The idea that Disney+ could be discounted bundled with Hulu is of interest. I couldn't care less about ESPN+, but do use Hulu regularly, particularly since I get HBO through it. I'm interested in some of the Star Wars stuff and hope some more mature TV shows might be spawned showing some grittiness of the galaxy (perhaps a show just about bounty hunters, or the Hutt crime cartels). Marvel TV shows have been more miss lately than hit for me (I liked Agents of Shield when it first came out, but the last two seasons have gotten weird and off-topic in my mind). I also hope all the old Disney afternoon cartoons are on the platform (like the old Ducktails, Rescue Rangers, etc).
I would have never thought a documentary about a font would be interesting, but Helvetica the documentary was actually very interesting. I'd recommend it as an interesting watch on a lazy weekend.
The U.S. has averaged ADDING 180K jobs each month across 2019. In March along, +196K jobs were added. This isn't to say there will be transitions as some companies cut and others add, but TFS makes it sound like the sky is falling when it isn't. That isn't to say were aren't headed into a slowdown in the next ~18 months, but we sure as Hell aren't there yet.
https://www.ibj.com/articles/7...https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...
Reminds me of when I was working for a company in the early 00s that wanted to phase out all desktops and move to thin clients without hard drives that served up a Citrix desktop. We got through only about 2 departments before it was determined to be an idiotic errand. Our Citrix farm had ballooned from less than 10 4-way beasts to almost 40 and counting, and users were pissed that they had slow server connections, lost work, etc. trying to work this way. We ended up pulling most of the thin clients out and going back to traditional HDD desk/laptops. The news of the desktop's death has been greatly exaggerated.
I highly agree. My grandfather, when he was alive, had limited computer experience, but liked to get online to check scores, make PrintShop banners, etc. He lived about an hour from me and I helped him as much as I could, but he'd take his computer sometimes to nearby Big Box stores 5 minutes away for help when I couldn't. The fact some greedy corporation would prey on what I'd assume is a largely older demographic just looking for help with their PCs boils my blood. It's no better than a shitty mechanic forcing unneeded repairs on you. If your business model is to fuck over the elderly, I can only hope death is slow and painful.
This doesn't strike me with surprise at all. My dad was an IBMer who was lucky enough to get downsized in December right before Christmas (around 10 years ago). He was in his mid-50s at the time and had so much DB/2 and other database knowledge IBM based their certification programs off of his skills. He always received impeccable performance reviews and worked hard for the company.
I have no doubt some shithead in IBM HR did a SELECT employ_ID WHERE emp_age >50 and went on a "cost savings" massacre. These RIFs are baldfaced attacks on older employees whose only crime is they couldn't stop the aging process. They have all built decades of specialized and technical skills making them invaluable resources. IBM doesn't give a shit about how it treats its employees and it shows in their years of declining revenues. They're on a slow death-march into the sea with this current strategy, which is unfortunate to see a once great company fall apart.
Back in college, I used to purposefully load the dog Office Assistant when I was writing late-night papers on my computer. Seeing that cartoon dog was encouraging when you're all alone at 4 am trying to finish a paper!
I'd be curious how this system retains your play state and how you might store saved games. I'd hate to have a mobile connection drop and lose a game mid-level, but if it is constantly saving your stream and can be picked back up on the PC, that would be interesting. Also, I wonder how saved game files work and if you have a certain number, or if you unsubscribe how long they might be saved.
When people are buying, they're measuring their trust of the product vs. the price they're paying. For cheap commodities like batteries and cables, the price is really low, and people don't need to place high trust into the products. As price rises for clothing and furniture, etc., people need to trust the brand to not be crap due to the relative investment they're making. If a $0.50 battery lasts only 85% as the $0.57 battery, who really cares or measures it, but for a $50 sweater or a $400 sofa, it should perform to those levels, and you're more likely to go with a name brand in those instances.
If this was a push to develop plug & play tools for small towns and municipalities to use, I'd be all for it. Instead of every town or even city needing to pay millions to develop city websites, phone apps, information portals, bill-pay sites, service request sites, etc., it would be a great cost reducer to have something already developed and free to use for these places to plug in their relevant data and get it up and running with less cost and time, and easier to maintain if bug & security patches were coming from the Fed. It should be open source, and modular so you can run city sites for towns of 50,000 to cities like L.A. and Chicago. Why have 50 different implementations of BMV (DMV) or welfare or Medicaid or Dept. of Revenue software with all that tax-payer cost of re-inventing the wheel just because you're in Texas or New Jersey? States and cities could be free to choose what they want and don't, and reduce our national digital overhead costs. I don't know if any of this is being thought of, but this is what I think could be a big benefit to lower local government IT expense.
