If the code is sufficiently short, it is possible to bypass the rolling code system by simply trying all possible codes. Also, many houses (including mine) have 80s vintage systems, which are usually designed with something like a fixed 6-bit code. Very easy to hack. Of course, picking a typical deadbolt lock is also very easy and takes less than a minute, so it's unlikely a thief would bother trying to open the garage door.
First, it does not make sense to self-insure your house, even if you have the cash. That is simply stupid. If nothing happens to it, you save a marginal amount of money. If something does happen, you lose a LOT of money, more than you would have saved otherwise. That's too big a risk for practically anyone, regardless of how much money you have. Again, statistics are not applicable here.
The only time it makes sense to self-insure is if, say, you own a fleet of vehicles. Then, you can use statistics in your favor. However, the insurance industry is very competitive, so you are unlikely to save a lot of money. Even large companies that could easily self-insure often use insurance services.
There are also situations when extended warranties are useful. For instance, a 3-year extended warranty from Sam's club only costs about $15 for all sub-$150 items. That includes things like hard drives, which have (from my experience) an 80% chance of failing within 4 years. I think it's well worth it.
You don't get it, do you? Insurance is about risk minimization. In all likelihood, your house won't ever burn down. But if it ever does, you will be royally fucked if you didn't have insurance. Statistics don't apply to a single data point, such as your house. That's what insurance is about -- it limits your loss.
Of course, computers are not very expensive and so it doesn't make much sense to insure them. But insurance does have a valuable purpose, and it's not just to rip you off.
Actually, I read somewhere that only about 1% of solar energy actually gets converted to something useful inside a plant. Silicon cells are much more efficient, they just happen to cost more than plants.
You just have a crappily run IT system at your school. At my university, they set stuff up so that your personal filespace is on a Linux server (running AFS), and all your preferences, bookmarks, and so on get saved to the network drive automatically. If you double click on the mail client, it opens your email. If you set up an icon on the desktop, or a desktop background, it will stay there when you log in on another machine. This works exactly the same on WinXP, Linux, and OSX from anywhere on campus, so it's very convenient.
WinXP is not too bad of a system, actually. It just requires a very skilled admin to lock it down and set it up for a multiuser system. Plus, the security holes are a biatch.
Ummm... Very smart. First, idiots who try to save money that way would totally fuck up their hardware and blame the company. Second, people would just say their hard drive or LCD died and get one shipped to them for free. Ever think about that, genius?
True, if by "most of us" you mean "those of us who happen to be morons." Guess why nobody sends credit card numbers over e-mail?
Your employer may now read all your email
Most already do.
Free email providers like Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google now are free to do anything they want with all the mail
It's a free service. They should be able to do whatever the hell they feel like. Read the usage agreement.
they can obtain web browsing data without warrant.
If you think an ISP wouldn't cooperate with the FBI without a warrant, then you are a moron. If you happen to piss off the FBI, they can (after obtaining the warrant) seize all your computers and network equipment for analysis. This will pretty much mean the ISP won't exist anymore -- they generally take a few months to a few years to return the stuff.
Do you sell drugs over e-mail? Why would anyone want to read your email? It's pretty well known that it is an insecure medium. Nobody who cares about their privacy sends sensitive stuff over e-mail. I could care less if somebody reads my email. About the only thing I would be worried about is stuff like passwords and credit card numbers, and the important ones are not emailed.
Also, what's your beef with Google? They don't read your email, they simply show keyword-based ads. What's the big fucking deal? Most other email services read your email, too -- in order to detect spam. Why should anyone care?
Re:Beta testing a postscript fax?
on
eFax Hell?
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· Score: 1
Ummm... Let's see, it doesn't open half the PDFs I encounter and it doesn't support using the table of contents feature or links, thus making it nearly useless for viewing PDFs. And Adobe Acrobat is definitely much better for generating PDFs.
Re:Beta testing a postscript fax?
on
eFax Hell?
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· Score: 1
Most PDF viewers do not work with postscript directly (excluding Ghostscript, but it's not very good with PDF). I don't know why you would assume postscript would work.
Why? Phone numbers should be like the DNS system. I'm not a telecom guru, but most likely it's already done that way (i.e. a phone number resolves to some more logical address).
It's not that simple. You can't just terminate the charge when the battery reaches a certain voltage. You have to monitor the battery voltage and detect when the voltage slope either becomes negative or decreases. Plus, you need things like cool-off periods, reverse protection, dead battery detection, and so on. A microcontroller makes things much simpler and cheaper than an analog circuit. Plus, it can charge multiple types of batteries.
The Duracell charger that is sold at wal-mart for $23 (it comes with 4 batteries) is a good cheap one-hour CPU-controlled charger. It can do 4x AA or AAA size, NiCd or NiMH. I know it's DeltaV because if you take one battery out for 5 minutes while it's charging, and put it back, it will take exactly 5 minutes longer to charge than the others. I think it should work fine with high-capacity batteries.
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That's why you should never use a debit card. Get a regular credit card and pay it off every month. Much less risky.
It's not just the navy, it's a standard ISO safety practice, called Lock out/Tag out. Obviously, very important when working on dangerous equipment.
It's not very hard to convert ATRAC to MP3, either. It's called the analog hole. But it's not lossless (and neither is burning AAC to CD).
