Slashdot Mirror

https://boingboing.net/2012/01...

The altered trajectory of an asteroid also doesn't create energy.

The author of this post posted another mathematical impossibility like the founder of boingboing.net. The amount of energy to contain nuclear fusion will always be more than the energy created by nuclear fusion.

I wish I has a microphone like Beau Hamilton (author of this post) and Mark Fraunfelder (founder of boingboing.net) for people.

in the nerd community. It's almost as if do that was profitable...

Seriously, you'd be better off ignoring them when this crap comes up. You're getting played.

What, are you unaware of the 192kHz, lossless, 32 bit sampled, audio codec used on YouTube? It's the only way to listen to YouTube, but do make sure your amplifier uses genuine wooden knobs, for the best listening experience of course.

Seriously? It's almost 2019 and you don't have a browser extension to bypass paywalls, and you're on /.?

https://boingboing.net/2018/11...

Meh. Come back when China's average person is as well off as a the US's average person. As a middle class member I'd rather be anywhere in the US than anywhere else in the world from an economic standpoint.

You'd like to live in San Francisco, for instance?

https://media.boingboing.net/w...

https://www.gospelherald.com/d...

Or maybe in a district with open pools of raw sewage?

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/41857...

The New York Times reports that Uber's autonomous vehicles require human intervention every 13 miles, on average, while Google's go 5,600:

https://boingboing.net/2018/03...

Just remember, the head of the Justice Department is Trump's new appointee Matthew Whittaker, who was a patent troll whose company was shut down for fraud and whose claim to fame was a toilet designed for guys with really big dicks and a time-traveling bitcoin-based commodity..

I did not make that up.

https://boingboing.net/2018/11...

https://theslot.jezebel.com/th...

So if you have a problem with Julian Assange being prosecuted, take it up with Hair Furor.

https://boingboing.net/2018/09... this was done to short-circuit the high likelyhood of unionization at Amazon factories, which could then risk spreading to the corporation as a whole (unionized developers, SRE's, managers.)

If anyone still happens upon this thread, you might want to look at this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world...

https://boingboing.net/2018/08...

Go get your shot. People who are warning against vaccines are not your friends.

There is no reason to trust either a tracker (a more honest name for a mobile phone or cell phone along the lines of the time-honored wisdom of calling things by their proper names—we should recognize what those devices do most). There is no reason to trust the Echo or Home spy speakers either. The same reason applies—users don't control their computers when those computers running proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software. There's nothing to be gained in a distraction over which computer is more trustworthy. The goal should be to respect all computer users' software freedom for all of their computers. No matter what network analysis reveals about any of the spy speakers today (and no matter how thorough the analysis is) because that result could be rendered obsolete as quickly as Amazon can get Echo devices to install a software update (the Amazon Echo appears to have a universal backdoor as it installs updates automatically). The FSF looked into this and remarked "We have found nothing explicitly documenting the lack of any way to disable remote changes to the software, so we are not completely sure there isn't one, but it seems pretty clear."

As for evidence of turning the Amazon Echo into a listening device, it appears this was done by a party other than Amazon. Again on this the FSF remarks, "It was very difficult for them to do this. The job would be much easier for Amazon. And if some government such as China or the US told Amazon to do this, or cease to sell the product in that country, do you think Amazon would have the moral fiber to say no?". Amazon is the same organization that remotely erased people's legally-acquired books about which the FSF remarked

One of the books erased was 1984, by George Orwell. Amazon responded to criticism by saying it would delete books only following orders from the state. However, that policy didn't last. In 2012 it wiped a user's Kindle-Swindle and deleted her account, then offered her kafkaesque "explanations."

The wisdom of software freedom—a user's freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software—remains apt and clear: proprietary software is untrustworthy by default.

