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8901

Living Room / Re: Testing the internet "kill" switch

« Last post by 40hz on July 19, 2010, 09:50 PM »

Not a problem. Some of what Uncle Sam is getting up to lately is pretty scary. But the only way the real critics and reform advocates can have any hope of maintaing their public credibility is if they don't fall for straw men or go tilting at windmills. The so-called "kill switch" isn't a real threat to anyone for a lot of reasons. Allowing it to distract people from real issues such as ACTA or the recent trend of allowing private companies to semi-direct public policies and (apparently) some government enforcement actions is a far more serious threat to public freedoms.

Just my tuppence anyway.     

8902

General Software Discussion / Re: weather.com

« Last post by 40hz on July 19, 2010, 08:33 PM »

@wraith808-

Bingo. This particular client's WAP is locked down so tightly (and excessively IMHO) that it's almost useless. Been a while since I dealt with a school. Forgot how paranoid net admins get in that environment.

Too bad I don't have anything to do with the wireless part of their network. Oh well. Somebody obviously got them to drink the "web is a dangerous place" koolaid.



 

8903

Living Room / Re: Testing the internet "kill" switch

« Last post by 40hz on July 19, 2010, 03:26 PM »

Umm...actually, the issue was covered by widely-read TechDirt a while back.

Link: http://www.techdirt....16/04053910248.shtml

Authorities Force 73,000 Blogs Offline?
from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept

TorrentFreak is reporting that a company, Blogetery, that hosted about 73,000 blogs, has been shut down by US authorities. Details are, admittedly, sketchy at this point, but the entire site has been taken down, and the company's ISP claims that they had to terminate the account immediately due to the "request of law enforcement officials, due to material hosted on the server." The ISP also claimed:

    "this was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server."

That seems odd. If there was problematic content from some users, why not just take down that content or suspend those users. Taking down all 73,000 blogs seems... excessive. TorrentFreak speculates that this may be a part of the recent Homeland Security efforts to shut down file sharing site, and points to some evidence that there were at least a few Blogetery blogs that shared copyrighted works. However, no one's talking, and the ISP seems spooked, saying that it's "serious":

    "Simply put: We cannot give him his data nor can we provide any other details. By stating this, most would recognize that something serious is afoot."

I'm still wondering what could be so serious that the specific problems couldn't be pinpointed? Taking down 73,000 blogs with no notice seems like overkill, no matter what the actual issue turns out to be.

In a follow-up article posted today, TechDirt reports the reason this happened had nothing to do with the government testing a "kill switch" and everything to do with ISP Burst.net overreacting to a government request for information on a specific single blog page by shutting down the entire Blogetery website they were hosting...

Blogetery Closure Due To Bomb-Making Tips; Still Not Clear Why Entire Site Went Down
from the overreact-much? dept

Last week, we were confused as to why 73,000 blogs from Blogetery were taken offline due to some unnamed government agency, and now details are starting to come out. Greg Sandoval at News.com, has the latest, noting that the FBI told Blogetery's ISP, Burst.net, that there were bomb making tips found on the site, and rather than just getting rid of that one blog, Burst.net (not the FBI) decided to take down the entire Blogetery account. Either way, as we noted originally, taking down all 73,000 blogs seems like a total overreaction -- it's just that the overreaction was by Burst.net, rather than the FBI (who didn't even tell Burst.net to take down that one page -- but just requested info on who had created the page).

With all due respect to the folks over at Backwoods Home Magazine, they'd better leave the tech reporting to the people who have at least a semi-clue what they're talking about and concentrate more on what they're good at.

Well intentioned but erroneous conclusions such as were drawn by the BHM article don't do anybody much of a service. It's easy to get indignant. Much harder to get your facts straight before you do.

 

P.S. If you want to stay on top of some of the shady doings in the infosphere, TechDirt is probably the most reliable and least hysterical source for information on everything from the shenanigans surrounding ACTA and the RIAA's copyright abuse program to anything else you need to be aware of in the area of dirty doings.

This site is definitely one for your feedreader.

Highly recommended.  

