Bullshit! No one has responsibility for this except the religious fanatics that did it and their own leaders. And as long as these radical idiots keep this kind of thing up only more people will be willing to speak out against them.
I remember reading over twenty years ago of an all-optical nand gate. This was pre-web, so it might not be easy to find, but I remember the article. The gate was much much larger, although the developers (of course) said that they expected to be able to shrink it in size to suitable dimensions. And a good part of the article was a prediction of an all optical computer within 5 years. The logic behind this prediction was that all steps in creating the state of technology that we had the were created very incrementally, We used hand labor to create the first ICs. We used those to create powerful computers. We created CAD software for those to develop even smaller computers. But all of those steps had been done and were in place, the prediction was that it should take no more than 5 years to substitute in optical technology for electronic technology into computer design software and start cranking out optical devices.
Not sure what happened to that optical nand gate from over two decades ago. Maybe it just couldn't shrink down. Maybe it was just falsified. Or maybe someone already has optical computers but will not share them with us conspiracy theorists. But I'm jaded now and not so inclined to get excited on yet another "first" announcement.
This is the sort of thing a site deserves to get a black eye for.
A black eye? You think they should be able to interfere with perfectly legal feeds that others have labored and paid for, and then just get a little loss of reputation when that happens? I believe that they deserve a lot more than a black eye (unless you ment that very literally).
No. Your experience is too limited. WD-40 doesn't only come on spray cans, even without NASA's budget it can easily be bought as large cans of liquid and, I suspect, lager industrial sizes, as do many other liquids that would server as well.
Google would like you to believe in a world where you get all of your media from their devices across the Internet. Unfortunately, that just doesn't work in the real world. The little old lady next door has already been hit with insane overage charges by AT&T because she dared to watch Netflix. Follow the Google vision and your overages will not only include things like Netflix but will include your own movies and even music unless you have an uncapped provider who you can believe will stay uncapped (AT&T only announced the caps last year). Maybe in Kansas City where Google offers fiber and doesn't impose monthly limits this would be a good thing, but not in the rest of America where our government grants monopolies to service providers but lets them chip away at the service rather than building out their networks.
"The police are getting lazy" is a gross understatement. When they "compare" DNA samples, they don't sequence each sample and do a complete match on the resulting sequences. Rather they do a crude comparison with techniques like gel electrophoresis and say "we think they match". While such a test might be good enough to rule out a non-match, it would be like saying "the shadow of the suspect (or at least a shadow we saw somewhere nearby) looks something like yours, so we are declaring you guilty".
I would like to attend a Maker Fair. That's like a Maker Faire, but for straight people. Not sure why the organizers feel the need to imply their sexual orientation in the name anyway, it shouldn't be relevant.
Might as well say "We put a lot of work into collecting that information, and exposed ourselves to the risk that people concerned with privacy (or even someone in the government that we don't own) might accuse us of something, but we are not going to use the information for anything". They have no credibility no matter what lie they come up with.
Absolutely. They should (also) be reporting on the number of Americans without access to affordable high speed access. And breaking down what all of the caps are both wireless caps and also caps that have been imposed on previously uncapped "land line" services. It is absurd how, while other countries continue to move forward, the US grants monopolies or near monopolies to Internet providers yet lets them chip away at the "service" imposing restrictions designed only to aid their business model and keep them from building out their equipment.
I was also surprised to see the standard stated as above 3Mbs. By that standard I don't even have the Internet, nor do some of my friends who live in very well served cities (although we might both be considered to have access to LTE). Actually AT&T does offer me a higher priced 6Mbs service where I live, but I stopped buying that when it was determined that they were not really providing more than I am getting with the 3Mbs service and they just laughed and said the service never promised 6Mps, only "up to" 6Mbs.
