Recent Posts

5726

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by wraith808 on August 02, 2013, 12:04 PM »

I think it goes without saying, but I figured I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention it...

Check it's heat profile over time.  With many things like this, heat tends to degrade under stress over time, and that's *definitely* not something you want to happen.

5727

Living Room / Re: Couple Visited by Feds After Google Search for Backpacks and Pressure Cookers

« Last post by wraith808 on August 02, 2013, 12:02 PM »

This is why witch-hunts are considered to be bad.

-Stoic Joker (August 02, 2013, 11:21 AM)

QFFT

5728

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

« Last post by wraith808 on August 02, 2013, 11:12 AM »

And it's a brilliant move on the Russians' part because there is not all that much the US can do about it. Cancel Obama's visit? It would just call further attention to the cause of that cancellation, which is again the NSA, spying on US citizens etc., etc. Bad PR move.

Plus the US seems to need Russia more than the other way round:

But senior State Department officials said they don't expect the meeting to be canceled because the U.S. wants to address with the leaders a "broad range of topics that are important to U.S. national security interests," including Afghanistan.

Officials say that the U.S. can push Moscow only so far without jeopardizing U.S. interests in other areas. The U.S. needs Russia to help keep pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, including maintaining sanctions, for example. "We can't go overboard," a senior administration official said.

-dr_andus (August 01, 2013, 07:25 PM)

It seems that others are looking at it in a totally different way.

The Sheremetyevo chapter may be over, but the saga itself will continue. Already, there have been calls by US congressmen that Russia should be held accountable for granting Snowden asylum. There is also little doubt that US president Barack Obama will now cancel his planned trip to Moscow in September.

and

With Snowden, the Kremlin did the moral thing – and the moral thing also happened to be the only thing the Kremlin could do in this instance. Essentially denied safe passage to Latin America, Snowden was marooned, and letting him languish in Sheremetyevo indefinitely would have dented the Kremlin's credibility at home and abroad.

In recent years, Moscow has excelled at snubbing Washington over anything it could, but the Snowden situation was different from the start. It prompted unusually cautious words from Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, who said that Snowden could remain in Russia provided he would do no more damage to the US government, which Putin referred to as the Russian government's partner.

Other prominent members of the government have pointed out that Russia was left with little choice in the matter. The head of the State Duma committee on international affairs, Alexei Pushkov, said: "Even though Obama said that he wouldn't ground a plane over some '29-year-old hacker', they trapped Snowden after they grounded the Bolivian president's plane."

"Any other decision would have meant that Russia would lose face," deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov told Kommersant. "If we didn't give Snowden asylum, no one would take us seriously – and the Americans would be the first to do this."

5729

Living Room / Re: Couple Visited by Feds After Google Search for Backpacks and Pressure Cookers

« Last post by wraith808 on August 02, 2013, 11:07 AM »

On such specious evidence, it seems strange that his former workplace called the police, however...

-wraith808 (August 02, 2013, 10:36 AM)

Yes, probably, but if the ex-employee left the company on very unfriendly terms, the ex-employer could have feared retaliation in the form of a bomb. 

-cyberdiva (August 02, 2013, 11:03 AM)

A day later... definitely.
A month later... perhaps.
A year later... Whisky Foxtrot Tango.

5730

Living Room / Re: Couple Visited by Feds After Google Search for Backpacks and Pressure Cookers

« Last post by wraith808 on August 02, 2013, 10:36 AM »

Well, different.  Not very different.  She just didn't have all of the information as *surprise* the police don't tell it to you.  And they didn't until people started to question.

A very teachable moment about searching from your work computer and your computer activities being monitored at a place of work.  On such specious evidence, it seems strange that his former workplace called the police, however...

5731

Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 02, 2013, 09:55 AM »

COOOOL 

-mouser (August 01, 2013, 09:23 PM)

Maybe this can be the codymobile? 

5732

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by wraith808 on August 02, 2013, 09:55 AM »

I find this confuzzling.   

-IainB (August 02, 2013, 09:30 AM)

Not really so much.  With every politician, you have who he is during the election season, and who he is when elected.  With some, that divide isn't so much.  But as you get higher on the rungs, the more different those two personas become.  It's always been widely known that Presidents campaign towards their base, and administer from the center.

In Obama's case, it's painfully obvious how much outside influence is evident.  Maybe not so much as W, but it's definitely obvious that unless he's a total sociopath (and I don't believe he is, before people start chiming in  ) that he received "The Speech" after he came into office, and he chose to listen and act accordingly.

