While it's cool that they got the cost so low I'm kind of sad to see all those SMC's, kids today can't get into building electronics because so much stuff has gone to stuff that you just can't solder by hand.
While I'm with you on this on many levels (remember building things with the 4000 series? Yeah, we don't do that anymore. Haven't since PICs. We just write some code that does the job much better), I wouldn't say that kids can't get into it anymore.
SparkFun, for example, regularly organizes PTH and SMD soldering classes as well as offering kits for both. Some SMD you can solder by hand quite easily, others you can get a nifty breakout board that lets you easily seat the SMD IC and melt solder up to its leads ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-32orELxkpE ), and yet others you get some solder paste, a syringe or a toothpick (seems popular), put the paste on the pads or dip the leads in the paste, put the part on the PCB, and then stick it all into your toaster oven.. or on a skillet.
Of course for most kids, just playing with e.g. Arduino and some shields/sensors is going to be a great way to get into electronics in the first place.. then when they need something that's not on the market they can explore PCB design, soldering, etc.
The thing is, where exactly would you draw the line?
Yes, I'm broadcasting my SSID - however, my reason for doing so is that I don't have to tell guests, patrons, etc. what the SSID is supposed to be and how they can enter that on their OS of choice. All OS's have at least a user-friendly method for connecting to an AP that does broadcast its SSID. I'm leaving aside that Google may still record APs that simply don't broadcast an SSID and thus requiring you to actually turn it on and fill in something along with the suffix. My reason for doing so is not necessarily so that, when combined with GPS data, it can be used for geolocation - just like I'm not broadcasting the SSID for research into what SSIDs are the most common in the world, statistics of whether or not people are broadcasting SSIDs and if so how many are going to be using the suffix, and so forth and so on.
However, I realize that these are side-effects of broadcasting all the same. Truly, if I didn't want this, I should not be using wireless at all.
But now let's take another example. If I'm sitting in my home, does that mean that, say, facebook has every right to point a camera inside and take pictures of me for a facial recognition database? After all, I chose to let the photons come in through the windows, bounce off of me, and go back out of the windows. Should I be keeping my curtains closed 24/7 if I want to have any expectation of privacy?
What about speaking? Should I sound-proof all surfaces in my home because otherwise Apple has every right to use advanced listening devices to record conversations that I'm broadcasting into the world - however nearly-inaudible - for improving Siri results on a regional level?
Should I get inertial dampeners on the bed to prevent the geological survey people from recording and publicizing every time we have sex? ( The seismograph we had installed as part of a case against the muni where we claim that cracks in the walls are the direct result of semis and busses going over the speedbumps close to our home while they claim it's natural? Yeah. You'd be amazed at what it can record. )
Just because you make something 'public' does not mean it is free to use for whatever purpose by whatever entity. ( Although I can't find the ruling for 'Stovall v. Yahoo! Inc.', if that's even gone through. )
Again, I don't take any issue with the recording of my SSID/MAC for the purposes of location services - I use them myself, they're quite useful. But some people may disagree, and I can see why they might - so I don't think Google has an automatic 'right'... at least not in the jurisdiction in question; The Netherlands.
I'm sure somebody's already suggested this somewhere, but didn't spot it in this comment thread - so any discussion regarding the historic imagery available through Google Earth (which shows some development progress of these 'structures'), here's a thread starter:)
I didn't see anything too exciting, though. I do wonder why so many of the buildings (especially to the north, near the 'airstrips' are rather blue).. could be image processing, but.. blue? Odd.
Please re-read what I wrote. You don't need a battery charger - $0.99 includes the batteries - 3 coin cells.
Which tend not to last very long. Yes, you can just buy new ones (or at $0.99 just buy a new keychain light). Not very environmentally awesome, but I realize some people find that rather shrugworthy anyway.
Anyway, this is getting further and further from the discussion of why one needs flashlight apps on phones and the use of a phone as a flashlight in the first place.
Best option? Get that $0.99 keychain flashlight and if it craps out, at least you've still got your phone. With a flashlight app.
That depends on one's definition of 'smarter', of course.
Is it a better light source and comes with additional perks (such as the laser pointer, maybe a UV-B emitter, too)? Yes.
On the other hand.. it's an additional thing to carry. In combination with your keys, that might not seem so bad. On the other hand, the keys are prone to scratch them up. But there are models that have the emitters recessed within the body so that, even if aesthetically it ends up shredded, at least your beam would be fine. That does leave the batteries, however... most of the keychain ones run on an AAA-battery at best, but usually coin cells.. although those do come in rechargeable form, you'll have to get a charger for them, first.
Compare this again to the cellphone which most people carry even when they don't carry their keys (because somebody else is at home to let them in, say... but being able to call said somebody else in case you get stuck somewhere is rather useful), is thus not an additional item for most people, and recharges easily off the included recharger, re-used recharger or practically any USB connection (as long as there's a micro/mini tip, as applicable).
Perhaps flipping the question around would be interesting... why not add a laser pointer to the cell phone? And I say: indeed, why not? That could open up a whole host of 'new' apps ( that is to say, apps that replicate pre-existing laser-dependent applications ).
What I want to know is why do i need a 3rd party app to turn on the flash emitter? This is Doom 3 levels of stupidity regarding the utility of a light source.
You know, that's a good question. However, the answer has to be a bit three-fold.
People have been using cellphones as makeshift flashlights pretty much since the first cellphones with a reasonably bright white screen came onto the market.. and why not, the screen was bright enough to navigate indoors, bright enough for the whole "finding the lock of your door" (because I guess some people don't just learn where it is after living somewhere for ages), etc. So whenever you needed a 'flashlight' in those times, just press any random button on your phone and you have your light - so you didn't need an app and you had a button to turn it on.. even though it was a side-effect.
Then came the phones that had a small light bulb or LED that acted as a camera flash - they would often be used for illumination as well to aid in focusing. This means that on those phones, you would have a rather brighter light source than the screen if you could just get that light to turn on. Thankfully, for most phones, that just meant pressing the camera button. Yes, the camera 'app' would launch, but at least there was your light. On most Windows Mobile devices there were APIs to turn on the emitter or your app could just fake being the camera app without actually doing anything with the camera - and your app could be bound to a button and on the light would go.. another press and you could turn it off again. But you didn't really need this app.
