solidity: pathetic Concept: great!
587414
eh... it's not great. I used to have a smaller version of a nite ize. It was made of nothing but the webbing material, and i used it from the time I joined scouts until 2 years into my college career. That was a solid holster for my flashlight and leatherman. This is the same concept only it was made of a far thinner (and far easier to rip) material and the belt clip was plastic?!?!?!?!? what happened to the solid webbing material that was the belt loop? Dear Nite Ize. Bring back your old version of this in a larger size and I will buy from you again. If you need your multi-tool and your flashlight on your person at all times... I would not recommend this. It did not hold up well for me.
20751
I am not going to spend too much time writing technical reviews about such a piece of "~!@#$%^&*()_+" product (if anyone could call it a product).
It's slow (absolutely anything takes from a minute to never or crash), mediocre (the web interface is lame, plus extra-stupid) and painful (it does allow for FTP/SFTP but it denies access to SSH) to work with.

Who the heck would want SFTP over SSH? Well, I have to remember that this world is full of morons who can't do anything without their imbecile GUI.
This is the part that pisses me off the most. if I could SSH into the box, I would never waste time with the GUI to transfer files, I would SCP them straight from the console and probably the box wouldn't be so damn SLOW.

The configuration menus are so incredibly mediocre that it pains to know I paid $800+ for something so BAD.
How could these people still in business. I guess it's typical for 'gascons' to produce things like this. Will never buy a LaCie product again and will recommend everyone against doing so at any time and place.
3106373
This is one of the few books on AKKA. The 'table of content' seem to cover a whole lot. But the way the subject matter is presented is pretty poor. It's too informal that, it may make the the readers get annoyed.
Here is one of it from the book...
"We've come to the second great axis of Akka's concurrency paradigm, the future. Futures have been around for a while now, but you've probably never seen them like this. These are futures on steroids; tiger steroids, laced with the blood of Superman, dripping with the testosterone of Batman, and infused with the power of Green Lantern's Ring. If you're not ready to have your brain set on fire, close this book, curl up in the fetal position, and sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star softly to yourself until you're good to go." - Chapter 12.
This makes it quite verbose and provide too much deviation from the subject matter.
Publisher, please review the text before you print. You have published great books like "Programming in Scala", and this is an excellent topic to have a book; but badly written book!
3598420
I was cheated by the Anandtech Review of this SSD. Yes it gives superb benchmark numbers, it would make you drool over them thinking this is the best SSD made ever since sliced bread.

So when I ordered my Origin PC Millennium, I also added the Intel 750 1.2TB PCIe SSD to the configuration. I received my system, everything works great, benchmarks are great, copying large files from one partition to the other on this Intel 750 PCIe SSD is super fast, it makes you think it's like a RAM Cache because of how fast it is, but that's it!!

The boot up/restart time is super slow! Even slower than an HDD for God's sake!

I then saw many users complaining on the Intel Forums, see: Why is the Intel 750 Slow to boot = https://communities.intel.com/message/310018#310018

I was checking every day like 5 times waiting for a driver or firmware update that would fix this. I've been doing this for a month until last night I lost hope and faith in Intel. The thing is, it's not just the initializing of the NVMe controller, I can deal with that 5 sec delay at startup but even after it does initialize, the Windows loading screen takes ages even with no software or drivers installed. Installing the latest Intel PCI nvme driver doesn't help this at all.

Example:

Windows 7 on a normal SATA SSD = 10-12 seconds boot

Windows 7 on the Intel 750 PCIe SSD = 25 second boot

Windows 10 on a normal SATA SSD = 8 second boot

Windows 10 on the Intel 750 PCIe SSD = 20 second boot

So yesterday I removed this pile of trash SSD and installed my SanDisk Extreme PRO 256GB SSD as the OS drive in addition to my two SanDisk Extreme PRO 960GB SSDs as Data drives and man I felt like I bought a new system!! Now I truly feel the power of my PC! I was crippling my entire experience and performance with this new PC due to this crappy and expensive SSD.

Intel doesn't seem to be the least bothered to fix this problem although this issue should be on their priority list!

The only good thing I think this SSD is for maybe video editors or people who constantly need to copy large data from one partition to the other otherwise this is by far the worst SSD I have ever owned since 5 years. Even my 5 year old LiteOnIT first gen SSD is better than this!

Screw you Intel! Never touching any SSD that has Intel or Samsung on it EVER again! I put it up for sale on a local website here in Dubai hoping I can get back some of the money I wasted on this.

