I strongly suspect that you're found one of the editors, moderators, or admins who are powerless anywhere else but Wikipedia and think that this makes them experts, authoritative, or even relevant. From my reading, you let a bunch of mentally handicapped people do whatever it was they wanted to do and this person has now called you a loser because you refused to argue with a bunch of people who are devoid of anything resembling intellect.
They cite you mentioning it, as an example, of it being important to you which is the most absurd logic that I've seen, outside of YouTube comments, in a while. I've mentioned the fact that I've taken a shit, it doesn't mean it's important or some overwhelming experience in my life that's impacted me greatly - I just happened to bring it up in conversation. Strangely enough, almost nothing that I say is important - not even to me.
I doubt they'll be capable of being insightful, introspective, or self-critical enough to understand that they are actually demonstrating, clearly, the trouble that is Wikipedia. Don't get me wrong. Wikipedia is a valuable resource for what it is. It's a good starting point for people who want to find out small bits of information run by sniveling morons who are the largest enemy of it actually being a more useful site. If you keep that in mind and are smart enough to notice selective quotes, slant, and think for yourself (while checking references and multiple sources) then it's not a bad resource.
But, keep in mind what it is. It's full of people who are *exactly* the type of person you were responding to. It's full of self-important (and ironically incompetent) people who feel compelled to be correct regardless of facts and, in some areas, will respond exactly like they did with you. The results of this are much poorer than they could be. Someone should fork the thing, take all the content (it's free), and strip the current administrators out of it and try to get a better group in place. I imagine this will need to be done again, from time to time, as the position seems to attract the most inept people possible and they're somehow enabled by their peers.
So, accept it for what it is and it's not bad. I'll even accept it as the final say in an online debate unless there's compelling, very compelling, reason not to. I'm secure in my masculinity - enough to accept that I don't know everything and *gasp* may actually be wrong. My ego is not that frail nor do I give them the power to control my emotions. These traits seem to be sorely lacking and, akin to Jefferson and a quote about blood and patriots, the only real solution is to probably fork it and make something useful again and be prepared to do repeat the process the future when the idiots take over the new place.
The tree of knowledge needs to be refreshed from time to time with the howling and whining of impotent admins. (We probably don't need the blood.)
Well, at least the shell script will be consistent. So, there's that. I'm not sure why you're modded troll. It appears pretty accurate to me. I still find it useful but that's because I'm willing to check the sources and use it as a jumping off point to do further research. I have noticed a trend where omission, I'll not go so far as to say it is deliberate, is used to ensure the tone of the article is both factual and biased. It does, indeed, contain the truth but it's a very limited set of truths and implications are there but the articles are, indeed, factual.
I've not dug into edit histories, looked to see what has been deleted, nor do I bother to check who did what. I'm not usually concerned with this. I am a bit of a history buff and I've seen a variety of omissions that result in slanted views being listed as factual - specifically WWII era stuff but I'm more likely to notice it there. It hasn't been important enough to warrant any great effort on my part, I simply don't care enough and am not going to even begin to put the effort in to make changes.
I would say that the slant is not always in one direction and sometimes rather petty. Like all things, it is best consumed in moderation and with consideration given to the source. Would I use it in a quick internet article? Yes, and I'd accept the findings from others there unless greater effort was needed. I'd just not put a lot of stock in it and I'd actually read the sources if it were a scholarly effort. Selective quoting can (and does) happen and very few things on this planet are without bias.
What I find interesting is that Bill Gates was publicly pontificating about such back in the very early 1990s. Their partial implementation was known as Encarta and had many of the same goals but slightly less altruism. The Wikipedia (ah how deliciously ironic) article indicates that it was first released in 1993 but there's at least one video segment and one talk given where Gates discusses it a bit more as well as the objectives of the project.
I'm not positive but I think the talk was given at ComDex and the video segment was a part of a slightly later (1994, I think?) video that was released and had to do with Microsoft Plus! being made available soon.
I don't think that editing was on his radar at that time but the concept of allowing people to upload and share their created media (music, video, and images) was quite specifically mentioned. One could assume that editing was a logical and natural progression had Wikipedia not come along. I don't know how libre it would have been but I'd also guess that, by now, it would be free (as in beer) if nothing else.
I've no idea where I'm going with this but I figured that the recollection of history might be of interest to someone. The times, they were interesting. Things were changing rapidly. People were, back then, talking about ownership of private information and how your personal information might not only be tracked and shared but it might be in as many as five or six data bases at some point and how scary that would be. Even Cringely was talking about it and how they'd be building profiles and using that to target ads and that they'd be able to discern a great deal about you by the shows you watched, the products you bought, and the data you gave away in order to access a service.
And, if I must mention some of the "elders" or "historically significant" then I'll add that, on the other hand, RMS has been a lunatic since the beginning. One of his earliest acts was to protest the use of passwords in the MIT computer labs. He's hated DRM for a very long time. Oddly, the people who copy him and espouse his beliefs, parrot them - at least, seem disinclined to stop using passwords and, presumably, still chmod as needed. But, I digress... Stallman's foray was to send out emails and verbally convey the idea to the users that they should simply leave the password field blank and not configure it as a way to prevent others from imposing their rights on you. He may have had a point, even a valid point, but he's still a lunatic.