There is no reason to trust either a tracker (a more honest name for a mobile phone or cell phone along the lines of the time-honored wisdom of calling things by their proper names—we should recognize what those devices do most). There is no reason to trust the Echo or Home spy speakers either. The same reason applies—users don't control their computers when those computers running proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software. There's nothing to be gained in a distraction over which computer is more trustworthy. The goal should be to respect all computer users' software freedom for all of their computers. No matter what network analysis reveals about any of the spy speakers today (and no matter how thorough the analysis is) because that result could be rendered obsolete as quickly as Amazon can get Echo devices to install a software update (the Amazon Echo appears to have a universal backdoor as it installs updates automatically). The FSF looked into this and remarked "We have found nothing explicitly documenting the lack of any way to disable remote changes to the software, so we are not completely sure there isn't one, but it seems pretty clear."

As for evidence of turning the Amazon Echo into a listening device, it appears this was done by a party other than Amazon. Again on this the FSF remarks, "It was very difficult for them to do this. The job would be much easier for Amazon. And if some government such as China or the US told Amazon to do this, or cease to sell the product in that country, do you think Amazon would have the moral fiber to say no?". Amazon is the same organization that remotely erased people's legally-acquired books about which the FSF remarked

One of the books erased was 1984, by George Orwell. Amazon responded to criticism by saying it would delete books only following orders from the state. However, that policy didn't last. In 2012 it wiped a user's Kindle-Swindle and deleted her account, then offered her kafkaesque "explanations."

The wisdom of software freedom—a user's freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software—remains apt and clear: proprietary software is untrustworthy by default.

A full year before his election I was reading a fresh new screed against Trump on boingboing every day and realized... "He's going to win isn't he?" Because he's captured mindshare. His name is out there like a drumbeat, every day. The media are utterly obsessed with him, and he is unavoidable and unforgettable. And why is that? Because he's great entertainment for the masses.

It's also possible to disable the copy protection entirely if the recipient is viewing the message in a web browser (although not as easy as taking a photo/screenshot). See Google DRM for Email can be disabled by ticking a few boxes in Firefox for instructions. Although the problem is that there's no way to prove that your photo / screenshot / print hasn't been manipulated, so might not hold up as evidence.

Walmart's digital services haven't worked out so good for consumers in the past. https://boingboing.net/2008/09...

Good Science demands proper verification through peer review and testing for safety and efficacy, that stance is not anti-science as the shills suggest. The pharmaceutical industry manages this, there is no good reason GMO should avoid this burden of proof. GMO offer great potential, but a disaster such thalidomide, DDT, asbestos could set progress back decades.

Then, your good science demands that the same rigorous tests and standards be applied to all food products.

Natural, Pesticide free, Organic, Cross pollination, grafting, Every single method of growing food. Some number of generations of humans to be certain that hidden issues might not crop up.

Because without some pre-defined standard of each item I challenge anyone to make an accurate claim that say, unaltered soybean oil is healthier than modified.

And then there is that bitch evolution. It doesn't take Monsanto and their stupid roundup ready party trick to make something that is bad for you.

Plain old accepted cross breeding can do that for ya. I present, the Lenape Potato: https://boingboing.net/2013/03...

Crafted by "acceptable" methods, This superior potato chip cultivar was the cross between the familiar russet potato and a Peruvian variety. It made a beautiful potato chip.

It was toxic. Solamine levels way too high

So there is a small, but non-zero chance that anything you eat might have made that genetic leap from wholesome, organic food to a killer veggie.

But reductio ad absurdum examples aside, it is not possible to make any accurate test of the safety of any GMO food without running the same tests on the non-GMO version of that same food.

Everyone ready for 50 dollar loaves of bread? The level of research to make a definitive conclusion at the levels demanded don't come cheap. It isn't difficult to figure out macro level toxicity, but finding out subtleties is a bit more pricey.

Saudi Arabia called, they want their Oil in control

They might want to start by getting a better press / twitter manager: (parenthetical mine)

A Saudi Arabian organization is apologizing after posting an image on Twitter appearing to show an Air Canada plane heading toward the CN Tower in a way that is reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. (article includes copy of said photo)

https://boingboing.net/2018/07...
Here's the scam. From Cory Doctorow

No need to ban GMO. Just clearly label it. No one will buy it, and the frankenfarmers will go out of business.

What is the definition of genetically modified?

I can't think of any thing that any one eats that is in it's pure original gene structure.

I suppose the closest we can get would be to subsist on algae. But that isn't very close.

Wheat, corn, soy have all been heavily modified. Some to the point where they cannot survive without human intervention.

