Thanks for the tips. I haven't installed CyanogenMod because it doesn't support some of my phone's hardware features, but I'll choose my next phone more carefully. Paranoid seems to have an even narrower range of hardware that it supports. I could possibly do some tinkering with either of these to make them work on hardware not already supported. But as with my desktop computer, I'm past the stage where I want to put a lot of effort into that kind of thing - I'm more focused on what I can do WITH my devices than TO them. Also, as far as I've been able to tell, (please correct me if I'm wrong), using Cyanogen or Paranoid still won't address many of the app permissions problems, as many apps won't work when certain permissions are denied, even when those permissions are absolutely not needed for the app to do its job.
As for enabling mass storage and stripping out stuff myself, I've not done very much programming, and learning how to program just so I can have a secure and useful phone seems a bit much. Besides, AFAIK, (and again, please correct me if I'm wrong), most apps are not open source, so I couldn't readily modify them evem if I wanted to do so and had the skills.
My point about FFOS was that it has the potential to be a less toxic ecosystem than Android, with perhaps fewer privacy and security holes baked in.
it's still just DNA. who cares where it came from, what's important it what it does!...
What's important is "what it does" in combination with other DNA and mutates in ways that almost certainly would not have occurred without
invasive genetic modification. Not to mention "what it does" in combination with other organisms and with its environment.
The point here is that the interactions of the systems we're dicking with are so complex that we have no possible way of even predicting the outcomes, never mind controlling them. If you're not into reading what Taleb has to say, you might want to at least have a(nother?) look at the concept of Requisite Variety.
...It's the same as with FFOS on smartphones, it doesn't really solve any problem, even at the low end of the market Android has dirt cheap phones pretty well covered with a proven and already well-established OS.
If FFOS turns out to be any good in any reasonable time frame, (and I too have my doubts about that), then it will solve a big problem for me. I have an Android phone, of whose capabilities I only use about 10%. Why? Because I don't use Google cloud services - I don't trust them as far as I can throw one of their server farms. Because Android apps are security-hole-ridden nightmares whose permissions I have little control over even on my rooted device. Because Google added that POS called MTP and took away the simplicity of USB mass storage.
If FFOS puts some power and control back into my hands, then I'll call it a win even if it's not as powerful or featureful as Android. I'm sick and tired of Google's plans for world domination.
...The only reason for needing to know if the police are nearby is if one is a criminal and/or thinking of doing something criminal.
(Expecting downvotes from the "all police are pigs" idiots)
I have mod points right now, but rather than downmod you I'll jump into the discussion. While I wouldn't say that all police are pigs, anybody who maintains that the average law abiding citizen has nothing to fear from the police either has his head in the sand, or is trolling. If your qualifier had read "if one might be viewed as a criminal and/or thinking of doing something that the police claim is suspicious in order to further their own ends", I'd agree with you. But then, there wouldn't have been much of a reason for you to post, would there?
The story before this one is about the best use of data centre space; the juxtaposition made me wonder if prisons might make good data centres. I know adding the wiring and cooling to a building not designed for it might be a challenge, but at least a lot of the security requirements are already present. Just a thought...
Digital meters don't have the slow response that d'Arsonval meter movements have, unless extra circuitry is added. The inertia and magnetic delay of old-fashioned electro-mechanical meters naturally filter fast variations in the signal, and can result in a useful reading in cicumstances where the average digital meter produces a garbage reading. Of course, it's also good to know when a signal is noisy or jumpy...
I use digital meters exclusively these days - they're convenient, rugged, light, and have a higher input impedance and better resistance reading capabilities than all but the very best of the old analog FET-VOM's. But every once in a while I wish I had a well-damped analog meter to save me from dragging out the scope.
In the context of the Internet, the word "troll" used to mean, (according to Wikipedia):
"...a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."
The campaign that Kathy Sierra was a victim of goes far, far beyond this. How does it make sense that one word is used to describe such a wide range of behaviour? It's like calling a violent rapist a 'cad'. Trolls, (in the original sense of the word), are assholes. Auernheimer and his associates exhibited obsessive, psychopathic, downright evil behaviour and attitudes. We should never equate mere assholes and psychopaths - doing so trivializes destructive psychopathic behaviour while making assholery seem much worse than it really is. And the latter is perhaps more dangerous; it gives authorities one more excuse for implementing draconian laws in response to minor social infractions.
