So just don't buy it for 4 months, but put away the money you would have paid Rent-to-Ripoff instead. Then you can pay for it entirely.
Or more realisticly, buy a used one.
I did my time as a starving student. They had those same Rent-to-Ripoff places around way back then (mostly hawking furniture and TVs). A small amount of math quickly showed me that buying used stuff was just a way better way to go.
Not everyone is capable of college-level math courses though. This is why financial literacy should be taught in High Schools. Perhaps not even full-blown courses. Just enough for people to recognize the scams in Payday lending, Rent-to-Ripoff, Multi-level-marketing, and email Phishing schemes. There were tons of little ripoff artists out there preying on poor folk too. For instance, there's the fee-based apartment finders and job hunters. I don't know if they still exist. Hopefully things like Craigslist have killed them off (and may they rot in Hell).
Frankly, I think most people are like that. Few people really want to spend 80% of their waking life making crap. We all want to be able to take pride in how we spend our professional lives. Its the customers that don't want to pay for the Right Thing, because it is way more expensive. That goes for car mechanics as well as engineers. My auto mechanic (a good honest guy) is always telling me how he can fix that pesky oil leak in my car with about $400-$800 of labor and parts, or he can patch it cheap so it slows a bit. He knows I'm probably going to opt for the latter, because my car is old and it will be a damn long time before I leak out $400 of oil. But he gives me the "fix it right" option because he prefers to fix things right. That's what he gets up in the morning for.
I'm the same way with my software, as is any other programmer worth their salt IMHO. But I know damn well that if I give my boss an expensive Right Thing option and a cheap hack option on a bug in some old software, he'll prefer the cheap hack. If he's planning on ditching it before the hack is likely to become a big problem, that's probably financially the right option for him.
Actually, I really liked this rant. The only qualm I had with it was this part:
Of course someone shouldn't be liable for nasty things accomplished using a WiFi connection if they made an honest effort to secure it, or just didn't know that that was something one ought to do. But if they intentionally leave it open for anyone to use, they should accept some of the blame when someone uses it to do something naughty.
Why? I don't put locks on my outdoor water spigots or electrical outlets. When we had a neighborhood fire and the house across the street had to have its electricity shut off, both of those came in damn handy. Does that mean I should be held liable if a neighbor hooks a hose up to one and proceeds to drown kittens with it? How about if someone uses my outlet to charge a small chainsaw, and then proceeds to slaughter his family with "my" electricity? If you really believe in "personal responsibility", kindly take it all the way.
If anything, the act of attempting to lock away such resources is what would make me liable (for not doing it properly).
In my book, the most newsworthy part of the article was this:
The screening usually falls to Rodney Broome, 63, a veteran machinist who teaches the craft at nearby San Jose City College when he isn't busy as the foreman of Google's workshops.
Wow! Google actually has a 60+ year old employees? Sounds like a blue-collar type too. The general impression I had gathered before was that to work there you had to be under 40 (preferably under 30), and intimately conversant on the difference between a latte and a frapachino.
I'm surprised you had as much patience with it as you did, quite frankly. I'd have been tempted to be a bit more drastic. Taking down his access for long periods semi-randomly (so he can't count on it) and acting blase about it when asked should be enough to get the point across. If not, there's always further steps that can be taken, up to and including just banning all his MACs.
That still doesn't change my feelings that WAP's should generally be kept open. If individual users are causing you problems on your network, of course it is reasonable to take actions against them. Heck, if my MMO's get jittery, I go on the warpath even against other computers in my own house. Your network, your rules. But until that happens, the neighborly thing to do is keep it open.
...which they addressed in TFA. Part of their "call" was for better wireless protocols to allow "open" LANs to encrypt the traffic for individual nodes.
Well...part of the EFF's FA was that wireless protocols need to be improved to allow for each node to encrypt itself without making the whole wireless network locked down.
Nothing protects you from that really. My father represented a guy who had his house rolled by SWAT tanks because they had a warrant for a neighbor and had the wrong address. Of course they still drug him into court, rather than admit they messed up with their expensive SWAT equipment.
Events like that happening to you are one in a million flukes, and your best bet if you do get struck by that lightning bolt is to have as good a case as possible (and some dough for a lawyer). Your case will be much stronger if you had your WAP open than if you had it "locked" and your neighbor hacked you.
