Fortnite (by Epic) is a bit weird with that... the game is free and nothing you buy will give you any game advantage, they only sell cosmetic changes. I was surprised they sell character skins for $20 (and skining the mining weapon can be an extra $20)... but now I understand that people are paying to have a custom appearance, and the price means you're not likely to come across another player with the same one. It's almost like having an exclusive skin.
... Other than that they sell the Battlepass for $10, which is a 2-month+ package of weekly challenges (achievements) and unlockable content (all cosmetic as well). But if you play even casually (that's what I do) you'll unlock enough in-game currency to get the next battlepass for free (you get in-game $10 around tier 51 of 100... I got that in just one month by playing 5-10 hours a week). So the game ends up being very cheap if you play it.
Music apps are relatively popular in iOS... even Apple has one (Garage Band) and there are even MIDI interfaces that allow connecting instruments to an iPhone.... But you can't really use Bluetooth for music (and I say that as the happy owner of a couple of Apple Airpods) because it has too much latency (noticeable / annoying delay between touching something on screen and hearing the sound).
This is real. Whenever I travel from Brazil to Europe shades MUST be up during takeoff and MUST be down before sunrise (flight crew check and enforce it). I don't know if it's a regulation or an internal thing from the airline.... But then you have the planes where windows don't have shades and it's all controlled digitally, which is easier for this case.
Google already detects phishing emails and will most likely detect any pretending to be one of its own. But I have news from the year 2018... I get emails with links ALL THE TIME: Amazon suggestions and offers, gift cards, social network notifications, security advisories, updates from services I'm a customer of, etc. So if you want to prevent users from clicking on links received by email you already lost that battle.
... and phishing with emails pretending to be from the bank, FedEx, a social network or Microsoft are older than GMail and this adds nothing new but a new case that's the easiest to detect.
Nonsense. I have a Time Capsule... and when I go on trips I add a regular WD external drive as a Time Machine destination very easily from the control panel. It could as well be any NAS. No lock in. A new backup from zero doesn't take that much over a wired connection.
... The only issue I'll have when I change routers is that I'll need one that has a good updating mechanism and which I can plug a regular printer into via USB (that's the other thing I'm using the TC for).
Yes, the patch is a bit "heavy handed" just doing coarse query string filtering... but on the other hand that may have helped delay attacks a bit, by not pinpointing the specific mechanism of exploitation.
The original bug was a way to compose query string parameters (the part of the URL after the ?) that permitted injecting executable code in a form. The new bug is a variation where the malicious query string is part of a redirect URL passed through the query string, so it doesn't get filtered with the previous patch, because it has escaped characters. So it's not really a new bug, but rather plugging an oversight on the original patch.
On the positive side: Drupal has security audits of its core and 3rd party components, you get emails with any security updates and the patches are available through a centralized mechanism... so it's ahead of Wordpress and other platforms with no centralized module library. Release of the patches was announced ahead of time so we could prepare for them. I
On the negative side: Drupal has fundamental architectural problems of (almost) not having boundaries between data and code. It's form API (which had the original bug) is very practical and implements a lot of great security features, but it's an unfathomable mess... VERY hard to track what it does and very hard to properly use (for 3rd party module developers), since its internal workings are not properly documented. Also, Drupal has a very very extensible architecture allowing for all sort of pluggable behavior, which also means it's very very hard to track the flow of data... this was a bug present at least since Drupal 6 (released in 2008) because it was not easy to see how data could move from the query string into the PHP structures used to define forms without proper filtering. The new-ish Drupal 8 has a more mature OO architecture, probably cleaner, but even harder to follow without actually running the code with a debugger.
I use my ear pods at home with my phone cradled or charging. I also use my regular Sennheiser earphones... or my bluetooth speaker... or my actual speakers with a real receiver/amplifier. It all depends on what's more convenient at the time... Sometimes I just want to listen to a podcast (or even some music I don't care that much about) while I cook or do other chores and activities where the cable gets in the way and might actually be dangerous... either in the kitchen or at night while my girlfriend is sleeping. I found not being tied to a cable much more liberating than I thought.
