Taken out of context, as it was in the summary, I fully agree that "West Coast" is ambiguous, given the international readership of Slashdot. That's why I made a point of very intentionally establishing context first, by mentioning that it was an LA Times article. I then used an "and" to pair it with the "West Coast" term, indicating that I think you need both to satisfactorily determine the time zone in question, rather than just one or the other.

The article makes it clear that it's PDT, but even without reading the article, the fact that the link is to the LA Times and the summary is talking about the "West Coast" should have been a good indication of the time zone in question.

Oh, absolutely. I'm merely explaining one possible source for the problems. By no means am I suggesting that this is an insurmountable issue.

There are plenty of other ways to cause problems, even if the network is secured.

The more likely problem is that there is simply too much interference from devices providing their own WiFi hotspots. For instance, if enough reporters are carrying 3G hotspots, those will eventually cause problems for both each other and for existing WiFi networks in the vicinity. Something similar actually happened a few years back during an Apple keynote speech, where Steve Jobs had to ask the attendees to turn off their WiFi hotspots so that he could demo some tech on stage. Enough did it that they were eventually able to demo the tech, and it wouldn't surprise me if a similar problem is happening here.

It's true. There was some obscure set of laws that, when put together, allowed him to get away with it because he was constantly procuring a new lease every few months for a new car.

Talk about taking minimalistic approaches a bit too far.

They definitely didn't exploit it. How do I know? Because they said so, so it must be true. Right? They wouldn't lie to us, would they?

How so? From the summary, this sounds like a voluntary action, not a mandatory one. I.e. They are now free to share user details without fear, but they are under no obligation to do so. In the case of patent trolls, there is no reason for them to share details that would incriminate themselves, so why would they voluntarily give up that information?

No, this is simply a tool that bolsters corporations and harms users.

Closing the door is easy. Taking inventory to figure out what was stolen takes a lot longer and could have major repercussions. If the thief made a copy of your keys, client data, or other sensitive information, you need to go through a lot more hassle. Suggesting this is a one-minute fix is horribly misguided, since applying the patch is merely the first step in a series of steps that are absolutely necessary to re-secure your system. Failing to do so would be like closing the door without changing the locks after having your keys copied.

For instance, after applying the patch, you then need to replace your private key since the old one could have been compromised. And doing that means that you need to update your certs as well, that way people have your public key. If you're being responsible, you'll also want to revoke user sessions and prompt your users to change their passwords so that intruders can't pose as them and gain access to private user information. The list of data that could have been compromised goes on and on, and doing a thorough investigation into exactly what data was accessible from a compromised system could take awhile to accomplish and could mean having to go through a significantly more lengthy process to set everything right again.

Regardless of what the issue is about, "his active attempt to limit the rights of others" is a legally protected activity in California. Whether we say it's about his beliefs or his activities is a moot point, since both are legally protected.

I find it interesting that so many people are trying to downplay the chilling precedent that was set here by turning everything into an argument that "he had it comin'", much like you have here. Regardless of whether he deserved it or had valid reasons for believing/acting as he did, far too many people are blindly charging ahead in their zealous fury, without stopping for a moment to recognize that they are doing so at their own peril. After all, same-sex marriage is still widely outlawed across the US (more than half the states amended their constitutions to ban it outright, and several more have laws banning it). The people cheering the demise of this guy's career seem to be blissfully unaware that the same sort of precedent could be turned against them.

Even if they aren't aware of their own peril, however, I'd hope that they would still be aware of just how scary this situation is, since it establishes that $view_we_don't_like can be grounds for forcing someone out, even if the action that they engaged in was a quiet one which they'd have no expectation would attract public attention. We ALL hold to views that are unpopular now or will be unpopular at some time, and I find it terrifying that people are defending what was effectively a lynch mob out to destroy this man and his career.

If the people cheering his demise truly believed this was about fairness, equality, or justice, they'd be going after everyone who donated $1000 to support Prop 8, not just this guy. What they did to him wasn't right, wasn't fair, wasn't just, and wasn't about fighting for equality: it was a massive display of their own failure to take the moral high ground and their own intolerance towards differing views. Sure, it may be hard to take the high ground when the "differing view" doesn't believe you should have any rights, but that's the time that it's MOST important to take the high ground.

I seem to be doing okay with just one remote. It's not even a so-called "universal" remote. Just a cheapo programmable one that came with my AVR.

As I have things configured now, my TV is the only device out in the open in my media room. The rest (aside from whatever game controller I'm using) is tucked away in a closet. Rather than deal with tedious wiring or ugly devices next to my TV, I use one of these, which I cannot recommend highly enough, to get IR signals into the closet where I keep my devices.

As for the remote itself, the only thing I had to do to it was install that little product and look up the code for my brand of TV in the remote's manual so that I could use it to turn the TV on. All other controls (changing inputs, adjusting volume, etc.) are handled via the AVR itself, and the AVR turns on automatically as soon as the TV comes on, thanks to the HDMI cables CEC feature, which took quite a bit of configuring in the AVR's and TV's settings to get working as expected. The Apple TV took awhile to get working too, but once I discovered that the Apple TV itself has a Learn Remote feature that can work with any remote at all, everything clicked in place. As a result, I was able to ditch my Apple TV remote and the Wiimote-like remote that came with my LG "smart" TV in favor of the boring AVR remote that has about 10 buttons I actually need to know.

See how easy that was to get three devices working? You just need to understand how to program a remote, program an Apple TV, configure multiple devices to use CEC, and hook everything up correctly. I'm sure any layman at all could do the same in a few minutes.

(in case it's not obvious yet, I agree with your point)

I'm always interested with people who make such claims. I don't doubt that people can do things such as what you're talking about, but having worked with audio for a number of years, I've always found that the number who can conclusively pass ABX tests successfully is much lower than the number of people who think they can.

Have you tried any blind tests?

Glad you linked this, since I was about to do the same. It's a bit disingenuous of the summary to point out other Boston Dynamics programs and then implicitly suggest that this new robot is something different, rather than putting the two up against each other. PETMAN has been around for quite awhile, since I recall linking to it a couple of months back when iRobot's CEO (the company that makes Roomba) made some comments about bipedal robotics being a bad idea.

If you had quoted just one more sentence, you'd have seen that I said it wouldn't work for gas stations.

IANAEE (I am not an Electrical Engineer), but couldn't you just locate some capacitors close to the charging location? Charge them up slowly over time, then quickly discharge them when a car needs juice, that way you're not putting the load on the grid all at once. It probably wouldn't work if you were to set them up like gas/petrol stations, since you wouldn't have much time between discharges to recharge the capacitors, but for home use, it seems (to someone such as myself who knows next to nothing on the subject and is quite open to being corrected) like it might be feasible.

Exactly. This isn't a "would have been" that failed because of NSA involvement. This is a "would not have been" that failed all on its own. The NSA had some confidential tools at its disposal that may have been able to salvage the idea, but them not sharing their tools is hardly a reason for us to be shaking our fists and saying "it would have worked if not for them". It's like blaming a toll road for your late arrival after choosing to take public streets instead of the toll road. It makes no sense.