That's exactly the point. It has shifted, like so many things today, from a consumer-driven upgrade cycle into a producer-driven. It's just to much work on the consumer side, with little benefits.
We also still run XP on or workstations at work. We actually upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP when Vista was out for about a year. That was our usual cycle. Upgrade to the next version when the version AFTER that came out, but only after it became clear that Windows 7 wouldn't be far away and would try to remedy Vistas problems.
Vista broke that cycle, since it would have been technically impossible to upgrade to Vista because of a lot of custom hardware and software, and because when we tested it it was pretty much unusable for our needs. We have testes Windows 7, and it seems to work. But to justify the expenses to upgrade to it, we still need to see that the *next version up* will also still work before we can justify going through the work of porting our applications to Windows 7.
I believe the update cycle has to slow down. The more and more computers and their OS are embedded in more and more gadgets, applications, machines, business processes, etc... the more they should be expected to *just work* without changing everything around every year.
The same as I expect my plumbing or my electrical installations at home to "just work" when I press the right buttons or turn the right knobs, without the buttons and knobs changing shape, colour and function every few years.
The way I see it elections don't really work as they should any more. The number of times I have heard "elected" officials say something like "When we do that, $BUSINESS will leave our country, we have to do as $BUSINESS tells us" (The latest example in Germany being the "elected officials" acting against the wishes of the majority by extending the deadlines to shut down nuclear plants)
The way "proto-democracy" on a tribal level used to work was that when people had to decide about how to do something, they would just align themselves with the persons that shared their views, and the biggest group got their way because they were stronger.
Then one tribal leader had the bright idea "Hey, I don't need to convince people, I can just BUY muscle to become the "biggest group" and have it my way.
Then went on until the days of feudalism ended by the "masses" rebelling, and a system was introduced where people could again cast a vote in an organized system on which leader should lead.
But lately the "tribal leaders" of our times, the people who run the big corporations, have had the bright idea, "Hey, we don't need to convince people with what we REALLY want. We can just buy votes by paying for PR to trick people to vote for our chosen candidates, and then have it our way when we tricked enough into voting for them"
I believe there will be another adjustment of the system ahead, but how long it takes and how big a bang it gets is anyone's guess.
Oh, and on the definition that seems to be a PR problem in the US:
There *used* top be "communist" people in the us, preaching communist ideas until they got a bad name. Then they decided to call themselves "socialists", but still preached communist ideas, until that got socialism a bad name. Then they decided to call themselves "liberals", but still preach the same ideas, until "liberal" became a "bad thing" in the US, while it has a completely different meaning internationally.
I wish they would just keep the right labels to make live less complicated.
My cinema can't even get that right. When we watched Avatar we wanted to get more popcorn and something to drink in the break, and the food things were already closed. And then those morons complain they don't make enough money.
Well, not every movie has to be a masterpiece. What the original movies definetely were was 1) fun to watch 2) something pretty new that hadn't been done yet 3) very "quotable" in a way that they started a lot of expressions that made it into mainstream, like "Use the force", "I find your lack of faith disturbing.", etc....
They also had at least some depth in the story. A lot of that was somewhat ironed out to make them more flat with each re-release in my opinion. Like making Han less "Bad" by not having him shoot first, or adding more CGI to Cloud City to change it from something that looked more like a gritty industrial setting into something that almost had the feeling of a holiday resort, etc..
That's why the last Star Wars movies I bought was a special edition which had the original theatrical releases as an extra. That is also the only DVD I have where I only watched the extras, not once the actual feature movie.;-P
Actually, the systems I'm administrator on have at least:
- Some Oracle Virtual Private Databases - Front-End encrypted personnel document management Systems - Encrypted MS Office files.
on them.
I could probably break into the third category with some trickery, but the first two are completely hidden from me content-wise. Only people with the right password and the right ID card can access them.
Oh, and the "AT&T did in refusing SIP on it's network" would be:
Gas station attendant: "I know I sold you 30 gallons of gas, but I don't have enough gas at the moment, so since you drive a pick up you only get 10 gallons for the same price."
No, Rackspace refused to RENT them a server because they didn't like the content.
The ISP case, in car analogy: Customer to gas station attendant: Do you mind if I drive my car with the gas I just bought from you right over that cliff over there?
Rackspace case: Customer to car rental person: Do you mind if I drive the car I just rented from you right over that cliff over there?
