Then you lose your offer when you're asked for a recent pay stub.
Then perhaps you short-circuit this from happening altogether, and instead pose the question of relevance when current salary is queried.
Pay stubs can also be fabricated.
That being said, in the country where I live it's illegal for a recruiter or other employer to ask to see your payment summaries, so I can lie as much as I like. The problem in Australia is that recruiters tend to try to beat you down and tell you that you're not worth that much (as well as excuses like "well the market has changed" and "GFC"). I drop these recruiters like a hot rock as soon as they start feeding me lines.
My advice to a newbie is to never be a position where you can't say _NO_.
Great advice but not always possible. Sometimes life just isn't very kind to some people. Worst thing is it's pretty easy to get trapped
The thing is, 90% of people who get trapped, get trapped through their own bad choices. They buy an expensive car they can barely afford, they put everything on credit, they have personal loans for consumption, spend too much money keeping up with the Joneses (by spend money, I mean use credit) and all of a sudden when something bad happens they're up to their eyeballs in debt with few assets to show for it and little to no money in the bank.
Whilst the proliferation of easy credit shoulders a lot of the blame, a significant amount still falls onto the shoulders of the credit addled. They could say "no" when the bank offers them an easy loan. They could say "no" I dont need an expensive car. They could say "no" to credit and pay cash/debit at the store.
I have $12K of cash in the bank as an emergency fund only, I keep that so I never have to touch my investments if the shit hits the fan. $12K is enough to cover over 6 months of my expenses if I lose my job. It would suck if I lost my job and had a $4K credit card bill due in 28 days, fortunately I dont (I also haven't had a car loan since my 2nd car).
Yep. I agree that we should rely more on societal norms moderating peoples' actions rather than using the law for absolutely every last little instance. He got fired from his place of employment after posting a staged photo of him holding a knife to a co-workers throat.
That said, when you cross into actual, physical violence, or direct threats, the law can and should come down on you. One of his posts in question was actually talking about the difference between direct threats and speaking in a meta sense about threats. I've quoted that above in another post.
The problem with societal norms is that the norm is the dictate of whoever is in power at the time. There have been a lot of societies where what we would consider backwards and barbaric are the societal norm, hell even 50 years ago it was considered a societal norm to beat your wife or force black people to sit at the back of the bus.
"Societal norm" is simply a nice way of saying "tyranny of the majority". The problem is, people who are different dont like tyranny. As much as many hate to admit it, enforcement of societal norm creates the kind of monsters that do school shootings.
Now as for the law, the law gets very specific about what you cant say, not about what you can say and its also gets very specific about the circumstances which you say it. In other words, the court considers context. If I were to post on./ that I'd like to shoot Tony Abbott it wouldn't get a second look, if I were to send the same message to the Prime Minister of Australia, someone will take a look at it and I may even be charged.
"Just this space where you can hide and survive an OS wipe and reinstall." IF the user only put the unit to sleep and then woke it. Simply turning off the unit for a short time before OS wipe and reinstall defeats this potential hole.
I am betting that Windows, BSD, and Linux have a similar vulnerability lurking.
IF they're on the same hardware. This is a vulnerability with the EFI on Apple computers. Because the hardware and firmware are different the same vulnerability is likely not exist with the EFI on IBM servers.
Also you're wrong about turning it off for a short time. This is basically the same as the flaws that lead to the old BIOS viruses. As malware can hide in the EFI it doesn't care what you do with the OS as the EFI is completely independent of it.
So to summarize: as a user, you can sometimes write to EFI memory.
That's currently all there is to it. There's no rootkit, there's no malware, etc. Just this space where you can hide and survive an OS wipe and reinstall.
Yes - it is a vulnerability for which there is no exploit published (yet).
This vulnerability is serious, as it allows an attacker to permanently infect the Mac *firmware* and gain control each time the Mac is booted - even if you nuke and reinstall OS X.
You may try to dismiss this as "still needs another vulnerability". Another vulnerability or even a social engineering attack, evil maid attack will all suffice. This one can be used to take permanent, undetected residence on successfully exploited macs.
I hate those people and their giant binders of coupons. Why? Because if you get stuck behind one in line, they double or triple the wait time.
As someone who has had to work a register with those assholes so do we the cashiers, especialy when they try to argue with your managers for 15 minutes about store policy and combined coupons tying up lines.
I've seen two cases on how this was solved.
