Posts by dssf

Surface Pro 2 dim screen of death snafu STILL happening after patch

Re: Optional

Maybe that some of the Customers are unwitting "Test Beds", a la controlled studies, blind tests...

Haribo gummy bears implicated in 'gastric exorcism'

Re: RTFM.... Ahhhhh, you eggs-spearienced...

Ahhhhh, you eggs-spearienced... RTFM... ReLAX The Flow Moderately....

Nerve-ahhhh-nnnaaa Endl-lightenment... Spear-ritual detachment.

I suspect, tho, that despite the lables, there are some who like being abused, and this will cause severe ab- use of thre abs.

Is Malitol one of those incarnations of "Stir end to the Ab-Byss and the Ab-byss STIRS end to you" shituations?

Re: Ah. Another Sorbitol moment

Relief in the end without relieve in the end... If it is THAT bad, then dying WOULD be some consolation, some relief on both ends...

Re: Ecological Danger... Now THAT would be...

Now THAT would be as.... sitty shituation....

Worse than "buying the farm", scarier than being "deep-sixed", and a ghastly way to "give up the ghost", I dare say...

After that episode, one'd feel as if one'd bought the ghost, given up the six, and deeped the farm.

Re: Maltitol is evil incarnate." EEEEVULL

This is why I eat REAL sugar. I'd rather risk cavities down the road than endure unbearable, sticky trips to the porcelain god of punishment.

Why does the USFDA allow that sugar-sub shit here when the EU has alternatives or just uses real sugar and avoids (it seems) the problems here? Oh, I think I know why? Many chemical companies here have a smorgasbord of stuff spewing out as by-products of one process with tons of the chems on hand and no way to monetize the byproducts. So, they get it allowed into food, and we eat the shit if we don't read the labels, and line the coffers of chemical companies.

Same with chems in toothpaste, mouthwash, or anything else that subs for sugar or adds colors, or whatever.

Well, who knows. Maybe the stuff WON'T cause harm -- statistically, andd before something ELSE instead does us in...

Google Glass driver told she CAN wear techno-specs while on the road

Prius can go up to 106 MPH, and depending on tires, faster.

Per JD Powers and another site, Prius definitely goes faster than 85 mph:

http://autos.jdpower.com/content/article-auto/EMOmip3/5-fast-facts-about-the-2013-toyota-prius.htm

http://priuschat.com/threads/max-speed-of-prius.2419/

As for the cop losing the ticket issuance due to lack of evidence, that is going to be bad on his career.

Usually, cop cars these days (depending on the agency, crime rates, budgets, size of force vehicles, and so on) will have clocking/radar equipment, dash-cams, and maybe both. SF and other large cities also sport two or more types of police cruiser as well as parking meter Police Interceptor III three-wheelers, and regular Ford Aerostar-type van-mounted cameras (not all on the same unit, but I've seen 2 or 3 various types of ugly to nearly clandestinely-mounted cameras that hunt for ticket scofflaws and stolen vehicles parked on public streets), and maybe he lost the ticket if his cruiser was not equipped with any kind of cams. But, if he were creative, being a professionally-trained high-speed-pursuit driver capable of using the car or officer-mounted communications gear while driving super fast, he could have whipped out (if he had one, and likely he does) his mobile and intermittently scanned his speedometer between frames of the Prius on the go.

If he forgot to turn on any existting cameras, he's going to look like a rookie, but IIUC, rookies might not be elegible to drive alone without getting their supervisors to sign off.

OnStar and other packages can also exonerate innocent drivers, too, against bogus tickets.

(Interjecting anecdote:

Don't anyone say bogus tix are never issued. I've had 2 or 3 against me, and one was just an excuse for a senior CHP to give rookie CHP an opportunity for a citation, or to teach him how to be opportunistically abusive. After all, the 2AM highway was devoid of traffic ahead of me for around a mile, and I was alone with no abreast/proximate vehicles, and the vehicle pack behind me a mile away was closing in while the pack ahead was opening the gap. I was doing 55. So, how the hell was *I* speeding with a pack moving at the same clip the CHP car was. He only thought he had a ticket because he saw my car do half a weave as I adjusted my wobbly right-hand mirror, and I'd not even departed my lane. But, it got his sharp-eyed attention, they bore down on me, and I slowed, pulled over, removed the keys from the ig, and turned on my interior lights to facilitate their casual inspection/peek-in. Passing the FST (Field Sobriety Test) with flying colors, I was left alone while they stepped out of earshot, then returned to say they were citing me for speeding. If I were a quarter ounce of anti-matter, I'd have bumped something and ripped half the Western hemisphere away out of rage and indignation at the repugnant abuse of power and outright lie used against me. Anyway, I go on and on when this memory is recalled. For such cases, I firmly feel self-acquitting, stealthy, virtually-untamperable on-board cams should be available to motorists who want them...

BTW, I beat that bullshit ticket. Know how? Not by testimony, but by the judge having the sense/decency to see what was going on. On my first court appearance, neither CHP was present, the explanation being the issuing officer was being transferred to Central California or northeast of there. The court set a new date. I appeared, and the judge then got my case before him, and read the sheet, and then proceeded to tell me the officer/s could not make it due to one being on mandatory vacation or something. Then, he proceeded to utter resetting the court date. I lost my cool and demanded to know THEY could TWICE get away with failing to appear for a bogus issue ticket but If I failed to appear even ONCE, I'd have a bench warrant out for my arrest. I re-explained what happened. Maybe he felt the rage, indignation, passion, and fury being held back, and with a courtroom full rapt/riveted viewers, he backed down, grumbled a split second, rapped his gavel, stated he was dropping the charges, and then said, "Case dismissed". I finally beat a bogus, BULLSHIT ticket.

SHIT! My blood pressure just went up over this anecdote...)

End of interjecting anecdote...

