People who build their own desktops shouldn't be affected...
Wouldn't motherboard manufacturers roll over too? I can't see any of the major players volunteering to lock themselves out of the Windows 8 market. Fortunately I won't be in the market for a new mobo for some time, since I'm happy with the gear I have, but I can see this causing problems later on down the track. I really hope not, though.
Seems to me that if bypassing work/school firewalls is your concern, the simplest solution is to not use those networks for personal stuff. After all, it doesn't cost that much for a USB dongle and wireless plan, or for that matter to use a data connection on your phone.
I would have thought that would be a waste of effort. Anyone who has the slightest interest in serving stuff over a dynamic IP is bound to have heard of dynDNS.
Hmmm. I suspect that governments could obtain TOR records too, if they were so motivated. Seems to me that the simplest way of covering your ass might be to use TOR to encrypt your traffic on someone else's network, e.g. by wardriving.
Of course, going to such trouble might presuppose that you are doing something nefarious in the first place, in which case the simplest solution is to not do it. If you were a whistleblower of some sort, such obstacles are easily circumvented by transmitting your data via sneakernet, snail-mail or avian carrier.
According to wikipedia, Stephenson said the following in 2004, right here on/. : "I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back.
Well, to be fair, OS X has all the advantages of any other *nix, while also having a GUI that (while inflexible) is pretty much OK. Until recently I had a MacBook as well as my Linux-based desktop machines, and I used the CLI on it fairly extensively. In fact, Apple sort of seems to anticipate this by including zsh, ksh and csh in addition to bash by default.
It would be like somebody selling Softlanding Linux System floppies.
I actually have some SLS floppies in a box in my garage. I don't imagine anybody would want them though. However, I predict a lot of interest in this car. Hell, if I had that kind of money and the space to store and maintain it, I would put in a bid myself.
Many years ago, I had an old Lanz tractor that ran on crude oil. It took about 15 minutes with a blowtorch to heat up the manifold enough to make the stuff burn, but once it was going it would run forever.
Besides, I'm kinda starting to hate this anti-microsoft bashing. It's been years since I've used any form of windows on my own machines, or at work.
Ditto. I haven't used Windows for anything more than occasional stuff for over 10 years, mostly because it always makes me (more than usually) cranky and irritable. I had a long spell of using a (hand-me-down) MacBook, but that came to an end a few weeks ago when it died messily. But my ancient Linux boxen seem to be indestructible. And my next laptop (when I can afford it) will also run Linux...
But if people happen to like Windows, or if that happens to suit their needs (like gaming, for instance), who am I to object, or claim they are misguided?
For your sake, I hope you're being paid by Microsoft to spout this rubbish.
I am not that poster, but it is nevertheless the case that there are still dealers with whom you have to fight if you want to buy a machine without a pre-installed OS. It's a piece of piss to build a desktop machine from random components, but if you're in the market for a laptop, your options are much more limited.
NOBODY uses Adobe Acrobat as a viewer just sot hey can add bookmarks.
I don't disagree. However, I'm sure Adobe are happy enough to trade on this.
Incidentally, I have come across an absurd number of (l)users who have allowed themselves to be persuaded that Acrobat is a better tool for editing a document than the word processing package they originally used to produce it. I have lost track of the amount of time I have spent trying to make the point that Acrobat is (debatably) an excellent tool for rendering finished documents, but their chosen office package is a much more appropriate means of editing the content. I usually get the argument that "I was told Acrobat is what I needed, and I finally managed to persuade my boss...". It doesn't usually go down very well to tell them that they've sold their boss a crock of shit.
That's the only way to get to the "paperless office"... remove the ability to use paper.
Or better still, get people to use it properly. Like, for instance anything that needs to be on paper should be written by hand. A purist might insist on the use of a quill pen, but a fountain-pen will do. That should be enough to sort out what actually needs to be committed to such a method of storage.
I agree, there are some things that paper just plain does better.
However, most paper is still wasted. Back in the '70s and '80s I worked at a number of so-called "paperless" sites where the ops generated several ton[ne]s of paper output every working day. Almost none of this was ever even read, let alone kept, so why produce it?
