As far as my limited understanding goes: OSX ports of games involve building against many of the (open source) components included in Linux distro's. So when doing an OSX port, a Linux port is 'low hanging fruit'. Some studios may take advantage of that to do a Linux port as well. Or not... depending on title, game engine, sales, in-house developer expertise, etc etc.
The market for OSX games is small compared to Windows games, but still significant and considerably bigger than Linux gaming. So in a way, you could say Linux gaming is freeriding on the OSX games market. And of course for games that are popular enough, even a 1~2% market is enough to warrant the effort for a port.
NTP is internet based, read: requires an internet connection to retrieve the time.
Yet when I boot my Android phone after its battery runs empty, with Wi-Fi and mobile data disabled, it still retrieves the time just fine. Unlike say, a PC or Raspberry Pi when it relies solely on NTP for timekeeping.
Read: yes, your phone uses 'the network' to retrieve the time (the mobile network, that is). No, not NTP or mobile data services. My PC relies on a CR2032-backed hardware clock (manually adjusted once or twice a year), with the OS handling daylight saving changes. No network access needed to keep the correct time.
Your arguments sound sane but couldn't be further from the truth.
When 'theft' of imaginary property takes place, that causes the loss of imaginary sales. Which causes damage to some rich f**s bank account. As in: imaginary money that does *NOT* appear in said bank account. Whether or not that imaginary money would have appeared otherwise, is irrelevant: it's the not-showing-up-of-something-expected that counts here.
For the 1%er concerned that's a very traumatic, life-changing event, and causes grave imaginary pain. Not to mention long-term mental harm (maybe that's why those rich f**ks are so f**d up in the first place).
Obviously that's much more serious harm than whatever a rapist could do to his victim. And therefore it follows that the punishment for this imaginary crime should be more severe than for rapists, murderers, armed robbers etc. No expense should be spared, no stone left unturned to grab these imaginary thieves off the streets, even if they were in a different country when the imaginary crime took place.
So for members of the general public: don't do it! Where possible, buy the physical media, *and* ask the owners of that imaginary property if there is some way to send money their way on top of that. When a Blu-Ray comes out, that's a chance to re-buy a movie you already bought on DVD. And when some DRM scheme makes your imaginary purchases disappear, seize the opportunity to send more of your hard-earned money that rich f**ks way. Then they'll have more money to pay their (copyright) lawyers, the imaginary property will be better 'protected', imaginary sales go up, and artists will receive a much greater share of the royalties. Which in turn will make those artists produce more and not-as-crappy-s**t as they produce today.
All for the public good, of course. Win-win for everybody!
The U.S. Department of Agriculture once gave researchers at the University of New Hampshire $700,000 to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.
For anyone who thinks that's wasted money:
a) Read up on the causes of climate change. b) Read up on how many people are affected by climate change. And what the damage in economic terms may be. c) Read up on how powerful a greenhouse gas methane is. and d) Read up on how many cows there are in the world, and ballpark figure(s) for how much methane each cow produces.
$700k to know more about that? Perhaps find ways to knock off some % from that methane output? $700k is nothing to achieve such goals. What else would $700k buy a government? A few Hummers? A single Hellfire missile? One month unemployment benefits for a few dozen people? $700k to research what gasses a cow puts out: money well spent imho.
I've been wondering whether AI systems may advance science @ some point. I mean: not just as a tool with a human at the control knobs & interpreting results, but by itself as the 'entity' doing the advancing.
Some significant advances have been made not through heaps of grunt work, but when great minds like Einstein did their thing. Seeing patterns in their mind that no-one else saw. Sadly, such great minds are rare. And have a limited lifespan - of which a big part is spent learning the subject matter. And no matter how genius, with hard limits on the # of grey cells that can be thrown at the problem.
Artificial intelligent systems don't have such flesh-and-blood limitations: these can effectively be built at will, any size, optimized for specific problems sets, etc. Lately computerized systems have beat humans at increasingly complex tasks. Sometimes using brute force. Sometimes by looking at a problem from many angles at once. Fed with enough data, 'seeing' connections somehow that even experts in the field might overlook.
Regardless how it works exactly, fact is you might say that for some problems, we've built AI systems that are more capable than a "genius" human at finding solutions. Would it be hard to imagine that @ some point, an AI system might spit out a new formula, discover some as-of-yet-unseen regularity in scientific data, or find a path to unify as-of-yet-non-unified scientific theories?
