Your talk of efficiency doesn't make sense at all. An LCD uses less electricity than a plasma. It doesn't matter what is hooked up to the display.
The display itself may be more efficient, but that doesn't get you anywhere unless you hook it up to something. Unless you really like watching a blank screen.
He's simply pointing out that the difference in efficiencies can become irrelevant depending on the device you've hooked up to it.
Seriously, how is this such an incredible hardship?
I never said it was.
You paint this issue as if it's some kind of major deal-breaker for you
I most certainly did no such thing.
Hell, you, yourself, flat out stated you *already* run an ad blocker, so I'm not sure what you're complaining about, unless you're just complaining for the hell of it.
Throughout the day, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish, I will use several different browsers on many different computers.
For my own personal use I run Firefox with AdBlock Plus installed.
I frequently wind up using computers that are only running IE6. On these machines we can simply not install Flash and it will get rid of a lot of those annoying ads.
There are certainly alternative ways to solve this issue. I never claimed it was a deal breaker. I never claimed that it was impossible. I simply stated that by keeping most of these annoying ads dependent on a plugin, it is very easy to get rid of the ads by getting rid of the plugin.
With the exact same technology, only this time it'll be a click-to-play video element instead of click-to-play flash embed.
Seriously, the video element is no different than an embed tag in this regard. What makes you think it is?
HTML5 and Flash both consist of more than just video.
Right now I get annoying ads that don't necessarily contain video. They might just have obnoxious graphics moving around, or maybe some sound that plays, or whatever.
I don't have to actually install any blocker software to get rid of them, I can just not install Flash. Or disable the Flash plugin.
If I want to block something like one of Google's text ads, however, I can't just turn off Flash. I'd have to make use of some kind of ad blocker. Which I have, and use, and am quite happy with. But it is an additional piece of software that I need to use.
If we see advertisers move to HTML5 for their annoying advertising, simply disabling Flash will no longer save me. I will then need to install some kind of ad blocker in order to surf undisturbed.
except maybe more Vitamin D than you're probably getting
Recently discovered this myself.
Had some lab work done not too long ago... Turns out I've got almost no Vitamin D in me. "trace amounts" is what the Doctor said. He was horrified and put me on some supplements pretty quickly. Told me to get outside in the sun, eat better, etc.
I had no idea just how many horrible things can happen when you're low on Vitamin D.
And, according to my doctor, just about everyone is deficient to one degree or another. And it's especially bad around here in the winter (less sunlight and people don't like to go out in the cold).
Yes! This! You lighten up about OMG NAKED BODIES because prurience is no reason to delete it!
Personally, I agree with you.
Obviously depictions of (actual, not artwork) child molestation, etc., should be removed as violations of law just about everywhere and specifically in the hosting countries.
But this is where you start running into problems.
Legality varies with geography. Sure, child pornography is pretty much universally illegal... But what constitutes a child? The age of majority varies from one place to the next.
And some places deem various sex acts as outright criminal.
So, now what?
imposing these sorts of uptight cultural standards is entirely contradictory to the spirit of a participatory medium dedicated to freedom of knowledge and information.
Yes, it is. But that's never stopped someone from filing a lawsuit.
I understand that Flash is on its way out, but it is still widely used. Why doesn't the iPad support future AND current technologies (HTML5 and Flash).
Don't give me mouseover as an answer, either. There are ways around that.
If you support both the old and new technologies, folks have less of an incentive to switch to the new stuff. This can dramatically prolong the life of the old stuff.
Apple, in the past, has been willing to kill backwards compatibility in favor of new stuff.
The problem I have with the new law is that we've basically put racial profiling on the books. We're actually saying that if somebody looks illegal, you can stop them and ask to see their papers.
But what does a legal American citizen look like? We aren't all white. And not every illegal is going to be brown.
What it comes down to isn't whether you look illegal, because that doesn't actually have a look. It comes down to whether your skin is the right color.
Of course, beyond my ideological disagreements with the law, I have a hard time seeing any sane police officer actually using it.
Sure, if someone is already in custody for some reason it might be an additional charge to throw at them... But actually stopping someone on the street to demand proof of citizenship? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
How many of us actually carry proof of citizenship around? How many can produce it on short notice? Honestly, I'm not sure I even know what would constitute proof of citizenship.
So a police officer stops someone... Asks to see their papers... But they don't have papers because they're a legal citizen. Officer doesn't believe them, because they've got an accent or their skin is too dark. So they're taken into custody until they can come up with papers. Maybe it takes a day or two. Eventually they produce the papers, but they've been held in custody for a couple days simply because their skin was too dark or their accent was too thick. You just know it is going to happen eventually... And somebody is going to get sued.
