Wing Commander was terrible. The kilrathi ended up looking like Robot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then there were the Sonar in space? And that scene where they push the wreckage of the landing strip on the carrier, and it *falls* over the side... ? That movie is awful. I think someone took a shitty naval or submarine movie and said... ok... use this, just use spaceships instead of ships... ships is ships, amirite!!
Final Fantasy -- meh... I didn't care for it, but it was anime and I'm pretty picky about anime; and think most is pretty meh.
As for Resident Evil. The first one was genuinely quite good. The rest ranged from abysmally bad to passably good.
I used to. But the issue is that site's X, Y and Z were hacked outright -- so I can't use the same p/w on them anymore.
And site Q thought "rr5KX.6kkd33Q" was too long, and site R didn't like the period in "rr5KX.6kkd33R". Site U idiotically requires a numeric PIN as its password (actually I use 2 like this.)
Site T requires I change my password every six months and doesn't allow password re-use.
Over time, the number of exceptions to the algorithm has crept up to the point that it was a burden remembering them all, and some of the sites I used very infrequently so I'd forget the exceptions, and the point of algorithmic passwords was defeated.
Now I use password safes with mostly gibberish passwords (for banking, utilties, shopping, registrar, etc..) and a handful of memorizable and 'algorithmic' passwords for a small subset of stuff I need to access commonly.
They consists of a difficult-to-guess base (like "rr5KX.6kkd33") plus a few characters derived from the site (like "sla" for slashdot).
This model is now common enough that if i see part of the domain name in someones password (or a one or two letter shift), I assume they are doing what you do.
And if I see two of their passwords, then I know they are.
Its not a bad model and its far better than outright reuse. But don't count on it defeating anyone interested in your accounts.
Full sized hdmi, VGA, multiple USB-A ports, Ethernet... God I'm glad you're not designing my laptops.
You can buy a souped up macbook air. I'm not suggesting Apple stop making them for you.
But some of us need a tool to that can connect to things though, in the real world, where there are still LOTs of wires, especially when the wireless is down.
I certainly appreciate the portability of the new MacBook pros with fewer big giant outdated ports littered all over the sides of them.
USB-A, HDMI, and ethernet are not even slightly 'outdated'.
VGA is the only connector that's outdated, but its still extremely ubiquitous. I can live without it, but having it would mean one more dongle i don't need to worry about it.
It is the unfortunate truth that I can safely assume students will have a TV (HDMI), but not a computer.
Even so, a 42"+ cheap plasma is a TERRIBLE screen to work with to write an essay. Its too bright, its not easy to read... the living room isn't setup for working...
Additionally, keyboard/mice frequently pop up at the dollar stores here, so while there is a cost I don't think it would be too much of an issue.
For basic USB sure. Some of the stuff you are talking about working with though would require bluetooth gear I think.
I really do think soliciting used gear or working with a local used laptop place is your best bet.
MacBook Pros without a dedicated Ethernet Port have TWO Thunderbolt Ports, each of which can support a variety of "adapters", including Ethernet, don't you?
I do. However: 1 - I can't plug an ethernet cable into a thunderbolt port. I encounter ethernet cables everywhere I go. The purpose of a nice portal laptop is largely defeated the larger the bag of accessories I need to carry around with me.
Just last week I just grabbed the laptop, no bag to attend a meeting in another building, I had a full charge, and knew it would get me through the meeting. After the meeting I'm asked to troubleshoot a wifi access point that was acting funny... and I need to borrow someone elses laptop because my thunderbolt dongle is in my bag, half a block away.
A pro level ultrabook should have:
i) one full size video out port (HDMI is the logical choice in 2015). Not mini-displayport (my previous macbook pro), not mini-DVI, not-miniHDMI -- full size HDMI. Because that's the plug on the end of the cord provided by the hotel, the conference center, the boardroom projector etc. I'd argue that even bog standard VGA should still be on a pro class unit too. Because if where-ever your standing doesn't have an HDMI projector... odds are you've just been handed a VGA cable.
ii) full size USB-A ports (3+). It can have mini-usb-C and other such marvels if you like, but it should have a few USB-A ports, because that's what all devices you are likely to run into will have. From a barcode scanner, to a printer to an electric piano, to a corneal topographer, to an external DVDRW. I shouldn't need an adapter for this. (WTF new Macbook!!)
iii) gigabit ethernet. Actual ethernet. Not something else that can be ethernet with a $40 dongle.
That is a laptop that can do things, rather than a laptop that can do things as long as you have a bag of overpriced dongles. As for the thunderbolt port... meh... its nice enough but if I had the ports above I don't need it. I'd get more use out of a serial port.
Yes, I know the laptop would need to be slightly thicker than it is right now. (ie as thick as a non-retina macbook pro. Fine. That's just fine. Give me some extra battery life and improve the cooling system with the space, or make the ram and SSD upgradable.
2 thunderbolt is a security hole. Like firewire. Anything that plugs into your thunderbolt port pretty much owns your laptop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I could disable thunderbolt I guess... but that makes using my Ethernet dongle even more irritating than it already is.
"It's a common marketing term in tech circles: E.g., Surface Pro."
On that front, the the surface Win8RT vs pro Actual Windows 8; the pro by having a full desktop OS really did count as a pro device in my books compared to the RT.
Even with the retirement of RT, and the desktop OS now running across the line that's diluted somewhat... but the surface pro still comes with the pro version of windows which maintains consistency with windows home/pro marketing that's been in effect for a long time now.
"but the MacBook Pro has been a model designator for over a decade."
Yeah, it's been steadily diluting...since at least the clamshell iBook vs Powerbook days... but it wasn't until they stripped the eth port out that its credibility as a 'pro' device was completely removed.
Some of us merely want to create a balance between ads and content. We're happy to have static ads out of the way to help fund the content. We don't freak out about adds in news papers.
