Re: Dangerous

Most places I know won't let you use a card to buy a card (the technique is used for money laundering), and if the card is pure credit rather than a debit card, taking out a cash advance to buy the card results in the inflated interest rate.

Re: Stop with the "try parenting" comments

There's also the possibility of the kid being precocious and capable of figuring out Daddy's password and certain other details by discretely looking over his shoulder or whatever. In this fast-paced society, there are times when the kids can outsmart the parents because they know more about the tech in the devices. I know when I was 10 I had a better handle on how to program a VCR, and that was just for starters.

Re: @Pete 2

"They already have. The Raspberry Pi, media craze not withstanding, is not the only development kit, not by a long way. So why just now has everyone got to buy one?"

If there really ARE alternatives to the Pi in terms of size, form factor, AND price, perhaps you NAME a few of them, where their homepages are located, and perhaps (most importantly) if they're already available.

Re: Changing how we consume

Guess it depends on where you live, but I still listen to the radio once in a while. Three stations in particular: two FM stations that play a lot of older (50s-70s) music and one AM station that actually plays stand-up comedy clips (trouble with the latter is they have to fill in a good chunk of each hour with commercials).

Re: It's a funny thing you know but.............

Then how did Android break the Catch-22 it would have to have been in also to begin?

What about credit unions?

In that case, customer = shareholder. That's why they have a base account and require a minimum balance on it--it represents your baseline share in the union.

Re: reverse nimby...

A power plant in your own backyard? Probably not yet, but perhaps one in your neighborhood or hamlet? More likely. Part of the Gen IV movement is making the reactors smaller (which also reduces the danger factor). Some of the designs being proposed are intended for smaller settings like rural communities.

Re: Supply Chain Preparation

Power? Most HDTVs on the market carry USB ports, so they're already sorted. If not, a common plug-in USB charger and a cable should provide the necessary power.

Case? I'm thinking down the road when they sell them WITH the case. Shouldn't add more than a few bucks to the price tag, and it may even come with a USB cable to power the thing. Bonus.

Remote? Wireless keyboards where I live run about $25, and USB remote controls can be found for less. WDTVs run around $100 (for starters) and they're the only viable option for me (Sony players are format-limited over DLNA, and all the other "web-enabled" devices don't support DLNA), so the Pi with keyboard/remote STILL wins. Plus most consumer players like WDTV have lousier interfaces and are a lot less flexible.

Re: Laugh? I nearly cried.

Reduced consumption is more often than not an enforcement rather than a voluntary choice. Rationing, fuel crises, dry wells, being outbid, and so on.

Re: Learning (Programming|Other Hard Stuff)

Counter-countersuggestion to (A) and (B) would be to simply install FreePascal/Lazarus on the Pi. No need for another computer (which may not be able to boot off USB--depends on how old it is), plus it lends consistency, which helps a lot with the curriculum. Then you can implement (C) and (D) as you described.

Re: Supply Chain Preparation

The Pi has my attention, but I also note that it's heavily supply-constrained. If someone else can start mass-producing a similar device at a comparable price, only with better supply, this company could undercut Raspberry.

I personally find the concept of the Pi very intriguing. I've always been fond of repurposing cheap older computers. A couple of P4s around the house are now working as nice XBMC boxes (they struggle at 1080p but look great with just about anything else). From what I've read, although the CPU's a little on the slow side, it's backed up by a good multimedia GPU. The XBMC team are definitely looking at this, too, so who knows? A DLNA media player for $30 or so sounds like a winner.

And that's just one of the possibilities. If the computer itself is a little much, perhaps make it emulate one of the old classics. That should bring back memories of the ol' Speccy, Micro, Apple, or Commodore, or whatever you used back then (me, it was a Commodore 128).

Blame the operators.

Most of the time, it's the operators who demanded control over the handsets (like they did in the feature phone days) and pretty much told Google "no control, no deal". So Google either had to play ball or cede control of the phone market to Apple, whose iPhone was in such incredible demand that Apple COULD dictate terms (IOW, Apple didn't come to the operators, they came to Apple).

