I have a five year old MFC-9970CDW (SOHO) laser printer that has thrown an error message saying that the life of the drum unit has been used up for the past three years. Now it says that the paper drive unit has exceeded it's life and needs to be replaced. The printer continues to work perfectly.
Along with this, I've found that when you get a warning saying that a toner cartridge is low and needs to be replaced immediately, it has about 20% of it's life left. It took me a very expensive cartridge or two to figure out that I could run them to the end without any issues.
It is an excellent printer, probably the best one I've ever owned and I would recommend Brother laser printers and buy another one over competing brands.
But, I don't consider them to provide them to be a vendor that doesn't play games.
I think the expectation that the application of tech will fix something that's wrong with the world very quickly is a big part of the problem.
How long have humans been dumping garbage into the environment? Why would you expect that recycling, composting, reclamation and other technologies will not only stop the poisoning of the environment and clean up the current mess in the order of years?
Same thing for CO2 in the atmosphere. We've been burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels for 130 years or so, why would you expect that a new technology would stop this within years but also return CO2 levels to their original state?
Same comments on other issues like the growth of the Sahara desert, deforestation, etc.
I expect new technologies to help stop the increasing damage and reducing the current level of damage to come about over time, but the expectation that it can be fixed almost immediately with the application of a new technology simply isn't reasonable.
You do realize that BlackBerry (RIM to us ex-employees) tried to do what you are suggesting? The BlackBerry smartphones could handle different office documents and I worked on a device (the "BlackBerry Presenter") which could display them on a monitor or projector.
The problem was, and I suspect anybody else will fall into this rabbit hole if they work on this type of device, is that RIM got sucked into dealing with Office Apps and the data surrounding it and forgot to focus on what customers really want - web enabled applications.
I wasn't thinking in terms of actual fraud (which, I agree, would be found pretty quickly) but preference in getting (better) opportunities - to the same level as somebody getting favourable treatment/opportunities from a human boss?
Is that against the law? Maybe the person who created the exploit (but I doubt they would be found in a country with an extradition treaty with the U.S.) but I don't see how the employee subscribing to the service could be sued.
I had never thought of it, but these types of apps/employment opportunities treat everybody in the organization exactly the same way and looks only their results. Bonuses/promotions/inducements are laid out as an algorithm for everyone to see and understand. If changes are to be made, then they have to be spelled out to a coder who then updates all the "bosses" at the speed of light - as a bonus these changes do not need to be interpreted by management and HR.
This is a hell of a lot better than some of the companies/managers/executives I've worked for.
If the question is that when the rules/conditions are changed, how do you push back? You're only option is to vote with your feet which may not be as bad as it first seems. Say a company like Uber suddenly triples their take from their "employees" because their marketing efforts in somewhere, let's say China, aren't going well and they're sinking a mountain of cash into it. The employees stop taking assignments from the app in response, essentially quitting - now the company, in real time, is getting a response that they've gone too far and now cannot provide the same level of service, upping complaints in the region causing them to back off the problem change, probably have to offer inducements to get the (productive) employees back and update their algorithm for making changes to eliminate this problem in the future.
Now, having said all this, I would wonder if this type of "employer" could be hacked? I could see a black hat offering a service where subscribing employees are given advantages like a lower take from the company (the numbers are fudged going into the company) or given prime assignments over other employees. This ends up treating some employees preferentially and leaving others out in the cold.
Going right back to the situation where some employees are treated favourably and others are essentially abused.
The biggest problem out there is the next quarter mindset of public companies. Today, public companies are too focused on the end of the quarter and maximizing shareholder returns which means that the employees and customers be damned if they can be squeezed to get another point of EBITDA over the next three months.
The best company I ever worked for was a wholly owned subsidiary in which the CEO/top manager and senior managers worked as a very effective team in keeping employees and customers happy - I should point out that we had a very flat organizational structure which kept things running very well.
We then got bought out and the investors put us up for an IPO. As founders, there was some money thrown our way, BUT the CEO's total focus was turned to what the investor's wanted which meant he had almost no time to devote to the day to day running of the business (which he was excellent at) and, to fill the void, more new executives, who didn't know the business, were brought in along with more than doubling the number of management levels. After a couple of years, the CEO, decided to call in rich and we had a series of new CEOs (and their hangers on) that proceeded to destroy the company.
