GeorgeBMac

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GeorgeBMac
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  • Apple VP of health talks about the company's responsibility to keep users healthy

    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac
    Apple continues to walk that narrow line between our healthcare system (which is really a DiseaseManagement system) and actual healhcare -- which requires a healthy lifestyle of diet, exercise, stress reduction and sleep.

    But, while because of things like the FDA, it is necessary to walk that fine line, it dilutes Apple's real push for healthy lifestyles -- which our DiseaseMangement system marginalizes because they can't make money from either dead people or healthy people.   So THEIR goal is to keep us sick, but alive.
    ...  That is, of course, working against Apple's push to health.

    That is:  Apple is trying to get us healthy but has to work with a system trying to keep us sick.
    FileMakerFellercgWerksmuthuk_vanalingam

  • Major websites may stop working soon for Firefox and Chrome users

    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac
    DAalseth said:
    *sigh* Y2K all over again. We found and fixed SO MANY things leading up to that. Mostly silly shortcuts that programmers took. They cut corners and it came back to bite them. Same thing here. Why did they give a fixed digit space for version. The article even said they ran into this going from single to two digit version numbers. They should have taken care of it once and for all. 

    No, nobody "took shortcuts" leading up to the Y2K thing:
    Through the 70's, 80's and most of the 90's storage, particularly hardrive storage (called "DASD"), was severely limited and VERY expensive.   An expensive, washing machine sized 3350 disk drive held 300Mb -- less than many mobile devices and PCs today (less than 5%  that the iPhone 14 might hold).   Think about storing payroll data for a large corporation with 30,000 employees on one of those things!  And, to make things worse, each track of that device held 19,000 bytes -- so even the length of a record had to be carefully calculated and grouped into blocks:  for a simple example:  if you had a record 5,000 bytes long, you would waste 4,000 bytes of each track -- an unforgivable programming error that would get you chastised if not fired for incompetence.

    So, every effort was made to insure that every one of of those 300Mb's was used wisely and not a single one was wasted.   The result was that using a 2 digit year was a calculated decision to save storage and maximize computing power.  Otherwise, applications would have to run from mag tape rather than harddrives which would bog down the entire process because the datasets would have to be accessed sequentially (meaning, for example, to look up employee number 9999 the computer would have to read through 9998 other employees to find him.)

    By the year 2000 things had loosened up and DASD was both much cheaper and more plentiful.  So, instead of changing the calculation, programmers added the other two digits onto the date so, when you subtracted 1998 from 2001 you didn't get (negative) -97.
    Prometheuwatto_cobradarkvader

  • Secret CIA program may have breached Americans' privacy

    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac
    9secondkox2 said:
    GeorgeBMac said:
    hexclock said:
    blastdoor said:
    blastdoor said:
    I trust the CIA more than I trust:

    Facebook
    Russia
    China
    Trumpublicans
    North Korea 
    Saudi Arabia 
    ….. actually it’s a long list 

    We (along with Colin Powell, George Bush, congress and most media) trusted them in 2001-2003.  It's estimated that 400,000 people died from trusting them -- along with spawning ISIS -- and let's not mention the trillions we spent fighting and occupying a peoples who never did us any harm.

    It was clear afterwards that the CIA had been seeded with those who favored a particular course of action and they did whatever they had to do to insure that course of action happened.  And those who spoke against them were punished -- the most notable of which was the Valerie Plame affair that resulted from her husband questioning the official line from the CIA.

    Any agency or organization is only as good as the people running it.

    The CIA did not lead poor naive peace-loving George bush into a war. That’s one crazy rewrite of history.

    Don’t get me wrong — I don’t unconditionally love the CIA. But there are much worse things. 

    EDIT — and I totally disagree with your bolded statement. When Donald trump was president, nearly every federal agency was better than the person running the government. And those folks worked hard to save this country. 
    Bang up job they have done, “saving the country”. What a joke. You can’t possibly think we are better off now than we were before. Sure Trump was abrasive but who really cares? This current admin has botched EVERYTHING they have touched. November can’t come fast enough. At least we can get free crack pipes now. 