SanDisk/OCZ/Crucial FTW
4317823
I've had this book for many months but couldn't get myself to read it till now. The book got here just as the economy showed its most serious signs of deteriorating; people I know started losing their jobs, and consultants and other home-based workers I know began to see their client bases (and income) falling off to a fraction of what they were. For most, there hasn't yet been a recovery.

Investing feels like a dirty game to me now. I can't help but feel cynical about investment "games" and advice from money "managers" and financial "gurus" (overuse of quotation marks intentional to underscore cynicism). That colors my thoughts about the book.

Investing for Change is dense. It's not a dummies or idiots guide (not that that's necessarily a desirable thing). It tries to avoid being too academic, but it fails in that: "This means that a portfolio of responsible companies will outperform a comparable portfolio of less responsible companies by 11%. If this increase in the fraction of SRI capital occurs within the next three to five years, we are talking about an annual premium of 2.2% to 3.7% during the transition. Investors like Ted, who can buy responsible firms and short less responsible ones, can exploit this. Small investors like Kathy, Sven, and Guy, who cannot easily short companies, have less to gain. If the less responsible firms make up 10% of the entire market value of companies, by avoiding them in an index, one would outperform an all-inclusive index (such as the S & P 500) by 1.1% of this period--an annual benefit of 0.22% to 0.37%."

You know what? I don't even want to hear about shorting. It's a frame of mind that's a product of the times, but I have no patience now for such market manipulation or financial gaming. That's just me. I'm not going to mark this book down to a low rating, because that would be more a reflection on me and less on the merits of the book. I think I'd feel a lot better about this book if the authors and publisher update its contents in a new edition to consider the financial and market upheavals of 2009.
101561
[Possible spoilers]
This is exactly the kind of overblown "Deux Ex Machina" kind of SF story which I have come to dread (having found a number of examples recently-sigh).  The pretentiousness of the author to suggest that Columbus-nay his entire society!-could be redeemed in the manner depicted makes any Rube Goldberg device look like a simple lever system (sorry for the mixed analogy but it fits!).  To name one problem (perhaps the core issue), people (and societies) do NOT change their entire worldviews at a drop of a hat!  They will usually cling to them tenaciously ever the more tighter as the evidence against them accumulates.  There is a tremendous cultural inertia at work in any society past or present and authentic change takes time and is often NOT a given even in favorable circumstances.  Add in the more menial tasks by the protagonists which were ridiculously accomplished without much of a sweat being broken and this makes for a perfect example of the kind of overly-optimistic humanistic hubris which afflicts our society today ("Any problem can be solved if enough time and effort is devoted to it").  In addition to Jared Diamond's book I would also recommend (all NF) _Voltaire's Bastards_ and _The Arrogance of Humanism_ as antidotes to the cheerful audaciousness of the ideas in _Redemption_.
2461283
I was really excited to get this new product, but it doesn't come with the same craftsmanship you expect from Thule or Yakima. Insert nut into "nut-shaped" slot, then Insert screw into other side and tighten, sadly the plastic is too weak and stripped immediately before I was even able to tighten it. Pathetic Saris! Now I know why our Saris rack never went on the roof of our car more than once in a blue moon as a kid. I thought this company had disappeared until I discovered it again a few weeks ago. Excited for this new design that lets you get biking sooner and not have to dismantle the front wheel of the bike like my Yakima bike rack, however building this thing is impossible. I think I sprained my thumb trying to work the included bolt twister. The included bolt twister is too large and scratches the rack before you've even had a chance to put it together. I think this must be the version 1.0 of the product. Saris, I'd suggest you do a kickstarter project for your next "Market Test" product, as this thing is a royal pain in the ass to put together. When I spend $300 on a product I expect it to be amazing. Example the iPod Touch from Apple is an amazing mind blowing product for $300. Your rack absolutely does not deliver. I was barely even able to get the second bolt in, before realizing it just wasn't worth the effort and that this thing was just not going to work. $300? Do not waste your money or time. As they will not pay for your Return shipment. Sadly I'm mailing this thing back this week. Another con of the product is there is no way to lock the product down, the included mechanisms to lock down your bike are 4 plastic ratchet clamps, that look like your bike is going to fall off on the first pot hole. No thank you! I've installed numerous Thule and yakima racks in the past for skiing, biking, kayaking, and surfing, i'm no newbie to this process of building these racks. This rack should not be on the market unless it: A) comes assembled or B) improve the strength of the plastic, C) improve the bolt down system of the bikes, D) include some way to lock your bike to your car so you can grab a cup of coffee with confidence that your gear is safe, E) Provided tools don't ruin your $300 purchase, F) redesign please, this is not even a version 1.0 this is a version 0.1.
984119
A much better buy is Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott. The price of this book when taken in regards to its content is not worth it.
1015730
I received this product free for review but as always, despite receiving a free product I'm perfectly candid in my review. I want you to have as good an experience on Amazon as I do.