5733

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

« Last post by wraith808 on August 01, 2013, 10:03 PM »

Best tampon commercial ever.

http://www.policymic...-you-d-seen-as-a-kid

-app103 (August 01, 2013, 09:44 PM)

I think my submission is a little more to the point...

5734

Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!

« Last post by wraith808 on August 01, 2013, 08:46 PM »

Thanks for that... I'm checking it out... but I think I'm all in.

5735

Living Room / Re: Google Reader gone

« Last post by wraith808 on August 01, 2013, 04:31 PM »

Is there such a thing as a desktop reader that has a "mini web server" built in to host a web-based version of the feeds for accessing remotely? I could see use in something like this. I had many issues getting TinyTinyRSS to auto-refresh when I wasn't logged in, and in fact it still does not work. Something along these lines would be perfect!

-Josh (July 31, 2013, 02:20 PM)

You need to set a cron job type thing, it is in the ttrss wiki. It works when you set it up. TTrss does not do refreshing by its own.

-kartal (August 01, 2013, 01:38 PM)

It actually does do it on its own while you have it open in the browser from my reading, i.e. from this link:

Simple background updates (since 1.7.0)
If all else fails and you can't use any of the above methods, you can enable simple update mode where tt-rss will try to periodically update feeds while it is open in your web browser. Obviously, no updates will happen when tt-rss is not open or your computer is not running.

To enable this mode, set constant SIMPLE_UPDATE_MODE to true in config.php.

5736

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

« Last post by wraith808 on August 01, 2013, 12:32 PM »

The cynic in me (like how I did that renegade?) is screaming that the Russians just wanted to have the hold card in their hand at this point...

5737

Living Room / Re: Couple Visited by Feds After Google Search for Backpacks and Pressure Cookers

« Last post by wraith808 on August 01, 2013, 12:30 PM »

From the article...

Addendum 1: In a Twitter discussion, tech policy reporter (and libertarian) Declan McCullagh suggests that the visit may not have been a result of the couple's Google history. Tweets McCullagh: "Tip from nosy neighbors is likely source, or IP datadump from http://buypressurecookers.com."

5738

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by wraith808 on July 31, 2013, 08:40 PM »

I'm not sure I'd want to deal with virtualizing anything on a NAS. But outside of that overkill probably should be kept to a minimum. I got the impression 40 was leaning towards two different boxes...each purposefully built to its specific task.

-Stoic Joker (July 31, 2013, 06:07 PM)

It really depends on the NAS and the software.  A lot of them are OSes in and of themselves.

5739

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by wraith808 on July 31, 2013, 05:49 PM »

For what you said you are going to use it for... I'm with 40.  A NAS might be a better option.  With an OS comes other maintenance issues, and if you're not using it every day, but just accessing it, those can sneak up on you.  A NAS is meant for one thing... storage.  And with what you said, a single-responsibility type machine might be best.  It's really just a server that's optimized for serving files and such.

5740

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on July 31, 2013, 05:47 PM »

So, Akismet is probably hiding the spam from me, and some of these are probably bots... Mmm... sounds about right.

-kyrathaba (July 31, 2013, 04:52 PM)

They could also be probes.  What happens is they see if they can register... then after a while, the bots come back again and see if they are still registered and then post as users that are not new.

5741

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on July 31, 2013, 04:49 PM »

I mean, that's fine -- great, even, I suppose. Bloggers need subscribers, right? I'm just surprised at how quickly -- that's averaging 9 new members per day. I emailed Perry to see if he could help me on another issue. I have a few people wanting signed printed copies of my book. I spent two frustrating hours on CreateSpace the other night. Everything was fine but I could not get the cover image for the jacket to suit them.

-kyrathaba (July 31, 2013, 03:15 PM)

The number of subscribers that you have isn't really worth much IMO.  The number of engaged subscribers is the more relevant statistic.  And if these are spammers/bots, then they'll never be engaged.

5742

Living Room / Re: Google Reader gone

« Last post by wraith808 on July 31, 2013, 02:52 PM »

At any point in time I'm actively monitoring a list of between 100 and 150 feeds. About a third of the feeds in this list change periodically depending on what I'm interested in staying on top of.

It doesn't take much to skim through them using the Sage extension in Firefox and mark the articles I want to read later. Anything I want to keep can be filed either in Scrapbook or online in my Pocket account.

-40hz (July 31, 2013, 02:19 PM)

1. What's scrapbook?

2. We need a thread where people suggest their favorite feeds/sites and why.

5743

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by wraith808 on July 31, 2013, 02:50 PM »

Again, stunned at the frequency of ppl joining the blog; up for 72 hours and 27 members already? Where are these ppl coming from? Most of them have outlook.com email addresses...