The gas station people probably won't care, but the car rental company does.
Banks can? Not when I don't pick a secure password for the online account and don't keep it to myself.
There is some improvement with PIN cards and hardware card readers at your home computer, but that also doesn't help much when your PIN card gets stolen and you wrote the PIN on it.
When the security hole is the user itself, then there is no technical solution unless you get rid of the user.
They can't really. When the weak point of attack is the user itself, then to make the accounts save would mean preventing the users themselves from logging in.
The only way to get around that would be to set up "Facebook edit booths" around the country where a person checks your DNA before allowing you in and edit your page.
How many of your "friends" are really just bots?;-P
Then again, that really might be a good thing. Every real person gets knocked out of Facebook and then all the bots can hack and spam each other silly while no real person is bothered.
The difference between a system that can fail, and a system that can not possibly fail is, that when a system that can not possibly fail fails, the fault will be at a place impossible to get at and fix.
Of course, on second thought, that tiny amount of energy only gives you *one atom* of helium. So to get large quantities of helium you would still need large quantities of energy.
But once it floats "above" the denser atmosphere, even a slight solar wind is enough to blow it away. It then winds up outside the heliosphere, where it reaches *real* equilibrium between the force of the suns gravity and the upward thrust of the solar wind, about twice as far out as Jupiter.
Slashdot Mirror
That's exactly the point. It has shifted, like so many things today, from a consumer-driven upgrade cycle into a producer-driven. It's just to much work on the consumer side, with little benefits.
We also still run XP on or workstations at work. We actually upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP when Vista was out for about a year. That was our usual cycle. Upgrade to the next version when the version AFTER that came out, but only after it became clear that Windows 7 wouldn't be far away and would try to remedy Vistas problems.
Vista broke that cycle, since it would have been technically impossible to upgrade to Vista because of a lot of custom hardware and software, and because when we tested it it was pretty much unusable for our needs. We have testes Windows 7, and it seems to work. But to justify the expenses to upgrade to it, we still need to see that the *next version up* will also still work before we can justify going through the work of porting our applications to Windows 7.
I believe the update cycle has to slow down. The more and more computers and their OS are embedded in more and more gadgets, applications, machines, business processes, etc... the more they should be expected to *just work* without changing everything around every year.
The same as I expect my plumbing or my electrical installations at home to "just work" when I press the right buttons or turn the right knobs, without the buttons and knobs changing shape, colour and function every few years.
The way I see it elections don't really work as they should any more. The number of times I have heard "elected" officials say something like "When we do that, $BUSINESS will leave our country, we have to do as $BUSINESS tells us" (The latest example in Germany being the "elected officials" acting against the wishes of the majority by extending the deadlines to shut down nuclear plants)
The way "proto-democracy" on a tribal level used to work was that when people had to decide about how to do something, they would just align themselves with the persons that shared their views, and the biggest group got their way because they were stronger.
Then one tribal leader had the bright idea "Hey, I don't need to convince people, I can just BUY muscle to become the "biggest group" and have it my way.
Then went on until the days of feudalism ended by the "masses" rebelling, and a system was introduced where people could again cast a vote in an organized system on which leader should lead.
But lately the "tribal leaders" of our times, the people who run the big corporations, have had the bright idea, "Hey, we don't need to convince people with what we REALLY want. We can just buy votes by paying for PR to trick people to vote for our chosen candidates, and then have it our way when we tricked enough into voting for them"
I believe there will be another adjustment of the system ahead, but how long it takes and how big a bang it gets is anyone's guess.
Oh, and on the definition that seems to be a PR problem in the US:
There *used* top be "communist" people in the us, preaching communist ideas until they got a bad name.
Then they decided to call themselves "socialists", but still preached communist ideas, until that got socialism a bad name.
Then they decided to call themselves "liberals", but still preach the same ideas, until "liberal" became a "bad thing" in the US, while it has a completely different meaning internationally.
I wish they would just keep the right labels to make live less complicated.
But a "road" is also a "free transportation service".
Where is the difference between building a road with tax money and building and running a hospital with tax money?
Both offer free "services" to people who otherwise would have to travel slower or build their own road, or build and run their own private hospital.
"from each according to his ability; to each according to his need" is a slogan of communism by the way, not socialism.
