When was the last time you used Linux, exactly? The criticisms you made sound on par for 2003. I've not had any hardware not work out of the box, even on Debian Stable, in years. IE-only sites? Please. A stable video editor? Why not just say "it doesn't have Premiere", because your complaint is invalid otherwise.
"Stability when you buy a complete desktop OS from the same vendor" - now you're just being a shill. I stopped reading here. I've not had a single OEM install which was even remotely stable, ever. Even if the machine is going to run Windows, it gets an original (non-OEM) install of Windows.
More often than not, the "power users" you're referring to are the people copying and pasting from one CRM system to a spreadsheet, shipping the spreadsheet to someone as an attachment, and that person putting it into another. They're all automatically generated sheets.
That's the same thing the Windows admins at work say. They manage a couple servers. Same for the Cisco guys, because they don't know any better.
Yeah, that's a bit inflammatory. Truth is, the people I know who use Linux as a 'desktop' use it for work. They also use it for play (including gaming on occasion). The contrast is that you really can do a lot more this way; for instance, virutalizing a "just Cisco JDM shit" or "corporate messaging and email VM" instance works pretty damn well, while still giving me a full suite of good networking tools.
My observation is that the people who are preferentially sticking with Windows at this point - at least those working in IT - are the "low performers". They're not the ones who are actually getting things done; they're the ones getting into the way. This might be a bit of an institutional observation as well.
As someone who often has to deal with a lot of different data (eg. converting/importing/exporting data from one system to another) on a regular basis, Libreoffice/Openoffice tends to work a bit better. Why? Because it's not completely useless when copying, pasting, or importing different data types - for instance, proprietary system CSV which is fairly well broken. Or just normal CSV, for that matter. It's a stupid simple feature which I use all the time, and Excel falls flat on its face with.
The only thing I've found Excel does better is more complex formulas (I don't need them often, and OO/LO does it just as well, if not quite compatibly) and reading other peoples' severely brainfucked spreadsheets which will rarely open up consistently between alterations...
So in other words, this is probably 4-5 years off from chipset implementation - for Intel boards. This leaves all the other boards implementing Broadcom, Realtek, etc. out in the rain...
Don't count on the price of 10gigE dropping to cents. Unlike gigE, 10gigE has really very little 'enterprise' competition technologies. Fibre channel, infiniband, etc. - if you want more than gigE speeds, it's going to cost you. Those were costly technologies then - but back then, they offered significantly more performance (and thus value) than gigE. With 10gigE, there is no financial incentive to drop costs.
This is probably by the same people who are saying now that remote IT workers "work better" when they're brought back into the office. Notice the trend lately to reduce remote IT folks? These are the same people responsible for the open-room work environments which are oh-so disruptive to deep concentration. They're the same business people who hate having IT be able to say "no" and think that IT is full of a bunch of lazy do-nothings with entitlement and personality problems. They're the fools who think it's the kind of work that anyone can be retrained to do.
They might as well be proposing unicorn steaks be sold at market. It won't work.
It's a simple metaphor. Small change takes roughly the same amount of effort as big change, particularly when the big problem (excessive bureaucratic government) is the reason behind the small problem.
The government got 'found out' with things like Carnivore in the past, and just kept this under the radar; the solution isn't to "prevent" intrusive monitoring (already illegal, remember? something about a Constitution...), it's to prevent the beast of large government from getting big enough to be able to accomplish said intrusion in the first place.
This may be a moot point and simple mental masturbation if our society has become morally bankrupt enough for it to happen as it has. Someone will always step to take advantage.
In my mind, it's kind of like complaining about flies swarming around the shit on the kitchen counter. The problem isn't the flies - that's irritating and certainly a breach of sanitation - the problem is the shit. Get rid of the shit and the flies will go away; they're a secondary problem.
America is quickly ceasing to be free. And I'm pretty sure this doesn't pass Constitutional muster -- everything nowadays is driven by "we have an opinion which says this is ok, so we're going to do it".
