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> Can you provide an alternative service that is "focused on end-to-end user security"?

No. That's partly because the barrier to entry is so high, which I did mention. So services like a Skype replacement, or full blown custmer-privacy-centered services, are quite difficult to get started. And services like Dropbox admit, themselves, that they are not immune from subpoenas. (See https://www.dropbox.com/transp... for what little they're permitted to publish about search warrants or subpoenas.)

I may have been unclear. "Good luck with that" getting a good quality, genuinely effective customer privacy ensuring technology and service off the ground.

What happened to all the penguins---are they no longer on Slashdot anymore? How about these reasons to like Dropbox over MS, Google, and the others:

- Linux client

That's what I thought also when deciding on Dropbox over Google Drive for my employer. However, pairing business and personal accounts isn't supported on Linux, nor have Dropbox committed to supporting it. So while they do provide a native Linux client, and you didn't write "linux support", I wouldn't be too surprised if that support deteriorated even more in the time ahead.

I've realised why people keep saying this - they're using FlightAware, which uses low resolution data, unlike FlightRadar24 which uses 1 minute resolution data. So, people have the choice of using low resolution lat/lon pairs, or 1 minute timestamped lat/lon data which also contains course, speed, altitude and ATC zone. Whether people are are using rubbish data to support their hypothesis out of ignorance or malice doesn't matter - it's rubbish data.

If you now look at FlightAware's website - they show the known track in green, and fill in the unknown track with a great circle. In fact their [ADS-B, I think] data appears to stop around the Poland-Ukraine border in all cases:
15th May
16th May
17th May

Compare this to the high resolution data I downloaded from FlightRadar24 - I overlaid all the tracks in Google Earth:
All MH17 flights since 14th May
You can see from the image a myriad of data-points, something that is missing from the FlightAware data.

As for the altitude - FL350 was requested and refused - I can't comment on why, but there are plenty of reasons - congestion, weather, etc. However if you're planning to shoot down a civilian airliner with an SA-11 (which has a altitude range of 60 - 25,000 metres), then a difference of 600 metres isn't going to make a difference.

I've realised why people keep quoting this. FlightAware provides a low resolution track of the flights - about 100 points* for a flight between Amsterdam and KL. FlightRadar24 provide a track with a 1 minute resolution (~600 points, with large sections missing where there is no ADS-B or MLAT coverage).

* They now seem to have slightly improved resolution, but now highlight where the track is actually known. Check for yourself - the tracks where data is available is in green, then they draw a great circle where the track is unknown.
MH17 2014-07-15
MH17 2014-07-16
MH17 2014-07-17

This is the data I originally compiled from FlightRadar24 - All MH17 flights since 14th May - and as you can see, they have data points provided every minute, as opposed to guessing where the aircraft was.

Basically, you've a choice of using a website that provides low resolution lat/lon pairs (FlightAware), or a website that provides timestamped lat/lon data, along with speed, course, altitude and area (FlightRadar). If you're going to use rubbish data to support a hypothesis, you'll end up with a rubbish hypothesis. In fact, you're doing it wrong if you need to use rubbish data to "prove" your hypothesis.

As for the altitude, it's true that the pilots request FL350, but were refused - this could have been for any given reason - congestion (apparently there have already been reports of near misses over Russia due to congestion due to aircraft avoiding Ukraine airspace - I'm trying to find where I read that), weather (which has been suggested by a pilot's group). However seeing as an SA-11 has an altitude range of 60 - 25,000m, 600m isn't going to make a difference if you're attempting to shoot down a civilian airliner.

Have a look at this image - A track of all MH17's flights since May 14 - Id definiteyly wasn't rerouted into a dangerous area - it flew the same route over and over again (which incidentally is very close to the great circle between Amsterdam and KL).

And no clue this is rerouted civilian plane...

I beg to differ with the assertation that it was rerouted - I heard that it was much further North (by 300mi) from somebody on the BBC, so decided to check. I downloaded all the tracks from flightradar24, and imported them into Google Earth - the red track is the final flight, and the popup is the final placemark. You'll also see that the tracks were all within 110km zone, and the final flight was bang in the middle. The track to the South was the 27th May flight.

