Most laptops these days have an SD card reader built in anyway.
Yeah, but they don't come with 27" monitors. So, get a 27" monitor and plug it to your laptop, right? Or better yet, get a full-sized desktop and have two computers. And as a bonus, I got a long HDMI cable and plugged it into my TV, so I can watch movies.
I know this is slashdot, but please, try not to make opinions and guesses about stuff you don't know about. From your ignorant comment I can see you have no clue what a RAW file is.
I'm an amateur photographer. I upgraded from a Core 2 Duo laptop which was working GREAT (and I still use) to a Core i5... gasp! DESKTOP! Because I like having a 27" monitor and I use the 8GB of RAM and all 4 cores of my CPU to process photos. And of course, USB ports and SD card readers are nice too.
So, thanks for your suggestions iPad fanboys. I'll stick with my desktop machine for the next few years.
Oh, another idiot who can't be fucked to read~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Right below the image: "Kyoto Protocol participation map 2010.Green indicates countries that have ratified the treaty; Dark green are Annex I and II countries that have ratified the treaty; Grey is not yet decided; Brown is no intention of ratifying."
You missed one point: there's still a middle man. The ideal case would be that there is no amazon, and anyone can set any price. A true individual-to-individual world were an author can sell his own book, and a musician can sell his album. And it's the customer's job to compare and find the best price, discover new stuff, etc. That is, indeed, the perfect capitalist idea, and the perfect internet.
But, because of convenience, people turn blindly to amazon for everything.
There is also the problem you mention of "people should find better things to do with their time". Which is cute, because if you get fired at 40 or 50, you still have quite a few years of work before retirement, but you sure as fuck won't find anyone to hire you, not only because your skillset is "useless", also because you're old.
I wonder what will happen when computers get smart enough to understand natural language. We probably won't be needing programmers anymore, it will be great. A computer will evaluate, analyze and interpret every user action and know exactly what he wants. There will be no bugs, everything will be fast - hell, it will even reconfigure its own CPU to make itself faster and faster.
And computer programmers will go the way of the idiot, inefficient, money-sucking middlemen such as scanner operators or film tech labs.
No. Be reasonable. Who wants to have a collection of CDs when you can have all the music you want in your pocket, and find any song quicker than what it takes you to walk to your CD collection and find the CD you want to listen to. Same is happening to books, the difference is that it just started a couple of years ago with the kindle, but it will, likely, move in that direction. Who wants to keep a huge library of books you will read only once? And just like physical CDs, books are going to become rare (never extinct of course).
I'm not saying CD and book stores are going extinct because of piracy or poor business (which is what your justification is about). I'm saying they're out of business because of convenience.
And the same happened to photos. Back then you needed to have your pics developed and printed to see them. Today you can see them immediately, and share them online. And just print the few pics you really want to have printed. And you can even do it at your house.
I'm not judging any of this, I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's just different, and we'll have to get used to it, and look for alternatives, since many jobs will be lost to it. Or probably, jobs won't be "renewed". One example of this is E6 (slide film) developing. Many photo houses still offer E6 developing because they have someone who has the skills for that. When that guy retires, they stop offering E6 developing (it's happening).
Another example of how the digital world is changing our life: Photography. Only in the past, say, 5-8 years, professionals have gone 100% digital. Before that you needed: 1) A photographer to take photos 2) A lab tech to develop them 3) A scanner tech to scan them (it's not even remotely as easy as you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSB0aCTtLwY) 4) a Photoshop guy to clean up the image and fix the levels 5) A photo editor to choose your photo and use it.
Digital cameras have completely eliminated the need for 2, 3 and 4. You take (technologically) PERFECT pictures with just your camera. You don't need to clean dust, remove scratches, or anything else. Sure, many of these jobs have been lost already. But in the meantime, did we come up with an alternative for all those people now? Sure, photos are cheaper to make, anyone can take with a today's camera what 10 years ago was possible with only a medium-format studio camera (just exaggerating, pros, don't get mad). Has the photo world found an alternative? Probably. The porn industry today is much, MUCH bigger than it was in the previous decades.
Just ranting, I'm all for the convenience of ebooks and MP3s (yes, I know about DRM implications, but we're talking about the ideal case). But I admit many "middlemen" are being cut off, which may, or may not, be a good thing. Sooner or later, amazon will be their own publishing house. Is it really such a good idea to leave editing, distribution, and selling to a single company?
