I really wanted to send a telegram last year, and discovered that Western Union was out of the biz. I should have kept searching... That would have been perfect for the occasion. I guess an email worked well enough, but lacked the formality of the telegraph and required STOP formatting. Maybe I should have hired a sky writer? But then how do you make sure the recipient looks up?

His phone probably is secure, and only a redundant container of data stored elsewhere. I'm fairly certain that everything the president does is saved and archived for various reasons.

The security is anti non authorized access. That's all he wants for everyone else too. A warrant says that the government has access to the data in the device. Its a system we've had in the constitution since the beginning. I'm really baffled at why people oppose this on an ideological basis. On a practical basis, I understand the argument that once there is a way for the government to gain access, that could open up access for everyone else as well. But thats the only argument that makes sense.

It should be easy to pull the work permits that the city issued for all of the work to determine who is at fault. That might be a difficult process, but it can be done.

Other than permanent assured backup

That is the biggest reason for most people. Keeping backups is tough.

Yes users will move photos to the cloud ( or rather most people that used picasa have already moved to photos), and yes this is an attempt to remove the importance of local systems to online services.

Its not tough. I've done it for other reasons in the past.Just don't distribute to anyone else, cause that would violate GPL. Also, boo for using proprietary drivers!! Is this so you can turn any computer into a steam box with decent performance on the fly? Still Boo.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomizationFromScratch

That's just, like you're opinion, man.

In reality, its a Fridge dedicated to suck at being a fridge. There is no way anyone is going to scan every freaking thing they put in there. That's a chore. The screen takes up valuable wedding invites and Christmas card storage space. That's what a fridge front is for. I can't buy stuff from the 5 different stores I buy groceries from, with its interface. The list just goes on. Its a piece of crap. The privacy aspects aren't scary because it sucks, no one wants it.

"it's important to get it into a lot of homes". Not scary, but the way companies operate. They want to sell their products. This is also the same company that screwed over everyone who bought their smart fridge.

https://ifixit.org/blog/7657/this-dumb-smart-fridge-shows-why-the-internet-of-things-will-break/

I don't know, I think this will be almost as successful as the Semantic Web

Well, updates on android are really done by a combination of the OEM and the carrier right now. OEM's share just as much blame. Apple somehow gets around this, but I'm not exactly sure how.

I don't like Microsoft having that ability, because they screwed up the design of the operating system to allow crazy things to work that never should have worked, and are committed to maintaining that crazyness to keep old apps working on new versions of the OS. The problem with auto updates, is that Micrsoft isn't perfect in testing against all of the crazy workarounds they have in the OS, so each company really needs to be able to test and verify the updates first, to make sure it doesn't bork their computers.

Google doesn't have nearly as much craziness going on. Nothing on the scale of Microsoft. So, there is much less of a likely hood that they'll screw up my phone.

But conceptually, yes, giving a third party ( even the OS vendor) root access to update anything on the device is scary for security and privacy, I get that. I guess if you are already thinking you shouldn't trust google, you probably shouldn't be running Google Play Services in the first place, Stick to AOSP + Freedroid.

I also don't get the distinction between "free" and shared wifi. If they have trouble tracking people using shared wifi, then does it really matter if they pay or not?

I mean if France's favorite restaurant included wifi access with their Royale with Cheese, it wouldn't help anything.

Well, yes confinement is a huge issue, and obviously all other tokamaks have used superconducting magnets, this uses high temp ( well liquid nitrogen is considered high temp) ones that reduced the energy needed to keep them cool. Less input energy should mean that getting to a point where they put out more energy than they take in should be easier. I thinkthat's the significance here.

But yeah, huge problems like confinement remain. I'm so disappointed that NIF didn't work. Although, in retrospect, I wonder if it was ever supposed to work for non weapons reasons.

It kind of seems odd to me to miniaturize a design that hasn't worked well enough even at large scales. But maybe the physics works out like semiconducters where efficiency is gained with smaller size ( possibly less energy input needed? ).

