look-at-later is amazing. I use Instapaper for exactly that. Now I have made a habit of shoving everything there and going through it at a specified time in the day.
I have said this before here and I will do that again. What hurts the market is L1 visa. H1 visa holders are almost in the same boat as local talent. Why? Because there is a government dictated minimum prevailaing wage that companies have to adhere to. I am yet to meet an H1B who is earning less than his/her peers (within an area, experience, skillset and education).
However, I have met a lot of L1 visa holders (primarily from India) who come here from companies like Wipro, TCS, Cognizant, IBM, Microsoft etc. who are paid lower wages because there is no such scrutiny with L1 visas. Lumping both visas in the same category is a huge mistake.
This is very, very true. L1 seems like a good deal since your spouse can work, but ends up being really bad since you have no negotiating power at salary adjustment time.
The L1A is better than the L1B because of the faster permanent residence processing times, mainly due to the fact that the L1A holders can file under the EB1C category[1] and avoid the long Labor Certification from the Department of Labor[2].
The "Apple bug" - I assume you mean the duplicated "goto fail" - isn't really a common kind of error. That said, there are others that "braces everywhere" does protect from somewhat. The question is whether the clutter trades off too much in readability. Linus apparently thinks it does.
Sure! It's a combination of static and dynamic analysis. I have a jailbroken phone, which allows me to access any file on the filesystem and decrypt any App Store binaries[1]. The first step is to find in which binaries the functionality lives. I know from searching that AirDrop lives in Sharing.framework[2], which has a supporting daemon, sharingd. Then, I open the binaries in a disassembler like IDA Pro[3] or Hopper[4] to determine how they work. Running class-dump is also helpful[5]. If I need to inspect a process like sharingd at runtime, I use Cycript[6], which gives me an Objective-C REPL into the process, or LLDB[7].
Oh crap, I didn't know IDA was free for non-commercial use. I thought it was like Photoshop: prohibitively expensive for most users, so everyone pirates it. I'm going to have to give that a shot.
I remember I started moving out of Google's claws when they started pushing Google+ everywhere. Today my primary browser is Firefox, Search engine is DDG (with occassional Google search), Email is FastMail. The dependency on Google had started to annoy me.
Same here. I used to have Google Mail, Google Contacts, YouTube, Google Search, Google News, etc.
I was feeling more and more dependent on one company's goodwill. A few months ago, I renewed my Fastmail [1] account for 3 more years, being very happy with the service. I use DuckDuckGo [2] as my main search engine and love it. I use Opera as my main browser. The only Google services I use regularly now are Android and YouTube. YouTube being totally optional and Android only being an interface to data located elsewhere, I feel free. Sure, Google has access to my data, but they can't lock me in.
A while back I flashed my Nexus 5 with a CyanogenMod 11 build. I didn't install the GApps package afterward.
One thing you will notice immediately is that the battery life lasts much much longer. With casual surfing, watching video clips, playing casual games and Wifi always on, the battery lasts for almost 24 hours. It looks as if this is what the original Nexus 5 should be. All those background Google services and "frameworks" constantly calling back home will drain the battery to the death pretty fast. That's also valid for some other apps. Not having Facebook app installed will increase the battery life too.
Sure you have no Google Play store installed but you can always use one of those (safe) apk downloaders like Raccoon[1] or such to login to Play store and download your previous apps. As for other Google services (Maps, YouTube, Translate, GMail, etc.), I can always visit their sites in incognito mode. You will actually realize you really don't need all those individual apps to use these services. They all work good enough in a browser window.
Also, another option is BlankStore [1]. it appears as if development has stopped and Raccoon may be a better option at this point, but it still works for me on 4.4.4 and gives me pretty consistent access straight from my phone, save for paid apps.
The only Google services I use on my Android phone are Maps and the Play store. Occasionally Drive and Docs because of a customer that uses them. I search in the browser. No sync. It works perfectly fine. But that's how I use Google on my desktop too. If you are used to more integration you won't survive that :-)
The biggest thing i'm looking for now is a replacement for Google's apps suite - mainly Calendar and Docs/Drive. Something that i can use on the web and sync to my (Android) phone. If the Docs replacement just did text documents, that would probably be enough; if it did spreadsheets and text, it would definitely be enough. It would be great if it was free, and fine if it was cheap. Not Apple (no better than Google), not Evernote (poor and declining quality). What's out there?
