Recent Comments

Nonsense.

There are loads of companies working on developing autonomous vehicles; I doubt there's even one working on developing autonomous chainsaws.

If you really think that chainsaws are as a big a potential danger as autonomous vehicles are, I have some wonderful seaside property in Arizona I'd like to sell you. I also own a bridge in New York I'd be willing to part with for the right price.

Oh my sweet, sweet, summer child.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Viwwetf0gU

NOTE: I realize there's probably someone controlling this from a remote, which you see at one point, but it's a pretty small step for this to be automatized.

Having had someone try to run me over with a car, and having driven through a few things in a car, I completely agree with this statement.
Cars are weapons. Shields. Armour. All in one!

It isn't that difficult right now to just drive a truck through a crowd full of people in France.

chainsaws aren't on the verge of being able to operate autonomously

Oh for the love of... STOP GIVING THEM IDEAS!

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4422415.htm

The head of the 2016 census program, Duncan Young.

DUNCAN YOUNG: So in order to take full use of that data, we need to be able to bring census data together with other data sets, like education data sets, or like health data sets, to allow us to make better decisions in Australia to help people's outcome.

> You seem to be talking about chainsaw *accidents*, versus *intentional* car sabotage. If you're inclined to cause a lot of damage with a chainsaw, you certainly can do so

That's why I don't think it's a good comparison. It's difficult to intentionally sabotage a chainsaw to cause widespread injury, but a car...the possibilities are endless. And that doesn't even bring into account the idea of an autonomous VBIED or one that can be driven remotely.

You seem to be talking about chainsaw *accidents*, versus *intentional* car sabotage. If you're inclined to cause a lot of damage with a chainsaw, you certainly can do so.

> It's still possible to get the free upgrade if you use pinky swear that you use assistive technologies:

Yes, but the point is that a lot of people don't want Win 10 on their machines and many of us actively oppose it. We also like to be able to reject or decline some of the patches that are offered. For example, I never install any of the Silverlight patches because I don't have Silverlight on my PC. But MS will happily offer them to me regardless.

>Seems like asking "How long before chainsaws are weaponized". Both are pretty-close to a weapon in their regular form.

Well, yes, but chainsaws aren't on the verge of being able to operate autonomously. People screw up and cause accidents with both chainsaws and cars, but chainsaws aren't usually used in crowds or operated in swarms (like traffic) the way cars are. No one is busy outfitting chainsaws to work without human guidance and they aren't usually let loose on the highways where they could cause major havoc. A chainsaw is typically a one-on-one operation and when you drop it, it usually stops being an active hazard. Autonomous cars have the ability to cause far more damage to groups of people, especially if driven into a crowd or made to cross into oncoming traffic.

No hacking required?

https://xkcd.com/1559/

Seems like asking "How long before chainsaws are weaponized". Both are pretty-close to a weapon in their regular form.

It's still possible to get the free upgrade if you use pinky swear that you use assistive technologies:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade

"I would not put it past them to continue to sneak it in. Go on, accuse me of paranoia."

After my experiences with Microsoft, paranoia is in order. In fact, it's practically required.

I would not put it past them to continue to sneak it in. Go on, accuse me of paranoia.

This does it for me. Updates are now disabled for all Windows machines in the house. Moving primary machine to a non-systemd linux soon.

Will this include forced installs of Win 10 on existing Win 7/8 PCs?

Unless I'm mistaken, the free Win10 upgrades are now over. If you didn't accept it before now, you have to buy a copy at more than $100, and certainly won't find it hidden in Windows Updates:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3107789/windows-pcs/end-to-free-upgrade-halts-rapid-windows-10-growth.html

From Microsoft: "the Windows 10 free upgrade offer ended on July 29, 2016."

