I suggest something else if keeping accounts separate is a must:
- whenever you want to use the benefits of her Prime account, just create a new whishlist, share it with her, and let her buy it on her account providing her a payment form. If you don't share or want to supply your personal payment data to her, I don't really know about Luxembourg but in Portugal we have many types of virtual credit card systems, that you create for any purchase and add a limit to it, so that you don't have to share or put your physical card on the web (I never even have placed my physical card on my 10+years of online shopping because we got this cool system in Portugal).
I'd like to add that Prime does have one major caveat: you supposedly can't share the video streaming experience like you can in Netflix: multiple user profiles with multiple recommendations and book-keeping on shows seen. Netflix effectively costs me 42€ per year with 4k since I split with 3 other people (they pay 42 each too). Amazon's 50€/year Prime for simply using as a streaming service, which has a lot less content than Netflix (especially here in Portugal, where they block must stuff even when using Prime on a UK account), is a real no-no unless I really used the delivery benefits. I don't get those benefits since it does not apply to international shipping to my country from the UK, obviously.
So, this prosaic "presenter" will 90% of the times have a managed PC with Win10 Pro, and as likely have an enterprise management suite (e.g. Airwatch) enforcing policies through Administration Templates for Windows update and whatnot, which the user can't control. He won't be able to set any of those policies, and he won't ever get a prompt to an update his company doesn't even know might happen, well, "because Microsoft".
And the way I talked about higging by p2p updates is pretty fair - if you don't know how heavy the kind of "Delivery Optimization" p2p-scheme is on resources you probably never used it. I have all CPU and Traffic settings to their minimum and it still slows my PC every damn time it decides to kick in. The fact it doesn't send every request to the internet also tells me how it forfeits trust in valid internet CAs for authentication, and is instead trusting local computers just because they "appear" to have Windows 10 installed with what appears to be a valid update. Get that key leaked, or, you know, "lent" to a 3-letter US state agency and you got yourself a pretty easy attack vector on anyone with access to your local network: "hey W10-Alice-PC, keylog.dll will install in System32, it comes signed with the MS hardcoded public key, and since we're not using a root CA to mediate this request, it is not a request, so just do it. KTHXBYEBBQROASTED"
I have a CS degree and I find Win10 hard to control. I use Linux daily, and I don't see any of these problems on hotplug, unnattended updates. I wonder how often you laugh at the non-computer savvy, since you appear to demand knowledge and "vassalage" to certain corporate interests in ways that clearly hint you have interests in this "stupid computing" yourself. Is that you Satya?
I'm not sure if sarchasm or an actual story. I like the comment either way. The fact a W10 computer can start updating itself without prompt or UI, when connected to whatever network (which might be a Starbucks for all we know), is one of the most scary things ever. And I don't mean security-wise, I mean: "here I go do my once-in-a-lifetime presentation to the money suits with my Windows laptop. YAY! FINGERS CROSSED hoping the fact I'm in a different time-zone with different busy hours, and the fact I didn't set this new WIFI to metered can doesn't get me a reboot, or that Delivery Optimization doesn't resource hog BITTORRENTING updates just as I'm about to seal the deal".
You're right, you can rarely find an actual glass, let alone the same type of glass and touchscreen than an OEM would supply. Most replacement LCD/OLED so-called "screen assembly" replacements on the web are basically pulled parts of the essentials, usually white-listed components (such as the panel itself and touchscreen controller chips), bundled with low-quality touchscreens and badly cured LOCA glue, leading to a 50-50 chance of getting warping from the most basic finger press. And they are rarely, if ever, using actual glass. The only way to get an OEM piece is sheer luck and going for the expensive stuff, and even then it's a gamble.
Now, this is still NO reason at all for Apple to prevent self-repair and lobbying/litigating against third-party spares: most people can live with the issues if it makes their phones usable. And such kind of "activism" by Apple also prevents acquisition of decent parts. In no way is Apple attempting anything else than to funnel the service into their pockets, just like other brand-profit-dependant companies like Ferrari, Dell, Thinkpad, most tractor and agricultural manufacturers, every industrial piece of kit manufacturer, etc. Self-repair is a right even business-grade gear needs, and nobody can say the opposite without admitting in some form all they want is that income vector going their way.
I have been using an S7 for 1.5 years now, and I have dropped it more than any other phone I ever owned. The only thing preventing it from ever breaking, scuffing or stop functioning: a 2 bucks TPU sleeve. Seriously, protect your investments with this muhc-better-than-any-insurance piece of kit. And you can find these for pretty much any phone model. I previously owned a very simillar TPU case with an S6 also for 1.5y, and it never broke, while 2 workmates using the same phone broke the screen after roughly 4-6months without using a cover. And I also dropped that one a lot.
Now, these are perfect for most phones with bezels, since the case absorbs most impact, but the metal corners an sheer distance from impact points to the LCD will dampen the fall a lot more. Now that edgeless, up-to-a-corner-LCD phones are all the rage, I digress about their effectiveness. But it sure should be a lot better than any "gorilla glass" marketing they boast - scratch protection is NOT impact protection at all.
