most annoying thing ever.
Well, maybe. You don't save $ by having "control over your shipments", you'd save by making your shipping system more efficient than alternative shippers. FedEx & UPS are pretty darn good at it and have a lot of experience. Trying to break into that game would be costly and maybe foolhardy. Just the fleet management alone could be enough to eat up any "savings". Selling the service to other companies in addition to delivering your own stuff might work albeit not immediately profitable.
Actually, FedEx and UPS are bit players. USPS is the big gorilla in the room. In a week, USPS moves more than UPS does in a year. FedEx is smaller. It takes USPS just 3 days to do the same.
Amazon's network may be big, but they won't be UPS/FedEx big. And UPS and FedEx contract out to USPS as well for deliveries (USPS handles UPS and FedEx packages for practically all the rural areas).
About the only way Amazon can innovate is to offer something USPS won't, like same day deliveries, which are extremely expensive through FedEx and UPS. And to move mass shipments between warehouses so prime 2-day shipping is efficient using regular shipping rather than express services.
They're moving away from mobile and into other things software wise.
In fact, Blackberry signed a contract for real-time trailer tracking. Real-time truck tracking is common, but usually it's only the tractor that's actually got the GPS unit and tracker.
Blackberry's new device is a box that screws into the trailer and provides monitoring of the trailer itself, as well as interior sensor for monitoring temperature (critical for reefer trucks). Given trailer theft is extremely common, it's a niche that surprisingly wasn't fulfilled. It apparently installs in about 10 minutes and is self-powered, so it can be added to every trailer you have, and requires no interaction with the driver. (Traditional truck-trackers require significant installation in the cab - GPS antennas, tracker devices, engine monitoring, potential two-way communicator, etc)
If I gave them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it was strategic: price it high enough to limit the strain on their wireless network, but then similarly not so high that those who would actually use it and need it to be reliable are screwed over. Then sod off anyone who didn't like it. Not that I'd expect them to actually come out and say something like that.
Except it did go down. It completely collapsed under the load.
I understand the need and that if everyone brought their own hotspot that it would be completely useless. But that's not the way to do it. At $200, it sounds like gouging - especially when you consider they actually did active scans for unauthorized WiFi and escorted people out.
The problem is many - first, the price appeared to be gouging. Second, active WiFi scanning - granted, they didn't jam (which was what got the hotels in trouble) but escorted you off the premises so it was technically legal. Third, they could've offered suggestions that people use hard wire (USB) tethers or built-in WWAN modems to achieve connectivity instead of WiFI Most of the people there would be using tablets, laptops, etc, many models of which have WWAN capability either built-in through USB dongles. Or a USB cable to their phones (practically all smartphones allow USB tethering)
Because right now, it appears to be gouging. Which is why the FCC is irked. I'm sure if they simply suggested other methods, politely asked anyone using WiFi to turn it off and use non-WiFi methods, etc.
Yes, a lot of wifi causes problems - Apple has had problems during their keynotes because everyone had their hotspots on, but there are many ways it can be handled without it seeming like pure greed.
Probably, but I am reminded of the Microsoft/Stacker lawsuit. Stacker was a company that did on-the-fly disk compression for DOS systems. Microsoft met up with them and went through a lot of due diligence and saw a lot of Stacker's software code as part of a discussion about Microsoft licensing Stacker for the next version of DOS. They did not reach an agreement. Microsoft then incorporated a product in the next version that looked a lot like Stacker. Stacker sued and eventually won, but was already driven out of business by the time everything cleared court.
That was an interesting lawsuit - and I think in the end it was the compression algorithm they used more than anything - I had a beta version fo DOS6 and a legit version of DOS6 and the two wouldn't work together. I called Microsoft Support one day about that and they sent me a disk with a DoubleSpace to DriveSpace conversion utility that converted one format to the other.
I have to imagine the quality of this music is pretty dismal?
First..on YouTube, so you don't know the source and quality and then ripped to lossy mp3 format, and I'm guessing it isn't likely to be very high quality mp3.
YouTube audio quality at the HD setting (720p/1080p) is 128kbps AAC, which is close to being considered "audibly transparent" (I believe for AAC the bitrate is a little higher for that - 192kbps?). At lower quality settings, the audio quality does go down.
And a lot of it is ripped, so you do start with a good source material.
So in this metaphor, the internet is your hand not the oreo cookie. Should it cost more to glove the hand that delivers the double stuffed oreo?
Well, I get double-stuf Oreos for the same price (and weight) as the regular Oreos. No doubt there are less cookies per bag, but the bag weighs the same and costs the same. And when it's on sale, it's under $2 per bag.
