The noun "orientation" is derived from the verb "orient", not the other way around.
Thanks god someone mentioned that! I absolutely hate when people use that "word". It's just... wrong. It's like when people say "funner". Who cares if you know what the person meant, they're still butchering English and if they're a native speaker, that's just ridiculous. -Taylor
I was disappointed to see the iPad following the App Store model rather than full-on Mac OS X. On my MacBook Pro, or my wife's iMac, I feel like I get the best of both worlds: a nice consistant "just-works" gui with all the power/control I might need just a terminal window away.
FSF is very much on target with the locked-down AppStore model being the biggest threat to user freedom that we've ever seen, bigger than software patents. It's "Tivo-ization" writ large.
I agree. I don't own any Apple machines, but I wouldn't mind using OSX if it got me a nice tablet - it might not run engineering applications, but its a nice OS. I do mind, however, owning a device that I can't just put apps on without someone else's approval. I want to be able to do crazy hacky things with my devices, and I was really excited about the magical tablet until i saw that it very much is just a big iPhone. I already had an iPhone and I got sick of having to constantly jailbreak it to do anything. I guess that's why I have an Android phone.
Incidentally, i remember when the first iPhone came out, and everyone complained, and apple has just slowly fed people incremental improvements over the years, absolutely milking something that was once innovative. I'm honestly almost positive they left off 3G just so they could have a "major" upgrade later without much work. I could go on about that, but the point is: I bet they do the same with this - next year, throw in a camera, and maybe announce multitasking. Maybe link it to your phone and allow you to text from it. Just basic features that get people to upgrade without Apple having to do any real innovation. That sounds troll-ish, but come on, you tell me why they didn't include 3G in the first iphone, and why 3 years later, they iPhone 3Gs is almost identical to the original? -Taylor
If you're in a place with too much WiFi noise, try using the Japanese-only channel 14 - it doesn't overlap with any other channels, and you're pretty much guaranteed to be the only person using it. DD-WRT and other alternative firmwares will broadcast on 14, and Windows just requires a simple registry hack to receive on 14. Macs, I believe, can connect without hassle. It's technically illegal, but the likelihood of being caught is pretty much nil. I've still never found an explanation for what this frequency is used for in the US, if anything.
I've always considered doing that, but having to do a registry edit every time a guest wants to use my wireless is just not acceptable. I'm the resident techy and my housemates would hate me. -Taylor
Yup, none of the access points are actually smart enough to switch channels and optimize frequency/power usage. So you end-up with the problem I encountered this December, when a neighbor across the way got a wireless router, and suddenly my internet stopped working. You couldn't even *see* my access point anymore, it was just overpowered.
My access point configuration was set to "Auto," but this just meant it kept trying to use channel 1 like an idiot. So I forced it to use channel 6, and the problem was solved.
But this isn't how things should be. The devices and the protocol should be smart enough to optimize spectrum, both by analyzing the noise at various frequencies and choosing the band with the least automatically, and by playing nice with other devices and dialing-down the power to that needed by the connected device furthest from the access point.
Too bad the above is just a pipe dream. I can't imagine how bad it is living in dense residential/apartments, where these users still don't know how to configure things, but there are 2 dozen within range instead of 5.
That all works in my favor. Nearly everyone in my complex has their router set to channel 6 or something. I set mine to channel 1 and I've got all the reception I could ask for! -Taylor
Look at what has happened in the past, when two cultures of the same species met on our planet. Group A sails over the ocean, and discovers a strange culture B on another continent. Despite the fact that this was a meeting between members of the same species, group A doesn't recognize that group B is even human. Group A proceeds to enslave, kidnap, kill, and steal the land and resources of group B.
This pattern has been repeated a bunch of times in our own history. So, when humans meet aliens, the inferior group will be lunch.
Well, let's hope that they've gotten over that phase by the time they find us. -Taylor
They won't do it because then the tax payer knows what sources of income the government doesn't know about. The uncertainty now is enough to scare some people into declaring their tips, gifts, or private sales. Full disclosure from the government makes it easierto dodge taxes. The correlary is that more people might pay if the simply get a bill in the mail. Of course, that just "puts the burden" on "poor people", because the educated would be smart enough to get away with not declaring an overseas investment, and the poor would be too afraid not to send money they know the government wants.
