I have been a follower of John Dvorak's articles on PC Magazine for a long time. His column comes out like clockwork, but his Opinions page was not updated for weeks. A little searching found an article on Medium from John himself. He says that he was released for his article that was critical of the forthcoming 5G system, and the magazine went so far as to replace his article with a pro-industry article. You can read John's story here.
A sad sign of the times where advertising rules everything.
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John C. Dvorak Released from PC Magazine
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(Score: 5, Informative) by hopp on Monday October 15 2018, @03:47AM (3 children)
Archive.org has John's article here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180823130336/https://in.pcmag.com/opinion/124983/the-problem-with-5g [archive.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @04:04AM
Came here to say the same thing, the link on medium.com to the India edition of PC Magazine is broken, but the Wayback Machine has a copy:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180823130336/https://in.pcmag.com/opinion/124983/the-problem-with-5g [archive.org]
While I haven't read Dvorak in years, I used to subscribe to PC magazine and his column was one of the high points, along with Jerry Pournelle. Sad to hear that he's been sacked but hopefully he will keep writing elsewhere for a good long time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Monday October 15 2018, @09:17AM (1 child)
PC Mag has John's article here [pcmag.com]. Note that that's not an archive of PC Mag India, that's PC Mag USA, live right now.
Looks more like a linking error than anything malicious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:42AM
Note the weird "duplicated" URL you posted and compare with https://www.pcmag.com/article/345387/what-is-5g [pcmag.com]
There certainly is something fishy going on here.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday October 15 2018, @04:25AM (13 children)
I don't know much about wireless protocols? And now Dvorak is thrown under the bus for the same thing, Curious, do not you think? Of course, much worse to be a journalist critical of the House of Saud, or the Trump of Putin. But still. It is only my ignorance of communication standards that makes me say these things. Seriously. AC is a stable genius, no doubt.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Sulla on Monday October 15 2018, @07:16AM (12 children)
CNN has been reported by many different sources to have 90-92% of their coverage of Trump has negative, the president likes to call them Fake News. Fox News has been reported as having 52-60% of its coverage as negative and he says they are doing a pretty good job. So half of the time Fox covers him negatively, and yet they arent having any issues. In fact nobody is getting canned unless they are assaulting/raping their employees.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday October 15 2018, @07:35AM (11 children)
So the suck-up Auzzie Nazi, Rupert "sheep-dip" Murdock, only covers Trump negatively 52-60% of the time, in spite of strict orders from the top for 100% positive? And you think this shires against the 90-92% by actual journalism? Sulla, you are not even fooling yourself anymore. Fox is a Russian Agit-prop front running on Compromat! Feel the Burn! or more accurately, feel the Bern! The only way America can defeat the post-Soviet Russia is by being more socialist then they can afford to be! Can't wait until the next (real) American President starts pounding the table in the UN, with his shoe, and declares "We will bury you with health care for everyone!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @07:39AM (3 children)
Just don't like your breath until, you'll suffocate.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday October 15 2018, @07:44AM (2 children)
Usually, it is other people who don't like my breath, because it smells bad. I like it, just because I am still having it, regardless of smell. So what are you saying, AC even more stupid than the AC I was attempting to blow bad breath into the face of? Is this a Trump thing, or a Kanye thing, or just an illiterate American racist thing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:23AM
Given your comments on here, it's probably the amount of shit emanating from your mouth!
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday October 15 2018, @11:02AM
Hmmm... discrimination against halitosis ... in spite of philosophical and ethical considerations, I can't argue against it. Physically, I mean. Not until my sense of smell fades enough.
I reckon actually it may have to do with human limits (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 15 2018, @01:11PM (4 children)
Why would anyone want to do that? They're a land empire on the other side of the planet, leave them alone.
The "Post-Soviet" is why the left REALLY hates Russia. Slave owners and their lackeys usually aren't happy with emancipation quite as much as the slaves.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday October 15 2018, @04:21PM (2 children)
I need line-item modding.
Eth and TMB are usually the specialists of the "insightful paragraph followed by grade-school flamebait" comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @07:33PM
> I need line-item modding.
We all do, but since we don't have it, the next best thing is to be specific about which part of the post you are replying to...when you post an objection.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday October 15 2018, @08:23PM
Or could we have a -1 Weird mod?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @11:40PM
Resembles the propaganda against Communism taught in 70s-80s schools far more than Soviet Russia ever did.
