Microsoft runs the continued risk of spreading itself too thin and not really having a fundamental impact in any one market."
They've got a lot more zeros and commas and stuff in their bank account balance than me, that's for sure. They ought be be able to afford to spread out quite a bit before risking being too "thin" anywhere. When you have that much cash in the bank you ought to be able to draft a memo and toss it in the air and a month from now there's a new large building somewhere staffed full of talented people with one purpose, to make what you just wrote down happen. Why should we think MS can't do that?
I don't think the coverage is the problem. You have to have brilliant minds at the top to toss out memos like that to provide direction in the first place. That's where MS has been failing for so long. They're like a troll, big and powerful, and truly a scary thing to be up against in theory, but it's not the muscle that's the problem.
"then they laugh at you" "then they fight you" "and then you win."
It looks like Ballmer has decided to proceed from stage 2 to stage 3. This is really the first time I recall him doing anything to admit there's a problem. Usually the MS stage puppets just keep up the brainwashing with how MS is doing so well and owns the market and is the leader in everything and how the new blablabla is going to be such a smashing success. You know the gloves have come off when Ballmer admits they're behind.
The ECU/ECM controls all engine functions. If it doesn't give the go ahead, your car won't run, no matter how many wires are cut apart or spliced together.
Watch the video that the OP links to. They hotwired it to silence the alarm. Then they pushed it out of frame, probably chained it to another car or maybe even winched it up on a flatbed after that. They'll muck with the ECU lock when they get it back to the chop shop and can take their time.
A pc tech friend of mine had one of these, he'd put his anti-malware software on it and then lock it before attaching to any infected computer. Good way to keep your flash drive and its tools from getting infected.
And on a side-note... the slide lock on SD cards, it's ornamental only. I was surprised to find this out. I put a different firmware on a card and tried to boot my camera from it, and it refused to boot. After some digging I found out that I had to LOCK it for it to boot. Now, what good is a locked SD card in a camera? Didn't matter. The alternate software booted and I was able to take pictures (which were written to the card) no problem. The slide lock appears to only be a physical slide with no electrical contacts in the card to disable write, and relies on the camera to enforce the lock, I assume the camera has a physical reader in the card slot to detect position. So don't rely on locking the card, because it's entirely up to the camera as to whether or not it's actually read-only.
I'm surprised more usb flash drives don't feature lock switches. Even a little micro slide switch accessible through a small slot in the outer shell would be fine. Or even a micro slide inside the usb port. (I have a really small micro sd to usb adapter here that the micro sd card inserts NOT in the back of the little unit, but in the open end of the usb connector, where the flat part usually is, so there is a possibility there)
Brutal military dictatorship (current government) or Islamist theocracy (rebels), take your pick.
Nuke from orbit?
So easy to go back only a few decades and see how the US, USSR, etc were backing revolutions to get rid of an undesirable govt, only to see it replaced with something different but just as bad. Pineapple face comes immediately to mind, but I heard there was a hand in Saddam as well, just to name a few.
Thing is, the "rebels" are rarely being lead by someone that supports the people. It's more often someone that wants power. All the "people" generally want is change, but the wrong kind of change is usually the only one that has a chance of succeeding.
the really annoying ones are the drives that present TWO storage devices. One usually contains drivers, or a small partition with the security software to properly mount the second protected device.
Those are usually NOT separate partitions, they're separate DEVICES and thus a dump from DD doesn't get them both. The other one is usually permanently write-protected also, tho there can be ways to get around that sometimes if you know how.
The most important difference between say, christians and muslims is one of those groups still reads it to the letter today. Christianity started getting over that after the crusades. Islam is still living in what, the 600's or so?
Most religions started with tenants built around conquering other religious groups. Back then it was simply a matter of survival. Most religions either did it or were conquered and destroyed as a result. What we have left now are the "winners", but a few of them are still fighting, with Islam containing the most public, radical, and fundamental batch of nuts of the bunch. And they aren't the least bit concerned about behaving like 600AD barbarians to do it. And the rest of the world tends to frown on that now. These "fundamentalist clerics" have a lot in common with vile little dictators that are using religion as a means of creating power and influence. I can't help but wonder what percentage of them is a real religious leader and what percentage are just taking advantage of their religion and their influence.