8904

General Software Discussion / Re: weather.com

« Last post by 40hz on July 19, 2010, 10:24 AM »

This is my favorite weather website:

http://www.thefuckin...r.com/?zipcode=11215

-fm84 (July 19, 2010, 12:05 AM)

I got this response from Safari (or maybe AT&T) trying that link on an iPhone.

This is interesting because I just checked and have verified I don't have any active restriction settings enabled on this device.

 

Your page is blocked due to a security policy that prohibits access to category
Violence.

Pretty weird huh?

8905

General Software Discussion / Re: weather.com

« Last post by 40hz on July 19, 2010, 10:15 AM »

I prefer geoipweather.com

Detects your location from IP and displays weather info retrieved from Weather.com

-InstantFundas (July 17, 2010, 02:34 AM)

Apparently my IP resolves to a different town that I'm in, so that's not much use to me.

-Deozaan (July 18, 2010, 04:35 PM)

Mine does too. Just add a slash and your zipcode (/012345) to the URL and you'll get your locality. (see my first post for example)

8906

Living Room / Re: Should Apple recall the iPhone4? Or should the user "Hold the phone the right"?

« Last post by 40hz on July 17, 2010, 03:04 PM »

Well...I saw Apple's 'press conference.'

What it all boiled down to was little more than Steve Jobs saying T.F.B. and "deal with it."

I would personally like to suggest Mister Jobs hold it "where the sun don't shine."

---------------



Note: Be very interesting to see how well his argument that the iPhone is totally unique one moment, and no different than any other phone the next will play out. I hope the tech press calls him on this one. They've created a monster by letting him get away with stuff like that.

8907

Living Room / Re: Can Anonymous voting redefine social media?

« Last post by 40hz on July 17, 2010, 02:46 PM »

If the stuff on the front page of that site is what really matters in life, I must be really screwed up because nearly everything I saw there looked like a complete waste of time to me.

-Deozaan (July 16, 2010, 01:45 PM)

+1.

Took a look at the site.

The fact there are still some people who believe there's this info-alchemical force that can transmute shallow comments on trivial topics into something of value (as long as you can gather enough of them in one place) will never cease to amaze me.

Stockpiling fertilizer won't get you a corn crop.

About all it will do is increase the risk of an explosion.



 

8908

Living Room / Re: Some initial reflections on using an ebook reader

« Last post by 40hz on July 17, 2010, 02:04 PM »

Reference books and papers: it's very hard to capture the feel and experience you get from being able to really quickly flip through, scan, and browse such documents and can feel claustrophic and very limiting trying to do here.

-mouser (July 15, 2010, 07:09 PM)

Interesting that you feel that way. That was also my impression when I got a chance to play with a Kindle and a Nook for a few hours.

Unfortunately, the only reason I would like to be able to cart 100+ books around with me would be if they were all reference materials and user manuals. Much easier than working with an 8Gb key full of PDFs like I currently am.

But even if these readers were ideal, it would still leave me with the problem of having to repurchase all of these books too.

Let's see...48 books @ $49.99 plus 17 books @ $69.99 plus plus 11 more at $39.99 plus that $199 monster...and it comes out to...um...yikes!   I'll just stick with paper for now.

8909

General Software Discussion / Re: weather.com

« Last post by 40hz on July 17, 2010, 08:41 AM »

goingtorain.com

-is reading my pc's location, so there is no place to type my zip code. Should it be "USA only"?

this is what met me, before I could click or type anything:
 (see attachment in previous post)

-Curt (July 16, 2010, 09:30 AM)

It probably never occurred to them that anybody but a US visitor would be happy with so simple a weather report.
 


)P.S.  You need to type the zip code directly into the address bar.)

 

8910

Living Room / Re: Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg? Scientists say: The Chicken

« Last post by 40hz on July 17, 2010, 08:33 AM »

Anyway, here's a rather critical follow-up; Chickens, eggs, this is no way to report on science.

-Eóin (July 15, 2010, 03:04 AM)

the comments are worth a read as well (serious and...

-tomos (July 15, 2010, 04:44 AM)

Thank you for that link. It's sad how often science gets misreported or distorted just to generate  a catchy 'lead' line or sound bite.
 

8911

Living Room / Re: Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg? Scientists say: The Chicken

« Last post by 40hz on July 17, 2010, 08:30 AM »

Any chef will tell you the egg came first.

