Excellent commentary and it's the type of discussion I was hoping for when I made my initial comment. (moderators, please mode swillden's post up).
I would invite you to look at the series "The Expanse" for a good Smartphone design—certainly one we will have long before this particular science fiction story takes place. Oh, by the way, it's well-acted.
If I understand what you are saying, the phone has pretty much gone as far as it can go and the fact that the ecosystem is in the cloud means it is not platform-specific (something Microsoft completely did not understand in the late 1990s). I do not necessarily disagree with your assessment.
Where innovation will take us will probably be the automobile. Self-driving is one direction, but another is the control systems within cars. If you look at the Tesla (please understand that I am not promoting this car) Model S, it has what looks like a tablet for controls. The Model 3 has a 15.0-inch touchscreen. The problem with the automobile is that these touchscreens and controls tend to never be upgraded, They are also very easy to crack, with very dangerous results see this report of a zero-day exploit. Obviously securing the automotive sector's systems and technologies is an area we really need to look at, but there is obviously loads of room for innovation here.
I would also note that a long-distance driverless truck would completely transform our national system of logistics.
We are just entering the era of the electronic pantry generating our shopping lists. At this point, we have refrigerators that know when we're out of milk. One wonders whether or not people who are on a diet could keep stuff they ought not to eat out of the home completely.
Lots of people here will post very specific solutions that they have been following. Each will advocate this, that or the other and each is admirable in its own way. I am a longtime user of iOS but before that I had a Palm, starting with the Pilot and going through a number of devices. But I have a different focus.
We need a third, perhaps a fourth, fifth and sixth mobile operating system because it is vital. It is very important to note that Apple and Alphabet will definitely stop innovating and will reach a point of stasis if there is no alternative. Big corporations will tend to want to rest on laurels and allow the hardware people to carry the load. We saw that with Microsoft in the late 1990s and into the early 2000s under Steve Ballmer. They simply quit innovating on all fronts and assumed that Intel and the other chip makers would carry things forward. The result was Windows XP, which became the least secure thing you could run on a computer and the most fraught with irrelevance.
Were I a multimillionaire, I would look at this particular discussion and I would support upstarts with venture capital—not because I hate iOS or Android but because you need innovation. You have to have real competition and two companies trying to outdo each other are just not enough.
And here is a real-life example: Try to book a flight now that we are, essentially, down to three major airlines. These three have whittled down competition and ceded certain aspects of innovation in a manner that exactly re-creates a monopoly. Oh, they'll tell you that they're competing, but they are simply not doing it. You can bet that Alphabet and Apple will do exactly the same.
Two software companies is not enough to keep innovation fired up. We need more than three, actually.
Here on the East Coast in the Federal Circuit Courts, non-compete clauses in contracts have been declared invalid and not binding. And this will be why Veeva Systems is trying to sue in California court to make it universal—they do not want to be hauled into a court in a "foreign" state
This is a good strategy for Veeva. It is a pre-emptive move in a court of their own choice
I am not in the habit of replying to anonymous cowards. You are a troll, sir and should be modded as such.
However, I am going to provide two links. The first is an article that includes the motion before the Court in the "All Writs Act" case. Now, you are claiming that this was just a PR stunt. I don't know what planet you live on, but hiring outside counsel to appeal such an order from the FBI is expensive, and there is absolutely no profit in it. So the document from Apple cost them money and did not produce iPhones, iPads or computers. Here is the article.
But that's not all. Were this just a publicity stunt, there would have been a quiet backroom agreement that Apple did complain in the "All Writs" case. If your hypothesis that this was a PR stunt were true, the agreement would have been made in secret, Apple would have provided the code and all would be well. The public relations issue would have been handled and everyone would think that Apple had won. But that is not what happened.
I think you are asking the wrong question. Of course there does not exist a company that is completely free from the laws, regulations and requirements of the country in which it works (and that includes all countries in which they work for the multinationals).
What you are forgetting in your question is that, in the United States, CEOs are not murdered by the United States government if they oppose the chief executive, as has happened with Russians. You are forgetting that the United States is not an official kleptocracy (yet) where plutocratic friends of Vladimir Putin are free to steal from the country's resources at the expense of the taxpayers and that the government there is absolutely uninterested in transparency. You are forgetting that, in Russia, there are no checks and balances, the Judiciary is not independent of the central government, that the legislature (Duma) does not hold hearings to investigate the President or the Prime Minister and that the current President found a loophole in the country's constitution that allows him to hold onto power for much longer than his country's constitutional intent.
From this standpoint, a company that is located in the United States is unfettered by the politics of the day, as long as the company produces a valuable product and is a good corporate citizen. When our federal government asked for a "back door" (as a forinstance) into the Apple iPhone, Apple fought it. and, although the issue was declared moot, the government had to come up with a hack that would work on its own.
Were Apple's headquarters in Moscow or St. Petersburg, there would be no appeal to a court—they would have been forced to comply. And there might have been a sudden, unexplained death of the CEO were there any resistance.
So, my answer to your question is, yes. Companies are independent from our government here in the United States. They do not exist at the pleasure and tolerance of our Chief Executive as they do in Russia
A good friend of mine got his CPA as an older college student. Then he went to work for the big CPA firms in NYC. They used him for auditing and then spit him out at the end of audit season (after having told him, "You play your cards right and we'll put you on track to be a partner." Yeah, as if!). One audit he did is worth noting.
