Slashdot Mirror

Considering consuming healthy stuff as boring and unhealthy stuff as fun, and defending this viewpoint, is a symptom of dependency (addiction).
You are not born with such dependencies, they are created by your upbringing, by what you are taught, not only by parents but society as a whole.
It leads to a deep feeling of some things about life/reality/yourself/the world being not right, so you try to avoid those. For that you cultivate those dependencies as an avoidance mechanism.

The solution lies in looking underneath those dependencies towards those "wrong" things, and learning what is real (by meditation for example). You might discover those negative feelings are not based on reality but on a learnt image, and can adjust your perception accordingly. Then you don't need unhealthy dependencies anymore to avoid (what you perceive as) reality.
There are many books written about this problem, I'm no expert but you can look at John Bradshaw or Brenee Brown or something as an intro.
I'm sure many slashdotters will oppose this "spiritual bullshit", that's fine, you are free to enjoy your dependencies if you like them.

And yes, you are right in that they basically say to people: "you shouldn't depend on this", without even hinting at how to be not dependent. Of course, people are dependent for a reason, and _if_ they did follow that advice, the root cause is unaddressed so they create a different escape mechanism.

Many replicators discovered in our lab were not designed to replicate; people just observed strange things happening and were smart enough to figure out what was going on.

Did your spelling checker swallow the obligatory "Muwahahahahah !!!" or did you deliberately silence it?

I'm now afraid. Very afraid. Mad scientists toying with creating artificial life forms AND suppressing their "Muwahahahah !!" reflex. This sounds like the plot for a B-movie. What could possibly go wrong?

Does your lab have a Jacob's Ladder? Yet.

Yep, see this missing scene as a proof.

About that whole... "choking people" thing. Turns out, not so much!

"Mongo only pawn in game of life."

I disagree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYIFTisAj58. Although before the virtual sex we might still have to take them out to a high class restaurant like Taco Bell.

This is EXACTLY what we are doing while we fight this unlawful FAA guidelines(more lawyers everyday say the FAA is in the wrong with what congress passed in 2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I wonder if maybe the risk of psychological harm is exceptionally high?

I suspect, fairly high. While the work takes on a video game aspect, the brain still knows at some level that you are killing people, and it gets stored away.

Something similar might be how soldiers have been drilled in hand to hand combat with some very effective killing moves. It's been repeated with other soldiers (without that final kill move) so many times that it becomes muscle memory, and reflexive. So the thought that I've just killed someone gets buried, only to come out later.

I've seen the public videos of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

People who wouldn't find that a little disturbing are probably pretty rare

Why not? they deal with Samsung and they admit to listening to your conversations via their SmartTVs. I'm pretty sure XBox Kinnect is sending millions of crutch shots to Billy Gates as people jump around in front of that anti-privacy nightmare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Here is a recent interview of him in December.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Not the sharpest guy in the world, but still far from a stroke:

Same guy, one month later in the Assembly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Its far fetched to think that he had a stroke in that period of time, and then decided to make a fool of himself and his party in the Assembly instead of being in the hospital or at home recovering.

Here is a recent interview of him in December.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Not the sharpest guy in the world, but still far from a stroke:

Same guy, one month later in the Assembly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Its far fetched to think that he had a stroke in that period of time, and then decided to make a fool of himself and his party in the Assembly instead of being in the hospital or at home recovering.

I'll be sure to keep a look-out. I'm not usually overly fond of the "what if" things but he had some good thinking and there's the other program which was the Brits and their hotel with the POWs - a series as I recall. I'll do my best to dig it out but it's going to mean a bit of a sitting to dig through my history at YouTube. See, I leave myself logged in, and yes I know they track me, so that they can keep track of what I watched. I don't mind it too much because I'm able to completely block their scripting and cookies at other sites - I have found the history functionality to be handy.

As an aside: I wish it would allow a 'search my viewing history' function. That would make things so much easier and I'd be able to pull the name of at least one of those documentaries up for you pretty quickly.