It's a sad day when the bastion of freedom and democracy resembles communism just as much as the two communist superpowers resemble capitalism.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @04:10PM (1 child)
Fox is a Russian Agit-prop front running on Compromat!
You people are hilarious! But what's sad is to see it all taken so seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:58AM
So, let me get what you are saying: 5G is a chinese plot to infiltrate our good American Gonads, and make them only attractive to Chinese women, who are spies for the Communist Partiee of China? I can go with that. As long as "Dancing With Rich Republcan Biatches loads and executes (if you know what I mean!!!) properly. So what the 1% got to worry about, with their serfes of the ether serving them well>
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday October 15 2018, @06:13AM (11 children)
The only thing surprising here is that he had the balls to write such an article in the first place. This really does go to show how much power the cell phone companies have.
The archived article does sound a bit like unsubstantiated fear mongering. It reads like "G5 is going to fry your brain", but then as he points out, where is proof that it won't? Face it, wireless cell towers can only push so much trough the air and cell phone companies are pressed to push as much through as possible. At some point, bad things will start to happen. And when they do, you bet your ass they won't tell you about it. If everyone's head were to melt, the companies wouldn't give a single rats ass as long as the consumetards keep buying cell phones.
And don't forget to download our FREE news/weather/malware app! What, you don't have a cell phone? Not a current one? Go buy a new one now! If you don't then you are some kind of non-person Luddite and there is something WROOOOONG with you! Because we say so! Everyone needs a cell phone, because... uh... reasons!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by rleigh on Monday October 15 2018, @09:24AM (9 children)
I'm still somewhat unsure about the long-term effects of microwave radiation. There are lots of people who will tell you that it's perfectly safe because it's such low power. And for the most part I'm sure they are correct. However, interesting science is always in the edge cases. What about constructive interference patterns, long-term cell damage and indirect effects? I've read some articles correlating the spread of cell towers with insect population decline. Might be utterly wrong, but maybe there is a correlation. Undesirable consequences may not be obvious or easy to detect.
I'm no luddite, I even have a PhD, but history has shown plenty of things which were considered safe in their day which were later shown to be rather dangerous, and it's still early days for the long-term effects to be fully known and understood. There's plenty of economic interest for it to be promoted as safe, and very little to do the opposite, as it always has been for previous inventions despite their true safety record.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday October 15 2018, @01:26PM (4 children)
We have the technology to generate and manipulate EM waves over a range of power with a bazzilion zeros, more than almost any engineering thing out there. Cell phones are pretty weak EM radiation to save energy and get great battery life, but if you tolerate a power cord, then power levels enormously higher are no big deal. Look at the total power output of just one analog TV transmitter 24x365 vs every hand held phone in a large town added together, decades of radar, all that.
Also creationism and vitalism are myths.
Combining the two, if there were non-thermal effects of EM radiation for life and biochemistry in general, given how incredibly well we can manipulate power levels zillions of times higher, we would be applying those effects to do weird non-thermal stuff with inducing genetic mutations for genetics research, or synthesizing biochemical stuff. But no such effects exist at vastly higher power levels and intensities.
You can do interesting thermal-effect EM stuff. A thousand times the power directed at popcorn kernels will eventually heat them up and pop them. Thats about it.
(Score: 1, Troll) by rleigh on Tuesday October 16 2018, @07:19AM (3 children)
I'm aware of all of this. But... don't you ever stop to think that you're being rather blazé about the rightness of your opinion and that maybe, just maybe, there may be some subtlety we've not noticed? One thing doing a PhD did was give me a big dose of humility. It made me realise that no matter how much I thought I understood, there was an absolutely vast amount I didn't. The creationism slur was totally uncalled for. All I'm saying is that it's the height of hubris to assert we completely understand things and that there couldn't possibly be some as yet undiscovered downside. There might be.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 16 2018, @11:36AM (2 children)
The problem is you're looking at it from a generalist perspective vs my EE-ish perspective.
The existing physics simply will not be denied... if cell phones caused cancer (via ... what biochemical path? There doesn't seem to be one...) then the average lifespan of a transmission site broadcast engineer or industrial induction heating technician would be a mere couple months. Welders would die within weeks. Radar avionics technicians would never live long enough to retire. Pragmatically it doesn't happen. But theoretically other than thermal effects blasting EM waves is about as interactive with chemistry as a neutrino beam.
