The Surface 2 (not pro) is the ARM version they sell for $500. The Surface 2 PRO or Surface 3 PRO are the Intel x86-64 versions which will run any standard Windows software. I have the ARM version, and even that's enough provided you are just browsing the web and doing a few other small tasks. If you get the Surface PRO which comes with an Intel x86-64 processor, you can run full Windows, and all the applications you'd normally run on Windows. You could use it as your regular computer.
Yeah, but then you couldn't carry your entire desktop with you wherever you want. The Surface 2 already had enough power to be a desktop replacement to all but the most demanding users. You can connect 4 monitors to the Surface Pro. Plug in a USB keyboard and mouse and most people wouldn't need another computer. If I had the cash I would definitely just buy Surface Pro and forget all about having separate desktop/laptop/tablet. I got the Surface 2 (not pro), and even that has allowed me to completely forget about my laptop and desktop unless I need to do some actual work. Surfing the web, watching videos, listening to music. I use my Surface for all of that. As far as home use goes, if I wasn't a developer, I probably wouldn't even need a "proper" computer.
Yeah. At less than the annual cost to hire 2 (or possibly even 1) person qualified to work in this field. Also, when you see numbers like "50 million to produce the working 5 MW prototype", I seriously doubt that these people have any idea what it costs to build things. My city spent $5 million just to build a pedestrian bridge. Building a fusion rector would probably cost at least 100 times more.
The thing is, nobody really builds cars anymore. They assemble them. Ford doesn't manufacture each individual piece. They take a bunch of pieces manufacturered by other firms and put them together. I think Ford still makes the engine, but other than that, a lot of the parts are made by other companies. Which was the whole reason they couldn't let GM die. It would have taken hundreds of other companies that supply the parts to them with it. Once you take out the complicated drive train of a gasoline car, and have Tesla making the batteries anyway, is it really that difficult for them to just make a car anyway? A car isn't really that complicated of a piece of machinery.
Maybe there should be an app on the phone that dials 911 but puts the phone on mute so that no sounds are emitted from the phone, perhaps with the screen off as well. Perhaps it should play a pre-recorded message to the operator so they know what's going on, and the operator can then hear any noise that's happening in the vicinity. You could even activate it with a panic button that you have on your keychain or in another covenient spot so you don't have to get to your phone in order to activate it.
On one hand, I can see how it would be nice for things to disappear off the map after a while. On the other hand, I don't think laws like this would be applied in a fair way. Seems like they ruled in this guy's favour because he was a politician. Would they have ruled the same way if it was some poor guy with no connections? Also, on the third hand (yeah, the third one, I typed it), I think that anybody who thinks they can make something disappear by making Google and other search engines not index it is in for a bad time. The Streisand effect makes it quite likely that the information will go viral. Everybody interested in the matter will be sharing the article on Facebook and other social networks. You can bet his opponents will link to the article on their web sites. If the paper is particularly against him for some reason, they could give people the rights to copy the article, and repost it on their own web sites. Google would be required not to index the original article, but what about other articles on other websites that looked the same? What if only a small portion of the text was the same?
Exactly. but like your parent poster said, if the information is no longer available elsewhere on the internet, then it will cease to be published in the search results (though they probably maintain a copy for some time). Going after Google only stops one way of getting at the information. It will be somewhat effective, because Google is such a popular search engine, but in the end, you'll be able to find the information on other search engines.
Yeah, for development and research, I agree, they have their uses. It's nice to be able to rent a high power machine for a few hours to test out some stuff, or run some simulations. But for day to day production machines, hosting web applications that don't actually have load that is variable, I really don't see the point, at yet I see plenty of companies doing it.
There seems to be a decent inbetween stage in the world of servers though. With servers, there's 4 options. You can own the datacenter. You can own the servers and rent out space in a datacenter. You can rent out servers inside a datacenter owned by someone else, You can host your applications on virtual machines that run inside somebody else's datacenter. Each level gives you less control over the services. If you own the datacenter, you're responsible for everything. If you only have a single server, this is a bad idea because there's a lot of infrastructure you have to buy to support that one small machine (generators, batter backup, air conditioning, fire suppression, etc). If you have 10,000 servers it's a great idea. Personally, I don't understand what one really gets out of using a service like Amazon where you have virtual machines or even renting machines, versus just using your own machines in someone else's datacenter. Unless you have a very niche case where you frequently need different numbers of machines, then there is no reason to use this method.