If their games cost $3 we would have zero piracy, or at least near zero piracy. (Just like back in the days when Bill gates was charging hundreds of bucks for a poor version of Basic for the Altair and Tom Pittman released his "Tiny Basic" for $5. There were plenty of stories of him going to is mailbox and just receiving envelopes with $5 inside with simple notes that said things like "I stole a copy of Tiny Basic but it is too good and I wanted to pay you for it." )
So I'm pretty sure what Ubisoft is telling me is that if I buy one of their titles, I'll not only be paying for the game, but the price reflects that they believe I'm also paying for up to 19 other people who play it but don't buy it! No wonder the price is so high for just a piece of game software! I don't want to pay for up to 20 users of the software (myself included), and I don't like having to deal with DRM that those other 19 player apparently can avoid. Thanks for the info Ubisoft, it will affect my decision next time that I want to play a game.
Considering that the only time that software ever deliberately damaged my system (and actually managed to damage my firmware) it was from update.microsoft.com, I wouldn't be so fast to assume that if you frond that URL blocked, that it wasn't intentional on the part of the user..
On what planet does it make sense to change entries in a file on the system and not even warn the user that you are doing so? And since they are reportedly making the changes selectively, then if there were really an attacker his attack could have made other changes, but the user was never warned that the host file had anything "suspicious" in it and so would not be aware to even look at it and see if there was anything that the Great and Powerful Microsoft had missed. This isn't for the user, it is purely for MS's own interests.
Bovine waste! If MS were even thinking that, they could easily detect such a server and warn the user about it. Besides, they are apparently detecting some URLs in the hosts file and "fixing" them, without even warning the user that the "fix" was needed. Since they are not detecting all URLs and any attacker who wrote to the hosts file is likely to have added more than one or two bad entries, some undetected hosts entries would still get through. It would be better to not even use the hosts file, it would be a lot safer than going to all the effort to mess with what the user put in there. Clearly this isn't for the users sake.
From the article, Two of the sites that you can’t block using the hosts file are facebook.com and ad.doubleclick.net
I started using the hosts file over a decade ago, when I traced crashes that I was having to doubleclick.net. Ad supported software that I was using was receiving files from them, but it was doing a lot more than just displaying the ads (which I would not have objected to). Many users were experiencing this, but the author would not fix it so I and others started blocking the site (which resolved the problem, although the author lost some small amount of revenue).
More recently I have also started blocking facebook. I never use it, have no account there, but I've noticed an awful lot of network traffic going to and from my site with facebook.com. I'm not even a member, so I don't feel the need for them to track most of the sites that I visit. The hosts file has so far worked very well for this.
And argument that this feature is in any way for the benefit of the clueless user is bogus. The common way to block a site via the hosts file is to equate it to the IP address 127.0.0.1, which is the local machine. If Microsoft were doing this for the benefit of their users then they would simply look at the hosts file and, if they found redirects for sites that they were concerned about that were not pointed to the local machine, they might well conclude that it was potentially an attempt to hijack a domain name and then, after warning the user (and even asking him) correct the problem. This would even show the user that Microsoft was doing something good for the user for a change. But if the address is redirected to the local machine, the only reasonable conclusion that I can see is that the user wanted it that way (as it provides no attack vector). It took me about 30 seconds to realize that changing 127.0.0.1 redirects was user unfriendly and could easily be avoided if Microsoft were really concerned about their users who paid for the software. They just have to look at the IP address that the hosts file contains and if it is 127.0.0.1 then allow it to stay! Clearly Microsoft realized this too. The only reasonable conclusion is that they are doing this because they have a motive that is against customers interests.
You could get an ereader or a tablet, depends on a few other factors like if you want to read outside in the bright sun or inside and even in bed. My suggestion would be to get a very inexpensive tablet, something in the $50 range with an older version of the Android OS. It will work great as an ereader. It will work minimally as a tablet; at that price you will not even have access to the Google Play app store (but can get access to some apps through third party app sources like GteJar and Slide). But it will do more than an ereader and will let you install alternative reading apps and some applications, as well as web browse and other things. You're experience with that inexpensive tablet will tell you if a more expensive tablet is right for you. If you decide it is not you will still have plenty left to buy an ereader, but I'm guessing you may want to upgrade to a much more capable Android device with Android 4.0 or 4.1. Your experience with the less expensive tablet will be well worth the cost in helping you make the right choice for a more expensive tablet, and you will still not spend your entire budget.