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12435/windows-10-upgrade-faq

I think it's finally time to turn off patches in my Win 7 machine, or at least wait a couple of weeks after each patch is made available to make sure that it doesn't fist-fuck my PC into becoming a Win 10 machine. If Microsoft wanted to force users to try Linux they could hardly have picked a better way. So it looks like it's time to make Linux Mint my main OS...I've been dabbling with it and using it on my laptop, but I think the time has come to make the switch to Linux on my primary PC.

those other shakes you mentioned are full of shit calories. (simple sugars)

Sugar is just carbohydrates. Your body needs carbohydrates, and in bigger amounts than any other nutrient. Those trying to convince you otherwise are ignorant or trying to sell you snake-oil. Dieting is a prime target for lies and fraud. Studies consistently show the various major diets all perform equivalent (within the margin of error), and weight gain or loss is directly proportional to calorie intake regardless of type and source.

They've long been mixing the stuff in a commercial facility (not some random warehouse) since rats were "reported", and those other shakes you mentioned are full of shit calories. (simple sugars) And no, I no longer drink the stuff, I just tried an early iteration.

But my guess is the container is unfit for rodents, since he didn't pass it on to any professionals. (unlike his shake)

Was it, like Soylent, also infested with rats?

Why anyone would want to pay extra for a poor-safety-record Ensure/Slimfast/Medifast copycat meal-replacement shake?

in our utopia, we can build star ships and seek out our neighbors

...then blow them up!

"Khaaaaaan!"

> for $10 an hour you could just buy a cheaper drone with added protection to render the
> operator anonymous and skip the insurance. they can only sue you if they find you

Some drones cost $1000 ~ $2000 or more (I've seen them priced up to $15K and above on Amazon ) so depending on the circumstances it might make sense to buy it.

Also, if you're engaged in some paid-for activity like reporting on new or current events, or if you're doing inspection work. If you're engaged in commercial activity it might make sense from a legal standpoint, but again, for me it would depend on the circumstances (location, terrain, weather, presence of people, etc).

i used to buy extended warranty for white goods. after a couple of times learning what happens with white good repairs now i just buy a cheaper one.

for $10 an hour you could just buy a cheaper drone with added protection to render the operator anonymous and skip the insurance. they can only sue you if they find you

As would I, after being belted in the testicles.

I would be very interested to know, too - I used to get thrown head first into walls by my mother's ex-boyfriend.

or child abuse victims

Here's hoping we solve our problems and everything turns out OK in the end. Then, in our utopia, we can build star ships and seek out our neighbors.

What does this mean for soccer players?

Tried to watch some of the gymnastics this weekend. The station spent over 80% of the time watching the athletes walk around, show their backstory, wait for their turn, view their reactions to the score, etc... Everything but showing the actual competitive event. Often, so much time would pass of showing nothing, that 2-3 commercial breaks would happen before seeing the next gymnastic routine.

Plus, you pretty much only get to see the U.S. team and almost never see any of the other countries competitors.

Wow. It's been such a long time that I've been to /. that I'd completely forgotten about it. It was good when it was good, but the "look how rich I am" speech was the beginning of the end. RIP Slashdot.

I think slashdot, like a lot of forums or discussion sites, is on the way down. It'll still exist for years and years but the original audience is dying off (literally, in some cases).

I've run dozens and dozens of forums, some of them going on 20 years now, and they have a lifespan that frequently seems to run in parallel with the users. People gain interest in a subject, seek out a discussion forum for it, and then participate for some period of time. After a while (anywhere from a month to 10 or 15 years) their interest wanes and they taper off or depart entirely. Interestingly, they are often not replaced by a fresh cop of newcomers. Either the subject is no longer relevant or new, more trendy forums pop up that attract new users, or other sources for the same information appear, drawing users away. The same info can often be found elsewhere

I've seen this happen repeatedly. Slashdot has a pretty entrenched footprint, but I don't see the traffic and lively discussions that I used to. The rise of dedicated trolls and off-topic junk, mixed with racism and flaming doesn't help either. Anything is possible but I predict a slow and steady decline overall in sites like slashdot. There will always be a place for discussion sites but the need isn't as great as it used to be.

Or not. You know. Whatever suits.

I was thinking ttat didn't seem like that much.

Years ago, when the Battlestar Galactica pilot screened on New Zealand TV, we were getting two or three minute ad breaks every few minutes. At one point, we had a single scene - consisting of two or three camera shots - bracketed by three minute ad breaks. The ship was hit by nukes? AD BREAK!