The chicken is merely the mechanism an egg employs to create another egg. 

8912

General Software Discussion / Re: weather.com

« Last post by 40hz on July 16, 2010, 07:37 AM »

hamradio turned me on to http://www.intellicast.com
which has a fantastic radar display (see image at very bottom after you put in your zip code)

-mouser (July 15, 2010, 09:02 PM)

Thx for the link. Some of the maps (Mood Index?) are particularly intriguing.

But then again, all maps fascinate me.  

Normally, a forecast such as comes from http://goingtorain.com/ is closer to my speed.

(Just enter your zip code after the ending slash for your location.)

Here's what it says for Beverley Hills, CA (http://goingtorain.com/90210):



 

8913

Living Room / Re: Flicks that struck you as odd or different in a good way?

« Last post by 40hz on July 15, 2010, 06:53 PM »

In Bruges...

The Irish hit-men Ken and Ray are sent by the Londoner mobster Harry Waters to the medieval Belgium city of Bruges in Christmas after an awry job in a London church.

It's got: murdered priests, contract killers, drugs, Dutch prostitutes, anarchist little people, skinheads, a movie crew, eye injuries, sexy girls, philosophical mobsters, Canadians - and the charming city of Bruges during Yuletide! What more could you possibly want?

Violent, twisted, brutal - yet hysterically funny and somehow oddly...endearing.

I'm generally not a fan of crime movies unless they're complex capers like The Score or Inside Man. But I really liked this film. I don't know how director Martin McDonagh managed to pull it off, but you come away from this picture liking every character in the story - with the possible exception of an obnoxious ticket taker and a couple of yuppie tourists.

This film is a contradiction in terms. It's a "feel good movie" about very bad things.



- and -



Once



A week in the life of an unnamed Dublin street busker (and vacuum repairman); and an unnamed Czech immigrant (and sometime pianist). One of the few truly intelligent and believable romance stories - with a very unique ending.

Like Chinatown, the full meaning of the film's title only becomes apparent at the end of the picture.

My GF ordered it on a lark from NetFlix, expecting it to be some lightweight indie "chick flick" we could watch when we weren't up for anything too thought-provoking or heavy.

To our surprise it turned out to be one of the better movies we've seen in the last year.  

8914

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommendations for home mail server

« Last post by 40hz on July 15, 2010, 04:24 PM »

SmarterTools has a very nice Windows-based mail solution called SmarterMail. I very seriously considered ver 6 of this app before I ultimately went with a NIX solution for home. (Knowing me, is anybody really surprised?)

Anyway, if you can get by with 10 mailboxes per domain it's completely free. (Otherwise it's fairly expensive for personal use since the minimum license is $300 for 250 mailboxes.) Nice thing about this product is that the only limitation on the free edition is the number of mailboxes. All the other standard features (webmail, calendar, etc.) that come with the "Pro" edition are fully activated. It comes with it's own webserver, but it can be configured to use IIs in either 32 or 64-bit configurations - which they recommend doing BTW. Great feature set - and it does support SMTP authentication.

Might be worth a look if 10 boxes will do ya.

Link: www.smartertools.com

(They have a really sweet help desk application too. That's what I  use.  )

-------------------

Disclaimer - 40hz doesn't get 'squat' from anybody for anything he posts about or recommends. So there!
At the rate he's going, he calculates he'll be able to retire on his 170th birthday - assuming he limits his food intake to something like six crackers and one can of soup per day once he does.  

8915

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« Last post by 40hz on July 14, 2010, 06:27 PM »

@Curt - thx for the University of Michigan link above. I already knew about it because I was on a Lincoln binge a few years ago, but it's a great resource nevertheless.

If you're interested in another good source, check out the collection of Lincoln documents at the Library of Congress. Not all of it is digitized, but you can request copies if you need something not available online.

http://memory.loc.go.../alhtml/malhome.html

8916

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« Last post by 40hz on July 14, 2010, 01:55 PM »

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.   - Abraham Lincoln

-40hz (June 28, 2010, 04:47 PM)

The quote is kind of right, but it was not said by Lincoln.
(and if he had said it, I imagine he would have used the proper doesn't...)

