In roughly a century of driving, humans have learned one strategy: slam on the breaks. The choice is "break, or don't". When the driver is replaced by a bot, the choice is STILL "break, or don't".
I swear, this nonsense about algorithms implementing moral calculus is just a scam to get philosophy professors a few more speaking engagements.
Exactly. (It's "brake", btw).
If you see a situation where this might even remotely be possible, then drivers typically SLOW DOWN so there's not only more time to react, but if there is an accident, the outcomes are better.
Heck, today we have systems that apply the brakes - should a car or pedestrian accidentally walk in front of the vehicle, it warns the driver and if that doesn't work, slams on the brakes.
Heck, I read of another one - three lanes - big transport truck on the left, you in the center, tiny car on the right. The situation is then stated that the car will edge closer to the car on the right, putting "in danger" that vehicle. Maybe, if you consider a situation where for some stupid reason everyone is traveling side by side the whole way. Most reasonable drivers don't actually try to put their cars abreast like that because it leaves little maneuvering room - either accelerate to pass one of the vehicles slow down to be behind the truck, etc. The other name for that is to not spend an extended period of time in someone's blind spot. and to leave room for the other guys to maneuver suddenly (perhaps the tiny car needs to change lanes).
Seriously, a lot of these "scenarios" seem to be put together without a thought to simply avoiding it altogether, you know, regular driving. Short of mechanical failure, you shouldn't be there in the first place. And if your brakes quit working, well, the option is not us vs. them, it's the best way to stop the vehicle which would be to crash head on into something (cars are very strong on a full frontal collision - so good the NHTSA and IIHS don't do more than perfunctory tests because any car that doesn't score a 5 on it isn't even worth certifying anymore). Of course, the genuine goal is to reduce speed so all forms of alternative braking should be used to reduce speed to the point where a full frontal collission is a bumper tap. If it's electric, regen braking works extremely well to slow a speeding vehicle down to a walking pace. In an ICE, you shift gears and let engine braking work. If necessary, you stop the engine and let it turn
There is a certain karmic justice in Apple having to formally address an idiot who thinks a slab with rounded corners is worthy of intellectual property, given that apple has asserted the same.
Except, Apple's rounded corners patent was a DESIGN patent. As in it was looks. You had to have a device with rounded corners, AND a grid of icons AND a row of icons that's static. See the "AND"s? Android by default had none of those. The default Android look had rounded corners, a row of icons that was static, but NOT a grid of icons (ever wonder about the clock widget? Natch).
Design patents also only last 5 years. You can actually manufacture a phone that looks exactly like the iPhone 4 or 4S right now and Apple cannot do anything - the design patent has expired.
In fact, Apple's rounded corner patent has also long expired.
This guy's patent is actually a UTILITY patent. If it's actually valid, it would cover ALL smartphones on the market - there isn't an exception that would exclude any phone on the market.
Why the f*ck are we still wasting this gas on such stupid things as party balloons. Why wasn't this completely verboten years ago.
Well, technically, the party balloon helium is quite impure, and it often is economically unviable to refine it for scientific usage.
That's the only reason why it's still around - it costs more to make it useful than to use what we have in the reserves that are usable.
Contrary to popular belief, the party balloon folks are just as price sensitive, and a bottle of the good He is much too expensive, so they buy the crappy impure He.
Once supplies dwindle to the point refining party balloon He to lab grade is economically viable, then we won't have He balloons anymore.
That's interesting. I had some CT's taken, I asked for the 'image data' (I work in the 'healthcare industry' & have specific knowledge of the format of this data. So besides even thinking of taking it elsewhere I was going to 'play with it' some day to make a 3D model of the area of my body they imaged just for 'shits & giggles'), I was given it on CD in 10 minutes.
Well, if they have the data available immediately, then making a copy for you is basically free because it's right there.
The problems arise once the data hits your charts and gets archived. It's LESS accessible now because it's now part of your chart and since it can be fairly large, it gets put into cold storage almost instantly. And once it hits there, it takes time and effort to retrieve the data, and some cold storage providers charge to retrieve the data.
Plus, this is for medical records, which are often scattered about - electronic, paper (those manila folders aren't going away - most practices haven't digitized those even if they use EMRs), paper stored in an offsite facility, etc.
If you ask immediately while the data is still on the hard drive prior to archival (to your medical record) and deletion (off the local hard drive), the cost is practically zero
the more annoying thing is, that for a device this expensive, the warranty is only 1 year long. apple even tried to bring that crap to EU. fortunately, apart from UK, the whole EU has 2 year warranty on everything.
And you didn't realize that EU citizens are paying for an extended warranty?
Apple's probably one of the best examples as their "EU Tax" is low - take the US model, add AppleCare (to satisfy EU warranty), add in the requisite VAT (20-25%) and convert to Euros, and you come out pretty close to the cost in Europe.
So if you hate 1 year warranties, when the Best Buy cashier asks "DO you want the extended warranty", say "Yes". In Europe, Australia, etc., guess what? You can't say no, you don't want the 2 year warranty, let me save the 10-20%.
Turns out everyone's really been factoring in the extended warranty into the price for Europe.
TINSTAAFL. In North America, they ask if you want the extended warranty. In Europe, Australia and other countries, they answered for you.
Oh, and yes, if you open stuff, it's fine. it's when you try to fix stuff you have problems. Warranty fraud is a huge thing, and you will see people try to claim "No, it wasn't submerged in water" even though it's clearly dripping water all over the counter.