Slashdot Comments: NOOOO! Why is Lennart taking away my freedoms! I'm switching to BSD.
It has gotten pretty clear that a lot of the hatred for systemd has nothing to do with the technical merits...
I have this wonderful big wooden horse on wheels that I'm going to park in your back yard. Pay no attention to the noises coming from inside it. What's that? You don't want it? Sorry, it's already there, and it's now holding up your house...
I agree that "a lot of the hatred for systemd has nothing to do with the technical merits"; but I think it's also fair to say that a lot of the criticism is legitimate. It seems a major portion of the Linux ecosystem is being turned into something like Debian Sid - and a lot of people don't want their toys broken arbitrarily.
...>systemd brings order and consistency. None of the kernel devs are bothered about the change, and most already use it. Whether you like it or not, it is now the de-facto management for all of the major distros for new installs.
I've always maintained that a large part of advertising's influence extends way beyond the purchase of specific products. It creates a context and a culture of expectation, desire, and need, such that an advertisement for one product may in fact sub-consciously prompt you to buy another, entirely different kind of product. If advertisers are pissing off buyers with targeted ads for items already purchased, aren't they poisoning the entire advertising ecosystem, both for themselves and for other advertisers?
The article is pretty short on details, but implies that the only cars in the test bed will be driverless. It strikes me that a better test would be a mix of driven and driverless cars, since that scenario is both more complex and more realistic. Algorithms developed and perfected in a 'simulated' real world stand a very good chance of falling apart in the 'real' real world - after all, public roads aren't going to be *totally* driverless for a long, long time.
Beyond the reason of "I didn't write it", what was wrong with the comment that was already there which asked the same thing, to which replies have actually been left,...
I apologise if my comment was a repeat of an earlier one. If it was a repeat, then I simply missed the earlier comment. I regularly start out to post a comment, see that somebody else has said essentially the same thing, get annoyed that somebody beat me to the punch, then refrain from posting - but I'm not gonna catch 'em all, especially if they were posted while I was still composing mine, or if there are already a lot of comments.
...and is this a sock puppet to the account with the mod point that your comment received?
Nope. I don't do the sock puppet thing, (never have, it's just not my style), and I only have one Slashdot account.
Of all the politicians bleating about the dangers of home-made untraceable weapons, and (probably) exhorting us to 'think of the children', how many of them are motivated primarily by concern for their fellow man? I'm betting it's at least a minority, and perhaps a vanishingly small one. No, I think most of them are reacting primarily out of fear - fear of losing their power over the citizenry; fear of primal, animalistic human urges that they want to see only on football fields and battlefields; and fear for their own skins.
I'm very much anti-gun and am strongly in favour of gun control. As a Canadian I contrast the level of gun violence here with that in the US and am thankful my country's traditions are so different. I really don't want to live in a crazy, bullet-riddled land. But in the face of rapidly-growing government power, and rampant governmental abuses of citizens, I'm starting to see the wisdom of people having access to guns. I'd like to think we can find a better way though.
Science is about reproducible results. Publish the details of your experiment, so I can perform your experiment (and variations on it) myself. Your claim is strengthened if I get the same results you do.
+1, Insightful. How in the hell did you get modded down for this comment?
Are more interested in discovering new things or proving old things wrong, than trying to make friends with everyone.
As they should be. However, when much of their funding comes from the public purse, perhaps it's appropriate for scientists to acquaint the people paying the bills with the reasons for and the importance of their research. Also, I'm all for everyone becoming more scientifically-minded. 'Elite' science may be for those who have studied hard and made it their life's work; but 'day-to-day' science is the province of everyone, and ought to be encouraged as such. A scientific framework promotes curiosity, rationality, and logic - qualities sorely lacking in a large percentage of citizens.
Just as Digital Restrictions Management and various schemes for 'protecting' 'intellectual property' have not been unqualified successes, this trend also will be undercut, to some extent, by people who hack, make, reverse engineer, re-purpose, and repair hardware, firmware, and software. It just remains to be seen how the legislative and enforcement aspects play out. And that depends largely on Joe and Jane Average's opposition to A) basically renting or leasing most of the stuff in their lives, and B) paying to be spied upon, advertised to, and held hostage by corporate interests.