A quote from the Motherboard article, by the judge who ruled aainst Apple:
"It is not obvious to the court what trademark function justifies Apple’s choice of imprinting the Apple logo on so many internal components"
It is, although, obvious to Apple's marketing team: 90% of their revenue, including hardware sales and repair are due to branding appeal and not quality or technological appeal (despite it actually existing), and thus, Apple wants to protect that brand in every single way by printing it everywhere, and preventing repairs that might tarnish that brand (as they can be lower quality, but don't necessarily mean they are...).
The judge though, noted very well that this trademark/brand protectionism goes against basic rights of repair - Apple doens't own your phone after you buy it - and consequentially, it cannot apply their trademark rights OVER repair rights.
Ask a broken iPhone owner if he would rather have the screen repaired with the logo: he would obviously say he prefers to fake it, but that's his choice and his wrongdoing. Ask the same person he has to pay 300 to have the logo, or 30 bucks to get a no logo, fully-functioning screen, and the branding thing will go down the drain pretty fast. But obviously, since Apple does not produce nondescript versions of their spare parts, you will never have sub-300 bucks, official iPhone X screens and that's just the life for an iPhone buyer that doesn't want to break the law. I feel for you
I understand perfectly the African internet access problem, which as you state, does exist and by itself hampers development on what are, supposedly, developing nations. I work on a for-profit research which has projects targeting better internet access in Africa - we make hardware that attempts to deploy back-haul-like technology on a smaller scale so that it becomes cheaper to repeat signals from town halls and other central structures to village periphery. Of course other problems come from further up the link as you state. I personally face the problem of "internet access hampering development" as my family sits on a remote location which I had to move away from but still visit a lot, a location that despite having a state-sponsored, Gbits/s-level fiber link deployed, the ISP that owns the current licensing won't sell it, as it will cannibalize their expensive, BAD copper service (think sub-500kbit/s and constant downtime) and political lobbying by this ISP is succeeding in maintaining exclusivity rights for the government-sponsored rural fiber installation (for the most stupid of reasons, something along the lines of: "supposedly these and other remote locations have 3/4g signals by every carrier - a BIG FAT lie as signal is VERY INCONSISTENT across rural areas - and thus there's no need for opening up fiber to competition as there is already competing solutions by different ISPs and development is not affected"...).
My comment was, nonetheless, meant as critic to the last sentence of the original post: "African governments are notorious for interfering with citizens' internet access, particularly around election time or during periods of unrest.". It had nothing to do with internet access problems indeed.
While some (third-world mostly, not only African) governments are notorious for interfering with citizens' internet access during key periods, it's becoming clear that many types of political and commercial organizations, be it in evolved or developing nations, and even entities not associated with government, are becoming proficient in interfering with citizens's internet use - through internet access (e.g. corporate interests from ISPs such as net neutrality), unfair use of information (such as targetted ads), or flat out privacy and freedoms violations (such as Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, IRIS, etc etc). There's absolutely no need to single out African Nations' Governments, since it has become a widespread practice.
At least in African nations things are a lot more transparent - a relevant number of even the most illiterate citizens will see through internet downtime on pre-election days as something planned, and that will, hopefully, affect their voting decision.
The worst kind of influence is the one we don't comprehend, or even get to see. And that's only becoming obvious now thanks to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, but it's been here in some form even before internet times, through media, censorship, marketing and lobbying. The only common denominator is that it always emanates from entities with poor ethics and morality.
Yeah, because the best country to set the stage for data privacy should be the one country it actually enabled hiding the fact it in the first place. And you're surprised Russia, China or even Germany or the UK have issues with data stored in the US. Did anybody say IRIS?
Obviously falls a bit out of the "comics" OP refers too, but Akira is a roller-coaster ride everybody should take themselves to. Never mind its age - lmost 30 years old does not take away from most of its still up to date themes. And it does get you a cheap, premium 35th anniversary box that is not only super complete and polished, but very inexpensive when you do the per-volume math.
Whoever hadn't figured this out already deserves some sort of long-term ignorance award. I have never made myself available for such events as the bullshit kinda transpired, although I have been a part of one or two due to academic/professional conjuncture. From those short experiences, but also mostly from what I hear about every colleague, friend or coworker, these events easily transpire as the most obvious "free brainstorming session" there can be. Non-competes come close second to ways of stealing individual creativity.
If I was a company/organization in search of new ideas, the easiest, cheapest course of action I would take to amass intellectual property, would be to create a contest where only "new, exclusive, non-patented" ideas can be brought up. Then, to make these ideas mine, all I would need to do is define rules such as "whatever you come up with during the event is property of the event organizer" and "participants only have 10/24/48 hours to put in practice (read: code) their idea". These are structural to hijack great IP from the deluded participants - make them do something for you that is palpable enough from a managerial point of view, but at the same time that doesn't have its potential fully visible to anyone that isn't watching closely (such as other participants, who should be way too busy coding their own speedy prototypes).
Finally, the last nail in the coffin: never ever give the main prize to the ideas you like the most. This cements the theft strategy (because that's what this is all about: grand theft IP), by discouraging participants to pursue similar projects afterwards - both the participants who came up with the idea themselves and other keen-eyed participants who saw potential in others. This is crucial, because despite the "property of the event organizer" rule, some people would still pursue projects related to the event. This eliminates that motivation, and would provide me, as a company with access to financial and human resources, to really develop the best ideas.