It's a really big problem and as much as everyone would like to see more repairable stuff, the real problem is too many people just are not skilled enough. The good ones will just open it, see they can't fix it and put everything back. Most people bumble through things and make things worse
Even the law says that - if the damage can be traced to the failure, the warranty can be voided. For most devices, opening them and trying to screw around with stuff can be traced as the cause.
The problem is not the 1% of people who go to iFixit and get their replacement parts and tools, it's the 99% who don't and try to "fix" it but make things worse. Because the vast majority of those lack the skill, care, precision, tools, education, etc to not mess anything up. It's why iFixit can get all high and mighty about it, because they don't see the other end of it. Perhaps a stint at a retail customer service desk should help realize that people who use iFixit generally know what they're doing.
Because these youngsters don't even remember/know that DEC was a company so when they see the "digital" tag they associate it with some sort of digital system like streaming digital content off the internet.
Given the demise of DEC, I've been seeing their logo literally everywhere - seems once the trademark expired, everyone googles for "digital logo" and up it pops, trademark free.
I've seen it on "digital" music effects boxes as well...
The thing is, Civ is a simulation. History can be boiled down to dates and events and other boring crap that has nothing to do with life.
But that's the scholastic view of history, which makes it absolutely worthless to anyone. History isn't about dates, names, places and events. It's all about the leadup - how did the events of World War I lead to the Nazi uprising? Why did normal German citizens do nothing about the Nazis?
Yes, it's somewhat important to know the dates of WWI and WWII, but those are facts, and facts can be looked up in a book, online, whatever. Memorization of those dates has no practical use.
What has practical use is knowing the background to all these events. How did our form of justice evolve? The Constitution of the United States is an important document, but what's the background behind it?
History is known for repeating itself, and it's far more important to know the leadups and background of the events than to know dates, times, places and people.
Something like Civ can simulate.
Rote memorization is out. Google/Libraries/Books/etc are the tools for that. What's far more important is the analytical part of history. The real issues are why and how. For example, rather than knowing dates and people of Brexit (which are just pure facts), what about analysis? Could the rise of the Leave voters be traced to any other event in history and how does it compare with what happened? (Think - rise of unions, or other sort of events). Can the effects of Brexit be predicted based on similar happenings in the past? These are the sort of questions we should ask in History. Not Hitler's birthday.
And having a choice about whether you use your card as credit or debit matters. Credit cards have tons of cardholder protections by law. Debit cards have fewer protections and have $50 of cardholder liability, regardless of fault (many banks will waive this, but it's allowed by law). Merchants also get in on the act by steering people to use certain cards in certain situations. For small purchases, merchants steer you to a credit card if possible, since their fees are percentage-based. For larger purchases, they'd rather you use a debit card, since the fees are a legally-capped flat fee. Last I checked, it was capped at about $0.45. per transaction, which means that banks all charge exactly that amount. If you're only buying a candy bar at a convenience store for $0.95, they pay almost half of the revenue (not profit!) as a card processor fee, and they probably lose money on that transaction. With a credit card, that same purchase has a $0.04 (and fractions) fee.
Actually, no. Credit cards have transaction fee that's a per-transaction PLUS a percentage. Usually it's anywhere from 10-30 cents per transaction plus 1-5% of the amount.
Debit cards do vary a lot - the merchant may pay 45 cents max, but they usually have another per-transaction fee paid by the user (usually 25 cents or so). Some merchants actually refund you 25 cents as they eat that cost too.
That's actually one of the big reasons why Apple did the whole 30% thing - they new that at the very worst, selling a music file for 99 cents meant their transaction fees would be nearly a third of the total, and basically set their rates to cover the cost. They also did things like batching, so if you bought two songs, they'd charge you once, so they'd make a little money. (This was, remember, over a decade ago).
As for the US - it's mostly inertia. Retailers and banks are completely scared of introducing too many changes at once - "friction" in sales is something they want to avoid. Chip+Sign basically imitates as closely as possible the existing swipe+sign mechanism and people are used to signing their credit card receipts, so they keep it to avoid friction in having to teach a shopper how the newfangled credit cards work.
Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?
I do miss the "time lady" though. Or "popcorn" - (767-2676, or 767-1111). "At the tone, the time will be, 9:38am. *BEEP*"
Assuming everything is set properly, you can still be wrong on the time. Timezones, Daylight Saving Time, etc. Anytime you screw with the clocks, you run the risk of having the time set wrong.
So it's nice to have a source of local time that's correct to confirm the time is correct.
That's why the calls spike around the time change - because people aren't entirely sure anymore.
First, Park is all the way at the top, or a distinct motion. If it's a lever on the center tunnel, pressing the button and shoving it all the way forward until it stops should be park. I don't care if there's feedback or not, if I hold the button down, shove it all the way up to the stop and let go, park it is.
Other ways might be a stalk shifter, which pressing it IN puts it in park (up is reverse, down is drive, away is neutral).
Next, the car has an LCD on the dashboard, between the gauges. Know what's prominent? The current shifter position! Yes, it says "Park" on the shifter, but it also says "P" on the LCD. It tells me what position it's in without me glancing down. So before I turn off the car, I can check that it says "P" and the parking brake is set (idiot light) and make sure the car is completely ready to leave (lights off, wipers off, etc).
Given all cars have a color LCD in the gauge cluster, there's no more excuse - if the car's not in park and the driver's door is opened, the LCD can say "CAR NOT IN PARK" and flash the dashboard lights light a Christmas tree (while darkening all other interior lights - the goal is to draw attention to the display - which it will if it's the brightest thing there). If there's a central nav screen, guess what? It can do the same and point down at the shifter.
