Missed my point apparently, so let me clarify: why would any app (not a system extension) need to modify the system registry in Windows? Sounds like bad design to me.
Why would an application developer need this because why would an application developer need to be modifying the OS at all? That just sounds like really bad design.
A TRS-80 Model 1 was my first computer. Of course that lead to a long history of gadgets and hacks. Back then, high-school teachers wouldn't accept a paper printed on a dot-matrix printer. So a fellow TRS-80 owner and I bought a nifty little gadget called a Dynatyper which was essentially a box of solenoids that you mounted over the keyboard of a regular typewriter. And of course, we couldn't afford a real floppy disk drive (5.25" true floppies, btw) so we bought this thing called a Stringy Floppy. it used these little cassette tapes that operated on a similar principle to 8-track tapes. And back then I was big into graphics so I bought this rather expensive hi-res graphics board. And we used to stick AM radios next to the machine to get "sound" out of our games.
There are lots of tech companies down in the valley. Technologic Systems is in Fountain Hills (on Laser Drive:-). There are many PCB assembly houses there too. And Advanced Circuits that does custom PCB fabrication just set up a facility there. Cost of living is far lower and the tax system is much more conducive than the Bay area. Want even cheaper? Set up shop in Prescott or Prescott Valley.
Count me in. I still search Ebay for original Altair computers and IMSAI 8080 machines. There's still something cool about computers with switches and lights on the front. Probably why I also like steam punk.
10 million? For an accounting app? Seriously? Something seriously wrong here. Of course this is no surprise when you're asking why the Mac versions have no feature parity to the Windows versions. This is no surprise that the most obvious of features e.g. a real bill-of-materials feature for QB Manufacturing edition continues to elude us. Maybe they're writing the thing in native assembly language.
You'll be running around constantly to the offices of people screaming "I've been pressing the Help key for half an hour and nobody showed up!!!" You'll also be crawling under people's desks to make sure the computers are plugged in. You'll be moving computers from one cubicle to another. You may even be crawling through duct work to run cabling.
Bzzt...they simply contracted it to a private company. And this whole infrastructure argument is bogus because shipping isn't free despite what Amazon tells you. Every commercial vehicle pays fees over and above fuel taxes. All of that is supposed to go to pay for the roads and bridges. If the government is coming up short, there is a problem. As a matter of interest, my business neighbor builds railings, guard rails, and structural ironwork for highway overpasses. All of these "shovel ready" projects only had enough money to pay his employees half the normal rate. Yeah, half. So where's the rest of the money going assuming that there is more money? Bureaucrats' pockets. But let's just pretend you have a valid point for a moment. If the government built those roads and bridges and they government is soooo good at it, why are they falling apart?
The key point here is that government didn't make it what it is today. Up until the mid 1980s, the commercial activity on the internet wasn't allowed. And for the next 25-30 years (hopefully longer) taxation stayed out of the equation. Anyone recall a government proposal to charge people for every e-mail sent? Just imagine where we'd be if that had be crammed down our throats. Government produces nothing. If you want to understand the real issue, ask yourself how many monthly fees you pay for things you don't use. Really look at all your monthly bills and add up the fees. And look at "basic charge" for stuff you don't use. Say you go on vacation for a month (6 weeks if you live in Europe). Even if you turned off the main breaker, main water line, main gas line to your house, you still pay those basic charges every month even though you're not using the product. Now imagine that a group of people comes along and says to you "We're going to start billing you every month for stuff you don't need and will never use. You have extra money. Suck it up." And then a year later they come to you and say "Remember that thing we're billing you for that you never use? Yeah, well our costs have tripled." "But why should I keep paying for that?!" you scream. "Well, we can't fire all those people we hired because unemployment will go up. And we can't cut their salaries or benefits either." "But I didn't agree to hire all those people or give them a raise!" you yell. "Tough. Cough it up."
IMHO, this is typical B.S.. "Oh, let's identify 2,500 teachers as 'the best' and give them a bonus. Then we'll quadruple the number." Why? As any good teacher of engineering will tell you, you can't make a baby in one month by impregnating nine women. So what's the goal here? Not every teacher can be a Richard Feynman or Carl Sagan. Can you really quadruple the number of "best" teachers without lowering the standard?
Are they safe? Probably. There are lots of RF devices in and around people's homes that nobody has complained about (with one notable exception). Cordless phones, wifi, microwave ovens, and last but certainly most controversial, cellphones. Does RF energy have the ability to do bad things? Sure. Two-way radios in blasting areas come to mind although I've never quite understood how that is a problem. I myself have seen what a walkie-talkie can do to a computer center's halon fire system.