Quickly ceasing to be free? It's been a while - we just weren't aware of it, kind of like not discovering that someone else used the last of the peanut butter when you go to make yourself a sandwich.
Things are driven by "we have an opinion which says that this is OK", yes. The word you are looking for is "consensus'. When those in power have it, they do whatever they so damn please. It just so happens that those who hold the actual power at this point are not the ones that get elected: the ones who are getting elected are pawns put in place to distract us and they fill out the ranks of both parties now.
That's not exclusive to lithium ion batteries, you may just notice it more because you care about those specs in the application that lions are used.
For instance, AA alkaline batteries are rated at 1.5V. The cheap ones are, in reality, about 1.4-1.5V (and much lower mAh). NiCad (or nickel metal) batteries are 1.2V but with a higher kwh (or amp hour, whatever) rating. These batteries all become less useful as their amp hour availability drops, and this is highly dependent on their application.
For instance, NiCad are almost entirely useless in digital cameras as they start out fully charged near the bottom of the voltage requirement of a digital camera; something like a lithium AA will maintain that higher ~2.5-3V range longer due to its higher mAh rating.
I've got a pocket flashlight which takes 14500 cells - basically a rechargable AA-sized lithium. The batteries are 3.6V and last a lot longer than a 1.5V battery in the same light - in part due to the fact that the flashlight has a regulator that drops the voltage to the LED, but also because of the much higher mAh. I believe the lithium batteries drop to about 2.8V before the regulator in the battery 'shuts it off'.
You'll see the same thing in automotive batteries, too: a 12V car battery that reads 10V or less still may be usable for that application if it's got a high amp hour/cold crank rating, and you may still get many hours of auxillary use out of a battery which is already unable to start your car.
Oh, on the contrary - someone making 1/10th the salary wouldn't be able to do the job, becaues there'd be nobody around smart enough to train them. Someone at that income level lacks the initiative and professionalism necessary. (Yes, even if they're in India doing it remotely, or they're only making half as much.)
Yes, a well oiled machine runs better for longer without being adjusted. But when something bad happens to that well maintained machine, it's usually a little bit more complex than just kicking it. And, with any complex system, more variety can go wrong.
In all likelihood, the predecessor didn't improve the environment because he wasn't able to think ahead that far, and didn't have the knowledge to do so.That's the difference between someone who administers something, and someone who manages something: you want a manager (or an engineer), not an administrator, in a single-person shop.
In all likelihood, it's the result of a political game to try to avoid the blame for massive cost overruns in a loosely related project which is funded under the same umbrella account/fund.
We have a professional military made up of independent thinkers from all over the U.S. They are not robots, they are not trained to obey without question. If you ask them to start firing on home towns they are going to want to have a pretty clear reason why.
You've got a pretty short memory.
Remember a couple months ago, when Boston was under martial law and the police forces were performing warrantless door-to-door searches, at threat of force? Now imagine that scenario with active resistance: it's the scenario you describe.
You're assuming a lack of indoctrination and the presence of a moral conscience in the majority. "Free thinking" is largely an illusion and most people, despite claiming to be able to hold an opinion, often just toe the line and follow orders. I, as is the same for everyone, am not exempt from doing this myself (at least time to time). There are very few independent people of the nature you describe: they're usually leaders and out in the front.
If you can consistently get mostly-accurate targeted marketing thrown at you based on a -very slim- amount of public marketing data, what do you think the government will
Imagine this for a second: they know every purchase you've made in the past year, and they are able to trend and analyze that data. They have public records. Let's say they know you were divorced, and then you start spending wildly and erratically. Maybe you seek out counceling, spirituality or religion to find solace. Maybe you take up a hobby - you decide to renovate your house or take up gardening or beer brewing. Or maybe all three.