If necessary, it could then force-park it (electronic transmission - the shifter is merely a fancy switch)
Well, one of the biggest things that happened was activating Volume Shadow Services, aka Previous Versions. Every 4 hours, a snapshot of the shares are taken, so you can go back several weeks.
Saved my ass several times thanks to finger slips (who puts "Delete" right next to "Rename"?) and the damned Delete shortcut which deletes an entire tree rather than the file. Just load up the last snapshot and restore from that.
Online services like this are fine provided the malware can't get access to delete rights to the snapshots. And stuff like Apple's Time Machine go through interesting permission machinations to ensure that the backup program can make snapshots, but that normal users or even root can't touch them.
No, the big problem with Lavabit is what shut it down - when Lavabit refused to give up the account, the government went after the key, and the problem with that is there was only one. So by going after the key, not only was one account compromised, but all of them.
That was the problem. That's why it was shut down - the whole site was protected by a single key and with that, everyone was compromised.
It was why Lavabit couldn't give up the account to begin with - because they wouldn't have access to one account, but all. When the government forced the matter, it was game over.
So it was good in the sense that bad technology got exposed and shut down, and people are more secure to not do things the stupid way.
All evidence points to them not wanting your data. It appears to be nothing but a liability to them. They actively seem to be making everything they offer end-to-end encrypted, deliberately shutting themselves out of data they once had access to.
Having the data doesn't benefit them in any way, but it does do them harm - it makes them vulnerable to hackers and governments gaining access to the data.
Your private data, yes, Apple doesn't want it. Having it means having to handle icky things like lawsuits and court orders and other nasty things. It's why their basic iCloud backup service stores very little information - it won't store passwords for example - so Apple can't be subpoenaed and forced to reveal the information to law enforcement.
In fact, the only way to do a complete, full backup of an iOS device is to use iTunes, and to set that as an encrypted backup. Then iOS will save the backup information as well.
Apple is just practicing data sanitation 101 - if you don't need it, don't collect it, and you won't be hacked for it, or have LEOs ask for it. etc.
Of course, the problem is, sometimes you want to collect some information to make services better - things like autocorrect and other information. That's where stuff like differential privacy comes into play. Differential privacy relies on the fact that if something is popular, it will be popular, so even if the data you sent doesn't include that information, it doesn't matter as the "crowd" will still find it popular. Basically it degrades data quality for increased anonymity. But if you have a big enough sample pool, the quality degrades at a far lower rate as the increase in anonymity gets you.
One also needs to note this is really the only way Apple is trying to compete with Android. Google is great at a lot of things, making Android quite good, but there's one area Google is not good at, and Apple sees it as the area they can make money in.
Of course, it also means that if you have two devices, the "Memories" feature of Photos can come up with two very different results because there's no cloud involvement, so each device analyzes it separately.
And perhaps, this is what Apple's "new product" actually is - privacy. It's not hardware, but it's a philosophy
I expect this will use a model similar to Amazon Video, where you can download Amazon Prime videos for offline viewing using the Amazon Video app (such as iPad) and they automatically expire in a few weeks. For movies and shows you've purchased via Amazon Video, you can also download for later viewing and those don't go away. But I think the "Amazon Prime" model applies to Netflix here.
So I wouldn't expect you to be able to download a movie to your home media server and watch it for free forever. You're likely going to be stuck watching it from whatever device you downloaded it on, using the Netflix app.
Given that's how Netflix said the feature is supposed to work where it was launched (a few weeks ago?), well, that's exactly how it works. You download the movie and the decryption key, and the Netflix app managed it all. After a week, it expires the key and deletes the movie.
It's not download as you click a link on their website and download a file, it's download through the app for offline viewing.
If you forget a password, someone may die right in front of you. You can choose to write that password down and reduce security, or you can take a chance that you'll forget what this month's 12 character combination of at least two upper case, two lower case, 2 numbers, and 2 non-alphanumeric characters is in a pressure situation and the result will be death or injury to a human in your care and, likely, a lawsuit and dismissal.
Until this is fixed, people are going to write down passwords.
Then it's time to change it up.
Authentication consists of 3 different factors - something you are, something you know, or something you have. In general, we authenticate ourselves using one of those factors - typically a password (something you know).
"two factor" is called that because you're supposed to integrate two of those three things - typically something you know (password) and something you have (a key, token, phone with mobile authenticator, etc).
But no one has said if you're using single-factor authentication that you must use "something you know".
Switch it up - use "something you have" as the authentication mechanism - all hospital workers, including doctors, nurses, etc., have ID cards on them all the time, so use them for authentication. They don't just have to beep people through doors, they can unlock cabinets and computers.
Not to memtion, if there's bad javascript from a domain, block it! Your web browser doesn't HAVE to run every piece of javascript out there - NoScript and the like prove that.
So the ad networks javascript is never run, period. Even better, it can be substituted/
Flash ads? They run any damn thing from anywhere, bypassing any restrictions your browser may impose. That's why the only good option is to block the entire thing.
Eventually, they'll learn to not use javascript for ads, and to serve it up directly. Seems like a better world already.
End result, user is in control. It's just like HTML video. Back when it was flash video, and they autoplayed, you got annoyed and installed ClickToFlash because you didn't want to run the crap automatically. Browsers with HTML5 video now have options to disable autoplay automatically. That's a lovely thing - people abuse something, and the feature gets disabled under the user's control. Heck, it's nice that the videos can preload in the background without autoplaying.