In short, hackathons and similar events are a form of venture capital with ~0 risk, targeting the creatives that didn't even get a chance to kick-start (read: make a startup) their cool, fresh ideas. And further turning their chances of "making it" into dust, despite any sense of the contrary passed by the events.
Dealing with that asshole in Chromecast and other "I'm here, cast to me" devices is a problem that is past due the obvious solution: proximity priority. I'm not talking about Bluetooth RSSI or any other interference-prone, highly implementation-dependent tech. I'm talking about blatant proximity like reset buttons on WiFi routers that provide fail-safe "privileged" powers to those with actual physical access to the teeny tiny reset button.
But this was an analogy - the smart-device equivalent to this is obviously NFC, and it's been used so many times by Nintendo and payment systems, I find it strange that mostly nobody ever uses it for time-sensitive, EXCLUSIVE pairing. It's been in car locks, car infotainment systems and smart speakers, true, but never on video cast devices such as TVs. Heck, this could be embedded on docks or even TV remotes for the "I don't wanna get up of the couch" or the "huge tv and/or projectors" use cases. I'm hoping Android Auto Wireless ends up using this for pairing, so that finally every big tech company sees the potential it (should) have, for switching whoever is in charge, at any given point in time.
It needs Apple numbers of hordes wanting to buy what is currently, mostly a useless gadget, considering the percentage of time you wear it vs its uses. The average human being still doesn't need what a smartwatch is right now, at their current price, with their current limitations and commitments. The only disadvantage Android has vs whatever Apple has, is that Apple buyers are simply more open to spending money on something without added value, because it goes well with their life choices.
Maybe I missed something, but are they going against this kind of blocking (read: blocking intrusive ads with which they effectively decided to hamper their free-service experience)?
I wonder if they are telling the recipients of that email that they have about as much chance of litigation against individual consumers as newspapers and Google adsense have had...
And I thought this "you make it public (ads or not), it's free" argument was settled. Spotify is trying to manipulate users to its business model, instead of moulding itself to the world it exists in... A lot like the MPAA, RIAA or Springer/Sciencedirect hiring DMCA trolls for a problem they will never solve. And what's worse, they're doing so at the tone of "we already make so much money but we'll go the full stretch just to protect our poor investors and our paying customers' honour". Good God...
I didn't expect anything else: the guy who most benefits from the current finantial system bashing a trending, actually revolutionary. It is quite shameful to see him resort to such a low blow. It's like saying: "hey, 20 people died making this humongous undersea tunnel", without acknowledging the bridge prevents 200 deaths a year out of whatever the fuck they did to cross the straight before.
Seriously, this guy has been the top richest dude, in the world, for 18 out of the last 23 years. He has - wait scratch that -
him and his next 10 generations have absolutely no say in the matter of "what is fairer than what we have now?". Fairness is seriously not something at play here.
I assume he and everybody else know Microsoft has surely caused deaths in a fairly direct way as much as any cryptocurrency, and just like crypto, none of them were part of the plan. Obviously not as direct as, say Smith and Wesson, Heckler and Koch, Lockheed Martin or any so-called "defense"-related company, but even those have their own sorry excuses for liability.
But screw "fairly" - you know what causes human death in a very fucking objectively direct way? Other humans. And maybe old age and disease and natural disaster. Now go get an actually decent argument to bash crypto, you know, like common people have to do when they want to make a point instead of using that odd "I am so popular I can say anything" falacy.
that's true, but it also means VC and other funding entities simply neglect how useless some types of patents are. Independently of patent strength, VC is always looking for previous value - money already spent. And patents, like existing human resources or other tangible and intangible assets, are effectively a future cost removed, i.e. money that will not enter future accounting and depreciate their potential position.
In the end, like many those other assets, patents are as volatile as employee exodus or asset depreciation, and I expect the importance VC puts in those is not much different. They already know it's a gamble from a lot of factors, but it's one they have to place trust in mildly less volatile stuff, and that's patents.
It still doesn't make it acceptable. And push notifications aren't a minor feature - they're an essential feature of a mobile phone released after 2010. And if I used Live Tiles, I would argue their update is the difference between them being "Live" or "Dead" ones - what was once a glorified button turned into a basic button.
Microsoft is undergoing a change in dynamic that is itchy at best, and flat out unprofessional at worst: the privacy issues, the Win10 upgrade shenanigans, the forced updates, the p2p (forced) updates, the lack of flexibility in the new Metro UI Windows Control Panel tools, the simple fact they make the old style/actually usable tools unreachable through search indexation blacklisting. MS is going with the trends of "transient support level" and "inadverted, unnanounced feature change/deletion rollouts", so common in web apps such as Facebook and Google and applying them to the one place it shouldn't be applied: secondary-memory-installed software. That place is sacred, and that is why the guy suing for 600M$ because he can't get back his Windows 7 actually has a point.
Government use is not exactly gold standard these days. That's the same government using McAfee because "quality" and banning Kaspersky because "Russia".
I won't ever downplay RedHat - I think what they do is amazing, and I think any institution needing professional Linux services needs to go to the best pros, and those are definitely them. Now for personal use - one that needs support fast (read: self-support), cheap (read: free), and the most stable, tweek-able, productive graphical environment (read: GNOME 3), Debian is surely where all of those boxes are ticked best. Fedora has solid Gnome3 support too, but it doesn't achieve Debian levels on everything else. And of course Debian has used RedHat contributions, that's what FOSS is all about. I've started this conversation by stating I'm not pro, but I will bet an arm and a leg that RedHat themselves have also used stuff from Debian, and I would bet at least 100 human lives that they surely used foss contributions not restricted to the Debian codebase. That's a really bad argument in the FOSS environment, and I don't need to check the code, although I could.
