Or perhaps all this talk of viruses in drone systems is laying the ground work to create plausible deniability for hitting the "wrong" target, which in reality, may really be the intended target - think assassinations... government could claim it wasn't us who killed "X", we would never do that, it must have been those pesky hackers; the virus did it.
I'm amazed more don't put two and two together. Most of Mozilla Foundation's income comes from Google. Seems like a huge conflict of interest...
And many others feel the same way - below is an excerpt from a cnet article from a few years ago to ponder when considering what's happened with Firefox lately...
"However, the open secret in the tech sector is that at the end of the day, Google calls the shots. As this blog post will explain, when a pro-user security feature in the browser threatens Google's business model, it is the feature that is made to compromise--not the search engine."
One has to wonder whether some driving Firefox development are really in cahoots with Google with the objective of marginalizing Firefox as a Chrome clone.
Regardless of whether that's the case, Firefox is looking to be more like Chrome all the time... and, hence, imho, it's no surprise so many Firefox users are flocking to Chrome.
It's obvious that the brand of blank DVDs makes a difference, but what few know is using a *slower* burn speed, such as 4X, can greatly help.
Some other suggestions:
* Be sure no extra programs, browsers, etc are running when burning - if not possible, consider getting a dedicated computer just for burning use.
* Make at least two copies using two different brands of DVD - and on each DVD itself, burn two copies - that will limit data to about 2.2 GIG per DVD, so not always practical for video, but certainly worth doing for pictures.
* Storage - keep in dark, well ventilated place - not the garage nor the attic. Keep moisture under 50% whenever possible.
DVDs can be a good intermediate backup option that can with some care in burning and storage, likely last 10-20 year, and perhaps far longer - no one really knows yet.
I remember back when consumer grade videotapes became widely available some people claiming they'd only last 10 years - and yet roughly 30 years later, it turns out videotape degrade somewhat, but nowhere near as much as was once believed. So it's quite possible in 30+ years burned DVDs may still be readable with little to no data loss.
Glad to see others publicly noticing the wind speed discrepancies and general weakness of the storm.
Related to that is some local stations not only referred to it as a hurricane, but further stated that hurricane force winds extended out 125 miles from the eye when it was already very evident, even to many TV news reporters, some of who, that morning, on the air, characterized it as more akin to a Nor'Easter.
Makes some, including myself, wonder whether state and local governments, from pressure by the Feds, used the storm as a pretext to test shutting down entire mass transit systems and mass evacuations; not to see if it was possible, but what the public reaction would be, and the amount of compliance - reportedly, some local authorities, for people who refused to leave, were demanding them to provide their names and social security numbers.
Mozilla Corporation gets most of the funding from Google, and so it's no surprise that Firefox is becoming more like Chrome.
Are many of the influential people involved with Firefox development Google employees? And/or many Google die-hard fanboys? If so that alone explains much of it...
As to what the end game is?... Firefox, while keeping its branding / look, becoming a Chrome clone? -or- Firefox simply being made redundant, and eventually killed off, by getting most Firefox users over to Chrome - from anecdotal reports, people are switching in droves.
What gets me is where are the FORKS?... if big corporations and developers rely on Firefox, why aren't any forking recent versions of it? Imho, 3.6x would be a fantastic fork point, and improve on that.
Overall body exposure is very, very low when operating correctly, but if the beam stops and/or the operator repeatedly rescans isolated areas / uses higher resolution, the radiation exposure can be far higher.
A related issue is that much of the radiation energy is concentrated in the skin - that alone raises safety questions.
And how do the minimally trained TSA employees, let alone passengers, know for sure the machines are operating correctly? They don't, and hence avoiding such scans is prudent, especially for people who regularly fly.
You're correct, the death toll due to Fukushima is single digits.
However, the main reason for that being so is because the authorities evacuated people far away from the plant; hundreds of square miles of land surrounding the plant is now considered uninhabitable for many years.
Likewise with Chernobyl... again, the mandatory evacuation is why the death toll there has been relatively low.
