They rushed to close embassies on the slimmest of evidence and are hoping desperately that there will in fact be some actual attacks.
This. They thought they could draw media attention away from Snowden and turn public sentiment back to uninterestedly issuing blank checks for the executive when it comes to terrorism. Recall that just earlier that week (or perhaps it was earlier the same day), some poll results found that more Americans were concerned with the domestic surveillance program than with terrorism.
There's something to be said about the timing. But there's even more to be said about the reaction. That it was so over-the-top pretty much made it clear that the right people were getting worried.
I wouldn't be surprised if some 9/11 consipracy-style event was to occur real soon, that it's in the works even now. After all, the FBI could have a president assassinated, and then have congress cover it up afterwards. What's a few hundred or thousand civilians, killed by a religious radical whose source for the raw materials could never be found? And then there'd be no debate about domestic surveillance anymore.
It sounds just like the old days when the cops are all paid off and you're alone up against the mob. Maybe the three-letter agencies adopted their playbook.
If there's anything I've learned from being alive, it's that modern dying is about the most painful, horrific thing you'll likely ever experience in your lifetime. Death is quick and painless, but dying is the complete opposite. More than likely, you'll spend weeks, months, even years bedridden, wasting away in a hospice or assisted care facility until your body finally gives up. If you're lucky, you fall and it all ends in a few days, maybe a week or two. If you're not, you'll be stuck dying for years (technically, we're all dying since the day we're born, but by dying, I mean becoming more and more invalid physically and mentally).
Suicide can be folly, and I strongly believe is foolish for most of a person's life. However, suicide means you get to chose the time and manner of death. And even for the empowered, with everything to live for and every reason to keep living, it can be a blessing compared to the alternative. Personally, if given the choice, I'd rather have a meaningful death (e.g. rescuing a cat from a tree) than a senseless one (e.g. ODing on pain meds). But chances are, I won't be so lucky.
Love can be for individuals and things besides a significant other.
It can be family (siblings, children, children of siblings, etc.), friends, or even personal projects, from a pet project to a business. Of course, it's harder to keep going for these other things, since they're less significant than a significant other. But it's hardly impossible, and all comes down to the individual's perspective on them.
Data collection may have ended, but the analysis has certainly not. We can't gauge the success of the mission to any degree of accuracy until all the data is analyzed. It's been enormously successful thus far in finding exoplanets, but the unanalyzed data may yet yield greater discoveries.
And even data collection may still be possible. There is mention of using software to do the correction, rather than relying on hardware. I don't know how feasible this would be when most stars are a few pixels wide at the most, but it'd nonetheless be interesting to see what comes out of this idea.
Err, no. It's fairly well known that the brain does not die right away, and people remain conscious for several seconds after decapitation. How many probably depends on the individual.
But it needs to be put into perspective. Compared to other methods of dying, that's probably the shortest amount of time between the act that causes death and actual death. Even lethal injection takes time to work.
You can be a genius at one thing, and fail spectacularly at something else. And I'm not talking about Jobs, but about the people he picked to work on their piece of the puzzle.
That may be. But for every idea Jobs approved of, I'm certain there are a ton of things that were flat out rejected. And Jobs had that attention to detail that is not so easy to come by, allowing him to polish the ideas that had potential. Not to mention that Apple's had their fair share of duds under Jobs, despite his brilliancce.
Whether Cook has the same ability to separate good ideas from bad ideas, to add finishing touches to ideas that are incomplete, has a vision for Apple's future, remains to be seen.
I'm not bearish about Cook, but there's certainly no information to make me bullish either.
Nobody's going to see this, but I think it's worth saying.
You are absolutely correct that Surface was Microsoft's answer to all the crap products that OEMs were making for Windows. Not only did the product offerings appear cheap and boring, but they were all loaded down with pre-loaded crapware that negatively impacted the stability of the OS (same thing is happening to Android), and thus the Windows brand. This after all the work MS did to make 7 stable and secure. It was basically a warning shot, that if the OEMs didn't shape up and quick, Microsoft's hardware would eat them for breakfast.
It also served as a reference implementation of a Windows RT/8 unit, a demonstration to the very same OEMs that a well-designed machine with decent specs and no crapware would be able to sell, and at a pricepoint that's comparable to iOS and Android's best offerings.
Except it failed.
It partially failed because the hardware wasn't up to par with the equally-priced iOS and Android units of the time. E.g., when everybody else was moving to high PPI displays, Microsoft put an inferior screen on it (couldn't even do 1080p!). The unit was only useful with a real keyboard, and the snap keyboard was heavily, heavily marketed. But it didn't come included. It was a separate purchase. Which made it a disappointment right out of the box
It spectacularly failed because of the software. Ignore for a second the brand confusion between RT and 8. Forget that RT can't run legacy x86 apps, while 8 had short battery life and was heavy. Ignore for a moment the Metro interface and the lack of a start button.
