Indeed.

I didn't learn much math in school, but I caught up on everything I needed as an adult -- as I needed it.

I didn't learn any programming in school, but I caught up on everything I needed as an adult -- as I needed it.

I know as much math -- and programming -- as I need to always accomplish the things that I'm trying to do, whether calculating volume displacements, de-rating wiring, or hacking up a strange combination of awk, sed, and perl to homogenize a random dataset into some higher-level program that expects it to be formatted -- just so -- in CSV.

Problem solved, I then move on to the next challenge....learning as I go.

Mostly what I learned as a kid was how to learn. The rest? An academic would say I fly by the seat of my pants, while my friends, associates, and employers respect my ability to solve arbitrary new problems accurately and quickly.

In practice, RDP can be a security risk. It can be mitigated, but hasn't been in practice.

Is this security risk any different than any other method which allows relatively-insecure* remote logins to a general-purpose computer?

For a long time, I had the default RDP port forwarded to my Windows 7 desktop computer at home -- open for all manner of fuckery -- out of sheer laziness on my part. Nothing bad happened, even though it was simply a username/password combo (and both the username and the password were relatively common English words) to gain access.

*: No two-factor, no cryptographic authentication, no....

A crude proportional (self learning) controller is desired.

Is there anything in your post that is not solved by a Nest thermostat, other than monitoring boiler temperature and comparing that to room temperature?

And as the house temp rises close to the thermostat setting, the circulating water temperature could become less hot.

What merit is there to doing that, anyway? It seems to me that adjusting boiler temperature based on outside temperature is the best method, and (based on your description) you're already accomplishing that automatically: When it's colder outside, you want hotter water. Right?

I mean, the efficiency does improve with cooler water, but the efficiency of the system is already determined based on the amount of work that it has to do (which is dictated by outside temperature). What's wrong with that?

Lowering the water temperature based on inside temperature seems like a fool's errand: Once the system finally gets caught up to the thermostat setpoint, it would lower the water temperature. As they night (or day) gets colder, the water would continue to be cooler. Until it's so cool that it's no longer usefully warm, and then it has to play catch-up.

This will, at worst, cause temperature oscillations (even with the simplest mechanical thermostat running the circulating pump), and at best increase your time constant dramatically on days when you need your heat to be working at its best.

And in both of these cases, your family will hate you for it.

For instance, the weather is cooling off 20 degrees F over a period of about 12 hours here where I am, today -- mostly during the day. The thermostat is keeping things warm just fine, which in your hypothetical case would mean a decrease in water temperature -- when you really, really would be needing the thermal mass of all that water to be hot, tonight.

I'm going against my normal judgement here, but...

Consider that most people think of their phone as a device that already does things, and not as the general-purpose pocket computer that a lot of folks on /. might.

They are probably happy that their new phone handles their email, browses the web, can open a PDF or Word document, and back their photos up to a cloud service. They may not notice (or care if they do notice) that it behaves differently than any other phone.

And, generally, the OEM pre-loaded productivity apps tend to do these things pretty well.

So is it a problem?

I mean, sure. We geeks will always root and use Ti Backup to freeze all unwanted apps, and pick our own apps as we deem fit for our own purposes. (We'll also install a magic ad-blocking hosts.txt and conduct other tomfoolery, because we can.)

The unwashed masses get a device that tends to do mostly what they want out-of-the-box with regards to OEM preloads.

This seems to be very different than the stuff that is genuinely crap (such as nearly every carrier add-on, particularly including NFL Mobile which Verizon has been pre-installing on Droids since they started selling Droids).

So the winner on the price-performance curve is still...X10?

The 100 Watt-ish LED.

The high-CRI LED.

You don't get to have both, just yet.

My Samsung S5 groks SD cards just fine, and I've ejected Knox.

It roots with towelroot, just like many other devices.

*shug*

Indeed, that does seem to be a problem. (I'm currently happy with my old and dumb 52" Samsung LCD, and will not be replacing it until 4k content becomes a non-streaming thing, so I didn't realize that "good" new TVs are all smart.)