Hell, when it goes on sale, I should be able to buy a ton of cookies and consume them when I need to. So if they want to use this analogy, I should be able to "stock up" on the service when it goes on sale and use it when I need to. Half price for a year? Then I'll buy several years worth of service at half price and use it when it goes up in price.
An SQL injection attack is the easiest thing to close the loop on though. It is the low hanging fruit of security. At least start with that... then we can talk encryption...
Or hashing.
SQL injectable website, passwords in plain text...I'm sure there's a third "security best practice" that's not being followed.
I mean, geez, plain text passwords hasn't been in on any "industry best practice" since never. If there's any reason to make yourself completely vulnerable to being sued, this would be it.
Companies are already restricting selling spare parts and using nonstandad screws and bolts. Apple and Jura for example.
That's a basic intelligence test for repair and preventing warranty fraud, actually. Far too many people go to YouTube and see how to fix something, then actually try to do it, without realizing they don't have the proper tools (no, a butter knife is NOT a screwdriver), or even skill/dexterity to repair (use a tool to lift the flap on the connector - do not rip the cable out or you may tear the cable, rip off the connector, or break both to the point both parts need replacing).
If you're handy enough to go online and buy the proper tools, you probably at least have the necessary skill not to screw it up worse than it already is.
And some of the worst people to deal with are warranty fraudsters. Hell, try denying a warranty claim because the device has water damage. They'll deny it left right and center, ask for managers, etc., even though the device is clearly dripping so much water it's making a huge puddle on the counter that's dripping onto the floor. Nope, it wasn't water damaged!
Kind of boggles my mind that the google thinks they made $22 billion profit on $31 billion revenue from Android. Talk about magic money? Some kind of projection of the effects of Android's success on their stock prices? Already we're dealing with fantasy here.
However, my two primary reactions were sadness and amusement.
The sadness is at the loss of the google's innocence. I used to think they were sincere about the "Don't be evil" thing, but now they are just another giant EVIL company and the corporate motto has become "All your attention are belong to us." I can't decide whether I was a gullible fool or if the transition was just inevitable under the rules of the American business game as encoded into law by the most cheaply bribed politicians.
You have to remember the reason for Google buying Android then.
Remember, iOS just came out and it was doing fairly well. Google was also doing fairly well - the default being Google for everything meant every iPhone user was using Google and making Google a lot of money.
This did concern Google because Google realized that Apple could cut them off from their golden mobile goose egg at any time, so they needed something to ensure that even if Apple did that, they'd still have fingers in the mobile advertising business. And that's where Android comes into play - it was an OS Google acquired in order to secure mobile advertising profits without Apple.
That's why Android is offered with generous terms to OEMs - as long as Google apps come first, Android was practically free, thus locking in Google's grip on mobile.
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It's actually considered essential education - an allowance helps kids develop essential money handling skills in a relatively safe environment. This includes skills like budgeting, saving, spending, and making money. Many banks offer accounts for kids to help facilitate this - which also helps show there's no magic money giving machine.
There is a very strong correlation between people who didn't have an allowance early in life and those who cannot manage money - ending up in severe debt because they didn't learn money management skills early in life.
It's why many banks offer no-fee youth accounts that let you do practically everything a normal account does - they realize demystifying money helps them become much better money managers later on and customers who are responsible.
The other reason is once you decided to start looking and have gotten offers, getting a counter offer is entirely unproductive - it does no one any good. Sure you may get what you want, but you've put up a pretty big beacon that you're leaving and you're looking around, which is a giant negative at getting future raises or opportunities. After all, you threatened to leave once, so there's no guarantee you won't do it again.
A smart boss would just cut you free - you got an offer, so take it already.
General wisdom is that you DON'T go for any counteroffer - whether you solicited one or whether you are presented one. Once you decided to actively search and have offers in hand, either jump, or just keep it quiet.
Newsflash - retailers always had to eat fraudulent charges. This is true with swipe, and even the imprint machines (which are still used).
The chip machines shift the liability to whoever is least secure - if your bank still gave you a swipe card and the retailer can take chip, the liability shifts to the bank. If it is all the way, then liability shifts to the cardholder (for not protecting their card and PIN).
And yes, the machines are more expensive, but not by much, because everyone by now has been making chip-enabled machines for years. Heck, I'd be surprised if 90% of the readers actually had chip support, but was disabled because the rest of the world used chip. (In Canada, this happened a few years before the chip migration - and yes, retailers had to swap their "chip capable" machines with the exact same model, because the old unit had the chip unit disabled).