I'm a fairly good judge of character, normally, so I think I have something that you might enjoy.

Click on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/playli...

Now, there are several very nice things in there. Two of which I just discovered yesterday, the others I'm familiar with and have watched them all, at least once, already. Two of them are very interesting - surprisingly so.

That link takes you to some guy's playlist. It has a strange name but that's immaterial. There's a few in there that you might like - there's an Edwardian Farm, Victorian Farm, Wartime Farm, Manor Farm (I think), and some others - those are all well and good and you might really enjoy them. However, there are two hidden gems in there.

One is called Coal House and then there's a second one in the series (short episodes) called Coal House at War. I'm not yet done with the second series, having just discovered it a short while ago, and this is *not* my typical viewing. I prefer "drier" documentaries with hard facts, hard science, detailed histories, etc... Yet, this is strangely interesting and I was able to draw a few parallels that sort of made me think of other things. I don't want to suggest how you interpret it so I'll skip that but it's interesting - far more interesting than I'd have expected.

I was familiar with the Farm series and had really enjoyed those. That was actually how I ended up bumping into the Coal House series. They're a bit dated, 2007 and 2008 respectively, but still nicely done. The first Coal House starts at 58 in the playlist and the second one is immediately after. I may be wrong and you may not enjoy it. However, it seems like something that might be of mild interest to you - based on previous comments.

You are a loon. You are a child. It boggles the mind that you believe this horseshit with such intensity. None of these fantasies will ever happen.

Let me guess: "not in our lifetime".

This is a religion.

As a very wise man once said "Most people always build arbitrary borders in their heads about reality to soothe their feelings.". You have built a remarkable barrier of denial in your head. But you'd probably write great hard sci-fi for tweens.

"They're quite feasible with proper engineering"

Jesus Christ. This is so funny!!! You're postulating a level of technology and resource usage to dwarf everything we've done for all human history, and you just casually talk about it as if you can just order the stuff at McMaster-Carr!!!

  BAAAHahahahahaaaAA!!! Oh Jesus! I'm laughing like Rich Evans in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That's pretty much how I laugh everytime I read a Space Nutter's wide-eyed Aspergian naive earnest optimism!

Tell me this: if we *did* suddenly have these magical abilities and superhuman technologies... what do we need space for???

(Your answer will invariably be some sort of religious cant about the "species" and "spreading" into space... Unfortunately, your underdeveloped brain lacks the resources to have adult insight into your own belief structure, your faith about space.)

Firearms safety and marksmanship should be a section every year through high school.

That would be so damned awesome! Granted, I grew up outside of town, so we had pretty constant access to rifles as long as we could buy the ammo, but the more the merrier.

What amazes me though, is that so many people seem to think that guns are the greatest friggin thing ever made, and "Jeebuz Crystal I gotta have a gazillion and lets go on a gun vacation!"

And then we have the little girl who kills a gun instructer with an uzi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Fucking idiots! The place that held the gun tour, her parents, and anyone who thinks an uninstructed 9 year old should be firing full auto weapons should turn themselves into compost. I feel so sorry for that little girl, having achieved her first human kill at 9 years old, the rest of those bastard deserve maximum Karma reserved for stupid people.

And anyone who thinks it is a good idea has no concept of what happens when a person who has no idea what they are doing uses an automatic weapon. Every shot pushes the gun back a bit further, and the instinct is to grip a little tighter. The Arc happens. The same concept happens when you see a noob grabbing a fistfull of throttle on a motorcycle, then hangs on for dear life, revving the engine further. Just like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Firearms safety and marksmanship should be a section every year through high school.

That would be so damned awesome! Granted, I grew up outside of town, so we had pretty constant access to rifles as long as we could buy the ammo, but the more the merrier.

What amazes me though, is that so many people seem to think that guns are the greatest friggin thing ever made, and "Jeebuz Crystal I gotta have a gazillion and lets go on a gun vacation!"

