Because we (used to) have a reasonable expectation that private conversations would remain private, and in the 21st Century, things like phone calls are needed to, well, live. There's no fucking reason the NSA needs metadata about my call to Grandma. It's private and I don't want them to have it. Why? Because fuck you, that's why. And decades of horrible precedent have distorted the meaning of "legal" so that the 4th Amendment is able to be ignored by anyone in gov't who wishes to do so. It's time to start over.
Except the metadata doesn't have anything about your call about Grandma. All it has is that a phone number called another phone number. Whether it was you at the first number and Grandma at the second isn't definitive. (Think of it like an IP address - if you called Grandma via VoIP, they see VoIP or VoIP-like traffic going from one IP to another. And we know how IPs cannot be linked to a computer, nevermind a person).
So your call to Grandma, all anyone knows is the phone numbers involved, and the duration. The contents and parties involved are still anonymous. Sure, if only you and grandma use the phone, you can infer stuff, but there's still a chance a visitor might use the phone.
Don't confuse data with metadata. In this case, the identities of the caller and callee and the contents of the call are data, obtainable via wiretap (or unencrypted VoIP, really). The details related to the call are the metadata.
The more you confuse the two, the less rational discussion can take place. And it leads to silly solutions like encrypting everything, when that does not affect metadata at all.
HTTP 2.0 SSL only? Well, geez, HTTP has a unique traffic fingerprint, and you still get details on the connection (source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port), bytes sent, traffic behavior, etc) that encryption does not hide. All it hides is the content. So whether you're getting a recipe for grandma's apple pies or bomb making plans cannot be determined.
Likewise encrypted e-mail, VoIP, etc. Something like Tor works, except you're limited to in-network traffic because he who controls exits can determine the nature of the traffic.
And no, encrypting the entire IP packet fails the obvious third party handling tests (a third party has to handle the packet - so they have to decrypt it which means the keys have to be known. That's why unencrypted broadcasts are perfectly OK (for those who complain there's no protection on stuff like ADS-B and AIS) because if others have to receive it, they need to decode it, so encrypting it with publicly known keys isn't really a benefit over just sending it cleartext.
IIRC, the change occurred in the mid to late 90's, as software and hardware got complex enough that a lot of it started being subcontracted, and storage got large enough that you could store the entire set of plans digitally, making both the plans and the documentation much more mobile. However, the shift really began in the mid 80's, when the increasingly complex manuals started being "available" instead of provided by default.
Actually, I think we may have IBM to blame for this back in 1981 - the IBM PC didn't come with any of that unless you bought the IBM PC technical reference manual. Inside it contained full schematics, block diagrams and assembly listings of the BIOS, available for both the XT (5150) and the AT that came later.
But since it was intended to be a business machine, IBM thought most users didn't care for it and sold it as an optional (somewhat expensive?) piece of documentation.
When people generally stopped repairing technology and instead chose to start throwing it away and replacing it with new.
That didn't happen until the mid to late 90s when repairing became more expensive and there was little point because the new shiny was way better. People still repaired their PCs before that, and IBM was among the first to stop providing hardware information in the box - it was a separate purchase you made from Big Blue.
Meh... While I can see the value, this is exactly the problem that Windows is stuck in. Although they aren't completely backwards compatible, they try to be backwards compatible for a lot of stuff, which means they have to hold on to libraries which are poorly designed, and in some cases incorrect implementations because so much software depends on the incorrect implementation. MacOS is much cleaner because it has maintained less backwards compatibility. If you want to run old software, do it in a virtual machine, and allow the OS itself to evolve and drop the baggage of keeping the compatibility. Not to say that everything should be changed every OS iteration, but there needs to be a process for getting rid of the cruft.
No what happens is that Windows has to work around everyone else's bugs - a lot of nasty developers don't do things the proper way and Windows suffers. It's why "C:\Documents and Settings" exists still on Windows Vista/7/8 - too many developers hard code that string (including the "C:\" part!) that not having that hard link means programs break.
Apple decided to take the other method - basically dictating that if you do not use just the published APIs, your programs will probably break. Yes, you can use private APIs. But as per the warning, Apple has full right to change the private APIs as they see fit.
Which is better? There's no consensus - Microsoft's means your programs still working, crappy coding and all, but you have to live with the fact that you still have a window named "Program Manager", that if you use a localized version of Windows, you'll eventually have a "Program Files" folder show up (yes, it's localized) because some program hard coded it, etc.
