...(in Japan) and a lot of people keep landlines, too.
Err, yes - I believe the rest of the modern world would have landlines in the future, it's called Fibre Cable. It has long replaced the old Copper Wire, and wireless is still inferior to landlines. The speed of the light is the way to go.
Here in Sweden a lot of us have 100/10 to 1000/1000mbit lines, they're all fibre cable with ping times and speed you can only dream of in a wireless scenario.
UK has been playing the wannabe EU version of America lately, wanting to close borders, wanting to revoke immigrant rights, remove welfare rights and whatnot. They have imposed several new laws to monitor their citizens, and they're becoming more and more like an closed-border socialist version of America every passing month. Now they also want rights in the U.S.A. LOL, I can't stop laughing at this, but this is so pitiful.
Advertisement revenue on traditional TV has been on a downhill run - the short term solution puts the FINAL nail in the coffin for TV, and that is the...ok then, we'll just increase the number of ads and cover our usual income that way.
In Sweden (or Norway, Denmark etc.) we pay for 3 licenses:
1) The National TV license. This one is MANDATORY if you have a television. It's roughly 300$ a year, and you can't opt out unless you have NO TV or RADIO.
2) The second license is the one you pay for your subscription channels, that is...if you want something BESIDES the NATIONAL "we-will-kill-you-with-culture" channels.
3) The THIRD license is the forced Advertisement which consists of pretty exactly 5 minutes of ADS (30-50% Casino/Gambling ads) and 2.5 minutes of ADS and SPONSORS for the TV channels next tv programs, which they will repeat over and over until you're a dumb monkey salivating as you try to reach the remote, now that finger pressing is just a body-twitch.
The worst part is that you PAY for all of the other stuff and STILL get forced to watch those horrible repetitive Casino-this-gamble-that ads.
I rarely watch "broadcast" television anymore, I usually spend my time on the internet, and/or watch PAID for documentaries and movies on Netflix and other services where I can TURN off the goddamn ads!
Ah, ok. Probably the D-SUN-V3.0 USB to TTL converter, right?
Just be aware that these USB to TTL converters doesn't come with hardware DTR/RTS/CTS and basically only have RXD/TXD, but this works just fine, you just need to know what you're doing. Make sure you have a RESET function for your ESP 8266-1 chip set up, and that you follow the recommended uploading/programming procedure (because the ESP-01 will be ready for upload right after you reset it for a few seconds). There are schematics on the net for how this works, it took a lot of fidgeting for me to find out this - but it worked flawlessly once I got this right.
Also - remember to set your USB to TTL converter to 3.3v because your ESP 8266 is 3.3v based and will not like 5v in the long run as this can fry the thing. I use the ESP 8266-12E which is the same as yours, except with a load of I/O ports.
I'm a big consumer of the Arduino clones (and FYI - Arduinos are FREE to clone for everyone, it's a part of the concept).
The chip has now been replaced with the CH340 - which even though it lacks some of the FTDI features, is a bang up chip that gets the job done - even at really high Serial speeds, I've yet to see one of them fail on me (I use Linux, where CH340 runs right out of the box, windows needs a driver).
I've not even heard of the FTDI before all of this came up.
Swedish reactors where considered the 2nd least upgradeable and amongst the worst in the world. Kinda interesting since their Finnish neighbour has one of the most efficient and upgradeable reactor designs in the world. Go figure.
TV stations are normally AD-revenue funded. 189 bucks can't even get you a second of AIRTIME let alone any production team.
And besides, if the money funds better police work like better education for the officers (how to handle public incidents better), better material for proper investigations instead of improper funds to get the crimes solved, well - then I'm all for it.
What worries me though is: where does that place US - your average citizen in this picture? What say do we have in this? Do I get a cut as an innocent bystandard in any of these pictures / videos? What if something got out that shouldn’t have, or jeopardizes my family's safety - NOW THAT would be an issue here.
So what the fuck do you recommend they use instead of Windows?... Linux used to be a competitor to Windows, but that was a decade ago.
There there...it's perfectly okay for you to take the blue pill, no one will ever blame you for it, that's what most people would opt for.
Pills aside, I've been on the red pi....I mean - using Linux since 1998, and mostly as a user since I don't really like messing around under the hood - but just get my job done, granted - that was hard back in the 90s, but...today (unless you've been living under a ROCK) Linux beats windows any day. I run it, took 15 minutes to install - and I never even bothered to look for drivers on BRAND new bleeding edge hardware. Everything ran out of the box on Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa.
...and I suspect they know it, this is their ALL-IN-OR-NOTHING last nail in the coffin investment, too bad they didn't smarten up and joined the club instead of trying to go down screaming and burning.
I'm an 50 something computer user/programmer/admin/whatever that has been using and coding computers since I was 12 years old, the days when I had to make my own video games because I was an early adopter and nothing was available to us. Didn't stop me from getting what I want. And guess what? That's the way of the world, this is how customers work - they want something? You have it? You can sell it! But trying to shove stuff down their throats doesn't really work well in the long run. History repeats itself.
