Many adherents claim it is all about freedom of information: The right to have the source code to modify. However for them it is really about just not having to pay for anything, though they won't admit it.
After all, FRAND open standards are something that would appear to be compatible with open information. They are available to all, and the standard contains everything you need to implement it, the fees for redistribution are fixed, and so on. While it does cost money, the information is open, the implementation is open. There are any secrets and you can re-implement it as you like.
However many OSS heads scream and cry about it, many of the same ones who will declare that OSS is not incompatible with making money. They'll claim it limits freedom but what they are really mad about is that it limits their ability to get things for free. They don't want to have to pay for software, and FRAND does stand in opposition to that.
People need to decide which kind of free software they care about: Do you care about open access to the source and information, or do you care about not paying? Either is fine but be clear what it is that matters. Don't claim that openness of code is important and then get mad when code is open, but there are fees for redistribution.
An example would be H.264. The standard is an open one, and FRAND licensed. You can get the reference code and it has been gotten and improved by projects like x264. However, if you wish to distribute your works, you need to pay for it. It is open, but not no-cost.
If no-cost is what you want, say so. Don't try to claim that you want open access to code, when what you really want is to just not have to pay for any software.
It takes 8 colour swatches and measures the rendering of those. It does not do a good job of looking at actual spectrum, and there are far more than 8 colours to worry about in the real world. Look at the spectrum of an LED vs CFL some day. The CFLs are very, very spikey with lots of holes, the LEDs are continuous with more gentle peaks.
We need a new system for measuring light quality, and indeed standards agencies are looking in to it.
But there's value to a well rounded education. In part because it lets you work with others and function in society better. While some great works are done almost solely by an individual (like the Principia) most are done via collaboration.
Also it allows you to see things more cross-domain. Knowledge of things in more than just one area can let you see connections that you might otherwise miss, and to see applications for things that otherwise might just seem to exist in a vacuum.
Hyper-focused education is not necessarily a good idea. Particularly since, as you note, people may not make the best choices as to what to focus on.
I have yet to meet anyone who has gotten a tablet for any kinds of real reason other than a toy. Now that's fine, nothing wrong with toys, but everyone I know who has gotten a tablet already has a laptop and smartphone, and they've kept the laptop and smartphone after getting it, and kept using them.
Those would be what tablets would replace. The argument seems to be that you don't need a laptop, a tablet will do fine, so you get one instead of your laptop. Another argument could be that a laptop isn't portable enough but a tablet is, so you can take it with you and thus don't need a smart phone, just a regular one.
However in actual practice, nobody seems to do that. They have a laptop and a tablet, and a smartphone.
I'm still not convinced tablets are here to stay. They seem to be fancy toys and status symbols right now (really there's an iPad market, not a tablet market) and little in the way of actual use. I could well see them dying off and people continuing to use laptops and smartphones.
That's why I don't have one: I asked myself where I would use a tablet that I wouldn't rather use my laptop or smartphone and I can't come up with an answer. I don't want it enough just as a toy.
You find that when you start turning up spam solutions to high levels, a lot of legit shit gets filtered.
I mean if all you care about is blocking spam, I can give you a 100% solution: Just block "." as in the root of all DNS. No more spam, ever. Of course it also will have a massive false positive rate, you won't get any e-mail at all.
If a spam service just takes the "Block all of the things!" attitude it really isn't that useful overall.
Why are they a node ahead all the time? Because they spend billions in R&D. When the downturn hit everyone in the fab business cut R&D, except Intel. So now they have a 22nm fab that has been running for awhile, another that just came fully online, and two 14nm fabs that'll be done soon (one on 450mm wafers).
They do precisely what geeks harp on companies to do: Invest money in R&D, invest in tech. They also don't outsource production, they own their own fabs and make their own chips. Most of them are even in the United States (8 of the 11).
The payoff is that they are ahead of people in terms of node size, and that their yields tend to be good (because the designers and fab people can work closely).