Based on the links in the story, the trademarks are still in the examination stage and have not yet been issued.
If that is the case, Let's Encrypt can still send in forms and notify the USPTO of the conflict. They don't have much time, but if they passed along that information on their site to the patent examiner that should be enough to trigger additional investigation.
Exactly - why aren't they sending a challenge to the USPTO yesterday?
Trademarks are registered all the time. In fact, it's a public process - every new application is posted so opposition to registration can be recorded. If the Lets Encrypt folks aren't filing an opposition, (and not done so ages ago), then they're basically letting the ball drop.
It happens all the time - plenty of companies apply for trademarks only to have them opposed during application.
In fact, the thornier side of trademarks are marks not necessarily used in commerce - Microsoft, for example, owns two trademarks they don't use on products (NorthWinds and Contoso, I believe). Instead, they're registered so Microsoft can use them in demos and other things freely without running into any trademark issues.
The top end of the ebike market in China is $750. Of course the ones for export are different. The Chinese domestic models look like scooters, but the export ones look like bicycles and are sleek and sharp-looking. The Chinese ebikes look like something you'd ride down to the market to pick up bread. Western bike riders wouldn't accept that kind of crappy-looking product, they want futuristic. An ebike is a status symbol you show off to show how eco-aware you are, and if it costs more, that means you are more dedicated. So there's no market for the Chinese style ebike in the West.
I've seen the scooter-style ebikes running around here in Vancouver, BC. They're in a weird zone because by law, they cannot go faster than 32kph (~20mph) otherwise they are classified as a motorcycle. But, if you want to be classified as a bike, they need pedals. so those ebikes have a set of fake pedals installed on the frame to be legal.
They're still not cheap. Though I find it hard to classify them as a bicycle though since at no point are they human powered - they're really just slow electric motorcycles in the end.
I don't think it's even an issue - it's a limited developer preview. These are builds given to developers to load onto their devices so they can develop and test their apps running on the new OS ahead of time.
It's not meant to be secure, it's not meant to be used in production, it's just so developers can test out the new APIs and start coding against them
Hell, you're allowed to downgrade your device back to iOS 9 if you don't need it anymore.
Have you ever done a chargeback? You want user hostile try doing that. First the bank will intimidate you and tell you there's a "service fee" of $25 or $50 or whatever for even TRYING to charge back, THEN they say they will "investigate" and MAYBE the charge will be reversed next week sometime. Then finally if the planets are aligned correctly and the bank really feels like it - they MIGHT approve the charge-back.
Seriously if this is such a major issue and not a flaw with this particular company's security/site design/business model (or a really shitty bank they happen to have chosen), how come absolutely everyone isn't bitching about this? I'm curious. At some point credit card fraud becomes the bank's problem and not the vendor's problem.
Yes, and if it's that hard, you need to get a new card.
Because I've had to do a chargeback, and it cost me 5 minutes.
Some background - basically I ordered a product online, and it never arrived. I contacted the store and they never replied, and after a month of waiting, I gave up.
I called my bank, told them this and they were more than happy to do a chargeback. They refunded the money immediately while they investigated, told me I could be responsible for the charge up to 3 months later, and that's it. Time passes, and no charge, because I never got the item. (I'm not even sure if the store ever bothered responding).
No muss, no fuss, the money was back 5 minutes after the call. And from what I can tell, all credit cards work that way - the charge back process is extremely easy and painless.
If you made the mistake and used a debit card, then heaven help you. Credit cards are governed by many laws and regulations which make chargebacks easy. Debit cards, not so much, so it's up to each financial institution to deal with it in their own way.
And even when the charge is fraudulent, they are super easy to deal with - they even will overnight me a new card if I needed it. For free.
If you're dealing with that, you either made the fatal mistake of using a debit card, or have a really shitty bank and need to switch, because even the nationals are way better.
Oh, and on the flip side - when you do a charge back, a hold is placed on the merchant's account for those funds so that money is captured while the investigation proceeds. Part of Paypal's shittiness stems from this fact - they allow anyone to pay anyone with credit cards and most people don't actually realize what responsibilities they have in doing so or what accepting credit cards really means. If you wonder why no one else tries to compete in this area, well, there you go. It's the only service Paypal has that has no competition because no one wants to enter the arena - it's just fraught with all sorts of bad user experiences and danger.
Hell, people were wondering why Apple wouldn't want to get involved - same reason. Shittiness all around if you aren't careful, and most people don't even read the ToS.
Do you think DropBox is an illegal file sharing service?
Dropbox or any other cloud-based storage do not market themselves as an illegal file sharing service, but that doesn't mean they can't be used for that. You can quite easily make a shared dropbox/box/seafile folder only accesible to people with the link, and share the link with whoever you like.
DropBox also has a nasty habit of deleting your account if you're sharing your files a bit TOO publicly.
People love to share their files via Dropbox - it's very fast, no ads, etc. But they are quick to delete and disable accounts using it share copyrighted files far and wide, which is why people don't use it for that.
Mega is another favorite - again, no ads, no waiting, fast, etc. But other than a couple of cases, people haven't lost their accounts for sharing.
Personally, I think there are a lot of things they could do with the iPhone to make it better, but I think it would hurt their bottom line so they don't do it. The iPhone is $700. Why not ship the base unit with 256 GB of storage. They could do it and still remain profitable. Then they would only have 1 option for storage space, and they could differentiate models on things like battery life. Have a thick version with a headphone jack and an extra large batter, and smaller, thinner version with a smaller battery and no headphone jack (since they insist this is what people want).
