It's the Democrat's fault for having dirty laundry, the Russians didn't create it. Stop shooting the messenger. Also, what goes around comes around. We've done the same to other countries far more often. Hillary didn't need to delete thousands of emails. She didn't need to lie or forget about a bunch of things. The Russians didn't conspire to get Sanders out of the election. They didn't create Obamacare and allow insurance companies to take advantage of it (dropping tons of people so they would have re-sign up on higher costing plans). Etc...
It's all in the timing. . .
Trump has truckloads of dirt, but it all came out too soon. (Or too late, as he's getting the 'Trump University' case hearing-date extended (or at least trying to) from the day after inauguration to some time later. . . when he can pull strings and get the case dropped, perhaps.
I expect the first priority for the Republicans now will be reversing everything done under Obama. Even the thing they agree with, they can't allow a Democrat to claim the success. I expect a health care reform repeal act to pass at some point in 2017.
It will be quicker than that. Both parties have many bills pre-written, and are just waiting to bring it to the floor at a time that it will pass.
In this case, the Republicans can be assumed to already have bills for the repeal of the ACA ("Obamacare), cementing Citizens United into law, gutting Roe v. Wade by similarly codifying Supreme Court Decisions into law. The list goes on...
So, by quicker, I am thinking a month or two at most.
Dear DNC and superdelegates: Thanks so much for giving us the most unpopular Democratic nominee in living memory. What should have been a landslide win has become a complete fucking nightmare. Good job.
Clinton won the popular vote.
If the US were indeed a democracy, then Clinton would be President-elect.
The root cause blame is the existence of super-delegates.
Didn't see this coming but it looks like the republicans will control all branches. It will be interesting to see what they do with that power in the upcoming years.
There is no such thing as a "synthetic diamond". Period. A diamond is a crystal of carbon atoms organized in a particular way – Fd3–m, to be precise. Your car doesn't put out "synthetic water" and "synthetic CO2", does it? Silicon wafers are cut from a big boule of single-crystal silicon, which was 'pulled' from a melt. No one says their computer chips are built on "synthetic silicon"
There is no way that selling a factory-grown diamond is illegal. Re-read the paragraph, and you will see the sleight-of-hand.
Lab-grown diamonds used to have little globs of metal trapped inside them, and were easy to spot. The DeBeers line at that time was something like, "REAL natural diamonds have more sparkle and shine." Oh but, once a different process for making large diamond crystals was perfected, De Beers changed their tune to, "Synthetic diamonds have a harsh look. Only REAL diamonds have the color and clarity that you have come to expect from De Beers."
FTA: De Beers lackey says, "...the aim is to create new gems that can fool the detection machines..."
Bullshit. There is no technique that can distinguish the provenance of a diamond. The only quantitative method might be comparison of isotopic ratios, but carbon-dating is not useful at the millions-of-years scale, and any test would far exceed the value of an individual diamond crystal.
FTA: De Beers lackey says, “When you polish a gemstone, there is a memory of how it grew,” said Philip Martineau, head of physics at the De Beers Research Centre. “They’re not mimicking nature. It’s the differences that give us the clues.”
Utter horse-shit. Wishy-washy and meaningless language. I, myself, am expert at polishing single crystals. A diamond is a diamond is a diamond.
FTA: "The effort companies such as De Beers and the GIA are making..." said Daniel Rosen... a jewelery seller... “It’s an industry that’s built on trust,” he said. “If you break that trust you are out. You only have to do it once.”
Trust eh? De Beers is a monopoly, and found by US Courts to be one, which is why they were forbidden from operating in the US until about 10 or so years ago. They have warehouses of diamonds because diamonds are actually not all that scarce in the Earth's crust. De Beers promotes an artificial, or "synthetic", sense of scarcity to keep the prices up.
FTA: "... De Beers has no intention of selling synthetics. “De Beers’ focus is on natural diamonds,” Lawson said. “We would not do anything that would cannibalize that industry.”
