I'm certainly not against progress, in fact I'm pretty strongly for it. I also have no desire to live in a straw bail house (whatever one of those is) and have no issues with vaccinations (Jenny McCarthy can die in a fire). Organic food is preferable for me because it's more environmentally friendly and probably healthier than food grown with heavy use of chemicals, but I'm not obsessive about it. GM is a whole other matter, IMHO it's an interesting technology but the risks are huge (think complete collapse of the food chain) and I don't believe due diligence is being properly followed. I see the benefits though and it's something which should be explored, but our attempts at manipulating the natural world haven't always worked out (e.g. rabbits in Australia) so I'm a little skeptical. Nuclear power is similar. The benefits are obvious but the whole "we have no idea what to do with the waste" issue is troubling never mind the fact that we keep having pretty serious accidents. It seems likely to me that it can be done safely - it just isn't. To be honest I'd much rather the money was put into safer sustainable energy sources.
Anyways, maybe this year will be the year of SSD, just like the last 30 years.
Wasn't that a few years ago? I can't imagine using a machine with a non-SSD boot drive these days, and I can't understand anyone who knows anything about computers not having one. You don't need a big one typically, I recently got a really nice 160GB Intel for my mother in law's laptop for under $100 - made a 2008 vintage Vista machine feel brand new. Without a shadow of a doubt the most significant performance boost you can add to a machine $ for $.
Which it does on every boot. Doesn't need to be reinstalled. Most retail SSDs come with software which can do the transfer, otherwise you're choice of bootable linux USB sticks will do the magic (with a win 7 recovery disk to rewrite the MBR).
Nokia killed Nokia, Whilst they may have made products that appealed to you specifically, they were failing spectacularly in the wider smartphone market. Staying on the same path wouldn't have improved anything, they needed a major overhaul. I'm not saying that the MS deal will save them in the long term but clearly something had to change.
Of course it wouldn't. But it also wouldn't cost $500b to design and bring to market competitors to all of Apple's products. A company's valuation includes physical assets, existing and predicted revenue streams, goodwill/brand value (which is huge in GoPro's case - they basically own the market), people, and so on. I'm not saying the valuation is right (seems a little high) but I'm not an analyst, and it's not my money:)
The problem is that if you increase minimum wage you create an upward pressure on all wages to maintain differentiation (why should someone with a degree working as a programmer get paid the same as an unskilled burger flipper? what's the incentive to get the education?). That just creates inflation and you're back where you started.
I don't have a great solution, but I'm a little concerned by assumption that you should be able to raise a family on minimum wage. That doesn't seem sustainable to me. I certainly support a strong welfare system to help those who find themselves in a hole. But there is an aspect to living within your means, and seeking to better yourself and thus benefit your family. A welfare system can actually help that, by removing the need to work 3 low paid jobs to feed the kids you can maybe give someone the time to get some training for a real career.
Bullshit. There have been several Humble Bundles which didn't even include games (e.g. Music & eBooks), and most of the games in previous bundles haven't been FOSS. They've also done publisher/developer specific bundles in the past (e.g. Frozenbyte, Introversion).
I honestly have no clue what your problem with this is, as none of the things you talk about have been true for previous bundles. The only real difference is that in the past many of the items were DRM free, but even that's not been 100%, and many of us (myself included) just used the steam keys anyway so that wasn't really significant.
This is raising money for charity and/or THQ - I have no problem with that. If you don't like it, don't buy it. End of story.
I'm British. The only people I've ever met who eat beef well done have been American (for example all of my wife's family). Quite a shame given how good the beef is over here in the US of A.
I'm a consumer. I buy things not because of salespeople but despite them. Buying a car is one of the least pleasant things I ever have to do, and that's entirely because of the salespeople and the dealer model. I would almost certainly buy more new cars (thus boosting the economy and helping to employ more people who actually, you know, make things) if I didn't have to go to a dealer to do it. Just let me browse & compare online, with accurate prices, and pick what I want for delivery. You know, like I do for EVERY OTHER DAMN PRODUCT I BUY. The dealer adds precisely zero value, in fact the dealer removes value, and does so at a high cost to me. Shut em all down.
During Sandy POTS was down in our area, as was AT&T, Sprint & T-Mobile cell service. Only thing working at at all was Verizon wireless, and that was sketchy. I was able to pick buy a burner phone and a couple of refill cards to help out comms for my family & our neighbors.