You could probably put some notice about how they'll hunt you down with dogs and mercenaries if they find out you dodged any taxes. That would probably scare most people into making sure they reported it. -Taylor
Our records show that none of your 27 children are currently in school. We can only assume that you are violating child employment laws or have eaten them. We will be performing an inspection on the 29th Jan to verify the health and status of your children.
At least they give her 5 days - I'm sure i could find 27 more children by then. I got the last batch of them just by hanging around toys r us for 3 hours! -Taylor
Everybody's hot and bothered about the HOW, begging the question of the LEGITIMACY of taxes in the first place...
That's because that's a MUCH bigger question. People have been fighting the legitimacy of taxes for hundreds of years. That's not one with an easy answer (just go with that part) but having the government tell us what taxes we owe should make sense to EVERYONE. They certainly know if I get it wrong, so why the hell do I need to do it at all? I'm 25 and have filed taxes since I was 16. I've never needed to do anything but the basic stuff, aside from some education credits i got in college. I seriously wish they would just tell me what they thought i owed, and I could just verify if that is correct or not.
If intuit becomes irrelevant because of it, that's their own fucking fault. And honestly if they know how to adapt they'll be fine. They can offer more tax education services and help people with complex issues file their taxes. Of course they'd probably lose 98% of their business, but that's the price of progress. Downsize and keep moving on. Sure they don't want it, but we sure as hell shouldn't have a less efficient country just to support obsolete businesses. -Taylor
Is it? I can type significantly faster than 250 characters in a minute or two.
I don't get it. 264 characters? 1.59 seconds? Could the article be wrong, meaning words instead of characters?
I just typed 298 characters in 2 minutes, 3 seconds (not counting time pressing the start-stop button on my watch). (3 wrong characters, 1 wrong space) Here's the text. (some of it I couldn't remember, so I made parts of it up, please don't laugh) THEORIZING THAT ONE COULD TIMETRAVEL WITHIN HIS OWN LIFETIME DOCTOR SAM BECKET STEPPED INTO THE TIME TRAVEL THINGIE AND VANISHED, HE AWOKE TO FIND HIMSELF TRAPPED IN THE PAST, FACING MIRROR IMAGES THAT WERE NOT HIS OWN, AN D TRYING HIS BEST TO DO GOOD THINGS THAT IN THE BEND LEAD TO HIS DEMISE AND.
So I copied the message from my Nokia Communicator onto a card, then onto my netbook, then I posted it here.
Almost 300 characters in just over 2 minutes. And I rarely text. So there are lots of people who would beat me.
So what am I missing here?
Yeah, I just typed that phrase you posted in 1:06.959 including clicking the stopwatch. I was typing on my G1.
WTH is up with that "record"? Maybe it was 264 words?
my exact text copied and pasted from my phone is:
"Theorizing that one could timetravel within his own lifetime doctor sam beckett stepped into the time treavel thingie and vanished, he awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and trying his best to do good things that in the bend lead to his demise and."
With one error that i could have fixed if I were paying attention. It certainly wouldn't have taken me another 53 seconds to fix.
The Cybermilitary, get it right. We're facing an ipv4 shortage, haven't you read peak ipv4?? We must reclaim all of the ipv4 resources that China has been hoarding these years!
We've got to close the IP address gap! We can't let those commie bastards take all the IP addresses!
We'll build bunkers in the mountains FULL of ISP's all requesting tens of thousands of IP addresses! -Taylor
...They are ordering the same bodyscanners in the US but possibly with the addition of x-ray scanners that are able to find anal insertions...
Possibly? Wow, you mean some of these scanners could STILL be fooled by sticking things up your ass? That seems like the simplest fucking loophole. Not everyone would want to do that, but some people stick things up there for fun, so really if you're planning on dying for your god to kill some non-believers, it seems like that would be a no-brainer. Stick something up your ass, make it to heaven. If we're spending all this money, we had sure as hell be able to stop one of the simplest fucking tricks in the book!
to be fair, you're pulling that quote slightly out of context. The guy was trying to suggest that body scanners are not the best idea, and profiling people is better, so he was trying to discredit the scanners. He wasn't citing any research and that's not what the article is about. You're citing an unverified quote in the article about something else.