What he means is that they have huge warehouses of mined diamonds, and therefore will not stop bashing factory-grown diamond single crystals until their stocks start to run out. . . which will be never.
When the Iron Curtain fell, De Beers was in a panic because Russia was known to have a huge cache of diamonds, in a warehouse or similar. More diamonds than De Beers had. They feared a crash in the market for gem-quality diamonds. I don't recall how they worked that one out.
Diamonds are not forever – they burn just as well as coal.
And finally, if you aren't stuffed already, search for the article, "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?" that was published in The Atlantic Monthly about 18 years ago. It is a long and fascinating read.
Oh, I can't resist. Look up "moissanite" on Wikipedia. It's cubic silicon carbide, and actually has optical properties that are superior to those of diamonds. Dispersion is one of them––that is what creates the rainbow-like 'brilliance' of a well-cut gemstone. So, if you are choosing
Illegal clauses are not enforceable, so you could sign, get your money and then sue for more, but you would get even more, if you immediately lawyer up.
At least consult with an attorney before signing anything! Always!!!
If they balk and say you'll lose your last paycheck if you don't sign right now, that is called duress. Lawyer-up.
I had this done to me. In the state where I was, inducing a departing employee to sign a document on-the-spot, preventing them from accessing legal counsel, by threatening to withhold pay due to them results in triple damages. Ahh, that really did feel good.
I'm not sure myself, and unfortunately, it is starting to look like it's something I'll need to know for myself.
However - retirement: If you have a 401K or such, there really isn't any way for a company to "reach in" and take it. If it's a company run plan, or if it is company stock, there is a possibility of loosing it.
As for training replacements: Yeah. Right. I may teach them something, but I don't promise it'll be useful in the current role. And it's really a shame how much older folks start to "forget".
Best text above is bolded by me.
Brilliant. You're being laid off because some incredibly cheap H-1B worker is replacing you, for the explicitly-stated-to-the-government reason that you can't do your job. But then they require you to teach the new hires for 3 to 6 months. Cognitive dissonance!
If I were labeled as such, I would help the C-levels by doing exactly what you suggested – becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Gosh I'm old. You know how it is at 45. You just can't remember what the command structures were, and have to go off for the afternoon reading that dusty manual (that you never actually needed after the first month).
They label you, so perform to fit exactly as they have labeled you. That is, unable to do your own job: That was the basis for their H-1B replacement, after all.
CEO Paula Steiner said, "As full-time retiring baby boomers move on to their next chapter, the makeup of our organization will consist more of young and non-traditional workers, such as part-time workers or contractors."
Openly admitting to age discrimination on paper by the CEO? Holy Wow!
We all know it is practiced far and wide, but to put it in writing is beyond stupid. . . and a great thing for any scientist, engineer, or computer expert who suffers from the age-ism treatment that we over 40 get. This will become a class action, which will hopefully be the clarion call to arms, and will produce a judgement that goes on the record – not a settlement – so that we can finally have a fair system age-wise.
Oh, who am I kidding? I can hope. Those in the class will get little, but if they are pissed-off enough to push this thing through, and not settle out-of-court, then the real purpose of a class action lawsuit will be realized – a deterrent to those who might do so in the future, or who have done it lately.
There is nothing in the new MBP to make me want to ditch my mid-2015 MBP (actually an insurance fix of a late 2011 MBP).
I have upgraded it to have 16 GB RAM. And a 1 TB SSD. And the processor speed is about the same (and irrelevant because almost nothing is multi-processor aware). I do hate the shiny, glossy screen, but that's not going away. Worst of all, I can't find the fucking Esc key without looking down from the screen (+ monitors)?!? Never.
Now to the race to have a wafer-thin computer, and thus ditching all of the ports that I currently have. STUPID OF YOU JONNY IVE! I will not, am not, in a car; I shall not, cannot –– buy a bag-full of dongles just so that my myriad peripherals will still work. If a computer is slimmer or lighter – fine. If the designn throws away all of those ports for the sake of being thinner?, then you have lost sight of the fundamental principle of 'form-follows-function', and you, APPLE, have lost sight of any vision of actually producing hardware that people will value.
