The result is just one of gradually falling prices, but it is one where it is cheap enough to interest more people. At that price the drives are now "cheap enough" for them.

Not the fact that wifi routers degrade, you are totally right about that, but that people will replace them. I'm amazed at how shitty someone's Internet can be and they have an "Oh well, whatever," attitude about it.

A good example near and dear to me is my parents. They moved in to their current place about 7 years ago and got a cheapass Linksys router to handle their NAT and WiFi. It has been giving them enough grief for me to hear about it for at least 3 years. They are not poor, a new router is not a big deal, yet they didn't get one. So I got tired of it, and also had an easy solution: When they were visiting me this June I upgraded my WAP to a new 802.11ac one and gave them my old one, which was working great.

They still haven't installed it. It's not like they don't have time, mom is retired and dad is semi-retired, it's not like it is hard, it is much simpler to set up than their old model and they can always call me. They just haven't bothered. Their router acts up, they go reset it, and don't bother to replace it.

Another somewhat related example would be a friend of mine. He's a young guy, under 30, and quite technically savvy. He's complained to me that the Internet at his house is not meeting advertised speeds, going quite well below it. Strange, since we are both on the same ISP, and live only a couple miles from each other and my experience has been that they always are right around max. I inquire a bit more and find out he still has a DOCSIS 2 modem. Ahh ok, well that is probably the issue. Though his connection is of a speed that a single DOCSIS channel can handle (25mbps), that modem has one one channel to choose from and it could well be too loaded down by other people on the segment. So my recommendation was to get a DOCSIS 3 modem. An 8x4 modem that is compatible can be had for like $80. That should solve any speed issues since now there's a bunch of channels to choose from, and will be compatible when they bump the speeds in the future.

He didn't want to spend the money, and so just complains occasionally about the speed.

For whatever reason, there are more than a few people who will just use old, failing, technology and bitch about it rather than fix the issue.

This is a real question: Do you know what IPv6 does instead of BGP? Because as far as I know, IPv6 is still using BGP, and that is what this is a problem with. In fact I can only see IPv6 making things worse in that regard because tons more address space means that more AS assignments would be easy to do.

So if it really does offer a solution, please enlighten me I'd be very interested. If this is just an example of trying to use a problem to push a favoured agenda, then please knock it off.

I do IT work at a state university. As you'd expect with government institutions, we are really big on the EEOC rules and such. However, we can't force people to apply and for IT stuff, you get mostly men. Last round, it was all men. I don't mean we chose to interview all men, I mean no women applied, or if they did apply, HR filtered them out (HR does a basic "resume vs qualifications" check). Our IT group (we are only one of many IT groups on campus, there are women in other groups) is all male, at present. We had a female webmaster, however her fiance got a job in New York, so they moved there and of course she quit.

What, precisely, are we supposed to do to be more diverse? There are just not many women who seem to have the skills and wish to apply. We can't go and force people to apply, nor can we (legally or practically) say we'll waive the requirements for the job if you are a woman.

You can't hire those that don't apply.

So in terms of all this fluff up over Silicon Valley and diversity, I'd say how does their workforce numbers compare to their applicants? If in general it is the same, meaning say 30% of applicants are female and 30% of employees are female, 9% of applicants are black and 8% of employees are black, well then there probably isn't any discrimination going on. The fact that the numbers do not reflect demographics doesn't mean any discrimination on their part if they are simply not getting the applicants.

Also with regards to race, I'm not seeing why the 55% white number is problematic. According to Wikipedia, 72% of the US is white. If you count being hispanic as not being white (remember hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race) then the number is 64%. So per overall breakdown of the population, white people would be underrepresented in Apple by a fair bit.

That is also something I think people forget: The US does not have an even balance of all groups. Male/female has about a 50/50 split, but racial/ethnic groups are not nearly so even. It is still a nation dominated by fair skinned people of European ancestry, aka "white". The amount varies by state, of course, but it is quite a consistent majority.

