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Comment Well DUH.... (Score 1) 81

Well DUH....

All the more reason to bug Micro$oft to fix bugs.
As the single largest vector of system infections Micro$oft
seem to be playing loosie goosie and we are all at risk for it.

Fix them bugs ladies and gents.

The astounding bit is the astounding parade of tuesday patches
mostly the bugs are stupid blunder but not all.

At this point all the TLAs and near and far nations and corporations
have copies of WindowZ and it is a simple race to find exploit or find
and plug. For microsoft to take 90+ days to fix a known and verified bug
seems like a lot of time. Given the cash flow to management there is
clearly a mismatch to the talent I know to be there.

All the players need to get it together and focus on stability and correctness.
Yes you too Linus...

N.B. It is clearly time to jailbreak any phone that the seller fails to update.
When network operators like AT&T blocks hardware vendors like Samsung
from issuing patches BY CONTRACT we have a problem. OK I am feeling
a bit Samstung but they are not alone. PS how hard is it to engineer in a bigger
battery so I can get 36 hours of life from the thing... That is not software, that
is not very much in the way of a case adjustment. I would be happy with
a phone the size of a box of Marlboros. BTW Darrell was a nice guy.

Comment Re:No evidence (Score 1) 263

"Microsoft says there's no evidence these flaws haven't been successfully exploited."
FTFY.

Anyone that runs a web server or other interactive device on the internet and also looks at their logs knows that
the list of exploited flaws in all types of systems is best enumerated by counting on both fingers and toes in binary.
The data that flows past a company like Google is astounding.
Mostly we hear about some engineer discovering a bug by inspecting
code. What we do not often hear is the cases where honeypots watched
by "G" or "deep web exploration" discovers who, what, how and where...
We also do not see disclosures where a TLA agency sends a confidential
email to an engineer at a security company that then files the bug.

N.B. the banner that Google pops up and announces that this site is a risky
place to go and that it has been found to serve up malware and other
bad code.

This is a big problem and perhaps the #1 external issue of any web based
company. Especially one that is constantly under attack from all the corners of the
globe.

I happen to have grown fondish of some of the windows only application tools.
That list of applications grows despite my personal preference of a _nix OS.
I always ask the vendor for non-Windows tools....

Given the quality of engineers I personally know that work at MS I can only
assume that there is an astounding failure by management to improve the
product and its foundations.

Comment If justified the police department... (Score 1) 784

If this is justified the police department needs to
be sacked.

Just living in a neighborhood where a ten year old and younger sibling
cannot take a 20 min walk is scary to the extreme and tells me that
"protective" services are in order and that these parents qualify for
a concealed carry permit to supplement an open carry of a 12-Gauge
shotgun.

Comment Half the funk and wag (Score 1) 894

A friend in a politically correct company has
noted that half the dictionary is now off limits.

Sadly you cannot even have a single dictionary because
one of them has a bright red cover.

After lining up some 20 different dictionaries it was noted that fucha was under represented
and now that adjective is in the endangered list. Rose colored glasses are verboten...

Comment Re:why start after the fact? (Score 1) 219

After the fact is well past the circumstances of the situation.
At issue in almost all cases is the context and provocation.

Body cameras should trigger as soon as the officer leaves his vehicle.
Vehicles should have a continuous data stream in 360 degrees and
the vehicle data needs to be archived in the vehicle and also sent
as a stream to a safe archive. Interruption of the feed is likely as we
often see on live news spots but there is no reason the live cannot be
refreshed and or VALIDATED from a vehicle retaining a 100% precise full
record (cross validation of both is very possible).

The capacity and reliability of fast Flash memory removes historic concerns
about capacity in a portable device. In addition the vehicle location GPS+inerta
speed acceleration can be logged. Acceleration, seatbelt latch and unlatch, lights
and sirens can also trigger a variety of logging and notification events.

