"So yes, the United States does play hardball in the international stage, acts like a bully, and like the biggest and craziest bully there is. And they do it largely so we don't get drawn into wars we didn't start."
Sure, but the other option is just to leave everyone else alone and just mind your own business.
Thank you for the insightful and informative comment. I hope this reaches +5 soon, it surprised me a little that it's not there already (currently at +2 with 76 comments in the thread) though I may be too enthusiastic.
If we look to history, we can identify several strong and well-supported movements that entirely failed to change the established governments through non-violent and "constitutional" (in scare quotes: apply to any jurisdiction as appropriate) means.
Read about the Chartist movement and try not to feel entirely useless. For those too lazy: this was a movement in England fighting for voting rights and equality for the working class. The movement is noted for violence, but please note that this was violence brought on by the establishment trying to suppress the movement. The movement itself was campaigning for change through the established parliamentary channels, as opposed to outright anarchy or a revolution. I think that's an important point.
The most poignant quote from the article is this:
"Chartism did not directly generate any reforms. It was not until 1867 [30 years later] that urban working men were admitted to the franchise under the Reform Act 1867, and not until 1918 [80 years later] that full manhood suffrage was achieved. Slowly the other points of the People's Charter were granted: secret voting was introduced in 1872 and the payment of MPs in 1911.[citation needed] Annual elections remain the only Chartist demand not to be implemented. Participation in the Chartist Movement filled some working men with self-confidence: they learned to speak publicly, to send their poems and other writings off for publication, to be able, in short, to confidently articulate the feelings of working people. Many former Chartists went on to become journalists, poets, ministers, and councillors.[37]"
I'll close by noting that the UK does *not* implement a secret ballot. All voting slips are uniquely numbered, and the numbers recorded against the electoral roll. There is a thin promise from the establishment that they will never look at these, but with today's technology it would literally be a "weekend job" to scan and OCR the codes from the 20+ (roughly 30% of 70m) million ballot slips.
It's moments like these I realise I really would be a serf in medieval times, and modern medicine aside, we haven't really progressed.
Solution: better wealth equality, the current balance of money and power is just taking the piss.
Without any knowledge of this case, I would guess that it's "trade sanctions".
The US typically walks in and tells everyone how it's going to go down, or else trade sanctions.
The US is a nation of bullies, just look at Cuba, an independent nation doing THEIR OWN THING and the US has just given them shit for decades. And before you go all ape shit at me over the "Missile Crisis" just have a bit of perspective: the US has missiles and other military forces stationed all over Europe and Asia, very close to Russia. Most people, reading a factual account of the USA-USSR cold war will interpret the USA to be the aggressors. Don't flame me, just think about it.
I recommend the BBC documentary The Cold War as a great starting point. Yes, it's almost 24 hours long, but it's an excellent independent portrayal of the entire Cold War and has some excellent interviews with world leaders from the time.
For free and simple PDF editing (as you describe OSX supplies) on Windows you simply need PDFill Tools. The author is also flogging a full-fledged PDF editor as well, which may be of interest, but I've never used it. The ability to split files, reorder pages, convert back and forth from PDF to image formats. It's a really handy little tool.
This is just one example as to how the wide range of available software for Windows makes the platform so attractive for doing work.
However, I agree with you that the operational and security issues of working on Windows can rapidly eat up all of that software goodness.
Out of interest, have you ever had a staff member request a Linux PC? If so, how did it go? I work in the academic community, and run Linux among a real mixed bag of OSX, Windows, and other Linux users. My anecdote is that the OSX users complain about their systems the most.
"Now an iPod Classic with 256gb or 512gb would be cool."
True, but for everyone else using smartphones with micro SD slots, that is already trivial to have. That company was meant to bring out a 512GB micro SD card last year, but I don't know if they delivered. I have no doubt that 512GB micro SD cards will be easily available by the end of 2016.
I don't know how well a dedicated music player will sell these days. Personally I much prefer dedicated devices: music player, GPS navigator, portable HDD, telephone, etc, as I find the all-in-one smart phone concept often comes apart at the seams.
Hey, that's cool, I do the same. I run Chrome, logged into my Google account, for G+, maps, Gmail, contacts, analytics, etc...
I then run two other web browsers for doing different things: one for private and important online services, such as net banking. Another I run for general web browsing (which is Pale moon with a rash of extensions to protect my privacy: NoScript, AdBlock Edge, Disconnect, and Self-Destructing Cookies.
Vivaldi seems nice, I've found it does some things pretty well.
Microsoft has completely failed with Windows search.