You'll go off about gene spicing and microscopic manipulation. Problem is it's just the next step, moving a stage beyond the trial and error seed selection that selects for desirable traits. Both are genetic modification techniques.

Monsanto pulled a dick move with their Roundup Ready products, which only insure the combined problems of low level dosing of humans with herbicide and breeding superweeds.

But the mistake that anti-GM people make is trotting out a negative like Roundup Ready, and applying it to genetic modification performed for positive reasons, like nutrition, palatibility, harvest improvements and other aspects.

Finally, I present to you the Lenape potato. https://boingboing.net/2013/03... a beautiful potato created by genetic modification that people who are against genetic modification permit. A cross between Delta Gold Potatoes and a Peruvian potato, it was a thing of beauty. It was toxic.

Meanwhile, here's what the good people at the FCC are up to:

https://boingboing.net/2018/04...

Er... You realize that the Conservatives have been power since 2010, right? And that this is the result of their amendments to the Communications Act in 2013.

Also, SJWs oppose it: https://boingboing.net/2018/03...

Yeah, they probably bought and/or traded information with ISPs and Google and credit agencies, and other sources I've probably never heard of. They don't need 3rd party data any more.

This appears to probably have been caused by FOSTA, which Congress recently passed. That's why it appears that many sites are coordinating these changes - the government is forcing them to by holding websites responsible for users undertaking illegal activities. More details can be found here:
https://boingboing.net/2018/03/22/craigslist-personals-shut-down.html
with some additional links to the Reddit announcement, and an EFF announcement of how Congress is censoring the internet.

This just came across the transom. Apparently, Cambridge Analytica was doing more than just data mining for the Trump campaign.

https://boingboing.net/2018/03...

https://www.channel4.com/news/...

Because they have been caught installing spyware in the firmware.

Sounds like Sony.

Their response was "oh, that wasn't us, it was somebody else."

Oh, here is a difference. Sony was more like "screw you, we'll do it again"

Anyway. You aren't going to get a phone without spyware. What you should look out for depends on who you are and where you work.
Do the Chinese have interest in stealing your knowledge? If not then you can probably get a Huawei without worrying.
Are you dealing with information that US government agencies can use against you if you ever got in trouble with them? If not then you can probably get an American phone.
Note that the latter part only matters for things you keep on your phone. If you e-mail it in plaintext somewhere or transfer it through phone calls then it doesn't really matter what phone you have.

Comcast enjoys a virtual monopoly providing internet service in Vermont, thanks to a sweetheart deal with the State that was recently extended by 11 years.

It kind of makes you wonder why the State would make such a poor deal?? Outside of Burlington, there is no city with a population greater than 20,000... making it pretty much all last mile service.

Not to defend Comcast by any means, but the market in the State is meager enough that market protections like competition are not present. Perhaps these smaller States could give up a bit of sovereignty and band together to create a market providers could compete for.

Unless you think that general-purpose computing systems are going away (I don't)

Some people in favor of making computing safer for non-technical users by curating all publicly available software more thoroughly want the general-purpose computer to go away, with the exception of software development companies and software engineering departments of accredited postsecondary schools. See "Lockdown" by Cory Doctorow, "Civil War" by Cory Doctorow, and "On The War On General Purpose Computing" by Jon Evans.

Unless you think that general-purpose computing systems are going away (I don't)

Some people in favor of making computing safer for non-technical users by curating all publicly available software more thoroughly want the general-purpose computer to go away, with the exception of software development companies and software engineering departments of accredited postsecondary schools. See "Lockdown" by Cory Doctorow, "Civil War" by Cory Doctorow, and "On The War On General Purpose Computing" by Jon Evans.

It appears that all of the good stuff pointed to by the article (assuming this leap day article is the right one) has been taken down. :-(

I guess it's time for another run at using Linux as a proper DAW. It's been almost 2 years since my last try.

In other important tech news, the story just broke that Stormy Daniels spanked Trump with a rolled-up Forbes magazine during sex, while Melania was home with the newborn Barron Harkonnen. I figure we're a couple days away from Stormy talking about pegging Trump.

https://boingboing.net/2018/01...