I've been using Windows alongside Linux since 1998 (before that, it was all about Commodore 64, Amiga / Atari etc. for me). I basically went over to Linux back then in order to rid myself of proprietary stuff and take back the control of my computer - make it do what I WANT to do. Of course, in those days that was simply too much for the Joneses and they would prefer the mainstream instead of messing around under the hood just to get basic stuff up and running - and guess what - we...the Linux users NEVER blamed them for that. In fact, I understand this perfectly, heck...that was partially the Mac's big success - you could just plug it in and no messing around with stupid drivers and whatnot. Normal people just want to use their computers.
But something happened - Google started to support Android bigtime, and Android is essentially Linux under the hood - and then Hardware support EXPLODED. before we knew it - we saw companies like Ubuntu and many others fight like mad against Windows (or rather, run their own course as a decent competitor regardless of losses and support), because they knew - eventually - they'll catch up. And we did - together!
I use Mint Linux today - when I discovered this combo (Ubuntu + Cinnamon) I could basically say goodbye to my Windows partition for good. It was just an annoying liability of worms, constant numerous battles with worms, updates, turning of disk trashing...oh sorry...caching / optimizing or whatever they call necessary to optimize that slow running disk trashing system that took forever to boot each time I wanted to run something that demanded Windows only. It was getting further and further away from me, I had hardly touched Windows for ages.
AND HERE...is where things get fun...
I decided that I needed a new computer, so I went and bought the most BLEEDING edge hardware I could get my hands on, in my big ego...(basically only running Linux) I had totally forgotten that there was an operating system called windows (and curiously so had the people at the computer store, they themselves ran Linux mainly at home...with STEAM...as they where true gamers). I bought a system based on their recommendations, and I was NOT disappointed.
When I assembled the entire computer at home - latest bleeding specs - latest Mint Linux - it all installed in less than 15 minutes WITH EVERYTHING I NEEDED (try that with windows unless you have a Ghosted Image with the EXACT specs of that computer), and it boots in between 3 and 6 seconds from start to finish! And this is just with a STOCK EVO 850 Samsung SSD HD. Try to imagine the speed if they had the PCI SSD In stock....(gonna get that one!).
And every part of the hardware was supported - straight away - not only that, my setup surpassed EVERY RENDERING TEST done with BLENDER open source 3D software CYCLES (software rendering, not Nvidia GPU) done on tested Windows machines with exactly the same specs as mine.
...are amongst a lot of those things we'll see in 2016, hardly a new theme from 2015, but there's light at the end of the tunnel and here's my predictions for 2016:
As you may be aware of - it's becoming increasingly hard to get a steady job to hold on to and plan a future, the big companies want young and fresh minds to form and take advantage of while they're willing and ready and the older generation will have to start their own businesses in order to keep their capital flow coming. The most important thing will be - change. People must be willing to do other things than what they're currently used to, because things will indeed change, slowly over the year 2016 - 17 - 18 - 19 etc... you catch the drift, we will be moving towards the moneyless society.
During that transaction of time - we will experience increased civil unrest, increased dismay with our government, leaders, politicians, employers etc. since our way of life as we know it is threatened with lay-offs, unpaid overtime, smaller salary, increased immigration and heavy outsourcing. This is not easy to handle for anyone of us, but it's a thing we've gotta get through somehow, and the only way to do this - is to stay cold and level headed and make sure we're a PART of the future instead of just complaining about it. You don't want to miss the bandwagon when you in reality can take advantages of the change instead of being the one screwed over.
We will notice an increase in social welfare recipients, joblessness, and a transition towards online entertainment instead of manual manufacturing, albeit that part will be outsourced so you may want to re educate yourself into something dealing with design, media, film, online communication, fitness and personal health - as these areas will most likely see an incredible increase.
Good future job perspectives will be in: Automation, Web Shops, Online shopping, Online Entertainment, Programming (Improving algorithms for saving space/data/bandwidth etc. will be in HIGH demand) Game developers, Graphics artists will be sought after so don't sell yourselves short by working for free (these has been outsourced with BAD results earlier, so this area will be especially lucrative). Due to heavy world immigration people working within Medicine (Doctors, surgeons, dentists etc.) will be in HIGH demand anywhere and you'll pretty much be able to set your own salary. As the population becomes more passive, on welfare/being more online during this transition to the moneyless society - we will also notice an increased need for personal health so if you're into fitness - start your own GYMs now, you'll bloom before you know what to do with your success.
Due to increased online production, film, media, entertainment etc. an increased need for the worlds most hated people (lawyers) will be a fact soon, because you'll need to protect that intellectual property (you and I may disagree here, I'm more for Open Source myself) but what you and I think isn't always what will happen, so....I think we're gonna see a huge increase in companies hiring lawyers just to survive out there.
Due to increased immigration, it might be wise to invest heavily in property - the gov. will usually pay overprice for rent/property-lease/welfare/daycare/schooling accommodations for immigrants (this is happening BIG TIME in Sweden right now, and we're literally experiencing newcomers to the property market literally raking it in just because of this). Unfortunately they're also amateurs so the market will suffer greatly from this as well, so beware! You may even want to consider a career as an interpretor as these will be in HIGH DEMAND shortly.