Of course, you could just buy a good tablet like the Galaxy 7 now, but it is hard to make an informed choice from the products out there with no previous background. You can get a Google Nexus 7 for about $200, but be aware that they left off the memory card slot, apparently to force you to store all of your media and music on "the cloud". If you have an ISP who charges you for overages beyond a monthly quota, or if you have concerns about your media being stored on some one else's hard drives and at their mercy, this may not be a good choice for you (it wasn't for me, I'm stuck with AT&T as an ISP). Also, there should be lots of 4.1 tablets coming out "real soon now", but until then the Google Nexus 7 is the only choice to get the current and greatly improved OS. So an inexpensive tablet (such as a Pandigital) will give you something for reading now and remove the urgency to buy something more expensive until more 4.1 devices are available (don't think that you will be able to upgrade later, that is the exception).
Of course, if you are an Apple Fanboy then plenty of people will tell you where your cash should go. I'm guessing that you would rather think it out, since you bothered to ask.
That's too bad, 'cause, like most people, I was looking forward to buying overpriced hardware bundled with an expensive operating system and then just running free open source software on it instead.
Just what the world needs, a toilet that clogs up and over flows twice a day. No wonder this man is one of the richest in the world. At least its not something that is the basis of the productivity of the country this time.
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Bullshit! No one has responsibility for this except the religious fanatics that did it and their own leaders. And as long as these radical idiots keep this kind of thing up only more people will be willing to speak out against them.
Once again, in spite of all of the rhetoric otherwise, we see the true nature of the Islamic religion.
And I completely expect that our own closet Muslim, Obama, will soon once again apologize for America, as he has so many times before.
Wouldn't it be easier (and safer) just to remember not to go to Greece?
I remember reading over twenty years ago of an all-optical nand gate. This was pre-web, so it might not be easy to find, but I remember the article. The gate was much much larger, although the developers (of course) said that they expected to be able to shrink it in size to suitable dimensions. And a good part of the article was a prediction of an all optical computer within 5 years. The logic behind this prediction was that all steps in creating the state of technology that we had the were created very incrementally, We used hand labor to create the first ICs. We used those to create powerful computers. We created CAD software for those to develop even smaller computers. But all of those steps had been done and were in place, the prediction was that it should take no more than 5 years to substitute in optical technology for electronic technology into computer design software and start cranking out optical devices.
Not sure what happened to that optical nand gate from over two decades ago. Maybe it just couldn't shrink down. Maybe it was just falsified. Or maybe someone already has optical computers but will not share them with us conspiracy theorists. But I'm jaded now and not so inclined to get excited on yet another "first" announcement.
This is the sort of thing a site deserves to get a black eye for.
A black eye? You think they should be able to interfere with perfectly legal feeds that others have labored and paid for, and then just get a little loss of reputation when that happens? I believe that they deserve a lot more than a black eye (unless you ment that very literally).
A book about everything that tell you absolutely nothing.
No. Your experience is too limited. WD-40 doesn't only come on spray cans, even without NASA's budget it can easily be bought as large cans of liquid and, I suspect, lager industrial sizes, as do many other liquids that would server as well.
Take it outside and do it.
Well, these monkeys may believe in reincarnation, but at least they don't believe in karma.