It seems this one former rocker whose group was filling the stadiums "back in the day" was accosted by a paparazzi and the rocker may have struck the paparazzi. He called his attorney when he got a letter from the alleged victim of his fist and asked for him to defend him. His attorney told him what it would cost to defend. The former rocker said, "But I'm broke!" His attorney said, "That's crazy—your music is still selling. In fact, my daughter just told me that she got your entire album from 1970-something on iTunes."
"I haven't received a royalty check for five years from anyone!" replied the former rocker.
His attorney, who drew up the contracts informed him that he had the "right to audit" the sales of his recordings. So, my friend Jim was hired to do the audit.
Here is what he found out:
While they were a hot and up-and-coming group, the record company underreported (and under-paid) sales by 20%.
While they were filling stadiums and touring, the record company underreported sales by 35%
After the group split up and stopped producing music and stopped touring, the record company underreported sales by 40%, increasing to 100% over 15 years.
To say the least, after the audit, the record company agreed to arbitration and wound up paying the members of the group unpaid moneys and had to pay interest to keep the story from the press. Jim never told me who the band was, but he did tell me that I would know right away who they were.
So, the next time you see the recording industry whining about people stealing "their" music, understand that it's the artist's music you are stealing—if you are, indeed, illegally copying music. But also understand that the recording industry, themselves, are just as guilty—they blame you for what they, themselves do.
My wife has one. One of her physicians told her that he wants to see how much she is sleeping, how many steps she is taking, etc.
But this is a battery-operated device. And it needs to be charged. So I have to wonder whether or not this study held for users who were charging their FitBits all night, rather than allowing it to record their sleep patterns. I don't see the actual study on the link, just an executive summary.
I use Apple for personal email. I have had a mac.com email address since Apple came out with it. Their current server name is "me.com" and Apple does not advertise in this service, as it is a paid-for service. It allows pop3 as well as IMAP.
For professional email, I use gmail. Google does a great job of excising spam. It is advertiser-supported email, but I never use a web browser for my gmail account. Instead, I use the pop3 function. It propagates to my cell phone, my desktop and my tablet. When I delete something on my cell phone, it deletes on my tablet, but not on my desktop. For a free service, I do not think you can do any better than gmail.
We have been here before. Timothy Egan wrote a book that I highly recommend called "The Worst Hard Times" that fully describes how the prairie was "mined" for its ability to grow crops—an ability that was created over millennia of the creation of soil by the sod, the plants that were there and by the animals that freely roamed the Great Plains.
From the book:
First came the tragedy of settling in an unsettled land encouraged by rising food prices, war, and real-estate speculation. Then came the tragedy of overproduction and the incapacity to sell farm products at a price sufficient to cover the costs of marketing perishable food-stuffs.
The fact that the Great Depression coincided with this man-made ecological disaster deepened its effect. One of the solutions was to do the agricultural subsidies, that were supposed to cause land to lie fallow for years and build up and protect the soil. What we have is subsidies that are set too low to keep farmers happily accepting them or we have too much greed.
But here is where this hits me, personally. My father was born in Eastern Kansas in 1931. As a little boy, he was subjected to the recurrent dust storms. Again, from the book:
Dust clouds boiled up, ten thousand feet or more in the sky, and rolled like moving mountains – a force of their own.
Cattle went blind and then suffocated [their] stomachs stuffed with fine sand.
Children coughed and gagged, dying of something the doctors called "dust pneumonia.
My dad's family all got something pulmonologists called "pulmonary fibrosis." One of his sisters died of it. My dad was on a CPAP machine, which is commonly used by people with COPD—smokers who didn't quit and who need oxygen as they get older because their lungs are half-destroyed. He needed the machine to get a good night's sleep. He had a raspy cough all his life.
Three years ago, my father slipped on some ice and fell and broke six ribs. Now, that's like the "proverbial breaking one's hip" that is a life-changing event for an older person, but they do survive this. My father was in the ICU for 19 days and just could not live. He died on his 83rd birthday and a good 60% of his reason for death was the dust from those storms when he was a young boy.
This is what we are creating with greed, folks. Mark my words, when the drought comes (and it will with global warming) we will see these dust storms again.
[I]t hurt, like a swipe of coarse sandpaper on the face
Okay, you are an expert. And you patch systems and I want to thank you for the un-thanked-for work that you do all of the time. But we're talking about the Microsoft-pushed updates that destroy everything (you can see all the anecdotes, so I know you are aware.
I will offer you this: I know a company with $3M in sales that signed a contract with a (hopefully) good IT firm right in front of me that I would have loved to refer to you. Send me a private message with your location and I will refer you if you are local.
I know at least five different business environments which have been, essentially, shut down by a Windows update. One of them was signing a new service contract as I was talking to him—he had been down all day, unable to see his customer files, his books, the jobs his company was supposed to be doing, unable to route his employees to where they were supposed to go. They went back to a paper only system they have not used since 2002 and they were guessing at that. They were taking credit cards over their website, but could not record the result in their books and had to just save all of the emails and spend an additional day or so just doing data entry into their bookkeeping system.
Of course, these are anecdotes (which is what the anti-vax community uses instead of Science). The problem is not the update, it is what Microsoft does to the computer upon emerging from the update. Elsewhere, people have written of resetting all of the browser preferences, BSODs and other issues. Microsoft needs to restore the previous state of the computer or server (as much as is practical) after the patch. They need to go in like a surgeon with the same motto: "First, do no harm." And if they figure out how to do that, their updates will be seen as innocuous as Apple's
I met Buzz Aldrin some years ago when he was on a book tour signing books. Very nice guy. I respect him but I think he is wrong on this issue.
