I don't need to lock my house or my car. Most thieves are smart enough to know that they're likely to get their head blown off if they try something. A few teenagers in the area haven't heard the "chunk chunk" of a pump action shotgun in real life.
The amount that's going to be stolen from any store that uses this is going to be prohibitive. Any store that is going to use a system like this will have to greatly increase price to offset the theft. It's much cheaper to use even well-paid cashiers to check people out.
I've been reading Slashdot for a loooong time, so you can understand my surprise to read a useful article! I've got some kids coming through my neighborhood ripping off electronics from inside people's cars. I shouldn't have to lock my car in my own driveway. Luckily, I have an old laptop that I was getting ready to donate. It's going to be fun!
How is getting a credit card "enough to seriously fuck with someones life"? You call the credit card company, tell them which charges are fraudulent, and get a new card. We have federal laws that protect credit card users. What's the big deal?
Why would you go back to "permanent"? Less money, more hours, less flexibility...? I worked permanent at one IT job once, and I couldn't understand why other people did it. I worked as a contractor for the rest of my IT career.
1. There are options other than Best Buy and Amazon. Take your head out of your ass and look around in your local community.
2. Amazon can keep prices low because they can build a cheap warehouse in the middle of bumfuck, pay their employees next to nothing, and don't have to invest in multiple locations. Convenience costs money. It's cheap to have a warehouse in the middle of a corn field.
If you, and every other consumer can manage to think about something other than your own wallet, you might be able to see how the decisions you make impact your community. Your short sighted thinking has gotten us where we are today: No music stores. No book stores. And what retail is left, is generally pretty nasty (Best Buy, Wal Mart, etc.).
It's not painful. It's just different than what web developers doing "select *" are used to. As a system, it works well for tiny projects, all the way to the largest databases in the world. In the world of "develop it now, deal with problems later", people just can't be bothered to learning the right way to do something.
And SQL isn't broke... there are just lots of people too lazy to learn not only the language, but to learn the fundamentals of how a relational database works.
It's because of exactly what you're describing combined with a broken file association system (long after I removed FoxIt PDF reader because it wasn't working, Firefox was, inexplicably, still trying to launch it), that I moved all of my business and personal machines to Chrome last week. Adblock for Chrome works better, everything renders faster and better, and we've had no crashes or memory leaks.
Bye bye, Firefox, hello, Chrome!
"Why do people insist on using laptops for doing anything other than browsing the net while watching TV?"
Why not? I just use laptops for everything. They're easy to use, and easy to carry around. They cost significantly less than a tablet, and do significantly more. Sure, they cost a little bit more than a desktop, but they're really versatile, and just as powerful.
It really doesn't matter which one you pick, unless you're running some kind of new-ish games on it, or something else that's super CPU or video intensive. The hardware is so ahead of what's needed for most people at this point, that just about anything made within the past 10 years works fine for most purposes. When I'm buying PC's (or laptops) for my company, I just find some refurbished model that has 2-4 GB RAM, and a decent hard drive. The rest of the specs really don't matter unless you have very specific needs. I don't know why a PC would be "obsolete" in the literal sense. Most of my PC's and laptops and servers were all made in the early 2000's and all run Windows XP and all do everything I need them to do just fine. I generally shoot for $300-400 for a laptop.
Is it less buggy? Please, somebody tell me that some of the random crashing, failed renderings, and memory leaks are fixed. While Adblock is great, it's not going to keep me from reverting my whole company back to IE forever...
It's because you can carry the damn things around with you without your arm falling off.
Bullshit. I'm sorry that you have some kind of medical condition in which a 2 lb laptop will cause your arm to fall off, but that's not why they're popular. I find it hard to believe that most people have whatever medical condition that you happen to have. They're popular because they're new and shiny. That's it. New and shiny. Once the new and shiny wears off, most tablet users will go back to laptops of some kind.
Lots and lots and lots of people don't have "smart" phones. I don't, and I don't plan on getting one. About 3/4 of the people that I know don't have "smart" phones, either. Assuming that everybody carries around a "smart" phone at all times isn't a very safe assumption.
I'd make me do a double take all right... I'd be thinking, "Who in the hell was this guy, and does he really think that he's so memorable that he doesn't have to put any information on his card?"
No, the business card is not dead. How else do people transfer information? Scratch email addresses, phone numbers, etc. on napkins? Sure, there may be more info on business cards these days, but business cards are still absolutely necessary. And yes, once I email or get an email from a person once, I generally have their contact info forever (outsourced, backed up Exchange email living on a server), but I still need a business card to make that initial email contact.
In the article, the author implied that one of the people she was talking to put her email address in some gadget he was holding ("The other craned his neck to copy my email address into his Hashable account and instantly sent me his virtual business card instead."). But guess what... not everybody carries gadgets! On top of that, but you still have to deal with spelling everything correctly verbally, which often doesn't go well.