A package pickup point? Like mobile phone antennas: more useful the more there are. Preferably nearby.
But one that exclusively caters to one company X? Not good. Sure, a big % of packages may be theirs. But what about the rest? And who's to say where company X will be in a couple of years? If it only does 10% of packages by then, pickup point for company X wouldn't be so useful anymore. A shared pickup point for <any companies' shipments> would be, though.
So summary has it right. Smells a lot like "hook 'em while they're young". Not to mention fair competition considerations...
Fine with me... as long as the objects gathering info about me, are powered by software that's under my control. And where I (instead of some company XYZ) decide what happens to the data that's gathered.
I guess this puts "open source powered robotic servant" on our wish list. More, or less difficult to achieve than say, a fully open smartphone? Undecided... we'll see. Fortunately robotics isn't exactly rocket science. So should be doable.:-)
Capitalism is pretty good for making optimal use of resources in complex, resource-constrained systems. Like the global economy. Overall, it's been not a bad system that took us through the industrialization age.
But capitalism also has a tendency to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few people. As technology marches on, that problem gets worse: lots of robot armies owned by a few rich people, doing 99% of the work, with less fortunate folks (the bulk of the population!) watching from the sidelines. Yes we'll still need people for some jobs. But automation will put more people out of a job than we can create / think of new jobs that can't be automated.
In decades past, jobs replaced by automation just meant workers moving on to other lines of work. Agriculture / mining -> industry -> services. But as artificial intelligence matures, those days will come to an end.
After that transition, 'pure' capitalism could be one of the worst systems to keep around. Having a few rich people own all means of production & deciding how wealth is distributed, just doesn't make sense. What did a billionaire do exactly to 'deserve' having 100,000x more wealth than a regular dude in the street?
Like my dad once said: "capitalism has had its best time" (or something along those lines). I couldn't agree more. It'll be with us for a long time to come, but in a post-scarcity society something else may be needed. In such a world, "for everyone, a roof over one's head & food on their plate, no questions asked" makes more sense to me than "every man / woman for himself, and if you starve, your problem".
A basic income is a good stepping stone to get there, imho. Alternatives? Wasteful bureaucracy. Wealth inequality much worse than even what's seen today. MASSIVE social unrest - perhaps right up to full-on civil war. And so on. Given those options, handing out a bit of cash to everyone isn't so bad. And fwiw: the money needed is already there. Western countries are basically doing the same thing today only with more bureaucrats involved.
On most products, such warning labels aren't there to inform users; they're there to give vendor a legal pass in case user does something stupid.
On electrical equipment: "do not submerge in water", "do not operate when cord is damaged". On something that uses (open) flame: "do not place near curtains or other combustible items". On a plastic bag: "do not eat". Or anything along those lines. Come on... Darwin takes care of that. The labels are there so vendor can say "well we did warn the users!".
Which is exactly the reason such warnings are often missing from gear that people buy directly from China. The vendor doesn't care. By the time something goes wrong, they've already moved on & changed company name a few times.
Just look at the URLs - is the domain is owned by someone other than the poster? If it is, then that other organization decides what you can do or not do. I've long owned my own domain, and I can post what I please on my webiste. If I want to move sites, I can just move hosting organization - the URLs come with me, because I own the domain. I don't think the problem is the existence of big companies at all - the problem is the difficulty of exiting. I don't mind others hosting my material as long as I can leave.
It's more subtle than that - it's about who did what to generate profits, and who gets what in return. Suppose I upload some pictures / video / interesting reading material to say, FB. And that helps to attract other users, and 'eyeballs' for advertising / marketing purposes, and that -in turn- generates profit.
Then effectively my effort translates into FB's profits. I would have 0 say in how it's all done, and see 0 of those profits.
I think mr. Zboralski is arguing that isn't fair. Or at least that the effort vs. rewards equation is tilted too much towards the corps that run the show. And indeed... I think he's got a point there.
And where is it measured? In the ovens or in the made up data from East Anglia University?
Thermometers from 100 years ago?
Such old instruments would do just fine. But in case you don't have those:
Take a long, glass tube with constant cross-section and a reservoir at the bottom. Fill with a substance that's chemically stable and liquid at both freezing & boiling point of water. Even though out of fashion these days, mercury is a good choice. Pump space above the liquid vacuum, and seal hermetically.