The first was when an assistant manager came up and said "Please stand over here so that we can continue to serve other people", he ranted and raved about how much business the store would lose but I can practically guarantee that the store would have seen more repeat business from the others in that line.
The second was another customer pushing past them and telling them to naff off when they complained that they were in line. The guy did ask nicely for the couponer to move along first, then just shoved him out of the way. Australians tend to have little patience for the kind of person who likes to hold up lines.
I really do wish Google and Apple would get off their asses and let things like individual privilege access into the mainstream, such as being able to deny access to your contact list. For example,/p>
Why would they do that?
Remember that both Apple and Google make money by collecting your information and selling it (at least Google gives you some assurance it's anonymised before sale). Why would they want to make it harder to do this.
now, I had nothing against uber before hearing this; but now, I won't be caught dead inside one of their cars, now. this 'war on your customers' is nothing I care to help fund or support!
With the way Uber acts, why did you think this wouldn't happen?
The way they thumb their nose at the law means that its a safer assumption to assume that they will do arse-hattery like this. Uber is in the business of making money and your data is worth money. They are not honest businessmen who care about the reputation of their business, regulations designed to protect you or their customers in general.
I've never installed the Uber app, I took one look at the permissions it requested and figured out it was a data mining operation.
I've said it since the begining. The only thing Uber has going for it is the irrational hate people seem to have of taxis... Whilst they've capitalised on that fantasitcally, soon people will realise they've got all the same problems as traditional taxis and a few that traditional taxis dont have... Like this one.
A police bullpen or typing pool may be fine in a big open area. The same goes for sales and marketing types. However, if you're talking about any work which requires stretches of concentrated effort then it's just a Bad Idea. Engineers? No. Programmers? No. Accountants? No. Any kind of researcher? No.
This, different jobs have different requirements.
Personally I hate open plan, but I find that if I can communicate quickly with my team it's very helpful. The problem is listening to everyone one else communicating with their team. Having been sat right next to sales, I'd rather be stuck in the dreariest, boxiest cube farm ever devised by Catbert, the evil director of human resources. Sales never shuts up, ever.
the lower real estate costs
Its not real estate, its tax.
Certainly in Australia, a partition is not considered furniture, it's considered part of the building so the cost cant be amortised or depreciated as quickly as the desks and chairs (IIRC furniture is 3 years, walls have to be depreciated over 40).
Because Android allows apps to run in the background (and I mean actually run, not register to be woken up by certain events as on iOS), we have that already. This will just let you interact with them all at once.
So finally I will have multiple apps in the foreground bringing my tablet to a crawl.
Jokes aside, have Google announced wich devices will get this, I'm wondering if my Nexus 7 and 4 will receive the official update.
Either it's your first phone, then you're not counted as switch
Is a switch from a "feature phone" to a smartphone counted as a switch or a first time?
Obviously for marketing purposes, they wouldn't consider that a switch.
But with it being a 2 player market and Android having the lions share, it's obvious that most switchers to iphone will have come from Android. The same would be true for switchers to Android. The question is, are the people switching to Iphone greater than the numbers switching to Android.
Also recent numbers will be skewed by the introduction of the Iphone to several countries, most notably China. In established markets, for several years the Iphone user base has been stagnant or dropping slightly with 75-80% of Iphone purchases being from current Iphone users.
It is interesting that Google is making 75% of mobile ad revenue on the Apple platform ($9 billion) vs Android ($3 billion).
I wonder if this is because advertisers are paying more for ads on the Apple platform or if its because people who have Android phones are not using the smart features as much as Apple users. It's likely a bit of both.
Simple answer: it's easier to fleece Apple users.
Android users tend not to click on ads, some will even have ad blockers. Iphone users are less discerning and more prone to impulse purchases. Also Android owners are a lot more varied than Iphone owners meaning the Iphone market is easier to target. Point in short, its not that Android users aren't using the more advanced features of Android phones, it's just that Android users aren't clicking on the "free ringtone" ads.
I accept 1, but 2 is debatable, we need to encourage people to NOT fuck around with gadgets in the car at all.
Not gonna happen.
It will if we start taking licenses off of serial phone users.
I'm sure 30 or 40 odd years ago they said we'd never all wear seatbelts. Now we all wear seatbelts. The same with drink driving. Some people will need to be pushed to make a change, but they'll make it.
I cant imagine how bad my current car, a 2002 Nissan Silvia would be if I couldn't swap out the stereo with something that knew what an MP3 was.