Apple's means a leaner system because all these hacks don't need to exist - private APIs are not fixed in stone but can change and be updated as time goes on and deleted when necessary, rather than having to hang around because some app uses it.
I'm part of one of these younger generations, and I'm honestly not interested in getting involved because I've seen how much of a raging asshole Linuz can be. He's a great maintainer, but he could be honest and give constructive criticism in less condescending ways. I'm not as experienced as he is, but that doesn't give him the right to be a complete dick in public theater.
Well, the other thing is, it works.
Linus is managing in a style similar to Steve Jobs, and it's getting stuff done, like Jobs did as well. That's not to say its the BEST management style, it's just one reserved for the few projects and companies that can do it.
It worked for Apple, and it works for Linux. It probably won't work for other projects, or other companies, but the similarities in management are there.
I am assuming it is only a minority of exchanges, but doesn't this seem to be a bit of a recurring problem?
It's the early days. The early days of banking had similar problems as well.
A bigger issue though is a LOT of exchanges want a LOT of personal information in order to do the exchange.
The real risk is not one of these exchanges disappearing, but getting broken in - tons of them ask so much personal information that you're at a real risk of identity theft or having your bank account drained.
Doing some more reading of their blog and when the floods hit Thailand they actually harvested harddrives from external drives (another blog-entry); makes me think maybe those drives are crappier by default / endure worse treatment on the way from the factory to the consumer.
They are, actually. They're often custom made for the purpose - because when you think about it - what's the point of a high speed hard drive when USB is the limiting factor?
USB mass storage doesn't support more than one outstanding request at a time, so features like NCQ and all that are pointless. Large caches were pointless in a world of USB 2.0 and the data can be pulled from the media faster than the interface (has there been any USB 2.0 hard drive that gets more than 20MB/sec transfer? That's less than half the theoretical... and most mechanisms can pull 40+MB/sec off the inner tracks). Likewise, there's no point putting high speed drives in there - the latency and seek times are pretty much the same, so 7200RPM vs 5400? No big difference.
And of course, they're popular and cheap and unless you can put value-add on there, people pay little, so the goal to make them really cheap is paramount. Heck, the later original Xboxes had 8GB drives that were bare bones cheap - Seagate got rid of a ton of bearings and other stuff.
Heck, in some USB3.0 drives, especially those by WD and Seagate, they don't use SATA anymore - the drive electronics speak USB 3.0 natively with onboard controllers.
As for tracing the bitcoins, use one of the tumbling services. It looks like these marketplaces tumble the coins anyway, but that won't help if the whole site is compromised. Or buy/sell bitcoins with cash (localbitcoins.com), either in person or using the greendot refills (then take the cash out at an ATM without a camera... many of the non-bank owned ATMs don't have a camera).
The old Silk Road did this for you - you paid Silk Road, they paid the seller.
The FBI's $26M stash of Bitcoins was presumed to be the from this - they never found DPR's $100M+ stash.
So basically, what happens is you use it, but at a great risk of having the money taken midway through.
Hell, if I was the government, I'd siphon off random bitcoins here and there doing it. Leave the site up and running, but increase the risk of money not making it.
For the 2010 Winter Olympics, the "original flame" was carried by literally two Coleman-style lamps - the same kind you'd use camping.
One was used to light the torches used in the relays (and each relayer passed the flame to the next, and the old flame was promptly extinguished and the burner removed so it could not be re-lit. The shell was then given to the relay participant).
But said lamps were the backups of each other as well. Likely there were backups of them as well as the two were travelling.
The good news is that now that the congresscritters will have Bitcoin of their own, so they'll have a vested interest in helping it become a legal and legitimate currency. That way, they can spend it on attack ads against their opponents in 2016:)
What makes it illegitimate? People are accepting it as trade for products and services, which is just as legitimate as many other quasi-currencies out there.
Of course, Congress-critters would LOVE bitcoin because of its anonymous nature. Send any amount of cash anywhere, and it's trackable. However, if the RIAA wants to give $200M to Congress, it's far better to use Bitcoins because that's not only anonymous, but I'm sure because of its untraceable nature, it doesn't have to be reported at all. All everyone sees is a payment to a few addresses. Those addresses, unless those congresspeople are stupid, can't be linked to them. So it's a general "good" if you don't mind anonymous campaign contributions.
With current hard currency, well, they have to report it. It's hard to hide $10,000 campaign contributions... but $100,000 in bitcoins? Easy. Why wouldn't any politician like it?
