I've been a computer programmer professionally for over 20 years - I've been using Ubuntu lately (8 years or so) because it's easy. I don't want to spend my time being a system administrator, I just want to work, and Ubuntu is pretty damn good at that, pathological case anecdotes aside. It's not perfect by any stretch, and I've had my problems, but by and large it's been plug and play.
But approval voting doesn't actually let you choose a favorite, or an order, amongst those you approve of. Definitely better than the current two party stranglehold, though.
I've tried to explain instant run-off to people, but it seems (unbelievably) too hard to grasp. People who've participated in caucuses seem to be the only ones who get it. I believe we can implement this in the U.S. without amending the U.S. constitution, but it would require states to select electors based on instant run-off. I don't think it's the "people" who wouldn't want it (if they could grasp the concept), it's the establishment that controls the election laws now that don't want third parties to become viable - so they keep the current system and convince people third party votes are a waste. I've written my local representative with the suggestion and basically got laughed at.
Interesting thought, there. I agree in current U.S. political nomenclature neither "liberal" nor "conservative" means what they should mean, but I'm not sure I agree about libertarian - except that the definition of libertarian is also changing as more so-called conservatives who claim to want economic freedom (but are clueless about personal liberties and freedoms) butcher it's use, too.
My thoughts are similar... I think there is a lot of memory hype going on, and while I've seen a post in this thread talking about 4GB being enough for "grandma" to do web surfing and spreadsheets, 4GB is quite a lot... in one extreme example I saw almost the exact same comment applied to 8GB, where a "serious" user would need 16GB. 4GB will do just about anything most people will be doing, even editing large photos. You WILL see performance improvements with more memory for such applications, but most things are doable with less memory, and it's one of the sacrifices people make to get more portable. "Extreme" gamers are not going to buy a laptop that is limited to 8GB and, likely, unable to have discrete high end graphics at that level anyway.
If you're buying a laptop to do high end gaming or video editing, you're going to buy one that has discrete Nvidia or ATI graphics (likely), which will likely also put it in the category of laptops that can go higher than 8GB.
It seems like when someone tells you they bought a new Civic to commute to work, and you say "Well, a Civic's OK for grandma to commute in, but a serious driver needs a Tesla." It's kind of ridiculous.
I have a Dell Precision M from several years ago - it's got quite good graphics (required to run an external monitor at 2650 by 1920); it's a good solid machine, but it's ridiculously heavy when I have to travel. Work recently got me a new Dell XPS for road trips... the only reason I'm responding is that these new XPS laptops have insanely great displays... I did manage to get the highest end 15.6 inch version; it has 3840x2160 display. Yes - that's ridiculous on a 15 inch display, right? But graphics card can scale the workspace to whatever you want - at 200% it fits 1920x1080, but looks much sharper - it's a noticeable difference; if you have good eyes (or glasses), you can squeeze in a lot more by going 150 to 175% scaling.... or go crazy with 1 to 1.
I work with such proprietary equipment that it seems no two devices are wired the same way. Expensive broadcast camera lenses, for example, that cost tens of thousands of dollars... and then you need a $250 cable from one company, and $160 cable from another to convert it down to serial so that you can just run a diagnostic on it. It would take far too long to figure the pin-outs on your own - at the end of the day, $400 for two cables seems like a bargain. One of the cables is so rare that, when I googled it trying to find pin out information, Google can't find it. Period. These companies use proprietary protocols and butcher standard pin outs for exactly that reason - they can make a lot of extra money on cables and proprietary diagnostic and control software.
I'd like to go smaller... I just got a Dell XPS 15.6 inch laptop, and so far I really like it. I wish I could have gotten the smaller one (13 inch) that they are showing on the commercials, but it's for work, and I need discrete Nvidia graphics for a couple of programs I use. I would have gotten a Surface Book if I hadn't read about the high incidence of problems people have been having with them. Unfortunately, the new Macbooks don't use Nvidia anymore... I just missed out.
So the caveat is that it doesn't come with a built in LAN port, but it does have USB 3 and lightening ports, and an HDMI port. They sell a video breakout box for about $160 more (which I got because, hey, work was paying anyway) that I found very annoying, requiring it's own power adapter on top of being fairly big for what it is, but it includes a network port, VGA ports, and expands the number of USB ports. I used it to make sure it worked, but haven't used it since. Instead, I got a fairly cheap USB 3 hub with LAN adapter... small, very light weight, no external power required.... much easier to take with me on the road than Dells junky video expander thing.
Keep in mind, I'm coming from having to lug around a Dell Precision M4000 "mobile workstation." Small is what I wanted. Having to add a hub with a LAN port is still heaven compared to carrying around that behemoth, and I'd need a hub anyway with all the devices I need to add... laptop has three ports (fairly typical), I have a wireless mouse (can't stand track pads), two dongles, an external drive, and yes... a USB to serial adapter.