If other companies don't like it, well the only option is to throw in heavy on the R&D front. In ARM's case being not only fabless but actually chipless, just licensing cores to other companies, they can't do that. They are at the mercy of Samsung, TSMC, Global Foundries, and so on.
A lot of laws are "Oh no this is new and we don't understand it so we'll make old laws apply to it!" stuff. In the case of cars it'll be a long time before things get changed. Eventually automatic vehicles will be prevalent enough that there will be a big enough push to change the laws to something sensible. It'll be quite awhile.
As an example see the FAA squaring off with the FCC over electronics on flights. There is no fucking way electronics cause issues with modern planes. If they did, it would be an open invitation for problems/sabotage. Plenty of people forget/ignore the "turn off your stuff" rule and yet there are no issues. Hence the FCC has told the FAA they need to get with the program and allow electronics at all times. However the FAA is dragging their feet on it.
Also with regards to drunk driving there will be major pushback by special interest groups like MADD. They don't want drunk driving laws to make our streets safer, they are a prohibition/temperance group that uses it to try and push against alcohol. So they'll try to find reasons to keep it illegal to be in a car drunk, even if the car is self operating.
They are one of the most common food allergies, over 1% of the population is allergic in some form. Some people, it just causes watery eyes and other basic allergy symptoms. In severe cases, it causes anaphylactic shock. For some, the allergy is so strong that inhaling airborne particles of peanuts can cause anaphylactic shock. Given that peanuts date back at least 7600 years (that is the earliest evidence we have of them)...
Nothing is perfectly safe, that is just life. That doesn't mean we just say "fuck it, anything goes!" but it means that we need to accept that there can be problems and that even if there are that might be ok, as we have with peanuts. To some they are deadly (if the person isn't treated promptly) but yet we haven't banned them and gone on a world wide eradication campaign. We just make sure that those who are allergic are notified so they don't eat them.
Is that there really is an extensive, long term, review of this kind of thing. Maybe the first YOU hear about it is when it is nearing final approval. That is your issue, that just means you haven't paid attention. Now that's fine, I'm not saying everyone should track everything submitted to the FDA, but if you care about this enough to get all worked up then you should look in to it.
These things are a long process. They really do spend a lot of time looking in to it. Now does that mean everything is perfectly safe? No, of course not, but then nothing is. Even normal food. Peanuts are deadly to some people. It is just how it goes.
It is cheating. Basically the culture in China right now is one of do whatever you want to get ahead. Cheating, lying, all ok, expected even. So it goes on in research all the time. Straight out fabricated results and such. The problem is, as Feynman said, Nature cannot be fooled. So you can have all kinds of results that say X causes Y, but if X doesn't in fact cause Y it isn't helpful.
It is a societal thing that will need to change before they start to produce more useful research.
Re:And since when has Lego not done sets?
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Has Lego Sold Out?
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I'm not saying they weren't sold, and they still are, I'm saying that Lego was doing other sets long ago. These days it might be "Build an X-Wing" whereas back in the day it was "Build a Starship" but it is the same idea.
Lego has always been popular in sets, so that you had a starting point, something to build if nothing came to mind.
Particularly if they choose to distribute it for free. If I put something on my website, or a torrent tracker or whatever I can't very well then get mad at people if they download it. I am providing it for download, the message I'm sending is "I would like you to download this." If that's not what I want, then I need to do something different.
I'm fine with people being accepting that piracy will happen (because it absolutely will, if people care about what you've released). However you don't get to go and give your stuff away for free and whine when people take you up on that.
My guess is this is just these tards trying to get publicity, which looks like it is working. I'd give even money that it wouldn't have been pirated had they said nothing because really, who gives a shit about an extremely poorly produced documentary about Minecraft?
And since when has Lego not done sets?
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Has Lego Sold Out?
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I remember that my parents basically never got me just raw Legos. It was always a set that you could build a specific thing with, complete with directions. Sometimes I would, most of the time I'd just pour the pieces in to my ever-increasing pile and build whatever I pleased.