As an alternative, I'd like to see more research put into Stellarators. Take these super conductors and put them into both, see which works better with them. Oh and we'll need twice the research money for that. But we'll get more than two results!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellarator

Probably repeating what you already know, but I think he meant the TPP ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership). I haven't heard of claims that it would force inventions /patents to be transferred to the US. But there is a rather concerning Intellectual property clause in the agreement, and something that would reduce the ability of countries to continue to get prescription medicine at their current low prices ( as opposed to the outrageous prices we pay in the US ). I'm guessing that some people might take that to mean that US pharmaceuticals could also sue for patent violations? Which might lead to the US companies owning the new invention?

But yeah, some snark too.

Personally, I'm not sure where I stand on that trade deal. I haven't reviewed it in depth.

I think Bond is who he was when you first watched. So Dalton will always seem like Bond to me. Not particular charismatic, not particularly athletic, not particularly good with the ladies. But the universe around him just gets bent to his will so effortlessly. No sweat. If I were designing a prototype secret agent, I'd want a guy like that. You wouldn't remember seeing him at a party. You wouldn't remember bumping into him. When scanning a room, you wouldn't consider him a threat.

Unfortunately, for all those reasons, people didn't like watching movies he was in. Ah well, a more realistic secret agent is too boring for movies I guess. And yeah, kind of goes against everything Bond is supposed to be.

Edit:

I kind of love the fact that he's in third place after my vote. Pipe dot, you get me.

I don't know that I would agree that downloaded content has no watch time. I would assign it the watch time of the video length as a first iteration. In any case any deal without specifics, isn't meant to be taken as the final word or anything other than a first draft.

If it were me designing it, I'd have a multiplier on the video time for each download based on the number of shares/likes and rewatch factor of the video in question. If the average viewer re-views a video online 3 times and shares it, then each download would count as three complete views plus a fudge factor of maybe two for the shares that are potentially lost? Its complicated, but not impossible for youtube.

Legal solutions for technical problems don't usually work out well. You'll be able to demand what ever you want, what will happen is anyone's guess. Large companies will likely try to follow the law, but purposefully or not, fail to. Smaller companies will totally ignore it, as the evidence that you are being tracked is difficult to collect and probably more difficult to prove in a court of law.

Like someone else said, we need to redo how the HTTP and browsers work to try and come up with a technical assurance that no tracking is taking place. Of course that's easier said then done. And really, I'm not sure it can be done.

I've always wondered how they did that for shipping cargo, but the more modular your pieces are the easier it becomes as there are more possible permutations. With a cargo container as the smallest block, it becomes more difficult. The giant cargo ships carry so many, that its a bit easier to figureout and some of it probably comes out int he wash. Like trying to balance chicken feathers and eagle feathers, no combination of them is going to break a boat.

Understanding only a little about how cargo containers are used, I would assume they are filled by volume rather than weight ( except in the cases of extremely heaving materiel, like iridium ingots or something) . So unless all of the cargo containers are of equal weight, you might have an issue with weight distribution without some smart software to figure that out. I'm assuming that wouldn't be too difficult for a company that designs planes, rockets, and space ships. But I guess that would have to be considered at least. I might not be able to send certain combinations of cargo containers, which might be an issue for my horse feather and iridium Ingot company.

I agree the cost sounds really high, but really, for a rasberry pi, I think the resolution and size is ok.

I didn't understand how that was related to the topic at first. Thinking that it was a comment that belonged on a story that discussed ad blocking. Maybe Pipedot should include the domain as part of the link like that other dot site used to, like

aborigines may have faced the large predator [ibtimes.com]

To play devils advocate:

These are government allowed monopolies, with some real regulations and restrictions about things like price increases. They're already artificially limited in maximizing their profits by the government, doesn't it make sense to artificially limit the minimum as well?

I kind of doubt that solar will be able to immediately take over if the price of gas spikes rapidly ( which it has done in the past). Especially in Ohio.

I'd use a carrot and a stick approach here. Yes you get some subsidies to stay afloat with coal but only for x years with a predictable scale down. while at the same time, incentives for renewables ramps up. If you want to stay off solar

Got a little farther with them last night, I actually got to the "real" company behind them by pretending to anxious and concerned that I wouldn't qualify for their service. So maybe that will help the FCC. I was pretty polite this time, even when I got to the real manager. Everything he told me was a complete lie, sadly. I almost started to think for a bit that they might actually be providing a service that would be valued by some customers. But no, they are a scam company. Nothing makes a scam company more eager to seal the deal than when you pretend to be be their ideal customer mark, that wants more than what they initially offered to provide.