Having recently been in such a situation I agree with the basic premise that you should be prepared to be self sufficient. I was, my family are fine, thanks for asking. There was really no power around here - no traffic lights, no commercial buildings, nothing - and it was cold and dark and I had a baby to look after. Luckily we're within striking distance of a firehouse which had a generator, so if the worst came to the worst we could have gone there, but I didn't as we were OK and they had better things to deal with.
That said - communication was the thing which surprised me the most as being both so essential and so difficult. The emergency radio station provided by my town was next to useless as it was being interfered with by some talk radio station two cities away, POTS was down, cellphones were mostly down and forget any kind of internet connection. That made it hard/impossible to let people know we were OK, to find out if others were OK, to find out how to get help or how to provide help. You can promote the whole "look after yourself" thing as much as you like but the fact is things are a lot more efficient if people can work together to solve problems - and that requires communication. When I'm looking back at this and figuring out how to better prepare for next time, it's communication that's going to be top of the list.
What's so special about a cop's house? I live in the US, there's a police officer lives down the block from me. Now obviously, as a burglar, I wouldn't try and break in while he's home (cruiser parked out front) - but if he's not? House isn't anything special, doesn't even look like it has an alarm.
The problem is that people are still using removable storage. In my organization it's been banned for years - there's simply no justification for the huge risk involved in letting your data literally walk out the door, encrypted or not (and that doesn't even consider what walks back in on those sticks the next morning). VPN & remote desktop setups are cheap and easy. Use them.
What use is a police officer if a kid breaks their leg? What you need is a paramedic. Do you have those stationed at every school as well, just in case? Or do you rely on the same 911 system everyone else does?
The problem with putting a police officer somewhere where there's nothing for them to do, is that someone will invent something for them to do.
Wow. Paranoid much? I hope you don't drive, eat red meat or smoke. Because all of those things are waaaaay more likely to kill you than some nutjob with a gun (unless you count yourself - people shoot themselves accidentally with worrying frequency!). Best take a parachute next time you fly as well...
automatically in the compiler, try several things and pick the one that uses the least memory/processor cycles/OSPF if multithreaded/whatever based on what you want to gain by optimizing code
Oh - you mean like every JVM/CLR in the last I can't remember how long? Like you get in every Android device? Like all the decent JS engines out there?
Now we could discuss the relative efficiencies of interpreted vs bytecode vs compiled vs whatever all day long (hint: it's more variable than it might at first seem), but I have a feeling you'd rather go back out and shout at the kids on your lawn.
In technical specifications, Apple products are usually inferior to other offerings in the market, and they cost more. You can argue it in circles all you want -- but there really is something different in the mindset of people who exhibit brand loyalty to Apple.
Or maybe, just maybe, technical specs aren't everything. In fact, to the average person on the street, technical specs are basically nothing. That doesn't mean all that's left is marketing - there's this little thing called "experience". The only company doing anything interesting in this space other than Apple is, ironically, Microsoft. Google haven't made a decent UX since their original search page so why anyone would trust them to build an entire OS is beyond me. I love Google as a company, I use their services plenty, but their interfaces blow - and for me a smartphone is 90% interface.
I speak this as someone who has pre-ordered an iPhone 5, because I've been very happy with the other iPhones I've owned - but who doesn't have any other Apple products because, to be honest, I do care about price/performance for things like desktops & laptops.
Why do eBooks (or books in general) need the agency model while no other products do? iTunes sells a lot of digital music (the large majority) but there are plenty of other companies doing just fine in that space as well (Amazon for one). They compete on selection, price, convenience, customer service, extras, etc. Whilst the agency model might be great for publishers & uncompetitive resellers, it isn't good for me - the reader. I'd suggest that the resellers who feel like they're losing out should start figuring out how to compete with Amazon by actually providing value to their customer. If they can't do that they should reconsider their line of business.
Let's imagine Amazon are the only place in the world you can buy written material. So they force publishers to sell for less, squeezing their margins. Eventually it's just not going to be worth being a publisher, and they'll shut up shop and open a bar or something. Now Amazon have nothing to sell - and hence no income. That doesn't seem like a good outcome for them.
Another option is that someone else (or Amazon themselves) would see a way to run a publisher for less money and so provide Amazon product at the prices they want to pay - the question there is whether it would be of a quality that the customer is interested in buying. If it is, then the masses have spoken, if not, we're back to having no product to sell.
Now there will always be people who aren't happy with the mainstream (music, TV, film, etc) and just like today they'll still get their fix, it'll just mean paying more and getting it from small providers. Which will still exist, because Amazon will never be the only place you can buy eBooks. Running a store an maintaining stock costs basically nothing with digital media so the barrier to entry is low. Look at music, yes iTunes are the behemoth and sell a ton of stuff, but there are countless very successful smaller sellers catering to specific needs (lossless files, independent artists, specific genres, etc).
