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Groupon customers are bottom feeders.
Wow, fuck you sideways with your judgmental bullshit. Just because people are on the lookout for bargains they're bottom feeders?
>tip on the $20 price of the treatment and not the normal $40 price (you all tip based on the real price when using coupons, right?). So the workers get shafted as well.
I've never done that. I always tip based off the full price and level of service.
>And the kicker? They never come back and become regular customers like Groupon promises. The bottom feeders just wander off to the next cheap thing.
I come back if I liked it. I became a frequent customer at a pizza place and a Lebanese place after trying them out with Groupons. Other places I had shitty experiences with (some specifically treated me badly because I was using a Groupon, one place even declined to honor my reservation against "full price" customers), and those I don't go back to as I wouldn't with any business I didn't like.
This is no different from offering coupons through the newspaper or direct mail. It's a form of marketing. You get a bunch of new customers to try you out and if what you offer had value you retain some of them. It's up to the person making the offer to ensure that they can handle the temporary increase in business and the temporary price cut and offer quality service to all customers and hopefully increase retention.
If you're not offering anything particularly great or unique, you're probably not going to retain a lot of customers after a Groupon deal, but that's your fault, not Groupon's. I try out a lot of new restaurants all the time, most of them I never go back to. Some of them I fall in love with and they go on my list of sure thing great eating experiences. If a mediocre restaurant is going to try to boost their business with a Groupon deal, they're probably not going to get much out of it because customers won't be excited about their mediocre food at full price. On the other hand, if you have some really fantastic food or something else on offer and you just need to expose more people to it, then it is perfect. People will try something they might have otherwise passed by and keep coming back. |
GNOME is an open-source (meaning free as in speech, and free as in beer) desktop environment. You see, in the Linux and open source world, if you don't like the desktop environment, you can choose from several. GNOME and KDE are some of the more popular desktop environments. |
We need some quality judicial action to prevent abuses like this. Willful infringement when the party whose rights are being violated cannot afford to bring a suit should allow the court to award costs to the party holding the trademark.
Otherwise, there's no reason to deal with trademarks as they're intended... as a piece of intellectual property... people/corps/etc. would just prefer to bring a cumbersome lawsuit with enough discovery motions to bankrupt the holder of the trademark. If it's a corporation, the directors would probably violate their duties if they handled a trademark issue in a legitimate way, by negotiating a fair price to pay for the use of a trademark already in use. As it is, our laws put directors at risk personally by not gaming the system like this. |
If you have auto-pay and a billing dispute, you have to deal with those friendly, honest Wall street people at your bank by speaking to someone in India.
If Comcast emails you a PDF, anyone can make or edit a PDF file. The garbage man might believe your sob story.
Sending paper bills that are deliberately inaccurate through the USPS on a national scale could be considered a case of massive postal fraud, a very serious federal offense. That could be investigated by Postal Inspectors across the nation who carry guns, a badge and have arrest powers and whose word and investigative findings carries weight at the federal level. |
The BBB/NC Attorney General stepped in and took care of an unreturned equipment fee, a return label, and a month of service back when I was stuck using this rinky-dink now-defunct ISP called Primecast.
Primecast goes around buying up "exclusive" rights to apartment complexes in exchange for kickbacks to the management company. Their service wasn't really all that bad. 10 down/2 up for $59.99, about the same as TWC in this area (unbundled, no TV). One day, my internet just suddenly dropped down to a rock solid 5/1. It was so stable at 5/1, that it was clearly being set there by the ISP. It, coincidentally, happened to be the same speed that Primecast offered for $39.99.
I figured it would be a simple fix, but after 3 techs coming out and getting the same speed AT THE POLE, they insisted that it was my equipment.
Here is where the WTF starts:
It turns out, even though I am renting my modem from them for $5.99/mo, they claimed it was not their responsibility to replace it. I need to pay to ship the old one back to them, buy a new one from them for $80, AND CONTINUE TO RENT IT from them. So I was expected to buy them a new modem so they could turn around and rent it to me. Fuck. That. Shit. First, I ask if I could lower my service down to the 5/1 service that I am already receiving. After they refuse, I decide, since I have the option for 7MB DSL via AT&T capped at 150GB/mo (Primecast's exclusive deal with the management company cannot trump FCC laws about restricting phone line services), I decide to cancel. After going through their retention department that doesn't understand how retention departments work, they cancel my service and tell me they will send me a shipping label to mail all my equipment (just a modem), then tell me there will be a $40 charge for that mailing label. I ask for the address it would be sent to, since $40 seemed outrageous for a 8oz modem. The support person refuses. After threatening me with a $250 unreturned equipment fee, I hang up, and call back. That person refused to give me an address, so I hang up and try again. Finally, someone slips up and give me an address. It is literally 2.6 miles from my house. It's their warehouse for the region. I pack up my modem, and me and the gf head to their office. The person was rather surprised by me showing up, but he gave me a receipt of delivery, signed it, and my gf took a video of the exchange. Finally, end of story.
Of course not. I get that $250 unreturned equipment fee and a $40 return label. I also get charged for a full month of service, despite cancelling 4 or 5 days into my billing period. I can understand this, as it is usually standard practice to bill me for the month, then refund the difference the month after. So I let that slide. But I go straight to the BBB and Attorney General office. A day or two later, the AG office calls me back, and says the company has just filed for bankruptcy protection and it is very unlikely that I'll ever get my refund. I just have to eat it.
A month later, I get a call from the AG's office. Apparently, my BBB submission was sent in fast enough that I somehow managed to get high priority on a refund. I get a check the next day for $310. |
This woman complained for the sake of complaining. I worked at Amazon for over a year and am currently going through Peak Season. It isn't as bad as she states in her article. With Integrity you can use ATO(Approved Time Off) and not get points. During Peak, you're not allowed to use them because of the Black Out period, which I think is unfair. What she failed to mention is that during Peak they'll offer VTO(Voluntary Time Off) during the shift, so you can CHOOSE to go home if you want and it not affect you other than you not getting paid what you didn't work. Integrity nor Amazon can make you go home. If there's not any work in the pick department, then they'll five work for you elsewhere like ICQA.
Working for Amazon(not Integrity) is a different monster. When you're converted you're given PTO(paid time off), Vacation time, and UPT(unpaid time). Remember the black out period during Peak where you couldn't get off work with Integrity? Well, you can with Amazon, but you can't use vacation time.
Picking....yes, it sucks at times. I've lost 66 pounds while I've been there(246 to 180). It's something that you have to catch your stride in and keep it going. She complains of going hard while picking and her PAs and AMs praising her for her exemplary performance. It doesn't matter if you make 100% to goal or 170%, they're going to pay you the same. Her going hard at it all night is a waste on her. She also was an Ambassador during Peak(probably seasonal) and taught new starts. That is your time to take a break from picking.
Yeah, Amazon isn't the best job in the world and they know it. They offer to pay for schooling(associates and certificates) and they'll pay you to leave Amazon and never work for them again. Fact is, a lot of people come in, especially pick, and think that it's a joke. It's not. Most people have not walked 15+ miles in a day, so they're going to complain. I complain all the time. Hell, I have a degree in music but I'm not using it. It's a job and not everyone has one. That's what you should be thankful for. Do I think Amazon could treat they're workers a lot better? Heck yeah! I think Amazon should not only try and get loyal customers, but also have their employees feel appreciated. |
This article sucks. This lady is some whiny, entitled fool. She complains about being all alone at work, and about being monitored all the time. Employers will always want to know that their employees are being productive. If she spent half as much time looking for employment as she did crying to strangers about how the world has mistreated her I'm sure she wouldn't be having such a hard time. This reminds me of Nickel and Dimed , a book by Barbara Ehrenreich. The whole book is about how some professor decided to try to survive on minimum wage and serving jobs. She spent the entire book complaining about how jobs that pay poorly make you work hard. Tough shit lady. Having worked at jobs that pay poorly and at those that pay well, I can confidently say that many people in well-paying jobs often don't have a work ethic worth a shit. |
Yeah I worked for amazon as a Christmas temp. The job was dull and monotonous. It wasnt that the company was particularly bad to work for, it was just a dull warehouse job. The targets were ridiculously high but I think that was just to motivate people, I didnt see them sack anyone because they hadnt hit target. As long as you were having a good go at it they seemed to keep you to on. Had no sympathy for everyone who moaned about the job, they told you exactly what it involved when you had your interview day. If you didnt want it, dont accept it. While I appreciated the job at the time (better than being unemployed) I wouldnt want to go back there. It is a crap job but thats what you signed up for, no one misled you deal with it. |
There are always jobs, just not the jobs you want. Learn this.
I've gone through many jobless cycles, been homeless in Columbus before, been on food stamps, etc. Thing I've learned, most of the time I couldn't get a job was because I wasn't willing to go to X place and apply there cuz who wants to honestly work there? Every time I finally broke down and didn't give a damn anymore where I worked because I just needed money, I'd be scheduled for training within the week. Sure they may be shitty jobs that aren't for you or have no room to turn into a career, but I didn't care about that right then. I cared about being employed, that's it. |
As a tech recruiter for a huge tech company, I can say that this isn't the whole truth. The company I work for will pay pretty much any wage for people who are qualified . The true shortage is of qualified talent. Many tech workers feel entitled to get giant wages with little experience, poor or no soft skills, poor interviewing skills, and/or fresh out of college.
Our company doesn't just hire any tech worker, we only hire the best, and we pay them as such. |
You seem to not understand anything I have said
I can say the same.
what I'm saying is that just because in your surroundings you see things changing, doesn't mean that the other 99.9999999% of "things" are or will be changing as well. my point is that your personal POV on "things" is immensly tiny compared to the true size and scope of "things", so your personal POV is not a representation of how things really are, it's just a miniscule part of how things really are. also that it's not a 1 way action; there are others on the other side trying working towards "closing people eyes".
you said things are changning, I asked what makes you think that, and you gave the reason based on your extremely limited personal POV, which as I explained is not a reliable source to base your or anyone elses beliefs on how things really are and how they are changing. for all we know they might be changning in the presice opposite direction overall, just that in your little part of things they are changing in the non-opposite direction. |
In America, that applies if you're in a government position to decide who gets what contracts, but since politicians don't actually decide who the US buys things from, they are exempt. There are other situations where you can't accept money for certain things, but I'm not as well read on them.
Of course, politicians can and do pass or deny legislation that SIGNIFICANTLY FAVORS one company or one industry over another...but who in their right mind would think to make them eligible for bribery laws?
