I care about being forced to update NoScript every few days, each time being forced to load his site. I've got another extension, a Flash downloader that does the same thing. They're both either the world's worst programmers, or they're intentionally releasing updates just to drive traffic to their homepages.
It's also incredibly irritating to get interrupted almost every time I go to restart Firefox!
They spent quite a bit of time optimizing that process, but there are only a few ways to re-image a MacBook, and none are fast enough
Step one: remove battery, slide hard drive out.
Step two: insert hard drive into SATA docking station.
Step three: run any of dozen different drive imaging tools on Linux or MacOS, at drive speed. For extra speed, use a partition that is slightly larger than the installed files, then boot the machine and use disk utility to expand the HFS+ partition; it only takes a minute or so for the expansion, and it can be done 'live'. Your imaging tools don't even have to be aware of HFS+; just GUID partitions.
Copying 15GB over SATA for most drives should take less than 300 seconds (at the start of the drive, 50MB/sec shouldn't be a problem), and that's about how much disk space you need for a base image. Figure another five minutes to pop the battery, drive, connect stuff, AND boot the copy host (if you don't have hot-swap SATA ports.)
For a few hundred dollars you could build a duplication host, complete with docks; most motherboards have ~6 ports already, though you might not get full wirespeed from them all, so add in another $15-30 for some SATA PCIe cards. Use an SSD to source the images...or better yet, ~16GB of ram.
First off, there's plenty of competition- as Apple pointed out, they're #1 in browser market share, but #2 in devices sold. Second, the market has no shortage of mobile platforms, and Android has a third of the iPhone's market share.
None of which would have happened had Android not shown up.
Er, wrong. For example, if I go to the supermarket and have pasta for dinner, that doesn't mean I won't have pasta for dinner if I don't go to the supermarket. Maybe my SO stops by the supermarket. Or we go out to eat. Or a neighbor calls us up and says "hey, want to come over for dinner? We're having pasta." It's the same kind of logical fallacy used to defend space exploration expenditures by saying "we wouldn't have ____ if it hadn't been for the space program!"
Let's totally unplug all backwards theocracies from the internet.
So, when most of the US population believes God and magic exist, but not global warming...does that mean the rest of us who are aren't insane and stupid should be doomed along with them?
While nations have a right to sovereignty- the internet is a powerful source for intellectual enlightenment. Shut off the tap, and you'll only help the ignorant masses.
North Korea is a perfect example. They're so isolated that virtually nobody from North Korea has the slightest clue what the world is like. Worse, they've been brainwashed for generations to hate the rest of the world. War with them is pretty much a given, and it's going to be a fight to the last man, woman, and child.
Whether or not you agree with it, military research has led to an enormous number of scientific advances that were initially used by the military but later disseminated more broadly. Jet engines, the Internet, cryptography, GPS, nuclear reactors, etc.
You're using a logical fallacy, namely that if the military research hadn't happened, these technologies never would have been developed...
No it isn't. Mach is the speed sound travels in a medium (the atmosphere). As there is no atmosphere in orbit, you can't associate a mach speed value to orbital velocities.
We don't need fancy robots; we need better driver training. In the US, you demonstrate basic proficiency in skills that matter 95% of the time when everything is going swimmingly, answer a very limited subset of the rules/laws of the road, and then get handed your license, and never need to do any of that again. Why are we shocked when people then miserably fail when the shit hits the fan? In other countries, you have to learn and demonstrate actual car handling skills, like recovering from a skid...and people routinely fail the driving tests on the first try, because it's actually difficult.
I think in most states you need more training to own a firearm than you do to be handed the keys to 2 tons of metal that causes 40,000 deaths a year. The culture here is so poor that people use the term "accident" to describe collisions.
We also need laws that make it criminal negligence if you distract yourself to the point of not controlling your vehicle properly and cause a collision.
It's a hell of a lot easier to pull off maneuvers like that in a powerful, lightweight, AWD car set up for sliding than it is in a family wagon....
AWD makes it harder, because you have two different vectors if you're steering in any direction; the front wheels pull in whatever direction they're aimed, and the back wheels always push in line with the car's body. And the more power you have, the harder it is to control that power; remember, the vehicle weight is the same, but you've more than doubled the engine power.
Also, that family sedan has cheapo all-season tires which are both very progressive and don't have much dry traction, which is why they're able to do what they're doing at such a slow speed.
They're not just programming the car what to do and when, the car sees where the cones are and works it out for itself.
