How in the world can they lose customers to Newegg? Their stores and service are designed for morons who would not know how to order things from Newegg, leave alone recognize anything they want to buy there! The only way a customer can switch between those two is by suddenly growing a brain... Oh, I see. The generation of users that buy from them is simply dying out, and new users just aren't uninformed enough to buy from them.
Although I wouldn't mind if they claimed sole rights to the term "moronic" as in "Moronic Techs" or "Moronic service" which is actually what you get when you go the that place.
But then how would we call moronic technicians and service from other companies?
Stop repeating that. Companies don't have obligations to "defend their trademarks" against anyone unless there is an actual infringement is obviously taking place. A trademark is not in any danger of being losing its meaning unless the trademark, as it is registered, no longer can be used to identify its owner -- and that won't happen even if it is infringed upon in some roundabout manner.
Best Buy called their service "Geek Squad", this did not magically endowed them with any control over words "Geek", "Squad" or their relationship to technical support. If anything, no one outside Best Buy in his right mind would want to be mis-identified as Best Buy employee, or to make customers think that Best Buy employees perform their technical support.
You obviously don't work in the VoIP business and you have no idea how hackish the connectivity of Skype is to make it work almost reliable and with minimum costs (for the company).
I actually do, however I don't consider Skype an acceptable VoIP system for any kind of purpose that involves business. I also know that home users will never accept prices of a typical VoIP provider with enough infrastructure to support reliable voice calls between its users (and a PSTN gateway).
The real evil genius is to detect and use other users' better Internet connectivity to act as media relay servers for the majority of home users that think being able to browse the Web means to have Internet connectivity.
1. You only need one intermediate node per established call -- your connection is still at least as slow as the slowest link, and relay only increases latency. Connectivity is pretty clearly defined, too (what matters is mostly upload from node to backbone(s) that it shares with endpoints), so it's not like this system has to solve a traveling salesman problem -- it just has to calculate expected delay when additional stream is added to a given relay node, and decide if this is the best of all available nodes.
2. Given this, there is absolutely no point trying to route audio separately from commands, so my point stands -- system first chooses relays, then establishes calls through them, all redundancy and failover, if any, happen on top of this.
Hey, didn't British send their common criminals to Australia, religious nuts and crooks to America? With only two latter conditions being hereditary? Australians were supposed to be the sane ones!
Not every economy, major or not, has central bank that issues currency used BY OTHER COUNTRIES. US is unique in this way. This means, just throwing money abroad can keep dollar afloat -- as long as foreigners still think, they can rely on it more than they can rely on their own currencies. Basically, US dollar is being backed by value of products produced and consumed outside US.
When this will change (and it will change -- for dollar-using foreigners keeping dollar afloat only makes sense until some point), dollar outside US will become worthless, just like all other currencies are outside the country where it circulated, and inside US will have to be backed by local products. Plus there will be a lot of people bringing "foreign" dollars back to US, further diluting dollar. Unless US will suddenly grow back its industry, that is going to hurt...
Banks don't like sitting on idle money not earning interest
They can't -- it's not their money to begin with. Loans are backed by Federal Reserve loans given to banks, and when banks pay back those loans, Federal Reserve "destroys" those money. Theoretically, this increases Federal Reserve's confidence in making more loans, however really it's still up to the whim of Federal Reserve decision makers -- if they think, it's a good idea to create 100 billion dollars out of nothing, they will issue loans for 100 billion dollars and give them to "trusted" banks, regardless of anything being or not being paid back in the past.
Oh, most people are stupid. However most stupid people realize that they should not try to do things they don't understand, therefore they rely on smart and competent people, so almost everyone ends up doing something that makes sense.
Now, in US people are convinced that they are all smarter than the rest, so stupid people act as if they are smart, and only listen to those who pander to their views and beliefs, no matter how stupid. For a while the rest of the world was completely stumped by this display of stupidity, however now everyone (but Americans) realized that this is just stupid people being stupid, less stupid people exploiting this stupidity, and smart people just standing around, rolling their eyes, and waiting for this Jenga tower of stupidity to fall.
