The companies being sued get together and split the bill for just one of them to file a lawsuit against the manufacturer of their devices. The IP being used in the device should be completely covered by the costs of the device. Period. It is ludicrous to say and end user that paid money, using the original firmware, is the correct party to sue in a court.
Make a huge lawsuit against Linksys, Cisco, Netgear, Buffalo, D-Link, etc.
Take out a 1 page ad in the New York Times, make a blog website, and link to your copy of the lawsuit. Every other company that gets sued just swaps out the plaintiffs and defendants with a search and replace. Fire the lawyerpult.
Now, get 30 or 40 of them to do it at the same time.
The end result is that the manufacturers will form a unholy legal army powered by the souls of the damned and break some serious legal foot off in some patent troll ass.
These people are bullies and using what amounts to guerrilla warfare to extort money out of the small guys. It is disgusting. As Bugs Bunny would say, "fight fire with fire, that's what I always say".
So they just need to get the attention of a much bigger and stronger "bully". Or more specifically, get the big guys to point to their lawyerpults at the patent troll. That'll fix their little wagon.
Other than the infamous conversion problem with the Mars Climate Orbiter, NASA does deserve our respect for their contributions and hard work. If anything, a failure at NASA also has incredible value.
That problem was entirely man made and a project management fuckup. I am sure the hardware would have operated just fine within the mission parameters. It was a couple of managers that fucked the whole thing up by not talking enough with each other. It is inexcusable that one part of the system received input in metrics different than what it is expecting. Where was the testing? Where was the documentation?
I deal an awful lot with writing API and API documentation for a living right now, as well as integrating systems with other APIs from different vendors. If I can test it, correct problems, and get a working system, than NASA can do it.
I was tongue in cheek about it since we were talking about different units of measurement and it reminded me about the incident, but I sincerely question just what the software is doing on Cassini. It was built and launched around the same time.
Is it really 100km or 62 miles in the software?
As for the usefulness of the data, it is only useful in academic and scientific circles. How it applies to anything here on Earth remains to be questioned. Personally, I am all for NASA, but the funding levels are embarrassing.
I am genuinely ashamed as an American that we spent more money on paid mercenaries in Iraq to kill women and children instead of taking all of that money and giving it to NASA.
NASA does not get any respect right now, or funding, because education in this country has been a joke for decades and we are well on our way to Idiocracy. How can somebody respect NASA if they don't have the slightest understanding or appreciation of science in general?
There is a serious anti-intellectual and anti-science movement in the US right now, primarily lead by complete fucking nutbags that don't have the intelligence to allow Faith and Science to co-exist peacefully. There is nothing inherent about Faith and Science that put the two in conflict. People put them in conflict on both sides due to a failure to understand the nature of both of them. Once you understand that, then BOOM, no more conflict.
There was a congressional hearing recently where one of the original astronauts to land on the Moon complained about what we are doing, and I think he was spot on.
I am bitter about it for sure, but not just about NASA. I am bitter and saddened about our entire approach and dedication to arts and science in general.
We can bail out Wall Street because a bunch of truly despicable assholes screwed up with other people's money due to shortsightedness and greed, but we cannot spend any money on the things that will keep us alive and prosperous.
I guess to be more specific, America has all but closed up shop. We are basically being provided palliative care and waiting to die. I don't think I am the only one that feels this way deep down.
Once again, my real points were that the argument itself is pointless. The only leg they have to stand on was the geopolitical stance. Now the Soviets had some risk by saying it was fake, because everybody would say, "of course you would say that". So I cannot say that alone is evidence that it was real.
The real compelling evidence is just how much money was spent and the fact there was an actual launch. I find it far more likely it actually happened.
Even if there was a grand conspiracy, who cares? You or I cannot do anything about it as apathy, bitterness, and the divisiveness of the American populace prevents us from doing anything meaningful. At the end of the day it does not change the fact that I still need to work for a living and pay bills.
Oh, look I don't think the moon landings were faked. As I said to other posters, I think the motivations to do so were there, but that ultimately it does not matter what happened. I don't think it would change where we are today. I think the argument itself is just silly and not productive at this point.
Not everybody feels the same way about space. Personally, I think the military budget needs to be trimmed by 75%. It is just one big bailout and continual money pump for the Military-Industrial Complex at the tax payers expense. Take some of that and fund NASA.
If we are not going to be pushing serious money into future programs, than just close up shop. I think NASA is embarrassing at this point, and is like that old swap meet that is run down and barely has anybody selling or buying anymore. You just feel weird even going.
The idea that you will "blow your cookies all over the cabin" is a pretty big concern. I have heard that over and over and over again that nausea and vertigo can be problems for a large number of people. Once you got over that though, the view would be hard to put into words. The lack of gravity makes that a real fucking bitch though. Not only the smell would give you problems, but it going everywhere in the cabin is not a trivial issue.
I am dead serious that there needs to be "puke holes". A place where you can literally hold on to some handle bars, stick your whole head in, and have a vacuum take care of you while you lose your lunch.
Just one person could ruin it for everyone. I know. I farted one time on a plane, and dammit, if it was not Krakatoa and Chernobyl's love child. It affected the whole plane. For the record, it was in the bathroom, but that did not save the rest of the passengers.
So I would not trivialize how bodily functions will affect space travel.
As for your other points, I absolutely agree with you. Science for Science's sake is also at an all time low. There has to be some awe factor and immediate value for the money for space exploration to become self-funding, because it certainly seems like we are more interested in giving it to fraudulent assholes on Wall Street, people promising the next super weapon, or doing basically anything other than what we need to be doing with it.
For the record, my position is that we start pumping money as fast as we can directly into education, infrastructure, arts, and science. Do it in the right way too, not just blow the money on somebody's uncle with a lucrative contract where we overpay and get very little back.
I think the resistance is that it is too hard to relate our experiences in metric. The majority of people, even with just some college experience don't understand significant figures. Understanding of Math is at an all time low in the U.S, IMO. Way too many people have no grasp on statistics, and the (in)famous causation does not equal correlation. Yes, I deliberately messed that up for effect:)
For the record, I admit that I don't have as much of an understanding of statistics as I would like. Lately, I am finding it more important with what I do, so I am having to pick it up. For instance, I have found that the variance and standard deviation can be quite useful in exploring inefficiency in workloads generated by very large sets of data.