That depends on whether it has a changer interface, and whether you have a changer. I have a 1997 Audi A8 with a Bose stereo with no aux input, but I can get one by slicing into the CD changer wiring and using a switch and/or relays (I have the 12V audio signal relays already, have been too busy to make the mod though) to insert my own audio source in between. Or an el cheapo (~$10) panel-mount mp3 player/bluetooth receiver from dealextreme has a line input, so it's just a matter of finding some connectors which fit the board or soldering on some leads, and making a quick splice. Got a voltage regulator so it can run on 5-32V or something ridiculous like that. I might just go that route because there will be no relays to go bad ever. If the thing goes tits up it'll be easy to splice it away.
I was mainly talking about the dash space they use. Many manufacturers no longer use the DIN standard. Getting a wiring loom/adapter is easy, you can knock one up yourself easily if you've got even a modicum of skill. The problem is if Audi start using a different shaped hole in the dash compared to VW or even another Audi then you cant simply buy an off the shelf replacement like I did with my Nissan because they'd have to be custom built to fit where the old head unit came from.
What amazes me is that the more technology and information we get, the more the music seems to become harsh and random to listen to. All the pop music that has flowed down from dubstep is so jarring...just random ear-raping sounds firing at the listener. This is to say nothing of lyrics which seem to be getting more and more repetitive and less and less creative/sonically flowing.
The industry loves things like Dubstep because it can be produced on a computer and the "artist" (using this term very loosely) is just an actor and can be replaced if need be. Not that the art of replacing band members in pop groups is a new concept either. Their ultimate goal is to replace the human component forever, that way they dont have to pay them their 10%, beyond this people tend to have opinions that aren't popular, develop drug habits, get old/ugly. Virtual pop stars are the wet dream of the music industry.
Back to sound quality, I've noticed this too, even with voices they seem to be altered to just beyond the range of what the human voice is capable of. My theory always has been that this is done to make the track sound louder and more noticeable (modern music seems more about annoying you into listening/remembering than enticing you) but someone else in this thread pointed out that people have grown used to listening to poorly encoded MP3's and this also makes a lot of sense, people are starting to think that the artefacts you get in bad MP3 files are normal. Add to that the fact that people have also grown used to using poor quality playback devices to listen to their poorly encoded music.
Albums might become less important commercially, as far as many people will be buying individual tracks, not a whole CD. But when you look at what was released all throughout the CD era (and before), most albums were already just collections of standalone songs. The Pink-Floydian concept album was always the exception, not the norm. The norm was taking a half dozen songs that had in fact already been released as 45 rpm singles, padding them with some filler, and releasing it as an album.
Whilst this is true for a lot manufactured pop, with forms of music that had the artist sing and play as well as write different albums have different sounds. The Colour and the Shape from the Foo Fighters sounds very different from Nothing Left to Lose and the albums were only separated by 2 years and this is very different from Sonic Highways (their latest album).
So yeah, someone who has their music written for them and autotuned will benefit from releasing songs on a staggered timetable, but bands who tour will still need to make whole albums and not just because they only get a few months of studio time between tours.
No matter how old it is, I still can't fathom the "extra" scheme applied to the automotive industry.
It's rather simple so let me break it down for you.
You're still over complicating it, so let me break it down for you... Its because they can.
Established manufacturers can afford to sell on reputation and charge for extras that lesser known, liked or trusted manufacturers cant. This is why you get more features as standard in a Hyundai I30 than you do in a Toyota Corolla.
Last time I went to a BMW dealership it was an exercise in saying "no".
Bi-xenon headlights - no.
Parking package - no.
Comfort package - no.
ConnectedDrive(TM) - no.
Driver assistant - no and if you mention this or automatic transmissions again I'm walking.
Manufacturers will keep trying to up sell you on features because people keep buying them.
Also, wasn't this caused simply by the driver stepping on the accelerator?
That appears to be the case. The reporting on this is very muddled, but at least one article says that the car was not in "self-parking" mode, so the pedestrian detection would not have been active even if this car had it. The driver was in full control of the car, and intentionally accelerated toward the reporters. So the real story here is that some random guy in the Dominican Republic is an idiot.
The driver was under the impression that the car had Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), which is a feature Volvo offers on the XC60 but isn't installed by default. Vovlo's advertising doesn't reflect this obviously, it's hidden in the small print that says something like "optional extras not included". The "self parking" part is a misnomer on the part of the submitter.