Also, I think there has to be 'quid pro quo', i.e. "You do this for me, and I will pay or provide you with XYZ" for bribery to be chargeable. |
This is the problem, voting and lobbying.
Voters don't give a shit about elections unless it's a presidential election. A very small number of people vote during local district elections. What these politicians are up to is public record, but most people can't be bothered to do anything about it. That would be an inconvenience. Big corps know this. So for pennies on the dollar it's cheaper to "lobby" (bribe) a local politician than to spend money to actually deliver the service they're charging for.
So when these referendums show up, vote no, take the time to go down to wherever they are holding the town hall meeting about it and bring your neighbors.
Corporations are people after all and have as much a legal right as anyone to make requests of their government. People never exercise their right to do the same. |
It's blatant bullshit to try to imply that America makes it deliberately difficult to leave. Stop spreading FUD.
> a long wait on a Visa if you don't have one.
The country you're going to issues the visa. Maybe you can say that America's behavior in geopolitics influences how hard it is for Americans to get visas but that's a stretch.
> Paperwork for requesting to move your residence outside the us usually takes a few months to process.
Yes, because changing nation of residence is a complicated process and it would be bad if it went wrong.
> You then agree to be taxed and pay taxes to the US from outside the US since you were a citizen here first.
Yes, because you're still a US citizen, and you still get the benefits of being a US citizen. You can still get aid at embassies, you can return whenever you want with no visa, etc. The US isn't just stealing your money for no reason.
> The fee to avoid this by renouncing your citizenship is absurd.
It's $2,350. There is also an additional tax if you make more than $2 million per year. The State Department recently set that fee to afford to handle higher volumes of people expatriating - believe it or not, the government has to do a lot of work when you leave!
> Between cost and time, it will probably take 2 years from when you decide to have the proper authorization to leave, and be slightly in debt.
It takes so long because there's a backlog and the State Department is understaffed. They could handle this by raising the fee more to hire more people / build a more robust system, but then you'd be screaming bloody murder about the cost. Not saying it couldn't be improved, of course.
> I mean really, just the fact that you need authorization to move out of the country says enough.
I mean, otherwise people could trivially use 'expatriation' to circumvent US law. It would be easy to avoid paying tax bills, you could coerce other people into leaving more easily (and then they would be blocked from returning). If we put less effort into being careful about records-keeping, then you might end up with inconsistent records about what country you live in or where you are a citizen, which could be an absolute nightmare. |
I skimmed the motion... Didn't want to read too far into the minutiae of however this program is set up but will do my best - simplification will probably result in slight inaccuracies but should help you understand the big picture of what is going on here.
The important part of all of this is:
>Defendants move to dismiss, contending plaintiffs lack standing, and have not stated viable APA claims in any event. Alternatively, defendants challenge venue. The motion will be denied, for reasons explained below.
The subject of the article (although it seems to glaze over the actual motion/ruling) is a motion to dismiss based on lack of standing.
Basically... The government Defendant (the DOJ) was saying they weren't responsible for whatever harm the Plaintiffs claim they endured and thus were the incorrect party to be held accountable.
>“To satisfy Article III’s standing requirements, a plaintiff must show (1) she has suffered an ‘injury in fact’ that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.”
This is quoting existing precedent for dealing with these motions. Basically - a challenge to standing isn't decided on the merits of the case. This is just a small hurdle to show that the person bringing a lawsuit has a legit injury/complaint, is bringing it against a party that is related to the injury/complaint, and the entire process of bringing the lawsuit (if successful) will in some way right the wrong caused by the responsible party.
The "harm" is:
>Plaintiffs contend that defendants Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Program Manager-Information Sharing Environment (“PM-ISE”) have issued protocols utilizing an overly broad standard to define the types of activities that should be deemed as having a potential nexus to terrorism. As a result, plaintiffs allege, state and local law enforcement authorities submit “Suspicious Activity Reports” (“SARs”) to the federal government even if unsupported by reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and innocent Americans are “wrongly branded as potential terrorists."
This is basically saying the government has a procedure for identifying terrorists that casts too wide of a net and thus flags citizens in report even if there is zero reasonable indication that they are connected to criminal activity.
>Defendants contend plaintiffs have not alleged, and credibly cannot, that the scrutiny they purportedly received from state and local police, or even from private security personnel, was the result of the challenged protocols or other conduct of defendants.
>The allegations of the complaint, however, show that the gravamen of the alleged injuries lie not in actions of “front line” authorities standing alone, but in the fact that those authorities, pursuant to the guidance and training provided by defendants, submit SAR reports under criteria and circumstances that are allegedly inconsistent with legal principles and policies embodied in other law. Plaintiffs’ cognizable challenge is not to the conduct of law enforcement or private security officers during the alleged encounters per se, although there is at least some implication that plaintiffs believe Defendants’ Standards lead front line personnel to overreach even at the point of making initial observations. Plaintiffs are claiming injury from what occurs after the encounters, pursuant to the Standards.
>
>As such, defendants’ contentions as to causality and redressability both fail. The harms plaintiffs seek to remedy arise directly from the existence of Defendants’ Standards. If plaintiffs can show those standards violate the APA, they will be declared invalid.
This is basically the Feds saying "well... it's not our fault the state/local/private guys are dicks" and the judge disagrees entirely since all of this seems to be related to the federal standards for identifying these individuals to begin with.
>[D]efendants also imply that merely being the subject of an SAR, in the national database, should not be deemed a cognizable injury. In light of the privacy and reputational interests involved, however, this argument is not tenable. See Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 474-75 (1987) (plaintiff had standing to challenge statute labeling films he exhibited as “political propaganda” because of “risk of injury to his reputation”); Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 131, 140-41 (1951) (organizations had “clear” standing to challenge loyalty oath based on injury, inter alia, to “reputation”). Accordingly, the motion to dismiss for lack of standing must be denied.
The government is saying that having your name on a list isn't actually an injury to the individuals brining the lawsuit. The judge again disagrees and cites precedent where individuals prevailed when the harm was only repetitional in nature.
The Government continues by saying the Plaintiffs have other avenues to correct the harm done. The judge disagrees. The Government's reasoning is related to the point above that the real harm is on the "front line" or with local/state law enforcement. The judge pretty much says that's incorrect as those bodies would likely use a defense that they were just following the standards of the program and thus couldn't be held responsible - this claim must be taken up with the DOJ.
Next, the Government says shouldn't be held responsible due to a ruling about the finality of agency actions and their effect on other parties. My understanding of this is "we didn't compel the action of state/local law enforcement." The judge says that even if you didn't compel everyone to participate anyone who does is going to follow your standards and that's what is at issue.
Next, the judge pretty quickly disposes of the Government's argument to dismiss based on regulatory rules about how criminal intelligence is collected basically saying at this stage there weren't any facts to support dismissal.
Next, there is a disagreement between the parties on the nature of the DOJ's rules were adopted. This pretty much centers around whether or not they're "legislative in nature." The judge decides this will likely be decided at a different juncture during the pretrial motion phase of the case and that the Plaintiffs have at least done enough to avoid dismissal at this phase.
Finally, the Government contends that the Plaintiff's claims should be "severed and dismissed because they arose outside of the district." The is a more procedural technical issue. Basically the judge says this isn't necessary and mistakes the entire point of the plaintiff's challenge reiterating that the challenge is not to the individual's unique circumstances but the broader structure of the specific DOJ program. |
Type C is amazing though and you could just get an adapter.
Some advantages of Type C:
It's reversible
It can transfer data at up to 10 Gbps
It can do video (replace HDMI)
It supports data in both direction
It can can power up to 120W 100W at 20V
It's backwards compatible (with adapter)
It's smaller
We are talking about a cable that will plug in in both directions and using either end, can plug into and power just about any device with a single cable (printer, monitor, laptop, phone tablet, TV) will be able to power in both directions (charge your phone with your Tablet) etc.
Besides since it can output so much power a lot of devices will use it for data and power anyway so your phone, printer, monitor, etc will come with one and that one will work in all your other devices. |
I know right? That's exactly the kind of |
the "good" reason is needed. Why would the government waste resource on you if you don't really pose a threat?
Is it rational to think that there is a boogeyman out there?
>They can collect info on me and establish what kind of person I am, what kind of opinions I have, and who I hang out with because of the patriot act.
This is the kind of thing someone has to do. It's perfectly acceptable for the governments of the world to do this. It's the entire point of espionage.
> |
My favorite weird ice-breaker: "hey have I told you about that time when I had a database of thousands upon thousands of dick pics?"
True story: I once worked for a social network with millions of users, and was in charge of implementing automatic removal of NSFW content.
It was a kind of three-strikes system: if a picture was reported enough times, it would be flagged for manual validation, which means an actual person would give a look at it and put its signature in either a blacklist (nudes, anything that promoted suicide…) or a whitelist (stuff reported that shouldn't have been).
To make sure we didn't blacklist or whitelist stuff by mistake, we would keep a copy of the pictures.
Months passed after the system went live, and after seemingly all the porn on the internet went into the blacklist, the only pictures still coming in were dick pics. Tens of thousands of unique dick pics in the blacklist. |
Great to see John Oliver tackle this really important subject.
Edward Snowden's actions were extremely self-less, he was prepared to spend the rest of his life in jail so that the American people and the rest of the world can have this extremely important conversation about mass indiscriminate surveillance.
[A report]( compiled by an independent White House review panel appointed by President Obama has found that the NSA's programs have never stopped a single terrorist attack and that any information needed for terrorism investigations could be obtained with conventional court orders. In fact, in every major terrorist attack in the western world, the attackers [were known]( to the intelligence agencies before the time, in the most recent attacks, the perpetrators of attack on the [Lindt Cafe in Sydney]( and the attack on the [Charlie Hebdo in Paris]( were known to intelligence agencies. In the Lindt Cafe attack, [authorities received 18 tip offs]( about the attacker but did nothing with the information they received.
When it comes to bulk surveillance, you may hear the analogy of the needle and the haystack, that in order to find the needle (i.e. terrorists), you need to collect the haystack. That is a fitting analogy but let's not forget that this haystack represents the people's personal and private communications. Sticking to the analogy, the NSA isn't collecting the haystack, they are collecting the entire farm trying to find the needle which raises another important point which is known as the [big data problem]( in which the amount of data being collected makes it hard to pin point individualized threats.