And most of these religions' holy books flat out say that the world belongs to them and everyone else can either join or it's ok to kill them. That wasn't meant for the modern world. I have zero respect for that attitude now. Anyone that agrees with a book that says it's their god-given right to force me to do something or kill me for not doing it deserves that Hellfire comin' down their cave.
Unfortunately it gives the rest of the more modern/moderate/reasonable followers a really bad rep. I think right now the fastest way to get discriminated against in the US would be to make your Islamic religion known. Moreso than race etc. A lot of that is the govt P.R. engine at work, but you can't place all the blame on them. You're just going to get a lot of bad bias when you're associated with nuts that like to blow up large groups of uninvolved innocents, particularly from the part of that pool of innocents that would prefer to keep breathing. The moderates need to do something about their fundamentalist relations. Either smack some sense into them or split. The extremists are the one to blame for the bias, not the extremists' targets. All I hear are the moderates complaining about the public grouping them together. They are a group. They are a part of the group, and they either need to do something, affect change within the group, or leave it. "Guilt-by-association" is impossible to dodge. So far of all the religious conversations I've had with followers of Islam, every one of them still thinks the bad light that shines on them is 100% the fault of the world, they don't see the root of the problem, and aren't in any hurry to do anything about it.
Does make one wonder where the line needs to be drawn for enhancing equipment in competition like this?
I thought the original olympiads performed entirely naked? Even little things like swim caps can make quite a difference. Unless all the athletes have access to the same tech, it's not really fair?
And even if they all get it, then all it means is everyone improves by the same amount, and nobody really gets anywhere (relatively) besides breaking a few more world records.
Depends on where you live. In this city anyway, DWB is a very popular reason to get pulled over, particularly if it's a carload of teens driving around late at night on the wrong side of town. Almost guaranteed.
Then use the coding in your documentation and floor plans. Or just document them properly as they are put in.
In all of my cases I wasn't the one that put it in. In most of them the cable dogs had installed jacks without marking them, and end up with a big wad of cable coming out the ceiling and just put ends on them and plug directly into ports on hubs/switches, or randomly punch them down on the panel and then randomly run jumpers from the panel to the switches. Definitely the lazy approach, but that's what you have to pick up after a lot of the time.
Toners and jack identifying remotes are more useful if you're a one-man-band, saves time running back and forth between jacks and the closet. But that's why I suggest headsets and an assistant. So much faster than by yourself.
And not once, not twice, but thrice I've had to deal with said tangles. My solution was the same in all cases. Set aside some time and COMPLETELY document it. I use excel and conditional formulas to create cross lists for separate panels, to catch errors while trying to document.
Then once I'm certain I have it right, develop a new organization, then pull everything and start over.
My first experience with this removed multiple token rings, at least FOUR loops, and consolidated twelve hubs (not switches) and installed a master switch. Boot times on the floor went from 30 minutes to 45 seconds, and daily network problems vanished never to return. The morning after the rebuild we experienced an entire day of jaw-dropping throughout the building.
Do it. It's so worth it.
Also another hint. If you have to deal with a lot of unmarked jacks throughout the building, enlist a helper or two and use wireless headsets. One person at the rack with a keen eye for a light going out, and another one or two elsewhere briefly unplugging ethernet cables from live machines. Makes identification of jacks actually quick and easy.
The FSF wrote a licence that would give them the rights to take specific actions, and it's hard for them to argue they never would!'"
Couldn't agree more. "We insist you write us a blank check, just in case we need it. We won't abuse it. We promise!"
No. Blank checks get abuse, pretty much always. It's difficult to find examples of where abusable rights were given and then later did not go on to get abused at least once. (and sometimes as a matter of policy) It's also sadly entertaining to watch how they tend to fight you when you try to add in anti-abuse clauses, things that make you go "hmmmmm...."
The first and last real MS innovation was the Microsoft BASIC interpreter which became ubiquitous in 1980s home computers. Everything else they ever did was shamelessly stolen and/or bought and/or badly copied from others.
Woz must have been abusing that time machine of his, to have copied microsoft's 1980 "innovation" in 1978 with his AppleSoft BASIC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applesoft_BASIC
I'd take that a step further and suggest that the degree is there as a "Plan B" in case you don't get outrageously lucky and pull a gates/zuck/jobs out of the hat.