Firstly, right now, they are testing how fire works in micro-gravity on the ISS. Knowing how to deal with fire aboard a craft on the way toward Mars is essential research. Some people on earth don't know how to deal with a kitchen fire and training astronauts in necessary knowledge can prevent unnecessary deaths. Apollo 1 happened in my lifetime (as well as Buzz Aldrin's) and that was caused by fire in 1G. Apollo 13 had an explosion (fire) that could have killed three astronauts on the way to the Moon.
We continue to learn more about long-term weightlessness on the ISS. We continue to learn more about EVA (spacewalks) and repairs to the exterior of a spacecraft. We continue to learn about how the surface tension of various liquids works and we are learning about how to grow plants (that can process Carbon Dioxide into oxygen safely) in micro-gravity.
In short, the ISS is serving an excellent function.
What Buzz Aldrin needs to to is to start encouraging a priority change for NASA. When we mounted the Apollo program, NASA's budgets were very high. After all, we were in a space race. We did not achieve all of the planned Moon landings because NASA's budget was cut. Surely Aldrin recalls this. So, were I to meet up with the distinguished gentleman again, I would ask why we're spending so much on war that could be spent on NASA and engage many of the same companies who are lobbying for war contracts. We need to change the US priority from war to the peaceful use of much the same technology for exploration.
My Mac is a 2 x 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon system with 8 slots. The folks at Crucial told me that I can pack in more RAM than what Apple originally told my I could do and I may go to more density later. I find that the best way to extend the life of a computer is to max out the RAM.
But I think that Apple is not all that interested in computers any more. They're an appliance company.
"Apple will be transitioning you to a tablet soon. They do not care about computers any more. Their hardware will be designed to be replaced in one to two years."
This doesn't make sense. The iPad has an incredibly long useful lifespan - arguably the longest of any of their products.
I have the iPad 3. It uyses the wide charging/data transfer cable. It cannot be upgraded to the latest iOS and there are some new applications that will not run on it. So, I have to respectfully disagree with your characterization of its lifespan as "incredibly long." This is not to say that it's useless, but it is going through the same replacement cycle that early personal computers did, with application and operating system "improvements" driving replacement frequency.
I have been a tenant. In fact, I was a tenant for a good 30 years. And I was a very good tenant; I always paid on time, I never made trouble for my co-tenants, I was quiet and respectful of others, I concerned myself with building security, not letting anyone in that I did not know, did not trash any of my apartments, always left a forwarding address with my landlord and the utility companies and contacted my landlord in writing and by telephone whenever there was an issue in the apartment. I was described as a model tenant by more than three landlords.
I never, once, tried to gain leverage over a landlord by using the laws which favor tenants. I wanted a place I could call my own with no issues and with the kind of privacy that one generally wants in one's life. That was my perspective as a tenant. Pay on time, pay in full, be respectful, be quiet.
Landlords who have tenants like this never, ever want to lose that tenant. We did have a tenant like that and we loved him. But the maximum that a tenant will stay in an apartment is, on average, two to three years. We like our current tenants, even though they are louder than the previous one.
As a practical matter, lifting your hand against a tenant is usually a bad idea. Since my apartment is in an owner-occupied building, getting a restraining order against the tenant may be the best way to move them out, though I may forfeit back rent.
We had a lease that allowed them only one car in the driveway. They had two. We were "okay" with two until they started violating their lease and trying to get us for mold (there was none) in their apartment. They actually took us to court over mold, even though they brought out two people (county health inspector and a testing company) who said there is no mold. As tested, the amount of mold "in the ambient" (this would be the outside air) was higher than it was in the apartment.
So, we posted a sign stating that unauthorized vehicles would be towed.
The fifth day that sign was posted, we towed one of their cars. And, ladies and gentlemen, that got results. We also discovered that they were taking a child to another town to go to school, so we told that town (giving them proof of the child's true residency as well as photographic evidence). That was a really bad week for them
We eventually paid them $500 to leave, which was about half rent. Then they took out a lien on the house because they had not received their security deposit or the $500 yet. Our attorney was holding the money for them until they could not appeal the judge's decision. Since he was holding the money, the lien was "property libel." and they could have gotten in serious trouble for that. Our attorney informed them that they would be lifting the lien immediately, or else they would find themselves in prison. They sent him a check to release the lien.
Towing a vehicle is the exact thing to make a tenant fear you, especially in the middle of the night by a tow company that does repossessions (they are quiet). So our current lease states, "Parking is a Privilege, Not a Right." Violations of the rules or the lease gets them towed.
Wage garnishment is just this side of impossible, but I have to get social security numbers in order to check credit.
I did go to court against the two who were trying to make money off of me. The deck was well-stacked against me. I watched as the judge gave at least 20 tenants continued rights to their apartments while they paid their landlords nothing. On average, a smart landlord who is very pro-active will need three months (of no rent) to get a tenant out. The only way he or she can recover past rent is in Small Claims court, and that is close to impossible when a tenant moves and moves to avoid service.
I have a Mac Pro; it is my production machine and it's an early 2009 "Cheese Grater." It has 32GB of system RAM and, I am told can go higher (though Apple says it can only pack 32GB) and I have definitely upgraded the standard disk drive that it came with (I have all four trays full). I will probably get an SSD drive for its startup drive fairly soon.
