@g.jacobse said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@g.jacobse said:

Sorry - some reason I'm wondering what I could use this for.....

Well it is a small, quad core, low power desktop computer that you can run Android, Linux or Windows on. So mostly anywhere that you need a low cost, low power desktop.

I guess since I haven't followed the technology much, I am missing something. My take is that it's a USB device,.. But it's a desktop. But it doesn't make sense to plug it into my desktop to run a desktop... sorry.. Seems like a dense question I know.

It is actually a HDMI device that plugs into a monitor and is powered via USB (at least from what I am seeing).

This would be an awesome POS or data collection computer, providing you can figure out a way to get USB attached to it. Although it does look like it has one port.

It would also work fairly well for digital signage.

@scottalanmiller Never actually been into Pitt proper, her family lives about an hour north east. Small town near Indiana PA. Although it is on the plan of the times we go to visit her family.

@scottalanmiller said:

It's not. Driving 81 is horrible. I've driven the new 99 corridor a lot too.

Never done the 99 corridor, my fiance is from Pitt, so we take 17 and then the "back roads", which are still better maintained then most of the roads where I'm from, to get back and forth

@scottalanmiller said:

@thanksaj said:

@scottalanmiller You obviously don't drive 81 much...going 81 south from Syracuse, after you hit Lafayette, there isn't much between there and Binghamton. Then you go through Binghamton. Then nothing again. For many miles.

No one has driven it more than me. You forget that I've worked in Ithaca, went to school in Cortland, worked and oversaw programs in Syracuse, worked in Binghamton and then, for many years, maintained a home in Ithaca while commuting to and from Washington. I've driven 81 so many tends of thousands of miles it isn't funny. I've commuted both directions on it. I've driving it from the Canadian bridge all the way till it ends in the Great Smokies. I know every inch of that highway and every little town along it.

I feel almost sorry for you for that story... I've driven most of 81 a number of times... it really isn't that fun a road, that 230 miles of PA is about the most boring I've ever done in a car.

@scottalanmiller said:

Cornell is 35,000 acres of farmland. It's as "nowhere" as anything that is something can be.

Except the "small" city of Ithaca that it sits right next to.

This is mostly for fun, I know it is in the middle of nowhere but perspective is everything in this case.

@thanksaj said:

@coliver said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@coliver said:

I've never heard Ithaca, or Cornell being referred to as remote.

For you they are the center of the universe. But... they are seriously remote.

Heh, well it is equidistant to Albany and Ithaca, so not the center but one of the big three.

Coming from someone who grew up in Syracuse, Cornell and Ithaca, and even places like Binghamton, are all considered out in the middle of nowhere.

I guess I never thought of that... I mean I am in the middle of nowhere, but never considered one of the "big" cities to be anything like that.

@scottalanmiller said:

@coliver said:

I've never heard Ithaca, or Cornell being referred to as remote.

For you they are the center of the universe. But... they are seriously remote.

Heh, well it is equidistant to Albany and Ithaca, so not the center but one of the big three.

@scottalanmiller said:

@coliver said:

Welcome to Americanism, where the intelligent and creative get punished and the mediocre get rewarded.

We are a big country, more like India, China and the Philippines. We don't have the luxury of having good education for everyone and high end jobs for everyone like small, elite countries like Norway, Finland and Switzerland have. They don't need "base economy" workers, they have other countries for that nearby. They are small and a huge percentage of their population can have amazing jobs. But the US is too large. Canada could try for that, but the US and Mexico are just too big. We have to provide the service sector, the manufacturing sector, the mining and transportation sectors, the agriculture, the forestry, the tourism. We can't make ourselves supported by banking, design, engineering and research. We can do those things, but they have to be a sideline. The core economy must be able to support hundreds of millions of people.

This just proves the point of an impeding education bubble burst. Which will end very poorly for everyone.

Although there have been links between an educated population and a connection to social empathy and humanistic tendencies... but that is another conversation.

@Reid-Cooper said:

That is very interesting. Who would have guessed that there would be a particle accelerator in such a remote location.

I've never heard Ithaca, or Cornell being referred to as remote.

@art_of_shred said:

educrats

I've never heard this term before, can you define it?

@thanksaj said:

@Dashrender said:

I read something last year (more earlier) about how our education system is actually just a way to keep the masses down. I personally don't believe that to be true - but I'll definitely give you that we are not using the best methods for teaching.

Global online individual learning is probably the way we need to go. Now just to find out how to build it and financially support it.

If you want to really get into it, the American education system is an early indoctrination system.

Welcome to Americanism, where the intelligent and creative get punished and the mediocre get rewarded.

@Dashrender said:

OK Speaking of math - what do you guys think of Common Core?

I worked in a school the first year the Common Core was introduced. Teachers hated it, the administration didn't like it due to cost and budgetary reasons, parents didn't like it because it was difficult to understand and almost impossible to help their kids with. I wasn't a fan because it put additional work and responsibilities on an already taxed technology department.

@thanksaj said:

I agree with Scott. Being forced to show work on problems I could easily do in my head and get right 99 times out of 100 was tedious and frustrating. Also, a lot of teachers looked for specific patterns, and if you didn't follow those patterns, you'd be marked as wrong .

This, I had this argument with multiple math teachers in high school and college. If I can arrive at the same answer as you do while going through a different process (on paper or in my head) why am I being marked for that process.

The argument that I received is that it wouldn't work every time... when asked to give me an example they would rattle off a problem that was in the same form as the one before... either they didn't realize it or thought it was more difficult... when I gave them the answer, one of the teachers had to do it on paper to ensure I was correct. Frustrating to say the least.

Of course after 6 years of college (both grad and undergrad) I can no longer do even simple math problems in my head... which is even more frustrating then being confronted by a teacher.

I'm surprisingly ok with this.

@scottalanmiller said:

I have yet to use Pinterest, but @Dominica uses it. I did find a platform for building your own Pinterest-like sites yesterday.

Was it Pinry? I was looking at that a bit ago when my fiance became obsessed with Pinterest.

@Dashrender said:

@coliver said:

The database is also stored/encrypted on our local file server so that more then one user can access it.

You get the giant raised eyebrow from me on that one.

Understood, I think. We basically use it for service account passwords and for company websites (for instance Microsoft licensing) that, while you can add other users to it, it has been simpler to just have a local repository for those passwords. It also makes it that much easier to change them since Keepass, like LastPass, has the ability to generate passwords on the fly.

From http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/7/0/7707E736-4557-4310-9709-87358F7E6D1A/WindowsServer2012VirtualTech_VLBrief.pdf

You do not need CALs for up to two devices or users to access your instances as long as these users or devices are
only administering the instances. In the case of Windows Server 2012 only, you do not need a CAL to access an
instance of the server software running on the physical OSE that is being used solely to:


• list item run hardware virtualization software,
• list item provide hardware virtualization services,
• list itemor,  run software to manage and service operating system environments on the licensed server.

However, you do need the appropriate CAL to access instances of the server software in any virtual OSEs on the server.

Not sure if that helps clear it up at all. Looks like you do need proper licensing in a virtual environment.

@Reid-Cooper said:

@Dashrender I do not believe that RDS is needed for a single user of any function. The server should act as a desktop here allowing for one user, at any time, to use the server as a desktop or desktop-like machine. It is because of this that RDS licensing is not needed when using Microsoft's Datacenter licensing in a one to one user ratio for VDI.

This was who I understood it as well. RDP was a one-to-one type of interface where RDS was many-to-one/many type of interface. Otherwise wouldn't you be breaking your licensing every time you remote in to do admin tasks on a non-windows server software?