If they provided lanyard anchors then you wouldn't need the protective case (unless you're paranoid about your lanyard breaking or maybe if you rely on the lanyard too much). I really can't understand the lack of lanyard anchor points on all of the smartphones I looked at recently.
Also, the NFC has apparently become a high-end feature.
Standardized mediocrity even on the corporate evil.
Oh wait, Hastings was locked inside a Mercedes as it crashed. Obviously no relation to this BMW story.
Then again, I'm a bit surprised that they revealed the capability so publicly. It's not like any dictators or powerful authorities would ever abuse such a capability.
(Don't look at me. I've gone completely paranoid now. I even think Snowden is just a sincere pawn and he was never allowed near any of the really dark stuff.)
Just remembered another one. I think Knuth also collaborated on a textbook called Concrete Mathematics, which I purchased but never finished reading (so it isn't in my records). Pretty sure I gave it to one of my professors when I finished my last stint as a student...
As surveys go, it would be as good as most of the recent ones.
Anyway, I've never read even one volume of the series, though I'm pretty sure I consulted it at various times. It was certainly available in the university libraries where I was teaching or studying. Also I remember seeing it in the research library when I was supporting the researchers. However, I can't really remember any details after all these years. The place I should have been introduced to it was when I was earning my CS degree, but I don't think I even knew about it until afterwards... At that time I think I primarily associated Knuth with TeX.
According to my records, the only Knuth book I've read in it's entirety was Surreal Numbers, but I'm suspicious of my memories of that book... Did he construct an entire number system starting from the empty set? Was it based on a lunchtime conversation he had with a pure mathematician, and he basically reconstructed the discussion at book length?
I think we are deluded to think freedom is a good thing. Per my sig, you have to work at being free. You have to collect the information for meaningful decisions, which includes filtering out the fake data, and you have to resist the persuasion and even coercion by advertisers and propagandists pushing their toothpaste, latest pop songs, and political candidates. Too much bother.
Many Trump voters took the shortcut. Trump promised "Vote for me and I'll solve ALL your problems." If they wanted to be free, then they would have to consider that his proposed solutions are nonsensical, contradictory, or impossible. Sometimes all three at once.
Reality is going to prevail. It always does. Unfortunately, that appears to be the reality of the Fermi Paradox. So-called intelligent species don't survive long and so-called intelligence is not a survival trait. If we human beings have any survivors, they will probably be the most evil corporations we have created. Human beings will be extinct, but the corporate machines will continue generating ever larger "profits".
What makes you believe this story isn't fake news? At this point do you really expect the government to tell you the truth about how they are shredding the Bill of Rights?
I'm not saying it's impossible. Maybe this particular surveillance system didn't work well. In that case, you should be asking about the other ones.
Don't look at me that way. I was getting paranoid even before Putin's puppet snuck into the big white house. I also think Snowden is a sincere pawn and Hastings was snuffed by a hacked car. I'm going to play the insanity defense over the flying elephant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I still can't buy into it. If you REALLY want to disable the USB port, you go inside and cut the leads. If you want to test the USB port for something like resistance to static electricity, then you need to use proper test equipment. Presumably it would be destructive testing and you would want to increase the shocks gradually to determine the safe levels.
According to the description, all this thing does is attempt to do some random damage. I say the story is bogus.
However, I finally did think of a legitimate use for the story. The cops want to find out who would try to buy such a device. Along with his shipping address.
Why in gawd's name would anyone mass produce such a device? This must be one of those fake news stories we've been hearing so much about.
In technical terms, the USB ports could be designed with diodes to prevent this sort of attack. Perhaps they already are, but in fake news terms they could just up the stored voltage until it's stronger than a lightning bolt. Of course, in technical terms there is no reason it has to be that small anyway. You might as well run a wire to a USB connector and then touch the exposed lead to a fully charged Van de Graff generator. (Now I'm wondering how much static electricity protection USB ports already have.)
The story is credited to a "new submitter". I think he's just a new sock puppet and my proposed maturity filter might have dealt with him.
I'm trying to figure out how to cover the open base... What if it isn't a fake news story? I can't imagine any legitimate use for such a device, so I assume it would be made illegal as soon as the politicians can get off their duffs.
