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User: D4C5CE

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Comments · 624

  1. Care and feeding of an IBM Model M keyboard on 'Why I Use the IBM Model M Keyboard That's Older Than I Am' (yeokhengmeng.com) · · Score: 1

    Interesting read at http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages... with further references. Windows keys never missed without Windows. ;-}

    Its sounds are the silver (machine gun rounds of) bullets to never have to share an (open-plan) office again.

    Comment written on the highest-serial-number IBM Model M known to exist in my country's layout actually (if Wikipedia's got this correct)...

  2. Just when you thought M$ weren't Borg after all on Microsoft Will 'Solve' Cancer Within The Next 10 Years By Treating It Like A Computer Virus, Says Company (independent.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    ...turns out they are ;-} (reminiscent of the Gates icon /. used to have): 'The company has built a "biological computation" unit that says its ultimate aim is to make cells into living computers. As such, they could be programmed and reprogrammed to treat any diseases'

  3. All 4 Horsemen of the Infocalypse in 1 single bill on Bill Introduced To Require ID When Purchasing "Burner Phones" (house.gov) · · Score: 1
    Horsemen of the Infocalypse for fearmongering vs freedom: What a way to let the terrorists win...

    Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
    Benjamin Franklin

  4. Wasn't Snowden supposed to be one of the Good Guys on Obama: Government Can't Let Smartphones Be 'Black Boxes' (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1
    (who are supposed to get access), at the time he did get access?

    As for "compromise" vs mathematics, the old German adage applies:

    On partings steep and trouble-bound
    doom tends to loom on "middle ground".

  5. Re:Export current cookie permissions before upgrad on Firefox 44 Deletes Fine-Grained Cookie Management (mozilla.org) · · Score: 1

    For the record, enabled sites have a type=cookie, permission=1 (Allow) or 8 (Allow for Session), in the moz_hosts and (more recently, clumsily introduced and inconveniently distinguished by leading protocol IDs that hence needed to be set twice, for http and https) moz_perms tables of the respective /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/permissions.sqlite (readable e.g. by SQLite Database Browser).

    Backup while you can.

  6. Export current cookie permissions before upgrade? on Firefox 44 Deletes Fine-Grained Cookie Management (mozilla.org) · · Score: 1

    In case Firefox 44 drops the permissions list entirely (does it?): How does one export these cookie settings to a format readable by humans and replacement add-ons / other browsers?

  7. They will transition lobbyists into the new policy on Reactions Split On What Canada's Liberal Majority Means For Tech Policy Future (freezenet.ca) · · Score: 1

    ...as in any regime change, making it barely distinguishable from the previous government's, and on similar sources of "support".

    If contradictions to the campaign that got them into office become all too flagrant (e.g. recently enacted or even forthcoming anti-citizen, anti-consumer provisions, in particular via international conventions), they may conveniently be excused by "having to keep bearing the burden of their predecessors' unfortunate legacy".

    If votes could change a nation, there'd be a law against them.

  8. The Gait Detector, near Cory Doctorow's prediction on Scientists Propose App That Detects Emotions Based On Walking Style · · Score: 1

    http://craphound.com/littlebro... comes as close as recommending how to hack them.

  9. A pity UHD screens are only 3840 pixels wide on NASA Launching 4K TV Channel · · Score: 0

    Pan&scan back with a vengeance?

  10. Re:I coulda been a contender if only I had known on The College Majors Most Likely To Marry Each Other · · Score: 2

    if I were to make $500K/yr as a plastic surgeon would there be the potential in having a hot babe as a spouse?

    At least there'd certainly be more potential to turn your spouse into a "hot babe" (provided she's yearning to become part of your art). ;-}

  11. The classic combo: Lawyer + primary school teacher on The College Majors Most Likely To Marry Each Other · · Score: 1

    ...observed in plenty of schools and jurisdictions. ;)

    The reasons are left to speculation of the readers...

  12. Where we're going, we don't need roads! on Iowa Makes a Bold Admission: We Need Fewer Roads · · Score: 1

    The year being 2015, some boffin in a flying DeLorean converted to Mr. Fusion just had to say it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  13. 6 blind men analyze an elephant on Turning Neural Networks Upside Down Produces Psychedelic Visuals · · Score: 1
    http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/13...

    TFA: The results are intriguing—even a relatively simple neural network can be used to over-interpret an image, just like as children we enjoyed watching clouds and interpreting the random shapes. This network was trained mostly on images of animals, so naturally it tends to interpret shapes as animals.

    Less intriguing: to consider that similar networks (especially once giving "recommendations" to unquestioning end users) might ascribe e.g. criminal propensity or lack of creditworthiness to the odd proverbial "innocent bystander" by over-amplifying distinctions they "think" to have learned.

    The "Bad Blue sky" tank detector https://neil.fraser.name/writi... "might be apocryphal" (just like the Obstinate Lighthouse http://www.snopes.com/military... ;-)) but instructive nonetheless.

  14. Another ad: Cortana from the morgue, or just Borg? on Toshiba Introduces a Cortana Keyboard Button For Windows 10 · · Score: 1
    As someone astutely observed with respect to the picture of Clippy 2.0:

    http://www.heise.de/forum/heis...