We just don't want adds that pop up, hover, float, move around, overlay what we're looking at, interfere with browsing, track us, flash, animate, play sounds, disrupt normal browser controls, alter the cursor, rotate, etc, etc, etc, etc...
I'd love to see something for $20 that any student could afford easily, or perhaps I could just gift to a few students.
$20 is simply not realistic for new gear.
1) The very cheapest Chromebooks are also in the $170 range.
$170 will get you an HP Stream 11.6 with a celeron, 2GB ram, 32GB SSD and windows 10. Better than chromebook I think. And I see $140-$150 for a chromebook. At least in the US on amazon.
2) Android Sticks have been around for a while, and do cost in the $20 range, but don't seem to have matured into a generally usable technology. Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a community effort to easily turn these Android sticks into Ubuntu/Mint sticks.
And they'd need peripherals.
3) Students can't be assumed to have the technical know-how to fix up a Salvation Army computer (I wouldn't mind helping out a bit, but I don't want to turn into tech support)
Which would be inevitable.
4) A Raspberry Pi costs $70 once you include a case/power supply/etc, and students would receive a big bag of parts.
Does that 'etc' even get them a screen? Are peripherals free?
5) Cheap Windows Tablets have glitches, and don't have an HDMI out.
They need HDMI out? To connect them to what exactly? They don't have $140 for a chromebook, but they have $100+ HDMI monitors, and $30 bluetooth keyboards?
6) There isn't a good solution to using a cell phone as a desktop computer.
Because current cell phone OSes aren't desktop OSes; and again the peripherals would cost you more than small laptop/chromebook anyway.
In all seriousness. While a salvation army special might be too much work. Lots of 2-6 year old low-end laptops on ebay/craigslist are in the $30-$100 range. Or you could hit your local used laptop store and try and strike up a partnership; they might be willing to donate some of their oldest / least valuable stock or sell it for a song in exchange for some goodwill, advertising space in the school newsletter, sponsorship, referals etc.
That's the route I'd try first.
You might be able to scrounge up some donated hardware simply by sending a news letter home asking if anyone has any old laptops, or soliciting local businesses for same... for units that work that aren't in use they'd be willing to donate. Hell I dumped some shitty sony vaio's with 1GB ram, Vista, etc just the other day off at a recyler. I wouldn't make my own kids use them, but if someone threw Mint on them, and they'd be adequate to use use google docs to write some essays.
These are the only ways you are going to get anywhere near your price target.
Big difference in intent. Most traffic violations are the result of carelessness (running a stop sign) to a technicality (rolling through a stop sign at 1mph but failing to make a complete stop) to going with the flow of traffic (good number of speeding infractions), etc.
Ongoing commercial scale copyright infringment with 600,000$ in revenues... if you want to equate that with a moving violation... fine: organized street racing.
The first Steam game I had did not come with a warning when I purchased it.
Maybe. My first steam game was Lost Planet in 2007; it was bought at EB in a box. I remember being pretty pissed off about the steam link at the time too. I don't recall if it was properly disclosed on the box or not. I didn't keep the box for it.
So at best I can piss and moan a bit about Lost Planet maybe one day join a class action over it and get a steam coupon (sarcasm); but even the original portal from 2008 has a disclaimer on the box that I bought in 2008.
The box image I can find online... does have a disclaimer; and even a URL to the agreement. I couldn't tell you if they updated the box art after i bought it or not. But it wouldn't surprise me if that's the original box art that I had.
You might have a couple titles from half a decade ago too... and if they truly did lack any disclosure, you have a legitimate gripe about them; do you still have the boxes? Can you really demonstrate there was no disclosure at the time? I'm sincerely interested what title, and especially if you still have the box for it!?
Steam launched in 03 so my title from 07 certainly wasn't anywhere near the beginning. Wikipedia says 3rd party games didn't appear until 2005.
I'm trying to think if I got anything before Lost Planet that was steam based. I had Counter Strike and Half Life but those were straight up retail pre-steam I'm pretty sure. And I didnt' buy halflife 2 until like 2012.
I did point out that you get this Steam DRM even on a physical purchase of DVD in a box.
The boxes these days clearly disclose that a steam account is required etc on the outside of the box.
"Requires Internet connection and free steam account to activate"
In a red box.
and most stores will never give you a refund at that point.
And then to paraphrase the text in the white box next to the red box -- If you do not agree with the Steam Subscriber Agreement (SSA) return it unopened. They even warn you not to open the box if you aren't ok with the the SSA. Granted the SSA isn't on the outside of the box, but in 2015, if you can't find the SSA on the internet... that's on you.
In the normal game market, before DRM and Steam, games were sold. We were allowed BY LAW to give them away or resell them. Games were treated like books.
I addressed this in my post. In the "old game" market, there was an actual physical good being purchased, and transferred as part of the license rights. So conflating the abstract license rights with a physical good was pragmatic. Remove the physical good though, and all you have is the abstract license rights, which makes things more complex.
Further in the 'old market', you paid money, you got a box.. first sale rules applied. Now, you create an ACCOUNT with a SERVICE, and you AGREE to licensing contract terms PRIOR to making a purchase. Arguing that its the same as buying a box is absurd. They didn't nullify the law around selling things. The business model changed from a retail model to subscription service model. The subscription service model has ALWAYS been this way. Whether its a monthly Everquest subscription or a steam perpetual subscription or an extended warranty or a fishing license... the transfer-ability of such things was always contingent on the service agreement that you agreed to prior to receiving the service.
However the games have never said "you are renting this game",
Have you not read the "Steam Subscriber Agreement" ? The one that says you are a subscriber right in the the title? The one making abundantly clear that you are purchasing a perpetual subscription to a title?
(don't get me wrong, I don't disagree that that maybe steam's buttons should say "purchase subscription" instead of "purchase".)