Don't forget that there are still a lot of banksters out there who are still trying to outlaw Bitcoin transactions in the US, using sites like Silk Road as an example on why it shouldn't be adopted as a mainstream currency. The potential loss of credit card transaction fees if Bitcoin becomes popular is starting to become a big deal for big banks and their lobbyists.
That's just because they haven't found a way to speculate and make money on it yet. But you can bet in a year or two when the quants figure it out, they'll be fully in support.
Give it time, they will support it because it'll allow them to make more money faster.
When consumer protection laws apply to bitcoins it may have a chance of becoming a viable alternative. I know that if someone screws with my Amex or Visa account, I will not be on the hook for more than $50. If someone steals my bitcoins I am screwed, period.
Bitcoin is cash. Not credit, nor debit. If you lose a bitcoin, it's the same as if you lost the $20 in your wallet - it's gone. It won't be replaced. Ditto bitcoin.
It's the same prior to the Great Depression where if your bank up and evaporated, your life savings went away.
Um, this is the tesla that burst into flame under the hood... nowhere near the battery pack. I'm pretty impressed that the sensors detected the fault so far ahead of the failure... now they just need to add some extra circuitry to completely disable electronics in areas that have an electrical fault (after the car is in park of course).
Actually, that's by design. If the battery pack catches fire, the fire is diverted AWAY from the passenger doors, so passengers may safely exit the vehicle. Unlike say, regular car fires which can flame up around and through the passenger cabin, potentially trapping the occupants.
The battery directs the fire to the front or the back of the vehicle and away from the sides. Sure there's less chance of your stuff int he frunk or trunk surviving, but you're still more likely to come out alive minus a few possessions.
It's also fairly well protected - besides the aluminum plate, the battery contains 16 sealed and isolated chambers that contain fire suppressant and coolant to keep one section from spreading into another.
The bigger question is three fires, and yet no passenger cabin intrusion of flame... a regular car on fire typically leaves nothing left of the passenger cabin.
It's a good story and describes exactly what happens - the rich control everything, while everyone else is on "welfare" and stuffed into overcrowded apartments and provided food. They're not allowed to leave and explore - just hang around.
I won't spoil the ending - it's a good read and it shows one possible way to have robots provide us with what we need.
In short, it's not about letting machines control US, but having us control machines. So far, they're controlling us looking at the crowd who cannot get away from their smartphones and such.
"for android, you're kinda screwed, because it's baked into the OS."
No, it isn't. I'm getting pretty sick of these falsities being repeated.
It's baked into some APPS in the OS. You aren't obligated to use them. You can disable them and use 3rd-party tools like Waze or any of the many others.
My location tracking is off most of the time. When it is on, I use 3rd-party software. Network analysis shows that my Android phone isn't "phoning home" to Google with my location.
I sometimes use Google Maps to find things. But then I am not at the location I am trying to find.
Actually, Google is encouraging developers use the massive root-level all-permissions blob known as the "Google Services Framework" which provides access to the Google APIs for stuff like mapping, location services and other stuff.
The purpose is to make developer's lives simpler, though the real reason is Google fears the Kindle and other AOSP based Android devices - so tying apps into GSF makes those apps dependent on Google and not AOSP.
Hell, half the stuff on an Android phone are NOT in AOSP anymore - AOSP contains basic apps and that's it - Google replaces them with their own.
AOSP will always be open-source, but it's rapidly becoming outdated as features are not being brought to it as they're becoming part of Google's standard set of closed-source apps.
And apps not reporting home? Well, considering most apps are ad-based, they SHOULD be reporting home. Perhaps they're doing it over the 3G link?
Of course, one thing iOS has over Android is that you can deny location services to specific apps. So you can have location services enabled globally and yet deny certain apps from getting location data.
Makers of devices without a microSD slot don't have to pay VFAT or exFAT royalties to Microsoft.
Aside from the fact that a software patent is different from a hardware patent, why not just offer an alternative? For nexus phones at least, I believe it's because Google wants you to stream everything (from them).
That's one reason. Another one is to avoid patents.
Google does its best to avoid patents - the famous "rounded corners" patent includes a grid of icons with a static tray at the bottom. Android's closest is a "home screen" but it is more than a grid of icons as it has widgets and such and the app launcher loses the tray. Thust by default, Android does NOT violate the "rounded cornders" patent because at no time does it meet all the requirements.