I also understand spatially, just how far away a mile is. It is 5,280 feet. Same thing with liquids. I have a much better idea how much liquid is in one gallon based on the container sizes, and an even better idea just what is 5 gallons. You tell me a liter and it is much harder for me to visualize it.
Of course, being a guy, I get 6 inches confused quite a bit as being the distance between my two hands outstretched.
We just have to switch to metric and make the gradual adjustment to thinking and experiencing life in terms of metric measurements. Personally, I am pretty entrenched in miles, gallons, feet, yards, etc. However, I am willing to attempt the adjustment because ultimately it is preventing us from interacting with the rest of the world and contributing to the idea that Americans are arrogant.
Language falls under the same problem as well. The whole world does not, nor does it need to, speak English. I think it is a shame that we have so few Americans that speak multiple languages. It does not have to be a matter of pride that everything is in English, and I have no problems with everything being in multiple languages. Being in IT, I already get 99% of all my documentation available in multiple languages and most, if not all, of my platforms and development are multilingual as well. Pretty much everything has made, or is starting to make the transition, to unicode support too.
I am not disagreeing with you about how much evidence there is that we went, or about how hard it would have been to fake it.
Just pointing out that the motivations to do so are absolutely plausible and that the argument itself is a waste of time. It does not actually matter whether we did or did not go to the moon.
The goals were achieved, regardless of the means. That is the real point I am trying to make, which is that the argument itself is pointless.
It's like arguing about who killed JFK. Let's say the evidence comes out tomorrow and the organization responsible is still doing shit today. What then? We protest? Quit our jobs? Go crazy and starting looting and tearing shit up?
It makes no difference. I sincerely doubt that all of us as a whole could take any meaningful action. If we accepted the Patriot Act, the Bailouts, and all of the other bullshit with a bunch of people arguing on both sides but still allowing it to happen, how are we going to possibly have the strength and wherewithal to bring the people responsible to account?
We won't. Cynical? Maybe, I prefer to say it is just a realistic position.
There are also people like me who truly just don't care one way or the other.
Don't get me wrong. I think the whole universe is beautiful, humbling, and awesome. I just leave the exploration to people who have passion for it.
It hardly matters if the data is being falsified to cover up alien interactions. At the end of the day, I still have to deal with the realities of life on the ground, and whatever information I obtain about the truth will never give me an edge to fight the people that are apparently dead set on owning and oppressing me.
That is what the "nutters" and "rational" people tend to overlook. That the whole exercise is meaningless. You are both in a room slowly being deprived of oxygen yelling the top of your lungs about whether there were two apples in the refrigerator, who put them there, and why.
Personally, I am staying quiet over in the corner thinking about the oxygen and how do I solve that problem. Same logic applies to all the divisive arguments in politics and religion, which are all too often mixed.
For the record, the moon landings being faked has some plausibility if you consider geopolitical motivations at the time. If I was in government at the time, I would have been all for faking the moon landings if it meant getting one up on the Commies. It is not about the truth, but about a propaganda war and who is thought to be wielding the biggest stick. From that perspective, the hoax is not only plausible, but a reasonable extrapolation of the situation. If we really could get to the moon, all the better. If we couldn't, fuck it, let's just fake it really really well and make the Soviets look like backwards idiots eating our techno dust.
Either way, it accomplished its purpose. It raised American morale, inspired countless people towards achievement, excellence, and the pursuit of the truth.
Once again, my concerns have always been a lot more domestic.
Pretty sure NASA learned its lesson about having consistent units of measurement throughout the entire software operating on their hardware in space.
However, if I remember correctly, Cassini was launched before the Mars Climate Orbiter. So who knows if there is conversion software changing between miles and kilometers.
At this point though, it hardly matters. Seems like we have all but closed up the space program anyways. Just monitoring and finishing up, and waiting for private corporations to take over space exploration and exploitation.
I do the same thing with the shopper discount cards. The whole thing is bullshit. If you look at the discounted prices you can readily see how much value they assign to your purchasing history. If they didn't they would just set the discount price as the regular price and be done with it.
The easy way to defeat is to share a single phone number with everyone and not care about the gas. Somebody might be taking the credits at the pump, but who cares really. The whole point is to get the discount price. If you shop smart and keep to the discount items and figure out the time intervals, you can save more money than you ever would on the gas.
For instance, there is a two week interval on sales of boneless skinless chicken. Just wait for it and then load up. That is what a freezer in the garage is for, although heavens help you if the power goes out.
Picking a random phone number and trying to get gas credits is not an idea I would be spreading around. There are cameras at the pump and some people really do spend thousands of dollars every month or so with a medium sized family. You are taking something of actual monetary value away from them and I can imagine at some point, especially in this economy, you will run across somebody that was expecting the credits to be there. Considering your license plate is recorded at the pump, in addition to probably using a payment method that can be tracked, not a good idea to do something that could be a misdemeanor at best, and at worst used with some trumped up interpretations to label you as a hacker and turn it into a felony.
I don't think I am going overboard here. There are always some low-level people in the DA's office looking to make a name for themselves or just having a bad day. You never really know.
***** As for Facebook:
The answer to FaceBook is not to participate with FaceBook. I always see people complaining and I am reminded of WHOPPER from WarGames where it takes him playing Tic Tac Toe against itself a couple million times before it learns the greatest wisdom much of us need to learn..... the correct move is not to play. I have said many times that I would renounce my citizenship and live on an island made out floating garbage like the people in Water World before I get a single social networking account. That part, I am dead serious about.
That is our biggest problem, specifically, that we cannot find the will power to just say no, or to suffer some inconveniences.
I have not paid for TV (which is subsidizing your exposure to advertisements) for over 5 years now. That alone has saved me between $1200 - $1500 per year. Sure, I cannot participate in conversations about the latest episode of whatever, but most of those conversations are a complete waste of time. If the show is any good, I will eventually be able to purchase, rent, or torrent the seasons on DVD.
I have not participated in BlueRay or HD (whatever that was), or anything else that involves DRM. BlueRay especially, since they are moving towards Internet connected devices to solve their problems of encryption updates breaking forwards compatibility with new titles. Still royally pissed off how many fucking times I am begged by family members to upgrade the firmware on their BlueFucked(tm) devices to watch the latest SpiderMan.
