Posts by Charles 9

Re: Aluminium cable?

Aluminum tends to be reserved for power cabling. I think one of the issues is the signal-to-weight ratio. Aluminum has more resistance than copper (by about 1/3), but for high-voltage applications the losses are acceptable vis-a-vis the cost of the metal since copper's three times as heavy. Copper snakes more easily so is better for low-voltage applications where you may have to go through narrow conduits. It's also useful in heat-sensitive applications since aluminum's increased resistance means more heat to dissipate. In the open air, where neither of these typically apply, aluminum wins out.

Re: ransomware

I've thought about it but it gets a touch pricey when the bits start adding up, especially if you want both redundancy and a way to store offsite. My current regimen is to use two similarly-sized USB hard drives but only keep one of them running at a time except periodically when I sync changes between them, at which point I rotate them. Any other time, one of the drives is stored in a fire-resistant safe elsewhere. This combined with some parity archives seems to cover the optimal number of scenarios: the PARs can help treat bit rot and the odd corrupted file, a second drive, not from the same batch, normally kept offline but occasionally synced and rotated, should help cover one of them just up and dying (if it does, I should be able to replace it and sync against the good drive), and with the second drive in a separate location, I'm decently covered against theft and disaster.

Re: Keep a text file

And how to keep the missus or someone else from uncovering it...

I think porn hits its practicality limit when HD came along. Porn is nice, but up-close HD details starts to get countered by the Too Much Information factor.

Re: Fine is a contract employing someone

They're trying that with Apple in the US, and it's still rather messy over there. How do you deal with that without trampling on the rights of the customers?

Re: Here we go again

"The way you work it - indeed the only way you can work it - is that you specify how certain types of customer data must be kept and secured and audited."

And I think the problem lies in that, while it's all well and good to demand this and that, what happens when "this and that" interferes with your operations, sometimes to the extent that your future as a going concern is in jeopardy? Data demands can change, often overlap, and can have deadlines. This is especially true in the medical profession where you are simultaneously pulled by time, money, and regulatory demands with lives on the line. Trying to impose conditions on something as complicated as, say, a major hospital, tends to result in entanglement.

Going back to your examples, a health claim person WOULD need access to the social security number if the insurance being claimed is GOVERNMENT-RUN (Medicare, Tricare, etc.) and WOULD need access to financial records if a claim of DESTITUTION is being filed (they're claiming they can't pay the bill). As for the billing department, they WOULD need to see many claims details because the insurance companies can impose charge limits and write-off requirements as a condition of the claim, and these minutiae all affect the final bill sent to the patient/family. Then there's the legal department, who would probably need access to nigh everything in order to make sure everything's on the level and ESPECIALLY if a malpractice suit is filed against them.

Re: Not that many primes

But according to mathematicians, there are a ton of numbers out there in the 1024-2048-bit range. Even if just a small percentage of them are primes, the end count is supposedly somewhere beyond the atom count of the known universe.

Re: I wonder...

"IMO the way to win hearts and minds in most places is by piling in aid, trade and education. It's cheaper than dropping bombs, cheaper than cleaning up after dropping bombs and doesn't have the side effect of being the best "terrorist" recruiting tool around that dropping bombs on non-combatants happens to be.

But what happens when the bad guys get smart and steal the airdrops and claim they're theirs to give?

Re: What might be a good idea...

But do you trust Opera with your data? It would be better to roll your own, but that's not an exercise for the average Joe.

Re: re: the minute it became obvious you had the capacity to spy

"See if you're "keeping" someone "honest" they aren't actually honest they don't have a choice, honesty requires a freedom to be dishonest."

No it doesn't. In fact, honesty should be pressured upon everyone by everyone else: Eternal Vigilance. Otherwise, people will try to cheat, like our representatives and ministers. People will cheat by instinct; it's the whole "get one up on your neighbour so you succeed and he doesn't" thing, so the only way to counter it is to KEEP them honest. Remember, they'll be doing the same thing to you.

"Also there's nothing dishonest about a child coming to terms with its sexuality, its mistakes or interests."

Whatever happened to "The Talk"?

Then they'll work because the phones WON'T have a Chip, meaning it's the stripe or bust.

And since I don't see any smartphone sporting an EMV chip anytime soon, it seems it's either this or contactless going forward.

