A representative republic can work, and factor in both the needs/wants of the population at large, as well as the geographic area [1]. That is why the US has a bicameral Congress. However, the way elections are done only ensures that Kang or Kodos are elected. We need a better system than first past the post, be it a "1-10" score system, having "x" amount of units, and be able to assign them to different candidates, or just arranging the candidates in a suitable odor of preference.
Lobbying is something that -every- citizen should be doing. However, what needs to be curtailed is campaign spending. Yes, SCOTUS says money is free speech, but that effectively has legalized bribery. Ideally, there should be zero spending on campaigns, although that is tough to enforce because astroturfers could easily do word-of-mouth blitzes and be separated from the candidate so he/she doesn't have to be held accountable for that. Canada has a good process of an advertising blackout when it comes to their elections.
Or perhaps do away with elections altogether, and select people at random for political office, similar to jury duty. Of course, you will get outliers, but in general, you will get what the people are and want, as opposed to rich lawyers in every political seat, as it stands now.
I can see Mandarin Chinese taking over, especially if China is the first to colonize the Moon and other planets, while other nations are chasing their tails.
XPrivacy used to do exactly this on Android. An app wanting a GPS location? Here is one. Contact info? Here is a randomly generated list. Ad IDS? Pick a 128 bit number.
I doubt it. Even with food prep, even though things have advanced, if robot chef technology is good enough, it would have been moved to every fast food joint by now, but even today, robochefs are still a novelty, at best making a "custom" pizza.
Of course, we have had jobs go by the wayside before. Farm workers, for example. However, the difference is that in the past, the US had a decent educational system, where a buggy whip maker could retrain to be an auto mechanic. That is really gone, especially with almost all businesses completely uninterested in planting seeds and adding fertilizer, but wanting a harvest this quarter, something that even the dumbest hayseed knows doesn't work well in agruculture, and it only works in business since the "crops" are imported (offshoring, H-1Bs, B1 visa abuse, etc.)
I am tired of the "blame the robots" thing. Automation is a natural push of technology, and in previous decades, would have been just part of job change that people will deal with.
There is still a future of places where people are needed. China can sell a million widgets for cheap, but if a company needs two widgets, each slightly different, that can be highly expensive. One-off manufacturing is something that we have just started to work on, and that can mean an incredible gold mine, be it phones tailored to the person, clothes that fit perfectly (no worry about if a size is too big/small), etc.
Other than the fact that it does not run on non-Apple hardware (officially), how is macOS locked down? You can turn off SIP if you want to dance a jig in the system directories, and you can turn off signature checking of programs.
You would be surprised at what companies hire Tata/Infosys/etc. I remember a recent interview I had last year with a small company where the VP told me that security had no ROI. When I asked him what he would do if/when a breach happened, he said he would just call Accenture, they come in with their battalion of consultants, get everything fixed, and business would continue.
I have a feeling we will be seeing a renaissance in portable executables, be it the PortableApps.com site, stuff like ThinApp, Evalaze being updated, or programs just being shipped in a single executable with instructions of throwing somewhere and running it. Will this be a good thing? It may make life easier to update programs.
There is also the fact that you can spend $75 + the cost of a hard disk and buy a single drive Synology or QNAP NAS which can run as a mail server, running sendmail/postfix, dovecot IMAP, and roundcube. To boot, it can back itself up to another NAS, an external HDD, Amazon S3, etc.
I rather just have my mail handled via O365 or an Exchange hosted provider. If I have something that sensitive, I arrange to use PGP or S/MIME with the other party... or perhaps use another medium for discussion.
This exactly. How about while the writers are out, we get some new blood out of the art schools and colleges, and let them design and write some original stuff for once. For example, the typical American gritty movie plot just needs to be tossed out the door, and other stuff done. For example, Patient Zero in the typical zombie movie dies early, and the movie winds up being a fish out of water romance between an investigator and a biotech person. New stuff that isn't the same crap we have been seeing. With FX so relatively inexpensive, the big Michael Bay explosions can take backstage to actual characterization and plot.
Maybe some uplifting stuff for once. I'm damn tired of dystopic settings.