As for actually stopping the illegal immigration and protecting our borders and whatnot... We need to treat the disease and not the symptoms. You can keep giving the patient morphine for the pain, but they'll still die if you don't treat the cancer.
There's a reason folks are sneaking across the border to work here in the US - it's profitable. Take away the profit and they won't have a reason to come here. Or, at least, they'll have one less reason.
We need to either decide that we're willing to pay higher prices to get stuff done without cheap illegal labor... Or we need to come up with a legal way to get that cheap labor.
speeding cameras are really about making money and do little to increase public safety. How many times do people have to catch the read light cameras being intentially set with short yellows to figure that out (the yellow is changed short as many cameras operate at a loss if they don't) If the companies that make and operate them were forced to be a non-profit with the highest paid employee no more than $85k in total compensation I wonder how many people would be pushing them?
Are we talking about speeding cameras or red light cameras?
Sure, at an intersection with a camera you can set the yellow short and catch people that really aren't doing anything wrong...
But a speed camera is set to tag people going over a certain speed. If you're doing the posted speed limit you shouldn't get in trouble.
Yeah, obviously, there's room to abuse pretty much anything on the planet... But I would think it somewhat harder to abuse a speed camera.
That's not pornography (though I object to this image, of course, for many reasons).
It may not be something that you would consider pornography... But that doesn't mean nobody out there does.
It's a topless woman. Sure, she's a statue... And missing arms... But she's still topless. There are plenty of websites out there displaying plenty of images awfully similar to this.
And there are plenty of people out there who's been offended by statues just like this. We've had politicians covering up topless statues before they give press conferences... And editing their state seals because it's got boobs on it...
The fact that 3 idiot mods upvoted you does not even surprise me anymore.
Why shouldn't it be upvoted? It's relevant to the discussion.
There are folks out there who've screamed about David's penis over the years... They're of the firm opinion that it constitutes porn... And they'd love to get it taken out of every art-history book out there.
So, who gets to choose? Is it porn or not? Where do we draw the line?
If we start taking out anything and everything that could be considered pornographic by somebody on the planet we aren't going to have a whole lot left.
Of course this is a big fat social red herring with the biggest problem being the nailing down of exactly what porn is.
I'm honestly too lazy to look up the textbook definition right now... But the fine summary has it pretty close to right.
images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests
The problem is, somebody has to evaluate what constitutes educational value and then quantify it somehow and then measure it against some kind of quantified prurient interest.
For someone who's looking for information on how to safely practice bondage or erotic asphyxiation, the pictures might be of high educational value. Might even save a life.
For someone who's just clicking through random articles on Wikipedia and stumbles across naked people it may look like straight-up smut with with no redeeming qualities.
Traditionally, it's been up to the community to decide what constitutes porn, generally on a fairly local level. If something winds up going to court it's usually up to your peers to decide whether there's educational content or not.
But with something like Wikipedia there's really no such thing as local. Or, rather, everything is local.
I'm sure there are folks somewhere in the world who consider the simple line drawings depicting how to give yourself a breast self-exam absolute filth. But most of us here in the US probably think that's of fairly high educational value.
So what do you do? Do you take down the self-exam diagram because you've offended someone on the planet?
Do you leave up something almost universally-prurient because somebody out there might find it educational?
I know this is the sort of thing that goes on at black hat conferences, but could this guy potentially get in some sort of legal trouble for demonstrating what he has found?
I'm sure he can.
Which is stupid.
Because if he knows this stuff he probably isn't the only one. And just the news that these machines can be hacked is going to have other people trying to figure out what he knows, even if he doesn't say anything. So whether he opens his mouth or not really isn't going to change how secure these machines are.
All it will do, hopefully, is scare the manufacturers into improving their security.
Not that I'm trying to offend Ph. K. Dick's fans, but IMHO he was just a schizofrenic. He does not offer any particular insights into the future. Yes, his writings are notably different from most of the SciFi garbage, but diferent doesn't mean better. It's OK, but would you expect any revelations from psychotic type of personality? I don't. Yeah, I read many of his books, just to see what's this all about. As I said, my only impression that he's quite delusional kind of person.
Stuff I do like: Heinlein. and S. Lem.
So, just because he suffered from mental illness, he can't be a good author?
I've never based my reading list on who writes the most accurate prophecies... Nor who has the fewest diagnoses...
I'm just interested in reading a good book. And PKD certainly delivers.
Most profound work that is imaginative is related to drug use.
Is it the profound work that is imaginative that is related to drug use?