Indeed. It can, however, do everything that a ream of processed cellulose from dead trees can. If I were a politician (perish the thought), I would much prefer to carry around an e-reader than the loads of paper that get shuffled around those offices.
For that matter, I would have appreciated such a device when I was doing my undergrad degree. All of my textbooks (biochemistry, molecular biology and microbiology) tended to be real monsters that were more usable when left at home. However, although time has moved on since then, the technology hasn't (much), and current offerings just don't cut it with publications including many coloured, detailed diagrams.
Yep - and then train them not to play Angry Birds (or check their email etc) when they are supposed to be running the country.
They don't run the country. Civil servants do that. Politicians just make lots of loud braying noises at each other across a large room with lots of comfy chairs designed for the purpose of catching a nice daytime snooze.
The _only_ redeeming quality about the thing is its keyboard.
I could say the same about my Sony/Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro, which has quite a nice slide-out keypad. Actually, I also like the fact that the device is about as small as any smartphone gets. But the fact that it is so damn SLOW really pisses me off. And it seems to me that there is not one smartphone that is very good at actually making (and taking) phone calls. Most have silly slidey doodads that are as likely to hang up a call as answer it, and none that I've tried performs at all well in areas where signal is weak, while other peoples' 10-year-old $15 Nokia dumbphones seem to have no trouble holding a rock-solid signal.
Much as I like Android, there have been many times when I have regretted my choice of hardware; I should probably have stuck to lugging my laptop around for anything requiring internet access.
Though on second thoughts, I'm forgetting that I don't have one any more, though I'm still paying the bills for the wireless dongle. My hand-me-down freebie MacBook died messily a couple of weeks ago, so my only choices are the phone or the desktop (linux) boxes...
I know this is OT, but I was probably about as productive with the Linux distros I was using back in 1997 (Slackware and Redhat) as I am now. Current distros with their packaged desktop environments give us lots of pretty eye-candy, but it's debatable as to whether the systems are much more useful. Though I'll admit that in some respects, they are more likely to "just work".
Well, that's not quite true. There are lots of people who are sticking their fingers in their ears and going "lalalalalalala...".
The worst of it is those who insist that just because yesterday and today were cold in Lower Pisshaven, that somehow disproves the notion of climate change, under the common oversimplification of "global warming".
There is no perception of climate change that is going to be universally useful. If you live on a little atoll in the Pacific, or if you happen to be a polar bear, you should be seriously worried. But if you are a farmer in Greenland, it's quite possible that you're in luck...
In other words, you (since you manifestly have no experience to contribute) are trolling just for the sake of jerking off. I was making the point that since cases of hearing loss where any kind of generic solution is useful are rare, claiming that anyone who spends $BIGNUM has more money than sense is not very helpful when their options are constrained in the first place.
Since you have obviously never been in such a situation, allow me enlighten you:
If you are an adult on your first appointment with an audiologist, you will in all likelihood have felt uncomfortable with the situation, e.g. as a result of embarrassing conversations with friends or family when you suddenly realise that you have completely misunderstood something that has been said to you. You are then subjected to a series of audiological tests which don't really represent issues relating to the outside world (background noise etc). You are then presented with a (confined) range of hardware options for dealing with your particular problem, and if you get lucky, you and the audiologist might get the solution right the first time. More commonly, you have to try out two or more solutions before you arrive at something you can live with. Even if you manage to get the hardware right, it usually needs a lot of tweaking of frequency response before it starts to work for you.
Sure, if you have unlimited time and funds, you can repeat the process with other consultants, but the process is not fun.
I am also wondering how much a hearing aid would cost if you just built it yourself.
I'll admit I didn't think of that. I stumped up for hearing aids that are so discreet, it's hard for anyone to see them, but if I had thought about it, I could have come up with something scary that looks like a product of the Steampunk Workshop.;-)
The hearing aids offered under Medicare in Australia are bulky and simply not that good. If you want anything halfway decent (i.e. that can be used in crowded restaurants or other demanding situations), you'll have to stump up yourself. And depending on the nature of your hearing loss, it won't come cheap.
My hearing aids were horrendously expensive, but fortunately my health insurance fund (GMHBA) is generous, and reimbursed over half of the cost.