Then come the newer generation of phones, however. I'm going to assume it at least still has a dedicated camera button - but if it's an Android, that might mean you can't just press it.. you have to long press it. Next, the emitter isn't just always on anymore.. half-press starts illumination, until focus is acquired or couldn't be acquired, and it turns off again. So at this point, your makeshift flashlight-by-using-camera function has already been crippled. If you want a more continuous light source (aside from the screen, and the trend is dark backgrounds and displays become ever darker in the blacks, so that may not be a good option anymore) you'll have to grab one of the apps. If you're lucky, you can at least bind that to a button. In Windows Mobile that was something that was built-in.. bind any button to any app. On Android, at least? Not so much. You'll need another set of apps to do that.
Now fast forward again and we're doing away with not just as many physical buttons as possible, but even the virtual buttons.. and remapping them is a no-no. Device makers are saying that buttons is far too confusing, too much freedom, too much power. Less buttons is more. So now you can't even bind an app to a button anymore, and for your makeshift flashlight to work, you'll have to just start up the flashlight app. Thankfully, you can at least still put that on the 'home' screen. Not that doing so is very useful when your device is locked.. you'll first have to slide a button to unlock it, or input a code/pattern/phrase/mugshot/fingerprint... at least until somebody makes a custom lock screen that has a flashlight option - if custom lock screens remain allowed, that is.
But that's only part of your question... why do we need apps: because built-in functionality no longer caters to the need. The other part should be obvious.. why DOESN'T the built-in functionality cater to that need? Well, again, manufacturers are doing away with the buttons.. which means that whatever thing is going to turn on the emitter is going to be an 'app' anyway. A button would be infinitely more useful.. a button that would work even if the device were locked would be grand. But alas, it's a button and manufacturers are convinced buttons are evil.
So why doesn't a 'flashlight' app at least ship with most devices? That's one I don't have any plausible answer to. I
Hello, my name is Denis Maslennikov and I'm a senior malware analist at Kaspersky Lab. In this Helpnet Security podcast I will talk about cellphone money laundering and how savvy criminals in Russia launder money from the real SIM cards and real cellphones.
The vast majority of cellphone SIM cards in Russia are prepaid. One of the major Russian cellphone operators, Beeline, operates a fully legal service which allows anyone who uses an operator's SIM card to to transfer the prepaid amount of money from the SIM card to a credit card to a bank account to Unistream (it's some kind of Western Union analogue) and to another cellphone number, by sending a special SMS message to a short, free, number.
You know, today it's hard to imagine life without a cellphone - if somebody leaves their home and forgets their watch, he or she won't come back. But if, for example, I forget my cellphone, I will definitely come back.
There are a lot of SIM cards in Russia - the number of SIM cards [is] even bigger than the number of people who live in our country.
People started to use this legal service in order to, for example.. if somebody cannot make a call to his child, he can transfer some money to [the] child's cellphone number and then simply dial. Such comfortable and legal services are always used by savvy criminals.
After some time of the appearance of this service, savvy criminals started to use this service illegally - how do they do it?
There are three main types of cellphone number replenishing; They can, for example, create malware which blocks a computer and asks to pay [a] ransom, but to pay ransom with the help of replenishing a concrete cellphone number with a certain amount of money. The second way is to create mobile malicious programs, SMS trojans, which will send a specialized SMS message to operator's short free number - but this SMS message will transfer money from the infected phone to the savvy criminal's cellphone number. And the third way, which is also very popular, is to create an SMS fancampaign with some kind of, say, fishy text, asking, for example... claiming "you won the lottery, in order to get your prize, please send an SMS message to this short free number with the following text" - and the text contains the cellphone number to transfer money [to] and the amount of money.
These three activities are now, let's say, really popular - and it's hard to say which one of them is the most popular one. Ransomware is, like, one pillar, SMS trojans is the second pillar, and SMS scam campaigns [are] some kind of third pillar.
So let's talk more about all these activities in details.
If you talk about ransomware, the first examples of such ransomware appeared in [the] very beginning of 2010, so it's like almost 2 years. And they continue to evolve, they continue to infect users, personal computers and as usual pornography is the main source of such applications. Fake pornographic websites - the user clicks [on] the link if he wants to watch a fake video surely he'll be asked to download a special application, a codec, as it claims, but in fact it would be a malicious application which will blow up [the] screen and asks to pay ransom.
If we talk about the mobile malware, it's usually spready by SMS spam. Users usually normally receive a message claiming that "hey, you received an MMS card, an MMS present, from the girl named 'Kate'[?]" (the most popular name in all these SMS spam campaigns). If the user downloads this malicious application and launches it, he will lose some amount of money from his SIM card; because the money will be transferred from his SIM card to [the] cyber criminal's SIM card.
And if we talk about SMS scam campaigns.. in this case, cyber criminals use real-life examples in order to force users to transfer money from one account to another. Sometimes they use really sad and bad real-life examples, like [the] Moscow underground bombing or terrorist attack in Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, after some time o
Was this a glitch or was this done on purpose, by the way?
It's politics - we'll never know!
The BBC article suggests that reporters were told not to plug headsets into the translation reception devices and, of course, did so anyway.
Another article (Dutch) suggests that reporters were given the devices and told that they would receive headsets later - some decided to plug in their own (didn't want to wait? didn't want to use other headphones? who knows).
Regardless, it was apparent that all of the reporters were getting the French translation of the discussion that took place (according to the Dutch article).
Which of course implies that not only were the microphones in that office open, but translators were active at that time to translate that which was discussed into French.
What actually transpired? Well, who cares, really.
At least two world leaders are now somewhat on the record as to their disdain of Netanyahu. On the other hand, that disdain doesn't matter. Berlusconi is still in office (for now, announced he's leaving in 2 weeks) despite having grossly insulted world leaders of pretty much every nation. If they can't even really deal with him, what hope would they have of dealing with the Israelis? If they even wanted to.
Because *OBVIOUSLY* it doesn't cost the service providers ANYTHING to go through all those DMCA notices, check the legal validity, ensure the content is on their systems, isolate it and remove, reply to the DMCA, handle appeals etc.