Don't be so sure. Soon as something like this happens, someone will create the one-step camera patch to cover them up.

Re: Windows only? Well that's not Okay Facebook.

And now there's DX12 to consider. Then again, DX12 seems more of a software evolution than a hardware one (from what I've read, DX12 seems more about getting closer to metal to maximize GPU performance because it's now the driving force in gaming graphics), which is why nVidia's claiming to be able to make the last few generations of its GPUs DX12-compatible.

But just on a side, I JUST found out about the port of Bioshock Infinite to Linux (which went beta a couple months back). You would think stuff written on older engines like UE would be easier to port since they're more likely to have the cross-platform support you need, but perhaps all the other stuff besides the engine makes things more difficult.

Re: Longer Term Impact

Your math's off.

A population of 300 million (3.0x10^8) drawing $100K each (1.0x10^5) would result in a debt load of 30 TRILLION (3.0x10^13). In case this doesn't sink in, that's greater than the US Sovereign debt to date and well over 1/3 of all unfunded US obligations for the forseeable future.

Re: Why not a unified catch-up service?

There are a fair share of independent production companies in the US, too. Some of them can be quite big like Fremantle Media, a familiar name with ALL the networks. Many of these can make pilots and go fishing with the networks to get a contract. Such as it goes, but that also means they work under contract until released, so any stuff that goes to a network stays with a network (it's the rule--the publisher takes precedence over the producer regarding ownership). But at the same time, the big networks make sure to maintain their own cadre of studios to produce what might best be called their "core lineup". CBS's Television City, NBC's Rockefeller Center. Even the BBC maintains its own studios, as I doubt they'd trust anyplace else to produce Doctor Who and so on. When it comes to private networks and producers, there can be give and take, and each situation can be different. A network can frequently contract one of their productions out to one of the producers on the condition they do it in their studios.

Going back to your argument of producers going it solo, the money usually isn't there. Television production isn't cheap. That's why the pilot system and the studios and contracts and so on. Even the second tier of television, the syndication system, involves contracts with the syndicate. Only a wholly-homegrown program can be put online with no strings attached.

Re: A rethink is overdue

The trouble with those kinds of taxes is that they can just move the business under the table. With no records and so on, how will the taxes be enforced properly?

Re: How long until 100GB M-DISC is available?

At least 2TB, and yes considering tropical climate and potential loosey-goosey radio and electrical regulations. And like I said, budget is tight. And with low data rates and data caps, the cloud is out, too.

Re: The issue is not that people lie

Pathological liar who lies about everything - Include obvious questions. If the person lies about those, put him aside as such and investigate further.

Sociopath - Use questions that may trigger alternate responses. Sociopaths rarely are perpetually calm; they merely react differently and can be tested for such.

Delusion - Test for delusion using contextual questions. If subject is deluded enough to believe his own lie, set aside for psychiatric evaluation.

Random/erratic pulse/breating for other reasons - Check for these before the polygraph. If they're like this before the test, you can predict inconsistency and try another way.

Re: Aye

So why doesn't someone approach it from the viewpoint of sick and dead people don't pay taxes?

Re: Product returns galore!

a) Lots of Southeast Asia aren't even to the Blu-Ray level yet, so Sony may just keep China out of the loop, or put them under much tighter guard.

b) Like I said, I think they'll tolerate the returns for accidental suicides if it means their tech doesn't leak. After all, their secret carries a price tag much higher than the rest of the device's development. Meanwhile, with the caveat of "opening of device voids warranty" combined with tamper-evident stickers, I think they'll be able to make more cases that the "returns" were actually intrusions.

Re: Still Seems simple

"Then it doesn't enter the country."

Does the word "bootlegger" mean anything to you? If someone wants something badly enough, they'll get it in spite of God, Queen, and the Government. Economic tourism would boom for any nearby country willing to sell the phones, and even if Customs stops their entry, they'll just get smuggled in.

Re: Countermeasures

Well, most aftermarket routers I know have three different reset conditions. One is the standard reset, which just warm boots the router in case it gets stuck or something. The second is as you say, Reset to Defaults, which is used in case a configuration change you made bricks the router or locks you out. The third one is the one you want, Reset to Stock, which should reflash the firmware with a baseline version out of ROM. I know the last two routers I bought had all three options, and since the last one is hardware-based, it's immune to malware.