Fastmail has a good Calendar app in addition to Email, Contacts and File Storage. It doesn't really have a Docs replacement, but it does have a Notes app. I use all of them and enjoy it quite a bit.
It also is probably worth noting that, while Apple is plenty evil in its own ways, if you're looking to avoid the rampant data collection of Google, Apple is significantly better in that regard.
I have slowly moved to Microsoft Office Online. It has worked fine so far. I had become a heavy GDocs user and became accustomed to the simplified feature set. I think Office Online is decent free alternative.https://office.com/start/default.aspx
I agree that the hard part (even more so for a business looking to change) is the docs suite.
It still surprises me a little that there is no web-app capable of editing ODF files. This would allow the email/calendar etc concept to be carried over - host the content (in this case files) on a server in version control, and allow users to either keep an offline copy that syncs, or access via a web app.
From a personal usage view, I disagree with your statement that Apple is no better than Google. No, their software is not open source and doesn't run on any device you want. But their software is also not intended to capture all your personal information and use that to show you more ads. It's basically a perk for using their hardware.
This is a tough one. I have seen Etherpad [http://etherpad.org/] being used a lot. The there is Zoho suite of apps [https://www.zoho.com/] but I am not sure if they really match your requirements completely.
For writing and other docs, I personally use Dropbox but I know that is not the same as working in the browser itself.
Etherpad, Ethercalc and Mailpile (and more!) are all available on top of Sandstorm [https://sandstorm.io/apps/] - which basically makes it easier to manage them all.
Like others, I use Fastmail's calendar now. I also run my own Baikal[1] server for CardDAV/contacts (though I guess I could run my calendar on it too, since it does CalDAV).
I use Fastmail's calendar which they made public a few months ago. I'm finding it just as fast as Google's calendar. For docs I started using Quip which is not as full featured but it offers just enough to make things quick and easy.
Thanks for the Fastmail recommendation! I have been using Yahoo for 8 years now, but I've never really felt comfortable using a free service for something as critical as email. And certainly not comfortable leaving it in the hands of one of the biggest companies in the world.
Same here. FF + DDG + FastMail is a quite low action path away from Google for individual users. Migration took me only a day (FastMail's mass migration is truly a breeze) and after almost a year: no complaints (maybe minor wishes, but hey!).
It has not been discredited, yet. It has been challenged. You should see the latest paper on this subject that used gneetics - Characterizing the genetic differences between two distinct migrant groups from Indo-European and Dravidian speaking populations in India[1]
The study you point to seem to have flaws like comparing a very narrow set of group, driving to conclusions about colour tones etc. They try to punch hole in David Reich paper by saying the size per group was not significant, but this is flawed as the number of group was diversely large i.e 30 compared to 2 in this study. They do not try to point flaws in previous works as well. Read this article for the original set of studies that led to the discrediting of AIT http://www.newslaundry.com/2014/08/11/indiana-jones-and-the-...
No, most historians agree that the decline of the Harappan civilization and the arrival of the Aryans is separated by around 500 years.
The Aryan 'Invasion' Theory is one that was concocted by the British and is not actually based on any scientific evidence. The wide consesus now is that it was more of a slow migration than a invasion.
Regarding the linked paper, there is no concrete evidence that Harappan was a Dravidian language.