So, while Google Glass is designed to put more of the world at the eyes of the wearer, not distract the users, police dash cams and other inventive and possibly legal, available cameras are supposed to help enforce the laws -- if employed correctly and in a timely manner. If his phone had geotagging on, it would have likely been a slam-dunk as far as the speeding goes. Even if he didn't film his speedometer, recognizable landmarks in the footage alone or on concert with the geotags and some basic math and knowledge of the distances between landmarks would have saved him some face.

Again, I'm only guess about the circumstance. (I am someone who had around 13 moving violations in roughly a 4 or 5 year period my youth, and managed to keep my, license, but have been moving-violation-free since ~ 1999. After around 3 or 4 illegal/bogus tickets, I became VERY interested in ways of filming my own driving to torpedo any cop issuing a false speeding citation. Nowadays, in-phone GPS and (separately employed) geotags-on phones will either doom or exonerate) motorists truly innocent of a bogus citation -- assuming the phones are not bragged about to an officer who concots a reason to seize "as evidence" the phone. That could be an-upcoming landmark case, and a severely career-limiting-move (CLM) if phone company logs corroborate a motorist whose mobiles are seized and destroyed or "lost" in some bid to make a stinky ticket remain sticky.

Canada says Google broke law by snooping health info to serve ads

Wanna really contaminate the med ad dbs...

Regulary search on and read material on:

-- HIV

-- colorectal repair surgery

-- incontinence

-- epidurals

-- epilepsy

-- diabetes

-- sleap apnea

-- sleep walking

-- erectile dysfunction

-- viagra

-- turette's syndrome

-- crooked eyes

-- bowed knees

-- pigeon-toe issues

-- arthritis

-- adult diapers

-- camping equipment

-- gimp accessories

-- church choir music

-- knitting

-- terrorism

-- verified Black Amish Men

-- verified White Black Panthers

-- verified satanic undercovers in the Papacy

-- police officer aptitude testing

-- how to become a licensed family therapist

-- dental hygiene schooling

-- paparazzi-verified sightings of celeb-on-celeb mutual-combat buggery and battery

But, do it from different browsers and compartmentalized social sites, and faked profiles, but from the same IP address when possible.

SAY MY NAME, ALIEN SCUM. NASA to send 'you' into SPAAACE...

Piss of any hiding Aliens sufficiently and the might knock our asses BACK into pond scum, hahahaha...

Facebook gets a 'trending topics' box (just what its cluttered pages need)

I won't see the trending in a meaningful timeline/time frame

I only go on 1 time every 30-40 days, dip in and out for 10 minutes once a day from Fri to Sun. Told my friends to contact me by my email address if it's important to reach me.

I wonder when fb will start scanning for such heresy and "de-trend" that from walls to keep other "friends" and contacts from following suit.

Maybe they should add a "DEtrending: your friends who don't replay to you because you don't reply to the, time-relevant to a post you made... DEtrending: youor friends who have not signed in for over 25 days... Won't you PLEASE stir the pot and get them back to daily signing in? PLEEEEEZE"

Unlike some social sites, fb won't tell you the contents of the messages your friends sent to you (as far as I can tell) because fb's relevance NEEDS us to sign in daily, preferably staying signed in so they can crawler-track us better than when we're signed out or using obfuscators.

The Register is a lot more entertaining to me, asided from some broken English some of my overseas friends use. I wish I could INTENTIONALLY break English the way an ESL user does. It's "refreshing", since it makes me re-think about English. Fb used to be my neck-rasping vampire, sucking off of my limited time to the tune of aorund 6 hours a day during my first 5 years in it. Having China cut the cord, and being in Shanghai a month, and not being successful getting a post-entry VPN to work, China showed me I *COULD* *DO* *IT*: wean myself off of fb. It was a shocking withdrawal. That is probably the best thing China has to date done for me. De-addicted me from fb.

Someone stole your phone? Now they'll have your STARBUCKS password – the horror!

Did the developer wake up but not...

Smell the coffee?

9,000 heads to roll at Dell? Tosh. It'll all go down in Feb and it's THOUSANDS more - insiders

WHAT MEMORIES....

Back in 97/98 at one company when I was in IT, when we had something go wrong with a Dell, we'd say, "WHAT the DELL!?"

Now, it looks like Dell's Bells are ringing... For whom Dells toll...

Sadly, the affected employees are facing Dell AND high water....

Hopefully, Dell turns himself/itself around and positively makes people say, "WHAT THE DELL???!!!"

Unfortunately, for the Dells, they appear to be:

-- wedded indefinitely to windows

-- unable to make deep, long-lasting, critical-mass symbiosis with Linux

-- dabbling with Android, but may be confused about Linux and Android

Is Dell still making money (hand over fist?) from the acquisition of AlienWare?

Maybe Dell can flex itself out to the NSA's quantum brain project? THAT would definitely/likely prompt a vacuum-making "WHAT the DELL???!!!" reaction....

Question (naive, possibly): Is there any way Dell could spin off those 9,000 or so people to in some partnership/"strategic, profit-sharing partnership" so they could focus on some profitable task without throwing more people onto the unemployment rolls?

Maybe the US or the Chine$e (holder$ of U$-debt and dollar $anctity) can put together a $trike team to jointly $hare work on something to bide their time yet be productive/product making?

Boeing bent over for new probe as 787 batteries vent fluid, start to MELT

Re: Gifts from the Gods (while walking in the meadows) B vs B

Boeing may also require a bail out, too. Both our spellings work, but I find yours more appropos because crating out is what will be needed if one of those 787s crashes and becomes a sausage-making coffing stuffer.

BTW, is the electolytic solution salty enough? If so, the ravages of the inspectors crawling deep could...feel...like... Ass sa(u)lt and battery...