All the work we had done creating a business that was destroyed in about three years and what made us special was lost along with more than two thirds of the employees with what was once a happy, proud workplace becoming a place for temporary employment.
So, find a place that is wholly owned, doesn't worry about it's stock price, with a small, competent management team.
I understand where you are coming from, but with this explosion, a $200M customer's satellite was destroyed. Satellites take years to build and qualify for flight, so this isn't something that can just replaced if the original was destroyed on the launchpad.
If you go back to the late 1950s/1960s, the US (and Russian) rocket failure rate was largely underscored by the fact that the "boosters" were actually intercontinental missiles and, as a national defense program, there was a certain budget/expectation/tolerance for failure.
What SpaceX (and the other launchers) need is a large corporation/government that is willing to absorb the cost of a certain amount of failures with the goal of highly reliable & robust access to space at low cost. To do this, they need a number of "missions" sending up much less valuable (but useful) cargo. I would think that simple satellites filled with tanks of oxygen, hydrogen and other required gasses as well as structural members which can be used in the future would be interesting and not take years to build.
Who would pay for this? How about Apple and other corporations with billions in off shore accounts, hiding the capital from the tax man. Bring the money back iinto the US and use it to create high-tech jobs and new capabilities.
How about taking the money that Microsoft is going to "pay" to users and: - Go through Windows 7 (or previous versions, personally I'm using Win 7 for my MS only software development) and fix outstanding bugs - Create an open source, WebKit based browser that can compete with Chrome/Firefox/whatever without having to pay for users
In the long run, this would be money better spent (ie generate more paying customers) than bribing users to use the substandard products that Microsoft has on it's "Front Line".
Sorry - I should have noted that if it's a Windows device, the BT pairing dialog boxes come up and unless the PIN is trivial (0000, 1111 or 1234) the user must enter the pin and in either case, the user must confirm that they want to connect the device.
As noted, if it's a Mac, you must go under "System Preferences".
If it's a ChromeOS device, there is no user confirmation.
I have been taking advantage of the BT (SPP/RFCOMM) operation in Chrome and ChromeOS for a white now on a variety of devices and for the most part it works quite well. My app is a Chrome App (Extension) in which the code is written in JavaScript.
Unfortunately, when you have multiple ChromeOS systems (ie Chromebooks) connected to BT devices simultaneously, you experience some weirdness (previously paired devices not being found with a "undefined" error and requiring several connection attempts as well as connections failing after a few minutes). I'm working at figuring out what the problem is.
The Chrome.Bluetoothsocket discover and connect APIs will find, pair and connect devices quite nicely on all Windows and Linux systems but not Macs. Macs require going into "System Preferences" and pairing your device beforehand. Linux requires something like Blueman to be installed and works reasonably well.
This could provide some interesting functionality, but I suspect there will be problems with the first implementations along with the issues listed above. It will probably be solid in 2-3 releases (4 to 6 months) after multiple users have identified issues with it.
First off, while I'm sure it's important to get corporate sponsorships, the logos need to be only on the outside of the building and not inside. The purpose of the museum cannot be for companies to establish brand awareness and preferences - it must be to interest and excite kids about technology and where the future lies.
Don't focus on teaching kids how to use technology, focus on introducing the basic concepts which computing technology is based on. That means avoid rows of PCs letting kids design their own web pages or games in Scratch; create hands-on activities in which the kids can see how data is stored (flip flops), makes decisions (logic), input and outputs as well as communications with the culminating piece being how they work together to become a "computer" and how devices are built from them.
The visitors are the ones building technology's future; don't set expectations with a focus on sponsor's products and existing applications, show them the basics and let them imagine where they want the future to go.
This will clearly label me as Canadian, but in the run up to the trial, the judge put a gag order on information in order to provide a jury pool that hadn't formed opinions based on news reports of the rather sensational kidnapping and murders of two teenage girls as well as then uncommon knowledge that Mr. Bernardo was thought to be the "Scarborough Rapist" who was the subject of a manhunt in Toronto in the 1980s.
The news reports and other information about Paul Bernardo and his wife Karla could only be found on sites located outside of Canada and was one of the first examples of how the Interwebs would bypass and subvert laws.