    Got any more conspiracy theories to share?  They're hilarious!
    Sorry man. You’re on the wrong side of this. He’s right. Say what you will about trump, but America went through four years of a hoax concocted by not only bill clintons wife, but carried out by the cia and fbi. Those are simply the facts The current administration did a fine job with Afghanistan you say? Hundreds of Americans left behind to fend for themselves against taliban terrorists would beg to differ. At least the taliban agree with you. They love their new mechanized weapons and free ammunition - and they REALLY love piloting their new free ”inoperable” helicopters and tanks. The current administration is also amazing at handling the order crisis too eh? At their not secretly flooding states with airdrops of illegal aliens in major states under the cover of night or anything. Oh wait… The economy is awesome too! No inflation in sight… right? At least a fraction of jobs lost under this admin have been added back in -who cares if they are half or less the wages from before. You mean it’s not so bad that an old bitter lady whose claims to fame are deleting evidence against her, paying for a Russian dis and misinformation campaign (to not only smear an innocent rival, but send he snd anyone who supported him to jail - and colluding with corrupt intelligence agencies to do so}, and feeding Americans and refugees at Benghazi embassy to murderous terrorists, commanding military security forces to “stand down”while they were mercilessly slaughtered - is the new hope to run for president? Again? And again? The cia has shown itself tone evil over and over. But that pesky Snowden guy - what a jerk, turning the lights on them like that, eh? So we’ve got a double hamfisted admin that simply and spectacularly ruins anything they touch, a brain dead president, a cackling moron Vice President, who is not only incompetent, but so vindictive that her staff has added new chapters to the biblical Exodus, and a spokeswoman who shakes herself every day dodging and double talking through these few legit hard questions she gets from the press The “mean” tweets? Take them any day over this cluster…mess. It was as nice having laws that make sense to humans, someone in power keeping draconian dictator wannabes in check, a far more secure border, a foreign policy that works, doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, and certainly doesn’t feed them innocent people while arming them to the teeth, a robust economy, and respect on the world stage, with other world leaders of daring-what they are doing now. Don’t know who’s running in 2024, but it’s wise to look at the results of each candidates’ experience and vote for the actual best candidates to run the country, regardless of historical favored political party.

    That's great!  Keep the conspiracy theories, half truths and out right lies coming! 
    One wonders what could lead a person to believe such nonsense -- but you can tell that it's a little crazy when it comes out as a never ending stream of unpunctuated nonsense.

    But it didn't originate from a crazy.  The technique was originated by Richard Nixon's and later, Donald Trump's, coach Roger Stone who taught his protege's to just keep the accusations flying -- not because they have any truth or value -- but to keep "the enemy" on the defensive.
    9secondkox2

  • Amazon in talks to purchase fitness equipment producer Peloton

    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac
    wood1208 said:
    What about Apple buying it ? Fits with Apple's health fitness agenda.

    Apple already has Fitness+
    So why would they bother buying Peloton?   What do they get besides some over priced equipment?

    But, home gyms are, I think, a likely growth industry -- but people need training and support.  So there's lot's of room to grow.

    For myself, I switched from a high end sports performance center to a home gym supplemented by outdoor runs and cycling.   And, to be honest, it : the switch from sporadic, high intensity workouts to more frequent, full body moderate intensity intensity has worked out for the best.

    It seems that with fitness training consistency is the key:  if nothing else, you don't see high end athletes doing "150 minutes a week" programs.  Nor do you see them working out 2-3 times a week.  They work typically 6 days a week. 

    Consistency is the key -- and home gyms support that.  And Apple Fitness+ provides support and coaching where and when you need it.   I only see this growing.

    ronnbyronl

  • Amazon Prime raising annual subscription to $139

    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac
    dewme said:
    Not surprising, but fortunately it’s very easy for everyone who subscribes to Amazon Prime to do the math and determine whether it’s worth it for them. For a lot of folks the determination can be made based on delivery costs alone. The value of the extra stuff like photos, music, and video only enter the equation if you’re not getting all of the value/ROI from the delivery service. 

    I recognize this is a narrowly focused perspective based on personal economics alone. Like any system there are a number of macro level implications and second order effects to a service like this that makes it so incredibly easy have hard goods ordered on a whim delivered extremely quickly to your door with little to no regard to the true cost of the delivery service.

    A quick survey of the number of Amazon vehicles on the road and coursing through neighborhoods nearly all of the time, not to mention the vast tracts of land devoted to fulfillment centers and warehouses, some of which are built on the graves of dead malls and retail stores driven out of business because they could not compete against online retail, and the mountains of cardboard waste (hopefully everyone recycles?) paints a truer cost picture that’s a little harder to do the math on. 

    The “eye” is back … staring straight at me. Ugh.

    For me right now the biggest benefit of Amazon Prime is that it keeps me out of stores where I could be infected.  I used to shop in multiple grocery stores to get all the stuff I needed and, if I needed electronics or home goods, I ran over to BestBuy or Lowes.  But, thanks to Prime, I seldom have to do that now,
    Anilu_777JaiOh81ravnorodom