To decrypt things it would appear that bincoins would need to be transferred. So maybe this would be a good way to get paid by Uncle Sam.

Come up with detailed document names about attacks in places like Afghanistan (places we currently have troops in active theaters), and then have the document be an obviously fictional short story (have aliens attack, or maybe sand creatures depending on the locale).

Of course if they crack it, then they don't need to pay.

And even if you get identified by the Feds, it's not like you were defrauding anyone. You were putting up a "secret" document. That it is of no use or value doesn't deny the fact that it was known by few...

ISIS has a lot of US made weapons, procured from Iraq when they took over military bases there.

Granted, we didn't sell directly to ISIS, but we certainly setup the power vacuum that allowed them to obtain them.

So the US "accidentally/inadvertently" let ISIS get US made weapons. It's not like the power vacuum wasn't an obvious outcome when we pulled out of Iraq, but no one thought it would involve such an organized group.

We underestimated the enemy (and started the original war without thinking through the consequences, this stuff was pretty obvious to me over a decade ago, the entire war was one of attrition, just waiting as long as needed for the US to leave).

The smart phone option can be very useful though. We have the Roku app on our phones and it's great to be able to operate it when the remote is lost (which it usually is).

When it gets over $350 million I spend $20 on 10 tries.

I read the article, and it is interesting considering what one's initial expenditures would be.

Of course I don't expect to win, I will check my numbers in the morning.

I have, luckily, had much better performance with roulette, where I stand at about 300% above where I started all told (under $2000 in earnings total). Good times, I like Vegas every few years...

I believe it's considerably different from Siri or OK Google in that the TV is probably always listening (I'm assuming even when turned "off" so it can listen for the command to power up).

They can't do that. The electronics side has only lost money for years (at least $8.5 billion lost over 10 years). I'm not sure if that includes the Playstation brand.

Film and music has brought in about $7 billion in earnings.

And the life insurance arm (that's right, Sony Life) brought in over $9.07 billion in that time. Life insurance represented 63% of their operating profit last year (2012 or 2013, I'm not sure).

So they need to shed electronics completely, it has proven, over a reasonable time period, to be a consistent way to lose money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05...

I was thinking of ways to capture the rarer moments without having to be present. The Grand Canyon full of clouds is pretty rare (I've seen much better photos than the one I posted).

The system would also have to have a configurable way to manage exposure settings when taking a batch of photos. This is accomplished via bracketing features (which would also lend itself to HDR photos).

There's a particular view I have taken thousands of photos at over the years, it's that type of location I'm thinking about.

The Sunsets section here are some of the photos I have taken at this location, which came to mind in this case (Fort Kaskaskia Historic Site in southern Illinois):
http://fortkaskaskia.org/Photo...

This type of analysis would be better for taking pictures rather than analyzing existing ones, and even more so for outdoor photography (landscapes, natural events, etc.).

The best landscape/storm photos are about timing, you have to be there when the awesomeness happens and snap the shot.
Think the Grand Canyon full of clouds:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/d...

Imagine a scenario where you setup a camera at a great view/vista (somehow securely) and leave it there for a while, letting a system decide when to take photos. Program it to capture sunset/sunrise (depending on the camera's orientation) every day, and stormy conditions (it sees lightning and then starts taking shots).

Let it take batches of photos that match some predefined conditions, and then go get the camera to look for the shot(s) that are awesome.

When you monitor everything, you get everything.

I'd be more interested in what they aren't/can't monitor. As would evil people, but I'm not evil. You can take my word for it...

Thank Snowden for revealing the exception you pointed out. I don't recall when news organization ran the budget breakdown.

And somewhere, in a chilly, highly vented room, a Google search server chuckled when presented with the search phrase: "truck nuts buyer gender breakdown".

I would bet real money that Microsoft has already made multiple offers to buy Xamarin. I'm assuming they haven't succeeded because their offers didn't create enough billionaires... When they made the Visual Studio 2015 announcements last year (along with the open source stuff), Xamarin was front and center, obviously the most important external partner at this time.

MS is open sourcing the core .Net Framework (for Linux, Mac OS (and they spoke about iOS, which I'm assuming is different: http://www.extremetech.com/com...), which I don't really understand), which is basically what Mono targets.