Now take all you just said and multiply it for, say, 500 people of a car factory. A value-added product, that transforms raw materials into a car. The $1B data center doesn't take any raw materials, its sole purpose is to deliver Angry Birds to your iPhone.
But hey! If it makes you better to think that a huge capital investment of $1B is better than probably $1B operating cost over 3 years for a factory that actually sells products for export (and has an expected life of 10-20 years until a complete overhaul), then yes, by all means, kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
The whole point of the OP was to show that unmanned data centers are NOT what the economy needs, but real, tangible (gasp) JOBS!
Americans just don't realize it. The convenience of a digital world will likely destroy the American Dream. How many people lost their jobs in the music CD industry because of iTunes? I'm not talking about copyright. I talk about people in brick and mortar stores. People in the CD production lines, the people that manufactured stuff.
How about books? How many people are already losing their jobs (Borders?), and all the printers, delivery trucks, etc.
Is that good or bad? I don't know. All I see is that while you could have a decent living in the USA with just a high school diploma, newer generations will have to compete. All of them will be required university-level degrees, because jobs will become more and more technical and specialized. If you were a CD press operator, your son will probably need to be a CD press designer (or not, cause there won't be CD presses, but you get the idea).
Don't believe me? You don't have to. But you just look at App Store and Android Market: HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of developers jumping into the Digital Gold Fever. App stores are just a bubble waiting to burst: such a saturated market simply cannot exist. It's like the 90s internet bubble - everyone became a millionaire with the internet, now everyone wants to become a millionaire with apps. Developers will soon realize that they can't compete with the giants like angry birds and hobby guys giving away their work. The self-regulated app store model (where a popular app is pushed higher in the popularity list simply because it's popular, and new apps don't even get a chance) is terrible. The only winner is Apple.
Diehard Digital age fans defend this by claiming that "there have been changes like this throughout the whole history of mankind". And that's fine - but the point is, RIGHT NOW, there is no visible economical alternatives to the "traditional" manufacturing model (software developing is manufacturing too).
I challenge you to, also, look at the bad things of your Great Beloved Country, and not get blinded by stupid statistics and knee-jerk reacting to an internet post. You know you're not the greatest, nicest, bestest, and and other "est" country in the world. I challenge you to accept that not everything is as wonderful as you just put it.
Dude are you a troll or just retarded? America is the only country that DIDN'T sign the Kyoto protocol, because it wasn't economically convenient for them.
Yes, chinese Lucky SHD-100 (I heard it goes for USD 0,80 a roll for a 135x36 in USA) is..... well, is film. It doesn't have anti-halation layer, so that can be good or bad, depending on what results you're after. You can love it or hate it. I didn't really like it to be honest, but some people swear for it.
You're welcome on ##photography at irc.freenode.net, lately it's been all-film talk.
Actually, the teflon tape doesn't stop the leaks. All it does is act as a solid, non-toxic lubricant that allows the threaded pipes to screw. The seal is made because the pipes, usually made of soft metals (copper, bronze), or plastic (for polypropilene, not PVC) deformates and creates a water-tight seal. A new pipe has sharp threads, a used one looks "rounded" or otherwise deformed.
Adding more teflon tape to a loose thread won't seal it, the solution is to use some other kind of filler. While there are products (thread sealers) in the market nowadays, the old school way of doing it is with hemp fibers and asphalt paint. In fact, many thread sealers suggest adding a few strands of hemp to fill in the out-of-spec threads.
Nevertheless, the best joint seal is no joint seal. That's why many builders prefer copper pipes, which come in rolls and you can minimize the amount of joints, which are soldered anyway - so they last forever. But plastic pipes are also great (and less reactive than copper) when thermo-fused: the end of each pipe is heated and they're pressed together to form what's effectively a single piece of pipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq6vbi0nULg
They also make accessories to make T-joints and plastic-metal unions (so you do metal-to-metal joins at the wall level).
Sorry if my terminology isn't right, I'm talking for what I know from where I live, Argentina.
I'm tired of this bullshit articles. I mean, kudos to the guy who came up with this, and I'm sure it works great in a lab, but in real life it probably is just as good as teflon. And as someone who actually cooks, I can tell you that teflon is overrated.
You know what's a good non-stick surface? Take a good ol regular steel pan, the black ones. Rub it with cooking oil, and leave it to burn. You get a cloud of white smoke (man, a tiny bit of oil goes a long way!). When it's done, you have a layer of burnt oil that has penetrated every pore in the steel surface. BAM! Instant "teflon", wash your pan thoroughly with manual dishwashing detergent (don't use a dishwasher machine, it will take the layer off), and you're good to cook.