Of course it costs them something. For example, as per YouTube, it costs them an automated system that immediately takes down content upon receiving a DMCA complaint, largely unchecked. Then the user can go through another automated system to suggest that the DMCA complaint is false - a counter-notice. Then yet another automated system goes over the counter-notice to see if any reasonable number of key words that would suggest the counter-notice is 'valid' exist within it, otherwise it sends back a boilerplate reply saying that you probably didn't have the rights to the material ( see recent DMCA video by Peter Hadfield, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex8r_7nIKzk ). If it does detect enough keywords, it sends an automated message to both parties to please go screw themselves over in court if they really want to.
Of course, in most cases, DMCA counter-notices are never even sent in. Which means that a rights holder has to take on legal counsel to set up a DMCA complaint that holds to the legal standards - this costs a bit of money. Google's automated system then takes care of the rest. And the user who uploaded the content simply yawns and lets the video be deleted, or posts another video about how the evil companies took away their re-posting of a popular music video where they plastered "Uploaded by TheLulz96" at the beginning and end.
Such a burden, indeed.
Let's face it, as much as we like to dislike the DMCA, and often with good reason (see again the above video), the provisions for Safe Harbor and the limited applicability are wonderful. The users can keep re-uploading the 'pirated' content. The host can shield themselves with the DMCA and automated systems. The rights holders will have to keep sending new DMCA notices.
Under the current copyright model, I don't think it's entirely insane that rights holders would suggest that if they already filed a DMCA complaint about Video X, that any future upload of Video X also be blocked. If that means the hosting party says "well that requires fingerprinting technology we don't have, but if you want to pay for it...", then I don't think it's unreasonable either that the rights holders do in fact pay for that. Either that or they can keep filing DMCA complaints for every single new upload of the same file. Similarly, and as YouTube has already implemented, repeat-offending should be punished harder. YouTube eventually closes the account if too many DMCA complaints are received. Of course a new account is also opened fairly easily.
So yes, ultimately, it's pointless, and copyright reform is required. The question is whether both 'sides' will be reasonable about that reform.
imagine a space telescope that's designed for observing objects inside our solar system. It'd be like putting the moon under a microscope, or exploring Mars and getting detailed survey results without the time and expense of sending a probe there. Is it possible?
Not by traditional means, at least. Essentially, the resolving power of any telescope is limited and the only way to increase it is to use larger lenses. Looks like some articles disagree on the exact size needed for certain features, but google for "telescope flag moon" (minus quotes) for many answers to the question of whether you could see the U.S. flag on the Moon with a telescope, most of which also answer whether Hubble could see it, what you'd need to see it, etc.
Putting telescopes in orbit around the objects of interest still seems the best bet.
If you had a system that didn't care about optics it might fare better.. but then how would you measure things? Extremely fine movements of, say, a laser imager? Not sure how you'd keep the satellite stable enough:)
I'm clueless in these matters but trying to read up on it mostly lands me on activist sites that extoll the evils that is inherent to fracking and sources that don't really go into detail as to what causes the earthquakes, etc.
So my basic question would be, in relationship to your statement, whether fracking condenses the release of that potential energy.
I.e. if the energy is in the shale, does it actually build up to one big quake, or does it continually get released in a multitude of earthquakes of magnitudes that are barely worth registering - and fracking simply causes those multitudes of earthquakes to happen 'at once' thus resulting less frequent earthquakes of larger magnitude?
I might be reading it wrong, but I guess there's some concern that the winning OSHW logo is too similar to OSI which doesn't fully align with the OH thing so something else was chosen?
Go figure - while I posted that, the page was updated with some further internal links (besides just the journal). My question regarding the name ("Open Hardware" vs "Open Source Hardware") is partially answered in: http://wiki.openhardware.org/Project:Constitution
I'm curious about the logo - is that essentially just the "Open Hardware Journal" logo or, as the footer states a logo for "Open Hardware", to be used as such in open hardware materials?
And then who/what is Open Hardware in relationship to Open Source Hardware?
The current edition's call for papers points out that all Open Hardware submitted should be compliant with the Open Source Hardware definition.
But then, supposedly the adopted logo for that is the 'gear' version of the Open Source (software) logo. http://oshwlogo.com/
If one is for the magazine and the other is for the actual hardware, that happens - but if they are both supposed to apply to actual hardware (or related materials), I'm confuzzled.
Fingernails raking against a chalkboard and chalk squeaking against slate were the most unpleasant sounds from a family of recordings, which also included sounds such as Styrofoam squeaks and scraping a plate with a fork.
Oh scraping a plate with a fork.. *shudder*
Also unpleasant: rub the smooth ends of two drills together.
But I have to give kudos to Shad Clark for a sound that is not necessarily cringe-worthy on its own - but by virtue of its associated visual, makes the hairs on my arms stand on end just thinking about it. I won't describe it, just let the video in the following URL load...
It doesn't include results from this open sourced version - if there's any different at all to the tested version - though.
From that table, it seems FLAC compresses about as well (depends on the exact track) while being much faster.
But as others have pointed out, most of the technicalities may be moot if your target device is an iPod, iPhone or iPad - in which case ALAC is practically your only option.
The same applies to FLAC, really. Looks like there's a few formats that are superior to FLAC in one way or another - but if your Archos device or Android phone doesn't know what to do with the format, there's little point in using it.
Compare it to JPEG2000 vs JPEG, for example - licensing issues have hindered JPEG2000 adoption and JPEG is 'good enough' for web needs (with PNG and GIF filling some voids) so while it might make sense to compress processed RAW images to lossless JPEG2000 for archival, there's little point in doing so when publishing to the web.. most people wouldn't be able to view it.
Redboxes do not operate on cash, you pay with a credit card.
Well go figure.. that explains that, then - thanks:)
( No, I never observed one of those machines in detail, nor bothered to check wikipedia - I figured it was some membership code thing you had to enter and pay by cash or out of an account linked to whatever. )
I've only been on vacation to the U.S. and every single time I entered a Fry's or exited one - in 3 different locations - the Red Box machines had people either idly browsing, actually getting a movie, or returning one.