However the bigger problem is the mistaken faith they have in AEB systems, that they are 1) infallible, 2) effective. If you watch a video of the XC60's AEB system (Euro NCAP will have a few) they are only effective up to a speed of about 20 KPH, after that all they do is reduce the speed of the impact. Also these tests are done from a steady speed (I.E. not accelerating). I'm sure that mashing the go pedal wont help AEB work.
I firmly believe that AEB is going to make things worse, not better as it gives bad drivers false confidence. People who already dont pay attention to the road will think it's perfectly OK to pay even less attention to the road. We're making already lazy drivers even lazier. AEB will eventually be removed because of this, Volvo is lucky in this case because 1) it was in the Dominican Republic so they can simply buy their way out of trouble and; 2) the feature was not installed on the car. However shortly a dopey Doris in an AEB equipped car will be doing 100 down the motorway and plough into the back someone else's car at 75 because they were busy texting and their excuse will be "but the car was supposed to brake for me". Even though car manufacturers have tried to cover their arse in the fine print, it wont be enough to save them from the ignorance and stupidity of end users.
1) Give this battle up now. The industry has moved on into the world of cutesy names long since, and you have no chance to win. Infotainment is the official, accepted term.
2) Better infotainment systems means less fucking around with the gadgets, because the systems make it easier.
I accept 1, but 2 is debatable, we need to encourage people to NOT fuck around with gadgets in the car at all.
However vendor locked "infotainment" systems need to die and die a horrible death in a fire. In car nav systems are almost always inferior to third party, updates are difficult and in many cases, expensive. Manufacturers have made a system that is obsolete in 2 years max which cannot be replaced in a vehicle that has a serviceable life of 10+ years. This needs to change.
I cant imagine how bad my current car, a 2002 Nissan Silvia would be if I couldn't swap out the stereo with something that knew what an MP3 was. I'd still be forced to burn music CD's like a Neanderthal. Fortunately it was a standard double DIN with standard Nissan connectors, so putting in a new Alpine head unit was easy. However this wont be the case with most 2012 cars in 2025.
I find it interesting that whoever grants these licenses would so casually prioritize ad revenue over driver safety. It's almost as if they don't actually care.
I think you'll find that definitely is the case because the people who approve these billboards will have nothing to do with the Ministry of Transport.
Not sure about the UK but in many countries including Australia most of the billboards are privately owned and only need approval from the council to be put up, after that the owner can advertise what they like and are only bound by the advertising standards code (erm... so no hardcore).
A bigger issue I have are with advertisements on buses. Unlike the billboard owners these guys definitely have a vested interest in road safety yet tend to big bright ads with scantily clad ladies or small text. Its a shame Google Glass didn't take off, I would like adblock+ for real life.
The real WTF in this scenario is why does the POS software have access to credit card numbers? A one-way transaction will have all credit card information go directly through the PINpad, without ever being exposed to the controlling PC.
Even then, you've still got weak links in the chain.
Because banks charge per terminal, a lot of smaller chains/franchises use a generic terminals some software sitting on a PC out back so they can have multiple physical terminals presented to the customer but only one software terminal presented to the bank.
PC EFTPOS is one of the more popular ones I've seen in Australia and it is not unusual to see it sitting on the same PC that staff use to check their personal mail and cat videos.
Having installed and serviced POS terminal I've been convinced that cash is orders of magnitude safer despite the risks of losing it or getting mugged (TBH, if you're that clumsy that you'll lose cash, you'll lose your card just as easily).
Why does a PoS computer have an email client installed?
Why does a PoS computer have Microsoft Word installed?
And why is the email client even running?
A PoS computer should only be connected to an intranet and should only be running the PoS software. Everything else should be completely locked down. Someone messed up, big time.
Are you going to pay for a custom built, fully audited single use OS, or a general purpose OS repurposed to use as a POS terminal.
All the store managers picked the latter as the stores that used the former went out of business because the average punter does not value security (or worse yet, thinks the banks will protect them).
Having dealt with POS terminals, there's a good reason I never use my card at a store.
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It's better to ask forgiveness than to get permission.
You mean "it's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission."
This,
Which is why I'd rather ask for permission and have it denied on my feet, than have beg forgiveness and have it denied on my knees.
Then you lose your offer when you're asked for a recent pay stub.