More complete quote:
Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International, said scanners were not the only solution and profiling passengers was, in fact, the best way to prevent terrorist acts. "We've got to face the fact that you can build a bomb in the duty free shop, after you've gone through screening. Bearing that in mind, we need to look at what people's intent is, not what they are carrying on their person."
Still, he's the editor of some magazine, so he may know what he's talking about, but the BBC article doesn't go into it and its possible that the magazine only has 3 subscribers and one is his mom. -Taylor
We had a fire near our work and with twitter I found out what was on fire and some basic details long before either the online news or the radio had anything other than "firefighters are fighting a blaze in X" with nothing else...
I had a fire in my pants and I twittered about it.
3. intr. To move tremulously, tremble, shake, quiver, shiver...
So, for an alternative article summary: the USGS will use twitterers on Twitter who are twittering about twittering.
[cue chorus of groans]
Yeaaaahhhh.... But less funny because you really didn't need the second "twitter", you had to force it. *Of course* the twittering twitterers are on Twitter, its the only place you *can* twitter. "Twitterers twittering about twittering" makes more sense. And actually, It's funnier. Hmm. And yes, I know I am ridiculous. -Taylor
Seriously. This is the sort of thing twitter is really good at.
It's not knowing what Britney is eating for breakfast. Or how much a SKANK Malinda next door is. Or how much a bastard Billy is, oh but he's such a hunk. Or what color Aston K's turds are.
How is it a hassle? It IS a delay, but as Netflix is the only place I use to check new releases, it's one I admittedly won't notice. In return, we'll get way more instant-watch movies available, which I don't have to wait for and can watch on my laptop or two of the three consoles in the house.
It's hardly an anti-customer strategy when they make the same choice I'd have asked them to, given the option. The only thing currently stopping Instant-Watch from being really awesome is its subpar selection. And really, if I cared about seeing the movies from Netflix soon after they came out, I'd have seen them in theaters.
You say it's good because you'd rather have more instant watch movies, but you're assuming that increasing the amount of instant watch movies can only happen if they delay rentals, which isn't true.
Increasing the number of instant-watch movies is a good decision, but that doesn't somehow make delaying rentals a good idea - it doesn't have to be one or the other, but the studios are making it that way because they don't understand consumers.
For a random analogy: If a gunman shoots my dog, and then tells me he was going to shoot me but decided to shoot my dog instead,that doesn't make the gunman's motives any less cruel or acceptable, even though I would have chosen the same thing, given the choice between my life or my dog's. You'd choose more insta-watch movies over getting rentals sooner, but that doesn't mean that it was the best decision.
I'd rather just have my movies any way I want. I don't mind paying for some kind of rental (like Netflix, which I have) but I'm NOT going to go out and buy every movie I want to watch, I have other expenses that matter more. -Taylor
Note that they approve the module and not the access software. The flaw is in the access software. Therefore, 140-2 compliance or approval isn't proof that your data is safe. It just means that some approved form of encryption is implemented by the crypto module. It appears that the modules in question were given some form of TEMPEST examination as well, but once again, that means nothing in terms of the access software.
Actually, the flaw is indeed in the modules. They ALL use they same unlock key. I'd say that makes them flawed. The software is not helpful - it just obscures the fact that they all use the same unlock key by asking for a unique password that it converts to the common unlock key - but as unhelpful as the software is, it isn't the issue.
To put it another way, there is no way of fixing the software to change the fact that all of these drives can be accessed with one known key, which means its not the software that is broken, its the keys.
Of course, it doesn't help that the software gave up that key, so that is certainly a flaw but if the modules all had different keys it wouldn't be as helpful and it certainly isn't as big as a problem as the modules all being the same! -Taylor
When I was in 8th grade (late 90's) I took ginko in the weeks leading up to the county math contest. I ended up getting first place in the individual competition for 8th graders. I was never sure if the ginko helped or if I was just talented, but its nice to know it probably wasn't the ginko (not like i expected any difference to be huge, but still!).