You are aware that the idea of a "banana equivalent dose" has been thouroughly debunked, right? The net increase of radioactivity exposure from eating a banana is: zero

"The Potassium-40 in bananas is a particularly poor model isotope to use, Meggitt says, because the potassium content of our bodies seems to be under homeostatic control. When you eat a banana, your body's level of Potassium-40 doesn't increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero."

(source: https://boingboing.net/2010/08... )

I don't know if the famous "banana equivalent dose" is correct, however it is obviously not zero. Unless you pee while eating bananas, of course.

not sure if clickbait or fear-mongering.Go eat a banana then get tested for radiation. Bananas are an excellent natural source for Potassium, which is naturally radioactive. Radiation Dose Chart According to that chart, a banana is about the same dose as living within 50 miles of a normal reactor for a year.

You are aware that the idea of a "banana equivalent dose" has been thouroughly debunked, right? The net increase of radioactivity exposure from eating a banana is: zero

"The Potassium-40 in bananas is a particularly poor model isotope to use, Meggitt says, because the potassium content of our bodies seems to be under homeostatic control. When you eat a banana, your body's level of Potassium-40 doesn't increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero."

(source: https://boingboing.net/2010/08... )

I'm definitely richer at 59 than 9. Solved.

The real comparison is to my Dad, of course, 38 years older than I. I'm somewhat better off than he, but not much. Not really enough, considering I got two college degrees and he worked his way up to "engineer" from "surveyman" (when "engineer" was a job description, not always licensed) from only high school. He could afford to retire at the same age, actually had a bigger house. But my place is better located, and I'll be able to manage a little more travel. Much of that, however, comes from our inheritances from parents - he got almost nothing from his, same for my wife's parents.

A younger friend of mine who is about 60 years younger than my Dad, recently mentioned that when she wished aloud to just quit, her son joked she couldn't afford not to work unless she has a magic wand that makes money. Her nine-year-old was dead right. My parents never *needed* two incomes the way my friend does. Dad supported three kids, bought a 1600 sf. split level for us, took us on vacations to Disneyland and Mexico, had us all in an athletic club for the pool and skating rinks - on the salary of a highway construction engineer, never got past mid-level.

Oh, and all three of kid kids went to college, needing only summer jobs to pay the tuition; the only family expense was free rent and food.

As a report from Piketty's institute just confirmed ( https://boingboing.net/2017/12... ) "inequality in the Americas has been soaring since 1980", shortly after Dad retired. The Reagan/Thatcher Revolution ("Mulroney" here in Canada) won, and my young friend who can't quit her job, lost.

The article says the new highway will have transparent concrete over the solar panels. Google didn't find much for me on "transparent concrete", but "translucent concrete" finds stuff.

http://illumin.usc.edu/245/translucent-concrete-an-emerging-material/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translucent_concrete

P.S. I found the above by first searching for "transparent concrete" and Google found a BoingBoing article with only a little info. But after reading the introductory sentence I searched for "translucent concrete Aron Losonczi" and found lots of stuff.

I absolutely do not understand why anyone would consider embedding solar panels underneath clear concrete[1] for a road.

I'm not an engineer but wouldn't the weight and/or vibrations from cars and trucks, over time, possibly mess up the electrical connections or the panels themselves? If so, how do you fix them... dig everything up, throw away everything, install brand-new panels?

If you figure it makes sense to combine solar power with roadways, why not invest in a really tall roof, and let the cars drive under the solar panels? The roof would keep rain and snow off the roads. If there's a wiring problem, workers could get to the wires and just fix them, or swap a faulty panel out. The roof angle could be chosen to help collect sunlight; under-the-road panels you don't have any choice of angle, the panels must be flat. And all the panels would get sunlight all the time, rather than being shaded as vehicles drive over the panel.

In my state there is a section of an Interstate highway that has a tall roof on it; I think it has something to do with winter snow. (The highway department does avalanche control there from time to time in winter.) So I know this sort of roof is at least possible.

Building a roof tall enough for all possible highway traffic sounds annoying and expensive to me, and yet it still sounds like a better idea than burying solar panels and driving on them.