Google Earth of MH17 flights since May 14

You are flailing around without a clue. You have no shame and will just say anything, no matter how baseless, no matter how nonsensical. It would be fun to watch if it wasn't so embarrassing.

Here the link to the code they released. They made it available to Zeke Hausfather who made it available to everyone else.

Regarding the 17 year "plateau" that you deny, apparently you can't interpret a graph, don't know what 'statistical significance' means, and Nature isn't good enough for you either. Right off the top of my head, here's a paper that tries to explain the "hiatus". According to your insightful analysis there is nothing to explain.

I've provided links directly to the temperature data, yet you accuse me of making it up and plucking those figures out of my ass. It is obvious that you are in a state of denial. How ironic that a global warming supporter denies what the data says and denies the scientific journals (when it suits him). Your behaviour here contributes to my thesis. Thank you for your time.

Wow, I'd say "intriguing" describes that best. Seedy world.

(FYI, your dropbox link had an 'i' appended; the working link is https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6or... )

FWIW, here's my archive from backups...
  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ath...

TrueCrypt 7.1a original source, binaries, signatures and public signing key plus PDF of the 7.1a audit paper
torrent: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mozg...
25MB total
Select which file(s) to download with most torrent clients.

I'm plan to seed for the foreseeable future.

I'm glad you asked.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cbkc...

  Pages 12-14 contain full list of references for the data. Earlier pages provide analysis and discussion of the data.

I'm glad you asked. Pages 12-14 contain full list of references.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cbkc...

> Or hydro, or geothermal, or wind, or lots of other things.

You couldn't think of the "lots of other things" because you actually pretty well covered it - geothermal and wind are the two "alternative" sources other than solar*. Each of the three, especially wind and geothermal, can make an important contribution. There is a full exposition in the paper linked above, but each of the three can provide for 3%-5% of our energy needs. Combined, they can reduce fossil fuel use by 9.6%, which is quite significant.

* Maybe one day biomass will become significant, but it hasn't yet. There's ethanol in gas, but that actually reduces fuel economy enough that the net energy production is roughly zero after including the energy to produce the ethanol. Ethanol is a serviceable oxygen donor in gasoline to replace MTBE, but not currently a net energy producer outside of Brazil.

Somewhat related, I just discovered dropbox also updated their privacy policy effective since March 24.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/ar...

Not sure who's reading: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t9zd...

Here's a visualization of the MCT Heavy Lift Vehicles, to scale with the existing Falcon 9 and the under-construction Falcon 9 Heavy. (Rocket designation is fictional, of course.) The visualization includes possible cargo shrouds.

Yes, this monster will have a larger lift capacity than the Saturn V. Each individual Raptor is less capable than an F-1 engine, but there will be nine of them, rather than five.

Their Government Data Requests Principles is a catalogue of the things they're forced to do that they don't like. The last one on that list would seem to apply to China (but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they've been forced to bend over on this one by US and other Western countries as well).

Hi! I'd like to give some feedback as part of the 'early 20's' age-group, which I have to infer is part of the 'wider audience' you're looking to target.

First, I need to share how I ended up here instead of places like reddit, Digg, etc (which were 'things' at my time). I was an intern going to work at a large corporation for the first time, not really knowing much about the tech world or the people surrounding it. Sure, I had a facebook account and occasionally visited some other sites on the web, but for the most part I didn't bother with the news sites, even though I had browsed several (and various blogs).

I eventually ended up discussing technology and other aspects with my mid-30's boss, who realized I didn't have a good source for informed and intellectual conversations about technological topics. Do you know what he recommended? That I start to read Slashdot. And so I hopped on here ~ 5 years ago, and stuck around for reasons I'll get into later.

The important part of all of this is that it was the current community that brought me in. It was my boss recommending a site, not my own searches through the internet, that brought me here. I highly doubt that I'm alone in this regard. So I want to emphasize it once more: new users are brought in by the community.