Then, they're able to correlate tools, chemicals, etc. and, with 70% certainty, tell you're at a high risk to become 'radicalized' - based on an abstracted and PC-sanitized profile which is really meaningless to pretty much anyone, since it intentionally excludes the more likely demographics (which are truly marginal to begin with, anyway). Congratulations, you're now one of the majority of divorced men who the gov't thinks is highly likely to be a terrorist. Technicality aside, this information will be used politically in this cultural environment.
Oh, we do have those geographical lines - that's where you're wrong.
Look at county voting records for the country. Those lines are very clearly drawn between "progressive urban, reservation, and immigrant" areas and "everyone else". Culturally, you're not looking at things correctly if you look at state borders; there are cultural regions, and they tend to either circumference cities or push back against those spheres.
Also, I'm sure you're aware of the Balkans and at least some of the history there. There were no clear geographical borders, just a mix of a lot of diverse people. That's how they've gotten into so many conflicts over the ages, and why the region is an ever-increasing number of small states.
The middle class in most of the US is actually pretty hopping mad, too: you know, the people who have 2-3 jobs between a couple, have home mortgage payments, children, and extensive personal daily obligations. They might appear apathetic but they are not; they aren't being left alone any more, they're being torn into like a freshly downed calf.
It's not that simple, but no, it's not that difficult, either.
Station the NY National Guard units in Alabama. Station Alabama National Guard in NY.
Station urban military units in rural communities, as well as the inverse.
You're not killing, beating, or arresting the neighbors of anyone you know now; they're culturally different enough that you're able to disenfranchise them fairly easily. This will be very easy to do due to the high proportion of Latino and urban blacks in the military today: the places needing occupation and jackboot thuggery will be rural, white, and protestant communities in low(er) population areas, and urban areas (as is historically the case) will toe the line much more readily without a high occupation force ratio.
After 3 months, it'll just get extended. Extensions are much easier than the initial intrusions; they can say "it's only for a little while" and people will put up with it.
I'm personally surprised anyone is surprised anymore. This is kind of the MO of the government under this administration, and they've been brazen about it since the last election. Is nobody paying attention?
Have a link to back that assertion up? I've not seen any Thinkpads in the past year or two which suck; the opposite is true: they all seem to be of surprisingly rugged quality.
It also has to do with costs. A LOT of companies are moving production back to the US due to the cost. Business people are starting to clue into the fact that Chinese production isn't actually all that inexpensive when you factor in R&D, communication with the factories, Q/C, product lifecycle, shipping costs, and just general, overall ROI.
For instance, Whirlpool has made a corporate commitment to move all Chinese manufacturing back stateside. They've already re-engineered a great number of their products, reducing production costs while improving the end result. (They're using a process on the manufacturing line which sounds a lot like Agile to me, actually.) I've bought a "Made in USA" dishwasher and water heater from them this year as a result: their products feel sturdier than the other cost-comparable products and honestly, are cheaper than most while still having better synthetics (eg. power use, noise rating, etc.) I haven't been displeased.
Frequent releases isn't a process; it's the result of a process. Kind of like how "a single release only" isn't a process with other methods, it's the result of said process.
Agile calls its so-called results its process, when in fact it's just throwing shit at a wall and hoping something sticks. It's a businessman's dream, because he can sell an unknown large quantity of billable hours - and by the time the client knows any better, they're Invested and have a hard time justifying backing out. I have seen so many projects have overruns, get new/additional devs thrown on, and still have the project ultimately fail to deliver what the client is delivered a usable product (often with a bill many times larger than initially proposed).
Here's a big difference: with agile, you can (and seemingly, many do) carpet and furnish the 67th floor before the hole for the foundation has been dug. Then they're not stuck trying to figure out how to get the 67th floor half way up the building when they're ready to start building it, nevermind moving the elevator shaft...
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When was the last time you used Linux, exactly? The criticisms you made sound on par for 2003. I've not had any hardware not work out of the box, even on Debian Stable, in years. IE-only sites? Please. A stable video editor? Why not just say "it doesn't have Premiere", because your complaint is invalid otherwise.