I don't want to get in a Gnome vs KDE vs MINT and definitely not Deb vs RHEL/CentOS/Fedora argument. I think they all serve their purpose. I know Deb/Gnome works best for me, right now, and I know Deb will work best (for most, right now) because they really present the "full package" for the individual PC user - one that is balanced in the essential things the individual user needs. Deb is King of Personal Use Linux, just like Ubuntu was, for a time, not so long ago, (Debian is mosdef back tho).
When such individuals do transition to corporate use, maybe then they should ponder things other than Deb - RHEL/CentOS/Fedora or even something else. But even then there is space for discussion - the overhead of transition itself might be reason enough to stay away from the thought, since Deb handles small and medium business purposes pretty dandy.
Yeap. The government always has the advantage of media attention, and this enables them to twist ideas however they want. Trump's twitter account is a study-case of how influential the most stupid, yet popular ideas can be.
Just today he said the FBI's attention to Russia influence in elections is the root cause of the Florida shootings... I read it in a british newspaper, and the title said "Trump attempts to shift blame of shootings to FBI", and it seemde like a good title. Then I thought about it for a bit and I noticed this was an international opinion, who doesn't fully grasp that most people that give attention to Trump will believe anything he says. And they're not as few apparently. This is not just an attempt - it's a success at bullshitting a lot of people.
You see, that's not what the second ammendment is for. I understand your concern of feeling impotent about protecting your family without gun access, due to insecurity wherever you are. There are places in bad shape throughout the nation. But the fundamental right of holding guns in the US exists for a much different purpose than defending your property and/or your family.
The 2nd was written like this because any argument, other than protecting yourself from a tyrant government, can be immediately, logically, statistically and scientifically turned into a BAD argument and shut down. TEH best way to protect your family is by living in a country where meth addicts don't get access to ranged firing weapons. Scratch that - it's not having the dealers and trafickers, who enable addicts in the first place, able to carry guns due to a market flooded because of liberal access laws. This goes for any form of crime really - no guns on the streets always equates to less violent crime. Just look at Europe crime rates, and then figure out yourself what type of gun access exists in most of Europe. Yeah, europeans also have the odd gun massacre, but well, most countries still need to have an active military force, and it's quite hard to prevent those from having gun access, and that's what the police exists for anyway.
That "why 15 rounds? Because [insert sarchastic tone joke]" really shows the culture you have to live in. I would also do the best I can to protect my family, shooting a gun is obviosly included if need be. But I can be realistic and objective about things - you want an immediate solution to your problem? Have a gun at home, and statistically get as many chances to have it help you defend yourself as of having an accident with a family member, or worse, get yourself killed by a perp because you have this gun and they will also fear for their lives, just not as rationally or in good state of mind as you in the comfort of your home. I believe what most americans are afraid of is of dying "stupidly because I didn't defend myself". Well, guess what, the best way to defend yourselves is to create a gun free environment for those that are AND aren't as prone to use a gun for foul play. You don't wanna die stupidly? Do the best possible thing about it and not the easy way out.
...and by "it", I mean the conclusion about "putting a BASIC on every device" - there are some good points here:
Not knowing what a browser is happens to be one of the recurrent, quasi-omnipresent aspects I am faced with on the many instances I provide tech support. Even for my somewhat most tech-literate solicitors. I no longer even hear the "oh you mean Internet Explorer/Chrome" so much - it really is not knowing there is a program where you put www urls in and get a page. People are to used to link clicking and glorified bookmarks on a desktop icon. Those are well and good for the elder, but when I see little kids on my environment do this, it both makes me feel old and makes me feel we are in for a dumb generation.
Another one that really stuck was about the "where is this stored/installed?" Android/iOS, Chrome (extensions), MacOS, Windows and even Linux are becoming very seriously addicted to this "app ubiquity" and transparency through centralized, curated, SANCTIONED store systems, so much so that newcomers fail to figure out unavailability of a program is, most of the times, internet connection. Or worse, they can no longer remove resource-heavy apps themselves because they couldn't figure out they're installed and/or running in the first place. It's stupid, and it's a lot more serious than missing out on programming - it's missing out on self-awareness and self-support.
But well, there will be more jobs for us enthusiasts and pros.
If you want to live in a country with the 2nd ammendment, where guns are sold liberaly "bicuzz there must be the right to, you know, eventually, maybe, defend ourselves against a tyrant democratic government, who happens to have access to nukes and bioweapons", then you also accept to live in a country where the bad guys that are not government also get that right.
Now, if you want to live in a country where the government can access most information about your life and your choices and your opinions, because most of that data is now available digitally, maybe you should, like for guns, not forfeit the the right to make that information private.
At least don't have double standards is all I'm saying. Hypocrisy is much more structural than gun or privacy rights - it's what makes people kill each other sociopathycally, and what makes governments use law to screw the small folk.