But Apple has become an appliance-maker with a limited "shelf life." They make way more from their tablets and smartphones than they do with their computers and I believe that adding the word "pro" to their tablet is an indication of something. There are no user-serviceable parts inside their phones and tablets, even though iFixit regularly takes them apart. But they're pretty clear that you cannot upgrade the insides and all you can do (if they offer parts) is replace what is there.
This means that the lifecycle of the phone or tablet is one to two years, which is a real moneymaker for Apple. I kept my last Mac for ten years and plan to keep my current Mac Pro for ten, as well. As to the cost of their computers, I really don't care as long as I can expand it—their trashcan model is definitely not expandable and one cannot change out the graphics card, so I have not been tempted to look into purchasing it in the slightest.
As to ports, I have what I really need on my Cheese Grater, though it does not feature the faster Thunderbolt port that the newer Macs have. It does, however, have plenty of USB ports and it has an internal bus that I can swap out cards on. I can also change my GPU and I note that Apple tends to have a love-hate relationship with GPU makers, generally switching companies every one to two years. This means that if you purchase a computer with a built-in GPU, Apple will change their software and their OS to not be optimized for it in a couple of years. Want to use your computer as a main production machine with the latest software? Sorry, your investment is now obsolete.
Apple will be transitioning you to a tablet soon. They do not care about computers any more. Their hardware will be designed to be replaced in one to two years.
I own a duplex and live in one half. We do not cover our mortgage with the rental. I would look at this as an opportunity as, if you look at the laws in my state as well as many other Eastern states, the laws are heavily biased against the landlord. Because what the landlord sells is time, and you can never get that back.
So, what I found interesting is that the landlord gets information on the possible renters. That way, the landlord can pre-screen.
What we use now is Craigslist, Zillow and a broker (all three at once). We also put a sign out. We get "inquiries" off the websites and the only information I get is the name that the person decided to use on the website (which may not be real) and a phone number. When I call back the phone number to set up a showing, frequently the person will simply say, "Oh, I clicked by accident, I was just looking around." And I get no qualifications. Can they actually afford rent? Do they have full-time jobs? Are they the type that make their living off of screwing landlords (we had a couple who do that)?
So what we have is a long, three-page form we use for qualifications. We check credit, we check past employment. We check everything, except their last landlord who, if they are trying to get rid of a bad tenant will give them a very positive review. We also insist that their take-home pay is three times or more than the monthly rent.
Anything that would allow us to see who is interested in advance would be positive. As, if we need to get a tenant out, we are at a severe disadvantage. Landlords in our area must take at least three months in order to evict a tenant and, meanwhile, the tenant has full use of the apartment without paying any rent and will frequently trash it.
I do realize that lots of readers are good tenants who would never trash an apartment, and who always pay on time, but I have seen the other types and they are just not fun to live right up against. I never, again, want to hear the words, "You don't know what I'm capable of," from a tenant.
What about the approval of his countrymen? We (the United States) do not necessarily agree with everything that Angela Merkel or David Cameron does, but they remain in power. And there are countries without nuclear weapons and missiles. We may not agree with everything that Luis Guillermo Solís, Juan Carlos Varela, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf or Ernest Bai Koroma (none have nuclear weapons, ICBMs and all were popularly-elected) do, yet they stay in power and there is no threat to their position from the United States or from other countries.
The idea that you have to "rattle a saber" in order to stay in power is foolish. Only despots have to develop a system of force to gain, consolidate and remain in a position of power. And that is what makes North Korea not funny.
Watching North Korea fail, and do so repeatedly is really funny. What is not funny is their determination. I note that others are suggesting that their rocket scientists are probably short-lived, as are their nuclear scientists. Nonsense. Kim Jong Un does offer special favors for those persons who are successful but a nuclear scientist or a rocket scientist are unlikely to challenge him or his heirs to government positions of power. They are scientists, not political operatives and, thus, are seen as commodities to be used, not existential challenges to be met.
The determination they are showing that they will do everything in their power, including starve their people, in order to produce weapons of mass-destruction is the real takeaway here. While I am happy at their repeated failures, I am not happy at their persistence.
well I got skooled here. I did not know that AdBlock did block Google Text ads. The versions I have pass them by default.
But they are not fraudulent. The ones that are listed at the top of search, Google places on a yellow background, so you know that they are not natural search. The rest are to the right of natural search and are clearly labeled. Furthermore, Google examines all landing pages from these ads and makes certain that the stuff in the ads relates to the stuff on those pages. If it doesn't, Google quits showing the ads.
I do know this because I do work with clients and try to get the most out of their non-display advertisements. I do not think what my clients are doing is fraudulent. Additionally, I work with them to try to increase the amount of information on their websites so that natural search works, as well.
Exactly! The methodology is incorrect. And, after having spoken with the good people at AT&T (that's right, buy at the sign of the Death Star) it is the Telcos that are responsible for slow-downs, not the telephone makers.
Why? The Telcos want you using the latest tech so that you will have a two-year contract with them that you cannot easily get out of without paying them lots of money. This keeps you "loyal." And it gets you on the treadmill of upgrades that ensures your loyalty. So what the telcos do is that they "sunset" technology that supports the older phones. And all of their upgrades on their cell towers (which usually aren't really towers that much any more) support new radios and signaling, not the old stuff.