They're programming the car what to do and when, based on where it sees the cones. It's neither unique nor novel. And all they're doing is switching models when (gasp) the car switches from its behavior being based on static CoF to dynamic CoF (ie, not sliding to sliding.)
Similar to a James Bond action scene, the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off.
Bullshit. Yeah, he's one of the best- but he's doing that in a 500hp AWD car, not a 100HP FWD diesel station wagon, at speeds several times higher than what Stanford was doing. Call me when they can do what he does.
It's also extremely difficult for a human to pull off crochet if they haven't been taught how. Or to shoot a rifle and hit a target a mile away. Or fly fighter jets in formation feet apart. Yet we do that. The question is: how hard is it to train someone, and how consistently can they do it, and how much effort did it take to get the computer to do it?
The answer to the first part: Top Gear did a show segment where they had Russ Swift teach a bunch of people off the street how to do it. If I recall, they were grandmothers. They were going for a larger area, but come on- they were octogenarians.
The answer to the second part:
Apparently Stanford hasn't heard of rallying or gymkhana. Tens of thousands of people do stuff way, way more impressive than what Stanford is demonstrating- at much higher speeds in much more powerful cars. It's not hard, and the Stanford guys are grossly overexaggerating the complexity of the problem to model, as well. The whole point is that you use the car's momentum and lock wheels to make it slide predictably. Practice makes perfect for timing and aim (in the case of Top Gear, they practiced with inflatable boxes that were harmless to the cars.)
And, how many tries do you suppose it took the Stanford team to get it right?
Yeah, those stupid Russians. Nothing like that could ever happen here in the god-fearin', freedom-lovin', capitalist United Stated of America.
Except Centralia, PA has been burning for about ten years longer than Hell's Gate, comprises 400 acres (and growing) versus Hell's Gate which is barely the size of a basketball court, and is expected to continue to burn for another 250 years.
Also is folks listened to the MIT lectures on building the shuttle, they mentioned that the engines in the shuttle wouldn't have to be torn down and rebuilt between flights if the electronics were built onto the engine such the engines could be tested without removing them.
Sigh. Because NASA never thought of that?
Weight matters. So does complexity.
Is it just me, or is the only thing they teach at MIT arrogance?
While certainly true, making a comment about Flash being proprietary is just hypocrisy and at the same time hilarious from Steve Jobs and Apple.
Steve Jobs is speaking in the context of web browsing. Apple mobile devices support Javascript, HTML5, etc which are open standards- and in case you've forgotten, that was how many iPhone applications were initially developed and 'released'.
Flash is proprietary and closed-source. Whereas Microsoft used their marketshare to bring in proprietary standards, Steve is doing the opposite: holding fast and refusing to support Flash, using his market share to both force website owners to make their websites useable without Flash, and give web designers everywhere some ammunition to steer clients towards using technologies other than Flash. Most sites don't need Flash- XHTML and CSS wiped away most of the common uses of Flash (ie, Web Design Via Photoshop.)
Given how bitterly many Slashdotters have complained over the last 10 years about how Flash was proprietary, didn't work on Linux (recent Linux users won't remember this, but yes, Virginia, it used to be that you could not get Flash on your Linux machine), etc. etc- well, I'm a bit disappointed.
The fact that some of it once belonged to you (even if only on paper) does not entitle you to a stake in deciding how it is used.
That's pretty effin' funny, given that this country was founded after a revolution based on the simple concept of being taxed but not receiving representation in exchange.
So, uh, yes- if you're taxed, you damn well do get a stake in deciding how it is used here in the US. Fun fact: in the state where the revolutionary war started (MA), we have "town meetings"- and they're not the kind of Town Meeting you see politicians holding, which are basically just "get some people in a high school gym and have them ask you some questions."
No, see: town meetings are where the town (anyone who wants to show up) debates and votes on damn near everything from policies to budgets. The rest of the year, the town is run by a town council, also elected.
It's impressive to see an entire basketball court full of chairs, and 15+ rows on each side, full of town residents. Democracy in action.
he talks about the trade-offs between operational security and allowing soldiers and the public to interact,
Let me rephrase that for you: they're torn between the need for operational security, and using soldiers for good PR. Otherwise, the press wouldn't have had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to attend or photograph the ceremonies where dead soldiers are unloaded from cargo transports.