And yes, magstripe security. Yes, it was convenient to swipe at the POS and handle it all on one piece of paper. Unfortunately, Target, Home Depot, and dozens of other retailers have shown the folly of it. (Now the machines talk to the card machine and the amount is transmitted,and a success/failure is returned). The chip machines are a black box and communicate with the bank directly, so even stupid retailers can't be stupid anymore.
Amazon has always held packages back, usually 3 days to a week if you used free shipping. I don't care - I have Prime, because I hated spending hours looking for an item costing $1-5 to get free shipping, and the fact that with Prime, I just make individual orders (I don't know if Amazon does their "Combined" or "Individually Ship" question anymore).
But Amazon.ca prices are quite similar to retail B&M store pricing I've found. Best Buy often has the same item cheaper in-store (at least on release day). The only reasons I shop at Amazon is because they have the item (even at full retail price), or it's a book or more obscure DVD or something that Best Buy doesn't have. It pays to comparison shop, and I'm not surprised when I walk into Best Buy and purchase something cheaper there at the store than online. I've had to convince a few people of that fact too - Amazon isn't always cheaper. IN fact, it's almost always the same price. (Except maybe books, those usually get a across the board 20% discount).
They do. Just call 'em up and complain.
In fact, if your entire order was in stock and they still didn't ship it all, you can call them and they WILL credit you.
So far, I've gotten extra months of Amazon Prime, as well as $30 off. It's there for your asking.
I have prime in Canada because of the free 2 day, but primarily because of the unlimited nature - a lot of stuff I buy is under the free shipping limit and I find I spend hours trying to find something to bring it over. Prime lets me just order it - doesn't matter that it's $24.99 or less - free shipping. I do enough of them that I can justify it as not having to by craploads of crap.
Nothing happened with that. Because it was not Apple's fault.. There was no hack of Apple or iTunes.
The Fappening was traced to basically a hacked account - either reused credentials, or someone used a really weak password.
Neither of which Apple could really protect against without making it completely unusable for everyone else.
In fact, it appears most iTunes/iCloud/Apple hacks are reused passwords from all the other breaches that happen - there's no systemic breach of Apple.
Apparently, HDR is actually noticable if you have sets that properly support it. The 4K not so much, which isn't a huge loss since most movies are 2K only (2048x1080, just a bit wider than normal 1080p), so they've been somewhat upscaled for UHD. (You do get some benefit - a 2K movie uses all 1080 lines for movie information, unlike a Blu-Ray where you have letterboxing taking up about 120 of those lines.) Reason is most VFX is only done at 2K.
But HDR is the big thing going to BT.2020 colourspace. (HDTV uses BT.709 which is very similar to sRGB).
You might actually be able to blame this on Nintendo and the Video Game Crash. If you remember the advertising back then for video games, it was a family gathered around the console playing games, including moms, dads, sons and daughters. It was a fairly inclusive mix.
But then the crash happened. Then Nintendo. And part of the problem is many retailers had given up on videogames - being burned so completely thoroughly during the crash that they wrote off pretty much everything video games (and dumped it all in a landfill in New Mexico, etc. etc. etc).
But Nintendo was doing well with their Famicom, and wanted to bring it to the US. But retailers were shy about videogames. In a brilliant marketing move, Nintendo rebranded it not as a videogame console, but as a toy. The next step was what kind of toy - was it for boys, or was it for girls? Remember, the toy stores were (and still are) segregated - you had boys toys on one side, girls toys on another and neither the twain shall meet. Additionally, no one made toys for both sexes - it was either for boys, or girls.
Nintendo chose to market the NES as a boy's toy, and from then, it's likely the cast has been set that video games are a boy's business. And by extension, computers. Hell, you see the same thing today - people still believe that videogames are for kids - despite adults being the largest gaming segment. And yes, the attitude that only boys play videogames still persists, despite the actual game playing population to be about even.
Given Japanese culture, I suspect quite a bit.
Given shrines were set up to mourn the Sony Aibom the Japanese can get quite attached to their robots. I mean, after those Aibos started dying, and shrines set up so their owners can mourn them, there are businesses set up to fix them. Given the reason Sony stopped servicing them was a lack of parts, those dead Aibos often donate their "organs" to keep others alive.
And given it uses a smartphone as a backend, I suspect this Toyota bot will not be upgraded for some time, but even so, I imagine many people would buy one and keep it a long time. Sony had several models of Aibo, after all.
Except solar panels are generally equivalent. And the current math, using actual numbers provided by solar roadways, as well as numbers provided by people with PV installations nearby (there are websites where you can share your green-ness - how much electricity your PV array produces can be made public). And the best figures are the solar roadways will get 50% of an equivalent PV installation on a roof. And that already includes PV inefficiency based on solar insolation
The technology just doesn't work - the panels are expensive to install in roads (and we're not even talking about the infrastructure to support it - just the panels for the road. You still need to wire the panels together and then to the grid).
