2 years to get from Earth to Jupiter, 2 more to Saturn, 4.5 to Uranus, 3.5 to Neptune, and an astonishing 29 to reach interstellar space. Truly amazing.
Agreed. Also amazing that it is still operating after all these years and harsh conditions. That was some seriously good engineering done 40+ years ago.
The cloud is taking over the role that data centers used to play
The cloud *is* a data center, it is just someone else's data center. It is important not to forget that. There is nothing wrong with doing your computing in someone else's data center as long as you have analyzed the the risks (and possible rewards) of doing so. That being said, a lot of folks seem to associate some magic value because of the term "the cloud"; doing so without understanding what it is, is risky.
Serious question for MS why in the world can an app modify the system trusted roots? Why is that even possible?
An application can not modify the system trusted roots, not unless you give it root / administrative permissions. The problem is that in the Windows world many people just do everything with an administrative account. To compensate for this (always running with an administrative account), Windows has a feature called User Account Control (UAC) which is kind of like "sudo" in the Linux world. The continued problem is that most users just click through the UAC prompts and let any software that wants administrative / root permissions to have them. In Windows when you install software and you get that prompt (modal dialog box with the rest of the screen sort of dimmed out) indicating that a program wants to make changes to your machine, you are being asked if you want to grant administrative rights / root to the software being installed. By clicking on "okay" you are granting rights for the application to escape the sandbox. (Technically it's not a sandbox, its a restricted set of permissions.)
Instead of finding a single consultant, consider hiring an outsourcing provider, aka a Managed Service Provider (another description). The problem with an individual consultant is that skillets vary and you probably won't find someone with *all* of the skills you need. In addition, individuals get sick, take vacations, etc. By hiring a MSP, you contract with a company which provides the support and manages the staff you need to keep your IT running. Because MSPs service multiple customers, you get the expertise of a bunch of people without having to hire and dedicate a bunch of people to just your IT. MSPs are formal businesses, with phone support, legal contracts, service level agreements, etc. Many individual IT consultants are not really good at running a business and don't have the ability to provide any real SLA. On the downside, when you go with a MSP, you will have to have some standardization in your environment and your users may not have the flexibility in their desktop configuration that they are accustomed to. This being said, standardization leads to stability and supportability - things you probably want in the end.
That it's not complicated to scan a document and attach it to an email.
No it's not complicated, but it's *more* complicated than using sending a fax.
Fictional, but representative statement from people I have worked with that regularly use faxes:
With a fax I can drop the document in the machine, enter the phone number, and press 'send'. When the fax machine beeps and says 'sent', I know the document is at the destination fax machine.
With email, I have to turn on the computer, log into the computer, launch the scanning software, scan the document, save the file, launch the email application, create a new email, find and attach the file, send the email, and finally delete the scanned file. I may have to wait to update the operating system, scanning software, or email software during this. I may have to wait for a virus scan or some other bullshit such as accepting a license agreement as well. When the email program says 'sent', I have no assurance that the email is actually in the recipient's mailbox. Granted, my computer may already be powered on, but it isn't always.
I make well over a hundred dollars per hour and my job isn't to use a computer. From a time management and lack of thought distraction point of view, faxes make a lot more sense to me.
The biggest feature of Bixby (and all mobile phone assistants for that matter) that I want is an "off switch" and an uninstall option. I don't want a virtual assistant on my phone.
a star about 40 light-years away that hosts seven exoplanets, three of which are potentially habitable. If the signal is spotted from either of these nearby systems, the study finds, the same megawatt laser could be used to send a brief message in the form of pulses similar to Morse code.
So this would be an 80 year round trip ping time? Someone far away would also have to be looking our direction when we light it up. For argument's sake let's say we want to allow a 10 year window for someone to notice our beacon. This means that we would have to shine the beacon for 10 years and then wait up to 90 years for a response?
Red Hat closed Friday at $116.68 per share, looks like the buy out is for $190. Not everyone will be unhappy with this. I hope the Red Hat employees that won't like the upcoming cultural changes have stock and options, it may soften the blow a bit.
As an Internet user you have no control over where your packets go or how they are routed. China could re-route them. The NSA could re-route them. Your ISP could re-route them. The only "guarantee" you get is the Internet will try really hard to get your packets there by any means necessary. Because there is no way to know where your packets are going to go, you should assume that *anyone* could be reading your packets. ("Packets" meaning the web pages your browse, the credit card details you enter on a website, the emails you send, etc.)
This of course doesn't matter because you encrypt everything you send across the Internet right?
Why the heck does it matter who is on the plane as long as they are not carrying something dangerous?
I travel by air a lot so I am in the TSA PreCheck program. It saves me a lot of time and for that time saving (simpler screening process), I am willing have the background check etc. In this case a facial recognition may help prove that I am really a person that has been vetted and therefore are eligible for a less intensive screening. However for people that aren't in PreCheck, why would it matter if we know who they are? As long as they pass the normal screening process, it should be safe enough to let them on the plane.