My understanding (from a couple of people I know who were involved with the movie) was that the first pass (ie at the end of filming in July of 201) of the movie was disappointing, but serviceable (ie make its money back in the theatres and turn a profit on streaming and DVDs). Test audiences' biggest problem was that they didn't know many of the various minor villains (ie Killer Croc, Deadshot and Captain Boomerang) and were confused by Harley Quinn because in the cartoons, she has a definite costume and doesn't use a baseball bat.
Then the trailer was created which made it seem like a *much* different movie than it actually was. The trailer, (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...) generated a lot of buzz due to the energy the characters gave off which wasn't in the original film. The Warner suits realized that there was a disconnect between the trailer and reality, so early last fall, they ordered a script update with reshoots so that the movie would better match the trailer.
The script changes were complete and new filming was finishing up in Vancouver when Deadpool came out and did not affect the final version of the film. It may have confirmed the Warner suits' that they were on the right track, but Deadpool didn't force the decision one way or another. I was told in December that Warner had managed to turn a fair movie that avid comic book readers will like into a "shitty" one that wouldn't work for anybody with the script and filming changes.
The DC Universe movie problems go a lot deeper than trying to copy Deadpool or Avengers movies - it basically comes from a lack of central planning that Marvel/Disney/Sony have in spades as well as difficulty in listening to the casual movie goer.
One of the friends, who's a PA on Suicide Squad, said that fanboys know the characters and that's who DC/Warner tends to listen to rather than somebody off the street who has heard of Batman and Superman but can't name anybody in their rogue's gallery other than The Joker and Lex Luthor and needs an introductory movie for them and the universe, the same way Marvel does.
I would agree with you except for the fact that Java, C++, C#, Objective C and even Javascript all have Object Orientated Programming aspects to them which is much more than "syntactic sugar" (which is a great term).
Unfortunately for some, C saddles the user with the dreaded pointer. I'm not sure how pointers are taught today, but "back in the day" when I was taught pointers in university, the approach taken was pretty sadistic with the goal of instructors to demonstrate their intellectual superiority over their students by showing (and testing) the most bizarre and unlikely combinations of * and &. I suspect that this is reason for the fear of C and pointers (when all you really need to know about pointers is how to pass data to and from methods and how pointers can be used with strings).
I totally agree with what Mr. Cameron says; going to movies is a fun, social experience. Maybe this isn't true for other people, but I enjoy being part of a group performance (which is really what this is). It's a chance to get out with family and friends and treat yourself.
But why is it so bloody expensive? Taking a family of four out to see a movie will cost $150 CAN minimum, - $65 for four tickets (this includes a "Child") plus popcorn, drink and candy. Now, compare this to waiting a few months for the DVD - normally around $25 CAN for a Blu-Ray. Wait a year or two and it ends up in a bin at WalMart for $8.00 CAN (Blu-Ray again - DVDs are $5.00 or less).
So, when we go out to a movie, it's something that *everyone* wants to see and expects to enjoy. We do reasonably well with our picks but there are often duds which makes you question why you spent all that money and become more wary in the future.
This is not a facetious comment - I've been involved with a few things for kids over the years and the Twitter restrictions listed in the article are minor compared to what you have to put up with trying to promote *their* event with kids.
For example, you can't have any kind of media publicity without the local IOC's permission. You cannot use the terms "Olympian" or "Olympic Athlete", instead you must use "Athlete that has/is going to compete in the Olympics". You cannot display the five rings (even if it's adorably drawn by a five year old). You cannot have your own "Olympic medals".
It's amazing because you are promoting *their* event for free, for them.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a five year old MFC-9970CDW (SOHO) laser printer that has thrown an error message saying that the life of the drum unit has been used up for the past three years. Now it says that the paper drive unit has exceeded it's life and needs to be replaced. The printer continues to work perfectly.
Along with this, I've found that when you get a warning saying that a toner cartridge is low and needs to be replaced immediately, it has about 20% of it's life left. It took me a very expensive cartridge or two to figure out that I could run them to the end without any issues.
It is an excellent printer, probably the best one I've ever owned and I would recommend Brother laser printers and buy another one over competing brands.