On GoG you can lend a game away, legally, as long as you don't keep a copy of it. The only snag is that it's tied to your account still so you have to ensure that you never accidentally play it while someone else that you lent the game to is playing it.
Morally sure, I guess. Legally? You'll need a cite for that.
I mean, the new 'owner' isn't getting all the rights you enjoy, like redownloading it, or updates / expansions when they come out and get added to the title, or GoG galaxy client to manage it, etc. And you are retaining all those capabilities for the title you allege you "sold".
So you aren't really "reselling" what you purchased in any meaningful sense.
Even if they start reliably "catching the suckers" it may reduce the demand for the goods in the first place. The market for stolen phones dropped once the networks started blacklisting them. Sure savvy theives will still export them... or whatever... but getting them to Nigeria to sell them for $50 is beyond the average purse snatcher's level. Simpler to steal something else... like your laptop.
So basically the guys who stole it probably never even turn the thing on.
That laptop probably not. But do you think the laptop the thief actually uses himself to surf for porn was purchased legally?
So again, for all of this effort exactly what is going to be accomplished
A bunch of people get their stolen electronics back. Awareness is raised about the odds of getting caught using stolen laptops etc. Some actual thieves get caught and prosecuted. Other crimes will be exposed as they investigate stolen laptops. Other stolen goods, stolen weapons, etc, etc.
The real downside of this, is whether they'll start using it to track people; a database of mac addresses and sightings... with enough surveillance stations becomes an effective surveillance network, able to track individual movement and patterns.
What are you doing that you even have to think about wiping your phone?lol And no, i haven't a clue how to wipe my phone. For what reason/reasons would i need too?
Knowing how to wipe it, and being willing to have it wiped are completely separate issues.
If you lost your phone or it fell into a sink or caught fire what would you lose? Me, I'd lose some photos, I'd be annoyed at the data loss. (And more annoyed at needing a new phone.) But the data loss wouldn't bother me, and I wouldn't pay $10 to a ransom to get it back, nevermind $500.
The question is who has $500 worth of irreplaceable stuff on their phone?
They had a statistic about how many games were purchased from them but were never played, and it was surprisingly high.
I'm one of those people. And its not suprising. Steam Bundles, and Humble Bundles... mean I have a lot of titles I didn't really buy. I might play some of them, or not... I don't really care. I got my money out the bundles even just for the titles i wanted.
Valve is extremely stingy about sales with their own games, and stingy with sales for top tier games as well.
WTF?
Orangebox (HalfLife series), Left 4 Dead 1&2, and Portal 1 & 2 are regularly 75%+ off. You can probably get the entire valve catalog for under $40 without trying.
The point of DRM is to keep the prices high by killing off lending, gifting, and reselling.
That's a fundamentally wrong way of looking at it.
There is no product being sold in the first place, so the semantics of reselling don't really make sense. What is a 'used copy of a steam game' exactly? How does it differ from a brand new copy?
If the market became efficient enough, I could just resell and rebuy the games in my library as I needed them.
The end result being the developer only sells exactly as many units as are required concurrently. Because any time I want to go play, I'll take a used copy someone else isn't using that minute, and drop it back onto the market when I quit. The only time the developer makes a sale is when the used supply is exhausted by people playing.
Is THAT what you want? How would that be a good thing?
And then taken further why bother buying and selling games at all. Steam can just buy enough to meet concurrent demand and then steam users can check them out like library books.
Why not? Indeed the only way for a developer to make any money at all is to have a big splash on release week to drive up the concurrency demands. No long tail sales, tricking in because the secondary market will be full of 'idle' licenses up for grabs.
I'm just not sure reselling games on steam makes a lot of sense. It makes sense for discs or cartridges because there is actual friction in that market (actual physical goods need to be transferred), and the discs and carts do wear out over time as well. I don't know reselling makes sense for steam or itunes or even GoG.
Because honestly, I prefer GoG, which is DRM free. But reselling games even on GoG isn't really a thing either. (Its DRM free... so you could I suppose make a copy and sell it, and then not use it anymore... but nobody does that.)
And really the ONLY objection I currently have to steam is that when I'm playing game A, my kids are locked out of the other 200 OTHER games in my library. So I'd like family sharing to allow that.
1. I'm not punishing marriage. Married couples have shared expenses so it decreases the need somewhat.
You ARE punishing marriage. Two single friends living as roomates in an apartment have the same shared expenses but get more. (BingBang Theory's Leonard and Sheldon, each get the single payment.) Then Leonard falls for Penny moves next door, and they each get less now. That's punishing marriage.
Just give everyone the same amount. Give everyone half the married amount, and it will actually cut your program costs down. Yes, it might force singles to live with roomates, rent basements or room-and-board, share utilities, etc. So what?
Fwiw, I fully support a living wage, at least in principle. But there's no reason payment to marriage. When I was in university, 5 friends rented house together, to split expenses; there's no reason for them to qualify for the 'single' payment, while a couple that gets married gets less per person.
If people want to pool resources and share expenses just let them find solutions on their own. Don't try to build it into your plan.
plus with a versioning system any ransomware encryption would just create another version you could roll back to
Ok... maybe.
1) Windows for example, does have versioning, with Shadow copy etc. Cryptolocker defeats it, and wipes out the shadow copies, at least on a local volume. It might save your ass on a network share. I haven't run into that scenario yet.
2) Restoring 10s of thousands of files in folder structures after they've all been destroyed by cryptolocker, even if you have versioning/retention that wasn't defeated -- make sure you've thought through how you are actually going to do the recovery. Obviously on Linux with ZFS you'll have scripting options at least; but the point remains that its probably going to be more effort than you'd like.