Regarding oversight of the NSA: the oversight of the NSA is extremely poor, [reports have shown that the NSA has broken it's rules thousands of times]( something which the intelligence oversight committee didn't know until they were asked for comment by the media. How is congress meant to do oversight of the NSA when the [intelligence community continuously lies]( to them? In addition, the [NSA's auditing was so poor that they did not known what files Edward Snowden took]( this raises another important point that the information that the NSA collects can be misused by staff and the NSA would not know about it.
In addition to the massive privacy implications there are also massive security implications for the online world. The NSA and it's intelligence partners known as the [Five Eyes]( have worked very hard to [subvert encryption algorithms]( and to insert backdoors into [devices used by companies]( and [people all over the world]( Companies, developers, project managers, etc cannot honor the promise they make to their users to keep their data safe and secure because the security standards and protocols used to secure their systems are vulnerable.
David Cameron has suggested mandating back doors in encryption algorithms . The irony is that back doors can also be used by bad actors to gain access to communications and our private information.
You may ask yourself why is privacy so important, a common argument is that if you're doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide. The litmus test to this argument is to ask someone to take off their clothes and hand over bank cards and the passwords to all of their online accounts since if they are doing nothing wrong, they have nothing to hide. Of course, not a single person will do that because while people may say with their words that privacy doesn't matter, with their actions they prove otherwise since privacy is social norm which is why we have doors and locks on bathroom and bedroom doors.
Governments all around the world have claimed that they want to be transparent and they want to end corruption but then they create laws to persecute whistleblowers and journalists who expose the government's dirty laundry. The Obama administration for example has [prosecuted more whistleblowers]( than all the other administrations combined.
Privacy is also extremely important for investigative journalists and activists who routinely shed light on government wrong doing and as a results many of the major political scandals have been the work of investigative journalists. These investigative journalists use privacy tools such PGP, Tor, Tails, Truecrpypt amongst others to help expose government's wrong doing, [naturally being targeted by the NSA and other governments](
If we want to live in a democracy where governments are held accountable to their actions, the work of whistleblowers, investivigative journalists and activists cannot be undermined. We as the internet community should not let that happen. |
Lol, no. Vietnam was saved because there was an organized government ready to take charge. The Viet Cong were a proxy of North Vietnam. As soon as we pulled out and South Vietnam fell, the North swooped down and established order as quickly as possible. Vietnam became one country in 1976. Nice beaches only affected the tourism and service industry which only accounts for 1 third of it's economy today. That number would have been a lot smaller during and for several years if not decades after the war. |
Meh plenty of people has already seen it, what does a few more matter, between doctors, nurses, boyfriends, girlfriends and people on 4 chan, my dick is old news, it's not like its going to on the front page of every news paper in the world along with information that I want to keep private like my social security number and stuff. |
Because they don't need a GOOD reason. They can make anything up because they don't require a trial. They can yell "terrorism!" and throw me in gitmo and, strictly speaking, it will be perfectly legal under the patriot act.
So why would they? Maybe commenting pro-snowden leak rhetoric on this post is enough. Maybe an old schoolmate I pissed off is now a powerful politician / military / nsa official. Maybe they don't like my anti-authoritarian attitude. Maybe they just don't like my face.
They can collect info on me and establish what kind of person I am, what kind of opinions I have, and who I hang out with because of the patriot act. The moment one of them decides that people like me should be locked up, they have all that information and the legal authority to detain me and deny me trial.
Unpopular speech may not send me away today, but it might tomorrow, and they'll still have the data they collected yesterday. |
This is actually how the first iteration of the system was done. But then we had complaints that non-NSFW pictures were blacklisted. We started saving copies of the pictures just to check. It turned out that running a social network with millions of teen users meant that opposing fandoms would try and blacklist images of their idols. This is also why we had to have a whitelist too.
We didn't take "a" hash of the picture, actually. The system used was much smarter, it was able to detect a level of similarity between images that allowed it to determine that you were trying to circumvent the blacklist by either saving the picture again, adding a frame, alter the white balance, etc.
I'm not the one who coded the signature system, I'm not as smart as the author.
(Sidenote: the author is one of the best programmers I have had the pleasure to work with; he was also usually coding with a small window displaying porn videos on the top right of his screen. Just working next to him was NSFW.) |
I personally write the software for systems that this guy is talking about.
What he is describing is impossible .
None of the control systems anywhere on the plane communicate with anything that is not absolutely necessary for them to communicate with. TWhile the data they do send and read are not intentionally obfuscated, unless you have a spy involved with the software development/SQA process, trying to reverse engineer these systems would be a very, very daunting project indeed (read: Unless you are backed by a state actor, it ain't gonna happen).
Without physical access to the plane's computer core, you have zero chance of accessing anything, period. Even if you did have physical access, I struggle to imagine how you could subvert it. The most mundane systems are hardened to a completely unreal level, and each system is continually checking that all messages addressed to them are being sent according to the timetable (which is horrifically complex and largely arbitrary unless you know the reasoning behind things). The smallest systems are generating literally thousands of messages every second, and if any of them are not sent on time, things will start complaining to the pilot. If the messages are sending incorrect data, it will complain to the pilot.
You can't reprogram any of the systems unless the plane is on the ground. You can't bribe ground crew to load bootleg images onto the boxes because of reasons. You haven't a prayer of faking the plane into thinking it is on the ground unless you were deeply involved in the development process. You can't splice something in because due to the aforementioned timetables, if you tried splicing something into the bus to send your own nefarious messages, you would cause every system attached to the bus to complain to the pilots all at once, and they would certainly declare mayday. I've already been down that road when idiots were trying to make something about the fact that the computer core on MH370 wasn't locked. Which is retarded to begin with, but it doesn't matter because you can't do anything even if you do have access. I really don't want to rehash that entire bit now, since this guy isn't talking about physical access.
The best part about all of this is, I have to be all vague and mysterious about what I am saying here, not only due to employer agreements, but also due to US Government regulations I can't say enough to prove I'm not just some schmuck making shit up on the internet. Pretty much everyone who actually does know about this stuff is in a similar position. And so people like this guy and the GAO are free to say whatever they want and no one can prove them wrong. |
I thanked you with upvotes on the factual information you presented :).
But yes thanks!
What kills me is there are several stupid things happening here.
Chris Roberts makes a tweet that sounds like a threat or that he is suggesting he might manipulate a system relevant to passenger safety. He gets detained, questioned, and not allowed to fly on the same carrier he was on.
Redditors defend him in a "the establishment is trying to silence his warnings" manner.
People suggest that his warnings are being ignored - which we know is bullshit because we generate requirements, design, build, and verify to rigorous standards. We / aviation also take risk to the system very seriously because its in our best interest to have secure systems. So a credibly threat would been investigated.
There is no demonstrated exploit on redtag hardware. Until you show an actual system being exploited he is blowing smoke up his own ass. So this is where everything you are saying about actual protocols between actual boxes with actual software matter.
If he had gone in through gatelink or wifi and dropped the masks or made the cabin lights blink to the pattern of the super mario brothers theme song, then it would be different. He would actually have a vulnerability and exploit instead of smoke coming out his ass. And if he performed that exploit without permission to test its a violation of federal law, which any pen tester would know, because the first step is always your authorization / permission to go all red team on someones system. |
I don't text so I don't care. Why would congress question the high cost though? The reason is obvious. Companies change a lot for texting because there are people willing to pay it. I know a woman who was spending $200 per month on texting before she realized she could get unlimited texting for $20. A co-worker of mine has a daughter who ran up $800 in just ONE MONTH by texting her friends day and night. The mother also got a $20 unlimited text plan for the future. |
As it is a personal interest of mine might I point out one [particular]( request in regard to the OpenStreetMap project.
We seek an answer from Google whether it is allowed to trace data from aerial imagery. Until now Google hasn't provided a definite yes or no . Yahoo already allows this but it would help a lot if Google allowed access to. For those interested there is a [blog post]( explaining this further.
Google already donated money and Summer of Code projects towards the OpenStreetMap project.
If anyone here finds this worthy for support I kindly ask for a vote but there are a lot of useful [suggestions]( so just have a look. |
First of all: Fuck the RIAA
Second of all: Aren't the fines supposed to be ridiculous in order to try and stop people from doing this again? If I go to wal-mart (probably a bad example) and steal $2000 worth of items, they don't tell me to pay them $2000.... there's either some HUGE fine, or jail time... |
Wow... OK I have a funny story I think would go in here.
Sky (as in Sky News) has these plans for TV+Broadband+Phone (or any combination of the three). Obviously not cable, but satellite or whatever that is - they need to install a dish on your house for you to get Sky.
Problem is TV and Broadband dept are, I think, two separate departments. I ordered Sky Broadband+TV about 2 years ago with my flatmates, and Broadband came in really fast. The pre-configured router package just came in after 2-3 days. I installed it, and after receiving the "Your internet is good to go" email (or was it snail mail?), internet worked.
TV however took some time. They had to arrange a date for technicians to come and inspect whether they could set-up the dish. And then arrange another time for them to actually set it up. So about a month in (no payment has been made yet), technicians came, and guess what? They said our flat couldn't get the dish mounted. You should have seen the shock and horror face of my flatmate who couldn't care less about Broadband but really really wanted Sky HD.
So yeah, we said good-bye to the technicians and expected Internet to die out in a few days and went looking for another broadband provider while we still have Internet. Problem? It didn't die out , it never did. And the bill obviously never came, since our apartment couldn't get the dish installed. Free internet!
Funny thing? About 5 months ago I came back to that flat to get one of my old mail (luckily I know the family that moved in afterwards and they kept the mail), I came in through the door and while chatting with them I saw, to my surprise, that same old Sky Broadband router. Yes that location's been on free Internet for years... makes me want to set up secret-free-internet-zones all over London. |
You do know the history of Iron, of course?
Sorta ironic, really.
Edit 2:
Iron was probably founded by a person wanting to make money mooching off Google. He was purportedly trying to take advantage of the anti-Google sentiments by removing the 'call-home' Google code from the source code (instead of contributing to the Chromium source code to do so), which was anyways a user selectable option in later versions of Chrome.
I can't vouch a 100% for or against SR-Iron, but here's the thing. If you can't trust Google, then how the heck do you trust the guy who made SR-Iron? With Chromium, there's 1000s of people working on the code, contributing to it, reviewing it, with Iron, you have to pretty much trust this guy's word for it.