Anyway, when the both the planes in this class were competing earlier on, it seemed at times like a race to be the first to fail, given all the negative press and occasional but significant and costly (time and money) setbacks each was experiencing.

Intel shutters BRAND NEW chip factory as PC market storm rages

How do we know...

How do we know that there is not an underground entrance into the building, and inside is an Earth version of Graystone Industries, and that there are not a bunch of Zoes running around shooting self-balancing, semi-sentient "i-wanna-live" targets dodging armor-piercing 20mm bullets?

Alternatively, don't forget that the NSA wants to build a quantum crypto-cracking machine. Would this facility be able to provide chips for that task? Can't masses and masses of chips be rackless, running in a fluid-like bath rather than in space-wasting chassis-farms?

Maybe Fab 42 is a cryptic nod to "Fab for Consumers and CONSUMERS -- public consumers needing new computers, and content/crypto consumers for the NSA", hahahaha. Just slipstream Section 31/NSA chips in with consumer chips, and pray that the NSA chips don't get mixed in and found out (whether or not the distinction is merely an electronic activation code/switch) -- some might end up in a hostile country.

Maybe they're building chips to calculate time travel?

Wells Fargo gathers bank 'n' gov bigwigs to discuss Bitcoin 'rules'

No, what is REALLY funny to me is the WFB logo, which is kinda appropos...

No, what is REALLY funny to me is the WFB logo, which is kinda appropos...

The stage coach can contain a LOT of "cha-ching!", and if WFB gets to set or influence the rules, they'll be laughing all the way (back) to ... the(ir) bank, hahahaha...

How many other banks have a century+ old moniker/image harkening to the way money was once transported? Now, it'll seemingly be just digital wagons and digital coins...

Tales from an expert witness: Prior art and patent trolls

Re: Its a Catch-22... What makes a troll...

What makes a patent troll.... My two assertions for legally eviscerating PAE back into the past of unborn...

-- Having a portfolio and using it as a minefield with which to entrap those who step in (wittingly or unwittingly) and blackmail them in order for them to get out alive/in one piece.

-- Having a portfolio and doing not a damned worthy/material/productive thing with it except to amass weapons of lawsuit destruction (WLDs) and/or stillbirth innovation, or to act as a gatekeeper to improvements when the portfolio is not really in use as live, tangible products for anyone other than the holder of the portfolio.

Re: Skilled in the art... Reading of Patents SHOULD be Encouraged

And lawsuits for reading should be QUASHED... Provided:

-- the author/inventor of an improved/claimed improvement demonstrates there is not attempt to baldly rip off the original product

--the author/inventor demonstrates how his/her improvement is materially improvement upon the prior art

-- the courts or some sponsors pick up and actually TEST the thing for its merits (blind tests/open tests), and if feasible, replicate and distribute the competing items and let the testers (vetted and non-vetted) weigh in. IF a super-duper-piece-of-shit wins in court, and it is the ONLY version allowed based on the power or cunning of the lawyer and the timeliness of the inventor/improver, then society indeed suffers and is stuck with a POS that does not do what the potentially improved product offers/enables.

This is why I favor a hybridized FTF/FTC system. Demonstrate originality or worthwhile improvements. Then, go further to demonstrate how MUCH a significant improvement the upstart/disrupting introduction is. If it is marginal improvement, but works in a different way, is not using more than 10% of the shapes of the original (for really novel original at-threat items), and cannot be easily confused by appearances, then improvements should be allowed.

If an improvement is real, tangible, effective, enables improved productivity, and costs are not a severe, hostile under-cut, then is should have equal opportunity to compete. Society should not reward half-baked, first-to-file products if the inventors thing they can go on "auto-pilot" and sit on their asses when an improvement is champing at the bit to help people who'd pay in a heartbeat for said improvements.

Inventors have to INVENT, and RE-invent, and one-shot-wonders hardly are perpetually rewardable. Inventors need to cover ALL currently-imaginable bases, not trawl and troll the future improvements that cannot easily be seen, or that the original inventor thinks to be too costly to pursue, doesen't want to pursue, and defies anyone else to expose an improvement.

Patent-Worthiness... I wholeheartedly agree, too.

The value of the patent should lie in how the actual, real, verified users are making do with the invention. Imagine if Ford got the patent to autos and KEPT it forever, and no one could improve upon it. What about socks, toothbrushes, hair brushes, drink mixers, TOILET PAPER, and on and on.

Electronics and apps should be accorded no special privs except in the case of BLATANT rip-off and shameless purloining as original.

If someone invents a neutron flux backscatter thingamajiggy, and in functions shittily, and the buyers hate it, and someone analyzes the nfbt's flaws and improves upon it, then good on them. Process and workability should determine whether the improver gets to keep using it, AND without having to pay royalties to a capable but lazy inventor, or a patent-seeking entity looking to screw people and companies should NEVER be rewarded. Such trolls should be nuked, and by DNA and assets connections be forever denied filing for or benefitting from a patent when discovered to have been found a PAE shaking down or booby-trapping well-meaning, legit, active, productive filers of patents that are for products that are factually well-received.

Just my $1.79

'You win, Kanye': Coinye creators throw in towel after rapper sues

Re: Humourless.

ONe of the local music/gossip stations here in the SF area incessantly runs a digital IV stream of gossip on him daily. It is nauseating, as IF there is nothing else in the world going on. But, I don't control the selection of stations tuned, and just finish my task trying to tune the station out. Another one of those stations.... Sigh

Maybe a la BHA (Butt-Head Astronomer), they'll coin...

"DamnYe"?

Oh, wait... My post might encourage a take-down notice... Better screen shot it before that happens!

Rap for KitKat in crap app wrap trap flap: Android 4.4 is 'meant to work like that'

*age*

Failure to engage and cage a high-wage page sage leads to rage....