This is how pans and pots and everything has been "cured" for centuries, and works perfectly. It's how you treat a wok when you buy it, and it's what happens to your grill over time.
Wanna test it? Try frying an egg. On brand new, pristine condition Teflon, the egg won't stick. After a few uses the teflon surface gets microscopic scratches, and the egg starts sticking. On burnt oil? It never sticks. And every time you cook, some oil refills the new scratches so it auto-protects itself.
Chill out, dude. It was a firmware feature (like DVD region lock, which is usually easily circumvented), and some companies decided to honor it, and others didn't. Philips CD recorders (stand alone audio units), sold in Argentina didn't work with non-audio CDs. There was no obligation for them to do that. They did it because they sold media too.
On the other hand, Philips DVD players, at the beginning, were factory region-unlocked (because in the late 90s DVDs were rare down here, and people used to order from US stores). Nowadays they're region locked.
You might be onto something here... expect a "piracy tax" in your next power bill, and loophole closing (solar panels) in the next few months. I mean, in europe they charge a tax on blank media, that, in theory, goes to "artists".
I don't see why people really think credit cards are basically free. They're full of hidden fees, charges, extras, costs, and whatever they want to name them. It's even worse in a country like mine.
For what I've seen, the normal thing in the US is just buying stuff and pay "as you can", either total or minimum payment, or something in between. Down here we use fixed montly payments. You buy a $1200 fridge in 12 $100 payments (the catch is that now your minimum is $100, since it's already being financed).
The problem is that credit card companies have this system where you tell the customer "12 monthly payments, no interests!!!" and they go crazy about it. The truth is that inflation is nearly 20% a year, so you can't get an interest rate lower than 30%. So how do they offer a $1200 fridge for 12 $100 payments? Easy, they charge the 30% interest to the merchant. So he will get $840 instead of $1200 - and that's ok, the true selling price is probably around that. But since people want "no interest", you have to charge it that way: you sell less EVEN if you charge less, because the "no interest" bullshit is the main selling point.
You know how I avoid all that? I just pay cash, and make sure I ASK for a cash discount. Still, there are a few merchants that play dumb and don't do discounts. If there's an alternative, I go to another place, otherwise I make the purchase in at least 6 monthly payments, just to screw with them.
I'm in Argentina. 6 years ago I was trying to get a credit card - I had been working (independent, not as an employee, but as a registered taxpayer) for over 2 years, and had a savings account with money, was paying bills using their online service, etc.
I was turned down by EVERY bank, citing I didn't have any credit history, so I couldn't get a credit card. They all told me if I was an employee of a company that was using the bank to pay the salaries, they would give me a credit card, but otherwise, I needed to build credit somewhere before I could ask for a credit card.
Other banks didn't want to say "no", but didn't want to give me the card either. So they asked for ridiculous things. One demanded 3 years of tax history (flawless, not a late payment ever), and a car AND house to my name (this bank now runs ads on tv claiming "their most valued capital are people"). Another bank (HSBC) wanted me to keep a deposit over USD 30.000 for several months until they would give me a credit card with a $2.000 limit...
I finally got the card with a bank (Santander) that was expanding at the time, they just required 6 months of tax, which is much more reasonable. A few months after that, every bank was calling to offer a credit card. It was so good to tell them "no" like they did with me.
My Moto Milestone (US: Droid) doesn't have firmware with key debouncing. sssooo eeeeeeeeeeeverryyyttthhhinnnng Iii. Type. Looooookss liikkkeee tthhis... and you'll find plenty of users with the same issue.
Motorola WON'T release a firmware upgrade that fixes this. Cyanogenmod works great.
I think ZFS crypto can reclaim unused blocks. If you use dynamically sized zvols and crypto inside them, when the encrypted FS grows, so does the zvol. But when you delete stuff, the zvol remains the same size. If you use zfs-crypto, as you delete stuff from the zvol (i.e.: enable compression and write zeros) the zvol should "deflate". Again, I THINK that's the case. I didn't have a chance to try it since I moved away from S11X a while ago.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no way to tell sarcasm and apple fanboyism apart.
Yeah, but they don't come with 27" monitors. So, get a 27" monitor and plug it to your laptop, right? Or better yet, get a full-sized desktop and have two computers. And as a bonus, I got a long HDMI cable and plugged it into my TV, so I can watch movies.
Why do you post AC?
There's no Adobe Lightroom for iPad.