Of course... it was Santa Cruz county... Yes, that Santa Cruz.
And the sad thing is that after doing all that, then going through high school and college and completing the engineering level math up to differential equations (which i got an A in), I can't remember any of it anymore. At least, not calculus. I can't even remember how to do derivatives! -Taylor
While I understand that TV programming is supported by commercials, and the viewers exist only to watch those commercials, it is this sort of thing that makes me feel less guilty about skipping commercials. In fact, I hardly watch commercials because TV is kind of passé. Most good shows are on the net a day or two after the first run. Most TV seasons can be bought for $30. That is 30-40 shows a year for the cost of cable.
I would hope that advertisers would be considering how to keep TV relevant so that they can continue to have someone to watch the ads rather than continuing to alienate the few viewers they have left.
I don't have cable, i just use Hulu and torrents, but the annoying thing is that this happens even on Hulu with certain ads. That makes me want to use more torrents, but i wouldn't mind ads if they weren't so much louder than the show. -Taylor
This even happens a lot on Hulu, and I have to turn it down whenever those commercials come on, because its really annoying.
I don't really know if legislation is the answer, but honestly its annoying and I really wish *something* could be done about it, since the content distributors don't seem to care. -Taylor
This sounds like a good idea for transferring content securely. The contents of the memory will degrade in a short time, making it ideal for carrying sensitive data.
Meh, its very unlikely reliable. I'm sure there are better ways. -Taylor
Slashdot Mirror
The noun "orientation" is derived from the verb "orient", not the other way around.
Thanks god someone mentioned that! I absolutely hate when people use that "word". It's just... wrong. It's like when people say "funner". Who cares if you know what the person meant, they're still butchering English and if they're a native speaker, that's just ridiculous.
-Taylor
I was disappointed to see the iPad following the App Store model rather than full-on Mac OS X. On my MacBook Pro, or my wife's iMac, I feel like I get the best of both worlds: a nice consistant "just-works" gui with all the power/control I might need just a terminal window away.
FSF is very much on target with the locked-down AppStore model being the biggest threat to user freedom that we've ever seen, bigger than software patents. It's "Tivo-ization" writ large.
I agree. I don't own any Apple machines, but I wouldn't mind using OSX if it got me a nice tablet - it might not run engineering applications, but its a nice OS. I do mind, however, owning a device that I can't just put apps on without someone else's approval. I want to be able to do crazy hacky things with my devices, and I was really excited about the magical tablet until i saw that it very much is just a big iPhone. I already had an iPhone and I got sick of having to constantly jailbreak it to do anything. I guess that's why I have an Android phone.
Incidentally, i remember when the first iPhone came out, and everyone complained, and apple has just slowly fed people incremental improvements over the years, absolutely milking something that was once innovative. I'm honestly almost positive they left off 3G just so they could have a "major" upgrade later without much work. I could go on about that, but the point is: I bet they do the same with this - next year, throw in a camera, and maybe announce multitasking. Maybe link it to your phone and allow you to text from it. Just basic features that get people to upgrade without Apple having to do any real innovation. That sounds troll-ish, but come on, you tell me why they didn't include 3G in the first iphone, and why 3 years later, they iPhone 3Gs is almost identical to the original?
-Taylor
Put the regkey on the thumbstick, if your guests have a problem they don't get wireless.
It may help your case if you tweak the setting in the router so for a month everyone gets terrible internet; then come to the rescue with this fix.
Hah, true.
Also, doesn't help on closed devices like phones.
Either way, everyone in our complex seems to use the same default channel, so I changed ours and its pretty good.
-Taylor
If you're in a place with too much WiFi noise, try using the Japanese-only channel 14 - it doesn't overlap with any other channels, and you're pretty much guaranteed to be the only person using it. DD-WRT and other alternative firmwares will broadcast on 14, and Windows just requires a simple registry hack to receive on 14. Macs, I believe, can connect without hassle. It's technically illegal, but the likelihood of being caught is pretty much nil. I've still never found an explanation for what this frequency is used for in the US, if anything.
I've always considered doing that, but having to do a registry edit every time a guest wants to use my wireless is just not acceptable. I'm the resident techy and my housemates would hate me.