I don't know any of them, though.. so you're absolutely right... it doesn't matter because I've never known a single person who uses it either.
More on-topic.. why $1.20? People have to dig for 2 dimes now? Wouldn't $1.25 be more convenient (my wallet was bulging with quarters.. it's insane how common that coin is) which would make it a lower psychological barrier to pay for, etc.? I'm sure they had professionals figure all that out.. just seems counter-intuitive to me. ( of course, increasing the pricing in the first place seems counter-intuitive )
Apple's software support is obviously far, far better
Like when they made Siri unavailable for anything but iPhone 4S despite it having been in the app store for all iPhones released at that point before? (Yes, I realize it wasn't as nicely integrated and perhaps that same level of integration is impossible in older devices. No, I don't think that means killing it off altogether for the older devices was an inevitable consequence.)
manufacturers seem dedicated to destroy their own market
But that market is the masses, and the masses in general don't really care if they get an upgrade to ICS or not as long as they can still play their favorite games, use their favorite apps, etc. Of course if their device runs very slowly then they might look at competing devices - including the iPhone - if they find that an update that may relieve the issue is not available for their device. But that doesn't destroy the market for Android devices.. it destroys the market for that one particular device. If there were an issue with Android in general - either real or perceived - then there would be more of a problem for Android devices.
I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not, but CSS is far, far more powerful than you seem to think. Check out [CSS Zen Garden] to see what can be done without changing a single line of HTML.
That's all good and well, but I think the point GP was making - in jest or not - is that CSS is still at the whim of the structure presented by the HTML.
For example, if your header has a single div, you can use CSS all you want but you're not going to get 4 separate texts in each of the corners of that div (actually might be possible, but no cheating by using js)
Thus the reason that the CSS Zen Garden website works as well as it does is not just because of CSS, but because the structure is well thought out as well.
So what GP is saying is very much true. You'd still want to keep your headers and footers and many other things in separate files that can easily be included by a great many other pages, so that you need only update that included file to adjust all those other pages' results.
And, in a way, that might make some think "well then I don't need CSS if I only need to update that single file.. why specify styling attributes for the header when I can adjust them in the header include file itself?".
But they then miss that headers often share visual aspects with the rest of the page. A background color change, for example, might be simple enough by editing your header, sidebar, content and footer pages.. but even simpler still is editing the CSS that governs all four.
CSS wasn't meant to make structure organized, just style (which does include positioning, but I'm wishfully thinking GP wasn't referring to that) - in effect, exactly what he's saying.. separating content from presentation - but that presentation still relies on the structure that may or may not be considered part of the content.
So you like to remind us every once in a while (earlier today?), not counting all the other things that happened 10 years ago or the general notion in other posts that the shape of the internet is changing into something used for surveillance and stifling in freedom. ( Though your comment record doesn't go back 10 years.. curse you, Slashdot:) )
There's two observations to be made there, though... 1. You don't need to be a prophet to reach that conclusion. Information (and money) is power. Governments want power. ergo, governments want information. How do you get information from use of the internet? By monitoring it.
Freedom, ultimately, means the wild wild west - a term that was used for the internet for a long, long time. However, as much as many people might enjoy that aspect, I don't often see a "First they came for the company selling our private data to the highest bidder..." defense popping up.. so clearly there is some desire to have some level of regulation of what takes place on the internet. ( I specifically didn't use a "think of the children" example - but I think most of us agree that it is even more likely to elicit responses stating that regulation there is desired. ) So yes, freedoms are stifled.. from things we all agree on is illegal, to things that we like to think should be perfectly legal but corporations disagree and tend to have the law on their side.
And, of course, that's where the 'money is power' bit comes into play. Unfortunately the masses don't seem to be very keen on getting themselves organized and building their own 'buy-a-politician/law' fund.. which could certainly be done but most people really can't be bothered.
Which is basically the second observation... 2. People can't be bothered. People, in general, don't really care much if they can no longer download state secrets (just look at how many people condemn wikileaks for 'putting lives at danger' while nothing seems to have happened - yet praise the quran-burning pastor for exercising his freedom of speech.. even though that directly lead to deaths), nor do they care if they can no longer download some random movie. They're already appeased by Netflix despite its dismal offering and iTunes despite its own share of issues. They also don't care much about the monitoring.. they know they're being monitored and many believe that in the interest of e.g. 'catching terrorists' that's a-ok.. the whole "nothing to hide" argument usually pops up.
( The following might seem ad hominem, but it's intended as an example. )
We can't really blame those masses either. If somebody appears to be very vocal protestor on these issues, and states among other that "Private entities are [the scary actors], and anyway they are part of the state de facto", but then goes and requests a Google+ invite complete with e-mail address posted, then what should those masses be making of the apparently mixed signals?
True, true. The question is, however, who is the 'someone else' and what 'work' are you 'taking' (and yeah, it's not theft - it's not even copyright infringement for that matter).
Let's go with the either pro-Google- or anti-Microsoft-centric view first and say the 'someone else' is Google and the 'work' is the results Google returns when searching for a query. How does Google get those results? Well, from the page domain set up by the domain owner, from the page title set up by the webmaster, from the page's content set up by the content creators be that the webmaster, editors, third party posts, whatever and of course links to that site created by yet other people. Which part of this is Google's 'work'? The part that surmises that site A ranks above site B. That 'work' however, is not what is taken.
The other view, however, you've already pointed out yourself:
they are just tracking what users click on when they get google results
So now the 'someone else' is the user and the 'work' is what that user clicks on; In essence, a measure of how likely a given result is actually what the user is looking for when presented with results for a given search query. Is that 'work' Google's? Not really (although I wouldn't doubt they, too, rank results in part based on users' clicks on results) as Google doesn't know what result a user clicks on until a user has done so. There's no 'work' from Google involved in that decision process.
So if the 'work' taken is that of the user's, and the user opted in, what's the problem? That the user's list of options was generated by Google, rather than that it was any other URL, search or not, at the time the Bing Toolbar made its associations?
Google may have cried foul at the time - with interesting timing - but I'd be somewhat disappointed if Google didn't do the exact same thing with their toolbar and/or Chrome.