Err... I should also point out that no, I'm typing this from a Linux-based (I dunno how much GNU is actually in Lubuntu) OS. I also would add that I'm pretty fond of Wikipedia and accept it for what it is. I think it's a wonderful resource that has a variety of limits but those limits are far outweighed by its value. Ah well, there went the digression into some history of encyclopedic content on the computer. Encarta was also not the first to do so. I seem to recall IMDb being something maintained by movie buffs back on Usenet? My memory may be a bit faulty there but that's one other example that I can think of. I'm sure that there are plenty more.
Then, perhaps, they can see the sources (and track, presumably) after the fact? There's a great deal of evidence that points to this being either condoned or perpetrated by the Chinese government - with a whole host of anecdotes (which actually *are* a form of data) as well as some more material evidence such as originating IP address spaces and their allocations.
Thank you for the information. I'd have figured it to be more real time as well as more locked down as opposed to closing it afterwards. I figured they went with something more akin to whitelisting as opposed to blacklisting. Given the scope, and some thinking, I can see why they might not take on such an overwhelming task but China's come a long ways since I was a child (born in 57).
As an aside; My VPN has an exit server in China. I've spent a fair amount of time pondering why that would be the case. The only thing I can come up with is that it might be because someone would want something to appear to come from within the confines of the Great Wall. I'm also curious as to why the Chinese government would allow such and, needless to say, I don't make use of it as a general rule but I have used it to see if I could access a few sites out of curiosity.
Again, thanks. I'd also understood that the Great Firewall doesn't do nearly as much as it once did from reading a few things here and there. I figure it's probably maintained more or less to keep track of things after the fact. I am also quite certain that the Chinese government does a lot of the things they're accused of doing but probably not all of them. They're an awfully convenient group of people to blame, perhaps too convenient but I may be moving into tinfoil-hat-territory.
By the same token, there are people who affix such things to their automobiles and have them in their houses. I can tell if I'm in a vehicle with them and I can locate and turn them off if they're hidden. I've also had a 100% success rate telling when they're turned on or off while blindfolded with two separate models and in two different environments. I also hear the high frequency output devices used to thwart teens. I'll add that I'm close enough to where I just call myself 58.
However, I've been tested and actually *can* hear those frequencies as I've had my hearing tested just a few short years ago. I do have some lower frequencies that I don't hear as well - there's actually a section that I skip and then I resume being able to hear (it's more like feel, I guess) the sound. I actually have worse hearing than I used to have, I've a slight tear in my left ear drum from an ear infection a few years back - which is why I asked to be tested.
It was normal, for me at least, to hear certain sounds and they suddenly were not there. It turns out that I still hear higher frequencies than most people and certainly more than most people in my age group. We were discussing the anti-loitering devices the last time I brought this up and I seem to recall someone mentioning being at the opposite end of the spectrum and able to hear some very low frequencies and a couple of others who chimed in and mentioned similar things but hadn't been tested recently.
In your wife's case, well... You can draw your own conclusions.
Prior art, man. We used to do some very mean things to the mentally ill. I did once watch a documentary that concluded, in a part of it, that the mean things didn't do a damned thing for the seriously mentally ill it *did* help those who were less ill mask their symptoms better. I'm still pretty sure that it's not an acceptable form of mental health care - even in America. Instead, we put them in prison and let them abuse one another. We're refined and humane over here.
Wind power does output sound which, I suppose, might make one nauseated? I've never had it do so to me but I guess that could actually be possible... Certain frequencies do impact people but, AFAIK, there's no apocryphal "brown note" of legend but I imagine some might make one physically ill if they're sensitive to such.
Worse, they're trying to change the town to limit lighting types, microwave use, and other assorted things and may, at some point, have a large enough majority to enact laws impacting those who were there first.
I've been in military helicopters on a variety of occasions and, worse, they were piloted by Marines. However, that was before I developed my fear of heights, it'll be interesting. I'll surely do it - if for no other reason than to see how it affects me.
This is best said aloud but...
When you're in the Air Force, what do you call those things with rotors on the tail and on the top and engage in vertical take offs? A helicopter.
When you're in the Army, what do you call those same things? A chopper.
How about when you're in the Navy? A whirlybird.
And in the Marines? *points upwards towards the sky* Ook Ook!!!
Yes, I served in the Corps.;-) I've told the joke at Tun's Tavern which isn't the real Tun's but is a themed joint that's mostly family friendly down in Quantico. It went over well enough but I have a bulldog tattoo and my unit coin so I can get away with it. I'd probably not suggest others try it.
Hey now. It's not the Marine's fault. They were told that they had to use it, they had no choice. They said that VTOL is a requirement which, frankly, it is if it's to be a replacement for the Harrier. The idiots decided that, instead of allowing them to get an updated Harrier, they'd stuff VTOL into the damned F-35. The Marines would have been perfectly content with just updating the Harrier and not using the F-35 at all. If you're unaware of why VTOL is important for the Marines on a modern battlefield then I'd submit you may not know enough to opine.
The fault is not that the Marines need VTOL. The fault is that the idiots insisted that putting it into a F-35 was a viable choice - and not something the Marines had/have control over. By not listening to the Marines, who clearly expressed a desire to have an updated Harrier - not even an entirely new aircraft, you get this as a result. That you blame this on the Marines is a bit telling.
