That translucency stuff?
Linux has had that for ages now. Move on, nothing to see.
(Icon: Trolling .. but isn't it?)
1240 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2018
It's a MediaTek chip - so a mixed bag, it may be very easy or nigh-on impossible. And Motonovo phones are traditionally anti-modding.
There are no-root solutions that use a dummy local VPN (that routes your traffic to an app on your device) ... but that's fishy unless the one you use is open source.
If you want a really moddable phone, go for a used flagship model (or low-end if it really has to be new) that has a Qualcomm chip and a leaked/available factory programmer. Xiaomi even officially supplies them (instead of them being leaked like LG's or OnePlus's ones).
A whole lot of Windows versions between 95 and XP existed that did do gradients.
And it's definitely 7, based on the command prompt icon. That's the icon first introduced in Vista, and I sincerely hope this isn't Vista.
The command line background is blue, so it's possibly PowerShell in a Command Prompt window.
Apple:
1- You gotta be kidding me.
2- What's wrong with the Genius Bar?
3- Huh?
5- Done, but look, here's the next-gen Apple USB-C complete with a chip to prevent non-Apple equipment from sipping pure Apple power.
6- Like the latest Surface Laptop with a socketed but still proprietary SSD.
Why is it important for a website I visit to obtain knowledge on my Chrome installation ? I come with a browser, they serve the page, that's the deal. Why is it important that they be notified of any extensions I have ?
To fingerprint your browser (therefore you), so they could track you, so they could target ads depending on which websites you visit.
If I ever have the chance of meeting someone from Google, before shaking their hand I'm going to ask them the brand and size of their underwear, their shoe size, what deodorant they're wearing and how old their socks are. Let's see how they like that.
That's like the analogy I give to laypeople to explain this. Imagine that you're riding a cab when somebody slides into the seat next to you with a clipboard, asking you for where you live, where you work, what your interests are et cetera, jotting down your answers in minute detail. Any sane person would tell them to go mind their own business.
The question is whether we should just silently watch them do it or kick up a stink.
But for this to happen, you need people to realize the big issue. However, on the other side you have:
(a) catchy arguments that ring, are easy to grasp and are mostly true (like the compelling nothing-to-hide argument) ... and:
If what they do is covered in new legislation then we need to apply pressure to ensure the legislation is enforced.
(b) lobbying against almost all hope of an actual implementation of such legislation by megacorps, because there's money to be lost because of such legislation.
Most people don't think of Google of a data mining operation, however misguided they may be.
Some people think that Google is a really nice philanthropic corporation (compared to traditionally ugly ones like the smoking and pharmaceutical ones), offering services for pittance in form of ads. Let them target me, I'm not that significant, such a person would say.
The people that understand and have concerns need to raise those concerns to have a chance of reining Google in.
Brings us back to (a). Scaremongering really works when the scaremonger uses catchy arguments and have lots upon lots of money to back them up.
You've made a mistake here which has proven my point: considering any of this equal to a home or social user.
Not so fast:
It's ok if people screw up doing something recreational because of a UI change when using Twitter/ Facebook/Instagram, or any other non-critical application.
A critical application isn't something that would get many changes and is something that is not supposed to get so many hands on it that retraining its users is a hassle.
Think of a hospital application, since life and death were mentioned.
A hospital application that allows the janitor to prescribe controlled substances is seriously flawed. And a hospital application that has its UI changed with every UX fad is also in deep need of a reality check.
TL;DR: critical applications should not suffer from the issue at hand, unless that critical application is incorrectly implemented.
3. Re-training users regarding updates
I find it odd how users could magically retrain themselves when it comes to Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/$ANTISOCIAL_APP/$PHONE_OS updates and major UI redesigns ... but not when a work system changes something ever so slight ... like Windows updates prior to Windows 8?
Like seriously, is the difference between XP and 7 even close to enough to reconsider retraining?
There are exploits that do not require administrative privileges, often resulting in privilege escalations.
Example: CVE-2014-4971
Though Windows has all the grace of an elephant doing a monkey dance and the virus potential of a public lavatory, it still has to be given credit for being easy to integrate into existing Windows architecture. This include dead-simple control with Group Policies, which I rave about to this very day.
And follow the money. Wherever you have a big megacorp (M$ here), you have potential fat rolls of bills being exchanged under the table (and yes, this had happened before - look up Microsoft and local governments)
Oh, how we would've loved to believe that they are the new cheerful sandal-wearing open-source-loving Microsoft.
No, they are still the old M$. The old Embrace, Extend, Extinguish M$, only this time, they've realised how Google and Amazon are exploiting FOSS to their own ends ... and they are aiming for a slice of the pie.
From Azure hosting Linux instances to this (and everything in between), it's all about grabbing the market share.
Meanwhile, manufacturers complain doing signature verification of firmware code is tricky in embedded systems and other low-end or resource-constrained gadgets. While PCs and servers have plenty of room to check updates, fitting that cryptographic tech onto normal gear is not so simple, it is claimed.
