My wife works for the state office of Goodwill in our state. We live in a northern state where it gets COLD. They get far more clothes donated to them than they can resell or even give away. They actually have to resort to bailing clothes like hay just to store them in rented or purchased old semi trailers. More beat up clothes they send away to be cut up into rags or stuffing as mentioned. They have had to reduce the days that they will accept donations because it takes their staff so long to sort and process the tide of donated clothing. And yet, no one is coming in to get them here. So, then it comes down to shipping. They have to pay companies to take away their bails of clothes to other states with higher need so that someone else can unbail and go through all of the clothes again to try to get them to people who need and want them. They barely break even with the clothes they can sell to pay for taking away the clothes that they don't.
This makes me think of the word "Lostech" that I learned from a game when I was a teen. I have adopted it into my vocabulary and it is amazing how much once state of the art wondrous technology is getting lost to time as it is replaced. Think of the Vacuum Tube that lead to transistors and microchips. They almost seem like magic now (even though I know the basic physics behind them). Or the Cathode Ray Tube that lead to color tube TV's being everywhere at one time and now you can hardly find one as they have all been replaced by LCD's or other flat panels. http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Lost...
If you are calling yourself an IT guy and you don't know how to change the USER AGENT of a phone web browser than you don't sound like much of an IT guy. They are many ways to do that. The easiest is to install almost any other web browser such as Dolphin or Firefox.
I was a die-hard keyboard user. I hung on to my Droid 4 until I couldn't take the battery life anymore. But with good virtual keyboards like SwiftKey for regular messaging and Hacker's Keyboard for SSHing into servers I can still pretty much do anything I want from it.
I am not sure where that "custom version of Android" line came from. Wired magazine says they are shipping it with clean, stock Android without a custom skin.
Despite all of this Android malware that is supposedly in the wild, who actually gets infected by it? Sure, I am computer systems engineer and know better than to do dumb things, but I know many people in lots of different tech and non-tech circles with Android phones and I have never even heard an anecdotal rumor of someone actually getting some kind of malware on their phone. Despite all of the malware clickbait stories, people with modern phones on major carriers that aren't trying to use pirated apks from shady sites seem to be pretty darn safe. Wake me up when there is a major worm outbreak that affects Android 6+ phones on Verizon and AT&T.
OK, I am probably going to get flamed for this, but I really enjoyed the new Ghost in the Shell live action movie. Could it have been a better remake of the original anime? Yes. Could it have had better dialogue and acting? Yes. Was it dumbed down for the masses? Yes. Hollywood whitewashing? Blek. But, all in all, despite being a long time fan of the original anime movie, I really enjoyed this movie. My anime hating wife even enjoyed it. The special effects were excellent, the depiction of the future cityscapes were incredible. The plot, although quite different from the animes was alright, if a bit predictable. Some of the homages to the original movie such as the thermoptic camouflage fight scenes and the fight with the spidertank gave me chills. I think just taking it as a stand alone sc-fi movie it deserves a lot more credit than it is getting because of all of the other controversy being dragged along with it.
I am currently rereading the excellent sci-fi book "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" in preparation for the sequel "For We Are Many" to be released on April 18th. It is a story about a computer programmer and sci-fi fan (like many of us here) who pays to have his body frozen when he dies. He then wakes up far in the future to find that his consciousness has been placed in a computer which is to be sent out in space in a self-replicating probe. This is easily one of the best sci-fi books that I have ever read. It is entertaining, funny, relatable, and engaging. I have been very eagerly awaiting the sequel and I would highly recommend them both to any Slashdotter.
This reminds of one of my favorite anime series that I think has some of the best writing of any show and that is Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. At the beginning of every episode is labeled as either Stand Alone or Complex. They are mixed together from episode to episode, but the Stand Alone ones do just that as self contained episodes, and the Complex ones further the overall serialized season plots. I have always though it was a brilliant way to have the best of both worlds.
Now that we have a live action G.i.t.S movie coming out (all controversies aside) I wouldn't mind if Netflix came out with a G.i.t.S: S.A.C. like live action series.