No, I have to agree with him. I see lots of people having kids like it was deciding to buy a Diet Coke. They don't get that is a *huge* responsibility that lasts at least 18 years, costs tons of money, time, etc. to properly raise kids.
The first impression I got from the OP was one of "You're pregnant again? Time to re-evaluate my job security!" So, now he realizes he's potentially in a tighter jam than he already was. (no savings, no house, no working wife... should have already been addressing these things) IMHO too little too late. Best he can do at this point is damage control. I'll assume he's at least sane enough to not be considering adoption. Anyone that gives him a kid after considering his current situation is as irresponsible as he is.
Assuming the wife is preggers, get her into the workforce a year from now. I didn't see any mention of younger siblings, but at age 40 odds are there's one or two by now, and they can help take care of the baby. Or this may have been a case of the wife's biological clock screaming at her to produce at least one kid before the factory shuts down. In that event I'd be asking why hasn't the wife been working? This just looks like poor planning over the long term, and looking for an escape. Or a lazy wife. (or disabled I suppose)
This might end well, but the odds are not real good. As many above have said, "kids are expensive". If he loses his job, and his wife isn't working, and they're having a kid, this is going to get really ugly really fast. By 40 you should have some buffers built up and it doesn't look like this guy has any.
The upside is that Apple had to post $90 million, payable in some part to Samsung (as I understand it), in case the injunction turned out to be bogus.
They can probably round up that kind of cash by digging in their couch cushions. I'm sure the appeal was expected, and they'll probably wait to see how it pans out before proceeding. The fact that they haven't posted the bond yet does suggest they think the injunction has a chance of being successfully appealed
When you're dealing with companies of this size, an injunction really doesn't mean much until it's withstood at least one appeal.
I don't really see another way around this. The same problem plagues computer OSs also, look at windows.
The only way I see to do this is to either force the updates directly or to have a short cutoff point for support and compatibility. (thus forcing them indirectly)
A lot of consumers won't like this. They naturally want/prefer something they bought to last a lifetime without "paying again" to update or replace/upgrade it. But in the long-run, fragmentation is bad for them. Since companies make money off upgrades and updates and not from customers buying/paying only once, they're seen as evil for prodding or forcing their users to keep moving up. Unfortunately only part of that is profiteering. The other benefit is one to the users in the long term.
It's a difficult thing to get consumers to understand, they tend to see the short term costs and overlook the long-term benefits. This creates a difficult balancing act for the vendors. Updates need to be as transparent, quick, easy, and cheap as possible, while keeping the platform on the move. It's impossible to design hardware that's future-proof on software, so new hardware has to be bought as well as new software.
Apple appears to be one of the better players in the "move along" game. They won't support an OS more than 1 version back, and have a somewhat regular release schedule. OS upgrades used to be expensive, but have dropped dramatically in price recently. The updates have several big new features added to them as well as improvement on existing features, so the users can at least see some immediate justification for upgrading. From what I see, around 30% of Macintoshes run the current version, 50% are one version behind, and only about 20% are two or more versions out of date. They've done an excellent job in keeping their platform on the move.
The critics will usually still beat on the same negatives while ignoring the benefits. There's a regular "tax" for the newest OS. New hardware has to be purchased more frequently. But I think it's worth it in the long-term for the users. Fragmentation is avoided. Developers don't have to write code that will work on machines spanning a decade of OS or hardware. (this makes development faster and cheaper, support cheaper, and keeps 3rd party app quality and features high.
Digital TV is a good example of the benefits that result in forcing change. The only thing that was going to get the industry to move to digital was to make it mandatory. I'm sure there are still some that are moaning that their old TV was working fine and why did they have to force me to buy a new set. But I think most of us can be thankful for the result.
So the issue isn't just with the vendors, it's also an issue of the users. Your userbase alse has to be willing to tolerate any inconvenience and expense associated with staying current. And the simple fact of the matter is, not all userbases will tolerate it. I think the majority of people that buy cheap phones want to spend as little as possible, and that's not compatible with regular upgrades, of hardware OR software. This could make the problem very difficult for Google to solve, because a big part of their market is the cheap phones. The users AND the actual phone vendors both don't want to invest in keeping current. I personally think the only way for them to fix this is to make the upgrade process something that the vendors can very easily "turn on" in their phones, a process that's very low cost to the vendors (in terms of development, support, and need for new hardware) and zero cost and inconvenience to the end users. Anything else just won't work in those markets. If you can't deliver on all of those points, the vendors will make each handset work with one build only, and will continue to sell it until its unprofitable, growing the fragmentation.