They weren't co-branded but they were still sets. And why not? It gives people a starting point, and can help for children that aren't as creative. If you take someone who has difficulty with creative tasks, and set them adrift with nothing and say "Work it out all yourself," they are likely to just get frustrated and give up. However if you give them guidance of what to build, but with the freedom to disregard that and modify as they like, then perhaps they start to learn and grow creatively.
Some constraints, goals, and guidance are reasons why games like Minecraft and Terraria are popular. If you just want unbounded creativity get Solidworks or Maya or the like. You can create whatever you can conceive more or less. However that's rather daunting. There's something to be said for having an environment that gives you some rules, constraints, and guides.
For all the whining, the Internet is really more open these days than ever. If nothing else, there's a lot more world-wide participation. For a good part of the Internet's history, it was nearly all in the US with only token amounts outside. Now it really is a world-wide network.
Also some of the companies mentioned really aren't doing much in the way of any sort of lock-in. Yes Amazon has about 1% of the Internet in its data centers, which is pretty impressive, but it is just hosting. You buy the virtual servers to do as you please (within the ToS of course). You can even compete with Amazon using Amazon. Netflix hosts a lot of their videos on Amazon EC2.
The Internet may not be the anarchist-geek dreamworld, but it is more open than anything else I can think of in human history, and more open than it was in the past.
I don't get what that is supposed to accomplish. I can see that if it is a budgetary argument, that we spend too much maintaining them (we don't spend much on it but it always could be less). However if your argument is one of destruction then who cares how many the US has? It is all or nothing, going part way gets you nowhere. It is a silly feel-good measure with no actual use.
That is a high level policy. The details were the individual cases involved, the over all policy is something that is up to the civilian government.
A small detail thing would be if an individual was being prosecuted under it and the President stepped in and ordered that to stop. He has the authority to do that, but doesn't do that sort of thing in reality.
The individual DATA cases, those were all handled by the military.
The President can theoretically control any detail of the military being the commander in chief. All chains of command end with him. However the President has a lot of other shit to do, so he doesn't, much as a CEO doesn't sit in on every meeting and every decision (and bearing in mind the military is even bigger than a company).
Once you go down from him, well it is all military. There are not civilians interspersed in the chain of command. The decisions are made by military personnel.
Same deal with courts. The military runs their own courts for their own issues. Those courts are subordinate to the Supreme Court, as all courts in the US are, but that is it. The lawyers, judges, juries, all military members. Only if something is appealed to the SC do civilians have oversight on it.
This guy thinks he's the shit programming wise and thus has to do his own thing. He's too good to be bound by the rules of everyone else. So he keeps fucking up and then crying about it.
The military is subordinate to the President (and in some ways to congress). The President is the ultimate command authority. However their day to day stuff? That's all internal. There aren't a bunch of civilian overseers who pass the final ok on everything. It isn't like a general makes a decision and then looks over at a civilian who gives the thumbs up or down to the plan.
So while the civilian government maintains the ultimate control, they can fire or promote military leaders, controls their budget, and can set their agenda, there is little civilian control over the details.
So the question is do we want a civilian government agency overseeing nuclear power, or a military agency?
I am not at all a fan of Metro, I think it is a stupid decision to try and force their tablet sales, and it isn't going to work. I dislike the start screen, and on my personal work desktop I replace it with a start menu (Start 8 is my choice).
However it is not hard to use. It is different, and I feel a number of the things it does make for a less efficient workflow, but it is not hard. Inferior to what it replaced, but not hard.
So if you truly can't figure it out you are either:
1) Extremely technically inept. No shame there, but don't write for a technical publication.
2) A moron, in which case please try and get your learn-on and don't be.
3) Trolling/lying, in which case please stop.
I get tired of the tech troll types trying to make Windows 8 out to be worse than it is. That is stupid and it weakens your real point (which is presumably that people shouldn't use 8). If you have to lie to make your point, it leads one to question how valid that point is. If you can't make your argument based on truth, then you need to reevaluate it.