Or drug use that's related to profound work that is imaginative?
I've often found that the truly creative/imaginative folks have a hard time dealing with reality as it is, and frequently wind up self-medicating with various substances.
How could this be used for cars, unless everyone drives around with their headlights off at night?
Depending on the time of day, weather, etc. headlights aren't as useful as they could be. And even under the best of circumstances there's a limit to just how much is illuminated by your headlights. Anything that can increase your visibility is a good thing.
Besides the headlights, the heat from the cars' engines would also produce a very bright result in IR, no?
You've got to put the camera somewhere. It would probably be possible to place the camera far enough to the front of the car that you aren't seeing the hat coming off of the hood.
Or you could maybe do some digital processing to block out that heat source
Does OpenDNS still redirect all google.com addresses?
As far as I know, yes, it does.
I really don't see why OpenDNS did any of that.
OpenDNS redirects Google traffic so that they can make money. It's a free service, so I don't mind them getting something from the ads shown to me by Google.
Dell's Browser Error Redirection was also redirecting Google traffic to a Dell-sponsored site, presumably to make Dell some money. Obviously OpenDNS didn't like this much... But the bigger problem was that the Browser Error Redirection was redirecting NXDOMAIN stuff, which OpenDNS also might be trying to redirect.
OpenDNS just seems like a bunch of self-righteous control freaks, I'm glad I have nothing to do with them. Google and Dell were definitely not doing the right thing, but OpenDNS screwed over most of their customers to fix it. How is that any better?
When I use OpenDNS it is so that I can filter traffic. OpenDNS provides this filtering service at no cost to me. Obviously it costs them something to run their hardware. I do not mind paying them for their service by having my Google traffic routed through their servers.
The alternative would be for me to set up my own filter server, maybe running Dan's Guardian... Which is free software, but I'd need hardware to run it... And it just isn't worth my time/money to make it happen.
Obviously, if you've got problems with OpenDNS, you've got plenty of alternatives.
It seems like every single fucking time an article comes up about ISPs doing something wrong (generally messing with NXDOMAIN) people come out of the woodwork to suggest using OpenDNS, even though they do the exact same thing
They do... But it's generally in a beneficial way (phishing filter, content filtering, etc.) and at the user's discretion. Your ISP may not have any way to opt-out of the NXDOMAIN hi-jinks... But OpenDNS does.
I happily use OpenDNS at home, as well as at any client that asks for a quick and easy way to make sure folks are surfing for porn.
there are plenty of perfectly standards compliant and free DNS providers to chose from.
I've been using Google's DNS for the folks who don't want filtering.
I have, in the past, found the addresses for various higher-level DNS servers and used them successfully... But I've always wondered just how happy some of those folks are to have their DNS servers being used by random people. Is there a list of free/public DNS servers somewhere out there?
I honestly do not understand why you would not call a device that has every hardware feature my laptop has a "computer" -- the only difference is the form factor and the advertised use. What if I installed software on your laptop that railroaded you into using it in a specific way, would I have suddenly transformed your laptop into something other than a "computer?"
I guess one of the primary differences for me is the ease of executing arbitrary code.
My laptop has a keyboard that I can use to type in commands/code/whatever. It also has an optical drive that I can use to load software. It has USB ports that I can use to load software off a USB key, or connect another CD-ROM or floppy drive or whatever.
The iPhone has a touchscreen and little else. If I want to load software on it I have to go through their official channels, or jailbreak my phone. If I want to write my own software for it, it requires a second device to do the programming and then upload it to the phone.
Similarly, the PLCs that control the heating and air conditioning in my building are most certainly computers in the technical sense. They're fully functional and can be programmed to do pretty much anything I want them to. But I have to connect external devices to them in order to do that... I have to plug in a laptop with a serial cable if I want to actually do anything to them.
My Cisco routers are also pretty much computers in the technical sense. And they've got USB ports I can use to store/load software. But again I have to connect another machine if I want to do anything with them. Otherwise they just do their job, day in and day out, like any other appliance.
I guess I'm not really debating the functionality of the iPhone. It certainly is a computer in any technical sense of the word. But there are connotations to the word "computer" that just don't match an iPhone.
Note that the iPhone has more than just a "processor [that] can run arbitrary code" -- it has a CPU, memory, a general user interface, and could, in the absence of deliberate software restrictions on the part of Apple, be used as a small mobile computer (which happens to have the ability to connect to a cell phone network). This is not as extreme as running NetBSD on a toaster, or repurposing a car's microcontrollers for some other task -- the iPhone has all the hardware needed to be used for general consumer-grade computing, albeit in a pocket sized form factor.