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest something else if keeping accounts separate is a must:
- whenever you want to use the benefits of her Prime account, just create a new whishlist, share it with her, and let her buy it on her account providing her a payment form. If you don't share or want to supply your personal payment data to her, I don't really know about Luxembourg but in Portugal we have many types of virtual credit card systems, that you create for any purchase and add a limit to it, so that you don't have to share or put your physical card on the web (I never even have placed my physical card on my 10+years of online shopping because we got this cool system in Portugal).
I'd like to add that Prime does have one major caveat: you supposedly can't share the video streaming experience like you can in Netflix: multiple user profiles with multiple recommendations and book-keeping on shows seen. Netflix effectively costs me 42€ per year with 4k since I split with 3 other people (they pay 42 each too). Amazon's 50€/year Prime for simply using as a streaming service, which has a lot less content than Netflix (especially here in Portugal, where they block must stuff even when using Prime on a UK account), is a real no-no unless I really used the delivery benefits. I don't get those benefits since it does not apply to international shipping to my country from the UK, obviously.
So, this prosaic "presenter" will 90% of the times have a managed PC with Win10 Pro, and as likely have an enterprise management suite (e.g. Airwatch) enforcing policies through Administration Templates for Windows update and whatnot, which the user can't control. He won't be able to set any of those policies, and he won't ever get a prompt to an update his company doesn't even know might happen, well, "because Microsoft".
And the way I talked about higging by p2p updates is pretty fair - if you don't know how heavy the kind of "Delivery Optimization" p2p-scheme is on resources you probably never used it. I have all CPU and Traffic settings to their minimum and it still slows my PC every damn time it decides to kick in. The fact it doesn't send every request to the internet also tells me how it forfeits trust in valid internet CAs for authentication, and is instead trusting local computers just because they "appear" to have Windows 10 installed with what appears to be a valid update. Get that key leaked, or, you know, "lent" to a 3-letter US state agency and you got yourself a pretty easy attack vector on anyone with access to your local network: "hey W10-Alice-PC, keylog.dll will install in System32, it comes signed with the MS hardcoded public key, and since we're not using a root CA to mediate this request, it is not a request, so just do it. KTHXBYEBBQROASTED"
I have a CS degree and I find Win10 hard to control. I use Linux daily, and I don't see any of these problems on hotplug, unnattended updates. I wonder how often you laugh at the non-computer savvy, since you appear to demand knowledge and "vassalage" to certain corporate interests in ways that clearly hint you have interests in this "stupid computing" yourself. Is that you Satya?
I'm not sure if sarchasm or an actual story. I like the comment either way. The fact a W10 computer can start updating itself without prompt or UI, when connected to whatever network (which might be a Starbucks for all we know), is one of the most scary things ever. And I don't mean security-wise, I mean: "here I go do my once-in-a-lifetime presentation to the money suits with my Windows laptop. YAY! FINGERS CROSSED hoping the fact I'm in a different time-zone with different busy hours, and the fact I didn't set this new WIFI to metered can doesn't get me a reboot, or that Delivery Optimization doesn't resource hog BITTORRENTING updates just as I'm about to seal the deal".
You're right, you can rarely find an actual glass, let alone the same type of glass and touchscreen than an OEM would supply. Most replacement LCD/OLED so-called "screen assembly" replacements on the web are basically pulled parts of the essentials, usually white-listed components (such as the panel itself and touchscreen controller chips), bundled with low-quality touchscreens and badly cured LOCA glue, leading to a 50-50 chance of getting warping from the most basic finger press. And they are rarely, if ever, using actual glass. The only way to get an OEM piece is sheer luck and going for the expensive stuff, and even then it's a gamble.
Now, this is still NO reason at all for Apple to prevent self-repair and lobbying/litigating against third-party spares: most people can live with the issues if it makes their phones usable. And such kind of "activism" by Apple also prevents acquisition of decent parts. In no way is Apple attempting anything else than to funnel the service into their pockets, just like other brand-profit-dependant companies like Ferrari, Dell, Thinkpad, most tractor and agricultural manufacturers, every industrial piece of kit manufacturer, etc. Self-repair is a right even business-grade gear needs, and nobody can say the opposite without admitting in some form all they want is that income vector going their way.
I have been using an S7 for 1.5 years now, and I have dropped it more than any other phone I ever owned. The only thing preventing it from ever breaking, scuffing or stop functioning: a 2 bucks TPU sleeve. Seriously, protect your investments with this muhc-better-than-any-insurance piece of kit. And you can find these for pretty much any phone model. I previously owned a very simillar TPU case with an S6 also for 1.5y, and it never broke, while 2 workmates using the same phone broke the screen after roughly 4-6months without using a cover. And I also dropped that one a lot.
Now, these are perfect for most phones with bezels, since the case absorbs most impact, but the metal corners an sheer distance from impact points to the LCD will dampen the fall a lot more. Now that edgeless, up-to-a-corner-LCD phones are all the rage, I digress about their effectiveness. But it sure should be a lot better than any "gorilla glass" marketing they boast - scratch protection is NOT impact protection at all.
A quote from the Motherboard article, by the judge who ruled aainst Apple:
"It is not obvious to the court what trademark function justifies Apple’s choice of imprinting the Apple logo on so many internal components"
It is, although, obvious to Apple's marketing team: 90% of their revenue, including hardware sales and repair are due to branding appeal and not quality or technological appeal (despite it actually existing), and thus, Apple wants to protect that brand in every single way by printing it everywhere, and preventing repairs that might tarnish that brand (as they can be lower quality, but don't necessarily mean they are...).
