Recent Comments

I'm skeptical about algorithms being able to do something as subtly complex as this. As for Hollywood movies, aren't they already being written and acted by computers and robots anyway? (Keanu Reeves, whoever wrote the Diehard series: I'm looking at you). I mean, same crap, over and over and over. I think the entire romantic comedy genre has been coopted by a bit of software only marginally more complex than emacs' psychiatrist.

There's the famous muscle memory as well, not exactly an issue of intelligence, but habitual movement of certain muscle groups when certain neurons fire. 250 beats per second is pretty impressive, and being able to correct in 3 beats is also impressive. But somehow it's not surprising - if you're a fruitfly, remaining airborne seems like it should be what you focus most of your mental energy on.

It seems that, currently, the NSA backdoor "feature" is 3x more popular than the daily mailer! :)

Usually it isn't phrased as intelligence vs. not, it's described as conscious vs. unconscious. Conscious thought does happen in the brain, but a lot of unconscious things that you do are more distributed. Sneezing, orgasms, some reactions, are managed by your spinal cord.

There was that famous headless chicken, forget his name, that survived for quite a long time with no brain.

I think you're right, but I also think a lot of the people looking for soundtracks won't care. Big Hollywood studios will always be able to pay someone like John Williams to compose the score for feature films, but a TV producer on a tight budget who wants distinctive music for this week's episode might weclome software that would compose music from the script.

Presumably the algorithm can be altered as musical tastes change. It's interesting how a lot of movies and TV shows from, say thirty or more years ago don't look nearly as out-of-date as they sound .

I don't think that there is a debate about whether or not people should be trying to blind pilots, only about the severity of the offense. You say that the pilots don't have a lot of time to react, and I'm sure that's true, but it doesn't address the point that I was making, namely that cars are easier and more plentiful targets, and drivers on a highway have even less time to react than pilots do.

Seems to me it took a lot more than just opening up a chat session. The attacker needed to know enough about the infrastructure to guide the attack. I suspect either an inside job, or at-least some other inside connection, perhaps the part we know about was only part of the social engineering.

I've always been shocked at how easy it is defeat security with a few words.

To the hotel clerk at the front desk around 2 in the morning: "I left my room key in my room, Can you make me a key for Room number ####?"

I stood ready to produce my photo id, or at-least give the name on the room... neither was asked for .

about live performances and recorded performances even by the same musicians. While I think it is really cool that we can automate music making, I still believe for now that there will always be something vital and imperfect about natural and live music-making.

Part of it is that while there is a standard vocabulary for associating particular musical patterns with emotions, we are also always playing with these patterns to shift our associations. So I'm wondering if the algorithmic approach will be able to have this kind of exploration and growth element added and, if so, how?

in biological organisms. We typically think about the mind being in the brain, but studies like this suggest that intelligence can be distributed through the body.

Notwithstanding the obvious other "brains" we might joke about having, I wonder how distributed human intelligence is and where we draw the line between a "mechanical" response versus an "intelligent" one from a given subsystem of the body.

when do you swap in a lightweight library to replace a more standard-bloated one? I'm curious about people's choices on this.

musl requires some more public exposure anyway. Not enough people know it.

Ha ha. Let's go ask Mr. Fuck Beta what his opinion is. Hey Mr. Fuck Beta, can I offer you a nice glass of scotch on the rocks?

**Everything**, including live sports is available, for free, via xbmc and its plugins.

I cut the cord 2 years ago and have yet to miss any live sporting event I have an interest in.

As a disclaimer, I actually *do* subscribe to NHL Gamecenter ($150 (US) per season) and the reason is at least three-fold:

1) my access to my precious hockey fix is *guaranteed* (just in case the free stuff goes away (doubtful, though: it actually keeps improving))
2) it gives me access to archived and classic games, condensed games, highlights, etc.
3) I can access it on multiple devices...

Also, there are thousands of live streams available, including all the regular US networks (Canada, not so much, except for live sporting events....)

I realize ymmv, but I've also acquired an indoor ota antenna from China ($16) with which I can access 12 ota channels. If I were to mount an outdoor antenna (less than $100) I'd be able to pickup at least 35 ota channels. I don't have the urge, though, because ota represents less than 10% of the tv's use: it wouldn't be missed.

cheers,

Sorry, but you're wrong. A lot of aircraft, like every helicopter, fly low. 500'-1000' AGL is not a lot of time to react when you've been blinded. Frankly, I'm surprised that there haven't been any fatalities. I hesitate to label pointing a laser at an aircraft as attempted murder, but it's close. You don't do things that you know can seriously injury/kill people or do significant damage to property and then act like it's something minor when you get caught. It's not like it's an unreasonable request. It requires nothing more than for you to not be as asshole. I'm astonished that's there's even a debate.