3) The last cryptolocker infection i dealt with for a user (the one that affected a local system, as well dropbox), cryptolocker deleted the originals, and created new encrypted files. So "versioning" wasn't useful, there were no previous versions. However, in that case, the deleted file retention features (of dropbox in this case) saved the day. (Again if had been a local filesystem, I wouldn't count on cryptolocker not finding a way to mess with it.)
I expect future cryptolockers to be even more violent... creating new files, spraying garbage into the old, and then deleting them, and then messing with versioning and deletion recovery mechanisms as best it can... creating mountains of extra files, and then deleting those too, etc, etc. So your versioning/retention is full of crap to sort through.
Far wiser I think, to simply put your backups out of reach.
My approach is to use backup software that uses an agent to connect to the server. If your computer can't see the backup volume with the backup files, then cryptolocker can't encrypt them. Any number of cloud and local backup solutions work this way.
Also make sure you have rolling backups so if you backup your cryptolocked files that doesn't completely overwrite your good backups. (Duh!:)
. A 1997 Audi and a 1997 Honda both cost around three grand now,
Yeah, 18 years later most cars converge around a few thousand bucks. We were talking driving it off the lot. And I was thinking a little further up market than run of the mill Audi.
The more expensive cars, honestly hold their value better for the first few weeks. Why? Limited supply and demand. If I want a 2016 Ford F150 there are plenty of them to be had; why would I settle for even a slightly used one unless I was going to save a couple thousand?
But a new 911 Turbo or a Lamborghini... the numbers being shipped to the dealer are strictly limited, only so many are even coming into the country. If I want one of those... a very slightly used one isn't going to much of a "deal" because demand for new vehicles is outstripping supply; so there is a bit of a halo around nearly new.
There's also a trend in the more expensive vehicles for the new year to be more expensive than the previous year. That helps to prop up used vehicle prices a bit too (as a percentage). In the more mainstream markets new is very price competive with last years new, so why would I pay anything clsoe to X for 2015 when X buys me 2016.
But even so, yes all cars depreciate pretty hard and fast in the first few years.
And you take a horrible bath on the most expensive cars (the S550s, the A8s, etc) in the first three years, almost without exception.
You take your worst losses in first years. Definitely. Not just expensive cars. All cars.
and you'll find the car is now worth about half what you paid for it.
Depends on the car, but for most cars they are worth far more than half, despite the truism. The higher priced the car, the less they lose as a percentage.
But yeah if you pay $30,000 and LITERALLY drive it across the street, there is no way the dealer is going to pay you more than the wholesale cost on the vehicle new.
Think about it... why would he pay you more for your slightly used car than he could pay for a brand new car?
But given the vehicle literally has under 5 miles on it, and you can show a bill of sale proving you've had it for all of 10 minutes, he will easily pay you a few k less than his wholesale cost, then list it for just slightly less than the car would cost new. (which of course is several thousand more than he gave you for it... because that's how business works.)
If you want to get value for your used vehicle, sell it privately. Any dealer who buys your used car needs to buy it from you at a price where he makes decent enough money selling it that its worth showing up in the morning, after his rent, utilities, insurance and other expenses are covered. Not to mention any expenses on the vehicle itself, from detailing it to doing the brakes that you didn't mention were way past overdue... or whatever.
The point is, buy a new car, drive it off the lot, and sell it privately and you'll be asking just slightly under what you paid for it. And you'll get it.
Look at any car lot... are the 1 year old 2015 cars with 7-10k miles on them half the price of a brand new 2016 one? Nope. Not even close. Cars, outside of a few collectors items, are depreciating assets but they're not nearly as bad as you seem to think.
The final straw was when they wanted to essentially remove my local account on the machine and replace it with me using a Microsoft account for my local login.
Apple actually it too.
And in both cases, you can simply say No. It's not as obvious as it should be, but its also pretty trivial to say no, and since saying no, it hasn't bugged me about it again.
Perhaps I'm being overly negative, but it's just too much
I tend to think so too. But some people actually seem to like it.
I may just have to bite the bullet and do my PC gaming on Linux
Or you could just run a local account on your PC as you've always done. And not use Bing, edge, and outlook, and turn off Cortana.
Windows 10 is a product of the times, so anticipate stuff with cloud integration shit to be all over the place... everyone else is doing it. Apple. Google. even Canonical (Ubuntu)...
I think that Annalee thinks that her target audience is politicians.
I'd expect it's people that read a lot of gizmodo... which sort of says all that needs to be said.
The most genius part of this entire scam is that the men will never go to the authorities if they figure it out.
Agreed.
getting a real insider peak at how a dating site actually operates,
Also agreed. I almost think this 'reveal' should prompt some regulation of dating sites. They should be obligated to provide the services people think they are buying. Sites like OK Cupid and eHarmony etc... I'm sure they are better... we all know people who have met someone there... but is it really all on the up and up or is there a lot of shady going on there too?
You're looking at a single metric or two (inbox opened, messages replied to) and trying to extrapolate additional information that is simply not there.
You are right. I conflated "replied to" with "sent". That changes things significantly. But the debate is somewhat mooted by the new article.
Most birds have trouble passing large bits of plastic, and they build up in the stomach, sometimes taking up so much room that the birds canâ(TM)t consume enough food to stay healthy.
We can start harvesting bird carcasses for plastic, taking it out of the environment, and acting as a source of plastic. Win-win./sarcasm (that shouldn't be needed here... but...)
Slashdot Mirror
Wing Commander was terrible. The kilrathi ended up looking like Robot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then there were the Sonar in space? And that scene where they push the wreckage of the landing strip on the carrier, and it *falls* over the side... ? That movie is awful. I think someone took a shitty naval or submarine movie and said... ok... use this, just use spaceships instead of ships... ships is ships, amirite!!
Final Fantasy -- meh... I didn't care for it, but it was anime and I'm pretty picky about anime; and think most is pretty meh.