Then perhaps you short-circuit this from happening altogether, and instead pose the question of relevance when current salary is queried.
Pay stubs can also be fabricated.
That being said, in the country where I live it's illegal for a recruiter or other employer to ask to see your payment summaries, so I can lie as much as I like. The problem in Australia is that recruiters tend to try to beat you down and tell you that you're not worth that much (as well as excuses like "well the market has changed" and "GFC"). I drop these recruiters like a hot rock as soon as they start feeding me lines.
My advice to a newbie is to never be a position where you can't say _NO_.
Great advice but not always possible. Sometimes life just isn't very kind to some people. Worst thing is it's pretty easy to get trapped
The thing is, 90% of people who get trapped, get trapped through their own bad choices. They buy an expensive car they can barely afford, they put everything on credit, they have personal loans for consumption, spend too much money keeping up with the Joneses (by spend money, I mean use credit) and all of a sudden when something bad happens they're up to their eyeballs in debt with few assets to show for it and little to no money in the bank.
Whilst the proliferation of easy credit shoulders a lot of the blame, a significant amount still falls onto the shoulders of the credit addled. They could say "no" when the bank offers them an easy loan. They could say "no" I dont need an expensive car. They could say "no" to credit and pay cash/debit at the store.
I have $12K of cash in the bank as an emergency fund only, I keep that so I never have to touch my investments if the shit hits the fan. $12K is enough to cover over 6 months of my expenses if I lose my job. It would suck if I lost my job and had a $4K credit card bill due in 28 days, fortunately I dont (I also haven't had a car loan since my 2nd car).
Yep. I agree that we should rely more on societal norms moderating peoples' actions rather than using the law for absolutely every last little instance. He got fired from his place of employment after posting a staged photo of him holding a knife to a co-workers throat.
That said, when you cross into actual, physical violence, or direct threats, the law can and should come down on you. One of his posts in question was actually talking about the difference between direct threats and speaking in a meta sense about threats. I've quoted that above in another post.
The problem with societal norms is that the norm is the dictate of whoever is in power at the time. There have been a lot of societies where what we would consider backwards and barbaric are the societal norm, hell even 50 years ago it was considered a societal norm to beat your wife or force black people to sit at the back of the bus.
./ that I'd like to shoot Tony Abbott it wouldn't get a second look, if I were to send the same message to the Prime Minister of Australia, someone will take a look at it and I may even be charged.
"Societal norm" is simply a nice way of saying "tyranny of the majority". The problem is, people who are different dont like tyranny. As much as many hate to admit it, enforcement of societal norm creates the kind of monsters that do school shootings.
Now as for the law, the law gets very specific about what you cant say, not about what you can say and its also gets very specific about the circumstances which you say it. In other words, the court considers context. If I were to post on
"Just this space where you can hide and survive an OS wipe and reinstall." IF the user only put the unit to sleep and then woke it. Simply turning off the unit for a short time before OS wipe and reinstall defeats this potential hole.
I am betting that Windows, BSD, and Linux have a similar vulnerability lurking.
IF they're on the same hardware. This is a vulnerability with the EFI on Apple computers. Because the hardware and firmware are different the same vulnerability is likely not exist with the EFI on IBM servers.
Also you're wrong about turning it off for a short time. This is basically the same as the flaws that lead to the old BIOS viruses. As malware can hide in the EFI it doesn't care what you do with the OS as the EFI is completely independent of it.
So to summarize: as a user, you can sometimes write to EFI memory.
That's currently all there is to it. There's no rootkit, there's no malware, etc. Just this space where you can hide and survive an OS wipe and reinstall.
Yes - it is a vulnerability for which there is no exploit published (yet).
This vulnerability is serious, as it allows an attacker to permanently infect the Mac *firmware* and gain control each time the Mac is booted - even if you nuke and reinstall OS X.
You may try to dismiss this as "still needs another vulnerability". Another vulnerability or even a social engineering attack, evil maid attack will all suffice. This one can be used to take permanent, undetected residence on successfully exploited macs.
That's bad in my book
Hey, dont try to use logic and reason here.
I'd be up for it if they cut the price by 50% for those that are willing to see them, otherwise they can take their ads and shove them up their ass.
They'd need to cut the price by 100% for me to accept ads.
I hate those people and their giant binders of coupons. Why? Because if you get stuck behind one in line, they double or triple the wait time.