In both incidents, if people had been allowed to stay, the death toll would be in the thousands, at minimum, and potentially tens to hundreds of thousands, including many outside of the area...
How? Because not only are the people exposed to radioactive fallout at risk, but so are those that later come into contact with them. By keeping people out, there's less chance of the fallout debris being spread around contaminating other areas.
In short, the hazard is very real - it's the mandatory evacuations that has kept the death toll so low.
Mozilla Corporation gets most of its funds from Google. Something to keep in mind in regards to the future of Firefox...
My gut says, barring some significant change in funding / lead developers, that Firefox's future is bleak - what's happening now feels to me so much like what happened back when Netscape jumped the shark with their bloated Communicator suite. People bailed in droves.
The ideal situation would be for a group of developers to fork Firefox 3.6.x, throw in some of the improvements from 4, and run with it. Many would be greatly appreciative, and likely support it in both time and donations; don't make the same mistake as Mozilla Foundation has in regards to relying too much on any one major donor.
From my understanding, Mozilla Corporation gets most of its funds from Google. I get the sense that Firefox is being setup to fail with Google Chrome being the main beneficiary.
Asking whether one is a police officer, FBI agent, special investigator, etc is NO guarantee of anything.
Nor is them legally breaking the law - it's standard operating procedure for investigators in stings, such as during undercover drug operations and investigating massage parlors.
The authorities, which include all sorts of agencies, can, and often do, lie during the course of an investigation, as well as other times, such as during interrogation.
And yet, lying to the authorities is often a crime. Hence, the importance of remaining silent and having an attorney present.
Though, to digress a bit, there are various instances in which one can potentially be forced to speak and/or denied an attorney.
Bottom line is "entrapment" is very difficult to utilize as a defense - very rarely will it work, especially against the Feds.
Airline security isn't about protecting passengers, though that's a side-benefit, but rather protecting structures / areas deemed important by the power-elite from attack by aircraft.
Hence, planes / terminals / people on the ground being blown up is of little concern compared to planes themselves being used as weapons, such in New York City back on Sept 11, 2001.
Not to justifying the hacking per se, but many PBS stations have strayed far from their roots of serving the public interest.
Nowadays, minutes long blocks of advertising have become routine on many PBS stations. Combined with "bugs" - often multiple! TV station logo in one corner often along others, such as E/I, in another - what the heck E/I means is beyond me other than being more annoying clutter on the screen.
And as for excessive corporate executive pay, yep PBS has that too. The head of WHYY, which serves the Delaware Valley region, including Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has reportedly received upwards of $500,000 in combined annual compensation.
This topic came up several days ago in another thread on here... another poster pointed out that often it's not the amount one steals that gets one caught, but rather unbalanced loads.
Regardless of whether one is paying or not, it's always important to balance the load between both 120v legs... electricians when installing / upgrading a panel will stagger breakers so that both 120v legs are tapped roughly equally (not by the number of breakers, but rather in regards to expected loads).
On a related note, it's often greed that gets people caught - the utility is definitely going to notice, and will investigate, if one's average usage substantially drops to near zero - that's often a sure sign of wire problems and/or meter being bypassed.
Though not surprising to see such comment... many people have become conditioned to the police state and not fully aware of how omnipresent it is around them.
Seems to me the only people who should be asking questions, if anyone, regarding 3X average household usage would be the power utility to ensure the customer is aware of it and is able to pay.
And perhaps, especially in older developments / rural areas, sending out a utility tech to verify the drop and transformer are up to the task - likely there's going to be plenty of extra capacity available and hence no issues.
After Amazon remotely deleted 1984 (ironic to say the least), this is no surprise. It would be akin to a book seller breaking into one's home to take back a book one had already bought; "licensed" is the loophole Amazon and other on-line book sellers uses to get around the 1st sale doctrine to restrict, or even often forbid, resale, sharing, etc.
More to the point, the 1984 incident illustrated well that Kindles, much like many mobile devices, are designed with remote deletion in mind - there was an article on here the other day about Google remotely deleting apps.
