Recent Posts

2576

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 25, 2013, 03:20 AM »

@app  - I don't think anybody is trying to fool anybody here. The two ingredients in question (fudge and margarine) contain cottenseed and partially hydrogenated soybean oils which are listed as the trans-fat sources Neither of these ingredients are anything new to a US diet. Both have been around for (at least) a century if you prefer it be said that way instead.

What usually happens in situations like this is the ingredient itself is what got changed rather than the product. And usually without the knowledge of the business making said product.

It's also the news report (not the cookie maker) that brought up how old the recipe was ("since 1830") - and me who calculated the 184 year figure. Can't speak for the reporter, but I wasn't trying to snow anybody by doing so.
 

2577

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 24, 2013, 09:05 PM »

^Sounds good. Added it to my watch list. Thx!

2578

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 24, 2013, 08:27 PM »

This evening, The Europa Report.




In the not too distant future, a corporate sponsored space mission is dispatched to Europa to examine a certain surface anomaly characterized as a "hot spot chaos area" which scientists believe holds the greatest opportunity for discovering extraterrestrial life. The mission departs Earth and arrives in Jupiter orbit 21 months later. Shortly after its arrival, all communication with the team is lost due to a series of solar flares disrupting the audio/video feeds being sent back their mission control. It is only later that a delayed transmission documenting the mission arrives back at Earth which allows investigators to reconstruct what happened.

It's an interesting riff on the "found footage" mystery theme, but with a solid and believable storyline, exceptionally well done low-key acting, and good solid science throughout. Real life space research organizations such as NASA, the JPL and SpaceX are among those credited with assisting the producers and writers of  this film which, no doubt, added to this picture's high level of realism.

Bottom line: a well crafted 'hard science' fiction movie, with just a hint of mystery - and pleasantly skipping the needless and obvious moral lessons and speeches that seem to get wedged into most scifi films these days. If you like believable scifi movies like the vastly underrated 2000 film Red Planet or that 1972 sleeper Silent Running, you'll love this flick.

One of the best bits of scifi I've seen all year. Recommended!

2579

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 24, 2013, 12:46 PM »

Why the United States government is so gung-ho on saving and extending the span of human life - while simultaneously allowing those that do live longer to wallow in the pain and misery brought on by inadequate medical care, social isolation, hunger and poverty once they do reach old age - will always be a mystery to me.

I guess it's because one's absolute age (in years) is easier to reduce to a statistic than the quality of one's life is. That's the sort of number that plays more easily into political posturing and media sound bytes. So I guess that's why the FDA prefers to focus more on "saving" lives rather than improving the quality of those it (theoretically) might save...

2580

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 24, 2013, 08:42 AM »

Seem that having only limited success in addressing real health issues such as critical drug shortages, the FDA is now moving to ban a brand of cookie (made using a recipe virtually unchanged since 1830) because of the presence of artificial trans fats in  the product.

Apparently a 184-year plus untold millions of units field test isn't sufficient for the FDA when  it's looking for a soft target to claim a meaningless victory over.

Amazing. You can't make this stuff up! And remember folks: This is for YOUR protection.

Article here.

2581

Non-Windows Software / Question for coders: What do you think of this idea?

« Last post by 40hz on November 24, 2013, 07:50 AM »

I was involved in a 'ale & blues'-fueled discussion last night with some of my fellow FOSS cronies when this article posted on the Tux Machines website came up:

Open Sourcity article

Open Sourcity is a place where great ideas inspire talented programmers
Posted 22 Nov 2013 by Beaux Walton
open source ideas


How often have you thought of a way to improve a piece of software or hardware? How many times have you wondered why companies invest millions of dollars to produce a product that is obviously lacking from the moment it launches? Have you ever wished you were in a position, or had the skills, to change that?

Chances are if you've typed 'open source' into your search engine then you've heard about SourceForge and OpenHatch. If you're not familiar with these sites, I'd absolutely recommend checking them out. They present an amazing platform where you can get involved with a variety of high-quality, open source projects.

But, what if you're not a programmer? If you look around Opensource.com, you'll find an article by Doug McKean titled: How non-programmers can contribute to open source projects. As he mentions, there are heaps of ways for non-programmers to help. There's always beta testing, documenting, translation, evangelizing, and donating.
The problem

What if you have an idea, just not the skills to see it come to fruition? An Austrian friend and I faced that very dilemma. We came up with an amazing application to change the way mechanics service or repair vehicles they're not familiar with. The only problem was to develop such an idea was going to cost us upwards of $40,000. We wanted to get involved with an open source team, not to beta test or evangelize, but we wanted people to help us make our software a reality. We wanted to get together with like-minded, passionate people, and we wanted to see our dreams become reality. Just because we can't code, doesn't mean an amazing idea should never see the light of day, does it? Programmers and developers are always trying to come up with good ideas, what if that idea is a non-programmer's head, and they're happy to share it and help develop it?
Our vision