If they were a monopoly they wouldn't need to sell below cost. The only reason to do that is to bring people into your store/platform where you hope they'll buy other stuff to make up for your initial losses. If they don't, of course, you eventually go out of business.
If you're already the only player (i.e. a monopoly) there is no competition - that's where you raise prices - not lower them. Amazon may want to become a monopoly in eBooks, but this tactic indicates they're clearly not one yet.
Agreed - when I'm hiring I'm not looking so much for specific skills but for the right attitude, the ability/desire to learn, and a base technical foundation to build on. Where I set the bar obviously depends on the role, and I'm going to be much more focused on specific skills for consultant/temp roles than employee ones - where I'm looking for someone to train up for a long term career.
And I'd also question whether the MS stack makes it easier to get a job - certainly having a broad experience of a lot of things makes it easier to get a job, but we employ a lot of programmers and I'd guess maybe 75% of them never do anything Windows based. There's a lot of Java/SQL/Web stuff out there, and increasingly iOS as well.
It's very viable, they've been around for a long time. Their big money maker is their enterprise product - as their CEO explains the residential/personal product line uses tiny amounts of resources by comparison.
But anyway, what if they do go away? It's backup data, not live.
I use a backup service called Crashplan. They have clients for Linux/Mac/Windows and support backups either to your local network (free), "friends" machines in a p2p type configuration (free) or to their servers (paid). Everything's encrypted locally and the client app is pretty decent IMHO. Best of all is that the paid plans are pretty reasonable - I have the unlimited plan for something like $100 a year, and it really is unlimited (well, they claim it is and I have no reason to doubt them). I currently have about 3TB up there so I don't see why you'd have an issue.
The way I have it configured is that all the machines on my network backup to both my local fileserver and to their cloud. The local backup has a higher priority so any changes get pushed over the lan immediately and then batched up and sent offsite over the slower link. Speedwise I can't saturate my uplink when uploading to them but I get a pretty consistent 1-2MB/s, so figure maybe 100GB a day? I think my initial seed took a couple of weeks. I've done a couple of small test restores and download speeds were similar (although in all but complete disasters I'd be restoring from my local fileserver which is obviously far faster).
Disclaimer - Not related to the company in any way, just a very happy customer.
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Nice straw man you've built yourself there.
I'm certainly not against progress, in fact I'm pretty strongly for it. I also have no desire to live in a straw bail house (whatever one of those is) and have no issues with vaccinations (Jenny McCarthy can die in a fire). Organic food is preferable for me because it's more environmentally friendly and probably healthier than food grown with heavy use of chemicals, but I'm not obsessive about it. GM is a whole other matter, IMHO it's an interesting technology but the risks are huge (think complete collapse of the food chain) and I don't believe due diligence is being properly followed. I see the benefits though and it's something which should be explored, but our attempts at manipulating the natural world haven't always worked out (e.g. rabbits in Australia) so I'm a little skeptical. Nuclear power is similar. The benefits are obvious but the whole "we have no idea what to do with the waste" issue is troubling never mind the fact that we keep having pretty serious accidents. It seems likely to me that it can be done safely - it just isn't. To be honest I'd much rather the money was put into safer sustainable energy sources.
Wasn't that a few years ago? I can't imagine using a machine with a non-SSD boot drive these days, and I can't understand anyone who knows anything about computers not having one. You don't need a big one typically, I recently got a really nice 160GB Intel for my mother in law's laptop for under $100 - made a 2008 vintage Vista machine feel brand new. Without a shadow of a doubt the most significant performance boost you can add to a machine $ for $.
Which it does on every boot. Doesn't need to be reinstalled. Most retail SSDs come with software which can do the transfer, otherwise you're choice of bootable linux USB sticks will do the magic (with a win 7 recovery disk to rewrite the MBR).
Nokia killed Nokia, Whilst they may have made products that appealed to you specifically, they were failing spectacularly in the wider smartphone market. Staying on the same path wouldn't have improved anything, they needed a major overhaul. I'm not saying that the MS deal will save them in the long term but clearly something had to change.
Of course it wouldn't. But it also wouldn't cost $500b to design and bring to market competitors to all of Apple's products. A company's valuation includes physical assets, existing and predicted revenue streams, goodwill/brand value (which is huge in GoPro's case - they basically own the market), people, and so on. I'm not saying the valuation is right (seems a little high) but I'm not an analyst, and it's not my money :)
The problem is that if you increase minimum wage you create an upward pressure on all wages to maintain differentiation (why should someone with a degree working as a programmer get paid the same as an unskilled burger flipper? what's the incentive to get the education?). That just creates inflation and you're back where you started.