So, why did I stay? I browsed for a while, reading comments and articles (I even read most of the articles when I started out). But the articles themselves weren't all that interesting, especially because I could find them elsewhere 4 days in advance. It was the comments. Being able to see and read well thought-out and reasoned viewpoints about topics, to learn about entirely new ideas in layman's terms, to have a system which makes discussions easy to follow in addition to promoting the meaningful comments (as opposed to reddit, which over-emphasizes upvotes and turns commenting into a contest). Nowhere else does this, reddit gets lost in upvote wars/groupthink, ars technica's comment system is appalling, CNN and pop-sci are populated by people who pride themselves on ignorance, etc. Slashdot is thee only place where once can come for these types of conversations.

In short, as so many other posters have already summarized, it is the commenting interface, and community around it, that makes Slashdot. As long as that stay intact, Slashdot will be ok.

So, with that background, a comparison of the current and beta sites:

Before I get into the main problem, I have to wonder what happened to noh8rz10's comment in the beta? It's very clearly formatted in classic, yet somehow that formatting got blown away in beta. You might want to look into that.

The major issue is the substantial increase in white-space. For example, in the classic picture above, one can plainly see 5 different comments (complete with sigs!), while the beta barely shows 4 (and no sigs). What this does is 'space out' the conversations and make them harder to follow, because one now has to spend even more time searching for them (scrolling up, down, etc).

The bigger whitespace problem, however, is the horizontal space. Conversations on Slashdot go well into 10's and 20's of replies, meaning that if there isn't enough space they'll become incredibly cramped and hard to read. As an example of a thread that's only 5-6 replies deep:
beta
current
The beta can literally only fit 2 posts! The current designs gets 5! Cutting out all that space on the right cramps the posts into an almost illegible format, with the benefit of showing absolutely nothing to the side! This isn't even deep into the replies!

This is THE problem because it stands to kill conversat

Hi! I'd like to give some feedback as part of the 'early 20's' age-group, which I have to infer is part of the 'wider audience' you're looking to target.

First, I need to share how I ended up here instead of places like reddit, Digg, etc (which were 'things' at my time). I was an intern going to work at a large corporation for the first time, not really knowing much about the tech world or the people surrounding it. Sure, I had a facebook account and occasionally visited some other sites on the web, but for the most part I didn't bother with the news sites, even though I had browsed several (and various blogs).

I eventually ended up discussing technology and other aspects with my mid-30's boss, who realized I didn't have a good source for informed and intellectual conversations about technological topics. Do you know what he recommended? That I start to read Slashdot. And so I hopped on here ~ 5 years ago, and stuck around for reasons I'll get into later.

The important part of all of this is that it was the current community that brought me in. It was my boss recommending a site, not my own searches through the internet, that brought me here. I highly doubt that I'm alone in this regard. So I want to emphasize it once more: new users are brought in by the community.

So, why did I stay? I browsed for a while, reading comments and articles (I even read most of the articles when I started out). But the articles themselves weren't all that interesting, especially because I could find them elsewhere 4 days in advance. It was the comments. Being able to see and read well thought-out and reasoned viewpoints about topics, to learn about entirely new ideas in layman's terms, to have a system which makes discussions easy to follow in addition to promoting the meaningful comments (as opposed to reddit, which over-emphasizes upvotes and turns commenting into a contest). Nowhere else does this, reddit gets lost in upvote wars/groupthink, ars technica's comment system is appalling, CNN and pop-sci are populated by people who pride themselves on ignorance, etc. Slashdot is thee only place where once can come for these types of conversations.

In short, as so many other posters have already summarized, it is the commenting interface, and community around it, that makes Slashdot. As long as that stay intact, Slashdot will be ok.

So, with that background, a comparison of the current and beta sites:

Before I get into the main problem, I have to wonder what happened to noh8rz10's comment in the beta? It's very clearly formatted in classic, yet somehow that formatting got blown away in beta. You might want to look into that.

The major issue is the substantial increase in white-space. For example, in the classic picture above, one can plainly see 5 different comments (complete with sigs!), while the beta barely shows 4 (and no sigs). What this does is 'space out' the conversations and make them harder to follow, because one now has to spend even more time searching for them (scrolling up, down, etc).