As for Resident Evil. The first one was genuinely quite good. The rest ranged from abysmally bad to passably good.
I use algorithmic passwords
I used to. But the issue is that site's X, Y and Z were hacked outright -- so I can't use the same p/w on them anymore.
And site Q thought "rr5KX.6kkd33Q" was too long, and site R didn't like the period in "rr5KX.6kkd33R". Site U idiotically requires a numeric PIN as its password (actually I use 2 like this.)
Site T requires I change my password every six months and doesn't allow password re-use.
Over time, the number of exceptions to the algorithm has crept up to the point that it was a burden remembering them all, and some of the sites I used very infrequently so I'd forget the exceptions, and the point of algorithmic passwords was defeated.
Now I use password safes with mostly gibberish passwords (for banking, utilties, shopping, registrar, etc..) and a handful of memorizable and 'algorithmic' passwords for a small subset of stuff I need to access commonly.
They consists of a difficult-to-guess base (like "rr5KX.6kkd33") plus a few characters derived from the site (like "sla" for slashdot).
This model is now common enough that if i see part of the domain name in someones password (or a one or two letter shift), I assume they are doing what you do.
And if I see two of their passwords, then I know they are.
Its not a bad model and its far better than outright reuse. But don't count on it defeating anyone interested in your accounts.
The community D&D episodes were pretty brilliant too.
Full sized hdmi, VGA, multiple USB-A ports, Ethernet... God I'm glad you're not designing my laptops.
You can buy a souped up macbook air. I'm not suggesting Apple stop making them for you.
But some of us need a tool to that can connect to things though, in the real world, where there are still LOTs of wires, especially when the wireless is down.
I certainly appreciate the portability of the new MacBook pros with fewer big giant outdated ports littered all over the sides of them.
USB-A, HDMI, and ethernet are not even slightly 'outdated'.
VGA is the only connector that's outdated, but its still extremely ubiquitous. I can live without it, but having it would mean one more dongle i don't need to worry about it.
It is the unfortunate truth that I can safely assume students will have a TV (HDMI), but not a computer.
Even so, a 42"+ cheap plasma is a TERRIBLE screen to work with to write an essay. Its too bright, its not easy to read... the living room isn't setup for working...
Additionally, keyboard/mice frequently pop up at the dollar stores here, so while there is a cost I don't think it would be too much of an issue.
For basic USB sure. Some of the stuff you are talking about working with though would require bluetooth gear I think.
I really do think soliciting used gear or working with a local used laptop place is your best bet.
"steadily diluting" = "becoming increasingly watered down"
MacBook Pros without a dedicated Ethernet Port have TWO Thunderbolt Ports, each of which can support a variety of "adapters", including Ethernet, don't you?
I do.
However:
1 - I can't plug an ethernet cable into a thunderbolt port. I encounter ethernet cables everywhere I go. The purpose of a nice portal laptop is largely defeated the larger the bag of accessories I need to carry around with me.
Just last week I just grabbed the laptop, no bag to attend a meeting in another building, I had a full charge, and knew it would get me through the meeting. After the meeting I'm asked to troubleshoot a wifi access point that was acting funny... and I need to borrow someone elses laptop because my thunderbolt dongle is in my bag, half a block away.
A pro level ultrabook should have:
i) one full size video out port (HDMI is the logical choice in 2015). Not mini-displayport (my previous macbook pro), not mini-DVI, not-miniHDMI -- full size HDMI. Because that's the plug on the end of the cord provided by the hotel, the conference center, the boardroom projector etc. I'd argue that even bog standard VGA should still be on a pro class unit too. Because if where-ever your standing doesn't have an HDMI projector... odds are you've just been handed a VGA cable.
ii) full size USB-A ports (3+). It can have mini-usb-C and other such marvels if you like, but it should have a few USB-A ports, because that's what all devices you are likely to run into will have. From a barcode scanner, to a printer to an electric piano, to a corneal topographer, to an external DVDRW. I shouldn't need an adapter for this. (WTF new Macbook!!)
iii) gigabit ethernet. Actual ethernet. Not something else that can be ethernet with a $40 dongle.
That is a laptop that can do things, rather than a laptop that can do things as long as you have a bag of overpriced dongles.
As for the thunderbolt port... meh... its nice enough but if I had the ports above I don't need it. I'd get more use out of a serial port.
Yes, I know the laptop would need to be slightly thicker than it is right now. (ie as thick as a non-retina macbook pro. Fine. That's just fine. Give me some extra battery life and improve the cooling system with the space, or make the ram and SSD upgradable.
2 thunderbolt is a security hole. Like firewire. Anything that plugs into your thunderbolt port pretty much owns your laptop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I could disable thunderbolt I guess... but that makes using my Ethernet dongle even more irritating than it already is.
"It's a common marketing term in tech circles: E.g., Surface Pro."
On that front, the the surface Win8RT vs pro Actual Windows 8; the pro by having a full desktop OS really did count as a pro device in my books compared to the RT.
Even with the retirement of RT, and the desktop OS now running across the line that's diluted somewhat... but the surface pro still comes with the pro version of windows which maintains consistency with windows home/pro marketing that's been in effect for a long time now.
"but the MacBook Pro has been a model designator for over a decade."
Yeah, it's been steadily diluting...since at least the clamshell iBook vs Powerbook days... but it wasn't until they stripped the eth port out that its credibility as a 'pro' device was completely removed.
I don't see how a bigger screen and better performance suddenly make this oversized phone a professional tool.
These days in Apple-speak -- "Pro" == "same as consumer product but faster". Look at the MacBook Pro for another example.
Some of us merely want to create a balance between ads and content. We're happy to have static ads out of the way to help fund the content. We don't freak out about adds in news papers.