You may have qualified on shooting a rifle, you apparently didn't qualify on reading since you are criticizing me by repeating things I said, like the fact that M4/16 are very accurate to long ranges, and that there are larger rounds in use for longer ranges. So perhaps spend more time reading and comprehending, and less time pulling out your (alleged) credentials and repeating what was already said as though it is something new.

As for fragmentation first off you act as though it is a bad thing when talking about a target. Quite the opposite. A round that fragments, expands, or tumbles in a person does much more damage and thus has a higher probability of stopping the target in a single shot.

In terms of fragmentation on other barriers: Try it. Shoot through a window, a couple sheets of drywall, etc. Put a paper target a bit behind it so you can see what happens. At short (less than 100m) range, the round will usually fragment on account of its high velocity. Depends on the round composition, of course, 62gr M855 will fragment less than a 75gr BTHP round. They don't explode in to tiny specs if that is what you are thinking but they break apart.

It is amazing how much misinformation flies around about guns. One of the common ones is "OMG the M4/16 is such crap, the AK is so much bettar!"

You are quite correct about the range. The AR-15 platform weapons are much more accurate. Anyone who has ever fired both can easily tell that.

The issue that people like the grandparent conflate is the lethality of the 5.56x45mm round at longer ranges. Though the M16 can easily hit a target at long range (with a skilled marksman operating it), because of the small size and low mass of the round, it is often not as effective as you would want. If the bullet does not fragment or tumble, it can go right through someone and the small hole does little damage.

That is the issue it has at range, not accuracy or ability to reach that range.

Also this isn't like it is some completely unknown, or unsolvable, thing. The military also has weapons that use 7.62x51mm rounds which are larger rifle bullets and have much greater range, mass, and kinetic energy. For longer engagements still things like 8.58Ã--70mm and 12.7Ã--99mm are used.

Of course as you move up in caliber and amount of propellant, weapons become bigger and heavier, and have larger amounts of recoil to deal with, it is always a tradeoff and is one reason why the standard personal weapons use 5.56.

In terms of 5.56x45mm vs 7.62Ã--39mm (which is what the AK uses, is is not the same as the larger NATO round) the real issues come up at medium range (100-300m) and with barrier penetration. The light, high velocity 5.56 round tends to be fantastically lethal below 100m because the high velocity results in fragmentation when it hits the target. However since military rounds may not be specifically designed to fragment or expand (the Geneva convention prohibits it, civilian and police rounds are available that do), as it slows down at greater ranges they lose that ability and are not as damaging. Also, because of their low mass and tendency to fragment they are poor performers when shooting through barriers like windshields, doors, and so on.

THAT is the issue the rounds have in general use vs 7.62Ã--39mm rounds. Not long ranges. While they aren't super effective beyond 300m, they are reasonably accurate at least, which is not the case with the 7.62 rounds. At a long range engagement an M4 would be at a decided advantage to an AK-47.

However neither was designed for long range use. They are carbines, made for medium range and below. They trade overall power and range for smaller size, lower weight, and better portability. As their widespread use in many conflicts around the world indicates, they do well in that arena.

Hopefully.
Something they learn.
Is how to make proper paragraphs.

In all seriousness though you need to get down off your high horse before you fall and break your neck. I've heard this BS of "Oh our homeschooled kids are SO much better than public school kids!" However I work at a university, and our admissions don't seem to bear that out. Homeschool kids often end up getting stuck in remedial classes, particularly English, because their skills are not up to the level required. To me that is particularly shocking, since I consider our entrance requirements to be pretty damn lax.

The problem I think is in part attitudes like yours: You seem to be very caught up in how smart your kids are, and how great you are for teaching them yourself. You are not looking at the situation through a lens of objectivity and thus are likely missing deficiencies in what you teach and what they learn. These will be laid bare if they choose to go to university, because they don't give a shit how special you think your snowflakes are, they will be required to meet certain standards like everyone else.