This. There is a reason why we are still using PGP, SSH, and SSL. It is because creating a new cryptographic protocol takes the best minds out there... and even then, there will be attacks that people didn't even think about like side channel stuff, quantum crypto, and other items, so the protocol always needs updating, if not a complete overhaul. Even then, old standbys like the OpenPGP format are showing their age, due to not supporting forward secrecy and using less efficient binary to ascii algorithms.
A cryptocurrency done willy-nilly will not last long. At best it will be pumped and dumped. However, if one can be designed from the ground up, without obvious crap like premining, it might be useful... BUT it takes a lot of effort, and it has to at least be better than BitCoin, especially in the anonymity department.
For a small amount, a cache makes sense, especially in a transaction style so writes can be completed when they hit the cache (and if there is a power outage, next time things come on, the controller can flush the cache without corrupting data.) For a larger amount of storage (I'd say in the terabytes), it might be useful as a tier of storage.
Will it replace SSDs? On workstations, laptops, devices, and other items that need shock-resistant media? No. For SANs, possibly not, as SSDs appear to have a longer life in the field (I personally have replaced many, many HDDs, but I've only had 1-2 SSDs go south in arrays.) The only place I can see this type of memory actually pushing out SSDs are SANs that are designed for backups, like Data Domain offerings. This is where one wants a lot of low tier, slow disks that have a lot of capacity and are reliable. One has a few TB of optane memory that functions as a landing zone for writes, then the data gets slowly written to the HDDs. Since there writes are sequential, this works well with shingled drives.
Another use for optane memory would be low-end NAS drives. Even 16-64 gigs would turn a rack of 5400 RPM WD Reds into something usable for most departments or workgroups. No, definitely not enterprise tier, but good enough for a few PCs.
Yik Yak had some merit, as there were some interesting conversations on there, but because it was "anonymous" at first, it just invited all the trolls.
What killed it for me was the fact that the app grabbed as much data as possible from your phone to "individualize" it... i.e. de-anonymize the user.
I am quite happy with T-Mobile as well. I know that the other providers are doing "unlimited" plans, but I much rather deal with a slight slowdown than a surprise big bill.
Plus, historically, it has been "the" provider to go to, if you have an unlocked phone.
It was supposed to be late 2015 when everything was going to be chip-and-PIN, so we would have security at least on par with the rest of the world. 2015 rolled around, and we wound up with credit card machines at various stores with the chip slot taped over. Now, same thing. There is a 50/50 chance that I will be swiping my card, and not using the chip on it, depending on merchant.
I really would love to see fingerprint technology here in the US, just as a precaution.
Back in the 1970s, there was a time where highway signs in the US were marked in both miles and kilometers. I just don't get why this isn't just done now, then miles are phased out completely. It only continues to cause us grief.
It is getting there. If one does any servicing work, it is using metric measurements. When communicating temperature, one uses both Centigrade and Fahrenheit to get the info across. Even all cars here in the US both have mph and kph on the speedos, or if digital, the ability to switch units.
The invisible hand will eventually push the US to the metric system.
I leave the ISP router mostly alone, and have an interior firewall. It maybe adds 5-6 milliseconds of latency, likely due to the second NAT layer, but adds peace of mind. At least the ISP's device respects the "all wi-fi off" setting. If it didn't, I'd probably see about "liberating" the antennas from the device.
I remember reading about how the Sauds and other countries in that region take relatively deionized water that was distilled or from their desalination plants, and add the needed trace amounts of minerals fo it, so it would be suitable and healthy for drinking.
If distilled water becomes common, I can see a company like Nuun making fizzy tablets which dissolve in water to give the needed minerals, and perhaps some useful vitamins as well.
I never bother with popular music. Same reason why I don't eat at McDonald's. I used to like Pandora for new stuff, but YouTube has been a good place to find tracks worth a listen. Dungeon synth works well as a genre for IT work, for example.
Me, I feel old... I prefer buying the CD and ripping it or downloading (not streaming) tracks, copying them to the device, then playing. No issues with dead zones or bad Internet issues. Plus, when I purchase an album, the band gets 70% of the cut if through iTMS or more if bought from their website, as opposed to 0.00000000000001% or some other insane figure that streaming it gives them.
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That and 538 tend to answer many, many items that pop up in IT discussions.