It is also worth noting that we have never actually seen anything that looks like evidence for the Chinese state organising "cyberattacks"
Of course not. It could just be a total coincidence that all the top known Chinese hackers just happen to be employed by the government in some capacity.
Agreed on all counts. For those not conversant with installing MS software though, I should make it clear that you won't be able to do this with MS OS's made since Win2k, thanks to MS's accursed OS Activation process.
just because MS stops support doesn't mean you can not use the software anymore
.
It actually does mean that you can't (re)install it any more. Whenever you (re)install Windows XP or later, you have to call up an activation line and convince them you have a valid copy of Windows. If for some reason you can't or won't do that, after a little while the OS will cripple itself.
Considering that a typical Windows install in the hands of a typical user get so loaded down with cruft that it must be reinstalled every 6 to 12 months, that means XP will essentially cease to be a usable OS for just about everyone within a year of MS turning off their activation line.
Well, in the US and Western Europe today the population growth is negative.
A lot of replies to this, but most only touch on the root of the issue: economics.
In the developing world, a person's only security when they get old is having kids to take care of you. If you don't have kids and you can't work, you'll starve. Even when you are younger, more kids means more hands for manual labor means a better-off family.
In the developed world we have things like social-security and pensions and savings plans to take care of those too old to work. These are often based on how much you earned during your work years. Kids do not contribute to these, and in fact can retard them (particularly savings). Kids aren't allowed to work much, and cost a ton of energy and money to raise and educate to the point where they can contribute to society (at which point they will go start their own family and not contribute much, if anything, to the one that raised them).
So economically the incentives couldn't be more different. In developed societies you have to really want to have kids to overcome the massive disincentives.
How may years ago was it that Myspace was the big deal? Less than four I believe. And before that, there was Geocities, and AOL. Facebook may well going the same way eventually.
I second the vote for Wally. The best piece of wisdom I've ever seen in the entire run of the strip came from him: "I've found that if you wait long enough, most problems take care of themselves." (Said to Dilbert after he busted his butt to meet a deadline on a project that was subsequently cancelled). I call it "Wally's Rule".
They should have yes. I never said the Dems were paragons of competence and feasance. But what they did not do was shut the government down. (Note than when the Dems took over congress back in '06 with an opposite party president, they were also presented with a year overdue budget). The Republicans don't have to shut it down either. They are doing it because they want to. They apparently think they will prove some kind of point that is worth the hardship to millions of American families, and the damage to the economy from those millions not having any money to spend for the duration.
Perhaps they are right. But the only thing that was achieved the last time they pulled this stunt was that the voters threw them out on their idealogical hineys at the next oppertunity. One could argue that is a great good, but I don't see it being worth the hardship they are putting millions of american familes through.
Theology is really a specialized kind of Philosophy. If you don't believe Philosopy has any use in reasoning about real-world things, I sadly will have to let you go on your merry unexamined way.
For example, the entire theory of Just and Unjust wars (whether you agree with it or not) owes quite a bit to theological work of Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Again, whether you agree with it or not, wars are real-world things, and our (USA) reasoning about when we engage in them owes quite a bit to this particular work of Catholic Theology.
That depends on what you mean by "affecting". Every one of those "few million uniformed servicemen" will be getting half pay for the duration. The civilian employees and contrators will be getting no pay for their work.
All of them can hope to get back pay when the shutdowns ends (if the teabaggers don't block it), but I doubt their mortgage and utility companies shut down their billing during the interim.
Anyone who thinks this is no big deal wasn't paying attention the last time the Republicans pulled this stunt.
Yes. But you could say the same about Euclidian Geometry. However, if it proves a useful system for reasoning about real-world things, then it is a worthwhile exercise to extend it and test its limits.
Err...were they not robots when they started fighting in Afghaistan? If so, has anyone told them they are now robots, or are they running around thinking they are actually people, like in Blade Runner?
Boy, that's backward thinking. It is because it is optional that it is such a good indicator. Only people who are planning ahead to college, or who actually enjoy math take it. Forcing everyone to take it won't magically make everyone else start planning ahead to college or enjoying math too.
I've been giving Outlook gesture commands for years, but it has never responded. Perhaps with this new competition, and their ownership of kinect, Microsoft will finally support gesture commands.
...which in my case is usually a completely different urban area about an hour and a half drive from the one I live in. At first I used to laugh at them, but now it is just downright annoying.
