And they could make it a level playing field for everyone that has to use some kind of broker service. Once there's a matching buy & sell in the system, lock the bids in for a time period before they settle. And let anyone try to put in a matching bid before the time elapses, with a lottery to determine who gets it, in a way that is biased to the small players in the market.
In Australia, we have a compulsory pension savings plan. With everyone "investing" for their retirement, all we really manage to do is boost the price of existing assets. I doubt much of it is actually used to build something useful.
There are a couple of ways to get a linux install working right now. You could boot a liveCD or USB, which obviously requires you to obtain the correct media and tweak the boot order in the BIOS first. Getting the user to tweak UEFI probably won't add too much difficulty for someone who can already accomplish this, but it is an additional step that may have great big scary warnings all over it.
But what about running something like ubuntu's windows installer? This reboots into linux from a virtual disk that it builds in a file on your windows partition. Is that easy enough for a user to try? But that can't reliably work with secure boot unless they've signed their boot loader with a key already known and trusted by the BIOS. And currently that will mean you get it signed by microsoft or it just doesn't work.
Disabling secure boot, or manually installing a new vendor key, may be easy enough for us. But it adds another large hurdle for joe average user to try another operating system. That alone is reason enough to complain about it and object to it.
As it stands now the UEFI standard doesn't specify how the user can install a custom trusted key.
IMHO, hardware vendors should be required to leave the trusted key set empty from the factory. UEFI should then have a standard prompt to enable secure boot and install a key found on bootable media. If Microsoft were forced to guide the user through the same process that a linux installation would require, this process would get the attention it deserves to make it as user friendly and standardised as possible.
We obviously need a p2p solution to this problem. Almost like using TOR, but with the only exit connections allowed going to the streaming service in your region. So if you live in the UK you can access Hulu by being a proxy for other people accessing the BBC.
GPS? Why not use connecting to the in store wifi as the trigger, and then talk to the register directly. I bet this is implemented with a central service that will fail with the slightest internet connection issue.
Australia's pretty big too, we've (apparently) got a bus service from Broome to Perth that's about 2200km with almost nothing in between. We have longer roads, but no regular bus service that I could find.
People were pushing hard for Firefox to reduce memory usage. Mozilla reduced Firefox's memory usage. Now people complain that Firefox is a bit slower and uses more CPU because less is cached in memory.
Er, no. People were complaining that Firefox leaked and wasted memory. Now they've been actively working to understand and reduce memory usage and Firefox is faster and less of a memory hog. They aren't just turning down cache sizes, they aren't trying to change the behaviour of Firefox at all. They're fixing everything from "clown shoes" memory allocations and heavily fragmented javascript containers to misbehaving addons that leak handles.
Conversely if they are walking through a solution tree they should have quick shortcuts to paste the next question into the chat window so they don't need to type it.
You wouldn't be able to eliminate the person completely, but their application should certainly be able to help them with pre-canned responses.
If you can make the hardware do the same work with less effort, then you've got more spare cycles to do other things. Or you can target cheaper / slower hardware.
Sure the difference between 270 and 315 fps isn't going to be noticeable to the user since you are limited by your monitor's 60fps. But now you can probably render more objects on screen, or increase the view distance, or you could add more detail, or....
So the docking connector is behind your head? And I assume you have to rotate it somewhat to fix it in position? That really sounds like it could be really awkward to actually dock with the spaceship.
I think the best possible solution would involve hardware manufacturers to not include *any* keys with the computer. UEFI needs a standardised way to look for a new key from boot media, and prompt the user to import it. Though of course we all know how effective click through warnings are...
Unbundle the channels? Yeah, it's already too late for that. Unbundle the shows completely. Just give me a data connection and somewhere to get the show content, no matter where in the world I live.
Australia's copper network runs like this ATM. The copper from your house to the exchange was historically owned by telstra and would require a phone service line rental from them. Though they were forced to lease the lines wholesale to other phone providers. In the exchange, telstra initially were the only people operating DSLAM's to connect ADSL customers. And again they were forced to lease the ADSL connection to other internet providers. Then we had other providers installing their own equipment into the exchanges. Followed by forcing telstra to lease the copper to ISP's without needing them to provide a traditional phone service, which is where we are now. This is much better than the monopoly we had before, but could still be better.
The new NBN being rolled out is following a similar model. NBNco owns the fiber, but is only responsible for the link from the house to a peering point. All of the internal structure of the network is hidden, the connection is exposed as a p2p ethernet link. After that, any company with a sufficient number of customers (their pricing model sucks for any small players) can provide whatever data service they want over that link; TV, phone, internet, or anything else you can think of.
But as I said their pricing model is (was?) horrendous. Sure they'll lease a 20Mbps link to a residence for a flat $25 per month no matter where that residence is in the entire country, which isn't too bad for a completely new network. But they also gouge the data provider at the peering point, charging $20 per Mbps per month. eg it will cost you $400 per month to provide enough bandwidth for your first customer's peak usage. 2 customers? well, then you'll need 40Mbps on the off chance they both want to use their link at the same time. After that, you probably wont need to purchase much more bandwidth until you have hundreds of customers.