Army spaffed millions up the wall on flawed Capita online recruiting system - report

Re: 1.3 billion????? And, I thought I saw "Captcha" related to recruiting...

Certainly looks, now, like CAPTURE, as in capture the bid, the money, and the glory...

This bit got my eye:

" spokeswoman told us: "We wouldn’t comment on the figures from a leaked document.""

So, the would not prefer to comment on leaked truths, hahahaha. Does "leaked document" confirm the authenticity of the document? She did not use enough weasel words, such as saying, "presumed leaked document, the progeny of which is debatable and unconfirmed as yet, and coulde be either a red herring, or just bait to purposely embarrass us needlessly but purposefully...." hehehehe

Re: I'll do it for £1,000.

Made me laugh.... Point up for you, sir!

Modern spying 101: How NSA bugs Chinese PCs with tiny USB radios - NYT

Re: Proving His Enemies Right... ExCUSE me?

Just a few years ago, I MYSELF suspected stuff like nightstand, if only because with a good dose of paranoia that leaks from time to time, I once pondered (probably from watching a TV movie or one from Hong Kong or extrapolation of plot events) the use of infiltration radio waves to hijack computers. It is not a far-fetched idea to bring to reality.

Now, supose that *I* had gone public with it, but only after, say, handing someone $1,000 to rig up a proof of concept against major laptops and desktops and a handful of year 2007 mobiles. Would that make ME a traitor, even though I would have no proof that the tech is or could be in use, but a a much more sophisticated level tha $1,000 might tempt someone to make?

Watch enough movies and work in tech and allow your mind to feel the fear of characters in movies cornered and angry, and you can eventually start scratch-padding all sorts of things that are likely in play in the real world, but you'd be smart not to try to show who might be the target of such tech.

MOreover, I became even MORE paranoid/suspicious of it due to periodic reports of police vans containing mini-mobile cell towers, able to hijack comms and equipment. That was public maybe 2008 of 2009. As SOON as that hit the press, anyone in China's military elite ignoring it would be a fool. So, I suspect China -- if up to that point it had done nothing -- probably began R&D to find out their own susceptability. After all, China has been making supercomputers since the 80s or 90s (IIRC), and surely some of their own brightest minds posited such things but had other priorities or dearth of money to pursue it...

I don't condone nor condemn what Snowden did (as yet, I'm ambivalent. Maybe because since ALL governments lie, outright lie, for their missions, it is a game on THEIR level, and I don't have to take as stand because no country would listen to me one way or another -- aside from stringing me up domestically for being "ambivalent" -- because their missions will just adapt, evolve, improve, or fail), just as with "I can neither confirm nor deny the presence or absence of nuclear veapons aboard the USS (name your ship)" could be in some cases circumvented by states tech savvy enough to backscatter ships entering and leaving port.

Besides, every compromise just forces tech innovation, and hopefully at some point gets in the way of the REAL bad guys -- the ones stealing credit card numbers, hacking pace makers, and the like.

And, once again, so long as China OWNS most of the US debt and can plunge the sanctity of the "full faith and credit of the Dollar" down the commode, it is the height of hypocrisy to call one's economic salvation a "mortal enemy", except for public consumption by the weakest of minds. Enough of our politicians gave away the farm only a handful of years ago, yet pretend they didn't facilitate or turn a blind eye. China is (currently) worlds manufacterer of economies of scale choice, and until that changes, China's not going to do anything mortally wounding to change that. OTOH, she probably will do EVERYthing possible to keep the USA from delaying her own slip, and will do everything possible to take and keep that crown. Even in football, no one team keeps on winning and winning and winning... The USA is not the Energizer bunny. Even a $1, 20-minute battery is king if juice is only needed for 10 minutes in a desperate moment.

I'll pause before I too far in spirals on non-sensicality...

Just my $1.88...

Think your brilliant app idea will earn some big bucks? HAH. You fool

Re: The dirty secret of mobile apps - they don't make any money ... would it help...

Would it help if there were some payment mechanism via the mobbile users' carriers? If users are scarfing up apps and hardly using them, and, if they do not remove most of them, then they are just cluttering up their phones.

Why not have the google or Apple stores be able to know which apps the individual user finds dearest and put up apps on their persistence in the eyes of those users, then let THAT be the real judge. If a user keeps and regularly uses an app, elevate that fact (but not the user data, of course). Those who indicate they want to download and keep the app the could enter a micropayment arrangement so that developers can truly earn SOMEthing more than USD 0.003 per day. Users who tire of the app will have in aggregate made some sort of "thank you" nod to the dev for at least having taken their time to produce a perceptually-welcome app.

Those who produce rubbish would truly receive no reward.

Of course, this all would depend on:

-- The dev being user-oriented, with good polish and smooth app use

-- Google/Apple/et al not getting greedy on the micropayment facilitation charges

-- Users actually agreeing to enter micropayment arrangements for the duration

-- Good security and a/v protection for the users

-- nixing of spamming and astroturfing of user stats.

Of course, if the hosting stores can avoid being duped by malicioius/callous intruders on the net and phones, then they can act as micropayment facilitators and likely keep most all happy for their m/p durations.

Just my USD 1.95...

Re: odds and earnings... I (w)hole-heartedly agree

That 1,250 a day is hardly anything to scoff at. I'd be thrilled to get that much for just 2 months. I'd be debt-free just about.

But, I wonder what the return ratio is.

As for rating of apps, Apple and Google seem to be taking different tacks. Doesn't googly have very weak requirements relative to Apple WRT uploading of apps? IIUC, Apple is hammer-handedly FIERCE about gate-keeping its garden from weeds and gopher and worms that might risk sullying the iPhone experience. I could be mistaken, though.

Also, I echo the cry for file-sharing .. That is, of things I own or am allowed to share. Content owners could put in sharability rights flags and leave it up to app makers to put in a feature that helps the content owners keep better track of their stuff's travels. Might already be in some play BWO cookies and bots and crawlers.