Go to a point @ sea level, take a bucket of pure water, put your thermometer in it, and cool such that some ice floats in it, some water is also in there, and temperature is stable and evenly distributed. Mark the liquid level in your thermometer with "0".
Now bring the water in the bucket to a boil, again wait until temperature is evenly distributed, and mark the liquid level in your thermometer with "100". Afterwards, divide the space between markings "0" and "100" in 100 equal parts, and (if possible) sub-divide each part in.1,.2,...,.9 markings. Using the 0-100 part as reference, extend a bit below "0" until you get to the part of your glass tube where cross-section isn't constant anymore.
Now find a place to do measurements: some standard height from the ground (1.5m?), shielded from the sun but allowing for -some- airflow, NOT in a place where nearby human structures or activity will f**k up the readings, thermometer mounted such that it'll reach equilibrium with surrounding air temperature, and can be read without influencing the reading.
Then take a notepad, and once (or more) each day, go up to the location. Note date, time, place of reading, and your best estimate at what the thermometer shows. If reading doesn't make sense, investigate why. From time to time, check or re-calibrate thermometer if necessary.
As you see, it takes effort and attention to detail to get good readings. I'm sure modern weather-people will have higher-accuracy instruments, automated setups, and a wealth of number-crunching equipment to make sense of the data. And US-based folks might want to add a Fahrenheit scale for the locals. But none of the above is rocket science, and even a century ago (or 2? or 3? or 5?) people knew how to do this, took notes, and sometimes preserved those records. So unless you can show their methods were flawed somehow, their readings are as valid as what you'd get today @ the same place. Even if that old data has to be taken with a grain of salt, it's still data points that could be meaningful. Or even accurate. Regardless how old a thermometer was used.
I suspect parent was thinking about a "Microsoft Linux" as a client OS. What regular folks run on their desktops & laptops.
But come to think of it: would that be impossible? Might be that Windows' days as a 'MS tax' / cash cow are numbered, and MS is looking for other ways to monetize those Windows-using eyeballs. Wouldn't surprise me if all the telemetry^H^H^H / advertising crap seen lately with Win10, are just some experiments in that direction. Perhaps MS doesn't care that much whether users are running Windows or some-other-OS underneath, but more that it generates profit for MS - no matter how.
Of course that's all just speculation on my part...
You can turn off Windows Update by setting the following registry entries:
Add a REG_DWORD value called DoNotConnectToWindowsUpdateInternetLocations to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate and set the value to 1.
-and-
Add a REG_DWORD value called DisableWindowsUpdateAccess to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate and set the value to 1.
Even something as straightforward as changing a registry setting, is beyond the skillset (or willingness, or caring enough) of the majority of average PC users. That is: if PC is actually under users' direct control - in a corporate setting, it often won't be. Imho any OS should by default send out / retrieve as little as practical from network sources. Beyond that, network access should be user-triggered, enabled on an individual services / application level.
But what struck me while going through the TechNet article, is its length. Are you supposed to check that many settings all over the place, and then repeat to check or re-set those settings each time some update(s) are applied?
That could be a full-time job. Unless you bring in the help of 3rd party software, which -under the hood- may behave as nasty as Win10 itself. Given these facts, I'd say that if you control PC('s) you work on, you have basically 3 choices at this point:
a) Even if you're just a regular user, act like a sysadmin and spend a disproportionate amount of time to re-set settings & regularly re-check those after updates are applied.
b) All your data are belong to MS (and perhaps 3-letter US agencies, too). Or run some random 3rd party software to fix (?) things, and possibly have all your data are belong to them.:-)
c) Side-step the problem entirely and run some other OS.
Choose wisely, and know this: your time isn't "free".
Not sure how theft, burglary, etc are a problem if you do not write down your pin?
Common method is to look over victims' shoulder when the PIN is used in a legitimate transaction. Often at supermarkets: just think about how 'hard' it is to see what PIN a customer in front of you enters on the keypad.
Then card is stolen / pickpocketed to be used immediately with the just-obtained PIN. Happens regularly, especially with elderly people as victims. But normally unless customer is clearly to blame, card issuer will compensate the damage (well okay... somehow spread out over all customers, that is).
But overall incidence is not that high. So in terms of cost to the average user, chip + PIN is a pretty good system. As a bonus, often the perps are caught on cam when they (try to) use the card at an ATM, retail store etc.
