Recent Posts

2051

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 22, 2013, 03:40 PM »

Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional.

-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM)

  ...So...isn't that the same FISA court that was giving - Instead of Just Saying No.. - them the warrants to do the sneaky unconstitutional stuff in the first place?

-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 06:43 AM)

Yes, though that's why I called it a knight fork, aka a move that creates new avenues in different areas. So by "wiggle", that includes the original permission, casting doubt on the court itself. But it's also an area where indeed the U-Word showed up, and I don't believe they can hold together the argument that the court was "unauthorized to use the U-Word" because that just sinks their whole board position. It's still tight, but they can wiggle the original permission, but this might be the (delayed) answer to that. In other words, they allowed it, running a very tight argument of "you didn't ask if that is even allowed, so we didn't rule on that then".

I'm scrambling the terminology a bit, but it's like they had a "lower court hat" on to do the original permission, then a "high court hat" on the review. But that's just a vague guess. Really, this new ruling makes their side much stickier to "logically" hold. It nudges them close to a tyrannical caricature, which is generally more brittle and one day breaks sooner.

2052

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM »

Haha!

We have the next move (sorta) from Snowden's side in this game!

"EFF Victory Results in Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional

Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional."
https://www.eff.org/...ing-nsa-surveillance

So then the "U Word" is among the highest in the land. It's all blah-blah, then appeal-blah, then another-appeal-blah, and then when the U-Word shows up the Judiciary goes all sudo-don't-do-that.

Stating the obvious, one reason this is big news, (and a nice move - is this a Discovered Knight Fork?), is that not only is
A: the action (some of it) U-Word, but
B: the court actually had a shred of decency, but then the exec branch's secrecy tried to hide it.
C. your choice here

See, they've been wiggling around (hiding the opinion), but it's *reeeeaaaallly* hard to *overturn* the U-Word. (It DOES happen, but far from easily, and never this quick.)

So now we're at the dangerous part, of "So, the U-Word is here. But Nat-Sec blah blah, we'll ignore the ruling".

Comments? Countermoves from Gov?

2053

Living Room / Re: One man's Google Interview Experience

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 21, 2013, 05:54 PM »

Since the article gives us excuse to be cynical about Google, I'll go at it from another slant.

If it were "something important", like a request from the NSA for a Prism algorithm, you bet they would have just drilled it out. I'm glad the guy had another job and did this process "in the background". It almost makes me think of "outsourcing the interview" and then a year later when "he" is actually hired, then he just goes to work and a year's worth of his life could be saved!

2054

Living Room / Re: Prenda Law shall troll no more.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 21, 2013, 03:08 PM »

Just in case y'all forgot about this case:
A rather funny update:

Comcast Threatens to Sue TorrentFreak for Copyright Infringement (updated)
https://torrentfreak...infringement-130821/

followed by:
"Update 7pm CET: A Comcast spokesperson responded to an inquiry we sent to the company’s lawyers:

“I am replying to let you know that the cease and desist was sent in error, and you may disregard it. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”

As in "The Big Bad Internet made us look like fools, so we'll back down, but it would have worked if it hadn't gone viral, ya know".

2055

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 21, 2013, 07:13 AM »

Imagine this in the style of a bait car episode!

2056

Living Room / Re: Groklaw shutting down because of our new US survelliance state

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 20, 2013, 10:22 PM »

Right, and part of the pain of it all is it "doesn't accomplish anything" - it's a "removal action", which makes us all sad, but doesn't have an earthquaking effect that would be necessary to have a hope of change. So it's like a sick game show "which service will be next", and one by one we'll be sad, and minus a bunch of stuff, and ... then?

Were it not that they were helping, it would be like "Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Facebook all decided that they would cease operations until the spying stopped".

2057

Living Room / Re: Make an original joke or riddle

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 20, 2013, 11:47 AM »

I'm not so smart as y'all. I don't get the riddle. :  (

2058

Developer's Corner / Re: The Princess Rescuing Application (Mixing Games and Applications)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 20, 2013, 08:10 AM »

There's a big User Interface discussion swirling around in there. I assumed we had the interfaces we do because "trope makers" get influence and then that influence travels to the ecosystems. There's no reason we can't have more "fun" in the interfaces, unless someone thinks it will hurt sales by looking "not professional".

I took a small step towards this "Fun" theme in my NANY app from a couple of years ago. It dates from just before the time when I resigned myself to "all apps are boring" per this article. When I commissioned it, I did spend a few moments wanting to add a little zest, and so added in the UI skins. When I was just starting out working, I thought it would be fun if there were some interfaces that looked like some of the alien tech from Star Trek!

More recent forays into the learning curve thing are when I asked Vladimir to build in the modular "simple skin" for Real World Paint. It had only the ten-ish features I use, and all the other stuff became tucked behind a toggle in case I actually needed it.

2059

Living Room / Re: Maybe Not Everybody Should Learn to Code

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 20, 2013, 12:32 AM »

I disagree, but the reasons are too long for this margin. (Fermat!)

2060

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 19, 2013, 05:38 PM »

I'm voting Both.

But can he/Snowden lay down the fourth ace that really kicks this up a notch?

What would that even be!? Anyone want to do a "thought experiment"? What could he possibly say that's new and groundbreaking?

His message part 1 was "they are spying on you". Other stuff has been finesses and details. But are there any more aces? Or is the US Whitewashing machine too strong?!

2061

Living Room / Re: New thread for non-silly humor posts

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 19, 2013, 01:57 AM »

Humor vs. Silly.