Let's start with the fact that the Windows RT/8 touch interface was only half-baked. Let's start with the fact that even though Desktop mode was supposed to be for legacy, it was the only place were certain things could be done. Half the settings were in Metro. The other half were back under the control panel. And sometimes, the Metro settings would kick out to the control panel. And in Desktop mode, touch fails the same way that touch failed in Windows XP-7. So Windows RT/8 is unusable for all but the most basic, dumb tasks in touch-only mode. But Metro is atrocious to use with a mouse.
This fundamental identity crisis of the user interface killed it. And the other lesser, but no less trivial lackings of Surface RT and 8 nailed the coffin shut and swallowed it into the earth.
Is it me or does it seem like Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place now?
No.
Microsoft is still shipping the console with Kinect. And games that require the Kinect will still ask you to turn it on.
All this does is allow you to turn it off when the rest of the unit is off. This means you lose certain gesture-based functionality (like turning the unit on with a gesture), but that's about it.
And in fact, this is the exact attack vector. If you use the same browser for TOR and non-TOR browsing, switching to non-TOR from TOR will make your browser phone home.
If anything, I'd rather TOR have their own browser, without having to depend on Firefox and NoScript for security. TOR should stick with an engine that does HTML 2 well and securely.
I think TOR's usebase has shifted away from exit nodes to hidden services. The majority of exit node use is mostly abuse (spam, botnets, etc.) now. Yes, there are legitimate use cases that require interacting with the regular web, but those are not able to generate nearly the volume of traffic that exit nodes see.
Unfortunately, the abusers make it hard for website admins to not block known TOR exit nodes.
Actually, the U.S. designed it that way. They were the ones who stipulated as a condition of surrender that the Japanese have no standing army (only a "defense force" whose training and armament is tightly-controlled by the U.S.). The U.S. wants a base of operations in the far east, and maintains tight controls over Japan for that purpose. They have other bases in the Pacific, but they set up Japan before long-range aircraft, requiring them to be close to Russia/China/North Korea.
So no, it's not by choice the Japanese have to rely on the U.S. for military protection. It's a consequence of losing WWII that they're effectively subjugated to U.S. military "protection" (in the same sense of "protection" money).
Slashdot Mirror
smugglers to drop ... illegal immigrants.
I'm not sure you thought this all the way through. This is the arctic circle we're talking about, not Vancouver.
Yes, and Sarah Palin would bite, hook line and sinker.
DEFCON 11: Let's disband the U.S. military! We could start with the NSA.
How about a more reputable source linking to the actual quote (48).
They rushed to close embassies on the slimmest of evidence and are hoping desperately that there will in fact be some actual attacks.
This. They thought they could draw media attention away from Snowden and turn public sentiment back to uninterestedly issuing blank checks for the executive when it comes to terrorism. Recall that just earlier that week (or perhaps it was earlier the same day), some poll results found that more Americans were concerned with the domestic surveillance program than with terrorism.
There's something to be said about the timing. But there's even more to be said about the reaction. That it was so over-the-top pretty much made it clear that the right people were getting worried.
I wouldn't be surprised if some 9/11 consipracy-style event was to occur real soon, that it's in the works even now. After all, the FBI could have a president assassinated, and then have congress cover it up afterwards. What's a few hundred or thousand civilians, killed by a religious radical whose source for the raw materials could never be found? And then there'd be no debate about domestic surveillance anymore.
Eisenhower warned us. We did not listen.
It sounds just like the old days when the cops are all paid off and you're alone up against the mob. Maybe the three-letter agencies adopted their playbook.
If there's anything I've learned from being alive, it's that modern dying is about the most painful, horrific thing you'll likely ever experience in your lifetime. Death is quick and painless, but dying is the complete opposite. More than likely, you'll spend weeks, months, even years bedridden, wasting away in a hospice or assisted care facility until your body finally gives up. If you're lucky, you fall and it all ends in a few days, maybe a week or two. If you're not, you'll be stuck dying for years (technically, we're all dying since the day we're born, but by dying, I mean becoming more and more invalid physically and mentally).
Suicide can be folly, and I strongly believe is foolish for most of a person's life. However, suicide means you get to chose the time and manner of death. And even for the empowered, with everything to live for and every reason to keep living, it can be a blessing compared to the alternative. Personally, if given the choice, I'd rather have a meaningful death (e.g. rescuing a cat from a tree) than a senseless one (e.g. ODing on pain meds). But chances are, I won't be so lucky.
Love can be for individuals and things besides a significant other.
It can be family (siblings, children, children of siblings, etc.), friends, or even personal projects, from a pet project to a business. Of course, it's harder to keep going for these other things, since they're less significant than a significant other. But it's hardly impossible, and all comes down to the individual's perspective on them.
Data collection may have ended, but the analysis has certainly not. We can't gauge the success of the mission to any degree of accuracy until all the data is analyzed. It's been enormously successful thus far in finding exoplanets, but the unanalyzed data may yet yield greater discoveries.
And even data collection may still be possible. There is mention of using software to do the correction, rather than relying on hardware. I don't know how feasible this would be when most stars are a few pixels wide at the most, but it'd nonetheless be interesting to see what comes out of this idea.
So she'd cut off her own hand out of spite because you told her it would hurt?
I sincerely hope your kids take after you and not her.
Google had no competent security people on this project and did not ask any competent 3rd party for an independent review.