This can be proven through the simplest of experiments:
1) Download and install "Agent Ransack". Run the program. Enter a partial name for the file and hit search.
This program does not index, is simply crawls the HDD(s) attached to the computer. Notice how it will search everything in a few to tens of seconds? Why do we need indexed searches again? Let me show you:
2) Download and install "Search Everything". Run the program.
Now this program is indexing the HDD. It's doing it on start up, and the first time you run this program you may have to wait a **few minutes** for the index to complete. Once the indexing is done you can enter partial file names in the search box. Cool, huh? How awesome is that? Search is **fucking instant** right across your file system. It's pretty cool. The indexing is rebuilt each time you run the program, only takes a moment each time you start it.
So, having completed those experiments you can see that Windows has failed entirely. Their indexed search takes **hours** to index files and it does not search instantly. It's the worst of all worlds and needs to be fixed or killed.
Dead true about the stupid little hose, you are right, and I respect your problems regarding the pet fur. I should have clarified that for our use, it's just a small apartment with two "indoor type" adults, so very little mess. We also have a box-base style bed, so don't have to get under there with the ball. On reflection, any kind of vac would suit us fine, which is why I was only commenting on the serviceability, which is simply refreshing to find in today's disposable and "throwaway" society.
Microsoft has completely overlooked an entire usergroup of people:
- We have professional enterprise systems, often used for office tasks, but I would characterize them as being used for "common" or "like" tasks. These often get administered by a domain.
- We have home use with no need for a domain.
- Then we have what I call "stand alone" use where the computer is simply there to do ONE THING. Some examples, like in this article, are to render video, others to control instruments, machine control, kiosks or run display boards for foyers and lobbies. These computers are often not on domains.
Anyway, I think the new Win10 paradigms leave this third group entirely in the lurch and anyone making software for these use-cases will be looking away from Windows in droves.
Finally, I think Universities are also pretty unimpressed with Windows. The academic's computer station has traditionally been entirely under their control and so they are rarely a member of a domain; though I know some academics who tell me their local systems are all switching to central domain control, and they hate it. Anyway, I think these users are going to switch away from Windows in droves and OSX and Linux will gain even more groundshare in the academic community.
I disagree with your point of view on the Dyson vacuums.
We have one of these Dyson ball vacuums. The ball is a gimmick, but as a vac for a small home it really is excellent.
Unfortunately for us the carpet brush in the head threw its bearing and damaged its plastic retaining clip. What I was quite impressed with was that I could go to their website and order a new brush, with bearing, and a new clip, for only GBP 15 delivered. They arrived in a few days, I could fit this myself, and the machine is now as good as new.
The modular design makes it serviceable and I really like that.
On top of this, I can clean the filters as often as I like. Hell, I can clean the entire machine as often as I like, since I can dismantle the entire vacuum pipeline and wash each plastic part in soapy water and let it dry. Such a service brings the machine right back to an as-new condition.
Others have posted that bag-less doesn't work so well. I have no metrics on the technology, but my anecdote is that you need to keep the bag-less system clean, which means dismantling the dust catcher and cleaning it thoroughly every few months.
Anyway, I've been a happy customer and am impressed with the quality and serviceability.
"It's not that you put your hands in, pull them up and down till it blows your hands dry by evaporation. Which is what I suspect your trying to do."
That's what the help diagram shows, so no wonder everyone does it that way.
However, in my experience one-pass is insufficient to remove the water from my hands.
The Xcelerator mentioned above does both: it has a jet of air fast enough to blow away the large drops, and enough warming to finish off the job. Because it blows straight down there is no risk of touching anything, and you can control the orientation of your hands as you see fit. It's the best of all worlds.
Sorry, just realised you were replying to a child post rather than my own.
Thanks for the G.722 codec advice, I'll check it out, my VOIP box supports it, but not sure if my old Android phone does.
Anyway, personally I really appreciate good quality audio for conversations, especially when working in sales or holding other business meetings on the phone. There is nothing more frustrating than having to ask someone important to repeat themselves on the telephone.
Thanks of the extra information, it's interesting, but you keep telling me that I'm not using SIP and that it's no good. But I was simply sharing an anecdote regarding my experience, and SIP is the easiest way to explain what I did, as you can see below:
1) I created an account with a SIP gateway (SIPGate)
2) I then installed a SIP client on my Android mobile. I did find out that a later upgrade to Android support SIP natively, they call it "Internet Phone", so I don't need the SIP client any more.