Re: It looks like the right time for the PDPB

Much as the idea sounds interesting, you basically point out the big problem: it's impossible to enforce. PID DOES have legitimate uses in your basic commercial transaction, so it has to be in the clear SOMEWHERE, and once it's in the clear, it's open for copying. Even an identity exchange wouldn't be immune. After all, if you entrust the data to someone, how do you vouch for their trustworthiness? And if you handle it yourself, you're liable to find yourself in a tsunami of requests that'll make today's spam look like a kiddy wave.

Re: Nothing rare about rare earth

BOTH apply. The only way you can make rare earths cheap enough to be economically viable is to use an inexpensive mining resource. China has that inexpensive mining resource (a surplus of desperate people). In their eyes, it's killing two canaries with one mine: brutal but true.

Re: No, President Obama doesn't use a Blackberry...

Well, IIRC most of the proprietary stuff in any given Android system falls to the hardware support--CPU, GPU, DSP, and chipset drivers and all the assorted custom stuff each manufacturer wants to put on their phone. This is stuff Boeing would have to do anyway for the hardware they intend to put on their proposed device (which I don't think will use a lot of common off-the-shelf tech).

While the proposal appears to smack of internal cryptoprocessors and so on (IOW, all communications to and from the device will be encrypted), a good chunk of the security will have to come from the software--it's highly unlikely Google Play or any Google software will make it into these device. Indeed, I suspect part of Boeing's effort will be to create an application server that allows the head honchos to personally vet applications and only allow those it deems safe onto its network. The devices will then be configured to go to those servers rather than other vanilla servers.

Re: Ambivalent

Plus what if it makes a mistake on a keystroke that must be right the first time. What if it misinterprets an ENTER when I intended to use the spacebar...or what if it makes the wrong call on a single-keystroke command (not unheard of in text-interface programs)?

Re: Not just a pricing issue

That particular was is close to being settled. Most are settling on the ePub format which is XML-based with publicized specs. Most of the eReaders out there support it already including the Sony Readers, the Kindles, the Nooks, and (through appropriate apps) iPads and Android devices. There are still some quirks to work out, but what's available right now is enough to handle nearly any book you can throw at it, complete with illustrations and ToCs.

Re: Cartel behaviours

They're trying to break in. This "favored nation" clause acts as a market leveler. With it, Amazon can't force Apple back out by undercutting them (as most incumbents would try to do when a new competitor enters the market). Apple can't play Amazon's wholesale game because Amazon loss-leads: a tactic Apple can't handle since their reach isn't as broad (To give a B&M example, compared to an Apple Store, Amazon is more like a big-box store, selling just about everything including e-books).

If they wanted to do THAT, they could do that much more easily by packing a few bottles of booze (type and quality depending on the nature of the experiment) along with the astronauts. As it stands, though, I imagine attentiveness is generally called for and narcotics like alcohol are generally frowned upon: even on an experimental basis.

Re: questions??

A lot will depends on Apple's actions. If Apple settles or loses in court, then BOTH parties would be in the wrong and the contracts would be mutually abandoned and legally null-and-void with no restitution due to either side. If Apple wins, however, meaning the contracts are legal, then there MAY be recourse for Apple to countersue (most likely the DoJ, though--since the publishers were settling with the government, odds are the agreement will include an umbrella, meaning the DoJ would take the rap if something goes wrong).

Some people have voice-poor but data-rich plans because they tend to use the phones more as mobile data stations rather than phones. In such a case, a softphone would go to the data allowance rather than the voice allowance and be advantageous to such a user.

Re: I do love how

As others have stated, Japan has such a tradition of high moral character that it is one of the few places where you can do such a trial and not be subject to too many outside factors. A venal image of the hand sounds like a pretty robust idea--veins are not subject to significant alteration over time once you reach adulthood, are hard to mar (more likely to damage the fingers first) and difficult to lose. It's also last I checked a very intricate three-dimensional pattern that includes various flow characteristics, so it's a lot harder to fake. It sounds like something worth trying out in limited circumstances (I say limit it to direct bank contact--no third-parties and no point-of-sales). Sure, you can be forced at gunpoint, but that's no better and no worse than cards now.