No. It's been challenged, and the characterized genetic differences between the two populations, while existing, does not point to any recent history signifying a cultural divide. This intermingling between the so called ANI ("Aryans"), and ASI ("Dravidians") genetic markers between the two population is not a recent phenomenon, and in fact at this point the two populations do not in any way point to a cultural difference as the time frame for the intermingling of these genetic traits predates much of the cultural connotations that "aryan", and "dravidian" denote, not to mention the very concepts are genetically irrelevant today, because of the intermingling that began around 4200 years ago making the two groups sharing a common genetic make up. [1]
The India of today is fundamentally uniform, and shares a common shared genetic makeup throughout all the tribes, castes, and geographies. So the idea that somehow these genetic differences point to a cultural divide is bunk, because fundamentally the cultural divid postdates the genetic intermingling. Furthermore that common shared genetic makeup is not a recent phenomenon, because the genetics of India has for the past 60,000 years been relatively the same. So whatever genetics that exists in India today, whether that's isolated, or mixed, has for the past 60,000 years been relatively the same. [2]
The R1a1a gene that's commonly referred to in these instances that drive the Aryan, and the Dravidian divide theory is a gene marker that points to a population that many argue proves the idea of Aryan invasion, or at least migration, as the R1a1a is a common genetic marker in Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians, and other Eastern European genetics, and not in India. That alone is a weak argument, as the question then is who had the gene first, and who migrated where. A closer, and higher resolution look at genetics gives a different picture. The Europeans carrier of the R1a1a gene have a further M458 mutation of the R1a1a gene that's virtually nonexistent in Asia. Since the M458 mutation is estimated to have occurred at least 8000 years ago it seems that something happened to divide the populations that carried the common R1a1a gene, but the reason of that divide is yet to be empirically established.
Thus this genetic marker explains at best a shared ancestry between Europeans, and Indians, not some Aryan invasion theory. The R1a1a genetic marker is not a common genetic trait among Europeans, west Iranians, or throughout central Asia, but found commonly in South Asia. [3]
So no. The Aryan invasion theory is thoroughly debunked as Imperial bias to subjugate, and justify their economic plunder over a people.
Thanks! This, along with the other replies, was very helpful.
So, basically the whole concept of North Vs South India divide with Southern Indians holding on to this information is incorrect since Indian subcontinent is pretty uniform for about 60,000 years.
Is it just me or do the last iOS and OSX updates look really bad? I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 8 and somehow calls started dopping (even after 8.1 and resetting the entire device twice!). The Apple help desk actually asked me to install each app one-by-one to see if that finds a rogue app! Luckily, I was within a year of warranty and they replaced my iPhone.
I have not upgraded to OSX Yosemite yet. I am afraid that there will be a performance hit. Even the new iPhone 5S I got replaced faces some lags that weren't present in iOS 7.
What are your views about upgrading to Yosemite, esp. related to dev environments?
Edit: I have faced similar lags after updates on my iPad Air too. Hence, the dismay.
OS X updates have been virtually flawless for me in the past. Yosemite is the first one with big problems:
- No longer able to connect to any 5GHz wifi routers.
- Wifi drops suddenly and won't reconnect automatically even though the network is present.
- Very slow wifi generally.
- Unable to restore from sleep, machine reboots.
- External display doesn't come up during login after sleep, need to open MacBook and login there.
- Random hangs/kernel panics. (Could be explained by faulty RAM, but starting to happen just after Yosemite upgrade? Doubt it.)
- Laggy UI.
The last point is the worst. "Reduce transparency" does nothing for me. WindowServer is occasionally using 20-30% when the system is doing almost no redrawing. Safari is sluggish, and often hangs for several seconds — especially on opening new blank tabs, loading a new site, trying to load an embedded YouTube video ("HTML5" mode) — before becoming responsive again. Overall, it feels like my machine (early 2013 MBP, quad-core 2.7GHz i7, 16GB, SSD) just rolled back two hardware generations.
Hopefully this update should fix the wifi issues. But the lagginess isn't mentioned in the release notes. Has anyone gotten any performance improvements by reinstalling the OS from scratch?
- Random graphics glitches, especially in Safari. Random garbage/empty areas being painted.
- FileVault's encryption process doesn't finish. "Connect power adapter to resume encryption". It is connected. Has been doing this since I upgraded.
- If you enable "Reduced transparency", you get certain graphics artifacts. For example, the rounded corners on screen overlays such as the brightness and volume settings are painted in.
- Random hangs/kernel panics. (Could be explained by faulty RAM, but starting to happen just after Yosemite upgrade? Doubt it.)
Yup. Early 2013 15" rMBP, on Mavericks? Rock solid. Even on a fairly minimal clean install of Yosemite? Hard freezes, kernel panics.
iMac will occasionally come back from sleep with a all white screen except for my user logo. I can type (though can't see) my password and login, but the quality has gone horribly downhill.