Business cards are still alive and well with anyone who actually does business.
It'd be one thing if the NYTimes was just another outlet re-hashing AP and Reuter stories. But, they actually do their own reporting, and their own writing, and I generally find it valuable to me. $15/month isn't cheap, but considering that I donate significantly more than that every month to my local NPR station, I'll probably bite the bullet and subscribe.
The point is that if every single person went into tedious detail investigating each and every thing in their lives the same way that Stallman is suggesting that people do with computer software and telephones, nothing would get done. Society has something called "division of labor" which makes life better for everybody. Instead of reading each and every line of code in each and every electronic device that one uses, you get to simply use the device. Instead of being familiar with every nut and bolt in a car, the metal smelting process, the plastic manufacturing, the paint, ad infinitum, people get to simply get into a car and go somewhere. Instead of being familiar with the details of how one's shoe is manufactured, the machines used, how the materials were created, we just buy shoes, and wear them.
I happen to be an expert on pet supplies. Does Mr. Stallman know where his dog's food is made? Does he know what kind of meat goes into his cat food? Does he know how the meat was raised? Does he know if the vitamins are synthetic or natural? Does he know the difference between "as fed" and "by volume" guaranteed analysis? Does he know if it was extruded or baked? Does he know the difference between chelated and non-chelated minerals? Does he know the proper protein to fat ratio for his dog? Does he know the purpose of each and every individual ingredient in cat food? Probably not, and nor would I expect him to. That's MY specialty, and I'd have to have the reasoning ability of a 12 year old to assume that everybody should or has any reason to know the minutiae of pet supplies that I do.
To describe his view of the world as myopic is an understatement. Different people have different specialties in life, and everybody working together enables us to have better lives than if we all were solitary people living on the dirt, hunting our own food and making our own clothes.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't need to lock my house or my car. Most thieves are smart enough to know that they're likely to get their head blown off if they try something. A few teenagers in the area haven't heard the "chunk chunk" of a pump action shotgun in real life.
The amount that's going to be stolen from any store that uses this is going to be prohibitive. Any store that is going to use a system like this will have to greatly increase price to offset the theft. It's much cheaper to use even well-paid cashiers to check people out.
A desktop PC + 19" monitor can be had for $300 (refurbished). I don't see any reason to deny somebody two computers who wants two.
I've been reading Slashdot for a loooong time, so you can understand my surprise to read a useful article! I've got some kids coming through my neighborhood ripping off electronics from inside people's cars. I shouldn't have to lock my car in my own driveway. Luckily, I have an old laptop that I was getting ready to donate. It's going to be fun!
How is getting a credit card "enough to seriously fuck with someones life"? You call the credit card company, tell them which charges are fraudulent, and get a new card. We have federal laws that protect credit card users. What's the big deal?
Who really cares? People who eagerly pony up a few hundred (thousand) bucks every year for the newest, shiniest Apple geegaw certainly don't care.
Personally, I say good for Apple. Their customers are loyal worshipers at the altar of Consumerism, and they deserve everything they get (or buy).
Neither. I live very happily, tablet-free, thanks. My laptop, though, uses Wi-Fi, though!
Why would you go back to "permanent"? Less money, more hours, less flexibility...? I worked permanent at one IT job once, and I couldn't understand why other people did it. I worked as a contractor for the rest of my IT career.
1. There are options other than Best Buy and Amazon. Take your head out of your ass and look around in your local community.
2. Amazon can keep prices low because they can build a cheap warehouse in the middle of bumfuck, pay their employees next to nothing, and don't have to invest in multiple locations. Convenience costs money. It's cheap to have a warehouse in the middle of a corn field.
If you, and every other consumer can manage to think about something other than your own wallet, you might be able to see how the decisions you make impact your community. Your short sighted thinking has gotten us where we are today: No music stores. No book stores. And what retail is left, is generally pretty nasty (Best Buy, Wal Mart, etc.).
By "system", I meant RDBMS's.
It's not painful. It's just different than what web developers doing "select *" are used to. As a system, it works well for tiny projects, all the way to the largest databases in the world. In the world of "develop it now, deal with problems later", people just can't be bothered to learning the right way to do something.
If it ain't broke...
And SQL isn't broke... there are just lots of people too lazy to learn not only the language, but to learn the fundamentals of how a relational database works.
It's because of exactly what you're describing combined with a broken file association system (long after I removed FoxIt PDF reader because it wasn't working, Firefox was, inexplicably, still trying to launch it), that I moved all of my business and personal machines to Chrome last week. Adblock for Chrome works better, everything renders faster and better, and we've had no crashes or memory leaks. Bye bye, Firefox, hello, Chrome!