And waiting for newer technology? Well, there's nothing special in a roadway itself - so any improvements in PV technology can be directly applied to PV roof installations as a bigger bang per buck. This is one of those things where any improvements can be directly applied to competing technologies and make you even further behind.
Not really. Git doesn't treat binaries any different from text. In fact, in an uncompressed repo, both are stored entirely as a whole - unlike RCS/CVS/SVN, each version is not stored as a diff of another version (either store the latest and maintain diffs of previous versions, or store the initial and maintain diffs going forward. The data model of Git stores everything as-is.
Later versions of git stored the repository as a giant tarball which means text docs have a compressability advantage
Not just spring thaw, but winter too. Polar vortices, el nino, all screw up the winter road system.
If you want to see this in action, it's well documented on the TV show "Ice Road Truckers". The last few seasons of which have exclusively focused on Canada. It's amazing since most of the driving has been below the arctic circle. Also, being from BC, I never knew there was such a thing going on in the winter - I'm guessing the mountains here pretty much make the entire province passable year round. If there is a winter road system, it's not well known.
That said, we do have our own hellish weather documented on "Highway Thru Hell" in the winters, but it's mostly all paved except for some forestry access roads.
Well, it would be rather fun since I apparently can't help BUT trigger that every time I combine "OK" and "Google".
"Are you OK?" "Google this and you'll get your answer" - I'll reliably trigger every Android phone in earshot. Yes, I can be mean and do "OK Google call 911" and get a few phones dialing as well.
I guess that's why Amazon called theirs Alexa and Apple "Hey Siri". No company name or egotism there, just a friendly name.
Yes, and that's why Apple's also one to not offer "cloud everything". A lot of services rely on iCloud yes, but there's plenty that doesn't and Apple has even been moving stuff off from iCloud and into personal computation.
It's not just encryption, but just not having the data period. So an iCloud backup is easy and convenient, but is not a full iPhone backup - it lacks authentication information and other things that Apple doesn't want to have. Apple doesn't want your email, wifi and other passwords stored on their service where they'll be vulnerable to giving it up. So iOS basically doesn't even back it up. Heck, an unencrypted iTunes backup won't have that information either (in case the computer gets compromised). The only way you can back up everything is an encrypted iTunes backup, where it's not stored on Apple's servers (and vulnerable to a warrant), and is held local to your hardware.
Similarly Apple has reduced the amount of stuff that is done by their servers - like the latest iPhoto dfoes all the processing on-device rather than in-cloud to prevent uploading sensitive photos. And why it works differently across devices because each one independently executes.
First off, Rosetta is not Philae. It was never designed to "land" - just orbit. The moment of impact it was going to be destroyed You have to remember that they're only strong when they were folded up - once everything's unfolded it's quite fragile. At the moment of landing, the solar panels would've collapsed - they are long parts and it was only strong when it was folded up for launch, so it would've twisted and bent.
And there's no power once that happens - Rosetta was dying - its onboard fuel is nearly depleted and its far from the sun so its power reserves are diminished. This lets it do some final science using its onboard sensors and relay some final data before impact.
Additionally, the antenna would've collapsed on impact so it will no longer be pointing towards earth so even if they kept Rosetta "on", there would be no way to receive anything because the antenna would be pointed in a random direction.
Well, it's American to not spend hours on a meal, actually. I know, I traveled to Italy and had many great meals, and spent a couple of hours or more at the restaurant. That was fine, I was on holidays and was enjoying the leisurely experience.
Back home, well, things are a bit more rushed, so having efficiency really helps. I don't want to have to look for a waiter to call over so I can have my glass refilled. Just like I don't want to have to wait 10 minutes to get a waiter to get me my bill. (Yes, I like it when they automatically come and refill my glass, as well as print me out my bill and leave it at the table. Of course, if they hover around waiting for me to pay it, that's another thing, but if they drop it off and let me deal with it when I'm able, I'm happier.
Having to get the attention of a waiter can be the most annoying thing ever.
Actually, FedEx and UPS are bit players. USPS is the big gorilla in the room. In a week, USPS moves more than UPS does in a year. FedEx is smaller. It takes USPS just 3 days to do the same.
Amazon's network may be big, but they won't be UPS/FedEx big. And UPS and FedEx contract out to USPS as well for deliveries (USPS handles UPS and FedEx packages for practically all the rural areas).