3) My personal experience is that the call quality has been much much better than with cellular calls. For a while I still had my cellular plan and could compare a voice call, followed by a SIP call over the 3G data link, in the same area. The difference was always dramatic and the SIP call was always better.
4) I liked it so much I bought a VOIP box for home (an "unlocked" and unaffiliated one of these) and configured it for SIP and it works brilliantly.
Anyway, that's my anecdote, make of it what you will.
If you think I should try a more modern protocol, can you recommend a provider and name the technology to make it easier? Thanks.
I would also recommend getting into SIP. I am always pleased with the quality of calls through my provider. I use an old SGS2 without a SIM card, and make/receive SIP calls over WiFi.
While providers may vary, the wonderful thing about mine is that there is no monthly fee, I simply pay a (low) fee to make calls.
Yes, there are times when I have no WiFi access, but it's rare, and I simply take a break and drop out of contact. When I travel internationally I don't have to pay any roaming fees, and because the phone is unlocked, I can also throw in a cheap pay-as-you-go SIM card at my destination for convenience.
Cutting the cord on a monthly phone bill was incredibly refreshing!
No, there is no pause in Win7. This was added to Win10, and yes, it's a great feature.
If you have time (I know, who does?) then read that entire thread on the explorer refresh bug. The summary is that Microsoft has released numerous patches for this problem, and many users report that while each patch may initially work, the problem eventually returns. Some have concluded that the bug is deep and poorly defined, and so there is probably no hope of an actual genuine fix to the problem, that link (for example) is to a forum thread exploring the possibility of spitting F5 key presses at explorer windows to force them to continually refresh. Read this to truly appreciate how much of a train wreck the problem actually is.
However my original post was about: "Their file explorer GUI is absolutely incredible, for instance." And requiring 3rd party software kind of proves my point.
Slashdot Mirror
You can shoot down a Predator pretty easily as well.
This kind of aircraft would typically only be deployed once air superiority was assured.
Most of the places where the USA would deploy a slow-flying solar powered drone, would probably have very limited resources.
"So yes, the United States does play hardball in the international stage, acts like a bully, and like the biggest and craziest bully there is. And they do it largely so we don't get drawn into wars we didn't start."
Sure, but the other option is just to leave everyone else alone and just mind your own business.
Thank you for the insightful and informative comment. I hope this reaches +5 soon, it surprised me a little that it's not there already (currently at +2 with 76 comments in the thread) though I may be too enthusiastic.
"The point is that you do not need a huge superconducting magnet to do [low-resolution] MRI [on stationary objects]."
You realise your posts could be taken as advice for families wanting to move west from eastern Europe during the Cold War?
USSA is fucking right.
Scary as fuck.
I'm sorry to sound all doom and gloom.
If we look to history, we can identify several strong and well-supported movements that entirely failed to change the established governments through non-violent and "constitutional" (in scare quotes: apply to any jurisdiction as appropriate) means.
Read about the Chartist movement and try not to feel entirely useless. For those too lazy: this was a movement in England fighting for voting rights and equality for the working class. The movement is noted for violence, but please note that this was violence brought on by the establishment trying to suppress the movement. The movement itself was campaigning for change through the established parliamentary channels, as opposed to outright anarchy or a revolution. I think that's an important point.
The most poignant quote from the article is this:
"Chartism did not directly generate any reforms. It was not until 1867 [30 years later] that urban working men were admitted to the franchise under the Reform Act 1867, and not until 1918 [80 years later] that full manhood suffrage was achieved. Slowly the other points of the People's Charter were granted: secret voting was introduced in 1872 and the payment of MPs in 1911.[citation needed] Annual elections remain the only Chartist demand not to be implemented. Participation in the Chartist Movement filled some working men with self-confidence: they learned to speak publicly, to send their poems and other writings off for publication, to be able, in short, to confidently articulate the feelings of working people. Many former Chartists went on to become journalists, poets, ministers, and councillors.[37]"
I'll close by noting that the UK does *not* implement a secret ballot. All voting slips are uniquely numbered, and the numbers recorded against the electoral roll. There is a thin promise from the establishment that they will never look at these, but with today's technology it would literally be a "weekend job" to scan and OCR the codes from the 20+ (roughly 30% of 70m) million ballot slips.
It's moments like these I realise I really would be a serf in medieval times, and modern medicine aside, we haven't really progressed.
Solution: better wealth equality, the current balance of money and power is just taking the piss.
Without any knowledge of this case, I would guess that it's "trade sanctions".
The US typically walks in and tells everyone how it's going to go down, or else trade sanctions.