I know this is slashdot, but please, try not to make opinions and guesses about stuff you don't know about. From your ignorant comment I can see you have no clue what a RAW file is.
He's the 99% I guess.
I'm an amateur photographer. I upgraded from a Core 2 Duo laptop which was working GREAT (and I still use) to a Core i5... gasp! DESKTOP! Because I like having a 27" monitor and I use the 8GB of RAM and all 4 cores of my CPU to process photos. And of course, USB ports and SD card readers are nice too.
So, thanks for your suggestions iPad fanboys. I'll stick with my desktop machine for the next few years.
Oh, another idiot who can't be fucked to read~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Right below the image: "Kyoto Protocol participation map 2010.Green indicates countries that have ratified the treaty; Dark green are Annex I and II countries that have ratified the treaty; Grey is not yet decided; Brown is no intention of ratifying."
You missed one point: there's still a middle man. The ideal case would be that there is no amazon, and anyone can set any price. A true individual-to-individual world were an author can sell his own book, and a musician can sell his album. And it's the customer's job to compare and find the best price, discover new stuff, etc. That is, indeed, the perfect capitalist idea, and the perfect internet.
But, because of convenience, people turn blindly to amazon for everything.
There is also the problem you mention of "people should find better things to do with their time". Which is cute, because if you get fired at 40 or 50, you still have quite a few years of work before retirement, but you sure as fuck won't find anyone to hire you, not only because your skillset is "useless", also because you're old.
I wonder what will happen when computers get smart enough to understand natural language. We probably won't be needing programmers anymore, it will be great. A computer will evaluate, analyze and interpret every user action and know exactly what he wants. There will be no bugs, everything will be fast - hell, it will even reconfigure its own CPU to make itself faster and faster.
And computer programmers will go the way of the idiot, inefficient, money-sucking middlemen such as scanner operators or film tech labs.
No. Be reasonable. Who wants to have a collection of CDs when you can have all the music you want in your pocket, and find any song quicker than what it takes you to walk to your CD collection and find the CD you want to listen to.
Same is happening to books, the difference is that it just started a couple of years ago with the kindle, but it will, likely, move in that direction. Who wants to keep a huge library of books you will read only once? And just like physical CDs, books are going to become rare (never extinct of course).
I'm not saying CD and book stores are going extinct because of piracy or poor business (which is what your justification is about). I'm saying they're out of business because of convenience.
And the same happened to photos. Back then you needed to have your pics developed and printed to see them. Today you can see them immediately, and share them online. And just print the few pics you really want to have printed. And you can even do it at your house.
I'm not judging any of this, I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's just different, and we'll have to get used to it, and look for alternatives, since many jobs will be lost to it. Or probably, jobs won't be "renewed". One example of this is E6 (slide film) developing. Many photo houses still offer E6 developing because they have someone who has the skills for that. When that guy retires, they stop offering E6 developing (it's happening).
Another example of how the digital world is changing our life: Photography.
Only in the past, say, 5-8 years, professionals have gone 100% digital. Before that you needed:
1) A photographer to take photos
2) A lab tech to develop them
3) A scanner tech to scan them (it's not even remotely as easy as you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSB0aCTtLwY)
4) a Photoshop guy to clean up the image and fix the levels
5) A photo editor to choose your photo and use it.
Digital cameras have completely eliminated the need for 2, 3 and 4. You take (technologically) PERFECT pictures with just your camera. You don't need to clean dust, remove scratches, or anything else. Sure, many of these jobs have been lost already. But in the meantime, did we come up with an alternative for all those people now? Sure, photos are cheaper to make, anyone can take with a today's camera what 10 years ago was possible with only a medium-format studio camera (just exaggerating, pros, don't get mad). Has the photo world found an alternative? Probably. The porn industry today is much, MUCH bigger than it was in the previous decades.
Just ranting, I'm all for the convenience of ebooks and MP3s (yes, I know about DRM implications, but we're talking about the ideal case). But I admit many "middlemen" are being cut off, which may, or may not, be a good thing. Sooner or later, amazon will be their own publishing house. Is it really such a good idea to leave editing, distribution, and selling to a single company?
Germany, France, Japan, gee... all of them industrialized.
Here's a map for you which clearly shows those who signed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2010.png
You're just the ignorant kind of white trash that watches fox news and thinks the 99% are just lazy idiots who want money for nothing.
That's the american way.
Have a look at how photographic filters are manufactured, in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMu_m203YaY
You're retarded. It's that simple.