In some European countries (like mine) processing this type of payment has become so efficient, that (per transaction) it's as cheap if not cheaper than exchanging a few coins & bills. And of course store owners love it as it makes for less cash in house & thus less incentive for robbers.
Recently they've introduced the option of PIN-less payments for low-amount transactions (so there's less need to use your PIN 'everywhere'). And/or combined with some kind of electronic wallet that holds a limited amount (up to ~150 Eur or thereabouts). We'll see how that goes.
belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford WFT.N
Going out on a limb here, but that'll likely be a source for pipe inspections or similar jobs? Read: relatively small quantity, and no way that would be bomb-making material. Even if it fell into the wrong hands, then at worst such material could be used as ingredient of a small-scale dirty bomb: a conventional bomb with 'special sauce' to cause a "radioactive!" scare. For that purpose probably more dangerous to anyone trying to do so, than for the people in a target area.
Granted, in terms of victims / environment / health hazards that could still do some damage. But in the greater scheme of things, I'd take "highly dangerous" with a grain of salt here.
When you have a layer of soap bubbles floating on water, the various forces will lead to a situation of lowest-energy / lowest forces needed to maintain structures / least material in 'cell walls' etc. Which -on a surface- happen to be hexagonal structures.
Probably something similar is going on here? And sometimes -given the right conditions!- perhaps the same may even happen for 'permanent' structures like rocks or mountain ridges?
Scientific value != social value != economic value.
We can argue all we want about how interesting, promising, or (potentially) useful a research project may be. Or how much $$ should go to project X, and how much to project Y.
But whenever there's proper scientific research done, the money invested will yield a return: answers. Answers in terms of facts, measurement data, what works and what doesn't, perhaps even the odd conclusion about what seems best to try next. Some answers come cheap, some answers come only at great expense. Even if you find nothing: if you looked everywhere, properly, that means you now know there's nothing there, when before you could only guess what was there. Read: you still got answer(s).
Given the enormous size of the energy market, damage to our environment that's currently done as a result of extraction and burning of -mostly- fossil fuels, and huge benefits to mankind if cheap(er) energy sources were developed, imho we (as mankind) aren't spending nearly enough on fusion-related research. But hey that's just me.
Dave at EEVblog has already covered the concept in depth.
Laying the panels horizontal, also maximizes the chance of a micro-meteorite hitting a panel. Besides all the other problems with this concept, if that doesn't kill it...
Nothing wrong with an experiment here or there, even if it doesn't make much sense. But for example in the NL, at least we'd try this on a bicycle lane first, not on a regular road where trucks drive over it. Come to think of it: parking lot would be even better. Parking lot full - low power. Parking lot mostly unused - high power. Nice for parking lots that are big but fill up only now & then. Roof or dedicated plot of land still better though.
Guessing this puts MS for the choice whether they want to:
a) Keep flogging a dead horse, and push phones with their OS on it even if they sell poorly. Or
b) Just call it a day, enlist the help of their 'arch enemy' Linux, and make some phones that actually sell.
In short: is MS in the OS-pushing business, or in the phone-selling business? Tough one...:-)
Didn't RTA, but even the only thing this mr. Fischer ever did in his life was design the cool stuff known as Fischer Technik, then imho he would have earned a nice life & retirement.
Owned a set of those construction boxes myself, and it was among the best stuff I had to play with. Not in the least because the same parts can be recombined in an endless number of ways. And more so than -for example- common Lego blocks, making stronger connections, moveable/rotating parts, shovels, cranes, you name it. Right up there with Meccano, which was more before my time. Just wish all those electronics / pneumatics parts would have been on offer back in the day... (and more pocket money to get it:-). I had to 'make do' with blocks, plates, strips, hinges, belts, wheels, chains, axles, gears and one or 2 motors.
For parents reading this: don't shy away from giving construction sets like this to your daughter(s) ! Might be exactly what she needs to get interested in the tech side of things. And certainly not as boring as many of today's single-use-throw-away-toys.
Stories are submitted, read: "please look at this!", or "wouldn't this be a nice subject to discuss?"
Of course it's always possible there are multiple submitters, or submitters (part of the public, after all) that missed a previous story. THAT IS OKAY.
But with those submissions in hand, it would be the editor's job to check for previously posted stories, non-working links, spelling errors (well... at least obvious ones:-), etc. In this case, that would have been Timothy's job. Except on/., obviously...