What does Google care about the security of your data? They have it all anyway.
That $5720 might not buy you a loaf of bread in 50 years, but it'll still be $5720 and not a cent less.
Even better: the old DOC format was partially binary, and partially executable.
Mine is hunter2. And I know it's safe because it looks like ******* to you.
Math is the One True System. Or for logicians, the one True system.
Err, no. It's fairly well known that the brain does not die right away, and people remain conscious for several seconds after decapitation. How many probably depends on the individual.
But it needs to be put into perspective. Compared to other methods of dying, that's probably the shortest amount of time between the act that causes death and actual death. Even lethal injection takes time to work.
Well, he inspired the fictional Steve Jobs that hipsters thought was cool.
FTFY.
How can you expect to retain market share when replacing a freaking BATTERY costs half the price of a device?
Jobs was able to do exactly that. It's part of what made him a genius.
You can be a genius at one thing, and fail spectacularly at something else. And I'm not talking about Jobs, but about the people he picked to work on their piece of the puzzle.
That may be. But for every idea Jobs approved of, I'm certain there are a ton of things that were flat out rejected. And Jobs had that attention to detail that is not so easy to come by, allowing him to polish the ideas that had potential. Not to mention that Apple's had their fair share of duds under Jobs, despite his brilliancce.
Whether Cook has the same ability to separate good ideas from bad ideas, to add finishing touches to ideas that are incomplete, has a vision for Apple's future, remains to be seen.
I'm not bearish about Cook, but there's certainly no information to make me bullish either.
Nobody's going to see this, but I think it's worth saying.
You are absolutely correct that Surface was Microsoft's answer to all the crap products that OEMs were making for Windows. Not only did the product offerings appear cheap and boring, but they were all loaded down with pre-loaded crapware that negatively impacted the stability of the OS (same thing is happening to Android), and thus the Windows brand. This after all the work MS did to make 7 stable and secure. It was basically a warning shot, that if the OEMs didn't shape up and quick, Microsoft's hardware would eat them for breakfast.
It also served as a reference implementation of a Windows RT/8 unit, a demonstration to the very same OEMs that a well-designed machine with decent specs and no crapware would be able to sell, and at a pricepoint that's comparable to iOS and Android's best offerings.
Except it failed.
It partially failed because the hardware wasn't up to par with the equally-priced iOS and Android units of the time. E.g., when everybody else was moving to high PPI displays, Microsoft put an inferior screen on it (couldn't even do 1080p!). The unit was only useful with a real keyboard, and the snap keyboard was heavily, heavily marketed. But it didn't come included. It was a separate purchase. Which made it a disappointment right out of the box
It spectacularly failed because of the software. Ignore for a second the brand confusion between RT and 8. Forget that RT can't run legacy x86 apps, while 8 had short battery life and was heavy. Ignore for a moment the Metro interface and the lack of a start button.
Let's start with the fact that the Windows RT/8 touch interface was only half-baked. Let's start with the fact that even though Desktop mode was supposed to be for legacy, it was the only place were certain things could be done. Half the settings were in Metro. The other half were back under the control panel. And sometimes, the Metro settings would kick out to the control panel. And in Desktop mode, touch fails the same way that touch failed in Windows XP-7. So Windows RT/8 is unusable for all but the most basic, dumb tasks in touch-only mode. But Metro is atrocious to use with a mouse.
This fundamental identity crisis of the user interface killed it. And the other lesser, but no less trivial lackings of Surface RT and 8 nailed the coffin shut and swallowed it into the earth.
Is it me or does it seem like Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place now?
No.
Microsoft is still shipping the console with Kinect. And games that require the Kinect will still ask you to turn it on.
All this does is allow you to turn it off when the rest of the unit is off. This means you lose certain gesture-based functionality (like turning the unit on with a gesture), but that's about it.
Ah, so it'd be a series of tubes. Makes sense.
Err, have you heard of TOR Button?
And in fact, this is the exact attack vector. If you use the same browser for TOR and non-TOR browsing, switching to non-TOR from TOR will make your browser phone home.
If anything, I'd rather TOR have their own browser, without having to depend on Firefox and NoScript for security. TOR should stick with an engine that does HTML 2 well and securely.
I think TOR's usebase has shifted away from exit nodes to hidden services. The majority of exit node use is mostly abuse (spam, botnets, etc.) now. Yes, there are legitimate use cases that require interacting with the regular web, but those are not able to generate nearly the volume of traffic that exit nodes see.
Unfortunately, the abusers make it hard for website admins to not block known TOR exit nodes.
Actually, the U.S. designed it that way. They were the ones who stipulated as a condition of surrender that the Japanese have no standing army (only a "defense force" whose training and armament is tightly-controlled by the U.S.). The U.S. wants a base of operations in the far east, and maintains tight controls over Japan for that purpose. They have other bases in the Pacific, but they set up Japan before long-range aircraft, requiring them to be close to Russia/China/North Korea.
So no, it's not by choice the Japanese have to rely on the U.S. for military protection. It's a consequence of losing WWII that they're effectively subjugated to U.S. military "protection" (in the same sense of "protection" money).