myztic

Quite aware of that, but I was referring to something different: I hope the same information is available to the people seeing (that is: experiencing live) the art installation (or past tense because it already happened?!).

I don't know how it was/is/will be presented to those people.

I also want to clarify that I did not accuse anybody of any wrongdoing, just said "I seriously hope ..." based on my experience with non-technical people misinterpreting technical stuff (or non-scientific people misinterpreting science,... and so forth).

One more thought: I seriously hope the artist clarifies the shortcomings of his approach when presenting it! It wouldn't be right to suggest to people that the locations are highly accurate.

I can imagine a non-technical relative/friend of mine seeing such an installation, then telling me that you can track down every internet user accurately and even show the building he is living in and me having to explain why that is not the case and a ridiculous notion.

No matter how noble the cause, deception is wrong. After all, I don't tell my kids their heads may explode if they take illegal drugs...

Sites like that (without flashy Street View pictures bound to be wrong anyways) have been around for a very long time, many are provided by VPN providers to let their customers check how good they are hidden. It simply showed Amsterdam for me, which is my current VPN-Server, so no surprises there. What I mostly use to check such things https://ipleak.net/

What he does is only getting the location information and simply cross-referencing it with Google Street View / Google Maps Data. That being said: It's an art installation http://bengrosser.com/projects/tracing-you/ to provoke questions about privacy in a more closely connected world than ever. Noble idea.

"First it looks up the IP address using ipinfo to obtain geolocation. This is represented as a latitude/longitude pair (e.g. 48.8631831,2.3629368) that identifies a precise location on the earth. The latitude/longitude is sent to Google, where it queries the Street View, Static Maps, and Javascript Maps data services."

Not too impressive though.

I have a Thinkpad T520 and can bend the display back all the way (~180 degrees), so that takes care of this problem. Also maybe consider a pair of running shoes for inside only? They help maintaining a good posture and standing might be more comfortable for you.

I second https://www.brainpickings.org/ and also would like to add http://nextdraft.com/ (though it is more "general news") - other than that I can't help, because I actually prefer to use rss-feeds over Newsletters.

Some RSS-Feeds I follow and which might be of interest: http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/ - http://www.rand.org/blog.html - https://blog.codinghorror.com/ - https://bsdmag.org/

(PS: You can also get rss-updates about new entries in Youtube-Playlists (google it) and if you use Twitter and follow some interesting people, that might also be a good way to stay up to date)

On a side note: A very cheap solution to mimic a standing desk:

Use your ironing board, mine does the job. It goes barely high enough, I put an additional book under the Notebook and now it's the right hight, enough room for Notebook, Lamp and a Book and it's next to my desk so I can easily switch back to it if I want.

Actually it does such a good job, that I don't think I'll buy a standing desk now, good that I don't iron my clothes anyway ;)

EDIT: "bricked" is wrong, they completely deleted the machine. Had to correct this ;)

Major non-profit community events, yes, major for-profit billion-dollar events where tickets and a commercial slot cost I don't know how much, no!

I have nothing against a city financially supporting some sort of community event, but this clearly is something completely else.

Well, I understand why the reviewer did not feel the need to make a scientific rebuttal out of a book review. It was not the reviewer who convinced me by the way, I had a look at this book myself. And the claims made compared to the studies cited to support those claims, it's fraudulent, I can't put it any other way.

I will not be able to convince you. Nutrition for many is such an integral part of who they are, that it is similar to criticising someone's religion and they are deep believers. If it works for you, I congratulate you (and I mean that, honestly). Nor do I want a debate in which everyone cites studies left and right that he has found on the internet, and then it is my job to go through dozens of them to find out exactly what they are saying and assess their methodological quality. I don't have the time right now, nor the motivation.

Let me just say: Science is hard, studying nutrition is very hard and especially regarding nutrition, there are so many things to think of and to take into account. And nutrition is also an individual thing, I doubt there is a one-size fits all. I was not the one speaking of truths where in reality we should be more careful about such claims.

We know far less about nutrition than we think we do. So if you know about risks and are careful about it, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong with trying out various things. Regarding meat though, a lot of it is panic.

The problem is that it's very hard to conduct proper studies analysing this. 'Observational studies' are useless, because if I take a randomized group of meat-eaters versus vegans, of course the latter group will be significantly more healthy. Vegans are most likely more concerned about their health in general which means less smoking, less alcohol being consumed, healthier sleep, they buy higher quality food in general, due to lack of choice when out in public they cook more themselves (they won't stop at a fast food restaurant), et cetera ... and then there is the Placebo effect, which is very powerful and should not be under-estimated.