But, I don't consider them to provide them to be a vendor that doesn't play games.
I think the expectation that the application of tech will fix something that's wrong with the world very quickly is a big part of the problem.
How long have humans been dumping garbage into the environment? Why would you expect that recycling, composting, reclamation and other technologies will not only stop the poisoning of the environment and clean up the current mess in the order of years?
Same thing for CO2 in the atmosphere. We've been burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels for 130 years or so, why would you expect that a new technology would stop this within years but also return CO2 levels to their original state?
Same comments on other issues like the growth of the Sahara desert, deforestation, etc.
I expect new technologies to help stop the increasing damage and reducing the current level of damage to come about over time, but the expectation that it can be fixed almost immediately with the application of a new technology simply isn't reasonable.
Although I suspect that Samsung will argue that this just that Galaxy 7s will only burn 60% as hot as they would normally.
Usually this is the type of situation where the decision is made to allow the "trademark" to go through.
Nice to see that somewhere on this planet there's a judge that understands how to reasonably apply the law when it comes to patents and copyrights.
You do realize that BlackBerry (RIM to us ex-employees) tried to do what you are suggesting? The BlackBerry smartphones could handle different office documents and I worked on a device (the "BlackBerry Presenter") which could display them on a monitor or projector.
The problem was, and I suspect anybody else will fall into this rabbit hole if they work on this type of device, is that RIM got sucked into dealing with Office Apps and the data surrounding it and forgot to focus on what customers really want - web enabled applications.
"Fry and the Slurm Factory" with one of the great lines of the series:
"Ow, my sperm!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I wasn't thinking in terms of actual fraud (which, I agree, would be found pretty quickly) but preference in getting (better) opportunities - to the same level as somebody getting favourable treatment/opportunities from a human boss?
Is that against the law? Maybe the person who created the exploit (but I doubt they would be found in a country with an extradition treaty with the U.S.) but I don't see how the employee subscribing to the service could be sued.
I had never thought of it, but these types of apps/employment opportunities treat everybody in the organization exactly the same way and looks only their results. Bonuses/promotions/inducements are laid out as an algorithm for everyone to see and understand. If changes are to be made, then they have to be spelled out to a coder who then updates all the "bosses" at the speed of light - as a bonus these changes do not need to be interpreted by management and HR.
This is a hell of a lot better than some of the companies/managers/executives I've worked for.
If the question is that when the rules/conditions are changed, how do you push back? You're only option is to vote with your feet which may not be as bad as it first seems. Say a company like Uber suddenly triples their take from their "employees" because their marketing efforts in somewhere, let's say China, aren't going well and they're sinking a mountain of cash into it. The employees stop taking assignments from the app in response, essentially quitting - now the company, in real time, is getting a response that they've gone too far and now cannot provide the same level of service, upping complaints in the region causing them to back off the problem change, probably have to offer inducements to get the (productive) employees back and update their algorithm for making changes to eliminate this problem in the future.
Now, having said all this, I would wonder if this type of "employer" could be hacked? I could see a black hat offering a service where subscribing employees are given advantages like a lower take from the company (the numbers are fudged going into the company) or given prime assignments over other employees. This ends up treating some employees preferentially and leaving others out in the cold.
Going right back to the situation where some employees are treated favourably and others are essentially abused.
Plus ca change plus ca meme chose.
I remember when HP was a technology powerhouse with a lot of interesting in-house technologies.
Now, it's just bones to be sold off so Whitman can justify her existence as keeping the company cash positive for investors.
The biggest problem out there is the next quarter mindset of public companies. Today, public companies are too focused on the end of the quarter and maximizing shareholder returns which means that the employees and customers be damned if they can be squeezed to get another point of EBITDA over the next three months.
The best company I ever worked for was a wholly owned subsidiary in which the CEO/top manager and senior managers worked as a very effective team in keeping employees and customers happy - I should point out that we had a very flat organizational structure which kept things running very well.
We then got bought out and the investors put us up for an IPO. As founders, there was some money thrown our way, BUT the CEO's total focus was turned to what the investor's wanted which meant he had almost no time to devote to the day to day running of the business (which he was excellent at) and, to fill the void, more new executives, who didn't know the business, were brought in along with more than doubling the number of management levels. After a couple of years, the CEO, decided to call in rich and we had a series of new CEOs (and their hangers on) that proceeded to destroy the company.