Back in the day OS/2 was THE way to have a modern OS with real and sort of stable multitasking on a regular PC. It could run DOS and Windows apps but it also had native apps and for some applications that was all you needed. I had a BBS/FidoNet system back then and OS/2 was the best way to run all the services and parallel processing tasks... the alternative that some used was DESQview, a multitasking OS/Hack running on top of DOS. People on the argentine FidoNET scene stopped using OS/2 mostly because of:
- Linux, which was quickly gaining popularity - Windows 95, which had preemptive multitasking
1 - I don't have any experience with other BT headsets. They get interference sometimes in the street... some particular street intersections more often apparently.... none in my home, place of work, etc.
2 - Not exactly the same. They have a slightly tighter fit than the regular earpods in my experience... I used the wired ones a lot and they would fall of kind of easily, but it's hard to compare because those had a heavy wire pulling them down.
3 - No. They sound better than the regular earpods though... have a slightly richer sound and bass. You should consider the Beats X, which were built in the "Apple era" of Beats so sound better and have the same BT chip but are in-ear.
The argentine tax collecting agency still has critical parts of their web site (particularly the one where small business and independent professionals declare their gross income) that only work under IE6 due to use of MS-only javascript API. The "funny" thing is that with newer versions of IE you have to use the site in "compatibility mode" which with the latest versions has to be activated through the developer tools panel. The tax collection agency gives instructions on how to do this instead of fixing the site... while some enterprising folks have developed browser extensions that inject fixed versions of the scripts in the page. I use a mac and have to boot a VM with Windows every 3 months for this purpose.
(The quality of argentine web sites is quite good by international standards... this site is just the worst shitstorm possible).
The tip about PassSource is very good... I live in Argentina so very few things have Wallet integration and I don't pay it much mind except when travelling... but with that I can create my own:-)
I have an Apple Watch and love it, but won't try to convince anyone here that it's the best (which I wouldn't know) but rather want to share how I use it:
- I bought it because I work at cafes and was tired of taking my phone out of my pocket to check notifications. It serves that purpose rather well. - I use it a lot to set reminders with Siri. "Hey Siri, remind me to hang the clothes to dry in two hours", etc. I now try to avoid having to keep track of small things doing it "the cyborg way". In fact I just used it to set a timer for my tea. Siri supports some more surprising things (while listening to a podcast interview I said "Hey Siri, show me pictures of X (the person being interviewed)" and the face appeared on the watch) but I don't always realize I can use it for those. - I often use voice dictation to reply to messages when walking around. I even picked up phone calls Dick Tracy style a couple of times when the phone was a couple of meters away. - I use it to navigate with the maps when walking. I don't drive, but it's possibly useful that way as well. When walking long distances it's better to have the notification to turn around the corner on the wrist than on the phone in your pocket. - I use it to track my hearbeat during trainings. It has a podometer function as well that stores the distance walked in the health app on iOS. - I have the current temperature on the watch's face and tapping on that opens the forecast. I use that a lot. - I didn't expect this feature, but it suggests standing up and moving around a bit for at least a minute every hour... and I love it. It's a very small thing, but helpful for us who work sitting down. - When you charge it and set it on its side it becomes a bedside clock. I use that to wake up in the morning. - The flashiest thing it does is acting as a remote of the iPhone camera, with a live video feed and all... it's handy to get group shots without setting the timer and running away into place.
The problem with hosting companies compared to cloud services is that you're more likely to have larger downtime if there are any problems, and you might not be protected with recent enough backups in case of hdd corruption / failure. These kind of problems are rare, but they do occur and can be catastrophic. B2B cloud services like Amazon S3 have excellent uptime track record and might able to give some guarantees, plus they provide and/or offer redundancy. Services like Dropbox are hosted in that sort of hosting and might specify certain levels of security for your data. You can have your own backup/redundancy strategy in a 10$ hosting but it's often not easy if you are hosting several gigabytes, it requires more time and knowledge, and you might have to deal with a huge downtime to restore anyway.
Unless you fine U$S 7500 to repeat offenders.. which seems easier to track than who is renting what in what manner and making neighbors police each other.
I use a watch face that has a complication with the temperature... so the weather app comes up instantly.
