I'm a newbie with a 5 digit ID. I check in from time to time, but honestly the place doesn't have the same vibe as it did in the early 2000's.

But...but...It's a site that is designed to store all your stuff. So it's just helping you store more stuff.

If the summary is at all accurate, the manufacture built both the hardware and the software. So blaming the OS is silly. This is a case where any OS could be used, even a custom one, and they would add the spying functionality as they were building it. The real issue is buying hardware systems from unethical folks, no OS hardening in the world will help you when the manufacture controls it.

If China doesn't improve their stand on ethics, they will be relegated to building bath toys and partial systems where their leaks and theft aren't super critical. If they hope to join the rest of the developed world, they need to get their shit together.

Sort of the premium segment like Apple does vs Android.

When I think premium, I think Yahoo. :D

I'm actually OK with weeding out a crapload of user content. I don't need a 3 minute tutorial, with a 30 second intro, and 20 second outtro completely drenched in speed metal and cheesy effects to show me something that could have been typed out in three sentences of text.

I've had a free regular and, I've been told, very helpful website with no advertising (other than my own services) for many years now. There would still be useful content on the web without ads. There was when it was starting.

i'm just old, so get off my lawn.

Sheldon

They're seeking to take advantage of complaints from users who make videos for YouTube that they don't make enough money for their efforts.

Lets hope they put in even more ads. I really like the unskipable 30 second ads before some shitty 15 second video.

I want to like pages, I really do. It used to have a great file saving format that embedded your text as xml and all your embedded graphics were saved in their original file form in the pages file "bundle". So 20 years from now, you could get all your figures and text out, and not be screwed because your program of choice isn't available anymore (I'm looking at you, framemaker).

Here are the fatal flaws of Pages:

1) no cross-referencing of figures, table etc. This makes auto- numbering impossible and table of figures, and tables of contents are all manual like I'm on an IBM selectric and it's 1976.

2) constant saving. I can't open up one document, fiddle with it, and close it. I want to save on my terms. If I want to open a doc, yank half of it out and put it somewhere, I don't necessarily want that change spooled to disk 100 times a second.

3) almost forgot: Absymal footnote, and end note handling. Non-existent is a better word for it.

It's like pages is meant only for letters to mom, and jr. high school english papers.

Don't get me started on Numbers, as someone who knows Excel inside and out, Numbers is baffling. And not in a "I don't know how to use it way", but in a more serious "Who would think this is the way people would want to work" way.

It's a good thing they are free, that's the appropriate value point.

Sheldon
(LaTeX user)

It scales up to a certain point, then there is a brick wall of functionality, then you have to toss all your work and re-invent it in python, or matlab, etc. Excel is a handy tool, and arguably the best part of the office suite, but I've seen many times when people think they can do something in excel and can't make the model more complex and have to start over in a real programming environment.

"if you use excel well you're like a zen samaurai. you can defeat any problem with a few simple moves."

True, but only for fairly simple problems, or should I say, only for certain classes of problems.

Sheldon

This happened to me a couple months ago. I was on a phone interview with Cree for a PhD level position and the interviewer was saying it was a night shift position and that this position expected a work level of 55-65 hours a week.

I almost said "we're done here". But I had jumped through so many hoops to get to this point that I was going to let this play out.

After a half hour of questions and answers he asked if I had any questions. My chance! I asked if he was willing to pay me at least 150% of my current salary plus cost of living differential. Because he is expecting me to work 60 hours a week. I also added that this assumes that it's a linear relationship (which it's not). He said, "that depends on how the interview goes". I said, "I guess we have the answer then".

An offer letter was not forthcoming.

That is very true. Advisor reputation flows out through his grad students. I'm known as one of "Mark's" students and that comes with significant baggage, both good and bad. In general his student have been very successful and when in certain circles that flowed back to him. Both in reputation and grant money. The grant money comes from people who know him or were his students and are working in the field and control research dollars that can flow to colleges.

It's a cool world, not without problems and inefficiencies, but it would be hard to create a better one that would be stable long-term.

Sheldon

That's a real shame. What sort of "Art Studies" were you in? As a PhD in a hard science, I've found employment outside academia to be fairly plentiful.

The real problem that you bring up is that many higher education institutions don't provide guidance in probability of feeding yourself verses major chosen. This is a real shortcoming in a place that you are investing a HUGE amount of time and money into

Sheldon

And security, who is going to write malware for that? Iran needs this controlling the centrifuges.

"How to Sting The Polygraph" is not on The Pirate Bay yet, but there are several other titles along the same lines. And of course some porn with polygraph in the title, which I'm going to check out "for professional reasons only".

Sheldon

Maybe you plebs can't, but I've got steering wheel controls on my car. Problem solved

Plus car software and hardware is light years behind terrestrial software and nobody can get gestures reliable and useful there. There's no hope for cars.

" We don't have a crap load of fat. "

Please visit the Midwest, we have deep fried everything.