-Taylor
Yup, none of the access points are actually smart enough to switch channels and optimize frequency/power usage. So you end-up with the problem I encountered this December, when a neighbor across the way got a wireless router, and suddenly my internet stopped working. You couldn't even *see* my access point anymore, it was just overpowered.
My access point configuration was set to "Auto," but this just meant it kept trying to use channel 1 like an idiot. So I forced it to use channel 6, and the problem was solved.
But this isn't how things should be. The devices and the protocol should be smart enough to optimize spectrum, both by analyzing the noise at various frequencies and choosing the band with the least automatically, and by playing nice with other devices and dialing-down the power to that needed by the connected device furthest from the access point.
Too bad the above is just a pipe dream. I can't imagine how bad it is living in dense residential/apartments, where these users still don't know how to configure things, but there are 2 dozen within range instead of 5.
That all works in my favor. Nearly everyone in my complex has their router set to channel 6 or something. I set mine to channel 1 and I've got all the reception I could ask for!
-Taylor
Look at what has happened in the past, when two cultures of the same species met on our planet. Group A sails over the ocean, and discovers a strange culture B on another continent. Despite the fact that this was a meeting between members of the same species, group A doesn't recognize that group B is even human. Group A proceeds to enslave, kidnap, kill, and steal the land and resources of group B.
This pattern has been repeated a bunch of times in our own history. So, when humans meet aliens, the inferior group will be lunch.
Well, let's hope that they've gotten over that phase by the time they find us.
-Taylor
They won't do it because then the tax payer knows what sources of income the government doesn't know about. The uncertainty now is enough to scare some people into declaring their tips, gifts, or private sales. Full disclosure from the government makes it easierto dodge taxes. The correlary is that more people might pay if the simply get a bill in the mail. Of course, that just "puts the burden" on "poor people", because the educated would be smart enough to get away with not declaring an overseas investment, and the poor would be too afraid not to send money they know the government wants.
You could probably put some notice about how they'll hunt you down with dogs and mercenaries if they find out you dodged any taxes. That would probably scare most people into making sure they reported it.
-Taylor
Dear Mrs David Rosboro
Our records show that none of your 27 children are currently in school. We can only assume that you are violating child employment laws or have
eaten them. We will be performing an inspection on the 29th Jan to verify the health and status of your children.
At least they give her 5 days - I'm sure i could find 27 more children by then. I got the last batch of them just by hanging around toys r us for 3 hours!
-Taylor
Everybody's hot and bothered about the HOW, begging the question of the LEGITIMACY of taxes in the first place...
That's because that's a MUCH bigger question. People have been fighting the legitimacy of taxes for hundreds of years. That's not one with an easy answer (just go with that part) but having the government tell us what taxes we owe should make sense to EVERYONE. They certainly know if I get it wrong, so why the hell do I need to do it at all? I'm 25 and have filed taxes since I was 16. I've never needed to do anything but the basic stuff, aside from some education credits i got in college. I seriously wish they would just tell me what they thought i owed, and I could just verify if that is correct or not.
If intuit becomes irrelevant because of it, that's their own fucking fault. And honestly if they know how to adapt they'll be fine. They can offer more tax education services and help people with complex issues file their taxes. Of course they'd probably lose 98% of their business, but that's the price of progress. Downsize and keep moving on. Sure they don't want it, but we sure as hell shouldn't have a less efficient country just to support obsolete businesses.
-Taylor
Is it? I can type significantly faster than 250 characters in a minute or two.
I don't get it. 264 characters? 1.59 seconds?
Could the article be wrong, meaning words instead of characters?
I just typed 298 characters in 2 minutes, 3 seconds (not counting time pressing the start-stop button on my watch).
(3 wrong characters, 1 wrong space)
Here's the text. (some of it I couldn't remember, so I made parts of it up, please don't laugh)
THEORIZING THAT ONE COULD TIMETRAVEL WITHIN HIS OWN LIFETIME DOCTOR SAM BECKET STEPPED INTO THE TIME TRAVEL THINGIE AND VANISHED, HE AWOKE TO FIND HIMSELF TRAPPED IN THE PAST, FACING MIRROR IMAGES THAT WERE NOT HIS OWN, AN D TRYING HIS BEST TO DO GOOD THINGS THAT IN THE BEND LEAD TO HIS DEMISE AND.