Maiya looked out wistfully over the horizon at the valley below. She leaned heavily on her walking stick carved from a mammoth shin bone and pulled back her sabertoothed tiger cowl. What changes this valley had seen over the past few decades. A few paces back, her son finally caught up with her and joined her in the view. "What was it like before they resurrected all the dinosaurs and ancient animals?" Maiya sighed heavily, eying the overgrowth that had swallowed a city that used to be called 'L.A.' She could hear in the distance the howls and screams of something fighting for its life. "Well, for one, we stepped in a lot less T-Rex shit."
Yeah, the advent of the smartphone and its apps largely makes the idea irrelevant today. When I was thinking about such a device it was pre-smartphone adoption, but now is pretty quaint with all the things apps can do.
If they are serious about building out its functionality, it would be nice if it had added graphing and calculus features added to it to mimic a TI-83 or TI-89. This could be a benefit to students who have to share calculators in school and can't afford one for home use (or those times you just don't have one on you). Having it shipped and supported right inside Windows would be a great benefit for students.
I liked the idea of simply being able to reorder as needed, but the fact they were like $10/button and only served 1 product always put me off. Before they came out I thought of a similar product, like barcode reader, that could sit in closets or pantries where you could scan the barcode from the item you were out of and it would add it to your shopping list. These buttons removed the list idea and conveniently ordered it right away, but were locked into the brand, size of packaging (24 count vs 36 count), and variety (e.g. no other scents or colors) for the button you bought. If it had a reader and screen, you could scan the item, pick amongst what Amazon is currently offering, and then buy it. That way if you wanted a smaller size, or were brand-agnostic and wanted a cheaper price, it would allow it.
Good! Nothing is more frustrating than when you're searching for research articles only to hit a paywalled article your library or company hasn't paid for. Worse, you often don't know if the article is even relevant and don't want to spend $30-50 or so to see if it is. I was last trying to find some writings on sulfide bridge formation, and found only papers that were completely offtopic, or were out of date, and the only way you could determine this was to read the first several pages in (abstracts are the worst). These journal conglomerates need to adjust their business models so that end user scientists can get what they need without paying through the nose for mostly irrelevant info. Even allowing say 50 free articles a month would help.
This effort to write into law and enforce bad science through education reminds me of the battles over evolution. Science education should be as agnostic as possible to any viewpoint and should be teaching the lastest widely-held scientific understanding. We don't teach older models of the atom once Bohr's came along, and no other model of DNA beyond the double helix is taught. If our understanding of climate and CO2 changes in the future, we will teach that, but for now, an overwhelming majority (>90%) of the scientific community holds that climate change is real and is human-activity driven.
I'm willing to guess there was a particular state actor directing the hacking. I would have been more surprised if the article was about Russia and/or China finding ways to support western democracies rather than undermining them.
I've always said if Amazon wants to be really beneficial and transformational, place their HQ2 in a rust-belt city. NYC is fine, they are millions of jobs and a high cost of living. Places like Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburg, etc. need the jobs and would be very supportive to Amazon.
I was thinking the same thing. So now there are miles and miles of shitty fiber all over the city that will continue to become exposed over time and look like garbage. Not to mention the potential effect on wildlife that may consume the discarded cabling.
Man, this whole thing is starting to feel like a dating reality show where the star can't make up their mind on who they want to date. Amazon decided to do this highly public publicity stunt on who they'd pick, ending up with the two cities everyone thought from the beginning, while stringing along hundreds of communities desperate for the economic shot-in-the-arm those 50K (or now 25K given the split) would bring. If Amazon wants to be revolutionary and really help its community, place it in a rust-belt city in Indiana, Ohio, or Pennsylvania where it would spur a life-changing transformation in the community.
But I wonder if this wouldn't give people a better chance to find the 'right' job. If you are involuntarily unemployed and facing tight finances, you'll take any job that comes along, whether it is a good fit or not. If you aren't money-constrained, you have a better chance to spend more time seeking and interviewing to get one you'll stay at long term. This could be a boon for the economy and employers given the high cost of trying to fill vacancies.
Foxconn (con?) has a history of making grand job pronouncements only to later scale back of evaporate altogether. I'll believe that they'll build this LCD factory only when it is done and up and running. I feel bad for Wisconsin citizens, they were sold a bill of goods (jobs, prosperity) by corrupt politicians and greedy companies.
