Messages

151

Living Room / Re: Your tax dollars at work: Now FDA proposes to ban a brand of cookie?

« on: November 24, 2013, 06:52 PM »

Cookies don't kill people. People that smuggle illegal cookies across borders because some jackass outlawed them kill people.

If the government really wanted to put an end to organized crime, they'd stop outlawing dumb shit that people actually happen to like. But instead they continue to cause the problem...just so they can pretend to be fixing it.

-Stoic Joker (November 24, 2013, 03:07 PM)

I have a batch of cookies in the oven right now.

Are they going to come arrest me for posession of contraband because I've made cookies according to Grandma's favorite recipe that has not been approved by the FDA and may contain traces of soap and whatever other contaminants are on the dishes I used to mix it?

Oh by the way, they might as well ban the use of a household oven too. Because people use those far more often for baking up unhealthy desserts than preparing healthy meals like garlic bread and pizza- which is a vegetable according to the FDA and therefore healthy.

152

Living Room / Re: Cheap LED torches/flashlights - any good?

« on: November 21, 2013, 01:01 PM »

I bought a cheap wind-up LED light around 5 years ago. It has 3 LEDs for output and can operate in 1 or 3 LED mode.

Winding it up for a bit lets it run several minutes without needing to be wound up again.

Gotta see if I can find a make and model on it for you guys, because in 5 years of industrial service with regular use it is still going rather well for a cheap lamp.

153

Living Room / Re: 14 Year old Thiel Fellow creates his own nuclear fusion plant

« on: November 21, 2013, 11:17 AM »

Haven't watched the whole video yet, but why exactly are they prospecting for radioactive materials again?

If this is Fusion it doesn't need anything of that nature to get it started.

I'll have to watch the rest of it after I get home from work and see just how badly misrepresented this is. Because they've definitely got it mislabeled if not entirely wrong.

154

Living Room / Re: LG SmartTV monitors your every move - including files on attached USB drives

« on: November 20, 2013, 06:18 PM »

Nobody apparently.

I saw in the headline news a couple of days ago that the NSA responds with a prepared 'we do not disclose info on who we monitor' statement to anyone who attempts to request information on if they are being actively monitored or not.

1984 came a bit late I think, but we've definately achieved it and gone beyond it.

Now all that's left is the formation of the ministries and the party.

155

Living Room / Re: iPads banned from Cabinet meetings over surveillance fears

« on: November 05, 2013, 08:01 AM »

Suddenly my tinfoil hat looks a lot more solid. I haven't yet found an easy way to disable the microphone, but I've always kept a piece of tape over my webcam when it is not in use.

Because if it is plugged in at all, it can be hacked into and used against you.

156

Living Room / Re: 12-yr-old boy admits to hacking police and government sites for Anonymous

« on: October 27, 2013, 11:43 AM »

The only thing that's sad there is that they have the unmitigated gall to prosecute anyone after getting spanked by a 12 year old.

Pulled from the comments there:

Um, if a 12 year old can hack into their system then why is the 12 year old getting punished?

Either A) The kid needs to be offered a job or a full scholarship...

or B) The security/IT team for the police/government sites need to be fired. He's 12.

Nailed IT!!

-Stoic Joker (October 27, 2013, 07:57 AM)

Canada's laws must be different, because last I checked you legally can't even prosecute a 12 year old in the US. At least not in this manner, at worst the kid would get a slap on the wrist and some community service time.

On the other hand, the IT management for the sites that got hacked into should have a long talk with this boy to find out just how he did it and fix their services so that it never happens again.

157

Living Room / Re: Google's Storage Problem

« on: October 25, 2013, 10:10 PM »

Yeah but there's already consumer products on the shelves that do this- the MyCloud device I mentioned that I installed at work, I picked that up off the shelf at Staples when replacing an external hard drive.

Instead of having to install and configure such a solution, you can just buy a device that is web-configured like any other soho box and have a ready to use private cloud with the data physically located in a stand alone device in your household- or anywhere convenient with suitable network access. It even attempts to upnp its way through your router if enabled, or you can configure the ports manually for those so inclined.