The scientific data is not as clear as one might think, and "nutritionists" in general are pseudo-scientists at their best since you can find a study for anything. If not with humans, then with mice, or maybe just some study with some cells. The same with internet sites by the way. And Atkins strictly speaking is not the same as the traditional Ketogenic Diet. Regarding books about nutrition for example, I happen to agree with this reviewer of "The China Study" (not the original one, you'll see) http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3UR35AKTEYW43/ref...

If anyone wants to find serious information about nutrition, you should search for meta-studies, for example by the Cochrane Collaboration, and then you should read the abstract very carefully and not insert your wishful thinking into it.

2 weeks in ketosis, all I can say by now (and this only applies to me of course):

1) It was far easier than I thought it would be (some fatigue 5-6 days in, but that was quickly gone)

2) I have less meals (usually 2 meals, I am totally fine with that)

3) I have no cravings (the famous midnight snack is no more)

4) No side effects so far, not even constipation which I read some people have.

5) It requires creativity in the kitchen (or else you'll be sick of eating the same things again and again).

I supplement with Calcium-Magnesium-Zink and Multi-Vitamins.

For me personally it is easier to loose weight on a ketogenic diet than with a carbohydrate-rich diet. Especially due to no cravings, that probably due to more stable blood sugar. That being said you can loose weight with any diet of course.

Interestingly Ketosis is nothing "new", it has been used for a very long time in younger patients with regular seizures, as ketosis reduces the amount of seizures significantly[1]. A lot of interesting research will follow in the near future. For example whether a ketogenic diet reduces the risk of some form of cancers (it might "starve cancer cells"), if there are significant long-term side effects, et cetera...

[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001903...

I too think measurements like that are "fair", it is one of THE events in the US, so it makes sense to take special precautions.

That being said, the NFL should pay for this 100%. They should also pay for their stadiums (not threaten local fans / politicians they will move if not being financially supported), and frankly they should pay for any security measures during any NFL games.

The government paying for it is nothing but a quite heavy subsidy they don't need. It's the same though with any big sports league around the world where police / government is handling such affairs and the league is not paying for it.

Reminds me of Cantrill, more so his story when they completely bricked a machine of a fellow worker once and then took a close look at the standard[1].

# rm -rf /

Among other things, it will delete the current directory. In the standard it does not say what to delete first, In their implementation it will try to remove the current directory first -> undefined behaviour -> it fails.

The logic behind it: When is it really your goal to delete your entire machine, mostly never, you don't type it out by accident, but shell scripts with unset variables might do it.

And regarding Poettering's response[2] (not trying to start a fight): It's Poettering, what do you expect? You can hate or love systemd, but part of why people hate it is his intellectual arrogance in everything he does.

[1] He tells the story somewhere in here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6XQUciI-Sc (quite entertaining)

[2] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/2402

You might not want to skim through the forums (though I find the discussion interesting). In the end, this actually happened and you can see a video of it here https://youtu.be/jJT_CACIZqs?t=6m18s EDIT: and rdancer also linked to the final report, see his post, thanks :)

He also wrote a few product reviews http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3145L3LF7U7F5/ref=cm_c... ;)

Or a new way to distribute spam? ;)

A lot of userland-stuff is GNU, Linux is the kernel. Kernel + Userland is OS!

So saying "GNU ... is the operating system for just about every single server running Linux" does not make sense.

I don't know where to begin.

0) Linux is just a kernel, so if taken literally, it never will be an OS. But I will roll with your terminology for now.

1) Linux was a Unix-like OS for tinkerers, programmers and soon for servers. A "real OS" is not defined by its availability on the Desktop. And indeed I very much used it exactly because of this, because I am a tinkerer who rather runs a Server OS on his private machines, that also allows him to do most Desktop-tasks with ease.

2) The voice of the Desktop camp inside of Linux is not ignored, if anything, the influence is too big. Think about systemd for example. This was not a move in order to run better on Servers, this was primarily Notebook and Server focused. The year of the Linux Desktop is not something we won't see because of evil big corporations, rather because it simply is not Linux's DNA to be that.

(And side note: Because of systemd I see more and more people using *BSDs)

Without bad intentions: Could you point me to some of the cases you are talking about? I am honestly interested, can't promise I will read everything the next hours, but I will definitely read up on it.

Linux would have never been as successful if someone like rms would have called the shots. People still tinker with the GNU Hurd microkernel and it's less usable than Minix. Linus is also no god for me, but he is delightfully pragmatic, someone companies can work with, not against.

I am sorry that I have to say this, but large parts of the GNU/Linux community are just irrational idealists hard to work with. Read the GPLv3, it's a great political document, and somewhere in there there also is a software license, hidden between the lines.

