The effects of the encryption export bans from the 1990s haunts us today in the form of the "logjam" vulnerability. Those stupid "export-grade" ciphers for HTTPS are still around and can potentially be cracked with a big enough box of GPUs. Worse yet is that a heap of browsers and servers will go for the garbage ciphers first. In light of this reality, one must wonder how this kind of authoritarian bullshit will swat us all in the digital testicles 10-20 years from now.
Actually, Asus makes some of the best PC laptops in existence if you ignore the cheap ass stuff that all manufacturers make. The last two new laptops I purchased were Asus laptops. The build quality is on par with Apple's laptops. They don't lock down the BIOS so you can't use Windows 7 - the ACPI 5.0-only age is upon us so that even if you kill Secure Boot and try to install Win7 as UEFI it'll BSOD and say your machine is not ACPI compiant, but I have seen zero brand new Asus laptops that do this crap and plenty of cheap new Acer boxes that do. They're engineered quite well compared to many other manufacturers who will take your $1000 and sell you a crummy plastic laptop with hot palmrests and screws that easily back out and fall out of the computer over time. Same deal with their motherboards: if you don't buy the absolute $40 bargain basement junker boards that no manufacturer really seems to get right, you always seem to get a solid board with a BIOS that lets you change and re-clock and tune everything under the sun to your liking if you so desire.
The real problem is that lots of people buy cheap shit computer hardware and they get exactly what they pay for when they do. All manufacturers come out with duds too (that's just how it goes in the manufacturing game) so reading reviews before purchasing is far more important than the name stamped or painted on the item's casing. Branding isn't as important today as it used to be. In the end Foxconn, Quanta, and Compal actually manufacture almost all of this stuff, so the quality often comes down to the engineering of the specific model of board or laptop and who it was made for.
I picked up an Asus Q551LN recently and despite it being a "convertible" laptop (which I will never "convert" but the only other i7-4xxx 15" options were a junky plastic HP and a "Republic of Gamers" cinder block) it has a proper cooling system in the hinge area similar to an older MacBook Pro (though not nearly as poor). It's a Core i7 ULV; it's not noisy but it's pretty darn fast. Admittedly, it's half the PassMark score of a 4710MQ, but the low TDP (it barely gets warm) and the fact that I don't have to lug around one of those absurdly fat gaming laptops totally offset the performance drop.
It's not a good idea to generalize so strongly about an entire demographic like that, or at least not without providing some sources to back up some of the assertions so we can read them and achieve a better understanding of what you're saying.
I disagree with lumping Gen Y in with millennials. The definition of the term is just stretched way too wide in most cases. You can't tell me that someone born in 1980 is going to approach the world the same way as someone born in 1995. Gen Y (the "early" millennials) grew up on BBSes, Commodore 64s, Apple//e computers with Oregon Trail, and NES consoles, while "late" millennials never knew a time that the Internet wasn't ubiquitous in society. To the early side modern technology is amazing; to the late side, it *just is*.
Were the sexual comments directed towards the person in the article? Is this an individual teenager complaining or are there others who can corroborate this view of the behavior is a reasonable one? What facts exist that point to the Lena image being the exclusive cause of the "boys' sexual comments?"
The whole thing is written by a teen (not exactly a demographic known for mental and emotional maturity, stability, or experience) and the comments contain many instances of previous students of the same program in the same school that express the opposite view of the program as a whole and the choice of Lena's image in particular. Unless there is more evidence, it seems this isolated individual is the only one who has a problem with anything. There is no logical or rational reason to change anything to suit one emotional teen's vague public whinging.
Citation needed. Where exactly is the proof that "kids are acting like little shits because of a teacher's fuckup?" I'd love for you to expressly point that out.
It's not porn. Bettie Page was considered "porn" in her day and I don't see anyone calling it porn now. Society's standards change over time. It would seem that they've left you far behind. Do you get an erection from seeing some bare elbow? The nudes in Playboy are not pornographic images by modern standards. This is what is considered porn in society today. If you have a problem with that, fine. You're entitled to hold an opinion. You're not entitled to have others agree with it and pretend that a head shot crop is porn or that a tastefully composed nude photograph (which doesn't even have visible genitalia and isn't even sexually suggestive) from which that crop was produced is pornography.