Edit: formatting
Edit2 (contd): |
I don't feel like those ads compromise the integrity of their analysis. The ads are probably served by google adsense or some similar service and microsoft probably bought the ad because of the amount of time certain key words were used in the article. |
I do like Google's services, but I'm not anti-Apple.
Just compare the content of the ads:
Google: Positive and inspirational actions of ordinary people "like you" make the internet great. Our tools help you help others.
Apple: If you asked a parent/musician/doctor/other authority, they'd all say the iPad is badass. Seriously, its the shit. Why aren't you buying one? |
If I sell you a computer that can only take the proprietary hard drive that I sell, I can then charge you extra when you want to replace it.
Add to that the service fee if you don't have Apple Care (because they don't). Hell... unless you want that big 2000$ box to be used as a paper weight... you better hand them 300$+ for another hard drive no? :)
[Here is one available on their store](
Doesn't that sound appealing? Especially when you compare to what's available on [Newegg](
NOTE: Prices are in Canadian dollars. |
Well, that's completely different.
If all microwaves use the same exact magnetron and.... Samsung (I don't know if they even make 'em), still using the same core tech in the its magnetron, made it so just the power coupling was slightly different from 99% of all other microwaves out there, yeah thats ridiculous. Furthermore, if using an otherwise normal magnetron (that can still fit and connect) caused the microwave fan to be on all of the time even when not in normal use... Well yeah. If I were a specialist in microwave repairs (but didn't work for Samsung) I'd be annoyed and angry.
If their part was more expensive, I couldn't make as much of a profit because I couldn't buy just any old magnetron but rather had to use Samsung's pricier one.
But that's not the whole story. Samsung's new power coupling could cause less power to be drawn, be more efficient and regulate the heat better (I don't know how the fuck magnetrons work). While it might be better, I can still bitch about it. I would have to deal with it directly because I'm the microwave-fixer-man. Customers aren't going to know anything about it or really care (until it's time to fix it).
Same goes for me. I'm a "specialist" for Mac hardware. I can fix it. It may be better for Apple and the user in many ways with more accurate temperature readings which allow the drive to last longer because it is cooled more efficiently, but it just makes my job that much more of a pain for the exact amount of work I used to do. When I checked, the drive at "cost" from Apple is..... (fuck, already forgot), $299 or $399 (way too fucking much for whatever the size was).
But like I said, it's not surprising. I can complain because I'm the one doing the repair. People who call me don't know or care what goes on, they just want their computer fixed at a reasonable price. |
I know this reply is going to sound like a weak argument but I don't have time to do a bunch of research and locate links so please just look at the basic premise.
I used to be all about free software and open source, and I still love it to this day. But I no long push it for everything I do. I changed my ideals once I started to realize that a good portion of the open source world was the same (but different) then the corporate world. It basically started with the GPL3 and the Tivoization clause. At this point the GNU/GPL pundits starting saying that they were the true open source, BSD and whatnot were not. Free software went from being about freedom and sharing to being anti-corporate.
About 6 months ago there was a huge fanboy/anti-fanboy post on reddit that showed some guy wearing a sandwich board at the iPad 1 launch. On it he had four anti-apple points on it, and while they were technically true (the best kind) those points all applied to other vendors more-so then Apple. I will try to find the thread, and my original comment on it, but I think this type of thinking is getting out of hand.
In the end all I want is the best product, for the best price. Right now I feel that Apple gives me that. My workflow on Apple products is way more productive then it ever was on Windows or Linux. People bitch about the vendor lock-in, but ultimately it is this symbiotic ecosystem that I like about Apple.
[Here is the link to the thread in question](
[Here is my reply buried somewhere in the thread]( |
There is no widely accepted definition of NN currently. As rhtimsr1970 states, ISPs must have some form of traffic management to make sure the day to day internet is working. I don't see a problem in creating a tiered internet by introducing Quality of Service (QoS), as long as there is no discrimination between companies using the tier. High latency sensitive content such as VoIP should not be lagging as it would deteriorate the quality of VoIP.
As long as all VoIP companies have equal access to this tier, everyone benefits because you get a better product.
The potential problem the Commission is addressing is anti competitive discrimination where ex. Vonage is treated better than Skype. This would distort the market and leave consumers with fewer choices.
The Commission is taking a hands-of approach while giving member states the chance to implement further rules if necessary, as is the case in the Netherlands. Otherwise competition should, at least in theory, prevent ISPs from engaging in Net Neutrality breaches. |
I've written and rewritten my response along with liberal use of the backspace key and re-reading your response (I'm sure we all do this when we're not propagating some meme). The responses that didn't make the cut were along the lines of: is it provided, are they compensated, and, should those be answered in the affirmative, from whence the funds originate. That said, I think we agree, in a sense. I gather that from your statement...
>I mean not owning the means to access it is one thing, but not the right to access it is another.
Does this condense to 'anyone has the right to pursue any desire'. This is certainly true. I am currently pursuing a number of goals that I feel I have a right to; fame and fortune certainly fall within the top ten. I seem to not own the means to access them at this point, but the right to pursue them is without question. |
I don't think that's a consistent rule due to a limitation of resistive tech, but due to the general quality of the average resistive touch screen. I would think resistive screens with a higher resolution (or however you would say it) for input would be as accurate as an average capacitive, but with the added ease of pinpointing input (read: stylus doesn't need to be huge).
I don't have a source, but I know a little on the tech and I'm drawing from that. Also, aren't those Cintiq $1000 drawing tablet computers resistive screens? I would think, as they are top of the line devices, that they wouldn't use the same cheap crappy resistive tech as most consumer models. |
Nope, I actually have no knowledge about GoDaddy, and this is all speculation. I deal with their shit hosting and decent domain registration stuff all the time. The lobbying stuff is a complete guess based on my knowledge of how the lobbying racket works and how industry folks look out for their own interests that way. The |
That just goes to show you how much power "special interest groups" have over our government. It's fucking ridiculous how easy a small minority can get laws passed, although the majority of people are against it. |
I don't really get this whole Wikileaks thing. These people put the interests of the united states at risk. Granted torture and things like that should not happen and the intelligence community (CIA, FBI etc.) need to be overseen to ensure they are not committing atrocities, but isn't that what our elected officials are supposed to do? Anybody who thinks our votes mean nothing is taking for granted our greatest freedoms and should move to Syria. There is a right way to go about things and a wrong way, Wikileaks and Pvt. Manning are going about it the wrong way. First off if the information released by Wikileaks is used against the US it will hurt the Economy and our oil prices, great for anybody who hates the US but any of you people here supporting Wikileaks that lives in the US will be all up in arms as soon as things start going bad here despite being the ones who contributed to the problem. |
I've noticed that OS X tends to be more longevity-friendly than Windows... For example, I bought my Macbook a few months before my parents purchased a new PC for the family. Within a month, it was reduced to a sluggish mess, whereas my computer is still running fairly smoothly almost three years later.
... obviously, this could also be attributed to me being better with computers than my siblings and parents, to a greater number of applications being developed for PC to clog up PCs, etc etc. |
they chose this quarter to take the accounting hit on the failed 6.3 billion dollar purchase of aQuantive in 2007. They bought that company when they still thought they had a chance at winning the online ad market (which is obviously owned by Google). The point is, they lost this money a few years ago and are now squaring up their books. |
That's not how it works.
If you take torrentfreak's link , it says that this court has cancelled a previous decision which was in favour of Google and that a new trial must take place.
The reason for such a ruling (apparently, I speak poor lawish)
was that the first court (the one which ruled in favour of google) said that they were not allowed to order google to do such a thing because the[ law]( only authorises measure to stop copyright infringement and not to curb it.
The Court de cassation said that such an argument was a bit far-fetched. Now there will be a new trial, and the judge is authorised to have "torrent" deleted. |
Really? The comment I replied to was simply anti-apple statement that had absolutely nothing to do with Samsung or the manufacturing of the iPhone. With my comment, I only wanted to point out that it's not the subject of this discussion. Now you come in and take it on another tangent.
I give up. |
That is the primary address, they also have more email addresses based on contact information they have gotten from scraping data out of the contact lists in mobile phones that have had their application installed. Facebook has full contact information from iphones and android phones. If you have friends that have installed the facebook app and have you in their phone with a phone number and email address they can match to you, they know more contact information about you than you have given them. |
Nope. It even says in the TOS that they have the right to not only keep all your data, but use it in ANY way they want. They're loosing money so everyones pictures and lives will likely now be sold as advertisements. In the near future, some regular teenage girl could have her photo used for an "ameture porn" ad. Granted, thats one of the more worse case scenarios but it is VERY likely. |
Google doesn't index Bing because Bing is a search engine.
It absolutely does. Go search "bing" in Google and see what happens.
And regardless, while in theory making Google look bad is good for Microsoft, the only time you hear about something like this is in an article like the one linked to above. When was the last time you searched something and then said to yourself: "Wow, I wonder why __ isn't in the search results?"
Censoring sites such as the ones listed above (which will surely be uncensored within a few days) does not have any significant impact on Google's public appearance, but does have a significant negative impact to Microsoft's appearance on anyone who reads an article such as the one above. Since you don't notice when a site is absent from the list until you read about it in an article, and the articles are almost uniformly about how Microsoft (and other companies) are sending out false DMCAs rather than about how Google is censoring links that shouldn't be censored, it hurts Microsoft more than Google.
And finally, Microsoft isn't the only company doing it. Many, many companies have automated systems similar to Microsoft's and have submitted poor DMCAs in the past (check OP's article for more on this). Clearly this is happening to a lot of companies, so you can't say that Microsoft is the only firm that is incapable of coding good automated copyright-infringement software. If it is so hard to do that many companies are doing it poorly, don't think that Microsoft is some omniscient wizard who knows what to do but chooses not to. |
Interesting to hear a rebuttal from the surveillance capital of the world. At least in the U.S. we have the right to free speech and through our right to privacy we can limit what the government uses against us in court.
Also in our federal system, a defendant's character may not be considered as proof that a person should be sentenced. |
What society thinks is wrong is ethics. What you think is wrong is your morals. Ethics is usually more of a bunch of rules while morals are your personal beliefs. It's entirely possible to respect ethical rules while maintaining your own moral code. |
90% of the changes are cosmetic, so if you have no practical reason to upgrade then you don't need to spend the extra money. I upgraded last night, just because I was able to get it for free and I like playing with new things. I'm also the kind of guy who has several Linux distros in a multi boot to play with as well. So take this how you will.
