* Posts by Charles 9

16605 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

'To read this page, please turn off your ad blocker...'

Charles 9

Re: And so it begins.

"The adblockers simply have to let the website think it's loading all the crap, and silently replace the advertisement before it is rendered in the browser.

At the moment all the stuff is simply blocked, but it should not be too difficult to beat any adblockerblocker, Google and friends already lost this fight."

But one of the reasons for ad blockers is to conserve metered bandwidth. The only surefire way to fool the ad-blocker-blocker is to spend the bandwidth to download the ad, which is counterproductive.

Charles 9

There's also the realization that the mere requesting of that information (not the actual retrieval, just the requesting) can fill demographics. So just enabling the ad can become an invasion of privacy.

Charles 9

Re: I wonder if he has ever changed a TV channel

You will find that changing the channel doesn't help much these days, as the ad spots are commonly clustered together so that changing the channel to dodge an ad simply dumps you into another one.

Charles 9

Re: And so it begins.

Which are in turn challenged by putting exception rules to the exception rules...or simply switching to an "untouchable" ad-blocker that sticks to unconditional rules and lives outside the ad men's reach.

Charles 9
Mushroom

And so it begins.

The all-out war between ad-blockers, ad-blocker-blockers, ad-blocker-blocker-blockers, and so on until everything on the Internet slips behind either a mandatory adwall or a paywall, with full registration and credentials required just to get past them.

And of course, all the ad kings will station themselves in countries like China who will only be too glad to respond to complaints with one finger and two letters (the second being "U"). It'll be Take It or Leave It no matter where you go, meaning bend over or abandon the Internet. Meanwhile, the real world is still flooded with spam calls, junk mail, and radio and TV ads carefully timed so that no matter which channel or station you tune, the ads are still there.

Forget being the product instead of the customer. We're just gristle for the mill, and if we disappear, well, there are more where we came from. Take advantage of your fellow man before your fellow man takes advantage of you, and if you can't do that, too bad, game over, better luck next life...

Intel's 6th gen processors rock – but won't revive PC markets

Charles 9

Re: Obsolescence in PCs was always assured.

"Obviously, Skylake can manage this is software very easily but I'd rather not have a box under the telly with a stressed CPU so I'm going to wait for Kabylake next year which will do 10 bit HDR in hardware:(. "

Wanna bet by the time that happens some improvement in H.265 (or even a full-blown successor) will come along that your hardware will not be able to do? The tradeoff with a general-purpose processor is that it's not a consummate master of any specific tech, but it's flexible enough to be much more future-resistant.

Charles 9

Re: Obsolescence in PCs was always assured.

"Seems to be some weird M$ <-> Intel tie up with the RealSense stuff."

Wanna bet Intel is licensing Kinect-related patents and tech from Microsoft? Meaning trying to do this on a non-MS OS constitutes Patent Infringement?

Charles 9

Re: It's not about the processors

"Many people I know prefer to use laptops with 768p because the fonts look reasonably sized."

And for some reason raising the display zoom (telling the system to increase the size of everything: icons, fonts, etc.) doesn't help them?

Charles 9

Re: Metrognome

SLI/Crossfire is by definition NOT mainstream.

You want to DISRUPT my TECH? How about I DISRUPT your FACE?

Charles 9

Though to be fair, the punnish initialism also applies because, after he's had his turn through your firm, the fallout will make you think a drum full of trinitrotoluene had gone off in the office.

America's crackdown on open-source Wi-Fi router firmware – THE TRUTH

Charles 9

Re: Huh?

"is Radio Shack still going in the States?"

Essentially, no. Apart from a few sections of Sprint stores, all the Radio Shacks in the US ceased business about six months ago. Kind of a shame, though, as it makes it hard to buy electrical components in a hurry.

Charles 9

Re: Define 'software'

And that's not counting when you really hit gray areas like recompilers and JIT compilers that blur the line between code and data because they're code that produces or alters other code by design. That's why you can't really do JIT compilation on a Harvard architecture.

Anti-peeping-tom drone law nixed in California

Charles 9

Re: You don't own the air above your ground

You just hit on one of my points. That means the mineral rights were previously sold. That isn't necessarily a government action but a transaction tendered in the past. This means the area has a history attached. When oil prospectors originally came, they negotiated mineral rights with the original landowners (or if the land was public, staked a claim with the government), which is why the conditions are noted in the deeds.

Charles 9

Re: That "Thunderstorm" you just heard...

Last I checked, the guy used a shotgun loaded with birdshot which is meant to be shot up (as it's meant to hit birds on the wing). The shot comes down like sand or fine gravel, not really a threat to anyone.

