I don't understand this need to be contactable 24 hours a day as if life itself depends on it.
If you need me, you can contact my staff. If it's important, they'll put the call through or forward the message. People who are 'always on' tend to be lower on the social or organizational totem pole. People who will catch hell if they don't pick up NOW.
people want bad enough to be willing to pay for it
But people willing to pay and broadband companines willing to provide are two different things. In most cases, public utilities have a much lower cost structure than private enterprise. So they can justify providing service in ares which might not attract private investment at this time. The private providers allocate resources based upon maximising their ROI. And so it might be a while before the most profitable neighborhoods are wires up and they get around to the lower revenue areas. Or perhap never. But what they don't want is to have lower cost providers step in and pick off the marginal territories while they are holding them back.
Wall Street demands earnings growth and, should they lose access to these second tier customers, their businesses might start to look like they are in the 'mature' part of their business cycles. And that's when investors start squeezing corporate boards for increases in efficiency. Like lower mangement salaries, less Hookers & Blow, fewer private jets, etc. Everyone likes to be in a growth market. Nobody (in private business) likes to maintain infrastructure, keep the snow plowed and potholes fixed. But that's what municipalities are good for.
This is why Comcast and TWC wan to merge. It produces high levers of capital activity that investors have a hard time differentiating from O&M expenses. And so upper management looks like they are accomplishing things.
There might be a market for a defice that can be placed between any such 'required' dongles and a vehicle's actual systems. Something that can pass certain data in only one direction (read-only vehicle parameters) and block requests (and spoof handshake signals) should dongle attempt to make an unwanted request of the vehicle's systems.
I can also see a market for such a device where emissions tests are done by reading the data port. Just tell the port filter to always reply with an 'all is well' code.
drone operators would only need to glue razorblades on the tips of the rotors
And take the chance that this will go out of control near a playground? Way to make friends in law enforgement and regulatory agencies. Then, nobody can have nice things anymore.
"Their values" being a codeword for whether they go to the same church or smoke the same dope.
Nope. Basic economics: Whenever you weigh the relative values of several options, you assign relative weights to each characteristic being measured. The total weights add up to 100%. If one or more of those characteristics is the moral or social standing of the supplier, that weight is subtracted from the other measures. If you want to make that sort of compromise, fine. But you won't be building any mission critical systems for me. Particularly if the competition (and by mission critical, this might mean military) are not hampered by such misguided principles.
I'm quite surprised to see people in the US asking for it!
I'm not. The USA is drifting farther away from being a meritocracy. More emphasis is placed upon achievement in social circles than professionally with STEM skills. "Nice" is a codeword for displaying the proper deference for people who may not have the technical skills to do a job but have been placed in charge (or see themselves as social leaders) of a group.
And I suspect that the components of most mission critical projects are selected with no thought about the personality of the leadership at all. Use it because its good. Don't use it if it's not.
If a project desends to being some sort of frat party, where everyone has to be drinking buddies and there is a social pecking order, I don't think it's a terribly 'critical' project.
If the "global warming alarmists" are right, well, can you really afford to take that chance?
I think change is inevitable. Who are we to fight it?
Imagine if cyanobacteria was sentient. If 2 or 3 billion years ago, they all got together and agreed that they were producing far too much oxygen for the good of earth's environment. And, had they cut back to sustainable levels, we would have a stable environment, optimized for and dominated by pond scum.
What we do will be done. So that the next dominant species can arise. With a bit of luck, homo sapiens may survive in some niches on the planet. And the new masters will allow us to putt around in our Hummers, thankful for the change we initiated that made them possible.
Thinks may work differently on that side of the pond.I don't block
Facebook / Snapchat for the fun of it. I block it because you're in school.
In the USA you don't block anything that can be accessed on a phone. FCC regulations. And although you might institute rules against using phones while in class, you don't ban or confisacate them. Or parents will come down on you with a world of hurt. Because their little kiddy absolutely must have the latest gadget* in the event some sort of emergency comes up.
*Could give them a dumb 'feature phone'. But kids won't be seen without the latest gadget. And that flip phone will fall out of a backpack 5 minutes after the peer group laughs at the old tech.
Back when WiFi was a New Thing, Boeing banned them on their intranet. Many people wanted to wander around with untethered laptops, so they'd bring a WiFi hub and plug it into their office Ethernet port.
The IT people called the electronics lab for help. One day, a couple of guys were pushing an HP spectrum analyzer attached to a microwave horn antenna/converter on a cart around the office, looking for hubs. By the end of the day, they had located every microwave oven on the premises.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't know why this was modded Troll. Good idea or not, it's worth considering.
I don't understand this need to be contactable 24 hours a day as if life itself depends on it.
If you need me, you can contact my staff. If it's important, they'll put the call through or forward the message. People who are 'always on' tend to be lower on the social or organizational totem pole. People who will catch hell if they don't pick up NOW.
Exactly, what can C do that python can't?
Handle blocks of code independant of formatting constraints like indenting.
people want bad enough to be willing to pay for it
But people willing to pay and broadband companines willing to provide are two different things. In most cases, public utilities have a much lower cost structure than private enterprise. So they can justify providing service in ares which might not attract private investment at this time. The private providers allocate resources based upon maximising their ROI. And so it might be a while before the most profitable neighborhoods are wires up and they get around to the lower revenue areas. Or perhap never. But what they don't want is to have lower cost providers step in and pick off the marginal territories while they are holding them back.