Likewise, by not having a microSD slot, Google avoids violating the FAT/exFAT patents. And by using MTP (which is still fairly crappy) they avoid needing it for internal storage as well.
Why do you think Facebook, well known for shitting on people's privacy settings, is any better than Google?
"Privacy settings" is a marketing term..
There is NO such thing as privacy online. Posting something online is equivalent to posting it to the world - it's like keeping a secret by telling someone. And if you're not going to tell anyone, why post it online?
The only reason why "privacy" is an option is because Facebook and everyone else knows that people won't post anything otherwise. So they invent "privacy settings" to trick (yes, trick) everyone into revealing things that they rationally won't.
The old adage (from decades ago) goes "never put online anything you don't want to read in the New York Times". Or I guess, the Google front page these days.
Nothing's changed, just Facebook has managed to sucker in a bunch of gullible people into thinking there's any semblance of privacy online. And that doesn't even cover the need to monetize your information. Just putting it online is dangerous enough.
All my credit cards apparently have a unique 8-digit beginning.
The first six digits of a card number identify the type of card and the issuing financial institution. The next 9 are the actual number and the last is a check digit via Luhn's method.
There are 100 different numbers once you identified the first 6 (Wikipedia has a nice list). That will get you the first 8 digits quite easily.
And yes, it seems to be a standard format, like Visa begins with 4, MC with 5, and Amex with 6, then the next 5 digits uniquely identify a financial institution that issued that card.
I read about the 3d printed prosthetic hand weeks before on here. I think that's great news, too. One thing about internet forums like this, there's room for all of it. -- No trees were harmed in the posting of this message, though a few electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
True, but the comments and articles about the prosthetic limb get buried under an avalanche of articles and comments about "GUNS!!!!".
Go-live fiascos like this are quite common in the private sector.
Some are quite spectacular - go back a few years and see Apple's iPhone 3G launch where the vast majority of purchases could not use their phones because Apple's activation servers melted down from the immense load. (And it's not like Apple doesn't have the numbers of how many iPhone 3Gs they made...).
Or it seems any big video game launch because the DRM servers melted down...
This fail has many parents. Fail 1 is the total inability of a large part of the USA population to consider ANY of the ways the entire rest of the civilized world runs their healthcare without collapsing into an epileptic fit screaming "OMFG commie pinko socialism death panel grandma waits years for a bandaid end of the word HELP" and then off to find an Ayn Rand poster to whack off to.
Unfortunately, the ads on the site for Paint.NET seem to come from doubleclick and google.
They're one and the same, you know - Google owns DoubleClick for a long time now.
Anyhow, next time it happens, you should report that it has a bunch of crap attached with it - you clicked the download link after all, and it's not entirely your fault for paint.NET looking like GIMP and installing adware.
That's the glory of what they're doing. They CAN make money off of you knowing that you bought work clothes at Goodwill and a sandwich at Char-hut. If you can't figure out how, you don't completely understand what they're actually doing.
That information is extremely valuable to advertisers.
Right now, advertisers are paying twice as much money for an iOS ad impression over an Android ad impression. Even given the fact iOS is being outsold 4:1 by Android.
It's valuable information for Google because it can mean that Google won't run high paying ads to you, though it could mean those ad-supported apps may get more obnoxious for you because they're forced to run low paying ads while a big spender might only see barely one ad because they just see the big paying one.
And yes, remember Google owns practically the entire online and mobile advertising space.
Not only was it made at the time the movie came out, but the director explicitly states it in the DVD commentary.
Verhoven films usually are a social commentary embedded in a nice action flick - so you can enjoy it as a pure action movie, or analyze it for the subtext. Robocop is another one commenting about society and policing. And oddly, it seems we're definitely headed towards the world Robocop was set in. Only took nearly 30 years.
Anyhow, Starship Troopers, the book, was also designed to be a commentary about war and propaganda as well.
Of course, the problem is that Starship Troopers is much more complex than the film technology we had back in the day. Notably, power suits. Trivially done today with CG and costumes, but back then, technology wasn't robust enough.
Of course, the problem with remakes (like 2014's Robocop) is that they're likely to ignore the entire subtext, or make it so blindingly obvious that the message being communicated is lost.
He makes a comment about how the stickers are there on the back screws to discourage people opening it up and then he goes on to say you can replace the HD with any standard drive.