Central servers are a good reason NOT to use IAX. It has this design problem - signaling and data are associated over a single pair of UDP sockets. SIP, Jingle, even H.323 all use RTP for media so the data is decoupled from signaling. This allows P2P transfer of high volume audio and video data. Various techniques exist to pass through a firewall and alternative transports can be used if needed, especially in Jingle which is more flexible.
Are you an idiot? This is why those protocols were unable to replace Skype! "Various techniques" (giant broken hacks not intentionally supported by a single router in existence) failed for most users, so they had to use central server to relay all data, and that wasn't scalable for free services. With P2P this separation is absolutely useless because difference in latency between alternative paths will cause the receiver to always wait for the slowest link, and VoIP lives and dies by latency.
Even if you want to spread load or implement redundancy without explicit failover, it changes nothing -- you would have multiple established calls and send the same, or split pieces of the data over all of them.
Now, if everybody would agree on a reasonable minimum set of transports and codecs there would be no need of Skype at all...
No longer a problem. If anything, Skype suffered from it more than anything -- some shithead made n900 version with only one video codec that was only supported by latest version for Windows at a time. Everyone on Mac or Linux, or with older Skype for Windows, got no video when talking to a supposedly video-capable phone.
What the fuck are you talking about? US is far ahead of USSR in number of imprisoned people -- even at worst times USSR had less prisoners. True, at some point one could get a really long sentence for publishing and performing a poem that consists of nothing but a content-free angry rant about Stalin being a monster. While unfair (though some consider it fitting for lack of subtlety and bad taste), the number of people subjected to it is hopelessly outmatched by pot smokers, desperate poor, and other categories unique to US.
Video is supported in SIP. The problem with SIP is, it works poorly with firewalls, this is why IAX2 exists (that also supports video and is more likely to be usable without giant central servers).
I am sure, the problems prevented by noticing that application is not just a piece of shit but an extreme piece of shit, are far greater than effect of it breaking it for the time it takes to roll back Flash installation.
This is how IMAP can be used in "Microsoft shops" now. This is happening because not even Microsoft can afford to insist on Outlook being the only mail client allowed on the office networks. If they could, they would never touch IMAP.
Second - Exchange supports far more than just mail/calendaring and can be integrated with a huge range of communications software.
I am sure, someone at Microsoft wrote some huge and ambitious "API" to make Exchange the centerpiece of all business-related communications. The reality is, Exchange is a bad mail server and stupid calendar that everyone hates with a passion. Now Microsoft can't even force companies to use exclusively their protocol with their product that exists for sole purpose of keeping systems closed. This always happens before this kind of product fails.
To be a tool, I would at very least care about opinions of people who clearly identify themselves as my enemies.
Most humorous of all is that you think "IMAP" is a product or application
IMAP is a protocol. Exchange has its own, shitty protocol that requires retarded VPN to be accessed in a "secure" manner (except, of course, then in 99.9% installed configurations your whole network is accessible to anyone who stolen employee's phone).
and that Exchange is just a mail server.
Exchange is a mail server bundled with a shitty, time-wasting calendar application used to waste people's time, that must die in a fire along with those who developed it.
Well, cables (all kind of cables) do have effect on sound in a certain degree. Is it worth large bucks?
Specifically headphone cables. Specifically an effect that can be perceived by a human ear. The answer is no, and you are trying to weasel out and add unrelated issues. It's not a matter of cost, it's a matter of having no effect on the sound that can be heard.
Probably not... but there's differences and that's what the audiophiles talk about.
Most of things that "audiophiles talk about" are figments of their imagination, and they go as far as rejecting the idea of testing those things in any reliable manner. What they are saying is absolutely irrelevant.