And then we have the little girl who kills a gun instructer with an uzi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Fucking idiots! The place that held the gun tour, her parents, and anyone who thinks an uninstructed 9 year old should be firing full auto weapons should turn themselves into compost. I feel so sorry for that little girl, having achieved her first human kill at 9 years old, the rest of those bastard deserve maximum Karma reserved for stupid people.

And anyone who thinks it is a good idea has no concept of what happens when a person who has no idea what they are doing uses an automatic weapon. Every shot pushes the gun back a bit further, and the instinct is to grip a little tighter. The Arc happens. The same concept happens when you see a noob grabbing a fistfull of throttle on a motorcycle, then hangs on for dear life, revving the engine further. Just like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You're so right there's even a french song by Gogol 1er https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/... et La Horde about this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That being said, even big languages can tumble. (Dice link)

Indeed.

Mr. Putin and his PR team does a great job of portraying Russia as a superpower however the sad truth is that Russia is slowly becoming a country of the poor where even most basic human needs are not met. According to the recent polls over 50% of the Russians living in Russia cannot afford buying normal food, like fruits, meat, fish or vegetables. No one is talking about caviar or exotic things.

Other areas where Russia is behind almost all developed countries of the world: medicine, economics, science, and even education. Cancer patients mortality rate is ten times higher than in most other countries of the world, because equipment is totally outdated and doctors' salary is so low, they don't bother to work professionally. Corruption runs so rampant no one even bothers any more - watch the movie "Chaika". Seen by 4 million people, it contains the facts which are impossible to refute, yet how many people from the state apparatus have been fired? Zero. In the past rabid Russian patriots, called "vatniky", claimed that Putin is clean and it's only his people who steal, bribe, and do all sorts of nefarious things. After this movie many of them changed their minds.

Don't believe the hype - even if Russia flies to the Moon, it will be done at the expense of the budget sphere or new insane taxes will be introduced (like the recent tax for long-haul truckers). Russians have already paid dearly for the annexation of Crimea and for the war in Ukraine (most countries in the world understand that this war is indirectly financed by Putin).

This country is doomed.

"Identity Theft Resource Center"? It's a cookbook!

The Onion got it right

Die Motherfucker, Die Motherfucker, Die!

Which is German for

The Motherfucker, The Motherfucker, The!

The exploit is not in the baseband; it is a local socket on the phone accessible by apps with no special privileges (as far as I can tell).

Phil Zimmerman gave a talk on the Blackphone at Defcon 22:
DEF CON 22 How To Get Phone Companies To Just Say No To Wiretapping

I have transcribed this from the time 26:10 in the video:
26:10 Question from audience member:
        Hi, so traditional phones are dependant on the baseband processor,
        which has a whole lot of flaws depending on the protocols that they
        are using. What are you doing to mitigate baseband processor factors?

        Zimmerman:
        Yeah, that is a good question. We had a meeting at Nvidia, because
        Nvidia makes the chipsets that we are using for Blackphone.
        And Nvidia had apparently aquired a company a while back that
        made a baseband processor. It was built around a software defined
        radio.

        And I asked them that questiom; Can we do an independant security
        review for the for firmware for the baseband processor.
        And they said they would be open to that.

        In fact, they were delighted to have a customer expressing interest
        in really taking a close look at their baseband processor;
        no other customer had ever brought up the question before.

        You know, no other customer is as obsessive over it as we are.

I guess they should have spent some time looking at their own stuff rather than other people's code in this case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

There are 57 comments as I post this and not one Bicycle Repairman reference?

Man. Slashdot has really gone downhill.

Yeah. Those Chinese are as bad as the French!

Well at least eventually attributed Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard correctly. All Hail Sam Kass!

Obligatory CGP Grey

"You can’t treat the working man this way. One day, we’ll form a union and get the fair and equitable treatment we deserve! Then we’ll go too far, and get corrupt and shiftless, and the Japanese will eat us alive!" -- Last Exit To Springfield.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

First thing that came to mind for me. (No. I don't rickroll, don't worry. It's Venture Brothers.)