But once I got Win 8 set up it wasn't bad at all. The UI change was kind of a shock from normal Windows, but not much of a hurdle. Full disclosure, I regularly go from UI to UI in Linux, so my experience may not be on par with yours. I think they're trying to find a cleaner way to present the desktop and make it compatible between all devices (hence the sync feature in PC settings that you can use between all your windows 8 devices, mobile and otherwise.)
The other feature that is nice for people not familiar with computers is the restore and refresh options you can access right from Win 8. It spells out what each one does rather simply. I think in the future as well you will see more and more customizations available for the metro start and eventually it will become more useful than it is now.
*Note: I still prefer my Fedora but Win 8 isn't the dead duck that people proclaim it to be. The reason some game devs are speaking against it isn't for technical reasons, but because MS is trying to move to a more closed environment akin to what you see with Apple products. |
Alright, I want to clarify some things as someone who has recently gotten a copy of Windows 8 as an assignment from my technical school. First things first, Windows 8 has been criticised time and time again by people like me who haven't even tried it yet. Hopping on the hate bandwagon is much easier than going out and actually buying the software. That said, I had to come up with a list of gripes but also things that made me jump with joy and although Windows 8 DOES have some flaws, these will most likely be fixed with the next service pack. My only major gripe is the need for a capitol letter and number if you associate your Microsoft account with your computer, which in my opinion is completely retarted but nothing that they can't fix or even have workarounds that I'm unaware of. Other than that, Windows 8 has a remarkable startup time and performs better than that of it's predecessors on benchmarking tests. Seriously, Windows 8 boots up insanely fast. If something is bogging down your startup, then Windows 8 has built MSConfig's startup applications into the task manager making it easier to manage what boots along with your computer. Along with the task manager, Windows Explorer got a nice overhaul, most notably the up button which is the niftyest thing since sliced bread. Many times I have heard people talk about Metro sucking and yada yada yada, however, upon looking at it as a whole there isn't much to dislike about it at face value. It's essentially a fullscreen start menu and if you aren't convinced, think about it this way: Suppose windows STARTED with Metro and moved to the start menu, people would be complaining about the shitty eyesore in the corner of their screen and start bitching about missing Metro. Metro REALLY isn't that bad and if you give it a chance you really would not care. Power users can still use the arrow keys to maneuver the menu and most of your work will still be done in the desktop ANYWAYS. One tiny thing to note that's not so cool about metro is dual-monitor displays, which bitch about the tiny pixel where the start button should be. The snap feature for the 'start pixel' is a blessing as much as it is a curse because when you're operating between your monitors sometimes the mouse gets lost and you have to shake the mouse frantically to find which goddamn pixel it was stuck on. Otherwise, Win8 has included a plethora of other small things that I don't have the room to explain so I will leave it at this: |
You entirely miss the point of something like this. I have never watched an episode of Star Trek in my 22 years of life but the fact that there are people that are thinking about interplanetary space travel to this level of detail and are SERIOUS about it is something that gives me butterflies. I want to make it extremely clear it has nothing to do with the fact that an apparently feasible ship design happens to resemble something from some space fantasy show, but instead the fact that there are people taking space exploration seriously.
The fact that NASA's budget was cut as much as it is was is disappointing. You belittling this as some fanboy's dream and thinking that it would be a waste of time to do a serious analysis of whether interplanetary travel is feasible with what technology we have today, and attempting to map out what needs to happen for it to become feasible instills in me a range of emotions of which the most prominent is anger.
The reality is that advances in technology made because of and during a project of this magnitude would probably surpass those brought about by the moon race and Manhattan project. If we could get global cooperation on something like this maybe people would work a little harder to get along after seeing the results of when they do. The reality is that our resources will not last us forever and we will have to explore something other than Earth eventually. I am very much in support of sooner rather than later as long as it is done intelligently.
However, you may be right in that it would be better to get someone more appropriate to do this than the government, but to suggest that the idea is a waste of anyone's time is painfully shortsighted.
Edit: |
Remember when home digital photo printing became possible? That was going to be the end of the high street photograph printing business. Then we found out that to produce really good quality prints, you need a quality (expensive) printer, and photo paper, oh, and photo quality ink.
Then you print off maybe a dozen of your photographs to put around your house, and your expensive printer goes back to spitting out the same old shit a nine pin dot matrix could handle. Fast forward a year, you'd like to print off a couple of those holiday snaps? Well, the photo paper, when you eventually find it, is creased, and that expensive ink? Dried out months ago. |
Other things do that, not the DMCA.
Title II dictates that ISP's/OSP's are provided safe harbor, but this is all websites, and not simply websites that generate/host user created content. Websites like amazon and ebay are protected under these, as well as banking websites and things like Wikipedia. All in all it provides protection for those websites, so long those websites don't host copyright infringing material, that will can hit you with a DMCA removal clause and get you to remove it, where-in you fall back into the rulings to be "protected" by the DMCA. They're basically protecting you so long you follow their instructions, and if you don't ever get caught in that shit to begin with, the DMCA might as well not exist.
A primary example of how fucked up the DMCA is, is that countless youtube users have gotten their channels shutdown for little to no reason due to some "copyright material" on their profile that someone (doesn't really matter who) claimed was against the DMCA. It's a revolver without a safety, and can fuck you up without you doing anything wrong to begin with. |
Nope, in fact good choice. The am3 socket is fully backwards compatible with am2, so if you ever feel your processor died you can get a test chip for cheap. Also there seems to be no signs of changing this socket type anytime soon, it worked for their quad processors ( which btw generally give you more power for less money then Intel) there 6 and soon 8 core processors. In this same amount of time ( roughly 4 years) Intel has changed their socket type 3 times, one due to the fact it has a critical failure ( looking at you 1156 socket) AMD also made sure their processors can fully support 32 direct lines from PCI-e something you generally have to pay double for on the same processor from intel. And excluding Intel's highest priced model lines ( generally 2-3xs the cost of AMD's equivalent) they pump out pretty much the same score on bench mark tests. |
It's not hyperthreading, it works similar but instead of cramming 2 threads on one core, you cram 2 threads on two separate "cores" for the most important bits, and a single "core" which 2 threads share for less important stuff, which affects performance less, they can still hyperthread their FX CPUs, and they'll have the same 25-30% performance increase Intel had, with the exception of the shared part of each core. |
That site lists the 500w system under maximum load 24/7.
He is not paying 150 bucks electricity for that computer every month. You can look at it from every angle you like, he still isn't paying 150 bucks a month, it's fabricated justification.
Also it's doubtful he's pulling a 100w for an lcd. Possible if it's an early model and really big. For example, an old 20 inch lcd would pull about 30w.
It's also safe to assume he didn't have it under load constantly. For example, he replaced it with a MBP so he isn't bitcoin mining or running seti at home. Realistically he's probably pulling about 200-240w intermittently throughout the day. |
Because almost all laptops, including the MBP, have Mobility-designed chipsets. That's why the Nvidia GTX *00M series exists. That's why the mobile i7-3770 exists, but is clocked at a much lower rate than the desktop version. They're all super low powered because normal power consumption on desktops is much higher. The performance may be 'equal' (it's not, it's just more subtle than you think), but the power drain is substantially less. For example, the most recent line of Macbook Pro doesn't consume any more power than about 135w, and that's processor AND discrete graphics card running on maximum consumption.
Do the same thing (max out consumption) on a non-mobility card and processor, and you're likely to see something between 200-500, depending on quality. That doesn't even include hard disk or network access, either. That load escalates ridiculously quickly, too. I've got two 7970's in CrossFire, but just one running at 100% capacity takes up more than double the wattage (369w) of the entirety of the MacBook Pro. |
Former AMD employee checking in, AMAA. These are not the statements of my employer.
To make it in this world you have to
Design good chips
Produce those chips
Sell those chips
Designing chips has gotten way harder. You may recall that Apple's first computer was made by hand in the two founders' garage. You may not know that the processor in that computer was similarly designed by two guys. Those were the glory days.
Well, today, designing chips is really fucking hard, sometimes you have to invent new physics . See for example, Intel's "3D" (trigate) transistors. Just for reference, I think the industry spends like $50bn on R&D. That is the GDP of Guatemala, Uruguay, Costa Rica, or North Korea. That's right, you can be a nuclear power for less money than these guys spend on R&D.
Well AMD has always had like 10% the headcount of Intel. Which was fine and great in the glory days of chip design. Not so much now.
Really what AMD needs to do is go hard on a segment like servers or something. But then Intel would just sell that segment at a loss, and now AMD's fucked. So they continue to spread their talent thin over way more parts than is reasonable, try to make reusable designs that scale all across the board. But that produces "jack of all trades, master of none" type chips. Which explains their product line today.
Onto production. Production is getting really fucking hard too. I think we're at 20nm or something now? At that scale, you need to invent new kinds of clean rooms . Ordinary clean rooms don't cut it anymore. And so that means more R&D and new physics etc. I mean the problem at the moment is figuring out how squish things together tight enough but not get interference between one part of the circuit and the other, and how to keep your machines free of stray atoms that disturb the careful balance. That is not so much a chip design problem, and more a problem about designing really expensive air filters.
Onto sales. AMD has always been awful at sales. (We're not talking about NewEgg here--OEMs have all the money.) This is why, even when the chips were really good, Dell sold way more Intel chips than AMD ones.
Traditionally, AMD has countered this problem not by actually getting good at sales, which is hard I guess (not a sales guy), but by suing and threatening to sue. So if Dell and Intel sign too good of a deal, AMD files a lawsuit about it. They've both sued each other all over the world and even argued before SCOTUS.
Well, the theory behind the lawsuit is ELI5: it's a bad idea for Intel to control all the processors in the world, so we need competition, ergo, the government should step in and handicap Intel. At one point this strategy worked pretty well as a negotiating tactic for AMD to get in on deals and so on.
Well if you haven't noticed, ARM chips are outselling x86 chips 10 to 1 last I checked, and that was awhile ago. So it's getting harder and harder to say that Intel is a "monopoly" that needs to get reigned in. Meanwhile AMD has gone out and bought ATI, and the "you're a monopoly" argument is a little pot-calling-the-kettle-black at this point. The rules are different in a post-ARM world. This is why, for example, Microsoft can keep Mozilla off the Windows RT tablet even though they were trounced in court for that exact thing back with Netscape and Windows 98. |
The right to perform warrant-less searches, spy on anyone at all, using any means at all, was granted via the Patriot Act years ago.