The reason I say "people don't understand what it can do" is that people I show my watch to have no idea what its features are.. and even I, having watched the original keynote, the website, and having a friend who owns an Apple Watch bought it with a limited idea of the things I would use it for. The same thing would probably happen with a smartphone if you weren't completely surrounded by people with smartphones doing all kinds of things like photography, music, games, sports, etc.
I bought my Apple Watch *BECAUSE* I carry my phone all the time... and I don't like to take it out of my jeans' pocket just to see what a notification is about. Now I just look at my wrist quickly. That was the whole idea, but I ended up getting so much more out of it:
- It's really convenient to use with the map directions while walking around the city (or driving, I'd assume) - It's good to create reminders and such through siri without having to take my phone out - I sent messages back and forth (dictating my responses) while on the street. No taking the phone out, unlocking, nor standing waiting for a response. - It lets me know when I spent an hour sitting and makes me move around for a minute + tracks my heart rate during the day - Very convenient to quickly check out whether the restaurant you're standing in front of is any good using yelp, or to check the price of a book in Amazon - At home I leave my phone in its cradle and can move around getting notifications in the watch.
I'd say the main problem with the watch is that people don't know what it does nor how it can streamline the use of their smartphones or integrate into their activities. I bought it and didn't know half of it... the first time I answered a phone call through the phone Dick Tracy style (with its speaker and mic) I didn't even know THAT was possible.
Go to Settings, open the Battery control panel, see if there are any apps eating up her battery. Bad cell coverage in the area perhaps? I can go the whole day taking pictures and videos with my SE and the battery doesn't die. Two months ago I was at a conference where I set my SE on a tripod and recorded 2.5 straight hours of HD video off the battery and the phone still worked for the rest of the day (although I tried to keep the use at a minimum... messages and checking maps maybe). Dead in 5 hours doesn't sound normal.
Yes. It's VERY common to be harassed by "helpful" people when trying to buy metro passes. Once they see you're buying individual tickets instead of recharging your public transport card they know you're ripe for the taking.
There's LOTS of tourist pickpocketings in Paris and Berlin. The touristic areas of both cities are riddled with young people with clipboards that use some excuse (like taking some poll) to distract you while they rob you. In the Paris Metro there are lots of ingenious ways to get robbed as well, including fake tourists asking for directions, people who throw up on you, people that throw their cell phones at your feet, cell phones stolen through the metro window, etc. I can also attest that there's a problem with mugging in the Amsterdam train terminal station... I was warned and was able to see it. In those three cities there is a HUGE problem with bikes getting stolen as well.
I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and think large european cities have a big problem with crime.
Right now headphones support volume controls and a single button. A digital interface would enable richer controls... either more buttons or touch surfaces that support simple gestures (large cans could act like the touch surface, for instance).... I also read of the possibility of measuring the pulse through the ear with a sensor included in sport headphones.
Also: I don't know why they suppose we'd lose anything if the possibility of ripping audio through the headphone jack was lost. This hasn't been an acceptable way to rip audio for more than a decade now.
The audio is now digital, converted to analog, and then sent out through the jack.... In a phone without the headphone jack it's the same... except the audio travels digitally to the headphone, where it's converted to analog and output. The extra meter the audio travels digitally is no worse than the same meter travelled analogically.... Hence: You won't notice any difference in sync.
It's different with wireless speakers, like bluetooth, because there's an extra step of compression and a wireless transmission protocol that adds some latency.
Also: There's always SOME delay, even with a headphone jack. The circuit that takes video data from memory to screen and the one that takes audio data from memory to the speakers are separate and take some small amount of time. There's no magic to sync them up. Your brain won't notice delays if they're less than some amount (20ms or a bit less).
If Argentina wanted it could ditch the argentine peso and start using dollars... that's what Ecuador did at one point. It doesn't need to go cashless for that. But it's not without consequence... it'd tightly couple Argentina's economy to the US, disabling the possibility of monetary emission and the ability to adjust exchange rates to make its products as cheap and as profitable as possible. It could fall in a similar situation to that of Spain or Greece in the Euro zone without any of the advantages they have for participating.... In fact Argentina had its currency tied to the US dollar from 1991 to 2001 through a law that equaled the value of 1 peso to 1 dollar and the possibility to convert them back and forth at will. It ended in a huge economic crisis with repercussions we're still fighting with.