Windows 8 has a somewhat poor user interface, not a hard one. There's a difference. A command line is a hard user interface, though it can be very good for some things. Without training you will likely be able to do literally nothing with the system since there are no hints as to what to do. When one learns it, it can be very efficient, but it is hard to learn.
8 is the opposite, it is actually quite easy to use and learn, but it is somewhat inefficient compared to what it replaced. That is a bad thing and MS shoudl be scorned for it, but don't try and claim it is hard.
I think about at work how long it has been going down the road of migrating from one domain to another. I won't bore you all with the details but I work at a university and we need to move from a domain we are using now to another one.
The process has taken years for all kinds of reasons. Politics of the "I'm an important person and I don't wanna play along," kind. Lack of funds for needed hardware/software. Waiting on central efforts to get a unified solution (to reduce costs) only to have that fail.
Now there was no estimated date in this case but still it illustrates the problem well. It is the kind of thing, that in a theoretical world where everything is perfect, would take a couple weeks, maybe a month. However in the real world it has dragged on for years. Even having worked in the environment and being familiar with the politics and all that shit I wouldn't have estimated this long.
It is life, it happens. The only time you'll find a timeline that is likely to be stuck to (and then in no way guaranteed) is if the problem is extremely well defined and the resources are all provided up front.
That is why prosecutors and judges will consider the nature of the offences in sentencing and pleas. Often, they'll be offered the ability to serve the sentences concurrently, as in at the same time effectively reducing the time served.
The thing is each incident IS separate, a separate person is wronged. It really isn't fair to say to someone "Well you were just one in a string of crimes so we aren't going to punish the person for their crime against you. Sorry."
Also there's the concept of justice that you deserve more punishment if you are a habitual/career criminal. You break the law once, ok maybe not a big deal. Maybe you didn't understand, or had a moment of weakness or something. You do it time after time, well then you clearly you just don't give a fuck.
I don't know about your state but here it is pretty lengthy. Second degree murder has sentences that range from 10-20 years provided it is an isolated offence. If you already have convictions of certain types, it can be 25 years, or more. First degree murder is a life sentence or the death penalty. In cases of life, sometimes parole can be allowed, but not before 25 years and then it is still discretionary.
Something else you seem to forget is that he is charged of multiple crimes. You don't get to lump crimes together and claim "Well it was the same sort of crime, so it only counts as one." If you rob a store, then go rob another store, then go rob another store, you'll be charged with 3 crimes and each carries its own sentence. What's more, when you commit multiple crimes often you are eligible for more strict sentences (as noted with the murder thing earlier).
If you disagree with the individual charges fair enough, but please stop with the hyperbole.
I want data to stream just as fat from a remote site as it does from my local drives. That way, where something is stored isn't relevant, it is all the same speed.
That would take in the realm of 10 gigabit.
Or maybe fully uncompressed video, that could be nice, particularly for games but in general for having a more simplified receiver. Well that's over a gigbit for 1080p 24fps, 8-bit. Going to 1080p 120fps, 8-bit is near 6 gigabits per second. Gets even worse if you want to go 10/12 bit and/or 4k resolution.
Something less ambitious? Ok how about just better HD streaming. Blu-rays are generally in the realm of 25mbps for video, often another 10+mbps for audio. I'd like to stream stuff in that quality, it looks noticeably better than the Netflix HD streams.
Speaking of video streaming I'm hoping to see some better content some day, that'll require more. I'd like a 4k 60p stream. Going to need a lot more bandwidth for that.
10-20mbps Internet works fine these days for most things, but that doesn't mean I can't come up with a lot of uses for better Internet speeds. Until it matches local speeds (which it isn't ever likely too) there is room for more speed.
They have more of a marketing issue because they are up against someone with better technology. Intel tends to be around a node ahead of everyone else because they invest massive amounts in to R&D, billions a year.
So it isn't like the telcos trying to market "moar Gzzzz!!!11" to consumers, it is that they are trying to figure out a way to catch Intel.
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Many adherents claim it is all about freedom of information: The right to have the source code to modify. However for them it is really about just not having to pay for anything, though they won't admit it.