And yet if I pay cash I am still paying those higher prices and getting nothing in return. When you can convince everyone else to stop using credit/debit, then I'll join in.
Interesting discussion, and it's one I was planning on staying out of because there's two sides, and nothing anybody says will convince the others.... kind of like politics, with two "sides" and very few in-betweens.
Anyway, I read your response, and a vision of my brother (died of a heart attack - and the accident it caused - before the age of 50, due to smoking, drug, and alcohol abuse). He spent most of his life making excuses instead of looking for a job, and he was one of those people who'd quit rather than show up on time and sober. When he was sober, he'd give up on looking for work because of his record and "no one will hire me anyway" mentality.
Something I tell my kids - and something I was lucky to learn early on - you can't possibly succeed if you don't try. Most people seem to have given up, blaming "the man" or the economy or anybody but themselves.
Bottom line is to stop making excuses and keep trying.
Now, at the same time, despite my ideological belief in libertarianism, my pragmatic (and human) belief is you can't "just" abandon the ones that don't try. Like it or not, they often breed; they turn to crime, they become burdensome in other ways. With as hard as I've worked my entire life - from school to paper routes and cutting people's lawns, a lot of manual labor before settling in my career, and without ever getting any benefits - no welfare, no food stamps, no "Obama" (really Bush) phone, the idea of handing it out to people who often won't even try and have simply made piss poor decisions their entire lives is really repulsive. At the same time, you can't just abandon people... It's a kind of extortion - pay or, or we'll make your lives difficult in other ways; but what are you going to do? And then there's the fact that some people have just gotten bad deals, and they are often the people who, given a chance, will eventually get back on their feet and be positive contributors to society. What about them? And without spending billions in bureaucracy, how to tell the difference?
Still, the bottom line is that people who won't try (or only try half ass because they don't believe in themselves) are doomed to fail from the start.
It sets a precedence. It's really an all or nothing case; if they do it once, they will be expected to do it every time the government asks... otherwise you leave it up to Apple execs to determine who they want to help prosecute? This is a very important case, and a government "win" is another blow to freedom for the people. Obama can say whatever he wants - he's in his last term, he doesn't have to pretend to actually care about the rights of the people anymore.
I didn't know that. In that case, couldn't the legal owners of the phone - you know, the County of San Bernardino, ask Apple to give the FBI access? Wouldn't that, in this particular case, make everybody happy? Apple doesn't hand over everyone's privacy all willy-nilly, they'd be doing it at the behest of the "owner."
Back to the larger subject; Obama, in some ways, has become just like every other president. Ever since the government granted itself the write to dig into all your personal "effects" and accuse you of wrongdoing while making you prove your innocence (I'm referring to the IRS - and I'm not against taxes, I'm against the way it's done), they've felt free to demand access to any information of yours they want.
The problem is that, while votes will go non-Trump as people drop out of the race, it's too little, too late. Hillary Clinton will be the next president. If either Cruz or Rubio would just accept a VP role and drop out, Trump would already be gone.
Back on subject, with my wife being from Brazil, from what I hear, stuff like this is par for course, and their tax system is almost as convoluted and ridiculous as ours.
Agreed.... I actually fall more towards the middle, but find people calling themselves "conservative" are more willing to discuss things openly. Going against progressives gets you a slew of actual "hateful" terms thrown in your direction. It's fair to say this goes both ways, but for conservatives it's more extremists, for progressives it's like the average progressive.
I bought AnyDVD, and completely support SlySoft... I never once copied a DVD or BluRay in violation of any copyright laws. I agree there are far too many people who simply want stuff for free, but that doesn't mean AnyDVD wasn't a great product that worked well for legitimate uses.
Agree - the only thing he's right about is that you can't make a backup and sell or giveaway the original while keeping the backup. You're allowed to circumvent copy protection all you want - but you're not allowed to distribute the circumvention. That's probably what slysoft (and I purchased anydvd a few years ago) got caught up in.
I'm pissed because I was just thinking the other day I should get a newer version that supports Blu-Ray (the version I have is years old and only works on DVD). Yes, I realize there are alternatives, but AnyDVD was just easy... put the disc in the drive, and that's that. He who hesitates is lost, I guess.
Interesting. Do you mean more people are killed on bikes, or that bikers kill more (pedestrians, presumably)? My dad was hit by a bicyclist and suffered a world of hurt for it.... and, of course, the woman riding the bike didn't have "bicyclist" insurance, so my dad got nothing.
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I've been a computer programmer professionally for over 20 years - I've been using Ubuntu lately (8 years or so) because it's easy. I don't want to spend my time being a system administrator, I just want to work, and Ubuntu is pretty damn good at that, pathological case anecdotes aside. It's not perfect by any stretch, and I've had my problems, but by and large it's been plug and play.