What I REALLY long for is a free or near free, flexible, non-call-back-home app that would let me embed copyright, date/time stamps, and notes on photos before uploading. But, I suspect that while facebook would claim it honors copyright notices, it would not at all like to find itself in court over proof of stripping metadata's obvioius counterpart -- warnings overlaid by the content owners. FB and other sites would come up with excuses to take down such photos from users' profiles, maybe such as, "We find that 99.995% of our users react adversely to and skip over photos bearing or obstructing photo content with notices and warnings that do not describe the actual photo...."

Well, Koreans and Japanese are crazed wild with lavishing their photos with cartoon characters, fonts, and more. I guesss I need to look harder, or more frequently. But, the bit about not reporting home... It bugs me that I think that what I consider private notes may be getting slurped up by sundry apps that all have permissions they should not have.

Priority # 1 for any honest app developer would be to resist in-building andy slurp feature, and avoid facilitation of backdoors hooks.

Just my 1.98 cents...

Cicada 3301: The web's toughest and most creepy crypto-puzzle is BACK

Some possibiities...

Some possibilities:

Crewman/Captain/Admiral Braxton: Why? SOMEhow, Janeway is violating time travel sanctions again...

Leoben: Why? Here, he states: " To know the face of God is to know madness... I see the universe. I see the patterns. I see the foreshadowing that precedes every moment, of every day. It's all there. I see it, and you don't. And I have a surprise for you. I have something to tell you about the future. ... But, we have to see this through to the end."

NSA: May the Lords of Kobol bless and scold their souls... They are seeking the best and brightest to either clone or hyper-sleep preserve due to an impending arrival of an EKCB (Earth-Killing Celestial Body), not for Human RESurrection, but PRESURrection (pre resurrection)

NSA-within-NSA faction that spawned Section 31: Why? Dr Julian Bashir and Chief O'Brien finally dumped their wives and wanted to play Command And Conquer The Timeline in a Holosuite during one of their mutually-facilitative hydraulic dreams....

Report: Prez Obama kicks Healthcare.gov contractor to curb for web disaster

Hocks de-hammed

Hehehe, looks like Obama boiled the hocks off these hams, or the ham off these hocks.

At the risk of quoting Scripture: All of this has happened before, and ALL of this WILL happen again.

And:

" "I see the universe. I see the patterns.""A part of me swims in the stream but in truth, I'm standing on the shore. The current never takes me downstream.""

And, this little gem:

" I have eyes. I can see. God has taken your hand and purged you of the questions, the doubt. Your journey can finally begin, but there isn't much time. The others, the ones I left behind, they need your help. But not as much as you need theirs. "

If only gov entities had a Leoben to vet their courses of action before severe damage unfolds...

Oh, wait: some OTHER politician would be the corollary to "I see you've got this THING for rivers and streams.... I say we oblige you..." hehehe

Judge orders Yelp.com to unmask anonymous critics who tore into biz

Why is it "petty yelp phobia"

If a court case opened in 2012 pops up in 2014 and seems (seems) to have a legit claim in the eyes of the judge, then it's going to take yelp (or other companies seemingly operating in similarly) a lot more distancing than 2010 M.O.s.

I know I went on a tear in my prior comment, and it's just rumination/what-iffing, and heavily mentions yelp. Yelp probably indeed is not the only company having its name in the press over ratings scandals, but, it seems that circa 2008, the same "2010" debacle was hovering. If craigslist enabled reputation destruction or took part in benefitting from reputation cleanup after allowing reputation slayers to hide anonymously within craigslist, then CL, too, would similary face user wrath and unmasking orders by an assigned judge.

What yelp might do to help itself is to allow aggrieved customers a way to "freeze" the commenting and turn them off, and act as a sort of "reputation.com" by activly quashing any sites or pages of sites that try to flag-up the things a judge might have ordered yelp to take down permanently or for some cooling-off period to give resuscitation time for an aggrieved company or one that perceived it was damaged.

If a company hurt by ratings (whatever the source of them) is granted a cooling off/sanity-checking period to help a court find out whether the complaining company is imagining things or really is being unfairly or fairly pummelled, then that might be better than constantly-flagged-up negs, and might help expose the hiding of negatives on companies that really are legit targets of negative ratings.

Unfortunately, review sites are triple-edged swords for reviewed entities -- damned if you do, damned if you don't, and re-damned if you change sides.

Something else yelp could do to help itself is by forcing all commenters to review their identities if the comments are overly-slamming and overly-effusively--praising. Oh, wait... That might mean my down-thumbers would be entitled to my email address here... Ouch... I feel a slice from the triple-edged sword severing an artery.... (fading to black....)

" "But if the reviews are unlawful in that they are defamatory, then the John Does’ veil of anonymity may be pierced, provided certain procedural safeguards are met. This is because defamatory speech is not entitled to constitutional protection.

"Yelp, meanwhile, stood fast in its assertion that the case threatens the rights of its users to discuss their experiences honestly and freely. It will appeal to a higher court to scrub the subpoena."

INT, WTF is Yalp yelping about? If customers and commenters want to feel confident, then yelp should STOP this shadiness-appering arrangement of "join us and pay us and the bad ratings can be suppressed" type of thing. I routinely automatically delete yelp emails.

This is one case where I HOPE google is forwarding stats back to the spammers/large-company-mail aggregators. It would, however, be unlikely that google would pummel its own revenue by revealing "80% of your targetted, purported, or one-time subscribers delete your mesages witthout any detectable indication of having scrolled through it. They just change the label to 'spam' or outright delete on site..."

What would truly SUCK is if -- assuming this is not already the case -- yelp and yelp-like companies get ahold of the TLD information and start auto-populating consumer-oriented businesses and pre-populating their ratings with negative and defamatory and scary comments, forcing ALL consumer front-facing entities to rely even more on the companies such as "reputation.com", forcing companies to do damage control on potentially bogus damage before the public even sees it.