Slashdot Mirror
While I'm with you on this on many levels (remember building things with the 4000 series? Yeah, we don't do that anymore. Haven't since PICs. We just write some code that does the job much better), I wouldn't say that kids can't get into it anymore.
SparkFun, for example, regularly organizes PTH and SMD soldering classes as well as offering kits for both. Some SMD you can solder by hand quite easily, others you can get a nifty breakout board that lets you easily seat the SMD IC and melt solder up to its leads ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-32orELxkpE ), and yet others you get some solder paste, a syringe or a toothpick (seems popular), put the paste on the pads or dip the leads in the paste, put the part on the PCB, and then stick it all into your toaster oven.. or on a skillet.
Of course for most kids, just playing with e.g. Arduino and some shields/sensors is going to be a great way to get into electronics in the first place.. then when they need something that's not on the market they can explore PCB design, soldering, etc.
The thing is, where exactly would you draw the line?
Yes, I'm broadcasting my SSID - however, my reason for doing so is that I don't have to tell guests, patrons, etc. what the SSID is supposed to be and how they can enter that on their OS of choice. All OS's have at least a user-friendly method for connecting to an AP that does broadcast its SSID.
I'm leaving aside that Google may still record APs that simply don't broadcast an SSID and thus requiring you to actually turn it on and fill in something along with the suffix.
My reason for doing so is not necessarily so that, when combined with GPS data, it can be used for geolocation - just like I'm not broadcasting the SSID for research into what SSIDs are the most common in the world, statistics of whether or not people are broadcasting SSIDs and if so how many are going to be using the suffix, and so forth and so on.
However, I realize that these are side-effects of broadcasting all the same. Truly, if I didn't want this, I should not be using wireless at all.
But now let's take another example. If I'm sitting in my home, does that mean that, say, facebook has every right to point a camera inside and take pictures of me for a facial recognition database?
After all, I chose to let the photons come in through the windows, bounce off of me, and go back out of the windows. Should I be keeping my curtains closed 24/7 if I want to have any expectation of privacy?
What about speaking? Should I sound-proof all surfaces in my home because otherwise Apple has every right to use advanced listening devices to record conversations that I'm broadcasting into the world - however nearly-inaudible - for improving Siri results on a regional level?
Should I get inertial dampeners on the bed to prevent the geological survey people from recording and publicizing every time we have sex?
( The seismograph we had installed as part of a case against the muni where we claim that cracks in the walls are the direct result of semis and busses going over the speedbumps close to our home while they claim it's natural? Yeah. You'd be amazed at what it can record. )
Just because you make something 'public' does not mean it is free to use for whatever purpose by whatever entity. ( Although I can't find the ruling for 'Stovall v. Yahoo! Inc.', if that's even gone through. )
Again, I don't take any issue with the recording of my SSID/MAC for the purposes of location services - I use them myself, they're quite useful. But some people may disagree, and I can see why they might - so I don't think Google has an automatic 'right'... at least not in the jurisdiction in question; The Netherlands.
I'm sure somebody's already suggested this somewhere, but didn't spot it in this comment thread - so any discussion regarding the historic imagery available through Google Earth (which shows some development progress of these 'structures'), here's a thread starter :)
I didn't see anything too exciting, though. I do wonder why so many of the buildings (especially to the north, near the 'airstrips' are rather blue).. could be image processing, but.. blue? Odd.
Which tend not to last very long. Yes, you can just buy new ones (or at $0.99 just buy a new keychain light). Not very environmentally awesome, but I realize some people find that rather shrugworthy anyway.
Anyway, this is getting further and further from the discussion of why one needs flashlight apps on phones and the use of a phone as a flashlight in the first place.
Best option? Get that $0.99 keychain flashlight and if it craps out, at least you've still got your phone. With a flashlight app.
That depends on one's definition of 'smarter', of course.
Is it a better light source and comes with additional perks (such as the laser pointer, maybe a UV-B emitter, too)? Yes.
On the other hand.. it's an additional thing to carry. In combination with your keys, that might not seem so bad. On the other hand, the keys are prone to scratch them up. But there are models that have the emitters recessed within the body so that, even if aesthetically it ends up shredded, at least your beam would be fine.
That does leave the batteries, however... most of the keychain ones run on an AAA-battery at best, but usually coin cells.. although those do come in rechargeable form, you'll have to get a charger for them, first.
Compare this again to the cellphone which most people carry even when they don't carry their keys (because somebody else is at home to let them in, say... but being able to call said somebody else in case you get stuck somewhere is rather useful), is thus not an additional item for most people, and recharges easily off the included recharger, re-used recharger or practically any USB connection (as long as there's a micro/mini tip, as applicable).
Perhaps flipping the question around would be interesting... why not add a laser pointer to the cell phone? And I say: indeed, why not? That could open up a whole host of 'new' apps ( that is to say, apps that replicate pre-existing laser-dependent applications ).
You know, that's a good question. However, the answer has to be a bit three-fold.
People have been using cellphones as makeshift flashlights pretty much since the first cellphones with a reasonably bright white screen came onto the market.. and why not, the screen was bright enough to navigate indoors, bright enough for the whole "finding the lock of your door" (because I guess some people don't just learn where it is after living somewhere for ages), etc.
So whenever you needed a 'flashlight' in those times, just press any random button on your phone and you have your light - so you didn't need an app and you had a button to turn it on.. even though it was a side-effect.
Then came the phones that had a small light bulb or LED that acted as a camera flash - they would often be used for illumination as well to aid in focusing. This means that on those phones, you would have a rather brighter light source than the screen if you could just get that light to turn on. Thankfully, for most phones, that just meant pressing the camera button. Yes, the camera 'app' would launch, but at least there was your light.
On most Windows Mobile devices there were APIs to turn on the emitter or your app could just fake being the camera app without actually doing anything with the camera - and your app could be bound to a button and on the light would go.. another press and you could turn it off again. But you didn't really need this app.
Then come the newer generation of phones, however. I'm going to assume it at least still has a dedicated camera button - but if it's an Android, that might mean you can't just press it.. you have to long press it. Next, the emitter isn't just always on anymore.. half-press starts illumination, until focus is acquired or couldn't be acquired, and it turns off again.