Not sure how this branch got dragged into the pre-WW-II topic again, but some people are always looking to attack IBM (and various other companies) on the basis of their business dealings with Germany in the 1930s. I suppose you can argue that those were politically tainted business decisions at the time, but mostly I think people are misusing their hindsight. At the time no one knew how bad Hitler was because he had only begun to be bad. Even today and notwithstanding our extra bits of hindsight, we still don't make business decisions based on the worst possible outcomes.
I was focusing specifically on corporate policies against political activities that involve the IBM name. Much of my career involved IBM, so I read those statements a number of times. I don't remember every detail now, and I don't even know if those corporate policies are still in effect, but they were pretty strict. For example, IBM was not going to endorse any candidate or donate to any political campaign. There were even limits on when a politician could make a speech or presentation at an IBM facility. Basically it wasn't allowed during some period prior to an election. This obituary is for one of the most important IBMers of those old days...
My main point was that I think the current CEO is changing that approach because ANY overture to Trump is intrinsically political. The Donald makes EVERYTHING about politics. He has no boundaries, so Ginny Rometty can't really believe that her letter was a nonpolitical action. At least one IBM employee regarded it as so political that she chose to resign from the company because of it. In my rejected submission on the topic, I even suggested that might be one reason Rometty published the letter in the first place.
The Carrier thing is another example of the politicization of business dealings. I suppose that comes back to the first paragraph of this reply, but apparently the topic is also forbidden on Slashdot. At least that's how I'm interpreting the response to my submission on the Carrier topic (which included its relationship to the IBM thing). It's not just the moderation system that's broken, eh? (So much for that complicated submission about cyber-warfare, but if allied China and India start using African mercenaries, you read it here first. Or much more likely you won't read about it on Slashdot until it's old news.)
I think you're going too far by assuming that your opinion is unpopular. Yes, you got a couple of bad mods, but overall your post was rated insightful, and I even felt that it was one of the few insightful-rated posts that deserved the mod. In the absence of any meaningful notion of "identity" associated with Slashdot membership, I can just dismiss the negative mods as coming from sock puppet herders, though I suppose some of them could be from actual angry losers (like so many of those Trump voters).
At least the funny mods were for posts that deserved it, though there were so few of them. The funniest idea is that the mod system could be fixed, eh? I'd like to see some incentivizing for humor, for example by giving double funny mod points to members who've earned lots of funny mods.
On the actual topic, I did see a list of hate, but very little about the other side of the bogeyman named Castro. Can't recall that any of the hate lists mentioned the real reason the right wingers hated him so much: FEAR. They were really afraid that the bad example could spread to other countries in the hemisphere. Same sort of domino theory that brought us the war in Vietnam. From that perspective, the best things that Castro did were actually the worst, so I guess that means the Cuban medical system. Just shows what can be accomplished without much money (or computers or modern cars) as long as your priorities are on keeping people healthy? (Did some searches for mentions of that topic and couldn't find much in the visible parts of the discussion.)
There has been another redefinition of terms. It's called a Level 3 lie of reframing the dialog. Someone who wants to initiate serious discussions, dare I say insightful dialogs, from a non-conservative perspective is instantly redefined as a "libtard troll" and modded negatively.
Is it a herd of sock puppets with angry mod points? Slashdot doesn't have an economic model that supports finding out, so Slashdot don't care.
If there were a desire to fix the problems, then I think there are two angles of attack. One angle involves improving the moderation system. For example, I think that people who have received lots of favorable mods should be empowered to give extra mod points in those categories, having earned a kind of merit badge. At at steeper angle of attack, the question of identity needs to be addressed. In this case that would imply making it harder for sock puppet herders to create and manage their flocks.
I should stop these multi-topic replies, but the bad moderation obviously fails to deter me, so... Yet another detour before returning to my new Subject:
On the main topic of the article, I have three reactions:
(1) Putin wouldn't do it unless he was absolutely certain it was untraceable, and I don't think anyone could convince him of that. Getting caught tampering with our elections would be an act of war, and he prefers to wage war against weaklings like Chechnya and Ukraine.