How the hell is that a troll? That's just how it is around here. I'm more offended if someone *does* read the article. I could never understand the Slashdot effect 'cause it sure as hell wasn't the people commenting who were clicking the links.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I had to deal with data volumes that were pretty much unheard of at the time. Google sold an appliance that (supposedly) made searching this data much easier. While it never worked quite as well as we'd hoped, it worked to some extent (it was not really able to be tuned to give good relevance scores for the data we used) and it wasn't entirely lost revenue.
At any rate... Why not sell an appliance or, better, software that enables the school to run their own private cloud with Google's services? Hmm... Someone should do this over there at Google's HQ. I don't really want a job but they should hire someone to actually think about these sorts of things. A district or even a whole State could have its own private cloud. They could even configure the devices to use them when they're not directly connected to the network and that'd be fairly trivial to accomplish.
Google would make money (maybe not as much as they'd like and they'd not get the data which sucks but they'd still profit) and compliance would be trivial to accomplish. 'Snot like it's rocket surgery or anything. Even I can think of ways to do this. They don't even need to give up their source, they can run it on a black box if they absolutely needed to (though I'm not sure who'd trust such a thing but that's what firewalls are for).
Speaking of which, it may not seem like it but summer break is fast approaching and that's the refresh time or, in this case, probably an "addition to." I'm thinking I can probably get them the 2015 13" MBP for a steal if I time it right and do so just prior to or right after the 2016 release.
She's not entirely unattractive so, if we're selling off her body parts then she might be worth more whole than in parts.
Disclosure, I owned some stock until about a year ago. I'd held it for about five years. I bought it at under 20 and sold for about 50. Filthy lucre is filthy but, damn it, it was pretty lucrative. I harbor them no ill will and it was simply profit. I seem to recall that I'd had some 1800 shares.;-) I believe I can login and check but I am lazy.
When I got the offer to buy my company, I spoke with a lawyer and spent a few days talking with the employees and my family. It was a pretty nice number. I agree to (mostly) accept the offer and the sale was completed within a month, on paper. They'd already done due diligence before they made the offer. I might have been able to get more money from the company for the sale but I bargained for other things instead (such as them retaining staff for a period of time or offering severance packages - even if anyone wanted to leave).
Side note: One can not just dump the stocks. I sold for a mix of stock and cash. I was unable to trade or sell those shares for either 60 days or 6 months, I forget which and am nowhere near the paperwork to look into it.
Of course, I did not sell for billions of dollars, not even a half a billion dollars. I'm guessing they do due diligence before making the offer even then, especially then. We'd already been in talks before they made the offer and they'd even done most due diligence and investigations prior to our first discussion. I don't imagine these are entirely unexpected, as a general rule. It certainly wasn't with us. It started with a phone call, "I'm so-and-so and I represent so-and-so. Our client is interested in either investing in your company or buying your company. Are you available to go to lunch in the near future?" Something close to that, at any rate.
Set an auto-reply message up (it might be called something like vacation settings, autoresponse, or similar) instructing people that the address is no longer valid and that the message will be unread unless they resend it to the correct address (include said address). Where you can change it yourself, do so. You might even want to include basic instructions for a few email clients on how to make the changes. It'd probably take an hour to do it exceptionally well. I bet you have a very high success rate if you try it out. (I've done this before.)
We don't really know. What we do know is that it is unpredictable which is similar to random but not entirely the same. It may even be predictable and, likely, is at a certain time scale.
Keep in mind that I'm not a physicist, I'm a mathematician. I've found the concept of random fascinating since I got a good instructor in the some higher levels and they were able to really give good instruction as concepts as opposed to rote. It was actually what led to my thesis and then to modeling traffic - we only appear to do random things.
Anyhow, I am not sure if decay is random - probably not, entirely. We use some form of radioactive decay as a measurement so I am assuming it's predictable which is probably not always the same rate at the particle scale but it's probably not truly random. I'm not entirely sure how one would go about proving that it is random. That'd take some thought... It's also quite likely to be beyond my ability for I am not omnipotent.;-)
Maybe they could/should munge the data so it's not identifiable or release it to a university research facility with strict release criteria? Even the aggregate results might be of value to some. Presumably, these companies have hardened their systems due to the results and would no longer be subject to the exploits found but you're probably right about both the critical infrastructure and their unwillingness to undergo the tests without such protections.
I see this as a potentially beneficial service though I'd suspect the companies can pay or pay a sliding fee. Erf... I'd almost agree to the idea of this being mandatory, or something similar, if a company wants to retain PPI. I'd take some convincing because I'm pretty much against the idea of additional regulations as a general rule. I'm not a crazy zealot so I don't see it as a black and white thing and would make exceptions for good laws that actually had a tangible benefit. (I'm not an anarchist or even a minarchist, really.)
I'm slowly on my way to Florida (I made it to DC so far, I'm out of Buffalo, finally) and I have property there in Panama City. The supervisor for the lawn care company is named Jesus. The joke about Jesus being my gardener is true. Well, he drives the truck and lawn tractor while another guy picks up and then rakes and a third guy does trimming and weed whacking.
So, slowly but surely, I'm on my way to meet Jesus!