Now take all you just said and multiply it for, say, 500 people of a car factory. A value-added product, that transforms raw materials into a car. The $1B data center doesn't take any raw materials, its sole purpose is to deliver Angry Birds to your iPhone.
But hey! If it makes you better to think that a huge capital investment of $1B is better than probably $1B operating cost over 3 years for a factory that actually sells products for export (and has an expected life of 10-20 years until a complete overhaul), then yes, by all means, kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
The whole point of the OP was to show that unmanned data centers are NOT what the economy needs, but real, tangible (gasp) JOBS!
Americans just don't realize it. The convenience of a digital world will likely destroy the American Dream. How many people lost their jobs in the music CD industry because of iTunes? I'm not talking about copyright. I talk about people in brick and mortar stores. People in the CD production lines, the people that manufactured stuff.
How about books? How many people are already losing their jobs (Borders?), and all the printers, delivery trucks, etc.
Is that good or bad? I don't know. All I see is that while you could have a decent living in the USA with just a high school diploma, newer generations will have to compete. All of them will be required university-level degrees, because jobs will become more and more technical and specialized. If you were a CD press operator, your son will probably need to be a CD press designer (or not, cause there won't be CD presses, but you get the idea).
Don't believe me? You don't have to. But you just look at App Store and Android Market: HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of developers jumping into the Digital Gold Fever. App stores are just a bubble waiting to burst: such a saturated market simply cannot exist. It's like the 90s internet bubble - everyone became a millionaire with the internet, now everyone wants to become a millionaire with apps. Developers will soon realize that they can't compete with the giants like angry birds and hobby guys giving away their work. The self-regulated app store model (where a popular app is pushed higher in the popularity list simply because it's popular, and new apps don't even get a chance) is terrible. The only winner is Apple.
Diehard Digital age fans defend this by claiming that "there have been changes like this throughout the whole history of mankind". And that's fine - but the point is, RIGHT NOW, there is no visible economical alternatives to the "traditional" manufacturing model (software developing is manufacturing too).
I challenge you to, also, look at the bad things of your Great Beloved Country, and not get blinded by stupid statistics and knee-jerk reacting to an internet post. You know you're not the greatest, nicest, bestest, and and other "est" country in the world. I challenge you to accept that not everything is as wonderful as you just put it.
Dude are you a troll or just retarded? America is the only country that DIDN'T sign the Kyoto protocol, because it wasn't economically convenient for them.
Same in Argentina. Why does a game have to cost $40 in USA and $120 in Argentina? (No, no country has 200% tax).
Yes, chinese Lucky SHD-100 (I heard it goes for USD 0,80 a roll for a 135x36 in USA) is..... well, is film. It doesn't have anti-halation layer, so that can be good or bad, depending on what results you're after. You can love it or hate it. I didn't really like it to be honest, but some people swear for it.
You're welcome on ##photography at irc.freenode.net, lately it's been all-film talk.
I process my own black and white film, you insensitive clod!
Yes, really: flic.kr/hjf2010
Actually, the teflon tape doesn't stop the leaks. All it does is act as a solid, non-toxic lubricant that allows the threaded pipes to screw. The seal is made because the pipes, usually made of soft metals (copper, bronze), or plastic (for polypropilene, not PVC) deformates and creates a water-tight seal. A new pipe has sharp threads, a used one looks "rounded" or otherwise deformed.
Adding more teflon tape to a loose thread won't seal it, the solution is to use some other kind of filler. While there are products (thread sealers) in the market nowadays, the old school way of doing it is with hemp fibers and asphalt paint. In fact, many thread sealers suggest adding a few strands of hemp to fill in the out-of-spec threads.
Nevertheless, the best joint seal is no joint seal. That's why many builders prefer copper pipes, which come in rolls and you can minimize the amount of joints, which are soldered anyway - so they last forever. But plastic pipes are also great (and less reactive than copper) when thermo-fused: the end of each pipe is heated and they're pressed together to form what's effectively a single piece of pipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq6vbi0nULg
They also make accessories to make T-joints and plastic-metal unions (so you do metal-to-metal joins at the wall level).
Sorry if my terminology isn't right, I'm talking for what I know from where I live, Argentina.
I'm tired of this bullshit articles. I mean, kudos to the guy who came up with this, and I'm sure it works great in a lab, but in real life it probably is just as good as teflon. And as someone who actually cooks, I can tell you that teflon is overrated.