Problem is, its not really cloud then. Sure you get the same conveniences of cloud storage, but now all your data is on a single device that isn't necessarily backed up. The whole point of cloud was to have redundancy- it doesn't matter what the actual hardware is, because there is enough nodes attached to the cloud at any given time that your data will always be there on one or more nodes.

158

Living Room / Re: Google's Storage Problem

« on: October 25, 2013, 05:16 PM »

Personal Clouds are already coming. Right now you can get a WD MyCloud device, which is a 2tb ($140) or 3tb ($170) network storage device that comes with software to automate setting up effectively a personal cloud with most common devices based on the MyCloud's 2-3TB hard drive. Doing this gets you effectively cloud-like data availability, while retaining the privacy and security of knowing the physical location of where your data is being stored.

I bought one at work for use as an onsite backup device since I wanted a network-attached drive instead of a USB one. Found a pleasant surprise in that I could SSH into it, revealing that it actually runs Debian 7 on a dual-core ARM CPU. Although I've configured that one as a stripped down bare file device suitable for rsync-backed data replication, I might buy a second unit for my own use and actually put the cloud capabilities to the test.

Google on the other hand is quickly falling victim to corporate greed. Their once unrivaled offerings are now merely "whatever works" grade. And with growing loss of trust in google because of their recent privacy policy changes, that's not going to be anywhere near enough for them to remain a big contender in that market.

159

Living Room / Re: World's fastest WiFi @100Gbps

« on: October 24, 2013, 04:22 PM »

Does it work over a distance of more than 3 meters?

Perhaps a coverage area per access point close to 100 meters?

160

Living Room / Re: Lavabit's court documents unsealed; what THEY wanted, and Lavabit's appeal...

« on: October 23, 2013, 09:41 AM »

Even if he wins, they'll simply brand him a traitor too and then see fit to put even more pressure on him than before.

The corporate machine and its government pawns are too embedded to be easily refused. It's worse than a mafia, they will at least back off a little if there isn't much to gain from you.

161

Living Room / Re: Razors and Intellectual Property (Patents)

« on: October 20, 2013, 01:29 PM »

^The main problem with patents (as a legal safeguard) is that it's a system that favors the biggest and most powerful at the expense of the smaller innovator.

-40hz (October 20, 2013, 12:48 PM)

This exactly.

I'm sitting on an invention over here that actually has the potential to do something, but because patents cost so much to get and keep I have like no chance of actually obtaining one for it.

Not having one means that I can't go looking for investors to finish the R&D on this thing and actually see about finding buyers, leading to a paradox of money that is only solved by either winning the lottery or giving away my invention to someone with the financial resources to follow through- and never seeing a good payout from it. Shame too, because it really wouldn't take much to finish. I have it to a point now where it demonstrates proper operating cycle, it just doesn't sustain because my budget prototype is too shoddy. For a proof of concept though, its gone further than I expected.

If you ask me, fortune 500 companies should not be allowed to benefit from patents. At that point they are sufficiently large to not need that protection. But if you try to implement that, they'll all sell their patents off to 'holding companies' below the limit and then license the designs back to themselves.

Kickstarter might actually be a saving grace though for the small inventor like me. I just have to figure out how to represent my concept on it without revealing its internal details- which would enable other people to beat me to the patent office. I've been searching the internet for 5 years now, and not seen anything quite like this.

162

Living Room / Re: Razors and Intellectual Property (Patents)

« on: October 19, 2013, 08:55 PM »

It's been firmly established in study after study that patents don't promote progress. They don't even precede it. They follow it because people don't want competition. Gillette's original razor is a perfect example. If you're making the best product and you need a government crutch to succeed that just means you suck at business.

-Vurbal (October 17, 2013, 09:01 AM)

Or you haven't yet mastered the economy of scale.

Patents are meant for individual and small businesses to protect their products early on when a larger competitor could easily produce the same product far more efficiently. Once the product has allowed a company to go bigtime, they no longer need that protection as they have the resources to defend themselves from other startups or other companies with similar products.

But right now the entire patent system is so messed up that Apple is busily suing the pants off people for using rounded rectangles in their mobile device products, while an inventor working alone on a project can't even afford the patent fees let alone actually enforcing a patent in court if it was issued.