Re: Thoughts

I think in answer to (6), all the remaining cell carriers are either MNVOs to one of the big four or have too small a coverage area to be of significance.

Sidegrade

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are both based on NT Kernel 6.1. They share the same codebase.

Re: Overly simplistic

The trouble with the last paragraph is that, for private companies, EVERY person is worth pursuing because EACH one is a potential sale. That's why spam persists even today, since the return for just snagging one or two people is more than the cost of all that spamming. Google is well-known for its harvesting (and now with Android it's pretty hard to avoid them--block the web, they'll get you with the phone). Facebook's even more notorious as those infamous "Like" buttons can track you down even if you never visit Facebook, even if you never click that button. And more firms are working to get around adblockers by insisting on local hosting (to get around address blocking--blocking the host site is usually a ticket to an unreadable page) or hiding things behind script-block detectors. And with plenty of personal information open to the public (either by government mandate or as a result of using a publicly-available service like the telephone), just ONE detail can put two and two together very darn quickly.

That's part of the problem.

It's reached a point where the music companies and the public can't agree on the balance. Indeed, some people on both sides don't WANT balance (the corporates are answering to their shareholders and the freetards are engaged in civil disobedience, so say each side) and have enough sway to keep the boat rocking. Plus it's the corporations that hold the government's ear right now (IOW, government doesn't have enough fear of the people) in an atmosphere of considerable corporate distrust.

Re: This is just another sign that the people in power

You gotta find them first, and then you may learn to your dismay that a number of them are based in countries with hostile relations to the West or simply don't want to allow extradition. That's one of the beauties of the Net. It doesn't respect borders while governments HAVE TO.

How about outer space?

Insignificant gravity and no atmosphere. What would happen if you did the trick with no substrate in space?

It's a matter of jurisdictions.

Basically, phone theft like this is considered petty theft and therfore a local matter. So usually only the local police gets involved in the case, but as another poster noted, minor crimes like petty theft go low on the police priority list. Plus the US is a pretty big country with 50 states with numerous police jurisdictions inside each one and a hodgepodge of organizational structures that make coordination difficult.

Re: This is not the age of entitlement

And if the bis people knew anything about supply and demand they will know that, even then, people voted with their feet, then their wallets, and now with their fingers. At least a good undercurrent of the freetard movement is that the biz people are demanding too much and aren't willing to negotiate down when they find no buyers (the normal trend is to mark down and see about correcting the sore points--please tell me where I can find honest-to-goodness GOOD music anymore). There's also the matter of resale: something people have been used to since the BOOK (how many attempts to block the resale of books have succeeded--then there's the matter of libraries). Top that off with fading limits on copyrights (a privilege which according to fundamental laws is supposed to be limited--like patents--so as to advance the arts in exchange for enriching society) and an economy stuck in the doldrums and you have businesses stuck in the middle of a PR nightmare as their customers (pay attention: business require customers to operate, last I checked) feel they're getting the shaft. And for some people, a little luxury (such as a good night out or a nice tune to hear) is important to maintain a positive mental attitude that translates into social relations and other societal influences.

Re: There will always be a place for B&Ms.

Thing is, Walmart's ALSO slimming down its lineup. Basic stuff like keyboards are there, but you won't find internal hard drives anymore (you USED to, though). If you need to fix a PC in a hurry, then Walmart, Target, etc. won't be your go-to place. And it's getting harder to find a local PC shop with reasonable prices. And some of the competition (Circuit City) has already vanished while others have limited reach. In some cases like mine, odds are it's Best Buy or Bust.

Re: Overly simplistic

It's pretty much dead, and there's no one anyone can do to stop it.

Encryption? Install a zero-day malware on the machine and intercept the data before it's encrypted or after it's decrypted (after all, it's useless unless you're able to use it at some point--just intercept it THEN). Virtual machine? Detect it and use a hypervisor exploit to break out. Alternative OS? They already know about those. Airgap? Data has to be transported somehow; jump the airgap that way.

And then there's that business about government interests in exascale computing and long-term archival storage in capacities they've yet to name. IOW, if they don't get you now, they'll just hold it and let Moore's Law catch up so they can get you later.