So I copied the message from my Nokia Communicator onto a card, then onto my netbook, then I posted it here.
Almost 300 characters in just over 2 minutes.
And I rarely text. So there are lots of people who would beat me.
So what am I missing here?
Yeah, I just typed that phrase you posted in 1:06.959 including clicking the stopwatch. I was typing on my G1.
WTH is up with that "record"? Maybe it was 264 words?
my exact text copied and pasted from my phone is:
"Theorizing that one could timetravel within his own lifetime doctor sam beckett stepped into the time treavel thingie and vanished, he awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and trying his best to do good things that in the bend lead to his demise and."
With one error that i could have fixed if I were paying attention. It certainly wouldn't have taken me another 53 seconds to fix.
WTF?
-Taylor
The Cybermilitary, get it right. We're facing an ipv4 shortage, haven't you read peak ipv4?? We must reclaim all of the ipv4 resources that China has been hoarding these years!
We've got to close the IP address gap! We can't let those commie bastards take all the IP addresses!
We'll build bunkers in the mountains FULL of ISP's all requesting tens of thousands of IP addresses!
-Taylor
...They are ordering the same bodyscanners in the US but possibly with the addition of x-ray scanners that are able to find anal insertions...
Possibly? Wow, you mean some of these scanners could STILL be fooled by sticking things up your ass? That seems like the simplest fucking loophole. Not everyone would want to do that, but some people stick things up there for fun, so really if you're planning on dying for your god to kill some non-believers, it seems like that would be a no-brainer. Stick something up your ass, make it to heaven. If we're spending all this money, we had sure as hell be able to stop one of the simplest fucking tricks in the book!
-Taylor
who needs to bring a bomb through these machines anyway?
"We've got to face the fact that you can build a bomb in the duty free shop, after you've gone through screening.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8438355.stm
to be fair, you're pulling that quote slightly out of context. The guy was trying to suggest that body scanners are not the best idea, and profiling people is better, so he was trying to discredit the scanners. He wasn't citing any research and that's not what the article is about. You're citing an unverified quote in the article about something else.
More complete quote:
Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International, said scanners were not the only solution and profiling passengers was, in fact, the best way to prevent terrorist acts.
"We've got to face the fact that you can build a bomb in the duty free shop, after you've gone through screening. Bearing that in mind, we need to look at what people's intent is, not what they are carrying on their person."
Still, he's the editor of some magazine, so he may know what he's talking about, but the BBC article doesn't go into it and its possible that the magazine only has 3 subscribers and one is his mom.
-Taylor
Well played sir, well played... :)
-Taylor
We had a fire near our work and with twitter I found out what was on fire and some basic details long before either the online news or the radio had anything other than "firefighters are fighting a blaze in X" with nothing else...
I had a fire in my pants and I twittered about it.
*couldn't help it*
-Taylor
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
TWITTER ...
3. intr. To move tremulously, tremble, shake, quiver, shiver...
So, for an alternative article summary: the USGS will use twitterers on Twitter who are twittering about twittering.
[cue chorus of groans]
Yeaaaahhhh.... But less funny because you really didn't need the second "twitter", you had to force it. *Of course* the twittering twitterers are on Twitter, its the only place you *can* twitter. "Twitterers twittering about twittering" makes more sense. And actually, It's funnier. Hmm. And yes, I know I am ridiculous.
-Taylor
Seriously. This is the sort of thing twitter is really good at.
It's not knowing what Britney is eating for breakfast. Or how much a SKANK Malinda next door is. Or how much a bastard Billy is, oh but he's such a hunk. Or what color Aston K's turds are.
Thank goodness twitter popularity is dying.
OMG, Malinda is SUCH a skank!
How is it a hassle? It IS a delay, but as Netflix is the only place I use to check new releases, it's one I admittedly won't notice. In return, we'll get way more instant-watch movies available, which I don't have to wait for and can watch on my laptop or two of the three consoles in the house.