What characteristics in a molecular system are required for it to be capable of reproduction?

I suggest a review on self-replicating chemical systems written by a pioneer of the field, Gunter von Kiedrowsky: http://www.arkat-usa.org/get-f...

What characteristics does this system have in common with DNA/RNA/Proteins(DRP)?

What's different from DRP?

If the article seems too complicated, you can watch a short video describing our research on self-replicators.

Is there any possibility of a general theory which would allow prediction of possible alternate molecular systems capable of reproduction?

We, supramolecular chemists, generally use our 'chemical intuition', which can be supported by simulations (molecular dynamics, DFT). But usually synthesizing the molecules in question and checking what they do is faster than the simulations. Serendipity plays a very important role here. Many replicators discovered in our lab were not designed to replicate; people just observed strange things happening and were smart enough to figure out what was going on.

I found a thread on HackerNews about playing "Eye of the Tiger" on a dot matrix. A comment seems to direct to the file you mention.

It's not $600, it's FIVE HUNDRED AND NINTEY NINE U.S. DOLLARS

filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like yelling
filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like yelling
filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like yelling
filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like yelling

Are you trying to tell me this wasn't a protest song? You have shaken my world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

True, but talking to the police could inadvertently end up with you charged with a crime you didn't commit, as well as various and sundry other inconveniencing issues.

See this video for details:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Warning, this video contain the views of professional attorneys, past attorney generals, and law enforcement. It will make sense and you will learn something. Please don't view this if you are contemplating a crime.

None of those safety features will stop someone else from putting *their* finger on the trigger of your gun though. I mean, sure, you could keep your gun locked in a safe separate from your ammo, but then the gun isn't exactly readily accessible for you either.

On the other hand in the US we have finally started to require chip (and signature) cards. I never understood this stuff. How hard is it to insert a plastic card in a slot for payment? And given the sorry state of Smart Phone security why do people insist on using their phones for payment? You are just asking for trouble.

Sales.

It's been demonstrated that people are likely to spend more when there's less friction.

Ridiculous friction: Barter of physical commodities. I bring my cow to the market, I go home with two of your pigs. Crap, now I have no milk. Maybe I should keep my cow.

High friction: Cash. I have to go to the bank (at one time a human teller, and then the robot teller in the form of the ATM) to refill my wallet with physica cash. Every time I buy something, I feel the notes and coins passing through my hands, the lifeblood of my commerce. Better buy the little $2 for 2L milk instead of the big $3 for 4L milk jug. That leaves me an extra dollar for bus fare.

Low friction: Credit/debit card. Get the $3 for 4L milk jug even if the milk spoils. And the $2 candy bar in the checkout aisle. It all shows up as "groceries" when I import my bank statement into Excel. But I still have to spend 10 seconds physically performing an action to "spend" that money.

Lower friction: Contactless card. Bump your ass into a wall-mounted terminal, place your purse on the checkout counter while your groceries are being bagged, fist-bump the cute little robot terminal while wearing a smartwatch, all sorts of ways to make the ritual "fun" and engaging. 2 seconds. And the brightly colored robot mascot waved at me and wished me a happy day! Consumer nirvana from 1994: Have you ever checked out of a supermarket a whole cart at a time? -- except there's no need for the store to even have a cashier. (It's amusing: as futuristic as those commercials seemed 20 years ago, even AT&T didn't anticipate that the card could also be contactless.

Zero friction: combine the contactless card with RFID tagging of every individual object in the store. No more scanning of individual objects (so you don't even need a self-checkout aisle.) You walk into the store, put the objects in a shopping cart, and walk out of the store with the goods. Like shoplifting, but nobody stops you, and it's legal. You're not really spending money. You're just going to the store and walking out with armloads of cool stuff. The money is debited from your account automatically, but you never have to do anything in the act of spending it other than get that sweet consumer high of acquiring stuff without the unpleasant feeling that comes with spending money. The IBM Shoplifter commercial absolutely nails it.