I understand personal unsecured devices on the DoD network are forbidden, but it's also easy to see where you literally have a boatload full of people with ipads and personal laptops with webcams that want internet access and a connection to family at home.
Creating a second, public-only network is the obvious solution. But given the recent wikileaks-ish concerns, I'm amazed that they are considering anyone else providing this service. It would seem that the logical thing for them to do now is to create a vpn tunnel themselves and run their own endpoints in the states. I can't imagine them not wanting a high degree of control and monitoring of it. The last thing they want is a vpn they can't easily tap into that creates a difficult-to-monitor information pipeline out of a secured environment, even if not directly-connected to the secured network. It's connected indirectly by the entire crew.
This really needs to be done internally, under the control of the military, not farmed out. Think about postal mail and now email. If you're on tour and write a letter back home, and are stupidly saying things you shouldn't, like "so excited to see we're FINALLY going to go to XXX and kick some ass next week!". That gets censored out before it gets to the states of course. Last thing in the world they want is for all the sailors to have a vpn where they have very little or no control over that.
Odds are good that whoever tasked you with this didn't quite understand the can of worms you are attempting to open; just because they're higher rank than you doesn't mean they know the subtleties of what you do. And if it does go through, it won't last long before someone higher up with a more complete understanding puts their foot down, or the press gets ahold of what's going on and has a field day. (or both)
I don't think the cost has as much to do with it as the prospect of paying for something that they may not directly or immediately benefit from. Either being short-sighted or selfish.
Should your city provide a food kitchen to feed the homeless and less fortunate? HELL YEAH!
Do you want to pay a nickel a day to make that happen? HELL NO! BUY YOUR OWN FOOD!
(although part of the problem is there are so many "good causes" that there's so many nickels that it really adds up)
I know its overly popular these days to call any malware, trojan or other malicious bit of software a virus, but they really dont meet the definition. Frankly, I cant think of a real virus being released in quite some time. Which just seems lazy to me.
Not lazy, just sensational journalism. Exaggerate in the summary to get more people to read it because of how surprising it would be if it were actually true
Either the/. editors are hopping on the sensationalism bandwagon, or they're lazy. Any nerd that still has his card ought to be able to smell exaggeration here. There's really no excuse for it.
Slashdot Mirror
They've got a lot more zeros and commas and stuff in their bank account balance than me, that's for sure. They ought be be able to afford to spread out quite a bit before risking being too "thin" anywhere. When you have that much cash in the bank you ought to be able to draft a memo and toss it in the air and a month from now there's a new large building somewhere staffed full of talented people with one purpose, to make what you just wrote down happen. Why should we think MS can't do that?
I don't think the coverage is the problem. You have to have brilliant minds at the top to toss out memos like that to provide direction in the first place. That's where MS has been failing for so long. They're like a troll, big and powerful, and truly a scary thing to be up against in theory, but it's not the muscle that's the problem.
"then they laugh at you"
"then they fight you"
"and then you win."
It looks like Ballmer has decided to proceed from stage 2 to stage 3. This is really the first time I recall him doing anything to admit there's a problem. Usually the MS stage puppets just keep up the brainwashing with how MS is doing so well and owns the market and is the leader in everything and how the new blablabla is going to be such a smashing success. You know the gloves have come off when Ballmer admits they're behind.
Watch the video that the OP links to. They hotwired it to silence the alarm. Then they pushed it out of frame, probably chained it to another car or maybe even winched it up on a flatbed after that. They'll muck with the ECU lock when they get it back to the chop shop and can take their time.
won'd do you much good if you don't have a positive balance in your account...
A pc tech friend of mine had one of these, he'd put his anti-malware software on it and then lock it before attaching to any infected computer. Good way to keep your flash drive and its tools from getting infected.
And on a side-note... the slide lock on SD cards, it's ornamental only. I was surprised to find this out. I put a different firmware on a card and tried to boot my camera from it, and it refused to boot. After some digging I found out that I had to LOCK it for it to boot. Now, what good is a locked SD card in a camera? Didn't matter. The alternate software booted and I was able to take pictures (which were written to the card) no problem. The slide lock appears to only be a physical slide with no electrical contacts in the card to disable write, and relies on the camera to enforce the lock, I assume the camera has a physical reader in the card slot to detect position. So don't rely on locking the card, because it's entirely up to the camera as to whether or not it's actually read-only.
