Here's a good link for seeing what weather looks like worldwide. https://www.ventusky.com/ Right now, Western North America and Europe are quite mild while Eastern North America and Eastern Asia are very cold. While you're there, change the date to Firday and observe seriously cold air moving into the normally mild American SouthEast. There are going to be a lot of alligators wishing they'd stayed in the tropics.
"4. We tried to save the world and gosh darnit, just ended up screwing it up more."
I don't know about you, but when I was born in 1939, Europe was being ravaged by two truly disastrous regimes in Germany and the USSR. And things weren't going all that well in the Far East either. Are things better now? You bet. Except for the military in Burma, a few African backwaters, a hand full of crazed islamic fanatics, and Venezuela there are few modern governments who aren't reasonably moderate in their exploitation of their population. Heck, some Serbian ex-"leaders" are even being tried for their outrageous acts. Here in the US, the monumental race problem our founders left for their grandkids to sort out is well on its way to resolution. True, the US and many other countries are saddled with "leaders" who are... ahem... "suboptimal". Those fools, whackjobs, and miscreants are, in general, encountering strong headwinds. For example, it seems quite likely that President Dingbat will be confronted in 18 months or so with a choice between resignation and impeachment.
Incredibly, China appears to be well on its way to providing a decent life to most of its citizens. Very likely India as well. And much of Latin America. That's roughly half the folks in the world. Add that to the 20% in the developed world and things look fairly bright.
Overall, I think things really ARE getting better. Way too slowly I agree. But better.
But, but, but... North Korea ( No crazier than Trump IMO. Really, what would they gain by nuking Seoul, Tokyo, or some US city?). Iran? (What's the problem? AFAICS, Iran might be the sanest country in the Persian Gulf -- although that's not saying a lot) Russia (The US is trying hard to make them an enemy. Why?) Global warming (Religious issue -- A vast structure of sloppy thinking built on a VERY modest foundation of fact). Peak Oil? (Possibly-So what?). Opiods (prohibition doesn't work. Let people have them. Eventually it'll get through that ODing is not generally a good idea) GMO plants, Asteroid impact? Supervolcanoes? Whatever else our sensationalist media can conjure up?
Not that there aren't real issues -- potable water, automation (hard to enforce a work ethic if machines are doing all the work), privacy, extension of individual rights to corporations without recognizing that corporations are sociopathic. How will we handle those problems? If experience is any guide, badly. But they'll get handled I think.
The nice thing about being old (I'll be 79 in 2 months) is that no one much expects you to do anything. Just managing to breath regularly and occasionally manage an upright posture is considered to be doing well.
Dying. Odds favor it sooner or later. Doubt I'll beat them.
Life after death? I certainly hope not. Why would I want to spend eternity associating with people who think either Donald J Trump or Hillary R. Clinton are qualified to vote, much less run a country? (Recommended reading Captain Stormfields Visit To Heaven by Mark Twain -- http://www.pagebypagebooks.com... )Captain_Stormfields_Visit_to_Heaven/)
Or they could burn it to generate electricity instead of cutting down forests in North America and carting the wood across the Atlantic Yes, they really do that. Honest.
For whatever reason APL always reminds me of Arthur C Clarke's classic story "The Nine Billion Names of God." If anyone ever writes a readable APL program perhaps the stars in the sky will, without any fuss, go out.
I don't think Python's name resolution is a major source of bugs. But I don't disagree that its name resolution sucks. At least for me using Python 2. I've always assumed that the problem is that I'm too damn dumb to understand whatever brilliant scheme underlies its name resolution/namespace logic.
Yep, that was my thought when I read the article. Software used by a wide audience will generally require a lot more bug fixes than similar software used by only a few. Users find the damndest ways to use and abuse software. The more users, the more things they want changed and the more actual bugs they identify.
Face it -- most of the world runs on C, C++ and, increasingly, Python. Of course there are lots of bug fixes. And BTW I loath C++. IMO C++ code is almost always unreadable except possibly by its author. And C isn't that much better. I'm not defending my favorite languages here.
Blame someone? No problem. All they have to do is blame Steve Jobs. Jobs being beyond the reach of retribution and all. (And I won't be all that surprised if that's exactly what they do).