Slashdot Mirror
As far as my limited understanding goes: OSX ports of games involve building against many of the (open source) components included in Linux distro's. So when doing an OSX port, a Linux port is 'low hanging fruit'. Some studios may take advantage of that to do a Linux port as well. Or not... depending on title, game engine, sales, in-house developer expertise, etc etc.
The market for OSX games is small compared to Windows games, but still significant and considerably bigger than Linux gaming. So in a way, you could say Linux gaming is freeriding on the OSX games market. And of course for games that are popular enough, even a 1~2% market is enough to warrant the effort for a port.
NTP is internet based, read: requires an internet connection to retrieve the time.
Yet when I boot my Android phone after its battery runs empty, with Wi-Fi and mobile data disabled, it still retrieves the time just fine. Unlike say, a PC or Raspberry Pi when it relies solely on NTP for timekeeping.
Read: yes, your phone uses 'the network' to retrieve the time (the mobile network, that is). No, not NTP or mobile data services. My PC relies on a CR2032-backed hardware clock (manually adjusted once or twice a year), with the OS handling daylight saving changes. No network access needed to keep the correct time.
Your arguments sound sane but couldn't be further from the truth.
When 'theft' of imaginary property takes place, that causes the loss of imaginary sales. Which causes damage to some rich f**s bank account. As in: imaginary money that does *NOT* appear in said bank account. Whether or not that imaginary money would have appeared otherwise, is irrelevant: it's the not-showing-up-of-something-expected that counts here.
For the 1%er concerned that's a very traumatic, life-changing event, and causes grave imaginary pain. Not to mention long-term mental harm (maybe that's why those rich f**ks are so f**d up in the first place).
Obviously that's much more serious harm than whatever a rapist could do to his victim. And therefore it follows that the punishment for this imaginary crime should be more severe than for rapists, murderers, armed robbers etc. No expense should be spared, no stone left unturned to grab these imaginary thieves off the streets, even if they were in a different country when the imaginary crime took place.
So for members of the general public: don't do it! Where possible, buy the physical media, *and* ask the owners of that imaginary property if there is some way to send money their way on top of that. When a Blu-Ray comes out, that's a chance to re-buy a movie you already bought on DVD. And when some DRM scheme makes your imaginary purchases disappear, seize the opportunity to send more of your hard-earned money that rich f**ks way. Then they'll have more money to pay their (copyright) lawyers, the imaginary property will be better 'protected', imaginary sales go up, and artists will receive a much greater share of the royalties. Which in turn will make those artists produce more and not-as-crappy-s**t as they produce today.
All for the public good, of course. Win-win for everybody!
The U.S. Department of Agriculture once gave researchers at the University of New Hampshire $700,000 to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.
For anyone who thinks that's wasted money:
a) Read up on the causes of climate change.
b) Read up on how many people are affected by climate change. And what the damage in economic terms may be.
c) Read up on how powerful a greenhouse gas methane is. and
d) Read up on how many cows there are in the world, and ballpark figure(s) for how much methane each cow produces.
$700k to know more about that? Perhaps find ways to knock off some % from that methane output? $700k is nothing to achieve such goals. What else would $700k buy a government? A few Hummers? A single Hellfire missile? One month unemployment benefits for a few dozen people? $700k to research what gasses a cow puts out: money well spent imho.
I've been wondering whether AI systems may advance science @ some point. I mean: not just as a tool with a human at the control knobs & interpreting results, but by itself as the 'entity' doing the advancing.
Some significant advances have been made not through heaps of grunt work, but when great minds like Einstein did their thing. Seeing patterns in their mind that no-one else saw. Sadly, such great minds are rare. And have a limited lifespan - of which a big part is spent learning the subject matter. And no matter how genius, with hard limits on the # of grey cells that can be thrown at the problem.
Artificial intelligent systems don't have such flesh-and-blood limitations: these can effectively be built at will, any size, optimized for specific problems sets, etc. Lately computerized systems have beat humans at increasingly complex tasks. Sometimes using brute force. Sometimes by looking at a problem from many angles at once. Fed with enough data, 'seeing' connections somehow that even experts in the field might overlook.
Regardless how it works exactly, fact is you might say that for some problems, we've built AI systems that are more capable than a "genius" human at finding solutions. Would it be hard to imagine that @ some point, an AI system might spit out a new formula, discover some as-of-yet-unseen regularity in scientific data, or find a path to unify as-of-yet-non-unified scientific theories?
Exciting times...
A package pickup point? Like mobile phone antennas: more useful the more there are. Preferably nearby.