I have lost the uploaded picture and never felt it important enough to back up but I did have a picture proving that I'd found Jesus in Kutztown, PA. He drove a big blue Chevy pickup truck. I know it was Jesus because it said so on his license plate.
Jesus is alive and well! I've met Jesus, several of 'em actually. I did not meet the one in PA, I just found him or, at least, his truck. If I could get an insurance adjuster named Jesus then I'd have an accident on purpose. Just so I can say, "Appraise Jesus!" Sadly, I'm only partially joking - I'm very easily amused and will go out of my way to amuse myself.
Err... Are you mentally incapacitated? I read, understood (I'm pretty sure), and replied with why I still felt that it was an unusual choice and likely the path of least resistance instead of the choice I'd have made if I were in their shoes. This is not complicated, I even listed reasoning and, elsewhere, alternatives. You don't really think the US is the best choice, do you?
That makes sense. I've also probably just misunderstood them - as, now that I think about it, I don't recall them saying that I'm legally prohibited from landing the plane but that I could not land the plane. When I was a wee lad, my family was in a C-130 and I got to pilot that and that was kind of neat. Mostly, I just moved the turned and dove and rose a little. I was pretty young. My feet did not reach the pedals. Then I got to do the same on a commercial flight but I was a bit older. I still have a set of wings and a pilots cover from Panama Airlines. I think that was a 727 but it may have been the DC-10. Considering how different they look, it was that long ago.
I've considered getting my license a few times but it's just not something that I'd be interested in doing often enough to justify keeping up on it and staying proficient. I also know enough pilots at the personal level so I can just go fly around if I want to without much effort or preparation. A buddy recently bought a Bell helicopter, used of course, and I may take a stab at that. I understand the principles but I've never done it. It should be interesting.
Funny enough, I'm scared shitless of heights in many areas but flying doesn't bother me. I wasn't scared when I was younger but, today, I don't even like being on a ladder or even looking out the windows of tall buildings. Flying doesn't bother me at all.
That makes sense. I watch a bunch of talks and documentaries on quantum mechanics and physics but, honestly, I do so for entertainment and not as a scholarly pursuit. I pick up and retain some but that's incidental and not the goal, it's just entertaining and I like to learn a little and I never know what I'll learn. Some of them are things that I can watch multiple times. I've never really been a big fan of regular television, even as a child.
It wasn't until I got into the higher level maths that I began to realize how much the idea of 'true random' being tossed casually about tweaked me a little. At the time, I'd actually anticipated a career in academia as my future. In part, it was that curiosity that drove me to look into modeling traffic, a limited set of chaos with something that approached random and, lo and behold, it's not all that random at all and one can find order within if they look hard enough.
In reference to the latter portion of your post... I've found that some of the greatest advances have come from people asking "hard questions." That's something to mull on and I'm assuming we've similar definitions for "hard questions." Thanks! That'll keep me amused for hours. Sometimes, the most difficult thing to do is to figure out the appropriate questions.
You *might* find the source somewhere. I've not looked. I probably will before I send this. Opera's been moving to more and more open source (not truly libre but close enough for me - I'm not really picky and don't mind closed source stuff) lately. It takes some digging but you can get and build Opera from source now. Well, in theory. I've not actually tried it.:/ It shouldn't be too hard but I've not had motivation.
I didn't find anything on Github either. Depending on your package manager system (and you *might* be able to install APT and be able to use.deb files with/some/ success) and whatnot - you might be able to convert it for use. I've had some luck getting alien to work with some RPMs as I am (shh!) an actual fan of Lubuntu and Mint but i far and away prefer Lubuntu. (Something about the primal functionality and speed of LXDE...That and, I have made it beautiful.)
And yeah, I swear that it used to have a ton of versions. I think there's Mozilla code in there - doesn't Mozilla require releasing source if they distribute binaries?:/ I must confess, I do not know Mozilla's licensing. I don't really use many of their products - just Thunderbird. I do leave Firefox installed but I seldom use it - usually it's my "only adblock plus installed, don't care" browser or what I'll fire up if I want to use Tor instead of my VPN for some reason or other.
The top portion is a "dock" that I made that only shows up when I move the cursor to the top of the screen. I need to set the delay a little longer but I've not managed. I'd show the current implementation (only slightly different) but my desktop is a mess.
Anyhow, back to Opera Mail. It works. It does what it's supposed to do. I never did dig into it to see if it supported GPG or PGP in a reasonable fashion. I used it for a while but wasn't in the habit of signing or encrypting anything. I don't have any complaints about it but, at the same time, I don't have anything to say good about it except that it works. I don't know how they made an email client more boring than, well, an email client but they somehow managed.
I'm a fan of Opera, probably more than is healthy, and I just don't prefer it. I stuck with Opera during the conversion to Chromium's source base. (I didn't use it constantly but I kept it installed.) Today it's fine but it was rough for a while. Even *I* don't like Opera Mail. I can't really say why I don't like it except to say what I've already said. It may not be articulated well. Give it a shot, if you *can* try it out. You might be able to install apt or find a way to convert the.deb package? I can't say that I've tried.
Slashdot Mirror
I strongly suspect that you're found one of the editors, moderators, or admins who are powerless anywhere else but Wikipedia and think that this makes them experts, authoritative, or even relevant. From my reading, you let a bunch of mentally handicapped people do whatever it was they wanted to do and this person has now called you a loser because you refused to argue with a bunch of people who are devoid of anything resembling intellect.