A representative republic can work, and factor in both the needs/wants of the population at large, as well as the geographic area [1]. That is why the US has a bicameral Congress. However, the way elections are done only ensures that Kang or Kodos are elected. We need a better system than first past the post, be it a "1-10" score system, having "x" amount of units, and be able to assign them to different candidates, or just arranging the candidates in a suitable odor of preference.
Lobbying is something that -every- citizen should be doing. However, what needs to be curtailed is campaign spending. Yes, SCOTUS says money is free speech, but that effectively has legalized bribery. Ideally, there should be zero spending on campaigns, although that is tough to enforce because astroturfers could easily do word-of-mouth blitzes and be separated from the candidate so he/she doesn't have to be held accountable for that. Canada has a good process of an advertising blackout when it comes to their elections.
Or perhaps do away with elections altogether, and select people at random for political office, similar to jury duty. Of course, you will get outliers, but in general, you will get what the people are and want, as opposed to rich lawyers in every political seat, as it stands now.
Problem is that when you install a backdoor, you can't guarentee that only you will have the only key. Intel's AMT is a good example of this.
I can see Mandarin Chinese taking over, especially if China is the first to colonize the Moon and other planets, while other nations are chasing their tails.
Some software is pretty good from France. VeraCrypt is a good example of something well made.
XPrivacy used to do exactly this on Android. An app wanting a GPS location? Here is one. Contact info? Here is a randomly generated list. Ad IDS? Pick a 128 bit number.
I doubt it. Even with food prep, even though things have advanced, if robot chef technology is good enough, it would have been moved to every fast food joint by now, but even today, robochefs are still a novelty, at best making a "custom" pizza.
Of course, we have had jobs go by the wayside before. Farm workers, for example. However, the difference is that in the past, the US had a decent educational system, where a buggy whip maker could retrain to be an auto mechanic. That is really gone, especially with almost all businesses completely uninterested in planting seeds and adding fertilizer, but wanting a harvest this quarter, something that even the dumbest hayseed knows doesn't work well in agruculture, and it only works in business since the "crops" are imported (offshoring, H-1Bs, B1 visa abuse, etc.)
I am tired of the "blame the robots" thing. Automation is a natural push of technology, and in previous decades, would have been just part of job change that people will deal with.
There is still a future of places where people are needed. China can sell a million widgets for cheap, but if a company needs two widgets, each slightly different, that can be highly expensive. One-off manufacturing is something that we have just started to work on, and that can mean an incredible gold mine, be it phones tailored to the person, clothes that fit perfectly (no worry about if a size is too big/small), etc.
Other than the fact that it does not run on non-Apple hardware (officially), how is macOS locked down? You can turn off SIP if you want to dance a jig in the system directories, and you can turn off signature checking of programs.
You would be surprised at what companies hire Tata/Infosys/etc. I remember a recent interview I had last year with a small company where the VP told me that security had no ROI. When I asked him what he would do if/when a breach happened, he said he would just call Accenture, they come in with their battalion of consultants, get everything fixed, and business would continue.
Wonder if Windows Server 2016 would work on that thing.
I have a feeling we will be seeing a renaissance in portable executables, be it the PortableApps.com site, stuff like ThinApp, Evalaze being updated, or programs just being shipped in a single executable with instructions of throwing somewhere and running it. Will this be a good thing? It may make life easier to update programs.
There is also the fact that you can spend $75 + the cost of a hard disk and buy a single drive Synology or QNAP NAS which can run as a mail server, running sendmail/postfix, dovecot IMAP, and roundcube. To boot, it can back itself up to another NAS, an external HDD, Amazon S3, etc.
I rather just have my mail handled via O365 or an Exchange hosted provider. If I have something that sensitive, I arrange to use PGP or S/MIME with the other party... or perhaps use another medium for discussion.
This exactly. How about while the writers are out, we get some new blood out of the art schools and colleges, and let them design and write some original stuff for once. For example, the typical American gritty movie plot just needs to be tossed out the door, and other stuff done. For example, Patient Zero in the typical zombie movie dies early, and the movie winds up being a fish out of water romance between an investigator and a biotech person. New stuff that isn't the same crap we have been seeing. With FX so relatively inexpensive, the big Michael Bay explosions can take backstage to actual characterization and plot.
Maybe some uplifting stuff for once. I'm damn tired of dystopic settings.