But approval voting doesn't actually let you choose a favorite, or an order, amongst those you approve of. Definitely better than the current two party stranglehold, though.
I've tried to explain instant run-off to people, but it seems (unbelievably) too hard to grasp. People who've participated in caucuses seem to be the only ones who get it. I believe we can implement this in the U.S. without amending the U.S. constitution, but it would require states to select electors based on instant run-off. I don't think it's the "people" who wouldn't want it (if they could grasp the concept), it's the establishment that controls the election laws now that don't want third parties to become viable - so they keep the current system and convince people third party votes are a waste. I've written my local representative with the suggestion and basically got laughed at.
He didn't say it wasn't true; it's just tedious to hear everybody keep repeating it over and over.
Interesting thought, there. I agree in current U.S. political nomenclature neither "liberal" nor "conservative" means what they should mean, but I'm not sure I agree about libertarian - except that the definition of libertarian is also changing as more so-called conservatives who claim to want economic freedom (but are clueless about personal liberties and freedoms) butcher it's use, too.
... and I just found out that, a few weeks after I ordered mine, the new video breakout box will charge the laptop via the lightening port.
My thoughts are similar... I think there is a lot of memory hype going on, and while I've seen a post in this thread talking about 4GB being enough for "grandma" to do web surfing and spreadsheets, 4GB is quite a lot... in one extreme example I saw almost the exact same comment applied to 8GB, where a "serious" user would need 16GB. 4GB will do just about anything most people will be doing, even editing large photos. You WILL see performance improvements with more memory for such applications, but most things are doable with less memory, and it's one of the sacrifices people make to get more portable. "Extreme" gamers are not going to buy a laptop that is limited to 8GB and, likely, unable to have discrete high end graphics at that level anyway.
If you're buying a laptop to do high end gaming or video editing, you're going to buy one that has discrete Nvidia or ATI graphics (likely), which will likely also put it in the category of laptops that can go higher than 8GB.
It seems like when someone tells you they bought a new Civic to commute to work, and you say "Well, a Civic's OK for grandma to commute in, but a serious driver needs a Tesla." It's kind of ridiculous.
I have a Dell Precision M from several years ago - it's got quite good graphics (required to run an external monitor at 2650 by 1920); it's a good solid machine, but it's ridiculously heavy when I have to travel. Work recently got me a new Dell XPS for road trips... the only reason I'm responding is that these new XPS laptops have insanely great displays... I did manage to get the highest end 15.6 inch version; it has 3840x2160 display. Yes - that's ridiculous on a 15 inch display, right? But graphics card can scale the workspace to whatever you want - at 200% it fits 1920x1080, but looks much sharper - it's a noticeable difference; if you have good eyes (or glasses), you can squeeze in a lot more by going 150 to 175% scaling.... or go crazy with 1 to 1.
I work with such proprietary equipment that it seems no two devices are wired the same way. Expensive broadcast camera lenses, for example, that cost tens of thousands of dollars... and then you need a $250 cable from one company, and $160 cable from another to convert it down to serial so that you can just run a diagnostic on it. It would take far too long to figure the pin-outs on your own - at the end of the day, $400 for two cables seems like a bargain. One of the cables is so rare that, when I googled it trying to find pin out information, Google can't find it. Period. These companies use proprietary protocols and butcher standard pin outs for exactly that reason - they can make a lot of extra money on cables and proprietary diagnostic and control software.
I'd like to go smaller... I just got a Dell XPS 15.6 inch laptop, and so far I really like it. I wish I could have gotten the smaller one (13 inch) that they are showing on the commercials, but it's for work, and I need discrete Nvidia graphics for a couple of programs I use. I would have gotten a Surface Book if I hadn't read about the high incidence of problems people have been having with them. Unfortunately, the new Macbooks don't use Nvidia anymore... I just missed out.
So the caveat is that it doesn't come with a built in LAN port, but it does have USB 3 and lightening ports, and an HDMI port. They sell a video breakout box for about $160 more (which I got because, hey, work was paying anyway) that I found very annoying, requiring it's own power adapter on top of being fairly big for what it is, but it includes a network port, VGA ports, and expands the number of USB ports. I used it to make sure it worked, but haven't used it since. Instead, I got a fairly cheap USB 3 hub with LAN adapter... small, very light weight, no external power required.... much easier to take with me on the road than Dells junky video expander thing.
Keep in mind, I'm coming from having to lug around a Dell Precision M4000 "mobile workstation." Small is what I wanted. Having to add a hub with a LAN port is still heaven compared to carrying around that behemoth, and I'd need a hub anyway with all the devices I need to add... laptop has three ports (fairly typical), I have a wireless mouse (can't stand track pads), two dongles, an external drive, and yes... a USB to serial adapter.