3D printer blueprints for TSA luggage-unlocking master keys leak online

Charles 9

Re: Easy fix

The way I read all that, the firearm itself must be packed in a properly-locked, hard-sided case. HOWEVER, it says nothing about the SUITCASE that would contain the case that would contain said firearm.

Charles 9

Re: Likely to have reverse engineered them?

Point is, WHO CARES if you know or not? By the time you find out, it's WAY too late.

Charles 9

Re: I never

I wonder how much trouble you could get in for having a strategically placed rat trap - the kind with serrated teeth on it - in your bag."

You'd be detained tootsweet, I bet. Last I checked, mousetraps and other spring-loaded devices can only go into checked baggage unloaded.

Charles 9

"My preferred method of checking in baggage is covered in shrinkwrap and tape. Most airports ive passed through offer this as a service...not sure about Merkin airports though."

Try that in America and you'll find the shrinkwrap removed and the tape cut. #1 caveat of passing through America is that your baggage, both checked and carry-on, is subject to arbitrary search.

Charles 9

Re: Looks like the Thieves Support Assocation is going to get some competition.

Well it's not like I bought the locks primarily to deter thieves. I bought them to keep them from accidental opening. But since they insist on those TSA locks...

Well, what d'you know: Raising e-book prices doesn't raise sales

Charles 9

"Interestingly, and *not* contradicting your broader point, there are some social psychology experiments that demonstrate that the curve slopes upwards in some cases. IIRC, it is when the buyers have poor information about the quality of the available products, and so assume that a higher price means higher quality and thus a more desirable product. I recall reading somewhere that the cheapest bottle of wine sold restaurants is not the best seller, but the *second* cheapest sells best."

Maybe it's not so much poor information but stigma that does for the wine market. The cheapest wines are often derided as the "bum wine," the wine only drunk by desperate homeless individuals who beg on the streets just for that sweet (actually, incredibly nasty) nectar to take their pains away. In America, this is why people of any decent standing stay away from the Mogen David, the Wild Irish Rose, and the Thunderbird (well, that and the latter turns your mouth black).

Charles 9

Re: (btw what is the opposite of an oxymoron ?...)

"(btw what is the opposite of an oxymoron ?...) "

I don't think there is one. Or rather, an oxymoron (a self-opposing phrase) is its own opposite (even its etymology is based on two opposing words). Much like a palindrome is a word that is its own mirror.

Charles 9

Re: It's really simple

"Who sells .5 of an eBook? :)"

Someone who entices by selling their latest book by the chapter. I think one or two authors have shown that kind of audacity.

Super Cali grabs its big stick, beats Uber 'cos it's odious

Charles 9

"It also means there will be a lot more work required around taxes, as Uber will have to withhold and pay money for FICA/SS taxes, which will reduce driver's incomes."

Uncle Sam gets you either way. As a "contractor" or self-run business, you have to declare your earnings anyway as income and probably pay estimated taxes or risk an audit. Withholding simply helps to make sure his share's already collected.

Cracktivists pop 11 MEELLION Ashley Madison passwords

Charles 9

Re: Poor article

Given that MD5 is a one-way hashing algorithm, not an encryption algorithm, perhaps someone can enlighten us how figuring out a password to match the MD5 allows them to figure out the bcrypt-encoded password.

YOU! DEGRASSE! It's time to make Pluto a proper planet again, says NASA boffin

Charles 9

Technically, Sol (the Latin name for our Sun, as good a scientific name as any) is Main Sequence: towards the low end, but still Main Sequence. Dwarf stars are typically much tinier than any Main Sequence Star.

The remote control from HELL: Driverless cars slam on brakes for LASER POINTER

Charles 9

Re: $60 and a Pi?

"As most cameras use IR, you could make a road closed sign that is only visible to robo-cars. How long do you think would the occupants sit there with all the other traffic whizzing past?"

As they expect the "closed" sign to be smack in the middle of the road as a physical obstacle, why bother with the obfuscation at this point? An actual ROAD CLOSED sign will suffice AND has the added benefit of confounding human drivers.

Charles 9

Re: Anti-spoofing

But given how cheap the jamming kit is, multiple jammers are well within the realm of feasibility, as is listening long enough to mimic a pulse code, which has to have a reset mechanism in case the pulse finds open road and no reliable return.

BORN to HURL: Man's shoulders are head and shoulders above apes, gorillas, chimps etc

Charles 9

Re: Poo-flinging antics

If God really didn't like us, then why are we still here?