If facial recognition (or any other sort of rigorous ID check is done) for purposes other than validating pre-vetted individuals, it feels like more like tracking citizen movement than increasing flight security.
Someone's sales are not flat or there would be no change in the ranking of PC manufacturers.
Was the industry flat and Microsoft gained over a rival? Were both the industry and Microsoft flat but Microsoft's rivals had enough change to shift Microsoft's position? Was Microsoft flat, but industry overall changes caused Microsoft's rank to change? The headline is ambiguous. I guess I should be happy that the title wasn't "You will never believe what outrageous thing happened to Microsoft's ranking".
It is still confusing as you state it. The following would make more sense (assuming being correct):
It was assumed that there were four good gyros of which three were in operation and one was on stand by. One of the three in operation failed and when the stand by gyro was made active, it turned out not to be working. This left only two working gyros which is not enough (three are required.)
It's the same thing. The software layer just runs on it's own separate networking hardware in between the client and server.
True, but in this case the "middleware" isn't really bridging two applications, it is monitoring the communications between them. I suppose you could call the man-in-the-middle attack software "middleware" between the end applications and the monitoring applications, but that feels like a stretch.
Encrypted traffic inspection devices (also known as middleware)
Really? I don't think I have ever heard of middleware used in that context. I have always thought of middleware as a software layer that abstracts something between applications. It seems weird to refer to a hardware device as "middleware".
Most of the Lake Erie economy depends on tourism. These will be a complete eyesore and will take away from the natural beauty the Great Lakes give. Lots of fishing, sailing and boating happen on Lake Eerie and its a way for people to get away and be out in nature. These will only detract and hurt the tourism of the region for the little amount of power they will generate.
Cargo ships are an eyesore, we allow them on Lake Erie.
Some theme parks are outfitting roller coaster riders with VR headsets. The VR content is designed to go with motions of the roller coaster. In VR world when you are riding a dragon (or in a space ship, or whatever) and the dragon does a barrel roll, the coaster is going through its corkscrew. When well done, it's a cool effect.
So... this means that on a plane, the pilot could synchronize the flight path and maneuvers with the VR content...
Also most folks in Puerto Rico don't pay taxes or at least not income taxes. So without being voters and without paying taxes, there is less political incentive to provide services.
Slashdot Mirror
2 years to get from Earth to Jupiter, 2 more to Saturn, 4.5 to Uranus, 3.5 to Neptune, and an astonishing 29 to reach interstellar space. Truly amazing.
Agreed. Also amazing that it is still operating after all these years and harsh conditions. That was some seriously good engineering done 40+ years ago.
The cloud is taking over the role that data centers used to play
The cloud *is* a data center, it is just someone else's data center. It is important not to forget that. There is nothing wrong with doing your computing in someone else's data center as long as you have analyzed the the risks (and possible rewards) of doing so. That being said, a lot of folks seem to associate some magic value because of the term "the cloud"; doing so without understanding what it is, is risky.
Serious question for MS why in the world can an app modify the system trusted roots? Why is that even possible?
An application can not modify the system trusted roots, not unless you give it root / administrative permissions. The problem is that in the Windows world many people just do everything with an administrative account. To compensate for this (always running with an administrative account), Windows has a feature called User Account Control (UAC) which is kind of like "sudo" in the Linux world. The continued problem is that most users just click through the UAC prompts and let any software that wants administrative / root permissions to have them. In Windows when you install software and you get that prompt (modal dialog box with the rest of the screen sort of dimmed out) indicating that a program wants to make changes to your machine, you are being asked if you want to grant administrative rights / root to the software being installed. By clicking on "okay" you are granting rights for the application to escape the sandbox. (Technically it's not a sandbox, its a restricted set of permissions.)
Do you have cast-iron proof of that?
I do not, perhaps we can arrange a taste test or a bake off? Sorry for the typo (but not the pun.)
Instead of finding a single consultant, consider hiring an outsourcing provider, aka a Managed Service Provider (another description). The problem with an individual consultant is that skillets vary and you probably won't find someone with *all* of the skills you need. In addition, individuals get sick, take vacations, etc. By hiring a MSP, you contract with a company which provides the support and manages the staff you need to keep your IT running. Because MSPs service multiple customers, you get the expertise of a bunch of people without having to hire and dedicate a bunch of people to just your IT. MSPs are formal businesses, with phone support, legal contracts, service level agreements, etc. Many individual IT consultants are not really good at running a business and don't have the ability to provide any real SLA. On the downside, when you go with a MSP, you will have to have some standardization in your environment and your users may not have the flexibility in their desktop configuration that they are accustomed to. This being said, standardization leads to stability and supportability - things you probably want in the end.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
That it's not complicated to scan a document and attach it to an email.