That's what I call the rule of the "Last Tens"... The last 10% of quality improvements will cost you at least 10 times more. In the other hand, when you sacrifice 10% here on a cable, 10% here on speakers, 10% here on audio converters, etc... You end with a probably 10 times less good global result.
First of all, even if it was true, you fail math. Second, your assumption is crap because, as I have mentioned before, there is no effect.
PS: I don't own PhD, but I'm sound engineer and aware enough to have done cabling stuff by myself for my studios.
You are a shit sound engineer if you don't see a difference between microphone and headphone cables.
Another excellent "I love Linux, but" post from your friendly Microsoft astroturfers.
Exchange will be thrown out of businesses by switching to IMAP, then dropping the original protocol and installing a real IMAP server. Based on actual security concerns. No one will ever care about Exchange after that.
Office is pretty much irrelevant thanks to companies actually using their network to handle data instead of copying pretty pictures back and forth. Good luck shilling your stupid Sharepoint that only consultants love.
This shows you haven't seen many high end headphones
Oh, I have seen headphones with replaceable cables, I just never seen headphone cable type affecting interference (save for "cables" made of individual wires thrown all over the desk).
nor obviously the community at www.head-fi.org which will debate ad infinum which aftermarket cable for their headphones sound best.:-)
Last time I have seen that community, when they didn't discuss aftermarket cables/burn-in time/..., they always recommended nothing less than a separate external DAC and desktop power amplifier for any attempt to play music on a computer. Onboard adapter in a laptop on a night stand would be seen as a blasphemy.
Slashdot Mirror
How in the world can they lose customers to Newegg? Their stores and service are designed for morons who would not know how to order things from Newegg, leave alone recognize anything they want to buy there! The only way a customer can switch between those two is by suddenly growing a brain... Oh, I see. The generation of users that buy from them is simply dying out, and new users just aren't uninformed enough to buy from them.
Although I wouldn't mind if they claimed sole rights to the term "moronic" as in "Moronic Techs" or "Moronic service" which is actually what you get when you go the that place.
But then how would we call moronic technicians and service from other companies?
Stop repeating that. Companies don't have obligations to "defend their trademarks" against anyone unless there is an actual infringement is obviously taking place. A trademark is not in any danger of being losing its meaning unless the trademark, as it is registered, no longer can be used to identify its owner -- and that won't happen even if it is infringed upon in some roundabout manner.
Best Buy called their service "Geek Squad", this did not magically endowed them with any control over words "Geek", "Squad" or their relationship to technical support. If anything, no one outside Best Buy in his right mind would want to be mis-identified as Best Buy employee, or to make customers think that Best Buy employees perform their technical support.
You obviously don't work in the VoIP business and you have no idea how hackish the connectivity of Skype is to make it work almost reliable and with minimum costs (for the company).
I actually do, however I don't consider Skype an acceptable VoIP system for any kind of purpose that involves business. I also know that home users will never accept prices of a typical VoIP provider with enough infrastructure to support reliable voice calls between its users (and a PSTN gateway).
The real evil genius is to detect and use other users' better Internet connectivity to act as media relay servers for the majority of home users that think being able to browse the Web means to have Internet connectivity.
1. You only need one intermediate node per established call -- your connection is still at least as slow as the slowest link, and relay only increases latency. Connectivity is pretty clearly defined, too (what matters is mostly upload from node to backbone(s) that it shares with endpoints), so it's not like this system has to solve a traveling salesman problem -- it just has to calculate expected delay when additional stream is added to a given relay node, and decide if this is the best of all available nodes.
2. Given this, there is absolutely no point trying to route audio separately from commands, so my point stands -- system first chooses relays, then establishes calls through them, all redundancy and failover, if any, happen on top of this.
Hey, didn't British send their common criminals to Australia, religious nuts and crooks to America? With only two latter conditions being hereditary? Australians were supposed to be the sane ones!