    I thought we'd all suffered enough advertising on our keyboards since 1995 already?
    Thankfully the glorious Model M remains unbreakable and unaffected... ;-)

  15. For those in Power,oversimplification is the Point on Why PowerPoint Should Be Banned · · Score: 1

    Its slides are oversimplified, and bullet points omit the complexities of nearly any issue

    So whatever split-second decision an overpaid high-level executive takes by not allowing anything the requisite minimum thought, s/he can later blame on (and get someone else fired for) having been given incomplete information as requested by demanding earlier on that every complex matter be reduced to a polished assortment of insufficient buzzwords in incomplete grammar. In short, PPTs institutionalize PHBs' hierarchical infallibility at the expense of underlings who have to use it.

  16. above Quebec's Lake Ouareau = flawed approach =;-o on The Hoverboard Flies Closer To Reality · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they had watched Back "2" The Future for a moment, they'd know the 2015 version isn't supposed to work on water yet. ;-}

  17. No lessons learned 15 years after the Humpich case on Hacker Warns Starbucks of Security Flaw, Gets Accused of Fraud · · Score: 1
    So being able to demonstrate a vulnerability is criminalized just like in the old days: http://www.parodie.com/english...

    When responsible reporting is deterred to uphold an illusion of flawlessness and corporate infallibility, blackhats are the only ones who benefit.

  18. Re: Dunning Kruger in action may have killed IBM on Yes, You Can Blame Your Pointy-Haired Boss On the Peter Principle · · Score: 1

    Dunning Kruger effect in action! This, guys, is what just may have killed IBM, from me to you. I am a former IBM employee.

    Remarkably, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? demands that "dealing final blows" be praised as "saving" (short-term "rescue" entrenching the long-term demise AKA "Historic Turnaround"). The sections measuring the merits e.g. of OS/2 (and over the years, pretty much any technological asset) by the same standard as consumer packaged goods are particularly saddening.

  19. Oblig Freefall quote - Re:Fishing expedition on SCOTUS To Weigh Smartphone Searches By Police · · Score: 1

    'fishing expedition' and search prior to an arrest, without warrant, IS unreasonable.

    Statistics are a poor excuse to stop anyone.

  20. News from EU that've been thru:There's no long run on US Light Bulb Phase-Out's Next Step Begins Next Month · · Score: 1

    All are significantly more expensive than traditional light bulbs, but offer significant energy and costs savings over the long run

    ...if they shine long enough to ever start saving - not so likely with all-too-tightly-packed cheap Chinese semiconductors that often fail within months, at least for much of the short-lived (and often annoyingly artificially-looking) light Europeans get to see since "their" ban on bulbs.

  21. Dr. Floyd Ferris of the National Science Institute on Tesla Fires and Firestorms: Let's Breathe and Review Some Car Fire Math · · Score: 1

    ...seems to be as real as Rearden Metal, and to have found yet another target in Tesla after writing Segways to shreds.

  22. Critics begin! to recognize the film as a critique on Critics Reassess Starship Troopers As a Misunderstood Masterpiece · · Score: 1

    How could anyone ever not get it?

    A space-warring world forcibly united under a pax (versus bugs) (US-)americana, kept in check through brainwashing highschools (with a nod to Pink Floyd) and psi-ops staring at no goats at all, as well as gamified, interactive global military-state television (nicely imagined when few people had ever seen such things, Fox, or even always-on internet) - full of overidentification that probably even North Korea would recognize&ban, and not-too-subtle references to world events, history and plenty of other notably (anti-)war movies...

    The big mistake (like for Highlander) was ever making sequels of it.

  23. To teach nonfree programs is to implant dependence on RMS On Why Free Software Is More Important Now Than Ever Before · · Score: 1

    To teach use of a non-free program is to implant dependence on its owner, which contradicts the social mission of the school.

    Bertrand Russell's The Impact of Science on Society (1952) should probably be given another read:

    Fichte laid it down that, education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished [...] to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.

    Now consider when the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group met for the first time (1954) and who gets to attend... ;-/

  24. eMailed once, never called - the way it should be! on How the Smartphone Killed the Three-day Weekend · · Score: 1

    My manager has my personal email address (I have hers). She has used it once: on the final day of a holiday last year she emailed to tell me that the office was shut to non-essential staff due to a problem with the water supply. That's the way it should be! She also has my mobile phone number, but she's never called it.

    When and where are you hiring? ;-)

  25. Re:Why did Facebook limit distribution of their ap on Hacker Modifies Facebook Home To Work On All Android Devices · · Score: 1

    For the same reason that European rules would plant potatoes in a "guarded garden for the king" so neighbors would want them too: ;-)
    There's no better way than artificial scarcity to ensure accelerated adoption.

    Plus, replacing the Home screen and interacting with the system at a lower level than probably e.g. Apple on iOS would allow, given the wide variety of Android versions (and hacks) out there that might be incompatible in unforeseen ways, Zuck probably does not want his company to go down in history as the one that (at least temporarily for Joe Avg. Users) inadvertently bricked a hundred million phones or so.