I for one simply stopped using floppies in 486 era as soon as i bought my first cd recorder. never bought one floppy drive after that
Your timeline is off, or you were fabulously weathy. The 486 golden era was around 93' to 95. (the pentium 60 came out around '94). At that time, many computers shipped without CD drives of any sort. A really hot-shot machine had a 4x reader and no writer. Even around '97 a CDR (not RW) cost many hundreds of dollars, ran at 1x or 2x speeds, required a 3rd party program because there was no OS integration (and they were all horrible), and produced as many coasters as finalized disks, at nearly $1 per disk.
Or really really poor.;-)
I got a CD-R drive around 1998 that was blazing fast (4x SCSI because the IDE ones were coaster-makers) and it was $2 a disk. A year prior I bought a pack of disks for something like $3 or $5 a piece.
Just to put on my cynic hat, the government had better hope that they rounded up all those Anonymous hackers the other day. Otherwise, I'd give it a year, tops, before somebody manages to pull off "Girls Gone Wild, Airport Security Style". Really, when you have something so utterly ripe for abuse, it's not a question of if, but when.
If TSA is smart about security (ha), they wouldn't hook the scanners to any network that touches the internet (dedicated lines from the scanners to the hidden room, be it ethernet or something else). Doing this more-or-less eliminates the threat of outside hacking. How can you hack and extract data from something that isn't connected? No, I'm not describing a Mission-Impossible style break-in.
(I'm not addressing the other built-in security flaws like USB support)
A $1,000 fine for not explaining a $4 charge is a pretty heavy fine-to-damage ratio. It might not be sufficient to change all business practices, but the hope is to send a message that not disclosing billing details to customers could be costly.
If 2/3rds of the user base stays with a 50% price increase, then they've increased revenue while decreasing expenses (less bandwidth usage).
Question is whether it'll stay at just a third leaving.
At the same time they lose market share, which hurts their long-term prospects. It makes it harder for them to grow revenue and easier for their competitors (iTunes, Amazon, Hulu) to grow strong.
Most investors would see a 1/3rd paying user-base leaving in this span of months as very bad. Revenue isn't necessarily going up; there are lot of households who will stay but go from 2 DVDs to 1.
Netflix is trying to put the DVD side with a price to adequately cover its costs (which are substantial), and trying to push as many users as it can to the streaming side. I've been expecting this for a long time, and I think it was a good decision.
While I knew they were going to emphasize streaming over DVD, I wish they had treaded more carefully. They won't admit it, but their PR department is (or should be) in damage control mode.
Considering they use the back of their hands, it wouldn't call it 'groping'. The media likes to incite the locals with such terminology but the pat downs are pretty benign. In this case she simply didn't want to put her child through the scanner. As far as I can tell from TFA, she never even got to the point where they offered to do a pat down instead.
Next time you are out in public, touch a woman in a sensitive spot with the back of your hand and see if she cares whether it was the front or back of your hand.
Mark my words, this will kill the economy, just like ATMs did.
ATM's became popular because for simple transactions it is quicker to go through a machine then to talk to a real person. For complex sales interactions I cannot see some computer trying to guess what I am thinking replacing a real live sales person / engineer. The process for finding solutions that are right for my situation is too complex.
Also, Watson will never be able to properly replace someone in retention (the people you talk to if you sound like you're going to cancel your cable subscription). These people don't work from a script (even if they do have a playbook).
I ended up yanking my two boys out of public and going home school because not only was the public school a *football school* but probably one of the most bigoted places I had the misfortune to step foot in.
So you taught your child to be intolerant of someone elses views and to run away and hide from people that aren't like you and/or don't think like you.
Slamming someone for being intolerant of intolerance. How... meta.
(don't go analyzing this post or your brain will explode)
Judging from what works during the election cycle, I'd say that most Americans want some form of airport security. How much security is up for debate - and what kind of security is a question of education. Which, unfortunately, has nothing to do with intelligence or what shows up on TV and in papers.
I wonder how many of the people voting for airport security are the ones paranoid that a plane will be flown into their barn.
Ultimately, the online purchase age verification takes care of itself with the use of a credit card.
Prepaid debit cards have age restrictions?