I don't have a great solution, but I'm a little concerned by assumption that you should be able to raise a family on minimum wage. That doesn't seem sustainable to me. I certainly support a strong welfare system to help those who find themselves in a hole. But there is an aspect to living within your means, and seeking to better yourself and thus benefit your family. A welfare system can actually help that, by removing the need to work 3 low paid jobs to feed the kids you can maybe give someone the time to get some training for a real career.
Bullshit. There have been several Humble Bundles which didn't even include games (e.g. Music & eBooks), and most of the games in previous bundles haven't been FOSS. They've also done publisher/developer specific bundles in the past (e.g. Frozenbyte, Introversion).
I honestly have no clue what your problem with this is, as none of the things you talk about have been true for previous bundles. The only real difference is that in the past many of the items were DRM free, but even that's not been 100%, and many of us (myself included) just used the steam keys anyway so that wasn't really significant.
This is raising money for charity and/or THQ - I have no problem with that. If you don't like it, don't buy it. End of story.
I'm British. The only people I've ever met who eat beef well done have been American (for example all of my wife's family). Quite a shame given how good the beef is over here in the US of A.
I'm a consumer. I buy things not because of salespeople but despite them. Buying a car is one of the least pleasant things I ever have to do, and that's entirely because of the salespeople and the dealer model. I would almost certainly buy more new cars (thus boosting the economy and helping to employ more people who actually, you know, make things) if I didn't have to go to a dealer to do it. Just let me browse & compare online, with accurate prices, and pick what I want for delivery. You know, like I do for EVERY OTHER DAMN PRODUCT I BUY. The dealer adds precisely zero value, in fact the dealer removes value, and does so at a high cost to me. Shut em all down.
During Sandy POTS was down in our area, as was AT&T, Sprint & T-Mobile cell service. Only thing working at at all was Verizon wireless, and that was sketchy. I was able to pick buy a burner phone and a couple of refill cards to help out comms for my family & our neighbors.
Having recently been in such a situation I agree with the basic premise that you should be prepared to be self sufficient. I was, my family are fine, thanks for asking. There was really no power around here - no traffic lights, no commercial buildings, nothing - and it was cold and dark and I had a baby to look after. Luckily we're within striking distance of a firehouse which had a generator, so if the worst came to the worst we could have gone there, but I didn't as we were OK and they had better things to deal with.
That said - communication was the thing which surprised me the most as being both so essential and so difficult. The emergency radio station provided by my town was next to useless as it was being interfered with by some talk radio station two cities away, POTS was down, cellphones were mostly down and forget any kind of internet connection. That made it hard/impossible to let people know we were OK, to find out if others were OK, to find out how to get help or how to provide help. You can promote the whole "look after yourself" thing as much as you like but the fact is things are a lot more efficient if people can work together to solve problems - and that requires communication. When I'm looking back at this and figuring out how to better prepare for next time, it's communication that's going to be top of the list.
What's so special about a cop's house? I live in the US, there's a police officer lives down the block from me. Now obviously, as a burglar, I wouldn't try and break in while he's home (cruiser parked out front) - but if he's not? House isn't anything special, doesn't even look like it has an alarm.
The problem is that people are still using removable storage. In my organization it's been banned for years - there's simply no justification for the huge risk involved in letting your data literally walk out the door, encrypted or not (and that doesn't even consider what walks back in on those sticks the next morning). VPN & remote desktop setups are cheap and easy. Use them.
What use is a police officer if a kid breaks their leg? What you need is a paramedic. Do you have those stationed at every school as well, just in case? Or do you rely on the same 911 system everyone else does?
The problem with putting a police officer somewhere where there's nothing for them to do, is that someone will invent something for them to do.
I'm British but living in the US. I've been following the case on the BBC but have never seen any mention of in the US media.
That's really Fios' big advantage. I pay for 35/35, in reality I get 42/35 very consistently (hours at a time).
Wow. Paranoid much? I hope you don't drive, eat red meat or smoke. Because all of those things are waaaaay more likely to kill you than some nutjob with a gun (unless you count yourself - people shoot themselves accidentally with worrying frequency!). Best take a parachute next time you fly as well...
Oh - you mean like every JVM/CLR in the last I can't remember how long? Like you get in every Android device? Like all the decent JS engines out there?