What would ensue, likely, is a costly war of attrition between the likes of yelp and companies that just utterly do NOT want to be in the review pools in the first place. Theoretically, yelp need only get wind of an existing or startup company's site or operating permits/licenses, and then force creation of a review page on them, and then somehow-paid commenters not traceable back to yelp give negative review.

Now, in advance of such damage (factual or not), many companies might face the prospect of be FORCED to publicly divulge business transactions in some limited way to make sure that complaints cannot be considered valid unless a corresponding incident or invoice or activity process number can be published by the one making the comment first, then the attacked/slandered/libeled company would upload a detail record indicating what was contracted, what was performed, what was deferred, and what amelioration measures were offered, accepted, rejected, modified, etc.

No business around will go down that path because most companies consider client details to be secret sauce as well as just plain (reasonably) private unless a court action requires revealing them.

I don't recall hearing such venom, dizziness, and upset over Angie's List and such, but then I don't follow them and don't seek out what people say about them. Yelp, otoh, is so out there that they will easily make the headlines, and typically wrt to the negative astroturfing of clients who mostly indicate that the negative review worsened when they told yelp to buzz off.

It seems yelp is becoming or is already a de facto "registry of business births and deaths" wherein yelp decides or sculpts your biz reputation according to how good-to-them a customer you are, from the way I read things.

Yelp would seem to be yet another one of those targets where the NSA could domestically burnish/clean up its reputation if it would use QTLF (Quantum TimeLine Fu) to un-birth companies that enable reputation-destruction of companies unwilling to play review-site-gamesmanship.

OTOH, Reputation.com... Does anyone know their success rate or any involvement with forcing yelp to take down libelous or defamatory or destructive comments? Or, is the problem not yet at a critical mass that gets the attention and smack-down fu of reputation.com? Or, is reputation.com not even geared at fighting with yelp on behalf of complainants? Hell, the way things appear, fetuses, or at the very least business majors, will need "reputation.com" protection even in the proto stages. Imagine if embryonic start-ups started getting listed in yelp. Imagine if would-be investors got soured (the shouldn't, since they have their own vetting channels) because a yelp-like entity (RUDE -- Reputation-Untangling/De-tail-spinning Entity) played some role in altering a company's destiny, curtailed funding, and made money in the process of it. (This could become a movie.... Or a spin-off of one sniffing the topic...)

One last question: If the judge suspended all operations of Yelp and enjoined from review site activities for 18 months yelp in particular based on the preponderence of anguished businesses (large and small) would type of retribution/blow back could there be from elements not often associated with yelp. In the Elliot Ness days, a tool like yelp would be a invincible "protector/enforcer" tool. I wonder how many courts will ponder that idea...

This is opionion and open-air rumination. So, yelp lawyers, stf away from me. I write all this because I am concerened that one day, even seasonal lemonade stand 8-year-olds will have to pay up for digital reputation protection just because someone gets wind of their operation permits. That just is not right, having to fend for your reputation before even having traction or enough growth to garner natural correction rather pay up since every negative comment likely kills off 10x as many prospective clients as one good comment might bring in. It seems to me that yelp's business model significantly depends upon business operators remembering the rule of thumb about how one upset customer can cost you x number (x=/> 5 or 10 customers).....

NSA, step in, amend your charter to be a domestic reputation protector for the weak, and help unburden some of the over-clogged courts, which don't have enough time machines to untangle the oversubscribed court calendars.... Thank you very much....

(Honestly, I only added TWO teaspoons of sugar to my mug of coffee, and nothing else...)

Virgin Galactic's supersonic space ship in 71,000-ft record smash

USCF Standards?

USCF Standard (taking a little license in the humor department, mind you....)

The US ChAir Force mission includes orbital vehicle destruction and monitoring domination, among myriad other things Virgin Galactic is not even remotely interested in sniffing. Well, unless VG aircraft will carry hostile weapons or other payloads in secret for the USCF.

Anyway, I imagine the stocks/investment value of Depends will increase 10-fold when this aircraft takes on its first paying customers unless Virgin has passenger preflight training flights or complimentary thrill rides at airports basing the Virgin Galactic Spaceship take-off sites.

Target's database raided, 70 MILLION US shoppers at risk of ID theft

Unfortunately for Target, their TM'd logo might feel like:

Unfortunately for Target, their TM'd logo might feel like:

-- A bullseye

-- A testament

The unfortunate testament would be that the attackers were "right on target" on Target. For the initial breach to not be detected for weeks or months and only be uncovered on another, subsequent audit means -- for the attackers -- a scored bullseye. Fortunately, for Target, their logo does not have score numbers on the rings.

Ring Ring... Cash may be restored as King. Plastic swipability a severe liability

Re: Seriously ??? Kiosk Mode, HUT!

Maybe what might start happening is that credit card issuers and chains such as Target -- the ones aggregating 10s of millions of customers from not just the USA, but all those European, Chinese, and Korean and Japanese and other -- international travelers and students who enter Target while on sojurn, business, or international student visas, or just passing through -- will have to contract representatives of the cc issues ON SITE, in the store, and have them swipe their driver's license or passport or passport card, a debit card, a library card, and one or two other magnetic and verifiable pieces of ID, plus an SSN or EIN or some such number, and re-verify the card holder and any authorized additional family or business holders of the cards on the accounts.

But, for such a scheme to work, Target and the credit card issuers and the banks would all have to lock up accounts and steer people into the big-box stores, or to reciprocally-located store kiosks situated in the banks. Pretty soon, the only way to curb this illegal activity is to base transaction authorization on retina and pulse scans and three-factor authentication of the host/card-account-holder.