Slashdot Mirror
Fortnite (by Epic) is a bit weird with that... the game is free and nothing you buy will give you any game advantage, they only sell cosmetic changes. I was surprised they sell character skins for $20 (and skining the mining weapon can be an extra $20) ... but now I understand that people are paying to have a custom appearance, and the price means you're not likely to come across another player with the same one. It's almost like having an exclusive skin.
Music apps are relatively popular in iOS... even Apple has one (Garage Band) and there are even MIDI interfaces that allow connecting instruments to an iPhone. ... But you can't really use Bluetooth for music (and I say that as the happy owner of a couple of Apple Airpods) because it has too much latency (noticeable / annoying delay between touching something on screen and hearing the sound).
This is real. Whenever I travel from Brazil to Europe shades MUST be up during takeoff and MUST be down before sunrise (flight crew check and enforce it). I don't know if it's a regulation or an internal thing from the airline. ... But then you have the planes where windows don't have shades and it's all controlled digitally, which is easier for this case.
I carry my phone without a case, for the same reason I'd carry a baby without one... don't drop it.
Google already detects phishing emails and will most likely detect any pretending to be one of its own. But I have news from the year 2018... I get emails with links ALL THE TIME: Amazon suggestions and offers, gift cards, social network notifications, security advisories, updates from services I'm a customer of, etc. So if you want to prevent users from clicking on links received by email you already lost that battle.
Nonsense. I have a Time Capsule... and when I go on trips I add a regular WD external drive as a Time Machine destination very easily from the control panel. It could as well be any NAS. No lock in. A new backup from zero doesn't take that much over a wired connection.
Yes, the patch is a bit "heavy handed" just doing coarse query string filtering... but on the other hand that may have helped delay attacks a bit, by not pinpointing the specific mechanism of exploitation.
The original bug was a way to compose query string parameters (the part of the URL after the ?) that permitted injecting executable code in a form. The new bug is a variation where the malicious query string is part of a redirect URL passed through the query string, so it doesn't get filtered with the previous patch, because it has escaped characters. So it's not really a new bug, but rather plugging an oversight on the original patch.
On the positive side: Drupal has security audits of its core and 3rd party components, you get emails with any security updates and the patches are available through a centralized mechanism... so it's ahead of Wordpress and other platforms with no centralized module library. Release of the patches was announced ahead of time so we could prepare for them. I
On the negative side: Drupal has fundamental architectural problems of (almost) not having boundaries between data and code. It's form API (which had the original bug) is very practical and implements a lot of great security features, but it's an unfathomable mess... VERY hard to track what it does and very hard to properly use (for 3rd party module developers), since its internal workings are not properly documented. Also, Drupal has a very very extensible architecture allowing for all sort of pluggable behavior, which also means it's very very hard to track the flow of data... this was a bug present at least since Drupal 6 (released in 2008) because it was not easy to see how data could move from the query string into the PHP structures used to define forms without proper filtering. The new-ish Drupal 8 has a more mature OO architecture, probably cleaner, but even harder to follow without actually running the code with a debugger.
I use my ear pods at home with my phone cradled or charging. I also use my regular Sennheiser earphones... or my bluetooth speaker... or my actual speakers with a real receiver/amplifier. It all depends on what's more convenient at the time... Sometimes I just want to listen to a podcast (or even some music I don't care that much about) while I cook or do other chores and activities where the cable gets in the way and might actually be dangerous... either in the kitchen or at night while my girlfriend is sleeping. I found not being tied to a cable much more liberating than I thought.
Back in the day OS/2 was THE way to have a modern OS with real and sort of stable multitasking on a regular PC. It could run DOS and Windows apps but it also had native apps and for some applications that was all you needed. I had a BBS/FidoNet system back then and OS/2 was the best way to run all the services and parallel processing tasks... the alternative that some used was DESQview, a multitasking OS/Hack running on top of DOS. People on the argentine FidoNET scene stopped using OS/2 mostly because of:
- Linux, which was quickly gaining popularity
- Windows 95, which had preemptive multitasking
1 - I don't have any experience with other BT headsets. They get interference sometimes in the street... some particular street intersections more often apparently.... none in my home, place of work, etc.