They cite you mentioning it, as an example, of it being important to you which is the most absurd logic that I've seen, outside of YouTube comments, in a while. I've mentioned the fact that I've taken a shit, it doesn't mean it's important or some overwhelming experience in my life that's impacted me greatly - I just happened to bring it up in conversation. Strangely enough, almost nothing that I say is important - not even to me.
I doubt they'll be capable of being insightful, introspective, or self-critical enough to understand that they are actually demonstrating, clearly, the trouble that is Wikipedia. Don't get me wrong. Wikipedia is a valuable resource for what it is. It's a good starting point for people who want to find out small bits of information run by sniveling morons who are the largest enemy of it actually being a more useful site. If you keep that in mind and are smart enough to notice selective quotes, slant, and think for yourself (while checking references and multiple sources) then it's not a bad resource.
But, keep in mind what it is. It's full of people who are *exactly* the type of person you were responding to. It's full of self-important (and ironically incompetent) people who feel compelled to be correct regardless of facts and, in some areas, will respond exactly like they did with you. The results of this are much poorer than they could be. Someone should fork the thing, take all the content (it's free), and strip the current administrators out of it and try to get a better group in place. I imagine this will need to be done again, from time to time, as the position seems to attract the most inept people possible and they're somehow enabled by their peers.
So, accept it for what it is and it's not bad. I'll even accept it as the final say in an online debate unless there's compelling, very compelling, reason not to. I'm secure in my masculinity - enough to accept that I don't know everything and *gasp* may actually be wrong. My ego is not that frail nor do I give them the power to control my emotions. These traits seem to be sorely lacking and, akin to Jefferson and a quote about blood and patriots, the only real solution is to probably fork it and make something useful again and be prepared to do repeat the process the future when the idiots take over the new place.
The tree of knowledge needs to be refreshed from time to time with the howling and whining of impotent admins. (We probably don't need the blood.)
Well, at least the shell script will be consistent. So, there's that. I'm not sure why you're modded troll. It appears pretty accurate to me. I still find it useful but that's because I'm willing to check the sources and use it as a jumping off point to do further research. I have noticed a trend where omission, I'll not go so far as to say it is deliberate, is used to ensure the tone of the article is both factual and biased. It does, indeed, contain the truth but it's a very limited set of truths and implications are there but the articles are, indeed, factual.
I've not dug into edit histories, looked to see what has been deleted, nor do I bother to check who did what. I'm not usually concerned with this. I am a bit of a history buff and I've seen a variety of omissions that result in slanted views being listed as factual - specifically WWII era stuff but I'm more likely to notice it there. It hasn't been important enough to warrant any great effort on my part, I simply don't care enough and am not going to even begin to put the effort in to make changes.
I would say that the slant is not always in one direction and sometimes rather petty. Like all things, it is best consumed in moderation and with consideration given to the source. Would I use it in a quick internet article? Yes, and I'd accept the findings from others there unless greater effort was needed. I'd just not put a lot of stock in it and I'd actually read the sources if it were a scholarly effort. Selective quoting can (and does) happen and very few things on this planet are without bias.
What I find interesting is that Bill Gates was publicly pontificating about such back in the very early 1990s. Their partial implementation was known as Encarta and had many of the same goals but slightly less altruism. The Wikipedia (ah how deliciously ironic) article indicates that it was first released in 1993 but there's at least one video segment and one talk given where Gates discusses it a bit more as well as the objectives of the project.
I'm not positive but I think the talk was given at ComDex and the video segment was a part of a slightly later (1994, I think?) video that was released and had to do with Microsoft Plus! being made available soon.
I don't think that editing was on his radar at that time but the concept of allowing people to upload and share their created media (music, video, and images) was quite specifically mentioned. One could assume that editing was a logical and natural progression had Wikipedia not come along. I don't know how libre it would have been but I'd also guess that, by now, it would be free (as in beer) if nothing else.
I've no idea where I'm going with this but I figured that the recollection of history might be of interest to someone. The times, they were interesting. Things were changing rapidly. People were, back then, talking about ownership of private information and how your personal information might not only be tracked and shared but it might be in as many as five or six data bases at some point and how scary that would be. Even Cringely was talking about it and how they'd be building profiles and using that to target ads and that they'd be able to discern a great deal about you by the shows you watched, the products you bought, and the data you gave away in order to access a service.
And, if I must mention some of the "elders" or "historically significant" then I'll add that, on the other hand, RMS has been a lunatic since the beginning. One of his earliest acts was to protest the use of passwords in the MIT computer labs. He's hated DRM for a very long time. Oddly, the people who copy him and espouse his beliefs, parrot them - at least, seem disinclined to stop using passwords and, presumably, still chmod as needed. But, I digress... Stallman's foray was to send out emails and verbally convey the idea to the users that they should simply leave the password field blank and not configure it as a way to prevent others from imposing their rights on you. He may have had a point, even a valid point, but he's still a lunatic.