The judge though, noted very well that this trademark/brand protectionism goes against basic rights of repair - Apple doens't own your phone after you buy it - and consequentially, it cannot apply their trademark rights OVER repair rights.
Ask a broken iPhone owner if he would rather have the screen repaired with the logo: he would obviously say he prefers to fake it, but that's his choice and his wrongdoing. Ask the same person he has to pay 300 to have the logo, or 30 bucks to get a no logo, fully-functioning screen, and the branding thing will go down the drain pretty fast. But obviously, since Apple does not produce nondescript versions of their spare parts, you will never have sub-300 bucks, official iPhone X screens and that's just the life for an iPhone buyer that doesn't want to break the law. I feel for you
The real pun to this vulnerability is the fact it is a race condition in the "beep" package.
Beep! Beep!
I understand perfectly the African internet access problem, which as you state, does exist and by itself hampers development on what are, supposedly, developing nations. I work on a for-profit research which has projects targeting better internet access in Africa - we make hardware that attempts to deploy back-haul-like technology on a smaller scale so that it becomes cheaper to repeat signals from town halls and other central structures to village periphery. Of course other problems come from further up the link as you state. I personally face the problem of "internet access hampering development" as my family sits on a remote location which I had to move away from but still visit a lot, a location that despite having a state-sponsored, Gbits/s-level fiber link deployed, the ISP that owns the current licensing won't sell it, as it will cannibalize their expensive, BAD copper service (think sub-500kbit/s and constant downtime) and political lobbying by this ISP is succeeding in maintaining exclusivity rights for the government-sponsored rural fiber installation (for the most stupid of reasons, something along the lines of: "supposedly these and other remote locations have 3/4g signals by every carrier - a BIG FAT lie as signal is VERY INCONSISTENT across rural areas - and thus there's no need for opening up fiber to competition as there is already competing solutions by different ISPs and development is not affected"...).
My comment was, nonetheless, meant as critic to the last sentence of the original post: "African governments are notorious for interfering with citizens' internet access, particularly around election time or during periods of unrest.". It had nothing to do with internet access problems indeed.
While some (third-world mostly, not only African) governments are notorious for interfering with citizens' internet access during key periods, it's becoming clear that many types of political and commercial organizations, be it in evolved or developing nations, and even entities not associated with government, are becoming proficient in interfering with citizens's internet use - through internet access (e.g. corporate interests from ISPs such as net neutrality), unfair use of information (such as targetted ads), or flat out privacy and freedoms violations (such as Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, IRIS, etc etc). There's absolutely no need to single out African Nations' Governments, since it has become a widespread practice.
At least in African nations things are a lot more transparent - a relevant number of even the most illiterate citizens will see through internet downtime on pre-election days as something planned, and that will, hopefully, affect their voting decision.
The worst kind of influence is the one we don't comprehend, or even get to see. And that's only becoming obvious now thanks to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, but it's been here in some form even before internet times, through media, censorship, marketing and lobbying. The only common denominator is that it always emanates from entities with poor ethics and morality.
well, so much for ignoring that Preview feature...
Yeah, because the best country to set the stage for data privacy should be the one country it actually enabled hiding the fact it in the first place. And you're surprised Russia, China or even Germany or the UK have issues with data stored in the US. Did anybody say IRIS?
Obviously falls a bit out of the "comics" OP refers too, but Akira is a roller-coaster ride everybody should take themselves to. Never mind its age - lmost 30 years old does not take away from most of its still up to date themes. And it does get you a cheap, premium 35th anniversary box that is not only super complete and polished, but very inexpensive when you do the per-volume math.
Or, you know, get the "free" digital version.
Whoever hadn't figured this out already deserves some sort of long-term ignorance award. I have never made myself available for such events as the bullshit kinda transpired, although I have been a part of one or two due to academic/professional conjuncture. From those short experiences, but also mostly from what I hear about every colleague, friend or coworker, these events easily transpire as the most obvious "free brainstorming session" there can be. Non-competes come close second to ways of stealing individual creativity.
If I was a company/organization in search of new ideas, the easiest, cheapest course of action I would take to amass intellectual property, would be to create a contest where only "new, exclusive, non-patented" ideas can be brought up. Then, to make these ideas mine, all I would need to do is define rules such as "whatever you come up with during the event is property of the event organizer" and "participants only have 10/24/48 hours to put in practice (read: code) their idea". These are structural to hijack great IP from the deluded participants - make them do something for you that is palpable enough from a managerial point of view, but at the same time that doesn't have its potential fully visible to anyone that isn't watching closely (such as other participants, who should be way too busy coding their own speedy prototypes).
Finally, the last nail in the coffin: never ever give the main prize to the ideas you like the most. This cements the theft strategy (because that's what this is all about: grand theft IP), by discouraging participants to pursue similar projects afterwards - both the participants who came up with the idea themselves and other keen-eyed participants who saw potential in others. This is crucial, because despite the "property of the event organizer" rule, some people would still pursue projects related to the event. This eliminates that motivation, and would provide me, as a company with access to financial and human resources, to really develop the best ideas.