Retro trend: We're experiencing the boomers are getting middle aged, so they want to relive their childhood - expect a HIGH demand for old used tech, especially video games from the late 70s to the early 80s, a huge comeback for Pinball machines & old arcades.
New Tech: Expect flat screen TV's to set a record low price-tag i
I kinda liked the WayBackMachine when it came out, it was a fun novelty to look back at past web pages and things I used to draw back then, but after 20-30 years on the net or so, I'm inclined to think that we may not WANT to store our every move on the net, what might seem innocent now may not be so in 30 years.
Besides...isn't the NSA already doing that? They've probably got WayBetterFunding than the WayBackMachine folks.
We've read the "Government does this, the Government doesn't do what it should, and the Government is corrupted etc." so many times it becomes both tiring and old, especially since most of it is just us - the people - voicing our opinions about things we've "heard" about, and even if it was true - we do basically NOTHING about it...but talk.
That said...even if you elected someone else - the power of knowledge is too tempting for ANYONE to resist. Therefore the way is OPEN SOURCE all the way. The safest way is actually no secrets in any source or any software, keep everything open - and then no one will be able to put in back doors or abuse bugs that are unknown as everyone will be able to peek inside and help fixing it.
What we need to do is to stop this endless paranoid game of "who do you trust?" and start producing results and solutions. We can do this together...the "gorberment" can't do anything about it, if anything - they should keep to what they do best (whatever that is) and leave the technology to enthusiasts like us, WE - the people - will pretty much make sure your privacy is safe because we'll all end up using open source software.
The only thing "goberment" is achieving with this crazy "who do you trust?" game is making sure would-be terrorist keep digging a deeper hole to hide in and grow a HUGE database of every persons private lives - kept - for their interpretation, with the kind of knowledge and power NO man should hold.
What you do with your computer or in your home - isn't government business no matter what the cause is. If you don't have the freedom to think freely, voice your opinions at will - then you don't have any freedoms at all.
Now, if they ever outlaw open source, then we'll be in trouble (or rather - they will).
So, you 2 major geeks, spending time configuring Linux bootloaders, partitioning and whatnot cannot spend 21 seconds to untick windows automatic updates?! Don't tell me you have automatic updates in Mint.
Well, that was simplified. The long answer is that Windows is now inherently much more complex build than a neatly customized Linux setup. For example - there's a reason you need to clean your windows registries quite often if you don't want windows to load slower and slower the more you use it...it's not just the automatic updates. And nevermind if you turn OFF the automatic updates...in Window's case - you'll be sitting on a ticking timebomb of worms, viruses and more trojans than you can imagine.
Now if you REALLY want to get detailed, the beauty of Linux is that you have total freedom to configure it as you want, you simply can't do that with Windows as it is PROPRIETARY software all the way.
If you call this trolling, you're using reverse psychology - because the only one trolling here is you.
I've been using Linux since 1998. I really wanted to break free back then, it's a need deeply buried into me and I want total control over my own computer - even I can't claim to know enough about that, and I probably never will...but that said...
Usually over the last 16 years or so - I've had Windows installed as a second boot partition because there was always this special software I needed to run under Windows, at times it was games, at times it was 3D proprietary software, at times it was stuff I needed for work, paying my taxes to the gov. etc. All stuff that REQUIRED Windows to be present.
Ever since Mint Linux 17.x those days where absolutely GONE. My windows partition was gathering dust - and became a big liability as it took 30+ minutes to boot every time since I used it so seldom that it had like 10ths of updates that needed installing each time, Mint Linux does this seamlessly and there's no need for 100s of reboots.
It turns out there's literally drivers for anything on the planet on Linux today, so I have drivers for my Card Readers (Needed for gov. work), I have drivers for my weird hardware that doesn't even work under windows - and I enjoy modern software with it. On windows you constantly have to purchase NEW hardware to make the older (but nice expensive stuff) work as the manufacturers simply drop support after a while.
Linux Mint is also one of the most flawless Linux distros I've ever witnessed - it had nearly made me forget about anything Linux (that's how you can tell you've got a good OS...) It simply means...I just USE it, and don't have to repair stuff under the hood each day of my working life. And I like it that way, I'm not 20 years and loving to fix basic bugs anymore, I'm at that age where I concentrate on MY job and what I like to do, that's when it feels awesome to have something that just works.
Thanks a lot to the Ubuntu and Mint Linux team - you guys have made my life SO much easier over the years. (and btw. The windows partition is gone, don't even miss it).
Facebook is the most annoying and dumbest app my devices refuse to remove. They all come with my recent mobile phones, but they refuse to remove the facebook apps from my phones.
...This doesn't just happen in America. We the people all over the world are getting replaced by cheaper workers now. I was replaced myself, and had to train up a couple of cheap trainees that the GOV. had given my former workplace in a so called back-to-work program, with a much lesser salary - plus the GOV. even PAID for the workers the first year.