If even a large minority of citizens refuse to put up with this crap and instead have old stuff fixed and new stuff modified or boutique-built, then it will be hard for governments to justify what will otherwise be a very heavy hand in favour of laws enforcing corporate control. I'm not optimistic that people who have been lulled into thinking there is no alternative, (or that planned obsolescence and corporate nosiness are somehow right and inevitable), will do anything other than cave and roll over. But there is some hope.
I volunteer as a fixer for an organisation called Repair Cafe - we run events wherein once a month people bring items in to be fixed for free. Not just computers, printers, phones, earbuds, and the like, but also household appliances, clothing, books, etc. Many of these people aren't bringing things in because they can't afford replacements; rather, they recognize the quality is better in their older items, and they hate the wasteful and controlling aspects of planned obsolescence. So we may yet see large numbers of average citizens who reject the dystopian plans of those who call their greed-driven view of the future 'Utopia'.
In the category of 'not likely', but still worth considering, is the possibility of simplifying our lives. All of these technological innovations are cool, and they drive our economies, and some of them are significant. But really, how many new shinies contribute to our fundamental sense of worth, fulfillment, happiness, and meaning? I would argue that they tend to undermine those values - and many sociologists and psychologists would agree with me. It's probably too late to try stuffing that genie back in the bottle though...
This, exactly. I use Yahoo accounts as spam-catchers - I don't even use spam filtering on my 'real' email address, as I don't need it.
...they finally permanently retired the "Web 1.0" interface which was faster, showed more mails and allowed to open them in tabs...
AdBlock and NoScript fix that crap to a large extent. It's annoying to have to click on the 'proceed without updating JavaScript' link every time I log in, and it's annoying to have to temporarily re-enable JS when I want to send an attachment; but the result is an interface that is (just barely) useable, and devoid of ads. If I couldn't turn off all the shitty 'features' that Yahoo has introduced to 'improve' their service, I'd have left long ago - the current stock interface is simply unuseable.
...At least, when I'm logged to Yahoo I'm only logged to Yahoo. No Microsoft account, no Google account (which follows you on Google and Youtube like the plague!)...
I've stuck with Yahoo the same reasons; plus, I find the GMail interface to be not much better than the stock Yahoo interface.
...the main character is depicted almost as lacking emotions...
That may be why I liked it. I've read and enjoyed a lot of books with more fully realized characters and more nuanced plots; it was refreshing to read a stripped-down actioner that had a lot of geeky ingenuity and kept me reading waaay past bedtime. Plus, as far as I could tell it got the science and tech mostly right.
"The Martian" by Andy Weir is one of the best SF books I've read, and I highly recommend it. Even if you're not into SF, if you're a member here, there's a good chance you'll like it.
Odd - I have three Philips 60W bulbs in a diningroom fixture on an old, cheap, standard dimmer. The dimming is non-linear and a bit jumpy, (not unexpected given the difficulties in designing a dimmable, flicker-free LED bulb), but otherwise just fine.
This is also why dimmed incandescent bulbs often squeal - the waveform is rich in harmonics and causes the filament to vibrate audibly, sometimes into the kilohertz range.
A rheostat would be the blunt-instrument approach and not only is bulky, but also gets hot, since it's a resistor carrying a lot of wattage.
Before thyristors were created, light dimmers were in fact wire-wound rheostats. I've seen one or two wall-mounted rheostatic dimmers - big units with noticeable resistance to being turned. In high school I spent some time manning the theatre lights in the auditorium - banks of drum pots with levers and wooden handles that were hot enough to give a nasty burn when they had been in use for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the tips. I haven't installed CyanogenMod because it doesn't support some of my phone's hardware features, but I'll choose my next phone more carefully. Paranoid seems to have an even narrower range of hardware that it supports. I could possibly do some tinkering with either of these to make them work on hardware not already supported. But as with my desktop computer, I'm past the stage where I want to put a lot of effort into that kind of thing - I'm more focused on what I can do WITH my devices than TO them. Also, as far as I've been able to tell, (please correct me if I'm wrong), using Cyanogen or Paranoid still won't address many of the app permissions problems, as many apps won't work when certain permissions are denied, even when those permissions are absolutely not needed for the app to do its job.