"Stability when you buy a complete desktop OS from the same vendor" - now you're just being a shill. I stopped reading here. I've not had a single OEM install which was even remotely stable, ever. Even if the machine is going to run Windows, it gets an original (non-OEM) install of Windows.
More often than not, the "power users" you're referring to are the people copying and pasting from one CRM system to a spreadsheet, shipping the spreadsheet to someone as an attachment, and that person putting it into another. They're all automatically generated sheets.
That's the same thing the Windows admins at work say. They manage a couple servers. Same for the Cisco guys, because they don't know any better.
Yeah, that's a bit inflammatory. Truth is, the people I know who use Linux as a 'desktop' use it for work. They also use it for play (including gaming on occasion). The contrast is that you really can do a lot more this way; for instance, virutalizing a "just Cisco JDM shit" or "corporate messaging and email VM" instance works pretty damn well, while still giving me a full suite of good networking tools.
My observation is that the people who are preferentially sticking with Windows at this point - at least those working in IT - are the "low performers". They're not the ones who are actually getting things done; they're the ones getting into the way. This might be a bit of an institutional observation as well.
As someone who often has to deal with a lot of different data (eg. converting/importing/exporting data from one system to another) on a regular basis, Libreoffice/Openoffice tends to work a bit better. Why? Because it's not completely useless when copying, pasting, or importing different data types - for instance, proprietary system CSV which is fairly well broken. Or just normal CSV, for that matter. It's a stupid simple feature which I use all the time, and Excel falls flat on its face with.
The only thing I've found Excel does better is more complex formulas (I don't need them often, and OO/LO does it just as well, if not quite compatibly) and reading other peoples' severely brainfucked spreadsheets which will rarely open up consistently between alterations...
So in other words, this is probably 4-5 years off from chipset implementation - for Intel boards. This leaves all the other boards implementing Broadcom, Realtek, etc. out in the rain...
Don't count on the price of 10gigE dropping to cents. Unlike gigE, 10gigE has really very little 'enterprise' competition technologies. Fibre channel, infiniband, etc. - if you want more than gigE speeds, it's going to cost you. Those were costly technologies then - but back then, they offered significantly more performance (and thus value) than gigE. With 10gigE, there is no financial incentive to drop costs.
This is probably by the same people who are saying now that remote IT workers "work better" when they're brought back into the office. Notice the trend lately to reduce remote IT folks? These are the same people responsible for the open-room work environments which are oh-so disruptive to deep concentration. They're the same business people who hate having IT be able to say "no" and think that IT is full of a bunch of lazy do-nothings with entitlement and personality problems. They're the fools who think it's the kind of work that anyone can be retrained to do.
They might as well be proposing unicorn steaks be sold at market. It won't work.
It's a simple metaphor. Small change takes roughly the same amount of effort as big change, particularly when the big problem (excessive bureaucratic government) is the reason behind the small problem.
The government got 'found out' with things like Carnivore in the past, and just kept this under the radar; the solution isn't to "prevent" intrusive monitoring (already illegal, remember? something about a Constitution...), it's to prevent the beast of large government from getting big enough to be able to accomplish said intrusion in the first place.
This may be a moot point and simple mental masturbation if our society has become morally bankrupt enough for it to happen as it has. Someone will always step to take advantage.
In my mind, it's kind of like complaining about flies swarming around the shit on the kitchen counter. The problem isn't the flies - that's irritating and certainly a breach of sanitation - the problem is the shit. Get rid of the shit and the flies will go away; they're a secondary problem.
America is quickly ceasing to be free. And I'm pretty sure this doesn't pass Constitutional muster -- everything nowadays is driven by "we have an opinion which says this is ok, so we're going to do it".
Quickly ceasing to be free? It's been a while - we just weren't aware of it, kind of like not discovering that someone else used the last of the peanut butter when you go to make yourself a sandwich.