-Curt (July 14, 2010, 09:42 AM)

@Curt - who said it then? In the form I quoted, it's been commonly attributed to Lincoln. If it appeared elsewhere it's also more than possible Lincoln was borrowing the joke. He prided himself on being well read. It's also extremely likely he had read Uncle Tom's Cabin, since that was the book that generated most of the popular support and rhetoric for the American Civil War.

Also don't be too sure he didn't use the word 'don't' in that context. Modern American English usage is often very different from forms that were popular in the late 1800s.

And even the best educated US politicians frequently resort to using rustic and 'folksy' terms when they want to show they're "jus' plain folks like everybody else." The late Sen. Sam Erwin was a master at using an overdone Carolinian drawl while referring to himself as a "just simple country lawyer." The fact he was a Harvard Law School graduate didn't seem to hurt his 'down home' image one bit with his constituents.

If you get a chance, check out how George W. Bush's language and accent used to get more 'folksy' and 'Lone Star' when he was delivering a speech down south or out west as opposed to when he was speaking in Washington DC or in the mid-Atlantic and New England states. Especially cute was how the word America got pronounced as "America" , "A'merica" or even "Ah-MURK-ah" depending on who he was addressing.

Gotta love our politicos.

 

8917

Living Room / Re: Should Apple recall the iPhone4? Or should the user "Hold the phone the right"?

« Last post by 40hz on July 14, 2010, 07:34 AM »

The logic of Steve Jobs:

a) To issue a recall would be tantamount to admitting a mistake was made or that there is a design flaw.

b) Apple does not make mistakes or experience design flaws like everybody else.

Therefor...

It finally happened to us just like everybody else. This is Apple's first really major design flaw.

There is no design flaw because Apple is not like everybody else.  

8918

Living Room / Re: Student suspended over suspected use of PHP

« Last post by 40hz on July 13, 2010, 09:36 PM »

 bbspot.com strikes again.   

8919

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« Last post by 40hz on July 11, 2010, 08:39 PM »

^If you're a Cablevision subscriber you can also hear it there. 

8920

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« Last post by 40hz on July 11, 2010, 05:27 PM »

^Actually, it's more like they'd use the Emergency Broadcast System that you hear them test at weird times on TV and radio.

That's what the EBS was created for. They'd just announce the president was shutting the net down and include a code word at the end to let the telcos and ISPs know it's not just a drill. It works the same for broadcasters. They receive the EBS tone and an authorization code. If the codeword sent matches the codeword for the day they know it's a real emergency and suspend broadcasting and wait for further instructions from the government.

Fun. I grew up living with this stuff as a kid.   

 

8921

Living Room / Re: Does serif matter in web fonts?

« Last post by 40hz on July 11, 2010, 02:06 PM »

Also, that video put Ww in there twice and left out Yy. Somebody needs to go back and learn their ABCs.

-Deozaan (July 10, 2010, 03:39 PM)

Well... Alan Moore has hinted that Watchmen takes place in a parallel universe much like our own.

Sooooo... maybe they do double up on Ww and lack a Yy in their alphabet.  

8922

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« Last post by 40hz on July 11, 2010, 07:22 AM »

^The shutdown signal wouldn't necessarily need to be sent via the network itself - and very likely wouldn't. If the network is compromised seriously enough to warrant its being shut down they're not going to rely on that same network to do so.

I'd suspect the most likely scenario would be some sort of arrangement whereby a prearranged coded communication would be sent out (via phone, radio announcement, etc.) and designated individuals would 'pull the plug' locally.

The best computer hack in the world is still no match for a human being with one finger resting on the on/off button.

 

8923

General Software Discussion / Re: PC Monitoring - Need Help

« Last post by 40hz on July 10, 2010, 09:02 AM »

Welcome to Donation Coder

I think you need to seriously reconsider your strategy regarding monitoring your childrens use of the family PC.

Secretly monitoring use the way want to do it does nothing to engender trust or encourage responsible personal behaviors. It can also have the exact opposite effect on your relationship with your daughter.

The simple fact you want to install this software without her knowledge would seem to indicate  your primary interest is in spying on her activities rather than dissuading her from what you fear she may be getting up to. This raises some ethical issues for me because the only two words I know that are used to describe the practice of covertly watching someone's activities are 'spying' and 'voyeurism.'