But, IMHO, people who are bitching about RF energy are bitching about the wrong thing. The simple fact that the power company can now bill you based on WHEN you use energy as opposed to how much you use has huge implications. To appreciate these, one needs to understand that electricity is not a free market. Gasoline prices fluctuate during the week in order for the seller to charge more during higher periods of consumption. But, if you don't like the price one station is charging, you can go to another one and get a better price. Free market. (Okay, free-er market). But with electricity, you have no choice. You must buy it from the same source. Your only defense are utility commissions who must approve of any rate increases. Politics aside, what smart meters and non-quantity-based billing does is allow the power company to make more money without having to get approval for a rate increase. All they have to do is say "Oh, well, the average rate is X cents per kilowatt, the average rate being computed over the whole day. They know full well that there are peaks and valleys in usage throughout the day so they charge very little in the middle of the night and a huge amount during the day. Yes, you can make the argument that the power companies need to spend more money on fuel to ramp up output but A) that's only true for fossil-fuels and B) this isn't their first time at the rodeo so they should be really good at prediction by now. The solution to these issues is to revise utility commission rules to say that they can only bill you for total kilowatts consumed.
As to privacy issues, the data could be used against you. Say you go out and commit a crime. The prosecution could say "The defendant wasn't home at the time of the crime because his electricity usage was low during the time the crime was committed and high before and after." So, the solution is to pass a law that states that such data cannot be used as evidence in criminal or civil proceedings. A clever criminal could rig up devices on timers to eliminate such obvious changes in usage though.
In the spectrum of "sciences" I would place psychology more towards the hard science end of the scale. I'm referring more towards things like political *cough*oxymoron*cough* science or rather any "science" that directly affects policies in society. Policies based on cherry-picked data are flawed by design. Furthermore, policies implemented with no consideration of the unintended consequences are flawed.
IMHO, it looks like a pretty standard ad for a cosmetics company. Minus the context, I'd have no idea they were trying to pitch science as a career choice for women. That being said, I think the real issue is more about changing the stereotype that all scientists are socially retarded (can I say that?) nerds. Science itself needs to be made more appealing to a culture that throws tons of money and undeserved fame at people like those on The Jersey Shore. By elevating people like that to stardom, you make more people want to be like them. Personally, I'd like to see competitions like FIRST have huge cash awards and slots on the talk show circuit. Treat the winners like rockstars and you will draw more people to science and engineering.
As a resident of Arizona and as someone who recently worked on the Gladiator fire, I can tell you shooting, while potentially risky particularly if you're dumb enough to use steel-core ammo, is way way WAY WAYYYYYY less risky than the douchebags smoking in the forest and/or driving around tossing their butts out the window. All this article is doing is stirring up anti-gun sentiment.
Here's my question: if this stuff is such an accurate predictor, why isn't anyone gambling on it in Vegas? They bet on everything there. It shouldn't be too hard to find some global warming believers who like to gamble willing to put up some money against the deniers.
The way I see it, Microsoft created a fantasy proof-of-concept rather than an actual working product. By presenting it to Hollywood types who all live in a delusional fantasy world where they think they're important, they were pretty much guaranteed a receptive audience.
IMHO, social "science" student should be required to take basic economics and a course on scientific methods. Too many people have no concept of the former and assume they know the latter.
The Ontario Science Centre in the mid-1970s was wicked cool. The glimpses into the future were all there for you to touch and play with. (The Philips Coffee Machine was one of my favorites). Sadly, science museums have devolved into environmentalism and global warming preaching which by comparison is about as much fun as watching the organic, free-range, fair-trade grass grow.
I find this refreshing. Issa admits that government doesn't understand the basics. Halle-effing-luiah! I'm so fed up with know-nothing politicians with zero practical experience in anything claiming to know more than I do about something.
Nobody is saying they don't have that right as long as it ends at the city limits. But my point is still valid. Social engineering with no regard to the unintended consequences will fail every time. Instead of using the money to buy crap that will have to be maintained forever thus requiring more money and more government employees to manage it every year, IMHO, the money should be given back to every citizen in the form of a tax rebate.
Aside from the f*cking nanny statist bullsh*t that this is, what's really wrong with it is that there's money involved. When the cigarette taxes were levied and sold to the uneducated electorate with the notion that the money would be spent on early childhood development programs or some other program, what they didn't realize is they just added to the parasitic economy. As cigarette sales dropped, so did the money available to spend on these programs which continued to grow. Then these same do-gooders whined that their precious bullsh*t social programs didn't have any money so other tax money had to be allocated to them which inevitable leads to higher taxes.
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Missed my point apparently, so let me clarify: why would any app (not a system extension) need to modify the system registry in Windows? Sounds like bad design to me.
Why would an application developer need this because why would an application developer need to be modifying the OS at all? That just sounds like really bad design.