As someone who has had to work a register with those assholes so do we the cashiers, especialy when they try to argue with your managers for 15 minutes about store policy and combined coupons tying up lines.
I've seen two cases on how this was solved.
The first was when an assistant manager came up and said "Please stand over here so that we can continue to serve other people", he ranted and raved about how much business the store would lose but I can practically guarantee that the store would have seen more repeat business from the others in that line.
The second was another customer pushing past them and telling them to naff off when they complained that they were in line. The guy did ask nicely for the couponer to move along first, then just shoved him out of the way. Australians tend to have little patience for the kind of person who likes to hold up lines.
I really do wish Google and Apple would get off their asses and let things like individual privilege access into the mainstream, such as being able to deny access to your contact list. For example, /p>
Why would they do that?
Remember that both Apple and Google make money by collecting your information and selling it (at least Google gives you some assurance it's anonymised before sale). Why would they want to make it harder to do this.
With the way Uber acts, why did you think this wouldn't happen?
The way they thumb their nose at the law means that its a safer assumption to assume that they will do arse-hattery like this. Uber is in the business of making money and your data is worth money. They are not honest businessmen who care about the reputation of their business, regulations designed to protect you or their customers in general.
I've never installed the Uber app, I took one look at the permissions it requested and figured out it was a data mining operation.
I've said it since the begining. The only thing Uber has going for it is the irrational hate people seem to have of taxis... Whilst they've capitalised on that fantasitcally, soon people will realise they've got all the same problems as traditional taxis and a few that traditional taxis dont have... Like this one.
A police bullpen or typing pool may be fine in a big open area. The same goes for sales and marketing types. However, if you're talking about any work which requires stretches of concentrated effort then it's just a Bad Idea. Engineers? No. Programmers? No. Accountants? No. Any kind of researcher? No.
This, different jobs have different requirements. Personally I hate open plan, but I find that if I can communicate quickly with my team it's very helpful. The problem is listening to everyone one else communicating with their team. Having been sat right next to sales, I'd rather be stuck in the dreariest, boxiest cube farm ever devised by Catbert, the evil director of human resources. Sales never shuts up, ever.
the lower real estate costs
Its not real estate, its tax.
Certainly in Australia, a partition is not considered furniture, it's considered part of the building so the cost cant be amortised or depreciated as quickly as the desks and chairs (IIRC furniture is 3 years, walls have to be depreciated over 40).
Because Android allows apps to run in the background (and I mean actually run, not register to be woken up by certain events as on iOS), we have that already. This will just let you interact with them all at once.
So finally I will have multiple apps in the foreground bringing my tablet to a crawl.
Jokes aside, have Google announced wich devices will get this, I'm wondering if my Nexus 7 and 4 will receive the official update.
Either it's your first phone, then you're not counted as switch
Is a switch from a "feature phone" to a smartphone counted as a switch or a first time?
Obviously for marketing purposes, they wouldn't consider that a switch.
But with it being a 2 player market and Android having the lions share, it's obvious that most switchers to iphone will have come from Android. The same would be true for switchers to Android. The question is, are the people switching to Iphone greater than the numbers switching to Android.
Also recent numbers will be skewed by the introduction of the Iphone to several countries, most notably China. In established markets, for several years the Iphone user base has been stagnant or dropping slightly with 75-80% of Iphone purchases being from current Iphone users.
It is interesting that Google is making 75% of mobile ad revenue on the Apple platform ($9 billion) vs Android ($3 billion).
I wonder if this is because advertisers are paying more for ads on the Apple platform or if its because people who have Android phones are not using the smart features as much as Apple users. It's likely a bit of both.
Simple answer: it's easier to fleece Apple users.
Android users tend not to click on ads, some will even have ad blockers. Iphone users are less discerning and more prone to impulse purchases. Also Android owners are a lot more varied than Iphone owners meaning the Iphone market is easier to target. Point in short, its not that Android users aren't using the more advanced features of Android phones, it's just that Android users aren't clicking on the "free ringtone" ads.
Apple user: "I love my phone."
Android user: "I hate your phone!"
Reality:
Apple User: I think my phone is soooo superior.
Android user: that's cute.
I accept 1, but 2 is debatable, we need to encourage people to NOT fuck around with gadgets in the car at all.
Not gonna happen.
It will if we start taking licenses off of serial phone users.
I'm sure 30 or 40 odd years ago they said we'd never all wear seatbelts. Now we all wear seatbelts. The same with drink driving. Some people will need to be pushed to make a change, but they'll make it.
