And yet all of that should not be necessary. If I produce a phone compatible with their network technology, I should be able to activate it as pay-as-you-go. But alas, there is not a single cell provider who will activate a smart phone this way. Not even the resellers.
So I am stuck using my phone from 2006 until either me or othe carriers give in. And my battery is dying.
So grab a Pay-as-you-go phone, rip the SIM card out (you may have to dismattle the phone) and use it instead. I've heard of some people moving SIM cards from them to other phones for that exact reason. Yes, I know what you mean.
You mean give the customer what they want? Seriously, I would love to have a Wifi-only Smartphone that can't access a 3G Data network. Though, FFS, $30/month for a data plan ought to be enough for them to beef up their goddamned network. Where is all that money going?
Hint: Join the Android Developer Community (https://market.android.com/publish/signup) and then buy a Developer Phone at full price.
I have a Nexus One that I got a full price, outside of AT&T, without a contract, and simply moved my SIM card over from my previous 2G phone. I even went into AT&T and got them to replace the 2G SIM card with a 3G SIM card. I have no data plan, and have disabled the (Celluar) Data Network access on the phone, so I only get data via WiFi.
Disclaimer: I've heard some here on/. do the same only to have AT&T force them into a data plan. However, I don't know if they did everything I did - e.g. turning off the Data Network access, etc; which I did pretty much immediately after getting the phone. Still, it can be done.
Well, all the stuff is up there; and yes, it needs to get collected some how. So why not:
1. Collect it into a massive space junk yard that can be managed.
2. Put up a refinery to take in the materials from the space junk yard and produce useful raw materials
3. Use the useful raw materials to (a) maintain the refinery, and (b) build additional stuff in space.
After all, wouldn't that be cheaper than bringing it down to earth and having to resend all the required materials up there again whenever we need to build something?
I could easily see a multi-national corporation or political body being able to manage this so that it could benefit any space-bearing country.
Well, no - I won't likely purchase another TV ever. I will, however, purchase a projector and hook it up to a computer, or possibly a Smart TV box - e.g. a Google TV box (like the Logistics Revue), Boxee, Roku, or something similar; possibly both. Why? I get exactly what I want out it, and TV isn't really what we want. A home theatre is - and a project is better for that than a TV; an a SmartTV box would allow NetFlix, Hulu, etc to be pushed out the projector a little better than a standard Linux-based computer. The computer may have a DVD and/or BlueRay-DVD drive, and possibly a TV tuner as well (for OTA TV) should we want it - or possibly to hook up the VCR, Wii, etc.
I like your thinking about possible safety avenues, but I'm not sure any of them have any real merit.
Regarding toddlers sticking metal objects into the socket, the 2008 National Electric Code calls for tamper proof outlets, which are already adopted by an overwhelming majority of states. Those are fairly cheap and prevent sticking items in one side of the socket. GFCIs have been around for quite a while that trip if it detects a slight imbalance in electric flow, sending the current through a relay which cuts the power.
They'll figure out a way to get it to power out some how regardless of the difficulty of the physical interface. Toddlers just have a knack for that kind of thing.
And, FYI, GFCIs are a lot more expensive than a standard socket so it doesn't make much economical sense to use them everywhere in a building.
I don't see how and outlet could logically not allow current t o flow if it risks overloading the circuit since it would need to have the draw first to determine that. Isn't this what circuit breakers are traditionally for? Implementing that in an outlet would seem to be like a GFCI where it trips that outlet but leaves the circuit functional. I'm pretty sure voltage would require the device to be smarter, not the outlet.
The logic could be implemented in a very low voltage, low current connection. That part is easy for the outlet itself, and would certainly be near impossible for a toddler to replicate; but people with the know how would be able to - so it wouldn't be very useful for larger management like charging for use at a given outlet; too many things would need a dumb mode that could just allow something to work. It'd be very hard to have to put in user/password style (or any other complicated style) of authentication into it - so the authentication is more likely just a handshake to say "yep, there's something attached that can take power safely from the device".
Now as to your other point, it's a matter of what kind of circuit the outlet is on. Ideally, it'd be connected to a smart circuit that could report back the amount of draw on the line (for a centralized controller) or otherwise networked (for a decentralized controller). That means that there would need to either be an in-house network over the power lines, or the powerlines would have to be upgraded to include another strand or two for a network for the circuits - probably a token ring style network - so they could communicate in either manner. This too is not hard, but likely requires rewriting the building - which will be harder to do. The smart circuits required already exist; and can even be connected to IP networks for external monitoring and control.
So nothing new, just a new use, and with authentication to prevent non-safe uses.
Grounding on an outlet (the third prong) is only good for protecting equipment, not people. Again, the device would be able to make that determination if its smart enough, the outlet has no practical way of enforcing that without being able to tell a smart device to actually flow current through ground and then sense it for verification. An outlet on its own can't do it, and assuming both outlets and devices were changed to support it, said device would then trip a GFCI if it wasn't plugged into one of these special outlets.
Again, smart circuits already exist that can do that.