Just what did the people of our country expect? That a paranoid government agency would behave like the Elvin aristocracy in Lord of the Rings? That they'd reject using the power to further their own interests?
I'm shocked that any adult is shocked. The day I read of the Patriot act being passed, I simply assumed that this kind of surveillance would quickly follow. I'm sure they've been doing this stuff for years.
You cannot hand over unbridled power to military leaders - or bureaucrats - and expect them to limit their use of that power. Leveraging every particle of power they have to the limit is practically their job description. That is why we've always had very strict controls, checks, and balances built in to the granting of any power that has potential to infringe on the rights of American citizens. |
I never used kazaa, but it happened to a lot of people. Even their monitoring the IP traffic of every Internet connection in the country for signs of music sharing should be illegal.
Will the NSA use the data they gather for equally nefarious purposes? Will it be passed on to the IRS, the DEA, local police?
I know what the public will say; "They would never do that", "That would be way over the line", "It won't be allowed". The same exact claims we all heard when it was suggested that the government might use the expanded wiretapping privileges of the Patriot Act powers to spy on American citizens.
I say the line needs to be drawn and never crossed: no exceptions, no 'special circumstances' no excuses. Individuals who cross that line now are heavily prosecuted, with hacking now carrying jail sentences of 5-15 years. Government agencies should be held not only to similar standards, but to even higher standards, as they are entrusted with public safety and have taken an oath to uphold the law.
It's time to stop the expansion of the security agency's powers and start limiting them. |
Whether Glass was around his neck or in an offsite safe doesn't matter. Hanging Google glass around your neck means you can't use it. You can easily use your phone without pointing it at the stage. (letting everybody around you know you aren't filming) Even then, lets say you do start pointing the phones camera at the stage. The people working there would see you filming, walk over to you, and ask you to stop filming. With Google glass there would be no way to know, and that is worrisome to the event hosts.
The gist of it all is; you cant use Google glass without assuring people that you aren't filming them. You can use your phone whilst assuring people you aren't filming by simply pointing the camera away from them.
I am hard pressed to consider this a flaw of Google glass, because it is a rather unique social effect that hasn't really popped up much. This has to be one of the first cameras that you actively point at people without necessarily having the intention to film them. Even other head mounted cameras only served the purpose of filming things you are looking at, so there is no ambiguity about what the camera is for. You wouldn't just have a head mounted camera on just because you think it looks cool. Google glass is probably the first camera you point at people 100% of the time whilst it actually records people 1% of the time. Besides Glass, pointing a camera at someone is almost always a sign that they are filming you, or that they want to film you. |
I have a couple of questions for anyone with relevant knowledge:
Compared to a normal ICE car, how much parts does a pure electric car like Tesla's use? I'm talking from a servicing point of view
If Tesla becomes big and lots and lots of players enter the pure-electric car market, what will happen to the conventional auto part suppliers? Do they have any chance of retooling to provide parts to electric cars or will they be forced out of business?
I ask because one of the reasons given for bailing out GM and Ford was 'think of the thousands of parts suppliers' who will be forced out of business and the domino effect on the economy. |
Everyone keeps mentioning the price. My last car was a 25k car, and the only reason I could afford a Tesla was because I sunk my life savings into the stock. Let me tell you about some of the savings on the car:
Lets start with the base price of $70,000, I got $7,500 in tax rebates from the federal government and $2,500 in rebates from PA. I save ~$312 a month, but since most people drive 15k miles instead of 20k+ let's say the savings is closer to $225 a month (it costs 4-5 cents to drive one mile on a Tesla). I save about $250 on maintenance per year ($21 a month). I also save around $45 a month in insurance. I financed the car at 1.49% over six years. If I subtract my down payment and then add on my interest I pay, I am still at $70,000. Subtracting $10,000 in rebates and dividing by a 72 month finance period gets us to $833 a month. Subtracting $225 (gas), $21 (maintenance), $45 (insurance) gets the monthly payment down to $542. Multiply that by 72 months and its like financing a $39,000 car. |
I'm going to disagree with you on the Volt being a better car. I get that the Volt allows you to drive using the existing gas infrastructure, but in general people aren't buying them. Obviously the Model S is more than twice the price, but the car is selling. The 250 mile range limit is more than enough for a daily driver and the limited charging options for longer drives is quickly becoming irrelevant with the implementation of more charging stations and the new battery swap stations. Telsa went the top down, start expensive and don't compromise on quality. Then let the price drop as production scales and benefit from their brands reputation for lower end models in the future. Where as the Volt is very lackluster and doesn't even compete (sales wise) well with gas cars in it's price range. |
Bad idea, seriously. The stock is artificially inflated due to massive speculation that's fueled by several big market institutions. Buying into Tesla thinking they're going to become a rival to any of the established car marks is foolhardy and shows an utter lack of understanding with regards to the automotive industry and how its players operate. This is an especially bad idea if you're going long as within 10 years BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Lexus, et al will have their own electric powertrain vehicles; not to mention the plethora of entry level electrics ala the chevy volt or nissan leaf that will blossom more models within a decade. |
Here is the schedule for teachers in my county. Starting pay is just over $35k for a 10 month employee (standard teacher) with a 4 year degree. It used to go up a little for someone with a master degree but no longer does.
The steps in the left column are for years of service, but in our county they haven't received an actual step since the 2006/2007 school year when the base pay was below what is stated on that sheet. The steps have increased although wages haven't which caused controversy and was subsequently changed when the older teachers were furious that first year teachers were making more.
So now all the teachers that started at less than $35k have remained there and when there is an actual step they might get lucky and moved to the actual step they should be on.
"But, wait a second Mr. TurtleSub, teachers get good benefits, right?!?" No, see in Florida the Governor decided to change the established contract for all state workers so now the pensions they thought they were guaranteed to receive for free are now costing them 3% of their salary. Then to make matters worse our district still wasn't meeting their budgets so they decided to cut their "great" insurance down while making it cost for some people and they even suggested using government funded health programs to make up the difference. So now you have a college educated person who is making less than when they started possibly on government assistance if they have child and if they aren't on government sponsored health care programs they now have higher copays and deductibles with a 10% coinsurance.
Are the schools failing because we are losing our good teachers to better paying jobs or is it because we need to possible spend salary money on more tests and things that are shown not to work? |
That's an apple's to orange's comparison, Google and Yahoo weren't facing competitors with close to a hundred years of market participation nor did they face any of the obstacles car manufactures face with regards to supply chain management, research and development, and reliance on competitors. Furthermore Tesla is not a market disruptor in the traditional sense, it's a segment incubator (the segment being electrics) a case study for other brands to examine the "luxury" electric.
Five shares? Hardly a worthwhile venture imo, you can make your money work for you with other financial instruments to much better effect.
A desire to move to electricity does not make Tesla a successful competitor, the electric segment is not a vacuum and the bigger more established luxury brands are going to be releasing competitors within 1 - 3 years time. All the excitement in the world will not replace the brand equity associated with the likes of Mercedes, Audi, et al. Not to mention Tesla doesn't have a fraction of the resources its rivals do, this means it won't be able to stay competitive from an R&D standpoint unless it licenses tech from its competitors, this creates a dependency (one that already exists mind you) which puts a great deal of leverage into the hands of its competition.
Right now you're buying into hype, and you're associating completely unrelated fields (yahoo/google) with the automotive industry. That is so incredibly reckless from an investment perspective it's worth pointing out again. Again purchasing five shares in the hopes of beating inflation within 10 years time is not a sound financial decision. |
The problem with the VW concept car is it's tiny, the entire car weighs 1600lb, it's a hybrid, it's a diesel. Diesels get ~40% better mpg than a gas, and a hybrid gets another 30-40% better mpg than a non-hybrid. When you consider a Harley Davidson Tri Glide Ultra get's 38mpg .
Also, with EPA ratings (the 203mpg from VW is not an EPA rating), they require that you count electricty as fuel, and they pick a conversion number that gives you a moderatly accuratly method of calculating fuel price. They will print 98mpg on the Chevy volt because that's how much it costs to drive 50 mi or whatever, not because that's anywhere near it's real mpg. It's not lying, it's just reflecting that fact that electricty is cheaper than gasoline. |
As long as household electricity prices go down and become somewhat affordable (there are too many people being overcharged in the UK for energy) - then I'm all for this. |
While some of your complaints are stretching it, you make some good points... I upvoted. Too bad your post is all the way down here. =/
I wouldn't say any of your points are legitimate engineering problems though, which is where I was hoping to make my point. You made it sound like it was completely unfeasible, but I'm pretty sure even the safety is at worst susceptible to the same problems as any train, possibly safer. Your legitimate points are all money problems. Pricing engineering projects is a joke though, honestly.. I've always been annoyed as shit with the way the money people interact with engineers. Engineers tend to be idiots when it comes to pricing things, so people shouldn't ask how much it will cost (but everyone does) directly to the design engineer... it should be given to an engineer who specializes in making estimates based on the design, and that estimate should be expected to have a LARGE error range based on the immense number of variables. Of course when you assign someone to price it, they're always under pressure to minimize the estimate so that doesn't always work either. It's just stupid all around. So I didn't even bother to judge it on a monetary basis - comparing other technologies is assuming their estimates are accurate, which they're not, they have the same problems. You make some good "common sense" points about the technology simplicity, but I don't remember Musk claiming it was cheaper to build, rather that it was so much cheaper to operate that it would make up for it. That could still be true, and I don't know what math you're using to calculate commute numbers and times... but his design could be adjusted in a few ways that change those numbers, so I would say that's not really a point to ding it on, it's a trade-off. If it needs to have higher throughput, that could be planned for at higher initial cost.
I agree it's certain the cost would balloon, especially because it is an unproven design that needs significant testing. Of course, as you say, the HSR budget is ballooning out of control of even it's "generous" estimate. Maybe this project would do the same, I don't really know, but I'm not convinced it's a certainty either. |
It's a big price, but it's a product that I sincerely believe in. I wouldn't have considered buying a first hand car, or a luxury car, or a non-Asian car if it weren't for the Tesla. Currently I plan to keep driving my 97 Nissan Pulsar until I can afford a Model S Tesla and then never drive any other car brand.
If I ever get rich enough, I hope to buy my future wife a Model X, 'cause I like the look of a woman in an SUV. Prior to the announcement of the model X, I never would have considered living in an SUV-driving household, but my SUV-qualms do not extend to the model X, which looks amazing. |
Apple is notorious for issuing updates that don't work on older models, not because of any hardware limitations, but because they want to "incentivize" you to upgrade. |
Called a "martensite", the crystal has two different arrangements of atoms, switching seamlessly between them.