The bigger whitespace problem, however, is the horizontal space. Conversations on Slashdot go well into 10's and 20's of replies, meaning that if there isn't enough space they'll become incredibly cramped and hard to read. As an example of a thread that's only 5-6 replies deep:
beta
current
The beta can literally only fit 2 posts! The current designs gets 5! Cutting out all that space on the right cramps the posts into an almost illegible format, with the benefit of showing absolutely nothing to the side! This isn't even deep into the replies!

This is THE problem because it stands to kill conversat

Hi! I'd like to give some feedback as part of the 'early 20's' age-group, which I have to infer is part of the 'wider audience' you're looking to target.

First, I need to share how I ended up here instead of places like reddit, Digg, etc (which were 'things' at my time). I was an intern going to work at a large corporation for the first time, not really knowing much about the tech world or the people surrounding it. Sure, I had a facebook account and occasionally visited some other sites on the web, but for the most part I didn't bother with the news sites, even though I had browsed several (and various blogs).

I eventually ended up discussing technology and other aspects with my mid-30's boss, who realized I didn't have a good source for informed and intellectual conversations about technological topics. Do you know what he recommended? That I start to read Slashdot. And so I hopped on here ~ 5 years ago, and stuck around for reasons I'll get into later.

The important part of all of this is that it was the current community that brought me in. It was my boss recommending a site, not my own searches through the internet, that brought me here. I highly doubt that I'm alone in this regard. So I want to emphasize it once more: new users are brought in by the community.

So, why did I stay? I browsed for a while, reading comments and articles (I even read most of the articles when I started out). But the articles themselves weren't all that interesting, especially because I could find them elsewhere 4 days in advance. It was the comments. Being able to see and read well thought-out and reasoned viewpoints about topics, to learn about entirely new ideas in layman's terms, to have a system which makes discussions easy to follow in addition to promoting the meaningful comments (as opposed to reddit, which over-emphasizes upvotes and turns commenting into a contest). Nowhere else does this, reddit gets lost in upvote wars/groupthink, ars technica's comment system is appalling, CNN and pop-sci are populated by people who pride themselves on ignorance, etc. Slashdot is thee only place where once can come for these types of conversations.

In short, as so many other posters have already summarized, it is the commenting interface, and community around it, that makes Slashdot. As long as that stay intact, Slashdot will be ok.

So, with that background, a comparison of the current and beta sites:

Before I get into the main problem, I have to wonder what happened to noh8rz10's comment in the beta? It's very clearly formatted in classic, yet somehow that formatting got blown away in beta. You might want to look into that.

The major issue is the substantial increase in white-space. For example, in the classic picture above, one can plainly see 5 different comments (complete with sigs!), while the beta barely shows 4 (and no sigs). What this does is 'space out' the conversations and make them harder to follow, because one now has to spend even more time searching for them (scrolling up, down, etc).

The bigger whitespace problem, however, is the horizontal space. Conversations on Slashdot go well into 10's and 20's of replies, meaning that if there isn't enough space they'll become incredibly cramped and hard to read. As an example of a thread that's only 5-6 replies deep:
beta
current
The beta can literally only fit 2 posts! The current designs gets 5! Cutting out all that space on the right cramps the posts into an almost illegible format, with the benefit of showing absolutely nothing to the side! This isn't even deep into the replies!

This is THE problem because it stands to kill conversat

Hi! I'd like to give some feedback as part of the 'early 20's' age-group, which I have to infer is part of the 'wider audience' you're looking to target.

First, I need to share how I ended up here instead of places like reddit, Digg, etc (which were 'things' at my time). I was an intern going to work at a large corporation for the first time, not really knowing much about the tech world or the people surrounding it. Sure, I had a facebook account and occasionally visited some other sites on the web, but for the most part I didn't bother with the news sites, even though I had browsed several (and various blogs).

I eventually ended up discussing technology and other aspects with my mid-30's boss, who realized I didn't have a good source for informed and intellectual conversations about technological topics. Do you know what he recommended? That I start to read Slashdot. And so I hopped on here ~ 5 years ago, and stuck around for reasons I'll get into later.