Seems they thought of what would happen if people tried to sell their PS4 on the used market. It would be easy/easier for the buyer to tell if the unit had been opened up while still allowing for people to upgrade their systems.
They all have those warranty void stickers. The PS3 has it on the bottom, and some unscrupulous types replace it with their own sticker, or clean it off so you don't know there's a sticker there to begin with (the stickers leave behind a residue that says "warranty void" or something similar normally).
And what upgrades do you do to a PS4? There's nothing that isn't externally accessible - it's a console. Not a PC.
The only reason you'd want to open a PS4 up is to mod it, really. And I'm fairly certain the PS4's screws will be security Torx or other unusual screw - they're pretty much always been to discourage people from modding the console.
I legitimately wonder how many (if any) of the features covered by the patents in question would not have been implemented in Android if not for the work of whoever filed the patent. If the answer is few or none, then patents are subtracting rather than adding value to society in this domain. If the answer is many, then there is at least an argument to be made.
Except Android works around a bunch of them, and some of them are to the benefit of them all because it forced Google to innovate and we're better for it.
Take, for example, the "rounded corners" patent - it actually covers a screen layout of a grid of icons with a static bottom panel. Android worked around it by having a "home screen" and a launcher, and adding widgets to said home screen (thus not being a grid of icons anymore). So now we're better for having both options available - a grid of icons like iOS, and a homescreen/widgets/launcher model like Android. Unless you really wanted Android to just copy iOS and be a grid of icons, which even if it wasn't patented, would really be boring and copycat, rather than something new and innovative.
And then take the FAT32 patent Microsoft asserts. Well it forced Android to fix its broken external storage model and as of ICS, become a unified storage. If you never lived through the confusion that was being unable to do stuff (because some storage was full)...
There are plenty more patents Google worked around that are neat little touches in Android, and I say we're better for it rather than simply being able to just copy what someone else did.
Why should web marketers feel entitled to additional data just because of the media change. When I read a newspaper, marketers can't even tell I read an ad much less who I am or what I did before or after reading the ad. They have the ability to tell the browser requested the ad, that should be all info they get about anyone.
You should replace Marketers with Google, since Google owns like 98% of the online marketing and advertising market (through AdSense, DoubleClick and MANY other advertising companies and networks all owned by Google).
But the other thing is well, it has the potential to break a lot of websites. Not many in the western world, but many in Asia and Europe tend to rely on weird and esoteric stuff.
Last thing you want is someone trying to do online shopping and then have it mysteriously fail - soon you'll just get a bunch of FAQs like "I use Firefox, why can't I buy anything?" and responses like "Use Internet Explorer or Safari or Chrome" or "Turn on cookies -...".
Remember the article from the other day about how you need IE in order to do banking in Korea? same idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Except the metadata doesn't have anything about your call about Grandma. All it has is that a phone number called another phone number. Whether it was you at the first number and Grandma at the second isn't definitive. (Think of it like an IP address - if you called Grandma via VoIP, they see VoIP or VoIP-like traffic going from one IP to another. And we know how IPs cannot be linked to a computer, nevermind a person).
So your call to Grandma, all anyone knows is the phone numbers involved, and the duration. The contents and parties involved are still anonymous. Sure, if only you and grandma use the phone, you can infer stuff, but there's still a chance a visitor might use the phone.
Don't confuse data with metadata. In this case, the identities of the caller and callee and the contents of the call are data, obtainable via wiretap (or unencrypted VoIP, really). The details related to the call are the metadata.
The more you confuse the two, the less rational discussion can take place. And it leads to silly solutions like encrypting everything, when that does not affect metadata at all.
HTTP 2.0 SSL only? Well, geez, HTTP has a unique traffic fingerprint, and you still get details on the connection (source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port), bytes sent, traffic behavior, etc) that encryption does not hide. All it hides is the content. So whether you're getting a recipe for grandma's apple pies or bomb making plans cannot be determined.
Likewise encrypted e-mail, VoIP, etc. Something like Tor works, except you're limited to in-network traffic because he who controls exits can determine the nature of the traffic.
And no, encrypting the entire IP packet fails the obvious third party handling tests (a third party has to handle the packet - so they have to decrypt it which means the keys have to be known. That's why unencrypted broadcasts are perfectly OK (for those who complain there's no protection on stuff like ADS-B and AIS) because if others have to receive it, they need to decode it, so encrypting it with publicly known keys isn't really a benefit over just sending it cleartext.