This gets the company core access to most of the popular development environments that exist today, adding Linux backend server support and support for the two largest major phone/tablet environments with them in control rather than Mono.

Xamarin will surely support the open Source Microsoft .Net Framework (along side Mono, for a while at least regarding Mono).

During the announcements last year they spoke about Mono have some features they would like to support, and how Mono could use the open source .Net Framework code to improve as well (http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/announcing-open-source-of-net-core-framework-net-core-distribution-for-linux-osx-and-free-visual-studio-community-edition).

I feel that their "support" for Mono is designed to not rock the boat for organizations that have implemented Mono already.

Obviously, moving forward, MS is going to push it's open source .Net Framework for non-Windows platforms. Which is fine, it's open source, so why not?

Microsoft is trying to sell Visual Studio/MSDN licenses, but more importantly, to have the most common framework development goes against. Frankly they are looking to take advantage of how Sun is handling Java (for the love of everything, why is crapware included with Java???). I'm sure they also want to push Mono into the "legacy' category in terms of modern development frameworks.

And Visual Studio is a very nice environment (Xamarin Studio is decent, I couldn't afford the version with Visual Studio integration because my Android development was for personal use). I would love for Microsoft to buy Xamarin, it would then be available free to me via my MSDN Ultimate subscription...

I see two ways it could be sustained.

First, just release more modified insects every year. This makes sense if doing so is cheaper than the medical costs associated with the diseases (except the cost is then borne by another party, but it would be more efficient from an economic perspective if this is the case).

Second, maybe other species of mosquitoes eventually take over the ecosystem niche filled by the one being targeted. I could see this happen over a few years of treatment, basically making them extinct from the local ecosystem.

What's wrong with inane? It's a great word.

I tried submitting a long form submission about dealing with Bennet's crap. It started changing colors pretty fast but then disappeared. Here's what it said:

Submission:

I am sorry this is as long as a Bennett post, I strive to be both clear and concise (with one anecdote).

First, I have to assume Bennett is paid by Dice to write inane postings, and then automatically moved to the front page. I commented on his last submission yesterday: http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , and he even responded asking to be fed (the hidden comment, he likes cheese). He wants the attention.

He appears to basically be an attention whore. I don’t use whore in a derogatory way (for him maybe), but he seems to be on every street corner on Slashdot. In the past I’ve used a Vegas concierge to procure untoward services from a woman for a bachelor party and it was unassuming and not in your face (except in the room of course, thank goodness it didn’t descend into Very Bad Things).

Further, he’s done some respectable things, per his Wikipedia page, regarding First Amendment rights. But all of that is obviously in the past given his propensity to post to Slashdot (and get to the front page a lot, what’s up with that?). It feels like Slashdot is his day job.

I mean him no harm, I just wish that Slashdot was no longer his blog.

He is a scourge upon us, lowering the bar, I fear we may have to have James Cameron dive in his submersible to raise the bar again (South Park reference, great episode).

So how can we deal with this menace? Here are some recommended guidelines.

First, I would recommend many “first post” and “can I subscribe to your newsletter” responses to any Bennett front page article (maybe even “How would a Beowulf Cluster of Bennet handle this”). Do not comment on the submission, just unrelated posts. Post tons of them; thousands if possible (let’s break posting records people!). Let them have the page views, but show how much we care.

As well, when viewing Firehose, check the submitter, and try not to promote his postings.

I will point out that his Wikipedia page actually draws out his success posting to Slashdot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
Quote: Haselton is a frequent contributor to Slashdot, where he posts long-form essays rather than short text summaries of current events, a distinction from other contributors that frequently creates controversy.

Anyway, I would never suggest such things, but I would mention that his Wikipedia entry could be updated, maybe to add that his posts are universally loathed on Slashdot.

There seem to be forces at hand that are actively diminishing the quality of Slashdot. Can we do a “beta” smack down on an obviously corporate promoted Bennett? I think we can, and it can be fun!!!!

And big-ups to dnebing for creating a MoveOn.org petition against his postings, awesome:
http://petitions.moveon.org/si..."