We just don't want adds that pop up, hover, float, move around, overlay what we're looking at, interfere with browsing, track us, flash, animate, play sounds, disrupt normal browser controls, alter the cursor, rotate, etc, etc, etc, etc...
I'd love to see something for $20 that any student could afford easily, or perhaps I could just gift to a few students.
$20 is simply not realistic for new gear.
1) The very cheapest Chromebooks are also in the $170 range.
$170 will get you an HP Stream 11.6 with a celeron, 2GB ram, 32GB SSD and windows 10. Better than chromebook I think. And I see $140-$150 for a chromebook. At least in the US on amazon.
2) Android Sticks have been around for a while, and do cost in the $20 range, but don't seem to have matured into a generally usable technology. Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a community effort to easily turn these Android sticks into Ubuntu/Mint sticks.
And they'd need peripherals.
3) Students can't be assumed to have the technical know-how to fix up a Salvation Army computer (I wouldn't mind helping out a bit, but I don't want to turn into tech support)
Which would be inevitable.
4) A Raspberry Pi costs $70 once you include a case/power supply/etc, and students would receive a big bag of parts.
Does that 'etc' even get them a screen? Are peripherals free?
5) Cheap Windows Tablets have glitches, and don't have an HDMI out.
They need HDMI out? To connect them to what exactly? They don't have $140 for a chromebook, but they have $100+ HDMI monitors, and $30 bluetooth keyboards?
6) There isn't a good solution to using a cell phone as a desktop computer.
Because current cell phone OSes aren't desktop OSes; and again the peripherals would cost you more than small laptop/chromebook anyway.
In all seriousness. While a salvation army special might be too much work. Lots of 2-6 year old low-end laptops on ebay/craigslist are in the $30-$100 range. Or you could hit your local used laptop store and try and strike up a partnership; they might be willing to donate some of their oldest / least valuable stock or sell it for a song in exchange for some goodwill, advertising space in the school newsletter, sponsorship, referals etc.
That's the route I'd try first.
You might be able to scrounge up some donated hardware simply by sending a news letter home asking if anyone has any old laptops, or soliciting local businesses for same... for units that work that aren't in use they'd be willing to donate. Hell I dumped some shitty sony vaio's with 1GB ram, Vista, etc just the other day off at a recyler. I wouldn't make my own kids use them, but if someone threw Mint on them, and they'd be adequate to use use google docs to write some essays.
These are the only ways you are going to get anywhere near your price target.
Big difference in intent. Most traffic violations are the result of carelessness (running a stop sign) to a technicality (rolling through a stop sign at 1mph but failing to make a complete stop) to going with the flow of traffic (good number of speeding infractions), etc.
Ongoing commercial scale copyright infringment with 600,000$ in revenues... if you want to equate that with a moving violation... fine: organized street racing.
The first Steam game I had did not come with a warning when I purchased it.
Maybe. My first steam game was Lost Planet in 2007; it was bought at EB in a box. I remember being pretty pissed off about the steam link at the time too. I don't recall if it was properly disclosed on the box or not. I didn't keep the box for it.
So at best I can piss and moan a bit about Lost Planet maybe one day join a class action over it and get a steam coupon (sarcasm); but even the original portal from 2008 has a disclaimer on the box that I bought in 2008.
The box image I can find online... does have a disclaimer; and even a URL to the agreement. I couldn't tell you if they updated the box art after i bought it or not. But it wouldn't surprise me if that's the original box art that I had.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/939...
You might have a couple titles from half a decade ago too... and if they truly did lack any disclosure, you have a legitimate gripe about them; do you still have the boxes? Can you really demonstrate there was no disclosure at the time? I'm sincerely interested what title, and especially if you still have the box for it!?
Steam launched in 03 so my title from 07 certainly wasn't anywhere near the beginning. Wikipedia says 3rd party games didn't appear until 2005.
I'm trying to think if I got anything before Lost Planet that was steam based. I had Counter Strike and Half Life but those were straight up retail pre-steam I'm pretty sure. And I didnt' buy halflife 2 until like 2012.
I did point out that you get this Steam DRM even on a physical purchase of DVD in a box.
The boxes these days clearly disclose that a steam account is required etc on the outside of the box.
http://img.gamefaqs.net/box/7/...
"Requires Internet connection and free steam account to activate"
In a red box.
and most stores will never give you a refund at that point.
And then to paraphrase the text in the white box next to the red box -- If you do not agree with the Steam Subscriber Agreement (SSA) return it unopened. They even warn you not to open the box if you aren't ok with the the SSA. Granted the SSA isn't on the outside of the box, but in 2015, if you can't find the SSA on the internet... that's on you.
In the normal game market, before DRM and Steam, games were sold. We were allowed BY LAW to give them away or resell them. Games were treated like books.
I addressed this in my post. In the "old game" market, there was an actual physical good being purchased, and transferred as part of the license rights. So conflating the abstract license rights with a physical good was pragmatic. Remove the physical good though, and all you have is the abstract license rights, which makes things more complex.
Further in the 'old market', you paid money, you got a box.. first sale rules applied. Now, you create an ACCOUNT with a SERVICE, and you AGREE to licensing contract terms PRIOR to making a purchase. Arguing that its the same as buying a box is absurd. They didn't nullify the law around selling things. The business model changed from a retail model to subscription service model. The subscription service model has ALWAYS been this way. Whether its a monthly Everquest subscription or a steam perpetual subscription or an extended warranty or a fishing license... the transfer-ability of such things was always contingent on the service agreement that you agreed to prior to receiving the service.
However the games have never said "you are renting this game",
Have you not read the "Steam Subscriber Agreement" ? The one that says you are a subscriber right in the the title? The one making abundantly clear that you are purchasing a perpetual subscription to a title?
(don't get me wrong, I don't disagree that that maybe steam's buttons should say "purchase subscription" instead of "purchase".)