If the code is sufficiently short, it is possible to bypass the rolling code system by simply trying all possible codes. Also, many houses (including mine) have 80s vintage systems, which are usually designed with something like a fixed 6-bit code. Very easy to hack. Of course, picking a typical deadbolt lock is also very easy and takes less than a minute, so it's unlikely a thief would bother trying to open the garage door.
As if Apple doesn't do these same things... PlayFair vs. Apple, anyone?
Here's an idea: Don't give them your email address! Geez, what's the big fucking deal?
First, it does not make sense to self-insure your house, even if you have the cash. That is simply stupid. If nothing happens to it, you save a marginal amount of money. If something does happen, you lose a LOT of money, more than you would have saved otherwise. That's too big a risk for practically anyone, regardless of how much money you have. Again, statistics are not applicable here.
The only time it makes sense to self-insure is if, say, you own a fleet of vehicles. Then, you can use statistics in your favor. However, the insurance industry is very competitive, so you are unlikely to save a lot of money. Even large companies that could easily self-insure often use insurance services.
There are also situations when extended warranties are useful. For instance, a 3-year extended warranty from Sam's club only costs about $15 for all sub-$150 items. That includes things like hard drives, which have (from my experience) an 80% chance of failing within 4 years. I think it's well worth it.
You don't get it, do you? Insurance is about risk minimization. In all likelihood, your house won't ever burn down. But if it ever does, you will be royally fucked if you didn't have insurance. Statistics don't apply to a single data point, such as your house. That's what insurance is about -- it limits your loss.
Of course, computers are not very expensive and so it doesn't make much sense to insure them. But insurance does have a valuable purpose, and it's not just to rip you off.
Actually, I read somewhere that only about 1% of solar energy actually gets converted to something useful inside a plant. Silicon cells are much more efficient, they just happen to cost more than plants.
You just have a crappily run IT system at your school. At my university, they set stuff up so that your personal filespace is on a Linux server (running AFS), and all your preferences, bookmarks, and so on get saved to the network drive automatically. If you double click on the mail client, it opens your email. If you set up an icon on the desktop, or a desktop background, it will stay there when you log in on another machine. This works exactly the same on WinXP, Linux, and OSX from anywhere on campus, so it's very convenient.
WinXP is not too bad of a system, actually. It just requires a very skilled admin to lock it down and set it up for a multiuser system. Plus, the security holes are a biatch.
Is this supposed to be +5, Funny? What are you smoking? You think Dell can't afford to buy a few iPods?
My Opteron says "Made in Germany," so it must be one of the two.
I have a few CD-Rs that are from about 1998. They still work fine. I don't have a single working hard drive that old.
Ummm... Very smart. First, idiots who try to save money that way would totally fuck up their hardware and blame the company. Second, people would just say their hard drive or LCD died and get one shipped to them for free. Ever think about that, genius?
which most of us have regarded as fairly secure
True, if by "most of us" you mean "those of us who happen to be morons." Guess why nobody sends credit card numbers over e-mail?
Your employer may now read all your email
Most already do.
Free email providers like Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google now are free to do anything they want with all the mail
It's a free service. They should be able to do whatever the hell they feel like. Read the usage agreement.
they can obtain web browsing data without warrant.
If you think an ISP wouldn't cooperate with the FBI without a warrant, then you are a moron. If you happen to piss off the FBI, they can (after obtaining the warrant) seize all your computers and network equipment for analysis. This will pretty much mean the ISP won't exist anymore -- they generally take a few months to a few years to return the stuff.
Do you sell drugs over e-mail? Why would anyone want to read your email? It's pretty well known that it is an insecure medium. Nobody who cares about their privacy sends sensitive stuff over e-mail. I could care less if somebody reads my email. About the only thing I would be worried about is stuff like passwords and credit card numbers, and the important ones are not emailed.
Also, what's your beef with Google? They don't read your email, they simply show keyword-based ads. What's the big fucking deal? Most other email services read your email, too -- in order to detect spam. Why should anyone care?
Ummm... Let's see, it doesn't open half the PDFs I encounter and it doesn't support using the table of contents feature or links, thus making it nearly useless for viewing PDFs. And Adobe Acrobat is definitely much better for generating PDFs.
Most PDF viewers do not work with postscript directly (excluding Ghostscript, but it's not very good with PDF). I don't know why you would assume postscript would work.
My bank (US Bank) works fine with every browser I tried it with. So does the local credit union. Might I suggest switching banks?
Well, it's their problem. The point is, it's easy enough to do.
You think nobody ever sends international faxes?
Why? Phone numbers should be like the DNS system. I'm not a telecom guru, but most likely it's already done that way (i.e. a phone number resolves to some more logical address).
She's not out, she wasn't sentenced yet. When she does, she'll have to wait in jail pending an appeal.
It's not that simple. You can't just terminate the charge when the battery reaches a certain voltage. You have to monitor the battery voltage and detect when the voltage slope either becomes negative or decreases. Plus, you need things like cool-off periods, reverse protection, dead battery detection, and so on. A microcontroller makes things much simpler and cheaper than an analog circuit. Plus, it can charge multiple types of batteries.
The Duracell charger that is sold at wal-mart for $23 (it comes with 4 batteries) is a good cheap one-hour CPU-controlled charger. It can do 4x AA or AAA size, NiCd or NiMH. I know it's DeltaV because if you take one battery out for 5 minutes while it's charging, and put it back, it will take exactly 5 minutes longer to charge than the others. I think it should work fine with high-capacity batteries.