While Amazon supposedly agreed they will refrain from utilizing remote deletion in the future, the feature still exists. On a related note, even if the device out of the box doesn't support remote deletion, any device that accepts software updates with little (ie. Bluray players; inserting a disc) to no user intervention (mobile phones) can easily be programmed to remotely restrict / delete / self-destruct.
Among the best defenses against remote deletion / restrictions are widely used, non-DRM formats that can be easily copied and widely distributed, as well as, easily compared / verified to ensure the contents haven't changed...
To digress a tad, it's only a matter of time, assuming it's not already happened, before some company, such as Amazon, doesn't remotely delete a book, but rather silently modifies some of the content *after* purchase without telling the customer.
Opps, should have used preview first... wrote "Not sure what the answer is..." twice. With that said, despite the poor grammar, that repetition emphasizes the helplessness / hopelessness many feel these days.
Great that some are committed at going after Sony through public protests. But do such protests really work? Or are they just public spectacles that get lost in the mass-media 24/7 news cycle...
Civil disobedience at a large enough level can be effective, such as so many people breaking the speed limit that finally the U.S. Federal mandated 55MPH limit was repealed in the mid-1990s.
However, it seems few people really care about DRM to go out of their way to knowingly break the law, let alone do so publicly.
Not sure what the answer is other than throwing a lot of money at politicians to change the laws (DMCA for starters), but good luck outbidding Sony, Disney, et al in that pursuit.
Not sure what the answer is other than individuals and small groups seeking out hardware mods / DRM crackers and sharing them among friends... and over time, if enough people do likewise, maybe change will occur at a large-scale level, but if it doesn't, at least one will still get much of the benefits now within their local group of friends, family, etc; their tribe so to speak.
After many years of Firefox being a solid, well performing browser, it appears it's going to end in bloat just like Netscape did...
And, history is set to repeat itself again with MSIE 9 having more to offer than Firefox just like MSIE did back years ago when people dumped Netscape in droves.
I'm sticking with Firefox 3.6x for as long as I can, and then when push comes to shove, just like back in the Netscape days, will likely switch to MSIE 9 unless a decent fork of Firefox comes along before then - a decent fork probably already exists, but not aware of what they are.
Many people just want a fast, compact, featured (Chrome falls short in that regard; privacy issues) browser - Firefox offered that - shame to see it becoming buggy bloatware.
I'm sticking with Firefox 3.6x for as long as possible - it's very stable and runs well.
Firefox is making many of same mistakes Netscape did by trying to be everything to everyone.
On a related topic, the strong push to integrate social networking and apps into upcoming versions of the browser makes me wonder if Facebook is heavily influencing the development of Firefox these days.
Such high speed rail proposals in the U.S., for the most part, will be boondoggles.
Too expensive, lack of flexibility in destinations compared to air travel, or heck, even car travel. Limited capacity; scales poorly.
Then there are the issues of the TSA being involved...
The security lines, including the dangerous X-ray scanners (not hyperbole; TSA itself is refusing to release x-ray emissions, safety, and testing data - they know something isn't right), the pat-downs, along with the baggage searches and passenger name matching.
Plus the security to secure the rails themselves. What many people don't realize is that current low speed rail can tolerate quite a bit of track damage as in misalignments and even small gaps. High speed rail, regardless of the system, is very unforgiving in comparison.
In short, even for the few routes where high-speed rail travel may make real sense, if one must deal with all the inevitable TSA security theater, one might as well just fly anyways.
Slashdot Mirror
Or perhaps all this talk of viruses in drone systems is laying the ground work to create plausible deniability for hitting the "wrong" target, which in reality, may really be the intended target - think assassinations ... government could claim it wasn't us who killed "X", we would never do that, it must have been those pesky hackers; the virus did it.
Another option is not trashing them, but instead put them all in a box to store indefinitely.
I'm amazed more don't put two and two together. Most of Mozilla Foundation's income comes from Google. Seems like a huge conflict of interest...