I cant imagine how bad my current car, a 2002 Nissan Silvia would be if I couldn't swap out the stereo with something that knew what an MP3 was.
That depends on whether it has a changer interface, and whether you have a changer. I have a 1997 Audi A8 with a Bose stereo with no aux input, but I can get one by slicing into the CD changer wiring and using a switch and/or relays (I have the 12V audio signal relays already, have been too busy to make the mod though) to insert my own audio source in between. Or an el cheapo (~$10) panel-mount mp3 player/bluetooth receiver from dealextreme has a line input, so it's just a matter of finding some connectors which fit the board or soldering on some leads, and making a quick splice. Got a voltage regulator so it can run on 5-32V or something ridiculous like that. I might just go that route because there will be no relays to go bad ever. If the thing goes tits up it'll be easy to splice it away.
I was mainly talking about the dash space they use. Many manufacturers no longer use the DIN standard. Getting a wiring loom/adapter is easy, you can knock one up yourself easily if you've got even a modicum of skill. The problem is if Audi start using a different shaped hole in the dash compared to VW or even another Audi then you cant simply buy an off the shelf replacement like I did with my Nissan because they'd have to be custom built to fit where the old head unit came from.
What amazes me is that the more technology and information we get, the more the music seems to become harsh and random to listen to. All the pop music that has flowed down from dubstep is so jarring...just random ear-raping sounds firing at the listener. This is to say nothing of lyrics which seem to be getting more and more repetitive and less and less creative/sonically flowing.
The industry loves things like Dubstep because it can be produced on a computer and the "artist" (using this term very loosely) is just an actor and can be replaced if need be. Not that the art of replacing band members in pop groups is a new concept either. Their ultimate goal is to replace the human component forever, that way they dont have to pay them their 10%, beyond this people tend to have opinions that aren't popular, develop drug habits, get old/ugly. Virtual pop stars are the wet dream of the music industry.
Back to sound quality, I've noticed this too, even with voices they seem to be altered to just beyond the range of what the human voice is capable of. My theory always has been that this is done to make the track sound louder and more noticeable (modern music seems more about annoying you into listening/remembering than enticing you) but someone else in this thread pointed out that people have grown used to listening to poorly encoded MP3's and this also makes a lot of sense, people are starting to think that the artefacts you get in bad MP3 files are normal. Add to that the fact that people have also grown used to using poor quality playback devices to listen to their poorly encoded music.
Albums might become less important commercially, as far as many people will be buying individual tracks, not a whole CD. But when you look at what was released all throughout the CD era (and before), most albums were already just collections of standalone songs. The Pink-Floydian concept album was always the exception, not the norm. The norm was taking a half dozen songs that had in fact already been released as 45 rpm singles, padding them with some filler, and releasing it as an album.
Whilst this is true for a lot manufactured pop, with forms of music that had the artist sing and play as well as write different albums have different sounds. The Colour and the Shape from the Foo Fighters sounds very different from Nothing Left to Lose and the albums were only separated by 2 years and this is very different from Sonic Highways (their latest album).
So yeah, someone who has their music written for them and autotuned will benefit from releasing songs on a staggered timetable, but bands who tour will still need to make whole albums and not just because they only get a few months of studio time between tours.
No matter how old it is, I still can't fathom the "extra" scheme applied to the automotive industry.
It's rather simple so let me break it down for you.
You're still over complicating it, so let me break it down for you... Its because they can.
Established manufacturers can afford to sell on reputation and charge for extras that lesser known, liked or trusted manufacturers cant. This is why you get more features as standard in a Hyundai I30 than you do in a Toyota Corolla.
Last time I went to a BMW dealership it was an exercise in saying "no".
Bi-xenon headlights - no.
Parking package - no.
Comfort package - no.
ConnectedDrive(TM) - no.
Driver assistant - no and if you mention this or automatic transmissions again I'm walking.
Manufacturers will keep trying to up sell you on features because people keep buying them.
So drive a BMW. The pedestrian avoidance system is a horn.
In Soviet BMW, pedestrians avoid you.
Fixed that for you.
Also, wasn't this caused simply by the driver stepping on the accelerator?
That appears to be the case. The reporting on this is very muddled, but at least one article says that the car was not in "self-parking" mode, so the pedestrian detection would not have been active even if this car had it. The driver was in full control of the car, and intentionally accelerated toward the reporters. So the real story here is that some random guy in the Dominican Republic is an idiot.