Linus always said: He cares about the code back and otherwise not what vendors do with it. He is not in any sense one of those GNU-people about Software Freedom everywhere and for all. When the Free Software Foundation (FSF) created the GPLv3, indeed during the process, Linus already spoke out against it and said he would never ever use it[1]. He cited reasonable use-cases for which vendors have no other way than to not to give open access to devices, in part for example commercial license agreements.

The GPLv3 - from the perspective of the FSF - fixes some vital flaws in GPLv2, from Linus' perspective however is just too strict, forbids use-cases Linux has been used before previously and is extremely anti-business and would hurt the Linux project.

Whether this step of the Linux foundation is right or not, can't say for sure, but I totally understand it. A political anti-business pro-freedom-everywhere radical who already is involved in suing some of the companies she is supposed to work with on that said board? Sounds like a headache you would want to avoid at all costs.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU

I think that the article over-estimates strongly the influence of entertainment to a certain degree when it comes to our intellectual development. And I am someone who consumes a lot of media. While it's true some will profit from the intellectual properties, I would argue in order to see this side of an entertainment show, one must have the intellectual capacity to do so in the first place.

An "intelligent" person might see an existential moral conflict portrayed brilliantly in something like Breaking Bad, others see a story about Drugs, Tough guys, cool Misfortunes, funny incidents, black humour and they don't notice or derive any moral teachings from it. (I might misrepresent Breaking Bad here to some degree, I have not seen it completely. Could have also named examples like Spirited Away, Watership Down, ... simple cartoons to some, but they are missing the bigger picture.)

That's why shows which rate high among TV Critics and get a lot of viewers, normally appeal to both, those who see the big picture, and those who are appealed to the "superficial" version of it.

Academia does not have to entertain in the same way, but academia will also change radically when it comes to getting a point across. Technology will help incredibly with bringing abstract information to people outside of a specific scientific field.

We humans are not good at Maths, not at all. We humans are good at touching, smelling, visualizing things.

Albert Einstein was one of the most influential physicists in the 20th century, and even though his ideas (at that time) must have seemed incredibly counter-intuitive, it was through thought experiments with a large amount of visualization, that helped him form his theories.

Visuals are so important. And they'll become better and better, and we will be able to do them more effectively and in a whole new way as technology progresses. Think about proper 3D-Virtual Environments, 3D Position Tracking in a room with a VR-Headset. The possibilities we have there.

I remember very clearly when we talked about Retrograde Motion of planets in school. By the time we were finishing sketching it out everybody understood it[1]. In order to understand it, not everybody has to be able to reach the conclusion themselves. Why do planets seem to move backwards / stop and turn around? 30 Seconds of video will explain it to the layman, enough so that he is satisfied with the answer and actually gets it.

Education may progress particularly slowly, but eventually we will reach a completely different form of education and will have incredibly clever ways of getting information across. Academia does not have to primarily entertain, but it should also be able to quickly get the point across, we will get there.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72FrZz_zJFU

Needs bash and gawk, bash you can avoid by changing

cmd = "bash -c 'read -n 1 input; echo $input'"

to

cmd = "saved=$(stty -g); stty raw; var=$(dd bs=1 count=1 2>/dev/null); stty \"$saved\"; echo \"$var\""

all credit to izabera from #bash on freenode

What you in effect just did: "Your experience is anecdotal, so now I tell you that Reliability is not a myth based on my anecdotal experience."

The point he wanted to make is most likely not that all Macs suck all the time, but that Mac does not automatically mean reliable or more reliable than any other OS/system. So while it might not be worse than other systems (I don't want to make a judgement based on the few Macs I had to fix for friends without ever having used them myself), it certainly is no super-reliable saint either.

And my limited first-hand experience agrees with him.

I understand where he is coming from, but I think that there always is a healthy balance. Either you use something or you completely avoid it, that's not a reasonable choice.

For me that actually is a symptom of having some sort of problem. He actually somewhat admits that.

If someone says: "I hadn't had a drink for months and I feel great, I will never drink again." Good for you, honestly, but you know the opposite of total abstinence does not have to be to get drunk until you blackout two times a week. What's wrong with having one beer at a party, a glass of wine to dinner? If you have to drink 10 beers because you can't control yourself, then it seems like you have a problem, though whatever works for you. If the only solution is abstinence, then by all means, do it.

He has a problem in finding a reasonable balance. I am also glad he readily admits that a phone is a symbol of his own stressful life he once had, so he rejects it for that reason mostly.

Now I won't deny that I am in a somewhat different position, since my schedule is not nearly as busy as his, and the metaphor does only work to a certain extent, but I for one tend to not use my mobile phone that often. People know they can reach me if something happens, at least in theory, since they know I don't check it that often.

It's on mute most of the time, and if I don't want to take a call, guess what, I don't. And I mostly communicate with E-Mail too, but I can do that from my phone.