Not every economy, major or not, has central bank that issues currency used BY OTHER COUNTRIES. US is unique in this way. This means, just throwing money abroad can keep dollar afloat -- as long as foreigners still think, they can rely on it more than they can rely on their own currencies. Basically, US dollar is being backed by value of products produced and consumed outside US.
When this will change (and it will change -- for dollar-using foreigners keeping dollar afloat only makes sense until some point), dollar outside US will become worthless, just like all other currencies are outside the country where it circulated, and inside US will have to be backed by local products. Plus there will be a lot of people bringing "foreign" dollars back to US, further diluting dollar. Unless US will suddenly grow back its industry, that is going to hurt...
Banks don't like sitting on idle money not earning interest
They can't -- it's not their money to begin with. Loans are backed by Federal Reserve loans given to banks, and when banks pay back those loans, Federal Reserve "destroys" those money. Theoretically, this increases Federal Reserve's confidence in making more loans, however really it's still up to the whim of Federal Reserve decision makers -- if they think, it's a good idea to create 100 billion dollars out of nothing, they will issue loans for 100 billion dollars and give them to "trusted" banks, regardless of anything being or not being paid back in the past.
Average may be still objectively very stupid.
Oh, most people are stupid. However most stupid people realize that they should not try to do things they don't understand, therefore they rely on smart and competent people, so almost everyone ends up doing something that makes sense.
Now, in US people are convinced that they are all smarter than the rest, so stupid people act as if they are smart, and only listen to those who pander to their views and beliefs, no matter how stupid. For a while the rest of the world was completely stumped by this display of stupidity, however now everyone (but Americans) realized that this is just stupid people being stupid, less stupid people exploiting this stupidity, and smart people just standing around, rolling their eyes, and waiting for this Jenga tower of stupidity to fall.
Central servers are a good reason NOT to use IAX. It has this design problem - signaling and data are associated over a single pair of UDP sockets. SIP, Jingle, even H.323 all use RTP for media so the data is decoupled from signaling. This allows P2P transfer of high volume audio and video data. Various techniques exist to pass through a firewall and alternative transports can be used if needed, especially in Jingle which is more flexible.
Are you an idiot? This is why those protocols were unable to replace Skype! "Various techniques" (giant broken hacks not intentionally supported by a single router in existence) failed for most users, so they had to use central server to relay all data, and that wasn't scalable for free services. With P2P this separation is absolutely useless because difference in latency between alternative paths will cause the receiver to always wait for the slowest link, and VoIP lives and dies by latency.
Even if you want to spread load or implement redundancy without explicit failover, it changes nothing -- you would have multiple established calls and send the same, or split pieces of the data over all of them.
Now, if everybody would agree on a reasonable minimum set of transports and codecs there would be no need of Skype at all...
No longer a problem. If anything, Skype suffered from it more than anything -- some shithead made n900 version with only one video codec that was only supported by latest version for Windows at a time. Everyone on Mac or Linux, or with older Skype for Windows, got no video when talking to a supposedly video-capable phone.
USSR
What the fuck are you talking about? US is far ahead of USSR in number of imprisoned people -- even at worst times USSR had less prisoners.
True, at some point one could get a really long sentence for publishing and performing a poem that consists of nothing but a content-free angry rant about Stalin being a monster. While unfair (though some consider it fitting for lack of subtlety and bad taste), the number of people subjected to it is hopelessly outmatched by pot smokers, desperate poor, and other categories unique to US.
Only a tiny fraction of AutoCAD does, their most basic configuration. All those packages that AutoCAD is actually bought for, are Windows-only.
Video is supported in SIP. The problem with SIP is, it works poorly with firewalls, this is why IAX2 exists (that also supports video and is more likely to be usable without giant central servers).
I am sure, the problems prevented by noticing that application is not just a piece of shit but an extreme piece of shit, are far greater than effect of it breaking it for the time it takes to roll back Flash installation.