Maybe because Europeans don't have access to as many good streaming services as the USA does. Netflix has a much better catalog in the US than anywhere else. Plus they go Hulu, Amazon Prime, probably a few other services I'm missing. In Europe, I'm sure that much of the bandwidth is taken up by non-streaming services, allowing users to download in the middle of the night, or during the workday. I'm not trying to make excuses for the North American ISPs. I think they're doing a terrible job. But I also think that with the way the system is set up, data caps are inevitable, because there's no other way to limit usage. You can't do it just on speed, because everyone wants at least 10 mbit + connection, which is fast enough to get a couple terabytes of data a month if used continuously.
The problem is that home users aren't willing to pay for a a guaranteed speed, unlimited usage line which is how the ISPs actually pay for their bandwidth, and how datacenters pay for their bandwidth. What they really want is a high speed line that is only in use for a few hours a day, and for the rest of the day is completely dormant. This is because most of the bandwidth is consumed using streaming services, and everybody is home during the same time. The 95th percentile doesn't really work for home users, because they still want a high speed connection for 3 or 4 hours a day, which is way outside the 95th percentile. You can either have slow connections with unlimited bandwidth, or fast connections with a bandwidth cap. They won't sell you a fast connection with no cap, because there's no way to limit how much usage the customer will consume. On a 30 Mbit connection, you can download over 7 Terabytes of data in a month if you used it constantly. They don't want users taking advantage, but they want to be able to give users a reasonable speed so they can stream a couple movies at the same time if they want.
The only thing I don't like about Google fibre from what I've seen is the pricing. Putting it at $80 a month makes it unaffordable for many of the low income homes. They have a lower speed option which I believe is only 5Mbit, which is actually decent, if you can find the money for the upfront costs. This seems to vary by location. It would be nice if they offered something in the middle for around $20-$30 a month which had a better amount of bandwidth, like 20 or 30 Mbit. Although I suspect if they did that, most people wouldn't pay for the Gigabit option, as almost no home user needs that kind of speed.
Don't worry USA, Canada is right there along with you. 250 GB would be welcome. The two major ISPs offer bandwidth caps between 25 GB and 125 GB on "reasonably priced" packages (under $70). Rogers recently introduced the option to upgrade your bandwidth cap, but you still can't get unlimited for less than $85. To go from 70 GB on a 30 Mbit connection to 270 GB on the same speed will cost you an extra $15 a month. Personally, I'm glad they opened up the lines to independent ISPs, or I think it would be even worse. The only problem with using the independents is that they use the same lines as the big ISPs, and the big ISPs don't prioritize fixes very well for the small guys.
This is why I will never buy an Android phone again. The lack of guaranteed updates is a huge problem. I have a hen which has decent hardware, but the software is stuck in the past. Apple and even Windows phones do a much better job at being kept up to date.
I would also imaging that the "small" (Compared to other eReaders) list of books is because the text of each book and to be independantly verified to make sure it didn't contain anything that could be used to circumvent proper operations of the vessel. Also, there's probably copyright issues with including many newer works.
Remember when we used to be able to run our own servers, and the server software was included with the games? Personally, I really don't like the current trend of requiring some game company or console maker to provide the infrastructure needed to run multiplayer games. I can still go back and play a game of Quake 3 with friends, and we don't need a third party to keep some servers running to allow us to do this.
IAAC as well, and I think this law is good as long as cyclists use some common sense. If you can't see around the corner when approaching a stop sign slow down to around walking speed so you can stop if a car runs right through the intersection, which I've seen some do, even at a 4-way stop. Traffic lights you have to use you're judgment. I wouldn't go making any left hand turns across multilane roads against the light, unless the road was completely deserted.
This is pretty much the way most cyclists ride anyway, so making it legal should be fine.
Its a little more expensive, but you might as well just have a raspberry pi or similar small hdmi capable computer. That way you just plug it in to any TV (raspberry pi even supports composite), and do your computing right on the device.
So what if it's Craigslist and they sell me a TV/Stereo/Bike, and tell me to come to their house to pick up the item? I'm paying for a product in this case. If the goods end up stolen I may end up without anything. If there product isn't any good, I end up with little recourse. Sure, tha't's not a service, it's a physical item. What about dog grooming? That's a service. Your dog may end up with a bad haircut, or even injured/dead. What makes driving someone around such as special case or any other service? Sometimes the person you end up meeting up with is dangerous. Prepare yourself accordingly and take precautions.