I will admit that people mushing weird plastics into their hands and faces IS somewhat new, so if the plastic in "iphone glass" or "iphone case plastic" causes skin cancer after 50 years I would not be surprised (because that kind of thing is a known predictable historical analogy).
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:08PM (1 child)
Actually, my background includes EM and imaging work. There are all sorts of interesting phenomena which can occur and change the characteristics of EM radiation. What about second and third harmonic generation, which can change the effective frequency and hence power? I've personally used second harmonic generation in collagen to do deep imaging of physical structures. What about interactions with dense body tissues such as bone and cartilage? What about localised hotspots due to constructive interference. There are a lot of factors to consider, and I don't pretend to know it all.
Now, any problems are not so huge as to cause immediately obvious problems, that's clearly true. However, the long-term effects are yet to be fully characterised. And there may be subtle effects we are yet to discover.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:46AM
A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with 2 or more can never be certain.
Arrogant simpletons with a modicum of related experience will always be cock sure...
(Score: 4, Touché) by EvilSS on Monday October 15 2018, @02:42PM (1 child)
There is also a correlation between the number of cell towers and the rise in global temperatures over the past 40 years or so. Heck, there is also a correlation between the number of cell towers and my own personal health issues. Every year there are more towers and every year I have more and more aches and pains.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday October 16 2018, @11:38AM
Every year they put up more towers, and as a direct result every year I age one more year older. Its Russian meddling with the aging process, I tell ya.
(Score: 2, Troll) by bob_super on Monday October 15 2018, @04:29PM (1 child)
> history has shown plenty of things which were considered safe in their day which were later shown to be rather dangerous
You look anxious about something. I'm all out of leeches, but I can recommend some radium suppositories. We can follow them, the mercury ointment, and the lead pills dissolving inside you with my X-Ray machine.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday October 15 2018, @05:39PM
Leeches are actually pretty safe. And maggots are often better at safely debriding than any other current approach. But there's little profit in them, and people find them disgusting.
Just because a treatment fell out of fashion, don't assume that it was ineffective or dangerous. *Sometimes* that was the reason.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @05:16PM
My girlfriend tells me this all of the time. I don't have a cell phone either, but have never associated the two, thanks!
(Score: 5, Informative) by ledow on Monday October 15 2018, @08:07AM (3 children)
No... scaremongering got him fired, most likely:
For instance, in the UK the 5G spectrum auction has already had at least one round ("5G Spectrum Auction Results Summary (5th April, 2018)")
The categories were: 2.3Ghz Spectrum Won and 3.4GHz Spectrum Won
Yet his article starts with:
"If you read the barrage of scary literature about 5G mobile phone technology, specifically the use of millimeter wave frequencies to transmit data, you must conclude that it is a bad bet."
"because so little is known about the effects of millimeter waves (30GHz-300GHz). While these frequencies only permeate a small fraction of the human epidermis (the skin), the effect on the cornea, in particular, needs serious research."
"Because the industry is too cheap to study the health effects of the technology itself, it lets this sort of product out the door despite the fact that it has already been weaponized by the military. These frequencies are so poor at travelling long distances, they need a transmitter on nearly every telephone pole and light pole to make 5G work."
Which, whether or not I agree might be true, is trying to lump "oooh scary, looks it's the same frequency as the military" with 5G. It's totally without any basis of fact and begins with the words "it's a bad bet" while talking about epidermis and cornea (scary medical words).
Does he complain about Wifi (802.11ad uses 60GHz)? Does he complain about the myriad microwave links already criss-crossing any major city block? Does he mention security scanners at airports? Does he mention that the frequency is largely neither here nor there, but the received power? Police speed guns? Anything to do with radar?
It's a nonsense, one-sided psuedo-science scaremongering, aimed at a "frequency" that's already in use and even used in medical treatments. To suggest, as he does, that "we don't know anything about this stuff" is an obvious nonsense.
No matter whether he was being paid by the 5G side or by their opponents, or nobody at all, if you're going to write an article like this you have to have facts behind your assertions and he doesn't.