That was the point I gave up watching live TV.

Unless I'm mistaken, Win10 updates are no longer being pushed for free, so this program seems to be unnecessary.

I should have been more specific... Humans and horses are the only animals who cool themselves by perspiration across all their skin, allowing extended physical exertion in temperatures much higher than their proper body temperature. This allows humans to run, non-stop all day, through Death Valley during the summer, as in the Badwater Ultramarathon, the kind of feat which would quickly have all other animals dropping dead from heatstroke. In fact primitive humans used this advantage to capture prey with persistence hunting.

There are many other different adaptations for high temperatures that other animals have, which we don't, but for high physical activity in very hot temperatures (with ample supplies of water) you can't beat us.

The thing that bugged me most about NBC's coverage of the opening ceremonies was the almost complete lack of translation of Portuguese used as part of the ceremony. NBC could have provided subtitles for the songs and announcements or at the very least had one of the announcers give some kind of summary translation but we got nothing. My friends and I just sat there listening to music without any understanding of the underlying lyrics or meaning. It seems the music would be chosen partially because of the message it delivers but if the message is not translated then it never gets delivered and thus an element of the ceremonies falls short of the desired outcome. Now knowing the broadcast was delayed makes it even more frustrating because they could have easily gotten the subtitles done during the delay.

What about camels? (Genuine question.)

"Opinionated fools on Twitter complain about something" isn't much of a news story. The extremely partisan blog with a lot of bile-spewing political comments is rather a cesspool, too.

Let's see the real story:

the first 40 minutes of the Opening Ceremonies included 14 minutes of commercials

Even those cherry-picked number are only a hair worse than every other ad-supported TV program in the US (~18 minutes of commercials per hour is typical), and sporting events are usually worse, getting extra commercial breaks wherever the opportunity presents itself. It wouldn't likely be any different on CBS, ABC, Fox, etc.

haven't even seen anything about it starting yet

didn't they cancel it due to zika?

Ha! That's very likely. We actually have a couple of systems (PCs) that are older than the staff that use them!

Your PCs are probably too old to run the ransomware :)

For people who aren't up with the play, could you explain that a little?

It'd be particularly funny at my workplace. They're really cheap, so incredibly cheap that you wouldn't believe it. We still use XP on all of our machines except for two, which use certain software packages that require Windows 7 or newer.

The reason is that the owner feels computers are like really old hardware, printing presses or conveyor belts, which need repairs but not upgrades. I used to work with a ten year old machine that took 9 hours to do basic jobs that my i7 could do in about half an hour.

So, yeah. I dream of the malware invasion that is inevitably coming soon to a PC near me. It will be funny.

Most of these machines are running Windows XP, for which Microsoft hasn't released a security patch since April 2014.

For those who aren't aware, a simple registry change to any XP system will enable updates for an additional 5 years:

* http://www.zdnet.com/article/registry-hack-enables-continued-updates-for-windows-xp/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j8k79x7ylY

in which Roger Stone points out that voting fraud and electronic voting are a one-to-one correspondence. I don't know if this is true, but seems to me it's a lot easier to twiddle ones and zeros than it is to insert or delete stacks of physical ballots.

You should see the Australian evoting system. No. Wait. You can't. Not even the government can see that.

I don't see Logitech on that list. Nor does it tell me which are rebadged and made by whom.

Seems to me there should be a simple utility folks can use to determine vulernability.

It's only news to you. This kind of thing has been going on for a very long time. Law enforcement has at least gotten much better at tracking down the criminals involved. There are innumerable people who have refused such demands.

It's so common there are even specific terms for this kind of criminal activity. Do a search on "internet extortion and cyber stalking" for a short list of just a few thousand incidents, or even the friendly portmanteau: "Sextortion". There's even a wikipedia page on the subject, dating to 2009.

This is the next segment of an ongoing saga as this situation gets worse. Expect more of these to crop up. Yes, it is news that someone stood up to these bullies.