I have not participated in social networking because I understand the true value of my privacy and anonymity.
I have not participated in any device that I cannot completely and totally own. Of course I am referring to the ridiculous statement that loading up my own operating system on hardware I purchased is "hacking", "piracy", and/or violations of the DMCA. They can go to hell. I own it, and if I want to break out their DRM model, I will do it. It's war and I am waiting. Come and get it. This of course precludes me from owning most new devices, since I no longer have the patience or geek motivation to continually fight the battle. This is of particular note with Amazon, since the
"Well Mr. Arcite, firstly thanks for being a fan. Secondly, up the dosage on whatever meds you are on. Please. You referred to me by my real name, but then actually asked me about my experiences in a movie as if it existed. This is why Trek conventions need security, or why I am glad they have one.
Normally, I would say get a life, but in your case I would say pick a life."
There were a couple of them with Bugs Bunny. In the Road Runner ones he never actually speaks. However, he has dialogue with Bugs Bunny.
It is in one of these episodes that the door incident occurs. You might also remember him making nitro filled carrots in a shed talking to himself while Bugs Bunny moves the shed on to the train tracks. I think the same episode also has him using a UNIVAC computer to come up with his strategies.
Search YouTube. A lot of cartoons have been uploaded there.
Wile E Coyote also did some cartoons trying to steal sheep. At least the coyote looks really really similar.
Security through (or by) obscurity is a pejorative referring to a principle in security engineering, which attempts to use secrecy (of design, implementation, etc.) to provide security. A system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that the flaws are not known, and that attackers are unlikely to find them. A system may use security through obscurity as a defense in depth measure; while all known security vulnerabilities would be mitigated through other measures, public disclosure of products and versions in use makes them early targets for newly discovered vulnerabilities in those products and versions. An attacker's first step is usually information gathering; this step is delayed by security through obscurity. The technique stands in contrast with security by design and open security, although many real-world projects include elements of all strategies.
icebraining is not correct here, and your assertion I am changing the definition from the norm and widely accepted definition is false. Security through obscurity, as a concept, is not something vague and a matter of perspective. It is a very well defined term in security and has been for quite some time.
According to the definition above, a password is not incomplete information, or information being obscured, as it is being presented in the context of the article and the principle of security through obscurity.
Making this a philosophical debate that a password is also obscurity at some level has nothing to do with the principles that are mentioned.
I don't think that is what they mean by incomplete information.
In the context of security through obscurity it has always, to me, seemed to mean that your method and process of providing security is not well understood and it is this fact that is providing the majority of the security. If somebody figures out the method or process, your security is greatly compromised.
A password, or private key, is not a good example in this case. I think a better example would be that passwords and private keys protect documents created by a certain well known company, but that their methods and processes were so laughable that you could create a program to bypass the keys themselves.
Or in other words........ the only thing keeping Wile E Coyote (Super Genius) from getting to Bugs Bunny though the locked door is his complete lack of awareness that there is nothing around the door but the desert itself. Take two steps to the right, two steps forward, turn to your left, and there is Bugs Bunny. You did not even have to get an ACME locksmith to come out.
That's fine and all. If you want to create your security through incomplete information, or different tactics and strategy, that is a choice.
Just don't be a childish whining little bitch and run to the FBI to stop the big bad anti-social "hackers" from revealing your used-to-be incomplete information in security conventions and trying to have them arrested.
You get double whiny bitch points trying to invoke copyright to prevent the "leakage" of your incomplete information.
I certainly get the point of the article, but a system that is secured through well thought out and tested means will always trump a system where, "Golly Gee Willickers Bat Man.... I hope they don't find the secret entrance to our bat cave that is totally unprotected and unmonitored".
randomly calls whores and puts them on a three-way call with my girlfriend when I take it out of the holster
I have played with one too, and it is not as bad as you say it is, but without Android support it is going to be practically worthless. Your entire post has an extremely acerbic tone to it.
Perhaps there is an entire article, or possibly a movie screenplay, about the "whores", your girlfriend, and the hilarious shenanigans with your phone.
Questions. Questions. Questions.
1) Are these actual whores being called by your phone, or is the "whore" a characterization from your girlfriend? 2) Is the Torch in possession of AI sufficient to determine if a contact is in fact a whore? 3) Can the Torch apply something like least cost routing to your selection of whore contacts? Availability? 4) Why do you keep so many "whore" contacts in your phone? 5) Statistically speaking, how can the Torch alone be responsible for 3-way'n so many whores with your girlfriend? Not the good 3-way either obviously. 6) Have other phones in the past accidentally dialed contacts in your vast whore repo before?
Seriously. I don't think I am the only person here who wants to know more about this.
I'm not sure if it's still going on. Remember, real debt collectors call you directly (no robocalls), address you by name and can specify precisely what you owe and to whom.
That is absolutely false, and at a minimum, simplistic.
I get dozens of robocalls every single day that use text-to-speech to address me by name. I never answer any phone number that does not have a contact file in my cell phone, so I know that the voice messages they are leaving are being generated by PBX systems integrated with their own databases. The few times I have made a mistake were because I was dealing with vendors and thought it was a vendor calling me back real quick and the automated message started off straight away asking me to hold the line for a rep.
I should know, I help implement and design some systems for various clients. Not telemarketing or debt collection, but appointment reminders and operational communications reminding customers about a future payment, required information, etc. It's not really difficult to do this, especially with Asterisk, call files, database lookups, and cron jobs/daemons.
None of these are scams either. I can match up the phone number with online records and then match up the company names with the 14 lbs of debt collection notices I get each month in the mail.
How did I get this much?
Try getting seriously ill with an unknown disease and visiting the ER or being hospitalized over 10 times in the last 18 months with no health insurance. A single visit without health insurance can involve a half dozen or more different health "vendors" that all want to get paid. Even with obtaining health insurance there are some bills I simply cannot pay, and that triggers off another couple of companies attempting to collect.
The alternative is to die quietly in a gutter somewhere. I chose option B. So I easily have 40+ creditors after me for over 100k in health care bills.
Another thing to consider is that debt collection is big business. The original creditor sells 3-6 month old debt to a collection agency. Those calls tend to be personal one-on-one calls with a human being in most cases. A human being leaves the message. However, every 6-12 months (or a smaller cycle in some cases), the collection agencies resell the debt yet again to other collection agencies. With tax laws, and magical accounting, everybody gets to write off the losses. In some cases, the full amount that I owe, even if that is not what they paid.