No employer in the world can afford to say no to such a deal, the trainees actually had 16 years of experience in their field behind them, but where also laid off from a bigger company earlier on - and had been on GOV. wellfare for a long time, this is SWEDEN btw. so it's amazing it's even happening here, but since we're a wealthy country (on the paper, not counting the MASSIVE debt each Swede have since they essentially don't own anything but borrow money), this isn't something you'll see in any newspaper - much less reported in American news.
It's a sign of the new times we're heading for. The outsourcing is massive, the GOV. will attempt to get work back to the country, so the salaries of everyone has to be slashed, but you try to tell the happy fat cat that he has to cut his living costs and you'll get the UNION all over you until you have to file for bankruptcy if you do what they want anyway. There's another agenda too - and that is they're trying to open the borders worldwide, so workers can essentially work and live anywhere. You'll notice MASSIVE unemployment rates as everything you once knew will fall apart right in front of you, until you eventually decide to accept lower pay, less perks, longer hours etc.
We're in for a rough ride. A real rough ride. Automation is increasing fast, industry production is being outsourced to 3rd world countries or where labour is cheap, this isn't new, but it's increasing rapidly now. The 1% Richest Elite in America owns 40% of the country, and the rest of the world, the scenario isn't far away. One day, there will be severe uproars amongst the increasingly poor population, not to mention the INCREASING population.
The software companies are essentially building platforms rather than hiring, the industry heads for full automation. The days where you had manual labour is on a fast track to oblivion, all the unemployment numbers speaks for themselves. People are more and more RENTING their own homes rather than owning, more laws are being imposed on the populations "freedoms" to keep them in line during this transaction to new times, it happens with a speed that's similar to cooking a lobster, it dies, but it's so comfortable while dying in the heat that it gets docile and have no clue what's coming, same with the population. We slowly accept the situation.
At some point, there will be so few jobs that socialism technically controls everything, and socialism will by then look more like slavery than freedom and democracy. Voting for all of the above instead of several parties...because they all steer in that direction, they just know...telling you, isn't going to work. But telling you what you WANT to hear, will work. (For them!)
This sounds like some crazy conspiracy tinfoil hat theory, right?
Well it isn't. And it's happening right in front of you, you know it...harder and harder to get a proper job, highly educated people clueless to why they can't get a decent job. Forget manual labour jobs, those are already given to those before you that'll give up their jobs over their cold dead hands before giving it to you, so they now work OVERTIME. Why do you think we just passed laws to allow higher overtime pay?
And property? Don't even get me started. Do you guys remember the 2007 crisis? When hundreds of thousands of people had to leave their homes because they couldn't afford to pay their mortgages? And foreclosures was abundant? Guess what happened after that. Two things, a lot of houses where left abandoned and the banks/financial institutions lost billions on houses that became trashed, unmaintained and uncared for while people still had their debt which they can't possibly hope for to ever repay, now if they had kept their homes - they would have stood a fighting chance, but no. Corporate greed eats itself up.
The second thing that happened, was that smart real estate investors came and purchased the foreclosed homes, and rented them out.
Joblessness, lack of freedom, lack of happiness, lack of money, lack of jobs, outsourcing, automation will ultimately lead to one of the worst periods in history, civil wars will break out, huge fights amongst growing masses of unemployed welfare recipients fighting against the elite who has the law-in-hand, for food and basic needs. This will probably last a good 20 years or so, until we phase into the next "moneyless" society.
The moneyless society is actually good, but it's going to be a rough ride (as described above), and the hardest part will be to convince those with the money to part with the monetary system for good, for the common good of everyone, this will eventually equal man to everyone, and our future jobs will basically be to secure our planets resources and stability. But there's going to be ONE huge fight before we get there. Brace yourselves!
...in the future (now actually) we're going to have to produce at least 5 percent of the produce in our very own homes.
Apartments must be designed with indoor greenhouses as a part of the design. To keep it low on pesticides and insects, hydroponic farming is an essential technique, what Phillips is doing isn't new by any standard, but they're one of the worlds most important developers of lighting, we need more efficient led lights, we have to reduce the power usage and make the lights brighter, this can be done with new chemical processes. The future is bright.
I've been growing vegetables indoors for the last 5 years now, realizing that every person got to start ASAP to learn, because learning when we finally need it...is not going to be an option since learning to work with growing crops and produce comes with a learning curve just like everything else. Vegetables are living organics, it's not like learning to play the piano, so many factors comes to play here - and this is something any farmer will tell you...the learning curve is going to be there, you just can't become an overnight pro at this.
So folks, start growing your own produce now - even if it is just basil chilli and spices. I grow Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Paprika peppers in the summertime, try to grow spices all year around, and I'm getting better at it, slowly...but I feel this is VITAL to our survival.
Slashdot Mirror
...(in Japan) and a lot of people keep landlines, too.
Err, yes - I believe the rest of the modern world would have landlines in the future, it's called Fibre Cable. It has long replaced the old Copper Wire, and wireless is still inferior to landlines. The speed of the light is the way to go.
Here in Sweden a lot of us have 100/10 to 1000/1000mbit lines, they're all fibre cable with ping times and speed you can only dream of in a wireless scenario.