What's really the difference between this and an online dating service though? You meet people online, some of them might turn out to be jerks or even dangerous. Use your own judgment. There already exist online systems where you can arrange carpools or split a ride with someone. Why does making the cars "for hire, at a profit" change the dynamic so much. In university we has a bulletin board (physical one) where you could post where you were going for the weekend or holidays, and people could check if anyone was going to the same place, and they could split the gas, or the owner of the car gets free gas and lunch, or whatever else the two parties decided was fair. This is basically an online version of something that has existed since car ownership became common place.
I think this is what is missing from most games now. The ability to create mods. When I think about the really popular games of the past, many allowed them to be expanded, or could be expanded, which was part of what made them so popular. Things like Barney Doom, or the grappling hook in Quake 2 just added a whole extra level of playability. Minecraft should really embrace the mod community more than it does. Perhaps by having "officially" vetted mods, that are easy to download and install. I don't play with mods, but the one time I went to download one, it was like walking through a minefield of advertisements and popups.
6 digit income levels? $100,000 a year is a 6 digit income. That's not a huge amount of income to ask for as a developer. Then again $500,000 is also a 6 digit income, but that's actually a large amount of money to be making.
Personally, I think that game programming is like the lottery. Notch basically won the lottery with Minecraft. There's nothing particularly amazing about the game, but for some reason, it caught on, and now he's rich. It's hard to pin down what makes one game sell millions, while other games struggle to sell in the thousands.
So get a smaller vehicle and rent a larger vehicle the few times you actually need it. I know a few people who don't even own a car, and just rent a car when they need one. They use public transit or bikes to get back and forth to work every day, and they only time they need one is one the weekends. It's much easier to just pay for the grocery store to deliver your groceries than to pay for a car. In the winter, when there's low demand for rentals you can rent a car every weekend for less than the price of insurance.
Slashdot Mirror
The Surface 2 (not pro) is the ARM version they sell for $500. The Surface 2 PRO or Surface 3 PRO are the Intel x86-64 versions which will run any standard Windows software. I have the ARM version, and even that's enough provided you are just browsing the web and doing a few other small tasks. If you get the Surface PRO which comes with an Intel x86-64 processor, you can run full Windows, and all the applications you'd normally run on Windows. You could use it as your regular computer.
Yeah, but then you couldn't carry your entire desktop with you wherever you want. The Surface 2 already had enough power to be a desktop replacement to all but the most demanding users. You can connect 4 monitors to the Surface Pro. Plug in a USB keyboard and mouse and most people wouldn't need another computer. If I had the cash I would definitely just buy Surface Pro and forget all about having separate desktop/laptop/tablet. I got the Surface 2 (not pro), and even that has allowed me to completely forget about my laptop and desktop unless I need to do some actual work. Surfing the web, watching videos, listening to music. I use my Surface for all of that. As far as home use goes, if I wasn't a developer, I probably wouldn't even need a "proper" computer.
Yeah. At less than the annual cost to hire 2 (or possibly even 1) person qualified to work in this field. Also, when you see numbers like "50 million to produce the working 5 MW prototype", I seriously doubt that these people have any idea what it costs to build things. My city spent $5 million just to build a pedestrian bridge. Building a fusion rector would probably cost at least 100 times more.
Yup, you can get a Wii with MarioKart for $99. Same price as the Ouya, and has a great selection of party games.
The thing is, nobody really builds cars anymore. They assemble them. Ford doesn't manufacture each individual piece. They take a bunch of pieces manufacturered by other firms and put them together. I think Ford still makes the engine, but other than that, a lot of the parts are made by other companies. Which was the whole reason they couldn't let GM die. It would have taken hundreds of other companies that supply the parts to them with it. Once you take out the complicated drive train of a gasoline car, and have Tesla making the batteries anyway, is it really that difficult for them to just make a car anyway? A car isn't really that complicated of a piece of machinery.
The clever UI to prevent prank calls is the fine you get when you make prank calls to 911.