Actually, I think we may have IBM to blame for this back in 1981 - the IBM PC didn't come with any of that unless you bought the IBM PC technical reference manual. Inside it contained full schematics, block diagrams and assembly listings of the BIOS, available for both the XT (5150) and the AT that came later.
But since it was intended to be a business machine, IBM thought most users didn't care for it and sold it as an optional (somewhat expensive?) piece of documentation.
That didn't happen until the mid to late 90s when repairing became more expensive and there was little point because the new shiny was way better. People still repaired their PCs before that, and IBM was among the first to stop providing hardware information in the box - it was a separate purchase you made from Big Blue.
No what happens is that Windows has to work around everyone else's bugs - a lot of nasty developers don't do things the proper way and Windows suffers. It's why "C:\Documents and Settings" exists still on Windows Vista/7/8 - too many developers hard code that string (including the "C:\" part!) that not having that hard link means programs break.
Apple decided to take the other method - basically dictating that if you do not use just the published APIs, your programs will probably break. Yes, you can use private APIs. But as per the warning, Apple has full right to change the private APIs as they see fit.
Which is better? There's no consensus - Microsoft's means your programs still working, crappy coding and all, but you have to live with the fact that you still have a window named "Program Manager", that if you use a localized version of Windows, you'll eventually have a "Program Files" folder show up (yes, it's localized) because some program hard coded it, etc.
Apple's means a leaner system because all these hacks don't need to exist - private APIs are not fixed in stone but can change and be updated as time goes on and deleted when necessary, rather than having to hang around because some app uses it.
Well, the other thing is, it works.
Linus is managing in a style similar to Steve Jobs, and it's getting stuff done, like Jobs did as well. That's not to say its the BEST management style, it's just one reserved for the few projects and companies that can do it.
It worked for Apple, and it works for Linux. It probably won't work for other projects, or other companies, but the similarities in management are there.
It's the early days. The early days of banking had similar problems as well.
A bigger issue though is a LOT of exchanges want a LOT of personal information in order to do the exchange.
The real risk is not one of these exchanges disappearing, but getting broken in - tons of them ask so much personal information that you're at a real risk of identity theft or having your bank account drained.
The others, well, can seem sketchy at times.
They are, actually. They're often custom made for the purpose - because when you think about it - what's the point of a high speed hard drive when USB is the limiting factor?
USB mass storage doesn't support more than one outstanding request at a time, so features like NCQ and all that are pointless. Large caches were pointless in a world of USB 2.0 and the data can be pulled from the media faster than the interface (has there been any USB 2.0 hard drive that gets more than 20MB/sec transfer? That's less than half the theoretical... and most mechanisms can pull 40+MB/sec off the inner tracks). Likewise, there's no point putting high speed drives in there - the latency and seek times are pretty much the same, so 7200RPM vs 5400? No big difference.
And of course, they're popular and cheap and unless you can put value-add on there, people pay little, so the goal to make them really cheap is paramount. Heck, the later original Xboxes had 8GB drives that were bare bones cheap - Seagate got rid of a ton of bearings and other stuff.
Heck, in some USB3.0 drives, especially those by WD and Seagate, they don't use SATA anymore - the drive electronics speak USB 3.0 natively with onboard controllers.
The old Silk Road did this for you - you paid Silk Road, they paid the seller.
The FBI's $26M stash of Bitcoins was presumed to be the from this - they never found DPR's $100M+ stash.
So basically, what happens is you use it, but at a great risk of having the money taken midway through.
Hell, if I was the government, I'd siphon off random bitcoins here and there doing it. Leave the site up and running, but increase the risk of money not making it.
For the 2010 Winter Olympics, the "original flame" was carried by literally two Coleman-style lamps - the same kind you'd use camping.
One was used to light the torches used in the relays (and each relayer passed the flame to the next, and the old flame was promptly extinguished and the burner removed so it could not be re-lit. The shell was then given to the relay participant).
But said lamps were the backups of each other as well. Likely there were backups of them as well as the two were travelling.
What makes it illegitimate? People are accepting it as trade for products and services, which is just as legitimate as many other quasi-currencies out there.
Of course, Congress-critters would LOVE bitcoin because of its anonymous nature. Send any amount of cash anywhere, and it's trackable. However, if the RIAA wants to give $200M to Congress, it's far better to use Bitcoins because that's not only anonymous, but I'm sure because of its untraceable nature, it doesn't have to be reported at all. All everyone sees is a payment to a few addresses. Those addresses, unless those congresspeople are stupid, can't be linked to them. So it's a general "good" if you don't mind anonymous campaign contributions.