163

Living Room / Re: "Half of our users block ads. Now what?"

« on: May 16, 2013, 12:59 PM »

Would it increase your revenue if someone invented an application that would automatically click ads? The app could then discard the results of the click or perhaps place the results (and cookies) in some kind of browser-based sandbox.

-hgondalf (May 15, 2013, 09:13 PM)

They already exist, and I think they violate terms of the ad agreements.

-TaoPhoenix (May 16, 2013, 12:30 AM)

Yes.

Not only are you specifically forbidden from using any kind of auto-click software, you also are forbidden from asking your users to click on them or using software to require them to be clicked on.

Best practice is to not talk about the ads in public at all on a site.

164

Living Room / Re: [Breaking News] Afghanistan cargo plane crash caught on camera

« on: May 02, 2013, 04:09 PM »

Cause of crash is believed to be its cargo shifting and upsetting the plane's balance, based on communications with air traffic control.

The craft reared up into too steep of a climb, stalled, skidded sideways from lack of airspeed, and then couldn't pull up in time after righting itself.

165

Living Room / Re: Google forbids resale or lending of Glass

« on: April 23, 2013, 06:52 PM »

Wonder how long it's going to take US police agencies to demand a mechanism be inserted that allows the police to shut Google's glasses down in areas where there is an ongoing "police action." Purely for the usual "officer safety and security" concerns, mind you.

-40hz (April 22, 2013, 02:31 PM)

Would not be difficult to do either. All it would take is an RFID-type device embedded in the hardware such that upon recieving an easily transmitted signal the recording functions of the device would be disabled. Or even just use effectively a magic packet similar to those transmitted for wake on lan that when recieved by a consumer device has the same effects.

To make sure it gets done, they simply make it so that the device cannot receive a UL or FCC approval to be distributed in American stores unless said feature is included in a way that cannot be disabled by a savvy end user.

And then of course the enforcement layer to go with all this, is you equate the punishment for having a device that doesn't support these controls or has them bypassed to be as severe a crime as owning an AR-16 rifle. Excluding of course research prototypes and museum display models with appropriate permits.

Now for testing types I can see where Google would name their terms like this. The devices are probably protected anyway under a NDA, selling one even after the testing period would be a breach of nondisclosure.

But to do this on a production model? I think Google might be setting themselves up for a marketplace flop, or at least some very interesting court cases.

166

Living Room / Re: After Asia and Europe, North America is next in line to run out of IP addresses.

« on: April 23, 2013, 06:14 PM »

Yeah. I honestly want to keep NAT in IPv6 purely from a security and privacy standpoint.

Without it you have to get into a rather complex traffic shaping firewall configuration, that will in all probability be full of holes.

But carrier grade NATs just mean one more way that ISPs will be able to control what we do.

Just, the corporate powers that be will do anything to boost their profits. And if carrier-grade NATs are cheaper than backend upgrades, you can bet that's what they'll do.

167

Living Room / Re: Beating ridiculous IP infringement claims by doing things stupidly

« on: April 01, 2013, 03:45 PM »

I say stick it to the man. Besides, what if the antenna is actually the backend of a wireless DRM system. Then it's again not a public performance, the antenna is required to recieve the DRM authorization key to decrypt the recieve data.

So yes, technically inefficient, no not illegal.

Seems these fools finally have exposed enough holes in the web they made that they can be beaten.

168

Living Room / Re: Have you encountered webcam spying?

« on: March 29, 2013, 08:11 PM »

The best fix for this is keep a piece of electrical tape covering the camera lens.

Then even if the camera turns on, it can't see anything unless you remove the tape and wipe the goo off the lens.

169

Living Room / Re: Utah State University Unveils Wirelessly Charged Electric Bus

« on: March 28, 2013, 04:03 PM »

Alright they got me.

How did they get the efficiency up at that kind of distance without requiring an impractically large recieving coil.

This I must find out.

170

Living Room / Re: Ad Industry Attacks Firefox

« on: March 28, 2013, 03:59 PM »

There won't be any changes in my ad policies as a result of this.

If I see though that a particular ad company has started disturbing my ad layouts or altering the types of ads being used without my consent, they'll find my account closed on the spot and all of the traffic I give them going to their competitors.