The driver was under the impression that the car had Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), which is a feature Volvo offers on the XC60 but isn't installed by default. Vovlo's advertising doesn't reflect this obviously, it's hidden in the small print that says something like "optional extras not included". The "self parking" part is a misnomer on the part of the submitter.
However the bigger problem is the mistaken faith they have in AEB systems, that they are 1) infallible, 2) effective. If you watch a video of the XC60's AEB system (Euro NCAP will have a few) they are only effective up to a speed of about 20 KPH, after that all they do is reduce the speed of the impact. Also these tests are done from a steady speed (I.E. not accelerating). I'm sure that mashing the go pedal wont help AEB work.
I firmly believe that AEB is going to make things worse, not better as it gives bad drivers false confidence. People who already dont pay attention to the road will think it's perfectly OK to pay even less attention to the road. We're making already lazy drivers even lazier. AEB will eventually be removed because of this, Volvo is lucky in this case because 1) it was in the Dominican Republic so they can simply buy their way out of trouble and; 2) the feature was not installed on the car. However shortly a dopey Doris in an AEB equipped car will be doing 100 down the motorway and plough into the back someone else's car at 75 because they were busy texting and their excuse will be "but the car was supposed to brake for me". Even though car manufacturers have tried to cover their arse in the fine print, it wont be enough to save them from the ignorance and stupidity of end users.
1) Give this battle up now. The industry has moved on into the world of cutesy names long since, and you have no chance to win. Infotainment is the official, accepted term.
2) Better infotainment systems means less fucking around with the gadgets, because the systems make it easier.
I accept 1, but 2 is debatable, we need to encourage people to NOT fuck around with gadgets in the car at all.
However vendor locked "infotainment" systems need to die and die a horrible death in a fire. In car nav systems are almost always inferior to third party, updates are difficult and in many cases, expensive. Manufacturers have made a system that is obsolete in 2 years max which cannot be replaced in a vehicle that has a serviceable life of 10+ years. This needs to change.
I cant imagine how bad my current car, a 2002 Nissan Silvia would be if I couldn't swap out the stereo with something that knew what an MP3 was. I'd still be forced to burn music CD's like a Neanderthal. Fortunately it was a standard double DIN with standard Nissan connectors, so putting in a new Alpine head unit was easy. However this wont be the case with most 2012 cars in 2025.
I find it interesting that whoever grants these licenses would so casually prioritize ad revenue over driver safety. It's almost as if they don't actually care.
I think you'll find that definitely is the case because the people who approve these billboards will have nothing to do with the Ministry of Transport.
Not sure about the UK but in many countries including Australia most of the billboards are privately owned and only need approval from the council to be put up, after that the owner can advertise what they like and are only bound by the advertising standards code (erm... so no hardcore).
A bigger issue I have are with advertisements on buses. Unlike the billboard owners these guys definitely have a vested interest in road safety yet tend to big bright ads with scantily clad ladies or small text. Its a shame Google Glass didn't take off, I would like adblock+ for real life.
The real WTF in this scenario is why does the POS software have access to credit card numbers? A one-way transaction will have all credit card information go directly through the PINpad, without ever being exposed to the controlling PC.
Even then, you've still got weak links in the chain.
Because banks charge per terminal, a lot of smaller chains/franchises use a generic terminals some software sitting on a PC out back so they can have multiple physical terminals presented to the customer but only one software terminal presented to the bank.
PC EFTPOS is one of the more popular ones I've seen in Australia and it is not unusual to see it sitting on the same PC that staff use to check their personal mail and cat videos.
Having installed and serviced POS terminal I've been convinced that cash is orders of magnitude safer despite the risks of losing it or getting mugged (TBH, if you're that clumsy that you'll lose cash, you'll lose your card just as easily).
Why does a PoS computer have an email client installed?
Why does a PoS computer have Microsoft Word installed?
And why is the email client even running?
A PoS computer should only be connected to an intranet and should only be running the PoS software. Everything else should be completely locked down. Someone messed up, big time.
Are you going to pay for a custom built, fully audited single use OS, or a general purpose OS repurposed to use as a POS terminal.
All the store managers picked the latter as the stores that used the former went out of business because the average punter does not value security (or worse yet, thinks the banks will protect them).
Having dealt with POS terminals, there's a good reason I never use my card at a store.