Agreed, the two rovers were well engineered and survived numerous "near misses" along their way that could have shut them down prematurely. The fact that they lasted so long is a credit to those who worked on it to build in robust systems and backups to handle whatever unpredictability the Martian surface could throw at them. I look forward to the next rover projects and what feats they'll accomplish.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea that Disney+ could be discounted bundled with Hulu is of interest. I couldn't care less about ESPN+, but do use Hulu regularly, particularly since I get HBO through it. I'm interested in some of the Star Wars stuff and hope some more mature TV shows might be spawned showing some grittiness of the galaxy (perhaps a show just about bounty hunters, or the Hutt crime cartels). Marvel TV shows have been more miss lately than hit for me (I liked Agents of Shield when it first came out, but the last two seasons have gotten weird and off-topic in my mind). I also hope all the old Disney afternoon cartoons are on the platform (like the old Ducktails, Rescue Rangers, etc).
I would have never thought a documentary about a font would be interesting, but Helvetica the documentary was actually very interesting. I'd recommend it as an interesting watch on a lazy weekend.
The U.S. has averaged ADDING 180K jobs each month across 2019. In March along, +196K jobs were added. This isn't to say there will be transitions as some companies cut and others add, but TFS makes it sound like the sky is falling when it isn't. That isn't to say were aren't headed into a slowdown in the next ~18 months, but we sure as Hell aren't there yet. https://www.ibj.com/articles/7... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...
Reminds me of when I was working for a company in the early 00s that wanted to phase out all desktops and move to thin clients without hard drives that served up a Citrix desktop. We got through only about 2 departments before it was determined to be an idiotic errand. Our Citrix farm had ballooned from less than 10 4-way beasts to almost 40 and counting, and users were pissed that they had slow server connections, lost work, etc. trying to work this way. We ended up pulling most of the thin clients out and going back to traditional HDD desk/laptops. The news of the desktop's death has been greatly exaggerated.
I highly agree. My grandfather, when he was alive, had limited computer experience, but liked to get online to check scores, make PrintShop banners, etc. He lived about an hour from me and I helped him as much as I could, but he'd take his computer sometimes to nearby Big Box stores 5 minutes away for help when I couldn't. The fact some greedy corporation would prey on what I'd assume is a largely older demographic just looking for help with their PCs boils my blood. It's no better than a shitty mechanic forcing unneeded repairs on you. If your business model is to fuck over the elderly, I can only hope death is slow and painful.
This doesn't strike me with surprise at all. My dad was an IBMer who was lucky enough to get downsized in December right before Christmas (around 10 years ago). He was in his mid-50s at the time and had so much DB/2 and other database knowledge IBM based their certification programs off of his skills. He always received impeccable performance reviews and worked hard for the company. I have no doubt some shithead in IBM HR did a SELECT employ_ID WHERE emp_age >50 and went on a "cost savings" massacre. These RIFs are baldfaced attacks on older employees whose only crime is they couldn't stop the aging process. They have all built decades of specialized and technical skills making them invaluable resources. IBM doesn't give a shit about how it treats its employees and it shows in their years of declining revenues. They're on a slow death-march into the sea with this current strategy, which is unfortunate to see a once great company fall apart.
how those fuel exchanges on the side of the road went. "So, where'd you get the cheap fuel?" "It, uh, fell off the back of a truck?"
Back in college, I used to purposefully load the dog Office Assistant when I was writing late-night papers on my computer. Seeing that cartoon dog was encouraging when you're all alone at 4 am trying to finish a paper!
...$100,000, we'll add this red button to the plane that says "Don't Crash".
I'd be curious how this system retains your play state and how you might store saved games. I'd hate to have a mobile connection drop and lose a game mid-level, but if it is constantly saving your stream and can be picked back up on the PC, that would be interesting. Also, I wonder how saved game files work and if you have a certain number, or if you unsubscribe how long they might be saved.
When people are buying, they're measuring their trust of the product vs. the price they're paying. For cheap commodities like batteries and cables, the price is really low, and people don't need to place high trust into the products. As price rises for clothing and furniture, etc., people need to trust the brand to not be crap due to the relative investment they're making. If a $0.50 battery lasts only 85% as the $0.57 battery, who really cares or measures it, but for a $50 sweater or a $400 sofa, it should perform to those levels, and you're more likely to go with a name brand in those instances.
If this was a push to develop plug & play tools for small towns and municipalities to use, I'd be all for it. Instead of every town or even city needing to pay millions to develop city websites, phone apps, information portals, bill-pay sites, service request sites, etc., it would be a great cost reducer to have something already developed and free to use for these places to plug in their relevant data and get it up and running with less cost and time, and easier to maintain if bug & security patches were coming from the Fed. It should be open source, and modular so you can run city sites for towns of 50,000 to cities like L.A. and Chicago. Why have 50 different implementations of BMV (DMV) or welfare or Medicaid or Dept. of Revenue software with all that tax-payer cost of re-inventing the wheel just because you're in Texas or New Jersey? States and cities could be free to choose what they want and don't, and reduce our national digital overhead costs. I don't know if any of this is being thought of, but this is what I think could be a big benefit to lower local government IT expense.