It's time to change the game. Ideas for software programs should no longer be left in the hands of people with just technical skills. People with good ideas should be able to inspire and work alongside open source programmers to create amazing software, regardless of their computing background. Open Sourcity will be the community platform where great ideas inspire talented programmers to help create software that matters most to people. Idea and skills sharing will see developments that we've only ever imagined, but never thought would see the light of day due to lack of support.
Let's get started

We're looking to work with passionate people to make this community a reality. If you're a web designer, graphics designer, marketing expert, SEO expert, or just someone with a really good idea, get in touch now. Anyone with a desire to further the open source message can take part in this project. Together we can create the future we want.

Join our Google Group, check out opensourcity.com, or send an email to: [email protected].

It proposes starting yet another community that actively brings non-coders and coders together with the intent of providing coders with ideas and inspiration for new projects...

Some of the opinions expressed in our group (which includes coders and non-coders) were interesting to say the least. Truth is, it even got a little heated at times. And the sides in the discussion didn't break down neatly between those who were able code and those who can't. (Which surprised me!)

I'd be interested in hearing from some of the folks at DC who do programming to see what their opinion is on something like what is being proposed for www.opensourcity.com

So OK DC coders...what say you?

(I'll chime in later with what went down in my group about it. I'd like to get some independent opinions here first.)
 

2582

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by 40hz on November 23, 2013, 10:41 PM »

Anyone here planning to convert an existing XP machine to Linux after Microsoft pulls the plug on it?

-Arizona Hot (November 23, 2013, 08:56 PM)

I've moved most family and friends over already who weren't planning on getting new machines.

Except for the heavy-duty PC gamers, nobody seemed to much notice or care since office apps, web browsing, e-mail, and social networking made up virtually all of their computer usage. All of those apps have pretty much reached parity regardless of what platform they're running on.

YMMV.

2583

Non-Windows Software / Wolfram's Mathmatica ported to Raspberry Pi - free to install and use

« Last post by 40hz on November 22, 2013, 12:09 PM »

Ok...Stephen Wolfram drives me bonkers at times. But Wolfram Research's decision to partner with the Pi Foundation and allow future releases of Rasperian OS to include both Mathmatica (and the previously mentioned here Wolfram Language) by default is a very generous and unexpected surprise.

And most surprising of all - it's completely free.

Here's the announcement:

The Wolfram Language and Mathematica on Raspberry Pi, for free

One of the best things about working on Raspberry Pi has been the opportunity to meet groups of people who are trying to bring about the same sort of change in the teaching of other subjects that we’re aiming for in computing. One great example is the computer-based math(s) (CBM) movement, which aims to redefine the teaching of mathematics in schools away from mechanical calculation and towards problem solving. From their website:

    

The importance of math to jobs, society, and thinking has exploded over the last few decades. Meanwhile, math education is in worldwide crisis—diverging more and more from what’s required by countries, industry, further education… and students.

    Computers are key to bridging this chasm: only when they do the calculating is math applicable to hard questions across many contexts. Real-life math has been transformed by computer-based calculation; now mainstream math education needs this fundamental change too.

    computerbasedmath.org is the project to perform this reset. We’re building a completely new math curriculum with computer-based computation at its heart, while campaigning at all levels to redefine math education away from historical hand-calculating techniques and toward real-life problem-solving situations that drive high-concept math understanding and experience.

Today, at the CBM education summit in New York, we announced a partnership with Wolfram Research to bundle a free copy of Mathematica and the Wolfram Language into future Raspbian images. We believe this will make the Pi a first-class platform for teaching CBM techniques to children of all ages. As Conrad Wolfram said today: “Coders will be able to use the power of Mathematica’s maths out of the box, not only enriching what they can do but also showing off the power and importance of maths.”

Future Raspbian images will ship with the Wolfram Language and Mathematica by default; existing users with at least 600MB of free space on their SD card can install them today by typing:

   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wolfram-engine

You’ll find Mathematica in the app launcher under the Education menu.

We’d like to thank the team at Wolfram Research for the enormous amount of effort they’ve put to get the Wolfram Language and Mathematica running well on the Pi. Over the next few months we’ll be running a series of blog posts from Wolfram exploring some of the neat tricks you can get up to with them. This is going to be fun!

This is pretty awesome considering an investment in a $50 Raspberry Pi starter kit bundle gives you access to Mathematica, one of the most powerful math software titles available. And it's even more awesome when you consider that a copy of Mathematica will set you back a minimum of @275 for the personal/home (not for professional use) edition running under Windows.