Well, it certainly cannot be said that this is your typical investment book. Rather one could describe it rather aptly as a prolonged political rant.

On the positive side, he's right. You don't want to die rich and you should try to get all you can out of life and skid into the end with nothing left. As a general concept, that's perfect. His research is detailed, though skewed, and he lays everything out rather meticulously.

To the negative, a significant section of the book seems to be devoted to scaring investors. Oh my, the government is coming to take your 401k and steal all your hard-earned savings! The government is going to default and we're all going to be pitched into chaos and ruin! This reads like an ultra-conservative economics lecture. I'm annoyed and unimpressed.

In summary, this isn't really helpful to anyone who's not already pretty well off. His general advice to invest in real estate is a disaster waiting to happen for the majority of potential investors. It seems the author is trying to scare people into doing things his way by telling them that their world is coming to an end.

PS: I hope my review was helpful. If it was not, then please let me know what I left out that youd want to know. I always aim to improve.
910523
This book has some good introductory information, and is probably of some use to anyone considering gold or silver as an investment.

With that in mind, these guys are gold bugs, or hucksters putting the hard sell on for gold. Period. Their portfolio "diversification" strategies are basically between holding actual gold and mining stocks. I mean...thats it! NOTHING else. That is just plain loopy, and frankly irresponsible to recommend. We are to conclude that NO other commodity would be worthy of investment? We are to conclude the entire world will only want to hold gold, and no other asset? Yes, in an absolute financial melt-down, gold and silver would offer some big benefits, but folks owning other basic materials would not do so badly either. Maybe better. That bears discussion, but gets very little.

They are either lazy in their writing, or are deliberately overlooking certain facts in conveying their advice. For instance, in their chapter on direct investment in gold, they make it sound like holding physical gold basically has no advantages to investing in digital gold. I found that curious, since there are obvously some advantages to holding the actual gold, versus the representational forms. Then, later in the book, they finally fessed up and said that James Turk is one of the main backers of "digital gold". After putting a figleaf on how it is a conflict to recommend this means of owning gold, they devote a whole chapter to how this will be the NEW currency, and the only way to hold "cash."

Their advice is poorly considered in at least a few places, so it makes me wonder how much thought they put into anything else. Their discussion of aggressive strategies very briefly discusses buying mining stocks on margin. They show the gross profits from margin trading, but do not even mention the cost of borrowing the funds to do so. Yet, in other chapters they rant about how its VERY dangerous to have variable rate loans, since these rates will go through the roof! So guys, wouldn't it be worth understanding how a soaring rate scenario would affect your margin holdings? Nah! Just throw out a few numbers and move on to the digital gold thing.

I have just read "Hot Commodities" by Jim Rogers, and it is a clearly superior book.  No obvious hype, a lot more facts and logical thinking.  By the way, he makes a pretty good argument why gold is likely not such a good investment compared to other commodities.  Now...he too is selling his RICI index of commodities, so he is not fully objective. But at least he makes a reasonable attempt at proving out his thesis.

As for some of the above reviews, they smell a lot like shills.  They are so over the top in praise of this mediocre book, I would discount them considerably.
4150923
It's so relieving to see Levy's capture of the positive side of the qualification to be able to hack. I believe the progress in the software and hardware development has been greatly advanced be the qualifications theses people have shown.
When it later comes to the aspect of what this qualification has been used for, the results are more dubious. It is sad, however, that todays meaning of the term hacker seems to cover only the negative side of the history.
1675797
The book tells us that Madoff, since as early as 1960s, set up an investment company, the money from his "investors" was never invested in any assets, instead the money was used to pay earlier investors as "returns" or "yield" and reported to IRS on 1099 as "capital gains", "dividends" or "profit".  Madoff's scheme worked for over 40 yrs as new investors continued to put new money in.  However, as the 2008 market meltdown occurred, "investors" began to realize Madoff's shell game.  The book did a brilliant job documenting the historical aspect of this but like all other books on Ponzi schemes, it failed to connect the dots.