None of this even touches on the social learning aspects of public school. Just remember: Some day your kids will have to go out in to the wider world, and will no longer be accountable to you. If you've shielded them and controlled their lives, well they may go way more wild than you ever thought possible.

I don't agree with cutting taxes to schools, but I do agree school administrators need to be held to account. I remember when we passed an increase for schools and the money was specially provisioned for various things: Teacher salary increases, labs for students, etc. It has specific provisions of what to spend it on. So what happened? The administrators gave themselves nice raises and had to get sued over it.

The answer in my opinion is not to reduce school funding, but to increase administrator accountability.

I have a BP machine at home. Why? Because I have what my doctor calls "white coat hypertension." What that means is I get nervous when I go in to the doctor's office and my BP goes up. Measured at home, my BP is on the high side of normal, but fine. At the Dr's office it is at the high side of prehypertension or low side of hypertension. It's not a difference in the machines, they have me bring mine in to check the calibration.

Ok well that means they can't keep an accurate record from their measurements. So they need me to measure it myself, which I do, and then let them see the results. These days such a thing is very feasible since electronics technology means we can produce quite accurate automated systems, that aren't that much.

For that matter a large part of your physical can be, and is, automated that being the blood test. You need a skilled person to draw the blood, but after that it is usually a computerized system that does all the analysis. It can be done by a separate lab from your doctor.

You still need to see them in person for plenty of things, but there is plenty of stuff that can be reported to them remotely and they can just look at the results. I don't see this as a bad thing, personally.

You find that for Windows and OS-X, support is pretty broad. Stated as things like "Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8" and pretty lax hardware allowances. However when you look at games for Linux they are things like "SteamOS" or "Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Steam OS" and sometimes specific hardware that is supported.

Why is that? Compatibility issues. They aren't going to go and support every varied Linux distro out there. They've found a couple that work (and the same thing really, SteamOS descends from Ubutnu LTS) and that's what they are going to support. Doesn't mean it won't necessarily work on other stuff, but they aren't going to take any calls on it.

You see it in enterprise software too. The engineering programs we have tend to have a couple extremely specific enterprise Linux distros they support and that's it. Call them running anything else, they'll tell you to go away.

Linux users just have to accept this as one of the costs of openness. If you have an OS that anyone can fork, anyone can redsign, anyone can do their own things, well then support will get limited to chosen configurations. The more complex the software and its interactions with the OS, the more limited the configurations that will be supported.

I work for an engineering college at a big research university. As such, lots of computers, some of them Linux. Despite the smug assurances you may see online that Linux users don't need support, nothing could be further from the truth. Some people who choose to use Linux at work do it because they've a lot of experience with it, and aren't much trouble. However many more do it either because:

1) They have a tool that only runs on Linux, or more accurately that they can only figure out how to make run on Linux. It is usually something cobbled together by a researcher at another university for Ubuntu and only compiles easily on that. If you knew what you were doing you could modify it for something else, but they don't. They usually end up needing a moderate amount of support.

2) They have the idea that Linux is the "l33t professional" OS and it's what you need to use if you want to be a serious computer user, so they want it. No thought goes in to it, they have no experience with it, no understanding, they figure it'll just be easy. These kinds need a ton of support.

A few examples:

--A grad student said she needed Linux on the computer she had bought and configured (without consulting IT). All the software she wanted run on Windows and out Linux guy even told her she'd be better off with Windows. Nope, had to have Linux. We got a continual stream of tickets when she couldn't figure things out, had problems with the AMD driver and so on, and he finally told her "Let us install Windows or go away."

--A professor who bought a system and FPGA card, again without consulting us, and then said he needed Linux. This was after his grad student tried and failed to install it, hosing the system in the process. We put Linux on, and then it turns out neither he nor his grad student have any idea how to make the FPGA card work. It has no programming, you have to do it from scratch. They also don't know how to use Linux to the point they whined about "not having admin" on the Linux install which they had full control on, they just couldn't work out sudo.