Considering that shoplifting costs the US chains and smaller shops in the billions to deal with or recover from shop lifting, and to smoothen over issues with breached accounts, that 8-15 billion could be diverted over a two year period to setting up hardened card issuance and card-holder identity re-certification/reverification.

It might even have an NSA angle to it -- the NSA could redeem itself (wait, yeh, right?) by helping the fraud monitoring companies to consolidate information and use their quantum fu to travel back in time and destroy miscreants BEFORE they commit crime in the as-yet-infected timeline. Maybe the NSA is working on a QTB (Quantum Time Bomb) or PECTIN (Pre-Existence Curtailment Time-Interception Node) antidote to the problem?

Wait, the coffee must be altering my reality-de-distortion spectacles...

It would be interesting if 90% of the affected cardholders would just in-person, in-advance withdraw the needed cash from a bricks-and-mortar bank, then shop, and say to hell with redeeming points potentially gained via their "Valued Shopper Rewards Card Program". The redeemabble points are nowhere near worth the hassle suffered for all the extra work to un-screw their ID theft miseries.

The only positive in this is that it will just scare the bejeezus out of a lot of people and make them pay more attention to their monthly or online statements.

If the NSA used QTLF (Quantum Time Line Fu) on this, the mafias and others involved in these theft activities might end up killing each other off for one of their rivals or clients excessively or greedily dipping into the pot and forcing these beefed-up security measures which will likely damage the illegal profits and gains they would have acquired had the breaches been less newsworthy.

Question: Would YOU cheer on any legislation that said the NSA/GCHQ/et al would commence double-duty on the global hazards of ID theft and e-money pilferage with the only outcomes being curtailment of the continued existence of parties found involved in the ID theft and erosion of trust in the sanctity of commercial transaction processes?

OK, back to my hallucinagenic (misnomer for under-brewed/under-strength) coffee...

Woman whipped gun from vagina in SPACE ALIEN spat, reports Officer Zook

Might not have an IT angle, but, you can bet 5 and 6 and James Bond would be impressed...

Might not have an IT angle, but, you can bet 5 and 6 and James Bond would be impressed...

Imagine if Pussy Galore whipped out one like that on Bond. He might be flattered. Or, if she had EVIL intentions, SPLATTERED.

So, there IS at least a UK angle that can be injected, hehehehehehehe....

Reminds me... Of when Bond was tied up, facing death.

Woman: My name is PUSSY... GALORE..

Bond: I must be in Heaven...

LOLLLLLLLLL

Anatomy of a 22-year-old X Window bug: Get root with newly uncovered flaw

Re: It looks like NO ONE ever audited X Windows... Why not see it as a potential compliment?

Considering that Linux-based servers reportedly have more or increasing marketshare than Windows-based server, would not there exist a thrown-down-gaunlet situation?

Run a Linux-based server, get attacked for the challenge.

Run a windows-based server, get hacked for the potential goddies behind it.

Circular--- run a Linux-base server, and it may be hacked/probed for the goodies behind it...

Well done for flicking always-on crypto switch, Yahoo! Now here's what you SHOULD have done

HTTPS and Crypto are irrelevant if your keyboards and drives and chips

Have already been (and continue to from manufacturers be) compromised. Keystroking/keylogging and radio-scooped payloads make most consumer-targetted encryption irrelevant, right?

Infosec experts boycott RSA conflab over alleged 'secret' NSA contract

Makes me wonder whether Snowden curated his trove

Or just made a few massive digital dives before dumping his booty into the hands that are leaking it all out in dribbles and bits...

The stuff that just keeps coming out is... Mind-blowing and sobering.

Samsung whips out 12.2-inch 'Professional' iPad killers

Re: They're playing to the dummies in the market...

That depends. If these tablets can be screen extensions to laptops, then offices might snatch them up quick-like. Expensive extensions, but at least they can act as in-facility walkabout tools to got to meetings -- ad hoc or planned. If Samsung has THAT card up their sleeve, then it might put red rings around the eyes of Retina planner.

My 21.5 inch, lightweight AOC LCD is lighter than my 7.5'lbs 15" laptop, and thinner, and virtually portable. I took it to a meeting to give a presentation away from home, only to be greeted with the option to plug my laptop into a 57" or so wide Samsung (IIRC) monster screen. Of course, I plugged into the monster screen, and even at 1920x1008 or so, it looked GREAT.

But, for those in labs or financial settings where there may be more desire for walkabouts than wall-to-wall, triple-pintle, or lab-desk-banks of screens, screen-extendable tablets might serve some use in some big companies. Samsung just has to accelerate getting the drivers under license or in deployment.

Just my two cents

Scientists discover supervolcano trigger that could herald humanity's doom

Lenses...

Maybe his filter is "Ohm mani Pad ma Ohm.... Make me ONE with the UniWerse..."...

Maybe some trillionaires in combination will concoct a plan to vent it into the sea, or via an umbilical into the sky... Maybe a magnetic constrictor coil, surrounded by a high-flux, magneton-polerized, tetrion-augmented poleron array can direct it above the Aurora Borealis...

But, first, we'll need to construct a Dyson Sphere to contain the energy to redirect it back into the Meson Grid....

LaForge!!!! Enough! Another time, perhaps...

Like peeling the skin off of a bad blister or boil? Or letting an "Eartheurism"?

Hahaha, warning of a 100 meters bulge across a month allows some basic planning? Would not that be about 3 meters a day? 27' a day in SF or SJ or LA would spell disaster. After just 5 days, the streets would be too steep for safe vehicular negotiation, meaning most sites of import would need helicopters or super-suped up moving vans or tractor rigs on ever-standby, meaning looting, riots, violence, pilfering, and more, on a glacial 30-day spread, even slower than the Earth-busting in that movie, what, 2012?, if I recall.

If it 300 meters in over a month, then roughly 30 meters a day? 100' a day? Scary indeed.