After all, FRAND open standards are something that would appear to be compatible with open information. They are available to all, and the standard contains everything you need to implement it, the fees for redistribution are fixed, and so on. While it does cost money, the information is open, the implementation is open. There are any secrets and you can re-implement it as you like.
However many OSS heads scream and cry about it, many of the same ones who will declare that OSS is not incompatible with making money. They'll claim it limits freedom but what they are really mad about is that it limits their ability to get things for free. They don't want to have to pay for software, and FRAND does stand in opposition to that.
People need to decide which kind of free software they care about: Do you care about open access to the source and information, or do you care about not paying? Either is fine but be clear what it is that matters. Don't claim that openness of code is important and then get mad when code is open, but there are fees for redistribution.
An example would be H.264. The standard is an open one, and FRAND licensed. You can get the reference code and it has been gotten and improved by projects like x264. However, if you wish to distribute your works, you need to pay for it. It is open, but not no-cost.
If no-cost is what you want, say so. Don't try to claim that you want open access to code, when what you really want is to just not have to pay for any software.
It takes 8 colour swatches and measures the rendering of those. It does not do a good job of looking at actual spectrum, and there are far more than 8 colours to worry about in the real world. Look at the spectrum of an LED vs CFL some day. The CFLs are very, very spikey with lots of holes, the LEDs are continuous with more gentle peaks.
We need a new system for measuring light quality, and indeed standards agencies are looking in to it.
But there's value to a well rounded education. In part because it lets you work with others and function in society better. While some great works are done almost solely by an individual (like the Principia) most are done via collaboration.
Also it allows you to see things more cross-domain. Knowledge of things in more than just one area can let you see connections that you might otherwise miss, and to see applications for things that otherwise might just seem to exist in a vacuum.
Hyper-focused education is not necessarily a good idea. Particularly since, as you note, people may not make the best choices as to what to focus on.
I have yet to meet anyone who has gotten a tablet for any kinds of real reason other than a toy. Now that's fine, nothing wrong with toys, but everyone I know who has gotten a tablet already has a laptop and smartphone, and they've kept the laptop and smartphone after getting it, and kept using them.
Those would be what tablets would replace. The argument seems to be that you don't need a laptop, a tablet will do fine, so you get one instead of your laptop. Another argument could be that a laptop isn't portable enough but a tablet is, so you can take it with you and thus don't need a smart phone, just a regular one.
However in actual practice, nobody seems to do that. They have a laptop and a tablet, and a smartphone.
I'm still not convinced tablets are here to stay. They seem to be fancy toys and status symbols right now (really there's an iPad market, not a tablet market) and little in the way of actual use. I could well see them dying off and people continuing to use laptops and smartphones.
That's why I don't have one: I asked myself where I would use a tablet that I wouldn't rather use my laptop or smartphone and I can't come up with an answer. I don't want it enough just as a toy.
You find that when you start turning up spam solutions to high levels, a lot of legit shit gets filtered.
I mean if all you care about is blocking spam, I can give you a 100% solution: Just block "." as in the root of all DNS. No more spam, ever. Of course it also will have a massive false positive rate, you won't get any e-mail at all.
If a spam service just takes the "Block all of the things!" attitude it really isn't that useful overall.
Why are they a node ahead all the time? Because they spend billions in R&D. When the downturn hit everyone in the fab business cut R&D, except Intel. So now they have a 22nm fab that has been running for awhile, another that just came fully online, and two 14nm fabs that'll be done soon (one on 450mm wafers).
They do precisely what geeks harp on companies to do: Invest money in R&D, invest in tech. They also don't outsource production, they own their own fabs and make their own chips. Most of them are even in the United States (8 of the 11).
The payoff is that they are ahead of people in terms of node size, and that their yields tend to be good (because the designers and fab people can work closely).
If other companies don't like it, well the only option is to throw in heavy on the R&D front. In ARM's case being not only fabless but actually chipless, just licensing cores to other companies, they can't do that. They are at the mercy of Samsung, TSMC, Global Foundries, and so on.