The important part of all of this is that it was the current community that brought me in. It was my boss recommending a site, not my own searches through the internet, that brought me here. I highly doubt that I'm alone in this regard. So I want to emphasize it once more: new users are brought in by the community.

So, why did I stay? I browsed for a while, reading comments and articles (I even read most of the articles when I started out). But the articles themselves weren't all that interesting, especially because I could find them elsewhere 4 days in advance. It was the comments. Being able to see and read well thought-out and reasoned viewpoints about topics, to learn about entirely new ideas in layman's terms, to have a system which makes discussions easy to follow in addition to promoting the meaningful comments (as opposed to reddit, which over-emphasizes upvotes and turns commenting into a contest). Nowhere else does this, reddit gets lost in upvote wars/groupthink, ars technica's comment system is appalling, CNN and pop-sci are populated by people who pride themselves on ignorance, etc. Slashdot is thee only place where once can come for these types of conversations.

In short, as so many other posters have already summarized, it is the commenting interface, and community around it, that makes Slashdot. As long as that stay intact, Slashdot will be ok.

So, with that background, a comparison of the current and beta sites:

Before I get into the main problem, I have to wonder what happened to noh8rz10's comment in the beta? It's very clearly formatted in classic, yet somehow that formatting got blown away in beta. You might want to look into that.

The major issue is the substantial increase in white-space. For example, in the classic picture above, one can plainly see 5 different comments (complete with sigs!), while the beta barely shows 4 (and no sigs). What this does is 'space out' the conversations and make them harder to follow, because one now has to spend even more time searching for them (scrolling up, down, etc).

The bigger whitespace problem, however, is the horizontal space. Conversations on Slashdot go well into 10's and 20's of replies, meaning that if there isn't enough space they'll become incredibly cramped and hard to read. As an example of a thread that's only 5-6 replies deep:
beta
current
The beta can literally only fit 2 posts! The current designs gets 5! Cutting out all that space on the right cramps the posts into an almost illegible format, with the benefit of showing absolutely nothing to the side! This isn't even deep into the replies!

This is THE problem because it stands to kill conversat

This document has a table of the exact numbers before and after, with links to the official sources:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wok85h6ctfwjwam/comp1_assignment2_evaluative.odt

I have a $40 digital microscope from eBay.

It's top heavy, so I inserted a rare earth magnet in the base and covered over with felt. It now solidly sticks to metal surfaces. It's also manual aim and manual focus, with no staging. This can be a pain for certain applications.

I use it for surface examination when I'm experimenting with process - such as processes for making PCBs. Here's an example. I take pics of the final result and create a LibreOffice word page describing the details of the process and how well it worked out. This goes into my lab notebook.

Here's another example.

For medium magnifications it's pretty useful, and I like being able to grab digital pics on my computer and annotate, save notes, and send to people (like in the post above).

I have a $40 digital microscope from eBay.

It's top heavy, so I inserted a rare earth magnet in the base and covered over with felt. It now solidly sticks to metal surfaces. It's also manual aim and manual focus, with no staging. This can be a pain for certain applications.

I use it for surface examination when I'm experimenting with process - such as processes for making PCBs. Here's an example. I take pics of the final result and create a LibreOffice word page describing the details of the process and how well it worked out. This goes into my lab notebook.

Here's another example.

For medium magnifications it's pretty useful, and I like being able to grab digital pics on my computer and annotate, save notes, and send to people (like in the post above).

Do outliers skew the results? If the outliers are biased, then that may tell us something about the underlying population. If they aren't biased, then their effects cancel.

There's no algorithm that will identify the outliers in this example.

But random data would generate statistically insignificant correlation coefficients. Also, the 95% confidence intervals used to predict values are wider for random data.

What value of correlation coefficient distinguishes pattern data from random data in this image?

What's the smallest etch resist you've been able to work with?

I don't make boards with my printer, my post was an overview of things other people are doing with the inkjet process. Google "inkjet PCB" will return lots of hobbyist sites that talk about it, such as this one.