UK has been playing the wannabe EU version of America lately, wanting to close borders, wanting to revoke immigrant rights, remove welfare rights and whatnot. They have imposed several new laws to monitor their citizens, and they're becoming more and more like an closed-border socialist version of America every passing month. Now they also want rights in the U.S.A. LOL, I can't stop laughing at this, but this is so pitiful.
...opening a can of worms, the reaction is predictable, and rightfully so.
Anything can be reverse engineered and thus hack-proof doesn't really exist.
TV is DEAD, long live the TV.
...ok then, we'll just increase the number of ads and cover our usual income that way.
Advertisement revenue on traditional TV has been on a downhill run - the short term solution puts the FINAL nail in the coffin for TV, and that is the
In Sweden (or Norway, Denmark etc.) we pay for 3 licenses:
1) The National TV license. This one is MANDATORY if you have a television. It's roughly 300$ a year, and you can't opt out unless you have NO TV or RADIO.
2) The second license is the one you pay for your subscription channels, that is...if you want something BESIDES the NATIONAL "we-will-kill-you-with-culture" channels.
3) The THIRD license is the forced Advertisement which consists of pretty exactly 5 minutes of ADS (30-50% Casino/Gambling ads) and 2.5 minutes of ADS and SPONSORS for the TV channels next tv programs, which they will repeat over and over until you're a dumb monkey salivating as you try to reach the remote, now that finger pressing is just a body-twitch.
The worst part is that you PAY for all of the other stuff and STILL get forced to watch those horrible repetitive Casino-this-gamble-that ads.
I rarely watch "broadcast" television anymore, I usually spend my time on the internet, and/or watch PAID for documentaries and movies on Netflix and other services where I can TURN off the goddamn ads!
Ah, ok. Probably the D-SUN-V3.0 USB to TTL converter, right?
Just be aware that these USB to TTL converters doesn't come with hardware DTR/RTS/CTS and basically only have RXD/TXD, but this works just fine, you just need to know what you're doing. Make sure you have a RESET function for your ESP 8266-1 chip set up, and that you follow the recommended uploading/programming procedure (because the ESP-01 will be ready for upload right after you reset it for a few seconds). There are schematics on the net for how this works, it took a lot of fidgeting for me to find out this - but it worked flawlessly once I got this right.
Also - remember to set your USB to TTL converter to 3.3v because your ESP 8266 is 3.3v based and will not like 5v in the long run as this can fry the thing. I use the ESP 8266-12E which is the same as yours, except with a load of I/O ports.
I'm a big consumer of the Arduino clones (and FYI - Arduinos are FREE to clone for everyone, it's a part of the concept).
The chip has now been replaced with the CH340 - which even though it lacks some of the FTDI features, is a bang up chip that gets the job done - even at really high Serial speeds, I've yet to see one of them fail on me (I use Linux, where CH340 runs right out of the box, windows needs a driver).
I've not even heard of the FTDI before all of this came up.
...the Swedish reactors are some of the oldest and the least serviceable in the world.
http://www.thelocal.se/2015062...
Swedish reactors where considered the 2nd least upgradeable and amongst the worst in the world. Kinda interesting since their Finnish neighbour has one of the most efficient and upgradeable reactor designs in the world. Go figure.
...then we'll come to dinner.
TV stations are normally AD-revenue funded. 189 bucks can't even get you a second of AIRTIME let alone any production team.
And besides, if the money funds better police work like better education for the officers (how to handle public incidents better), better material for proper investigations instead of improper funds to get the crimes solved, well - then I'm all for it.
What worries me though is: where does that place US - your average citizen in this picture? What say do we have in this? Do I get a cut as an innocent bystandard in any of these pictures / videos? What if something got out that shouldn’t have, or jeopardizes my family's safety - NOW THAT would be an issue here.
...well, that's how I read it the first time.
So what the fuck do you recommend they use instead of Windows?... Linux used to be a competitor to Windows, but that was a decade ago.
There there...it's perfectly okay for you to take the blue pill, no one will ever blame you for it, that's what most people would opt for.
Pills aside, I've been on the red pi....I mean - using Linux since 1998, and mostly as a user since I don't really like messing around under the hood - but just get my job done, granted - that was hard back in the 90s, but...today (unless you've been living under a ROCK) Linux beats windows any day. I run it, took 15 minutes to install - and I never even bothered to look for drivers on BRAND new bleeding edge hardware. Everything ran out of the box on Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa.
...and I suspect they know it, this is their ALL-IN-OR-NOTHING last nail in the coffin investment, too bad they didn't smarten up and joined the club instead of trying to go down screaming and burning.
...with STEAM...as they where true gamers). I bought a system based on their recommendations, and I was NOT disappointed.
I'm an 50 something computer user/programmer/admin/whatever that has been using and coding computers since I was 12 years old, the days when I had to make my own video games because I was an early adopter and nothing was available to us. Didn't stop me from getting what I want. And guess what? That's the way of the world, this is how customers work - they want something? You have it? You can sell it! But trying to shove stuff down their throats doesn't really work well in the long run. History repeats itself.