I understand all that.
And the same could easily be said of many other smartphones out there.
But I wouldn't actually call any of them a computer.
So uhm, all those people who say the iPhone/iPad is not a computer because things like this are "impossible" -- where are you now?
Lots of things have all sorts of electronics in them... Frequently enough processing power to be called a computer, if you really want to be pedantic about it. I could probably go to the junkyard and rip some chips out of some cars and port Android to that pile of silicon too... But that doesn't really make my car a computer, does it?
Used to be that you'd buy an engine or a motor. It'd be a big ol' freestanding thing. You'd use an assortment of gears and belts to attach it to whatever equipment you wanted to run. You might very well use that same motor to drive a number of bits of hardware.
You can certainly still do that... But folks don't, generally. That kind of thing is pretty much reserved for large-scale industrial stuff, not your average homeowner. These days our gadgets come with their own motors built-in.
A drill, a saw, and an electric toothbrush all have electric motors in them... And you could, if you really wanted to, rip those motors out and re-purpose them... But I certainly wouldn't call a drill a motor.
Similarly... Despite the fact that an iPhone does contain a processor and can run arbitrary code on it, I wouldn't call it a computer.
I've been upgrading my AMD stuff piece by piece for the last several years... New CPU works fine in the old motherboard, new RAM works fine in the old motherboard, and then the new motherboard plays fine with the old CPU and RAM.
Obviously this won't keep working forever... Eventually AMD will roll out a new chip that's just plain completely different and I'll have to but it all in one fell swoop... But, knowing AMD, I'll then be able to keep upgrading piece by piece again.
Don't you remember having to get a new motherboard to use newer CPUs, even though they had the same socket?
Yup.
Then I stopped buying Intel chips.
No, I'm not claiming AMD has never done this... And I'm not claiming that Intel is solely to blame for it... But the fact remains that AMD has been far better at backwards compatibility than Intel has. Maybe it has something to do with all the motherboards that Intel sells...
And yet, somehow, AMD manages to keep their CPUs backwards compatible.
You upgrade the CPU/Motherboard/RAM. Big woop.
That, right there, would be enough to keep me from upgrading at all. Well, if I had an Intel CPU at least.
I don't have a whole lot of cash to spend on computer upgrades. I'll spend some on a RAM upgrade when I can afford it... And then some more on a new CPU when I can afford it... And later I'll buy a new motherboard when I can afford it...
That's worked great for the last several generations of AMD chips that I've run. A little research, some careful selections, and I've been able to upgrade everything bit by bit. I haven't had to go out and purchase all three at once in years.
You do realise that Walmart's censorship practices influence the content of music,movies, and video games right?
It does... But it's really just a symptom of a much larger problem here in the US.
Here in the US we've got absolutely no problem showing people getting killed in all sorts of bloody ways... But when I watch a movie on SyFy they'll bleep out the most innocuous of profanities and blur out marijuana use.
WalMart won't sell you porn... But they'll sell you plenty of movies where people get dismembered left and right.
We rate violent movies and video games as being OK for various young folks... But at the first sign of reproductive organs it gets an M/R/NC17/AO rating.
I've always been of the opinion that this is one the 'advantages' of the dominance of Windows. If you're a small development house cranking out applications, you only need to make a Windows version and you've got a big chunk of the market - The dominance of windows makes "the job easier."
Sure, it makes the job easier in that you only have to write for one OS...
But it doesn't do anything about the hardware running underneath that OS. Nor the other software running on the OS. Nor the drivers and whatnot playing around with the OS.
The iPhone is a pretty predictable platform... There's just a few different models to worry about and they all run the same OS/software/hardware with very little variation. The same thing can be said of the iPods and iPads as well... A couple different generations worth of hardware/software, a couple different models in each generation... But, ultimately, very little variation from one device to another.
A Windows machine, on the other hand, can be built from all sorts of random bits of hardware. Maybe you've got a quad-core CPU and a crapton of RAM... Maybe you've got an old Pentium 4 and less than a gig of RAM... Maybe you're using an old version of your sound/video/whatever driver... Maybe you haven't run any updates in a while...
Sure... Developing only for Windows is easier than developing for every possible platform on the planet... But it's a far cry from a "fixed platform" like Jobs talks about.
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Your talk of efficiency doesn't make sense at all. An LCD uses less electricity than a plasma. It doesn't matter what is hooked up to the display.
The display itself may be more efficient, but that doesn't get you anywhere unless you hook it up to something. Unless you really like watching a blank screen.