The US is a nation of bullies, just look at Cuba, an independent nation doing THEIR OWN THING and the US has just given them shit for decades. And before you go all ape shit at me over the "Missile Crisis" just have a bit of perspective: the US has missiles and other military forces stationed all over Europe and Asia, very close to Russia. Most people, reading a factual account of the USA-USSR cold war will interpret the USA to be the aggressors. Don't flame me, just think about it.
I recommend the BBC documentary The Cold War as a great starting point. Yes, it's almost 24 hours long, but it's an excellent independent portrayal of the entire Cold War and has some excellent interviews with world leaders from the time.
I do.
For free and simple PDF editing (as you describe OSX supplies) on Windows you simply need PDFill Tools. The author is also flogging a full-fledged PDF editor as well, which may be of interest, but I've never used it. The ability to split files, reorder pages, convert back and forth from PDF to image formats. It's a really handy little tool.
This is just one example as to how the wide range of available software for Windows makes the platform so attractive for doing work.
However, I agree with you that the operational and security issues of working on Windows can rapidly eat up all of that software goodness.
Out of interest, have you ever had a staff member request a Linux PC? If so, how did it go? I work in the academic community, and run Linux among a real mixed bag of OSX, Windows, and other Linux users. My anecdote is that the OSX users complain about their systems the most.
"Now an iPod Classic with 256gb or 512gb would be cool."
True, but for everyone else using smartphones with micro SD slots, that is already trivial to have. That company was meant to bring out a 512GB micro SD card last year, but I don't know if they delivered. I have no doubt that 512GB micro SD cards will be easily available by the end of 2016.
I don't know how well a dedicated music player will sell these days. Personally I much prefer dedicated devices: music player, GPS navigator, portable HDD, telephone, etc, as I find the all-in-one smart phone concept often comes apart at the seams.
Hey, that's cool, I do the same. I run Chrome, logged into my Google account, for G+, maps, Gmail, contacts, analytics, etc...
I then run two other web browsers for doing different things: one for private and important online services, such as net banking. Another I run for general web browsing (which is Pale moon with a rash of extensions to protect my privacy: NoScript, AdBlock Edge, Disconnect, and Self-Destructing Cookies.
Vivaldi seems nice, I've found it does some things pretty well.
"I don't think that what the Australian Government thinks matters here."
I think you'll find the Australian Government matters very much within Australia.
Microsoft has completely failed with Windows search.
This can be proven through the simplest of experiments:
1) Download and install "Agent Ransack". Run the program. Enter a partial name for the file and hit search.
This program does not index, is simply crawls the HDD(s) attached to the computer. Notice how it will search everything in a few to tens of seconds? Why do we need indexed searches again? Let me show you:
2) Download and install "Search Everything". Run the program.
Now this program is indexing the HDD. It's doing it on start up, and the first time you run this program you may have to wait a **few minutes** for the index to complete. Once the indexing is done you can enter partial file names in the search box. Cool, huh? How awesome is that? Search is **fucking instant** right across your file system. It's pretty cool. The indexing is rebuilt each time you run the program, only takes a moment each time you start it.
So, having completed those experiments you can see that Windows has failed entirely. Their indexed search takes **hours** to index files and it does not search instantly. It's the worst of all worlds and needs to be fixed or killed.
Dead true about the stupid little hose, you are right, and I respect your problems regarding the pet fur. I should have clarified that for our use, it's just a small apartment with two "indoor type" adults, so very little mess. We also have a box-base style bed, so don't have to get under there with the ball. On reflection, any kind of vac would suit us fine, which is why I was only commenting on the serviceability, which is simply refreshing to find in today's disposable and "throwaway" society.
Agenda for a New Economy covers the issues of what the author calls "phantom wealth".
It's an excellent read and I highly recommend it.
Apologies for the terrible citation, but anonymised health records can be de-anonymised relatively easily.
Microsoft has completely overlooked an entire usergroup of people:
- We have professional enterprise systems, often used for office tasks, but I would characterize them as being used for "common" or "like" tasks. These often get administered by a domain.
- We have home use with no need for a domain.
- Then we have what I call "stand alone" use where the computer is simply there to do ONE THING. Some examples, like in this article, are to render video, others to control instruments, machine control, kiosks or run display boards for foyers and lobbies. These computers are often not on domains.
Anyway, I think the new Win10 paradigms leave this third group entirely in the lurch and anyone making software for these use-cases will be looking away from Windows in droves.