Things are driven by "we have an opinion which says that this is OK", yes. The word you are looking for is "consensus'. When those in power have it, they do whatever they so damn please. It just so happens that those who hold the actual power at this point are not the ones that get elected: the ones who are getting elected are pawns put in place to distract us and they fill out the ranks of both parties now.
That's not exclusive to lithium ion batteries, you may just notice it more because you care about those specs in the application that lions are used.
For instance, AA alkaline batteries are rated at 1.5V. The cheap ones are, in reality, about 1.4-1.5V (and much lower mAh). NiCad (or nickel metal) batteries are 1.2V but with a higher kwh (or amp hour, whatever) rating. These batteries all become less useful as their amp hour availability drops, and this is highly dependent on their application.
For instance, NiCad are almost entirely useless in digital cameras as they start out fully charged near the bottom of the voltage requirement of a digital camera; something like a lithium AA will maintain that higher ~2.5-3V range longer due to its higher mAh rating.
I've got a pocket flashlight which takes 14500 cells - basically a rechargable AA-sized lithium. The batteries are 3.6V and last a lot longer than a 1.5V battery in the same light - in part due to the fact that the flashlight has a regulator that drops the voltage to the LED, but also because of the much higher mAh. I believe the lithium batteries drop to about 2.8V before the regulator in the battery 'shuts it off'.
You'll see the same thing in automotive batteries, too: a 12V car battery that reads 10V or less still may be usable for that application if it's got a high amp hour/cold crank rating, and you may still get many hours of auxillary use out of a battery which is already unable to start your car.
Guess what? Lithium batteries aren't flammable either. What they are is is explosively volatile. There is a difference.
Neither sulfur nor lithium respond all too well with water. I can't imagine these would be well suited for aquatic purposes.
Oh, on the contrary - someone making 1/10th the salary wouldn't be able to do the job, becaues there'd be nobody around smart enough to train them. Someone at that income level lacks the initiative and professionalism necessary. (Yes, even if they're in India doing it remotely, or they're only making half as much.)
Yes, a well oiled machine runs better for longer without being adjusted. But when something bad happens to that well maintained machine, it's usually a little bit more complex than just kicking it. And, with any complex system, more variety can go wrong.
In all likelihood, the predecessor didn't improve the environment because he wasn't able to think ahead that far, and didn't have the knowledge to do so.That's the difference between someone who administers something, and someone who manages something: you want a manager (or an engineer), not an administrator, in a single-person shop.
Having used the ITIL process, I'm sure ITIL is largely to blame for this.
In all likelihood, it's the result of a political game to try to avoid the blame for massive cost overruns in a loosely related project which is funded under the same umbrella account/fund.
We have a professional military made up of independent thinkers from all over the U.S. They are not robots, they are not trained to obey without question. If you ask them to start firing on home towns they are going to want to have a pretty clear reason why.
You've got a pretty short memory.
Remember a couple months ago, when Boston was under martial law and the police forces were performing warrantless door-to-door searches, at threat of force? Now imagine that scenario with active resistance: it's the scenario you describe.
You're assuming a lack of indoctrination and the presence of a moral conscience in the majority. "Free thinking" is largely an illusion and most people, despite claiming to be able to hold an opinion, often just toe the line and follow orders. I, as is the same for everyone, am not exempt from doing this myself (at least time to time). There are very few independent people of the nature you describe: they're usually leaders and out in the front.
If you can consistently get mostly-accurate targeted marketing thrown at you based on a -very slim- amount of public marketing data, what do you think the government will
Imagine this for a second: they know every purchase you've made in the past year, and they are able to trend and analyze that data. They have public records. Let's say they know you were divorced, and then you start spending wildly and erratically. Maybe you seek out counceling, spirituality or religion to find solace. Maybe you take up a hobby - you decide to renovate your house or take up gardening or beer brewing. Or maybe all three.