...and when you're labeled "subversive" for using cash, it makes me want to only use cash even more.
And yet if I pay cash I am still paying those higher prices and getting nothing in return. When you can convince everyone else to stop using credit/debit, then I'll join in.
Except instead of surcharging for credit, many places (especially gas stations) give "cash discounts."
Interesting discussion, and it's one I was planning on staying out of because there's two sides, and nothing anybody says will convince the others.... kind of like politics, with two "sides" and very few in-betweens.
Anyway, I read your response, and a vision of my brother (died of a heart attack - and the accident it caused - before the age of 50, due to smoking, drug, and alcohol abuse). He spent most of his life making excuses instead of looking for a job, and he was one of those people who'd quit rather than show up on time and sober. When he was sober, he'd give up on looking for work because of his record and "no one will hire me anyway" mentality.
Something I tell my kids - and something I was lucky to learn early on - you can't possibly succeed if you don't try. Most people seem to have given up, blaming "the man" or the economy or anybody but themselves.
Bottom line is to stop making excuses and keep trying.
Now, at the same time, despite my ideological belief in libertarianism, my pragmatic (and human) belief is you can't "just" abandon the ones that don't try. Like it or not, they often breed; they turn to crime, they become burdensome in other ways. With as hard as I've worked my entire life - from school to paper routes and cutting people's lawns, a lot of manual labor before settling in my career, and without ever getting any benefits - no welfare, no food stamps, no "Obama" (really Bush) phone, the idea of handing it out to people who often won't even try and have simply made piss poor decisions their entire lives is really repulsive. At the same time, you can't just abandon people... It's a kind of extortion - pay or, or we'll make your lives difficult in other ways; but what are you going to do? And then there's the fact that some people have just gotten bad deals, and they are often the people who, given a chance, will eventually get back on their feet and be positive contributors to society. What about them? And without spending billions in bureaucracy, how to tell the difference?
Still, the bottom line is that people who won't try (or only try half ass because they don't believe in themselves) are doomed to fail from the start.
It sets a precedence. It's really an all or nothing case; if they do it once, they will be expected to do it every time the government asks... otherwise you leave it up to Apple execs to determine who they want to help prosecute? This is a very important case, and a government "win" is another blow to freedom for the people. Obama can say whatever he wants - he's in his last term, he doesn't have to pretend to actually care about the rights of the people anymore.
I didn't know that. In that case, couldn't the legal owners of the phone - you know, the County of San Bernardino, ask Apple to give the FBI access? Wouldn't that, in this particular case, make everybody happy? Apple doesn't hand over everyone's privacy all willy-nilly, they'd be doing it at the behest of the "owner."
Back to the larger subject; Obama, in some ways, has become just like every other president. Ever since the government granted itself the write to dig into all your personal "effects" and accuse you of wrongdoing while making you prove your innocence (I'm referring to the IRS - and I'm not against taxes, I'm against the way it's done), they've felt free to demand access to any information of yours they want.
The problem is that, while votes will go non-Trump as people drop out of the race, it's too little, too late. Hillary Clinton will be the next president. If either Cruz or Rubio would just accept a VP role and drop out, Trump would already be gone. Back on subject, with my wife being from Brazil, from what I hear, stuff like this is par for course, and their tax system is almost as convoluted and ridiculous as ours.
+1, but no mod points.
Agreed.... I actually fall more towards the middle, but find people calling themselves "conservative" are more willing to discuss things openly. Going against progressives gets you a slew of actual "hateful" terms thrown in your direction. It's fair to say this goes both ways, but for conservatives it's more extremists, for progressives it's like the average progressive.
No, you would only have betrayed your integrity.
I bought AnyDVD, and completely support SlySoft... I never once copied a DVD or BluRay in violation of any copyright laws. I agree there are far too many people who simply want stuff for free, but that doesn't mean AnyDVD wasn't a great product that worked well for legitimate uses.
Agree - the only thing he's right about is that you can't make a backup and sell or giveaway the original while keeping the backup. You're allowed to circumvent copy protection all you want - but you're not allowed to distribute the circumvention. That's probably what slysoft (and I purchased anydvd a few years ago) got caught up in.
I'm pissed because I was just thinking the other day I should get a newer version that supports Blu-Ray (the version I have is years old and only works on DVD). Yes, I realize there are alternatives, but AnyDVD was just easy... put the disc in the drive, and that's that. He who hesitates is lost, I guess.
Interesting. Do you mean more people are killed on bikes, or that bikers kill more (pedestrians, presumably)? My dad was hit by a bicyclist and suffered a world of hurt for it.... and, of course, the woman riding the bike didn't have "bicyclist" insurance, so my dad got nothing.
I watched the video with my wife and she was mad at someone being mean to the robot.