I'm surprised more usb flash drives don't feature lock switches. Even a little micro slide switch accessible through a small slot in the outer shell would be fine. Or even a micro slide inside the usb port. (I have a really small micro sd to usb adapter here that the micro sd card inserts NOT in the back of the little unit, but in the open end of the usb connector, where the flat part usually is, so there is a possibility there)
Nuke from orbit?
So easy to go back only a few decades and see how the US, USSR, etc were backing revolutions to get rid of an undesirable govt, only to see it replaced with something different but just as bad. Pineapple face comes immediately to mind, but I heard there was a hand in Saddam as well, just to name a few.
Thing is, the "rebels" are rarely being lead by someone that supports the people. It's more often someone that wants power. All the "people" generally want is change, but the wrong kind of change is usually the only one that has a chance of succeeding.
the really annoying ones are the drives that present TWO storage devices. One usually contains drivers, or a small partition with the security software to properly mount the second protected device.
Those are usually NOT separate partitions, they're separate DEVICES and thus a dump from DD doesn't get them both. The other one is usually permanently write-protected also, tho there can be ways to get around that sometimes if you know how.
The most important difference between say, christians and muslims is one of those groups still reads it to the letter today. Christianity started getting over that after the crusades. Islam is still living in what, the 600's or so?
Most religions started with tenants built around conquering other religious groups. Back then it was simply a matter of survival. Most religions either did it or were conquered and destroyed as a result. What we have left now are the "winners", but a few of them are still fighting, with Islam containing the most public, radical, and fundamental batch of nuts of the bunch. And they aren't the least bit concerned about behaving like 600AD barbarians to do it. And the rest of the world tends to frown on that now. These "fundamentalist clerics" have a lot in common with vile little dictators that are using religion as a means of creating power and influence. I can't help but wonder what percentage of them is a real religious leader and what percentage are just taking advantage of their religion and their influence.
And most of these religions' holy books flat out say that the world belongs to them and everyone else can either join or it's ok to kill them. That wasn't meant for the modern world. I have zero respect for that attitude now. Anyone that agrees with a book that says it's their god-given right to force me to do something or kill me for not doing it deserves that Hellfire comin' down their cave.
Unfortunately it gives the rest of the more modern/moderate/reasonable followers a really bad rep. I think right now the fastest way to get discriminated against in the US would be to make your Islamic religion known. Moreso than race etc. A lot of that is the govt P.R. engine at work, but you can't place all the blame on them. You're just going to get a lot of bad bias when you're associated with nuts that like to blow up large groups of uninvolved innocents, particularly from the part of that pool of innocents that would prefer to keep breathing. The moderates need to do something about their fundamentalist relations. Either smack some sense into them or split. The extremists are the one to blame for the bias, not the extremists' targets. All I hear are the moderates complaining about the public grouping them together. They are a group. They are a part of the group, and they either need to do something, affect change within the group, or leave it. "Guilt-by-association" is impossible to dodge. So far of all the religious conversations I've had with followers of Islam, every one of them still thinks the bad light that shines on them is 100% the fault of the world, they don't see the root of the problem, and aren't in any hurry to do anything about it.
Does make one wonder where the line needs to be drawn for enhancing equipment in competition like this?
I thought the original olympiads performed entirely naked? Even little things like swim caps can make quite a difference. Unless all the athletes have access to the same tech, it's not really fair?
And even if they all get it, then all it means is everyone improves by the same amount, and nobody really gets anywhere (relatively) besides breaking a few more world records.
Depends on where you live. In this city anyway, DWB is a very popular reason to get pulled over, particularly if it's a carload of teens driving around late at night on the wrong side of town. Almost guaranteed.
In among OWI and OMVI we have another one you need to be familiar with, DWB. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_While_Black )
You're just talking about the on-foot version.
In all of my cases I wasn't the one that put it in. In most of them the cable dogs had installed jacks without marking them, and end up with a big wad of cable coming out the ceiling and just put ends on them and plug directly into ports on hubs/switches, or randomly punch them down on the panel and then randomly run jumpers from the panel to the switches. Definitely the lazy approach, but that's what you have to pick up after a lot of the time.