Ah, come on. There are plenty of Linux distributions without systemd and there are roughly one zillion Linux windows managers for X11. I use Fluxbox myself because it does everything I need, but there are lots of alternatives that aren't Gnome (Yechh), KDE or Xfce.
An abacus would probably run it faster than the original hardware.
I actually had the opportunity to play with a Lisa for fifteen minutes or so back in the around 1984. It was monumentally, incredibly, slow. My impression is that Windows 1 run from floppy disks was faster. And that no one who actually needed a computer to do work would use either. Perhaps I'm being unfair. It was a long time ago, and the machine cost way too much for my budget which was strained by a PC-XT clone.
Anyway, it might be interesting to run it in a VM and see how well it stands up against modern GUIs.
As long as it doesn't kill puppies and doesn't interfere with other services I don't think the FCC has the option not to approve. Mediating beneficial use use of the radio spectrum is way beyond anything the FCC is staffed or chartered to do.
But you're right. It's hard to see how this can be anything other than horribly inefficient..
More important, what happens when Google "upgrades" your home control system on a 10F(-12C) evening and you lose all capability to turn your furnace on?
Perhaps Apple TV would be batter. On the other hand, my son dislikes Apple anything, My wife is against them because they lost a bunch of her pictures by arbitrarily resetting a password to some value unknown to them or her. I personally never got over being forced by my management three plus decades ago to try to run an office using Apple IIs. The hardware was cheap and one certainly got what one paid for. But there simply wasn't any decent word processing, database, or spreadsheet software. The only program that was any good was a spell checker, but it was, unfortunately, prone to trash files larger than, is I recall, 64K. Converted us into rabid PC fans.
On top of which, I have never found Apple's stuff to be easy, or natural, or intuitive. I did install itunes on one of our many household PCs once. Didn't care for it.
We have some Universal remotes around here and about a decade ago, I figured out how to use a JP1 cable to program them. But 'tedious' is way too mild a term for the programming. And you end up with a device with more than 50 buttons -- 30 or so of them active. In our case they have different programs in every room where they are needed because the device mix in each room is different. So they need labels. And a few of the buttons are a bit quirky. Not sure if that's non-optimal program parameters or mechanical issues with the remotes. Haven't tried to update them to interface with Rokus.
Harmony is probably easier to program. If it weren't, I can't imagine anyone other than a few fanatics using one. But easier to program might not be good enough.
Agree -- No. I'm nearly 80 and find myself without a smart phone, tablet, facebook account and other necessities of modern life. I dislike small screens, lack of a real keyboard, and the fact that you can't even pick up many devices without inadvertantly changing their current settings. I pay Trakfone $7 a month to maintain service for a cell phone that I use maybe six times a year.
My car is 12 years old and thankfully missing most of the bizarre "features" of newer models. I've added an aftermarket GPS, rear view camera, and a radio with MP3 capability. I'll probably add an aftermarket collision avoidance system when the aftermarket devices get a bit better and cheaper. I find the UI on my wife's 2013 car to be Kafkaesk.
We have an Amazon Echo around the house somewhere. It works really well. I was impressed. But we never use it and it isn't currently plugged in.
Many of our kitchen appliances have digital interfaces. Most are usable. But the older mechanical equivalents worked just as well, sometimes better, and were repairable.
We have TV streaming -- Amazon, Hulu,, Netflix. Works pretty well. And it means we no longer have to deal with Comcast. But the User Interface is mediocre and the need to use multiple remotes (one for the TV a different one for the rokus) in annoying. Sometimes, I find myself opting for OTA TV just because it's easy to use -- turn it on and change the channel. My kid is a network engineering major and I let him run things. I COULD run them myself if I had to, but only because I've dealt with networking for decades. Most of my fellow octogenarians probably couldn't. Not because they are stupid. Because they don't care. My wife, who is in no way shape or form a stupid lady, is totally baffled by any computer problem.
User interfaces are hard to begin with and UIs designed by millenials to satisfy mangers who are only a bit older leave a lot to be desired for the elderly. What's this white on light-blue crap? The desirability of CONTRASTING colors in UIs was recognized about 12 hours after the first color displays were introduced. And while I'm ranting, a large percentage of North American users are familiar with the menu bar. Quit trying to replace it with things that are even worse. (Wrap it on small screens). And icons. They suck. Always have. Always will. Pick a widely used language -- English, Spanish, or Chinese -- and use it in your UI. Everywhere. And be consistent. Don't use four different words for quit/exit/finished/end
So yes, I have doubts about Google Home's appropriateness for many of the elderly.