After a year or two what you get is a collection agency that is just trying to hit the 5-10% mark or less. They have a fixed budget for operations, and that does not allow call center staff to be making personal calls. This is where you get the robocalls. It is not a scam at all. They just bought your debt after 5+ other companies already bought it and sold it.
Statute of limitations does not even stop them either. My state is 6 years, however, there are plenty of companies that are still purchasing the debt (cheaply) knowing full well the statutes don't allow them to forcibly collect in court. Just a game of percentages. For numerous friends in the last couple of years I have handled "time barred" debt collections for them by informing the company officially through certified mail with proof of mailings that they cannot legally collect and cease all communication. It works with statutes of limitation, but actually resets the statute if it has not passed yet. Definitely need to be sure it has passed the statute before you attempt that.
You are most certainly wrong about all robocalls being scams. It is just tremendously cheaper (therefore increasing profit margins) for real debt collection agencies to use robocalling hoping to get a single fish on the line for every 10 pieces of bait they purchased.
With all of that being said, this bill does not mean anything. It is next to impossible right now to determine a land line from a cell phone with any reliability at a
What does that have to do with "sweetheart" deals? Absolutely nothing.
If you have an email address with Company A and are getting a shitload of SPAM then you leave. We are not really talking about companies here anyways are we?
Just the top 5 I think. If Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. are knowingly profiting from accepting known SPAM that is NOT a "sweetheart" deal. That is more than likely a crime, and criminal conspiracy.
Email campaign companies are no different than any other type of marketing company such as SMS marketing. ClickATell got its ass handed to them for not managing their own traffic and effectively got decimated in the US because the ultimate arbiter of whether or not messages from your shortcode get accepted are the carriers.
It is natural for those companies with good reputations to have "sweetheart" deals where no money has changed hands at all with a very large email provider.
Money exchanging hands where end customers are being harmed is not part of a "sweetheart" deal. That is just flat out criminal conspiracy.
Sorry, but what you are talking about is not nearly the same thing as reputation based scoring, whitelisting, and feedback loops in email communications between large providers and small providers.
Paul Reubens already has the trademark on a secondary meaning for "multi-touch"
Most people don't know him by that name, but Pee Wee Herman instead. The "incident" you referred to was him masturbating in a porno theater.
Of course, what is also rumored is that the real reason why he was arrested is that the "effect" of his "multi-touch" technique resulted in assaulting a police officer... in the back of the head. Which officer is going to write that down in a statement? None. Hence, the lesser charge of whacking off in public.
Now, what I find the most amazing about the whole thing is that there exists a dark theater full of men watching porn with loaded weapons behind them about to go off at anytime. A really disgusting kind of Russian Roulette. How the heck do you rub one out with somebody doing the same thing behind you? Never made much sense to me.
All I ever really wanted to know, was if Paul Reubens did his signature laugh at the end. That would have been priceless. I can imagine that officer always involuntarily looking behind him anytime somebody laughs funny.
I would consider it highly dubious. We have two possibilities here:
1) A human can catch fire, burn from the inside out, explode, etc. while still alive. Pretty scary to think about, but even in urban legends and old wives tales, have we ever heard of anything like that witnessed by another human being? I have never heard about it at all. Granted, I am only one person, but that is some seriously awesome shit. You would expect a story, a myth, legend, etc. to be passed around about seeing something like that. Yet, this event is always without witnesses, and to my knowledge, involves enclosed spaces.
2) A dead human can catch fire and with our current forensic technology we cannot explain the source and/or pattern of the combustion, or even the approximate environment in which it can occur.
In both 1 and 2 you would expect some data, and correlated events. Meaning, that dead bodies left at room temperature in enclosed spaces have a much higher rate of combustion without an external ignition source, and that live people under some condition just catch fire.
We have no data supporting that at all, anywhere. Why are there not, in the entire course of human history, mention of dead bodies just catching fire with witnesses? Not even one? Statistically, I find that highly improbable, hence why I find it so dubious. People that are still alive? Not a single instance with a witness.
It is far more likely that we cannot establish the exact cause in a way that stands up to scientific scrutiny, explains multiple events, and can be reproduced in experimental environments. Yes, I am suggesting that we take dead bodies and setup specific environments. Why not? We perform a ton of research with dead bodies, and they are becoming more plentiful all the time. I would donate my body for such an experiment when I am dead. Seriously, it would be awesome if my body exploded. Wickedly cool, even.
Spontaneous Human Combustion is one of those catch-all explanations when nothing else applies. Kind of like a default in a switch statement, or schizophrenia when the psychologist just can't seem to narrow it down and just wants to go home.
There is a reason these bodies catch fire. Spontaneously is highly highly unlikely given how many human beings are on the planet and the rate at which information has traveled in the last 200 years. We would have something at this point.
It is just as reasonable for me to conclude that they were probed by aliens and that is just a cover-up by an organization of people that all wear black suits and have single character names.
This same logic applies to Big Foot. I mean seriously, the fucker is huge, hence the name. Unless he was trained in super spy school or the art of Ninjutsu, I am pretty sure somebody other than a drunk hunter with poor camera equipment would have come across one by now. Even a dead one.
Well I don't know if it is a rumor or urban legend, but old man Hormel was said to have condemned SPAM as the worst offense against humanity, second only to World War II (SPAM was invented in 1937). He wholly regretted his part in its creation.
He said it was so bad, vile, and nasty that sending it to our troops was a mistake. We should have air dropped it on the enemy.
If true, I highly doubt he was eating it either.
Of course, I don't even know if that is true or not, but SPAM is some nasty looking crap in a can. Farking Hawaiians though act like it fell from Heaven. Although, I must admit that they can prepare some pretty tasty dishes with it. You just have to "suspend disbelief" as they say and forget what you are eating.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is the cheapest and most effective solution.
The companies being sued get together and split the bill for just one of them to file a lawsuit against the manufacturer of their devices. The IP being used in the device should be completely covered by the costs of the device. Period. It is ludicrous to say and end user that paid money, using the original firmware, is the correct party to sue in a court.
Make a huge lawsuit against Linksys, Cisco, Netgear, Buffalo, D-Link, etc.