But I digress. Anyway I think it's a perfectly good idea to setup a local monopoly that is *only* responsible for building and maintaining the link from each house to some central location. Just make sure you aren't being ripped off in the fine print. Then let everyone compete on a level playing field to provide services over that link.
Another thought; You know your estimates are inaccurate right? Are you attempting to report the potential accuracy of your estimate? Or are you reducing the problem to a single number?
Your estimate should include some measure of the risks involved, and some measure of your past accuracy in estimation. If you think a particular problem will take 40 hours to solve, tell management that it could be between 30 and 55. Let them know just how inaccurate your ball park estimate is.
I thought that one of the points of agile / scrum, is that you only give an estimate in hours when you have broken down a piece of work into smaller tasks, each of which should only take a day at most to complete. ie, when you have almost finished designing the solution and now just have to implement it.
Are you giving estimates in hours before that process has been completed? Is your task breakdown insufficiently detailed? Do some of your tasks have big unknowns?
At the time a task goes over, or the discovery of an unknown or additional piece of work that your task breakdown didn't cover. Create a new task, give it an estimate, and quickly document why it was required. Before the next iteration, review all of these extra tasks and try to learn something from them.
I'm currently using FF14.0. Opening about:memory shows a heck of a lot of detail about where memory is being allocated, including this line;
45.71 MB (16.78%) heap-unclassified
So 16% of firefox's memory use is poorly accounted for, that number used to be 80%. The firefox team have been focussing on memory use to address your "memory leak" concerns for years now. They've built the tools to diagnose where memory is going so they can easily fix it. They've even been helping out developers of popular extensions to fix any big issues they find there too.
I think "feeling" is the right adjective here. The point is, hardware that on paper is faster than the competition can "feel" slower than other devices if it doesn't update the UI fast enough when the user does something.
Right up until the point where the bank goes under and/or merges with a another bank that has a more efficient IT department. Then all of the data will be migrated to another system (that you may be able to consult on), and your entire IT staff will go.
The database is stored centrally. You provide information on which towers / wifi devices you can see with their signal strength. And the central database either works out your location for you, or returns the known location of each of the devices you can hear. And it will probably use the information you supply to improve the quality of the database.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, they have started adding custom url's.
And they could make it a level playing field for everyone that has to use some kind of broker service. Once there's a matching buy & sell in the system, lock the bids in for a time period before they settle. And let anyone try to put in a matching bid before the time elapses, with a lottery to determine who gets it, in a way that is biased to the small players in the market.
In Australia, we have a compulsory pension savings plan. With everyone "investing" for their retirement, all we really manage to do is boost the price of existing assets. I doubt much of it is actually used to build something useful.
There are a couple of ways to get a linux install working right now. You could boot a liveCD or USB, which obviously requires you to obtain the correct media and tweak the boot order in the BIOS first. Getting the user to tweak UEFI probably won't add too much difficulty for someone who can already accomplish this, but it is an additional step that may have great big scary warnings all over it.
But what about running something like ubuntu's windows installer? This reboots into linux from a virtual disk that it builds in a file on your windows partition. Is that easy enough for a user to try? But that can't reliably work with secure boot unless they've signed their boot loader with a key already known and trusted by the BIOS. And currently that will mean you get it signed by microsoft or it just doesn't work.
Disabling secure boot, or manually installing a new vendor key, may be easy enough for us. But it adds another large hurdle for joe average user to try another operating system. That alone is reason enough to complain about it and object to it.
As it stands now the UEFI standard doesn't specify how the user can install a custom trusted key.
IMHO, hardware vendors should be required to leave the trusted key set empty from the factory. UEFI should then have a standard prompt to enable secure boot and install a key found on bootable media. If Microsoft were forced to guide the user through the same process that a linux installation would require, this process would get the attention it deserves to make it as user friendly and standardised as possible.
We obviously need a p2p solution to this problem. Almost like using TOR, but with the only exit connections allowed going to the streaming service in your region. So if you live in the UK you can access Hulu by being a proxy for other people accessing the BBC.
GPS? Why not use connecting to the in store wifi as the trigger, and then talk to the register directly. I bet this is implemented with a central service that will fail with the slightest internet connection issue.
Australia's pretty big too, we've (apparently) got a bus service from Broome to Perth that's about 2200km with almost nothing in between. We have longer roads, but no regular bus service that I could find.
(kind of like porting between iOS and Android)
You've obviously never looked too hard at those applications that have been ported then have you?
Have you tried looking at about:memory? Have you tried disabling any addons?
People were pushing hard for Firefox to reduce memory usage. Mozilla reduced Firefox's memory usage. Now people complain that Firefox is a bit slower and uses more CPU because less is cached in memory.