In short, hackathons and similar events are a form of venture capital with ~0 risk, targeting the creatives that didn't even get a chance to kick-start (read: make a startup) their cool, fresh ideas. And further turning their chances of "making it" into dust, despite any sense of the contrary passed by the events.
Dealing with that asshole in Chromecast and other "I'm here, cast to me" devices is a problem that is past due the obvious solution: proximity priority. I'm not talking about Bluetooth RSSI or any other interference-prone, highly implementation-dependent tech. I'm talking about blatant proximity like reset buttons on WiFi routers that provide fail-safe "privileged" powers to those with actual physical access to the teeny tiny reset button.
But this was an analogy - the smart-device equivalent to this is obviously NFC, and it's been used so many times by Nintendo and payment systems, I find it strange that mostly nobody ever uses it for time-sensitive, EXCLUSIVE pairing. It's been in car locks, car infotainment systems and smart speakers, true, but never on video cast devices such as TVs. Heck, this could be embedded on docks or even TV remotes for the "I don't wanna get up of the couch" or the "huge tv and/or projectors" use cases. I'm hoping Android Auto Wireless ends up using this for pairing, so that finally every big tech company sees the potential it (should) have, for switching whoever is in charge, at any given point in time.
It needs Apple numbers of hordes wanting to buy what is currently, mostly a useless gadget, considering the percentage of time you wear it vs its uses. The average human being still doesn't need what a smartwatch is right now, at their current price, with their current limitations and commitments. The only disadvantage Android has vs whatever Apple has, is that Apple buyers are simply more open to spending money on something without added value, because it goes well with their life choices.
Maybe I missed something, but are they going against this kind of blocking (read: blocking intrusive ads with which they effectively decided to hamper their free-service experience)?
I wonder if they are telling the recipients of that email that they have about as much chance of litigation against individual consumers as newspapers and Google adsense have had...
And I thought this "you make it public (ads or not), it's free" argument was settled. Spotify is trying to manipulate users to its business model, instead of moulding itself to the world it exists in... A lot like the MPAA, RIAA or Springer/Sciencedirect hiring DMCA trolls for a problem they will never solve. And what's worse, they're doing so at the tone of "we already make so much money but we'll go the full stretch just to protect our poor investors and our paying customers' honour". Good God...
TYPO: "revolutionary... *one", obviously
I didn't expect anything else: the guy who most benefits from the current finantial system bashing a trending, actually revolutionary. It is quite shameful to see him resort to such a low blow. It's like saying: "hey, 20 people died making this humongous undersea tunnel", without acknowledging the bridge prevents 200 deaths a year out of whatever the fuck they did to cross the straight before.
Seriously, this guy has been the top richest dude, in the world, for 18 out of the last 23 years. He has - wait scratch that -
him and his next 10 generations have absolutely no say in the matter of "what is fairer than what we have now?". Fairness is seriously not something at play here.
I assume he and everybody else know Microsoft has surely caused deaths in a fairly direct way as much as any cryptocurrency, and just like crypto, none of them were part of the plan. Obviously not as direct as, say Smith and Wesson, Heckler and Koch, Lockheed Martin or any so-called "defense"-related company, but even those have their own sorry excuses for liability.
But screw "fairly" - you know what causes human death in a very fucking objectively direct way? Other humans. And maybe old age and disease and natural disaster. Now go get an actually decent argument to bash crypto, you know, like common people have to do when they want to make a point instead of using that odd "I am so popular I can say anything" falacy.
that's true, but it also means VC and other funding entities simply neglect how useless some types of patents are. Independently of patent strength, VC is always looking for previous value - money already spent. And patents, like existing human resources or other tangible and intangible assets, are effectively a future cost removed, i.e. money that will not enter future accounting and depreciate their potential position.
In the end, like many those other assets, patents are as volatile as employee exodus or asset depreciation, and I expect the importance VC puts in those is not much different. They already know it's a gamble from a lot of factors, but it's one they have to place trust in mildly less volatile stuff, and that's patents.
It still doesn't make it acceptable. And push notifications aren't a minor feature - they're an essential feature of a mobile phone released after 2010. And if I used Live Tiles, I would argue their update is the difference between them being "Live" or "Dead" ones - what was once a glorified button turned into a basic button.
Microsoft is undergoing a change in dynamic that is itchy at best, and flat out unprofessional at worst: the privacy issues, the Win10 upgrade shenanigans, the forced updates, the p2p (forced) updates, the lack of flexibility in the new Metro UI Windows Control Panel tools, the simple fact they make the old style/actually usable tools unreachable through search indexation blacklisting. MS is going with the trends of "transient support level" and "inadverted, unnanounced feature change/deletion rollouts", so common in web apps such as Facebook and Google and applying them to the one place it shouldn't be applied: secondary-memory-installed software. That place is sacred, and that is why the guy suing for 600M$ because he can't get back his Windows 7 actually has a point.
Government use is not exactly gold standard these days. That's the same government using McAfee because "quality" and banning Kaspersky because "Russia".