Err... I should also point out that no, I'm typing this from a Linux-based (I dunno how much GNU is actually in Lubuntu) OS. I also would add that I'm pretty fond of Wikipedia and accept it for what it is. I think it's a wonderful resource that has a variety of limits but those limits are far outweighed by its value. Ah well, there went the digression into some history of encyclopedic content on the computer. Encarta was also not the first to do so. I seem to recall IMDb being something maintained by movie buffs back on Usenet? My memory may be a bit faulty there but that's one other example that I can think of. I'm sure that there are plenty more.
Then, perhaps, they can see the sources (and track, presumably) after the fact? There's a great deal of evidence that points to this being either condoned or perpetrated by the Chinese government - with a whole host of anecdotes (which actually *are* a form of data) as well as some more material evidence such as originating IP address spaces and their allocations.
Thank you for the information. I'd have figured it to be more real time as well as more locked down as opposed to closing it afterwards. I figured they went with something more akin to whitelisting as opposed to blacklisting. Given the scope, and some thinking, I can see why they might not take on such an overwhelming task but China's come a long ways since I was a child (born in 57).
As an aside; My VPN has an exit server in China. I've spent a fair amount of time pondering why that would be the case. The only thing I can come up with is that it might be because someone would want something to appear to come from within the confines of the Great Wall. I'm also curious as to why the Chinese government would allow such and, needless to say, I don't make use of it as a general rule but I have used it to see if I could access a few sites out of curiosity.
Again, thanks. I'd also understood that the Great Firewall doesn't do nearly as much as it once did from reading a few things here and there. I figure it's probably maintained more or less to keep track of things after the fact. I am also quite certain that the Chinese government does a lot of the things they're accused of doing but probably not all of them. They're an awfully convenient group of people to blame, perhaps too convenient but I may be moving into tinfoil-hat-territory.
By the same token, there are people who affix such things to their automobiles and have them in their houses. I can tell if I'm in a vehicle with them and I can locate and turn them off if they're hidden. I've also had a 100% success rate telling when they're turned on or off while blindfolded with two separate models and in two different environments. I also hear the high frequency output devices used to thwart teens. I'll add that I'm close enough to where I just call myself 58.
However, I've been tested and actually *can* hear those frequencies as I've had my hearing tested just a few short years ago. I do have some lower frequencies that I don't hear as well - there's actually a section that I skip and then I resume being able to hear (it's more like feel, I guess) the sound. I actually have worse hearing than I used to have, I've a slight tear in my left ear drum from an ear infection a few years back - which is why I asked to be tested.
It was normal, for me at least, to hear certain sounds and they suddenly were not there. It turns out that I still hear higher frequencies than most people and certainly more than most people in my age group. We were discussing the anti-loitering devices the last time I brought this up and I seem to recall someone mentioning being at the opposite end of the spectrum and able to hear some very low frequencies and a couple of others who chimed in and mentioned similar things but hadn't been tested recently.
In your wife's case, well... You can draw your own conclusions.
Prior art, man. We used to do some very mean things to the mentally ill. I did once watch a documentary that concluded, in a part of it, that the mean things didn't do a damned thing for the seriously mentally ill it *did* help those who were less ill mask their symptoms better. I'm still pretty sure that it's not an acceptable form of mental health care - even in America. Instead, we put them in prison and let them abuse one another. We're refined and humane over here.
Wind power does output sound which, I suppose, might make one nauseated? I've never had it do so to me but I guess that could actually be possible... Certain frequencies do impact people but, AFAIK, there's no apocryphal "brown note" of legend but I imagine some might make one physically ill if they're sensitive to such.
Worse, they're trying to change the town to limit lighting types, microwave use, and other assorted things and may, at some point, have a large enough majority to enact laws impacting those who were there first.
I've been in military helicopters on a variety of occasions and, worse, they were piloted by Marines. However, that was before I developed my fear of heights, it'll be interesting. I'll surely do it - if for no other reason than to see how it affects me.
This is best said aloud but...
When you're in the Air Force, what do you call those things with rotors on the tail and on the top and engage in vertical take offs?
A helicopter.
When you're in the Army, what do you call those same things?
A chopper.
How about when you're in the Navy?
A whirlybird.
And in the Marines?
*points upwards towards the sky* Ook Ook!!!
Yes, I served in the Corps. ;-) I've told the joke at Tun's Tavern which isn't the real Tun's but is a themed joint that's mostly family friendly down in Quantico. It went over well enough but I have a bulldog tattoo and my unit coin so I can get away with it. I'd probably not suggest others try it.
You mean to tell me that the Great Firewall does not do stateful packet inspection?
Hey now. It's not the Marine's fault. They were told that they had to use it, they had no choice. They said that VTOL is a requirement which, frankly, it is if it's to be a replacement for the Harrier. The idiots decided that, instead of allowing them to get an updated Harrier, they'd stuff VTOL into the damned F-35. The Marines would have been perfectly content with just updating the Harrier and not using the F-35 at all. If you're unaware of why VTOL is important for the Marines on a modern battlefield then I'd submit you may not know enough to opine.
The fault is not that the Marines need VTOL. The fault is that the idiots insisted that putting it into a F-35 was a viable choice - and not something the Marines had/have control over. By not listening to the Marines, who clearly expressed a desire to have an updated Harrier - not even an entirely new aircraft, you get this as a result. That you blame this on the Marines is a bit telling.