Maybe there should be an app on the phone that dials 911 but puts the phone on mute so that no sounds are emitted from the phone, perhaps with the screen off as well. Perhaps it should play a pre-recorded message to the operator so they know what's going on, and the operator can then hear any noise that's happening in the vicinity. You could even activate it with a panic button that you have on your keychain or in another covenient spot so you don't have to get to your phone in order to activate it.
On one hand, I can see how it would be nice for things to disappear off the map after a while. On the other hand, I don't think laws like this would be applied in a fair way. Seems like they ruled in this guy's favour because he was a politician. Would they have ruled the same way if it was some poor guy with no connections? Also, on the third hand (yeah, the third one, I typed it), I think that anybody who thinks they can make something disappear by making Google and other search engines not index it is in for a bad time. The Streisand effect makes it quite likely that the information will go viral. Everybody interested in the matter will be sharing the article on Facebook and other social networks. You can bet his opponents will link to the article on their web sites. If the paper is particularly against him for some reason, they could give people the rights to copy the article, and repost it on their own web sites. Google would be required not to index the original article, but what about other articles on other websites that looked the same? What if only a small portion of the text was the same?
Exactly. but like your parent poster said, if the information is no longer available elsewhere on the internet, then it will cease to be published in the search results (though they probably maintain a copy for some time). Going after Google only stops one way of getting at the information. It will be somewhat effective, because Google is such a popular search engine, but in the end, you'll be able to find the information on other search engines.
Yeah, for development and research, I agree, they have their uses. It's nice to be able to rent a high power machine for a few hours to test out some stuff, or run some simulations. But for day to day production machines, hosting web applications that don't actually have load that is variable, I really don't see the point, at yet I see plenty of companies doing it.
There seems to be a decent inbetween stage in the world of servers though. With servers, there's 4 options. You can own the datacenter. You can own the servers and rent out space in a datacenter. You can rent out servers inside a datacenter owned by someone else, You can host your applications on virtual machines that run inside somebody else's datacenter. Each level gives you less control over the services. If you own the datacenter, you're responsible for everything. If you only have a single server, this is a bad idea because there's a lot of infrastructure you have to buy to support that one small machine (generators, batter backup, air conditioning, fire suppression, etc). If you have 10,000 servers it's a great idea. Personally, I don't understand what one really gets out of using a service like Amazon where you have virtual machines or even renting machines, versus just using your own machines in someone else's datacenter. Unless you have a very niche case where you frequently need different numbers of machines, then there is no reason to use this method.
Maybe because Europeans don't have access to as many good streaming services as the USA does. Netflix has a much better catalog in the US than anywhere else. Plus they go Hulu, Amazon Prime, probably a few other services I'm missing. In Europe, I'm sure that much of the bandwidth is taken up by non-streaming services, allowing users to download in the middle of the night, or during the workday. I'm not trying to make excuses for the North American ISPs. I think they're doing a terrible job. But I also think that with the way the system is set up, data caps are inevitable, because there's no other way to limit usage. You can't do it just on speed, because everyone wants at least 10 mbit + connection, which is fast enough to get a couple terabytes of data a month if used continuously.
The problem is that home users aren't willing to pay for a a guaranteed speed, unlimited usage line which is how the ISPs actually pay for their bandwidth, and how datacenters pay for their bandwidth. What they really want is a high speed line that is only in use for a few hours a day, and for the rest of the day is completely dormant. This is because most of the bandwidth is consumed using streaming services, and everybody is home during the same time. The 95th percentile doesn't really work for home users, because they still want a high speed connection for 3 or 4 hours a day, which is way outside the 95th percentile. You can either have slow connections with unlimited bandwidth, or fast connections with a bandwidth cap. They won't sell you a fast connection with no cap, because there's no way to limit how much usage the customer will consume. On a 30 Mbit connection, you can download over 7 Terabytes of data in a month if you used it constantly. They don't want users taking advantage, but they want to be able to give users a reasonable speed so they can stream a couple movies at the same time if they want.
The only thing I don't like about Google fibre from what I've seen is the pricing. Putting it at $80 a month makes it unaffordable for many of the low income homes. They have a lower speed option which I believe is only 5Mbit, which is actually decent, if you can find the money for the upfront costs. This seems to vary by location. It would be nice if they offered something in the middle for around $20-$30 a month which had a better amount of bandwidth, like 20 or 30 Mbit. Although I suspect if they did that, most people wouldn't pay for the Gigabit option, as almost no home user needs that kind of speed.