Er, no. People were complaining that Firefox leaked and wasted memory. Now they've been actively working to understand and reduce memory usage and Firefox is faster and less of a memory hog. They aren't just turning down cache sizes, they aren't trying to change the behaviour of Firefox at all. They're fixing everything from "clown shoes" memory allocations and heavily fragmented javascript containers to misbehaving addons that leak handles.
And how exactly do you include simple, clear instructions for how to do that for each manufacturers bios?
1, choose your type of motherboard
2, print these instructions
3, reboot computer
4, press DEL
...
That's going to make installing linux, or even just running from a live cd so much easier.
Conversely if they are walking through a solution tree they should have quick shortcuts to paste the next question into the chat window so they don't need to type it. You wouldn't be able to eliminate the person completely, but their application should certainly be able to help them with pre-canned responses.
If you can make the hardware do the same work with less effort, then you've got more spare cycles to do other things. Or you can target cheaper / slower hardware. Sure the difference between 270 and 315 fps isn't going to be noticeable to the user since you are limited by your monitor's 60fps. But now you can probably render more objects on screen, or increase the view distance, or you could add more detail, or....
It's condensation on the PCB you need to worry about.
So the docking connector is behind your head? And I assume you have to rotate it somewhat to fix it in position? That really sounds like it could be really awkward to actually dock with the spaceship.
I think the best possible solution would involve hardware manufacturers to not include *any* keys with the computer. UEFI needs a standardised way to look for a new key from boot media, and prompt the user to import it. Though of course we all know how effective click through warnings are...
Unbundle the channels? Yeah, it's already too late for that. Unbundle the shows completely. Just give me a data connection and somewhere to get the show content, no matter where in the world I live.
Australia's copper network runs like this ATM. The copper from your house to the exchange was historically owned by telstra and would require a phone service line rental from them. Though they were forced to lease the lines wholesale to other phone providers. In the exchange, telstra initially were the only people operating DSLAM's to connect ADSL customers. And again they were forced to lease the ADSL connection to other internet providers. Then we had other providers installing their own equipment into the exchanges. Followed by forcing telstra to lease the copper to ISP's without needing them to provide a traditional phone service, which is where we are now. This is much better than the monopoly we had before, but could still be better.
The new NBN being rolled out is following a similar model. NBNco owns the fiber, but is only responsible for the link from the house to a peering point. All of the internal structure of the network is hidden, the connection is exposed as a p2p ethernet link. After that, any company with a sufficient number of customers (their pricing model sucks for any small players) can provide whatever data service they want over that link; TV, phone, internet, or anything else you can think of.
But as I said their pricing model is (was?) horrendous. Sure they'll lease a 20Mbps link to a residence for a flat $25 per month no matter where that residence is in the entire country, which isn't too bad for a completely new network. But they also gouge the data provider at the peering point, charging $20 per Mbps per month. eg it will cost you $400 per month to provide enough bandwidth for your first customer's peak usage. 2 customers? well, then you'll need 40Mbps on the off chance they both want to use their link at the same time. After that, you probably wont need to purchase much more bandwidth until you have hundreds of customers.
But I digress. Anyway I think it's a perfectly good idea to setup a local monopoly that is *only* responsible for building and maintaining the link from each house to some central location. Just make sure you aren't being ripped off in the fine print. Then let everyone compete on a level playing field to provide services over that link.
Another thought; You know your estimates are inaccurate right? Are you attempting to report the potential accuracy of your estimate? Or are you reducing the problem to a single number?
Your estimate should include some measure of the risks involved, and some measure of your past accuracy in estimation. If you think a particular problem will take 40 hours to solve, tell management that it could be between 30 and 55. Let them know just how inaccurate your ball park estimate is.
I thought that one of the points of agile / scrum, is that you only give an estimate in hours when you have broken down a piece of work into smaller tasks, each of which should only take a day at most to complete. ie, when you have almost finished designing the solution and now just have to implement it.
Are you giving estimates in hours before that process has been completed? Is your task breakdown insufficiently detailed? Do some of your tasks have big unknowns?
At the time a task goes over, or the discovery of an unknown or additional piece of work that your task breakdown didn't cover. Create a new task, give it an estimate, and quickly document why it was required. Before the next iteration, review all of these extra tasks and try to learn something from them.
45.71 MB (16.78%) heap-unclassified
So 16% of firefox's memory use is poorly accounted for, that number used to be 80%. The firefox team have been focussing on memory use to address your "memory leak" concerns for years now. They've built the tools to diagnose where memory is going so they can easily fix it. They've even been helping out developers of popular extensions to fix any big issues they find there too.
I think "feeling" is the right adjective here. The point is, hardware that on paper is faster than the competition can "feel" slower than other devices if it doesn't update the UI fast enough when the user does something.
Right up until the point where the bank goes under and/or merges with a another bank that has a more efficient IT department. Then all of the data will be migrated to another system (that you may be able to consult on), and your entire IT staff will go.
The database is stored centrally. You provide information on which towers / wifi devices you can see with their signal strength. And the central database either works out your location for you, or returns the known location of each of the devices you can hear. And it will probably use the information you supply to improve the quality of the database.