Understood.
Yet, for example, Apple is competitive. But Dell is not? The same major 'shareholders' mutual funds, etfs etc hold both companies. I agree that the shareholders elect boards, but each board has a unique momentum and culture despite all being more or less elected by the same people.
I actually use a galaxy s5, I've already got a good reasoable length 'alternate passphrase'.
I do very much like your advice about using a less frequent finger. Not only does that make it take longer, but one of the obvious sources for a fingerprint to use for the phone is the surface of the phone itself. So using your main index finger to unlock it, and then tapping it all over your screen
The s5 however does not require passphrase afterboot up. (I'm not sure how much of a big deal that is.) Nor do I see a setting to adjust the number of failed tries, or the lockout timer -- as it stands I get 5 tries, and then a 30 second lockout...then 5 more tries... it doesn't appear to ever fail completely over to pass phrase. (Anyone else know otherwise?!)
One analyst notes that "Because they are no longer reporting to Wall Street, they can be more competitive."
The problem isn't Wall Street. Its the board members. And lots of companies thrive just fine as public companies because the board is taking the long view, selects a CEO with vision, and then lets him pursue it.
While you have a toxic board that is only looking to milk the company, selects weak CEOs, and structures management compensation to incent short-term thinking then you've got a problem.
I guess taking it private is one way to get rid of a toxic board, and good for Dell if they can reinvent themselves this way. But the problem isn't faceless "wall street".
Instead, name and shame the Dell board members. They were the ones enforcing the short term outlook.
This will likely make life even easier for law enforcement
Your right.
I can either go with a 4 digit PIN which is far more vulnerable to the look-over-the-shoulder or look at the dirty screen attack that low level criminals will use.
Or I can go with a fingerprint which will defeat them, but can be extracted from me by law enforcement.
Or I can go with a 40 key passphrase and be pretty safe from both groups -- but then I have to enter a 40 key passphrase before I can reply to a text message or check a new email.
What do you propose?
Good science fiction is about the possibilities of technology, and how we can use it to become more knowledgeable about ourselves.
The GP was 'more' right. So called "Good" or "Hard" SF is examining a human response to a change in the environment. The key to differentiating SF from space-romance/fantasy etc is whether the plot and conflict is driven by science as a consequence of the change in the environment. If there are "space ships" are they simply used to get from A to B and are nothing more than pretty cars? Or is the plot driven by the unique circumstances that them being spaceships creates.
Is it an examination of how (comparatively slow) spaceships with no ability to communicate beyond a limited range with large enough crews would evolve into isolated floating city states? Does it explore that in depth? Then it might be hard SF. Is it just assumed that this happened so they could retell a story about city states from Renaissance Italy in space? Then maybe not.
Or maybe the people sleep in the spaceships, and the story explores the impact of waking up after every trip knowing everyone you knew is now dead and how that might affect the relationships you form. Sounds like Hard SF. Or maybe its just a set piece that has no real impact on the plot, and its not used to larger effect than napping on a jet or a bus.
But it doesn't need to have space ships or advanced science to be SF.
Nightfall imagines a world without night encountering it for the first time. They could be less advanced than us.
Flowers for Algernon and A Clockwork Orange both explore the ethics of human experimentation and the ethics of altering someones mind. The tech to do it isn't really important.
1984 simply considers a society under government surveillance. (The telescreens were really the extent of advanced technology, but again weren't really important to the plot or theme except as a way to establish the "surveillance" element)
The Mote in God's Eye is an examination of the evolutionary path of a resource constrained technologically advanced species. (One vision of how we might adapt in few million years if we can't leave the solar system...)
More than Human is an examination of loneliness and our need to form connections. The selection of both enhanced but broken characters, a telepath, telekinetic,mute teleporters, an infant genius, etc is used to weave a tale about how they might find eachother and cope, even become 'whole'.
The Demolished Man is police mystery in a future world where telepaths are real. But at its core its a thought experiment examining how to deceive a telepath. The Minority Report is similarly themed (although the movie COMPLETELY screwed up the ending).
As for "bad SF" I don't like the term. Lots of perfectly good writing is called "bad SF" when there is nothing wrong with it; its just not "Hard SF". But there is nothing wrong with doing Game of Thrones in Space. I thoroughly enjoyed the Judge Dredd remake. It was fun. These aren't Hard SF, but they are not pretending to be. Its soft SF, not "Bad SF".
It premiered TWO YEARS AGO on Windows.
Which is why this is its "premiere on Linux" instead of its "premiere".
Seriously, your argument is ridiculous.
Its like "correcting" someone who says "this is the first time I've ever drunk wine from a tin mug" by saying "you don't know what 'first' means, you drank wine from a glass years ago."
Trouble with stackoverflow is that there are TONS of really shitty answers on the site, even with hundres of upvotes or whatever.
For example, when working with C string handling functions, the n and l versions, the fact that Microsoft has its own safe versions, compiler warnings when using unsafe versions, and writing portable code... when that collides the stackoverflow advice is a huge mash of good and truly awful "solutions".