Pretty good deal if you ask me.

2584

General Software Discussion / Re: Winamp to shut down December 20, 2013. Get the latest version if you want it.

« Last post by 40hz on November 22, 2013, 08:58 AM »

I must admit I do miss the superb equalizer in Winamp. Haven't heard anything better (or even as good) on any general purpose MP3 player software I've used since. I'd be happy if they just released that much as open source.

2585

Living Room / Re: The Amazing Video for Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"

« Last post by 40hz on November 21, 2013, 06:27 PM »

^Understandable. I would have preferred they did Tangled Up in Blue or Everybody Must Get Stoned myself.

2586

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by 40hz on November 21, 2013, 03:54 PM »

And while those in power can easily tailor their own historical "truth" as needed, the people beneath them are stringently held hostage by emaculate records of their every waking hour to be sure that at all points they both can and will be held accountable for the merest of miss-steps.

-Stoic Joker (November 20, 2013, 12:08 PM)

What, "every waking hour" from from birth to death?
Would that include things such as, for example (say) birth certificates, citizenship records, religio-political affiliations and scholastic records?
Just wondering.   

-IainB (November 20, 2013, 03:37 PM)

Between the NSA, FaceBook, Google Glass, the new HIPAA laws, and the DMV ... I'm going to go with yes on that.

-Stoic Joker (November 20, 2013, 05:01 PM)

You left out pecker measurement. They got that too I'm sure.

2587

Living Room / Re: The Amazing Video for Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"

« Last post by 40hz on November 21, 2013, 03:51 PM »

Oh....can't stand the pain...to be stuck inside a browser with the timeout blues again.

No joy I'm afraid. Think I'll wait a day or two for the feeding frenzy to subside.

2588

General Software Discussion / Re: Winamp to shut down December 20, 2013. Get the latest version if you want it.

« Last post by 40hz on November 21, 2013, 03:30 PM »

Coming soon, from a former Winamp developer who has every intention to keep developing plugins for it: http://winampforum.com/

-app103 (November 21, 2013, 10:57 AM)

@app - Looks like the Winamp forum has been purged sometime between your post and now.

2589

General Software Discussion / Re: Winamp to shut down December 20, 2013. Get the latest version if you want it.

« Last post by 40hz on November 21, 2013, 11:57 AM »

Such a shame. Time was when that was one of the first things that got loaded on a new PC. It was on my "must have" list for years. 

Guess that llama finally hit back huh?

2590

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 21, 2013, 11:47 AM »

+1 w/SL

I half watched it a while ago and I didn't see where he actually did any such thing. (Current record for a sustained controlled fusion reaction is something like 30 5 seconds btw.*) But maybe I missed something?

---------------------
*Corrected the time. The record for a fusion reaction is roughly 5 seconds. The record for plasma containment in a fusion reactor is 30 or so seconds. Not the same thing.

2591

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 20, 2013, 06:45 PM »

DoctorBeet, the source of information about LG that appeared in the Techdirt article above has added an entry on his blog where he goes into detail about his experiences with his LG smart TV and how he identified what information was being transmitted. Read all about it here.

2592

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by 40hz on November 20, 2013, 01:32 PM »

Yeah...that's just a teensy bit one-sided me thinks.

-Stoic Joker (November 20, 2013, 12:08 PM)

Yup. I think that's called: "Business as usual!" IIRC.

2593

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 20, 2013, 12:00 PM »

I guess they don't call TV Screens "monitors" for nothing?   

-MilesAhead (November 20, 2013, 11:56 AM)

LOL!

Maybe they should just call them telescreens and be done with it?

Welcome to the Panopticon!

2594

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

« Last post by 40hz on November 20, 2013, 11:28 AM »

You might have suspected some of this was going on. I certainly have.

But now here's LG definitively caught sending information gleaned about its set owners back to the mothership And doing so even though the hard to find opt-out option had been selected by the set owner. And to add further insult to injury, the data transmittals are unencrypted.

From the Techdirt article:

At this point, LG already has a bit of privacy problem. Sending data on channel selection is one thing. Collecting and sending unencrypted web data like search terms is quite another. And it gets even worse.

     It was at this point, I made an even more disturbing find within the packet data dumps. I noticed filenames were being posted to LG's servers and that these filenames were ones stored on my external USB hard drive.

DoctorBeet tested his hunch by mocking up an .avi file that would be immediately distinguishable from any other "normal" traffic. Plugging in a USB stick with the bait (Midget_Porn_2013.avi) into his TV, DoctorBeet soon saw data on his faux porn headed to LG's servers in unencrypted plain text. DoctorBeet (and his shocked wife) also watched his children's names being harvested from the file name of a Christmas video located on another connected drive

Too long and detailed a report to summarize. So hie thee over to Techdirt to get the rest of this story. (Link here.)