Anyway, I'm not going to go into the whole cricket-baseball business because I, an American, actually like to watch both games. And each has its intricacies so can stand on its own. Play either way, I say.

Google lets CAPTCHA-busters back into Play digital bazaar

Charles 9

Re: ha teach those stupid users...

The apps have found their way into Google Play, meaning the walled garden has been breached and is not going to save you here. And I suspect they also defy the permission model here, as they don't request SMS permission but get it anyway.

Malware menaces poison ads as Google, Yahoo! look away

Charles 9

Re: It's not a software problem

Not unless they proxy through legitimate locations, making them indistinguishable.

Charles 9

Re: Block all ads, blackhole ad domains

Trouble is, they're also piggybacking legitimate domains and using actual websites as proxies, meaning you can't block them without collateral damage.

Charles 9

Re: simple

Because sandboxing did a world of wonders for Java...NOT. They just developed escape exploits for them, making sandboxing a tissue-paper defense.

Cognitive computing: What can and can’t we do, and should lipreading be banned?

Charles 9

Re: @Arnaud the less

That sounds like a philosophy I hold: Practically always, we do things for a reason; it's just we're not always conscious of that reason. Even something simple as "boredom" counts as a reason to try the unknown path once in a while.

Given such a philosophy, it's entirely possible for a computer to seemingly act on impulse. It's just what they consider "an impulse" we wouldn't see the same way.

Charles 9

Re: Hmmm. . .

"Can these AIs portray imaginary scenes meaningfully?"

That can be aided through procedural generation, which is already used to build random 3D worlds. Criteria could be placed and the scene rendered in particular ways to create an "imaginary" landscape. I see this as quite possible, just not in focus.

"Can they interpret someone's description and paint it?"

Natural language processing is improving which would be of help on this, so I see this as "not now" but increasing in possibility as time passes.

"Can they compose music to fit specific requests that actually sounds good and doesn't follow any particular set of rules to a T?"

That depends on what you mean by request, and as for following the rules, that's just a little bit of either random or procedural drift. Incidentally, you should really look up a little cluster in Spain called Iamus. This thing actually generates spontaneous classically-styled music (to the point it can be easily identified in the style). They call the technique it uses "evolutionary music".

Samsung’s consumer IoT vision – stupid, desperate, creepy

Charles 9

Re: Turn ON the microwave???

"Why would one need to turn on the microwave before one gets home? Every microwave I've owned is 'instant on' - unlike an oven, it doesn't need to warm up.... is this to save the half second it takes to push the "start" button?"

Or it could, you know, push the button BEFORE you arrive so that, by the time you walk in, the microwave does its DONE sound so that it's hot and ready for you the moment you arrive (or perhaps 30 seconds after in case you want a bit to get your shoes off).

Charles 9

Re: Yeah, but...

One possible angle would be for it to be able to send alarms that it's about to Halt and Catch Fire. A few house fires due to catastrophic dryer failures and the like could see a push for this as a safety tech. This would also handily remove all the dumb devices from the market as unsafe.

Charles 9

Re: Just you wait...

Only to find they're ALL like that, probably because they're mandated as a safety feature (to detect say a Halt and Catch Fire).

Charles 9

Re: Why....just why?

I'd always heard it "dish" rather than "plate", but that's a toMAYto/toMAHto matter at this point; it still meters right in the end.

Charles 9

Re: Why....just why?

"Now if you connect it up to anything is another totally different story indeed.

Will I? Nope. Not in a gazillion month of sundays."

Does the phrase "Whispernet" ring a bell? Next thing you'll know they'll find a way to communicate via neutral wires, making even Faraday cages useless.

Pioneer slaps 80s LASERS on cars for driverless push

Charles 9

Re: Air France Flight 447 accident

"What amazes me is that Airbus pitots don't have automatic sensors to turn on the heaters under icing conditions."

Now you got a sensor ON a sensor. And that sensor can still fail.

"Or that it didn't use inertial/GPS nav input as well as the mechanical airspeed inputs (there are a number of ways of estimating speed sans pitots and pilots are taught them. This should be part of the flight control program too)"

Which doesn't help much if you're getting conflicting readings, meaning one sensor says one thing while another says a different thing. At this point, it can't figure out which one's the right one and having additional sensors isn't likely to help since you can always have a failure cascade that makes multiple sensor say the same WRONG thing at the same time.

Charles 9

Re: Dazzled by a radar gun?

So what about you use something like a dazzler (which is very bright and has a wider beam) tuned to match the frequency of the LiDAR laser?

Charles 9

Re: "I will welcome"

Probably because the human simply cannot fulfill the "at all times" provision, meaning another solution is needed.