You know what's a good non-stick surface? Take a good ol regular steel pan, the black ones. Rub it with cooking oil, and leave it to burn. You get a cloud of white smoke (man, a tiny bit of oil goes a long way!). When it's done, you have a layer of burnt oil that has penetrated every pore in the steel surface. BAM! Instant "teflon", wash your pan thoroughly with manual dishwashing detergent (don't use a dishwasher machine, it will take the layer off), and you're good to cook.
This is how pans and pots and everything has been "cured" for centuries, and works perfectly. It's how you treat a wok when you buy it, and it's what happens to your grill over time.
Wanna test it? Try frying an egg. On brand new, pristine condition Teflon, the egg won't stick. After a few uses the teflon surface gets microscopic scratches, and the egg starts sticking. On burnt oil? It never sticks. And every time you cook, some oil refills the new scratches so it auto-protects itself.
Chill out, dude. It was a firmware feature (like DVD region lock, which is usually easily circumvented), and some companies decided to honor it, and others didn't. Philips CD recorders (stand alone audio units), sold in Argentina didn't work with non-audio CDs. There was no obligation for them to do that. They did it because they sold media too.
On the other hand, Philips DVD players, at the beginning, were factory region-unlocked (because in the late 90s DVDs were rare down here, and people used to order from US stores). Nowadays they're region locked.
You might be onto something here... expect a "piracy tax" in your next power bill, and loophole closing (solar panels) in the next few months. I mean, in europe they charge a tax on blank media, that, in theory, goes to "artists".
+1000000 points, you win the internet, man.
I don't see why people really think credit cards are basically free. They're full of hidden fees, charges, extras, costs, and whatever they want to name them. It's even worse in a country like mine.
For what I've seen, the normal thing in the US is just buying stuff and pay "as you can", either total or minimum payment, or something in between. Down here we use fixed montly payments. You buy a $1200 fridge in 12 $100 payments (the catch is that now your minimum is $100, since it's already being financed).
The problem is that credit card companies have this system where you tell the customer "12 monthly payments, no interests!!!" and they go crazy about it. The truth is that inflation is nearly 20% a year, so you can't get an interest rate lower than 30%. So how do they offer a $1200 fridge for 12 $100 payments? Easy, they charge the 30% interest to the merchant. So he will get $840 instead of $1200 - and that's ok, the true selling price is probably around that. But since people want "no interest", you have to charge it that way: you sell less EVEN if you charge less, because the "no interest" bullshit is the main selling point.
You know how I avoid all that? I just pay cash, and make sure I ASK for a cash discount. Still, there are a few merchants that play dumb and don't do discounts. If there's an alternative, I go to another place, otherwise I make the purchase in at least 6 monthly payments, just to screw with them.
I'm in Argentina. 6 years ago I was trying to get a credit card - I had been working (independent, not as an employee, but as a registered taxpayer) for over 2 years, and had a savings account with money, was paying bills using their online service, etc.
I was turned down by EVERY bank, citing I didn't have any credit history, so I couldn't get a credit card. They all told me if I was an employee of a company that was using the bank to pay the salaries, they would give me a credit card, but otherwise, I needed to build credit somewhere before I could ask for a credit card.
Other banks didn't want to say "no", but didn't want to give me the card either. So they asked for ridiculous things. One demanded 3 years of tax history (flawless, not a late payment ever), and a car AND house to my name (this bank now runs ads on tv claiming "their most valued capital are people"). Another bank (HSBC) wanted me to keep a deposit over USD 30.000 for several months until they would give me a credit card with a $2.000 limit...
I finally got the card with a bank (Santander) that was expanding at the time, they just required 6 months of tax, which is much more reasonable. A few months after that, every bank was calling to offer a credit card. It was so good to tell them "no" like they did with me.
My Moto Milestone (US: Droid) doesn't have firmware with key debouncing. sssooo eeeeeeeeeeeverryyyttthhhinnnng Iii. Type. Looooookss liikkkeee tthhis... and you'll find plenty of users with the same issue.
Motorola WON'T release a firmware upgrade that fixes this. Cyanogenmod works great.
I think ZFS crypto can reclaim unused blocks. If you use dynamically sized zvols and crypto inside them, when the encrypted FS grows, so does the zvol. But when you delete stuff, the zvol remains the same size. If you use zfs-crypto, as you delete stuff from the zvol (i.e.: enable compression and write zeros) the zvol should "deflate". Again, I THINK that's the case. I didn't have a chance to try it since I moved away from S11X a while ago.