Actually, for a *network* an air gap was quite a good security mechanism, until they decided to build wireless in everything and the toaster.
We can only be thankful he didn't do the original Casablanca. By now he would have:
My cinema can't even get that right. When we watched Avatar we wanted to get more popcorn and something to drink in the break, and the food things were already closed. And then those morons complain they don't make enough money.
Well, not every movie has to be a masterpiece. What the original movies definetely were was 1) fun to watch 2) something pretty new that hadn't been done yet 3) very "quotable" in a way that they started a lot of expressions that made it into mainstream, like "Use the force", "I find your lack of faith disturbing.", etc....
They also had at least some depth in the story. A lot of that was somewhat ironed out to make them more flat with each re-release in my opinion. Like making Han less "Bad" by not having him shoot first, or adding more CGI to Cloud City to change it from something that looked more like a gritty industrial setting into something that almost had the feeling of a holiday resort, etc..
That's why the last Star Wars movies I bought was a special edition which had the original theatrical releases as an extra. That is also the only DVD I have where I only watched the extras, not once the actual feature movie. ;-P
Well, as long as they don't mess up the executable names and name them "looimpress", "loowriter", etc... I can probably stand it.
Actually, the systems I'm administrator on have at least:
- Some Oracle Virtual Private Databases
- Front-End encrypted personnel document management Systems
- Encrypted MS Office files.
on them.
I could probably break into the third category with some trickery, but the first two are completely hidden from me content-wise. Only people with the right password and the right ID card can access them.
But only in the livingroom. According to their own arguments, it costs extra when I watch advertisements in the bedroom.
One: Watching advertisements has value, too, so I should be able to charge the MPAA for it. So where do I send the bill?
Two: So when I find out after watching a movie that it was worthless, I now can get my money back? ;-P
Oh, and the "AT&T did in refusing SIP on it's network" would be:
Gas station attendant: "I know I sold you 30 gallons of gas, but I don't have enough gas at the moment, so since you drive a pick up you only get 10 gallons for the same price."
Which is just as wrong.
No, Rackspace refused to RENT them a server because they didn't like the content.
The ISP case, in car analogy:
Customer to gas station attendant: Do you mind if I drive my car with the gas I just bought from you right over that cliff over there?
Rackspace case:
Customer to car rental person: Do you mind if I drive the car I just rented from you right over that cliff over there?
The gas station people probably won't care, but the car rental company does.
Absolutely true. I had to tape two layers of paper tape over mine to bring it down to a "normal" brightness for a status LED.
Banks can? Not when I don't pick a secure password for the online account and don't keep it to myself.
There is some improvement with PIN cards and hardware card readers at your home computer, but that also doesn't help much when your PIN card gets stolen and you wrote the PIN on it.
When the security hole is the user itself, then there is no technical solution unless you get rid of the user.
They can't really. When the weak point of attack is the user itself, then to make the accounts save would mean preventing the users themselves from logging in.
The only way to get around that would be to set up "Facebook edit booths" around the country where a person checks your DNA before allowing you in and edit your page.
The problem with your friends voting would be:
How many of your "friends" are really just bots? ;-P
Then again, that really might be a good thing. Every real person gets knocked out of Facebook and then all the bots can hack and spam each other silly while no real person is bothered.
Nah, they just put them on trailers to have some sort of memorial-parade or something driving them 'round the country.
Well, they just proved it:
The difference between a system that can fail, and a system that can not possibly fail is, that when a system that can not possibly fail fails, the fault will be at a place impossible to get at and fix.
Only the horn. It isn't honking, it's screaming "We are doomed, we are doomed!" right before the crash.
Of course, on second thought, that tiny amount of energy only gives you *one atom* of helium. So to get large quantities of helium you would still need large quantities of energy.
No "Peak" discussion will ever been taken seriously.
It's only when we are down to maybe 50% of the former peak will people start do wonder.
Probably missing formatting:
1 eV = 1.602176487(40) × 10^-19 J
An eV is a rally, rally, rally, really, *tiny* amount of energy.
nice comparison table.
There you see how much bigger in magnitudes the energy of one second of moonlight on the area of a human face is.
But once it floats "above" the denser atmosphere, even a slight solar wind is enough to blow it away. It then winds up outside the heliosphere, where it reaches *real* equilibrium between the force of the suns gravity and the upward thrust of the solar wind, about twice as far out as Jupiter.