(2) The winners are unlikely to tamper with any system that supported their victory. The so-called Republican Party is unlikely to require paper ballots or more tamper-proof voting as long as there is any chance the current system helps them win.
(3) I think the Russians did interfere, but via Comey's letter. If there's an FBI mole, he may have left the room already, but Putin would gladly swap Snowden for him if he got the chance.
Now the new Subject: Just wanted to note that Democratic Underground was severely pwned on Election Day. Talk about a low-level target, eh? Like trying to find something worth bombing in Afghanistan. (I even submitted an article on that one, but Slashdot thought it too low to mention.)
Does that call for a string of 4-letter expletives in response?
Just joking, but of course the real objective is to stir up a 3-digit UID... Do I even fear the wrath of a 2-digit UID?
Actually, I'm just a whippersnapper around here. I can't remember ever seeing a single-digit UID in action. Are they mythical beasts?
Mostly I should just stand on my original condemnation of the bad math of the OP in this thread, though that reply was essentially eclipsed by this later branch.
Abuse of math is too common these days... Just finishing a new philosophy book from France that abuses transfinite numbers to attack Kant. (Hume ain't dead. He's just resting. Don't stun him.)
From your reply, the only thing that is quite clear to me is that you did not understand my description of the basis of the Citizens United decision. Did you even try to parse it? You did not ask any question about what you could not understand, you simply jumped to some sort of ad hominem attack. It is not clear whether or not you are endorsing Citizens United as good law.
Your motives are unclear, but I don't really care as long as you're presenting valid data or using rational analysis, but you are not. If you're a paid propagandist, then you're not going to say so. At this point I see no reason to ask for clarification of your comments or your motives, because it is absolutely clear the discussion is pointless and closed.
Slashdot Mirror
ZZ
Z^6
If they provided lanyard anchors then you wouldn't need the protective case (unless you're paranoid about your lanyard breaking or maybe if you rely on the lanyard too much). I really can't understand the lack of lanyard anchor points on all of the smartphones I looked at recently.
Also, the NFC has apparently become a high-end feature.
Standardized mediocrity even on the corporate evil.
Z^5
Z^4
Oh wait, Hastings was locked inside a Mercedes as it crashed. Obviously no relation to this BMW story.
Then again, I'm a bit surprised that they revealed the capability so publicly. It's not like any dictators or powerful authorities would ever abuse such a capability.
(Don't look at me. I've gone completely paranoid now. I even think Snowden is just a sincere pawn and he was never allowed near any of the really dark stuff.)
Just remembered another one. I think Knuth also collaborated on a textbook called Concrete Mathematics , which I purchased but never finished reading (so it isn't in my records). Pretty sure I gave it to one of my professors when I finished my last stint as a student...
As surveys go, it would be as good as most of the recent ones.
Anyway, I've never read even one volume of the series, though I'm pretty sure I consulted it at various times. It was certainly available in the university libraries where I was teaching or studying. Also I remember seeing it in the research library when I was supporting the researchers. However, I can't really remember any details after all these years. The place I should have been introduced to it was when I was earning my CS degree, but I don't think I even knew about it until afterwards... At that time I think I primarily associated Knuth with TeX.
According to my records, the only Knuth book I've read in it's entirety was Surreal Numbers , but I'm suspicious of my memories of that book... Did he construct an entire number system starting from the empty set? Was it based on a lunchtime conversation he had with a pure mathematician, and he basically reconstructed the discussion at book length?
I think we are deluded to think freedom is a good thing. Per my sig, you have to work at being free. You have to collect the information for meaningful decisions, which includes filtering out the fake data, and you have to resist the persuasion and even coercion by advertisers and propagandists pushing their toothpaste, latest pop songs, and political candidates. Too much bother.
Many Trump voters took the shortcut. Trump promised "Vote for me and I'll solve ALL your problems." If they wanted to be free, then they would have to consider that his proposed solutions are nonsensical, contradictory, or impossible. Sometimes all three at once.
Reality is going to prevail. It always does. Unfortunately, that appears to be the reality of the Fermi Paradox. So-called intelligent species don't survive long and so-called intelligence is not a survival trait. If we human beings have any survivors, they will probably be the most evil corporations we have created. Human beings will be extinct, but the corporate machines will continue generating ever larger "profits".