A CPU scheduler knows how many tasks there are. How is a satellite based "scheduler" supposed to know about (new) users? Something CDMA-like might work but collision detection on a radio network isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm pretty sure Andrew Tannenbaum discussed this in his book on Computer Networking. Or maybe it was some other book and or author. But I read that stuff maybe 35 years ago and don't remember the content details. The book itself was lost three or four moves ago.
I'll be very surprised if there is much about Russian military capability that is not known to the US. And vice versa. It's really hard to keep secrets these days.
Mexico? Surely not. After all, Mexicans share a common language and culture with 40% of the population of California and Texas. There are wide swaths of the LA basin where you'll be hard put to find a sign in English.
Hmmm. Our memory doesn't go back to Vietnam much less the American Revolution does it? The message of history is pretty clear. Occupying forces from a dominant military control the ground they stand on completely.... And if they are so motivated, the guys in black pajamas or homespun clothes control everything else.
The concern is what? The Russians might interfere with NSA monitoring gear installed on the cables?
Why the folks in Washington, London, Brussels, and Bonn are determined to make enemies out of Russia, Iran, and -- if possible -- China eludes me. (North Korea is perhaps a somewhat different case as Kim Jong-un may actually be crazier than Trump -- assuming that to be possible). As Rodney King once said, "Can't we all just get along?"
Anyway, IMO the chances of worldwide digital communications remaining up for more than a few hours in the event of serious conflict between advanced countries are about zero. The undersea cables and satellite links will stay up just long enough to take down most of the internet connected critical infrastructure on both sides. I make it about six hours between the first "shot" and the last cat picture being received from the last functioning ISP.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a good link for seeing what weather looks like worldwide. https://www.ventusky.com/ Right now, Western North America and Europe are quite mild while Eastern North America and Eastern Asia are very cold. While you're there, change the date to Firday and observe seriously cold air moving into the normally mild American SouthEast. There are going to be a lot of alligators wishing they'd stayed in the tropics.
More poetically:
Robert Louis Stevenson
Requiem, 1894
Stevenson wasn't that old. He died in his mid 40s. But his health was never very good.
"4. We tried to save the world and gosh darnit, just ended up screwing it up more."
I don't know about you, but when I was born in 1939, Europe was being ravaged by two truly disastrous regimes in Germany and the USSR. And things weren't going all that well in the Far East either. Are things better now? You bet. Except for the military in Burma, a few African backwaters, a hand full of crazed islamic fanatics, and Venezuela there are few modern governments who aren't reasonably moderate in their exploitation of their population. Heck, some Serbian ex-"leaders" are even being tried for their outrageous acts. Here in the US, the monumental race problem our founders left for their grandkids to sort out is well on its way to resolution. True, the US and many other countries are saddled with "leaders" who are ... ahem ... "suboptimal". Those fools, whackjobs, and miscreants are, in general, encountering strong headwinds. For example, it seems quite likely that President Dingbat will be confronted in 18 months or so with a choice between resignation and impeachment.
Incredibly, China appears to be well on its way to providing a decent life to most of its citizens. Very likely India as well. And much of Latin America. That's roughly half the folks in the world. Add that to the 20% in the developed world and things look fairly bright.
Overall, I think things really ARE getting better. Way too slowly I agree. But better.
But, but, but ... North Korea ( No crazier than Trump IMO. Really, what would they gain by nuking Seoul, Tokyo, or some US city?). Iran? (What's the problem? AFAICS, Iran might be the sanest country in the Persian Gulf -- although that's not saying a lot) Russia (The US is trying hard to make them an enemy. Why?) Global warming (Religious issue -- A vast structure of sloppy thinking built on a VERY modest foundation of fact). Peak Oil? (Possibly-So what?). Opiods (prohibition doesn't work. Let people have them. Eventually it'll get through that ODing is not generally a good idea) GMO plants, Asteroid impact? Supervolcanoes? Whatever else our sensationalist media can conjure up?
Not that there aren't real issues -- potable water, automation (hard to enforce a work ethic if machines are doing all the work), privacy, extension of individual rights to corporations without recognizing that corporations are sociopathic. How will we handle those problems? If experience is any guide, badly. But they'll get handled I think.