Toners and jack identifying remotes are more useful if you're a one-man-band, saves time running back and forth between jacks and the closet. But that's why I suggest headsets and an assistant. So much faster than by yourself.
this is an internet classic that should be a Right of Passage for any budding network admin.
http://www.vibrant.com/images/cables/lopsa/do-not-touch.jpg
And not once, not twice, but thrice I've had to deal with said tangles. My solution was the same in all cases. Set aside some time and COMPLETELY document it. I use excel and conditional formulas to create cross lists for separate panels, to catch errors while trying to document.
Then once I'm certain I have it right, develop a new organization, then pull everything and start over.
My first experience with this removed multiple token rings, at least FOUR loops, and consolidated twelve hubs (not switches) and installed a master switch. Boot times on the floor went from 30 minutes to 45 seconds, and daily network problems vanished never to return. The morning after the rebuild we experienced an entire day of jaw-dropping throughout the building.
Do it. It's so worth it.
Also another hint. If you have to deal with a lot of unmarked jacks throughout the building, enlist a helper or two and use wireless headsets. One person at the rack with a keen eye for a light going out, and another one or two elsewhere briefly unplugging ethernet cables from live machines. Makes identification of jacks actually quick and easy.
Couldn't agree more. "We insist you write us a blank check, just in case we need it. We won't abuse it. We promise!"
No. Blank checks get abuse, pretty much always. It's difficult to find examples of where abusable rights were given and then later did not go on to get abused at least once. (and sometimes as a matter of policy) It's also sadly entertaining to watch how they tend to fight you when you try to add in anti-abuse clauses, things that make you go "hmmmmm...."
Good call, Shuttleworth. Stand your ground.
Woz must have been abusing that time machine of his, to have copied microsoft's 1980 "innovation" in 1978 with his AppleSoft BASIC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applesoft_BASIC
Launch All Zerg
I'd take that a step further and suggest that the degree is there as a "Plan B" in case you don't get outrageously lucky and pull a gates/zuck/jobs out of the hat.
Be careful not to automatically interpret correlation as causation.
In other words, the degree may not be what's making the CEO, but rather that the odds of CEO material also having a degree is high.
CEOs also tend to own more than one car. Doesn't mean you should go buy a second car to improve your odds of becoming a CEO.
The first impression I got from the OP was one of "You're pregnant again? Time to re-evaluate my job security!" So, now he realizes he's potentially in a tighter jam than he already was. (no savings, no house, no working wife... should have already been addressing these things) IMHO too little too late. Best he can do at this point is damage control. I'll assume he's at least sane enough to not be considering adoption. Anyone that gives him a kid after considering his current situation is as irresponsible as he is.
Assuming the wife is preggers, get her into the workforce a year from now. I didn't see any mention of younger siblings, but at age 40 odds are there's one or two by now, and they can help take care of the baby. Or this may have been a case of the wife's biological clock screaming at her to produce at least one kid before the factory shuts down. In that event I'd be asking why hasn't the wife been working? This just looks like poor planning over the long term, and looking for an escape. Or a lazy wife. (or disabled I suppose)
This might end well, but the odds are not real good. As many above have said, "kids are expensive". If he loses his job, and his wife isn't working, and they're having a kid, this is going to get really ugly really fast. By 40 you should have some buffers built up and it doesn't look like this guy has any.
They can probably round up that kind of cash by digging in their couch cushions. I'm sure the appeal was expected, and they'll probably wait to see how it pans out before proceeding. The fact that they haven't posted the bond yet does suggest they think the injunction has a chance of being successfully appealed
When you're dealing with companies of this size, an injunction really doesn't mean much until it's withstood at least one appeal.
I don't really see another way around this. The same problem plagues computer OSs also, look at windows.
The only way I see to do this is to either force the updates directly or to have a short cutoff point for support and compatibility. (thus forcing them indirectly)
A lot of consumers won't like this. They naturally want/prefer something they bought to last a lifetime without "paying again" to update or replace/upgrade it. But in the long-run, fragmentation is bad for them. Since companies make money off upgrades and updates and not from customers buying/paying only once, they're seen as evil for prodding or forcing their users to keep moving up. Unfortunately only part of that is profiteering. The other benefit is one to the users in the long term.