I always wonder how it is people cannot see difference between taxes and entitlements
In reality, there is no difference. The special "taxes" set aside for entitlements are still taxes, and those entitlements are still paid by the collective. The fact that they've set aside special taxes for it is nothing more than an accounting trick to try to get people to think they are not entitlements.
The other stuff is put aside so later in life you can receive back (that's why their called entitlements because you are entitled to receive benefits from these programs. Now it was never intended that SS be all your retirement, only a supplemental.
That may have been the intent; but that's not what is happening. Nor is it really what ever happened. Yes, they ran a surplus at first when they had a lot of people paying in and few people taking out; so that surplus got set aside. However, unless population growth continues on an exponential curve then that cannot be maintained. Right now, the USA is barely producing sustaintable growth - it's like 2.4 children. While not as bad as the roughtly 1.5 or less that Europe, Japan, and China (by law) have - it makes things like Social Security unsustainable.
The other problem is that you're not entitled to anything other than what is granted via the Constitution; which Medicare, Medicaide, Social Security, and Welfare certainly are not granted by the Consitution (though not prohibited either).
. Tea party people consists of a lot of retirees getting SS and if baffles me these same people want to get rid of SS altogether.
Most Tea Partiers are both well-educated, and a healthy mix of young and old. I'd get rid of it entirely; but phase it out - if you're above a certain age, just guarantee they'll never get it. It solves the population issue. When no one is left on the dole, the shut it down and disperse the remaining monies back to the people in some form, and stop taking the tax out. It's the only way to shut it down. Unfortunately, our politicians believe in Keynsian Economics and large debt; which will only result in what is going on in Greece right now.
These "entitlements" are not what you believe. What is your source; so I can avoid being so mislead.
They are by definition entitlements; regardless of how they are paid for.
We PAY for Medicare and SS separate from the budget; its not an entitlement
What you pay for Medicare and SS go to paying for existing beneficiaries. The system is bankrupty and won't be solvent much longer. Nearly all politicians recognize that. This is the same problem that Greece is facing right now - they have a large program that a vast majority of the population is now drawing from, yet not enough people paying in to cover it.
I dam well better get my Medicare and SS that I pay for!!!
I'll be 32 later this year. I won't ever see a dime of what I've paid in. That's pretty much guaranteed. The USA will either dissolve the programs, go bankrupt, or collapse.
Get over the fact that you won't see anything unless you're damn close to retirement already.
Well, really, as far as the Obama, Pelosi, Reed, and the Democrats are concerned - when it comes to anything vs. Entitlements, Entitlements will always win.
And that's really what kills democracy. When the cycle starts of approving giving yourself stuff at the expense of the state the end will come. It may not come right away; but it will come. This is why reducing our deficit and national debt is so important - if we don't, the end of the USA will be guaranteed. Essentially, the old saying:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” (Alexis de Tocqueville)
"benefits from the public treasury" are Entitlements - Medicaide, Medicare, Social Security, Welfare, etc; and that is what is presently killing the Greece, Italy, and other economies in Europe. The USA can still avoid it if reforms are properly made. But the present elected class can't seem to do their job in that respect.
There are many options; but you won't know which ones are really at your disposal until you talk with an appropriately practicing lawyer - that is, one that specializes in those kind of legal issues.
I'm sorry, but didn't the divestiture of the 1980s (1984) eliminate the "regulated monopoly" thing ?? They are no longer required to provide service, like was stipulated in the 1934 consent decree. ALSO, he IS right about the Copper, BUT, they started eliminating copper in the late 1970s. Replacing it with an Aluminum alloy. So there MIGHT be less copper than we imagine.
The tenet is correct, though, AT&T will reap a significant amount of money, AND a reduction in taxes. And give us less, and POORER service as a result. BUT, do NOT look for the elimination of the Central Office just yet. a VAST majority of the plant is still 48 volt, Tip & Ring. In oder to GET dialtone, and DIAL, a LOT of the switching equipment will have to remain in place until ALL the household equipment is recovered AND upgraded.
This will take YEARS.
Not necessarily. Once they have all there customers converted over - which they are very strongly pushing - they'll be able to either replace their COs or sell them to a competitor that still needs service supported in the area. At some point, they'll just say enough have converted over that we'll just force the rest to go to someone else or upgrade them automatically - once they reach a specific tipping point where the consider the rest to be neglible.
IMHO the most important thing in the article is that the malware was digitally signed. This exposes the weakness in digital signatures. Not only for applications and modules(drivers) but UEFI and all of the other "secure boot" ideas.
I'd go a bit further in saying that it exposes the weakness ouf using digital signatures period in all applications of it - legal and otherwise.
Yeah, they're really worried about Linux taking over their desktop market. 2012 - the year of linux on the desktop, amirite?