He's simply pointing out that the difference in efficiencies can become irrelevant depending on the device you've hooked up to it.
Seriously, how is this such an incredible hardship?
I never said it was.
You paint this issue as if it's some kind of major deal-breaker for you
I most certainly did no such thing.
Hell, you, yourself, flat out stated you *already* run an ad blocker, so I'm not sure what you're complaining about, unless you're just complaining for the hell of it.
Throughout the day, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish, I will use several different browsers on many different computers.
For my own personal use I run Firefox with AdBlock Plus installed.
I frequently wind up using computers that are only running IE6. On these machines we can simply not install Flash and it will get rid of a lot of those annoying ads.
There are certainly alternative ways to solve this issue. I never claimed it was a deal breaker. I never claimed that it was impossible. I simply stated that by keeping most of these annoying ads dependent on a plugin, it is very easy to get rid of the ads by getting rid of the plugin.
With the exact same technology, only this time it'll be a click-to-play video element instead of click-to-play flash embed.
Seriously, the video element is no different than an embed tag in this regard. What makes you think it is?
HTML5 and Flash both consist of more than just video.
Right now I get annoying ads that don't necessarily contain video. They might just have obnoxious graphics moving around, or maybe some sound that plays, or whatever.
I don't have to actually install any blocker software to get rid of them, I can just not install Flash. Or disable the Flash plugin.
If I want to block something like one of Google's text ads, however, I can't just turn off Flash. I'd have to make use of some kind of ad blocker. Which I have, and use, and am quite happy with. But it is an additional piece of software that I need to use.
If we see advertisers move to HTML5 for their annoying advertising, simply disabling Flash will no longer save me. I will then need to install some kind of ad blocker in order to surf undisturbed.
except maybe more Vitamin D than you're probably getting
Recently discovered this myself.
Had some lab work done not too long ago... Turns out I've got almost no Vitamin D in me. "trace amounts" is what the Doctor said. He was horrified and put me on some supplements pretty quickly. Told me to get outside in the sun, eat better, etc.
I had no idea just how many horrible things can happen when you're low on Vitamin D.
And, according to my doctor, just about everyone is deficient to one degree or another. And it's especially bad around here in the winter (less sunlight and people don't like to go out in the cold).
Amazing.
Yes! This! You lighten up about OMG NAKED BODIES because prurience is no reason to delete it!
Personally, I agree with you.
Obviously depictions of (actual, not artwork) child molestation, etc., should be removed as violations of law just about everywhere and specifically in the hosting countries.
But this is where you start running into problems.
Legality varies with geography. Sure, child pornography is pretty much universally illegal... But what constitutes a child? The age of majority varies from one place to the next.
And some places deem various sex acts as outright criminal.
So, now what?
imposing these sorts of uptight cultural standards is entirely contradictory to the spirit of a participatory medium dedicated to freedom of knowledge and information.
Yes, it is. But that's never stopped someone from filing a lawsuit.
3- It misused -a lot- for obnoxious ads.
This, in my opinion, is a great reason to keep Flash around.
Yes, it is used an awful lot for an awful lot of obnoxious ads... And I can quickly and easily get rid of those ads just by disabling flash.
How am I going to get rid of the obnoxious ads written in HTML5?
I understand that Flash is on its way out, but it is still widely used. Why doesn't the iPad support future AND current technologies (HTML5 and Flash).
Don't give me mouseover as an answer, either. There are ways around that.
If you support both the old and new technologies, folks have less of an incentive to switch to the new stuff. This can dramatically prolong the life of the old stuff.
Apple, in the past, has been willing to kill backwards compatibility in favor of new stuff.
This is just more of the same.
The problem I have with the new law is that we've basically put racial profiling on the books. We're actually saying that if somebody looks illegal, you can stop them and ask to see their papers.
But what does a legal American citizen look like? We aren't all white. And not every illegal is going to be brown.
What it comes down to isn't whether you look illegal, because that doesn't actually have a look. It comes down to whether your skin is the right color.
Of course, beyond my ideological disagreements with the law, I have a hard time seeing any sane police officer actually using it.
Sure, if someone is already in custody for some reason it might be an additional charge to throw at them... But actually stopping someone on the street to demand proof of citizenship? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
How many of us actually carry proof of citizenship around? How many can produce it on short notice? Honestly, I'm not sure I even know what would constitute proof of citizenship.
So a police officer stops someone... Asks to see their papers... But they don't have papers because they're a legal citizen. Officer doesn't believe them, because they've got an accent or their skin is too dark. So they're taken into custody until they can come up with papers. Maybe it takes a day or two. Eventually they produce the papers, but they've been held in custody for a couple days simply because their skin was too dark or their accent was too thick. You just know it is going to happen eventually... And somebody is going to get sued.