So buy a smart TV, and then never, ever connect it to a network. Just add a Chromecast or a Pi 2 with XBMC or a FireTV stick or a Roku or an HTPC with Plex or XBMC, for family-friendly options.

They're all less than $100 (aside from a proper HTPC). Using multiples of the same device for different sets around the house, is also a usability boon: Everything works the same, no matter what room of the house you're in.

I'm in.

But big, dumb appliances are going to be hard: I've been through Whirlpool's washing machine and dishwasher plants in Ohio, and they are vast things indeed.

Big dumb pipe: Google is trying this, AFAICT.

Big dumb panel: Element is already doing this, assembling foreign subassemblies into flat-panel televisions in the US. They don't, however, have a high-end line with excellent panels every video connector imaginable. (Also, I want it to be 600Hz, so that it can do 24fps, 25fps, 30fps, 50fps and 60fps without aberration.)

The easy answer: Don't buy a smart TV. There are other, often much cheaper, options to network-enable a dumb TV.

Buy a TV because it has the glorious pictures that you find preferable at a price that you can justify, not because it's "smart." Buy a networked HDMI dongle/STB because you like its features and interface.

Keep the functions independent, and you'll be in far better shape -- both financially, and functionally.

And you'll never have to ask this question again.

Serious question: Am I alone in the thought that modern "infotainment" systems built into new cars are generally not useful items to have?

My own horror story involved borrowing a friend's Ford Flex to make a delivery of communications gear that wouldn't fit in my old BMW 325i: I tried, eyes-off-road, to get my then-current Droid 4 to sync with the Ford Sync, only to find that I had to stop the car first. I tried for a total of about 40 minutes. It should've just said "Hey, asshole: Stop the car and try again." Instead, we (it and I) just went through a long series of byzantine loops that had no indicators that seemed to lead toward success before I happened to fiddle with it while actually stops.

So, the stuff barely works. And I wouldn't even have cared, if Ford's POI database had the location of a Wal-Mart built in...a Wal-Mart that had been standing for over a half-decade before the vehicle was built.

And, the price: I myself can do a very elaborate custom install, or pay someone else to do a somewhat basic custom install for that sort of cash.

These days, what merit is there to automotive electronics that is not superceded by a cheap 6" tablet stuck on the dash, tethered to a cheap data plan on a wireless hotspot? Or made to automatically arise from the dash, as a theft deterrent? $3-4k buys a -lot- of 3D printed parts...and maybe the 3D printer to print them.

Plug in a big flash drive and a good DAC with USB OTG, add amplifiers and speakers (there is already room for them, if the factory stuff doesn't exist), and call it a day.

What am I missing? (other than: The rest, as they say, is only software.)

Perhaps better than you think, if it's natively-compiled code instead of some Java-esque thing.

Cars are, today, often reflashed with new firmware as part of dealer servicing, usually without the owner being aware (or caring, for that matter).

Nobody dies. Brakes keep working.

Runaway Toyotas didn't have a software problem. They had a mechanical problem wherein the pedal would get physically get stuck, and they fixed that in a mechanical way by adding a plastic widget to the bottom of the accelerator pedal.

Mind you, a software update was also applied, presumably to make such keyless cars easier to shut down in such situations, but that's an improvement...not a cure for a mechanical issue.

Automotive software for key components (safety, drivetrain) is very simple software. And it will be tested just like it is today before it is installed on a customer's vehicle: With real cars, on a closed test track.

I was a combat engineer in Iraq, many devices were set off using cellphones. Calling the number on the bomb, while you are next to the bomb would get you blown up.

There was no over reaction here the damn thing looks like a bomb, take it out.

The problem with that is that here in the US of A, we value our bridges and other infrastructure. So "take it out" is not always a viable option to pursue.

Destroying bridges with a blind "take it out" mentality on our own ground is foolhardy, at best: We're not under attack here, as far as anyone sensible can tell.

Good luck with the PTSD!

For as much faith as you have in humanity, you should feel fortunate that you are still alive.

Pro-Tip: Next time you see a phone number on a suspiciously-placed object, please call it and rid yourself from the rest of us sensible folk. Thanks.