So blame Apple and Samsung all you want, but it's the Telcos that are responsible for slowing down the older tech, not the manufacturers.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent commentary and it's the type of discussion I was hoping for when I made my initial comment. (moderators, please mode swillden's post up).
I would invite you to look at the series "The Expanse" for a good Smartphone design—certainly one we will have long before this particular science fiction story takes place. Oh, by the way, it's well-acted.
If I understand what you are saying, the phone has pretty much gone as far as it can go and the fact that the ecosystem is in the cloud means it is not platform-specific (something Microsoft completely did not understand in the late 1990s). I do not necessarily disagree with your assessment.
Where innovation will take us will probably be the automobile. Self-driving is one direction, but another is the control systems within cars. If you look at the Tesla (please understand that I am not promoting this car) Model S, it has what looks like a tablet for controls. The Model 3 has a 15.0-inch touchscreen. The problem with the automobile is that these touchscreens and controls tend to never be upgraded, They are also very easy to crack, with very dangerous results see this report of a zero-day exploit. Obviously securing the automotive sector's systems and technologies is an area we really need to look at, but there is obviously loads of room for innovation here.
I would also note that a long-distance driverless truck would completely transform our national system of logistics.
We are just entering the era of the electronic pantry generating our shopping lists. At this point, we have refrigerators that know when we're out of milk. One wonders whether or not people who are on a diet could keep stuff they ought not to eat out of the home completely.
Lots of people here will post very specific solutions that they have been following. Each will advocate this, that or the other and each is admirable in its own way. I am a longtime user of iOS but before that I had a Palm, starting with the Pilot and going through a number of devices. But I have a different focus.
We need a third, perhaps a fourth, fifth and sixth mobile operating system because it is vital. It is very important to note that Apple and Alphabet will definitely stop innovating and will reach a point of stasis if there is no alternative. Big corporations will tend to want to rest on laurels and allow the hardware people to carry the load. We saw that with Microsoft in the late 1990s and into the early 2000s under Steve Ballmer. They simply quit innovating on all fronts and assumed that Intel and the other chip makers would carry things forward. The result was Windows XP, which became the least secure thing you could run on a computer and the most fraught with irrelevance.
Were I a multimillionaire, I would look at this particular discussion and I would support upstarts with venture capital—not because I hate iOS or Android but because you need innovation. You have to have real competition and two companies trying to outdo each other are just not enough.
And here is a real-life example: Try to book a flight now that we are, essentially, down to three major airlines. These three have whittled down competition and ceded certain aspects of innovation in a manner that exactly re-creates a monopoly. Oh, they'll tell you that they're competing, but they are simply not doing it. You can bet that Alphabet and Apple will do exactly the same.
Two software companies is not enough to keep innovation fired up. We need more than three, actually.
This is the precise language being used in the East.
Here on the East Coast in the Federal Circuit Courts, non-compete clauses in contracts have been declared invalid and not binding. And this will be why Veeva Systems is trying to sue in California court to make it universal—they do not want to be hauled into a court in a "foreign" state
This is a good strategy for Veeva. It is a pre-emptive move in a court of their own choice
I am not in the habit of replying to anonymous cowards. You are a troll, sir and should be modded as such.
However, I am going to provide two links. The first is an article that includes the motion before the Court in the "All Writs Act" case. Now, you are claiming that this was just a PR stunt. I don't know what planet you live on, but hiring outside counsel to appeal such an order from the FBI is expensive, and there is absolutely no profit in it. So the document from Apple cost them money and did not produce iPhones, iPads or computers. Here is the article.
But that's not all. Were this just a publicity stunt, there would have been a quiet backroom agreement that Apple did complain in the "All Writs" case. If your hypothesis that this was a PR stunt were true, the agreement would have been made in secret, Apple would have provided the code and all would be well. The public relations issue would have been handled and everyone would think that Apple had won. But that is not what happened.
Instead, the Department of Justice filed a countermotion. And you can read it here.
So your hypothesis is dead wrong, Anonymous Coward-Troll. So you can believe whatever you want, but beliefs are not facts.
I think you are asking the wrong question. Of course there does not exist a company that is completely free from the laws, regulations and requirements of the country in which it works (and that includes all countries in which they work for the multinationals).
What you are forgetting in your question is that, in the United States, CEOs are not murdered by the United States government if they oppose the chief executive, as has happened with Russians. You are forgetting that the United States is not an official kleptocracy (yet) where plutocratic friends of Vladimir Putin are free to steal from the country's resources at the expense of the taxpayers and that the government there is absolutely uninterested in transparency. You are forgetting that, in Russia, there are no checks and balances, the Judiciary is not independent of the central government, that the legislature (Duma) does not hold hearings to investigate the President or the Prime Minister and that the current President found a loophole in the country's constitution that allows him to hold onto power for much longer than his country's constitutional intent.
From this standpoint, a company that is located in the United States is unfettered by the politics of the day, as long as the company produces a valuable product and is a good corporate citizen. When our federal government asked for a "back door" (as a forinstance) into the Apple iPhone, Apple fought it. and, although the issue was declared moot, the government had to come up with a hack that would work on its own.
Were Apple's headquarters in Moscow or St. Petersburg, there would be no appeal to a court—they would have been forced to comply. And there might have been a sudden, unexplained death of the CEO were there any resistance.