Take out a 1 page ad in the New York Times, make a blog website, and link to your copy of the lawsuit. Every other company that gets sued just swaps out the plaintiffs and defendants with a search and replace. Fire the lawyerpult.
Now, get 30 or 40 of them to do it at the same time.
The end result is that the manufacturers will form a unholy legal army powered by the souls of the damned and break some serious legal foot off in some patent troll ass.
These people are bullies and using what amounts to guerrilla warfare to extort money out of the small guys. It is disgusting. As Bugs Bunny would say, "fight fire with fire, that's what I always say".
So they just need to get the attention of a much bigger and stronger "bully". Or more specifically, get the big guys to point to their lawyerpults at the patent troll. That'll fix their little wagon.
Done.
Other than the infamous conversion problem with the Mars Climate Orbiter, NASA does deserve our respect for their contributions and hard work. If anything, a failure at NASA also has incredible value.
That problem was entirely man made and a project management fuckup. I am sure the hardware would have operated just fine within the mission parameters. It was a couple of managers that fucked the whole thing up by not talking enough with each other. It is inexcusable that one part of the system received input in metrics different than what it is expecting. Where was the testing? Where was the documentation?
I deal an awful lot with writing API and API documentation for a living right now, as well as integrating systems with other APIs from different vendors. If I can test it, correct problems, and get a working system, than NASA can do it.
I was tongue in cheek about it since we were talking about different units of measurement and it reminded me about the incident, but I sincerely question just what the software is doing on Cassini. It was built and launched around the same time.
Is it really 100km or 62 miles in the software?
As for the usefulness of the data, it is only useful in academic and scientific circles. How it applies to anything here on Earth remains to be questioned. Personally, I am all for NASA, but the funding levels are embarrassing.
I am genuinely ashamed as an American that we spent more money on paid mercenaries in Iraq to kill women and children instead of taking all of that money and giving it to NASA.
NASA does not get any respect right now, or funding, because education in this country has been a joke for decades and we are well on our way to Idiocracy. How can somebody respect NASA if they don't have the slightest understanding or appreciation of science in general?
There is a serious anti-intellectual and anti-science movement in the US right now, primarily lead by complete fucking nutbags that don't have the intelligence to allow Faith and Science to co-exist peacefully. There is nothing inherent about Faith and Science that put the two in conflict. People put them in conflict on both sides due to a failure to understand the nature of both of them. Once you understand that, then BOOM, no more conflict.
I dunno.
There was a congressional hearing recently where one of the original astronauts to land on the Moon complained about what we are doing, and I think he was spot on.
I am bitter about it for sure, but not just about NASA. I am bitter and saddened about our entire approach and dedication to arts and science in general.
We can bail out Wall Street because a bunch of truly despicable assholes screwed up with other people's money due to shortsightedness and greed, but we cannot spend any money on the things that will keep us alive and prosperous.
I guess to be more specific, America has all but closed up shop. We are basically being provided palliative care and waiting to die. I don't think I am the only one that feels this way deep down.
Once again, my real points were that the argument itself is pointless. The only leg they have to stand on was the geopolitical stance. Now the Soviets had some risk by saying it was fake, because everybody would say, "of course you would say that". So I cannot say that alone is evidence that it was real.
The real compelling evidence is just how much money was spent and the fact there was an actual launch. I find it far more likely it actually happened.
Even if there was a grand conspiracy, who cares? You or I cannot do anything about it as apathy, bitterness, and the divisiveness of the American populace prevents us from doing anything meaningful. At the end of the day it does not change the fact that I still need to work for a living and pay bills.
Oh, look I don't think the moon landings were faked. As I said to other posters, I think the motivations to do so were there, but that ultimately it does not matter what happened. I don't think it would change where we are today. I think the argument itself is just silly and not productive at this point.
Not everybody feels the same way about space. Personally, I think the military budget needs to be trimmed by 75%. It is just one big bailout and continual money pump for the Military-Industrial Complex at the tax payers expense. Take some of that and fund NASA.
If we are not going to be pushing serious money into future programs, than just close up shop. I think NASA is embarrassing at this point, and is like that old swap meet that is run down and barely has anybody selling or buying anymore. You just feel weird even going.
The idea that you will "blow your cookies all over the cabin" is a pretty big concern. I have heard that over and over and over again that nausea and vertigo can be problems for a large number of people. Once you got over that though, the view would be hard to put into words. The lack of gravity makes that a real fucking bitch though. Not only the smell would give you problems, but it going everywhere in the cabin is not a trivial issue.
I am dead serious that there needs to be "puke holes". A place where you can literally hold on to some handle bars, stick your whole head in, and have a vacuum take care of you while you lose your lunch.
Just one person could ruin it for everyone. I know. I farted one time on a plane, and dammit, if it was not Krakatoa and Chernobyl's love child. It affected the whole plane. For the record, it was in the bathroom, but that did not save the rest of the passengers.
So I would not trivialize how bodily functions will affect space travel.
As for your other points, I absolutely agree with you. Science for Science's sake is also at an all time low. There has to be some awe factor and immediate value for the money for space exploration to become self-funding, because it certainly seems like we are more interested in giving it to fraudulent assholes on Wall Street, people promising the next super weapon, or doing basically anything other than what we need to be doing with it.
For the record, my position is that we start pumping money as fast as we can directly into education, infrastructure, arts, and science. Do it in the right way too, not just blow the money on somebody's uncle with a lucrative contract where we overpay and get very little back.
I think the resistance is that it is too hard to relate our experiences in metric. The majority of people, even with just some college experience don't understand significant figures. Understanding of Math is at an all time low in the U.S, IMO. Way too many people have no grasp on statistics, and the (in)famous causation does not equal correlation. Yes, I deliberately messed that up for effect :)
For the record, I admit that I don't have as much of an understanding of statistics as I would like. Lately, I am finding it more important with what I do, so I am having to pick it up. For instance, I have found that the variance and standard deviation can be quite useful in exploring inefficiency in workloads generated by very large sets of data.
I also understand spatially, just how far away a mile is. It is 5,280 feet. Same thing with liquids. I have a much better idea how much liquid is in one gallon based on the container sizes, and an even better idea just what is 5 gallons. You tell me a liter and it is much harder for me to visualize it.
Of course, being a guy, I get 6 inches confused quite a bit as being the distance between my two hands outstretched.