With current hard currency, well, they have to report it. It's hard to hide $10,000 campaign contributions... but $100,000 in bitcoins? Easy. Why wouldn't any politician like it?
That's just because they haven't found a way to speculate and make money on it yet. But you can bet in a year or two when the quants figure it out, they'll be fully in support.
Give it time, they will support it because it'll allow them to make more money faster.
Bitcoin is cash. Not credit, nor debit. If you lose a bitcoin, it's the same as if you lost the $20 in your wallet - it's gone. It won't be replaced. Ditto bitcoin.
It's the same prior to the Great Depression where if your bank up and evaporated, your life savings went away.
Actually, that's by design. If the battery pack catches fire, the fire is diverted AWAY from the passenger doors, so passengers may safely exit the vehicle. Unlike say, regular car fires which can flame up around and through the passenger cabin, potentially trapping the occupants.
The battery directs the fire to the front or the back of the vehicle and away from the sides. Sure there's less chance of your stuff int he frunk or trunk surviving, but you're still more likely to come out alive minus a few possessions.
It's also fairly well protected - besides the aluminum plate, the battery contains 16 sealed and isolated chambers that contain fire suppressant and coolant to keep one section from spreading into another.
The bigger question is three fires, and yet no passenger cabin intrusion of flame... a regular car on fire typically leaves nothing left of the passenger cabin.
There's some speculative fiction called Manna by Marshall Brain over just this.
It's a good story and describes exactly what happens - the rich control everything, while everyone else is on "welfare" and stuffed into overcrowded apartments and provided food. They're not allowed to leave and explore - just hang around.
I won't spoil the ending - it's a good read and it shows one possible way to have robots provide us with what we need.
In short, it's not about letting machines control US, but having us control machines. So far, they're controlling us looking at the crowd who cannot get away from their smartphones and such.
Actually, Google is encouraging developers use the massive root-level all-permissions blob known as the "Google Services Framework" which provides access to the Google APIs for stuff like mapping, location services and other stuff.
The purpose is to make developer's lives simpler, though the real reason is Google fears the Kindle and other AOSP based Android devices - so tying apps into GSF makes those apps dependent on Google and not AOSP.
Hell, half the stuff on an Android phone are NOT in AOSP anymore - AOSP contains basic apps and that's it - Google replaces them with their own.
AOSP will always be open-source, but it's rapidly becoming outdated as features are not being brought to it as they're becoming part of Google's standard set of closed-source apps.
And apps not reporting home? Well, considering most apps are ad-based, they SHOULD be reporting home. Perhaps they're doing it over the 3G link?
Of course, one thing iOS has over Android is that you can deny location services to specific apps. So you can have location services enabled globally and yet deny certain apps from getting location data.
That's one reason. Another one is to avoid patents.
Google does its best to avoid patents - the famous "rounded corners" patent includes a grid of icons with a static tray at the bottom. Android's closest is a "home screen" but it is more than a grid of icons as it has widgets and such and the app launcher loses the tray. Thust by default, Android does NOT violate the "rounded cornders" patent because at no time does it meet all the requirements.
Likewise, by not having a microSD slot, Google avoids violating the FAT/exFAT patents. And by using MTP (which is still fairly crappy) they avoid needing it for internal storage as well.
"Privacy settings" is a marketing term..
There is NO such thing as privacy online. Posting something online is equivalent to posting it to the world - it's like keeping a secret by telling someone. And if you're not going to tell anyone, why post it online?
The only reason why "privacy" is an option is because Facebook and everyone else knows that people won't post anything otherwise. So they invent "privacy settings" to trick (yes, trick) everyone into revealing things that they rationally won't.
The old adage (from decades ago) goes "never put online anything you don't want to read in the New York Times". Or I guess, the Google front page these days.
Nothing's changed, just Facebook has managed to sucker in a bunch of gullible people into thinking there's any semblance of privacy online. And that doesn't even cover the need to monetize your information. Just putting it online is dangerous enough.
The first six digits of a card number identify the type of card and the issuing financial institution. The next 9 are the actual number and the last is a check digit via Luhn's method.
There are 100 different numbers once you identified the first 6 (Wikipedia has a nice list). That will get you the first 8 digits quite easily.