It has nothing to do with desktop market or anything that way, and everything to do with what people are going to be developing for - developer mindshare. And the fact that the USB3 guys did Linux first is a big issue as it means they are losing significant developer mindshare. It also increases the odds that Linux will be supported before Windows in more and more hardware - which increases the potential of users (desktop, server, etc.) moving away from Windows as it is one less reason for people to stay on Windows. However, this is a slow process. USB3 was first in that respect; but it'll have to start picking up with other devices more and more to really start the curve that Microsoft is really worried about in that respect.
So it's an indirect thing, not a direct thing. And one that generally takes time.
That said, more and more devices are starting to see parallel support with Windows direct from the manufacturers at the time of product release, even if they are not advertising it as such. (E.g. Wireless, Printers, Scanners, etc.)
It seems like some thing that any OS has useing divers and don't you still need chipset / vender drivers on some systems anyways?
They do it to try to spin the fact that the hardware vendors ignored Windows when developing USB3 initially; so Windows got the drivers a lot later than Linux did - something Microsoft doesn't want to admit, so they are trying to spin it in their favor.
As details about new features in Windows 8 started to be discussed in the Building 8 blog and bandied about in Linux/Windows forums, Linux users were quick to chime in with a hearty 'Linux had that first' — even for things that were just a natural evolution, like native support for USB 3.0.
Perhaps they're not jeering Windows for "copying" Linux so much as they are happy to show that the flexibility and community involvement in open source is starting to surpass those closed source equivalents? Isn't that what Windows used to gain so much marketshare? Supporting everything before everyone else?
Yes, Microsoft was always big to point out that kind of stuff. For USB3 though, all the manufacturers decided to ignore Windows until late in the game, and use Linux to develop the spec; a major first for Linux and a major problem for Microsoft. So MS got USB3 very late compared to the rest of the market. THis is just spin to try to make MS look good.
Start a company that does the work you want, specializing in open source projects. Realize that at first you may have to take some projects you don't want - to pay the bills - but over time you'll get more projects where you want to be. That's my strategy for my next job. And it's relatively cheap to register an LLC to do it under (at least in the SC, USA). Costs: $200 for SC expenses, $500 for registration and lawyer, business license, 2 computers, a website, and whatever portion of the legally allowed expenses from your home you want to allocate to the business (see a CPA specializing in taxes on that one). So you can do it for under $5k of expenses.
On the other side of the coin, if it's my job to teach my son to read and write, and mathematics, and science, and history/social studies, which has been the case in the last four years (he's in third grade), what is he learning at school? He's constantly complaining that he's bored at school and one of his math goals this year is the 10x10 multiplication table - which he can do in less than three minutes now because I had him doing them all summer.
Why am I sending him to school for the greater part of the healthiest portion of his life if he's learning everything he needs to learn at home?
Look at it this way. It's your job to ensure that what he learns at school is actually learned, and to reinforce it so that he continues to understand it and can use it as a point of educational growth going forward.
This means you need to be involved in his education at least as much as the teacher. It also means that you need to NOT do his homework for him; though reviewing it to help make sure he understands it is a good thing. It means reading with him to improve his literacy and help encouraging him to read. It means NOT scheduling him for every activity under the sun so that he can actually do his homework at home, get enough rest, eat a proper meal, and be prepared for school the next day - and be there on time. It means being an example of all of this as well - in how you help, and how you do your own job.
That is pretty much what was done for generations until the 1960's and the whole "feel good" psychology movement took place where a child's self-esteem took more precedent than anything else - something we are still figuring out the ramifications of today.
Microsoft spent $500M USD on advertising WP7 prior to the $1B USD that they gave Nokia. That money has had very very little ROI. So marketing is not the issue.
They quality and effectiveness of advertising can't be measured by the amount of money spent on it. What did you think of the 'seinfeld' Microsoft ads?
Well, they were kind of freaky, especially the ones with Bill Gates.
However, the bigger issue is that WP7 is just not cool
They should have tied it to the xbox brand, not the windows one.
Agreed. XBox did well as it moved away from the "Windows" brand, even though it does run a version of Windows. However, the market and functionality there was severely restricted to what Microsoft approved - that is, only MS certified games ran on XBox, so there was less of a quality issue there. They are attempting to do that with the Windows Store for WP and Win8, but there's not really any incentive to develop for those platforms (despite the money MS is putting forward for software development) - there's just not enough of a customer base to target.
Users aren't tech savvy. The vast majority don't even know the difference between a gigabyte or a gigahertz. Opening up the OS to native applications will push the OS much farther ahead. The app "ecosystem" development has been severely harmed by MS's closed down attempts to mimic Apple.
History plays no role in the much more profitable consumer market, where choices are made almost spontaneously.
Interesting idea - except that those same non-tech-savvy users know that Windows crashes. See also the article mentioned by this comment, and pay note to reasons 5 and 9 - they very much portray the opinion of those non-tech-savvy users concerning Microsoft and, more specifically, Windows.
MS also has a ton of legacy software in the enterprise market that WP7 can tie into.
And yet corporations are shunning WP7 in favor of iPhone and Android - which is very interesting given the corporate world typically has shunned Apple products. Yet the CEOs are buying iPhones and Androids instead.