It's hardly an anti-customer strategy when they make the same choice I'd have asked them to, given the option. The only thing currently stopping Instant-Watch from being really awesome is its subpar selection. And really, if I cared about seeing the movies from Netflix soon after they came out, I'd have seen them in theaters.
You say it's good because you'd rather have more instant watch movies, but you're assuming that increasing the amount of instant watch movies can only happen if they delay rentals, which isn't true.
Increasing the number of instant-watch movies is a good decision, but that doesn't somehow make delaying rentals a good idea - it doesn't have to be one or the other, but the studios are making it that way because they don't understand consumers.
For a random analogy: If a gunman shoots my dog, and then tells me he was going to shoot me but decided to shoot my dog instead,that doesn't make the gunman's motives any less cruel or acceptable, even though I would have chosen the same thing, given the choice between my life or my dog's. You'd choose more insta-watch movies over getting rentals sooner, but that doesn't mean that it was the best decision.
I'd rather just have my movies any way I want. I don't mind paying for some kind of rental (like Netflix, which I have) but I'm NOT going to go out and buy every movie I want to watch, I have other expenses that matter more.
-Taylor
First, here's the NIST list of approved 140-1 and 140-2 modules.
Note that they approve the module and not the access software. The flaw is in the access software. Therefore, 140-2 compliance or approval isn't proof that your data is safe. It just means that some approved form of encryption is implemented by the crypto module. It appears that the modules in question were given some form of TEMPEST examination as well, but once again, that means nothing in terms of the access software.
Actually, the flaw is indeed in the modules. They ALL use they same unlock key. I'd say that makes them flawed. The software is not helpful - it just obscures the fact that they all use the same unlock key by asking for a unique password that it converts to the common unlock key - but as unhelpful as the software is, it isn't the issue.
To put it another way, there is no way of fixing the software to change the fact that all of these drives can be accessed with one known key, which means its not the software that is broken, its the keys.
Of course, it doesn't help that the software gave up that key, so that is certainly a flaw but if the modules all had different keys it wouldn't be as helpful and it certainly isn't as big as a problem as the modules all being the same!
-Taylor
When I was in 8th grade (late 90's) I took ginko in the weeks leading up to the county math contest. I ended up getting first place in the individual competition for 8th graders. I was never sure if the ginko helped or if I was just talented, but its nice to know it probably wasn't the ginko (not like i expected any difference to be huge, but still!).
Of course... it was Santa Cruz county... Yes, that Santa Cruz.
And the sad thing is that after doing all that, then going through high school and college and completing the engineering level math up to differential equations (which i got an A in), I can't remember any of it anymore. At least, not calculus. I can't even remember how to do derivatives!
-Taylor
That will work great for those without smartphones which is basically everyone I know.
This is 8 *years* in the future. I think smartphones will be much more common. At least phones capable of processing a transaction, for sure.
-Taylor
While I understand that TV programming is supported by commercials, and the viewers exist only to watch those commercials, it is this sort of thing that makes me feel less guilty about skipping commercials. In fact, I hardly watch commercials because TV is kind of passé. Most good shows are on the net a day or two after the first run. Most TV seasons can be bought for $30. That is 30-40 shows a year for the cost of cable.
I would hope that advertisers would be considering how to keep TV relevant so that they can continue to have someone to watch the ads rather than continuing to alienate the few viewers they have left.
I don't have cable, i just use Hulu and torrents, but the annoying thing is that this happens even on Hulu with certain ads. That makes me want to use more torrents, but i wouldn't mind ads if they weren't so much louder than the show.
-Taylor
This even happens a lot on Hulu, and I have to turn it down whenever those commercials come on, because its really annoying.
I don't really know if legislation is the answer, but honestly its annoying and I really wish *something* could be done about it, since the content distributors don't seem to care.
-Taylor
This sounds like a good idea for transferring content securely. The contents of the memory will degrade in a short time, making it ideal for carrying sensitive data.
Meh, its very unlikely reliable. I'm sure there are better ways.
-Taylor
... slashdot story summaries i don't want to delete but still want to keep
Haha, yeah, I noticed that too. I'm pretty sure thunderbird has *always* had a solution for keeping things you don't want to delete!
-Taylor