Finally, I think Universities are also pretty unimpressed with Windows. The academic's computer station has traditionally been entirely under their control and so they are rarely a member of a domain; though I know some academics who tell me their local systems are all switching to central domain control, and they hate it. Anyway, I think these users are going to switch away from Windows in droves and OSX and Linux will gain even more groundshare in the academic community.
I disagree with your point of view on the Dyson vacuums.
We have one of these Dyson ball vacuums. The ball is a gimmick, but as a vac for a small home it really is excellent.
Unfortunately for us the carpet brush in the head threw its bearing and damaged its plastic retaining clip. What I was quite impressed with was that I could go to their website and order a new brush, with bearing, and a new clip, for only GBP 15 delivered. They arrived in a few days, I could fit this myself, and the machine is now as good as new.
The modular design makes it serviceable and I really like that.
On top of this, I can clean the filters as often as I like. Hell, I can clean the entire machine as often as I like, since I can dismantle the entire vacuum pipeline and wash each plastic part in soapy water and let it dry. Such a service brings the machine right back to an as-new condition.
Others have posted that bag-less doesn't work so well. I have no metrics on the technology, but my anecdote is that you need to keep the bag-less system clean, which means dismantling the dust catcher and cleaning it thoroughly every few months.
Anyway, I've been a happy customer and am impressed with the quality and serviceability.
"It's not that you put your hands in, pull them up and down till it blows your hands dry by evaporation. Which is what I suspect your trying to do."
That's what the help diagram shows, so no wonder everyone does it that way.
However, in my experience one-pass is insufficient to remove the water from my hands.
The Xcelerator mentioned above does both: it has a jet of air fast enough to blow away the large drops, and enough warming to finish off the job. Because it blows straight down there is no risk of touching anything, and you can control the orientation of your hands as you see fit. It's the best of all worlds.
I second this, the Xlererator is simply the best design.
I don't care if others copy it, but what they want to do is have a fast air flow through a nozzle around 6-8cm across. It works.
Sorry, just realised you were replying to a child post rather than my own.
Thanks for the G.722 codec advice, I'll check it out, my VOIP box supports it, but not sure if my old Android phone does.
Anyway, personally I really appreciate good quality audio for conversations, especially when working in sales or holding other business meetings on the phone. There is nothing more frustrating than having to ask someone important to repeat themselves on the telephone.
Thanks of the extra information, it's interesting, but you keep telling me that I'm not using SIP and that it's no good. But I was simply sharing an anecdote regarding my experience, and SIP is the easiest way to explain what I did, as you can see below:
1) I created an account with a SIP gateway (SIPGate)
2) I then installed a SIP client on my Android mobile. I did find out that a later upgrade to Android support SIP natively, they call it "Internet Phone", so I don't need the SIP client any more.
3) My personal experience is that the call quality has been much much better than with cellular calls. For a while I still had my cellular plan and could compare a voice call, followed by a SIP call over the 3G data link, in the same area. The difference was always dramatic and the SIP call was always better.
4) I liked it so much I bought a VOIP box for home (an "unlocked" and unaffiliated one of these) and configured it for SIP and it works brilliantly.
Anyway, that's my anecdote, make of it what you will.
If you think I should try a more modern protocol, can you recommend a provider and name the technology to make it easier? Thanks.
I would also recommend getting into SIP. I am always pleased with the quality of calls through my provider. I use an old SGS2 without a SIM card, and make/receive SIP calls over WiFi.
While providers may vary, the wonderful thing about mine is that there is no monthly fee, I simply pay a (low) fee to make calls.
Yes, there are times when I have no WiFi access, but it's rare, and I simply take a break and drop out of contact. When I travel internationally I don't have to pay any roaming fees, and because the phone is unlocked, I can also throw in a cheap pay-as-you-go SIM card at my destination for convenience.
Cutting the cord on a monthly phone bill was incredibly refreshing!
No, there is no pause in Win7. This was added to Win10, and yes, it's a great feature.
If you have time (I know, who does?) then read that entire thread on the explorer refresh bug. The summary is that Microsoft has released numerous patches for this problem, and many users report that while each patch may initially work, the problem eventually returns. Some have concluded that the bug is deep and poorly defined, and so there is probably no hope of an actual genuine fix to the problem, that link (for example) is to a forum thread exploring the possibility of spitting F5 key presses at explorer windows to force them to continually refresh. Read this to truly appreciate how much of a train wreck the problem actually is.
Good recommendation, thanks.
However my original post was about: "Their file explorer GUI is absolutely incredible, for instance." And requiring 3rd party software kind of proves my point.
Anyway, I think I was trolled :) he he...