So, I'm cleaning out my dad's workshop today *gasp* and I came across a 33 1/3 mini record produced by the Escort radar detector people.
A TRS-80 Model 1 was my first computer. Of course that lead to a long history of gadgets and hacks. Back then, high-school teachers wouldn't accept a paper printed on a dot-matrix printer. So a fellow TRS-80 owner and I bought a nifty little gadget called a Dynatyper which was essentially a box of solenoids that you mounted over the keyboard of a regular typewriter. And of course, we couldn't afford a real floppy disk drive (5.25" true floppies, btw) so we bought this thing called a Stringy Floppy. it used these little cassette tapes that operated on a similar principle to 8-track tapes. And back then I was big into graphics so I bought this rather expensive hi-res graphics board. And we used to stick AM radios next to the machine to get "sound" out of our games.
"Bill would force patent trolls *and their attorneys* to pay defendants' legal bills"
Sweet. Now I'd also like to see a Connection Machine CM-5.
There are lots of tech companies down in the valley. Technologic Systems is in Fountain Hills (on Laser Drive :-). There are many PCB assembly houses there too. And Advanced Circuits that does custom PCB fabrication just set up a facility there. Cost of living is far lower and the tax system is much more conducive than the Bay area. Want even cheaper? Set up shop in Prescott or Prescott Valley.
Count me in. I still search Ebay for original Altair computers and IMSAI 8080 machines. There's still something cool about computers with switches and lights on the front. Probably why I also like steam punk.
10 million? For an accounting app? Seriously? Something seriously wrong here. Of course this is no surprise when you're asking why the Mac versions have no feature parity to the Windows versions. This is no surprise that the most obvious of features e.g. a real bill-of-materials feature for QB Manufacturing edition continues to elude us. Maybe they're writing the thing in native assembly language.
You'll be running around constantly to the offices of people screaming "I've been pressing the Help key for half an hour and nobody showed up!!!" You'll also be crawling under people's desks to make sure the computers are plugged in. You'll be moving computers from one cubicle to another. You may even be crawling through duct work to run cabling.
Bzzt...they simply contracted it to a private company. And this whole infrastructure argument is bogus because shipping isn't free despite what Amazon tells you. Every commercial vehicle pays fees over and above fuel taxes. All of that is supposed to go to pay for the roads and bridges. If the government is coming up short, there is a problem. As a matter of interest, my business neighbor builds railings, guard rails, and structural ironwork for highway overpasses. All of these "shovel ready" projects only had enough money to pay his employees half the normal rate. Yeah, half. So where's the rest of the money going assuming that there is more money? Bureaucrats' pockets. But let's just pretend you have a valid point for a moment. If the government built those roads and bridges and they government is soooo good at it, why are they falling apart?
The key point here is that government didn't make it what it is today. Up until the mid 1980s, the commercial activity on the internet wasn't allowed. And for the next 25-30 years (hopefully longer) taxation stayed out of the equation. Anyone recall a government proposal to charge people for every e-mail sent? Just imagine where we'd be if that had be crammed down our throats. Government produces nothing. If you want to understand the real issue, ask yourself how many monthly fees you pay for things you don't use. Really look at all your monthly bills and add up the fees. And look at "basic charge" for stuff you don't use. Say you go on vacation for a month (6 weeks if you live in Europe). Even if you turned off the main breaker, main water line, main gas line to your house, you still pay those basic charges every month even though you're not using the product. Now imagine that a group of people comes along and says to you "We're going to start billing you every month for stuff you don't need and will never use. You have extra money. Suck it up." And then a year later they come to you and say "Remember that thing we're billing you for that you never use? Yeah, well our costs have tripled." "But why should I keep paying for that?!" you scream. "Well, we can't fire all those people we hired because unemployment will go up. And we can't cut their salaries or benefits either." "But I didn't agree to hire all those people or give them a raise!" you yell. "Tough. Cough it up."
IMHO, this is typical B.S.. "Oh, let's identify 2,500 teachers as 'the best' and give them a bonus. Then we'll quadruple the number." Why? As any good teacher of engineering will tell you, you can't make a baby in one month by impregnating nine women. So what's the goal here? Not every teacher can be a Richard Feynman or Carl Sagan. Can you really quadruple the number of "best" teachers without lowering the standard?
Are they safe? Probably. There are lots of RF devices in and around people's homes that nobody has complained about (with one notable exception). Cordless phones, wifi, microwave ovens, and last but certainly most controversial, cellphones. Does RF energy have the ability to do bad things? Sure. Two-way radios in blasting areas come to mind although I've never quite understood how that is a problem. I myself have seen what a walkie-talkie can do to a computer center's halon fire system.