So. I'm very mildly optimistic.
The nice thing about being old (I'll be 79 in 2 months) is that no one much expects you to do anything. Just managing to breath regularly and occasionally manage an upright posture is considered to be doing well.
Dying. Odds favor it sooner or later. Doubt I'll beat them.
Life after death? I certainly hope not. Why would I want to spend eternity associating with people who think either Donald J Trump or Hillary R. Clinton are qualified to vote, much less run a country? (Recommended reading Captain Stormfields Visit To Heaven by Mark Twain -- http://www.pagebypagebooks.com... )Captain_Stormfields_Visit_to_Heaven/)
Or they could burn it to generate electricity instead of cutting down forests in North America and carting the wood across the Atlantic Yes, they really do that. Honest.
Of course, it wouldn't count as "renewable".
Maybe they could redefine "renewable"
"just click the pad lock and see what CA certified the SSL certificate in use"
Can you arrange for a video to be recorded when you try to explain how to do that and why to your grandmother?
For whatever reason APL always reminds me of Arthur C Clarke's classic story "The Nine Billion Names of God." If anyone ever writes a readable APL program perhaps the stars in the sky will, without any fuss, go out.
Do javascript problems actually get fixed? Based on my experience with our ever deteriorating Internet, bugs in javascript "programs" live on forever.
I don't think Python's name resolution is a major source of bugs. But I don't disagree that its name resolution sucks. At least for me using Python 2. I've always assumed that the problem is that I'm too damn dumb to understand whatever brilliant scheme underlies its name resolution/namespace logic.
Yep, that was my thought when I read the article. Software used by a wide audience will generally require a lot more bug fixes than similar software used by only a few. Users find the damndest ways to use and abuse software. The more users, the more things they want changed and the more actual bugs they identify.
Face it -- most of the world runs on C, C++ and, increasingly, Python. Of course there are lots of bug fixes. And BTW I loath C++. IMO C++ code is almost always unreadable except possibly by its author. And C isn't that much better. I'm not defending my favorite languages here.
With apologies to Jack Nicholson ("A Few Good Men")
The truth? We can't handle the Truth
Blame someone? No problem. All they have to do is blame Steve Jobs. Jobs being beyond the reach of retribution and all. (And I won't be all that surprised if that's exactly what they do).
Haven't been following this closely. iPhone batteries are dying because users are holding the devices wrong? Have i got that right?
Ah, come on. There are plenty of Linux distributions without systemd and there are roughly one zillion Linux windows managers for X11. I use Fluxbox myself because it does everything I need, but there are lots of alternatives that aren't Gnome (Yechh), KDE or Xfce.
An abacus would probably run it faster than the original hardware.
I actually had the opportunity to play with a Lisa for fifteen minutes or so back in the around 1984. It was monumentally, incredibly, slow. My impression is that Windows 1 run from floppy disks was faster. And that no one who actually needed a computer to do work would use either. Perhaps I'm being unfair. It was a long time ago, and the machine cost way too much for my budget which was strained by a PC-XT clone.
Anyway, it might be interesting to run it in a VM and see how well it stands up against modern GUIs.
"It’s surprising the FCC approved it."
As long as it doesn't kill puppies and doesn't interfere with other services I don't think the FCC has the option not to approve. Mediating beneficial use use of the radio spectrum is way beyond anything the FCC is staffed or chartered to do.
But you're right. It's hard to see how this can be anything other than horribly inefficient..
More important, what happens when Google "upgrades" your home control system on a 10F(-12C) evening and you lose all capability to turn your furnace on?
Perhaps Apple TV would be batter. On the other hand, my son dislikes Apple anything, My wife is against them because they lost a bunch of her pictures by arbitrarily resetting a password to some value unknown to them or her. I personally never got over being forced by my management three plus decades ago to try to run an office using Apple IIs. The hardware was cheap and one certainly got what one paid for. But there simply wasn't any decent word processing, database, or spreadsheet software. The only program that was any good was a spell checker, but it was, unfortunately, prone to trash files larger than, is I recall, 64K. Converted us into rabid PC fans.
On top of which, I have never found Apple's stuff to be easy, or natural, or intuitive. I did install itunes on one of our many household PCs once. Didn't care for it.
