In much of the Fortune 500 world, getting a Linux machine to use for work is next to impossible because of geriatric corporate IT departments who just don't want to deal with the hassle of updating their tooling to provision and manage them. So developers are given the choice between a Windows machine and a Mac. I can certainly understand why they'd choose a Mac. I had that choice to make at my megacorp and went with a Macbook Pro for that very reason. It's OK, though the company does its level best to hobble it with file system encryption and some suite of Symantec crap that allegedly enhances security. The alternative was some lame mid-range Dell that was running Windows 8. F that.
That said, when I'm out of the office, I'm either using a chromebook or a desktop running Fedora at home. The instant I can use a linux machine at the office without risking getting terminated, I will.
The "shortage" of US citizen IT workers in America is a myth. Importation of "guest workers" through various means are simply companies on the buy AND sell side of the equation gaming the US immigration system to distort the price of labor. The same could be said in other industries such as farm labor. Adequate supply of labor exists, but the industry is chafing at paying market labor rates.
The beneficiaries of this cozy relationship between politicians and offshore companies who broker IT consultants by the pound are the politicians taking $$$ and the brokers taking huge skims off the top of the rates paid for the guest workers. Meanwhile, both the US citizen workers and the guest workers are faced with lower wages, with the guest workers taking the brunt of the abuse. (Imagine paying half or more of your salary to some broker who's only "value" is to pay off politicians to get you a visa into another country).
Want to start a technology company and don't want to pay the prevailing wages? Then by all means open up shop in China, Eastern Europe, Brasil, India....wherever. I'm sure those countries would be delighted.
The various recording studios just don't get it. If I'm going to shell out $$$ for a movie, I'm going to consume it in the format that suits me. I also don't want to be force fed adverts for other BS they'd like to sell me. Nor do I want to sit through the obligatory, "you'll go to hell if you copy this" FBI nuisance screens and other nonsense that you cannot skip on the disc before watching the content that I paid for. I don't feel the least bit guilty about ripping a disc solely to remove adverts/warnings and shift it to whatever medium I want to use to watch it.
All that said, I find myself increasingly reluctant to even bother. The content quality is trending down and I don't have the time I once did to jump through the hoops. Their loss.
Look, I like capitalism as much as the next fella...however....
I find it really hard to believe that with all the universities in this country annually graduating hundreds of thousands (millions?) in disciplines ranging from engineering to mathematics, comp sci, physics, etc. that it is necessary to import tech labor. When you consider all the additional inefficiency introduced in the form of language difficulties and what I've often found to be poor training (every problem isn't one that can be solved by consultants by the pound excreting bad java code), I find it hard to believe that it's even worth the effort to game the system in the first place. Yet here we are with legions of billion dollar companies that exist solely to exploit loopholes in the US immigration system while taking advantage of citizen workers and taking fat chunks of income ostensibly paid to the poor saps that are being pimped out to line their pockets.
Frankly, I don't believe that a tech labor shortage exists. What exists is a market distortion that's perpetuated by a corrupt group of companies that line the pockets of politicians in order to siphon their share of guest worker salaries. Just say no.
No more SD slot: check No user-replaceable battery: check
I'll be sticking with the LG G4 until a better alternative comes along that doesn't do one of the above.
Nothing like being forced into consuming their cloud storage so that they can better mine my personal data to jam even more "targeted ads" down my throat.
It will be interesting to see how the cable companies fight this. They are moving towards the actual box being rather stupid and all the heavy lifting being done on the back end "in the cloud." If you can buy an equivalent box, but you don't have access to their proprietary code, you're kinda screwed. I suspect that $9/month rental fee would remain and would be renamed a "software license fee" or somesuch.
There is a groundswell of support for Trump and others perceived to be "political outsiders" because the American public is increasingly fed up with career politicians. It's during times like this where a number of very unsavory characters have entered political life and caused quite a bit of mischief. I'm not saying Trump is comparable to any of those bad actors, but I am saying that the feeling of helplessness and anger in the American electorate is real and pervasive. Desperate people sometimes do silly things. One need look no further than the current administration to see what can happen when people throw caution to the wind hoping to "shake things up".
