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Comment Re:Why such crap? (Score 1) 263

yes, a netbook running a locked down version of linux, with NO update ability, signed binaries and (to be even more sure) put the os in ROM. require some kind of key to do any writes at all to it. have dual sections of rom for redundancy and crc check them; if one is bad, switch to the other.

OK, lets pretend that exact configuration is used.

Now the airline manually signs and offline installs the updated manuals, resulting in the same exact breakage you see here, and in the same situation.

Your solution just resulted in the grounding of the aircraft.
Except your solution will take much much longer to install the fixed data back.

The only real difference is now it is you personally and Linux that will unfairly and incorrectly get the blame instead of Apple.

Comment Re:Why such crap? (Score 1) 263

Why would anyone use cheap crap such as an iPad in a professional passenger airplane? How stupid is that?

For the same reason, and just as stupid, as using any other tablet such as Android or Surface, or even the original paper books.

In other words, your solution (which ever one it may be) has the exact same problem as iPad, so is a broken stupid solution.

Yes even paper. If I ripped the pages out of the paper manual and replaced them with chewing gum and hardcore porn (aka a fight club styled update), the situation would remain the same and the plane just as grounded as now.

Either beef up your trollskill some, or learn how to computer. You failed miserably at both.

Comment Re:Cool world (Score 4, Informative) 216

This instantly reminded me of an 80's movie called Runaway with Tom Selleck, who is a part of a special task force to hunt down and destroy malfunctioning "runaway" robots.

Their handguns could lock on a target and program the bullets just before firing to stay on their target, although they looked more like miniature rocket based missiles with their own tiny engines and guidance fins.

I remember a number of the larger scenes giving a bullet-point-of-view type thing as the target goes running away and try to evade the shots by going around corners and obstacles, even purposely missing other people, before embedding into their target and exploding.

http://xirdalium.net/2012/02/1...

The above link has a picture of the bullet from this movie, and even goes on about a real prototype from Sandia National Laboratories back in 2012

https://share.sandia.gov/news/...

I wonder how much these two groups worked together on these.

Comment Re:TIL (Score 1) 124

Personally I do consider both examples before as portables.

But the only other comparison would be to non-portables, which was most everything else available at the time.

I would say both my PC Jr and AT&T 4400 were pretty small and light compared to most micro-computers before that. But either of those was still three trips to the car, or five trips total for both by putting all the cables and such in a box together.

The Compaq portable was a single trip, as was my first //c with LCD.

Most older micro's, even the ones called "small", required moving equipment and multiple people.

Comment Re:TIL (Score 3, Insightful) 124

The Apple //c was only 7.5 pounds, which is FAR more portable than the original Compaq portable which was 28 pounds.

I believe the term you are claiming this isn't would be "laptop".
But for the time these were as portable as you got.

You didn't need packaging material due to the slightest shock breaking something, they could be disconnected and moved by a single person without any safety registrations (usually requiring one to lift at least 50 pounds), and could be transported as a single unit.

Of course adding extra peripherals limits that portability - just like now - but the most common hardware was built in and self contained.

The only big downside for portability the Apple //c had was that the display was an option, and you could choose between the attachable LCD or an external black and white (well, green) CRT that was much cheaper. The CRT was not very portable, although I remember being able to carry it by the built in handle as a child, but it was just as fragile as any other CRT at the time.

Comment Seems to be OK all around then (Score 5, Insightful) 616

The legislation prompted a roiling debate in Sacramento, and last week hundreds of people protested at the Capitol, arguing that it infringed on their rights and that it would unfairly shut their children out of schools

For the moment let's set aside fair vs unfair, and just take their claim at face value. This action is unfair for the purpose of argument.

That said... I fail to see what exactly their problem or complaint actually is.

This small group of people are arguing for the legal right to unfairly engage in germ warfare while attempting to murder other school children and even some adults. The argument is this is perfectly acceptable and should be a protected right.

So with that, these people clearly have NO problems with unfair choices being forced on everyone else, as that is the legal right they are demanding.

So why complain when they get their wish, and we "unfairly" shut their children out of school?

If they have no moral or even legal issues with (their) unfair choices being forced on people (us), why do they complain why the court states there is no moral or legal issues with (our) unfair choices being forced on people (them)?

It has already been established that unfairly infecting other children at school is not only acceptable but should be a legal right, so clearly it is also both acceptable and should be a legal right to unfairly kick their children out of school, exactly as these parents are marching at the capitol to demand.

Obviously the correct answer is that the hypocrisy is strong in these people - it just still somehow amazes me to this day such people don't realize that hypocrites are exactly what they are being.

Comment Re:Seems fair (Score 1) 108

I just keep adding these low-value (as in, user content) TLDs to blacklists, particularly for email. I'm sure I'm not the only sysadmin doing that

You are not the only one taking such a stance, however a couple years ago it became clear that a whitelist method will be far easier, quicker, and softer/fuzzier to your sanity.

There are currently 1300 active english gTLDs added and active in the past 16 months alone.
There are over 7000 unicode gTLDs for other languages and alphabets.
There is no end in sight for those numbers to stop rising.

http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/delegated-strings
http://money.cnn.com/infographic/technology/new-gtld-list/

Here at work I whitelist the following: .?? (aka two letter ccTLDs - though not really a safe assumption any longer) .com .net .org .edu .gov .mil .int .arpa - and for now .info

Be aware that along with .info were a few other restricted gTLDs in the initial batch that may be safe: .info .biz .name
(and I think .pro was restricted too, but I've never seen it used nor been asked to whitelist it here)

Ones I do not allow here, but others should be aware were in the same second-gen gTLD batch are: .pro .bank .aero .museum .mobi .post

Anything else came in the third-generation batch and should be blocked/ignored if you don't do international business (and in most cases, even if you do)

YMMV

Comment Re:ad blocker? (Score 1) 358

And what gives you the prerogative to be the freeloader? Obviously not everyone can be.

1) I just made $1500 in donations this month to my favorite four video streamers, with a fifth scheduled in a couple weeks (the one without paypal in another country, so takes a bit longer than normal)

I'm quite interested in your personal definition of "freeloader" if that is what you call me for blocking ads yet ensuring money lands in the pockets of the content creators I wish to continue creating content.

2) I have the same prerogative to be a "freeloader" as you have the prerogative to be a "script-kiddie hacker."

Stop trying to repeatedly infect my computers via flash exploits delivered over your ads and we'll talk about me not blocking them.

Until then, just remember that the unauthorized access to a computer act you perform is a very serious criminal act compared to the non-crime of blocking your ads that I do.

Comment Re:Ah yes... (Score 1) 187

Way back when I was in my teens, I would always add 10 to my real age and so subtract 10 from my real birth year.
Makes it real easy to remember the lie and be able to make match even years later.

Of course when I was 15 the web wasn't yet a year old and we still got our 8-bit gif porn from FTP that didn't/couldn't age check, but for BBS profiles it worked great.

Never came up against such a validation myself however, at least not that I ever noticed. But I'm just a bit surprised this is my first time hearing of such validation in practice.

At least the site/service you use doesn't require a credit card to "prove" age.

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