The bottom line is Microsoft needs to open up the phone to developers, users, and even pirates. As is said in the x86 market, piracy is "Intel's dirty little secret".
That's really MS's dirty little secret too - one that they are now working with the BSA to eliminate.
It's especially useful for selling hardware in developing countries. This is why MeeGo is so popular. It's a fast, *open* OS with an iOS-like paradigm. Anyone can develop for it, there are no restrictions, nothing is locked down, sideload, backwards load, whatever you want- it's all possible.
This is especially important to younger audiences that don't have the money to pay for every single app or extra feature. Apple is the exception, but even they have tens of millions of jailbroken iOS devices. Still, no one can mimic Apple. It's a recipe for failure.
It's not about mimicking Apple. If Apple continues as they are - only allowing Mac/iOS on their own devices (which probably will never change), then they will always be doomed to be a niche market player. They were early enough in the smart phone and tablet markets to take a very good market share and ensure themselves number two in the long run, but as long as there is something making something like Windows (desktop) and Android (smartphone and tablets) that opens up to the rest of the market then that someone will take over the market and eventually reduce Apple to number two.
Now in this case, Apple may get number two but for Smart Phones and Tablets number two will still be a good healthy chunk of the market, unlike the Desktop market where Microsoft reduced them to 5-10%. OHSA/Google doesn't see the need to decimate them like Microsoft did. But a third player (e.g. Microsoft) won't be able to make much of a dent into the market.
Reason 5 - Windows Brand failure. The Nokia brand damage is recent and perhaps reversable but Microsoft's brand damage with Windows Mobile and Windows Phone has been sustained far longer and been far more comprehensive. Microsoft has good brands such as Xbox and Office Suite but its Windows Brand is weak and in mobile, it is poisonous.
Reason 9 - the OS is deficient. The Windows Phone OS can seem exciting when first seen with its 'Tiles' but on short usage it reveals how limited and unfinished it is. The tech reviews after using Windows Phone (and Lumia) are quite consistent that Windows Phone is not yet ready for prime time. It may become so in the future, but its not yet nearly competitive with advanced OS platforms out there.
I still think WP7 will sell if MS advertises properly...
Microsoft spent $500M USD on advertising WP7 prior to the $1B USD that they gave Nokia. That money has had very very little ROI. So marketing is not the issue.
...and opens up the phone a little.
This is probably a good bit of the issue as carriers can't put on the little things that matter the most to them. Not to mention how the made the only programming interface.NET, which further limits what can be done with the system.
However, the bigger issue is that WP7 is just not cool, and Microsoft has a very bad history of problems on all their platforms - WinCE included. Users are now tech savvy enough in general to recognize that and are looking at the cool things out there instead - iPhone and Android. This is a big issue for Microsoft and one that can't be won by marketing. it's a history they have.
br/.
Kind of like the parent company where I work. Several clients have sworn they will never buy a product again from them; why? They have a history of delivering a very expensive product, getting it accepted, leaving, and then the client turns it off. The client accepted it only to get them out the door in order to purchase a different system; probably after enough contractual fines were levied to make the client happy. They even tried to sell the company (composed of four units) and got only one bidder - and that bidder was really only interested in one of the four units (ours, which doesn't have that history). Microsoft is in that same boat.
Even if I didn't, the exams came from the notes not what the lecturer said
Well that very well depends on the professor. Some are purely on the what is in the book; others purely on what they lectured about regardless of what is in the book; and yet others somewhere in between. So you really have to account for the professor's method of teaching and where they draw the exam from; you may also have to account for differences in courses - for example, some courses have the same test handed out to numerous sections taught by different professors, while others the professor makes the test themselves.
This is true regardless of the discipline of the class - even within science classes.
I'm going to have to guess that you're not a programmer, otherwise you never would have said:
I am by trade and hobby. That doesn't mean that I don't see the laws as being less ambiguous than you do - I keep track of a lot of legal stuff, which probably accounts for the difference in opinion too (but I am not a lawyer, I just enjoy reading legal documents, following cases, and various laws, etc - and I can generally hold my own within reason in such conversations).
When disagreeing with me on the ambiguity of whether or not you can pull forward and wait to turn left at a green light when traffic is blocking the turn, you wrote: "No it's not. It means that unless you know for absolute certainty that you can enter and leave the intersection without blocking traffic then you must not do so". I think this demonstrates the fundamental disconnect we have here. You're saying that the rules aren't ambiguous and then use the term "absolute certainty". I think the problem is that you literally don't believe in ambiguity, therefore, to you, nothing is ambiguous, it's just black and white. The fact is, whether or not you can enter and leave the intersection without blocking traffic is frequently un-knowable without precognition. Without precognition, you need information that generally is not available to the driver such as the actual duration of the light (I've argued for years that traffic lights of all colors should have visible indicators on them of exactly how much time until they change), the current speed and maximum speed, the direction, and the position of all nearby cars.