Then people who only want 16GB will ask Apple for a cheaper model.
You and I might feel 16GB is highly inadequate, but the 16GB models do sell, and there's lots of people who find it more than adequate - they don't use apps, take very few photos, etc. More than likely, their phone will be broken/obsoleted long before they're even 50% used.
Different formfactors is stupid - accessory manufacturers like case makers really hate when you do more than a few. Apple keeps the formfactors similar so a case maker can use the same molds with the cases for a few years (and people like to keep the same case patterns). It's why on the Android side other than a few top selling phones, cases are non-existent and you either deal with it caseless, use an ill-fitting generic case, or use whatever crappy one the manufacturer supplies.
As for the headphone jack, Apple's just copying a trend in the Android space where phones there are shedding them - I believe the OnePlus did it as does some other big phones.
Most pagers operate on a "spray and pray" principle of operation. They blast out a high-powered broadcast signal from numerous towers, and your pager either hears it or it doesn't. Your message will get blasted out from every tower in the network in your coverage area, regardless of where you are, because it doesn't know where you are.
The exception is that some pagers have the ability to send a response. Obviously, you can see where those are when a response is sent.
Not only that, but the frequencies used are far lower - I believe between the upper end of the aviation band to the lower end of the 2m ham band. This gives them generally good penetration of the signal and a wide coverage area. Plus the protocol generally re-sends the page several times so the pager will hopefully catch it.
It's what gave pagers the unprecedented coverage and why until recently did cellphones manage to overtake them in coverage (mostly by brute force). No matter where you were, a pager signal could get through versus the old cellphone signals may not.
Incidentally, pager amplifiers are great 2m amplifiers on the ham band - because they're so close it's just a minor retuning effort and you can get 250+W super-cheaply.
The two are not mutually exclusive. You can facilitate communication and hide it, that is the exact purpose of cryptography.
You can hide the content but not the communication.
Fact is, you communicated with someone. Both endpoints are known, and their approximate locations, too. We also know how long you talked (or remained connected), if your position moved, who called whom, etc.
See, the call has both the data (the content), and the metadata (information about the call). The metadata cannot be encrypted as it's required in the setup and billing of the call, and thus is available.
It's just like using encryption for your internet packets - TCP and IP headers are all in the clear as they cannot be encrypted (they're needed for the public network to be able to send your packet onwards to the destination)
Heck, analyze a bit and you may be able to glean the content just from the way the traffic is flowing - the compression and protocol behaviors often have a unique fingerprint so unless countermeasures are taken it can provide useful information.
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Exactly. (It's "brake", btw).
If you see a situation where this might even remotely be possible, then drivers typically SLOW DOWN so there's not only more time to react, but if there is an accident, the outcomes are better.
Heck, today we have systems that apply the brakes - should a car or pedestrian accidentally walk in front of the vehicle, it warns the driver and if that doesn't work, slams on the brakes.
Heck, I read of another one - three lanes - big transport truck on the left, you in the center, tiny car on the right. The situation is then stated that the car will edge closer to the car on the right, putting "in danger" that vehicle. Maybe, if you consider a situation where for some stupid reason everyone is traveling side by side the whole way. Most reasonable drivers don't actually try to put their cars abreast like that because it leaves little maneuvering room - either accelerate to pass one of the vehicles slow down to be behind the truck, etc. The other name for that is to not spend an extended period of time in someone's blind spot. and to leave room for the other guys to maneuver suddenly (perhaps the tiny car needs to change lanes).
Seriously, a lot of these "scenarios" seem to be put together without a thought to simply avoiding it altogether, you know, regular driving. Short of mechanical failure, you shouldn't be there in the first place. And if your brakes quit working, well, the option is not us vs. them, it's the best way to stop the vehicle which would be to crash head on into something (cars are very strong on a full frontal collision - so good the NHTSA and IIHS don't do more than perfunctory tests because any car that doesn't score a 5 on it isn't even worth certifying anymore). Of course, the genuine goal is to reduce speed so all forms of alternative braking should be used to reduce speed to the point where a full frontal collission is a bumper tap. If it's electric, regen braking works extremely well to slow a speeding vehicle down to a walking pace. In an ICE, you shift gears and let engine braking work. If necessary, you stop the engine and let it turn
Except, Apple's rounded corners patent was a DESIGN patent. As in it was looks. You had to have a device with rounded corners, AND a grid of icons AND a row of icons that's static. See the "AND"s? Android by default had none of those. The default Android look had rounded corners, a row of icons that was static, but NOT a grid of icons (ever wonder about the clock widget? Natch).
Design patents also only last 5 years. You can actually manufacture a phone that looks exactly like the iPhone 4 or 4S right now and Apple cannot do anything - the design patent has expired.
In fact, Apple's rounded corner patent has also long expired.
This guy's patent is actually a UTILITY patent. If it's actually valid, it would cover ALL smartphones on the market - there isn't an exception that would exclude any phone on the market.
Well, technically, the party balloon helium is quite impure, and it often is economically unviable to refine it for scientific usage.
That's the only reason why it's still around - it costs more to make it useful than to use what we have in the reserves that are usable.
Contrary to popular belief, the party balloon folks are just as price sensitive, and a bottle of the good He is much too expensive, so they buy the crappy impure He.