I liked your explanation of "sector creep". The concrete examples help.

I was thinking about it mostly from the customer perspective -- maybe I'm okay sharing personal information on my terms if it gives me a better service experience. But you're right, if the providers and authorities start linking me to everything on their terms, maintain databases on their terms, and so on, the control is definitely out of my hands. Its probably too much to hope for a system where customers control the sharing and deleting of the information on their terms and not the other way around.

Mmmm... I think I like "Mr. Zafiro17" better than "Mr. Rocks". Maybe I should have thought about that when I was picking a username.

Live sports keeps me interested in cable subscriptions right now. I might watch 3-4 events a week (football game, basketball game, couple of soccer games, for example). $1/game would take me to $20/month pretty quick, whereas $5/game would take me to $100/month pretty quick. My interest in cable subscriptions falls closer to the $1/game, $20/month valuation which is what I am currently paying. I'm not sure that internet replacements actually compete with this yet. What they do boast are the premium and niche games which may not always make it onto cable channels. I like shows too, but I can live without these so they do not drive my willingness to pay for cable, in general.

I'm seriously thinking about cutting the cord. It's so damn expensive for what you get. Even the ability to DVR shows is not really worth it compared to Netflix and Hulu Plus - and those are the only two I've paid for. Just imagine if I squandered the $150+ per month I'm spending on cable on internet services instead.

The only things keeping me from doing it: current shows I like and the ability to find new ones at random. Still... I could really use that money. Those shows are only going to keep me from cutting the cord for so long. The day my favorites go off the air, there'll be a curious "schnick!" sound in AT&T's ears...

While we dallied, this got posted on Soylent. Not sure we want a dupe?

I think for me the concern is rather, "sector creep." That is, the airlines prove it's effective and useful technology that allow them to greet me with "Good afternoon, Mr. Zafiro17," and a glass of scotch on the rocks, as I'd like.

So now that we know it's effective, the cops want in on the action too, so they can scan me as I ride my bike home from work. Then the guy in the corner newspaper kiosk wants a pair so he can subscribe to some new service that matches my face against people who like to buy crack cocaine, and so on. Maybe I don't want to be part of your frikkin database, y'know?

Although it potentially strikes me that it is better to have the problem of too much interest in the Linux platform than too little, even if its openness gets pushed around by some.

seems incredibly attractive in principle, i.e., outsourcing data backups and ubiquitous access to services are value-added features.

The risks are to data privacy and service lock-in, I suppose. It will be interesting to see which businesses and practices migrate towards or away from cloud computing going forward.

I wonder whether IBM will compete with offerings from Google, Amazon, and Apple, or attempt to differentiate its offerings for niche business categories. Any thoughts on niche business categories where cloud-computing services are not and, perhaps, will not be addressed by the big consumer-facing companies?

Thanks for that - much appreciated. I just ran it and due to various typos copying that line, had a nice ride on the emotional roller coaster before confirming my system is clean.

I'll be happy when we have the legislation in place that allows us to feed these scumbags into wood chippers when convicted.

is something I have experienced a bunch of times, probably more times even than I know, some of the events being so ridiculous that I can't even picture myself doing what I did. Most of the time I am pretty sceptical and careful with strangers, but basically a variety of human conditions such as feeling happy and safe, being depressed, being very tired, being distracted, and so on can bring your guards down for external reasons and they don't get back up in time when a con arrives at your doorstep. I have since acquired a lot of sympathy for people who get conned because usually they are not ridiculously stupid. Instead, they generally had their guards down for external reasons and made a mistake, a mistake they can easily recognize in hindsight and not repeat in the future, and it usually accomplished little to berate the momentary stupidity.

That said, the discrepancy between the physical security and chat security in this case is remarkable for people managing a financial business. Secure protocols appear to have been missing in this case and could have helped?

Notwithstanding privacy concerns, one of the potential advantages of widely-shared personal information is the potential for better service exchanges between businesses and customers. This sounds like it could be an example of that.

I suppose a potential downside is if you are on record as "frugal", and if businesses identify you as such and they actually lower the quality of service they provide to the frugal-ites.

I believe a large proportion of the general populations wants to watch TV and movies in general. The main thing is we want to watch what we want, when we want, at a fair price relative to income.

If cable companies can compete, subscriptions will stay up. If not, they will drop. What I find interesting is that as internet subscriptions rise in cost without cable added, and basic cable subscriptions drop when added to internet, the value proposition of a cable subscription can rise, especially for live sports, which is why I just got into my first cable subscription.

the linked pdf has an appendix on cleaning, but basically, no, you need a complete wipe and reboot - as you would for any attack that's gained root access. By the way, unless your home machines are internet facing servers, they're not going to be affected.