But one that exclusively caters to one company X? Not good. Sure, a big % of packages may be theirs. But what about the rest? And who's to say where company X will be in a couple of years? If it only does 10% of packages by then, pickup point for company X wouldn't be so useful anymore. A shared pickup point for <any companies' shipments> would be, though.
So summary has it right. Smells a lot like "hook 'em while they're young". Not to mention fair competition considerations...
I think the only thing that will truly go away is menial jobs.
Excellent! No more grinding in World of Warcraft?
Fine with me... as long as the objects gathering info about me, are powered by software that's under my control. And where I (instead of some company XYZ) decide what happens to the data that's gathered.
I guess this puts "open source powered robotic servant" on our wish list. More, or less difficult to achieve than say, a fully open smartphone? Undecided... we'll see. Fortunately robotics isn't exactly rocket science. So should be doable. :-)
Capitalism is pretty good for making optimal use of resources in complex, resource-constrained systems. Like the global economy. Overall, it's been not a bad system that took us through the industrialization age.
But capitalism also has a tendency to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few people. As technology marches on, that problem gets worse: lots of robot armies owned by a few rich people, doing 99% of the work, with less fortunate folks (the bulk of the population!) watching from the sidelines. Yes we'll still need people for some jobs. But automation will put more people out of a job than we can create / think of new jobs that can't be automated.
In decades past, jobs replaced by automation just meant workers moving on to other lines of work. Agriculture / mining -> industry -> services. But as artificial intelligence matures, those days will come to an end.
After that transition, 'pure' capitalism could be one of the worst systems to keep around. Having a few rich people own all means of production & deciding how wealth is distributed, just doesn't make sense. What did a billionaire do exactly to 'deserve' having 100,000x more wealth than a regular dude in the street?
Like my dad once said: "capitalism has had its best time" (or something along those lines). I couldn't agree more. It'll be with us for a long time to come, but in a post-scarcity society something else may be needed. In such a world, "for everyone, a roof over one's head & food on their plate, no questions asked" makes more sense to me than "every man / woman for himself, and if you starve, your problem".
A basic income is a good stepping stone to get there, imho. Alternatives? Wasteful bureaucracy. Wealth inequality much worse than even what's seen today. MASSIVE social unrest - perhaps right up to full-on civil war. And so on. Given those options, handing out a bit of cash to everyone isn't so bad. And fwiw: the money needed is already there. Western countries are basically doing the same thing today only with more bureaucrats involved.
Phone-wise, I upgrade either when it smokes (..)
Silly you... when the magic smoke starts coming out, just put some duct tape over the leak & the phone will be fine!
On most products, such warning labels aren't there to inform users; they're there to give vendor a legal pass in case user does something stupid.
On electrical equipment: "do not submerge in water", "do not operate when cord is damaged". On something that uses (open) flame: "do not place near curtains or other combustible items". On a plastic bag: "do not eat". Or anything along those lines. Come on... Darwin takes care of that. The labels are there so vendor can say "well we did warn the users!".
Which is exactly the reason such warnings are often missing from gear that people buy directly from China. The vendor doesn't care. By the time something goes wrong, they've already moved on & changed company name a few times.
(..) meaning, they want you guys, the Whites, to subjugate to them, to serve them, to be their slaves
You might be surprised how many of "the Whites" are into that kind of thing...
Just look at the URLs - is the domain is owned by someone other than the poster? If it is, then that other organization decides what you can do or not do. I've long owned my own domain, and I can post what I please on my webiste. If I want to move sites, I can just move hosting organization - the URLs come with me, because I own the domain. I don't think the problem is the existence of big companies at all - the problem is the difficulty of exiting. I don't mind others hosting my material as long as I can leave.
It's more subtle than that - it's about who did what to generate profits, and who gets what in return. Suppose I upload some pictures / video / interesting reading material to say, FB. And that helps to attract other users, and 'eyeballs' for advertising / marketing purposes, and that -in turn- generates profit.
Then effectively my effort translates into FB's profits. I would have 0 say in how it's all done, and see 0 of those profits.
I think mr. Zboralski is arguing that isn't fair. Or at least that the effort vs. rewards equation is tilted too much towards the corps that run the show. And indeed... I think he's got a point there.
And where is it measured? In the ovens or in the made up data from East Anglia University? Thermometers from 100 years ago?