Many good points negated by your faceless cowardice. Lots to say in reply, largely in agreement, but not to thin air.
Therefore, I reduce my response to one question: What part of your comment scared you so much?
What makes you believe this story isn't fake news? At this point do you really expect the government to tell you the truth about how they are shredding the Bill of Rights?
I'm not saying it's impossible. Maybe this particular surveillance system didn't work well. In that case, you should be asking about the other ones.
Don't look at me that way. I was getting paranoid even before Putin's puppet snuck into the big white house. I also think Snowden is a sincere pawn and Hastings was snuffed by a hacked car. I'm going to play the insanity defense over the flying elephant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I still can't buy into it. If you REALLY want to disable the USB port, you go inside and cut the leads. If you want to test the USB port for something like resistance to static electricity, then you need to use proper test equipment. Presumably it would be destructive testing and you would want to increase the shocks gradually to determine the safe levels.
According to the description, all this thing does is attempt to do some random damage. I say the story is bogus.
However, I finally did think of a legitimate use for the story. The cops want to find out who would try to buy such a device. Along with his shipping address.
Z^3
Why in gawd's name would anyone mass produce such a device? This must be one of those fake news stories we've been hearing so much about.
In technical terms, the USB ports could be designed with diodes to prevent this sort of attack. Perhaps they already are, but in fake news terms they could just up the stored voltage until it's stronger than a lightning bolt. Of course, in technical terms there is no reason it has to be that small anyway. You might as well run a wire to a USB connector and then touch the exposed lead to a fully charged Van de Graff generator. (Now I'm wondering how much static electricity protection USB ports already have.)
The story is credited to a "new submitter". I think he's just a new sock puppet and my proposed maturity filter might have dealt with him.
I'm trying to figure out how to cover the open base... What if it isn't a fake news story? I can't imagine any legitimate use for such a device, so I assume it would be made illegal as soon as the politicians can get off their duffs.
Not sure how this branch got dragged into the pre-WW-II topic again, but some people are always looking to attack IBM (and various other companies) on the basis of their business dealings with Germany in the 1930s. I suppose you can argue that those were politically tainted business decisions at the time, but mostly I think people are misusing their hindsight. At the time no one knew how bad Hitler was because he had only begun to be bad. Even today and notwithstanding our extra bits of hindsight, we still don't make business decisions based on the worst possible outcomes.
I was focusing specifically on corporate policies against political activities that involve the IBM name. Much of my career involved IBM, so I read those statements a number of times. I don't remember every detail now, and I don't even know if those corporate policies are still in effect, but they were pretty strict. For example, IBM was not going to endorse any candidate or donate to any political campaign. There were even limits on when a politician could make a speech or presentation at an IBM facility. Basically it wasn't allowed during some period prior to an election. This obituary is for one of the most important IBMers of those old days...
My main point was that I think the current CEO is changing that approach because ANY overture to Trump is intrinsically political. The Donald makes EVERYTHING about politics. He has no boundaries, so Ginny Rometty can't really believe that her letter was a nonpolitical action. At least one IBM employee regarded it as so political that she chose to resign from the company because of it. In my rejected submission on the topic, I even suggested that might be one reason Rometty published the letter in the first place.
The Carrier thing is another example of the politicization of business dealings. I suppose that comes back to the first paragraph of this reply, but apparently the topic is also forbidden on Slashdot. At least that's how I'm interpreting the response to my submission on the Carrier topic (which included its relationship to the IBM thing). It's not just the moderation system that's broken, eh? (So much for that complicated submission about cyber-warfare, but if allied China and India start using African mercenaries, you read it here first. Or much more likely you won't read about it on Slashdot until it's old news.)
ZZ
In those days, among the company's other great attributes, the company didn't get involved in politics.
In today's IBM, the CEO just sent Lord Trump a feel-good letter about how to make profits together. At least one employee resigned over it.
The URLs are easily searchable, but I submitted it as a story, so maybe it will come up later? I gotta run now.