So...we've got a company that runs a business by trading on someone else's misfortune. Rather "ballsy" to go after the folks reporting the breach rather than focus on the fact that their customers are flapping in the breeze as a result of their incompetence. Replace HIV with "leprosy" or "cancer"....the result is the same.
You mean consumers aren't willing to keep paying more for an increasingly ad-laden pool of mostly forgettable reality programming? Wake me up when it's over.
The only reason I have any relationship at all with the cable company is that they're the only supplier of broadband Internet in my area. If that wasn't the case, I'd drop them tomorrow. Until then, I'll "subscribe" to their lowest tier programming because it would otherwise cost MORE to buy internet service from them.
I've just upgraded my daily driver system from 17.2 to 17.3. It took only a couple of minutes and so far I haven't had any issues (only a few hours in).
I followed the instructions here (the terminal version):
The dealers, through political patronage, are fighting tooth and nail to prevent this model for the very reason that it will dramatically cut into their post-sales revenue stream.
There is absolutely no reason for dealers to exist anymore. Just allow the car manufacturers to have showrooms and sell/maintain vehicles without the middleman.
Surely, those smarmy sales guys can get jobs working for EMC, Cisco, Oracle or somesuch.:)
This class warfare thing is hilarious. The "elite" aren't suffering from this system designed to encourage fraud. I'm sure folks that are making a million dollars a year could care less about what amounts to a rounding error when it comes to the cost of their insurance. It's the MIDDLE class that's getting soaked here. The rich don't care.
I suspect the piles of cash thing isn't really what's going on. Walmart has a huge revenue stream, but they're not known for pissing away cash. This probably has more to do with helping other companies "liberate" themselves from lock in from a single cloud provider (cough...AWS...cough) without having to pony up for something like cloud foundry. Looking forward to seeing the code.
Furthermore, if Google decides they want to "charge" for software they're currently giving away as a result of dropping ad revenues, THEN I'll decide if I want to pay for those products on their individual merits rather than suffer from the constant ad bombardment.
Frankly, I could care less about "the fine print" as long as I have a carrier that offers good and consistent coverage. At the end of the day, for me it's just a "phone with benefits." Whoever offers me the best coverage is going to get my business. I even tolerated Verizon's sneaky BS and intentionally crippled devices because they offered reliable service in my somewhat rural area, but now they've clearly oversubscribed their infrastructure to the point where I consistently have connectivity issues. So I'll move on to a carrier that doesn't have that issue. If that happens to be T-MO, then so be it.
I've always been fascinated with Jim Bede's designs and his "get shit done" attitude. Personally, my favorite was the BD-10, a supersonic jet for folks on a high end cessna budget.
However, he is also somewhat infamous in the industry for how many of his creations have crashed and resulted int he deaths of their owners. Spark of brilliance with a bit too little attention being paid to safety and reliability.
But of course....he "inherited" the failures, but owns any "successes".
*yawn*
It's the whole "Success has many fathers, but failure is always an orphan" thing. But Obama being the narcissist that he is, many fathers = himself.
I'll be glad when the current clown show is over. The melt down of American foreign policy along with the rampant deficit spending has been breathtaking in its lack of foresight and heaping truckloads of incompetence. Jimmy Buffet singing to the French after Charlie Hebdo? Really?
Obama will still be blaming Bush when he's in his 90's and trips over his walker in the nursing home cafeteria.
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What functionality is it missing?
Um....security updates? Bug fixes? Someone else mentioned access to Google Play...etc.
There's no way I'd buy a NEW device running a 5 year old Android...even if it was 1/2 or 1/3 of the price discussed.
You lost me at Android 4.04. Ice Cream Sandwich was released in 2011.
Best,
In much of the Fortune 500 world, getting a Linux machine to use for work is next to impossible because of geriatric corporate IT departments who just don't want to deal with the hassle of updating their tooling to provision and manage them. So developers are given the choice between a Windows machine and a Mac. I can certainly understand why they'd choose a Mac. I had that choice to make at my megacorp and went with a Macbook Pro for that very reason. It's OK, though the company does its level best to hobble it with file system encryption and some suite of Symantec crap that allegedly enhances security. The alternative was some lame mid-range Dell that was running Windows 8. F that.