We have some Universal remotes around here and about a decade ago, I figured out how to use a JP1 cable to program them. But 'tedious' is way too mild a term for the programming. And you end up with a device with more than 50 buttons -- 30 or so of them active. In our case they have different programs in every room where they are needed because the device mix in each room is different. So they need labels. And a few of the buttons are a bit quirky. Not sure if that's non-optimal program parameters or mechanical issues with the remotes. Haven't tried to update them to interface with Rokus.
Harmony is probably easier to program. If it weren't, I can't imagine anyone other than a few fanatics using one. But easier to program might not be good enough.
Agree -- No. I'm nearly 80 and find myself without a smart phone, tablet, facebook account and other necessities of modern life. I dislike small screens, lack of a real keyboard, and the fact that you can't even pick up many devices without inadvertantly changing their current settings. I pay Trakfone $7 a month to maintain service for a cell phone that I use maybe six times a year.
My car is 12 years old and thankfully missing most of the bizarre "features" of newer models. I've added an aftermarket GPS, rear view camera, and a radio with MP3 capability. I'll probably add an aftermarket collision avoidance system when the aftermarket devices get a bit better and cheaper. I find the UI on my wife's 2013 car to be Kafkaesk.
We have an Amazon Echo around the house somewhere. It works really well. I was impressed. But we never use it and it isn't currently plugged in.
Many of our kitchen appliances have digital interfaces. Most are usable. But the older mechanical equivalents worked just as well, sometimes better, and were repairable.
We have TV streaming -- Amazon, Hulu,, Netflix. Works pretty well. And it means we no longer have to deal with Comcast. But the User Interface is mediocre and the need to use multiple remotes (one for the TV a different one for the rokus) in annoying. Sometimes, I find myself opting for OTA TV just because it's easy to use -- turn it on and change the channel. My kid is a network engineering major and I let him run things. I COULD run them myself if I had to, but only because I've dealt with networking for decades. Most of my fellow octogenarians probably couldn't. Not because they are stupid. Because they don't care. My wife, who is in no way shape or form a stupid lady, is totally baffled by any computer problem.
User interfaces are hard to begin with and UIs designed by millenials to satisfy mangers who are only a bit older leave a lot to be desired for the elderly. What's this white on light-blue crap? The desirability of CONTRASTING colors in UIs was recognized about 12 hours after the first color displays were introduced. And while I'm ranting, a large percentage of North American users are familiar with the menu bar. Quit trying to replace it with things that are even worse. (Wrap it on small screens). And icons. They suck. Always have. Always will. Pick a widely used language -- English, Spanish, or Chinese -- and use it in your UI. Everywhere. And be consistent. Don't use four different words for quit/exit/finished/end
So yes, I have doubts about Google Home's appropriateness for many of the elderly.
A CPU scheduler knows how many tasks there are. How is a satellite based "scheduler" supposed to know about (new) users? Something CDMA-like might work but collision detection on a radio network isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm pretty sure Andrew Tannenbaum discussed this in his book on Computer Networking. Or maybe it was some other book and or author. But I read that stuff maybe 35 years ago and don't remember the content details. The book itself was lost three or four moves ago.
I'll be very surprised if there is much about Russian military capability that is not known to the US. And vice versa. It's really hard to keep secrets these days.
Mexico? Surely not. After all, Mexicans share a common language and culture with 40% of the population of California and Texas. There are wide swaths of the LA basin where you'll be hard put to find a sign in English.
Hmmm. Our memory doesn't go back to Vietnam much less the American Revolution does it? The message of history is pretty clear. Occupying forces from a dominant military control the ground they stand on completely. ... And if they are so motivated, the guys in black pajamas or homespun clothes control everything else.
The concern is what? The Russians might interfere with NSA monitoring gear installed on the cables?
Why the folks in Washington, London, Brussels, and Bonn are determined to make enemies out of Russia, Iran, and -- if possible -- China eludes me. (North Korea is perhaps a somewhat different case as Kim Jong-un may actually be crazier than Trump -- assuming that to be possible). As Rodney King once said, "Can't we all just get along?"
Anyway, IMO the chances of worldwide digital communications remaining up for more than a few hours in the event of serious conflict between advanced countries are about zero. The undersea cables and satellite links will stay up just long enough to take down most of the internet connected critical infrastructure on both sides. I make it about six hours between the first "shot" and the last cat picture being received from the last functioning ISP.
But that's only a guess.