It's a lot less ambiguous than you may think; and most all the information is available to you. The only ambiguity is when you are still moving - traffic is still moving - and everyone slows up and you don't know where it is going to stop. This is the only time that precognition may be required - but even then, it's not really precognition as it is estimating where you are going to stop yourself, and if needed you stop before the intersection and see how things are going to turn out before you continue on. This is not an issue for an AI to implement. However...
If traffic is already stopped in front of you and you are approaching the intersection, then there is no ambiguity. You know the length of your vehicle, you know where the end of traffic is, and you can estimate (within good reason) as to whether or not your vehicle will block the intersection if you move forward. If it will, then you cannot enter the intersection - even with a green light. This situation is actually even easier for a computer to be programmed for - as it can be more exact about the measurements and application than you can in your estimate as the sensors will be more exact than your estimates will be (but the sensors are the limiting factor).
you need information that generally is not available to the driver such as the actual duration of the light (I've argued for years that traffic lights of all colors should have visible indicators on them of exactly how much time until they change), the current speed and maximum speed, the direction, and the position of all nearby cars
FYI - that is information you should be keeping mind of whenever you are driving, no matter the circumstance. Its information that is critical for accident avoidance at the very least. Autonomous vehicles will also be keeping track of all that kind of information for the same reason. They might also keep a map of the roads available that can be overlaid in addition to detecting where things actually are. So again, you are on the wrong path towards determing an ambigiuty for AVs.
With that information, you might be able to tell, in approximately.1% of real world cases that you'll be able to enter and leave the intersection without blocking tra
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And yet all of that should not be necessary. If I produce a phone compatible with their network technology, I should be able to activate it as pay-as-you-go. But alas, there is not a single cell provider who will activate a smart phone this way. Not even the resellers.
So I am stuck using my phone from 2006 until either me or othe carriers give in. And my battery is dying.
So grab a Pay-as-you-go phone, rip the SIM card out (you may have to dismattle the phone) and use it instead. I've heard of some people moving SIM cards from them to other phones for that exact reason. Yes, I know what you mean.
So let them have the cheaper plans if they want.
You mean give the customer what they want? Seriously, I would love to have a Wifi-only Smartphone that can't access a 3G Data network. Though, FFS, $30/month for a data plan ought to be enough for them to beef up their goddamned network. Where is all that money going?
Hint: Join the Android Developer Community (https://market.android.com/publish/signup) and then buy a Developer Phone at full price.
/. do the same only to have AT&T force them into a data plan. However, I don't know if they did everything I did - e.g. turning off the Data Network access, etc; which I did pretty much immediately after getting the phone. Still, it can be done.
I have a Nexus One that I got a full price, outside of AT&T, without a contract, and simply moved my SIM card over from my previous 2G phone. I even went into AT&T and got them to replace the 2G SIM card with a 3G SIM card. I have no data plan, and have disabled the (Celluar) Data Network access on the phone, so I only get data via WiFi.
Disclaimer: I've heard some here on
If their infrastructure wasn't up to it, why didn't they throttle sales of smartphones?
Or why didn't they just allow people to not buy a data plan?
Seriously, if that is the issue they why should they be:
1. Requiring all devices with a full keyboard to have atleast a text-messaging plan?
2. Requiring all touch-screen devices to have a full data plan?
While many customers may want that, not everyone does. So let them have the cheaper plans if they want.
Well, all the stuff is up there; and yes, it needs to get collected some how. So why not:
1. Collect it into a massive space junk yard that can be managed.
2. Put up a refinery to take in the materials from the space junk yard and produce useful raw materials
3. Use the useful raw materials to (a) maintain the refinery, and (b) build additional stuff in space.
After all, wouldn't that be cheaper than bringing it down to earth and having to resend all the required materials up there again whenever we need to build something?
I could easily see a multi-national corporation or political body being able to manage this so that it could benefit any space-bearing country.
Well, no - I won't likely purchase another TV ever. I will, however, purchase a projector and hook it up to a computer, or possibly a Smart TV box - e.g. a Google TV box (like the Logistics Revue), Boxee, Roku, or something similar; possibly both. Why? I get exactly what I want out it, and TV isn't really what we want. A home theatre is - and a project is better for that than a TV; an a SmartTV box would allow NetFlix, Hulu, etc to be pushed out the projector a little better than a standard Linux-based computer. The computer may have a DVD and/or BlueRay-DVD drive, and possibly a TV tuner as well (for OTA TV) should we want it - or possibly to hook up the VCR, Wii, etc.
But a TV? Not likely.
I like your thinking about possible safety avenues, but I'm not sure any of them have any real merit.
Regarding toddlers sticking metal objects into the socket, the 2008 National Electric Code calls for tamper proof outlets, which are already adopted by an overwhelming majority of states. Those are fairly cheap and prevent sticking items in one side of the socket. GFCIs have been around for quite a while that trip if it detects a slight imbalance in electric flow, sending the current through a relay which cuts the power.
They'll figure out a way to get it to power out some how regardless of the difficulty of the physical interface. Toddlers just have a knack for that kind of thing.
And, FYI, GFCIs are a lot more expensive than a standard socket so it doesn't make much economical sense to use them everywhere in a building.