And I use firefox over here. So if they try anything, I'll know about it.

When will corporations learn that they can't abuse the public like this? People aren't going to deal with it forever.

171

Living Room / Re: Ad Industry Attacks Firefox

« on: March 27, 2013, 05:15 PM »

All that will do is increase the popularity of adblockers. 

These people need to realize they can't win. The users will have their way.

172

Living Room / Re: Offline Tracking

« on: March 12, 2013, 06:51 PM »

I usually scan the entire store one row at a time, but only pick up one item.

The scanning order is random depending on my mood.

Also, old fashioned dumb cellphone that is only capable of voice and text.

They might call me a psychopath for it, but I do not appreciate people following me by any method.

173

Living Room / Re: Google Glasses BANNED!

« on: March 11, 2013, 08:18 PM »

Then facilities that want to disallow recording only have to purchase a small transmitter to provide the required disabling signal.

-SeraphimLabs (March 11, 2013, 12:00 PM)

That's a little dicier a proposition if the disabling mechanism isn't built into the device itself. And I can't see Google willingly doing that without legislation forcing it to do so.

-40hz (March 11, 2013, 06:39 PM)

The government is paranoid about maintaining control.

Recording devices in large numbers could very easily be pitched as a threat to national security, because lets face it the government won't be able to get away with anything if everyone who sees it can record it and show footage online. That police abuse is just the tip of the iceberg. False flags? Government inside jobs? Top secret technology? Even just possible political scandals. If they can keep it covered up just by pushing a button on the dash of the cop car, why wouldn't they.

Simply mandating that when devices are exposed to a certain transmission pattern on a certain frequency results in disabling their recording capabilities would be an easy way for them to continue to keep people ignorant. Officials then merely need to make sure these signals are being transmitted while on official functions to prevent them from being recorded, except by authorized equipment for government use only that has the option to override the shutdown signal.

It would be no more questionable than gun control, and far less difficult to implement since the consumer hardware industry would happily lobby in favor of a bill that allows them to sell small transmitters styled similar to wifi hotspots intended to provide this signal for facilities that do not allow recording equipment.

174

Living Room / Re: Google Glasses BANNED!

« on: March 11, 2013, 12:00 PM »

To take the devil's advocate stance here- so we're banning things based on what others *might* do with them?  That seems a bit draconian...

-wraith808 (March 10, 2013, 08:39 PM)

It's a privately owned establishment. They are completely within their rights to set what they will and will not allow people to do on their property.

And really it isn't like bans on recording equipment are new. A lot of facilities in nearly every industry also have partial bans on recording equipment, done in order to protect trade secret information.

What will probably happen is the google glass will need to have a provision where a packet can be broadcast on wifi that when recieved disables the device's recording capabilites. Make it similar to the magic packet wakeup that has been present in devices for the better part of a decade- simply a broadcast packet on a designated channel designed to restrict the devices.

Then facilities that want to disallow recording only have to purchase a small transmitter to provide the required disabling signal.

175

Living Room / Re: "Half of our users block ads. Now what?"

« on: March 11, 2013, 11:50 AM »

The real hassle with adblocking is when you're counting on ad revenue to run a business.

But honestly, the bottom line is very much there even with adblocking. I know people visiting my client sites adblock at a fairly high rate, and I don't completely blame them.

If everything is being managed correctly, a simple header-footer ad arrangement returns nearly 10:1 over the cost of hard drive space and bandwidth. If a business can't make ends meet on that, they either are too small of a scale, or are wasting large sums of money elsewhere.

I actually show a higher return per unit cost giving away hosting than I do selling it. It's all in what kinds of content you have, and how it is presented.

But once again, because big business can't handle playing by the rules and treating the end user with respect, the little guy gets shafted and has to deal with users conditioned to either ignore or block ads.

What really irks me is I have multiple times told the advertising networks text and images only. No flash, no sound. And every time I turn around I'm seeing one of those stupid blinky noisemaking flash ads in my rotation, irritating my clients as much as it irritates me. A few times as well I've observed malware in ads too, although when I find one of these I usually flag it with the advertiser so it gets pulled down.