I understand that laying down etch resist is a bit harder than my post would imply. The inkjet is accurate enough that the drops form a mosaic of circles with voids between, so the board has to be heated while printing (or after) to get the wax to flow-cover continuously. Also, prepping the board takes some experimentation to find the right method.

I use toner transfer, and can get roughly 8 mil traces, poorly. I haven't yet found the magical incantation to get good, high-quality traces with this method - or maybe I'm the only one looking at the results under a microscope. I suspect it depends heavily on the type of printer used.

What's the smallest etch resist you've been able to work with?

I don't make boards with my printer, my post was an overview of things other people are doing with the inkjet process. Google "inkjet PCB" will return lots of hobbyist sites that talk about it, such as this one.

I understand that laying down etch resist is a bit harder than my post would imply. The inkjet is accurate enough that the drops form a mosaic of circles with voids between, so the board has to be heated while printing (or after) to get the wax to flow-cover continuously. Also, prepping the board takes some experimentation to find the right method.

I use toner transfer, and can get roughly 8 mil traces, poorly. I haven't yet found the magical incantation to get good, high-quality traces with this method - or maybe I'm the only one looking at the results under a microscope. I suspect it depends heavily on the type of printer used.

My setup is an SSH server running off an old iMac G4 connected to some external hard drives. Aside from having to manually turn it back on after a power outage, I haven't had to do a damn thing to "maintain" it in years. The cost of the machine is a non-issue--just retire any obsolete computer (can even be a laptop--I know, I've done it). The most expensive part is the HDs, but a 1TB external HD is much cheaper than a year of 500GB storage on Dropbox.

And, because nobody asked for it, but I might as well while I'm playing, re-skinned the comments section to look a little more familiar. Stylish preset is now on pastebin.

Oh, and with the extra width, the "Hero" images don't look as stupid either (After a tiny bit of tweaking). The frontpage images also float nicely, with a touch more tweaking.

Oh, and with the extra width, the "Hero" images don't look as stupid either (After a tiny bit of tweaking). The frontpage images also float nicely, with a touch more tweaking.

It's not THAT hard to do. Just look at how much nicer this appears with that whitespace zapped. It's not perfect (The width value in the CSS has to be modified 'cause the source is in the wrong order - if that right bar came first in the HTML, the CSS for it could be set "float: right" and the main area just set "width: auto" and all would be perfect, including comments flowing underneath), but for now it's a touch better.

If anyone wants a stylish patch for the changes I've made, let me know. :)

Dropbox is just a VAR for Amazon S3, so it couldn't possibly be cheaper. Most people don't know that half of Silicon Valley is running off Amazon AWS.

Dropbox for business is $795/yr with no limit on storage or transfer. Maybe there's some hidden caps that they don't publish, but otherwise that seems significantly cheaper than Amazon.

(1) GP's description is pretty accurate.

Only if we're talking about the mobile version. The desktop version does not have a 'make available offline' function. Neither does the web version. It wouldn't really make sense.

(2) The fact that almost all of them work that way doesn't mean it's good.

Well, I've been annoyed with the way the mobile versions work too (which is why I use DropSync), but the rationale for it apparently is that it is hard to sync a lot of files without sucking the battery dry very fast. See Grady O.'s last comment here: https://www.dropbox.com/votebox/613/add-sd-card-syncronisation-for-android-phones#votebox:1
(This, even though Dropbox tells us it has to do with minimizing our data usage on their website: "This prevents Dropbox from consuming all of the bandwidth and space for your mobile device.")

No more than when Apollo 8 mission coverage caused folks to freak out for interrupting a football game.

Back then a phone call wasn't cheap either.

Fair question! I've not been able to track down a source which exactly matches my understanding; ruling C-157/03 appears to deal with some related aspects, and this analysis of Directive 2004/38/EC (not a brilliant source without provenance) in section 8.2 talks about the elimination of "residence cards" for foreign EU citizens. That's the best I've been able to find in about 45 minutes.

Dropbox only ever gets cyphertext (which it might wrap another layer around for extra security), and if the FBI hands them a warrant, they've got nothing useful to hand over.