Then, they're able to correlate tools, chemicals, etc. and, with 70% certainty, tell you're at a high risk to become 'radicalized' - based on an abstracted and PC-sanitized profile which is really meaningless to pretty much anyone, since it intentionally excludes the more likely demographics (which are truly marginal to begin with, anyway). Congratulations, you're now one of the majority of divorced men who the gov't thinks is highly likely to be a terrorist. Technicality aside, this information will be used politically in this cultural environment.
Oh, we do have those geographical lines - that's where you're wrong.
Look at county voting records for the country. Those lines are very clearly drawn between "progressive urban, reservation, and immigrant" areas and "everyone else". Culturally, you're not looking at things correctly if you look at state borders; there are cultural regions, and they tend to either circumference cities or push back against those spheres.
Also, I'm sure you're aware of the Balkans and at least some of the history there. There were no clear geographical borders, just a mix of a lot of diverse people. That's how they've gotten into so many conflicts over the ages, and why the region is an ever-increasing number of small states.
The middle class in most of the US is actually pretty hopping mad, too: you know, the people who have 2-3 jobs between a couple, have home mortgage payments, children, and extensive personal daily obligations. They might appear apathetic but they are not; they aren't being left alone any more, they're being torn into like a freshly downed calf.
It's not that simple, but no, it's not that difficult, either.
Station the NY National Guard units in Alabama. Station Alabama National Guard in NY.
Station urban military units in rural communities, as well as the inverse.
You're not killing, beating, or arresting the neighbors of anyone you know now; they're culturally different enough that you're able to disenfranchise them fairly easily. This will be very easy to do due to the high proportion of Latino and urban blacks in the military today: the places needing occupation and jackboot thuggery will be rural, white, and protestant communities in low(er) population areas, and urban areas (as is historically the case) will toe the line much more readily without a high occupation force ratio.
You know what I've noticed? In the past decade or so, people have been less likely to make '1984' references the more Orwellian things get.
Sorry, the totalitarianism we're living under today is, at this point, even more severe than what Orwell wrote about. We're kinda cooked.
Surely you're not surprised.
After 3 months, it'll just get extended. Extensions are much easier than the initial intrusions; they can say "it's only for a little while" and people will put up with it.
I'm personally surprised anyone is surprised anymore. This is kind of the MO of the government under this administration, and they've been brazen about it since the last election. Is nobody paying attention?
Have a link to back that assertion up? I've not seen any Thinkpads in the past year or two which suck; the opposite is true: they all seem to be of surprisingly rugged quality.
It also has to do with costs. A LOT of companies are moving production back to the US due to the cost. Business people are starting to clue into the fact that Chinese production isn't actually all that inexpensive when you factor in R&D, communication with the factories, Q/C, product lifecycle, shipping costs, and just general, overall ROI.
For instance, Whirlpool has made a corporate commitment to move all Chinese manufacturing back stateside. They've already re-engineered a great number of their products, reducing production costs while improving the end result. (They're using a process on the manufacturing line which sounds a lot like Agile to me, actually.) I've bought a "Made in USA" dishwasher and water heater from them this year as a result: their products feel sturdier than the other cost-comparable products and honestly, are cheaper than most while still having better synthetics (eg. power use, noise rating, etc.) I haven't been displeased.
How sadly wrong you are.
Frequent releases isn't a process; it's the result of a process. Kind of like how "a single release only" isn't a process with other methods, it's the result of said process.
Agile calls its so-called results its process, when in fact it's just throwing shit at a wall and hoping something sticks. It's a businessman's dream, because he can sell an unknown large quantity of billable hours - and by the time the client knows any better, they're Invested and have a hard time justifying backing out. I have seen so many projects have overruns, get new/additional devs thrown on, and still have the project ultimately fail to deliver what the client is delivered a usable product (often with a bill many times larger than initially proposed).
Here's a big difference: with agile, you can (and seemingly, many do) carpet and furnish the 67th floor before the hole for the foundation has been dug. Then they're not stuck trying to figure out how to get the 67th floor half way up the building when they're ready to start building it, nevermind moving the elevator shaft...