Such old instruments would do just fine. But in case you don't have those:
Take a long, glass tube with constant cross-section and a reservoir at the bottom. Fill with a substance that's chemically stable and liquid at both freezing & boiling point of water. Even though out of fashion these days, mercury is a good choice. Pump space above the liquid vacuum, and seal hermetically.
Go to a point @ sea level, take a bucket of pure water, put your thermometer in it, and cool such that some ice floats in it, some water is also in there, and temperature is stable and evenly distributed. Mark the liquid level in your thermometer with "0".
Now bring the water in the bucket to a boil, again wait until temperature is evenly distributed, and mark the liquid level in your thermometer with "100". Afterwards, divide the space between markings "0" and "100" in 100 equal parts, and (if possible) sub-divide each part in .1, .2, ..., .9 markings. Using the 0-100 part as reference, extend a bit below "0" until you get to the part of your glass tube where cross-section isn't constant anymore.
Now find a place to do measurements: some standard height from the ground (1.5m?), shielded from the sun but allowing for -some- airflow, NOT in a place where nearby human structures or activity will f**k up the readings, thermometer mounted such that it'll reach equilibrium with surrounding air temperature, and can be read without influencing the reading.
Then take a notepad, and once (or more) each day, go up to the location. Note date, time, place of reading, and your best estimate at what the thermometer shows. If reading doesn't make sense, investigate why. From time to time, check or re-calibrate thermometer if necessary.
As you see, it takes effort and attention to detail to get good readings. I'm sure modern weather-people will have higher-accuracy instruments, automated setups, and a wealth of number-crunching equipment to make sense of the data. And US-based folks might want to add a Fahrenheit scale for the locals. But none of the above is rocket science, and even a century ago (or 2? or 3? or 5?) people knew how to do this, took notes, and sometimes preserved those records. So unless you can show their methods were flawed somehow, their readings are as valid as what you'd get today @ the same place. Even if that old data has to be taken with a grain of salt, it's still data points that could be meaningful. Or even accurate. Regardless how old a thermometer was used.
I suspect parent was thinking about a "Microsoft Linux" as a client OS. What regular folks run on their desktops & laptops.
But come to think of it: would that be impossible? Might be that Windows' days as a 'MS tax' / cash cow are numbered, and MS is looking for other ways to monetize those Windows-using eyeballs. Wouldn't surprise me if all the telemetry^H^H^H / advertising crap seen lately with Win10, are just some experiments in that direction. Perhaps MS doesn't care that much whether users are running Windows or some-other-OS underneath, but more that it generates profit for MS - no matter how.
Of course that's all just speculation on my part...
You can turn off Windows Update by setting the following registry entries:
Add a REG_DWORD value called DoNotConnectToWindowsUpdateInternetLocations to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate and set the value to 1.
-and-
Add a REG_DWORD value called DisableWindowsUpdateAccess to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate and set the value to 1.
Even something as straightforward as changing a registry setting, is beyond the skillset (or willingness, or caring enough) of the majority of average PC users. That is: if PC is actually under users' direct control - in a corporate setting, it often won't be. Imho any OS should by default send out / retrieve as little as practical from network sources. Beyond that, network access should be user-triggered, enabled on an individual services / application level.
But what struck me while going through the TechNet article, is its length. Are you supposed to check that many settings all over the place, and then repeat to check or re-set those settings each time some update(s) are applied?
That could be a full-time job. Unless you bring in the help of 3rd party software, which -under the hood- may behave as nasty as Win10 itself. Given these facts, I'd say that if you control PC('s) you work on, you have basically 3 choices at this point:
Choose wisely, and know this: your time isn't "free".
Not sure how theft, burglary, etc are a problem if you do not write down your pin?
Common method is to look over victims' shoulder when the PIN is used in a legitimate transaction. Often at supermarkets: just think about how 'hard' it is to see what PIN a customer in front of you enters on the keypad.
Then card is stolen / pickpocketed to be used immediately with the just-obtained PIN. Happens regularly, especially with elderly people as victims. But normally unless customer is clearly to blame, card issuer will compensate the damage (well okay... somehow spread out over all customers, that is).
But overall incidence is not that high. So in terms of cost to the average user, chip + PIN is a pretty good system. As a bonus, often the perps are caught on cam when they (try to) use the card at an ATM, retail store etc.
In some European countries (like mine) processing this type of payment has become so efficient, that (per transaction) it's as cheap if not cheaper than exchanging a few coins & bills. And of course store owners love it as it makes for less cash in house & thus less incentive for robbers.