Assuming I understand what you are claiming, which I am not sure of, according to Dropbox that is categorically incorrect. "Dropbox applies encryption to your files after they have been uploaded, and we manage the encryption keys ... As set forth in our privacy policy, and in compliance with United States law, Dropbox cooperates with United States law enforcement when it receives valid legal process, which may require Dropbox to provide the contents of your private Dropbox. In these cases, Dropbox will remove Dropbox’s encryption from the files before providing them to law enforcement."

If instead you mean that you pre-encrypt your data yourself, then clearly it doesn't matter what any third party's policy is (such as Dropbox). You could just as well chisel the encrypted data on the Washington monument and nobody else could decrypt it.

With SpiderOak, you do not have to worry about going to the trouble of pre-encryption. Their software encapsulates that step and forces it on you. There is nothing to forget or screw up. SpiderOak's privacy policy is very different. It is essentially "Sorry NSA. We do not have the ability to decrypt; end of story."

If its all encrypted its safe

Not if they control the encryption key and it is shared among all users. But there are much better solutions than Dropbox. With SpiderOak your computer generates your own unique encryption key, it is at no point ever transmitted to their servers, and there is no way they can gain access to it.

I find it somewhat disappointing that despite the connectivity options we have today, we still so far from being able to access our own data in a secure and consistent manner that's easy for everyone. It's even more disappointing to see a company like Dropbox solving only the "consistent" and "easy" parts of it. I say it's disappointing because I have problems with the encryption scheme [1] and non-decentralized way they're currently doing things.

As it's been pointed out [2] and essentially beaten to death recently, these things may not matter a whole lot to most people now, I think you have be pretty optimistic to think they won't matter in the future.

[1] https://www.dropbox.com/help/28/en
[2] https://medium.com/surveillance-state/b804de3b5b

You're about 13 years too late on that one: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v986375yh46uvvc/dilbert-patent.gif

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/144888/wordpress/2011-03-16-commodore/c64.ttf

I've been in Thailand (& Laos) for twenty years. Now most of my work is done through the Internet, even for local companies. Living costs are low. A Company puts money into my bank, the ATM card takes it out. Work at home means long hours with lots of breaks. Rural Thailand is wonderful. I jumped ship from California in 1990 and have never regretted it. But I live a Thai lifestyle, not an American lifestyle. More information at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/72291163/index.html . Cold water baths, no air conditioning, travel by bicycle or motorcycle or bus. No (English) computer books to speak of; all technical information through the Internet. I still read the news, but don't much care what that idiot government in Washington does. Eighteen years ago I decided I'd rather die in Thailand than live in the United States. I have had seven children; my children have had five mothers. Every time I say this some lady in the crowd raises her hand and shouts "NUMBER SIX! NUMBER SIX". Two kids are in America; the other five were all born in The Land Of Smiles. Sometimes I have a little bit of money, so I can eat. Sometimes I have a lot of money; some Thai lady comes along, and goes away, and I have a little bit of money left, so I can eat. No problem, no worry, no stress.

Your solution is almost in-hand!

I long-ago created a solution that you will find useful, although created for my own self at the time, in a similar situation.

Play the MP3 "Gray-brown noise.mp3," found at the following public link, on repeat: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/84396909/Gray-Brown%20Noise.mp3

You see, the problem with noise-cancelling headphones is that they cancel repetetive noises. That results in a situation in which human conversation is easier to hear. For an ADHD, ithat's backwards. Right? You need a mask.

In reality, what you want to do is to raise the background level of ambient noise across the entire frequency spectrum, to obscure incidental noises (talking, music, etc.). Play my MP3. Whether you use headphones or speakers, your brain will get used to the monotonous (patternless) broad-band "noise," and will quickly adapt to a base level of "even" noise, so that it will ignore many transients (talking, music, etc.).

I call it gray-brown noise because, well, actually, just see Wikipedia. Anyways, gray noise is equalized to have the same perceived-energy-intensity across all of the octaves of the human range of hearing. So, unlike white noise, which is harsh and high-pitched, this MP3 is gray––it is even. Second, I used a Brownian noise-generator to generate the original 5-miunute sound file. (See Wikipedia, but basically Brownian=random walk vs random distribution of frequency energies––>more natural.) It is gray for me because I have adjusted the equalization to match the response of my over-earbuds (from Brookstone) and my iPod. To attain gray, you may have to play with your equalizer. (But hey, even playing this MP3 " straight" totally kills TONS of distracting ambient noise, as you will easily hear. So, don't sweat the perfection of the "gray" part).