I meant to ask yesterday on Soylent, but if a system is infected is there a known solution? I haven't tested my machines at home yet and I can't really see how they might be infected, but other than just formatting them, which I might do anyway because I enjoy it, is there a way to clean infections off.

I suppose I could just Google it, but fostering discussion and all that.

To not leave all the fun to [ba]sh users, here's the same test in [t]csh:

(ssh -G |& grep -e illegal -e unknown >/dev/null)&&echo "System clean"||echo "System infected"

If the lasers were all the same wavelength (color) then you could probably make a window that would filter that wavelength. Since they're not, you can't.

If this became a really serious problem then I could see regulating laser pointers to be all the same color, but as the other poster pointed out this doesn't seem to be nearly dangerous enough to be worth the attention (and prison sentences) that it's getting.

If this is such a big deal, why haven't we heard all the stories about car accidents caused by people blinding drivers on the highway?

This is a very sophisticated bit of kit, but from glancing through the pdf yesterday I was under the impression that initial access was gained by other means and then openssh was later patched with a backdoor. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's anything to panic about if your system comes up clean (assuming they haven't remotely updated their exploit kit to cover the test - which is certaily possible)

pdf of the report

symantec blog

So I should go with the added expense of adding a new coating (when was this approved by the FAA btw? You do know that you can't just add anything to aircraft that you feel like. It's not a car.) to keep from being blinded by some assclown on the ground with a laser. Or, maybe, we can continue pointing out that it's dangerous and illegal to point lasers at aircraft and punish the nincompoops who do it?

Geez yes, please! and also helpful to rig it so the page name is derived from the article (as is now done on Slashdot) rather than just a number-code that I don't remember I have to replace until I've already drilled down to where I want it sorted ... ah crap, cancel, copy article name, drill down again, save as, paste name.

PS. Really like it here!

Bells and whistles, meh. All I really need now is a daily mailer, so I can be reminded to check in every day. Which otherwise, I forget. :(

I'd settle for getting a daily mailer so I can be reminded this place exists.

(As it is, I depend on the reminder in your sig on Other Sites. Thanks!)

Cool, thank you :)

Can't these attacks be ah, foiled by a translucent protective coating on the cockpit window? I'm imaging something similar to the gold coloured reflective helmet visors used by the Apollo astronauts.

FTA: In pleading guilty, Mahaffey admitted he knew it was a crime to point the laser at an aircraft but stated he "just can't help himself from doing stupid things."

That's not the current genius talking, but another brilliant fuckwad who decided to make the shiny on something far up in the sky. He only got 21 months. The guy this post is about, with the 14 year sentence, also sounds like he might have an impulse control problem, though - the article mentions multiple previous criminal convictions. The lawyer tried a "didn't know any better" defense, but it probably didn't play well due to the previous convictions.

I'd like to see some actual data: how many of those laser strikes do result in moments of blindness? Nearly 4000 known events last year, but I don't remember any headlines like "Plane brought down because idiot shined a laser at it". I wonder if the law is not because of potential danger to the pilots, but because of a danger to the plane due to false positives. I'd be willing to bet that it's not that hard to detect laser painting, and that some planes, military for sure and possibly civilian, are equipped to do so. In an area where people have rocket launchers, being aware of laser painting is going to make you jump a mile and raise altitude fast. Having an idiot whose pointer looks like the start of a missile attack would become a bigger deal. I have no info on this, though. Anybody?

Yeah, I had the HTC Desire Z with the flip-out keyboard and thought it was the greatest thing. Then when I was thinking of getting my next phone, 3 years after that, there were no more physical keyboards for Android phones, only touch screen. I was worried until I stumbled on the Note II with the stylus. It can be a bit quirky because I have pretty messy handwriting, but 90% of the time it works great and it's light years better than typing on a touch, which is still an option on the Note II. I hope there's something with a stylus available in two years when I'll be looking for my next phone.

I actually really liked the multiverse one, where it was bubbles containing the universe popping into and out of existence, the math on all of them is way over my head though.

Are you related to Kali?

BTW, what excuse does anyone over 12 have for pointing a laser at anything besides their own eyes, or a whiteboard.. or maybe the floor in front of their cat or dog? I am of course assuming that the guy wasn't developmentally disabled.

Although in an ideal world there would be no need to dual-boot, I'd definitely be less annoyed with a Linux / DRMLinux dual-boot system than a Linux / Windows dual-boot system. Presumably a Linux kernel with DRM baked in would still be more secure than Windows and Microsoft wouldn't be collecting money from game enthusiasts anymore.