How the hell is that a troll? That's just how it is around here. I'm more offended if someone *does* read the article. I could never understand the Slashdot effect 'cause it sure as hell wasn't the people commenting who were clicking the links.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I had to deal with data volumes that were pretty much unheard of at the time. Google sold an appliance that (supposedly) made searching this data much easier. While it never worked quite as well as we'd hoped, it worked to some extent (it was not really able to be tuned to give good relevance scores for the data we used) and it wasn't entirely lost revenue.
At any rate... Why not sell an appliance or, better, software that enables the school to run their own private cloud with Google's services? Hmm... Someone should do this over there at Google's HQ. I don't really want a job but they should hire someone to actually think about these sorts of things. A district or even a whole State could have its own private cloud. They could even configure the devices to use them when they're not directly connected to the network and that'd be fairly trivial to accomplish.
Google would make money (maybe not as much as they'd like and they'd not get the data which sucks but they'd still profit) and compliance would be trivial to accomplish. 'Snot like it's rocket surgery or anything. Even I can think of ways to do this. They don't even need to give up their source, they can run it on a black box if they absolutely needed to (though I'm not sure who'd trust such a thing but that's what firewalls are for).
Taking social security benefits is not mandatory. Just don't apply for them. Tada! Consult a lawyer. I have.
Speaking of which, it may not seem like it but summer break is fast approaching and that's the refresh time or, in this case, probably an "addition to." I'm thinking I can probably get them the 2015 13" MBP for a steal if I time it right and do so just prior to or right after the 2016 release.
She's not entirely unattractive so, if we're selling off her body parts then she might be worth more whole than in parts.
Disclosure, I owned some stock until about a year ago. I'd held it for about five years. I bought it at under 20 and sold for about 50. Filthy lucre is filthy but, damn it, it was pretty lucrative. I harbor them no ill will and it was simply profit. I seem to recall that I'd had some 1800 shares. ;-) I believe I can login and check but I am lazy.
When I got the offer to buy my company, I spoke with a lawyer and spent a few days talking with the employees and my family. It was a pretty nice number. I agree to (mostly) accept the offer and the sale was completed within a month, on paper. They'd already done due diligence before they made the offer. I might have been able to get more money from the company for the sale but I bargained for other things instead (such as them retaining staff for a period of time or offering severance packages - even if anyone wanted to leave).
Side note: One can not just dump the stocks. I sold for a mix of stock and cash. I was unable to trade or sell those shares for either 60 days or 6 months, I forget which and am nowhere near the paperwork to look into it.
Of course, I did not sell for billions of dollars, not even a half a billion dollars. I'm guessing they do due diligence before making the offer even then, especially then. We'd already been in talks before they made the offer and they'd even done most due diligence and investigations prior to our first discussion. I don't imagine these are entirely unexpected, as a general rule. It certainly wasn't with us. It started with a phone call, "I'm so-and-so and I represent so-and-so. Our client is interested in either investing in your company or buying your company. Are you available to go to lunch in the near future?" Something close to that, at any rate.
Set an auto-reply message up (it might be called something like vacation settings, autoresponse, or similar) instructing people that the address is no longer valid and that the message will be unread unless they resend it to the correct address (include said address). Where you can change it yourself, do so. You might even want to include basic instructions for a few email clients on how to make the changes. It'd probably take an hour to do it exceptionally well. I bet you have a very high success rate if you try it out. (I've done this before.)
We don't really know. What we do know is that it is unpredictable which is similar to random but not entirely the same. It may even be predictable and, likely, is at a certain time scale.
Keep in mind that I'm not a physicist, I'm a mathematician. I've found the concept of random fascinating since I got a good instructor in the some higher levels and they were able to really give good instruction as concepts as opposed to rote. It was actually what led to my thesis and then to modeling traffic - we only appear to do random things.
Anyhow, I am not sure if decay is random - probably not, entirely. We use some form of radioactive decay as a measurement so I am assuming it's predictable which is probably not always the same rate at the particle scale but it's probably not truly random. I'm not entirely sure how one would go about proving that it is random. That'd take some thought... It's also quite likely to be beyond my ability for I am not omnipotent. ;-)
Maybe they could/should munge the data so it's not identifiable or release it to a university research facility with strict release criteria? Even the aggregate results might be of value to some. Presumably, these companies have hardened their systems due to the results and would no longer be subject to the exploits found but you're probably right about both the critical infrastructure and their unwillingness to undergo the tests without such protections.
I see this as a potentially beneficial service though I'd suspect the companies can pay or pay a sliding fee. Erf... I'd almost agree to the idea of this being mandatory, or something similar, if a company wants to retain PPI. I'd take some convincing because I'm pretty much against the idea of additional regulations as a general rule. I'm not a crazy zealot so I don't see it as a black and white thing and would make exceptions for good laws that actually had a tangible benefit. (I'm not an anarchist or even a minarchist, really.)
I'm slowly on my way to Florida (I made it to DC so far, I'm out of Buffalo, finally) and I have property there in Panama City. The supervisor for the lawn care company is named Jesus. The joke about Jesus being my gardener is true. Well, he drives the truck and lawn tractor while another guy picks up and then rakes and a third guy does trimming and weed whacking.
So, slowly but surely, I'm on my way to meet Jesus!