And many others feel the same way - below is an excerpt from a cnet article from a few years ago to ponder when considering what's happened with Firefox lately...
"However, the open secret in the tech sector is that at the end of the day, Google calls the shots. As this blog post will explain, when a pro-user security feature in the browser threatens Google's business model, it is the feature that is made to compromise--not the search engine."
Read entire article at http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9776759-46.html
One has to wonder whether some driving Firefox development are really in cahoots with Google with the objective of marginalizing Firefox as a Chrome clone.
Regardless of whether that's the case, Firefox is looking to be more like Chrome all the time ... and, hence, imho, it's no surprise so many Firefox users are flocking to Chrome.
It's obvious that the brand of blank DVDs makes a difference, but what few know is using a *slower* burn speed, such as 4X, can greatly help.
Some other suggestions:
* Be sure no extra programs, browsers, etc are running when burning - if not possible, consider getting a dedicated computer just for burning use.
* Make at least two copies using two different brands of DVD - and on each DVD itself, burn two copies - that will limit data to about 2.2 GIG per DVD, so not always practical for video, but certainly worth doing for pictures.
* Storage - keep in dark, well ventilated place - not the garage nor the attic. Keep moisture under 50% whenever possible.
DVDs can be a good intermediate backup option that can with some care in burning and storage, likely last 10-20 year, and perhaps far longer - no one really knows yet.
I remember back when consumer grade videotapes became widely available some people claiming they'd only last 10 years - and yet roughly 30 years later, it turns out videotape degrade somewhat, but nowhere near as much as was once believed. So it's quite possible in 30+ years burned DVDs may still be readable with little to no data loss.
This highlights the danger of automatic software updates.
Glad to see others publicly noticing the wind speed discrepancies and general weakness of the storm.
Related to that is some local stations not only referred to it as a hurricane, but further stated that hurricane force winds extended out 125 miles from the eye when it was already very evident, even to many TV news reporters, some of who, that morning, on the air, characterized it as more akin to a Nor'Easter.
Makes some, including myself, wonder whether state and local governments, from pressure by the Feds, used the storm as a pretext to test shutting down entire mass transit systems and mass evacuations; not to see if it was possible, but what the public reaction would be, and the amount of compliance - reportedly, some local authorities, for people who refused to leave, were demanding them to provide their names and social security numbers.
Ron
Mozilla Corporation gets most of the funding from Google, and so it's no surprise that Firefox is becoming more like Chrome.
Are many of the influential people involved with Firefox development Google employees? And/or many Google die-hard fanboys? If so that alone explains much of it ...
As to what the end game is?... Firefox, while keeping its branding / look, becoming a Chrome clone? -or- Firefox simply being made redundant, and eventually killed off, by getting most Firefox users over to Chrome - from anecdotal reports, people are switching in droves.
What gets me is where are the FORKS? ... if big corporations and developers rely on Firefox, why aren't any forking recent versions of it? Imho, 3.6x would be a fantastic fork point, and improve on that.
Exactly. And is the main danger of the machines.
Overall body exposure is very, very low when operating correctly, but if the beam stops and/or the operator repeatedly rescans isolated areas / uses higher resolution, the radiation exposure can be far higher.
A related issue is that much of the radiation energy is concentrated in the skin - that alone raises safety questions.
And how do the minimally trained TSA employees, let alone passengers, know for sure the machines are operating correctly? They don't, and hence avoiding such scans is prudent, especially for people who regularly fly.
You're correct, the death toll due to Fukushima is single digits.
However, the main reason for that being so is because the authorities evacuated people far away from the plant; hundreds of square miles of land surrounding the plant is now considered uninhabitable for many years.
Likewise with Chernobyl ... again, the mandatory evacuation is why the death toll there has been relatively low.
In both incidents, if people had been allowed to stay, the death toll would be in the thousands, at minimum, and potentially tens to hundreds of thousands, including many outside of the area...
How? Because not only are the people exposed to radioactive fallout at risk, but so are those that later come into contact with them. By keeping people out, there's less chance of the fallout debris being spread around contaminating other areas.