You're wrong but even if you were not, the fact remains that there's *nothing* wrong with "sexualized images." If you think teens in first world countries haven't seen "sexualized images" far more sexually explicit than the backside and reflected nipples of a woman in a tastefully shot vintage nude photograph, you're living under a very large and naive rock.
If you think the 512x512 Lena image used in image processing for 40+ years is "a pornographic picture" then you're a Puritan lunatic. On top of that, you have spoken for Lena in assigning the "sexual object" label to her; it was never your choice, it was hers, and she chose to have that picture taken. You don't get to speak for her or be offended on her behalf. Take five seconds to actually understand what you are talking about before you spout off and look like a fool.
Mobile touchscreen devices will simply never be as capable as actual general-purpose computers. The Transformer has poor performance compared to available standard laptops. For people who actually use their computers to do actual work, tablets and phones are not sufficient. From transcoding to database work to web development to gaming, low-power low-speed touch-as-primary-input devices (almost entirely running mobile operating systems) are useless. Atom-class ULV and ARM Cortex CPUs can't keep up with an i5, i7 or AMD FX or A8 chip. Hybrid graphics laptops can both save power and run high-end 3D stuff. There isn't any room in a thin slate form factor for all the stuff that normal laptops and desktops can do. They will never die. They will also never be as convenient as a phone. Each has their place in the grand scheme of things. I'd hate to write a long paper on a cell phone with a docking station, I'd hate to have to whip out a laptop just to check my email, and I'd hate to wait on either of them to compress 1080p 60fps video with x264.
Nope, Anita actually said that. (Link to Thunderf00t because that's the only transcript a Google search found for that text, not because "MRA, MRA, ermahgerd.")
He was quoting Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International. Commodore's computers enjoyed over a decade of success against Apple and IBM as well as the game systems of the late 1970s through early 1980s because they were unorthodox and clever with their marketing (Commodore computers were sold at toy stores in the same display cases as electronic game consoles, for example), they ruthlessly found ways to cut prices, and they didn't even bother trying to be the next IBM. Commodore was successful because they didn't play in the boundaries of the established computer and electronics industries. That's what the point of the statement was.
The computer company that beat the pants off both Apple and IBM in the home computer market throughout all of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s until Tramiel left (and then it all went to shit due to gross mismanagement). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Despite the BLS claim that "The CPS sample is selected so as to be representative of the entire population of the United States," it is difficult to believe that 0.057% of all households in the United States being sampled monthly results in accurately representative unemployment figures.
Let's be fair: that was on a $35 phone. Android phones that cost that amount are pretty clunky to use. The criticisms may still be valid but it needs to be clear that the hardware Ars Technica tested was abysmal even compared to the original HTC Dream (excluding the 1 GHz CPU) and to quote Ars directly: "The $35 price tag should color every sentence you read about the device. Though it is so cheap that most flaws can be forgiven, we still feel it's our duty to point them out."
Yep...Compute's Gazette and MLX. I remember why I hate that fart-buzz sound now: MLX had a checksum byte and if you typed the line wrong, it would fart-buzz at you and make you punch it in again. I'd have to say it was worth it to play Crossroads II: Pandemonium. Dear god, that game was stimulating.
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That's the irony of it all: women shame women into suppressing their own desires and conforming to predefined female roles. Men have very little (or nothing at all) to do with it. Subtle reinforcements by women for what women should be are everywhere. Where were the men to ruin everything when this all-female business consumed itself in cattiness? "The venomous women were supposedly the talented employees I had headhunted to achieve my utopian dream - a female-only company with happy, harmonious workers benefiting from an absence of men."
