HN user

sandworm

543 karma
Posts1
Comments169
View on HN

Give them a couple years. After a few more "government is bad" TV spots, and under a republican president, they will try again. Whether they merge today or then doesn't really matter.

They are effectively merged already. They stay away from each other, treating customers like each other's property, and offer comparable services at comparable prices. They aren't in any real competition with each other. I'm not saying that they should merge. Rather, I'm saying that them not merging isn't a quick fix of the underlying issue. Americans need actual choice of providers within a given technology.

Give them some credit. By this they are acknowledging the concept of a proxy. Compared to most, this request does a reasonable job of describing what they have and what they want efficiently. They aren't asking for everyone connected at the time. They aren't asking for 'any and all' records. They are asking for one connection record and are providing reasonable information on their end to facilitate. The diagram is a reasonable and, considering the source, a novel means of conveying the vital data.

The fact that the connection record doesn't exist, or if it does would be virtually useless, should not take away from the reasonableness of the request. "We don't have such records" is a legitimate response.

They know about Tor. Five years ago it was magic to most cops and all prosecutors. Today they have been educated, to some extent by people like me. They acknowledge that the exit node is a proxy. In years past they would have tried sending cops to the door to seize the server, or at least make some allegations.

That's why I do not think that they expect any results here. They expect nothing. They need nothing. They need a non-response to take things to the next step. That step is probably political. They want the bullet point about why criminals are getting away due to VPNs, Tor and other online nasties.

Well I probably should have said "necessary reading abilities to acquire topics through available means."

They are capable of understanding the topics. They have problems with sitting down and learning the topic through reading vast amounts of text. It is all well and good to have professors or search engines boil things down to bullet points for easy absorption, but some topics (law, literature, medicine, physics, religion, history) require the reading of original text. That text could be 100 years old and cover hundreds of pages. Understanding it sufficiently to discuss and debate with others means spending hours, days, doing nothing but reading. No cooperation, no building teams, just you and a book/screen. The students I see, products of modern highschools, lack that skill.

I don't teach reading. I teach adults in years 3/4 of a 4-year degree program. They are all literate. That have issues when confronted with large amounts of "dry" text.

Finland wants to move towards skill-based rather than fact-based learning. They want students who know how to find and organize information rather than those who simply know facts. I'm saying that the oldschool skills of reading and remembering apparently useless facts is important. It gives you the necessary reading abilities to handle topics beyond highschool.

That really brings back memories. That sound means all the phonecalls, parking and standing line is over and you get to actually watch a movie as it was meant to be seen.

The engineering of the "noise" also had a practical purpose. It sweeps by most every frequency, including the entire vocal range. So it was impossible to continue any conversation without noticing that the movie was about to start. The seconds after that sound were always the most quiet of the entire evening.

As someone who teaches young adults (part time, local college) I find this approach unsettling. Being able to work in groups and bounce between topics is all well and good, but I'm running into adults who have trouble reading. I don't mean people with learning troubles. I mean functional, intelligent, adults who cannot get through more than a dozen pages without lapsing into a fog.

When I was at school we were forced to read. Not exercises. Books. Entire books. Not over months. Days. The ability to sit down and focus on a topic for hours is a skill that should not be forgotten.

From the OP:"...easily discoverable knowledge makes classic school subjects seem archaic, slow-paced and inapplicable to daily life."

No it doesn't. It makes them seem all the more important.

How much water should California spend on golf lessons for children? Or outdoor swimming pools in which nobody every swims?

I can think of much greater wastes of water than trying to save an endangered species. If nothing else it allows one river to continue being an actual river for another year. Come what may, the farmers will still be physically alive next year.

Chapter 01: The linux Foundation

Chapter 02: Linux Philosophy and Concepts

Yup, another linux course that starts with a lesson in IP law. "Windows for dummies" doesn't start with an hour on Microsoft's corporate structure. It's software. The students want to learn how to use it properly. So teach that first. Leave the politics of f/oss for after they are already addicted.

I've seen more than a couple of these courses use the first lessons as a "it's free, so expect rough edges" speech. Again, Windows courses never start by explaining why it might have bugs. Linux works. Linux works well. You don't need to open with excuses.