For sure, if I was his editor, I'd never have let his article hit the website or publication at all in its current state.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Alfred on Monday October 15 2018, @03:38PM (2 children)
*we don't know the long term problems
*consumers are suckers to marketing
*a lot of people suspect problems with it, go look
*there is no real benefit
All are valid points to consider
"Epidermis" and "cornea" as scary medical words. Come on, as a non medical person I have been able to point to those parts since I was 12.
Weaponized by the military doesn't mean it needs to have the signal integrity to carry significant bandwidth. And two transmitters of equal power but one is omni (telecom) and one is very very directional (military) will have very different effective ranges. His point stands though he didn't explain it well and you didn't think deeper about it.
You can't say a "frequency" is safe because it is in use in medicine. A specific use case in a medical environment is different from a public wide administration of the same. You may find You need a dose of Viagra to improve your life from time to time but that is no basis to add it to the water supply.
He doesn't need to complain about Wifi or the myriad of microwaves or airport scanners. Either because that is a lost cause, he is focusing on prevention or its not as harmful. Maybe it is a fight that could be won later and maybe it is worse but it isn't the fight he is waging today. Disagreeing with his scheduling does not invalidate his argument or arguments he didn't raise.
I have no grounds to fight the statement that there needs to be more long term research and you don't either.
If skin cancer wasn't a real thing then I would be cool with assuming there is no long term concern with the limited penetration from millimeter waves, but right now that is only an assumption made when you are suckered into the marketing from the people selling the very tech in question. It's a similar "Take my money and tell me I'm safe" human behavior that we execute when buying into this tech, that we are told is safe, or when sending money to a televangelist for safety in the afterlife. Praise the Lord!
Scaremongering, nah, not really. Valid, yeah. Well documented, no, not by him or long term research or those that say it is safe. This discussion will go on for years and the data still won't show up and people will be making money on it all along the way which is what it is really about.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @07:40AM (1 child)
"*we don't know the long term problems"
But we do. We have studied them for decades. They are USED IN MEDICAL TREATMENTS. That's my point. We know quite a lot about them, and have zero reason to suspect anything untoward. A lack of evidence in the case of looking means that there's no immediate need to panic.
"*consumers are suckers to marketing"
Granted. And suckered by attack pieces trying to discredit "all of 5G" because the author believes "one frequency" isn't as well-studied as he'd like.
"*a lot of people suspect problems with it, go look"
And though lots of people suspect problems, and though humans have been around it for decades (everything from inter-building microwave links to radar systems on destroyers, etc.) nobody has yet managed to gather any significant data that shows any correlation to any ill effect whatsoever at EVEN HIGHER power than we'd ever need for 5G.
"*there is no real benefit"
No real benefit... except for all those people who will go out and buy a 5G phone for the faster speeds? I have to say this one I agree more than anything else, but there are commercial reasons, which means there's something to sell, which means there's something people want, which means there's a benefit to doing (or else phone companies wouldn't be spending millions for 5G frequency licensing in the first place, and someone else would be using it for something else instead).
"All are valid points to consider."
Yes. And disregard out of hand when there's zero evidence for them.
"Epidermis" and "cornea" as scary medical words. Come on, as a non medical person I have been able to point to those parts since I was 12. "
Yes. And I guarantee that you call the first one "skin" every time you refer to it. I'm not saying "nobody knows what it means" (if that was true it wouldn't work in the article at all), I'm saying they've chosen a medical word because it sounds more "devastating". And I'm saying that's to deliberately scaremonger.
"Weaponized by the military doesn't mean it needs to have the signal integrity to carry significant bandwidth."
Correct. It does mean, however, that someone has done sufficient testing to know what does damage and what doesn't, and what affects those people near the gun (I don't know about you, but the military in my country still have to do the same health-and-safety stuff for their own personnel as anyone else. Maybe higher boundaries, but it means they know exactly what this stuff does or doesn't do.
"And two transmitters of equal power but one is omni (telecom) and one is very very directional (military) will have very different effective ranges. His point stands though he didn't explain it well and you didn't think deeper about it."
I'm actually PRICING UP A MICROWAVE BUILDING LINK as I was writing it. Including writing to a church parish council to allay their fears over the "types of radio waves", directionality, power, antenna gain, ionisation, etc. He doesn't even touch on that. He just equates "radio wave frequency" with "damage to the epidermis", without consideration for emitted power, the power absorbed by the body, etc. etc. etc. If he had, his point might stand. In fact, he moans about "there being more towers closer together", when in reality that absolutely equals "you would need less power from each tower".