Recently they've introduced the option of PIN-less payments for low-amount transactions (so there's less need to use your PIN 'everywhere'). And/or combined with some kind of electronic wallet that holds a limited amount (up to ~150 Eur or thereabouts). We'll see how that goes.
From the article:
belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford WFT.N
Going out on a limb here, but that'll likely be a source for pipe inspections or similar jobs? Read: relatively small quantity, and no way that would be bomb-making material. Even if it fell into the wrong hands, then at worst such material could be used as ingredient of a small-scale dirty bomb: a conventional bomb with 'special sauce' to cause a "radioactive!" scare. For that purpose probably more dangerous to anyone trying to do so, than for the people in a target area.
Granted, in terms of victims / environment / health hazards that could still do some damage. But in the greater scheme of things, I'd take "highly dangerous" with a grain of salt here.
... Where's the popcorn?
Spread all over the land... Climate is changing so fast, the corn popped before they could harvest.
When you have a layer of soap bubbles floating on water, the various forces will lead to a situation of lowest-energy / lowest forces needed to maintain structures / least material in 'cell walls' etc. Which -on a surface- happen to be hexagonal structures.
Probably something similar is going on here? And sometimes -given the right conditions!- perhaps the same may even happen for 'permanent' structures like rocks or mountain ridges?
Scientific value != social value != economic value.
We can argue all we want about how interesting, promising, or (potentially) useful a research project may be. Or how much $$ should go to project X, and how much to project Y.
But whenever there's proper scientific research done, the money invested will yield a return: answers. Answers in terms of facts, measurement data, what works and what doesn't, perhaps even the odd conclusion about what seems best to try next. Some answers come cheap, some answers come only at great expense. Even if you find nothing: if you looked everywhere, properly, that means you now know there's nothing there, when before you could only guess what was there. Read: you still got answer(s).
Given the enormous size of the energy market, damage to our environment that's currently done as a result of extraction and burning of -mostly- fossil fuels, and huge benefits to mankind if cheap(er) energy sources were developed, imho we (as mankind) aren't spending nearly enough on fusion-related research. But hey that's just me.
Dave at EEVblog has already covered the concept in depth.
Laying the panels horizontal, also maximizes the chance of a micro-meteorite hitting a panel. Besides all the other problems with this concept, if that doesn't kill it...
Nothing wrong with an experiment here or there, even if it doesn't make much sense. But for example in the NL, at least we'd try this on a bicycle lane first, not on a regular road where trucks drive over it. Come to think of it: parking lot would be even better. Parking lot full - low power. Parking lot mostly unused - high power. Nice for parking lots that are big but fill up only now & then. Roof or dedicated plot of land still better though.
Guessing this puts MS for the choice whether they want to:
a) Keep flogging a dead horse, and push phones with their OS on it even if they sell poorly. Or
b) Just call it a day, enlist the help of their 'arch enemy' Linux, and make some phones that actually sell.
In short: is MS in the OS-pushing business, or in the phone-selling business? Tough one... :-)
Didn't RTA, but even the only thing this mr. Fischer ever did in his life was design the cool stuff known as Fischer Technik, then imho he would have earned a nice life & retirement.
Owned a set of those construction boxes myself, and it was among the best stuff I had to play with. Not in the least because the same parts can be recombined in an endless number of ways. And more so than -for example- common Lego blocks, making stronger connections, moveable/rotating parts, shovels, cranes, you name it. Right up there with Meccano, which was more before my time. Just wish all those electronics / pneumatics parts would have been on offer back in the day... (and more pocket money to get it :-). I had to 'make do' with blocks, plates, strips, hinges, belts, wheels, chains, axles, gears and one or 2 motors.
For parents reading this: don't shy away from giving construction sets like this to your daughter(s) ! Might be exactly what she needs to get interested in the tech side of things. And certainly not as boring as many of today's single-use-throw-away-toys.
Stories are submitted, read: "please look at this!", or "wouldn't this be a nice subject to discuss?"
Of course it's always possible there are multiple submitters, or submitters (part of the public, after all) that missed a previous story. THAT IS OKAY.
But with those submissions in hand, it would be the editor's job to check for previously posted stories, non-working links, spelling errors (well... at least obvious ones :-), etc. In this case, that would have been Timothy's job. Except on /., obviously...