Adblockers do not block ads. They block BANNER ads.

If advertisers want to pitched their products, they should contract with websites for that website to display a relevant, clickable, ad hosted by the website. Such schemes are no different than buying space to paint a poster on a stadium wall. And as adblockers only target ads delivered by third parties, such displays will go untouched.

(Yes, i know adblock allows ad hoc image blocking, but the user will see the ad and must choose to block it every time it is updated.)

Advertisers than want to buy open-ended ad space on websites, that want to display different ads depending on who views the space, who want to track users to better target ads, who want to use "ads" as a Trojan horse for installing tracking cookies ... they can all rot alongside the good people from "windows technical service department" who called me at 4am this morning.

Truecrypt report 11 years ago

Frankly, I have to dismiss this report. As Truecrypt is cross-platform and this report evaluates Truecrypt only under windows, this is at best 33% of a report. A fault in the linux/mac implementations could result failings in the windows version. For example, if the mac version has issues with RNGs, volumes created on mac could be week even when mounted and used on windows machines years later.

"Linux" only appears once in the report, and then only in a footnote.

DPRK attacks film studio = sanctions, counterattack, TO WAR!

China attacks Github = nothing, silence, heads kept in sand.

The attack itself is irrelevant. The scale of response is only related, inversely related, to the political size of the attackers. Small countries and individuals are to be punished. Large countries holding billions of US debt are to be forgiven. The extent of damage done doesn't enter into the equation.

That would be true if there was a "water rights law". The problem is that there is no single law. Water rights are tied to real property law, especially when farming is involved. The American legal tradition, as adopted from the brits, places the property owner as a king on his land. It has great trouble allowing others, non-landowners, to tell that king what he can and cannot do with his land.

There are limits to the governor's powers here. Much of the agricultural water comes from "rights" or easements attached to specific land. Ownership of farm X comes with the right to water from river Y. This is the "free" water often mentioned in news reports. Any reduction in these rights is viewed as a legal "taking" or condemnation of a property right by the state. Lawsuits for compensation will result. And they will likely win. That is why the order avoids mention of agricultural uses.

Least skilled at skills western employers do not care about.

I totally disagree that literacy and problem solving are what employers look for today. Maybe in the 80s. Today it's about non-written communication and teamwork skills. In short: Networking. The ability to write a good memo doesn't enter into things because in today's climate information only flows top-down. Does anyone believe that Starbucks passed the #RaceTogether idea past even a single barista? A single store manager? Entry-level employees don't express ideas through writing. That's for management.

Evidence from local governments trying to help: http://www.careers.govt.nz/plan-your-career/not-sure-what-to...

(1) communication skills

(2) customer service skills – in person, on the phone, and online

(3) ability to work well in a team

(4) literacy and numeracy skills FORTH!

http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/top-ten-skills.htm (Commentary by me)

1. Verbal Communication. ("Here!")

2. Teamwork. (doesn't punch people)

3. Work confidently within a group. (not afraid of being punched by others)

4. Commercial Awareness. (doesn't click phishing links)

5. Analyzing & Investigating. (doesn't bother the boss with questions)

6. Initiative / Sell--Motivation. (can work unsupervised)

7. Written communication SEVENTH!

[dead] 11 years ago

I hope that is the case, but I've seen far too many of these articles written by native english speakers. I've graded papers by university students (year three!) that were far worse than this article.

It will take months, years, decades to scan each cask. They are basically doing a cat scan of a large object using natural muons, cosmic rays.

There aren't very many rays at the earth's surface. A cat scan will use millions, billions of particles to form an image. The flux of cosmic rays for this scanning method will be on the order of one or two rays per liter of object per second. Building up any image will, at that rate, take a loooong time.

These nuclear casks are probably the only targets willing stand still long enough. Scanning something small, like a lead safe, might take literally centuries.

I don't have the equipment to track or photograph them, but I do follow these guys. It's fun to look up and see a multi-billion dollar "classified" object whipping by. Some of them (lacrosse) are almost recognizable with the naked eye. They have specific colours.