I am a long time gamer, but I just could never get into stock Minecraft nor could I understand how many people would be so interested in it. Then, a coworker talked me into trying his modded Minecraft: Feed The Beast: Infinity server and it literally opened up whole new worlds and I am currently a daily addicted player. So, my advice is if you grew bored with the original, seek out some modded servers. It can really be so much more entertaining with the right mods. https://ftbwiki.org/Feed_The_B...
I still love Android tablets, I just haven't had a need for a new one in 3 years. My 2013 Nexus tablet still serves me just fine and I use it almost every day for looking up data during meetings at work and couch surfing and playing games at home or watching movies when traveling. When it finally dies I will definitely buy another, if not sooner. The nVidia Shield tablets have been calling my name lately.
Can someone provide a honest non-paranoid schizophrenic listing of reasons to or not to upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 10? This is for my dedicated Windows gaming machine. I have other Linux servers and Android devices for other things. I currently run Start 8 on it to make it look pretty much like Windows 7 and I would run Start 10 on it if I upgraded to do the same. DirectX 12 support is already one big reason to upgrade.
I love my now fairly old Moto 360. I get about a day and a half of battery life out of it and it usually outlasts my phone and yet fully charges in less than an hour. I charge my phone everyday and just drop my watch on its charger at night. It is no big deal. I love being able to create and changes faces when I want as well as being able to see notifications, appointments, and calls without taking out my phone. Although I own several other nice dumb watches, I don't think I could ever go back.
I never had Doom dreams, but I did have Tribes dreams. That game may not be considered as revolutionary, but the open air freedom of jump packs and ski jumping was revolutionary in its own way, especially in Tribes 2 which I consider to be the height of the franchise.
EStrongs *USED TO* make great software, but they sold out several years ago to a Hong Kong based company that just keeps stuffing more and more bloat and ads into what was once some of the best Android software.
I personally use Root Explorer now which works great, even on non-rooted devices.
Got my hopes up, I thought maybe they were testing a black background instead of white. I have been using a combination of the Stylish Add-on and the Dark Fusion style from userstyles.org to achieve this for quite some time now. But, it would be nice to be able to set this right inside of Google's Options. https://userstyles.org/styles/...
I completely agree, especially with my choice in remote controls. I have a home theater system composed of an HDTV, stereo, Bluray player, Tivo, and various streaming devices. I hate keeping track of multiple remotes and learning new ones as I upgrade components. So, when I found my now ancient Home Theater Master MX-500 I fell in love. It was able to learn and emulate all of my remotes with its 45 hard buttons, 5 way thumbpad, and mono LCD. I can run everything in the dark without even looking at it as I can tell by feel where everything is. I have tried various other remotes including fancy Harmonies and all touch screen devices and remote control apps for my phone, but nothing has ever been more usable than my now ancient universal remote with its primitive screen and buttons.
It is just you. That statement is quite an exaggeration. Just as most of the "vulnerabilities" that are found are. Companies like FireEye and Zimperium exist for situations just like this. They have a team of people scouring available source code looking for any little flaw and then when they find something like this they send out press releases and hype it up as the next big doom and gloom phone destroyer so that people will buy their security app. But, when looking into the details you find that this bug only really affects phones running Android less than 4.4 and on the Qualcomm chipset. Many phones back in that era used a TI chipset instead so that limits the numbers right there. And then, when you look at what it is supposedly capable of you see that the worst it could do under ideal circumstances is to steal SMS and phone call data so it could gather who you call and text. But, just like the infamous StageFright vulnerability there still hasn't been a single documented case of it being exploited in the wild because of all of the other Android security in place to mitigate such risks.
The fact that these old bugs are being found is because of the open source advantage that you mentioned. There is no telling how many vulnerabilities exist in iOS devices because the code is not open for review. This is, of course, good and bad, depending on who happens to stumble across the vulnerability first.
Also, no one who cares anything about security should be using Android older than 4.4 or even 5.0. That is like using Windows XP or even Windows 95 and complaining that it has security vulnerabilities.
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My wife works for the state office of Goodwill in our state. We live in a northern state where it gets COLD. They get far more clothes donated to them than they can resell or even give away. They actually have to resort to bailing clothes like hay just to store them in rented or purchased old semi trailers. More beat up clothes they send away to be cut up into rags or stuffing as mentioned. They have had to reduce the days that they will accept donations because it takes their staff so long to sort and process the tide of donated clothing. And yet, no one is coming in to get them here. So, then it comes down to shipping. They have to pay companies to take away their bails of clothes to other states with higher need so that someone else can unbail and go through all of the clothes again to try to get them to people who need and want them. They barely break even with the clothes they can sell to pay for taking away the clothes that they don't.