The critical issue is that the data be tamper proof by the officer and can be
downloaded and archived non destructively by others. i.e by supervisors and other
investigators arriving late to document the site. Multiple copies minimizes tamper risk.

A lot of this depends on products being available but cost and functionality are very
possible. Vehicles are not power constrained so it makes sense to anchor
a lot of features there.

Power and charging via breakaway clips removes dead battery mumble foo excuses.

Comment Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases (Score 1) 1051

The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

So you should want everyone else to get it. While hypersensitivity to a vaccine is rare, it does happen and is a valid reason to get get vaccines. But if everyone else does, you are still protected. (Herd immunity) Or, keep your tinfoil hat on and continue denigrating people who have 12 years more training than you do in exactly this. Darwin works, and you will solve yourself soon enough.

How do we know that it was the vaccine that nearly killed one quote above..

Hypersensitivity to one item is rare but to all the things in life a lot less rare.
How do we as readers eliminate the possibility that this was not hyper sensitivity to peanut butter
or other common trigger.

I would offer those that fear hypersensitivity that a subcutaneous bubble/ blister or tine test could
be developed to screen for this risk. Perhaps it should be. Those with allergies know the chess
board grid on their back screening method. Also an epi pen could be sealed in a container
and used if needed. Because it is sealed it could be reissued after resealing a couple weeks later.
The darn things have gotten expensive... (for crazy patent reasons).

Comment Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases (Score 1) 1051

Mercury containing preservatives are used in some flu shots.

HOWEVER all those that point to this as a problem talk about %% or ppb
numbers in the product.

The ones that flabbergast me most are the ones that fail to translate the %%
into total body burden. They fail to compute the mercury from a years
supply of tuna fish sandwiches and compare it to the 1 cc of vaccine.

Mercury is multivalent and has very different body activity depending
the compound and chemistry of the compound. Mercury is nasty as
heck but the lack of specifics in measurement si troubling.

Lead in brass is one such troubling topic. If you open the tap, reach for
a glass and fill it it is unlikely that any lead could be measured. However if
the fixture has the brass brushed with a wire brush and then water is
allowed to stand for a week it might be easy to measure with modern tools.

Some modern legal enforced health levels have no health data to support them.
However with each instrumentation improvement the legal levels are reduced
to match these new instrumentation capabilities. Many of these "legal" levels
are matters of regulation and are revised by a bureaucrat with questionable
loyalties, qualifications and motives. The answers to these questions may
vindicate the action but need to be asked and documented.

It is possible in some of this that we are seeing the correct answer for the wrong
answer. A process that enables this is troubling and risks greater wrongs....

Comment Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases (Score 1) 1051

You should read the Texas curriculum standards and textbook reviews. It would be an education about "education".

Err... no do not waste your time ....

Unless you are of a mind to address the foolishness....

I was lucky -- I had a science teacher that taught us about the Hollow Earth
and what might be hidden in it and what it might look like.

In part this class taught critical thinking.

One contrary force is the problem of standards testing.
If the question pool is so large then nothing else can be taught
then we degenerate into dogma or repetition of dogma.
The Baltimore Catechism comes to mind....

If the question pool is too small, we risk too many 100% 'ers.
The 100%ers are then in a position to challenge the foolishness
of the test pool and pool answers and those in power seem to
be in fear of this.

Pay attention to the school system...
Pay attention to the notion of zero tolerance in schools
as it has morphed into a form of intolerance. The justice
system in schools establishes the expectations of our children
and when justice is corrupt we risk teaching despair.

Comment Authors know this (Score 1) 567

Authors know this.
That is why all content looks wrong.

Content authors of all kinds seem to have better
and more displays than their customers. Fonts
are too small, page layout is all wrong, page breaks
are all wrong.

Phones that rotate make authors that care confused....
CSS always pulls in crud that has a different style view
of the end page result than all the other CSS authors.