Just so everyone is clear here: I have been an Apple "fanboi" since 1991 after having started on DOS 3.1 on a PC – 8 years prior to encountering a Mac.
Oh, for FSM's sake, how many links in the chain of energy extraction / production there are? The article is just cherry-picking on one step that is more efficient.
And to what end? To generate more fuel for CO2-producing engines?
PNNL, WTF are you thinking?!?
This process is thermodynamically negative once other factors (like heat capacity, efficiency of recovery of that heat, and whole slew of other details) are included. That is these relevant factors are not ignored.
Dumb. dumb, dumb of you, PNNL. One reason I never considered applying for a post-doc there. Don't trumpet your failures.
Yes, that was roughly 20 years before the US Constitutional Amendment banning chattel slavery, but there were indeed some "free men" at the time. It's the source of the surname "Freeman".
Is that too hard to put in the post, which country?
It's Liberia.
And the article calls Liberia a "little-known country"?!? WTF?
Liberia is hugely important in world history, having adopted a Constitutional Government in 1947, although it was inhabited before then. Who took part in this mass migration? A particular group of humans in the US who were emancipated from being chattels (property) used for uncompensated labor (slavery). . . to being people under US Law. A lot of them wanted to go back at leastto their home continent, and many probably wanted to just get the hell out of the US.
I hear it's lovely to visit, and is on my list. I don't need only white people around to feel safe, FFS. Just don't dress like an imperialist douche, be chill, and interact with the people. Also plan a couple of hikes.
Let's replace keys, which have a good tactile feel, with hard glass that gives an unpleasant feeling to your fingers when you tap the glass. The guy who came up with this idea: a complete genius!
My wild guess is the only benefit of touch bar is they get to scan your fingerprints and store it in their database.
The TouchBar is an absolute step away from "form follows function." It is an abomination.
I look at the screens (3 of them) when working. To find a key, especially the "Esc" key, I reach and feel with my pinky. Esc has its roots in way-old machines, but serves a great purpose in modern laptops by providing a "Cancel" or "No" or "Don't Save" function.
Return means "OK", "Save", "Yes", or similar. I don't need to look to find it. Esc means "No", "Cancel", "Interrupt", and so on. If I have to look down to find the fucking Esc key, then my productivity will drop significantly.
I have the same MBP as you. My upgrade to a 1 TB SSD is probably the only difference.
I agree with you completely on the deficits of the new MBP.
No Micro-SD slot? WTF? No Mag-Safe charging connector? Not even one USB port? Why waste a USB-C port on the data-less task of charging the battery? Sure, I can buy adapters and dongles, but fuck that noise.
I won't be moving to this most-recent MBP. Ever. Same with he iPhone 7. Why Apple is removing tried-and-true ports for a single-port interface – all at once – is baffling. In 5-8 years, sure, it will make sense. But this sudden change removing functionality and ports is just way too much, all at once.
Oh, I forgot to mention another clever invention. I know (or knew) the inventor. It is not a nice thing, but was a necessity of being stuck in the US–Vietnam war. (We'll skip the philosophical aspect of soldiering and killing.)
Question: How do you throw a grenade out of a helicopter flying at 500 feet, and have it go off on the ground?
Answer: Pull the pin, stick it into an empty mayonnaise jar, and drop it. The activating lever won't set off the grenade's timed fuse until the glass jar has hit the ground and broken, setting the activation arm free.
War is ugly, but this is just another example of improvising a solution to a problem that would otherwise not be addressed for years if done as a request through official channels.
Hmmn. Nice idea – using a piece of tape as a physical low-pass audio filter. What kind of tape, and how thick? I do want it to hear when I am dictating.