The effects of the encryption export bans from the 1990s haunts us today in the form of the "logjam" vulnerability. Those stupid "export-grade" ciphers for HTTPS are still around and can potentially be cracked with a big enough box of GPUs. Worse yet is that a heap of browsers and servers will go for the garbage ciphers first. In light of this reality, one must wonder how this kind of authoritarian bullshit will swat us all in the digital testicles 10-20 years from now.
Actually, it's a rather good Japanese drama.
Actually, Asus makes some of the best PC laptops in existence if you ignore the cheap ass stuff that all manufacturers make. The last two new laptops I purchased were Asus laptops. The build quality is on par with Apple's laptops. They don't lock down the BIOS so you can't use Windows 7 - the ACPI 5.0-only age is upon us so that even if you kill Secure Boot and try to install Win7 as UEFI it'll BSOD and say your machine is not ACPI compiant, but I have seen zero brand new Asus laptops that do this crap and plenty of cheap new Acer boxes that do. They're engineered quite well compared to many other manufacturers who will take your $1000 and sell you a crummy plastic laptop with hot palmrests and screws that easily back out and fall out of the computer over time. Same deal with their motherboards: if you don't buy the absolute $40 bargain basement junker boards that no manufacturer really seems to get right, you always seem to get a solid board with a BIOS that lets you change and re-clock and tune everything under the sun to your liking if you so desire.
The real problem is that lots of people buy cheap shit computer hardware and they get exactly what they pay for when they do. All manufacturers come out with duds too (that's just how it goes in the manufacturing game) so reading reviews before purchasing is far more important than the name stamped or painted on the item's casing. Branding isn't as important today as it used to be. In the end Foxconn, Quanta, and Compal actually manufacture almost all of this stuff, so the quality often comes down to the engineering of the specific model of board or laptop and who it was made for.
I picked up an Asus Q551LN recently and despite it being a "convertible" laptop (which I will never "convert" but the only other i7-4xxx 15" options were a junky plastic HP and a "Republic of Gamers" cinder block) it has a proper cooling system in the hinge area similar to an older MacBook Pro (though not nearly as poor). It's a Core i7 ULV; it's not noisy but it's pretty darn fast. Admittedly, it's half the PassMark score of a 4710MQ, but the low TDP (it barely gets warm) and the fact that I don't have to lug around one of those absurdly fat gaming laptops totally offset the performance drop.
Someone give this coward some insightful points. Well said.
It's not a good idea to generalize so strongly about an entire demographic like that, or at least not without providing some sources to back up some of the assertions so we can read them and achieve a better understanding of what you're saying.
I disagree with lumping Gen Y in with millennials. The definition of the term is just stretched way too wide in most cases. You can't tell me that someone born in 1980 is going to approach the world the same way as someone born in 1995. Gen Y (the "early" millennials) grew up on BBSes, Commodore 64s, Apple //e computers with Oregon Trail, and NES consoles, while "late" millennials never knew a time that the Internet wasn't ubiquitous in society. To the early side modern technology is amazing; to the late side, it *just is*.
Were the sexual comments directed towards the person in the article? Is this an individual teenager complaining or are there others who can corroborate this view of the behavior is a reasonable one? What facts exist that point to the Lena image being the exclusive cause of the "boys' sexual comments?"
The whole thing is written by a teen (not exactly a demographic known for mental and emotional maturity, stability, or experience) and the comments contain many instances of previous students of the same program in the same school that express the opposite view of the program as a whole and the choice of Lena's image in particular. Unless there is more evidence, it seems this isolated individual is the only one who has a problem with anything. There is no logical or rational reason to change anything to suit one emotional teen's vague public whinging.
Citation needed. Where exactly is the proof that "kids are acting like little shits because of a teacher's fuckup?" I'd love for you to expressly point that out.
It's not porn. Bettie Page was considered "porn" in her day and I don't see anyone calling it porn now. Society's standards change over time. It would seem that they've left you far behind. Do you get an erection from seeing some bare elbow? The nudes in Playboy are not pornographic images by modern standards. This is what is considered porn in society today. If you have a problem with that, fine. You're entitled to hold an opinion. You're not entitled to have others agree with it and pretend that a head shot crop is porn or that a tastefully composed nude photograph (which doesn't even have visible genitalia and isn't even sexually suggestive) from which that crop was produced is pornography.