I want my pizzas delivered by a Deliverator under the watchful eye of Uncle Enzo.
https://101books.net/2013/02/0...
This makes me think of the word "Lostech" that I learned from a game when I was a teen. I have adopted it into my vocabulary and it is amazing how much once state of the art wondrous technology is getting lost to time as it is replaced. Think of the Vacuum Tube that lead to transistors and microchips. They almost seem like magic now (even though I know the basic physics behind them). Or the Cathode Ray Tube that lead to color tube TV's being everywhere at one time and now you can hardly find one as they have all been replaced by LCD's or other flat panels.
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Lost...
If you are calling yourself an IT guy and you don't know how to change the USER AGENT of a phone web browser than you don't sound like much of an IT guy. They are many ways to do that. The easiest is to install almost any other web browser such as Dolphin or Firefox.
I was a die-hard keyboard user. I hung on to my Droid 4 until I couldn't take the battery life anymore. But with good virtual keyboards like SwiftKey for regular messaging and Hacker's Keyboard for SSHing into servers I can still pretty much do anything I want from it.
Actually, it is a ceramic back with a titanium frame and a Gorilla Glass 5 screen. It should be stronger than most phones except special rugged ones.
I am not sure where that "custom version of Android" line came from. Wired magazine says they are shipping it with clean, stock Android without a custom skin.
Despite all of this Android malware that is supposedly in the wild, who actually gets infected by it? Sure, I am computer systems engineer and know better than to do dumb things, but I know many people in lots of different tech and non-tech circles with Android phones and I have never even heard an anecdotal rumor of someone actually getting some kind of malware on their phone. Despite all of the malware clickbait stories, people with modern phones on major carriers that aren't trying to use pirated apks from shady sites seem to be pretty darn safe. Wake me up when there is a major worm outbreak that affects Android 6+ phones on Verizon and AT&T.
OK, I am probably going to get flamed for this, but I really enjoyed the new Ghost in the Shell live action movie. Could it have been a better remake of the original anime? Yes. Could it have had better dialogue and acting? Yes. Was it dumbed down for the masses? Yes. Hollywood whitewashing? Blek. But, all in all, despite being a long time fan of the original anime movie, I really enjoyed this movie. My anime hating wife even enjoyed it. The special effects were excellent, the depiction of the future cityscapes were incredible. The plot, although quite different from the animes was alright, if a bit predictable. Some of the homages to the original movie such as the thermoptic camouflage fight scenes and the fight with the spidertank gave me chills. I think just taking it as a stand alone sc-fi movie it deserves a lot more credit than it is getting because of all of the other controversy being dragged along with it.
I am currently rereading the excellent sci-fi book "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" in preparation for the sequel "For We Are Many" to be released on April 18th. It is a story about a computer programmer and sci-fi fan (like many of us here) who pays to have his body frozen when he dies. He then wakes up far in the future to find that his consciousness has been placed in a computer which is to be sent out in space in a self-replicating probe. This is easily one of the best sci-fi books that I have ever read. It is entertaining, funny, relatable, and engaging. I have been very eagerly awaiting the sequel and I would highly recommend them both to any Slashdotter.
This reminds of one of my favorite anime series that I think has some of the best writing of any show and that is Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. At the beginning of every episode is labeled as either Stand Alone or Complex. They are mixed together from episode to episode, but the Stand Alone ones do just that as self contained episodes, and the Complex ones further the overall serialized season plots. I have always though it was a brilliant way to have the best of both worlds.
Now that we have a live action G.i.t.S movie coming out (all controversies aside) I wouldn't mind if Netflix came out with a G.i.t.S: S.A.C. like live action series.
This is one of the best responses on this whole thread. Unfortunately, no mod points today.
I am a long time gamer, but I just could never get into stock Minecraft nor could I understand how many people would be so interested in it. Then, a coworker talked me into trying his modded Minecraft: Feed The Beast: Infinity server and it literally opened up whole new worlds and I am currently a daily addicted player.