A lot of laws are "Oh no this is new and we don't understand it so we'll make old laws apply to it!" stuff. In the case of cars it'll be a long time before things get changed. Eventually automatic vehicles will be prevalent enough that there will be a big enough push to change the laws to something sensible. It'll be quite awhile.
As an example see the FAA squaring off with the FCC over electronics on flights. There is no fucking way electronics cause issues with modern planes. If they did, it would be an open invitation for problems/sabotage. Plenty of people forget/ignore the "turn off your stuff" rule and yet there are no issues. Hence the FCC has told the FAA they need to get with the program and allow electronics at all times. However the FAA is dragging their feet on it.
Also with regards to drunk driving there will be major pushback by special interest groups like MADD. They don't want drunk driving laws to make our streets safer, they are a prohibition/temperance group that uses it to try and push against alcohol. So they'll try to find reasons to keep it illegal to be in a car drunk, even if the car is self operating.
They are one of the most common food allergies, over 1% of the population is allergic in some form. Some people, it just causes watery eyes and other basic allergy symptoms. In severe cases, it causes anaphylactic shock. For some, the allergy is so strong that inhaling airborne particles of peanuts can cause anaphylactic shock. Given that peanuts date back at least 7600 years (that is the earliest evidence we have of them)...
Nothing is perfectly safe, that is just life. That doesn't mean we just say "fuck it, anything goes!" but it means that we need to accept that there can be problems and that even if there are that might be ok, as we have with peanuts. To some they are deadly (if the person isn't treated promptly) but yet we haven't banned them and gone on a world wide eradication campaign. We just make sure that those who are allergic are notified so they don't eat them.
Is that there really is an extensive, long term, review of this kind of thing. Maybe the first YOU hear about it is when it is nearing final approval. That is your issue, that just means you haven't paid attention. Now that's fine, I'm not saying everyone should track everything submitted to the FDA, but if you care about this enough to get all worked up then you should look in to it.
These things are a long process. They really do spend a lot of time looking in to it. Now does that mean everything is perfectly safe? No, of course not, but then nothing is. Even normal food. Peanuts are deadly to some people. It is just how it goes.
It is cheating. Basically the culture in China right now is one of do whatever you want to get ahead. Cheating, lying, all ok, expected even. So it goes on in research all the time. Straight out fabricated results and such. The problem is, as Feynman said, Nature cannot be fooled. So you can have all kinds of results that say X causes Y, but if X doesn't in fact cause Y it isn't helpful.
It is a societal thing that will need to change before they start to produce more useful research.
I'm not saying they weren't sold, and they still are, I'm saying that Lego was doing other sets long ago. These days it might be "Build an X-Wing" whereas back in the day it was "Build a Starship" but it is the same idea.
Lego has always been popular in sets, so that you had a starting point, something to build if nothing came to mind.
Particularly if they choose to distribute it for free. If I put something on my website, or a torrent tracker or whatever I can't very well then get mad at people if they download it. I am providing it for download, the message I'm sending is "I would like you to download this." If that's not what I want, then I need to do something different.
I'm fine with people being accepting that piracy will happen (because it absolutely will, if people care about what you've released). However you don't get to go and give your stuff away for free and whine when people take you up on that.
My guess is this is just these tards trying to get publicity, which looks like it is working. I'd give even money that it wouldn't have been pirated had they said nothing because really, who gives a shit about an extremely poorly produced documentary about Minecraft?
I remember that my parents basically never got me just raw Legos. It was always a set that you could build a specific thing with, complete with directions. Sometimes I would, most of the time I'd just pour the pieces in to my ever-increasing pile and build whatever I pleased.
They weren't co-branded but they were still sets. And why not? It gives people a starting point, and can help for children that aren't as creative. If you take someone who has difficulty with creative tasks, and set them adrift with nothing and say "Work it out all yourself," they are likely to just get frustrated and give up. However if you give them guidance of what to build, but with the freedom to disregard that and modify as they like, then perhaps they start to learn and grow creatively.