Blogging/twittering is just the modern version of the WW2 propaganda films. Look at our romantic heros, off to fight for justice and democracy! Look at our gritty, determined fighters putting up with horrible conditions and a bitter enemy! Give a voice to front-liners and you see what narcissistic people in the war want you to see. For example, the IED that gets blown up on the side of the road harmlessly...not the one that kills half the soldier's friends. And all the people with internet access are the ones doing Club Med tours- not the ones fighting in the trenches and caves.
One only need look at that attack helicopter video to see the stark difference between reality and what soldiers and the military want us to see.
Not really, because bread and vegetables are harder to digest than meat
What does ease of digestion have to do with how much food makes it to you? Further: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html: "Each year an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption."
Cattle already require enormous amounts of feed to produce the same amount of caloric food value (ie, it's much more efficient to eat bread and vegetables in terms of how much food grown makes it to you, by the calorie.) This will make them consume more food.
It's kind of staggering to realize that there are almost 100 million cows in the US.
Honestly, if you're one of multiple IT in a place with only 20 workstations, you're seriously over-staffed.
"Honestly", you're making a lot of assumptions and have invented a scenario where a)the story writer is IT AND b)The company is only 20 people AND c)They are overstaffed IT-wise. Do Slashdot posters ever listen to how stupid they sound?
Maybe he's a developer or similar user at a small/startup company where they are the most technical people already. I was hired on to my first job because the engineers were tired of playing tech support for the rest of the company. Or, maybe they are a workgroup in a company of hundreds or thousands, and the primary IT group is incompetent. Etc.
In fact, this is true for many open source communities, which count numerous members, very few of whom would be qualified to develop the open source project further should a fork occur.
Did someone just say that very few people in open source project communities are qualified to do development work?
Kinda nice to hear that admission of reality, after a decade plus of open source developers using the "do it yourself" line to escape from listening to feedback and requests from end users.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't care about ads on his site.
I care about being forced to update NoScript every few days, each time being forced to load his site. I've got another extension, a Flash downloader that does the same thing. They're both either the world's worst programmers, or they're intentionally releasing updates just to drive traffic to their homepages.
It's also incredibly irritating to get interrupted almost every time I go to restart Firefox!
They spent quite a bit of time optimizing that process, but there are only a few ways to re-image a MacBook, and none are fast enough
Step one: remove battery, slide hard drive out.
Step two: insert hard drive into SATA docking station.
Step three: run any of dozen different drive imaging tools on Linux or MacOS, at drive speed. For extra speed, use a partition that is slightly larger than the installed files, then boot the machine and use disk utility to expand the HFS+ partition; it only takes a minute or so for the expansion, and it can be done 'live'. Your imaging tools don't even have to be aware of HFS+; just GUID partitions.
Copying 15GB over SATA for most drives should take less than 300 seconds (at the start of the drive, 50MB/sec shouldn't be a problem), and that's about how much disk space you need for a base image. Figure another five minutes to pop the battery, drive, connect stuff, AND boot the copy host (if you don't have hot-swap SATA ports.)
For a few hundred dollars you could build a duplication host, complete with docks; most motherboards have ~6 ports already, though you might not get full wirespeed from them all, so add in another $15-30 for some SATA PCIe cards. Use an SSD to source the images...or better yet, ~16GB of ram.
None of which would have happened had Android not shown up.
Er, wrong. For example, if I go to the supermarket and have pasta for dinner, that doesn't mean I won't have pasta for dinner if I don't go to the supermarket. Maybe my SO stops by the supermarket. Or we go out to eat. Or a neighbor calls us up and says "hey, want to come over for dinner? We're having pasta." It's the same kind of logical fallacy used to defend space exploration expenditures by saying "we wouldn't have ____ if it hadn't been for the space program!"
Thundersky has a pretty horrible reputation in the EV crowd- google "thundersky problems", and read all the sad stories for a few hours.
Let's totally unplug all backwards theocracies from the internet.
So, when most of the US population believes God and magic exist, but not global warming...does that mean the rest of us who are aren't insane and stupid should be doomed along with them?
While nations have a right to sovereignty- the internet is a powerful source for intellectual enlightenment. Shut off the tap, and you'll only help the ignorant masses.
North Korea is a perfect example. They're so isolated that virtually nobody from North Korea has the slightest clue what the world is like. Worse, they've been brainwashed for generations to hate the rest of the world. War with them is pretty much a given, and it's going to be a fight to the last man, woman, and child.