It's funny how often "extremely sophisticated and high-tech" things can be defeated with a simple work-around.
For example, SSDI (missile defense). Any engineer worth his/her salt will tell you that it will never work. The Russians have already implemented several work-arounds. The are ones that anyone could think of.
* Dummy decoys.
* Powdered aluminum cloud puffing.
* "Stealth" cowling (covering them with radar-absorbing material, just like a stealth plane).
* "Jittered-path" flight. Not ballistic arc, but deviating a few 100 meters in a random walk. All of these were known in 2001. Who knows what is used now?
The point of the example is that billions of dollars can be spent to create a "never-before-used" feature or capability – and defeating said "new" high-tech system can be based on an understanding of physics, and in the end be very, very simple to employ. Pringles-can antenna for WiFi anyone?
In the case of TFA's ultrasound, which is very line-of-sight, the ideas described won't work in the real world.
"High-frequency audio 'beacons' are embedded into TV commercials or browser ads," reports New Scientist. "These sounds, which are inaudible to the human ear, can be picked up by any nearby device that has a microphone and can then activate certain functions on that device..
Only in the dreams of the most tinfoil hatted idiots on the planet.
And slashdot editors, apparently.
Isn't all audio put through a notch frequency-filter during compression? The MP3 and even the age-old Red Book CD applied a notch filter – cutting off frequencies below XXX Hz and above YYY kHz – and CDs were not even compressed audio. Modern TVs and smartphones can generate these "outside-audible range" frequencies, but they must be added into the audio stream, and are not retained by the popular CODECS. Ultrasonic is also strictly line-of-sight, just like TV remotes in the 1980s.
The point is that all of the hardware would have to be designed to accept an additional signal, generate the ultrasonic content, and then blend it in with the other audio somewhere between the original stream and the D/A converter, or at least before the speaker.
This is a dumb IoT idea that will soak up a lot of peoples' money. Whatever. They can live and learn.
Airs always rate low on repairability, 90% of the 11in form were sold with only 4gigs and usually a small ssd, which has a proprietary connector, newer models even use Apple's pentalobe screws (which are ridiculously small and easy to strip).
Yes, the pentalobes are a pain in the ass, but only when you first encounter them. Anyone who regularly goes inside computers has a multi-driver set with Phillips, Allen (hex), Torx, pentalobe, trilobe, square, security Torx, and flat. (Did I miss any?)
I fixed-up my girl's MacBook Air with a bigger SSD. Easy-peasy. Also stuck in a micro-CF card with a case-flush outer bezel for a scratch HD.
RE RAM, many Macs have been found to support more than in the official specs. Go to Other World Computing*, and you might discover your Mac supports 2x the RAM you thought it could! My MacBook Pro 8,2 (early 2011) was listed to max out at 8 GB RAM, but in fact supports 16 GB.
* I'm only plugging them because they keep track of what models can handle more RAM than spec'd for. Plus, I'm a lo-o-ong time satisfied customer.
I've been running web-centric business since the mid-1990s, so I've have opportunities to make plenty of mistakes, and do a few things right. I'd be glad to share my lessons-learned if you want to chat some time, tell me about what you're doing.
Will do. I've never PM'd anyone here on/., and can't find any such button. Plus my email is private. How to take a discussion offline w/o telling the world about it?
Slashdot Mirror
It's the Democrat's fault for having dirty laundry, the Russians didn't create it. Stop shooting the messenger. Also, what goes around comes around. We've done the same to other countries far more often. Hillary didn't need to delete thousands of emails. She didn't need to lie or forget about a bunch of things. The Russians didn't conspire to get Sanders out of the election. They didn't create Obamacare and allow insurance companies to take advantage of it (dropping tons of people so they would have re-sign up on higher costing plans). Etc...
It's all in the timing. . .
Trump has truckloads of dirt, but it all came out too soon. (Or too late, as he's getting the 'Trump University' case hearing-date extended (or at least trying to) from the day after inauguration to some time later. . . when he can pull strings and get the case dropped, perhaps.