Well, that escalated quickly.
You're wrong but even if you were not, the fact remains that there's *nothing* wrong with "sexualized images." If you think teens in first world countries haven't seen "sexualized images" far more sexually explicit than the backside and reflected nipples of a woman in a tastefully shot vintage nude photograph, you're living under a very large and naive rock.
If you type the woman's name, you don't get any results for the original image, even in image search engines.
If you think the 512x512 Lena image used in image processing for 40+ years is "a pornographic picture" then you're a Puritan lunatic. On top of that, you have spoken for Lena in assigning the "sexual object" label to her; it was never your choice, it was hers, and she chose to have that picture taken. You don't get to speak for her or be offended on her behalf. Take five seconds to actually understand what you are talking about before you spout off and look like a fool.
Mobile touchscreen devices will simply never be as capable as actual general-purpose computers. The Transformer has poor performance compared to available standard laptops. For people who actually use their computers to do actual work, tablets and phones are not sufficient. From transcoding to database work to web development to gaming, low-power low-speed touch-as-primary-input devices (almost entirely running mobile operating systems) are useless. Atom-class ULV and ARM Cortex CPUs can't keep up with an i5, i7 or AMD FX or A8 chip. Hybrid graphics laptops can both save power and run high-end 3D stuff. There isn't any room in a thin slate form factor for all the stuff that normal laptops and desktops can do. They will never die. They will also never be as convenient as a phone. Each has their place in the grand scheme of things. I'd hate to write a long paper on a cell phone with a docking station, I'd hate to have to whip out a laptop just to check my email, and I'd hate to wait on either of them to compress 1080p 60fps video with x264.
Nope, Anita actually said that. (Link to Thunderf00t because that's the only transcript a Google search found for that text, not because "MRA, MRA, ermahgerd.")
He was quoting Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International. Commodore's computers enjoyed over a decade of success against Apple and IBM as well as the game systems of the late 1970s through early 1980s because they were unorthodox and clever with their marketing (Commodore computers were sold at toy stores in the same display cases as electronic game consoles, for example), they ruthlessly found ways to cut prices, and they didn't even bother trying to be the next IBM. Commodore was successful because they didn't play in the boundaries of the established computer and electronics industries. That's what the point of the statement was.
The computer company that beat the pants off both Apple and IBM in the home computer market throughout all of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s until Tramiel left (and then it all went to shit due to gross mismanagement). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There are about 60,000 eligible households in the sample for this survey...Every month, one-fourth of the households in the sample are changed, so that no household is interviewed for more than 4 consecutive months.
Approximately 115,610,216 households in the United States.
Despite the BLS claim that "The CPS sample is selected so as to be representative of the entire population of the United States," it is difficult to believe that 0.057% of all households in the United States being sampled monthly results in accurately representative unemployment figures.
If anyone ever figures out how to "document" experience and hands-on skills, I think they'd be the next Bill Gates.
Oh look, unemployment stats. Too bad they don't count the people that aren't on unemployment anymore but can't find work.
Who moderated my comment "overrated?" I made a perfectly legitimate point. If you have a problem with it, tough nuts.
Let's be fair: that was on a $35 phone. Android phones that cost that amount are pretty clunky to use. The criticisms may still be valid but it needs to be clear that the hardware Ars Technica tested was abysmal even compared to the original HTC Dream (excluding the 1 GHz CPU) and to quote Ars directly: "The $35 price tag should color every sentence you read about the device. Though it is so cheap that most flaws can be forgiven, we still feel it's our duty to point them out."
Yep...Compute's Gazette and MLX. I remember why I hate that fart-buzz sound now: MLX had a checksum byte and if you typed the line wrong, it would fart-buzz at you and make you punch it in again. I'd have to say it was worth it to play Crossroads II: Pandemonium. Dear god, that game was stimulating.