So at this point, your makeshift flashlight-by-using-camera function has already been crippled. If you want a more continuous light source (aside from the screen, and the trend is dark backgrounds and displays become ever darker in the blacks, so that may not be a good option anymore) you'll have to grab one of the apps. If you're lucky, you can at least bind that to a button. In Windows Mobile that was something that was built-in.. bind any button to any app. On Android, at least? Not so much. You'll need another set of apps to do that.
Now fast forward again and we're doing away with not just as many physical buttons as possible, but even the virtual buttons.. and remapping them is a no-no. Device makers are saying that buttons is far too confusing, too much freedom, too much power. Less buttons is more. So now you can't even bind an app to a button anymore, and for your makeshift flashlight to work, you'll have to just start up the flashlight app.
Thankfully, you can at least still put that on the 'home' screen. Not that doing so is very useful when your device is locked.. you'll first have to slide a button to unlock it, or input a code/pattern/phrase/mugshot/fingerprint... at least until somebody makes a custom lock screen that has a flashlight option - if custom lock screens remain allowed, that is.
But that's only part of your question... why do we need apps: because built-in functionality no longer caters to the need.
The other part should be obvious.. why DOESN'T the built-in functionality cater to that need?
Well, again, manufacturers are doing away with the buttons.. which means that whatever thing is going to turn on the emitter is going to be an 'app' anyway. A button would be infinitely more useful.. a button that would work even if the device were locked would be grand. But alas, it's a button and manufacturers are convinced buttons are evil.
So why doesn't a 'flashlight' app at least ship with most devices? That's one I don't have any plausible answer to. I
Because such an app already existed for PocketPC (That'd be Windows Mobile):
http://nerdipedia.com/tiki-index.php?page=Sonar+CE
Oh, and desktop PC:
http://nerdipedia.com/tiki-index.php?page=Sonar&structure=index
I hear there's a flashlight app for iDevices, too - Slashdot should really look into that. It's magical.
Facebook.de / German-language facebook / office in the city of.. Hamburg, Germany.
( http://www.facebook.com/careers/department.php?dept=hamburg )
So... Yes.
Hello, my name is Denis Maslennikov and I'm a senior malware analist at Kaspersky Lab. In this Helpnet Security podcast I will talk about cellphone money laundering and how savvy criminals in Russia launder money from the real SIM cards and real cellphones.
The vast majority of cellphone SIM cards in Russia are prepaid. One of the major Russian cellphone operators, Beeline, operates a fully legal service which allows anyone who uses an operator's SIM card to to transfer the prepaid amount of money from the SIM card to a credit card to a bank account to Unistream (it's some kind of Western Union analogue) and to another cellphone number, by sending a special SMS message to a short, free, number.
You know, today it's hard to imagine life without a cellphone - if somebody leaves their home and forgets their watch, he or she won't come back. But if, for example, I forget my cellphone, I will definitely come back.
There are a lot of SIM cards in Russia - the number of SIM cards [is] even bigger than the number of people who live in our country.
People started to use this legal service in order to, for example.. if somebody cannot make a call to his child, he can transfer some money to [the] child's cellphone number and then simply dial. Such comfortable and legal services are always used by savvy criminals.
After some time of the appearance of this service, savvy criminals started to use this service illegally - how do they do it?
There are three main types of cellphone number replenishing;
They can, for example, create malware which blocks a computer and asks to pay [a] ransom, but to pay ransom with the help of replenishing a concrete cellphone number with a certain amount of money.
The second way is to create mobile malicious programs, SMS trojans, which will send a specialized SMS message to operator's short free number - but this SMS message will transfer money from the infected phone to the savvy criminal's cellphone number.
And the third way, which is also very popular, is to create an SMS fancampaign with some kind of, say, fishy text, asking, for example... claiming "you won the lottery, in order to get your prize, please send an SMS message to this short free number with the following text" - and the text contains the cellphone number to transfer money [to] and the amount of money.
These three activities are now, let's say, really popular - and it's hard to say which one of them is the most popular one. Ransomware is, like, one pillar, SMS trojans is the second pillar, and SMS scam campaigns [are] some kind of third pillar.
So let's talk more about all these activities in details.
If you talk about ransomware, the first examples of such ransomware appeared in [the] very beginning of 2010, so it's like almost 2 years. And they continue to evolve, they continue to infect users, personal computers and as usual pornography is the main source of such applications. Fake pornographic websites - the user clicks [on] the link if he wants to watch a fake video surely he'll be asked to download a special application, a codec, as it claims, but in fact it would be a malicious application which will blow up [the] screen and asks to pay ransom.
If we talk about the mobile malware, it's usually spready by SMS spam. Users usually normally receive a message claiming that "hey, you received an MMS card, an MMS present, from the girl named 'Kate'[?]" (the most popular name in all these SMS spam campaigns). If the user downloads this malicious application and launches it, he will lose some amount of money from his SIM card; because the money will be transferred from his SIM card to [the] cyber criminal's SIM card.
And if we talk about SMS scam campaigns.. in this case, cyber criminals use real-life examples in order to force users to transfer money from one account to another. Sometimes they use really sad and bad real-life examples, like [the] Moscow underground bombing or terrorist attack in Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, after some time o
It's politics - we'll never know!
The BBC article suggests that reporters were told not to plug headsets into the translation reception devices and, of course, did so anyway.
Another article (Dutch) suggests that reporters were given the devices and told that they would receive headsets later - some decided to plug in their own (didn't want to wait? didn't want to use other headphones? who knows).
Regardless, it was apparent that all of the reporters were getting the French translation of the discussion that took place (according to the Dutch article).
Which of course implies that not only were the microphones in that office open, but translators were active at that time to translate that which was discussed into French.
What actually transpired? Well, who cares, really.
At least two world leaders are now somewhat on the record as to their disdain of Netanyahu. On the other hand, that disdain doesn't matter. Berlusconi is still in office (for now, announced he's leaving in 2 weeks) despite having grossly insulted world leaders of pretty much every nation. If they can't even really deal with him, what hope would they have of dealing with the Israelis? If they even wanted to.
Of course it costs them something. For example, as per YouTube, it costs them an automated system that immediately takes down content upon receiving a DMCA complaint, largely unchecked.