So, my answer to your question is, yes. Companies are independent from our government here in the United States. They do not exist at the pleasure and tolerance of our Chief Executive as they do in Russia
A good friend of mine got his CPA as an older college student. Then he went to work for the big CPA firms in NYC. They used him for auditing and then spit him out at the end of audit season (after having told him, "You play your cards right and we'll put you on track to be a partner." Yeah, as if!). One audit he did is worth noting.
It seems this one former rocker whose group was filling the stadiums "back in the day" was accosted by a paparazzi and the rocker may have struck the paparazzi. He called his attorney when he got a letter from the alleged victim of his fist and asked for him to defend him. His attorney told him what it would cost to defend. The former rocker said, "But I'm broke!" His attorney said, "That's crazy—your music is still selling. In fact, my daughter just told me that she got your entire album from 1970-something on iTunes."
"I haven't received a royalty check for five years from anyone!" replied the former rocker.
His attorney, who drew up the contracts informed him that he had the "right to audit" the sales of his recordings. So, my friend Jim was hired to do the audit.
Here is what he found out:
To say the least, after the audit, the record company agreed to arbitration and wound up paying the members of the group unpaid moneys and had to pay interest to keep the story from the press. Jim never told me who the band was, but he did tell me that I would know right away who they were.
So, the next time you see the recording industry whining about people stealing "their" music, understand that it's the artist's music you are stealing—if you are, indeed, illegally copying music. But also understand that the recording industry, themselves, are just as guilty—they blame you for what they, themselves do.
My wife has one. One of her physicians told her that he wants to see how much she is sleeping, how many steps she is taking, etc.
But this is a battery-operated device. And it needs to be charged. So I have to wonder whether or not this study held for users who were charging their FitBits all night, rather than allowing it to record their sleep patterns. I don't see the actual study on the link, just an executive summary.
I use Apple for personal email. I have had a mac.com email address since Apple came out with it. Their current server name is "me.com" and Apple does not advertise in this service, as it is a paid-for service. It allows pop3 as well as IMAP.
For professional email, I use gmail. Google does a great job of excising spam. It is advertiser-supported email, but I never use a web browser for my gmail account. Instead, I use the pop3 function. It propagates to my cell phone, my desktop and my tablet. When I delete something on my cell phone, it deletes on my tablet, but not on my desktop. For a free service, I do not think you can do any better than gmail.
We have been here before. Timothy Egan wrote a book that I highly recommend called "The Worst Hard Times" that fully describes how the prairie was "mined" for its ability to grow crops—an ability that was created over millennia of the creation of soil by the sod, the plants that were there and by the animals that freely roamed the Great Plains.
From the book:
The fact that the Great Depression coincided with this man-made ecological disaster deepened its effect. One of the solutions was to do the agricultural subsidies, that were supposed to cause land to lie fallow for years and build up and protect the soil. What we have is subsidies that are set too low to keep farmers happily accepting them or we have too much greed.
But here is where this hits me, personally. My father was born in Eastern Kansas in 1931. As a little boy, he was subjected to the recurrent dust storms. Again, from the book:
My dad's family all got something pulmonologists called "pulmonary fibrosis." One of his sisters died of it. My dad was on a CPAP machine, which is commonly used by people with COPD—smokers who didn't quit and who need oxygen as they get older because their lungs are half-destroyed. He needed the machine to get a good night's sleep. He had a raspy cough all his life.
Three years ago, my father slipped on some ice and fell and broke six ribs. Now, that's like the "proverbial breaking one's hip" that is a life-changing event for an older person, but they do survive this. My father was in the ICU for 19 days and just could not live. He died on his 83rd birthday and a good 60% of his reason for death was the dust from those storms when he was a young boy.
This is what we are creating with greed, folks. Mark my words, when the drought comes (and it will with global warming) we will see these dust storms again.
Here is a link to the book on Amazon. Please note, this is not meant to be an endorsement of Amazon, it is an endorsement of the book and the author's work: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
Okay, you are an expert. And you patch systems and I want to thank you for the un-thanked-for work that you do all of the time. But we're talking about the Microsoft-pushed updates that destroy everything (you can see all the anecdotes, so I know you are aware.
I will offer you this: I know a company with $3M in sales that signed a contract with a (hopefully) good IT firm right in front of me that I would have loved to refer to you. Send me a private message with your location and I will refer you if you are local.
Mod this up, folks!
I know at least five different business environments which have been, essentially, shut down by a Windows update. One of them was signing a new service contract as I was talking to him—he had been down all day, unable to see his customer files, his books, the jobs his company was supposed to be doing, unable to route his employees to where they were supposed to go. They went back to a paper only system they have not used since 2002 and they were guessing at that. They were taking credit cards over their website, but could not record the result in their books and had to just save all of the emails and spend an additional day or so just doing data entry into their bookkeeping system.
Of course, these are anecdotes (which is what the anti-vax community uses instead of Science). The problem is not the update, it is what Microsoft does to the computer upon emerging from the update. Elsewhere, people have written of resetting all of the browser preferences, BSODs and other issues. Microsoft needs to restore the previous state of the computer or server (as much as is practical) after the patch. They need to go in like a surgeon with the same motto: "First, do no harm." And if they figure out how to do that, their updates will be seen as innocuous as Apple's
I met Buzz Aldrin some years ago when he was on a book tour signing books. Very nice guy. I respect him but I think he is wrong on this issue.