I call people back when I have the time, I also always have it with me, I can enjoy the comfort of any application I want to, but it certainly does not control my life. And with a modern phone you actually can streamline your experience a lot (give your contacts various priorities, some can reach you, some can only during a given time frame and lots of other things you can do). I guess on an old Nokia, you can't do a lot in that area.

You don't need to take a phone call when you don't want to. You will have to deal with people saying "Did you not have your phone with you?" and if the answer is "Well actually, I did" they might get a little bit angry at first, but being available is not something you have to be at all times. People in my circle all know how I stand on this, and I read Telegram Messages and sometimes reply days later, if it's not crucially important. They are used to it, and it's not an issue these days.

So while I sympathize, it's not "being enslaved" versus "being free", there is a healthy middle ground we should aim for. It takes work, adjustment, is not maybe as easy as just throwing your phone away, but it's worth it.

PS: I don't like touch either, my mobile phone has a physical keyboard and I am happy with it.

Saw, clicked, read, ordered.

Why did I never think of this before, it's so obvious, but I never considered this to be an option, and yet I actually have to deal with street noise I find distracting.

Thank you ;)

Better late than never: it's hard to get reliable data on such things, CO2 estimates are probably at least somewhat correct.

The larger point being that you have to take into account how many people live in a country, you can't just compare countries without that.

Interesting list.

One of the biggest issues for me personally is the split effort. There are >300 distributions actively maintained, 300 projects whose sole purpose it is to package the kernel and some userland-stuff to make a usable operating system and provide for update mechanisms. 300 projects who spend resources on creating documentation, websites, giving support to users, ...

And the simple truth is: It does not matter too much which distribution you use, far too much weight is put on that. How much of what you do is distribution-specific? The type of init-system (mostly not important for a Desktop), the update mechanism, packages available, available/supported Desktop Environments / Window Managers, anything I forgot?

Most of the time you are running a browser, editor, terminal, video player, torrent client, openssh, steam, are using some version of python, ruby, perl, php, ... it quite simply does not matter whether you do these things on Fedora, Ubuntu, openSUSE, ArchLinux, Gentoo or FreeBSD.

Linus Torvalds described it in a similar manner once (too lazy to look for the link, but basically something like "I don't care too much about what distribution I use, I mainly work on the kernel anyways")

We are users, as such we use an Operating System in order to use programs.

The fragmentation probably mostly is rooted in the fact that it is quite easy to create your own distribution, and that many out there are head-strong people who are not patient enough to work their way up a command chain (regarding distributions with a democratic structure) or to succumb to what one dictator is saying. And some projects are just boring to work on, for example GUI-stuff or the code-monster Xorg.

I would not want to bundle all 300 distributions into 1, but (and this of course boils down to my opinion) 20 or so would do. It is important to have alternatives, like non-systemd distributions, rolling releases, source-based distributions, et cetera, but 300...

And if the focus is less on having 300+ distributions and more on making 20 or so distributions great, quality would rise without a doubt, not only ease of use, but also support, documentation, et cetera.

btw: Visited this page from Firefox, was greeted by the following:

Reported Web Forgery!

This web page at linuxfonts.narod.ru has been reported as a web forgery and has been blocked based on your security preferences.

Web forgeries are designed to trick you into revealing personal or financial information by imitating sources you may trust.

Entering any information on this web page may result in identity theft or other fraud.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/...

+

China 9,679.30 GHG emissions (MtCO2e)[1], United States 6,668.79 GHG emissions (MtCO2e)[1] - population China ~1.3 billion[2], population United States ~330 million[3]

Do the math!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China

[3] http://www.census.gov/popclock/

New development? Actually they have been doing that probably all around the world for years now.

A friend of mine in Germany also got such a letter once and wrote something back along the lines of "Wasn't me, don't know what you are talking about" and he never heard from them again.

They try to profit from the fear of everyday people who rather pay up front, because they don't want to risk that the case goes to court, no matter how unlikely this might be. And it's even understandable, ordinary folks probably really panic when they see such a letter and all the legal talk and underlying threats that are made.

It's as despicable as patent trolling.

First avoid such a situation:

-) use vpn if possible (check with their policies, whether they allow torrent traffic or maybe they ban it from certain servers, preferably use a provider that does not log)

-) quite simply never download newer material with big companies behind them from public trackers. most of the times these letters regard the newest Hollywood movies, a current album by a big pop star or the newest game everyone has been waiting for, not Taxi Driver, The Godfather Trilogy, Quake 3 or the weird Japanese pop band from the 80s you are into

and if you are in such a situation:

-) consult your lawyer or search on the Internet how to properly respond, do not just pay!