We just have to switch to metric and make the gradual adjustment to thinking and experiencing life in terms of metric measurements. Personally, I am pretty entrenched in miles, gallons, feet, yards, etc. However, I am willing to attempt the adjustment because ultimately it is preventing us from interacting with the rest of the world and contributing to the idea that Americans are arrogant.
Language falls under the same problem as well. The whole world does not, nor does it need to, speak English. I think it is a shame that we have so few Americans that speak multiple languages. It does not have to be a matter of pride that everything is in English, and I have no problems with everything being in multiple languages. Being in IT, I already get 99% of all my documentation available in multiple languages and most, if not all, of my platforms and development are multilingual as well. Pretty much everything has made, or is starting to make the transition, to unicode support too.
I am not disagreeing with you about how much evidence there is that we went, or about how hard it would have been to fake it.
Just pointing out that the motivations to do so are absolutely plausible and that the argument itself is a waste of time. It does not actually matter whether we did or did not go to the moon.
The goals were achieved, regardless of the means. That is the real point I am trying to make, which is that the argument itself is pointless.
It's like arguing about who killed JFK. Let's say the evidence comes out tomorrow and the organization responsible is still doing shit today. What then? We protest? Quit our jobs? Go crazy and starting looting and tearing shit up?
It makes no difference. I sincerely doubt that all of us as a whole could take any meaningful action. If we accepted the Patriot Act, the Bailouts, and all of the other bullshit with a bunch of people arguing on both sides but still allowing it to happen, how are we going to possibly have the strength and wherewithal to bring the people responsible to account?
We won't. Cynical? Maybe, I prefer to say it is just a realistic position.
There are also people like me who truly just don't care one way or the other.
Don't get me wrong. I think the whole universe is beautiful, humbling, and awesome. I just leave the exploration to people who have passion for it.
It hardly matters if the data is being falsified to cover up alien interactions. At the end of the day, I still have to deal with the realities of life on the ground, and whatever information I obtain about the truth will never give me an edge to fight the people that are apparently dead set on owning and oppressing me.
That is what the "nutters" and "rational" people tend to overlook. That the whole exercise is meaningless. You are both in a room slowly being deprived of oxygen yelling the top of your lungs about whether there were two apples in the refrigerator, who put them there, and why.
Personally, I am staying quiet over in the corner thinking about the oxygen and how do I solve that problem. Same logic applies to all the divisive arguments in politics and religion, which are all too often mixed.
For the record, the moon landings being faked has some plausibility if you consider geopolitical motivations at the time. If I was in government at the time, I would have been all for faking the moon landings if it meant getting one up on the Commies. It is not about the truth, but about a propaganda war and who is thought to be wielding the biggest stick. From that perspective, the hoax is not only plausible, but a reasonable extrapolation of the situation. If we really could get to the moon, all the better. If we couldn't, fuck it, let's just fake it really really well and make the Soviets look like backwards idiots eating our techno dust.
Either way, it accomplished its purpose. It raised American morale, inspired countless people towards achievement, excellence, and the pursuit of the truth.
Once again, my concerns have always been a lot more domestic.
LOL.
No, it is 62 miles.
Pretty sure NASA learned its lesson about having consistent units of measurement throughout the entire software operating on their hardware in space.
However, if I remember correctly, Cassini was launched before the Mars Climate Orbiter. So who knows if there is conversion software changing between miles and kilometers.
At this point though, it hardly matters. Seems like we have all but closed up the space program anyways. Just monitoring and finishing up, and waiting for private corporations to take over space exploration and exploitation.
I do the same thing with the shopper discount cards. The whole thing is bullshit. If you look at the discounted prices you can readily see how much value they assign to your purchasing history. If they didn't they would just set the discount price as the regular price and be done with it.
The easy way to defeat is to share a single phone number with everyone and not care about the gas. Somebody might be taking the credits at the pump, but who cares really. The whole point is to get the discount price. If you shop smart and keep to the discount items and figure out the time intervals, you can save more money than you ever would on the gas.
For instance, there is a two week interval on sales of boneless skinless chicken. Just wait for it and then load up. That is what a freezer in the garage is for, although heavens help you if the power goes out.
Picking a random phone number and trying to get gas credits is not an idea I would be spreading around. There are cameras at the pump and some people really do spend thousands of dollars every month or so with a medium sized family. You are taking something of actual monetary value away from them and I can imagine at some point, especially in this economy, you will run across somebody that was expecting the credits to be there. Considering your license plate is recorded at the pump, in addition to probably using a payment method that can be tracked, not a good idea to do something that could be a misdemeanor at best, and at worst used with some trumped up interpretations to label you as a hacker and turn it into a felony.
I don't think I am going overboard here. There are always some low-level people in the DA's office looking to make a name for themselves or just having a bad day. You never really know.
*****
As for Facebook:
The answer to FaceBook is not to participate with FaceBook. I always see people complaining and I am reminded of WHOPPER from WarGames where it takes him playing Tic Tac Toe against itself a couple million times before it learns the greatest wisdom much of us need to learn..... the correct move is not to play. I have said many times that I would renounce my citizenship and live on an island made out floating garbage like the people in Water World before I get a single social networking account. That part, I am dead serious about.
That is our biggest problem, specifically, that we cannot find the will power to just say no, or to suffer some inconveniences.
I have not paid for TV (which is subsidizing your exposure to advertisements) for over 5 years now. That alone has saved me between $1200 - $1500 per year. Sure, I cannot participate in conversations about the latest episode of whatever, but most of those conversations are a complete waste of time. If the show is any good, I will eventually be able to purchase, rent, or torrent the seasons on DVD.
I have not participated in BlueRay or HD (whatever that was), or anything else that involves DRM. BlueRay especially, since they are moving towards Internet connected devices to solve their problems of encryption updates breaking forwards compatibility with new titles. Still royally pissed off how many fucking times I am begged by family members to upgrade the firmware on their BlueFucked(tm) devices to watch the latest SpiderMan.
I have not participated in social networking because I understand the true value of my privacy and anonymity.
I have not participated in any device that I cannot completely and totally own. Of course I am referring to the ridiculous statement that loading up my own operating system on hardware I purchased is "hacking", "piracy", and/or violations of the DMCA. They can go to hell. I own it, and if I want to break out their DRM model, I will do it. It's war and I am waiting. Come and get it. This of course precludes me from owning most new devices, since I no longer have the patience or geek motivation to continually fight the battle. This is of particular note with Amazon, since the
I got this one.