Firstly, right now, they are testing how fire works in micro-gravity on the ISS. Knowing how to deal with fire aboard a craft on the way toward Mars is essential research. Some people on earth don't know how to deal with a kitchen fire and training astronauts in necessary knowledge can prevent unnecessary deaths. Apollo 1 happened in my lifetime (as well as Buzz Aldrin's) and that was caused by fire in 1G. Apollo 13 had an explosion (fire) that could have killed three astronauts on the way to the Moon.
We continue to learn more about long-term weightlessness on the ISS. We continue to learn more about EVA (spacewalks) and repairs to the exterior of a spacecraft. We continue to learn about how the surface tension of various liquids works and we are learning about how to grow plants (that can process Carbon Dioxide into oxygen safely) in micro-gravity.
In short, the ISS is serving an excellent function.
What Buzz Aldrin needs to to is to start encouraging a priority change for NASA. When we mounted the Apollo program, NASA's budgets were very high. After all, we were in a space race. We did not achieve all of the planned Moon landings because NASA's budget was cut. Surely Aldrin recalls this. So, were I to meet up with the distinguished gentleman again, I would ask why we're spending so much on war that could be spent on NASA and engage many of the same companies who are lobbying for war contracts. We need to change the US priority from war to the peaceful use of much the same technology for exploration.
Oh, and Martian regolith may well be poisonous, so were we to begin colonizing Mars, we would need to address that.
My Mac is a 2 x 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon system with 8 slots. The folks at Crucial told me that I can pack in more RAM than what Apple originally told my I could do and I may go to more density later. I find that the best way to extend the life of a computer is to max out the RAM.
But I think that Apple is not all that interested in computers any more. They're an appliance company.
"Apple will be transitioning you to a tablet soon. They do not care about computers any more. Their hardware will be designed to be replaced in one to two years."
This doesn't make sense. The iPad has an incredibly long useful lifespan - arguably the longest of any of their products.
I have the iPad 3. It uyses the wide charging/data transfer cable. It cannot be upgraded to the latest iOS and there are some new applications that will not run on it. So, I have to respectfully disagree with your characterization of its lifespan as "incredibly long." This is not to say that it's useless, but it is going through the same replacement cycle that early personal computers did, with application and operating system "improvements" driving replacement frequency.
I have been a tenant. In fact, I was a tenant for a good 30 years. And I was a very good tenant; I always paid on time, I never made trouble for my co-tenants, I was quiet and respectful of others, I concerned myself with building security, not letting anyone in that I did not know, did not trash any of my apartments, always left a forwarding address with my landlord and the utility companies and contacted my landlord in writing and by telephone whenever there was an issue in the apartment. I was described as a model tenant by more than three landlords.
I never, once, tried to gain leverage over a landlord by using the laws which favor tenants. I wanted a place I could call my own with no issues and with the kind of privacy that one generally wants in one's life. That was my perspective as a tenant. Pay on time, pay in full, be respectful, be quiet.
Landlords who have tenants like this never, ever want to lose that tenant. We did have a tenant like that and we loved him. But the maximum that a tenant will stay in an apartment is, on average, two to three years. We like our current tenants, even though they are louder than the previous one.
That will depend on your state.
As a practical matter, lifting your hand against a tenant is usually a bad idea. Since my apartment is in an owner-occupied building, getting a restraining order against the tenant may be the best way to move them out, though I may forfeit back rent.
We had a lease that allowed them only one car in the driveway. They had two. We were "okay" with two until they started violating their lease and trying to get us for mold (there was none) in their apartment. They actually took us to court over mold, even though they brought out two people (county health inspector and a testing company) who said there is no mold. As tested, the amount of mold "in the ambient" (this would be the outside air) was higher than it was in the apartment.
So, we posted a sign stating that unauthorized vehicles would be towed.
The fifth day that sign was posted, we towed one of their cars. And, ladies and gentlemen, that got results. We also discovered that they were taking a child to another town to go to school, so we told that town (giving them proof of the child's true residency as well as photographic evidence). That was a really bad week for them
We eventually paid them $500 to leave, which was about half rent. Then they took out a lien on the house because they had not received their security deposit or the $500 yet. Our attorney was holding the money for them until they could not appeal the judge's decision. Since he was holding the money, the lien was "property libel." and they could have gotten in serious trouble for that. Our attorney informed them that they would be lifting the lien immediately, or else they would find themselves in prison. They sent him a check to release the lien.
Towing a vehicle is the exact thing to make a tenant fear you, especially in the middle of the night by a tow company that does repossessions (they are quiet). So our current lease states, "Parking is a Privilege, Not a Right." Violations of the rules or the lease gets them towed.
Wage garnishment is just this side of impossible, but I have to get social security numbers in order to check credit.
I did go to court against the two who were trying to make money off of me. The deck was well-stacked against me. I watched as the judge gave at least 20 tenants continued rights to their apartments while they paid their landlords nothing. On average, a smart landlord who is very pro-active will need three months (of no rent) to get a tenant out. The only way he or she can recover past rent is in Small Claims court, and that is close to impossible when a tenant moves and moves to avoid service.
I have a Mac Pro; it is my production machine and it's an early 2009 "Cheese Grater." It has 32GB of system RAM and, I am told can go higher (though Apple says it can only pack 32GB) and I have definitely upgraded the standard disk drive that it came with (I have all four trays full). I will probably get an SSD drive for its startup drive fairly soon.