When the kid is smart and capable enough to get a prepaid debit card to make an online order, they are either approaching 18 or are smart enough to get around any age restrictions.
really it starts with lazy hardware design. Low power design is not difficult but you have to do it from the start.
There should be very, very little price difference between the two versions.
I'd say that hardware that processes multiple video streams, writes and reads from a hard disk, and only consumes around 25-30W is a pretty low-power design (especially since it was built by the lowest bidder). The Apple TV only consumes 6W, handles one data steam (and only 720p), has no spinning hard drive (only 8 GB of flash), and was built was green in mind.
Facebook's greatest value to humanity may be as a honeypot to stupid people who post their misdeeds for all the public (and law enforcement agencies) to see.
I would say RTFA but even the summary says that it's for other people identifying the rioter, not the rioter posting a picture of himself burning that police car.
If he helps win this fight then the people profiting most will be the terminally ill
I wonder how many drug companies and other members of the medical-industrial machine would rather see this stay a non-option so they can sell their meds to prolong the passing of the elderly who would rather go out on their own terms.
I hope it's not the case, but they do have a vested interest.
Don't say that. It's false hope. You don't know that for sure, and neither does anyone else. We still haven't cured the common cold. The best we can do is address the symptoms. Treating Alzheimer may involve just that as well. Treating the symptoms, but not the direct cause.
A better example might be diabetes. Part of the reason why the common cold isn't cured is because generally it's not a big deal (only for people with suppressed immune systems). Diabetes requires frequent maintenance and has serious consequences if meds aren't available.
That said, I agree that it's a false hope. We might eventually learn that Alzheimers is incurable and that the treatments aren't very effective.
There is nothing wrong with the pricing that I can see. Apple can charge what they like. And the cellular providers can charge what they like, clearly they are giving a discount to be tied into a contract.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with this and I see no reason for government interference.
While there might be strong need for government interference, the 2-year-contract slows change in the market. People who sign up for a phone plan today are not on the market (as potential customers) for 2 years. This means that for any given month, maybe ~4% of the market is capable of changing carriers (not counting seasonal variance, pending releases, or people who don't renew). In a contract-free market, one carrier could over-turn the market in months if they came out with either a new feature or better price model. Here, such a shift is next to impossible (why else did AT&T wait 18 months after the iPhone 3G came out before they started network upgrades).
IMOH, there is collusion that needs to be stopped (SMS costs changing overnight at all major carriers isn't an accident) and phones shouldn't be locked to a carrier (effectively cripple-ware). If those changes are made, I think the market could take care of the rest.
+1. There are many stories in game development where a failed project got handed to another team to polish (which is then released late and is a pile of junk).
Actual GPS is actually pretty cheap, but knowing where you are isn't very helpful unless you also have a way of telling someone where that is so that they can come pick you up. You need a radio or satellite transmitter that's capable of relaying your coordinates to someone who's on land, or at least a few hundred miles off. That's what makes it expensive, not so much the GPS portion of the device.
Sea-going, radio-based distress beacons are an established technology for boats of any size. My understanding is that they carry their signal pretty far, even if it is low-tech.
Here's a pic of a container ship after going through rough seas: http://i.imgur.com/4ynah.jpg. I'm stunned that those containers are still on board. Looks like they're chained down, but even metal breaks eventually
That's kind of awesome. I feel like this belongs in a demotivation poster. Maybe "Sure, I could hack it together over the weekend" or "This is what your code will look like to the next developer."
100% of the people passing a DUI checkpoint is drunk, then, is it?
Or maybe there are sober people who don't want to be stopped at a DUI checkpoint.
I've yet to experience a DUI checkpoint, but I've seen seatbelt check-points that resulted in epically bad traffic jams. I'd want to know if there was one if only to make it to work before lunch (which admittedly doesn't apply to DUI since they probably aren't setup at 8 am).
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I for one simply stopped using floppies in 486 era as soon as i bought my first cd recorder. never bought one floppy drive after that
Your timeline is off, or you were fabulously weathy. The 486 golden era was around 93' to 95. (the pentium 60 came out around '94). At that time, many computers shipped without CD drives of any sort. A really hot-shot machine had a 4x reader and no writer. Even around '97 a CDR (not RW) cost many hundreds of dollars, ran at 1x or 2x speeds, required a 3rd party program because there was no OS integration (and they were all horrible), and produced as many coasters as finalized disks, at nearly $1 per disk.