On GoG you can lend a game away, legally, as long as you don't keep a copy of it. The only snag is that it's tied to your account still so you have to ensure that you never accidentally play it while someone else that you lent the game to is playing it.
Morally sure, I guess. Legally? You'll need a cite for that.
I mean, the new 'owner' isn't getting all the rights you enjoy, like redownloading it, or updates / expansions when they come out and get added to the title, or GoG galaxy client to manage it, etc. And you are retaining all those capabilities for the title you allege you "sold".
So you aren't really "reselling" what you purchased in any meaningful sense.
Even if they start reliably "catching the suckers" it may reduce the demand for the goods in the first place. The market for stolen phones dropped once the networks started blacklisting them. Sure savvy theives will still export them... or whatever... but getting them to Nigeria to sell them for $50 is beyond the average purse snatcher's level. Simpler to steal something else... like your laptop.
So basically the guys who stole it probably never even turn the thing on.
That laptop probably not. But do you think the laptop the thief actually uses himself to surf for porn was purchased legally?
So again, for all of this effort exactly what is going to be accomplished
A bunch of people get their stolen electronics back. Awareness is raised about the odds of getting caught using stolen laptops etc. Some actual thieves get caught and prosecuted. Other crimes will be exposed as they investigate stolen laptops. Other stolen goods, stolen weapons, etc, etc.
The real downside of this, is whether they'll start using it to track people; a database of mac addresses and sightings... with enough surveillance stations becomes an effective surveillance network, able to track individual movement and patterns.
What are you doing that you even have to think about wiping your phone?lol And no, i haven't a clue how to wipe my phone. For what reason/reasons would i need too?
Knowing how to wipe it, and being willing to have it wiped are completely separate issues.
If you lost your phone or it fell into a sink or caught fire what would you lose? Me, I'd lose some photos, I'd be annoyed at the data loss. (And more annoyed at needing a new phone.) But the data loss wouldn't bother me, and I wouldn't pay $10 to a ransom to get it back, nevermind $500.
The question is who has $500 worth of irreplaceable stuff on their phone?
They had a statistic about how many games were purchased from them but were never played, and it was surprisingly high.
I'm one of those people. And its not suprising. Steam Bundles, and Humble Bundles... mean I have a lot of titles I didn't really buy. I might play some of them, or not... I don't really care. I got my money out the bundles even just for the titles i wanted.
Valve is extremely stingy about sales with their own games, and stingy with sales for top tier games as well.
WTF?
Orangebox (HalfLife series), Left 4 Dead 1&2, and Portal 1 & 2 are regularly 75%+ off. You can probably get the entire valve catalog for under $40 without trying.
The point of DRM is to keep the prices high by killing off lending, gifting, and reselling.
That's a fundamentally wrong way of looking at it.
There is no product being sold in the first place, so the semantics of reselling don't really make sense. What is a 'used copy of a steam game' exactly? How does it differ from a brand new copy?
If the market became efficient enough, I could just resell and rebuy the games in my library as I needed them.
The end result being the developer only sells exactly as many units as are required concurrently. Because any time I want to go play, I'll take a used copy someone else isn't using that minute, and drop it back onto the market when I quit. The only time the developer makes a sale is when the used supply is exhausted by people playing.
Is THAT what you want? How would that be a good thing?
And then taken further why bother buying and selling games at all. Steam can just buy enough to meet concurrent demand and then steam users can check them out like library books.
Why not? Indeed the only way for a developer to make any money at all is to have a big splash on release week to drive up the concurrency demands. No long tail sales, tricking in because the secondary market will be full of 'idle' licenses up for grabs.
I'm just not sure reselling games on steam makes a lot of sense. It makes sense for discs or cartridges because there is actual friction in that market (actual physical goods need to be transferred), and the discs and carts do wear out over time as well. I don't know reselling makes sense for steam or itunes or even GoG.
Because honestly, I prefer GoG, which is DRM free. But reselling games even on GoG isn't really a thing either. (Its DRM free... so you could I suppose make a copy and sell it, and then not use it anymore... but nobody does that.)
And really the ONLY objection I currently have to steam is that when I'm playing game A, my kids are locked out of the other 200 OTHER games in my library. So I'd like family sharing to allow that.
1. I'm not punishing marriage. Married couples have shared expenses so it decreases the need somewhat.
You ARE punishing marriage. Two single friends living as roomates in an apartment have the same shared expenses but get more. (BingBang Theory's Leonard and Sheldon, each get the single payment.) Then Leonard falls for Penny moves next door, and they each get less now. That's punishing marriage.
Just give everyone the same amount. Give everyone half the married amount, and it will actually cut your program costs down. Yes, it might force singles to live with roomates, rent basements or room-and-board, share utilities, etc. So what?
Fwiw, I fully support a living wage, at least in principle. But there's no reason payment to marriage. When I was in university, 5 friends rented house together, to split expenses; there's no reason for them to qualify for the 'single' payment, while a couple that gets married gets less per person.
If people want to pool resources and share expenses just let them find solutions on their own. Don't try to build it into your plan.
plus with a versioning system any ransomware encryption would just create another version you could roll back to
Ok... maybe.
1) Windows for example, does have versioning, with Shadow copy etc. Cryptolocker defeats it, and wipes out the shadow copies, at least on a local volume. It might save your ass on a network share. I haven't run into that scenario yet.
2) Restoring 10s of thousands of files in folder structures after they've all been destroyed by cryptolocker, even if you have versioning/retention that wasn't defeated -- make sure you've thought through how you are actually going to do the recovery. Obviously on Linux with ZFS you'll have scripting options at least; but the point remains that its probably going to be more effort than you'd like.
3) The last cryptolocker infection i dealt with for a user (the one that affected a local system, as well dropbox), cryptolocker deleted the originals, and created new encrypted files. So "versioning" wasn't useful, there were no previous versions. However, in that case, the deleted file retention features (of dropbox in this case) saved the day. (Again if had been a local filesystem, I wouldn't count on cryptolocker not finding a way to mess with it.)