Pretty sure Mr. Shatner would reply like this:
"Well Mr. Arcite, firstly thanks for being a fan. Secondly, up the dosage on whatever meds you are on. Please. You referred to me by my real name, but then actually asked me about my experiences in a movie as if it existed. This is why Trek conventions need security, or why I am glad they have one.
Normally, I would say get a life, but in your case I would say pick a life."
There were a couple of them with Bugs Bunny. In the Road Runner ones he never actually speaks. However, he has dialogue with Bugs Bunny.
It is in one of these episodes that the door incident occurs. You might also remember him making nitro filled carrots in a shed talking to himself while Bugs Bunny moves the shed on to the train tracks. I think the same episode also has him using a UNIVAC computer to come up with his strategies.
Search YouTube. A lot of cartoons have been uploaded there.
Wile E Coyote also did some cartoons trying to steal sheep. At least the coyote looks really really similar.
Whatever man. I am not resisting anything.
Passwords and secret keys don't have anything to do with the principles of security through obscurity.
I am getting the distinct impression I am feeding a troll, so the kitchen is closed. Come back tomorrow.
Uhhhhhh..... okay
I am not redefining terms here at all.
Granted, this is from Wikipedia:
Security through (or by) obscurity is a pejorative referring to a principle in security engineering, which attempts to use secrecy (of design, implementation, etc.) to provide security. A system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that the flaws are not known, and that attackers are unlikely to find them. A system may use security through obscurity as a defense in depth measure; while all known security vulnerabilities would be mitigated through other measures, public disclosure of products and versions in use makes them early targets for newly discovered vulnerabilities in those products and versions. An attacker's first step is usually information gathering; this step is delayed by security through obscurity. The technique stands in contrast with security by design and open security, although many real-world projects include elements of all strategies.
icebraining is not correct here, and your assertion I am changing the definition from the norm and widely accepted definition is false. Security through obscurity, as a concept, is not something vague and a matter of perspective. It is a very well defined term in security and has been for quite some time.
According to the definition above, a password is not incomplete information, or information being obscured, as it is being presented in the context of the article and the principle of security through obscurity.
Making this a philosophical debate that a password is also obscurity at some level has nothing to do with the principles that are mentioned.
I don't think that is what they mean by incomplete information.
In the context of security through obscurity it has always, to me, seemed to mean that your method and process of providing security is not well understood and it is this fact that is providing the majority of the security. If somebody figures out the method or process, your security is greatly compromised.
A password, or private key, is not a good example in this case. I think a better example would be that passwords and private keys protect documents created by a certain well known company, but that their methods and processes were so laughable that you could create a program to bypass the keys themselves.
Or in other words........ the only thing keeping Wile E Coyote (Super Genius) from getting to Bugs Bunny though the locked door is his complete lack of awareness that there is nothing around the door but the desert itself. Take two steps to the right, two steps forward, turn to your left, and there is Bugs Bunny. You did not even have to get an ACME locksmith to come out.
That's fine and all. If you want to create your security through incomplete information, or different tactics and strategy, that is a choice.
Just don't be a childish whining little bitch and run to the FBI to stop the big bad anti-social "hackers" from revealing your used-to-be incomplete information in security conventions and trying to have them arrested.
You get double whiny bitch points trying to invoke copyright to prevent the "leakage" of your incomplete information.
I certainly get the point of the article, but a system that is secured through well thought out and tested means will always trump a system where, "Golly Gee Willickers Bat Man.... I hope they don't find the secret entrance to our bat cave that is totally unprotected and unmonitored".
randomly calls whores and puts them on a three-way call with my girlfriend when I take it out of the holster
I have played with one too, and it is not as bad as you say it is, but without Android support it is going to be practically worthless. Your entire post has an extremely acerbic tone to it.
Perhaps there is an entire article, or possibly a movie screenplay, about the "whores", your girlfriend, and the hilarious shenanigans with your phone.
Questions. Questions. Questions.
1) Are these actual whores being called by your phone, or is the "whore" a characterization from your girlfriend?
2) Is the Torch in possession of AI sufficient to determine if a contact is in fact a whore?
3) Can the Torch apply something like least cost routing to your selection of whore contacts? Availability?
4) Why do you keep so many "whore" contacts in your phone?
5) Statistically speaking, how can the Torch alone be responsible for 3-way'n so many whores with your girlfriend? Not the good 3-way either obviously.
6) Have other phones in the past accidentally dialed contacts in your vast whore repo before?
Seriously. I don't think I am the only person here who wants to know more about this.
Please continue.
I'm not sure if it's still going on. Remember, real debt collectors call you directly (no robocalls), address you by name and can specify precisely what you owe and to whom.
That is absolutely false, and at a minimum, simplistic.
I get dozens of robocalls every single day that use text-to-speech to address me by name. I never answer any phone number that does not have a contact file in my cell phone, so I know that the voice messages they are leaving are being generated by PBX systems integrated with their own databases. The few times I have made a mistake were because I was dealing with vendors and thought it was a vendor calling me back real quick and the automated message started off straight away asking me to hold the line for a rep.
I should know, I help implement and design some systems for various clients. Not telemarketing or debt collection, but appointment reminders and operational communications reminding customers about a future payment, required information, etc. It's not really difficult to do this, especially with Asterisk, call files, database lookups, and cron jobs/daemons.
None of these are scams either. I can match up the phone number with online records and then match up the company names with the 14 lbs of debt collection notices I get each month in the mail.
How did I get this much?
Try getting seriously ill with an unknown disease and visiting the ER or being hospitalized over 10 times in the last 18 months with no health insurance. A single visit without health insurance can involve a half dozen or more different health "vendors" that all want to get paid. Even with obtaining health insurance there are some bills I simply cannot pay, and that triggers off another couple of companies attempting to collect.
The alternative is to die quietly in a gutter somewhere. I chose option B. So I easily have 40+ creditors after me for over 100k in health care bills.