As for actually stopping the illegal immigration and protecting our borders and whatnot... We need to treat the disease and not the symptoms. You can keep giving the patient morphine for the pain, but they'll still die if you don't treat the cancer.
There's a reason folks are sneaking across the border to work here in the US - it's profitable. Take away the profit and they won't have a reason to come here. Or, at least, they'll have one less reason.
We need to either decide that we're willing to pay higher prices to get stuff done without cheap illegal labor... Or we need to come up with a legal way to get that cheap labor.
So are you implying that they should not have a secure border or not? Hard to read your comment.
A secure border is one thing...
Stopping random people and asking to see their papers just because they look like they might be illegal is something else entirely.
speeding cameras are really about making money and do little to increase public safety. How many times do people have to catch the read light cameras being intentially set with short yellows to figure that out (the yellow is changed short as many cameras operate at a loss if they don't) If the companies that make and operate them were forced to be a non-profit with the highest paid employee no more than $85k in total compensation I wonder how many people would be pushing them?
Are we talking about speeding cameras or red light cameras?
Sure, at an intersection with a camera you can set the yellow short and catch people that really aren't doing anything wrong...
But a speed camera is set to tag people going over a certain speed. If you're doing the posted speed limit you shouldn't get in trouble.
Yeah, obviously, there's room to abuse pretty much anything on the planet... But I would think it somewhat harder to abuse a speed camera.
That's not pornography (though I object to this image, of course, for many reasons).
It may not be something that you would consider pornography... But that doesn't mean nobody out there does.
It's a topless woman. Sure, she's a statue... And missing arms... But she's still topless. There are plenty of websites out there displaying plenty of images awfully similar to this.
And there are plenty of people out there who's been offended by statues just like this. We've had politicians covering up topless statues before they give press conferences... And editing their state seals because it's got boobs on it...
The fact that 3 idiot mods upvoted you does not even surprise me anymore.
Why shouldn't it be upvoted? It's relevant to the discussion.
There are folks out there who've screamed about David's penis over the years... They're of the firm opinion that it constitutes porn... And they'd love to get it taken out of every art-history book out there.
So, who gets to choose? Is it porn or not? Where do we draw the line?
If we start taking out anything and everything that could be considered pornographic by somebody on the planet we aren't going to have a whole lot left.
Of course this is a big fat social red herring with the biggest problem being the nailing down of exactly what porn is.
I'm honestly too lazy to look up the textbook definition right now... But the fine summary has it pretty close to right.
images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests
The problem is, somebody has to evaluate what constitutes educational value and then quantify it somehow and then measure it against some kind of quantified prurient interest.
For someone who's looking for information on how to safely practice bondage or erotic asphyxiation, the pictures might be of high educational value. Might even save a life.
For someone who's just clicking through random articles on Wikipedia and stumbles across naked people it may look like straight-up smut with with no redeeming qualities.
Traditionally, it's been up to the community to decide what constitutes porn, generally on a fairly local level. If something winds up going to court it's usually up to your peers to decide whether there's educational content or not.
But with something like Wikipedia there's really no such thing as local. Or, rather, everything is local.
I'm sure there are folks somewhere in the world who consider the simple line drawings depicting how to give yourself a breast self-exam absolute filth. But most of us here in the US probably think that's of fairly high educational value.
So what do you do? Do you take down the self-exam diagram because you've offended someone on the planet?
Do you leave up something almost universally-prurient because somebody out there might find it educational?
I know this is the sort of thing that goes on at black hat conferences, but could this guy potentially get in some sort of legal trouble for demonstrating what he has found?
I'm sure he can.
Which is stupid.
Because if he knows this stuff he probably isn't the only one. And just the news that these machines can be hacked is going to have other people trying to figure out what he knows, even if he doesn't say anything. So whether he opens his mouth or not really isn't going to change how secure these machines are.
All it will do, hopefully, is scare the manufacturers into improving their security.
Not that I'm trying to offend Ph. K. Dick's fans, but IMHO he was just a schizofrenic. He does not offer any particular insights into the future. Yes, his writings are notably different from most of the SciFi garbage, but diferent doesn't mean better. It's OK, but would you expect any revelations from psychotic type of personality? I don't. Yeah, I read many of his books, just to see what's this all about. As I said, my only impression that he's quite delusional kind of person.
Stuff I do like: Heinlein. and S. Lem.
So, just because he suffered from mental illness, he can't be a good author?