Maiya looked out wistfully over the horizon at the valley below. She leaned heavily on her walking stick carved from a mammoth shin bone and pulled back her sabertoothed tiger cowl. What changes this valley had seen over the past few decades. A few paces back, her son finally caught up with her and joined her in the view. "What was it like before they resurrected all the dinosaurs and ancient animals?" Maiya sighed heavily, eying the overgrowth that had swallowed a city that used to be called 'L.A.' She could hear in the distance the howls and screams of something fighting for its life. "Well, for one, we stepped in a lot less T-Rex shit."
Yeah, the advent of the smartphone and its apps largely makes the idea irrelevant today. When I was thinking about such a device it was pre-smartphone adoption, but now is pretty quaint with all the things apps can do.
If they are serious about building out its functionality, it would be nice if it had added graphing and calculus features added to it to mimic a TI-83 or TI-89. This could be a benefit to students who have to share calculators in school and can't afford one for home use (or those times you just don't have one on you). Having it shipped and supported right inside Windows would be a great benefit for students.
I liked the idea of simply being able to reorder as needed, but the fact they were like $10/button and only served 1 product always put me off. Before they came out I thought of a similar product, like barcode reader, that could sit in closets or pantries where you could scan the barcode from the item you were out of and it would add it to your shopping list. These buttons removed the list idea and conveniently ordered it right away, but were locked into the brand, size of packaging (24 count vs 36 count), and variety (e.g. no other scents or colors) for the button you bought. If it had a reader and screen, you could scan the item, pick amongst what Amazon is currently offering, and then buy it. That way if you wanted a smaller size, or were brand-agnostic and wanted a cheaper price, it would allow it.
Good! Nothing is more frustrating than when you're searching for research articles only to hit a paywalled article your library or company hasn't paid for. Worse, you often don't know if the article is even relevant and don't want to spend $30-50 or so to see if it is. I was last trying to find some writings on sulfide bridge formation, and found only papers that were completely offtopic, or were out of date, and the only way you could determine this was to read the first several pages in (abstracts are the worst). These journal conglomerates need to adjust their business models so that end user scientists can get what they need without paying through the nose for mostly irrelevant info. Even allowing say 50 free articles a month would help.
This effort to write into law and enforce bad science through education reminds me of the battles over evolution. Science education should be as agnostic as possible to any viewpoint and should be teaching the lastest widely-held scientific understanding. We don't teach older models of the atom once Bohr's came along, and no other model of DNA beyond the double helix is taught. If our understanding of climate and CO2 changes in the future, we will teach that, but for now, an overwhelming majority (>90%) of the scientific community holds that climate change is real and is human-activity driven.
I'm willing to guess there was a particular state actor directing the hacking. I would have been more surprised if the article was about Russia and/or China finding ways to support western democracies rather than undermining them.
I've always said if Amazon wants to be really beneficial and transformational, place their HQ2 in a rust-belt city. NYC is fine, they are millions of jobs and a high cost of living. Places like Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburg, etc. need the jobs and would be very supportive to Amazon.
I was thinking the same thing. So now there are miles and miles of shitty fiber all over the city that will continue to become exposed over time and look like garbage. Not to mention the potential effect on wildlife that may consume the discarded cabling.
Man, this whole thing is starting to feel like a dating reality show where the star can't make up their mind on who they want to date. Amazon decided to do this highly public publicity stunt on who they'd pick, ending up with the two cities everyone thought from the beginning, while stringing along hundreds of communities desperate for the economic shot-in-the-arm those 50K (or now 25K given the split) would bring. If Amazon wants to be revolutionary and really help its community, place it in a rust-belt city in Indiana, Ohio, or Pennsylvania where it would spur a life-changing transformation in the community.
But I wonder if this wouldn't give people a better chance to find the 'right' job. If you are involuntarily unemployed and facing tight finances, you'll take any job that comes along, whether it is a good fit or not. If you aren't money-constrained, you have a better chance to spend more time seeking and interviewing to get one you'll stay at long term. This could be a boon for the economy and employers given the high cost of trying to fill vacancies.
Foxconn (con?) has a history of making grand job pronouncements only to later scale back of evaporate altogether. I'll believe that they'll build this LCD factory only when it is done and up and running. I feel bad for Wisconsin citizens, they were sold a bill of goods (jobs, prosperity) by corrupt politicians and greedy companies.
Agreed, the two rovers were well engineered and survived numerous "near misses" along their way that could have shut them down prematurely. The fact that they lasted so long is a credit to those who worked on it to build in robust systems and backups to handle whatever unpredictability the Martian surface could throw at them. I look forward to the next rover projects and what feats they'll accomplish.