"Why do people insist on using laptops for doing anything other than browsing the net while watching TV?"
Why not? I just use laptops for everything. They're easy to use, and easy to carry around. They cost significantly less than a tablet, and do significantly more. Sure, they cost a little bit more than a desktop, but they're really versatile, and just as powerful.
It really doesn't matter which one you pick, unless you're running some kind of new-ish games on it, or something else that's super CPU or video intensive. The hardware is so ahead of what's needed for most people at this point, that just about anything made within the past 10 years works fine for most purposes. When I'm buying PC's (or laptops) for my company, I just find some refurbished model that has 2-4 GB RAM, and a decent hard drive. The rest of the specs really don't matter unless you have very specific needs. I don't know why a PC would be "obsolete" in the literal sense. Most of my PC's and laptops and servers were all made in the early 2000's and all run Windows XP and all do everything I need them to do just fine. I generally shoot for $300-400 for a laptop.
The article pretty much says: "Insert PCI card. Turn on computer."
Really? I never would have guessed. I'm so glad to have this valuable nugget of information. I was about to go and buy all new computers!
Is it less buggy? Please, somebody tell me that some of the random crashing, failed renderings, and memory leaks are fixed. While Adblock is great, it's not going to keep me from reverting my whole company back to IE forever...
It's because you can carry the damn things around with you without your arm falling off.
Bullshit. I'm sorry that you have some kind of medical condition in which a 2 lb laptop will cause your arm to fall off, but that's not why they're popular. I find it hard to believe that most people have whatever medical condition that you happen to have. They're popular because they're new and shiny. That's it. New and shiny. Once the new and shiny wears off, most tablet users will go back to laptops of some kind.
Lots and lots and lots of people don't have "smart" phones. I don't, and I don't plan on getting one. About 3/4 of the people that I know don't have "smart" phones, either. Assuming that everybody carries around a "smart" phone at all times isn't a very safe assumption.
I'd make me do a double take all right... I'd be thinking, "Who in the hell was this guy, and does he really think that he's so memorable that he doesn't have to put any information on his card?"
Assuming both people have iPhones, and they both have the app already installed, and they both have their iPhones with them and charged up, and....
If somebody suggested something like this to me in real life, I'd just have to laugh.
No, the business card is not dead. How else do people transfer information? Scratch email addresses, phone numbers, etc. on napkins? Sure, there may be more info on business cards these days, but business cards are still absolutely necessary. And yes, once I email or get an email from a person once, I generally have their contact info forever (outsourced, backed up Exchange email living on a server), but I still need a business card to make that initial email contact.
In the article, the author implied that one of the people she was talking to put her email address in some gadget he was holding ("The other craned his neck to copy my email address into his Hashable account and instantly sent me his virtual business card instead."). But guess what... not everybody carries gadgets! On top of that, but you still have to deal with spelling everything correctly verbally, which often doesn't go well.
Business cards are still alive and well with anyone who actually does business.
It'd be one thing if the NYTimes was just another outlet re-hashing AP and Reuter stories. But, they actually do their own reporting, and their own writing, and I generally find it valuable to me. $15/month isn't cheap, but considering that I donate significantly more than that every month to my local NPR station, I'll probably bite the bullet and subscribe.
The point is that if every single person went into tedious detail investigating each and every thing in their lives the same way that Stallman is suggesting that people do with computer software and telephones, nothing would get done. Society has something called "division of labor" which makes life better for everybody. Instead of reading each and every line of code in each and every electronic device that one uses, you get to simply use the device. Instead of being familiar with every nut and bolt in a car, the metal smelting process, the plastic manufacturing, the paint, ad infinitum, people get to simply get into a car and go somewhere. Instead of being familiar with the details of how one's shoe is manufactured, the machines used, how the materials were created, we just buy shoes, and wear them.
I happen to be an expert on pet supplies. Does Mr. Stallman know where his dog's food is made? Does he know what kind of meat goes into his cat food? Does he know how the meat was raised? Does he know if the vitamins are synthetic or natural? Does he know the difference between "as fed" and "by volume" guaranteed analysis? Does he know if it was extruded or baked? Does he know the difference between chelated and non-chelated minerals? Does he know the proper protein to fat ratio for his dog? Does he know the purpose of each and every individual ingredient in cat food? Probably not, and nor would I expect him to. That's MY specialty, and I'd have to have the reasoning ability of a 12 year old to assume that everybody should or has any reason to know the minutiae of pet supplies that I do.
To describe his view of the world as myopic is an understatement. Different people have different specialties in life, and everybody working together enables us to have better lives than if we all were solitary people living on the dirt, hunting our own food and making our own clothes.
Just use a credit union.