It's a difficult thing to get consumers to understand, they tend to see the short term costs and overlook the long-term benefits. This creates a difficult balancing act for the vendors. Updates need to be as transparent, quick, easy, and cheap as possible, while keeping the platform on the move. It's impossible to design hardware that's future-proof on software, so new hardware has to be bought as well as new software.
Apple appears to be one of the better players in the "move along" game. They won't support an OS more than 1 version back, and have a somewhat regular release schedule. OS upgrades used to be expensive, but have dropped dramatically in price recently. The updates have several big new features added to them as well as improvement on existing features, so the users can at least see some immediate justification for upgrading. From what I see, around 30% of Macintoshes run the current version, 50% are one version behind, and only about 20% are two or more versions out of date. They've done an excellent job in keeping their platform on the move.
The critics will usually still beat on the same negatives while ignoring the benefits. There's a regular "tax" for the newest OS. New hardware has to be purchased more frequently. But I think it's worth it in the long-term for the users. Fragmentation is avoided. Developers don't have to write code that will work on machines spanning a decade of OS or hardware. (this makes development faster and cheaper, support cheaper, and keeps 3rd party app quality and features high.
Digital TV is a good example of the benefits that result in forcing change. The only thing that was going to get the industry to move to digital was to make it mandatory. I'm sure there are still some that are moaning that their old TV was working fine and why did they have to force me to buy a new set. But I think most of us can be thankful for the result.
So the issue isn't just with the vendors, it's also an issue of the users. Your userbase alse has to be willing to tolerate any inconvenience and expense associated with staying current. And the simple fact of the matter is, not all userbases will tolerate it. I think the majority of people that buy cheap phones want to spend as little as possible, and that's not compatible with regular upgrades, of hardware OR software. This could make the problem very difficult for Google to solve, because a big part of their market is the cheap phones. The users AND the actual phone vendors both don't want to invest in keeping current. I personally think the only way for them to fix this is to make the upgrade process something that the vendors can very easily "turn on" in their phones, a process that's very low cost to the vendors (in terms of development, support, and need for new hardware) and zero cost and inconvenience to the end users. Anything else just won't work in those markets. If you can't deliver on all of those points, the vendors will make each handset work with one build only, and will continue to sell it until its unprofitable, growing the fragmentation.
I understand personal unsecured devices on the DoD network are forbidden, but it's also easy to see where you literally have a boatload full of people with ipads and personal laptops with webcams that want internet access and a connection to family at home.
Creating a second, public-only network is the obvious solution. But given the recent wikileaks-ish concerns, I'm amazed that they are considering anyone else providing this service. It would seem that the logical thing for them to do now is to create a vpn tunnel themselves and run their own endpoints in the states. I can't imagine them not wanting a high degree of control and monitoring of it. The last thing they want is a vpn they can't easily tap into that creates a difficult-to-monitor information pipeline out of a secured environment, even if not directly-connected to the secured network. It's connected indirectly by the entire crew.
This really needs to be done internally, under the control of the military, not farmed out. Think about postal mail and now email. If you're on tour and write a letter back home, and are stupidly saying things you shouldn't, like "so excited to see we're FINALLY going to go to XXX and kick some ass next week!". That gets censored out before it gets to the states of course. Last thing in the world they want is for all the sailors to have a vpn where they have very little or no control over that.
Odds are good that whoever tasked you with this didn't quite understand the can of worms you are attempting to open; just because they're higher rank than you doesn't mean they know the subtleties of what you do. And if it does go through, it won't last long before someone higher up with a more complete understanding puts their foot down, or the press gets ahold of what's going on and has a field day. (or both)
I don't think the cost has as much to do with it as the prospect of paying for something that they may not directly or immediately benefit from. Either being short-sighted or selfish.
Should your city provide a food kitchen to feed the homeless and less fortunate? HELL YEAH!
Do you want to pay a nickel a day to make that happen? HELL NO! BUY YOUR OWN FOOD!
(although part of the problem is there are so many "good causes" that there's so many nickels that it really adds up)
Not lazy, just sensational journalism. Exaggerate in the summary to get more people to read it because of how surprising it would be if it were actually true
Either the /. editors are hopping on the sensationalism bandwagon, or they're lazy. Any nerd that still has his card ought to be able to smell exaggeration here. There's really no excuse for it.
Not until they smell money. Easy money brings people on board pretty quickly.