"You can't say a "frequency" is safe because it is in use in medicine."
Covered above.
"He doesn't need to complain about Wifi or the myriad of microwaves or airport scanners. Either because that is a lost cause, he is focusing on prevention or its not as harmful. Maybe it is a fight that could be won later and maybe it is worse but it isn't the fight he is waging today. Disagreeing with his scheduling does not invalidate his argument or arguments he didn't raise. "
He could say that. And to know that, he'd have to point out research to that effect. 802.11ad is a standard you could buy equipment for today, and it's much more likely that you'll be around an 802.11ad wifi point in the future than anything 5G, and much more likely that's produced by cheap Chinese kit that's not in FCC / CE specifications, etc. Not a mention. Because he knows that neither of them are actually harmful. He could easily fold in that standard and say it does the same things, he doesn't. Because he knows he's talking rubbish and trying to bad mouth 5G because of the timing of it.
"I have no grounds to fight the statement that there needs to be more long term research and you don't either."
I actually 100% agree that we all need more long-term research into everything. Even climate change. To suggest otherwise is a nonsense. But the current evidence gives ZERO reason for such an attack piece, and especially such a highly targeted, vague, and yet cherry-picked on.
"If skin cancer wasn't a real thing then I would be cool with assuming there is no long term concern with the limited penetration from millimeter waves, but right now that is only an assumption made when you are suckered into the marketing from the people selling the very tech in question. It's a similar "Take my money and tell me I'm safe" human behavior that we execute when buying into this tech, that we are told is safe, or when sending money to a televangelist for safety in the afterlife. Praise the Lord!"
Skin cancer's been around a long time. As has anything microwave. There's not even a suggestion that walking in front of huge 60-80GHz emitters with ridiculous power does anything to the people who would on them and have done for decades. Lack of evidence is not proof of zero harm, but you have to have a reason to yell and scream. Hell, even a guy who "claims" he was given skin cancer by working on a big military radar for decades - that'd be something. But there isn't one. And even if there was, likely the cause is very different to what they might claim.
"Scaremongering, nah, not really. Valid, yeah. Well documented, no, not by him or long term research or those that say it is safe. This discussion will go on for years and the data still won't show up and people will be making money on it all along the way which is what it is really about."
It's absolutely scaremongering before of the above. Most of it isn't valid. It's not well-documented, because there's nothing to really document. There are no recorded instances of that particular frequency being "worse" at the same radiated power, and in 5G and even Wifi the radiated power would be pitiful any reasonable distance away from the source.
Of course we'll talk for years. Like the parents of a school into which I put their first wifi and was angrily told by a parent: "You know you're frying children's brains, don't you?!" Actually, no, I don't know that. Not only do I not know that, I knew it was as much bollocks as I could imagine. Especially from a parent with a mobile phone stuck to her ear while she "rang her husband" about it (which incidentally connected to a cell tower that was about 30 feet above her head at the time, on top of the school itself). 20 years later, does it really look like we've been frying children's brains? That tower is still there, that wifi has been upgraded no end of times by now. Because it's not about "I think it's scary". It's about having even one iota of medical evidence, or even measured physical effect that could potentially have a medical effect, that you could then use to follow up on.
Believe it or not, people who put products out into your homes and businesses have a duty to check their products as they go out. The relevant authorities have a duty to know this stuff before they issue out frequency allocations and power limits in those allocations. Those authorities talk worldwide and swap information. Now I'm not saying they know absolutely everything, but they've checked a damn-sight-more than this guy. They have lists and medical data and other information available. And guess who gets in trouble for accepting a few million in licensing if it turns out what they licensed (and have been doing so for decades) turns out to be harmful even when used within the official limits.
You're assuming Dvorak > all the radio-handling regulators, producers, researchers, manufacturers, testers, lawyers, etc. That's not to say that such waves *couldn't* harm you. It's to say there's no more evidence of 2.4GHz doing it than 60GHz. Until that changes, he's scaremongering a tech that doesn't even exist yet, on frequencies that have been in used for DECADES at much higher power than anything a 5G phone/tower would emit.
Of course, with 24/7 exposure, right next to your head, things may be different. Billions of man-hours of exposure statistics help a lot. Tell me... how did those "cell phones are frying your brain" studies go? I guarantee you we found "something", and I guarantee you someone tried to use it to sue everyone involved in that licensing decision too. Tell me: Did we ban mobile phones yet?