I like (/don't care) about the new UI look in Yosemite but I have not been very impressed with it as a whole. The install took over 3 hours (I use homebrew and minor research I did pointed at that being the cause, well the cause being lots of data in /usr/local which is where HB puts it's stuff) and this [0] issue was causing me to pull my hair out until I just disabled per-display spaces to "fix" it. That menu bar issue would cause a 1-3 second delay between clicking on a monitor different from the one with the active window which was infuriating.
I was unaffected by the big issues (wifi) plaguing iOS 8 and didn't get burned by the 8.0.1 issue. I have the 6+ and I do have some weird issues still like BT Audio sometimes skipping a second or two when the screen rotates (I know... odd) or just screen rotation issues as a whole (I shouldn't have to shake my phone or switch orientations multiple times before it works!!). Also the healthkit stuff not working at release (because of a security bug) was annoying, where is the homekit integration?, handoff is gimmicky and I have found little/no use for it so far (I have a MBPr + iPhone + iPad, I expect better), keyboards where glitchy as fuck on release, Apple Pay didn't support either of my CC's and the process to setup a card was far from what I would expect from Apple.
All in all: Yes, both releases were shit if you ask me and that's coming from someone who loves Apple products and owns quite a few of them.
> All in all: Yes, both releases were shit if you ask me and that's coming from someone who loves Apple products and owns quite a few of them.
Thanks! I have similar thought and I have not even updated to Yosemite! Just the sheer amount of issues I read about online and my iOS disasters lead me to believe that Apple's entire update across the suite of products was not what it used to be. I left the Windows land to get the stable and tested products and updates. If I have to be locked down tremendously and face the issues I used to face with Windows, I might as well just use something where most of my development is - Linux.
Couldn't agree more. I love linux for servers and work with linux servers all day long but I don't like linux desktop or app selection as much. I think there is something to be said for using a beautiful interface and apps everyday and I haven't really seen anything in the linux world that come anywhere close (without HOURS AND HOURS of playing with configs). I bought into Apple for *nix environment that "just worked (tm)" if they push another bad OS X release then I'll have to seriously consider linux again...
I've had a lot of wonkiness with Keychain, iCloud, and iMessage since the upgrades, but that seems to be because certain preferences were reset or deactivated in the process. (I'm also willing to accept user error as the culprit).
Have also had some weird issues with wifi connectivity, which is ostensibly one of the reasons for this update. And there have been some strange lockups on the mail screen on my iPad, occasionally forcing me to hard-close the mail app.
Other than that, I haven't noticed anything significantly "bad" about the updates. Yosemite has been fine for me, and aside from some third-party compatibility issues (which happen with every major OS upgrade), the upgrade has been seamless. iOS 8 performs well, aside from the aforementioned problems.
Whole system crashes have been much more common, especially ones related to sleep (the system won't wake up). About half a dozen to a dozen times since the upgrade (one month) but really, there shouldn't be any.
Out of curiosity did you fresh install or upgrade?
I'd upgraded since Leopard/Snow Leopard it had always just worked for me. Yosemite though had crashes and hanging - I decided a fresh install and it's been working great since.
Not the best news if you're used to upgrading but for me it worked wonders.
I did an upgrade and I'm considering wiping and doing a fresh install when I get some time. This is my primary work machine (it's a personal laptop but all my work stuff is on it) and so I'm hesitant to take any chances or do anything that could mess with my work timelines on projects.
I actually am in the same boat. Primary machine, both personal and projects on it. It is a lot of work to do a fresh install. It eats up a day and I do not have that. I was paying big bucks to Apple to solve this for me. Don't you think so?
"I was paying big bucks to Apple to solve this for me"
Agreed. I don't want to have to worry about shit like this. When I use Windows I would ALWAYS do a clean install and almost always do a clean install every few months because I run my machines hard (installing tons of stuff to try out then removing it). With OS X I didn't have to worry about this and have saved a TON of time not having to rebuild my computer with each release. I expect better from Apple.
Actually, some owners are OK if you tell them the domain is of personal importance. I lost my domain name a few years ago and after a year or so tried to email the guy. He was kind enough to give it back to me for mere $90. I guess it depends if the domain is not as hot for them they might consider doing a favor.