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So just don't buy it for 4 months, but put away the money you would have paid Rent-to-Ripoff instead. Then you can pay for it entirely.
Or more realisticly, buy a used one.
I did my time as a starving student. They had those same Rent-to-Ripoff places around way back then (mostly hawking furniture and TVs). A small amount of math quickly showed me that buying used stuff was just a way better way to go.
Not everyone is capable of college-level math courses though. This is why financial literacy should be taught in High Schools. Perhaps not even full-blown courses. Just enough for people to recognize the scams in Payday lending, Rent-to-Ripoff, Multi-level-marketing, and email Phishing schemes. There were tons of little ripoff artists out there preying on poor folk too. For instance, there's the fee-based apartment finders and job hunters. I don't know if they still exist. Hopefully things like Craigslist have killed them off (and may they rot in Hell).
Frankly, I think most people are like that. Few people really want to spend 80% of their waking life making crap. We all want to be able to take pride in how we spend our professional lives. Its the customers that don't want to pay for the Right Thing, because it is way more expensive. That goes for car mechanics as well as engineers. My auto mechanic (a good honest guy) is always telling me how he can fix that pesky oil leak in my car with about $400-$800 of labor and parts, or he can patch it cheap so it slows a bit. He knows I'm probably going to opt for the latter, because my car is old and it will be a damn long time before I leak out $400 of oil. But he gives me the "fix it right" option because he prefers to fix things right. That's what he gets up in the morning for.
I'm the same way with my software, as is any other programmer worth their salt IMHO. But I know damn well that if I give my boss an expensive Right Thing option and a cheap hack option on a bug in some old software, he'll prefer the cheap hack. If he's planning on ditching it before the hack is likely to become a big problem, that's probably financially the right option for him.
Well...there is always the choice of going to a school that doesn't require that course. There are hundreds of such schools all over the country.
Interesting and creative idea.
Now how about coming up with that doesn't totally screw over poor kids?
...and then what? Most people's WiFi is unlocked.
Of course someone shouldn't be liable for nasty things accomplished using a WiFi connection if they made an honest effort to secure it, or just didn't know that that was something one ought to do. But if they intentionally leave it open for anyone to use, they should accept some of the blame when someone uses it to do something naughty.
Why? I don't put locks on my outdoor water spigots or electrical outlets. When we had a neighborhood fire and the house across the street had to have its electricity shut off, both of those came in damn handy. Does that mean I should be held liable if a neighbor hooks a hose up to one and proceeds to drown kittens with it? How about if someone uses my outlet to charge a small chainsaw, and then proceeds to slaughter his family with "my" electricity? If you really believe in "personal responsibility", kindly take it all the way.
If anything, the act of attempting to lock away such resources is what would make me liable (for not doing it properly).
The screening usually falls to Rodney Broome, 63, a veteran machinist who teaches the craft at nearby San Jose City College when he isn't busy as the foreman of Google's workshops.
Wow! Google actually has a 60+ year old employees? Sounds like a blue-collar type too. The general impression I had gathered before was that to work there you had to be under 40 (preferably under 30), and intimately conversant on the difference between a latte and a frapachino.
I'm surprised you had as much patience with it as you did, quite frankly. I'd have been tempted to be a bit more drastic. Taking down his access for long periods semi-randomly (so he can't count on it) and acting blase about it when asked should be enough to get the point across. If not, there's always further steps that can be taken, up to and including just banning all his MACs.
That still doesn't change my feelings that WAP's should generally be kept open. If individual users are causing you problems on your network, of course it is reasonable to take actions against them. Heck, if my MMO's get jittery, I go on the warpath even against other computers in my own house. Your network, your rules. But until that happens, the neighborly thing to do is keep it open.
...which they addressed in TFA. Part of their "call" was for better wireless protocols to allow "open" LANs to encrypt the traffic for individual nodes.
Well...part of the EFF's FA was that wireless protocols need to be improved to allow for each node to encrypt itself without making the whole wireless network locked down.
Nothing protects you from that really. My father represented a guy who had his house rolled by SWAT tanks because they had a warrant for a neighbor and had the wrong address. Of course they still drug him into court, rather than admit they messed up with their expensive SWAT equipment.
Events like that happening to you are one in a million flukes, and your best bet if you do get struck by that lightning bolt is to have as good a case as possible (and some dough for a lawyer). Your case will be much stronger if you had your WAP open than if you had it "locked" and your neighbor hacked you.