[1] I didn't even know clear concrete is a thing. Google doesn't return much about it but I did find a 2004 BoingBoing article that has two dead links about it.

They seem insertion-sized

That is absolutely intended. It leads to some weird reviews on Amazon, where it's clear they are discussing how suitable the phone is for insertion.

https://boingboing.net/2017/02/27/ring-ring-buttphone.html

No, not "beat the boss". Beat the B.O.S.S., as in Bodily Orifice Security Scanner, a chair-type scanner used in U.K. prisons to find contraband smuggled up peoples' bums. https://boingboing.net/2017/02...

Please provide a source where anyone at the FCC said that anti-NN consumer comments in any form (much less ones from bots) drove their decision to any degree. Thanks.

There's no indication that the FCC cared in any way about comments from the public.

But someone sure went to a lot of effort to post over a million anti-Net Neutrality comments to the FCC using stolen identities a bot network.

https://boingboing.net/2017/11...

Portuguese ISPs are already charging people extra each month on top of their base rate if those customers want unfettered access to popular sites. It was even reported here just a few weeks ago. The only reason someone with an account at Slashdot, such as yourself, wouldn't be aware of these sorts of examples is if you're intentionally burying your head in the sand.

Now, if you're asking for a US-specific example, you won't find them, because—despite the false narrative to the contrary—net neutrality has been around in the US from the start of the world wide web, preventing exactly these sorts of shenanigans from happening.

Originally, net neutrality was enforced because dial-up and DSL ISPs—which are classified as common carriers, meaning that they have to treat all data equally—were how we connected to the Internet. Later, even though the cable ISPs weren't under any legal obligation to respect net neutrality, they did so anyway because they weren't in a position to abandon net neutrality while remaining competitive with common carrier ISPs. Eventually, however, the cable ISPs became dominant, so they began to take advantage of their lack of competition and lack of regulation, which is when we saw Comcast and others begin engaging in various shenanigans (e.g. charging sites like Netflix extra to deliver packets that their customers were already paying Comcast to deliver).

Thankfully, the FCC reclassified the cable companies as common carriers within a few years, meaning that the cable ISPs came under the exact same regulations that every ISP prior to them in the history of the Internet had been regulated under, namely, that they would be compelled to respect net neutrality, the same as all others before them.

Frankly, despite being a registered Republican who never voted for Obama, I'm sick and tired of the false narrative "my" side has been spinning about net neutrality, and it sickened me when it became a politicized, partisan issue after Obama voiced his support for net neutrality. "My" side has been suggesting it's an unconscionable form of heavy-handed regulation enacted by a dictatorial President, when the truth of the matter is that the FCC was simply closing a loophole that allowed newcomers (the cable ISPs) to avoid regulations that had been in place from the very first days of the world wide web.

Seedship.

There are also native mobile versions of this space exploration game.

What USB hardware vulnerabilities do you know about?

One exploit I remember from a few years back is a custom USB device emulating a keyboard and mouse can issue commands via keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks.

Another one is emulating a network adapter to intercept and alter network traffic.

First off, we don't have laissez-faire capitalism

But you can't deny it's a lot more laissez-faire than the Nordic model.

Second off, these problems have little to do with economics, in fact we've already tried throwing lots of money at these kinds of people, and it didn't work.

What's that? Just throwing money at a problem without actually changing the underlying socioeconomic model that caused the issue in the first place doesn't fix the problem? Who could have predicted??

It's interesting that you say this, because things have only been improving. Pick any metric you want:

I can pick 5 things straight off the bat that haven't been improving:

1. Cost of housing.

2. Healthcare costs.

3. Income inequality. The majority of wages have stagnated while only those at the top have seen their wages increase. Stagnant wages combined with increasing the living costs above is leaving far more lower and middle income families in a precarious position.

4. Incarceration rate.

5. Maternal mortality rate.

So if we follow your assertion, then a more unrestricted economic model is improving life for Americans. The reality is much more nuanced than that, but you're the idiot who made this statement.

Your assertion that things have been improving across the board is demonstrably wrong and there is clearly plenty of room for improvement.