In short, the hazard is very real - it's the mandatory evacuations that has kept the death toll so low.
Correction: In the last sentence, I meant to write Mozilla Corporation.
Mozilla Corporation gets most of its funds from Google. Something to keep in mind in regards to the future of Firefox...
My gut says, barring some significant change in funding / lead developers, that Firefox's future is bleak - what's happening now feels to me so much like what happened back when Netscape jumped the shark with their bloated Communicator suite. People bailed in droves.
The ideal situation would be for a group of developers to fork Firefox 3.6.x, throw in some of the improvements from 4, and run with it. Many would be greatly appreciative, and likely support it in both time and donations; don't make the same mistake as Mozilla Foundation has in regards to relying too much on any one major donor.
From my understanding, Mozilla Corporation gets most of its funds from Google. I get the sense that Firefox is being setup to fail with Google Chrome being the main beneficiary.
A big myth!
Asking whether one is a police officer, FBI agent, special investigator, etc is NO guarantee of anything.
Nor is them legally breaking the law - it's standard operating procedure for investigators in stings, such as during undercover drug operations and investigating massage parlors.
The authorities, which include all sorts of agencies, can, and often do, lie during the course of an investigation, as well as other times, such as during interrogation.
And yet, lying to the authorities is often a crime. Hence, the importance of remaining silent and having an attorney present.
Though, to digress a bit, there are various instances in which one can potentially be forced to speak and/or denied an attorney.
Bottom line is "entrapment" is very difficult to utilize as a defense - very rarely will it work, especially against the Feds.
Ron
Airline security isn't about protecting passengers, though that's a side-benefit, but rather protecting structures / areas deemed important by the power-elite from attack by aircraft.
Hence, planes / terminals / people on the ground being blown up is of little concern compared to planes themselves being used as weapons, such in New York City back on Sept 11, 2001.
Not to justifying the hacking per se, but many PBS stations have strayed far from their roots of serving the public interest.
Nowadays, minutes long blocks of advertising have become routine on many PBS stations. Combined with "bugs" - often multiple! TV station logo in one corner often along others, such as E/I, in another - what the heck E/I means is beyond me other than being more annoying clutter on the screen.
And as for excessive corporate executive pay, yep PBS has that too. The head of WHYY, which serves the Delaware Valley region, including Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has reportedly received upwards of $500,000 in combined annual compensation.
http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-08/news/24961586_1_whyy-91fm-fiscal-year
Ron
The NYSE trading floor depicted in the photo is mostly irrelevant with, presumably, most, trades being done electronically.
Furthermore, the NYSE itself is no longer the NYSE alone ... it's part of a larger company, NYSE Euronext.
Ron
This topic came up several days ago in another thread on here ... another poster pointed out that often it's not the amount one steals that gets one caught, but rather unbalanced loads.
Regardless of whether one is paying or not, it's always important to balance the load between both 120v legs ... electricians when installing / upgrading a panel will stagger breakers so that both 120v legs are tapped roughly equally (not by the number of breakers, but rather in regards to expected loads).
On a related note, it's often greed that gets people caught - the utility is definitely going to notice, and will investigate, if one's average usage substantially drops to near zero - that's often a sure sign of wire problems and/or meter being bypassed.
Ron
Why should the police be involved?
Though not surprising to see such comment ... many people have become conditioned to the police state and not fully aware of how omnipresent it is around them.
Seems to me the only people who should be asking questions, if anyone, regarding 3X average household usage would be the power utility to ensure the customer is aware of it and is able to pay.
And perhaps, especially in older developments / rural areas, sending out a utility tech to verify the drop and transformer are up to the task - likely there's going to be plenty of extra capacity available and hence no issues.
Ron
After Amazon remotely deleted 1984 (ironic to say the least), this is no surprise. It would be akin to a book seller breaking into one's home to take back a book one had already bought; "licensed" is the loophole Amazon and other on-line book sellers uses to get around the 1st sale doctrine to restrict, or even often forbid, resale, sharing, etc.