However Motorola lost its edge there, and the big problem with PowerPC chips was their power consumption, making laptop design and battery life much more difficult.
Sort of. Its not that a low power PPC wasn't possible.
The problem was that IBM et al couldn't be bothered to put in the R&D or fab capabilities to make a low power version of the PowerPC just for Apple laptops. It wasn't a priority for them, and the market was too small.
Now you could argue they missed the boat, and that Apple has grown tremendously... but I'd argue that a big part of Apple's recent relevative success in computers is tied to them switching to x86 -- being able to run windows in VMs, being able to do bootcamp, being that much easier to port x86 code from other platforms over... are all what enabled a lot of people to really consider switching.
Even if IBM had done a low power G5 and beyond for apple, its an open question whether nearly as many people would have considered switching to them. I know I, and many many others who wouldn't have bought a macbook pro if it had had anything but an x86 chipset.
How old is your old? I'm 46...using a Nokia 1520 because it is damn near huge at 6". I can see things pretty well now...I can't go back to a smaller phone, because I just can't read anything on it!
What happens when you boil water inside an sealed container?
Nothing at all if you completely fail to boil the water because the container you used shields the contents from the energy you were hoping to use to boil it.
Per the youtube video, the beer stayed cold. The metal can shields the water from heating, so it doesn't even heat it up, nevermind boil.
uh... no you couldn't, the angular resolution of even the largest telescopes coupled with elementary physics would prove that.
And even if we could, say via a flyby with a satellite or some futuristic hubble 2.0... the only people who could afford such a 'telescope' would clearly be in on the hoax, so you can't trust them.
The only solution is to take the hoaxers and send them to the moon to see it first hand with their own eyes. Something I am entirely in favor of.
If that doesn't convince them, fine, this wasn't really for them, it was for me. And I was satisfied the minute they were out of earths orbit and don't see any reason why we should bring them back.
The idea of a very gradual decline, such that finally losing one's grandfather comes when one's opinion of that grandfather is at least somewhat "feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic" is a comfort. It makes the loss easier, understandable, and acceptable.
Think about what you just said from the perspective of the person who has to live out those years.
Do you think they all don't know they are "feeble, ineffectual, and pathetic"? Do you think they enjoy that feeling? How many years should they have to live where they can't eat solid food, need someone else to change their diapers and bathe them, bereft of any dignity, suffering alternating panic and embarrassment when realize they've forgotten their daughter's name, or realize they can't remember where the coffee shop they visit every morning is located, living alone, or perhaps with strangers who take care of them but don't really care about them. Terrified that they'll wake up and not know their own childs face, while their friends die around them.
How long should they live like that and just how bad should it get for them just so you can feel less distressed when they die?
Sure in a perfect world, you get old, you slow down, you have tea with your friends, and play cards, your son comes to visit you share a simple meal, you say your feeling tired tell them you love them, go to bed, and pass away in your sleep.
Most of us don't get that death. Some us go a bit before our time and its a tragic loss.
But many of us live beyond our time, taken down for example, by age onset diabetes, bedridden, with our feet amputated, blind, deaf and alone, and its a "tragic life". And our death comes as a relief to our loved ones.
If I can't have the perfect death, I would choose the tragic quick one as preferable over living for years in a prolonged hell as my final chapter.
Killing a non-competitive industry
What's non-competitive about it? You think other tax jurisdictions aren't playing the same game?
But in the long-term, a more competitive and stronger industry will emerge.
Or it will nestle somewhere else where it can squeeze the local government for some concessions. I'd rather the jobs be in Canada than elsewhere. The candian content regulations provide some unique leverage over the industry. The tax breaks are the carrot... and the canadian content regulations (that they qualify under if its produced significantly within canada) is the stick.
Just as the US and Canada should never have rescued the auto-makers when they imploded
I agree they handled it pretty poorly, but letting it collapse would have been stupid too. The country would not be better if all those jobs, and supply chains, and the service industries supported by that industry had all collapsed like a string of dominoes. Sure the market would have corrected itself and sorted itself out after a 'great depression', but millions of people still have to eat in the meantime. That's a huge drain on the economy, and an incubator for crime and even real civil unrest. Far better to prop up the industry up with bridge financing then to put them all on various welfare programs.
They handled it poorly though. Those who were responsible for manufacturing the crisis should have been reduced to poverty.
but don't try anything too clever. Otherwise some cop will get a gut feeling or a hunch and the minute he's officially taken off the case you're toast.
You know it. And from watching things like Bones and CSI:Miami I know that not only do they investigate every case like its the only thing they have to do with their time, but that money is also generally no object. And if you are really unlucky, the laws of physics will turn out to be fairly flexible to.
There's no place any more for cultural protectionism.
Canadian content laws combined with tax incentives are what created and sustains hollywood north, a significant film and TV production industry within Canada that would otherwise not exist, that generates jobs and incomes in Canada.
Kill the laws, and you kill an industry. How does Canada win that way exactly?
Protecting Canadian content is far more than just protecting Canadian "culture", its a very real protection of a whole industry that pretty clearly and objectively benefits the country overall.
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