The expensive prices ($3000-$8000) are pure fabrication of the slashvertiser.
Since you obviously don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, you might as well not bother posting.
My hearing aids cost me $AU10K. If you convert that to $US at current exchange rates, it's more. Everyone's hearing less is different, and if you really think modern hearing aids are just glorified ear-trumpets, you are quite wrong.
Isn't there _something_ that can shift the pitch of a certain frequency into another frequency...
Of course, but what you're asking for is another algorithm for a hearing aid. Modern hearing aids (which as far as I'm aware are pretty much exclusively digital these days) are calibrated by the audiologist according to the frequency ranges in which your hearing is deficient. None of them will damage your hearing any more than it already is, and the consensus seems to be that such amplification should be done as early as possible, so that your brain doesn't get into the habit of ignoring that input.
A common pattern (and I was an example of this) is to carry on in denial of one's hearing loss, to the frustration one's family and friends. A more healthy approach might be to characterise the use of hearing aids as being little different from wearing glasses.
Well said. I have read much bashing of Nvidia regarding the proprietary nature of their drivers, but I remember them being right at the forefront of manufacturers providing proper drivers at a time when I was unable to get 24-bit colour from the SiS GPU that I had in my box at the time. The fact that they have continued to provide good drivers when most other manufacturers have totally ignored Linux users has done a lot to ensure brand loyalty on my part.
I just don't have the time or the inclination to write my own drivers, and I am honest enough to admit that my own skills in this area are unlikely to stack up well against someone who does this for a living.
This aside, although I bought my first Nvidia card in 1998, I have never replaced one because it has failed. Motherboard manufacturers keep changing their sockets so my old cards no longer fit. But over the years, I have cobbled together a lot of boxes using my old components for various charities (with Linux pre-installed), and those old Riva and GeForce cards are still damn good components for anyone who doesn't need high-end gaming performance.
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People who build their own desktops shouldn't be affected...
Wouldn't motherboard manufacturers roll over too? I can't see any of the major players volunteering to lock themselves out of the Windows 8 market. Fortunately I won't be in the market for a new mobo for some time, since I'm happy with the gear I have, but I can see this causing problems later on down the track. I really hope not, though.
Seems to me that if bypassing work/school firewalls is your concern, the simplest solution is to not use those networks for personal stuff. After all, it doesn't cost that much for a USB dongle and wireless plan, or for that matter to use a data connection on your phone.
I would have thought that would be a waste of effort. Anyone who has the slightest interest in serving stuff over a dynamic IP is bound to have heard of dynDNS.
TOR is the only safe option.
Hmmm. I suspect that governments could obtain TOR records too, if they were so motivated. Seems to me that the simplest way of covering your ass might be to use TOR to encrypt your traffic on someone else's network, e.g. by wardriving.
Of course, going to such trouble might presuppose that you are doing something nefarious in the first place, in which case the simplest solution is to not do it. If you were a whistleblower of some sort, such obstacles are easily circumvented by transmitting your data via sneakernet, snail-mail or avian carrier.
According to wikipedia, Stephenson said the following in 2004, right here on /. : "I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back.
Well, to be fair, OS X has all the advantages of any other *nix, while also having a GUI that (while inflexible) is pretty much OK. Until recently I had a MacBook as well as my Linux-based desktop machines, and I used the CLI on it fairly extensively. In fact, Apple sort of seems to anticipate this by including zsh, ksh and csh in addition to bash by default.
It would be like somebody selling Softlanding Linux System floppies.
I actually have some SLS floppies in a box in my garage. I don't imagine anybody would want them though. However, I predict a lot of interest in this car. Hell, if I had that kind of money and the space to store and maintain it, I would put in a bid myself.
Many years ago, I had an old Lanz tractor that ran on crude oil. It took about 15 minutes with a blowtorch to heat up the manifold enough to make the stuff burn, but once it was going it would run forever.
Besides, I'm kinda starting to hate this anti-microsoft bashing. It's been years since I've used any form of windows on my own machines, or at work.