I've been using Windows alongside Linux since 1998 (before that, it was all about Commodore 64, Amiga / Atari etc. for me). I basically went over to Linux back then in order to rid myself of proprietary stuff and take back the control of my computer - make it do what I WANT to do. Of course, in those days that was simply too much for the Joneses and they would prefer the mainstream instead of messing around under the hood just to get basic stuff up and running - and guess what - we...the Linux users NEVER blamed them for that. In fact, I understand this perfectly, heck...that was partially the Mac's big success - you could just plug it in and no messing around with stupid drivers and whatnot. Normal people just want to use their computers.
But something happened - Google started to support Android bigtime, and Android is essentially Linux under the hood - and then Hardware support EXPLODED. before we knew it - we saw companies like Ubuntu and many others fight like mad against Windows (or rather, run their own course as a decent competitor regardless of losses and support), because they knew - eventually - they'll catch up. And we did - together!
I use Mint Linux today - when I discovered this combo (Ubuntu + Cinnamon) I could basically say goodbye to my Windows partition for good. It was just an annoying liability of worms, constant numerous battles with worms, updates, turning of disk trashing...oh sorry...caching / optimizing or whatever they call necessary to optimize that slow running disk trashing system that took forever to boot each time I wanted to run something that demanded Windows only. It was getting further and further away from me, I had hardly touched Windows for ages.
AND HERE...is where things get fun...
I decided that I needed a new computer, so I went and bought the most BLEEDING edge hardware I could get my hands on, in my big ego...(basically only running Linux) I had totally forgotten that there was an operating system called windows (and curiously so had the people at the computer store, they themselves ran Linux mainly at home
When I assembled the entire computer at home - latest bleeding specs - latest Mint Linux - it all installed in less than 15 minutes WITH EVERYTHING I NEEDED (try that with windows unless you have a Ghosted Image with the EXACT specs of that computer), and it boots in between 3 and 6 seconds from start to finish! And this is just with a STOCK EVO 850 Samsung SSD HD.
Try to imagine the speed if they had the PCI SSD In stock....(gonna get that one!).
And every part of the hardware was supported - straight away - not only that, my setup surpassed EVERY RENDERING TEST done with BLENDER open source 3D software CYCLES (software rendering, not Nvidia GPU) done on tested Windows machines with exactly the same specs as mine.
Bye Windows, may you rest in peace.
...are amongst a lot of those things we'll see in 2016, hardly a new theme from 2015, but there's light at the end of the tunnel and here's my predictions for 2016:
....I think we're gonna see a huge increase in companies hiring lawyers just to survive out there.
As you may be aware of - it's becoming increasingly hard to get a steady job to hold on to and plan a future, the big companies want young and fresh minds to form and take advantage of while they're willing and ready and the older generation will have to start their own businesses in order to keep their capital flow coming. The most important thing will be - change. People must be willing to do other things than what they're currently used to, because things will indeed change, slowly over the year 2016 - 17 - 18 - 19 etc... you catch the drift, we will be moving towards the moneyless society.
During that transaction of time - we will experience increased civil unrest, increased dismay with our government, leaders, politicians, employers etc. since our way of life as we know it is threatened with lay-offs, unpaid overtime, smaller salary, increased immigration and heavy outsourcing. This is not easy to handle for anyone of us, but it's a thing we've gotta get through somehow, and the only way to do this - is to stay cold and level headed and make sure we're a PART of the future instead of just complaining about it. You don't want to miss the bandwagon when you in reality can take advantages of the change instead of being the one screwed over.
We will notice an increase in social welfare recipients, joblessness, and a transition towards online entertainment instead of manual manufacturing, albeit that part will be outsourced so you may want to re educate yourself into something dealing with design, media, film, online communication, fitness and personal health - as these areas will most likely see an incredible increase.
Good future job perspectives will be in: Automation, Web Shops, Online shopping, Online Entertainment, Programming (Improving algorithms for saving space/data/bandwidth etc. will be in HIGH demand) Game developers, Graphics artists will be sought after so don't sell yourselves short by working for free (these has been outsourced with BAD results earlier, so this area will be especially lucrative). Due to heavy world immigration people working within Medicine (Doctors, surgeons, dentists etc.) will be in HIGH demand anywhere and you'll pretty much be able to set your own salary. As the population becomes more passive, on welfare/being more online during this transition to the moneyless society - we will also notice an increased need for personal health so if you're into fitness - start your own GYMs now, you'll bloom before you know what to do with your success.
Due to increased online production, film, media, entertainment etc. an increased need for the worlds most hated people (lawyers) will be a fact soon, because you'll need to protect that intellectual property (you and I may disagree here, I'm more for Open Source myself) but what you and I think isn't always what will happen, so
Due to increased immigration, it might be wise to invest heavily in property - the gov. will usually pay overprice for rent/property-lease/welfare/daycare/schooling accommodations for immigrants (this is happening BIG TIME in Sweden right now, and we're literally experiencing newcomers to the property market literally raking it in just because of this). Unfortunately they're also amateurs so the market will suffer greatly from this as well, so beware! You may even want to consider a career as an interpretor as these will be in HIGH DEMAND shortly.