As for enabling mass storage and stripping out stuff myself, I've not done very much programming, and learning how to program just so I can have a secure and useful phone seems a bit much. Besides, AFAIK, (and again, please correct me if I'm wrong), most apps are not open source, so I couldn't readily modify them evem if I wanted to do so and had the skills.
My point about FFOS was that it has the potential to be a less toxic ecosystem than Android, with perhaps fewer privacy and security holes baked in.
it's still just DNA. who cares where it came from, what's important it what it does!...
What's important is "what it does" in combination with other DNA and mutates in ways that almost certainly would not have occurred without invasive genetic modification. Not to mention "what it does" in combination with other organisms and with its environment.
The point here is that the interactions of the systems we're dicking with are so complex that we have no possible way of even predicting the outcomes, never mind controlling them. If you're not into reading what Taleb has to say, you might want to at least have a(nother?) look at the concept of Requisite Variety.
...It's the same as with FFOS on smartphones, it doesn't really solve any problem, even at the low end of the market Android has dirt cheap phones pretty well covered with a proven and already well-established OS.
If FFOS turns out to be any good in any reasonable time frame, (and I too have my doubts about that), then it will solve a big problem for me. I have an Android phone, of whose capabilities I only use about 10%. Why? Because I don't use Google cloud services - I don't trust them as far as I can throw one of their server farms. Because Android apps are security-hole-ridden nightmares whose permissions I have little control over even on my rooted device. Because Google added that POS called MTP and took away the simplicity of USB mass storage.
If FFOS puts some power and control back into my hands, then I'll call it a win even if it's not as powerful or featureful as Android. I'm sick and tired of Google's plans for world domination.
...The only reason for needing to know if the police are nearby is if one is a criminal and/or thinking of doing something criminal.
(Expecting downvotes from the "all police are pigs" idiots)
I have mod points right now, but rather than downmod you I'll jump into the discussion. While I wouldn't say that all police are pigs, anybody who maintains that the average law abiding citizen has nothing to fear from the police either has his head in the sand, or is trolling. If your qualifier had read "if one might be viewed as a criminal and/or thinking of doing something that the police claim is suspicious in order to further their own ends", I'd agree with you. But then, there wouldn't have been much of a reason for you to post, would there?
Of course, you may actually believe that Driving While Black, clenching your butt, wearing a backpack with graffiti on it, or carrying cash, are crimes simply because they seem suspicious to fucked-up and/or corrupt police. If that's the case, then shame on you.
...they call this "checking inventory".
The story before this one is about the best use of data centre space; the juxtaposition made me wonder if prisons might make good data centres. I know adding the wiring and cooling to a building not designed for it might be a challenge, but at least a lot of the security requirements are already present. Just a thought...
Digital meters don't have the slow response that d'Arsonval meter movements have, unless extra circuitry is added. The inertia and magnetic delay of old-fashioned electro-mechanical meters naturally filter fast variations in the signal, and can result in a useful reading in cicumstances where the average digital meter produces a garbage reading. Of course, it's also good to know when a signal is noisy or jumpy...
I use digital meters exclusively these days - they're convenient, rugged, light, and have a higher input impedance and better resistance reading capabilities than all but the very best of the old analog FET-VOM's. But every once in a while I wish I had a well-damped analog meter to save me from dragging out the scope.
In the context of the Internet, the word "troll" used to mean, (according to Wikipedia):
"...a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."
The campaign that Kathy Sierra was a victim of goes far, far beyond this. How does it make sense that one word is used to describe such a wide range of behaviour? It's like calling a violent rapist a 'cad'. Trolls, (in the original sense of the word), are assholes. Auernheimer and his associates exhibited obsessive, psychopathic, downright evil behaviour and attitudes. We should never equate mere assholes and psychopaths - doing so trivializes destructive psychopathic behaviour while making assholery seem much worse than it really is. And the latter is perhaps more dangerous; it gives authorities one more excuse for implementing draconian laws in response to minor social infractions.