On the other hand in the US we have finally started to require chip (and signature) cards. I never understood this stuff. How hard is it to insert a plastic card in a slot for payment? And given the sorry state of Smart Phone security why do people insist on using their phones for payment? You are just asking for trouble.

Sales.

It's been demonstrated that people are likely to spend more when there's less friction.

Ridiculous friction: Barter of physical commodities. I bring my cow to the market, I go home with two of your pigs. Crap, now I have no milk. Maybe I should keep my cow.

High friction: Cash. I have to go to the bank (at one time a human teller, and then the robot teller in the form of the ATM) to refill my wallet with physica cash. Every time I buy something, I feel the notes and coins passing through my hands, the lifeblood of my commerce. Better buy the little $2 for 2L milk instead of the big $3 for 4L milk jug. That leaves me an extra dollar for bus fare.

Low friction: Credit/debit card. Get the $3 for 4L milk jug even if the milk spoils. And the $2 candy bar in the checkout aisle. It all shows up as "groceries" when I import my bank statement into Excel. But I still have to spend 10 seconds physically performing an action to "spend" that money.

Lower friction: Contactless card. Bump your ass into a wall-mounted terminal, place your purse on the checkout counter while your groceries are being bagged, fist-bump the cute little robot terminal while wearing a smartwatch, all sorts of ways to make the ritual "fun" and engaging. 2 seconds. And the brightly colored robot mascot waved at me and wished me a happy day! Consumer nirvana from 1994: Have you ever checked out of a supermarket a whole cart at a time? -- except there's no need for the store to even have a cashier. (It's amusing: as futuristic as those commercials seemed 20 years ago, even AT&T didn't anticipate that the card could also be contactless.

Zero friction: combine the contactless card with RFID tagging of every individual object in the store. No more scanning of individual objects (so you don't even need a self-checkout aisle.) You walk into the store, put the objects in a shopping cart, and walk out of the store with the goods. Like shoplifting, but nobody stops you, and it's legal. You're not really spending money. You're just going to the store and walking out with armloads of cool stuff. The money is debited from your account automatically, but you never have to do anything in the act of spending it other than get that sweet consumer high of acquiring stuff without the unpleasant feeling that comes with spending money. The IBM Shoplifter commercial absolutely nails it.

Guaranteed by what? Where's the legally-binding contract you have with Motorola for 2 years of updates?

Did they advertise it? Did he buy one? Then its a contract that the courts will enforce.

Don't make the mistake of confusing the paper of a written contract for a contract. Of course it's cheaper to buy a new phone than engage in a court battle since we don't have marketable torts in the current Western systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

At least link to the sound for the noobs :)

Always remembers me this scene from iron sky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Consider that the limit of 140 characters is a blessing. It inspires us to be pithy, to craft our utterances to achieve maximum effect.

Art thrives when it is constrained by limits of some kind. An example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Its over. Guns are out there. Accept it. The notion of "but if the guns weren't there" is meaningless. They're there. They're not going away.

Come up with a different idea... if you're able... and if not... maybe you're not an "idea person" and should just be quiet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Its over. Guns are out there. Accept it. The notion of "but if the guns weren't there" is meaningless. They're there. They're not going away.

Come up with a different idea... if you're able... and if not... maybe you're not an "idea person" and should just be quiet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Huh, I wonder if they're just doing this in areas with higher than average usage. I just watched this video from my phone, wi-fi turned off, binge-on turned on, without a single stutter, in full 1080p glory.

So who watches the watchers?

We dooo, We dooo

Rapid7's Phil Bosco discovered that the Xfinity Home Security system does not fail closed with an assumption of an attack if radio communications are disrupted.

... home invasion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF4Hcr7XX3c