Some constraints, goals, and guidance are reasons why games like Minecraft and Terraria are popular. If you just want unbounded creativity get Solidworks or Maya or the like. You can create whatever you can conceive more or less. However that's rather daunting. There's something to be said for having an environment that gives you some rules, constraints, and guides.
For all the whining, the Internet is really more open these days than ever. If nothing else, there's a lot more world-wide participation. For a good part of the Internet's history, it was nearly all in the US with only token amounts outside. Now it really is a world-wide network.
Also some of the companies mentioned really aren't doing much in the way of any sort of lock-in. Yes Amazon has about 1% of the Internet in its data centers, which is pretty impressive, but it is just hosting. You buy the virtual servers to do as you please (within the ToS of course). You can even compete with Amazon using Amazon. Netflix hosts a lot of their videos on Amazon EC2.
The Internet may not be the anarchist-geek dreamworld, but it is more open than anything else I can think of in human history, and more open than it was in the past.
I don't get what that is supposed to accomplish. I can see that if it is a budgetary argument, that we spend too much maintaining them (we don't spend much on it but it always could be less). However if your argument is one of destruction then who cares how many the US has? It is all or nothing, going part way gets you nowhere. It is a silly feel-good measure with no actual use.
That is a high level policy. The details were the individual cases involved, the over all policy is something that is up to the civilian government.
A small detail thing would be if an individual was being prosecuted under it and the President stepped in and ordered that to stop. He has the authority to do that, but doesn't do that sort of thing in reality.
The individual DATA cases, those were all handled by the military.
The President can theoretically control any detail of the military being the commander in chief. All chains of command end with him. However the President has a lot of other shit to do, so he doesn't, much as a CEO doesn't sit in on every meeting and every decision (and bearing in mind the military is even bigger than a company).
Once you go down from him, well it is all military. There are not civilians interspersed in the chain of command. The decisions are made by military personnel.
Same deal with courts. The military runs their own courts for their own issues. Those courts are subordinate to the Supreme Court, as all courts in the US are, but that is it. The lawyers, judges, juries, all military members. Only if something is appealed to the SC do civilians have oversight on it.
This guy thinks he's the shit programming wise and thus has to do his own thing. He's too good to be bound by the rules of everyone else. So he keeps fucking up and then crying about it.
His company should just can him.
The military is subordinate to the President (and in some ways to congress). The President is the ultimate command authority. However their day to day stuff? That's all internal. There aren't a bunch of civilian overseers who pass the final ok on everything. It isn't like a general makes a decision and then looks over at a civilian who gives the thumbs up or down to the plan.
So while the civilian government maintains the ultimate control, they can fire or promote military leaders, controls their budget, and can set their agenda, there is little civilian control over the details.
So the question is do we want a civilian government agency overseeing nuclear power, or a military agency?
I am not at all a fan of Metro, I think it is a stupid decision to try and force their tablet sales, and it isn't going to work. I dislike the start screen, and on my personal work desktop I replace it with a start menu (Start 8 is my choice).
However it is not hard to use. It is different, and I feel a number of the things it does make for a less efficient workflow, but it is not hard. Inferior to what it replaced, but not hard.
So if you truly can't figure it out you are either:
1) Extremely technically inept. No shame there, but don't write for a technical publication.
2) A moron, in which case please try and get your learn-on and don't be.
3) Trolling/lying, in which case please stop.
I get tired of the tech troll types trying to make Windows 8 out to be worse than it is. That is stupid and it weakens your real point (which is presumably that people shouldn't use 8). If you have to lie to make your point, it leads one to question how valid that point is. If you can't make your argument based on truth, then you need to reevaluate it.
Windows 8 has a somewhat poor user interface, not a hard one. There's a difference. A command line is a hard user interface, though it can be very good for some things. Without training you will likely be able to do literally nothing with the system since there are no hints as to what to do. When one learns it, it can be very efficient, but it is hard to learn.