 

2595

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by 40hz on November 20, 2013, 11:01 AM »

There was a time when certain newspapers were thought of as the paper "of record." The New York Times used to be considered one.

Unfortunately, even the NYT has begun the practice of unacknowledged edits to published news articles after the fact on their website. And I've been given to understand most other major newspapers also do so.

No wonder our politicos see the world as just one more manifestation of the virtual reality they apparently dwell in. With no fixed record of the past, the present and future are perpetually up for grabs and subject to change without notice.

Very 1984-ish that. Or mystical since many mystic traditions consider everything to be illusion. Nice to see the 'guardians' of the historic record are doing so much (by doing so little) to make it that way.

Sorry if I come across being narked about the IA. It only looks that way because I am.  

2596

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by 40hz on November 20, 2013, 05:21 AM »

I reckon we have the technology and the opportunity to create our own Hall of Records for the future, but Archive.org probably won't be able to cut the mustard if the knowledge is progressively and relentlessly deliberately destroyed/expunged from it by people intent on covering the truth of their shame or criminal/political intent or propaganda, or whatever.

-IainB (November 20, 2013, 02:28 AM)

FWIW, it's my understanding that the Internet Archive's willingness to remove information from their collection 'on request' was largely motivated by the desire to avoid any legal challenges to their scraping content - even though I'm pretty sure they could make a successful argument for 'fair use' under US Law if somebody actually did go after them.

Beware those killer rabbits I suppose....



Don't you think this policy has an almost Pythonesque ring to it...to wit:

When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes Brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Yea bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat!
Bravest of the brave - Sir Robin!

(With thanks to M.P  )

2597

General Software Discussion / Re: Does anyone know how I may remove Trojan Dropper:MSIL/Livate.A ?

« Last post by 40hz on November 19, 2013, 10:04 AM »

^Easiest to just use the disk imaging tool built into Windows.

They sorta hid it in Win8.

Do a search for "file recovery." There will be a link to the old Win7 recovery tools which allows you to create backups and clone disk images just like before.

More about it here:

http://arstechnica.c...cover-your-whole-pc/


Luck!

2598

Non-Windows Software / *NIX: New Linux magazine startup campaign on Indiegogo

« Last post by 40hz on November 19, 2013, 06:39 AM »

Three of the leading lights over at Linux Format have left the Future Publishing stable and set out to create a new Linux magazine called Linux Voice.

The campaign is up on Indiegogo - link here.

Some interesting ideas, including a plan to release all their published content for free no later than 90 days after its original publication. (Something that is going to create major problems for them if they plan on recruiting 'guest' writers btw!)

Unfortunately, it currently looks very iffy. As of 11/19 they have managed to raise only 42% of their targeted £90K goal. And with only 35 days left in their campaign.

I'd give them a 1 in 10 chance of making it unless some angel investor comes along. A hope that is very unlikely to pan out in light of that 'free after 9-month' concept they've proposed. And therein lies the problem I see so often with this sort of thing:

• GNU/FOSS philosophy is NOT a business model
• Publishing IS a business

Therefor...(the conclusion will be left as an exercise for the reader)


Oh well. I wish them luck. Linux Format is (or maybe was with them gone?) a good magazine. And these guys have a track record for being solid tech writers. Let's hope this campaign isn't their collective swan song.

2599

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by 40hz on November 19, 2013, 05:49 AM »

I can't see that it does - though I could be missing something here, of course.
What is the issue now?

-IainB (November 18, 2013, 08:27 PM)

I think it may be more that I hadn't made my concern sufficiently clear.

What I found disturbing was the policy of the Internet Archive to delete information in their archive upon request "as a courtesy."

Not being a UK citizen (and Britain's government not being as meddlesome and intrusive a force on the international stage as a certain other government is) I could frankly care less what the UK Cons or Labor parties do or say.

But what I am concerned about is how willingly something like the Internet Archive goes along with revisionist scrubbing requests from those who do not wish to let their historic political record stand.

Bad practice. Bad policy. Bad move, Internet Archive. Shame!

2600

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by 40hz on November 18, 2013, 05:11 PM »

The Register is a little too intent on strutting its geek. So much so that they've entirely missed the point being made by the TechDirt article. Apparently it's in the interest of showing any newbies that The Register knows how the "robot exclusion protocol" (Ooooh I love it when they talk like that!) actually works.



But that's to be expected of The Register, which often seems to feel the need to stake out a contrarian position on roughly three quarters of what is being reported and discussed elsewhere. Reminds me of an aunt of mine who could argue on any subject - and change her position at the drop of a hat if the debate was ever in jeopardy of consensus being reached.