As a parent you have a responsibility to raise your child as best you are able. Secretly watching her internet usage is not a good way to accomplish that goal.

If you feel you need to do something to control web access, there are several so-called parental filters that can be used to block sites you may consider inappropriate for her to view. Far better, however, would be to have a a long and serious talk about what the rules are for Internet use in you home - and then let it be known that there are ways to monitor her PC but that you'd rather not feel you ever needed to take such a drastic measures.

If your goal is deterrence, that should be enough.

-----

Note: Be very careful if you do install monitoring software despite what I've suggested. While the jury may be out on whether or not a parent can electronically monitor her child's activities, it's definitely not when it comes to monitoring somebody else's child as part of the process. So while you could claim a right to know what she's texting or file forwarding - you don't have a similiar claim on the responses she is getting in return. So even under the best circumstances, you only have a (debateable) 'legal right' to her half of the conversation.  Since the other party has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" you're getting into some dangerous legal waters. Some parents have been prosecuted for this. The court didn't have a problem with them monitoring their own child. But they had a real big issue with a parent doing it to somebody else's child.

And when Internet usage is composed of something like 90% 'social use' in that age bracket, it's almost impossible not to spy on your own child without spying on somebody else's.  



  
 
 
 

8924

Living Room / Re: Does serif matter in web fonts?

« Last post by 40hz on July 09, 2010, 07:09 AM »

San-serif for webtext is a convention, not a design rule. Polls seem to indicate a small majority prefer it. But that may be more due to conditioning rather than true preference. The jury is still out on that one.

Serif fonts can work well in webtext provided you use a large enough fontsize, and you generally avoid blandishments like italicized type. Italicize type generally looks like hell on a Windows browser so it's best to avoid it anyway. (I'll be the first to admit guilt when it comes to ignoring that rule BTW )

Georgia is the safest serif font to stick with for web use. It was designed for the web - and it's on just about every machine out there.

This is what your question looks like in Georgia:

---------------

=Asking this here because I fear this might be too basic a question for typographic forums (if there are any, I didn't check) and because I read some old topics here where people seem to understand fonts=

Just found out that serif is for long texts in books and since I'm working on a style lay-out change for my blog articles following some people's advises, I was wondering if serif for blogs really make that big of an impact.

Unfortunately I don't know anything about typography and personally I never found either to bother me much but since I get enough people saying my posts don't make sense/aren't direct/long/etc. I wanted to maximize my odds this time of communicating my articles.

----------------

Boosting it up a size to 12pt improves readability quite a bit:

----------------

=Asking this here because I fear this might be too basic a question for typographic forums (if there are any, I didn't check) and because I read some old topics here where people seem to understand fonts=

Just found out that serif is for long texts in books and since I'm working on a style lay-out change for my blog articles following some people's advises, I was wondering if serif for blogs really make that big of an impact.

Unfortunately I don't know anything about typography and personally I never found either to bother me much but since I get enough people saying my posts don't make sense/aren't direct/long/etc. I wanted to maximize my odds this time of communicating my articles.

---------------

To my eyes, the only potential problem is the width. Many people find serif fonts are harder to read when the column gets too wide. On your own webpage, you can control the column widths and keep them narrow enough. (There's a whole raft of typographic theory about how to calculate optimal line lengths based on font size to facilitate easy reading.) But on a forum like DC, the layout is fluid so it may become too wide for some people to read comfortably.

See how shortening the line length improves readability even at the smaller font size:

------------
Just found out that serif is for long texts in books
and since I'm working on a style lay-out change for
my blog articles following some people's advises,
I was wondering if serif for blogs really make that big
of an impact.

Unfortunately I don't know anything about typography
and personally I never found either to bother me much
but since I get enough people saying my posts don't
make sense/aren't direct/long/etc. I wanted to maximize
my odds this time of communicating my articles.

---------

In the end it all comes down to what looks best to you and your readers.

If in doubt, you could always take a poll.  

 

8925

Living Room / Re: How to send fax through high-speed internet connection?

« Last post by 40hz on July 07, 2010, 05:47 PM »

Oh.

And here I was hoping it was somehow related to your fantasy fiction project.