Italian woman stunned by exploding artichoke

Re: Next food attack:

Did you men Triffids?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids_(film)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055894/

Wow, I haven't watched that since maybe 1979, hahaha...

Cheers

UPSCORE for that! That was so appropos juxtaposition of the earlier article!

Thanks!

Re: Theory

hahaha... That just read a bit too sinsual and sensual. Not that I'm making passes. I just saw pistils, petals, stems, and pods-a-bursting in the rain, Nature and bees in unison...

Maybe The Onion could run a spread, too. Bursting, Oniony Artichoke: the kind that leave you teary and all choked up -- naturally... Or unnaturally...

Re: Surprise

With that surprise, you probably have them reeling in stun.. All teary eyed and choked up....

NSA refuses to deny spying on members of Congress

Re: Akin to

Then what you wrote just further underscores that the politicians' "concerns" are just for public consumption. The more sophisticate of the public recognizes it, and maybe most of the less attentive public does to some extent, but probably recognizes it can't do much about it, either.

I accept the minus 2 points on this topic, given my previoius naeve comment.

Akin to

"Plausible denial", to serve exactly as you pointed out: "weasel word".

But, these politicians should expect that if the want to "rule" us and take our money, the price to exchange is LESS privacy than that afforded the taxpayer in the "ruled" class. If a politician is dealing with matters of law or contracts or national security, then they should be protected from and forbidden to engage in bribery, extortion, blackmail, graft, and more, not given more room to hide from engaging in it.

In this case, I am very relaxed about NSA spying intensively domestically -- if it keeps politicians less dirty. Won't clean them up, but it can keep them on notice.

How to kill trolls and influence Apple people: A patent solution

Re: Proof by assertion

What about a path to improvements upon inventions?

If I create a widget that IS novel, non-obvioius, and sells to some extent, then good on me.

If someone comes along, and senses that I've been lazy and not diligently keeping the product in a state of improvement and up-take by the consumer base I've earned, and then that new party actually creates a stellarly-better derivative, and it outsells mine because of laziness on my part, then GOOD ON the UPSTART.

Isn't competition supposed to reign? In boxing, then winner is the one standing, not the one down for the count. But, if the one standing has razors or metal in the gloves, then the one wrongfully scratched up should have significant compensation REwarded, and the wrongdoer some punishment AWardded.

Still, the first-to-file and the first-to-invent systems BOTH are flawed. What should matter most is the product that sells better due to merits, not superior advertising more than product quality, and if necessary, experts and non-experts put under blind testing if the occasion arises to duke things out in a court battle.

First to file screws those who have no resources to even file for a new or a modified, legitimately-royalties-avoiding derivative or variation. First to invent screws those who truly have valid, worthwhile improvements to take to market. Ingenuity should, not king-of-the-laziness-hill, should have priority. The ingenuity that injects improvements and freshness should have room to work, without fear of being reamed by despicable PAEs. Punishment for a discovered PAE should be the carpet gets pulled from under the ENTIRE PORTFOLIO and anything tenuously connected TO it. And, when the USPTO *enables* PAES, the USPTO needs to be put through the meat grinder, too. Or, at least the involved agents. Otherwise, we're GOING to close in on that evil nexus of small people keeping mum, and big PAEs virtually owning the minds of anyone with an idea.

Pervy TOILET CAMERA disguised as 'flash drive' sparks BOMB SCARE on Boeing 767

Re: Haven't you seen Fringe ?

Yeh, but don't the major airports already sniff and scan for such explosives? I know that I've been through puffer/sniffer machines, the kind that search for airborne evidence of the minutest giveaway sizing.

I've been for about 8 years not suspicous that these scanners hold on to scan photos of objects for some amount of time. Hoaxes and real acts of terror would be more frightening if the authorities lazily, intentionally, or carelessly OPTED OUT of short-term storage of passengers' personal effects in the carry-on as well as the check-in.

Actually, live-scanning and photo capturing of all flown goods would probably help put a dent in theft of passenger goods, especially if some enterprising company would come up with tamper-evident seals or cords that require special procedures to open FOR inspection, not bust into, reseal, then apologize for rummaged contents.

Maybe the TSA or the airport unions nixed the options? Can't set up a de facto incrimination that baggage handlers ALL from time to time pilfer from luggage.

But, if the scans DO contain images of all luggage and carryon passed through the scanners, then it'll narrow down the questioning to JUST those people who walked into the scanner and who were within 3-5 people of the objects compared to and matching the prank or act evidence.

Is that too much to expect, or ask for? After all, we taxpayers have spent probablly a few trillion on funding the DHLS, TSA, and other letters. Oh, wait... Most of it probably went to labor, not real, useful tech, except that which snapped organs shots...

Naked Aussie gets wedged in washing machine

Re: Bah!

Could have been one of those big Samsungs with no real or US-style, up-sticking agitator. I saw a couple of Korean machines when in Busan, and in Shanghai, and those machines are ULTRA quiet and almost to die for. Better than ANY US-made consumer washer I've seen in my 40+ years. The machines are even superior to the super quiet laundry-house Sanyos I saw in Tokyo in 2004. And that Sanyo was so quiet that I had to go back inside and touch and put my ear to the thing before feeling certain is was indeed operating. Well, some of the Maytags are nice, but in 2005 my housemate and his wife had one -- IIRC, it cost around $2000 just for the washer, but it might have been around $1500.

So, I can see an adult (of maybe 5'-7" stature) easily fitting IN to one, though getting out could be a bit... Agitating, hahaha.

Time travellers outsmart the NSA

Progitution...

The New NSA Funding Scheme... I presciently predict that someone will buy up or create the domain name in an anticipation of quantum slipstream, quantum decryption, and quantum time travel

Pimping the fyooture before it is discovered...PrProgitution..