Posts by Commenter44655

You know that silly fear about Alexa recording everything and leaking it online? It just happened

Re: A TLA writes...

Was the contacts initials "NSA"? Maybe it's a simple mis-dial on Alexa's part...

Intel didn't tell CERTS, govs, about Meltdown and Spectre because they couldn't help fix it

Re: Didn't Intel tell China though?

I believe the issue was they told Chinese *companies*, who no doubt shared the information with the Chinese government.

America's broadband speed map is back! And it doesn't totally suck!

Take this map with a serious grain of salt. It says I'm not able to get Frontier Communications FIOS here (despite having been a customer of theirs for several years), yet according to the map, one block in any direction has Frontier as an ISP.

So it's not exactly accurate.

North Korean hackers allegedly probing US utilities for weaknesses

This seems like the perfect place to plant some information about ways to defect, and how terrible North Korea's government is, akin to dropping leaflets or shortwave radios.

TERROR in ORBIT: Dodgy rocket burp biffs International Space Station off track

Re: True "Big Red Button" story....

We had a big red "do not touch" button in the data center with no cover on it. On the day of some layoffs, some coworkers went in to discuss the goings on, and one of them leaned against the button on accident.

Never seen the president of the company move so fast. He thought it was sabotage.

It quickly received a nice clear cover after that.

Sun of a beach! Java biz founder loses battle to keep his shore private

Public highway

They should push for the state to do what the state of Oregon did -- it made the coastline a "public highway." Nobody can own it.

Problem solved. Of course, it was really done because it was the only road between certain places, but the effect is the same.

T-Mobile US goes gaga for Wi-Fi calling, AT&T to launch in 2015

$50 low-end smartphone already has that...

I have a cheap Huawei U8686 from T-Mobile that has supported wifi calling since new -- about 2 years ago. It's a $50 phone, bought at the local WalMart from the pay-as-you-go section.

Why has it taken Apple so long to add this in? It's obviously not rocket science.

However, it does illustrate one annoying point -- Apple controls the carriers.

US.gov - including NASA et al - quits internet. Is the UN running it now?

I love how their power/internet bills were all paid up until the 1st of October, and no suddenly since they apparently have no money to pay them, they've been shut off with no notice.

Oh, what's that? They still have the servers up and the internet connections are running? Then why the hell can't we get to the sites? Shouldn't they still be up and running, just not being updated?

And why are the senators and congressmen still drawing pay -- shouldn't they, too, be "shut down?" Shouldn't they have been the first to have their funding cut? I mean, c'mon, make it worth it to them to figure this out.

'Beat the lie detectors' trainer sentenced to 8 months in jail

More clients

So, he teaches criminals how to beat the lie detector...so they put him in with a bunch of new clients, erm, I mean, criminals?

This'll probably be the easiest (and most profitable) 8 months this guy has done...

GlideTV Navigator

Snapstream Firefly Mini

I've been using a Snapstream Firefly Mini remote for years. It uses IR and a USB dongle that shows up (even in the computer's BIOS and Linux) as just a keyboard, so no problems there. In Windows, use the EventGhost software to add functionality (such as all of what the GlideTV can do plus anything else you can think of). It's not ugly, and is quite small. I use it to control the Snapstream BeyondTV software, plus Boxee, Hulu Desktop, and VLC. Very easy.

Plus, at about $20 US, it's cheap.

For those wanting some more toys, check the full-on Firefly remote, which uses RF instead of IR, but requires drivers.

The only thing this has that I'd want is the touchpad for mouse control. But I don't miss it, since when you have the remote properly set up, you very rarely need a mouse.