But, IMHO, people who are bitching about RF energy are bitching about the wrong thing. The simple fact that the power company can now bill you based on WHEN you use energy as opposed to how much you use has huge implications. To appreciate these, one needs to understand that electricity is not a free market. Gasoline prices fluctuate during the week in order for the seller to charge more during higher periods of consumption. But, if you don't like the price one station is charging, you can go to another one and get a better price. Free market. (Okay, free-er market). But with electricity, you have no choice. You must buy it from the same source. Your only defense are utility commissions who must approve of any rate increases. Politics aside, what smart meters and non-quantity-based billing does is allow the power company to make more money without having to get approval for a rate increase. All they have to do is say "Oh, well, the average rate is X cents per kilowatt, the average rate being computed over the whole day. They know full well that there are peaks and valleys in usage throughout the day so they charge very little in the middle of the night and a huge amount during the day. Yes, you can make the argument that the power companies need to spend more money on fuel to ramp up output but A) that's only true for fossil-fuels and B) this isn't their first time at the rodeo so they should be really good at prediction by now. The solution to these issues is to revise utility commission rules to say that they can only bill you for total kilowatts consumed.
As to privacy issues, the data could be used against you. Say you go out and commit a crime. The prosecution could say "The defendant wasn't home at the time of the crime because his electricity usage was low during the time the crime was committed and high before and after." So, the solution is to pass a law that states that such data cannot be used as evidence in criminal or civil proceedings. A clever criminal could rig up devices on timers to eliminate such obvious changes in usage though.
As a born-in-this-country citizen of the U.S., what law am I allowed to break? If I went to another country, what law would I be allowed to break?
In the spectrum of "sciences" I would place psychology more towards the hard science end of the scale. I'm referring more towards things like political *cough*oxymoron*cough* science or rather any "science" that directly affects policies in society. Policies based on cherry-picked data are flawed by design. Furthermore, policies implemented with no consideration of the unintended consequences are flawed.
IMHO, it looks like a pretty standard ad for a cosmetics company. Minus the context, I'd have no idea they were trying to pitch science as a career choice for women. That being said, I think the real issue is more about changing the stereotype that all scientists are socially retarded (can I say that?) nerds. Science itself needs to be made more appealing to a culture that throws tons of money and undeserved fame at people like those on The Jersey Shore. By elevating people like that to stardom, you make more people want to be like them. Personally, I'd like to see competitions like FIRST have huge cash awards and slots on the talk show circuit. Treat the winners like rockstars and you will draw more people to science and engineering.
As a resident of Arizona and as someone who recently worked on the Gladiator fire, I can tell you shooting, while potentially risky particularly if you're dumb enough to use steel-core ammo, is way way WAY WAYYYYYY less risky than the douchebags smoking in the forest and/or driving around tossing their butts out the window. All this article is doing is stirring up anti-gun sentiment.
Here's my question: if this stuff is such an accurate predictor, why isn't anyone gambling on it in Vegas? They bet on everything there. It shouldn't be too hard to find some global warming believers who like to gamble willing to put up some money against the deniers.
The way I see it, Microsoft created a fantasy proof-of-concept rather than an actual working product. By presenting it to Hollywood types who all live in a delusional fantasy world where they think they're important, they were pretty much guaranteed a receptive audience.
IMHO, social "science" student should be required to take basic economics and a course on scientific methods. Too many people have no concept of the former and assume they know the latter.
The Ontario Science Centre in the mid-1970s was wicked cool. The glimpses into the future were all there for you to touch and play with. (The Philips Coffee Machine was one of my favorites). Sadly, science museums have devolved into environmentalism and global warming preaching which by comparison is about as much fun as watching the organic, free-range, fair-trade grass grow.
I find this refreshing. Issa admits that government doesn't understand the basics. Halle-effing-luiah! I'm so fed up with know-nothing politicians with zero practical experience in anything claiming to know more than I do about something.
Nobody is saying they don't have that right as long as it ends at the city limits. But my point is still valid. Social engineering with no regard to the unintended consequences will fail every time. Instead of using the money to buy crap that will have to be maintained forever thus requiring more money and more government employees to manage it every year, IMHO, the money should be given back to every citizen in the form of a tax rebate.
Aside from the f*cking nanny statist bullsh*t that this is, what's really wrong with it is that there's money involved. When the cigarette taxes were levied and sold to the uneducated electorate with the notion that the money would be spent on early childhood development programs or some other program, what they didn't realize is they just added to the parasitic economy. As cigarette sales dropped, so did the money available to spend on these programs which continued to grow. Then these same do-gooders whined that their precious bullsh*t social programs didn't have any money so other tax money had to be allocated to them which inevitable leads to higher taxes.
This scheme is no different.