Whether or not you agree with it, military research has led to an enormous number of scientific advances that were initially used by the military but later disseminated more broadly. Jet engines, the Internet, cryptography, GPS, nuclear reactors, etc.
You're using a logical fallacy, namely that if the military research hadn't happened, these technologies never would have been developed...
No it isn't. Mach is the speed sound travels in a medium (the atmosphere). As there is no atmosphere in orbit, you can't associate a mach speed value to orbital velocities.
You start out in the atmosphere, chief. Also, Wikipedia specifies a Mach number for LEO.
Even in LEO, there is air- it's just very, very, very thin. The atmosphere doesn't end at a hard line.
Why do you think objects in LEO gradually slow down and re-enter? Answer: aerodynamic (and solar) drag.
How is this an improvement over tethering? Seems like a waste of valuable real estate in the netbook.
The amount of debris generated would further 'pollute' the orbit around earth....
We don't need fancy robots; we need better driver training. In the US, you demonstrate basic proficiency in skills that matter 95% of the time when everything is going swimmingly, answer a very limited subset of the rules/laws of the road, and then get handed your license, and never need to do any of that again. Why are we shocked when people then miserably fail when the shit hits the fan? In other countries, you have to learn and demonstrate actual car handling skills, like recovering from a skid...and people routinely fail the driving tests on the first try, because it's actually difficult.
I think in most states you need more training to own a firearm than you do to be handed the keys to 2 tons of metal that causes 40,000 deaths a year. The culture here is so poor that people use the term "accident" to describe collisions.
We also need laws that make it criminal negligence if you distract yourself to the point of not controlling your vehicle properly and cause a collision.
It's a hell of a lot easier to pull off maneuvers like that in a powerful, lightweight, AWD car set up for sliding than it is in a family wagon....
AWD makes it harder, because you have two different vectors if you're steering in any direction; the front wheels pull in whatever direction they're aimed, and the back wheels always push in line with the car's body. And the more power you have, the harder it is to control that power; remember, the vehicle weight is the same, but you've more than doubled the engine power.
Also, that family sedan has cheapo all-season tires which are both very progressive and don't have much dry traction, which is why they're able to do what they're doing at such a slow speed.
They're not just programming the car what to do and when, the car sees where the cones are and works it out for itself.
They're programming the car what to do and when, based on where it sees the cones. It's neither unique nor novel. And all they're doing is switching models when (gasp) the car switches from its behavior being based on static CoF to dynamic CoF (ie, not sliding to sliding.)
Similar to a James Bond action scene, the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off.
Bullshit. Yeah, he's one of the best- but he's doing that in a 500hp AWD car, not a 100HP FWD diesel station wagon, at speeds several times higher than what Stanford was doing. Call me when they can do what he does.
It's also extremely difficult for a human to pull off crochet if they haven't been taught how. Or to shoot a rifle and hit a target a mile away. Or fly fighter jets in formation feet apart. Yet we do that. The question is: how hard is it to train someone, and how consistently can they do it, and how much effort did it take to get the computer to do it?
The answer to the first part: Top Gear did a show segment where they had Russ Swift teach a bunch of people off the street how to do it. If I recall, they were grandmothers. They were going for a larger area, but come on- they were octogenarians.
The answer to the second part:
Apparently Stanford hasn't heard of rallying or gymkhana. Tens of thousands of people do stuff way, way more impressive than what Stanford is demonstrating- at much higher speeds in much more powerful cars. It's not hard, and the Stanford guys are grossly overexaggerating the complexity of the problem to model, as well. The whole point is that you use the car's momentum and lock wheels to make it slide predictably. Practice makes perfect for timing and aim (in the case of Top Gear, they practiced with inflatable boxes that were harmless to the cars.)
And, how many tries do you suppose it took the Stanford team to get it right?
Yeah, those stupid Russians. Nothing like that could ever happen here in the god-fearin', freedom-lovin', capitalist United Stated of America.
Except Centralia, PA has been burning for about ten years longer than Hell's Gate, comprises 400 acres (and growing) versus Hell's Gate which is barely the size of a basketball court, and is expected to continue to burn for another 250 years.
Also is folks listened to the MIT lectures on building the shuttle, they mentioned that the engines in the shuttle wouldn't have to be torn down and rebuilt between flights if the electronics were built onto the engine such the engines could be tested without removing them.
Sigh. Because NASA never thought of that?
Weight matters. So does complexity.
Is it just me, or is the only thing they teach at MIT arrogance?
I hate that this page splits into multiple pages. Very lame.