Retro trend: We're experiencing the boomers are getting middle aged, so they want to relive their childhood - expect a HIGH demand for old used tech, especially video games from the late 70s to the early 80s, a huge comeback for Pinball machines & old arcades.
New Tech: Expect flat screen TV's to set a record low price-tag i
...at the costs of mandatory taxes anyway.
I kinda liked the WayBackMachine when it came out, it was a fun novelty to look back at past web pages and things I used to draw back then, but after 20-30 years on the net or so, I'm inclined to think that we may not WANT to store our every move on the net, what might seem innocent now may not be so in 30 years.
Besides...isn't the NSA already doing that? They've probably got WayBetterFunding than the WayBackMachine folks.
We've read the "Government does this, the Government doesn't do what it should, and the Government is corrupted etc." so many times it becomes both tiring and old, especially since most of it is just us - the people - voicing our opinions about things we've "heard" about, and even if it was true - we do basically NOTHING about it...but talk.
That said...even if you elected someone else - the power of knowledge is too tempting for ANYONE to resist. Therefore the way is OPEN SOURCE all the way. The safest way is actually no secrets in any source or any software, keep everything open - and then no one will be able to put in back doors or abuse bugs that are unknown as everyone will be able to peek inside and help fixing it.
What we need to do is to stop this endless paranoid game of "who do you trust?" and start producing results and solutions. We can do this together...the "gorberment" can't do anything about it, if anything - they should keep to what they do best (whatever that is) and leave the technology to enthusiasts like us, WE - the people - will pretty much make sure your privacy is safe because we'll all end up using open source software.
The only thing "goberment" is achieving with this crazy "who do you trust?" game is making sure would-be terrorist keep digging a deeper hole to hide in and grow a HUGE database of every persons private lives - kept - for their interpretation, with the kind of knowledge and power NO man should hold.
What you do with your computer or in your home - isn't government business no matter what the cause is. If you don't have the freedom to think freely, voice your opinions at will - then you don't have any freedoms at all.
Now, if they ever outlaw open source, then we'll be in trouble (or rather - they will).
So, you 2 major geeks, spending time configuring Linux bootloaders, partitioning and whatnot cannot spend 21 seconds to untick windows automatic updates?! Don't tell me you have automatic updates in Mint.
Well, that was simplified. The long answer is that Windows is now inherently much more complex build than a neatly customized Linux setup. For example - there's a reason you need to clean your windows registries quite often if you don't want windows to load slower and slower the more you use it...it's not just the automatic updates. And nevermind if you turn OFF the automatic updates...in Window's case - you'll be sitting on a ticking timebomb of worms, viruses and more trojans than you can imagine.
Now if you REALLY want to get detailed, the beauty of Linux is that you have total freedom to configure it as you want, you simply can't do that with Windows as it is PROPRIETARY software all the way.
If you call this trolling, you're using reverse psychology - because the only one trolling here is you.
I've been using Linux since 1998. I really wanted to break free back then, it's a need deeply buried into me and I want total control over my own computer - even I can't claim to know enough about that, and I probably never will...but that said...
...I just USE it, and don't have to repair stuff under the hood each day of my working life. And I like it that way, I'm not 20 years and loving to fix basic bugs anymore, I'm at that age where I concentrate on MY job and what I like to do, that's when it feels awesome to have something that just works.
Usually over the last 16 years or so - I've had Windows installed as a second boot partition because there was always this special software I needed to run under Windows, at times it was games, at times it was 3D proprietary software, at times it was stuff I needed for work, paying my taxes to the gov. etc. All stuff that REQUIRED Windows to be present.
Ever since Mint Linux 17.x those days where absolutely GONE. My windows partition was gathering dust - and became a big liability as it took 30+ minutes to boot every time since I used it so seldom that it had like 10ths of updates that needed installing each time, Mint Linux does this seamlessly and there's no need for 100s of reboots.
It turns out there's literally drivers for anything on the planet on Linux today, so I have drivers for my Card Readers (Needed for gov. work), I have drivers for my weird hardware that doesn't even work under windows - and I enjoy modern software with it. On windows you constantly have to purchase NEW hardware to make the older (but nice expensive stuff) work as the manufacturers simply drop support after a while.
Linux Mint is also one of the most flawless Linux distros I've ever witnessed - it had nearly made me forget about anything Linux (that's how you can tell you've got a good OS...) It simply means
Thanks a lot to the Ubuntu and Mint Linux team - you guys have made my life SO much easier over the years. (and btw. The windows partition is gone, don't even miss it).
Facebook is the most annoying and dumbest app my devices refuse to remove. They all come with my recent mobile phones, but they refuse to remove the facebook apps from my phones.
...to play as Sackboy immersed totally in VR.
Never before has so many alcoholics wanted to be an astronaut as of this discovery.
I could swear I saw Barney Gumble at Nasa's main entrance yesterday.
...and any other stuff that fits the requirement.