Every "news" article that begins with "How" is a puff piece, and I refuse to read any of them, including this one.
Ba-a-a-a-a-a!
The sky isn't falling, the four horsemen aren't riding across the moors, just give it a fricking rest!
I thought it was three horsemen, not four. [citation needed]
Your link is irrelevant. It shows things on a five-year time scale."
Here is the same source, only scaled to show trends over the past 24 hours.
This tells a very different story.
1/5 on your troll attempt, AC.
I expect the first priority for the Republicans now will be reversing everything done under Obama. Even the thing they agree with, they can't allow a Democrat to claim the success. I expect a health care reform repeal act to pass at some point in 2017.
It will be quicker than that. Both parties have many bills pre-written, and are just waiting to bring it to the floor at a time that it will pass.
In this case, the Republicans can be assumed to already have bills for the repeal of the ACA ("Obamacare), cementing Citizens United into law, gutting Roe v. Wade by similarly codifying Supreme Court Decisions into law. The list goes on...
So, by quicker, I am thinking a month or two at most.
Dear DNC and superdelegates: Thanks so much for giving us the most unpopular Democratic nominee in living memory. What should have been a landslide win has become a complete fucking nightmare. Good job.
Clinton won the popular vote.
If the US were indeed a democracy, then Clinton would be President-elect.
The root cause blame is the existence of super-delegates.
Trump's sexism is mostly harmless. Stupid remarks, some prejudices, business as usual, offensive, annoying, but in the long run with no impact.
So, can I just "grab him in the balls"if we ever cross paths?
Didn't see this coming but it looks like the republicans will control all branches. It will be interesting to see what they do with that power in the upcoming years.
"Interesting"? I think you meant "apocalyptic".
I, myself, am "apoplectic".
Total hit-piece. De Beers bought this article.
There is no such thing as a "synthetic diamond". Period. A diamond is a crystal of carbon atoms organized in a particular way – Fd3–m, to be precise. Your car doesn't put out "synthetic water" and "synthetic CO2", does it? Silicon wafers are cut from a big boule of single-crystal silicon, which was 'pulled' from a melt. No one says their computer chips are built on "synthetic silicon"
There is no way that selling a factory-grown diamond is illegal. Re-read the paragraph, and you will see the sleight-of-hand.
Lab-grown diamonds used to have little globs of metal trapped inside them, and were easy to spot. The DeBeers line at that time was something like, "REAL natural diamonds have more sparkle and shine." Oh but, once a different process for making large diamond crystals was perfected, De Beers changed their tune to, "Synthetic diamonds have a harsh look. Only REAL diamonds have the color and clarity that you have come to expect from De Beers."
FTA: De Beers lackey says, "...the aim is to create new gems that can fool the detection machines..."
Bullshit. There is no technique that can distinguish the provenance of a diamond. The only quantitative method might be comparison of isotopic ratios, but carbon-dating is not useful at the millions-of-years scale, and any test would far exceed the value of an individual diamond crystal.
FTA: De Beers lackey says, “When you polish a gemstone, there is a memory of how it grew,” said Philip Martineau, head of physics at the De Beers Research Centre. “They’re not mimicking nature. It’s the differences that give us the clues.”
Utter horse-shit. Wishy-washy and meaningless language. I, myself, am expert at polishing single crystals. A diamond is a diamond is a diamond.
FTA: "The effort companies such as De Beers and the GIA are making..." said Daniel Rosen ... a jewelery seller... “It’s an industry that’s built on trust,” he said. “If you break that trust you are out. You only have to do it once.”
Trust eh? De Beers is a monopoly, and found by US Courts to be one, which is why they were forbidden from operating in the US until about 10 or so years ago. They have warehouses of diamonds because diamonds are actually not all that scarce in the Earth's crust. De Beers promotes an artificial, or "synthetic", sense of scarcity to keep the prices up.