This is where I stopped caring. The author doesn't understand the words he is using.
>Currently, martensite metals are made of an alloyed mixture of nickel and titanium.
Most martensite metals produced in industry are steels. Martensite is a metastable phase caused by rapid quenching of an alloy before long range diffusion of carbon can occur in steel. This is the most common form of martensite. However martensite is, in a more general sense, a diffusionless phase transformation, and by no means exclusive for steel.
EDIT: I don't have access to the article, but based on the abstract of the original work, it seems they are examining materials that have reversible phases that the transformation between phases is a martensitic phase transformation.
The alloy they use is Zn_45 Au_30 Cu_25
And there general findings are quoted here
>(1) Despite a transformation strain of 8%, the transformation temperature shifts less than 0.5 °C after more than 16,000 thermal cycles. For comparison, the transformation temperature of the ubiquitous NiTi alloy shifts up to 20 °C in the first 20 cycles9, 16. (2) The hysteresis remains approximately 2 °C during this cycling. For comparison, the hysteresis of the NiTi alloy is up to 70 °C (refs 9, 12). (3) The alloy exhibits an unusual riverine microstructure of martensite not seen in other martensites. (4) Unlike that of typical polycrystal martensites, its microstructure changes drastically in consecutive transformation cycles, whereas macroscopic properties such as transformation temperature and latent heat are nearly reproducible
I may be over simplifying this, but they have found an alloy that can under go higher amounts of cycles before the material's phase transformation temperature changes significantly.
EDITx2: Please correct me if I've miss-told or generalized something. |
Oh yeah, it's absolutely the state. I've no disagreements there. There's tons of programs out there, as you suggested, but you'd be surprised how many programs there aren't. Medtronic, for example, the people who make the insulin pump that pretty much has saved my life, offer a program for financial assistance with their products (the consumable hardware that is used with the pump, canulas, CGM sensors, reservoirs, etc.), except I don't qualify. Being employed at all pretty much nukes that. Let's ignore that I used to have a job making >100k/yr and now only make around 4500~ a year with this little part time job I have for a privately owned restaurant. The reason I no longer have my last job (and 2 before it), is because my passing out during work scared them a good bit (a number of ambulance calls every few months) both for liability on their behalf (which is actually nil, I'd happily sign something stating such, but that offer did nothing to allay the fears) and just the general concern of having emergency medical personal on site so often. My inability to control my diabetes without insulin pump therapy was a major reason I lost multiple jobs in my past (I'm 34 now, and even my first job at 15 at burger king on the military post here ended when I passed out while filling a mop bucket for closing). I can't feel low blood sugar at all. I can't tell you if my sugar is low whether it's 35mg/dL or 120mg/dL it all feels just normal to me. It's a comorbidity called hypoglycemia unawareness. It sucks, but the insulin pump and it's continuous glucose monitoring system do wonders for that...except I can't afford the CGM sensors (@400$+ ... 3-5 day use/10; per month) and there are no third party assistance programs that will help with this as i use for my prescription meds (the producer of my insulin sends me about 1700$ worth of insulin every few months, I use a third party RX assistance program to keep all the necessary paperwork and such in order to ensure everything is delivered timely).
So pretty much I can't seem to keep a good job, because I can't get insurance (now with ACA I will supposedly be able to, but that coverage gap kind of fucks me) nor afford the out of pocket cost to support the very thing I need to be able to maintain a job that would allow me to pay out of pocket (and/or ACA insurance). |
What does that even mean? You could say the same about some guy who downloaded S01E02 of Game of Thrones, he did not physically steal anything and who's to say he would have ever bought an HBO subscription or the DVD set(6 months after the season ended) if that torrent wasn't available to him?
And who is it really hurting? Even with Game of Thrones being one of the most pirated media in the last 3 years it still has insane profit margins. Every copy that somebody downloaded off of thepiratebay had no impact on HBO. It cost them nothing to create those copies and they aren't even distributing them. The fact of the matter is even with all the piracy in todays world quality content still makes absurd amounts of profit. So what is the big deal? |
I'm not a lawyer at all so take whatever I say or have said cum grano salis . Also like other redditors, I'm speaking strictly on the perceived situation based on the article. I did not research this situation any deeper, so who knows what's actually true here.)
Hypothetically, not really 'criminal'.
At that point, there's a valid – albeit entirely unreasonable – contract. Any contract can be argued, but that's a civil matter.
But knowingly submitting a debt to the credit bureau based on the terms of a fraudulent contract, yes, I think qualifies as criminal behavior. And the contract is fraudulent: the customer purchased the product before that was in the contract as someone above pointed out. That means they have zero evidence, or worse, forged evidence.
But criminal behavior doesn't mean a thing if it goes unpunished. This is where this type of story gets shitty. In the end, these guys won't pay a dime of this $3,500, but the company won't get more than a smack on the wrist.
Would a federal or state prosecutor actually attempt to go after these guys? Hell no. Prosecutors have the burden of proof to worry about, and in a criminal case such as this, it's highly unlikely that the state could gather any significant evidence against the company. If they were sending 'bills' like this a thousand times a day, then maybe – if it's a big deal and the attorney is planning on running for office on a certain ticket.
Moral of the story and |
No. I mean such a clause would be unlikely to hold up in court for reasons that are so fundamental they are spoken of in the constitution, even though constitutional law itself wouldn't likely be used here.
"If you buy my product, you aren't allowed to say anything negative about it or my company."
This smacks of any other contract that asks to waive your fundamental rights, such as the ones acknowledging that such-and-such is dangerous and they can't be held liable if they maliciously fuck up and kill you, or the one where as a condition of employment you promise not to tell about all the illegal stuff your employer is doing.
Such clauses are rampant, they never stand up in court, but they serve to intimidate customers, force them to wage legal battles, or, at best, serve as a mitigating factor in civil suits. |
Are they running on the assumption that most people will just panic and pay the fine?
Actually, I would be willing to bet that it was in place so that they could primarily lay down a threat - "remove this comment, or we will fine you $3500, which you agreed to in the EULA." People tend to give more credence to a EULA than they legally deserve, and as such they generally would probably agree to capitulate.
This is backed up by the story posted, which says
>"That was the end of it, Jen thought, until three years later when Jen's husband got an email from Kleargear.com demanding the post be removed or they would be fined."
The actual fine would never hold up in court, and actually fining someone over $3500 would be enough for a good number of people to go to court (as it is under the small-claims court limit in most states, you would not necessarily have to hire a lawyer, and any sane judge would simply throw out the fine).
The point being, they never want it to go to court, they don't even ever expect to try to fine anyone, they just want a $3,500 hammer ready to threaten people into taking down negative feedback. They don't want to actually try to use it, because it will become apparent very quickly that their hammer is made by nerf. |
As someone who came out of college in the late 90s and worked in the industry during the "bubble", and has continued until the present day, I think there has been a huge shift in the industry which goes beyond ageism. Age is really an issue, I think, because people who remember how things used to be are also going to be the first ones to complain during certain situations. And for management in companies these days, they can't maintain their "culture" if somebody complains about the work environment.
In the late 90s, the internet was new. As such, only the younger people entering the workforce had any idea how to implement applications that leveraged this technology. So this typically required working with the older programmers in a company to bridge the old systems with the newer internet-based systems. And since the internet was new, there wasn't really outsourcing available for these tasks. It was actually a pretty decent time for IT in general, because programmers of all ages were needed to modify and maintain these systems.
Additionally, my experience during this time was that companies usually divided the operations support and programming duties between different groups. If you wrote an application, then you certainly needed to support it if it had issues in production. But once you got past these initial problems, it went over to the operations side of the business and you continued working on the new projects.
In 2009, when the economy was completely screwed, that's when I was hit by the layoffs. So, after much effort, I did find another job. And after that job drove me crazy, I found another one. And then another one. There is a significant difference between now and the late 90s that, as someone previously stated, contributes to young workers volunteering for abuse. And they simply don't know better since they haven't worked in another environment.
Now, if you work as a programmer for a company, it seems to almost be standard practice that you will also be responsible for production support. This will often come with an on-call schedule, if you are lucky, or you are just on-call indefinitely if you are not. Basically, as companies have reduced their organizational structure to save costs, they have reduced any real barrier between development and operations. And there is no pressure for them to undo this change....I have had arguments with executives at two different companies about this and was all but told that's just the way it's going to be now.
Oh, and to add to that, I actually make less now than I did prior to 2009. So, to summarize:
Programming jobs typically require that you also handle duties for what would have historically been operational problems. This can effectively double the work requirements, and therefore the time spent at work.
The jobs pay less than they did 13 years ago, although the cost of everything has continued to increase.
The fact that proper structure in IT has been essentially eliminated causes lots of problems and mistakes. A programmer focusing on operational issue is not going to write perfect code for instance. Any attempt to enact changes in a company to address this issue is typically met with hostility and rage by management.
Middle management cares about looking good to upper management. Solving actual problems is secondary concern. |
I work full time, as well as freelance (video/photo/audio, etc). Not going to lie... volunteering to do some work for free for people or groups, usually for people or groups who need the work done and would be better off not being charged for it, has landed me plenty of clients that pay for my work.
It's usually as simple as "Hey, your band is really good. You impressed me. I'm willing to offer you my services for a free photo shoot or video if you'd like." and following up to do the work. Not only did I like helping out people who deserve and need the help (while getting experience), I started noticing that potential clients were calling me up due to having helped those people out.
It doesn't stop at bands... I'll offer to help anyone if I think the cause is worth my time. Hell, I'm working full time already, and it's not really harming my quality of life to do some free work. The best part? People that wouldn't have been able to afford something they need are now getting something they need, and I'm putting my full quality work into it.
I wouldn't have started my career without help, so I see no reason in helping other people with theirs.
Obviously I also benefit from this (new clients from the work, establishing loyalty in groups, and experience+practice at my crafts), but those are reasons that keep me volunteering my services, as well. |
So is everyone here going to continue to delude themselves that this isn't just a publicity stunt?
Full disclosure, have not seen the 60 minutes.
Unless Amazon has solved the battery energy density issue, these things are going to have a range of a few miles at best. They are also going to have a loud on the order of maybe 5 pounds. This might sort of work for city dispersal but still you would have to invest a lot to buy hundreds maybe more of these things and they were be severely limited in what they can deliver meaning they will still have to maintain a traditional shipping fleet.