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:31PM
"They are USED IN MEDICAL TREATMENTS. That's my point."
Safe in one context does not equate to safe in not the exact same context.
I suspect you have blood drawn before. Would you allow me to draw your blood. It's obviously safe and well understood.
"Skin cancer's been around a long time. As has anything microwave. "
Understanding under one set of parameters does not guarantee a matching understanding under other parameters.
Latent variables are real. A designer could understand that a bridge is safe in the wind until a factor they haven't considered is manifest in a obvious way, I'm thinking tacoma narrows.
"Hell, even a guy who "claims" he was given skin cancer by working on a big military radar for decades - that'd be something."
Lack of evidence is not a proof to the contrary
"Believe it or not, people who put products out into your homes and businesses have a duty to check their products as they go out."
Responsibility or presence of duty does not equate to that responsibility actually being met.
You can't say that every product reviewed and studied for safety that was released has been safe and never recalled?
"You're assuming Dvorak >..."
Actually I assume all journalist are idiots that couldn't get a real degree, that is my bias from doing tech support for them. Not all of them are idiots but saying they all are is accurate to withing the margin of error.
"Tell me: Did we ban mobile phones yet?"
Current Ban status does not correlate with safety
Some things are not banned until later when there is evidence that damage will occur. Usually this is after getting past years of manufacturer interference and cover up. Damage done, here have a measly check while I jump ship with my golden parachute.
Anyhow I just picked a few fallacies you presented. I don't intend to respond to any response of yours.
The moral of the story is that there is always more to the story than one considers. I'm not out here saying that the adoption rate of WiFi correlates to increase of cases in Autism. I dismiss that though I can't prove it there is not a connection. The experts that could possibly prove it will just dismiss it, like I would, and their dismissal becomes scientific fact without scientific rigor. In general, all fields of science are lacking in scientific rigor because it is expensive and "doing science" doesn't pay bills like being a corporate science drone does. Those drones that work for corporations that are in it to make money, not make it safe. (Or to restate, corporations and boards make money at the expense of the public well being.) Those corporations are the ones telling you it is perfectly safe.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday October 15 2018, @01:18PM (1 child)
He is 66, and could interpret the whole thing as a "F you I retire" type of tantrum.
I've read the guy and seen the guy on shows more than I want; always kinda brings the heat without much backup; sizzle not steak. For a guy who's been in the biz for as long as I have, he has to portray himself as noob to get the attention (or go for the heat of ranting), but he can't ever push competence or facts because he'd lose the noob viewers. Its a common problem with magazine-type content that you have to maximize readership by being the slightly-advanced noob. Whats funny is much like Pournelle the guy's been in since the old days when everyone in, had an IQ over 120, so the value of noob has dropped a bit from the old days which must be reflected in their content. So smarter-than-the-average-noob was understanding dram timings and S100 wait states in 1981, but in 2018 it means installing chrome browser on Win10 semi-successfully, which is pretty boring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @05:23PM
I miss those days. Everything in computers now is boring, especially computers since computers are more about who you voted for for president than transistors.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday October 15 2018, @01:32PM (3 children)
The real problem with 5G is its excruciatingly boring and uninteresting.
Its not going to enable any new applications, its not going to do anything about nickel and dimeing bandwidth caps, you can't show it off to anyone to impress them with your wealth, its meaningless to the end user.
They're going to have to spend a lot of money on PR to ram it down people's throats (and on to their already high bills)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 15 2018, @02:10PM
Just you wait until the exciting new marketing campaign for the fantastic new 6G!!!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday October 15 2018, @02:34PM (1 child)
How about this marketing campaign: With 5G, you can reach your arbitrarily imposed bandwidth cap 5x faster!
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Monday October 15 2018, @04:36PM
You win. I'll ask the secretary to shred my own posters, which were the more realistic "Almost drained you of 4G per year, now aiming for 5G"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @04:41PM
I see you are new here. Enjoy your stay.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday October 15 2018, @10:30PM
If memory serves, he was one of the first magazine people to say "Hey, you should try this Linux thing: it's damn good!"
No one else in PC-Mag said that (that I know of) because of MS advertising dollars. Kind of surprised he wasn't fired long ago.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @12:18AM
PC Magazine is still a thing?