Once supplies dwindle to the point refining party balloon He to lab grade is economically viable, then we won't have He balloons anymore.
Well, if they have the data available immediately, then making a copy for you is basically free because it's right there.
The problems arise once the data hits your charts and gets archived. It's LESS accessible now because it's now part of your chart and since it can be fairly large, it gets put into cold storage almost instantly. And once it hits there, it takes time and effort to retrieve the data, and some cold storage providers charge to retrieve the data.
Plus, this is for medical records, which are often scattered about - electronic, paper (those manila folders aren't going away - most practices haven't digitized those even if they use EMRs), paper stored in an offsite facility, etc.
If you ask immediately while the data is still on the hard drive prior to archival (to your medical record) and deletion (off the local hard drive), the cost is practically zero
And you didn't realize that EU citizens are paying for an extended warranty?
Apple's probably one of the best examples as their "EU Tax" is low - take the US model, add AppleCare (to satisfy EU warranty), add in the requisite VAT (20-25%) and convert to Euros, and you come out pretty close to the cost in Europe.
So if you hate 1 year warranties, when the Best Buy cashier asks "DO you want the extended warranty", say "Yes". In Europe, Australia, etc., guess what? You can't say no, you don't want the 2 year warranty, let me save the 10-20%.
Turns out everyone's really been factoring in the extended warranty into the price for Europe.
TINSTAAFL. In North America, they ask if you want the extended warranty. In Europe, Australia and other countries, they answered for you.
Oh, and yes, if you open stuff, it's fine. it's when you try to fix stuff you have problems. Warranty fraud is a huge thing, and you will see people try to claim "No, it wasn't submerged in water" even though it's clearly dripping water all over the counter.
It's a really big problem and as much as everyone would like to see more repairable stuff, the real problem is too many people just are not skilled enough. The good ones will just open it, see they can't fix it and put everything back. Most people bumble through things and make things worse
Even the law says that - if the damage can be traced to the failure, the warranty can be voided. For most devices, opening them and trying to screw around with stuff can be traced as the cause.
The problem is not the 1% of people who go to iFixit and get their replacement parts and tools, it's the 99% who don't and try to "fix" it but make things worse. Because the vast majority of those lack the skill, care, precision, tools, education, etc to not mess anything up. It's why iFixit can get all high and mighty about it, because they don't see the other end of it. Perhaps a stint at a retail customer service desk should help realize that people who use iFixit generally know what they're doing.
Given the demise of DEC, I've been seeing their logo literally everywhere - seems once the trademark expired, everyone googles for "digital logo" and up it pops, trademark free.
I've seen it on "digital" music effects boxes as well...
The thing is, Civ is a simulation. History can be boiled down to dates and events and other boring crap that has nothing to do with life.
But that's the scholastic view of history, which makes it absolutely worthless to anyone. History isn't about dates, names, places and events. It's all about the leadup - how did the events of World War I lead to the Nazi uprising? Why did normal German citizens do nothing about the Nazis?
Yes, it's somewhat important to know the dates of WWI and WWII, but those are facts, and facts can be looked up in a book, online, whatever. Memorization of those dates has no practical use.
What has practical use is knowing the background to all these events. How did our form of justice evolve? The Constitution of the United States is an important document, but what's the background behind it?
History is known for repeating itself, and it's far more important to know the leadups and background of the events than to know dates, times, places and people.
Something like Civ can simulate.
Rote memorization is out. Google/Libraries/Books/etc are the tools for that. What's far more important is the analytical part of history. The real issues are why and how. For example, rather than knowing dates and people of Brexit (which are just pure facts), what about analysis? Could the rise of the Leave voters be traced to any other event in history and how does it compare with what happened? (Think - rise of unions, or other sort of events). Can the effects of Brexit be predicted based on similar happenings in the past? These are the sort of questions we should ask in History. Not Hitler's birthday.
Actually, no. Credit cards have transaction fee that's a per-transaction PLUS a percentage. Usually it's anywhere from 10-30 cents per transaction plus 1-5% of the amount.
Debit cards do vary a lot - the merchant may pay 45 cents max, but they usually have another per-transaction fee paid by the user (usually 25 cents or so). Some merchants actually refund you 25 cents as they eat that cost too.
That's actually one of the big reasons why Apple did the whole 30% thing - they new that at the very worst, selling a music file for 99 cents meant their transaction fees would be nearly a third of the total, and basically set their rates to cover the cost. They also did things like batching, so if you bought two songs, they'd charge you once, so they'd make a little money. (This was, remember, over a decade ago).
As for the US - it's mostly inertia. Retailers and banks are completely scared of introducing too many changes at once - "friction" in sales is something they want to avoid. Chip+Sign basically imitates as closely as possible the existing swipe+sign mechanism and people are used to signing their credit card receipts, so they keep it to avoid friction in having to teach a shopper how the newfangled credit cards work.
Assuming everything is set properly, you can still be wrong on the time. Timezones, Daylight Saving Time, etc. Anytime you screw with the clocks, you run the risk of having the time set wrong.
So it's nice to have a source of local time that's correct to confirm the time is correct.
That's why the calls spike around the time change - because people aren't entirely sure anymore.
There are a few problems.
First, Park is all the way at the top, or a distinct motion. If it's a lever on the center tunnel, pressing the button and shoving it all the way forward until it stops should be park. I don't care if there's feedback or not, if I hold the button down, shove it all the way up to the stop and let go, park it is.
Other ways might be a stalk shifter, which pressing it IN puts it in park (up is reverse, down is drive, away is neutral).