There are much better solutions for eInk note taking and drawing than a device that requires/runs windows 10.
E.g. from http://www.remarkable.com/ or the NoteTable/NoteSlate from https://boingboing.net/2011/03...
There are plenty with pressure sensitive surfaces, or a combined device, the Lenovo Yoga Book (colour screen, keyboard that doubles as digitizing device, and you can write on paper while the device digitizes it)

Take another look at the bigger picture of the current copyright system:

• Publishers keep trying to shove inferior products and services down consumers' throats because copyright essentially outlaws direct competition in the media market.
• Publishers keep ripping off both consumers and authors.
• Copyright enforcement tools provided by online platforms (as required by law) are frequently abused by trolls to silence political speech.
• Copyright is increasingly being abused to restrict ownership of physical property.

The current copyright system is an evolutionary dead end. There is no way to improve it that would fix the above problems. The only way forward is to redesign the whole system from scratch.

Doctorow called it. "The coming war on general purpose computing".

I think by now most slashdotters realize that Elon is a bit of an asshat. In theory, military leaders could decide to put too much faith in AI-driven tanks, bombers, etc. too soon, but while it may make an interesting plot device in a book or a movie, IRL military leaders are much more risk-averse (which is definitely a good thing).

When it comes to AI, I would be more worried about terrorists trying to build a deadly version of this:
https://boingboing.net/2012/03...

It's not like a suicide bomber would consider any target something like this might shoot to be the "wrong" target, so the AI could be complete crap and still have the desired effect. As long as they could make it rack up a high body count and generate a lot of fear, it would be considered a great success.

an artifact of what Black Culture has become (gangsta, edgy).

Have you seen what White Culture has become?

https://media.boingboing.net/w...

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/...

https://o.aolcdn.com/images/di...

Owh, i can FEEL the love again, zee russians and chinese ? did the army take over slashdot since Trump got the drones now ? i kinda feel a shift ... zee russians did not create al qaeda and zee chinese (as far as i know arent actually invading or bombing anywhere or anyone outside their borders so one could say mind your own business there ? unless you're edisonian mindset) but im too tired to be accused of anti american(-ism) i gte nauseous at the sound of -isms but face it guys .. your united loobies of the free world ? johnson ? bush ? bush ? trump ? you DO have a real grand talent for p.r. there, if you didnt have that army you would clearly be wiped off the continent by now cos you're so agreeable in world politics and north america would belong to the horses (well you wiped out the natives, right ? you fleeing eurotrash /chucklez ... i LURV to ruffle me some patriot meth heads i cant help it, be they black or white ( i hear muslim is the new black is that right ? dont worry im not but baby jesus not my friend either .... rated off-topic and trump will gag you cos in soviet america wwe censor legallyhahah) so ... yea indeed, as far as i know i always hear about these superl33t russian and chinese hackers and you gonna put up a botnet AGAINST them ? Ah wait, microsoft, the guys with the operating system that got vetoed for government use for being swiss NSA-cheese by the german stasi ... who cant fix its own memory leaks only by adding more until the pc crashes under the weight of the os is going to answer to the fancy bears ?) pardon my sarcasm but you're kinda feeding it .... tons
you gonna deploy a botnet of killer drones with a usb-port ? wifi maybe ? lol
sorry, but LOL o and http://boingboing.net/2017/04/... https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... i already read similar comments and indeed, why the fuck would you need to jam it if dennis the menace can use a slingshot ? DUDE ??? your excess of money kills your creativity (wereas in my case lack of it drowns it in vitriol) im NOT anti american, im anti idiot

These are illuminating in regard to any discussion of the economic impact of the minimum wage:

http://thehill.com/homenews/ho...

"Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said Monday that House and Senate lawmakers should receive a $2,500 per month housing allowance — something he explained would help ease housing costs for members who can’t afford two mortgages or rents."

And this:

https://boingboing.net/2017/06...

"Rep Jeb Hensarling [R-TX/+1 202 225-3484/@RepHensarling] is the sponsor of HR 10, the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017, which will ban investors from putting petitions to the shareholders and board of publicly traded companies, except when investors own more than 1% of the company for at least three years."

maybe you should read the following and re-assess the character of your president : http://boingboing.net/2017/06/...