I expect future cryptolockers to be even more violent... creating new files, spraying garbage into the old, and then deleting them, and then messing with versioning and deletion recovery mechanisms as best it can... creating mountains of extra files, and then deleting those too, etc, etc. So your versioning/retention is full of crap to sort through.
Far wiser I think, to simply put your backups out of reach.
My approach is to use backup software that uses an agent to connect to the server. If your computer can't see the backup volume with the backup files, then cryptolocker can't encrypt them. Any number of cloud and local backup solutions work this way.
Also make sure you have rolling backups so if you backup your cryptolocked files that doesn't completely overwrite your good backups. (Duh! :)
. A 1997 Audi and a 1997 Honda both cost around three grand now,
Yeah, 18 years later most cars converge around a few thousand bucks. We were talking driving it off the lot. And I was thinking a little further up market than run of the mill Audi.
The more expensive cars, honestly hold their value better for the first few weeks. Why? Limited supply and demand. If I want a 2016 Ford F150 there are plenty of them to be had; why would I settle for even a slightly used one unless I was going to save a couple thousand?
But a new 911 Turbo or a Lamborghini... the numbers being shipped to the dealer are strictly limited, only so many are even coming into the country. If I want one of those... a very slightly used one isn't going to much of a "deal" because demand for new vehicles is outstripping supply; so there is a bit of a halo around nearly new.
There's also a trend in the more expensive vehicles for the new year to be more expensive than the previous year. That helps to prop up used vehicle prices a bit too (as a percentage). In the more mainstream markets new is very price competive with last years new, so why would I pay anything clsoe to X for 2015 when X buys me 2016.
But even so, yes all cars depreciate pretty hard and fast in the first few years.
And you take a horrible bath on the most expensive cars (the S550s, the A8s, etc) in the first three years, almost without exception.
You take your worst losses in first years. Definitely. Not just expensive cars. All cars.
and you'll find the car is now worth about half what you paid for it.
Depends on the car, but for most cars they are worth far more than half, despite the truism. The higher priced the car, the less they lose as a percentage.
But yeah if you pay $30,000 and LITERALLY drive it across the street, there is no way the dealer is going to pay you more than the wholesale cost on the vehicle new.
Think about it... why would he pay you more for your slightly used car than he could pay for a brand new car?
But given the vehicle literally has under 5 miles on it, and you can show a bill of sale proving you've had it for all of 10 minutes, he will easily pay you a few k less than his wholesale cost, then list it for just slightly less than the car would cost new. (which of course is several thousand more than he gave you for it... because that's how business works.)
If you want to get value for your used vehicle, sell it privately. Any dealer who buys your used car needs to buy it from you at a price where he makes decent enough money selling it that its worth showing up in the morning, after his rent, utilities, insurance and other expenses are covered. Not to mention any expenses on the vehicle itself, from detailing it to doing the brakes that you didn't mention were way past overdue... or whatever.
The point is, buy a new car, drive it off the lot, and sell it privately and you'll be asking just slightly under what you paid for it. And you'll get it.
Look at any car lot... are the 1 year old 2015 cars with 7-10k miles on them half the price of a brand new 2016 one? Nope. Not even close. Cars, outside of a few collectors items, are depreciating assets but they're not nearly as bad as you seem to think.
The final straw was when they wanted to essentially remove my local account on the machine and replace it with me using a Microsoft account for my local login.
Apple actually it too.
And in both cases, you can simply say No. It's not as obvious as it should be, but its also pretty trivial to say no, and since saying no, it hasn't bugged me about it again.
Perhaps I'm being overly negative, but it's just too much
I tend to think so too. But some people actually seem to like it.
I may just have to bite the bullet and do my PC gaming on Linux
Or you could just run a local account on your PC as you've always done. And not use Bing, edge, and outlook, and turn off Cortana.
Windows 10 is a product of the times, so anticipate stuff with cloud integration shit to be all over the place... everyone else is doing it. Apple. Google. even Canonical (Ubuntu)...
I think that Annalee thinks that her target audience is politicians.
I'd expect it's people that read a lot of gizmodo ... which sort of says all that needs to be said.
The most genius part of this entire scam is that the men will never go to the authorities if they figure it out.
Agreed.
getting a real insider peak at how a dating site actually operates,
Also agreed. I almost think this 'reveal' should prompt some regulation of dating sites. They should be obligated to provide the services people think they are buying. Sites like OK Cupid and eHarmony etc... I'm sure they are better... we all know people who have met someone there... but is it really all on the up and up or is there a lot of shady going on there too?
There's actually an update to the Gizmodo article since I'd last read it. I'm reading the new article now.
http://gizmodo.com/ashley-madi...
Its quite interesting.
You're looking at a single metric or two (inbox opened, messages replied to) and trying to extrapolate additional information that is simply not there.
You are right. I conflated "replied to" with "sent". That changes things significantly. But the debate is somewhat mooted by the new article.
-cheers
Most birds have trouble passing large bits of plastic, and they build up in the stomach, sometimes taking up so much room that the birds canâ(TM)t consume enough food to stay healthy.
We can start harvesting bird carcasses for plastic, taking it out of the environment, and acting as a source of plastic. Win-win. /sarcasm (that shouldn't be needed here... but...)
I use my OSX box at work (MacBook Pro) and I can manage Unix systems with no issues
Assuming the OS works well enough connect to the network and open an SSH terminal session you'd have no issues managing Unix systems.
It would take a pretty catastrophically bad OS to fail as a dumb SSH terminal. Even DOS was pretty passable at it.
I think he means actually managing and fixing screwed up OSX systems from OSX. That's where OSX really gets in the way.