...This doesn't just happen in America. We the people all over the world are getting replaced by cheaper workers now. I was replaced myself, and had to train up a couple of cheap trainees that the GOV. had given my former workplace in a so called back-to-work program, with a much lesser salary - plus the GOV. even PAID for the workers the first year.
No employer in the world can afford to say no to such a deal, the trainees actually had 16 years of experience in their field behind them, but where also laid off from a bigger company earlier on - and had been on GOV. wellfare for a long time, this is SWEDEN btw. so it's amazing it's even happening here, but since we're a wealthy country (on the paper, not counting the MASSIVE debt each Swede have since they essentially don't own anything but borrow money), this isn't something you'll see in any newspaper - much less reported in American news.
It's a sign of the new times we're heading for. The outsourcing is massive, the GOV. will attempt to get work back to the country, so the salaries of everyone has to be slashed, but you try to tell the happy fat cat that he has to cut his living costs and you'll get the UNION all over you until you have to file for bankruptcy if you do what they want anyway. There's another agenda too - and that is they're trying to open the borders worldwide, so workers can essentially work and live anywhere. You'll notice MASSIVE unemployment rates as everything you once knew will fall apart right in front of you, until you eventually decide to accept lower pay, less perks, longer hours etc.
He will be missed.
From us, dilektely to YOU! RIP. Iwata san, may you find happiness in the forest of Hyrule, forever the master of Baloon Fight.
...minus the replicator:
We're in for a rough ride. A real rough ride. Automation is increasing fast, industry production is being outsourced to 3rd world countries or where labour is cheap, this isn't new, but it's increasing rapidly now. The 1% Richest Elite in America owns 40% of the country, and the rest of the world, the scenario isn't far away. One day, there will be severe uproars amongst the increasingly poor population, not to mention the INCREASING population.
The software companies are essentially building platforms rather than hiring, the industry heads for full automation. The days where you had manual labour is on a fast track to oblivion, all the unemployment numbers speaks for themselves. People are more and more RENTING their own homes rather than owning, more laws are being imposed on the populations "freedoms" to keep them in line during this transaction to new times, it happens with a speed that's similar to cooking a lobster, it dies, but it's so comfortable while dying in the heat that it gets docile and have no clue what's coming, same with the population. We slowly accept the situation.
At some point, there will be so few jobs that socialism technically controls everything, and socialism will by then look more like slavery than freedom and democracy. Voting for all of the above instead of several parties...because they all steer in that direction, they just know...telling you, isn't going to work. But telling you what you WANT to hear, will work. (For them!)
This sounds like some crazy conspiracy tinfoil hat theory, right?
Well it isn't. And it's happening right in front of you, you know it...harder and harder to get a proper job, highly educated people clueless to why they can't get a decent job. Forget manual labour jobs, those are already given to those before you that'll give up their jobs over their cold dead hands before giving it to you, so they now work OVERTIME. Why do you think we just passed laws to allow higher overtime pay?
And property? Don't even get me started. Do you guys remember the 2007 crisis? When hundreds of thousands of people had to leave their homes because they couldn't afford to pay their mortgages? And foreclosures was abundant? Guess what happened after that. Two things, a lot of houses where left abandoned and the banks/financial institutions lost billions on houses that became trashed, unmaintained and uncared for while people still had their debt which they can't possibly hope for to ever repay, now if they had kept their homes - they would have stood a fighting chance, but no. Corporate greed eats itself up.
The second thing that happened, was that smart real estate investors came and purchased the foreclosed homes, and rented them out.
Joblessness, lack of freedom, lack of happiness, lack of money, lack of jobs, outsourcing, automation will ultimately lead to one of the worst periods in history, civil wars will break out, huge fights amongst growing masses of unemployed welfare recipients fighting against the elite who has the law-in-hand, for food and basic needs. This will probably last a good 20 years or so, until we phase into the next "moneyless" society.
The moneyless society is actually good, but it's going to be a rough ride (as described above), and the hardest part will be to convince those with the money to part with the monetary system for good, for the common good of everyone, this will eventually equal man to everyone, and our future jobs will basically be to secure our planets resources and stability. But there's going to be ONE huge fight before we get there. Brace yourselves!
...in the future (now actually) we're going to have to produce at least 5 percent of the produce in our very own homes.
...but I feel this is VITAL to our survival.
Apartments must be designed with indoor greenhouses as a part of the design. To keep it low on pesticides and insects, hydroponic farming is an essential technique, what Phillips is doing isn't new by any standard, but they're one of the worlds most important developers of lighting, we need more efficient led lights, we have to reduce the power usage and make the lights brighter, this can be done with new chemical processes. The future is bright.
I've been growing vegetables indoors for the last 5 years now, realizing that every person got to start ASAP to learn, because learning when we finally need it...is not going to be an option since learning to work with growing crops and produce comes with a learning curve just like everything else. Vegetables are living organics, it's not like learning to play the piano, so many factors comes to play here - and this is something any farmer will tell you...the learning curve is going to be there, you just can't become an overnight pro at this.
So folks, start growing your own produce now - even if it is just basil chilli and spices. I grow Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Paprika peppers in the summertime, try to grow spices all year around, and I'm getting better at it, slowly