And yes, it seems to be a standard format, like Visa begins with 4, MC with 5, and Amex with 6, then the next 5 digits uniquely identify a financial institution that issued that card.
True, but the comments and articles about the prosthetic limb get buried under an avalanche of articles and comments about "GUNS!!!!".
Some are quite spectacular - go back a few years and see Apple's iPhone 3G launch where the vast majority of purchases could not use their phones because Apple's activation servers melted down from the immense load. (And it's not like Apple doesn't have the numbers of how many iPhone 3Gs they made...).
Or it seems any big video game launch because the DRM servers melted down...
There's even a DDoS tool created to take down HealthCare.gov by simply reloading the page over and over and over again...
Well, try getting 50GB of space for free from Dropbox or Google Drive. Box runs those promos so often it's almost impossible to NOT get 50GB...
They're one and the same, you know - Google owns DoubleClick for a long time now.
Anyhow, next time it happens, you should report that it has a bunch of crap attached with it - you clicked the download link after all, and it's not entirely your fault for paint.NET looking like GIMP and installing adware.
That information is extremely valuable to advertisers.
Right now, advertisers are paying twice as much money for an iOS ad impression over an Android ad impression. Even given the fact iOS is being outsold 4:1 by Android.
It's valuable information for Google because it can mean that Google won't run high paying ads to you, though it could mean those ad-supported apps may get more obnoxious for you because they're forced to run low paying ads while a big spender might only see barely one ad because they just see the big paying one.
And yes, remember Google owns practically the entire online and mobile advertising space.
Not entirely sure, but the dances aren't helping me understand the thesis anymore than the report does...
You can probably get away doing the Macarena and I'd probably believe it's related to your work...
Verhoven films usually are a social commentary embedded in a nice action flick - so you can enjoy it as a pure action movie, or analyze it for the subtext. Robocop is another one commenting about society and policing. And oddly, it seems we're definitely headed towards the world Robocop was set in. Only took nearly 30 years.
Anyhow, Starship Troopers, the book, was also designed to be a commentary about war and propaganda as well.
Of course, the problem is that Starship Troopers is much more complex than the film technology we had back in the day. Notably, power suits. Trivially done today with CG and costumes, but back then, technology wasn't robust enough.
Of course, the problem with remakes (like 2014's Robocop) is that they're likely to ignore the entire subtext, or make it so blindingly obvious that the message being communicated is lost.
They all have those warranty void stickers. The PS3 has it on the bottom, and some unscrupulous types replace it with their own sticker, or clean it off so you don't know there's a sticker there to begin with (the stickers leave behind a residue that says "warranty void" or something similar normally).
And what upgrades do you do to a PS4? There's nothing that isn't externally accessible - it's a console. Not a PC.
The only reason you'd want to open a PS4 up is to mod it, really. And I'm fairly certain the PS4's screws will be security Torx or other unusual screw - they're pretty much always been to discourage people from modding the console.
Except Android works around a bunch of them, and some of them are to the benefit of them all because it forced Google to innovate and we're better for it.
Take, for example, the "rounded corners" patent - it actually covers a screen layout of a grid of icons with a static bottom panel. Android worked around it by having a "home screen" and a launcher, and adding widgets to said home screen (thus not being a grid of icons anymore). So now we're better for having both options available - a grid of icons like iOS, and a homescreen/widgets/launcher model like Android. Unless you really wanted Android to just copy iOS and be a grid of icons, which even if it wasn't patented, would really be boring and copycat, rather than something new and innovative.
And then take the FAT32 patent Microsoft asserts. Well it forced Android to fix its broken external storage model and as of ICS, become a unified storage. If you never lived through the confusion that was being unable to do stuff (because some storage was full)...
There are plenty more patents Google worked around that are neat little touches in Android, and I say we're better for it rather than simply being able to just copy what someone else did.
You should replace Marketers with Google, since Google owns like 98% of the online marketing and advertising market (through AdSense, DoubleClick and MANY other advertising companies and networks all owned by Google).
But the other thing is well, it has the potential to break a lot of websites. Not many in the western world, but many in Asia and Europe tend to rely on weird and esoteric stuff.
Last thing you want is someone trying to do online shopping and then have it mysteriously fail - soon you'll just get a bunch of FAQs like "I use Firefox, why can't I buy anything?" and responses like "Use Internet Explorer or Safari or Chrome" or "Turn on cookies - ...".
Remember the article from the other day about how you need IE in order to do banking in Korea? same idea.