The logic could be implemented in a very low voltage, low current connection. That part is easy for the outlet itself, and would certainly be near impossible for a toddler to replicate; but people with the know how would be able to - so it wouldn't be very useful for larger management like charging for use at a given outlet; too many things would need a dumb mode that could just allow something to work. It'd be very hard to have to put in user/password style (or any other complicated style) of authentication into it - so the authentication is more likely just a handshake to say "yep, there's something attached that can take power safely from the device".
Now as to your other point, it's a matter of what kind of circuit the outlet is on. Ideally, it'd be connected to a smart circuit that could report back the amount of draw on the line (for a centralized controller) or otherwise networked (for a decentralized controller). That means that there would need to either be an in-house network over the power lines, or the powerlines would have to be upgraded to include another strand or two for a network for the circuits - probably a token ring style network - so they could communicate in either manner. This too is not hard, but likely requires rewriting the building - which will be harder to do. The smart circuits required already exist; and can even be connected to IP networks for external monitoring and control.
So nothing new, just a new use, and with authentication to prevent non-safe uses.
Again, smart circuits already exist that can do that.
In reality, there is no difference. The special "taxes" set aside for entitlements are still taxes, and those entitlements are still paid by the collective. The fact that they've set aside special taxes for it is nothing more than an accounting trick to try to get people to think they are not entitlements.
That may have been the intent; but that's not what is happening. Nor is it really what ever happened. Yes, they ran a surplus at first when they had a lot of people paying in and few people taking out; so that surplus got set aside. However, unless population growth continues on an exponential curve then that cannot be maintained. Right now, the USA is barely producing sustaintable growth - it's like 2.4 children. While not as bad as the roughtly 1.5 or less that Europe, Japan, and China (by law) have - it makes things like Social Security unsustainable.
The other problem is that you're not entitled to anything other than what is granted via the Constitution; which Medicare, Medicaide, Social Security, and Welfare certainly are not granted by the Consitution (though not prohibited either).
Most Tea Partiers are both well-educated, and a healthy mix of young and old. I'd get rid of it entirely; but phase it out - if you're above a certain age, just guarantee they'll never get it. It solves the population issue. When no one is left on the dole, the shut it down and disperse the remaining monies back to the people in some form, and stop taking the tax out. It's the only way to shut it down. Unfortunately, our politicians believe in Keynsian Economics and large debt; which will only result in what is going on in Greece right now.
They are by definition entitlements; regardless of how they are paid for.
What you pay for Medicare and SS go to paying for existing beneficiaries. The system is bankrupty and won't be solvent much longer. Nearly all politicians recognize that. This is the same problem that Greece is facing right now - they have a large program that a vast majority of the population is now drawing from, yet not enough people paying in to cover it.
I'll be 32 later this year. I won't ever see a dime of what I've paid in. That's pretty much guaranteed. The USA will either dissolve the programs, go bankrupt, or collapse.
Get over the fact that you won't see anything unless you're damn close to retirement already.
And that's really what kills democracy. When the cycle starts of approving giving yourself stuff at the expense of the state the end will come. It may not come right away; but it will come. This is why reducing our deficit and national debt is so important - if we don't, the end of the USA will be guaranteed. Essentially, the old saying:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” ( Alexis de Tocqueville )
"benefits from the public treasury" are Entitlements - Medicaide, Medicare, Social Security, Welfare, etc; and that is what is presently killing the Greece, Italy, and other economies in Europe. The USA can still avoid it if reforms are properly made. But the present elected class can't seem to do their job in that respect.
There are many options; but you won't know which ones are really at your disposal until you talk with an appropriately practicing lawyer - that is, one that specializes in those kind of legal issues.
Otherwise, go find a new job.
I'm sorry, but didn't the divestiture of the 1980s (1984) eliminate the "regulated monopoly" thing ?? They are no longer required to provide service, like was stipulated in the 1934 consent decree. ALSO, he IS right about the Copper, BUT, they started eliminating copper in the late 1970s. Replacing it with an Aluminum alloy. So there MIGHT be less copper than we imagine. The tenet is correct, though, AT&T will reap a significant amount of money, AND a reduction in taxes. And give us less, and POORER service as a result. BUT, do NOT look for the elimination of the Central Office just yet. a VAST majority of the plant is still 48 volt, Tip & Ring. In oder to GET dialtone, and DIAL, a LOT of the switching equipment will have to remain in place until ALL the household equipment is recovered AND upgraded. This will take YEARS.
Not necessarily. Once they have all there customers converted over - which they are very strongly pushing - they'll be able to either replace their COs or sell them to a competitor that still needs service supported in the area. At some point, they'll just say enough have converted over that we'll just force the rest to go to someone else or upgrade them automatically - once they reach a specific tipping point where the consider the rest to be neglible.
IMHO the most important thing in the article is that the malware was digitally signed. This exposes the weakness in digital signatures. Not only for applications and modules(drivers) but UEFI and all of the other "secure boot" ideas.