You will have to adjust the equalization to your own computer speakers, or to your chosen type of earphones, to achieve the optimal gray. But, after that, you will be in heaven.

Once adjustments are done, you're set; your brain will quickly get bored of the pattern-less "noise," letting you ignore any spurious auditory input, and just get to work. A bonus is that it covers up lots of ambient and transient noises. That is, it raises the signal floor,the floor above which your brain says, "Hey, what's that noise all about?!?

People can blather, play music, and so on, but if you have your "WALL OF GRAY-BROWN NOISE PRESSURE" up in defense, then you are golden. The BONUS is that NO ONE really hears it. It's background to them; sounds like an airplane engine from inside the cabine). :) Add to that the straight blockage that a pair of earlpugs (from an Audioogist) will provide you, and you will be completely oblivious to all that is around you.

Sincerely,
Sir Holo
sirholo@mac.com

Any thanks from you or other ADHDs (etc.) will make me feel good, knowing that I have helped someone. Feel free to re-post the (unedited) MP3 anywhere (with credit included in meta-data). (

Enjoy!

The same site has an article on paper: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21130258/resources/InformationSheets/paper.htm

"it is a common misconception that recycling waste paper saves trees."

"For every tonne of paper used for recycling the savings are:

at least 30000litres of water

3000 - 4000 KWh electricity (enough for an average 3 bedroom house for one year)

95% of air pollution."

(I think their pie-chart is probably a bit out of date. My dustbin has perhaps 2% paper (used tissues etc), the recycling bin is probably 25% paper.)

So I went to see if I could get faster uploads on TWC, and on their wideband Internet tier they offer a 100mbps level... But only if you're in Kansas City. What does that mean?

Skype 6.0.32.126, and they only show up on the home screen. I do have a DNS server set up to block ads, so there isn't an actual ad shown, but note the "ADVERTISEMENT" text at the top. The "Hide Ad" link works, until I restart Skype. I've tried this elsewhere (not going to mess with my DNS server just to take a screenshot), and the actual ad does show up.

I just tried that (thanks), and that still shows the big-ass banner ad at the top.

I'm using Skype 6.0.0.126 and I don't see them (not even with an account that has no sub). What version are you using?

We have something like that at VISL, but with zero statistical or machine learning or AI aspects.

We instead write a few thousand rules by hand (largest language has 10000 rules) that look at the context - where context is the entire sentence, and possibly previous or next sentences - to figure out what meaning of a word is being used and what it attaches to.

E.g.
Input: "They're looking at writing an AI which can in some sense understand what is being said."
Output: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62647212/visl-eng.txt , http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62647212/visl-eng.png

This kind of system takes longer to develop and refine, but it also doesn't have any of the statistical problems. 95-99% "understanding" of text? Sure, we can do that. Statistics top out long before, and then have to add in rules to get the last 5-10%. And where statistics require giga- or terabytes of text, rule based systems only require a single example of a valid grammatical construct or word usage.

We have something like that at VISL, but with zero statistical or machine learning or AI aspects.

We instead write a few thousand rules by hand (largest language has 10000 rules) that look at the context - where context is the entire sentence, and possibly previous or next sentences - to figure out what meaning of a word is being used and what it attaches to.

E.g.
Input: "They're looking at writing an AI which can in some sense understand what is being said."
Output: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62647212/visl-eng.txt , http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62647212/visl-eng.png

This kind of system takes longer to develop and refine, but it also doesn't have any of the statistical problems. 95-99% "understanding" of text? Sure, we can do that. Statistics top out long before, and then have to add in rules to get the last 5-10%. And where statistics require giga- or terabytes of text, rule based systems only require a single example of a valid grammatical construct or word usage.

OP here; use this link. I posted it in the article but /. saw fit to omit it for whatever reason.