I won't ever downplay RedHat - I think what they do is amazing, and I think any institution needing professional Linux services needs to go to the best pros, and those are definitely them. Now for personal use - one that needs support fast (read: self-support), cheap (read: free), and the most stable, tweek-able, productive graphical environment (read: GNOME 3), Debian is surely where all of those boxes are ticked best. Fedora has solid Gnome3 support too, but it doesn't achieve Debian levels on everything else. And of course Debian has used RedHat contributions, that's what FOSS is all about. I've started this conversation by stating I'm not pro, but I will bet an arm and a leg that RedHat themselves have also used stuff from Debian, and I would bet at least 100 human lives that they surely used foss contributions not restricted to the Debian codebase. That's a really bad argument in the FOSS environment, and I don't need to check the code, although I could.
I don't want to get in a Gnome vs KDE vs MINT and definitely not Deb vs RHEL/CentOS/Fedora argument. I think they all serve their purpose. I know Deb/Gnome works best for me, right now, and I know Deb will work best (for most, right now) because they really present the "full package" for the individual PC user - one that is balanced in the essential things the individual user needs. Deb is King of Personal Use Linux, just like Ubuntu was, for a time, not so long ago, (Debian is mosdef back tho).
When such individuals do transition to corporate use, maybe then they should ponder things other than Deb - RHEL/CentOS/Fedora or even something else. But even then there is space for discussion - the overhead of transition itself might be reason enough to stay away from the thought, since Deb handles small and medium business purposes pretty dandy.
Yeap. The government always has the advantage of media attention, and this enables them to twist ideas however they want. Trump's twitter account is a study-case of how influential the most stupid, yet popular ideas can be.
Just today he said the FBI's attention to Russia influence in elections is the root cause of the Florida shootings... I read it in a british newspaper, and the title said "Trump attempts to shift blame of shootings to FBI", and it seemde like a good title. Then I thought about it for a bit and I noticed this was an international opinion, who doesn't fully grasp that most people that give attention to Trump will believe anything he says. And they're not as few apparently. This is not just an attempt - it's a success at bullshitting a lot of people.
You see, that's not what the second ammendment is for. I understand your concern of feeling impotent about protecting your family without gun access, due to insecurity wherever you are. There are places in bad shape throughout the nation. But the fundamental right of holding guns in the US exists for a much different purpose than defending your property and/or your family.
The 2nd was written like this because any argument, other than protecting yourself from a tyrant government, can be immediately, logically, statistically and scientifically turned into a BAD argument and shut down. TEH best way to protect your family is by living in a country where meth addicts don't get access to ranged firing weapons. Scratch that - it's not having the dealers and trafickers, who enable addicts in the first place, able to carry guns due to a market flooded because of liberal access laws. This goes for any form of crime really - no guns on the streets always equates to less violent crime. Just look at Europe crime rates, and then figure out yourself what type of gun access exists in most of Europe. Yeah, europeans also have the odd gun massacre, but well, most countries still need to have an active military force, and it's quite hard to prevent those from having gun access, and that's what the police exists for anyway.
That "why 15 rounds? Because [insert sarchastic tone joke]" really shows the culture you have to live in. I would also do the best I can to protect my family, shooting a gun is obviosly included if need be. But I can be realistic and objective about things - you want an immediate solution to your problem? Have a gun at home, and statistically get as many chances to have it help you defend yourself as of having an accident with a family member, or worse, get yourself killed by a perp because you have this gun and they will also fear for their lives, just not as rationally or in good state of mind as you in the comfort of your home. I believe what most americans are afraid of is of dying "stupidly because I didn't defend myself". Well, guess what, the best way to defend yourselves is to create a gun free environment for those that are AND aren't as prone to use a gun for foul play. You don't wanna die stupidly? Do the best possible thing about it and not the easy way out.
...and by "it", I mean the conclusion about "putting a BASIC on every device" - there are some good points here:
Not knowing what a browser is happens to be one of the recurrent, quasi-omnipresent aspects I am faced with on the many instances I provide tech support. Even for my somewhat most tech-literate solicitors. I no longer even hear the "oh you mean Internet Explorer/Chrome" so much - it really is not knowing there is a program where you put www urls in and get a page. People are to used to link clicking and glorified bookmarks on a desktop icon. Those are well and good for the elder, but when I see little kids on my environment do this, it both makes me feel old and makes me feel we are in for a dumb generation.
Another one that really stuck was about the "where is this stored/installed?" Android/iOS, Chrome (extensions), MacOS, Windows and even Linux are becoming very seriously addicted to this "app ubiquity" and transparency through centralized, curated, SANCTIONED store systems, so much so that newcomers fail to figure out unavailability of a program is, most of the times, internet connection. Or worse, they can no longer remove resource-heavy apps themselves because they couldn't figure out they're installed and/or running in the first place. It's stupid, and it's a lot more serious than missing out on programming - it's missing out on self-awareness and self-support.
But well, there will be more jobs for us enthusiasts and pros.
If you want to live in a country with the 2nd ammendment, where guns are sold liberaly "bicuzz there must be the right to, you know, eventually, maybe, defend ourselves against a tyrant democratic government, who happens to have access to nukes and bioweapons", then you also accept to live in a country where the bad guys that are not government also get that right.
Now, if you want to live in a country where the government can access most information about your life and your choices and your opinions, because most of that data is now available digitally, maybe you should, like for guns, not forfeit the the right to make that information private.
At least don't have double standards is all I'm saying. Hypocrisy is much more structural than gun or privacy rights - it's what makes people kill each other sociopathycally, and what makes governments use law to screw the small folk.