8 is the opposite, it is actually quite easy to use and learn, but it is somewhat inefficient compared to what it replaced. That is a bad thing and MS shoudl be scorned for it, but don't try and claim it is hard.
I think about at work how long it has been going down the road of migrating from one domain to another. I won't bore you all with the details but I work at a university and we need to move from a domain we are using now to another one.
The process has taken years for all kinds of reasons. Politics of the "I'm an important person and I don't wanna play along," kind. Lack of funds for needed hardware/software. Waiting on central efforts to get a unified solution (to reduce costs) only to have that fail.
Now there was no estimated date in this case but still it illustrates the problem well. It is the kind of thing, that in a theoretical world where everything is perfect, would take a couple weeks, maybe a month. However in the real world it has dragged on for years. Even having worked in the environment and being familiar with the politics and all that shit I wouldn't have estimated this long.
It is life, it happens. The only time you'll find a timeline that is likely to be stuck to (and then in no way guaranteed) is if the problem is extremely well defined and the resources are all provided up front.
That is why prosecutors and judges will consider the nature of the offences in sentencing and pleas. Often, they'll be offered the ability to serve the sentences concurrently, as in at the same time effectively reducing the time served.
The thing is each incident IS separate, a separate person is wronged. It really isn't fair to say to someone "Well you were just one in a string of crimes so we aren't going to punish the person for their crime against you. Sorry."
Also there's the concept of justice that you deserve more punishment if you are a habitual/career criminal. You break the law once, ok maybe not a big deal. Maybe you didn't understand, or had a moment of weakness or something. You do it time after time, well then you clearly you just don't give a fuck.
I don't know about your state but here it is pretty lengthy. Second degree murder has sentences that range from 10-20 years provided it is an isolated offence. If you already have convictions of certain types, it can be 25 years, or more. First degree murder is a life sentence or the death penalty. In cases of life, sometimes parole can be allowed, but not before 25 years and then it is still discretionary.
Something else you seem to forget is that he is charged of multiple crimes. You don't get to lump crimes together and claim "Well it was the same sort of crime, so it only counts as one." If you rob a store, then go rob another store, then go rob another store, you'll be charged with 3 crimes and each carries its own sentence. What's more, when you commit multiple crimes often you are eligible for more strict sentences (as noted with the murder thing earlier).
If you disagree with the individual charges fair enough, but please stop with the hyperbole.
So people have come to associate it with that. It will just take some acclimation time.
I've seen people bitch about HD, claiming it looks "too real" (older people mostly). Some people hate change.
Personally I love 60fps (progressive) video. We have cameras that shoot it at work and they look amazing. Such natural fluidity.
I want data to stream just as fat from a remote site as it does from my local drives. That way, where something is stored isn't relevant, it is all the same speed.
That would take in the realm of 10 gigabit.
Or maybe fully uncompressed video, that could be nice, particularly for games but in general for having a more simplified receiver. Well that's over a gigbit for 1080p 24fps, 8-bit. Going to 1080p 120fps, 8-bit is near 6 gigabits per second. Gets even worse if you want to go 10/12 bit and/or 4k resolution.
Something less ambitious? Ok how about just better HD streaming. Blu-rays are generally in the realm of 25mbps for video, often another 10+mbps for audio. I'd like to stream stuff in that quality, it looks noticeably better than the Netflix HD streams.
Speaking of video streaming I'm hoping to see some better content some day, that'll require more. I'd like a 4k 60p stream. Going to need a lot more bandwidth for that.
10-20mbps Internet works fine these days for most things, but that doesn't mean I can't come up with a lot of uses for better Internet speeds. Until it matches local speeds (which it isn't ever likely too) there is room for more speed.
They have more of a marketing issue because they are up against someone with better technology. Intel tends to be around a node ahead of everyone else because they invest massive amounts in to R&D, billions a year.
So it isn't like the telcos trying to market "moar Gzzzz!!!11" to consumers, it is that they are trying to figure out a way to catch Intel.