-kyrathaba (July 31, 2013, 02:37 PM)

Could be the reason you have Akisimet, unfortunately.   I have pages of members, but the only ones that I know are you, Ath, and one other person.

5744

Living Room / Re: Google Reader gone

« Last post by wraith808 on July 31, 2013, 01:23 PM »

Google Reader went away and I moved all my feeds to ... something else. I'm not even sure what. But it was a desktop application. And just like that I forgot to keep checking the feeds. And I don't miss it. It's nice not having so much stuff to catch up on every day. I guess I needed to simplify.

-Deozaan (July 31, 2013, 12:44 PM)

Yeah... I have a lot of feeds, but I don't use them often.  Other than a few categories.  The others, I just mark read most of the time.  But when I want to have something to read, it's nice that they're there.

5745

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by wraith808 on July 31, 2013, 09:08 AM »

continued OT discussion

If we have allowed PRISM, et. al., there are naught to blame but ourselves.

-barney (July 31, 2013, 12:00 AM)

I have a *real* problem with that statement.



The people that are responsible for those actions are solely responsible.  If now that they are visible, we do nothing, then we are responsible for letting it continue.  But they are responsible for their own actions, and should be held accountable.  That statement is one of the problems... we say "we get the government we deserve", and enable their continued transgressions by not holding their individual and several feet to the fire, because it's our fault.

The government is not an entity.  It is a collection of people elected to represent people as a whole.  And if they don't represent the will of the people, and the constitution that they are elected to uphold, then they need to be held accountable.  To do otherwise is insane- you're putting people in power over you that have no responsibility to you, other than to mollify you every two/four years.  That's insanity.

...well, at least in my opinion.  There needs to be a Reckoning, with a capital 'R'.

5746

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by wraith808 on July 30, 2013, 04:35 PM »

What do you want the server for?  Other than to hold a lot of drives... there's several different applications that require a lot of space...

5747

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by wraith808 on July 30, 2013, 12:56 PM »

Basement? Nah. It's still all fun & games. Nobody is getting vehement about anything. Besides, it's more fun with 40hz in the discussion.

-Renegade (July 30, 2013, 11:44 AM)

I just meant in terms of this is OT for the thread... and we really couldn't make a non-basement thread that would fit in the living room for the discussion.

Let's do the OT again

Your last statements bring to the fore anything that doesn't have to do with the immediate.

I don't have the resources, so I ask someone for them.  If they aren't totally altruistic, the lack of the way to enforce the contract (as that would be aggression) comes into question.

I guess it could work like pure barter, but that's not always going to get you through the spots when what you're producing is either not in season, or not in demand.  How do you enforce such things?

5748

Living Room / Re: Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications

« Last post by wraith808 on July 30, 2013, 11:10 AM »

OT Stuff

-Renegade (July 30, 2013, 08:15 AM)

Getting more off-topic, so maybe we should thread this to the basement?

Doesn't that presume that those ideologies include expansion as a tenet (which none of them necessarily do)

As you said, Anarchism only talks about inflicting on the non-willing. So, and I quote, "Anarchism doesn't preclude people from associating under some set of ideologies, e.g. anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-communism, etc. The only thing it precludes is the initiation of force/violence."

If a group of people got together an formed a democracy, it would be a tyranny of the masses, sure.  But on the masses that want the tyranny.  As long as it remains in the borders and by collusion, then it does work.  And they would have the defensive ability to expel anyone that didn't want to abide by that rule, correct?

5749

Living Room / Re: Google Reader gone

« Last post by wraith808 on July 30, 2013, 09:23 AM »

Also relevant quote:

I have 600 subscriptions, can Miniflux handle that?

Your life is cluttered.

IMO, putting that into a FAQ makes it less clear.  Put down what it can handle, and leave the snark for other applications.

5750

Living Room / Re: Google Reader gone

« Last post by wraith808 on July 30, 2013, 08:57 AM »

Miniflux only supports 5 feeds also it appears... unless I'm reading something wrong.

-wraith808 (July 29, 2013, 10:43 PM)

Not sure where you got that? I'm using it on about 100 feeds without any issues.

-johnk (July 30, 2013, 06:22 AM)

That's why I asked.  He said it only supports 5 feeds in parallel... then when someone asked if it would support 600 feeds (surely an arbitrary number) he came back with snark.  So I didn't really get an idea of what it *will* handle.