Then the user can go through another automated system to suggest that the DMCA complaint is false - a counter-notice.
Then yet another automated system goes over the counter-notice to see if any reasonable number of key words that would suggest the counter-notice is 'valid' exist within it, otherwise it sends back a boilerplate reply saying that you probably didn't have the rights to the material ( see recent DMCA video by Peter Hadfield, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex8r_7nIKzk ).
If it does detect enough keywords, it sends an automated message to both parties to please go screw themselves over in court if they really want to.
Of course, in most cases, DMCA counter-notices are never even sent in.
Which means that a rights holder has to take on legal counsel to set up a DMCA complaint that holds to the legal standards - this costs a bit of money.
Google's automated system then takes care of the rest.
And the user who uploaded the content simply yawns and lets the video be deleted, or posts another video about how the evil companies took away their re-posting of a popular music video where they plastered "Uploaded by TheLulz96" at the beginning and end.
Such a burden, indeed.
Let's face it, as much as we like to dislike the DMCA, and often with good reason (see again the above video), the provisions for Safe Harbor and the limited applicability are wonderful.
The users can keep re-uploading the 'pirated' content. The host can shield themselves with the DMCA and automated systems. The rights holders will have to keep sending new DMCA notices.
Under the current copyright model, I don't think it's entirely insane that rights holders would suggest that if they already filed a DMCA complaint about Video X, that any future upload of Video X also be blocked. If that means the hosting party says "well that requires fingerprinting technology we don't have, but if you want to pay for it...", then I don't think it's unreasonable either that the rights holders do in fact pay for that. Either that or they can keep filing DMCA complaints for every single new upload of the same file.
Similarly, and as YouTube has already implemented, repeat-offending should be punished harder. YouTube eventually closes the account if too many DMCA complaints are received. Of course a new account is also opened fairly easily.
So yes, ultimately, it's pointless, and copyright reform is required. The question is whether both 'sides' will be reasonable about that reform.
Not by traditional means, at least. Essentially, the resolving power of any telescope is limited and the only way to increase it is to use larger lenses. Looks like some articles disagree on the exact size needed for certain features, but google for "telescope flag moon" (minus quotes) for many answers to the question of whether you could see the U.S. flag on the Moon with a telescope, most of which also answer whether Hubble could see it, what you'd need to see it, etc.
Putting telescopes in orbit around the objects of interest still seems the best bet.
If you had a system that didn't care about optics it might fare better.. but then how would you measure things? Extremely fine movements of, say, a laser imager? Not sure how you'd keep the satellite stable enough :)
I'm clueless in these matters but trying to read up on it mostly lands me on activist sites that extoll the evils that is inherent to fracking and sources that don't really go into detail as to what causes the earthquakes, etc.
So my basic question would be, in relationship to your statement, whether fracking condenses the release of that potential energy.
I.e. if the energy is in the shale, does it actually build up to one big quake, or does it continually get released in a multitude of earthquakes of magnitudes that are barely worth registering - and fracking simply causes those multitudes of earthquakes to happen 'at once' thus resulting less frequent earthquakes of larger magnitude?
And while I'm following links and posting replies to myself...
http://lists.openhardware.org/pipermail/general/2011-September/thread.html
http://lists.openhardware.org/pipermail/legal/2011-September/thread.html
There's some threads in those topics that discuss the logo. Perhaps most specifically:
http://lists.openhardware.org/pipermail/legal/2011-September/000004.html
I might be reading it wrong, but I guess there's some concern that the winning OSHW logo is too similar to OSI which doesn't fully align with the OH thing so something else was chosen?
Oi.
Go figure - while I posted that, the page was updated with some further internal links (besides just the journal). My question regarding the name ("Open Hardware" vs "Open Source Hardware") is partially answered in:
http://wiki.openhardware.org/Project:Constitution
I'm curious about the logo - is that essentially just the "Open Hardware Journal" logo or, as the footer states a logo for "Open Hardware", to be used as such in open hardware materials?
And then who/what is Open Hardware in relationship to Open Source Hardware?
The current edition's call for papers points out that all Open Hardware submitted should be compliant with the Open Source Hardware definition.
But then, supposedly the adopted logo for that is the 'gear' version of the Open Source (software) logo.
http://oshwlogo.com/
The logo used in the magazine on the other hand seems to be LiR's submission to the OSHW logo competition, Open Circuit v1;
http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/oshw-logo-v1-0/
If one is for the magazine and the other is for the actual hardware, that happens - but if they are both supposed to apply to actual hardware (or related materials), I'm confuzzled.
Oh scraping a plate with a fork.. *shudder*
Also unpleasant: rub the smooth ends of two drills together.
But I have to give kudos to Shad Clark for a sound that is not necessarily cringe-worthy on its own - but by virtue of its associated visual, makes the hairs on my arms stand on end just thinking about it.
I won't describe it, just let the video in the following URL load...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadclark/all-i-think-of-is-you ...then skip to 1:33 and hit play :(
I'm confused... who is the 'they' that are refusing to remove an APR poisoning app? Google?
So, not Google... XDA-Dev? I don't see they they would.
The author? Hmmm...
Google might want to fix whatever allows the ARP poisoning - if they haven't already - but beyond that..
You could try here...
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison
It doesn't include results from this open sourced version - if there's any different at all to the tested version - though.
From that table, it seems FLAC compresses about as well (depends on the exact track) while being much faster.
But as others have pointed out, most of the technicalities may be moot if your target device is an iPod, iPhone or iPad - in which case ALAC is practically your only option.
The same applies to FLAC, really. Looks like there's a few formats that are superior to FLAC in one way or another - but if your Archos device or Android phone doesn't know what to do with the format, there's little point in using it.
Compare it to JPEG2000 vs JPEG, for example - licensing issues have hindered JPEG2000 adoption and JPEG is 'good enough' for web needs (with PNG and GIF filling some voids) so while it might make sense to compress processed RAW images to lossless JPEG2000 for archival, there's little point in doing so when publishing to the web.. most people wouldn't be able to view it.