PS. Perhaps Pioneer can demonstrate a little more confidence in its technology by showing field tests in less-than-ideal conditions such as heavy rain (which can refract the LiDAR) or whiteouts (which can cover up necessary details).

Google robo-car suffers brain freeze after seeing hipster cyclist

Charles 9

Re: Maybe you "Entitled" cyclists....

"Anyone who knows about friction will tell you that a heavier vehicle does not need a longer stopping distance"

That depends on the strength of the vehicle's brakes versus the inertia of the vehicle. Since the brakes on a truck aren't proportially larger relative to its weight versus a car, that means the truck has a harder time stopping. With trains, the brake:weight ratio's even lower AND it has to contend with the reduced friction of its riding surface (a smooth steel rail versus a rough, frictious road). Then you have ships, which cannot use the sea as a means to stop so have no real "brakes" persay. They stop by reversing thrust, which for a huge vessel takes some time (again, huge ship, tiny propellers). Airplanes are somewhere in the middle of all this. They have brakes but they're really only for when they're taxiing so have to first use thrust reversers upon landing to slow down to come back down to taxi speed.

Charles 9

Re: Maybe you "Entitled" cyclists....

And there are reasons for each noted line:

"a vessel not under command;"

Meaning essentially a vessel adrift. Since it has no means to steer itself, you must give way to it.

"a vessel restricted in her ability to manoeuvre (this may include vessels towing one another);"

Same reason as above; they can't steer so well. This is also why a smaller powered vessel must give way to a larger one: the larger one can't steer so well due to inertia.

"a vessel engaged in fishing;"

Fishing vessels have equipment overboard and therefore are pretty much fixed in place. An emergency move for them would entail some costly consequences, usually in lost or damaged equipment.

"a sailing vessel."

Sail vessels are at the mercy of the wind, including to steer, meaning they can't always move on demand, so you have to give way to them.

Want security? Next-gen startups show how old practices don't cut it

Charles 9

Re: Not fully convinced

But doesn't that create the risk of a lockout situation where no one can access it because, say, the owner doesn't exist anymore and there's no user of last resort?

"If you are concerned about the inside people that just means you need to do a more thorough background investigation first."

But then the infiltrators just make a better job of hiding their tracks. Trouble is, the infiltrator has the aggressor's advantage in the siege game.

Canned laughter for Canadians selling cans of air at $15 a pop

Charles 9

Re: Around fifty years ago ...

Why aren't there any in Beijing right now, then?

Web giants gang up to take on MPEG LA, HEVC Advance with royalty-free streaming codec

Charles 9

Zmodem, xvid is supported on those devices because MPEG-4 Part 2 (which the DivX codec used) is supported. xvid is nothing more or less than an open-source version of MPEG-4 part 2. It even supports the same DivX encoder profiles.

If you honestly think xvid is all that, here's a way to end the debate: take a high-motion high-def event (a good example would be an auto race) and encode it both with xvid and with x264 (an open-source implementation of AVC), using the same bandwidth constraints. There's a reason Part 2 was superceded by Part 10 and now is being challenged by HEVC.

PS. Last I checked, YouTube doesn't use Part 2, meaning that clip you linked was using AVC (Part 10).

PSS. What's the problem with x264, for that matter? It's open source just like xvid.

Kaspersky says air-gap industrial systems: why not baby monitors, too?

Charles 9

Re: Airgap: Impossible

"What about when the IoT is all about devices with their own built in 4G/LTE modems with its own IPv6 address? This is what worries me. I fear that there will come a day where all my appliances will be able to dial home irrespective of my WiFi set-up or outbound firewall rules. Personally, I may decide "To hell with the warranty" and open the device and remove or destroy the transceiver."

And the moment you do, the appliance will either (1) stop working altogether, forcing you to replace it out of warranty (since opening the appliance to break the radio voided it), or (2) the device emits all sorts of annoying sounds so as to draw attention to it.

Worse yet, this will likely become standard issue for all appliances in future. Maybe even require any appliance not broken up to be retrofitted before being resold, at which point we may well be on our way to either 1984 or the Stone Age, with no third option.

Honor 7 – heir apparent to the mid-range Android crown

Charles 9

So you were comparing two different phones on the SAME network? Because if they're on different networks, tower placement (which differs from network to network) can make a difference, especially as you say when the terrain is hilly and prone to bouncing signals.

Charles 9

The RDS I think is a feature of the app rather than the radio, so you should be able to download an app with the capability.

But the lack of removable battery is a deal-breaker for me since I've had a plenty of cases of battery bulging and demand the ability to replace them easily by myself.