Another thing to consider is that debt collection is big business. The original creditor sells 3-6 month old debt to a collection agency. Those calls tend to be personal one-on-one calls with a human being in most cases. A human being leaves the message. However, every 6-12 months (or a smaller cycle in some cases), the collection agencies resell the debt yet again to other collection agencies. With tax laws, and magical accounting, everybody gets to write off the losses. In some cases, the full amount that I owe, even if that is not what they paid.
After a year or two what you get is a collection agency that is just trying to hit the 5-10% mark or less. They have a fixed budget for operations, and that does not allow call center staff to be making personal calls. This is where you get the robocalls. It is not a scam at all. They just bought your debt after 5+ other companies already bought it and sold it.
Statute of limitations does not even stop them either. My state is 6 years, however, there are plenty of companies that are still purchasing the debt (cheaply) knowing full well the statutes don't allow them to forcibly collect in court. Just a game of percentages. For numerous friends in the last couple of years I have handled "time barred" debt collections for them by informing the company officially through certified mail with proof of mailings that they cannot legally collect and cease all communication. It works with statutes of limitation, but actually resets the statute if it has not passed yet. Definitely need to be sure it has passed the statute before you attempt that.
You are most certainly wrong about all robocalls being scams. It is just tremendously cheaper (therefore increasing profit margins) for real debt collection agencies to use robocalling hoping to get a single fish on the line for every 10 pieces of bait they purchased.
With all of that being said, this bill does not mean anything. It is next to impossible right now to determine a land line from a cell phone with any reliability at a
What does that have to do with "sweetheart" deals? Absolutely nothing.
If you have an email address with Company A and are getting a shitload of SPAM then you leave. We are not really talking about companies here anyways are we?
Just the top 5 I think. If Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. are knowingly profiting from accepting known SPAM that is NOT a "sweetheart" deal. That is more than likely a crime, and criminal conspiracy.
Email campaign companies are no different than any other type of marketing company such as SMS marketing. ClickATell got its ass handed to them for not managing their own traffic and effectively got decimated in the US because the ultimate arbiter of whether or not messages from your shortcode get accepted are the carriers.
It is natural for those companies with good reputations to have "sweetheart" deals where no money has changed hands at all with a very large email provider.
Money exchanging hands where end customers are being harmed is not part of a "sweetheart" deal. That is just flat out criminal conspiracy.
Sorry, but what you are talking about is not nearly the same thing as reputation based scoring, whitelisting, and feedback loops in email communications between large providers and small providers.
it taints the cookie's value.
There is nothing right about taint and cookie being in the same sentence, so I agree with you on principle.
You think that is something?
Maybe you should watch some of the congressional hearings on C-SPAN. It's mind bending logic and great show. Unfortunately, it's Reality TeeVee.
Paul Reubens already has the trademark on a secondary meaning for "multi-touch"
Most people don't know him by that name, but Pee Wee Herman instead. The "incident" you referred to was him masturbating in a porno theater.
Of course, what is also rumored is that the real reason why he was arrested is that the "effect" of his "multi-touch" technique resulted in assaulting a police officer... in the back of the head. Which officer is going to write that down in a statement? None. Hence, the lesser charge of whacking off in public.
Now, what I find the most amazing about the whole thing is that there exists a dark theater full of men watching porn with loaded weapons behind them about to go off at anytime. A really disgusting kind of Russian Roulette. How the heck do you rub one out with somebody doing the same thing behind you? Never made much sense to me.
All I ever really wanted to know, was if Paul Reubens did his signature laugh at the end. That would have been priceless. I can imagine that officer always involuntarily looking behind him anytime somebody laughs funny.
I would consider it highly dubious. We have two possibilities here:
1) A human can catch fire, burn from the inside out, explode, etc. while still alive. Pretty scary to think about, but even in urban legends and old wives tales, have we ever heard of anything like that witnessed by another human being? I have never heard about it at all. Granted, I am only one person, but that is some seriously awesome shit. You would expect a story, a myth, legend, etc. to be passed around about seeing something like that. Yet, this event is always without witnesses, and to my knowledge, involves enclosed spaces.
2) A dead human can catch fire and with our current forensic technology we cannot explain the source and/or pattern of the combustion, or even the approximate environment in which it can occur.
In both 1 and 2 you would expect some data, and correlated events. Meaning, that dead bodies left at room temperature in enclosed spaces have a much higher rate of combustion without an external ignition source, and that live people under some condition just catch fire.
We have no data supporting that at all, anywhere. Why are there not, in the entire course of human history, mention of dead bodies just catching fire with witnesses? Not even one? Statistically, I find that highly improbable, hence why I find it so dubious. People that are still alive? Not a single instance with a witness.
It is far more likely that we cannot establish the exact cause in a way that stands up to scientific scrutiny, explains multiple events, and can be reproduced in experimental environments. Yes, I am suggesting that we take dead bodies and setup specific environments. Why not? We perform a ton of research with dead bodies, and they are becoming more plentiful all the time. I would donate my body for such an experiment when I am dead. Seriously, it would be awesome if my body exploded. Wickedly cool, even.
Spontaneous Human Combustion is one of those catch-all explanations when nothing else applies. Kind of like a default in a switch statement, or schizophrenia when the psychologist just can't seem to narrow it down and just wants to go home.
There is a reason these bodies catch fire. Spontaneously is highly highly unlikely given how many human beings are on the planet and the rate at which information has traveled in the last 200 years. We would have something at this point.
It is just as reasonable for me to conclude that they were probed by aliens and that is just a cover-up by an organization of people that all wear black suits and have single character names.
This same logic applies to Big Foot. I mean seriously, the fucker is huge, hence the name. Unless he was trained in super spy school or the art of Ninjutsu, I am pretty sure somebody other than a drunk hunter with poor camera equipment would have come across one by now. Even a dead one.
Well I don't know if it is a rumor or urban legend, but old man Hormel was said to have condemned SPAM as the worst offense against humanity, second only to World War II (SPAM was invented in 1937). He wholly regretted his part in its creation.
He said it was so bad, vile, and nasty that sending it to our troops was a mistake. We should have air dropped it on the enemy.
If true, I highly doubt he was eating it either.
Of course, I don't even know if that is true or not, but SPAM is some nasty looking crap in a can. Farking Hawaiians though act like it fell from Heaven. Although, I must admit that they can prepare some pretty tasty dishes with it. You just have to "suspend disbelief" as they say and forget what you are eating.
I think he would have preferred to have been Frito-laid to death.