Comment Re:How is this good? (Score 1) 172

One of the most nasty things a disease can do is to slowly replicate without causing symptoms. These long incubation periods are why Ebola, Tuberculosis, and Rabies are so dangerous. ......snip....

It is necessary to add some measures of infection and transmission (transmissibility). If a person is infectious for a long period
with no or difficult to detect symptoms the world has a massive problem if the end result is kin to the final week or two of a hemorrhagic
fever like Ebola.

Transmissibility i.e. the evolutions of a virus ability to infect others is missing in the original article.
A virus could become benign OR it could combine the long incubation of HIV and Ebola but acquire the
rapid transmissibility of influenza and run wild across the globe reducing the population by +80%.
The 80% is a personal SWAG that assumes the collapse of health care that today gives Ebola victims
a fighting chance.

Another risk is for a very infectious hemorrhagic fever class virus to emerge and attack livestock, poultry,
fish and swine. Oceanic fish infections scare me.... Any of these might cause global or regional famine
and global or regional conflict.

Comment Re:Then again, maybe it _is_ good news. (Score 1) 172

From TFA: "Some virologists suggest the virus may eventually become "almost harmless" as it continues to evolve."

Yes, I realize the the article says "Some" and "almost" but still I'd rather it be like dealing with a common cold than a full shutdown of my immune system.

"May" and "almost harmless" not in my lifetime.

Ask any person that suffers shingles, virus populations in West Africa may evolve a less lethal
variety of Ebola... but I am not going to bet on it. Singles hides in nerve tissue and can attack
60 years after infection..... that is like three generations.

At best we might see a Cowpox/Smallpox pair but as world history shows Cowpox does
not visit a population far and wide enough to make Smallpox go away. Smallpox is still
a global risk. The fact that we have "eradicated it" means that most will not get immunized
at all today.. unlike my generation where I was immunized at least three times gives me
pause. The risk of smallpox escaping from immunization manufacturing scares the industry
so much that they are unwilling to be in the business.

The only hope for people with regard to HIV & Ebola consists of social changes
an if we are lucky immunizations. Condoms, monogamy will help with HIV.
Major religious changes that eliminate the very dangerous funeral practices combined
with better sanitation, cooking practices and aggressive health care mobilization
by a trusting population are needed for Ebola.

But not in a lifetime....

Comment Re:No more broken iPhones.. (Score 1) 203

They're so cheap, it's better to replace them?

No broken is broken.
If you want to replace one that is all well and good.
I have found that the the old phone makes a handy media
player. With Chromecast and youtube, netflix or whatever a
little phone can be happy serving up music or streaming video
via WiFi.

But broken is broken... not good for anything worth doing.

Oh and BTW this second life is the biggest reason all my
phones must have a replaceable battery. AND on the sad
day that a phone goes swimming or a run through the laundry
a short visit to the phone store I can activate the old one. I
can get a prepaid SIM for travel where roaming plans or message
rates go nuts. Because it is a novel number I get little or
no "hey good buddy" expensive ill timed calls from many time zones
away.

Comment No Instruction restart, No MMU... (Score 1) 147

Not an interesting project.
the MC68000 has no way to restart an instruction and no MMU.
Both of these are critical to running a Linux kernel today!
You could emulate a 68000 on a Beaglebone Black and have
it run faster.

*nix like OS have been built and run on a 68000 Idris is one
historic port of Unix. Little or no protection to keep processes
from running over memory and I/O and doing bad things but a
worthy *nix all in all for its day.

Step up a little to the MC68010 add an external TLB/MMU built
from modest size fast static RAM and Bob's yer Uncle... A
68010 does have the ability to restart instructions so you can recover
from a page fault. An external TLB/MMU is easy and designs
abound in 25+ year old paper documents.

When you are done a Raspberry-Pi or Beaglebone Black will still
run circles around it.

If you want to have fun build yourself a machine like the "magic 1"
and you will learn what all the buzz be about.

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