--A couple of grad students that insisted a new server needed to be Linux "for best performance". This was during a time when we didn't have a Linux guy (we are a small team, and our last one had left we were in the process of hiring the current one) so I looked in to it, and found the lead and recommended platform was Windows. I talked to the professor about it and she said go ahead with Windows, they grad students could deal, since support would be easier on Windows. Got the server up and running, first thing they wanted? Two programs that are Windows only and were mandatory to what they were doing. Had we given them Linux, we would have been reinstalling the server right away because it literally couldn't run the software they needed.

The flipside of Linux seeing increasing use is that there are plenty of clueless Linux users. They don't go in to Linux saying "I really enjoy computers and learning about them, I want to learn all about this OS, how it works, how to support it, how to modify it, etc." Rather they go in saying "Oh Linux is free!" or "Oh Linux is what hackers use!" and have no idea what the fuck they are doing, and need help.

Not hating on pro gamers, I think it is great that there's a market for this and personally I enjoy watching pro gaming content. But they aren't athletes. It is a word with a pretty specific definition. It means, well, someone who is athletic. You don't have to be professional to be an athlete, and just doing something competitive doesn't make you an athlete.

They are gamers. Professional gamers to be sure, but gamers. That isn't a positive or negative trait, it is just a descriptor. They play games, hence are gamers, and do it for money, hence are professionals in that regard. Professional gamers. Same thing with anything else. I'm a Professional systems and network administrator. The reason is I administer servers and a network, and I get paid to do so. I'm also a gamer, but not a professional one, nobody pays me to play games.

Words mean something, let's try not to blatantly misuse them. If you want gaming to get more respect as a hobby and as a profession, the correct method is to own it, not to try and pretend it is something it isn't.

Valve has real problems with focus. The thing is that they have Steam as this massive cash cow. They make so much money, tens of millions of dollars per employee, that they needn't do anything else. Every other project can fail and bleed cash and they'll be fine. You then combine that with their "no management" structure where everything is done by cliques and you have a situation for things to get abandoned. They go after what various people are interested in, and if interest drops, the project stalls or disappears. There's no one in charge to keep things on track, and no financial incentive to do so.

So as for Source, it'll depend on if there's interest. They've been pretty lackadaisical about keeping it current, hence why it sees few license compared to something like Unreal Engine. It may just peter out at some point and stop getting any real updates. They probably won't make any official cancellation, it'll just be abandoned as they chase after whatever new thing catches their fancy.

Which you can do if you buy your own.

Those all-in-ones are trouble in two big ways:

1) Failure due to heat. When you start trying to jam all the components in to one box, it gets hot. They can't go for a big case or fans or something like that, because consumers won't like it. So they run hot, and tend to fail sooner. No guarantees of course, but my informal observation shows that separate units work for longer.

2) Limited and expensive upgrade path. If one component of the system is outdated and you want to replace it, well you get to toss the whole thing and buy a new unit... assuming you can even get one. Like on Cox, all their all-in-ones are still only N wireless, no AC available. If you have separate units, you can upgrade them as you need/want to.

I find it much nicer to pay more up front, and have the better setup and options. Personally I have a Cisco cable modem, Edgerouter Lite router, and Netgear R7000 wifi bridge (it could act as a router, but is set not to). They work nice and stable, never needing reboots, I have the latest WiFi technology, and I can upgrade any piece as I wish. As a practical matter the WiFi will probably get upgraded first, in a few years, the cable modem next, whenever they start offering speeds in excess of what an 8x modem can handle, and the router not for a very long time, since it can handle a gig of throughput.

So while my up front costs were high, there's no monthly charge, I have excellent performance and stability, and support for the latest stuff.

Namely the "no refunds EVAR" on games that retailers seem to take. Even if it doesn't work, oh well too bad it's software so you can't have your money back. It really shouldn't be allowed. Anything else you can take back if there's a problem, but not software because "Oh you might be an evil pirate!"