A bit nerdy, but being able to accurately predict a 'shooting star' can be a great party trick.

http://www.heavens-above.com/

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Pedestrians are not automatically to blame in every case. Today we have rules governing the movements of both pedestrians and cars. There is no default winner. Pedestrians win on crosswalks and such, but not in the middle of highways. And even there the car is no clear winner. For instance, if both driver and pedestrian have earbuds in, society today would say the driver is the more reckless. In fact most jurisdictions specifically forbid headphones on drivers. None that I know of forbid them of pedestrians.

And 500$ is certainly not the maximum punishment. Vehicular homicide, negligence causing death, reckless endangerment, DUI ... even basic speeding tickets in many jurisdictions are far higher than 500$.

He is correct. He is saying that a gram of fuel doesn't have enough energy to get itself into orbit. That is a true statement. But he ignores the fact that rockets spend many many grams of fuel to get a gram of non-fuel into orbit.

It isn't just how they die. Similar articles could be written on "How doctors loose weight", "How doctors pick their doctors" or "What do doctors do when their kids are sick". Insider knowledge and the education to effectively employ that knowledge always has advantages.

I do take issue with the concept that these docs are dieing "without treatment". They get treatment. They are diagnosed (a big deal) and have ready access to a host of pain management drugs. Having a full understanding of your condition, along with the knowledge that any pain can and will be managed very quickly, is a massive stress reduction. That's a form of treatment imho.

I wonder whether they put as much information into the patches as the US military does. For instance, many programs operating out of a certain base incorporate some variation of the number 51 into their patches. Patches for space launch have even been known to leak classified information. But the badges in the OP seem far less creative.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-...

Example "51" badge: http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/04images/Patches/0...

The real trick isn't that they get people to buy expensive rocks. The real trick is that they convinced so many of us to rebury them. Cemeteries are most certainly the richest untapped diamond fields in existence.

Imho this might be an orbital adjustment tool.

The thing has solar panels and is in a low orbit. So those panels are a significant source of drag. Normally this is a problem, but perhaps they are using this drag to adjust the orbit. I'm not talking plane change. I mean controlling the amount of drag to adjust orbital speed/altitude/period.

Even with all their extra fuel, spy sats do not make plane changes. A significant change would require hundreds of m/s and they have, at best, 1000m/s for their lifetime. (Xenon is power-hungry/tricky/slow and therefore not suitable for quick plane changes). These are multi-billion dollar assets with lifetimes measured in decades. You aren't going to spend 100m/s and shorten the lifetime of the asset by years, effectively spending a billion or more, on a plane change.

What they might do is adjust the timing of flyovers by controlled changes to orbital periods. Rotating solar panels, a significant source of drag and reflection, could give some control. Such a maneuver would probably be done at the lowest point in the orbit (highest drag) and could explain the quick and apparently random change in reflectivity.

The test for my theory: Does this disappearing trick happen more often at the low point of the orbit? (If you call that the periapsis we know you spend weekends on Duna.)

So what happens in a power failure?

I can see the need and advantage of a system to make sure that only the appropriate doors open at certain stations, but surely this could have been done with information at the local level. Barcodes, NFC, RFID ... to go with sats hundreds of miles in the sky augmented by repeaters is overly complex.

Passengers are not cattle. I don't see why they cannot have local door control when the train is stopped for more than 5/10/15 minutes. The risk of death by idiot openign wrong door surely is less than the risk of death by fire/poison gas/axe murderer, all of which have happened on trains.

Rare is a difficult term to nail down. I was taken aback by the statement that he had only seen two cases over 23 years.

To think of how not-rare it is, think of all the heterosexual child abuse that goes on within families. Child abuse is not considered rare. But how many of those abuses might result in pregnancies? Any doctor who deals regularly with young people, specifically young girls who might be pregnant, sees this regularly if they care to look. The pregnant teenager whose boyfriend "isn't around anymore" is a non-rare situation. Some subset of those are pregnant by their fathers/brothers. The problem is that asking, or performing tests that might identify the true father, may do more harm than good. So doctors don't push the matter. That doesn't mean they do not suspect what's going on.

What do you say to a girl pregnant by her brother? Termination is not a great option, the kid may well be healthy. Reporting the abuse, breaking up the household, isn't going to help either. From the doctor's perspective there isn't much they can do.