So, my advice is if you grew bored with the original, seek out some modded servers. It can really be so much more entertaining with the right mods.
https://ftbwiki.org/Feed_The_B...
Interesting. I hate them both and use a Moto Droid.
Actually, the SyFy channel was having a Star Trek movie marathon last night.
It would only be Darwinism if the person playing PoGo died, such as if they walked or drove off of a cliff while playing.
Sign me up. I am ready for your one-click Qualcomm root exploit app.
I still love Android tablets, I just haven't had a need for a new one in 3 years. My 2013 Nexus tablet still serves me just fine and I use it almost every day for looking up data during meetings at work and couch surfing and playing games at home or watching movies when traveling. When it finally dies I will definitely buy another, if not sooner. The nVidia Shield tablets have been calling my name lately.
Can someone provide a honest non-paranoid schizophrenic listing of reasons to or not to upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 10?
This is for my dedicated Windows gaming machine. I have other Linux servers and Android devices for other things.
I currently run Start 8 on it to make it look pretty much like Windows 7 and I would run Start 10 on it if I upgraded to do the same.
DirectX 12 support is already one big reason to upgrade.
to root my Android 6.0 phone. I should never have upgraded. I really miss my old rooted phoned.
I love my now fairly old Moto 360. I get about a day and a half of battery life out of it and it usually outlasts my phone and yet fully charges in less than an hour. I charge my phone everyday and just drop my watch on its charger at night. It is no big deal. I love being able to create and changes faces when I want as well as being able to see notifications, appointments, and calls without taking out my phone. Although I own several other nice dumb watches, I don't think I could ever go back.
I never had Doom dreams, but I did have Tribes dreams. That game may not be considered as revolutionary, but the open air freedom of jump packs and ski jumping was revolutionary in its own way, especially in Tribes 2 which I consider to be the height of the franchise.
EStrongs *USED TO* make great software, but they sold out several years ago to a Hong Kong based company that just keeps stuffing more and more bloat and ads into what was once some of the best Android software.
I personally use Root Explorer now which works great, even on non-rooted devices.
Got my hopes up, I thought maybe they were testing a black background instead of white. I have been using a combination of the Stylish Add-on and the Dark Fusion style from userstyles.org to achieve this for quite some time now. But, it would be nice to be able to set this right inside of Google's Options.
https://userstyles.org/styles/...
I completely agree, especially with my choice in remote controls. I have a home theater system composed of an HDTV, stereo, Bluray player, Tivo, and various streaming devices. I hate keeping track of multiple remotes and learning new ones as I upgrade components. So, when I found my now ancient Home Theater Master MX-500 I fell in love. It was able to learn and emulate all of my remotes with its 45 hard buttons, 5 way thumbpad, and mono LCD. I can run everything in the dark without even looking at it as I can tell by feel where everything is. I have tried various other remotes including fancy Harmonies and all touch screen devices and remote control apps for my phone, but nothing has ever been more usable than my now ancient universal remote with its primitive screen and buttons.
It is just you. That statement is quite an exaggeration. Just as most of the "vulnerabilities" that are found are. Companies like FireEye and Zimperium exist for situations just like this. They have a team of people scouring available source code looking for any little flaw and then when they find something like this they send out press releases and hype it up as the next big doom and gloom phone destroyer so that people will buy their security app. But, when looking into the details you find that this bug only really affects phones running Android less than 4.4 and on the Qualcomm chipset. Many phones back in that era used a TI chipset instead so that limits the numbers right there. And then, when you look at what it is supposedly capable of you see that the worst it could do under ideal circumstances is to steal SMS and phone call data so it could gather who you call and text. But, just like the infamous StageFright vulnerability there still hasn't been a single documented case of it being exploited in the wild because of all of the other Android security in place to mitigate such risks.
The fact that these old bugs are being found is because of the open source advantage that you mentioned. There is no telling how many vulnerabilities exist in iOS devices because the code is not open for review. This is, of course, good and bad, depending on who happens to stumble across the vulnerability first.
Also, no one who cares anything about security should be using Android older than 4.4 or even 5.0. That is like using Windows XP or even Windows 95 and complaining that it has security vulnerabilities.