There is a reason why things aren't shipped by helicopter: helicopters are incredibly inefficient fuel wise. Their advantage is maneuverability. Plus have any of you guys played with those toy helicopters that are so popular these days? Notice how you can play for 20 maybe 30 minutes then you have to charge it for a similar amount of time. This will be no different. Theres a conundrum with flying vehicles - the more fuel you add the more you add to the payload thus requiring more fuel. So there's some way in how much battery power they can put in the heli's be there's no way these are interstate devices or whatever. |
I agree. This seems more of a publicity stunt for the holidays (free national advertisement for Amazon) than "unveiling" much of anything.
Once they get to actual costs, not to mention overcoming FAA regulations, this will end up just like 'concept cars'. Drones as the one in the video have limited range. To deliver to any significant distance and to carry any significant weight they would need to make the drone huge to carry enough fuel and to make it very fast which would be cost prohibitive. The drone will also have to dodge trees, power lines and birds and needs to make sure it doesn't land in someone's swimming pool. |
No
You're comparing class A commercial planes flying at 28,000 feet with a helicopter flying at 500-2000 feet. Those are entirely different flying scenarios. Small airplane pilots do navigate by sight. ]( for navigation by landmarks, which include mountains, roads, power lines, large buildings, etc.
It's not that commercial airlines can't navigate by sight. They don't because they are restricted by flight regulation. ]( is not permitted to navigate by sight because 1) there is less detail at high altitude so there are fewer landmarks 2) clouds and the atmosphere obscure line of sight vision 3) it would be very imprecise due to lack of detail and 4) the jet pilot's field of view is more limited due to the shape of the aircraft's windows.
Since commercial airlines cut it close with available fuel, it is important to fly in the optimal flight path, so guesswork with visual navigation is not reasonable for commercial craft.
Visual navigation would be quite easy for an autonomous drone helicopter, because it's not a difficult computational problem. The algorithm would detect highways and locate their position on a map stored in memory. Google does a similar process when it stitches together photos of the Earth's terrain and matches it to highway data.
The precision of the coordinates attached to Google's map photos is not perfect so many adjustments are still required to account for shifted position, angle orientation, and perspective skewing. The software can detect landmarks by color, line, shape, height, and heat signature.
The drone knows what city it resides in so it has an advantage of being able to reduce the number of maps it needs to sort through. It also has a last known position so it can narrow it further. And, it could also use cell tower triangulation to narrow it even further. From there, it's a matter of matching a live photo of the ground to a photo stored in its on-board database. That is exactly the same problem Google solves when it stitches together its maps, except the drone would have less data to sort through, more precise position data, much higher quality pictures, and additional sources of data. |
I fly multi-rotors (aka "drones") They are fun as hell and blow my mind every time I fly one. But sadly, you are right on. People will build super specialized units that do nothing but stay in the air in order to get 30 minutes of flight time. 10 to 15 minutes is more typical with no payload. When we fly with a camera and a stabilizing/control gimbal, we're looking in the 6 to 10 minute range per battery. (Though you can charge these LiPo batteries in the range of 15 minutes.)
With the laws of physics and current battery technology, you might be able to get a few miles of out-and-back range, but that's with no payload and no wind. Plus, these things simply aren't terribly reliable or robust.
Your |
Any application is worth millions or billions if it gains enough people. The idea behind the application itself doesn't matter, as can be seen maybe through Instagram or Twitter or SnapChat or anything else really. There might be better applications out there or services that do the job better, but it's just about the one that clicks in with the general public. |
Incest, yes. Child porn, no. And every other provider does the same. |
But the image we see today is not merely the RAW file off the camera's memory card. It has almost certainly been cropped and had color and exposure adjusted, and had the resolution altered, along with many other possible changes made by the photographer.
If this was a dumb point-and-shoot, which was found laying on the floor of the jungle, and someone found it and uploaded the shot straight from the camera's memory to Facebook, then the person who found it and simply posted the file wouldn't have any basis for a copyright claim. But in this case, a thoughtful photographer set everything up in the first place, and then subsequent to the exposure being made, took creative actions to go from the initial "raw" (in the general sense) image to create the compelling, unique image we see today. |
So what the FBI is saying, is that they used SQL injection to find the IP address?...
EDIT: This is illegal for you and I to do under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
FOLLOW-UP: My SQLi comment was targeted at the article.
Based on my reading of the criminal complaint and the indictment documents, it appears that the events MAY have unfolded as such:
-Research on early mentions of Silk Road on the internet, led investigators to the name "Ross Ulbricht" via a Gmail email account referenced by a user named "altoid" on various websites.
2013-05-24: Silk Road user sends private message to DPR and states an external IP is leaking "and listed the IP of the VPN server". (Pg. 28 - criminal complaint)
2013-07-23: The image of the server was made. (Pg. 28 - criminal complaint)
2013-07-29: The image of the server was received by the FBI. (Pg. 5 - indictment)
2013-08: Subpoenas are filed for network taps on Ross Ulbricht's known locations of data usage, his Gmail email account, his Facebook account, for the VPN server and hosting provider, and other servers and hosting providers.
Sometime before 2013-07-23, the external IP for the Silk Road Web server was found. It is possible that the investigators were able to login to the VPN on 2013-05-24 and gain access to the web server, the same day the IP for that VPN was leaked. Per pg. 28 of the criminal complaint, the VPN was wiped on 2013-06-03, 10 days after the leak. |
Well there's a couple of problems.
Firstly, even presuming that the FBI did what he claimed, they'd be on the hook in Iceland, not in the US because that's where the server was.
Second of all, the word of what one security researcher thinks is or isn't possible is really rather immaterial. TFA actually indicates that the login page was actually revealing the actual IP address, the information was actually posted on reddit apparently (minus the actual IPs).
It's quite possible that they actually did what they said they did, silk road has been hacked a whole bunch of times, the fact that this idiot couldn't do it with a different server does't mean it can't be done.
It's also possible that the FBI have made what they were doing sound more clever and technical than it actually was. You can read the plain text off a website with a packet sniffer if you want to, and that might be where they actually found it. |
In the end it likely comes down to something like computer hard disk encryption. In the case of a computer if encrypted without a recovery key (e.g. the mechanic override) all the data on the computer is lost if the password is forgotten. In the case of a car I would expect it would come to replacing the car's computer (both expensive and difficult).
I would like to see something like the following:
1) If owner loses key(s) a password is required to be entered into the infotainment display set in the infotainment settings menu with valid key presence (and that can only be reset if the existing password is known) to re-key the vehicle (presumably if the password is never set then it defaults to requiring and allowing a dealer override).
2) If the password is forgotten then the user has a toggle to allow a "trusted mechanic/dealer" override (which in this case the thieves have co-opted). If the user knowingly turns this off then recovery of lost key and password is impossible and the central computer must be replaced to start the car again. |
I love showing an internet noob adblock and watching as their mind absolutely implodes, as they realize for the first time ever that there is an alternative to the ad-ridden shithole that is adblock-less web surfing.
The realization is a sight of beauty as I show them my adblock counter (currently at 84,000+) that they have been digesting utterly meaningless content their entire internet-using life, just sifting through piles and piles of dog shit to get to whatever they're searching for. Just accepting that this is how the web is, and this is everyone's experience. Not even imagining an alternative. Completely trained by cable TV/radio/billboards to digest the ads and move on, and just accept that its a part of life. Seeing all those assumptions shatter is so sweet, every time. I ask them their favorite website and go there, and the eyes widen as they see the page without the bullshit.
Adblock is a beautiful thing and I've donated to the creator, hopefully it helps stave off these companies and their desire to fill the web with cancer. |
Because everyone thinks that Google controls everyone's phones like Apple and/or it is Google's fault for not upgrading the device that was heavily modified and/or controlled by the phone provider |
Because everyone thinks that Google controls everyone's phones like Apple and/or it is Google's fault for not upgrading the device that was heavily modified and/or controlled by the phone provider |
The only real way for us to combat crooked representatives is to vote legitimate individuals into office and educate others to do the same.
But every election it's always, "it's not my congressman/woman that's the problem, it's theirs". So the incumbents usually get reelected. When there is a signal that may change they resort to redrawing the districts. If that's not the case then it's usually that you're stuck with picking between the lesser of two evils, but evil is still evil.
Next you'll say something along the lines of running for office myself or convincing others I know to run which would also be fine except that the entire election system is rigged. The two main parties will only allow individuals to run who they know will stay the course and if you want to run 3rd party the requirements are usually 10 fold what they are for the establishment just to even get your name on the ballot (at least in my state anyways). |
I don't think that old people need to die before old ideas fade away. A little bit of normal media instead of the regular propaganda should go a long way to change people for the better. It took maybe a while before older people grasped what the internet was and could do. But they got their heads around it and I think we're all the better for it. Old people didn't have to die, in order to deploy the internet.
The current people in power and that want stay in power, will abuse anything to keep it. Even using traditional and new media for keeping it that way. Just because the old media hasn't been able to ruin the internet, that they won't try persist. I think this power structure is way more harmful than inert people. Also because this power structure keeps itself in place. You might bitch about the 1 %. But if you make more than 35,000 USD per annum, you are part of the global 1% yourself. Your cheap iPhone and gas keeps this power structure in place. |
Their favorite thing in the world is selling people shit they don't use. For example, they love convincing people to blow an extra $240 a year to get BLAST! Internet, complete with a garbage router that can't achieve anywhere close to 105Mbit on wifi from more than 5 feet for another $120 a year. With the exception of torrenting content and downloading steam games, very few online activities actually benefit from going 25Mbit to 105 in a household with up to 2 heavy users (torrents, video streaming). They advertise it as essential for gaming lagg, which is blatant false advertising since ping and packet loss is what causes lagg, not bandwidth. I think they might even be liable for a lawsuit for this if they didn't have so many friends in politics. A reliable 10Mbit connection will not lagg in game, but an unreliable 105Mbit will. But the average user does not know this, and gives comcast an extra $360 a year for bandwidth they won't use on a shitty modem/router that broadcasts public wifi and locks you into their shitty DNS. |
Google and download it. It's awesome. A program with a great interface where you just click on a movie, it downloads and streams the torrent. Then, when you're done, it deletes itself from your computer.
You can also add your own VPN to it if you want some more peace of mind. |
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