FTA: "... De Beers has no intention of selling synthetics. “De Beers’ focus is on natural diamonds,” Lawson said. “We would not do anything that would cannibalize that industry.”
What he means is that they have huge warehouses of mined diamonds, and therefore will not stop bashing factory-grown diamond single crystals until their stocks start to run out. . . which will be never.
When the Iron Curtain fell, De Beers was in a panic because Russia was known to have a huge cache of diamonds, in a warehouse or similar. More diamonds than De Beers had. They feared a crash in the market for gem-quality diamonds. I don't recall how they worked that one out.
Diamonds are not forever – they burn just as well as coal.
And finally, if you aren't stuffed already, search for the article, "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?" that was published in The Atlantic Monthly about 18 years ago. It is a long and fascinating read.
Oh, I can't resist. Look up "moissanite" on Wikipedia. It's cubic silicon carbide, and actually has optical properties that are superior to those of diamonds. Dispersion is one of them––that is what creates the rainbow-like 'brilliance' of a well-cut gemstone. So, if you are choosing
Illegal clauses are not enforceable, so you could sign, get your money and then sue for more, but you would get even more, if you immediately lawyer up.
At least consult with an attorney before signing anything! Always!!!
If they balk and say you'll lose your last paycheck if you don't sign right now, that is called duress. Lawyer-up.
I had this done to me. In the state where I was, inducing a departing employee to sign a document on-the-spot, preventing them from accessing legal counsel, by threatening to withhold pay due to them results in triple damages. Ahh, that really did feel good.
I'm not sure myself, and unfortunately, it is starting to look like it's something I'll need to know for myself.
However - retirement: If you have a 401K or such, there really isn't any way for a company to "reach in" and take it. If it's a company run plan, or if it is company stock, there is a possibility of loosing it.
As for training replacements: Yeah. Right. I may teach them something, but I don't promise it'll be useful in the current role. And it's really a shame how much older folks start to "forget".
Best text above is bolded by me.
Brilliant. You're being laid off because some incredibly cheap H-1B worker is replacing you, for the explicitly-stated-to-the-government reason that you can't do your job. But then they require you to teach the new hires for 3 to 6 months. Cognitive dissonance!
If I were labeled as such, I would help the C-levels by doing exactly what you suggested – becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Gosh I'm old. You know how it is at 45. You just can't remember what the command structures were, and have to go off for the afternoon reading that dusty manual (that you never actually needed after the first month).
They label you, so perform to fit exactly as they have labeled you. That is, unable to do your own job: That was the basis for their H-1B replacement, after all.
Now where did I leave my Depends?
FTA:
CEO Paula Steiner said, "As full-time retiring baby boomers move on to their next chapter, the makeup of our organization will consist more of young and non-traditional workers, such as part-time workers or contractors."
Openly admitting to age discrimination on paper by the CEO? Holy Wow!
We all know it is practiced far and wide, but to put it in writing is beyond stupid. . . and a great thing for any scientist, engineer, or computer expert who suffers from the age-ism treatment that we over 40 get. This will become a class action, which will hopefully be the clarion call to arms, and will produce a judgement that goes on the record – not a settlement – so that we can finally have a fair system age-wise.
Oh, who am I kidding? I can hope. Those in the class will get little, but if they are pissed-off enough to push this thing through, and not settle out-of-court, then the real purpose of a class action lawsuit will be realized – a deterrent to those who might do so in the future, or who have done it lately.
There is nothing in the new MBP to make me want to ditch my mid-2015 MBP (actually an insurance fix of a late 2011 MBP).
I have upgraded it to have 16 GB RAM. And a 1 TB SSD. And the processor speed is about the same (and irrelevant because almost nothing is multi-processor aware). I do hate the shiny, glossy screen, but that's not going away. Worst of all, I can't find the fucking Esc key without looking down from the screen (+ monitors)?!? Never.