Next, the car has an LCD on the dashboard, between the gauges. Know what's prominent? The current shifter position! Yes, it says "Park" on the shifter, but it also says "P" on the LCD. It tells me what position it's in without me glancing down. So before I turn off the car, I can check that it says "P" and the parking brake is set (idiot light) and make sure the car is completely ready to leave (lights off, wipers off, etc).
Given all cars have a color LCD in the gauge cluster, there's no more excuse - if the car's not in park and the driver's door is opened, the LCD can say "CAR NOT IN PARK" and flash the dashboard lights light a Christmas tree (while darkening all other interior lights - the goal is to draw attention to the display - which it will if it's the brightest thing there). If there's a central nav screen, guess what? It can do the same and point down at the shifter.
If necessary, it could then force-park it (electronic transmission - the shifter is merely a fancy switch)
Well, one of the biggest things that happened was activating Volume Shadow Services, aka Previous Versions. Every 4 hours, a snapshot of the shares are taken, so you can go back several weeks.
Saved my ass several times thanks to finger slips (who puts "Delete" right next to "Rename"?) and the damned Delete shortcut which deletes an entire tree rather than the file. Just load up the last snapshot and restore from that.
Online services like this are fine provided the malware can't get access to delete rights to the snapshots. And stuff like Apple's Time Machine go through interesting permission machinations to ensure that the backup program can make snapshots, but that normal users or even root can't touch them.
No, the big problem with Lavabit is what shut it down - when Lavabit refused to give up the account, the government went after the key, and the problem with that is there was only one. So by going after the key, not only was one account compromised, but all of them.
That was the problem. That's why it was shut down - the whole site was protected by a single key and with that, everyone was compromised.
It was why Lavabit couldn't give up the account to begin with - because they wouldn't have access to one account, but all. When the government forced the matter, it was game over.
So it was good in the sense that bad technology got exposed and shut down, and people are more secure to not do things the stupid way.
Your private data, yes, Apple doesn't want it. Having it means having to handle icky things like lawsuits and court orders and other nasty things. It's why their basic iCloud backup service stores very little information - it won't store passwords for example - so Apple can't be subpoenaed and forced to reveal the information to law enforcement.
In fact, the only way to do a complete, full backup of an iOS device is to use iTunes, and to set that as an encrypted backup. Then iOS will save the backup information as well.
Apple is just practicing data sanitation 101 - if you don't need it, don't collect it, and you won't be hacked for it, or have LEOs ask for it. etc.
Of course, the problem is, sometimes you want to collect some information to make services better - things like autocorrect and other information. That's where stuff like differential privacy comes into play. Differential privacy relies on the fact that if something is popular, it will be popular, so even if the data you sent doesn't include that information, it doesn't matter as the "crowd" will still find it popular. Basically it degrades data quality for increased anonymity. But if you have a big enough sample pool, the quality degrades at a far lower rate as the increase in anonymity gets you.
One also needs to note this is really the only way Apple is trying to compete with Android. Google is great at a lot of things, making Android quite good, but there's one area Google is not good at, and Apple sees it as the area they can make money in.
Of course, it also means that if you have two devices, the "Memories" feature of Photos can come up with two very different results because there's no cloud involvement, so each device analyzes it separately.
And perhaps, this is what Apple's "new product" actually is - privacy. It's not hardware, but it's a philosophy
Given that's how Netflix said the feature is supposed to work where it was launched (a few weeks ago?), well, that's exactly how it works. You download the movie and the decryption key, and the Netflix app managed it all. After a week, it expires the key and deletes the movie.
It's not download as you click a link on their website and download a file, it's download through the app for offline viewing.
Then it's time to change it up.
Authentication consists of 3 different factors - something you are, something you know, or something you have. In general, we authenticate ourselves using one of those factors - typically a password (something you know).
"two factor" is called that because you're supposed to integrate two of those three things - typically something you know (password) and something you have (a key, token, phone with mobile authenticator, etc).
But no one has said if you're using single-factor authentication that you must use "something you know".
Switch it up - use "something you have" as the authentication mechanism - all hospital workers, including doctors, nurses, etc., have ID cards on them all the time, so use them for authentication. They don't just have to beep people through doors, they can unlock cabinets and computers.
And log everything - who used their card, etc.
Not to memtion, if there's bad javascript from a domain, block it! Your web browser doesn't HAVE to run every piece of javascript out there - NoScript and the like prove that.
So the ad networks javascript is never run, period. Even better, it can be substituted/
Flash ads? They run any damn thing from anywhere, bypassing any restrictions your browser may impose. That's why the only good option is to block the entire thing.
Eventually, they'll learn to not use javascript for ads, and to serve it up directly. Seems like a better world already.
End result, user is in control. It's just like HTML video. Back when it was flash video, and they autoplayed, you got annoyed and installed ClickToFlash because you didn't want to run the crap automatically. Browsers with HTML5 video now have options to disable autoplay automatically. That's a lovely thing - people abuse something, and the feature gets disabled under the user's control. Heck, it's nice that the videos can preload in the background without autoplaying.
Exactly - why aren't they sending a challenge to the USPTO yesterday?
Trademarks are registered all the time. In fact, it's a public process - every new application is posted so opposition to registration can be recorded. If the Lets Encrypt folks aren't filing an opposition, (and not done so ages ago), then they're basically letting the ball drop.
It happens all the time - plenty of companies apply for trademarks only to have them opposed during application.