Z^3
ZZ
I think you're going too far by assuming that your opinion is unpopular. Yes, you got a couple of bad mods, but overall your post was rated insightful, and I even felt that it was one of the few insightful-rated posts that deserved the mod. In the absence of any meaningful notion of "identity" associated with Slashdot membership, I can just dismiss the negative mods as coming from sock puppet herders, though I suppose some of them could be from actual angry losers (like so many of those Trump voters).
At least the funny mods were for posts that deserved it, though there were so few of them. The funniest idea is that the mod system could be fixed, eh? I'd like to see some incentivizing for humor, for example by giving double funny mod points to members who've earned lots of funny mods.
On the actual topic, I did see a list of hate, but very little about the other side of the bogeyman named Castro. Can't recall that any of the hate lists mentioned the real reason the right wingers hated him so much: FEAR. They were really afraid that the bad example could spread to other countries in the hemisphere. Same sort of domino theory that brought us the war in Vietnam. From that perspective, the best things that Castro did were actually the worst, so I guess that means the Cuban medical system. Just shows what can be accomplished without much money (or computers or modern cars) as long as your priorities are on keeping people healthy? (Did some searches for mentions of that topic and couldn't find much in the visible parts of the discussion.)
What part of "pointless and closed" were you unable to understand?
There has been another redefinition of terms. It's called a Level 3 lie of reframing the dialog. Someone who wants to initiate serious discussions, dare I say insightful dialogs, from a non-conservative perspective is instantly redefined as a "libtard troll" and modded negatively.
Is it a herd of sock puppets with angry mod points? Slashdot doesn't have an economic model that supports finding out, so Slashdot don't care.
If there were a desire to fix the problems, then I think there are two angles of attack. One angle involves improving the moderation system. For example, I think that people who have received lots of favorable mods should be empowered to give extra mod points in those categories, having earned a kind of merit badge. At at steeper angle of attack, the question of identity needs to be addressed. In this case that would imply making it harder for sock puppet herders to create and manage their flocks.
I should stop these multi-topic replies, but the bad moderation obviously fails to deter me, so... Yet another detour before returning to my new Subject:
On the main topic of the article, I have three reactions:
(1) Putin wouldn't do it unless he was absolutely certain it was untraceable, and I don't think anyone could convince him of that. Getting caught tampering with our elections would be an act of war, and he prefers to wage war against weaklings like Chechnya and Ukraine.
(2) The winners are unlikely to tamper with any system that supported their victory. The so-called Republican Party is unlikely to require paper ballots or more tamper-proof voting as long as there is any chance the current system helps them win.
(3) I think the Russians did interfere, but via Comey's letter. If there's an FBI mole, he may have left the room already, but Putin would gladly swap Snowden for him if he got the chance.
Now the new Subject: Just wanted to note that Democratic Underground was severely pwned on Election Day. Talk about a low-level target, eh? Like trying to find something worth bombing in Afghanistan. (I even submitted an article on that one, but Slashdot thought it too low to mention.)
Does that call for a string of 4-letter expletives in response?
Just joking, but of course the real objective is to stir up a 3-digit UID... Do I even fear the wrath of a 2-digit UID?
Actually, I'm just a whippersnapper around here. I can't remember ever seeing a single-digit UID in action. Are they mythical beasts?
Mostly I should just stand on my original condemnation of the bad math of the OP in this thread, though that reply was essentially eclipsed by this later branch.
Abuse of math is too common these days... Just finishing a new philosophy book from France that abuses transfinite numbers to attack Kant. (Hume ain't dead. He's just resting. Don't stun him.)
From your reply, the only thing that is quite clear to me is that you did not understand my description of the basis of the Citizens United decision. Did you even try to parse it? You did not ask any question about what you could not understand, you simply jumped to some sort of ad hominem attack. It is not clear whether or not you are endorsing Citizens United as good law.
Your motives are unclear, but I don't really care as long as you're presenting valid data or using rational analysis, but you are not. If you're a paid propagandist, then you're not going to say so. At this point I see no reason to ask for clarification of your comments or your motives, because it is absolutely clear the discussion is pointless and closed.
A 5-digit user ID? Sorry, not impressed.
In my own case, I learned most of my "excuse my French" during my hitch. Quite prevalent back then.