But Apple has become an appliance-maker with a limited "shelf life." They make way more from their tablets and smartphones than they do with their computers and I believe that adding the word "pro" to their tablet is an indication of something. There are no user-serviceable parts inside their phones and tablets, even though iFixit regularly takes them apart. But they're pretty clear that you cannot upgrade the insides and all you can do (if they offer parts) is replace what is there.
This means that the lifecycle of the phone or tablet is one to two years, which is a real moneymaker for Apple. I kept my last Mac for ten years and plan to keep my current Mac Pro for ten, as well. As to the cost of their computers, I really don't care as long as I can expand it—their trashcan model is definitely not expandable and one cannot change out the graphics card, so I have not been tempted to look into purchasing it in the slightest.
As to ports, I have what I really need on my Cheese Grater, though it does not feature the faster Thunderbolt port that the newer Macs have. It does, however, have plenty of USB ports and it has an internal bus that I can swap out cards on. I can also change my GPU and I note that Apple tends to have a love-hate relationship with GPU makers, generally switching companies every one to two years. This means that if you purchase a computer with a built-in GPU, Apple will change their software and their OS to not be optimized for it in a couple of years. Want to use your computer as a main production machine with the latest software? Sorry, your investment is now obsolete.
Apple will be transitioning you to a tablet soon. They do not care about computers any more. Their hardware will be designed to be replaced in one to two years.
I own a duplex and live in one half. We do not cover our mortgage with the rental. I would look at this as an opportunity as, if you look at the laws in my state as well as many other Eastern states, the laws are heavily biased against the landlord. Because what the landlord sells is time, and you can never get that back.
So, what I found interesting is that the landlord gets information on the possible renters. That way, the landlord can pre-screen.
What we use now is Craigslist, Zillow and a broker (all three at once). We also put a sign out. We get "inquiries" off the websites and the only information I get is the name that the person decided to use on the website (which may not be real) and a phone number. When I call back the phone number to set up a showing, frequently the person will simply say, "Oh, I clicked by accident, I was just looking around." And I get no qualifications. Can they actually afford rent? Do they have full-time jobs? Are they the type that make their living off of screwing landlords (we had a couple who do that)?
So what we have is a long, three-page form we use for qualifications. We check credit, we check past employment. We check everything, except their last landlord who, if they are trying to get rid of a bad tenant will give them a very positive review. We also insist that their take-home pay is three times or more than the monthly rent.
Anything that would allow us to see who is interested in advance would be positive. As, if we need to get a tenant out, we are at a severe disadvantage. Landlords in our area must take at least three months in order to evict a tenant and, meanwhile, the tenant has full use of the apartment without paying any rent and will frequently trash it.
I do realize that lots of readers are good tenants who would never trash an apartment, and who always pay on time, but I have seen the other types and they are just not fun to live right up against. I never, again, want to hear the words, "You don't know what I'm capable of," from a tenant.
What about the approval of his countrymen? We (the United States) do not necessarily agree with everything that Angela Merkel or David Cameron does, but they remain in power. And there are countries without nuclear weapons and missiles. We may not agree with everything that Luis Guillermo Solís, Juan Carlos Varela, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf or Ernest Bai Koroma (none have nuclear weapons, ICBMs and all were popularly-elected) do, yet they stay in power and there is no threat to their position from the United States or from other countries.
The idea that you have to "rattle a saber" in order to stay in power is foolish. Only despots have to develop a system of force to gain, consolidate and remain in a position of power. And that is what makes North Korea not funny.
Watching North Korea fail, and do so repeatedly is really funny. What is not funny is their determination. I note that others are suggesting that their rocket scientists are probably short-lived, as are their nuclear scientists. Nonsense. Kim Jong Un does offer special favors for those persons who are successful but a nuclear scientist or a rocket scientist are unlikely to challenge him or his heirs to government positions of power. They are scientists, not political operatives and, thus, are seen as commodities to be used, not existential challenges to be met.
The determination they are showing that they will do everything in their power, including starve their people, in order to produce weapons of mass-destruction is the real takeaway here. While I am happy at their repeated failures, I am not happy at their persistence.
what about the Page Three Girl
That is very important news!
well I got skooled here. I did not know that AdBlock did block Google Text ads. The versions I have pass them by default.
But they are not fraudulent. The ones that are listed at the top of search, Google places on a yellow background, so you know that they are not natural search. The rest are to the right of natural search and are clearly labeled. Furthermore, Google examines all landing pages from these ads and makes certain that the stuff in the ads relates to the stuff on those pages. If it doesn't, Google quits showing the ads.
I do know this because I do work with clients and try to get the most out of their non-display advertisements. I do not think what my clients are doing is fraudulent. Additionally, I work with them to try to increase the amount of information on their websites so that natural search works, as well.
Exactly! The methodology is incorrect. And, after having spoken with the good people at AT&T (that's right, buy at the sign of the Death Star) it is the Telcos that are responsible for slow-downs, not the telephone makers.
Why? The Telcos want you using the latest tech so that you will have a two-year contract with them that you cannot easily get out of without paying them lots of money. This keeps you "loyal." And it gets you on the treadmill of upgrades that ensures your loyalty. So what the telcos do is that they "sunset" technology that supports the older phones. And all of their upgrades on their cell towers (which usually aren't really towers that much any more) support new radios and signaling, not the old stuff.
So blame Apple and Samsung all you want, but it's the Telcos that are responsible for slowing down the older tech, not the manufacturers.