All the work we had done creating a business that was destroyed in about three years and what made us special was lost along with more than two thirds of the employees with what was once a happy, proud workplace becoming a place for temporary employment.
So, find a place that is wholly owned, doesn't worry about it's stock price, with a small, competent management team.
From IMDB: Lt. Walters: [to Lt. Bender] This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.
I understand where you are coming from, but with this explosion, a $200M customer's satellite was destroyed. Satellites take years to build and qualify for flight, so this isn't something that can just replaced if the original was destroyed on the launchpad.
If you go back to the late 1950s/1960s, the US (and Russian) rocket failure rate was largely underscored by the fact that the "boosters" were actually intercontinental missiles and, as a national defense program, there was a certain budget/expectation/tolerance for failure.
What SpaceX (and the other launchers) need is a large corporation/government that is willing to absorb the cost of a certain amount of failures with the goal of highly reliable & robust access to space at low cost. To do this, they need a number of "missions" sending up much less valuable (but useful) cargo. I would think that simple satellites filled with tanks of oxygen, hydrogen and other required gasses as well as structural members which can be used in the future would be interesting and not take years to build.
Who would pay for this? How about Apple and other corporations with billions in off shore accounts, hiding the capital from the tax man. Bring the money back iinto the US and use it to create high-tech jobs and new capabilities.
How about taking the money that Microsoft is going to "pay" to users and:
- Go through Windows 7 (or previous versions, personally I'm using Win 7 for my MS only software development) and fix outstanding bugs
- Create an open source, WebKit based browser that can compete with Chrome/Firefox/whatever without having to pay for users
In the long run, this would be money better spent (ie generate more paying customers) than bribing users to use the substandard products that Microsoft has on it's "Front Line".
Sorry - I should have noted that if it's a Windows device, the BT pairing dialog boxes come up and unless the PIN is trivial (0000, 1111 or 1234) the user must enter the pin and in either case, the user must confirm that they want to connect the device.
As noted, if it's a Mac, you must go under "System Preferences".
If it's a ChromeOS device, there is no user confirmation.
There is no user confirmation under Linux.
I have been taking advantage of the BT (SPP/RFCOMM) operation in Chrome and ChromeOS for a white now on a variety of devices and for the most part it works quite well. My app is a Chrome App (Extension) in which the code is written in JavaScript.
Unfortunately, when you have multiple ChromeOS systems (ie Chromebooks) connected to BT devices simultaneously, you experience some weirdness (previously paired devices not being found with a "undefined" error and requiring several connection attempts as well as connections failing after a few minutes). I'm working at figuring out what the problem is.
The Chrome.Bluetoothsocket discover and connect APIs will find, pair and connect devices quite nicely on all Windows and Linux systems but not Macs. Macs require going into "System Preferences" and pairing your device beforehand. Linux requires something like Blueman to be installed and works reasonably well.
This could provide some interesting functionality, but I suspect there will be problems with the first implementations along with the issues listed above. It will probably be solid in 2-3 releases (4 to 6 months) after multiple users have identified issues with it.
First off, while I'm sure it's important to get corporate sponsorships, the logos need to be only on the outside of the building and not inside. The purpose of the museum cannot be for companies to establish brand awareness and preferences - it must be to interest and excite kids about technology and where the future lies.
Don't focus on teaching kids how to use technology, focus on introducing the basic concepts which computing technology is based on. That means avoid rows of PCs letting kids design their own web pages or games in Scratch; create hands-on activities in which the kids can see how data is stored (flip flops), makes decisions (logic), input and outputs as well as communications with the culminating piece being how they work together to become a "computer" and how devices are built from them.
The visitors are the ones building technology's future; don't set expectations with a focus on sponsor's products and existing applications, show them the basics and let them imagine where they want the future to go.
Which was immediately followed by the direction that it should NEVER be used.
This will clearly label me as Canadian, but in the run up to the trial, the judge put a gag order on information in order to provide a jury pool that hadn't formed opinions based on news reports of the rather sensational kidnapping and murders of two teenage girls as well as then uncommon knowledge that Mr. Bernardo was thought to be the "Scarborough Rapist" who was the subject of a manhunt in Toronto in the 1980s.