Or really really poor. ;-)
I got a CD-R drive around 1998 that was blazing fast (4x SCSI because the IDE ones were coaster-makers) and it was $2 a disk. A year prior I bought a pack of disks for something like $3 or $5 a piece.
"No reason to do this. As a fucking US citizen this is totally unwarranted."
"No reason to do this. As a fucking human being this is totally unwarranted."
FIFY.
"Every reason to do this. As a citizen this is totally warranted."
- Stalin
Obligatory xkcd
Just to put on my cynic hat, the government had better hope that they rounded up all those Anonymous hackers the other day. Otherwise, I'd give it a year, tops, before somebody manages to pull off "Girls Gone Wild, Airport Security Style". Really, when you have something so utterly ripe for abuse, it's not a question of if, but when.
If TSA is smart about security (ha), they wouldn't hook the scanners to any network that touches the internet (dedicated lines from the scanners to the hidden room, be it ethernet or something else). Doing this more-or-less eliminates the threat of outside hacking. How can you hack and extract data from something that isn't connected? No, I'm not describing a Mission-Impossible style break-in.
(I'm not addressing the other built-in security flaws like USB support)
What will white roofs do in the winter? Make the building colder?
A roof is white in winter because of the snow.
Said another way, we already have white roofs in cold climates in the winter because the snow makes the shingle color irrelevant.
A $1,000 fine for not explaining a $4 charge is a pretty heavy fine-to-damage ratio. It might not be sufficient to change all business practices, but the hope is to send a message that not disclosing billing details to customers could be costly.
If 2/3rds of the user base stays with a 50% price increase, then they've increased revenue while decreasing expenses (less bandwidth usage).
Question is whether it'll stay at just a third leaving.
At the same time they lose market share, which hurts their long-term prospects. It makes it harder for them to grow revenue and easier for their competitors (iTunes, Amazon, Hulu) to grow strong.
Most investors would see a 1/3rd paying user-base leaving in this span of months as very bad. Revenue isn't necessarily going up; there are lot of households who will stay but go from 2 DVDs to 1.
Netflix is trying to put the DVD side with a price to adequately cover its costs (which are substantial), and trying to push as many users as it can to the streaming side. I've been expecting this for a long time, and I think it was a good decision.
While I knew they were going to emphasize streaming over DVD, I wish they had treaded more carefully. They won't admit it, but their PR department is (or should be) in damage control mode.
Considering they use the back of their hands, it wouldn't call it 'groping'. The media likes to incite the locals with such terminology but the pat downs are pretty benign. In this case she simply didn't want to put her child through the scanner. As far as I can tell from TFA, she never even got to the point where they offered to do a pat down instead.
Next time you are out in public, touch a woman in a sensitive spot with the back of your hand and see if she cares whether it was the front or back of your hand.
(and don't blame me if you get arrested)
Mark my words, this will kill the economy, just like ATMs did.
ATM's became popular because for simple transactions it is quicker to go through a machine then to talk to a real person. For complex sales interactions I cannot see some computer trying to guess what I am thinking replacing a real live sales person / engineer. The process for finding solutions that are right for my situation is too complex.
Also, Watson will never be able to properly replace someone in retention (the people you talk to if you sound like you're going to cancel your cable subscription). These people don't work from a script (even if they do have a playbook).
I ended up yanking my two boys out of public and going home school because not only was the public school a *football school* but probably one of the most bigoted places I had the misfortune to step foot in.
So you taught your child to be intolerant of someone elses views and to run away and hide from people that aren't like you and/or don't think like you.
Slamming someone for being intolerant of intolerance. How... meta.
(don't go analyzing this post or your brain will explode)
If the American people want airport security
Who says we do?
Judging from what works during the election cycle, I'd say that most Americans want some form of airport security. How much security is up for debate - and what kind of security is a question of education. Which, unfortunately, has nothing to do with intelligence or what shows up on TV and in papers.
I wonder how many of the people voting for airport security are the ones paranoid that a plane will be flown into their barn.
(yes I know I'm exaggerating for effect)
Ultimately, the online purchase age verification takes care of itself with the use of a credit card.
Prepaid debit cards have age restrictions?