My response is this: Why is this not just its own thing? Why does it have to be apart of systemd?
I've been asking myself the same question. I'd love it if somebody knowledgeable would give a credible answer.
Slashdot Comments: NOOOO! Why is Lennart taking away my freedoms! I'm switching to BSD. It has gotten pretty clear that a lot of the hatred for systemd has nothing to do with the technical merits...
I have this wonderful big wooden horse on wheels that I'm going to park in your back yard. Pay no attention to the noises coming from inside it. What's that? You don't want it? Sorry, it's already there, and it's now holding up your house...
I agree that "a lot of the hatred for systemd has nothing to do with the technical merits"; but I think it's also fair to say that a lot of the criticism is legitimate. It seems a major portion of the Linux ecosystem is being turned into something like Debian Sid - and a lot of people don't want their toys broken arbitrarily.
...>systemd brings order and consistency. None of the kernel devs are bothered about the change, and most already use it. Whether you like it or not, it is now the de-facto management for all of the major distros for new installs.
Don't like it? No one cares what you think.
Is that you, Lennart?
I've always maintained that a large part of advertising's influence extends way beyond the purchase of specific products. It creates a context and a culture of expectation, desire, and need, such that an advertisement for one product may in fact sub-consciously prompt you to buy another, entirely different kind of product. If advertisers are pissing off buyers with targeted ads for items already purchased, aren't they poisoning the entire advertising ecosystem, both for themselves and for other advertisers?
The article is pretty short on details, but implies that the only cars in the test bed will be driverless. It strikes me that a better test would be a mix of driven and driverless cars, since that scenario is both more complex and more realistic. Algorithms developed and perfected in a 'simulated' real world stand a very good chance of falling apart in the 'real' real world - after all, public roads aren't going to be *totally* driverless for a long, long time.
Beyond the reason of "I didn't write it", what was wrong with the comment that was already there which asked the same thing, to which replies have actually been left,...
I apologise if my comment was a repeat of an earlier one. If it was a repeat, then I simply missed the earlier comment. I regularly start out to post a comment, see that somebody else has said essentially the same thing, get annoyed that somebody beat me to the punch, then refrain from posting - but I'm not gonna catch 'em all, especially if they were posted while I was still composing mine, or if there are already a lot of comments.
...and is this a sock puppet to the account with the mod point that your comment received?
Nope. I don't do the sock puppet thing, (never have, it's just not my style), and I only have one Slashdot account.
Of all the politicians bleating about the dangers of home-made untraceable weapons, and (probably) exhorting us to 'think of the children', how many of them are motivated primarily by concern for their fellow man? I'm betting it's at least a minority, and perhaps a vanishingly small one. No, I think most of them are reacting primarily out of fear - fear of losing their power over the citizenry; fear of primal, animalistic human urges that they want to see only on football fields and battlefields; and fear for their own skins.
I'm very much anti-gun and am strongly in favour of gun control. As a Canadian I contrast the level of gun violence here with that in the US and am thankful my country's traditions are so different. I really don't want to live in a crazy, bullet-riddled land. But in the face of rapidly-growing government power, and rampant governmental abuses of citizens, I'm starting to see the wisdom of people having access to guns. I'd like to think we can find a better way though.
...The very point of the Fahrenheit scale is its comprehensibility, and it is indeed good for that...
Beyond the reason of 'that's what I grew up with', how is the Fahrenheit scale more comprehensible than the Celsius scale?
in the admittedly unlikely but highly desirable eventuality of PayPal going down in flames.
Science is about reproducible results. Publish the details of your experiment, so I can perform your experiment (and variations on it) myself. Your claim is strengthened if I get the same results you do.
+1, Insightful. How in the hell did you get modded down for this comment?
Are more interested in discovering new things or proving old things wrong, than trying to make friends with everyone.
As they should be. However, when much of their funding comes from the public purse, perhaps it's appropriate for scientists to acquaint the people paying the bills with the reasons for and the importance of their research. Also, I'm all for everyone becoming more scientifically-minded. 'Elite' science may be for those who have studied hard and made it their life's work; but 'day-to-day' science is the province of everyone, and ought to be encouraged as such. A scientific framework promotes curiosity, rationality, and logic - qualities sorely lacking in a large percentage of citizens.