And if not the governments, then who knows who else wants to pry in...? The big problem about being able to access anyone is being ACCESSIBLE to anyone.

Re: SOPA will be approved in some form

Thing is, securing one's political footing is the first order of business of just about any politician. Does it come as any surprise that a large number of political elections actually aren't elections at all...because there is no viable opponent to the incumbent? And if there is, odds are pretty good he's just as bad.

In other words, elections are becoming more of a choice between two evils. So tell me, would you rather be dragged through cacti or locked in with rabid racoons?

How?

I would think fingerprinting would be hit or miss, given the widely varying range of picture qualities you see. And if you set the net too wide, you could end up with false positives or misidentifications.

Re: 10.1 update

Not to mention the 7.0Plus, which is supposed to have better specs than the new (7.0) (it has a 1.2GHz dual-core Exynos on board) and is on Samsung's "will upgrade" list.

Re: Remember where most of them came from.

Precisely the point. They were religious arch-conservatives: tightwads, sticklers for the scripture. To them, nudity was a sign of Original Sin, if not the Deadly Sin of Lust. Tell me, do you anything resembling the Amish or the Mennonites east of the pond? Where else but the colonies could you have a story like Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter?

Re: has no one tried

I think size is the problem here. Most Rogallo wings are SEMI-rigid (those that aren't use inflatable skeletons) while parawings are completely NON-rigid and therefore compact much more easily. Then there is the matter of the size of the wing relative to the payload.

They don't use perv-scanners...

...because prisons know the ingenuity of prison smugglers, and some of the most common stashing places happen to be in the orifices (both up top and "where the sun don't shine"), neither of which can be probed by most modern scanner technologies. The only one known to work is transmissive x-rays, like they use in hospitals. At least one jail in Illinois DOES use this tech, and it has been able to detect swallowed and "inserted" contraband. Trouble is, the machines shoot much more radiation than the perv-scanner, and frequent travelers could hit their annual radiation quote way too quickly.

Re: We don't want driving planes,

Unfortunately, physics kinda gets in the way. The only reliable ways we've found to take off and land in place involve very delicate designs (with strict weight limits) and the use of (a) rotors which are considerably wider than the vehicle itself or (b) very hot, powerful, and inefficient ducted jet thrust, both of which have such complicated controls and are so sensitive to ambient conditions that it's unlikely any computer can be made that can accommodate for all the variables (even modern commercial airliners have trouble when facing unexpected atmospheric phenomena).

Re: "...which has trawled through some old shipyard records..."

As I recall, the Olympic was also the FIRST of the three, so it probably had more attention paid to it than did the Titanic. Incidentally, they pulled some pieces that were supposed to go to Titanic to repair Olympic after her first collision. Perhaps that put more pressure on Titanic's construction as well. Just saying that just because they were sister ships doesn't mean they were built to the same standards and/or under the same circumstances and scrutiny.

Remember where most of them came from.

For the most part, the early American colonies were started by Puritans...dissenters, essentially. Religion was the main reason they CAME to America in the first place, so it (along with the environment) is going to have a profound influence in cultural development. As for the tolerance of violence, that tends to come from having to push out into wilderness for 100 years or so.

Still possible.

What about implanted bombs or other explosives hidden INSIDE someone (think an explosive-filled dildo)? They can be armed well before the flight and go off during the flight with no further intervention.

Re: We don't want driving planes,

To-MAE-to, to-MAH-to, what's the difference. They're the same thing. The plane wins out in the shape war because airplanes are more sensitive to shape.

Re: Yes

So couple a high-powered directional transmitter with a highly-sensitive directional receiver. The transmitter pumps enough power to reach the chip and power it while the receiver picks up the faint transmission.

Re: Obvious

Someone tried that on me. They didn't know, however, I tended to kill time with Mindtrap puzzles (which feature lots of lateral thinking). I figured out the password in three tries.

Re: So, like this?

Insert the first three letters of the pertinent book ("Gen", in this case) and you'll have a solution workable with even a verse of a single word. So in your case, the password can become "GenHrV2C2". That's nine letters and above the eight-character minimum.