Well go figure.. that explains that, then - thanks :)
( No, I never observed one of those machines in detail, nor bothered to check wikipedia - I figured it was some membership code thing you had to enter and pay by cash or out of an account linked to whatever. )
I've only been on vacation to the U.S. and every single time I entered a Fry's or exited one - in 3 different locations - the Red Box machines had people either idly browsing, actually getting a movie, or returning one.
I don't know any of them, though.. so you're absolutely right... it doesn't matter because I've never known a single person who uses it either.
More on-topic.. why $1.20? People have to dig for 2 dimes now? Wouldn't $1.25 be more convenient (my wallet was bulging with quarters.. it's insane how common that coin is) which would make it a lower psychological barrier to pay for, etc.? I'm sure they had professionals figure all that out.. just seems counter-intuitive to me.
( of course, increasing the pricing in the first place seems counter-intuitive )
Like when they made Siri unavailable for anything but iPhone 4S despite it having been in the app store for all iPhones released at that point before? (Yes, I realize it wasn't as nicely integrated and perhaps that same level of integration is impossible in older devices. No, I don't think that means killing it off altogether for the older devices was an inevitable consequence.)
But that market is the masses, and the masses in general don't really care if they get an upgrade to ICS or not as long as they can still play their favorite games, use their favorite apps, etc. Of course if their device runs very slowly then they might look at competing devices - including the iPhone - if they find that an update that may relieve the issue is not available for their device. But that doesn't destroy the market for Android devices.. it destroys the market for that one particular device. If there were an issue with Android in general - either real or perceived - then there would be more of a problem for Android devices.
That's all good and well, but I think the point GP was making - in jest or not - is that CSS is still at the whim of the structure presented by the HTML.
For example, if your header has a single div, you can use CSS all you want but you're not going to get 4 separate texts in each of the corners of that div (actually might be possible, but no cheating by using js)
Thus the reason that the CSS Zen Garden website works as well as it does is not just because of CSS, but because the structure is well thought out as well.
So what GP is saying is very much true. You'd still want to keep your headers and footers and many other things in separate files that can easily be included by a great many other pages, so that you need only update that included file to adjust all those other pages' results.
And, in a way, that might make some think "well then I don't need CSS if I only need to update that single file.. why specify styling attributes for the header when I can adjust them in the header include file itself?".
But they then miss that headers often share visual aspects with the rest of the page. A background color change, for example, might be simple enough by editing your header, sidebar, content and footer pages.. but even simpler still is editing the CSS that governs all four.
CSS wasn't meant to make structure organized, just style (which does include positioning, but I'm wishfully thinking GP wasn't referring to that) - in effect, exactly what he's saying.. separating content from presentation - but that presentation still relies on the structure that may or may not be considered part of the content.
So you like to remind us every once in a while (earlier today?), not counting all the other things that happened 10 years ago or the general notion in other posts that the shape of the internet is changing into something used for surveillance and stifling in freedom. :) )
( Though your comment record doesn't go back 10 years.. curse you, Slashdot
There's two observations to be made there, though...
1. You don't need to be a prophet to reach that conclusion.
Information (and money) is power. Governments want power. ergo, governments want information. How do you get information from use of the internet? By monitoring it.
Freedom, ultimately, means the wild wild west - a term that was used for the internet for a long, long time. However, as much as many people might enjoy that aspect, I don't often see a "First they came for the company selling our private data to the highest bidder..." defense popping up.. so clearly there is some desire to have some level of regulation of what takes place on the internet. ( I specifically didn't use a "think of the children" example - but I think most of us agree that it is even more likely to elicit responses stating that regulation there is desired. ) So yes, freedoms are stifled.. from things we all agree on is illegal, to things that we like to think should be perfectly legal but corporations disagree and tend to have the law on their side.
And, of course, that's where the 'money is power' bit comes into play. Unfortunately the masses don't seem to be very keen on getting themselves organized and building their own 'buy-a-politician/law' fund.. which could certainly be done but most people really can't be bothered.
Which is basically the second observation...
2. People can't be bothered.
People, in general, don't really care much if they can no longer download state secrets (just look at how many people condemn wikileaks for 'putting lives at danger' while nothing seems to have happened - yet praise the quran-burning pastor for exercising his freedom of speech.. even though that directly lead to deaths), nor do they care if they can no longer download some random movie. They're already appeased by Netflix despite its dismal offering and iTunes despite its own share of issues. They also don't care much about the monitoring.. they know they're being monitored and many believe that in the interest of e.g. 'catching terrorists' that's a-ok.. the whole "nothing to hide" argument usually pops up.
( The following might seem ad hominem, but it's intended as an example. )
We can't really blame those masses either. If somebody appears to be very vocal protestor on these issues, and states among other that "Private entities are [the scary actors], and anyway they are part of the state de facto", but then goes and requests a Google+ invite complete with e-mail address posted, then what should those masses be making of the apparently mixed signals?
True, true. The question is, however, who is the 'someone else' and what 'work' are you 'taking' (and yeah, it's not theft - it's not even copyright infringement for that matter).
Let's go with the either pro-Google- or anti-Microsoft-centric view first and say the 'someone else' is Google and the 'work' is the results Google returns when searching for a query. How does Google get those results? Well, from the page domain set up by the domain owner, from the page title set up by the webmaster, from the page's content set up by the content creators be that the webmaster, editors, third party posts, whatever and of course links to that site created by yet other people. Which part of this is Google's 'work'? The part that surmises that site A ranks above site B. That 'work' however, is not what is taken.
The other view, however, you've already pointed out yourself:
So now the 'someone else' is the user and the 'work' is what that user clicks on; In essence, a measure of how likely a given result is actually what the user is looking for when presented with results for a given search query. Is that 'work' Google's? Not really (although I wouldn't doubt they, too, rank results in part based on users' clicks on results) as Google doesn't know what result a user clicks on until a user has done so. There's no 'work' from Google involved in that decision process.
So if the 'work' taken is that of the user's, and the user opted in, what's the problem?
That the user's list of options was generated by Google, rather than that it was any other URL, search or not, at the time the Bing Toolbar made its associations?
Google may have cried foul at the time - with interesting timing - but I'd be somewhat disappointed if Google didn't do the exact same thing with their toolbar and/or Chrome.