Wall Street demands earnings growth and, should they lose access to these second tier customers, their businesses might start to look like they are in the 'mature' part of their business cycles. And that's when investors start squeezing corporate boards for increases in efficiency. Like lower mangement salaries, less Hookers & Blow, fewer private jets, etc. Everyone likes to be in a growth market. Nobody (in private business) likes to maintain infrastructure, keep the snow plowed and potholes fixed. But that's what municipalities are good for.
This is why Comcast and TWC wan to merge. It produces high levers of capital activity that investors have a hard time differentiating from O&M expenses. And so upper management looks like they are accomplishing things.
Project Orion lives!
n/t
There might be a market for a defice that can be placed between any such 'required' dongles and a vehicle's actual systems. Something that can pass certain data in only one direction (read-only vehicle parameters) and block requests (and spoof handshake signals) should dongle attempt to make an unwanted request of the vehicle's systems.
I can also see a market for such a device where emissions tests are done by reading the data port. Just tell the port filter to always reply with an 'all is well' code.
Wow. I wonder what I'd do if my State Farm agent pulls this stunt on me. My cars predate OBD II or any other diagnostic ports by a few decades.
I'd be happy to put them in the ashtray or something.
Well then, what do you do with people who aren't good at what they love doing, or whose labor is not in demand?
Management
drone operators would only need to glue razorblades on the tips of the rotors
And take the chance that this will go out of control near a playground? Way to make friends in law enforgement and regulatory agencies. Then, nobody can have nice things anymore.
One got so bad he had to be escorted off the work site and asked to not return.
Why? Was he threatening people? Or just being loud? The latter can just be handled with a quiet, "Shh. Use your inside voice please."
we can overlook folks 'values'
But what you describe isn't 'values'. It's behavior.
becuase they are savants who can't seem to function with anyone else.
But this is an accurate description of Bill Gates. And look how far it got him.
and what their values are.
"Their values" being a codeword for whether they go to the same church or smoke the same dope.
Nope. Basic economics: Whenever you weigh the relative values of several options, you assign relative weights to each characteristic being measured. The total weights add up to 100%. If one or more of those characteristics is the moral or social standing of the supplier, that weight is subtracted from the other measures. If you want to make that sort of compromise, fine. But you won't be building any mission critical systems for me. Particularly if the competition (and by mission critical, this might mean military) are not hampered by such misguided principles.
... for calls to cellular numbers: Caller pays.
I'm quite surprised to see people in the US asking for it!
I'm not. The USA is drifting farther away from being a meritocracy. More emphasis is placed upon achievement in social circles than professionally with STEM skills. "Nice" is a codeword for displaying the proper deference for people who may not have the technical skills to do a job but have been placed in charge (or see themselves as social leaders) of a group.
And I suspect that the components of most mission critical projects are selected with no thought about the personality of the leadership at all. Use it because its good. Don't use it if it's not.
If a project desends to being some sort of frat party, where everyone has to be drinking buddies and there is a social pecking order, I don't think it's a terribly 'critical' project.
The terrorists have switched to concealing messages in GOP fundraising material.
Abdul. According to this message, we are to attack on both coasts plus invade up the Mississippi River simultaneously!
If the "global warming alarmists" are right, well, can you really afford to take that chance?
I think change is inevitable. Who are we to fight it?
Imagine if cyanobacteria was sentient. If 2 or 3 billion years ago, they all got together and agreed that they were producing far too much oxygen for the good of earth's environment. And, had they cut back to sustainable levels, we would have a stable environment, optimized for and dominated by pond scum.
What we do will be done. So that the next dominant species can arise. With a bit of luck, homo sapiens may survive in some niches on the planet. And the new masters will allow us to putt around in our Hummers, thankful for the change we initiated that made them possible.
UK opinion here:
Thinks may work differently on that side of the pond.I don't block
Facebook / Snapchat for the fun of it. I block it because you're in school.
In the USA you don't block anything that can be accessed on a phone. FCC regulations. And although you might institute rules against using phones while in class, you don't ban or confisacate them. Or parents will come down on you with a world of hurt. Because their little kiddy absolutely must have the latest gadget* in the event some sort of emergency comes up.
*Could give them a dumb 'feature phone'. But kids won't be seen without the latest gadget. And that flip phone will fall out of a backpack 5 minutes after the peer group laughs at the old tech.
Management figures it's just used for viewing porn sites.
with Windows 8.1 preinstalled
And since nobody likes Windows 8.x, its pretty much a fanless PC as well.
Sort algorithms.
Back when WiFi was a New Thing, Boeing banned them on their intranet. Many people wanted to wander around with untethered laptops, so they'd bring a WiFi hub and plug it into their office Ethernet port.
The IT people called the electronics lab for help. One day, a couple of guys were pushing an HP spectrum analyzer attached to a microwave horn antenna/converter on a cart around the office, looking for hubs. By the end of the day, they had located every microwave oven on the premises.