2 - Not exactly the same. They have a slightly tighter fit than the regular earpods in my experience... I used the wired ones a lot and they would fall of kind of easily, but it's hard to compare because those had a heavy wire pulling them down.
3 - No. They sound better than the regular earpods though... have a slightly richer sound and bass. You should consider the Beats X, which were built in the "Apple era" of Beats so sound better and have the same BT chip but are in-ear.
The argentine tax collecting agency still has critical parts of their web site (particularly the one where small business and independent professionals declare their gross income) that only work under IE6 due to use of MS-only javascript API. The "funny" thing is that with newer versions of IE you have to use the site in "compatibility mode" which with the latest versions has to be activated through the developer tools panel. The tax collection agency gives instructions on how to do this instead of fixing the site... while some enterprising folks have developed browser extensions that inject fixed versions of the scripts in the page. I use a mac and have to boot a VM with Windows every 3 months for this purpose.
(The quality of argentine web sites is quite good by international standards... this site is just the worst shitstorm possible).
The tip about PassSource is very good... I live in Argentina so very few things have Wallet integration and I don't pay it much mind except when travelling... but with that I can create my own :-)
I have an Apple Watch and love it, but won't try to convince anyone here that it's the best (which I wouldn't know) but rather want to share how I use it:
- I bought it because I work at cafes and was tired of taking my phone out of my pocket to check notifications. It serves that purpose rather well.
- I use it a lot to set reminders with Siri. "Hey Siri, remind me to hang the clothes to dry in two hours", etc. I now try to avoid having to keep track of small things doing it "the cyborg way". In fact I just used it to set a timer for my tea. Siri supports some more surprising things (while listening to a podcast interview I said "Hey Siri, show me pictures of X (the person being interviewed)" and the face appeared on the watch) but I don't always realize I can use it for those.
- I often use voice dictation to reply to messages when walking around. I even picked up phone calls Dick Tracy style a couple of times when the phone was a couple of meters away.
- I use it to navigate with the maps when walking. I don't drive, but it's possibly useful that way as well. When walking long distances it's better to have the notification to turn around the corner on the wrist than on the phone in your pocket.
- I use it to track my hearbeat during trainings. It has a podometer function as well that stores the distance walked in the health app on iOS.
- I have the current temperature on the watch's face and tapping on that opens the forecast. I use that a lot.
- I didn't expect this feature, but it suggests standing up and moving around a bit for at least a minute every hour... and I love it. It's a very small thing, but helpful for us who work sitting down.
- When you charge it and set it on its side it becomes a bedside clock. I use that to wake up in the morning.
- The flashiest thing it does is acting as a remote of the iPhone camera, with a live video feed and all... it's handy to get group shots without setting the timer and running away into place.
The problem with hosting companies compared to cloud services is that you're more likely to have larger downtime if there are any problems, and you might not be protected with recent enough backups in case of hdd corruption / failure. These kind of problems are rare, but they do occur and can be catastrophic. B2B cloud services like Amazon S3 have excellent uptime track record and might able to give some guarantees, plus they provide and/or offer redundancy. Services like Dropbox are hosted in that sort of hosting and might specify certain levels of security for your data. You can have your own backup/redundancy strategy in a 10$ hosting but it's often not easy if you are hosting several gigabytes, it requires more time and knowledge, and you might have to deal with a huge downtime to restore anyway.
Unless you fine U$S 7500 to repeat offenders.. which seems easier to track than who is renting what in what manner and making neighbors police each other.
I use a watch face that has a complication with the temperature... so the weather app comes up instantly.
The reason I say "people don't understand what it can do" is that people I show my watch to have no idea what its features are.. and even I, having watched the original keynote, the website, and having a friend who owns an Apple Watch bought it with a limited idea of the things I would use it for. The same thing would probably happen with a smartphone if you weren't completely surrounded by people with smartphones doing all kinds of things like photography, music, games, sports, etc.