More to the point, the 1984 incident illustrated well that Kindles, much like many mobile devices, are designed with remote deletion in mind - there was an article on here the other day about Google remotely deleting apps.
While Amazon supposedly agreed they will refrain from utilizing remote deletion in the future, the feature still exists. On a related note, even if the device out of the box doesn't support remote deletion, any device that accepts software updates with little (ie. Bluray players; inserting a disc) to no user intervention (mobile phones) can easily be programmed to remotely restrict / delete / self-destruct.
Among the best defenses against remote deletion / restrictions are widely used, non-DRM formats that can be easily copied and widely distributed, as well as, easily compared / verified to ensure the contents haven't changed...
To digress a tad, it's only a matter of time, assuming it's not already happened, before some company, such as Amazon, doesn't remotely delete a book, but rather silently modifies some of the content *after* purchase without telling the customer.
Ron
Two major reasons for supermarkets charging a fee ...
1. The profit margin is presumably far lower than a food place.
2. The delivery people likely are regular hourly paid employees and aren't expected to be tipped; use company vehicles instead of their own.
Ron
Opps, should have used preview first ... wrote "Not sure what the answer is ..." twice. With that said, despite the poor grammar, that repetition emphasizes the helplessness / hopelessness many feel these days.
Ron
Great that some are committed at going after Sony through public protests. But do such protests really work? Or are they just public spectacles that get lost in the mass-media 24/7 news cycle...
Civil disobedience at a large enough level can be effective, such as so many people breaking the speed limit that finally the U.S. Federal mandated 55MPH limit was repealed in the mid-1990s.
However, it seems few people really care about DRM to go out of their way to knowingly break the law, let alone do so publicly.
Not sure what the answer is other than throwing a lot of money at politicians to change the laws (DMCA for starters), but good luck outbidding Sony, Disney, et al in that pursuit.
Not sure what the answer is other than individuals and small groups seeking out hardware mods / DRM crackers and sharing them among friends ... and over time, if enough people do likewise, maybe change will occur at a large-scale level, but if it doesn't, at least one will still get much of the benefits now within their local group of friends, family, etc; their tribe so to speak.
Ron
After many years of Firefox being a solid, well performing browser, it appears it's going to end in bloat just like Netscape did...
And, history is set to repeat itself again with MSIE 9 having more to offer than Firefox just like MSIE did back years ago when people dumped Netscape in droves.
I'm sticking with Firefox 3.6x for as long as I can, and then when push comes to shove, just like back in the Netscape days, will likely switch to MSIE 9 unless a decent fork of Firefox comes along before then - a decent fork probably already exists, but not aware of what they are.
Many people just want a fast, compact, featured (Chrome falls short in that regard; privacy issues) browser - Firefox offered that - shame to see it becoming buggy bloatware.
Ron
I'm sticking with Firefox 3.6x for as long as possible - it's very stable and runs well.
Firefox is making many of same mistakes Netscape did by trying to be everything to everyone.
On a related topic, the strong push to integrate social networking and apps into upcoming versions of the browser makes me wonder if Facebook is heavily influencing the development of Firefox these days.
Ron
Such high speed rail proposals in the U.S., for the most part, will be boondoggles.
Too expensive, lack of flexibility in destinations compared to air travel, or heck, even car travel. Limited capacity; scales poorly.
Then there are the issues of the TSA being involved...
The security lines, including the dangerous X-ray scanners (not hyperbole; TSA itself is refusing to release x-ray emissions, safety, and testing data - they know something isn't right), the pat-downs, along with the baggage searches and passenger name matching.
Plus the security to secure the rails themselves. What many people don't realize is that current low speed rail can tolerate quite a bit of track damage as in misalignments and even small gaps. High speed rail, regardless of the system, is very unforgiving in comparison.
In short, even for the few routes where high-speed rail travel may make real sense, if one must deal with all the inevitable TSA security theater, one might as well just fly anyways.
Ron