Hey, I'm glad to know that! Thanks. (Still want me a real keyboard though - I wish those early Androids with physical keyboards were still around but alas, the market has spoken).

That's a lot of hands. XD

Hey bryan, I have a request for a new mod: "Guy". Not sure whether it ought to be a +1 or a -1, though. ;)

I'd say this lady's on the mark from my own experience. I know that when the going got tough, I avoided the fuck out of the classes in question - to the point of not even bringing in projects. If I could've skipped it, or dropped it, I would have. It wasn't that I minded the challenge or disliked the material - I loved both. It was that I disliked the conflict .

The conflict was with the prof, who was irritated at having to instruct girls and seemed to dislike me in particular, though I may have been projecting; it was with the other students - the males were convinced this was awesome and got correspondingly great grades, and the females thought it was irrelevant to their chosen career of 'kindergarten teacher', and probably influenced the prof's low opinion of them; and of course the conflict was with my family as I "failed" to do well - anything below an A- was unheard of. My first B persuaded me into avoiding the class - after which I nearly failed it completely, due to avoidance. I felt like I didn't belong in that room, and the prof and other students either did nothing or went out of their way to encourage that feeling.

I had been thinking about a career in chemistry - the math appealed to me. The B in physics introduced doubt. I knew I knew the stuff, I was very good at getting my head around most of the concepts - but if I couldn't even handle the first set of midterms, what was I getting myself into? Would I even be able to take on the tougher stuff in my favorite classes? I went quickly down to a D as apathy set in, and it still bugs me to this day. If something had been done differently, would I have done better in that class? Would I have chosen to go ahead and do some serious college instead of jumping straight into IT? The biggest problem, though, was not "OMG a B", it was "Well, I'm not going to succeed at this ; I guess I'll stop trying." Maybe if I'd known to redefine "success" for that particular class, I'd have adjusted that attitude, which cost me a potential career.

Redefining success, however, requires redefining a bunch of preconceptions: my family's, the prof's (he damn well knew an "A" counted as "success", and considered "B" to be inferior, and honestly, he seemed to consider most of his students inferior!), and the other students', not just my own. When that many people are telling you something, maybe you oughtta listen to them. These attitudes don't exist in a vacuum. Somebody, somewhere, said, "A means you're good at this and should keep doing it." I hadn't gotten A's. This wasn't like gym class, either, where I could convince myself that I was mechanically inferior in some way. This was a straight up, "You're not smart enough." And being a kid, I bought it.

Maybe I really wasn't good at it, maybe I was - I have no idea whether my initial grade was sexism, a failure to communicate, or just plain being new at the concept. It certainly wasn't the math questions I had problems with. I probably lost points on essay questions, since we didn't start practical projects until later in the year. Essay question grades can be (and very likely are ) influenced by the gender of the writer and the prejudices of the reader. Half of me would love to blame that "lower" grade on something, if only on my prof's bullish stubbornness to actually reward in a standard fashion. The other half knows damn well that my reaction is what killed the potential career, not his grading. So... yeah, she's right. I should've sucked up the B and not given a damn. Unfortunately, I didn't learn to do that for two more years, and by that time I was sick of school.

Yeah, "Best Windows Phone Ever" is kind of like saying that you're the tallest midget in the world, or that you're the most athletic nerd on |.

On the one hand, I'm excited about the fact that I can buy a very powerful laser quite cheaply. On the other hand, I'm terrified that everyone else can buy a powerful laser quite cheaply.

On the one hand, I'm glad that an offense that could lead to a plane crash and loss of many lives is being dealt with. On the other hand, I'm disappointed that it's being used as a cheap way to slap someone the cops didn't like but couldn't directly pin anything to.

On the one hand, pointing lasers at aircraft can be very serious and should be discouraged as actively as possible. On the other hand, 14 years seems like a very long sentence for someone who probably didn't understand that he was doing something so very dangerous.

I have a Note II, I was able to create a shortcut to my wife on my home screen so it's just unlock phone, click shortcut, click call. Not trying to talk you out of BB or anything, BB makes some great phones, just wanted to give you the heads up in case you didn't realize you could create a shortcut to a contact.

I'm a big fan of the stylus for my Note II. Writing text messages by hand beats typing on tiny keyboards for me any day, but if I didn't have the stylus definitely a physical keyboard is better than a touch screen keyboard.

Put the title of the story in the title of the page, please? Right now I have 3 Pipedot tabs open, and I have no idea which one is which! I've got to switch between them to see which is the conversation I'm watching for updates on; which is the conversation I'm posting in actively, and which is the conversation for that interesting story I read earlier and haven't finished yet.