Don't worry USA, Canada is right there along with you. 250 GB would be welcome. The two major ISPs offer bandwidth caps between 25 GB and 125 GB on "reasonably priced" packages (under $70). Rogers recently introduced the option to upgrade your bandwidth cap, but you still can't get unlimited for less than $85. To go from 70 GB on a 30 Mbit connection to 270 GB on the same speed will cost you an extra $15 a month. Personally, I'm glad they opened up the lines to independent ISPs, or I think it would be even worse. The only problem with using the independents is that they use the same lines as the big ISPs, and the big ISPs don't prioritize fixes very well for the small guys.
This is why I will never buy an Android phone again. The lack of guaranteed updates is a huge problem. I have a hen which has decent hardware, but the software is stuck in the past. Apple and even Windows phones do a much better job at being kept up to date.
I would also imaging that the "small" (Compared to other eReaders) list of books is because the text of each book and to be independantly verified to make sure it didn't contain anything that could be used to circumvent proper operations of the vessel. Also, there's probably copyright issues with including many newer works.
Remember when we used to be able to run our own servers, and the server software was included with the games? Personally, I really don't like the current trend of requiring some game company or console maker to provide the infrastructure needed to run multiplayer games. I can still go back and play a game of Quake 3 with friends, and we don't need a third party to keep some servers running to allow us to do this.
IAAC as well, and I think this law is good as long as cyclists use some common sense. If you can't see around the corner when approaching a stop sign slow down to around walking speed so you can stop if a car runs right through the intersection, which I've seen some do, even at a 4-way stop. Traffic lights you have to use you're judgment. I wouldn't go making any left hand turns across multilane roads against the light, unless the road was completely deserted.
This is pretty much the way most cyclists ride anyway, so making it legal should be fine.
Its a little more expensive, but you might as well just have a raspberry pi or similar small hdmi capable computer. That way you just plug it in to any TV (raspberry pi even supports composite), and do your computing right on the device.
So what if it's Craigslist and they sell me a TV/Stereo/Bike, and tell me to come to their house to pick up the item? I'm paying for a product in this case. If the goods end up stolen I may end up without anything. If there product isn't any good, I end up with little recourse. Sure, tha't's not a service, it's a physical item. What about dog grooming? That's a service. Your dog may end up with a bad haircut, or even injured/dead. What makes driving someone around such as special case or any other service? Sometimes the person you end up meeting up with is dangerous. Prepare yourself accordingly and take precautions.
What's really the difference between this and an online dating service though? You meet people online, some of them might turn out to be jerks or even dangerous. Use your own judgment. There already exist online systems where you can arrange carpools or split a ride with someone. Why does making the cars "for hire, at a profit" change the dynamic so much. In university we has a bulletin board (physical one) where you could post where you were going for the weekend or holidays, and people could check if anyone was going to the same place, and they could split the gas, or the owner of the car gets free gas and lunch, or whatever else the two parties decided was fair. This is basically an online version of something that has existed since car ownership became common place.
I think this is what is missing from most games now. The ability to create mods. When I think about the really popular games of the past, many allowed them to be expanded, or could be expanded, which was part of what made them so popular. Things like Barney Doom, or the grappling hook in Quake 2 just added a whole extra level of playability. Minecraft should really embrace the mod community more than it does. Perhaps by having "officially" vetted mods, that are easy to download and install. I don't play with mods, but the one time I went to download one, it was like walking through a minefield of advertisements and popups.
6 digit income levels? $100,000 a year is a 6 digit income. That's not a huge amount of income to ask for as a developer. Then again $500,000 is also a 6 digit income, but that's actually a large amount of money to be making.
Personally, I think that game programming is like the lottery. Notch basically won the lottery with Minecraft. There's nothing particularly amazing about the game, but for some reason, it caught on, and now he's rich. It's hard to pin down what makes one game sell millions, while other games struggle to sell in the thousands.
So get a smaller vehicle and rent a larger vehicle the few times you actually need it. I know a few people who don't even own a car, and just rent a car when they need one. They use public transit or bikes to get back and forth to work every day, and they only time they need one is one the weekends. It's much easier to just pay for the grocery store to deliver your groceries than to pay for a car. In the winter, when there's low demand for rentals you can rent a car every weekend for less than the price of insurance.