Posts by frank ly 6112 posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
My Wacom Intuos tablet had a driver update (on Windows) that totally changed the settings GUI and gave me a cloud based parameters storage and loading 'facility'. The idea is that I can more easily manage its settings and have them backed up in case of accidents and also, of course, easily migrate my tablet between different computers.
I uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled from the CD then blocked Wacom software at the firewall.
I got rid of my TV and license about 3 years ago after informing them via their website that I no longer needed it. They've never contacted me since. I don't have an aerial on my house because I used to watch via my Virgin Media cable. I cancelled the Virgin Media TV service of course.
I'm wondering what the logical (if I can use that word here) difference is between us.
"... the glovebox emergency phone, ..."
My experience of having a 'glovebox emergency phone' on a PAYG card is that the carrier (Vodafone) cut it off after 4 months of not being used. I asked them what happened and they said it was 'for security reasons' and they suggested that I call my own home land line every month, "just to make a connection with a couple of rings", then it would be fine.
This was about five years ago and I don't know if the carriers are still as stupid.
"Some 24 per cent of users polled said they rejected ad-blockers because ..."
... they didn't know how to turn them off and on again.
"The proportion of UK adults using blockers remained at 22.1 per cent ..."
This might mean that 22% of UK users know about them and know how to use them and that group is now saturated.
ann@example.com is a unique identifier (within the internet as we know it) so I assume that this address is used to send the initial private keys to 'Ann'. After that, is the existence of the email address and service needed? What happens if example.com goes bust and Ann loses that email service?
"... online pharmacies that sold narcotics without prescriptions,"
Where I live (the UK), there are many high street pharmacies that sell narcotics (codeine) without a prescription, as long as you look legally adult. It depends which country you're in for if it's illegal or not. (The pharmacy that I use is in the Asda supermarket, which is owned by Wal Mart.)
As for the spamming with stolen email addresses: string him up.
I can understand your lack of enthusiasm for that. However, a small radio receiver plugged into the usb port of a desktop computer would be fine, provided the innards and software were open source.
Many astronomy enthusiasts around the world would be happy to be part of a giant radio telescope array and would also be happy to devote part of their cpu power to crunching the massive data set that would be produced.
"But I still struggle with configuring X, ..."
Is Linux, for offices, really all that hard to setup and maintain, compared to Windows? Perhaps the ecosystem is so fragmented that it's difficult to get components that are fully compatible with each other?
I'd really like to understand why, given that they've had years to sort it all out.
"The Akram guest house is downstairs from the Woolley's flat. Both the Woolleys and Akram subsequently installed CCTV systems outside their respective properties."
So they live in the same building that is split into flats/apartments?
That's even more reason to have long and detailed discussions with your neighbour if you install CCTV with recording (and audio!).
4H-SiC is the '4H' crystalline form of SiC, in case anyone is wondering, as you all are, I'm sure. It has more than 250 polymorphs!
(Wikipedia: it's great but consider the possibility of editorial bias and check out the quality of the references and always compare with another source of information.)
"... roving officers, some undercover, who engage travelers in casual conversation while looking for telltale signs of malicious intent, whatever those might be. Ostensibly, these conversations were voluntary, but seeking to avoid them or being insufficiently forthcoming was treated as an "indicator" that might prompt referral to additional screening."
Being accosted by strangers who try to lure me into converstion is guarenteed to make me tense and glower. Repeated experience has shown me that those sorts of people are usually up to no good.
It took me 1 minute to install Kodi on Linux and then three minutes to install the provider repo you mentioned, after finding his instructions via a Google search. (Most of that three minutes was spent getting lost in the Kodi menu heirarchy.) I've been watching Top Cat episodes. My tastes are simple and I'm big on nostalgia.
"There is only one recipe I know for success, ..., and that is by bringing great people with the right skills, give them the right tools, give them a mission, make sure they can analyze their results, put them in really creative inspiring locations and set them free. "
I once saw a cockpit video (from behind the pilot's shoulder using an officially mounted camera) from a Harrier that was doing low speed, very low level flying over the Scottish countryside. The pilot had a paper map open across his lap and was holding it with one hand while pointing at a location with his other hand, perhaps as an aid to any future viewers of the video. He very carefully pointed at the map and stabbed his finger a couple of times for emphasis.
As he did this, you could notice that the plane was getting lower. He suddenly flung his hand to the stick to pull up and level off. A short time later, a white object on the ground could be seen to flash by directly under the plane. It was a tent and I did wonder if anyone was trying to sleep in it.
(I was a long term smoker of 'strong' cigarettes and am now nine months into a 'vaping only' regime and have got down to 1mg strength liquid from an original 24mg strength.)
The e-cig vaping liquid is in fact a mixture of propylene glycol and glycerin, in various ratios depending on the 'feel' preferred by the user. It also, of course, contains a small amount of nicotine.
It's been accepted for a long time that nicotine, as ingested by smokers or in any other therapeutic dose, is not carcinogenic.
I'm surprised that you say that snus use does not lead to an increase in cancer. I'm sure that I've read that snus use is associated with cancers of the soft tissue of the mouth. Also, I believe there is a difference between the 'mini-teabag of tobacco' and 'snus', where snus is in the form of a paste that is rubbed onto the inner cheek or gums. I may have got those two totally mixed up since I've never had any interest in either of them. However, I'm prepared to believe they have equivalent risk if you consider how they work.
Propylene glycol and glycerin are indeed permitted food additives but they have not been 'officially approved' for vaporisation and inhaling. You can't say that because they are safe for one then they are safe for the other. However, I'm prepared to believe that they are nowhere near as dangerous, for inhaling, as tobacco smoke.
I have extensive experience of both inhaling tobacco smoke and inhaling e-cig vapour and I can tell you that after nine months of heavy vaping, I feel a heck of a lot better and don't get out of breath easily nowadays. Actually, I ought to stop now since it's become just a behavioural and psychological habit that doesn't provide me with any definite sense of physical relief. (When I was using 24mg liquid, I really needed it. Now, I can go all day without if I forget my kit when I leave home.)
"... their bosses brought in reputation management business RiskEye, which set about trying to expunge news of the incident from the web.
After The Register declined to remove its coverage, ..."
How does that work? Do they invite you to their club for dinner, drinks and a chat or do they send a couple of bruisers to your office to tell you how sad their client is feeling?
"The $2.2m Vizio has to fork out will be split between the FTC and the New Jersey state Department of Consumer Affairs. The TV maker will also be required to delete any customer information it collected before March 1, when it began to notify people of the data slurping."
What about compensation for the 11 million people/families affected? Will the advertising agencies that bought the data also have to delete it and will Vizio have to therefore repay them? Is there any indication that the advertising agencies knew that the data they bought had been collected illegally? How many other companies are doing this?
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