The dots are;
1. our culture and system of government morally accepts the concept of Ponzi scheme.  FDR, under the idea of "forced savings for the workers", started the Social Security system.  Problem is, social security moneys was never invested in assets or even "saved" (as deposits in a piggy bank).  the money was used to payoff retirees and their spouses. As long as the number of retirees is less than the number of social security payers, the system works but once the number of retirees exceeds the payer, the system broke. Then, LBJ started the Medicare program, again, relying on the new taxpayers to pay the old.  Then Bush 2 started the Medical Prescription Drug benefits, even worse, this one is unfunded, like Madoff's last few months when he made no pretense to find money to pay off the old investors.  Now, Congress is doing the Healthcare "Reform" which is another Ponzi scheme.  Problem is, over 50% of voters support this kind of government operated Ponzi scheme!!
2. american always look for the "too good to be true" idea.  not just on investment but everything in life.  we want everything cheap or free and do not want to work for it.  Ideas like, Free or "affordable" healthcare.  "Clean" air and water with Cap and Trade.  This kind of pathological psychology allows Ponzi scheme to work because everyone of us wants to believe it.
3. whereas Madoff received 150 yrs jail sentence and his scheme shut down by the Fed. Our government, not just continues its many Ponzi programs, but expending it.  FDR's Social Security is not enough, Medicare was added, LBJ's Medicare was not enough, Prescription Drug program was added, Bush II's Prescription Drug is not enough, now Obama is trying to add Health care "reform".  Whereas Madoff is sitting in jail, all these presidents are praised for their "effort".
4. The most important takeaway from this book is, as an investor, you have the option to avoid Madoff by not investing with him and his company.  Social Security, Medicare, Healthcare Reform, as citizen are forced to participate, we cannot even "opt out".  Who committed a bigger crime?  Madoff or the U.S. Govt?
4478494
Imagine a world with peanut butter & no jelly, Clay not meeting Liston, crimson without clover! Not since the end of the Third Punic War (and dare I say this oversight could incite the fourth) has there been such an obviously missed opportunity...Certainly the humble 571 works wonders in the home, but what o' what of the unserved commercial market?

This country used to be built on its boundless engineering vision. In the greatest generation, the self evident next step of combining this powerful, uniform fruit slicing technology with a high horse power, high volume powertrain would be all but a foregone conclusion.

What of the legion of hypokalemic Americans who slug through each workday with only a portion of their available sodium-potassium pumps being fueled?! What say you Hutzler?

Your decision to package two 571's as an alternative to double production rates, is a woefully inadequate response to the slicing needs of the millions yearning for surgically equitably divided fruit in pan-continental quantities!

What this country needs is the Hutzler technology meets the wood chipper! Get the Dodge people on the phone, I want the brains that brought us the Hemi in on this! You do it or you can chase us to court and try to defend your rights to this inadequate manual device there while we go on to feed the banana needs of the world!
2292266
An episode of South Park inspired me to read Atlas Shrugged.  In the episode in which Officer Barbrady finally learned how to read (The Chicken Plucker, I believe) he ended the show on a note that the book he had chosen to read (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand) was "garbage" and not worth the read.  I had actually never heard of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand until I saw that episode.  So, naturally, I decided I must find it and read it.  Then I forgot all about it until I spied a like-new hard backed copy at the local library on the For Sale table for $1.00!!  I bought it and started to regret the challenge when I looked at the tiny print and the 1168 pages.  I sat it aside for a few weeks, thinking, "yeah, right, I'm going to read that".  But, the challenge niggled at me and I began to read - and read - and read.

I understand that Ayn Rand's uptopia is peopled by those with a pragmatic objectivism philosophy, which some reviews consider to be selfishness.  I didn't get the selfishness part as such.  I interpreted her objective in writing this book as being AGAINST Socialism.  I felt this was demonstrated by the entire society's falling apart by all those that had made it having to give all they had to all those that hadn't made it.  As the thinkers and doers lost more and more of their livlihood to those contributing nothing at all and taking all that they could - these people formed a new society on the premise that you should do no work you do not love and you take absolutely nothing without paying for it in some way.  Therefore, everyone contributes to their society and that society becomes strong.  The original society was coming apart at the seams and eventually totally collapsed without the giants of industry to do everything for them.  Individuals in the original society were not allowed to think, nor did they want to.  I did NOT enjoy John Galt's Manifesto (Part 3, Chapter 7 "This is John Galt Speaking", pages 1000 - 1070 in my particular book).  After reading the chapter in its entirity, I seriously would recommend skipping about 68 pages of that chapter.  It's a drone and you'll get the point in the first 2 or 3 pages of that chapter, anyway!