What does that even mean!?

Where does the cat pulling on my pants leg fit into all this?

I think there's a risk of dissecting "humor" too far - humor at its core has a silly element, otherwise it would be Terrorism and a Felony.

2062

Living Room / Re: Edward Snowden's Email Provider Shut Down Rather Than Comply With Feds

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 18, 2013, 12:42 PM »

Meanwhile, it's a few years before comedy gets outlawed, so they're trying.

Enter Codefellas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codefellas

"...In the first episode "When Topple Met Winters", protégé hacker Nicole Winters (Emily Heller) who works for "Special Projects", an electronic surveillance governmental agency, receives a call from elderly Special Agent Henry Topple (John Hodgman) informing her that she has just been assigned to him to spy on the general public."

2063

Living Room / Re: Hacker Posts About FB Flaw to Zuckerberg's Wall (gets way worse)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 18, 2013, 12:59 AM »

Does Zuckerberg Like this?

: )

2064

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 18, 2013, 12:28 AM »

Selection 1 from the Webseries list:
Chronicles of Syntax.

Here's Episode 1:

http://www.youtube.c....be&noredirect=1

2065

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 11:52 PM »

I'm almost afraid to watch the episodes of Star Trek Phase II, the fan created "4th season" of the original series. That's because they produce an episode *only every 1-2 years*!


I don't have the patience to wait until 2014 for the next one and then 2016 after that!

2066

General Software Discussion / Re: nag window software

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 11:30 PM »

I tried PTFB today, but it was a little bumpy and didn't take care of the screen I wanted it to.
I just un-installed the offending program that I had procrastinated doing.

2067

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 05:55 PM »

The whole "link link link" thing led me to the topic of Soap Operas.

For the day when they rescind "no cruel and unusual punishment" (you know it's coming, in the age of reality TV!) - Prisoners could be forced to watch All My Children for 15 hours a day!
At that clip, the logged footage aka shows would last *two whole years*!

2068

Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 05:42 PM »

I just had the bright idea to look for "list of web series" while looking for something new to watch.

http://en.wikipedia....eb_television_series

I'll try to report back with a couple of goodies.

2069

Living Room / Re: Google Goes Dark for Two Minutes. Panic Ensues.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 03:51 PM »

Heh that famous response of "Neither confirm or deny" = "confirm" now, right?

2070

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 03:29 PM »

After.

But you can't use Rock Bottom anymore. That's WWE's intellectual property now!

Dramatization of the US condition:

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=kRqVNS_tQ4A

2071

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 02:44 PM »

As long as the government kept them convinced there was a monster hiding in the closet waiting attack they were too scared not to believe. As soon as they looked in the closet and saw the NSA instead that's who they're afraid of.

-Vurbal (August 13, 2013, 04:26 PM)

There's comedy gold there, ya know!

2072

General Software Discussion / Re: nag window software

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 12:22 PM »

Nice idea Contro!

When I reboot I sometimes used to have about 4 programs that want me to register and stuff!

2073

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 17, 2013, 12:18 PM »

Heh Wraith that's awesome!

2074

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA : Start-Quit Program w/Single Key?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 16, 2013, 05:02 PM »

With a slight modification, something like this can kill an existing service.

AppleMobileDeviceSupport service prevents my comp from rebooting!

So rather than fish for it in Task Manager, some random defined key could kill it.

2075

Living Room / Re: Google: Gmail users shouldn't expect email privacy

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on August 15, 2013, 10:58 PM »

I can't answer that without moving the thread to the basement  

Seriously though, coordination existed and is being crushed ... unions.
The majority, not saying you, of the people that laugh at the third party idea are the ones that could help create it, by doing something instead of laughing. The people in power that will be most harmed by third party are not laughing but are happy that 'you' are laughing about it.

-rgdot (August 15, 2013, 08:31 PM)

Oh, I am not laughing at third parties at all. I am doing my modest best to just keep putting the ideas in a few places. The "Laughing" is often fake, instigated by the Big Media.

In my mind, the problem with Unions is that they are/were still a type of "1.0 slow". The coordination I am referring to is specifically a 2.0 Viral Social thing, that I think we still have an edge shot at doing, but only once. But I believe there is that once, but then we'd better make it count.

Structurally it's fairly simple. People can log on, and some well funded team posts all laws and all votes for example of all US Congress. (Stay simple, skip the states for now.) In a sense, with modern web building, that isn't that hard. It's not 1997 where the big leagues could be 2 people posting a cool little page anymore. Get a team of say 70 on this, do it big, do it right. Then for each law, you can roll it up and down in depth. Then each "potential voter" can Upvote or Downvote a specific piece, and then tie that to "would this rep's position on this law make me Kick Him Out"?

Then you can optionally Share My Vote so that other people suddenly see that "gee, there's this crowd of people Kicking Him Out over this SOPA thing, what's that and why?"

That's the coordination I mean. So then with summarizing functions, the Voters across the nation modularly join each other getting really upset over some rep on X position of several bills, and they see each other etc etc, and suddenly on election day, *it happens*.

There's nothing like that out ... YET. To me Social Media is (for worse!?) stuck on *entertainment*. Cat Photos, Farmville, Tweets, etc. But turn Elections away from this somber thing it is, into a *game*, and I think it could really work. Might not get it all the way to the President, but I really bet you can get it to work on specific state congress critters. (Because there are so many of them.)

I would *love it* if anyone felt like whipping up a prototype - I simply don't program, but I guarantee it's not "all that tough" logic wise. (It only does about 12 things.)