Then...don't reward them by linking to them?
"BAD, Johhny! Don't pull your brother's hair! Here's an ice cream sundae."
While certainly true, making a comment about Flash being proprietary is just hypocrisy and at the same time hilarious from Steve Jobs and Apple.
Steve Jobs is speaking in the context of web browsing. Apple mobile devices support Javascript, HTML5, etc which are open standards- and in case you've forgotten, that was how many iPhone applications were initially developed and 'released'.
Flash is proprietary and closed-source. Whereas Microsoft used their marketshare to bring in proprietary standards, Steve is doing the opposite: holding fast and refusing to support Flash, using his market share to both force website owners to make their websites useable without Flash, and give web designers everywhere some ammunition to steer clients towards using technologies other than Flash. Most sites don't need Flash- XHTML and CSS wiped away most of the common uses of Flash (ie, Web Design Via Photoshop.)
Given how bitterly many Slashdotters have complained over the last 10 years about how Flash was proprietary, didn't work on Linux (recent Linux users won't remember this, but yes, Virginia, it used to be that you could not get Flash on your Linux machine), etc. etc- well, I'm a bit disappointed.
The fact that some of it once belonged to you (even if only on paper) does not entitle you to a stake in deciding how it is used.
That's pretty effin' funny, given that this country was founded after a revolution based on the simple concept of being taxed but not receiving representation in exchange.
So, uh, yes- if you're taxed, you damn well do get a stake in deciding how it is used here in the US. Fun fact: in the state where the revolutionary war started (MA), we have "town meetings"- and they're not the kind of Town Meeting you see politicians holding, which are basically just "get some people in a high school gym and have them ask you some questions."
No, see: town meetings are where the town (anyone who wants to show up) debates and votes on damn near everything from policies to budgets. The rest of the year, the town is run by a town council, also elected.
It's impressive to see an entire basketball court full of chairs, and 15+ rows on each side, full of town residents. Democracy in action.
The refutation has another advantage besides authoritativeness: it's far better written than the attack.
coughcoughADHOMINEM
If you're going to make commentary about an argument, try not to use a logical fallacy when doing so...
he talks about the trade-offs between operational security and allowing soldiers and the public to interact,
Let me rephrase that for you: they're torn between the need for operational security, and using soldiers for good PR. Otherwise, the press wouldn't have had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to attend or photograph the ceremonies where dead soldiers are unloaded from cargo transports.
Blogging/twittering is just the modern version of the WW2 propaganda films. Look at our romantic heros, off to fight for justice and democracy! Look at our gritty, determined fighters putting up with horrible conditions and a bitter enemy! Give a voice to front-liners and you see what narcissistic people in the war want you to see. For example, the IED that gets blown up on the side of the road harmlessly...not the one that kills half the soldier's friends. And all the people with internet access are the ones doing Club Med tours- not the ones fighting in the trenches and caves.
One only need look at that attack helicopter video to see the stark difference between reality and what soldiers and the military want us to see.
Note that there's no legitimate reason that you'd ever need to connect the iPad to a second computer to update it. It has its own internet connection.
Er, just like my iPhone? Which requires being connected to a second computer to update it?
All residing in a GUI.
Not on the server, moron.
Hence the statement, "GUI may be king on the desktop"
Not really, because bread and vegetables are harder to digest than meat
What does ease of digestion have to do with how much food makes it to you? Further: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html: "Each year an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption."
So, a 5.8:1 ratio.
This is just a distractionary greenwash.
It's kind of staggering to realize that there are almost 100 million cows in the US.
Honestly, if you're one of multiple IT in a place with only 20 workstations, you're seriously over-staffed.
"Honestly", you're making a lot of assumptions and have invented a scenario where a)the story writer is IT AND b)The company is only 20 people AND c)They are overstaffed IT-wise. Do Slashdot posters ever listen to how stupid they sound?
Maybe he's a developer or similar user at a small/startup company where they are the most technical people already. I was hired on to my first job because the engineers were tired of playing tech support for the rest of the company. Or, maybe they are a workgroup in a company of hundreds or thousands, and the primary IT group is incompetent. Etc.
In fact, this is true for many open source communities, which count numerous members, very few of whom would be qualified to develop the open source project further should a fork occur.
Did someone just say that very few people in open source project communities are qualified to do development work?
Kinda nice to hear that admission of reality, after a decade plus of open source developers using the "do it yourself" line to escape from listening to feedback and requests from end users.