In fact, the thornier side of trademarks are marks not necessarily used in commerce - Microsoft, for example, owns two trademarks they don't use on products (NorthWinds and Contoso, I believe). Instead, they're registered so Microsoft can use them in demos and other things freely without running into any trademark issues.
I've seen the scooter-style ebikes running around here in Vancouver, BC. They're in a weird zone because by law, they cannot go faster than 32kph (~20mph) otherwise they are classified as a motorcycle. But, if you want to be classified as a bike, they need pedals. so those ebikes have a set of fake pedals installed on the frame to be legal.
They're still not cheap. Though I find it hard to classify them as a bicycle though since at no point are they human powered - they're really just slow electric motorcycles in the end.
I don't think it's even an issue - it's a limited developer preview. These are builds given to developers to load onto their devices so they can develop and test their apps running on the new OS ahead of time.
It's not meant to be secure, it's not meant to be used in production, it's just so developers can test out the new APIs and start coding against them
Hell, you're allowed to downgrade your device back to iOS 9 if you don't need it anymore.
The public beta isn't until a month or more away
Yes, and if it's that hard, you need to get a new card.
Because I've had to do a chargeback, and it cost me 5 minutes.
Some background - basically I ordered a product online, and it never arrived. I contacted the store and they never replied, and after a month of waiting, I gave up.
I called my bank, told them this and they were more than happy to do a chargeback. They refunded the money immediately while they investigated, told me I could be responsible for the charge up to 3 months later, and that's it. Time passes, and no charge, because I never got the item. (I'm not even sure if the store ever bothered responding).
No muss, no fuss, the money was back 5 minutes after the call. And from what I can tell, all credit cards work that way - the charge back process is extremely easy and painless.
If you made the mistake and used a debit card, then heaven help you. Credit cards are governed by many laws and regulations which make chargebacks easy. Debit cards, not so much, so it's up to each financial institution to deal with it in their own way.
And even when the charge is fraudulent, they are super easy to deal with - they even will overnight me a new card if I needed it. For free.
If you're dealing with that, you either made the fatal mistake of using a debit card, or have a really shitty bank and need to switch, because even the nationals are way better.
Oh, and on the flip side - when you do a charge back, a hold is placed on the merchant's account for those funds so that money is captured while the investigation proceeds. Part of Paypal's shittiness stems from this fact - they allow anyone to pay anyone with credit cards and most people don't actually realize what responsibilities they have in doing so or what accepting credit cards really means. If you wonder why no one else tries to compete in this area, well, there you go. It's the only service Paypal has that has no competition because no one wants to enter the arena - it's just fraught with all sorts of bad user experiences and danger.
Hell, people were wondering why Apple wouldn't want to get involved - same reason. Shittiness all around if you aren't careful, and most people don't even read the ToS.
Actually, Android did it first.
Apple hasn't even done it yet.
The Moto Z, ad the LeEco (a high-end Chinese brand) Le2/Le Max2/Le3Pro (3 phones!) all lack a headphone jack.
Once again, Apple is a follower, not an innovator. They weren't even the first to release phones without a headphone jack!
DropBox also has a nasty habit of deleting your account if you're sharing your files a bit TOO publicly.
People love to share their files via Dropbox - it's very fast, no ads, etc. But they are quick to delete and disable accounts using it share copyrighted files far and wide, which is why people don't use it for that.
Mega is another favorite - again, no ads, no waiting, fast, etc. But other than a couple of cases, people haven't lost their accounts for sharing.
Then people who only want 16GB will ask Apple for a cheaper model.
You and I might feel 16GB is highly inadequate, but the 16GB models do sell, and there's lots of people who find it more than adequate - they don't use apps, take very few photos, etc. More than likely, their phone will be broken/obsoleted long before they're even 50% used.
Different formfactors is stupid - accessory manufacturers like case makers really hate when you do more than a few. Apple keeps the formfactors similar so a case maker can use the same molds with the cases for a few years (and people like to keep the same case patterns). It's why on the Android side other than a few top selling phones, cases are non-existent and you either deal with it caseless, use an ill-fitting generic case, or use whatever crappy one the manufacturer supplies.
As for the headphone jack, Apple's just copying a trend in the Android space where phones there are shedding them - I believe the OnePlus did it as does some other big phones.
Not only that, but the frequencies used are far lower - I believe between the upper end of the aviation band to the lower end of the 2m ham band. This gives them generally good penetration of the signal and a wide coverage area. Plus the protocol generally re-sends the page several times so the pager will hopefully catch it.
It's what gave pagers the unprecedented coverage and why until recently did cellphones manage to overtake them in coverage (mostly by brute force). No matter where you were, a pager signal could get through versus the old cellphone signals may not.
Incidentally, pager amplifiers are great 2m amplifiers on the ham band - because they're so close it's just a minor retuning effort and you can get 250+W super-cheaply.
You can hide the content but not the communication.
Fact is, you communicated with someone. Both endpoints are known, and their approximate locations, too. We also know how long you talked (or remained connected), if your position moved, who called whom, etc.
See, the call has both the data (the content), and the metadata (information about the call). The metadata cannot be encrypted as it's required in the setup and billing of the call, and thus is available.
It's just like using encryption for your internet packets - TCP and IP headers are all in the clear as they cannot be encrypted (they're needed for the public network to be able to send your packet onwards to the destination)
Heck, analyze a bit and you may be able to glean the content just from the way the traffic is flowing - the compression and protocol behaviors often have a unique fingerprint so unless countermeasures are taken it can provide useful information.