Google would like you to believe in a world where you get all of your media from their devices across the Internet. Unfortunately, that just doesn't work in the real world. The little old lady next door has already been hit with insane overage charges by AT&T because she dared to watch Netflix. Follow the Google vision and your overages will not only include things like Netflix but will include your own movies and even music unless you have an uncapped provider who you can believe will stay uncapped (AT&T only announced the caps last year). Maybe in Kansas City where Google offers fiber and doesn't impose monthly limits this would be a good thing, but not in the rest of America where our government grants monopolies to service providers but lets them chip away at the service rather than building out their networks.
"The police are getting lazy" is a gross understatement. When they "compare" DNA samples, they don't sequence each sample and do a complete match on the resulting sequences. Rather they do a crude comparison with techniques like gel electrophoresis and say "we think they match". While such a test might be good enough to rule out a non-match, it would be like saying "the shadow of the suspect (or at least a shadow we saw somewhere nearby) looks something like yours, so we are declaring you guilty".
I would like to attend a Maker Fair. That's like a Maker Faire, but for straight people. Not sure why the organizers feel the need to imply their sexual orientation in the name anyway, it shouldn't be relevant.
Might as well say "We put a lot of work into collecting that information, and exposed ourselves to the risk that people concerned with privacy (or even someone in the government that we don't own) might accuse us of something, but we are not going to use the information for anything". They have no credibility no matter what lie they come up with.
Absolutely. They should (also) be reporting on the number of Americans without access to affordable high speed access. And breaking down what all of the caps are both wireless caps and also caps that have been imposed on previously uncapped "land line" services. It is absurd how, while other countries continue to move forward, the US grants monopolies or near monopolies to Internet providers yet lets them chip away at the "service" imposing restrictions designed only to aid their business model and keep them from building out their equipment.
I was also surprised to see the standard stated as above 3Mbs. By that standard I don't even have the Internet, nor do some of my friends who live in very well served cities (although we might both be considered to have access to LTE). Actually AT&T does offer me a higher priced 6Mbs service where I live, but I stopped buying that when it was determined that they were not really providing more than I am getting with the 3Mbs service and they just laughed and said the service never promised 6Mps, only "up to" 6Mbs.
If their games cost $3 we would have zero piracy, or at least near zero piracy. (Just like back in the days when Bill gates was charging hundreds of bucks for a poor version of Basic for the Altair and Tom Pittman released his "Tiny Basic" for $5. There were plenty of stories of him going to is mailbox and just receiving envelopes with $5 inside with simple notes that said things like "I stole a copy of Tiny Basic but it is too good and I wanted to pay you for it." )
So I'm pretty sure what Ubisoft is telling me is that if I buy one of their titles, I'll not only be paying for the game, but the price reflects that they believe I'm also paying for up to 19 other people who play it but don't buy it! No wonder the price is so high for just a piece of game software! I don't want to pay for up to 20 users of the software (myself included), and I don't like having to deal with DRM that those other 19 player apparently can avoid. Thanks for the info Ubisoft, it will affect my decision next time that I want to play a game.
They didn't just get him for exercising free speech, they got him for revealing government secrets.
Considering that the only time that software ever deliberately damaged my system (and actually managed to damage my firmware) it was from update.microsoft.com, I wouldn't be so fast to assume that if you frond that URL blocked, that it wasn't intentional on the part of the user..
On what planet does it make sense to change entries in a file on the system and not even warn the user that you are doing so? And since they are reportedly making the changes selectively, then if there were really an attacker his attack could have made other changes, but the user was never warned that the host file had anything "suspicious" in it and so would not be aware to even look at it and see if there was anything that the Great and Powerful Microsoft had missed. This isn't for the user, it is purely for MS's own interests.
Bovine waste! If MS were even thinking that, they could easily detect such a server and warn the user about it. Besides, they are apparently detecting some URLs in the hosts file and "fixing" them, without even warning the user that the "fix" was needed. Since they are not detecting all URLs and any attacker who wrote to the hosts file is likely to have added more than one or two bad entries, some undetected hosts entries would still get through. It would be better to not even use the hosts file, it would be a lot safer than going to all the effort to mess with what the user put in there. Clearly this isn't for the users sake.