I'd go a bit further in saying that it exposes the weakness ouf using digital signatures period in all applications of it - legal and otherwise.
Yeah, they're really worried about Linux taking over their desktop market. 2012 - the year of linux on the desktop, amirite?
It has nothing to do with desktop market or anything that way, and everything to do with what people are going to be developing for - developer mindshare. And the fact that the USB3 guys did Linux first is a big issue as it means they are losing significant developer mindshare. It also increases the odds that Linux will be supported before Windows in more and more hardware - which increases the potential of users (desktop, server, etc.) moving away from Windows as it is one less reason for people to stay on Windows. However, this is a slow process. USB3 was first in that respect; but it'll have to start picking up with other devices more and more to really start the curve that Microsoft is really worried about in that respect.
So it's an indirect thing, not a direct thing. And one that generally takes time.
That said, more and more devices are starting to see parallel support with Windows direct from the manufacturers at the time of product release, even if they are not advertising it as such. (E.g. Wireless, Printers, Scanners, etc.)
It seems like some thing that any OS has useing divers and don't you still need chipset / vender drivers on some systems anyways?
They do it to try to spin the fact that the hardware vendors ignored Windows when developing USB3 initially; so Windows got the drivers a lot later than Linux did - something Microsoft doesn't want to admit, so they are trying to spin it in their favor.
As details about new features in Windows 8 started to be discussed in the Building 8 blog and bandied about in Linux/Windows forums, Linux users were quick to chime in with a hearty 'Linux had that first' — even for things that were just a natural evolution, like native support for USB 3.0.
Perhaps they're not jeering Windows for "copying" Linux so much as they are happy to show that the flexibility and community involvement in open source is starting to surpass those closed source equivalents? Isn't that what Windows used to gain so much marketshare? Supporting everything before everyone else?
Yes, Microsoft was always big to point out that kind of stuff. For USB3 though, all the manufacturers decided to ignore Windows until late in the game, and use Linux to develop the spec; a major first for Linux and a major problem for Microsoft. So MS got USB3 very late compared to the rest of the market. THis is just spin to try to make MS look good.
Start a company that does the work you want, specializing in open source projects. Realize that at first you may have to take some projects you don't want - to pay the bills - but over time you'll get more projects where you want to be. That's my strategy for my next job. And it's relatively cheap to register an LLC to do it under (at least in the SC, USA). Costs: $200 for SC expenses, $500 for registration and lawyer, business license, 2 computers, a website, and whatever portion of the legally allowed expenses from your home you want to allocate to the business (see a CPA specializing in taxes on that one). So you can do it for under $5k of expenses.
On the other side of the coin, if it's my job to teach my son to read and write, and mathematics, and science, and history/social studies, which has been the case in the last four years (he's in third grade), what is he learning at school? He's constantly complaining that he's bored at school and one of his math goals this year is the 10x10 multiplication table - which he can do in less than three minutes now because I had him doing them all summer.
Why am I sending him to school for the greater part of the healthiest portion of his life if he's learning everything he needs to learn at home?
Look at it this way. It's your job to ensure that what he learns at school is actually learned, and to reinforce it so that he continues to understand it and can use it as a point of educational growth going forward.
This means you need to be involved in his education at least as much as the teacher. It also means that you need to NOT do his homework for him; though reviewing it to help make sure he understands it is a good thing. It means reading with him to improve his literacy and help encouraging him to read. It means NOT scheduling him for every activity under the sun so that he can actually do his homework at home, get enough rest, eat a proper meal, and be prepared for school the next day - and be there on time. It means being an example of all of this as well - in how you help, and how you do your own job.
That is pretty much what was done for generations until the 1960's and the whole "feel good" psychology movement took place where a child's self-esteem took more precedent than anything else - something we are still figuring out the ramifications of today.
I think that is the coolest thing I have seen in a while. Nothing like the king of all high level languages generating low level machine code.
They didn't write it in SmallTalk which would certainly be the king of all high level languages, not lisp.
Lisps only quality is its known use of braces - which is also its greatest fault. A queen among queens.
See PJ's comment on Groklaw. Covers it pretty well.
Microsoft spent $500M USD on advertising WP7 prior to the $1B USD that they gave Nokia. That money has had very very little ROI. So marketing is not the issue.
They quality and effectiveness of advertising can't be measured by the amount of money spent on it. What did you think of the 'seinfeld' Microsoft ads?
Well, they were kind of freaky, especially the ones with Bill Gates.
However, the bigger issue is that WP7 is just not cool
They should have tied it to the xbox brand, not the windows one.
Agreed. XBox did well as it moved away from the "Windows" brand, even though it does run a version of Windows. However, the market and functionality there was severely restricted to what Microsoft approved - that is, only MS certified games ran on XBox, so there was less of a quality issue there. They are attempting to do that with the Windows Store for WP and Win8, but there's not really any incentive to develop for those platforms (despite the money MS is putting forward for software development) - there's just not enough of a customer base to target.