This. There is a reason why we are still using PGP, SSH, and SSL. It is because creating a new cryptographic protocol takes the best minds out there... and even then, there will be attacks that people didn't even think about like side channel stuff, quantum crypto, and other items, so the protocol always needs updating, if not a complete overhaul. Even then, old standbys like the OpenPGP format are showing their age, due to not supporting forward secrecy and using less efficient binary to ascii algorithms.
A cryptocurrency done willy-nilly will not last long. At best it will be pumped and dumped. However, if one can be designed from the ground up, without obvious crap like premining, it might be useful... BUT it takes a lot of effort, and it has to at least be better than BitCoin, especially in the anonymity department.
For a small amount, a cache makes sense, especially in a transaction style so writes can be completed when they hit the cache (and if there is a power outage, next time things come on, the controller can flush the cache without corrupting data.) For a larger amount of storage (I'd say in the terabytes), it might be useful as a tier of storage.
Will it replace SSDs? On workstations, laptops, devices, and other items that need shock-resistant media? No. For SANs, possibly not, as SSDs appear to have a longer life in the field (I personally have replaced many, many HDDs, but I've only had 1-2 SSDs go south in arrays.) The only place I can see this type of memory actually pushing out SSDs are SANs that are designed for backups, like Data Domain offerings. This is where one wants a lot of low tier, slow disks that have a lot of capacity and are reliable. One has a few TB of optane memory that functions as a landing zone for writes, then the data gets slowly written to the HDDs. Since there writes are sequential, this works well with shingled drives.
Another use for optane memory would be low-end NAS drives. Even 16-64 gigs would turn a rack of 5400 RPM WD Reds into something usable for most departments or workgroups. No, definitely not enterprise tier, but good enough for a few PCs.
Yik Yak had some merit, as there were some interesting conversations on there, but because it was "anonymous" at first, it just invited all the trolls.
What killed it for me was the fact that the app grabbed as much data as possible from your phone to "individualize" it... i.e. de-anonymize the user.
I am quite happy with T-Mobile as well. I know that the other providers are doing "unlimited" plans, but I much rather deal with a slight slowdown than a surprise big bill.
Plus, historically, it has been "the" provider to go to, if you have an unlocked phone.
It was supposed to be late 2015 when everything was going to be chip-and-PIN, so we would have security at least on par with the rest of the world. 2015 rolled around, and we wound up with credit card machines at various stores with the chip slot taped over. Now, same thing. There is a 50/50 chance that I will be swiping my card, and not using the chip on it, depending on merchant.
I really would love to see fingerprint technology here in the US, just as a precaution.
Back in the 1970s, there was a time where highway signs in the US were marked in both miles and kilometers. I just don't get why this isn't just done now, then miles are phased out completely. It only continues to cause us grief.
It is getting there. If one does any servicing work, it is using metric measurements. When communicating temperature, one uses both Centigrade and Fahrenheit to get the info across. Even all cars here in the US both have mph and kph on the speedos, or if digital, the ability to switch units.
The invisible hand will eventually push the US to the metric system.
I leave the ISP router mostly alone, and have an interior firewall. It maybe adds 5-6 milliseconds of latency, likely due to the second NAT layer, but adds peace of mind. At least the ISP's device respects the "all wi-fi off" setting. If it didn't, I'd probably see about "liberating" the antennas from the device.
I remember reading about how the Sauds and other countries in that region take relatively deionized water that was distilled or from their desalination plants, and add the needed trace amounts of minerals fo it, so it would be suitable and healthy for drinking.
If distilled water becomes common, I can see a company like Nuun making fizzy tablets which dissolve in water to give the needed minerals, and perhaps some useful vitamins as well.
I never bother with popular music. Same reason why I don't eat at McDonald's. I used to like Pandora for new stuff, but YouTube has been a good place to find tracks worth a listen. Dungeon synth works well as a genre for IT work, for example.
There is a dedicated YouTube Music app available.
Me, I feel old... I prefer buying the CD and ripping it or downloading (not streaming) tracks, copying them to the device, then playing. No issues with dead zones or bad Internet issues. Plus, when I purchase an album, the band gets 70% of the cut if through iTMS or more if bought from their website, as opposed to 0.00000000000001% or some other insane figure that streaming it gives them.
What about 78s?