Just as Digital Restrictions Management and various schemes for 'protecting' 'intellectual property' have not been unqualified successes, this trend also will be undercut, to some extent, by people who hack, make, reverse engineer, re-purpose, and repair hardware, firmware, and software. It just remains to be seen how the legislative and enforcement aspects play out. And that depends largely on Joe and Jane Average's opposition to A) basically renting or leasing most of the stuff in their lives, and B) paying to be spied upon, advertised to, and held hostage by corporate interests.
If even a large minority of citizens refuse to put up with this crap and instead have old stuff fixed and new stuff modified or boutique-built, then it will be hard for governments to justify what will otherwise be a very heavy hand in favour of laws enforcing corporate control. I'm not optimistic that people who have been lulled into thinking there is no alternative, (or that planned obsolescence and corporate nosiness are somehow right and inevitable), will do anything other than cave and roll over. But there is some hope.
I volunteer as a fixer for an organisation called Repair Cafe - we run events wherein once a month people bring items in to be fixed for free. Not just computers, printers, phones, earbuds, and the like, but also household appliances, clothing, books, etc. Many of these people aren't bringing things in because they can't afford replacements; rather, they recognize the quality is better in their older items, and they hate the wasteful and controlling aspects of planned obsolescence. So we may yet see large numbers of average citizens who reject the dystopian plans of those who call their greed-driven view of the future 'Utopia'.
In the category of 'not likely', but still worth considering, is the possibility of simplifying our lives. All of these technological innovations are cool, and they drive our economies, and some of them are significant. But really, how many new shinies contribute to our fundamental sense of worth, fulfillment, happiness, and meaning? I would argue that they tend to undermine those values - and many sociologists and psychologists would agree with me. It's probably too late to try stuffing that genie back in the bottle though...
...Yahoo is my shitbox.
This, exactly. I use Yahoo accounts as spam-catchers - I don't even use spam filtering on my 'real' email address, as I don't need it.
...they finally permanently retired the "Web 1.0" interface which was faster, showed more mails and allowed to open them in tabs...
AdBlock and NoScript fix that crap to a large extent. It's annoying to have to click on the 'proceed without updating JavaScript' link every time I log in, and it's annoying to have to temporarily re-enable JS when I want to send an attachment; but the result is an interface that is (just barely) useable, and devoid of ads. If I couldn't turn off all the shitty 'features' that Yahoo has introduced to 'improve' their service, I'd have left long ago - the current stock interface is simply unuseable.
...At least, when I'm logged to Yahoo I'm only logged to Yahoo. No Microsoft account, no Google account (which follows you on Google and Youtube like the plague!)...
I've stuck with Yahoo the same reasons; plus, I find the GMail interface to be not much better than the stock Yahoo interface.
...the main character is depicted almost as lacking emotions...
That may be why I liked it. I've read and enjoyed a lot of books with more fully realized characters and more nuanced plots; it was refreshing to read a stripped-down actioner that had a lot of geeky ingenuity and kept me reading waaay past bedtime. Plus, as far as I could tell it got the science and tech mostly right.
"The Martian" by Andy Weir is one of the best SF books I've read, and I highly recommend it. Even if you're not into SF, if you're a member here, there's a good chance you'll like it.
...However, the Phillips doesn't dim correctly...
Odd - I have three Philips 60W bulbs in a diningroom fixture on an old, cheap, standard dimmer. The dimming is non-linear and a bit jumpy, (not unexpected given the difficulties in designing a dimmable, flicker-free LED bulb), but otherwise just fine.
...This is why dimmers often cause radio hash...
This is also why dimmed incandescent bulbs often squeal - the waveform is rich in harmonics and causes the filament to vibrate audibly, sometimes into the kilohertz range.
A rheostat would be the blunt-instrument approach and not only is bulky, but also gets hot, since it's a resistor carrying a lot of wattage.
Before thyristors were created, light dimmers were in fact wire-wound rheostats. I've seen one or two wall-mounted rheostatic dimmers - big units with noticeable resistance to being turned. In high school I spent some time manning the theatre lights in the auditorium - banks of drum pots with levers and wooden handles that were hot enough to give a nasty burn when they had been in use for a while.