About the only way Amazon can innovate is to offer something USPS won't, like same day deliveries, which are extremely expensive through FedEx and UPS. And to move mass shipments between warehouses so prime 2-day shipping is efficient using regular shipping rather than express services.
They're moving away from mobile and into other things software wise.
In fact, Blackberry signed a contract for real-time trailer tracking. Real-time truck tracking is common, but usually it's only the tractor that's actually got the GPS unit and tracker.
Blackberry's new device is a box that screws into the trailer and provides monitoring of the trailer itself, as well as interior sensor for monitoring temperature (critical for reefer trucks). Given trailer theft is extremely common, it's a niche that surprisingly wasn't fulfilled. It apparently installs in about 10 minutes and is self-powered, so it can be added to every trailer you have, and requires no interaction with the driver. (Traditional truck-trackers require significant installation in the cab - GPS antennas, tracker devices, engine monitoring, potential two-way communicator, etc)
Except it did go down. It completely collapsed under the load.
I understand the need and that if everyone brought their own hotspot that it would be completely useless. But that's not the way to do it. At $200, it sounds like gouging - especially when you consider they actually did active scans for unauthorized WiFi and escorted people out.
The problem is many - first, the price appeared to be gouging. Second, active WiFi scanning - granted, they didn't jam (which was what got the hotels in trouble) but escorted you off the premises so it was technically legal. Third, they could've offered suggestions that people use hard wire (USB) tethers or built-in WWAN modems to achieve connectivity instead of WiFI Most of the people there would be using tablets, laptops, etc, many models of which have WWAN capability either built-in through USB dongles. Or a USB cable to their phones (practically all smartphones allow USB tethering)
Because right now, it appears to be gouging. Which is why the FCC is irked. I'm sure if they simply suggested other methods, politely asked anyone using WiFi to turn it off and use non-WiFi methods, etc.
Yes, a lot of wifi causes problems - Apple has had problems during their keynotes because everyone had their hotspots on, but there are many ways it can be handled without it seeming like pure greed.
That was an interesting lawsuit - and I think in the end it was the compression algorithm they used more than anything - I had a beta version fo DOS6 and a legit version of DOS6 and the two wouldn't work together. I called Microsoft Support one day about that and they sent me a disk with a DoubleSpace to DriveSpace conversion utility that converted one format to the other.
YouTube audio quality at the HD setting (720p/1080p) is 128kbps AAC, which is close to being considered "audibly transparent" (I believe for AAC the bitrate is a little higher for that - 192kbps?). At lower quality settings, the audio quality does go down.
And a lot of it is ripped, so you do start with a good source material.
Well, I get double-stuf Oreos for the same price (and weight) as the regular Oreos. No doubt there are less cookies per bag, but the bag weighs the same and costs the same. And when it's on sale, it's under $2 per bag.
Hell, when it goes on sale, I should be able to buy a ton of cookies and consume them when I need to. So if they want to use this analogy, I should be able to "stock up" on the service when it goes on sale and use it when I need to. Half price for a year? Then I'll buy several years worth of service at half price and use it when it goes up in price.
Or hashing.
SQL injectable website, passwords in plain text...I'm sure there's a third "security best practice" that's not being followed.
I mean, geez, plain text passwords hasn't been in on any "industry best practice" since never. If there's any reason to make yourself completely vulnerable to being sued, this would be it.
That's a basic intelligence test for repair and preventing warranty fraud, actually. Far too many people go to YouTube and see how to fix something, then actually try to do it, without realizing they don't have the proper tools (no, a butter knife is NOT a screwdriver), or even skill/dexterity to repair (use a tool to lift the flap on the connector - do not rip the cable out or you may tear the cable, rip off the connector, or break both to the point both parts need replacing).
If you're handy enough to go online and buy the proper tools, you probably at least have the necessary skill not to screw it up worse than it already is.
And some of the worst people to deal with are warranty fraudsters. Hell, try denying a warranty claim because the device has water damage. They'll deny it left right and center, ask for managers, etc., even though the device is clearly dripping so much water it's making a huge puddle on the counter that's dripping onto the floor. Nope, it wasn't water damaged!
You have to remember the reason for Google buying Android then.
Remember, iOS just came out and it was doing fairly well. Google was also doing fairly well - the default being Google for everything meant every iPhone user was using Google and making Google a lot of money.
This did concern Google because Google realized that Apple could cut them off from their golden mobile goose egg at any time, so they needed something to ensure that even if Apple did that, they'd still have fingers in the mobile advertising business. And that's where Android comes into play - it was an OS Google acquired in order to secure mobile advertising profits without Apple.
That's why Android is offered with generous terms to OEMs - as long as Google apps come first, Android was practically free, thus locking in Google's grip on mobile.