Now we could discuss the relative efficiencies of interpreted vs bytecode vs compiled vs whatever all day long (hint: it's more variable than it might at first seem), but I have a feeling you'd rather go back out and shout at the kids on your lawn.
Or maybe, just maybe, technical specs aren't everything. In fact, to the average person on the street, technical specs are basically nothing. That doesn't mean all that's left is marketing - there's this little thing called "experience". The only company doing anything interesting in this space other than Apple is, ironically, Microsoft. Google haven't made a decent UX since their original search page so why anyone would trust them to build an entire OS is beyond me. I love Google as a company, I use their services plenty, but their interfaces blow - and for me a smartphone is 90% interface.
I speak this as someone who has pre-ordered an iPhone 5, because I've been very happy with the other iPhones I've owned - but who doesn't have any other Apple products because, to be honest, I do care about price/performance for things like desktops & laptops.
Why do eBooks (or books in general) need the agency model while no other products do? iTunes sells a lot of digital music (the large majority) but there are plenty of other companies doing just fine in that space as well (Amazon for one). They compete on selection, price, convenience, customer service, extras, etc. Whilst the agency model might be great for publishers & uncompetitive resellers, it isn't good for me - the reader. I'd suggest that the resellers who feel like they're losing out should start figuring out how to compete with Amazon by actually providing value to their customer. If they can't do that they should reconsider their line of business.
Let's imagine Amazon are the only place in the world you can buy written material. So they force publishers to sell for less, squeezing their margins. Eventually it's just not going to be worth being a publisher, and they'll shut up shop and open a bar or something. Now Amazon have nothing to sell - and hence no income. That doesn't seem like a good outcome for them.
Another option is that someone else (or Amazon themselves) would see a way to run a publisher for less money and so provide Amazon product at the prices they want to pay - the question there is whether it would be of a quality that the customer is interested in buying. If it is, then the masses have spoken, if not, we're back to having no product to sell.
Now there will always be people who aren't happy with the mainstream (music, TV, film, etc) and just like today they'll still get their fix, it'll just mean paying more and getting it from small providers. Which will still exist, because Amazon will never be the only place you can buy eBooks. Running a store an maintaining stock costs basically nothing with digital media so the barrier to entry is low. Look at music, yes iTunes are the behemoth and sell a ton of stuff, but there are countless very successful smaller sellers catering to specific needs (lossless files, independent artists, specific genres, etc).
If they were a monopoly they wouldn't need to sell below cost. The only reason to do that is to bring people into your store/platform where you hope they'll buy other stuff to make up for your initial losses. If they don't, of course, you eventually go out of business.
If you're already the only player (i.e. a monopoly) there is no competition - that's where you raise prices - not lower them. Amazon may want to become a monopoly in eBooks, but this tactic indicates they're clearly not one yet.
Agreed - when I'm hiring I'm not looking so much for specific skills but for the right attitude, the ability/desire to learn, and a base technical foundation to build on. Where I set the bar obviously depends on the role, and I'm going to be much more focused on specific skills for consultant/temp roles than employee ones - where I'm looking for someone to train up for a long term career.
And I'd also question whether the MS stack makes it easier to get a job - certainly having a broad experience of a lot of things makes it easier to get a job, but we employ a lot of programmers and I'd guess maybe 75% of them never do anything Windows based. There's a lot of Java/SQL/Web stuff out there, and increasingly iOS as well.
It's very viable, they've been around for a long time. Their big money maker is their enterprise product - as their CEO explains the residential/personal product line uses tiny amounts of resources by comparison.
But anyway, what if they do go away? It's backup data, not live.
I use a backup service called Crashplan. They have clients for Linux/Mac/Windows and support backups either to your local network (free), "friends" machines in a p2p type configuration (free) or to their servers (paid). Everything's encrypted locally and the client app is pretty decent IMHO. Best of all is that the paid plans are pretty reasonable - I have the unlimited plan for something like $100 a year, and it really is unlimited (well, they claim it is and I have no reason to doubt them). I currently have about 3TB up there so I don't see why you'd have an issue.
The way I have it configured is that all the machines on my network backup to both my local fileserver and to their cloud. The local backup has a higher priority so any changes get pushed over the lan immediately and then batched up and sent offsite over the slower link. Speedwise I can't saturate my uplink when uploading to them but I get a pretty consistent 1-2MB/s, so figure maybe 100GB a day? I think my initial seed took a couple of weeks. I've done a couple of small test restores and download speeds were similar (although in all but complete disasters I'd be restoring from my local fileserver which is obviously far faster).
Disclaimer - Not related to the company in any way, just a very happy customer.