First, IMAP can be enabled in Exchange.
This is how IMAP can be used in "Microsoft shops" now. This is happening because not even Microsoft can afford to insist on Outlook being the only mail client allowed on the office networks. If they could, they would never touch IMAP.
Second - Exchange supports far more than just mail/calendaring and can be integrated with a huge range of communications software.
I am sure, someone at Microsoft wrote some huge and ambitious "API" to make Exchange the centerpiece of all business-related communications. The reality is, Exchange is a bad mail server and stupid calendar that everyone hates with a passion. Now Microsoft can't even force companies to use exclusively their protocol with their product that exists for sole purpose of keeping systems closed. This always happens before this kind of product fails.
I would rather expect a kind of warfare with giant wooden horses and blind poets...
Everyone looks like a zealot to his enemies. Not everyone looks like a shill to them. You do.
You know you sound like a total tool, right?
To be a tool, I would at very least care about opinions of people who clearly identify themselves as my enemies.
Most humorous of all is that you think "IMAP" is a product or application
IMAP is a protocol. Exchange has its own, shitty protocol that requires retarded VPN to be accessed in a "secure" manner (except, of course, then in 99.9% installed configurations your whole network is accessible to anyone who stolen employee's phone).
and that Exchange is just a mail server.
Exchange is a mail server bundled with a shitty, time-wasting calendar application used to waste people's time, that must die in a fire along with those who developed it.
Now, if AutoCAD was ported to Javascript and worked on non-Microsoft systems...
To think of it, it probably would run faster and had better UI that way.
I worked on RT11 before RSX11M, and since that time I have seen plenty of people who became worthless Microsoft shills after starting as engineers.
Well, cables (all kind of cables) do have effect on sound in a certain degree. Is it worth large bucks?
Specifically headphone cables. Specifically an effect that can be perceived by a human ear. The answer is no, and you are trying to weasel out and add unrelated issues. It's not a matter of cost, it's a matter of having no effect on the sound that can be heard.
Probably not... but there's differences and that's what the audiophiles talk about.
Most of things that "audiophiles talk about" are figments of their imagination, and they go as far as rejecting the idea of testing those things in any reliable manner. What they are saying is absolutely irrelevant.
That's what I call the rule of the "Last Tens"... The last 10% of quality improvements will cost you at least 10 times more. In the other hand, when you sacrifice 10% here on a cable, 10% here on speakers, 10% here on audio converters, etc... You end with a probably 10 times less good global result.
First of all, even if it was true, you fail math. Second, your assumption is crap because, as I have mentioned before, there is no effect.
PS: I don't own PhD, but I'm sound engineer and aware enough to have done cabling stuff by myself for my studios.
You are a shit sound engineer if you don't see a difference between microphone and headphone cables.
Another excellent "I love Linux, but" post from your friendly Microsoft astroturfers.
Exchange will be thrown out of businesses by switching to IMAP, then dropping the original protocol and installing a real IMAP server. Based on actual security concerns. No one will ever care about Exchange after that.
Office is pretty much irrelevant thanks to companies actually using their network to handle data instead of copying pretty pictures back and forth. Good luck shilling your stupid Sharepoint that only consultants love.
Production outage caused by Flash version change? Your production software relies on Flash, and breaks over upgrades?
This shows you haven't seen many high end headphones
Oh, I have seen headphones with replaceable cables, I just never seen headphone cable type affecting interference (save for "cables" made of individual wires thrown all over the desk).
nor obviously the community at www.head-fi.org which will debate ad infinum which aftermarket cable for their headphones sound best. :-)
Last time I have seen that community, when they didn't discuss aftermarket cables/burn-in time/..., they always recommended nothing less than a separate external DAC and desktop power amplifier for any attempt to play music on a computer. Onboard adapter in a laptop on a night stand would be seen as a blasphemy.
lol