That said, when I'm out of the office, I'm either using a chromebook or a desktop running Fedora at home. The instant I can use a linux machine at the office without risking getting terminated, I will.
The "shortage" of US citizen IT workers in America is a myth. Importation of "guest workers" through various means are simply companies on the buy AND sell side of the equation gaming the US immigration system to distort the price of labor. The same could be said in other industries such as farm labor. Adequate supply of labor exists, but the industry is chafing at paying market labor rates.
The beneficiaries of this cozy relationship between politicians and offshore companies who broker IT consultants by the pound are the politicians taking $$$ and the brokers taking huge skims off the top of the rates paid for the guest workers. Meanwhile, both the US citizen workers and the guest workers are faced with lower wages, with the guest workers taking the brunt of the abuse. (Imagine paying half or more of your salary to some broker who's only "value" is to pay off politicians to get you a visa into another country).
Want to start a technology company and don't want to pay the prevailing wages? Then by all means open up shop in China, Eastern Europe, Brasil, India....wherever. I'm sure those countries would be delighted.
I suspect that when Putin enters the EU, he'll do it in a tank. 1/2 :)
The various recording studios just don't get it. If I'm going to shell out $$$ for a movie, I'm going to consume it in the format that suits me. I also don't want to be force fed adverts for other BS they'd like to sell me. Nor do I want to sit through the obligatory, "you'll go to hell if you copy this" FBI nuisance screens and other nonsense that you cannot skip on the disc before watching the content that I paid for. I don't feel the least bit guilty about ripping a disc solely to remove adverts/warnings and shift it to whatever medium I want to use to watch it.
All that said, I find myself increasingly reluctant to even bother. The content quality is trending down and I don't have the time I once did to jump through the hoops. Their loss.
Look, I like capitalism as much as the next fella...however....
I find it really hard to believe that with all the universities in this country annually graduating hundreds of thousands (millions?) in disciplines ranging from engineering to mathematics, comp sci, physics, etc. that it is necessary to import tech labor. When you consider all the additional inefficiency introduced in the form of language difficulties and what I've often found to be poor training (every problem isn't one that can be solved by consultants by the pound excreting bad java code), I find it hard to believe that it's even worth the effort to game the system in the first place. Yet here we are with legions of billion dollar companies that exist solely to exploit loopholes in the US immigration system while taking advantage of citizen workers and taking fat chunks of income ostensibly paid to the poor saps that are being pimped out to line their pockets.
Frankly, I don't believe that a tech labor shortage exists. What exists is a market distortion that's perpetuated by a corrupt group of companies that line the pockets of politicians in order to siphon their share of guest worker salaries. Just say no.
No more SD slot: check
No user-replaceable battery: check
I'll be sticking with the LG G4 until a better alternative comes along that doesn't do one of the above.
Nothing like being forced into consuming their cloud storage so that they can better mine my personal data to jam even more "targeted ads" down my throat.
No thanks. Wake me up when it's over.
It will be interesting to see how the cable companies fight this. They are moving towards the actual box being rather stupid and all the heavy lifting being done on the back end "in the cloud." If you can buy an equivalent box, but you don't have access to their proprietary code, you're kinda screwed. I suspect that $9/month rental fee would remain and would be renamed a "software license fee" or somesuch.
Net gain for the consumer....zero.
There is a groundswell of support for Trump and others perceived to be "political outsiders" because the American public is increasingly fed up with career politicians. It's during times like this where a number of very unsavory characters have entered political life and caused quite a bit of mischief. I'm not saying Trump is comparable to any of those bad actors, but I am saying that the feeling of helplessness and anger in the American electorate is real and pervasive. Desperate people sometimes do silly things. One need look no further than the current administration to see what can happen when people throw caution to the wind hoping to "shake things up".