I wonder if that's how I'm on some terrible lists of scam artist phone guys. Which is terrible, they won't fall for any of my counter scams. I tried selling an extended warranty company a list of names and phone numbers, but they didn't bite. I've tried to slow play them several times, pretended to be interested ask a number of questions, some relevant, some absurd. I've been really tempted to to take extra legal action to shut them down, but obviously that would be illegal. Two wrongs don't make a right and what not. So the fcc complaint dept is pretty familiar with me.

Nice comment removed, due to crude replies in other posts.

Sorry SJW piece of shit.

Well, I take back the reasonable things I said about you in an earlier comment. Anyone who uses SJW as an insult, is no friend of mine, and I can't give their arguments the benefit of the doubt. You might be right with everything you say here, but you're a jerk, who doesn't understand basic decency.

Google has duplicated my driving technique. I think that validates my driving as algorithmicly perfect.

Well, quite honestly, I think you are showing signs of paranoia and persecution complex. I actually appreciate some level of gibberish clean up on sites like this. I used to think that no censorship anytime any where on any site was the way to go, but slashdot quickly disabused me of that idea. Quality discussions don't happen by accident, even though some level of trust of the editorial staff is required that they are not removing valid comments to skew the discussion.

When I first saw this story pop up, there was 1 comment attached, but I couldn't view it regardless of the settings I had. I checked back in a couple hours and there were two comments I couldn't see. So I have no idea what those were or why I couldn't see them. Maybe they were auto detected as spam or something?

Hmm... Haven't used share-point. Must be terrible if Confluence is that much better by comparison.

Yeah, I don't know. They're trying to place limitations where it doesn't technically make sense to put limitations. Its like trying to separate salt water from fresh water at a river intersecting an ocean.

I understand the business case of why Tmobile is trying to separate out Smartphone data from every other kind of data, but it seems kind of silly. Data is data. It can be routed from one device to anther fairly easily.

It would be easier and technically better to just call all data: data and put a cap on it. Make it something absurd like 100 gig. 100 is much bigger than 10 gig and you really don't affect that many people. Tether if you want to or don't

That's a noble goal. The trick is to avoid the press release crap of non-noteworthy products like the recent apple pay hardware thing. That's putrid man, really bad.

I just dinged the other press release of a story, but this is pipedot at its best. There is a notable product, but the idiots behind it only left a video behind, so the enterprising summary reader watched it and provided a useful summary. Nice! More like this. Less like press releases for stupid products.

What the hell is that, a press release? Why is that notable or interesting or have anything to do with anything?

Well, ok, how do you then update the "bios"?

I'm thinking of things like platinum catalysts and rare earth metals that might be used. Yes they require some labor, but they cost more because of the exotic materials they contain rather than it being a function of the difficulty of refining them. I'm having trouble correlating cost of labor with energy most of the time for installs of things like water heaters, solar arrays, better windows. The labor mostly goes to the workmen with a much smaller amount for any transportation costs.

There might be some specific instances where the material and labor that goes into a product is a direct function of the cost of energy. These would be things who's price would fluctuate at nearly the global oil price. As such, I can't think of many like that. Track the global energy price and the price for the item itself and see if there is any correlation at all. I'd be really shocked if you could find any.

No, money is often not a good proxy for energy used. Energy is a single cost input into the overall cost of a product or service. Things like labor, materials and IP rights are also major impacts in cost for items.

My mind is apparently fried, CO2 or C02 sometimes the eyes at the tips of my fingers get drowsy and start hitting the wrong keys. I'll soak them in my visine coffee and they should be good to go.

He's not talking about money, but energy. Probably meaning the amount of C02 given off by the expense of the energy. The study was focused on cost, which is a good thing to keep an eye on for sure. But if anther goal is C02 reduction, then for some people with enough disposable income and that care enough about such things then the amount of C02 released is also important potentially more so.

I can't tell you how freaking annoying it is to get an appliance installed and have to fight for a more efficient device, even if its at higher cost. I was debating getting a new water heater, and the installer told me to do it now while they still sold the old cheaper less efficient models, in a few months they'd only sell the high efficiency ones. He was kind of shocked when I told him to call me when they had the high efficiency ones. I probably won't save the amount of extra money it costs, but its not a significant amount of money to me at this point and its the right thing to do.