Now to the race to have a wafer-thin computer, and thus ditching all of the ports that I currently have. STUPID OF YOU JONNY IVE! I will not, am not, in a car; I shall not, cannot –– buy a bag-full of dongles just so that my myriad peripherals will still work. If a computer is slimmer or lighter – fine. If the designn throws away all of those ports for the sake of being thinner?, then you have lost sight of the fundamental principle of 'form-follows-function', and you, APPLE, have lost sight of any vision of actually producing hardware that people will value.
Just so everyone is clear here: I have been an Apple "fanboi" since 1991 after having started on DOS 3.1 on a PC – 8 years prior to encountering a Mac.
Apple has lost its soul.
Oh, for FSM's sake, how many links in the chain of energy extraction / production there are? The article is just cherry-picking on one step that is more efficient.
And to what end? To generate more fuel for CO2-producing engines?
PNNL, WTF are you thinking?!?
This process is thermodynamically negative once other factors (like heat capacity, efficiency of recovery of that heat, and whole slew of other details) are included. That is these relevant factors are not ignored.
Dumb. dumb, dumb of you, PNNL. One reason I never considered applying for a post-doc there. Don't trumpet your failures.
F'ing internet. This is a story worthy of Facebook, not slashdot ... at least not the old slashdot at the turn of the century.
You mean the one that is effectively extinct?
1847, NOT 1947.
Yes, that was roughly 20 years before the US Constitutional Amendment banning chattel slavery, but there were indeed some "free men" at the time. It's the source of the surname "Freeman".
Is that too hard to put in the post, which country?
It's Liberia.
And the article calls Liberia a "little-known country"?!? WTF?
Liberia is hugely important in world history, having adopted a Constitutional Government in 1947, although it was inhabited before then. Who took part in this mass migration? A particular group of humans in the US who were emancipated from being chattels (property) used for uncompensated labor (slavery). . . to being people under US Law. A lot of them wanted to go back at leastto their home continent, and many probably wanted to just get the hell out of the US.
I hear it's lovely to visit, and is on my list. I don't need only white people around to feel safe, FFS. Just don't dress like an imperialist douche, be chill, and interact with the people. Also plan a couple of hikes.
Let's replace keys, which have a good tactile feel, with hard glass that gives an unpleasant feeling to your fingers when you tap the glass. The guy who came up with this idea: a complete genius!
My wild guess is the only benefit of touch bar is they get to scan your fingerprints and store it in their database.
The TouchBar is an absolute step away from "form follows function." It is an abomination.
I look at the screens (3 of them) when working. To find a key, especially the "Esc" key, I reach and feel with my pinky. Esc has its roots in way-old machines, but serves a great purpose in modern laptops by providing a "Cancel" or "No" or "Don't Save" function.
Return means "OK", "Save", "Yes", or similar. I don't need to look to find it.
Esc means "No", "Cancel", "Interrupt", and so on. If I have to look down to find the fucking Esc key, then my productivity will drop significantly.
I have the same MBP as you. My upgrade to a 1 TB SSD is probably the only difference.
I agree with you completely on the deficits of the new MBP.
No Micro-SD slot? WTF?
No Mag-Safe charging connector?
Not even one USB port?
Why waste a USB-C port on the data-less task of charging the battery? Sure, I can buy adapters and dongles, but fuck that noise.
I won't be moving to this most-recent MBP. Ever. Same with he iPhone 7. Why Apple is removing tried-and-true ports for a single-port interface – all at once – is baffling. In 5-8 years, sure, it will make sense. But this sudden change removing functionality and ports is just way too much, all at once.
Oh, I forgot to mention another clever invention. I know (or knew) the inventor. It is not a nice thing, but was a necessity of being stuck in the US–Vietnam war. (We'll skip the philosophical aspect of soldiering and killing.)
Question: How do you throw a grenade out of a helicopter flying at 500 feet, and have it go off on the ground?