From the article, Two of the sites that you can’t block using the hosts file are facebook.com and ad.doubleclick.net
I started using the hosts file over a decade ago, when I traced crashes that I was having to doubleclick.net. Ad supported software that I was using was receiving files from them, but it was doing a lot more than just displaying the ads (which I would not have objected to). Many users were experiencing this, but the author would not fix it so I and others started blocking the site (which resolved the problem, although the author lost some small amount of revenue).
More recently I have also started blocking facebook. I never use it, have no account there, but I've noticed an awful lot of network traffic going to and from my site with facebook.com. I'm not even a member, so I don't feel the need for them to track most of the sites that I visit. The hosts file has so far worked very well for this.
And argument that this feature is in any way for the benefit of the clueless user is bogus. The common way to block a site via the hosts file is to equate it to the IP address 127.0.0.1, which is the local machine. If Microsoft were doing this for the benefit of their users then they would simply look at the hosts file and, if they found redirects for sites that they were concerned about that were not pointed to the local machine, they might well conclude that it was potentially an attempt to hijack a domain name and then, after warning the user (and even asking him) correct the problem. This would even show the user that Microsoft was doing something good for the user for a change. But if the address is redirected to the local machine, the only reasonable conclusion that I can see is that the user wanted it that way (as it provides no attack vector). It took me about 30 seconds to realize that changing 127.0.0.1 redirects was user unfriendly and could easily be avoided if Microsoft were really concerned about their users who paid for the software. They just have to look at the IP address that the hosts file contains and if it is 127.0.0.1 then allow it to stay! Clearly Microsoft realized this too. The only reasonable conclusion is that they are doing this because they have a motive that is against customers interests.
You could get an ereader or a tablet, depends on a few other factors like if you want to read outside in the bright sun or inside and even in bed. My suggestion would be to get a very inexpensive tablet, something in the $50 range with an older version of the Android OS. It will work great as an ereader. It will work minimally as a tablet; at that price you will not even have access to the Google Play app store (but can get access to some apps through third party app sources like GteJar and Slide). But it will do more than an ereader and will let you install alternative reading apps and some applications, as well as web browse and other things. You're experience with that inexpensive tablet will tell you if a more expensive tablet is right for you. If you decide it is not you will still have plenty left to buy an ereader, but I'm guessing you may want to upgrade to a much more capable Android device with Android 4.0 or 4.1. Your experience with the less expensive tablet will be well worth the cost in helping you make the right choice for a more expensive tablet, and you will still not spend your entire budget.
Of course, you could just buy a good tablet like the Galaxy 7 now, but it is hard to make an informed choice from the products out there with no previous background. You can get a Google Nexus 7 for about $200, but be aware that they left off the memory card slot, apparently to force you to store all of your media and music on "the cloud". If you have an ISP who charges you for overages beyond a monthly quota, or if you have concerns about your media being stored on some one else's hard drives and at their mercy, this may not be a good choice for you (it wasn't for me, I'm stuck with AT&T as an ISP). Also, there should be lots of 4.1 tablets coming out "real soon now", but until then the Google Nexus 7 is the only choice to get the current and greatly improved OS. So an inexpensive tablet (such as a Pandigital) will give you something for reading now and remove the urgency to buy something more expensive until more 4.1 devices are available (don't think that you will be able to upgrade later, that is the exception).
Of course, if you are an Apple Fanboy then plenty of people will tell you where your cash should go. I'm guessing that you would rather think it out, since you bothered to ask.
But could we make backups? Oh, wait, never mind.
That's too bad, 'cause, like most people, I was looking forward to buying overpriced hardware bundled with an expensive operating system and then just running free open source software on it instead.
Just what the world needs, a toilet that clogs up and over flows twice a day. No wonder this man is one of the richest in the world. At least its not something that is the basis of the productivity of the country this time.