This book seemed overwhelming in length and breadth, initially.  But, I am glad that I read Atlas Shrugged, because it really does make one think.  Think about things such as we have been under a President for almost 8 years that doesn't seem to want to think and our country and even the world seems to be in a really sorry shape.  I kept thinking, as I was reading the book, that perhaps the current administration had read this book and were trying out for the parts of the political system described within.  Heaven Help US!
81551
Yeah, what a great game! I can see a new approach was taken by the developers. Lets' make a game that DOESN'T work! Listen, more than two and a half hours was spent getting the damn thing to install only to find that the game wouldn't even load. Yeah, even downloaded the V1.2 patch but to no avail. A consumer should NEVER have to hunt down solutions so painstakingly, and customize their computer's settings so specifically, to make up for a developer's SHODDY PROGRAMMING STANDARDS. If you've got some spare change, spare time and alot of spare patience;

use it on something else and flush this log down the toilet.

If I were faced with a choice of two fates:

1) Entering a dark, damp, torture chamber filled with bloody instruments of medieval misery and agonistic screams of pain.

Or

2) A pleasant, clean, looking room with mood lighting and soft jazz with a computer with this vile game in it...

I would choose the first. At least I'd know what to expect.
3510386
I honestly do not get all the 5-star reviews on this product, and I feel somewhat misled by them, now that I have the item in hand. Let me explain in a bit more detail.

First, as stated in my title, this thing looks very nice. It's actually shinier and smoother than it looks in the product photos, which was a pleasant surprise when I first received it. Unfortunately, per the second part of my title, the elation was short lived. Why? This product is light as a feather and not at all in a good way. It feels way, way too light for what it is, to a point somewhere far beyond simply being cheap.

To put this into perspective, I have a smaller, somewhat obsolete USB 2.0 card reader that this one was meant to replace (I need to read SDHC and SDXC, which my old reader can't handle). That one is less than half the size of the GMYLE unit, but it weighs substantially more. My Bluetooth dongle weighs more than this thing, so do my flash drives. Worst of all, though, the USB 3.0 cable that comes with the GMYLE unit actually weighs about the same as the unit itself.

Estimates from a postal scale I had at home are pretty telling.

GMYLE card reader: 1.1 oz
Included USB 3.0 cord: 1.0 oz

I'm sorry but if that doesn't scream cheap, I don't know what else will convince you.

To add insult to injury, plugging the unit in (with no cards in it) showed me that it was also cheaply designed. Rather than adding a single drive letter when mounted, this device runs through every single type of card that it takes and mounts FIVE separate removable drive letters on your machine in on shot. I have never had any other card reader do anything so stupid. In fact, even the cheapest one that I own, mentioned above, doesn't even put a drive letter on my machine until I insert a flash card. To clutter up my PC with nearly half a dozen drive letters is really sloppy, lazy engineering on the part of whoever designed this abomination. I have no problem with a device that lets you insert multiple cards and move data between them, but for crying out loud, there's no need to mount a drive letter (much less FIVE!) until there's actual storage media inserted into the reader. Only the cheapest, garbage readers work this way and this one does it five times over!

The truth is, you get what you pay for and I took a chance on this thing and got burned. I destroyed the packaging so I'll probably just chalk this up to a learning experience, but I'd be remiss if I didn't share these details with other buyers. This reader may look nice and, judging by other reviews, it must be fast too, but that doesn't make up for all the shortcomings I've mentioned, not by a long shot. They could not have made this thing cheaper if they tried, and it shows in every single aspect of the product. I'm utterly disappointed and will never, ever, buy another GMYLE product.
3398396
I jumped for joy at this splendidly monstrous purchase.  However, my joy quickly turned to despair after I noticed one single solitary dead pixel in the upper right hand corner.  It was so distracting that 100% of my attention was focused on that pixel to the detriment of the rest of the screen.  Then my despair soon turned to grief when I realized how much it would cost to hire a crew of fedex workers to box this monolith up and return with a new one.