If it's possible to embed a CPU in a CPU (Intel ME), then this could be done, too.
At worst, just disallow write access to the chip. I know that sometimes customers might need to update the firmware, but tough cookies, it's a security risk to these very customers.
At best, implement a small chip that does only one thing: read firmware chip, check the digital certificate, dis/allow write access accordingly. Even that is imperfect, but it's better than leaving it open for world + dog.
"They [Qualcomm] stated that there was no plan to add signature verification for these chips. However, Microsoft responded that it was up to the device vendor to verify firmware that is loaded into the device."
Fortunately for M$, it's really on the device manufacturer. Firmware updates really have to be signature-checked, or in the least disallowed, unless (for instance) a "dev mode" pin is connected ... and even that should burn an eFuse to void warranty (Samsung KNOX Warranty Void style).
There's really no semantic working-around this incompetence.
Thing is, he's justified.
Although skeuomorphic interfaces can't scale to higher DPIs and are (arguably) limited to the real-world objects they are based on, the in-vogue whites and usability issues (where the hell is the scroll bar, is this button disabled or not, unprofessional wild and fugly colors which are also à la mode as well) are a nightmare.
As for batteries, all those taxi drivers using Prius that are over 10 years old are still on their original battery.
And replacements are available for very cheap (the equivalent of $1000 where I live).
And even if not replaced, they would still run just fine with a bad battery.
I am certain that my electric will be replaced in less than 5 years.
By then, battery replacements might have become cheaper.
Assuming that the Civic still has its original engine and/or transmission by then, are you sure you aren't going to spend $7000 in regular maintenance and parts when you buy one? An EV might be more expensive upfront, but down the line you would recoup that cost in savings on maintenance and fuel. ICE cars need a hell of a lot of regular maintenance compared to EVs (simplistically, four modular electric motors plus a battery on four wheels).
Nor have you taken in mind the fact that in seven years' time, with technology progression, battery retrofits may become available for much cheaper, as pressure is mounting on EV manufacturers (especially Nissan).
Comfort is subjective. While the Civic is more _upmarket_, featuring higher-quality fit and finish, any luxury car from ten years ago trumps either in build quality _and_ price. (But of course, you'd have to pay fuel and maintenance that correspond to a much higher price tag).
And the Civic definitely doesn't match the Leaf in ambient cabin noise nor in acceleration, which some people include in the umbrella term "comfortable".
For individuals, I can see the appeal. Pretty interesting idea, actually, and can give ARM laptops PC-like upgrade capabilities.
But how about corporates? Is buying a hundred or so of these + the Raspberry Pi + Citrix or open source equivalent a good option in real life as opposed to deploying desktops?
The proposition is so good in theory that I can't see why it isn't being deployed more often in new installations (where you don't have switch-over costs and the like)
Of course not. These are not disposable consumer models, but business models built to be in one piece for at least one corporate refresh cycle, the warranty of which starts at three years instead of one year for consumer models. If you want to buy these new, you'd order them directly on the OEM's website.
After the "unboxing the new toy"* rush ends, believe me, new vs. used becomes very irrelevant.
I'd gladly take {$500,$1000} off the retail price of a {one-,two-}year-old $2000 mobile workstation in exchange for a year in processor tech (which has really stagnated between 2013's Ivybridge and 2017's Kabylake, only showing meaningful progress in 2018, before stagnating again in 2019). Heck, one year old models have two years left in the warranty (assuming quality business-grade stuff), so you should be as safe as if you bought it new. (Used laptops have the risk of previous owner damage or shipping damage, new laptops have the risk of factory or shipping damage, so it's all the same, you're simply swapping in one risk for another.)
Linux support is better for older hardware, where the devs had taken enough time to code and fix their drivers.
Personally, whether I've bought laptop X for $1600 new or $160 used after two years, I'm ending up with the same laptop in either case. Except that in the first case, I would have wasted $1440 for a temporary "new toy feeling". This is especially true in your case (as you explained in the post above). You simply wanted a 17.3" panel to view two documents at once, which suggests that you aren't doing anything that requires a really beefy setup (where one is better off with a desktop anyhow). A $250 ZBook from 2015 would do just fine for that.
But to each his own, I guess.
* The "new toy feeling" can also come from a used gadget as well. In my case, at least.
I know what you were referring to :-)
In the Apple vs. Samsung suit, couch commentators like ourselves pointed out that there had been rectangular touchscreen phones before the iPhone (like the LG KE850/Prada, released 12/2006).
I was doing a ha-ha-only-serious variation of that.
"The favourite solution is to tweak the UAC (User Account Control) settings with the Group Policy setting "Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode" or the equivalent registry setting."
No, not a good idea if the user is an administrator. That would be like running everything in a root shell, only worse, you would be running Xorg and all GUI programs as root as well.