Ditto. I haven't used Windows for anything more than occasional stuff for over 10 years, mostly because it always makes me (more than usually) cranky and irritable. I had a long spell of using a (hand-me-down) MacBook, but that came to an end a few weeks ago when it died messily. But my ancient Linux boxen seem to be indestructible. And my next laptop (when I can afford it) will also run Linux...
But if people happen to like Windows, or if that happens to suit their needs (like gaming, for instance), who am I to object, or claim they are misguided?
For your sake, I hope you're being paid by Microsoft to spout this rubbish.
I am not that poster, but it is nevertheless the case that there are still dealers with whom you have to fight if you want to buy a machine without a pre-installed OS. It's a piece of piss to build a desktop machine from random components, but if you're in the market for a laptop, your options are much more limited.
NOBODY uses Adobe Acrobat as a viewer just sot hey can add bookmarks.
I don't disagree. However, I'm sure Adobe are happy enough to trade on this.
Incidentally, I have come across an absurd number of (l)users who have allowed themselves to be persuaded that Acrobat is a better tool for editing a document than the word processing package they originally used to produce it. I have lost track of the amount of time I have spent trying to make the point that Acrobat is (debatably) an excellent tool for rendering finished documents, but their chosen office package is a much more appropriate means of editing the content. I usually get the argument that "I was told Acrobat is what I needed, and I finally managed to persuade my boss...". It doesn't usually go down very well to tell them that they've sold their boss a crock of shit.
Why the FUCK is it that in 2011 we still don't have user bookmarks as a standard feature in Adobe reader?
Because, of course, they want you to buy their non-free version to do that.
That's the only way to get to the "paperless office" ... remove the ability to use paper.
Or better still, get people to use it properly. Like, for instance anything that needs to be on paper should be written by hand. A purist might insist on the use of a quill pen, but a fountain-pen will do. That should be enough to sort out what actually needs to be committed to such a method of storage.
I agree, there are some things that paper just plain does better.
However, most paper is still wasted. Back in the '70s and '80s I worked at a number of so-called "paperless" sites where the ops generated several ton[ne]s of paper output every working day. Almost none of this was ever even read, let alone kept, so why produce it?
Can the Kindle do everything the iPad can? No.
Indeed. It can, however, do everything that a ream of processed cellulose from dead trees can. If I were a politician (perish the thought), I would much prefer to carry around an e-reader than the loads of paper that get shuffled around those offices.
For that matter, I would have appreciated such a device when I was doing my undergrad degree. All of my textbooks (biochemistry, molecular biology and microbiology) tended to be real monsters that were more usable when left at home. However, although time has moved on since then, the technology hasn't (much), and current offerings just don't cut it with publications including many coloured, detailed diagrams.
Yep - and then train them not to play Angry Birds (or check their email etc) when they are supposed to be running the country.
They don't run the country. Civil servants do that. Politicians just make lots of loud braying noises at each other across a large room with lots of comfy chairs designed for the purpose of catching a nice daytime snooze.
The _only_ redeeming quality about the thing is its keyboard.
I could say the same about my Sony/Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro, which has quite a nice slide-out keypad. Actually, I also like the fact that the device is about as small as any smartphone gets. But the fact that it is so damn SLOW really pisses me off. And it seems to me that there is not one smartphone that is very good at actually making (and taking) phone calls. Most have silly slidey doodads that are as likely to hang up a call as answer it, and none that I've tried performs at all well in areas where signal is weak, while other peoples' 10-year-old $15 Nokia dumbphones seem to have no trouble holding a rock-solid signal.
Much as I like Android, there have been many times when I have regretted my choice of hardware; I should probably have stuck to lugging my laptop around for anything requiring internet access.
Though on second thoughts, I'm forgetting that I don't have one any more, though I'm still paying the bills for the wireless dongle. My hand-me-down freebie MacBook died messily a couple of weeks ago, so my only choices are the phone or the desktop (linux) boxes...
I know this is OT, but I was probably about as productive with the Linux distros I was using back in 1997 (Slackware and Redhat) as I am now. Current distros with their packaged desktop environments give us lots of pretty eye-candy, but it's debatable as to whether the systems are much more useful. Though I'll admit that in some respects, they are more likely to "just work".
Nobody is ignoring anything.