Now you can consume 4k video on your 3" screen (assuming anyone's mobile device has the grunt to decode it). :)
So...we've got a company that runs a business by trading on someone else's misfortune. Rather "ballsy" to go after the folks reporting the breach rather than focus on the fact that their customers are flapping in the breeze as a result of their incompetence. Replace HIV with "leprosy" or "cancer"....the result is the same.
Sad.
You mean consumers aren't willing to keep paying more for an increasingly ad-laden pool of mostly forgettable reality programming? Wake me up when it's over.
The only reason I have any relationship at all with the cable company is that they're the only supplier of broadband Internet in my area. If that wasn't the case, I'd drop them tomorrow. Until then, I'll "subscribe" to their lowest tier programming because it would otherwise cost MORE to buy internet service from them.
So the body shops peddling java programmers by the pound will charge $109.9k while still passing along half or less to the poor sap doing the "work".
And they'll continue rotating folks over for "training" every few months.
*yawn*
I've just upgraded my daily driver system from 17.2 to 17.3. It took only a couple of minutes and so far I haven't had any issues (only a few hours in).
I followed the instructions here (the terminal version):
https://sites.google.com/site/...
Best,
And we have a winner. :)
The dealers, through political patronage, are fighting tooth and nail to prevent this model for the very reason that it will dramatically cut into their post-sales revenue stream.
There is absolutely no reason for dealers to exist anymore. Just allow the car manufacturers to have showrooms and sell/maintain vehicles without the middleman.
Surely, those smarmy sales guys can get jobs working for EMC, Cisco, Oracle or somesuch. :)
Spare me the utter BS. Islamo-fanaticism pre-dates the discovery of oil by a thousand years.
Murder in the name of religion (I don't care which one) and prepare to be exterminated like vermin if you partake in that practice.
This class warfare thing is hilarious. The "elite" aren't suffering from this system designed to encourage fraud. I'm sure folks that are making a million dollars a year could care less about what amounts to a rounding error when it comes to the cost of their insurance. It's the MIDDLE class that's getting soaked here. The rich don't care.
I suspect the piles of cash thing isn't really what's going on. Walmart has a huge revenue stream, but they're not known for pissing away cash. This probably has more to do with helping other companies "liberate" themselves from lock in from a single cloud provider (cough...AWS...cough) without having to pony up for something like cloud foundry. Looking forward to seeing the code.
I agree completely.
Furthermore, if Google decides they want to "charge" for software they're currently giving away as a result of dropping ad revenues, THEN I'll decide if I want to pay for those products on their individual merits rather than suffer from the constant ad bombardment.
To put things into perspective, that filtered bottle of tap water is more expensive than gasoline...by a fairly wide margin.
Frankly, I could care less about "the fine print" as long as I have a carrier that offers good and consistent coverage. At the end of the day, for me it's just a "phone with benefits." Whoever offers me the best coverage is going to get my business. I even tolerated Verizon's sneaky BS and intentionally crippled devices because they offered reliable service in my somewhat rural area, but now they've clearly oversubscribed their infrastructure to the point where I consistently have connectivity issues. So I'll move on to a carrier that doesn't have that issue. If that happens to be T-MO, then so be it.
I've always been fascinated with Jim Bede's designs and his "get shit done" attitude. Personally, my favorite was the BD-10, a supersonic jet for folks on a high end cessna budget.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
However, he is also somewhat infamous in the industry for how many of his creations have crashed and resulted int he deaths of their owners. Spark of brilliance with a bit too little attention being paid to safety and reliability.
In case the crime and murder rate wasn't enough.
But of course....he "inherited" the failures, but owns any "successes".
*yawn*
It's the whole "Success has many fathers, but failure is always an orphan" thing. But Obama being the narcissist that he is, many fathers = himself.
I'll be glad when the current clown show is over. The melt down of American foreign policy along with the rampant deficit spending has been breathtaking in its lack of foresight and heaping truckloads of incompetence. Jimmy Buffet singing to the French after Charlie Hebdo? Really?
Obama will still be blaming Bush when he's in his 90's and trips over his walker in the nursing home cafeteria.