The delay getting the weather is gone in the new Watch OS 3 as well as other similar features where you had the problem of waiting for the refresh.
I bought my Apple Watch *BECAUSE* I carry my phone all the time... and I don't like to take it out of my jeans' pocket just to see what a notification is about. Now I just look at my wrist quickly. That was the whole idea, but I ended up getting so much more out of it:
- It's really convenient to use with the map directions while walking around the city (or driving, I'd assume)
- It's good to create reminders and such through siri without having to take my phone out
- I sent messages back and forth (dictating my responses) while on the street. No taking the phone out, unlocking, nor standing waiting for a response.
- It lets me know when I spent an hour sitting and makes me move around for a minute + tracks my heart rate during the day
- Very convenient to quickly check out whether the restaurant you're standing in front of is any good using yelp, or to check the price of a book in Amazon
- At home I leave my phone in its cradle and can move around getting notifications in the watch.
I'd say the main problem with the watch is that people don't know what it does nor how it can streamline the use of their smartphones or integrate into their activities. I bought it and didn't know half of it... the first time I answered a phone call through the phone Dick Tracy style (with its speaker and mic) I didn't even know THAT was possible.
Go to Settings, open the Battery control panel, see if there are any apps eating up her battery. Bad cell coverage in the area perhaps? I can go the whole day taking pictures and videos with my SE and the battery doesn't die. Two months ago I was at a conference where I set my SE on a tripod and recorded 2.5 straight hours of HD video off the battery and the phone still worked for the rest of the day (although I tried to keep the use at a minimum... messages and checking maps maybe). Dead in 5 hours doesn't sound normal.
Yes. It's VERY common to be harassed by "helpful" people when trying to buy metro passes. Once they see you're buying individual tickets instead of recharging your public transport card they know you're ripe for the taking.
There's LOTS of tourist pickpocketings in Paris and Berlin. The touristic areas of both cities are riddled with young people with clipboards that use some excuse (like taking some poll) to distract you while they rob you. In the Paris Metro there are lots of ingenious ways to get robbed as well, including fake tourists asking for directions, people who throw up on you, people that throw their cell phones at your feet, cell phones stolen through the metro window, etc. I can also attest that there's a problem with mugging in the Amsterdam train terminal station... I was warned and was able to see it. In those three cities there is a HUGE problem with bikes getting stolen as well.
I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and think large european cities have a big problem with crime.
You're missing something:
Right now headphones support volume controls and a single button. A digital interface would enable richer controls... either more buttons or touch surfaces that support simple gestures (large cans could act like the touch surface, for instance). ... I also read of the possibility of measuring the pulse through the ear with a sensor included in sport headphones.
Also: I don't know why they suppose we'd lose anything if the possibility of ripping audio through the headphone jack was lost. This hasn't been an acceptable way to rip audio for more than a decade now.
The audio is now digital, converted to analog, and then sent out through the jack. ... In a phone without the headphone jack it's the same... except the audio travels digitally to the headphone, where it's converted to analog and output. The extra meter the audio travels digitally is no worse than the same meter travelled analogically. ... Hence: You won't notice any difference in sync.
It's different with wireless speakers, like bluetooth, because there's an extra step of compression and a wireless transmission protocol that adds some latency.
Also: There's always SOME delay, even with a headphone jack. The circuit that takes video data from memory to screen and the one that takes audio data from memory to the speakers are separate and take some small amount of time. There's no magic to sync them up. Your brain won't notice delays if they're less than some amount (20ms or a bit less).
If Argentina wanted it could ditch the argentine peso and start using dollars... that's what Ecuador did at one point. It doesn't need to go cashless for that. But it's not without consequence... it'd tightly couple Argentina's economy to the US, disabling the possibility of monetary emission and the ability to adjust exchange rates to make its products as cheap and as profitable as possible. It could fall in a similar situation to that of Spain or Greece in the Euro zone without any of the advantages they have for participating. ... In fact Argentina had its currency tied to the US dollar from 1991 to 2001 through a law that equaled the value of 1 peso to 1 dollar and the possibility to convert them back and forth at will. It ended in a huge economic crisis with repercussions we're still fighting with.