It is also worth noting that we have never actually seen anything that looks like evidence for the Chinese state organising "cyberattacks"
Of course not. It could just be a total coincidence that all the top known Chinese hackers just happen to be employed by the government in some capacity.
Agreed on all counts. For those not conversant with installing MS software though, I should make it clear that you won't be able to do this with MS OS's made since Win2k, thanks to MS's accursed OS Activation process.
just because MS stops support doesn't mean you can not use the software anymore
.
It actually does mean that you can't (re)install it any more. Whenever you (re)install Windows XP or later, you have to call up an activation line and convince them you have a valid copy of Windows. If for some reason you can't or won't do that, after a little while the OS will cripple itself.
Considering that a typical Windows install in the hands of a typical user get so loaded down with cruft that it must be reinstalled every 6 to 12 months, that means XP will essentially cease to be a usable OS for just about everyone within a year of MS turning off their activation line.
Well, in the US and Western Europe today the population growth is negative.
A lot of replies to this, but most only touch on the root of the issue: economics.
In the developing world, a person's only security when they get old is having kids to take care of you. If you don't have kids and you can't work, you'll starve. Even when you are younger, more kids means more hands for manual labor means a better-off family.
In the developed world we have things like social-security and pensions and savings plans to take care of those too old to work. These are often based on how much you earned during your work years. Kids do not contribute to these, and in fact can retard them (particularly savings). Kids aren't allowed to work much, and cost a ton of energy and money to raise and educate to the point where they can contribute to society (at which point they will go start their own family and not contribute much, if anything, to the one that raised them).
So economically the incentives couldn't be more different. In developed societies you have to really want to have kids to overcome the massive disincentives.
How may years ago was it that Myspace was the big deal? Less than four I believe. And before that, there was Geocities, and AOL. Facebook may well going the same way eventually.
I second the vote for Wally. The best piece of wisdom I've ever seen in the entire run of the strip came from him: "I've found that if you wait long enough, most problems take care of themselves." (Said to Dilbert after he busted his butt to meet a deadline on a project that was subsequently cancelled). I call it "Wally's Rule".
They should have yes. I never said the Dems were paragons of competence and feasance. But what they did not do was shut the government down. (Note than when the Dems took over congress back in '06 with an opposite party president, they were also presented with a year overdue budget). The Republicans don't have to shut it down either. They are doing it because they want to. They apparently think they will prove some kind of point that is worth the hardship to millions of American families, and the damage to the economy from those millions not having any money to spend for the duration.
Perhaps they are right. But the only thing that was achieved the last time they pulled this stunt was that the voters threw them out on their idealogical hineys at the next oppertunity. One could argue that is a great good, but I don't see it being worth the hardship they are putting millions of american familes through.
Theology is really a specialized kind of Philosophy. If you don't believe Philosopy has any use in reasoning about real-world things, I sadly will have to let you go on your merry unexamined way.
For example, the entire theory of Just and Unjust wars (whether you agree with it or not) owes quite a bit to theological work of Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Again, whether you agree with it or not, wars are real-world things, and our (USA) reasoning about when we engage in them owes quite a bit to this particular work of Catholic Theology.
That depends on what you mean by "affecting". Every one of those "few million uniformed servicemen" will be getting half pay for the duration. The civilian employees and contrators will be getting no pay for their work.
All of them can hope to get back pay when the shutdowns ends (if the teabaggers don't block it), but I doubt their mortgage and utility companies shut down their billing during the interim.
Anyone who thinks this is no big deal wasn't paying attention the last time the Republicans pulled this stunt.
Yes. But you could say the same about Euclidian Geometry. However, if it proves a useful system for reasoning about real-world things, then it is a worthwhile exercise to extend it and test its limits.
Err...were they not robots when they started fighting in Afghaistan? If so, has anyone told them they are now robots, or are they running around thinking they are actually people, like in Blade Runner?
Boy, that's backward thinking. It is because it is optional that it is such a good indicator. Only people who are planning ahead to college, or who actually enjoy math take it. Forcing everyone to take it won't magically make everyone else start planning ahead to college or enjoying math too.
I've been giving Outlook gesture commands for years, but it has never responded. Perhaps with this new competition, and their ownership of kinect, Microsoft will finally support gesture commands.
...which in my case is usually a completely different urban area about an hour and a half drive from the one I live in. At first I used to laugh at them, but now it is just downright annoying.