Answer: Pull the pin, stick it into an empty mayonnaise jar, and drop it. The activating lever won't set off the grenade's timed fuse until the glass jar has hit the ground and broken, setting the activation arm free.
War is ugly, but this is just another example of improvising a solution to a problem that would otherwise not be addressed for years if done as a request through official channels.
I wonder how the guy sleeps at night, actually.
Simple, just put some tape over the mic!
Hmmn. Nice idea – using a piece of tape as a physical low-pass audio filter. What kind of tape, and how thick? I do want it to hear when I am dictating.
It's funny how often "extremely sophisticated and high-tech" things can be defeated with a simple work-around.
For example, SSDI (missile defense). Any engineer worth his/her salt will tell you that it will never work. The Russians have already implemented several work-arounds. The are ones that anyone could think of.
* Dummy decoys.
* Powdered aluminum cloud puffing.
* "Stealth" cowling (covering them with radar-absorbing material, just like a stealth plane).
* "Jittered-path" flight. Not ballistic arc, but deviating a few 100 meters in a random walk.
All of these were known in 2001. Who knows what is used now?
The point of the example is that billions of dollars can be spent to create a "never-before-used" feature or capability – and defeating said "new" high-tech system can be based on an understanding of physics, and in the end be very, very simple to employ. Pringles-can antenna for WiFi anyone?
In the case of TFA's ultrasound, which is very line-of-sight, the ideas described won't work in the real world.
"High-frequency audio 'beacons' are embedded into TV commercials or browser ads," reports New Scientist. "These sounds, which are inaudible to the human ear, can be picked up by any nearby device that has a microphone and can then activate certain functions on that device..
Only in the dreams of the most tinfoil hatted idiots on the planet.
And slashdot editors, apparently.
Isn't all audio put through a notch frequency-filter during compression? The MP3 and even the age-old Red Book CD applied a notch filter – cutting off frequencies below XXX Hz and above YYY kHz – and CDs were not even compressed audio. Modern TVs and smartphones can generate these "outside-audible range" frequencies, but they must be added into the audio stream, and are not retained by the popular CODECS. Ultrasonic is also strictly line-of-sight, just like TV remotes in the 1980s.
The point is that all of the hardware would have to be designed to accept an additional signal, generate the ultrasonic content, and then blend it in with the other audio somewhere between the original stream and the D/A converter, or at least before the speaker.
This is a dumb IoT idea that will soak up a lot of peoples' money. Whatever. They can live and learn.
Airs always rate low on repairability, 90% of the 11in form were sold with only 4gigs and usually a small ssd, which has a proprietary connector, newer models even use Apple's pentalobe screws (which are ridiculously small and easy to strip).
Yes, the pentalobes are a pain in the ass, but only when you first encounter them. Anyone who regularly goes inside computers has a multi-driver set with Phillips, Allen (hex), Torx, pentalobe, trilobe, square, security Torx, and flat. (Did I miss any?)
I fixed-up my girl's MacBook Air with a bigger SSD. Easy-peasy. Also stuck in a micro-CF card with a case-flush outer bezel for a scratch HD.
RE RAM, many Macs have been found to support more than in the official specs. Go to Other World Computing*, and you might discover your Mac supports 2x the RAM you thought it could! My MacBook Pro 8,2 (early 2011) was listed to max out at 8 GB RAM, but in fact supports 16 GB.
* I'm only plugging them because they keep track of what models can handle more RAM than spec'd for. Plus, I'm a lo-o-ong time satisfied customer.
I've been running web-centric business since the mid-1990s, so I've have opportunities to make plenty of mistakes, and do a few things right. I'd be glad to share my lessons-learned if you want to chat some time, tell me about what you're doing.
Will do. I've never PM'd anyone here on /., and can't find any such button. Plus my email is private. How to take a discussion offline w/o telling the world about it?
Find a MacBook Air on ebay used for cheap.
They have been around for a long time, have Intel processors, can boot Linux.
Repairs are easy, and replacement parts are easy to find.