No it's not complicated, but it's *more* complicated than using sending a fax.
Fictional, but representative statement from people I have worked with that regularly use faxes:
Much better headline. Or to get with the times, "You will never guess how much this man lost by failing to backup his data".
The biggest feature of Bixby (and all mobile phone assistants for that matter) that I want is an "off switch" and an uninstall option. I don't want a virtual assistant on my phone.
a star about 40 light-years away that hosts seven exoplanets, three of which are potentially habitable. If the signal is spotted from either of these nearby systems, the study finds, the same megawatt laser could be used to send a brief message in the form of pulses similar to Morse code.
So this would be an 80 year round trip ping time? Someone far away would also have to be looking our direction when we light it up. For argument's sake let's say we want to allow a 10 year window for someone to notice our beacon. This means that we would have to shine the beacon for 10 years and then wait up to 90 years for a response?
It's been done: Subservient Chicken
Red Hat closed Friday at $116.68 per share, looks like the buy out is for $190. Not everyone will be unhappy with this. I hope the Red Hat employees that won't like the upcoming cultural changes have stock and options, it may soften the blow a bit.
"The Internet is not a secure network."
As an Internet user you have no control over where your packets go or how they are routed. China could re-route them. The NSA could re-route them. Your ISP could re-route them. The only "guarantee" you get is the Internet will try really hard to get your packets there by any means necessary. Because there is no way to know where your packets are going to go, you should assume that *anyone* could be reading your packets. ("Packets" meaning the web pages your browse, the credit card details you enter on a website, the emails you send, etc.)
This of course doesn't matter because you encrypt everything you send across the Internet right?
Why the heck does it matter who is on the plane as long as they are not carrying something dangerous?
I travel by air a lot so I am in the TSA PreCheck program. It saves me a lot of time and for that time saving (simpler screening process), I am willing have the background check etc. In this case a facial recognition may help prove that I am really a person that has been vetted and therefore are eligible for a less intensive screening. However for people that aren't in PreCheck, why would it matter if we know who they are? As long as they pass the normal screening process, it should be safe enough to let them on the plane.
If facial recognition (or any other sort of rigorous ID check is done) for purposes other than validating pre-vetted individuals, it feels like more like tracking citizen movement than increasing flight security.
Why not just make it louder, but still 100%?
These go to 110%
Does it still distort the audio if you get close to 100% volume? (That was the reason I moved from Winamp to VLC a long time ago)
So with VLC you can get to 110%?
Someone's sales are not flat or there would be no change in the ranking of PC manufacturers.
Was the industry flat and Microsoft gained over a rival? Were both the industry and Microsoft flat but Microsoft's rivals had enough change to shift Microsoft's position? Was Microsoft flat, but industry overall changes caused Microsoft's rank to change? The headline is ambiguous. I guess I should be happy that the title wasn't "You will never believe what outrageous thing happened to Microsoft's ranking".
It is still confusing as you state it. The following would make more sense (assuming being correct):
It was assumed that there were four good gyros of which three were in operation and one was on stand by. One of the three in operation failed and when the stand by gyro was made active, it turned out not to be working. This left only two working gyros which is not enough (three are required.)
It's the same thing. The software layer just runs on it's own separate networking hardware in between the client and server.
True, but in this case the "middleware" isn't really bridging two applications, it is monitoring the communications between them. I suppose you could call the man-in-the-middle attack software "middleware" between the end applications and the monitoring applications, but that feels like a stretch.
Encrypted traffic inspection devices (also known as middleware)
Really? I don't think I have ever heard of middleware used in that context. I have always thought of middleware as a software layer that abstracts something between applications. It seems weird to refer to a hardware device as "middleware".
Most of the Lake Erie economy depends on tourism. These will be a complete eyesore and will take away from the natural beauty the Great Lakes give. Lots of fishing, sailing and boating happen on Lake Eerie and its a way for people to get away and be out in nature. These will only detract and hurt the tourism of the region for the little amount of power they will generate.
Cargo ships are an eyesore, we allow them on Lake Erie.
My own fault for using Windows for anything other than running Windows compatible software I suppose.
How would expect any software that isn't compatible with its operating system to run, Windows or otherwise?
Some theme parks are outfitting roller coaster riders with VR headsets. The VR content is designed to go with motions of the roller coaster. In VR world when you are riding a dragon (or in a space ship, or whatever) and the dragon does a barrel roll, the coaster is going through its corkscrew. When well done, it's a cool effect.
So... this means that on a plane, the pilot could synchronize the flight path and maneuvers with the VR content...
So trying a default password on a device is "hacking" now? That makes me sad.
Also most folks in Puerto Rico don't pay taxes or at least not income taxes. So without being voters and without paying taxes, there is less political incentive to provide services.