I've never based my reading list on who writes the most accurate prophecies... Nor who has the fewest diagnoses...
I'm just interested in reading a good book. And PKD certainly delivers.
Most profound work that is imaginative is related to drug use.
Is it the profound work that is imaginative that is related to drug use?
Or drug use that's related to profound work that is imaginative?
I've often found that the truly creative/imaginative folks have a hard time dealing with reality as it is, and frequently wind up self-medicating with various substances.
How could this be used for cars, unless everyone drives around with their headlights off at night?
Depending on the time of day, weather, etc. headlights aren't as useful as they could be. And even under the best of circumstances there's a limit to just how much is illuminated by your headlights. Anything that can increase your visibility is a good thing.
Besides the headlights, the heat from the cars' engines would also produce a very bright result in IR, no?
You've got to put the camera somewhere. It would probably be possible to place the camera far enough to the front of the car that you aren't seeing the hat coming off of the hood.
Or you could maybe do some digital processing to block out that heat source
Does OpenDNS still redirect all google.com addresses?
As far as I know, yes, it does.
I really don't see why OpenDNS did any of that.
OpenDNS redirects Google traffic so that they can make money. It's a free service, so I don't mind them getting something from the ads shown to me by Google.
Dell's Browser Error Redirection was also redirecting Google traffic to a Dell-sponsored site, presumably to make Dell some money. Obviously OpenDNS didn't like this much... But the bigger problem was that the Browser Error Redirection was redirecting NXDOMAIN stuff, which OpenDNS also might be trying to redirect.
OpenDNS just seems like a bunch of self-righteous control freaks, I'm glad I have nothing to do with them. Google and Dell were definitely not doing the right thing, but OpenDNS screwed over most of their customers to fix it. How is that any better?
When I use OpenDNS it is so that I can filter traffic. OpenDNS provides this filtering service at no cost to me. Obviously it costs them something to run their hardware. I do not mind paying them for their service by having my Google traffic routed through their servers.
The alternative would be for me to set up my own filter server, maybe running Dan's Guardian... Which is free software, but I'd need hardware to run it... And it just isn't worth my time/money to make it happen.
Obviously, if you've got problems with OpenDNS, you've got plenty of alternatives.
It seems like every single fucking time an article comes up about ISPs doing something wrong (generally messing with NXDOMAIN) people come out of the woodwork to suggest using OpenDNS, even though they do the exact same thing
They do... But it's generally in a beneficial way (phishing filter, content filtering, etc.) and at the user's discretion. Your ISP may not have any way to opt-out of the NXDOMAIN hi-jinks... But OpenDNS does.
I happily use OpenDNS at home, as well as at any client that asks for a quick and easy way to make sure folks are surfing for porn.
there are plenty of perfectly standards compliant and free DNS providers to chose from.
I've been using Google's DNS for the folks who don't want filtering.
I have, in the past, found the addresses for various higher-level DNS servers and used them successfully... But I've always wondered just how happy some of those folks are to have their DNS servers being used by random people. Is there a list of free/public DNS servers somewhere out there?
I honestly do not understand why you would not call a device that has every hardware feature my laptop has a "computer" -- the only difference is the form factor and the advertised use. What if I installed software on your laptop that railroaded you into using it in a specific way, would I have suddenly transformed your laptop into something other than a "computer?"
I guess one of the primary differences for me is the ease of executing arbitrary code.
My laptop has a keyboard that I can use to type in commands/code/whatever. It also has an optical drive that I can use to load software. It has USB ports that I can use to load software off a USB key, or connect another CD-ROM or floppy drive or whatever.
The iPhone has a touchscreen and little else. If I want to load software on it I have to go through their official channels, or jailbreak my phone. If I want to write my own software for it, it requires a second device to do the programming and then upload it to the phone.
Similarly, the PLCs that control the heating and air conditioning in my building are most certainly computers in the technical sense. They're fully functional and can be programmed to do pretty much anything I want them to. But I have to connect external devices to them in order to do that... I have to plug in a laptop with a serial cable if I want to actually do anything to them.
My Cisco routers are also pretty much computers in the technical sense. And they've got USB ports I can use to store/load software. But again I have to connect another machine if I want to do anything with them. Otherwise they just do their job, day in and day out, like any other appliance.
I guess I'm not really debating the functionality of the iPhone. It certainly is a computer in any technical sense of the word. But there are connotations to the word "computer" that just don't match an iPhone.