Droid was the only good one I played with. The others were pretty terrible. They tried putting them on cheaper phones and skimped on quality. The logic was a bit insane. Not having a keyboard is better than having a crappy one.

Those were the reasons why I liked Blackberry. As a personal tech advisory to some big wig, I was tasked with getting a new (free) phone for my client due to a problem with his existing one. It wasn't about money as it was a principle thing. So I had the un-enviable task of working my way through tech support as long as I could without name dropping. I only got to tier 2 before I had to go nuclear. But as soon as I did, the phone was in the mail. Never really called them before or since for anyone else. So maybe that was just the name that got action. In any case, it was the best experience with Tech support I've ever had.

Indeed. Instead of investing in an expensive and complex set of electronics,

I don't think it should be expensive or complex. I think it should be stupid simple. and require no more skill and no more cost than installing a smoke alarm. It doesn't need a google sized data center to process temp info... Heck a raspberry pi would be overkill in terms of processing power.

The office I work in now, is a credit to how terrible professional systems can be.

Also of note, My existing system is already highly efficient. For my personal needs I want this change due to comfort rather than cost. The temp of the current area the thermostat is in isn't representative of the whole house at all times. Maybe if I replaced the windows, added a whole house fan, and an attic fan, that would help as well. But the cost effective solution probably isn't a new HVAC system.

Yeah, really disappointed in nest. Its not done well.

Well, thanks for point me in the right direction. If the vents aren't smartly controlled, then they aren't going to be of use for what I was imagining.

However, the multi temp can be achieved cheaper than the last time I looked with these products: I

http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-THX9321R5030-Prestige-2-0-Thermostat/dp/B008BZ5GXW

http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-C7189R1004-Wireless-Indoor-Sensor/dp/B005Y0VTB0/

Why shouldn't we need software or accountants to file taxes? Just because? Or are you really just advocating for a different tax scheme, that will screw people in new and interesting ways?

Or upon further thought, you could be advocating for an automagic system with the same rules and rates of today. Already people have deductions taken straight from their paychecks, but its stupid based a number of assumptions. Then at tax time, you have to do a bunch of manual entry, even with tax software. It *should* be automagic, with a clear obvious audit trail that makes everything review-able. All income directly reported to the IRS. All mortgage payment info sent directly to the IRS. All property tax, 401 k contributions, iras, etc. Even for things like the previous energy credits could be automagic. You just have a web portal that explains and breaks down where your taxes are and allows you to see what changes various deductions and lifestyle changes will make. Of course, you can kiss privacy good by a little more. But its not information that the government didn't already have if you were filling in your taxes. It might just get some information form people that wouldn't have used it for tax deductions, for some reason.

Having the vents computer controlled, would allow the system to figure out the optimal settings for all of them to get the desired temperature and efficancy goals.

But aside from the vent problem, do you have any links on how to splice up a HVAC to multiple zones? I tried looking but maybe my google foo is stale. That's 90% of the problems I face with my house and at the office as well.

Its really sad how expensive a quality HVAC thermostat system is. I found one Honeywell system that would actually maybe kinda do something smart, but it would be in the thousands of dollars price point, and intended for commercial applications.

What is needed is:

A system of thermostats that all talk to each other and wirelessly control floor vents. So if the room where the thermostat is is not representative of the whole house, additional thermostats can be paired to give the system more data points to consider. With optional computer controlled vents, the system can further be optimized.

This was my hope for Nest. But years later, there has been no improvement. there is no algorithm that will solve a problem for which there is only incomplete input data.

Cosmetic. The. Damn. Red. Commies.

Falcons, eagles and hawks of different species have adapted to urban and suburban areas. Maybe it would all sort itself out.

Yup. It won't be much different than today, but I Imagine it may be more difficult to track down unregistered drone owners. Unless they decide to disable them when detected or something. I can see the Washington DC area outfitted with anti drone technology that "shoots" first and asks questions later. Not sure if they can all be taken down with lasers or Radio signal jamming or hard rubber projectiles would be needed.