I have lost the uploaded picture and never felt it important enough to back up but I did have a picture proving that I'd found Jesus in Kutztown, PA. He drove a big blue Chevy pickup truck. I know it was Jesus because it said so on his license plate.
Jesus is alive and well! I've met Jesus, several of 'em actually. I did not meet the one in PA, I just found him or, at least, his truck. If I could get an insurance adjuster named Jesus then I'd have an accident on purpose. Just so I can say, "Appraise Jesus!" Sadly, I'm only partially joking - I'm very easily amused and will go out of my way to amuse myself.
Err... Are you mentally incapacitated? I read, understood (I'm pretty sure), and replied with why I still felt that it was an unusual choice and likely the path of least resistance instead of the choice I'd have made if I were in their shoes. This is not complicated, I even listed reasoning and, elsewhere, alternatives. You don't really think the US is the best choice, do you?
That makes sense. I've also probably just misunderstood them - as, now that I think about it, I don't recall them saying that I'm legally prohibited from landing the plane but that I could not land the plane. When I was a wee lad, my family was in a C-130 and I got to pilot that and that was kind of neat. Mostly, I just moved the turned and dove and rose a little. I was pretty young. My feet did not reach the pedals. Then I got to do the same on a commercial flight but I was a bit older. I still have a set of wings and a pilots cover from Panama Airlines. I think that was a 727 but it may have been the DC-10. Considering how different they look, it was that long ago.
I've considered getting my license a few times but it's just not something that I'd be interested in doing often enough to justify keeping up on it and staying proficient. I also know enough pilots at the personal level so I can just go fly around if I want to without much effort or preparation. A buddy recently bought a Bell helicopter, used of course, and I may take a stab at that. I understand the principles but I've never done it. It should be interesting.
Funny enough, I'm scared shitless of heights in many areas but flying doesn't bother me. I wasn't scared when I was younger but, today, I don't even like being on a ladder or even looking out the windows of tall buildings. Flying doesn't bother me at all.
That makes sense. I watch a bunch of talks and documentaries on quantum mechanics and physics but, honestly, I do so for entertainment and not as a scholarly pursuit. I pick up and retain some but that's incidental and not the goal, it's just entertaining and I like to learn a little and I never know what I'll learn. Some of them are things that I can watch multiple times. I've never really been a big fan of regular television, even as a child.
It wasn't until I got into the higher level maths that I began to realize how much the idea of 'true random' being tossed casually about tweaked me a little. At the time, I'd actually anticipated a career in academia as my future. In part, it was that curiosity that drove me to look into modeling traffic, a limited set of chaos with something that approached random and, lo and behold, it's not all that random at all and one can find order within if they look hard enough.
In reference to the latter portion of your post... I've found that some of the greatest advances have come from people asking "hard questions." That's something to mull on and I'm assuming we've similar definitions for "hard questions." Thanks! That'll keep me amused for hours. Sometimes, the most difficult thing to do is to figure out the appropriate questions.
You *might* find the source somewhere. I've not looked. I probably will before I send this. Opera's been moving to more and more open source (not truly libre but close enough for me - I'm not really picky and don't mind closed source stuff) lately. It takes some digging but you can get and build Opera from source now. Well, in theory. I've not actually tried it. :/ It shouldn't be too hard but I've not had motivation.
Alas, it looks like no...
http://sourcecode.opera.com/
I didn't find anything on Github either. Depending on your package manager system (and you *might* be able to install APT and be able to use .deb files with /some/ success) and whatnot - you might be able to convert it for use. I've had some luck getting alien to work with some RPMs as I am (shh!) an actual fan of Lubuntu and Mint but i far and away prefer Lubuntu. (Something about the primal functionality and speed of LXDE...That and, I have made it beautiful.)
And yeah, I swear that it used to have a ton of versions. I think there's Mozilla code in there - doesn't Mozilla require releasing source if they distribute binaries? :/ I must confess, I do not know Mozilla's licensing. I don't really use many of their products - just Thunderbird. I do leave Firefox installed but I seldom use it - usually it's my "only adblock plus installed, don't care" browser or what I'll fire up if I want to use Tor instead of my VPN for some reason or other.
Oh, heh, LXDE... Here:
http://i.imgur.com/CA7kpLi.jpg
The top portion is a "dock" that I made that only shows up when I move the cursor to the top of the screen. I need to set the delay a little longer but I've not managed. I'd show the current implementation (only slightly different) but my desktop is a mess.
Anyhow, back to Opera Mail. It works. It does what it's supposed to do. I never did dig into it to see if it supported GPG or PGP in a reasonable fashion. I used it for a while but wasn't in the habit of signing or encrypting anything. I don't have any complaints about it but, at the same time, I don't have anything to say good about it except that it works. I don't know how they made an email client more boring than, well, an email client but they somehow managed.
I'm a fan of Opera, probably more than is healthy, and I just don't prefer it. I stuck with Opera during the conversion to Chromium's source base. (I didn't use it constantly but I kept it installed.) Today it's fine but it was rough for a while. Even *I* don't like Opera Mail. I can't really say why I don't like it except to say what I've already said. It may not be articulated well. Give it a shot, if you *can* try it out. You might be able to install apt or find a way to convert the .deb package? I can't say that I've tried.