Well, that's not quite true. There are lots of people who are sticking their fingers in their ears and going "lalalalalalala...".
The worst of it is those who insist that just because yesterday and today were cold in Lower Pisshaven, that somehow disproves the notion of climate change, under the common oversimplification of "global warming".
There is no perception of climate change that is going to be universally useful. If you live on a little atoll in the Pacific, or if you happen to be a polar bear, you should be seriously worried. But if you are a farmer in Greenland, it's quite possible that you're in luck...
Accepting reality is a sign of sanity and intelligence.
But more usefully:
"The difference between reality and unreality is that the former has so little to recommend it."
--Allan Sherman
In other words, you (since you manifestly have no experience to contribute) are trolling just for the sake of jerking off. I was making the point that since cases of hearing loss where any kind of generic solution is useful are rare, claiming that anyone who spends $BIGNUM has more money than sense is not very helpful when their options are constrained in the first place.
Since you have obviously never been in such a situation, allow me enlighten you:
If you are an adult on your first appointment with an audiologist, you will in all likelihood have felt uncomfortable with the situation, e.g. as a result of embarrassing conversations with friends or family when you suddenly realise that you have completely misunderstood something that has been said to you. You are then subjected to a series of audiological tests which don't really represent issues relating to the outside world (background noise etc). You are then presented with a (confined) range of hardware options for dealing with your particular problem, and if you get lucky, you and the audiologist might get the solution right the first time. More commonly, you have to try out two or more solutions before you arrive at something you can live with. Even if you manage to get the hardware right, it usually needs a lot of tweaking of frequency response before it starts to work for you.
Sure, if you have unlimited time and funds, you can repeat the process with other consultants, but the process is not fun.
I am also wondering how much a hearing aid would cost if you just built it yourself.
I'll admit I didn't think of that. I stumped up for hearing aids that are so discreet, it's hard for anyone to see them, but if I had thought about it, I could have come up with something scary that looks like a product of the Steampunk Workshop. ;-)
The hearing aids offered under Medicare in Australia are bulky and simply not that good. If you want anything halfway decent (i.e. that can be used in crowded restaurants or other demanding situations), you'll have to stump up yourself. And depending on the nature of your hearing loss, it won't come cheap.
My hearing aids were horrendously expensive, but fortunately my health insurance fund (GMHBA) is generous, and reimbursed over half of the cost.
The expensive prices ($3000-$8000) are pure fabrication of the slashvertiser.
Since you obviously don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, you might as well not bother posting.
My hearing aids cost me $AU10K. If you convert that to $US at current exchange rates, it's more. Everyone's hearing less is different, and if you really think modern hearing aids are just glorified ear-trumpets, you are quite wrong.
Isn't there _something_ that can shift the pitch of a certain frequency into another frequency...
Of course, but what you're asking for is another algorithm for a hearing aid. Modern hearing aids (which as far as I'm aware are pretty much exclusively digital these days) are calibrated by the audiologist according to the frequency ranges in which your hearing is deficient. None of them will damage your hearing any more than it already is, and the consensus seems to be that such amplification should be done as early as possible, so that your brain doesn't get into the habit of ignoring that input.
A common pattern (and I was an example of this) is to carry on in denial of one's hearing loss, to the frustration one's family and friends. A more healthy approach might be to characterise the use of hearing aids as being little different from wearing glasses.
Well said. I have read much bashing of Nvidia regarding the proprietary nature of their drivers, but I remember them being right at the forefront of manufacturers providing proper drivers at a time when I was unable to get 24-bit colour from the SiS GPU that I had in my box at the time. The fact that they have continued to provide good drivers when most other manufacturers have totally ignored Linux users has done a lot to ensure brand loyalty on my part.
I just don't have the time or the inclination to write my own drivers, and I am honest enough to admit that my own skills in this area are unlikely to stack up well against someone who does this for a living.
This aside, although I bought my first Nvidia card in 1998, I have never replaced one because it has failed. Motherboard manufacturers keep changing their sockets so my old cards no longer fit. But over the years, I have cobbled together a lot of boxes using my old components for various charities (with Linux pre-installed), and those old Riva and GeForce cards are still damn good components for anyone who doesn't need high-end gaming performance.