Interesting idea - except that those same non-tech-savvy users know that Windows crashes. See also the article mentioned by this comment, and pay note to reasons 5 and 9 - they very much portray the opinion of those non-tech-savvy users concerning Microsoft and, more specifically, Windows.
And yet corporations are shunning WP7 in favor of iPhone and Android - which is very interesting given the corporate world typically has shunned Apple products. Yet the CEOs are buying iPhones and Androids instead.
That's really MS's dirty little secret too - one that they are now working with the BSA to eliminate.
It's not about mimicking Apple. If Apple continues as they are - only allowing Mac/iOS on their own devices (which probably will never change), then they will always be doomed to be a niche market player. They were early enough in the smart phone and tablet markets to take a very good market share and ensure themselves number two in the long run, but as long as there is something making something like Windows (desktop) and Android (smartphone and tablets) that opens up to the rest of the market then that someone will take over the market and eventually reduce Apple to number two.
Now in this case, Apple may get number two but for Smart Phones and Tablets number two will still be a good healthy chunk of the market, unlike the Desktop market where Microsoft reduced them to 5-10%. OHSA/Google doesn't see the need to decimate them like Microsoft did. But a third player (e.g. Microsoft) won't be able to make much of a dent into the market.
Reason 5 - Windows Brand failure. The Nokia brand damage is recent and perhaps reversable but Microsoft's brand damage with Windows Mobile and Windows Phone has been sustained far longer and been far more comprehensive. Microsoft has good brands such as Xbox and Office Suite but its Windows Brand is weak and in mobile, it is poisonous.
Reason 9 - the OS is deficient. The Windows Phone OS can seem exciting when first seen with its 'Tiles' but on short usage it reveals how limited and unfinished it is. The tech reviews after using Windows Phone (and Lumia) are quite consistent that Windows Phone is not yet ready for prime time. It may become so in the future, but its not yet nearly competitive with advanced OS platforms out there.
Microsoft spent $500M USD on advertising WP7 prior to the $1B USD that they gave Nokia. That money has had very very little ROI. So marketing is not the issue.
This is probably a good bit of the issue as carriers can't put on the little things that matter the most to them. Not to mention how the made the only programming interface .NET, which further limits what can be done with the system.
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Kind of like the parent company where I work. Several clients have sworn they will never buy a product again from them; why? They have a history of delivering a very expensive product, getting it accepted, leaving, and then the client turns it off. The client accepted it only to get them out the door in order to purchase a different system; probably after enough contractual fines were levied to make the client happy. They even tried to sell the company (composed of four units) and got only one bidder - and that bidder was really only interested in one of the four units (ours, which doesn't have that history). Microsoft is in that same boat.
However, the bigger issue is that WP7 is just not cool, and Microsoft has a very bad history of problems on all their platforms - WinCE included. Users are now tech savvy enough in general to recognize that and are looking at the cool things out there instead - iPhone and Android. This is a big issue for Microsoft and one that can't be won by marketing. it's a history they have.
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Well that very well depends on the professor. Some are purely on the what is in the book; others purely on what they lectured about regardless of what is in the book; and yet others somewhere in between. So you really have to account for the professor's method of teaching and where they draw the exam from; you may also have to account for differences in courses - for example, some courses have the same test handed out to numerous sections taught by different professors, while others the professor makes the test themselves.
This is true regardless of the discipline of the class - even within science classes.
We may not.
I am by trade and hobby. That doesn't mean that I don't see the laws as being less ambiguous than you do - I keep track of a lot of legal stuff, which probably accounts for the difference in opinion too (but I am not a lawyer, I just enjoy reading legal documents, following cases, and various laws, etc - and I can generally hold my own within reason in such conversations).
It's a lot less ambiguous than you may think; and most all the information is available to you. The only ambiguity is when you are still moving - traffic is still moving - and everyone slows up and you don't know where it is going to stop. This is the only time that precognition may be required - but even then, it's not really precognition as it is estimating where you are going to stop yourself, and if needed you stop before the intersection and see how things are going to turn out before you continue on. This is not an issue for an AI to implement. However...
If traffic is already stopped in front of you and you are approaching the intersection, then there is no ambiguity. You know the length of your vehicle, you know where the end of traffic is, and you can estimate (within good reason) as to whether or not your vehicle will block the intersection if you move forward. If it will, then you cannot enter the intersection - even with a green light. This situation is actually even easier for a computer to be programmed for - as it can be more exact about the measurements and application than you can in your estimate as the sensors will be more exact than your estimates will be (but the sensors are the limiting factor). you need information that generally is not available to the driver such as the actual duration of the light (I've argued for years that traffic lights of all colors should have visible indicators on them of exactly how much time until they change), the current speed and maximum speed, the direction, and the position of all nearby cars
FYI - that is information you should be keeping mind of whenever you are driving, no matter the circumstance. Its information that is critical for accident avoidance at the very least. Autonomous vehicles will also be keeping track of all that kind of information for the same reason. They might also keep a map of the roads available that can be overlaid in addition to detecting where things actually are. So again, you are on the wrong path towards determing an ambigiuty for AVs.