When the kid is smart and capable enough to get a prepaid debit card to make an online order, they are either approaching 18 or are smart enough to get around any age restrictions.
really it starts with lazy hardware design. Low power design is not difficult but you have to do it from the start.
There should be very, very little price difference between the two versions.
I'd say that hardware that processes multiple video streams, writes and reads from a hard disk, and only consumes around 25-30W is a pretty low-power design (especially since it was built by the lowest bidder). The Apple TV only consumes 6W, handles one data steam (and only 720p), has no spinning hard drive (only 8 GB of flash), and was built was green in mind.
+1. Better put than I could ever have written.
The one thing I'll add is that we are too unaware of modern-day Pharisees.
Would you want this guy working for you?
I dunno. He was an IT manager capable of installing software and changing a presentation; that's more IT knowledge than most IT managers have.
Yes, but you are forgetting the flip side: piss him off and you will pay. I wouldn't hire him no matter how desperate I was.
Facebook's greatest value to humanity may be as a honeypot to stupid people who post their misdeeds for all the public (and law enforcement agencies) to see.
I would say RTFA but even the summary says that it's for other people identifying the rioter, not the rioter posting a picture of himself burning that police car.
If he helps win this fight then the people profiting most will be the terminally ill
I wonder how many drug companies and other members of the medical-industrial machine would rather see this stay a non-option so they can sell their meds to prolong the passing of the elderly who would rather go out on their own terms.
I hope it's not the case, but they do have a vested interest.
Don't say that. It's false hope. You don't know that for sure, and neither does anyone else. We still haven't cured the common cold. The best we can do is address the symptoms. Treating Alzheimer may involve just that as well. Treating the symptoms, but not the direct cause.
A better example might be diabetes. Part of the reason why the common cold isn't cured is because generally it's not a big deal (only for people with suppressed immune systems). Diabetes requires frequent maintenance and has serious consequences if meds aren't available.
That said, I agree that it's a false hope. We might eventually learn that Alzheimers is incurable and that the treatments aren't very effective.
Actually I agree with AC (and I'm no Rebublican)
There is nothing wrong with the pricing that I can see. Apple can charge what they like. And the cellular providers can charge what they like, clearly they are giving a discount to be tied into a contract.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with this and I see no reason for government interference.
While there might be strong need for government interference, the 2-year-contract slows change in the market. People who sign up for a phone plan today are not on the market (as potential customers) for 2 years. This means that for any given month, maybe ~4% of the market is capable of changing carriers (not counting seasonal variance, pending releases, or people who don't renew). In a contract-free market, one carrier could over-turn the market in months if they came out with either a new feature or better price model. Here, such a shift is next to impossible (why else did AT&T wait 18 months after the iPhone 3G came out before they started network upgrades).
IMOH, there is collusion that needs to be stopped (SMS costs changing overnight at all major carriers isn't an accident) and phones shouldn't be locked to a carrier (effectively cripple-ware). If those changes are made, I think the market could take care of the rest.
+1. There are many stories in game development where a failed project got handed to another team to polish (which is then released late and is a pile of junk).
+1 for being dead-on. I'd like to see AC do 5 laps at speed on that course. At night.
Actual GPS is actually pretty cheap, but knowing where you are isn't very helpful unless you also have a way of telling someone where that is so that they can come pick you up. You need a radio or satellite transmitter that's capable of relaying your coordinates to someone who's on land, or at least a few hundred miles off. That's what makes it expensive, not so much the GPS portion of the device.
Sea-going, radio-based distress beacons are an established technology for boats of any size. My understanding is that they carry their signal pretty far, even if it is low-tech.
Here's a pic of a container ship after going through rough seas: http://i.imgur.com/4ynah.jpg. I'm stunned that those containers are still on board. Looks like they're chained down, but even metal breaks eventually
That's kind of awesome. I feel like this belongs in a demotivation poster. Maybe "Sure, I could hack it together over the weekend" or "This is what your code will look like to the next developer."
100% of the people passing a DUI checkpoint is drunk, then, is it?
Or maybe there are sober people who don't want to be stopped at a DUI checkpoint.
I've yet to experience a DUI checkpoint, but I've seen seatbelt check-points that resulted in epically bad traffic jams. I'd want to know if there was one if only to make it to work before lunch (which admittedly doesn't apply to DUI since they probably aren't setup at 8 am).