The news reports and other information about Paul Bernardo and his wife Karla could only be found on sites located outside of Canada and was one of the first examples of how the Interwebs would bypass and subvert laws.
Someone in the IOC needs to be picked up an shooken - hard.
I guess this means that proud parents can't tweet pictures of their medal winning children.
Attendees can't talk about what a great experience they're having.
Everybody else ignoring what's going on there.
Yes, it's 'way too busy.
The squirrels in the current one need some to periodically rest.
My understanding (from a couple of people I know who were involved with the movie) was that the first pass (ie at the end of filming in July of 201) of the movie was disappointing, but serviceable (ie make its money back in the theatres and turn a profit on streaming and DVDs). Test audiences' biggest problem was that they didn't know many of the various minor villains (ie Killer Croc, Deadshot and Captain Boomerang) and were confused by Harley Quinn because in the cartoons, she has a definite costume and doesn't use a baseball bat.
Then the trailer was created which made it seem like a *much* different movie than it actually was. The trailer, (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...) generated a lot of buzz due to the energy the characters gave off which wasn't in the original film. The Warner suits realized that there was a disconnect between the trailer and reality, so early last fall, they ordered a script update with reshoots so that the movie would better match the trailer.
The script changes were complete and new filming was finishing up in Vancouver when Deadpool came out and did not affect the final version of the film. It may have confirmed the Warner suits' that they were on the right track, but Deadpool didn't force the decision one way or another. I was told in December that Warner had managed to turn a fair movie that avid comic book readers will like into a "shitty" one that wouldn't work for anybody with the script and filming changes.
The DC Universe movie problems go a lot deeper than trying to copy Deadpool or Avengers movies - it basically comes from a lack of central planning that Marvel/Disney/Sony have in spades as well as difficulty in listening to the casual movie goer.
One of the friends, who's a PA on Suicide Squad, said that fanboys know the characters and that's who DC/Warner tends to listen to rather than somebody off the street who has heard of Batman and Superman but can't name anybody in their rogue's gallery other than The Joker and Lex Luthor and needs an introductory movie for them and the universe, the same way Marvel does.
I would agree with you except for the fact that Java, C++, C#, Objective C and even Javascript all have Object Orientated Programming aspects to them which is much more than "syntactic sugar" (which is a great term).
Unfortunately for some, C saddles the user with the dreaded pointer. I'm not sure how pointers are taught today, but "back in the day" when I was taught pointers in university, the approach taken was pretty sadistic with the goal of instructors to demonstrate their intellectual superiority over their students by showing (and testing) the most bizarre and unlikely combinations of * and &. I suspect that this is reason for the fear of C and pointers (when all you really need to know about pointers is how to pass data to and from methods and how pointers can be used with strings).
I totally agree with what Mr. Cameron says; going to movies is a fun, social experience. Maybe this isn't true for other people, but I enjoy being part of a group performance (which is really what this is). It's a chance to get out with family and friends and treat yourself.
But why is it so bloody expensive? Taking a family of four out to see a movie will cost $150 CAN minimum, - $65 for four tickets (this includes a "Child") plus popcorn, drink and candy. Now, compare this to waiting a few months for the DVD - normally around $25 CAN for a Blu-Ray. Wait a year or two and it ends up in a bin at WalMart for $8.00 CAN (Blu-Ray again - DVDs are $5.00 or less).
So, when we go out to a movie, it's something that *everyone* wants to see and expects to enjoy. We do reasonably well with our picks but there are often duds which makes you question why you spent all that money and become more wary in the future.
This is not a facetious comment - I've been involved with a few things for kids over the years and the Twitter restrictions listed in the article are minor compared to what you have to put up with trying to promote *their* event with kids.
For example, you can't have any kind of media publicity without the local IOC's permission. You cannot use the terms "Olympian" or "Olympic Athlete", instead you must use "Athlete that has/is going to compete in the Olympics". You cannot display the five rings (even if it's adorably drawn by a five year old). You cannot have your own "Olympic medals".
It's amazing because you are promoting *their* event for free, for them.
Thank you for the references.