Note that the iPhone has more than just a "processor [that] can run arbitrary code" -- it has a CPU, memory, a general user interface, and could, in the absence of deliberate software restrictions on the part of Apple, be used as a small mobile computer (which happens to have the ability to connect to a cell phone network). This is not as extreme as running NetBSD on a toaster, or repurposing a car's microcontrollers for some other task -- the iPhone has all the hardware needed to be used for general consumer-grade computing, albeit in a pocket sized form factor.
I understand all that.
And the same could easily be said of many other smartphones out there.
But I wouldn't actually call any of them a computer.
So uhm, all those people who say the iPhone/iPad is not a computer because things like this are "impossible" -- where are you now?
Lots of things have all sorts of electronics in them... Frequently enough processing power to be called a computer, if you really want to be pedantic about it. I could probably go to the junkyard and rip some chips out of some cars and port Android to that pile of silicon too... But that doesn't really make my car a computer, does it?
Used to be that you'd buy an engine or a motor. It'd be a big ol' freestanding thing. You'd use an assortment of gears and belts to attach it to whatever equipment you wanted to run. You might very well use that same motor to drive a number of bits of hardware.
You can certainly still do that... But folks don't, generally. That kind of thing is pretty much reserved for large-scale industrial stuff, not your average homeowner. These days our gadgets come with their own motors built-in.
A drill, a saw, and an electric toothbrush all have electric motors in them... And you could, if you really wanted to, rip those motors out and re-purpose them... But I certainly wouldn't call a drill a motor.
Similarly... Despite the fact that an iPhone does contain a processor and can run arbitrary code on it, I wouldn't call it a computer.
You've had to do this for a while.
No I haven't.
I've been upgrading my AMD stuff piece by piece for the last several years... New CPU works fine in the old motherboard, new RAM works fine in the old motherboard, and then the new motherboard plays fine with the old CPU and RAM.
Obviously this won't keep working forever... Eventually AMD will roll out a new chip that's just plain completely different and I'll have to but it all in one fell swoop... But, knowing AMD, I'll then be able to keep upgrading piece by piece again.
Don't you remember having to get a new motherboard to use newer CPUs, even though they had the same socket?
Yup.
Then I stopped buying Intel chips.
No, I'm not claiming AMD has never done this... And I'm not claiming that Intel is solely to blame for it... But the fact remains that AMD has been far better at backwards compatibility than Intel has. Maybe it has something to do with all the motherboards that Intel sells...
And yet, somehow, AMD manages to keep their CPUs backwards compatible.
You upgrade the CPU/Motherboard/RAM. Big woop.
That, right there, would be enough to keep me from upgrading at all. Well, if I had an Intel CPU at least.
I don't have a whole lot of cash to spend on computer upgrades. I'll spend some on a RAM upgrade when I can afford it... And then some more on a new CPU when I can afford it... And later I'll buy a new motherboard when I can afford it...
That's worked great for the last several generations of AMD chips that I've run. A little research, some careful selections, and I've been able to upgrade everything bit by bit. I haven't had to go out and purchase all three at once in years.
You do realise that Walmart's censorship practices influence the content of music,movies, and video games right?
It does... But it's really just a symptom of a much larger problem here in the US.
Here in the US we've got absolutely no problem showing people getting killed in all sorts of bloody ways... But when I watch a movie on SyFy they'll bleep out the most innocuous of profanities and blur out marijuana use.
WalMart won't sell you porn... But they'll sell you plenty of movies where people get dismembered left and right.
We rate violent movies and video games as being OK for various young folks... But at the first sign of reproductive organs it gets an M/R/NC17/AO rating.
I've always been of the opinion that this is one the 'advantages' of the dominance of Windows. If you're a small development house cranking out applications, you only need to make a Windows version and you've got a big chunk of the market - The dominance of windows makes "the job easier."
Sure, it makes the job easier in that you only have to write for one OS...
But it doesn't do anything about the hardware running underneath that OS. Nor the other software running on the OS. Nor the drivers and whatnot playing around with the OS.
The iPhone is a pretty predictable platform... There's just a few different models to worry about and they all run the same OS/software/hardware with very little variation. The same thing can be said of the iPods and iPads as well... A couple different generations worth of hardware/software, a couple different models in each generation... But, ultimately, very little variation from one device to another.
A Windows machine, on the other hand, can be built from all sorts of random bits of hardware. Maybe you've got a quad-core CPU and a crapton of RAM... Maybe you've got an old Pentium 4 and less than a gig of RAM... Maybe you're using an old version of your sound/video/whatever driver... Maybe you haven't run any updates in a while...
Sure... Developing only for Windows is easier than developing for every possible platform on the planet... But it's a far cry from a "fixed platform" like Jobs talks about.