Umm... you could just not let Flash play. That's easier than using an automated method designed to avoid bad behavior in a Turing Complete language autorun natively.

That assumes you don't want said flash running anyways.

There is just as much chance it happens while running flash just like it does on HTML5.

So I'm running Flash because I want to watch a video (or play a flash game, or download a file) and one of these annoying won't-go-away ads show up (which because it's flash, has a nice tendency to bypass plugins that block ads and crap).

With flash, it's all or nothing - if a flash thing wants to show an ad and force you to see it, there's nothing you can do about it other than close the webpage. If it was done in HTML5, then just that bit can be blocked while still getting full functionality.

Keep in mind Chrome had this .... then advertisers disabled it :-(

I tried a system without adblock and it was astounding what these guys do these days. Website redirects, 15 second commercials you can't close, etc.

My fear is as flash dies HTML 5 will make blocking this harder if they can hack and disable muting

Then you switch to a browser that lets you do that. That's the cool thing with HTML5 - if one vendor refuses to make their browser work for you, you move on. Whereas if it was flash, then they all are broken in the same way.

I went across a website that did that - it did popups and alertboxes and played a sound. And the alertbox was triggered on closing, making it nigh impossible to close the window. Then I noticed a "suppress further alerts" checkbox, which made it simple to close the tab.

Do it in flash and the only way is to kill the process.

It's not just his uncanny command of the dictionary (or dictionaries!) that makes Nigel a champion. He has an incredibly calm demeanor across the board. He is unflappable, regardless of tile draws or opponent's plays. The ability to focus on the next play and the strategic situation, without distraction, is critical to winning in a long tournament.

Actually, I think in a scrabble competition, they don't rely on luck of the draw - the video basically showed all the competitors with a set of tiles pre-arranged on a rack (presumably in a fixed order), a scrabble board, and a scoring pad. Each competitor takes tiles from the rack, in order, then places them on the board and scoring himself.

There's no competitor, and no random drawing - this is to eliminate "luck" from the actual competition so it's down to skill. Not sure if they can peek at upcoming tiles for strategy.

But it's a pure skill based competition - every presumably gets the same tiles in the same order, and they play the tiles as how they wish per the rules. There's no luck element, so you can't blame bad tiles for your loss. It's down to you, your current rack of tiles, and your ability to plan ahead to score the letter/word bonuses. And your ability to form words. There may be a time limit as well.

Apparently, Words with Friends changes the scoring of some letters to make it more exciting, so WwF is not a pure Scrabble clone. And because the bonuses are different and scoring is different, a good scrabble player is not necessarily a good WwF player because the strategies involving bonuses and word positions and value are different.

If only there were some type of a device that could provide unlimited communication wirelessly over a large area with only a small initial investment...

The investment is not small, actually.

First, you can make use of FRS and other systems that are license-free, but limited in range and well, public and subject to interference from other users.

If you want your own system (e.g., private frequencies to avoid interference, or use encryption, etc), you'll have to apply for a commercial band allocation, pay the license fee for the frequencies, then buy a whole set of radios and have them tuned to your allocation. Oh yeah, you have to have your allocation renewed.

But doing so lets you set up repeater networks so you can get better coverage of your campus.

Doing this, is not a small investment (commercial radios aren't cheap, frequencies aren't cheap, repeaters and installation aren't cheap). So depending on the need, you might not want to make the investment. It may be cheaper to actually use a cellphone and pay for service, which also saves the hassle of battery chargers for the radios, battery banks for charging them en masse, etc, especially if it's only a few people. Plus, the person needing to reach the mobile user just has to a regular phone, he doesn't have to find a radio (which is surprisingly hard if someone is out and about, and the other guy is in a regular office).

The Chinese did not have electricity nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity.

The "science" of acupuncture is not sticking needles in the body, it's sticking needles in the body and stimulating them. Traditionally, it was done by sticking the needles in your body and then using a candle to heat the needle.

More modern acupuncture uses needles with a bit of flammable material opposite the pointy end - the needle Is inserted into the body, and the material lit, which channels the heat to the point.

Electro-acupuncture stimulates using electricity, using probes connected to the needles.

Acupuncture is about the stimulation, not just the jabbing of needles.

Plus another problem is that this is one "accupuncture pressure point". IIRC, there are scores, if not hundreds of the bastard things on a human body.

This study proves accupuncture is valid about as much as the fact that pork can transfer inimical biotic agents from pigs to humans causing the latter to become sick or even die is proof that the Old Testament is valid knowledge.

Actually, there's plenty of scientific studies done to show acupuncture does work. The real question is no one knows why. Western medicine thought it was the placebo effect (which is a valid explanation).

And the science of acupuncture isn't jabbing needles randomly into the body - but jabbing the needle and stimulating them at the right locations. Traditionally, this was called intersections of chi, but that's just like explaining it as the aether. These intersections did not come about instantly - it's happened over many thousands of years of jabbing people until things started happening and it got studied. (The scientific method is old, acupuncture is just as old.). Now, everyone's explained it as "chi" and the balance of life, but that doesn't mean there's no valid scientific reason for it.

Again, we do not know why. You have to remember that acupuncture, also called Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is actually regarded by western medicine as a potentially valid form of treatment.

That holds true for most people, but sometimes you are dragged into something you don't want to. For example, if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guys come in with guns demanding money, and out of fear for your life, you shoot first and kill one of them. Now you have to spend the rest of your life in jail for something that you never premeditated or wanted to have happen.

That has happened before. And even weirder cases where the family of the criminal has sued homeowners that shot for killing their family member.

Heck, firing at someone in your house may or may not be legal - it's legal if they present to you a threat to you or your family, but not if they're unarmed, retreating, etc. So shooting a guy going after your family is legal, but if he's running away with his back to you, it's not.

And even worse, given it's a really busy few seconds, no one is really sure.

Two, 20 years ago MS actively encouraged copying Windows and users sharing those copies for free. Bill Gates actually said something along the lines of "it's better for people to use pirated copies of Windows then to buy the competitions software"

What a change from 20 years previous to that where the infamous Bill Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists was released where he decried the open sharing and "piracy" of his software.

Yes, I know about the NAVAIDs, but they identify at 5 WPM and the airman's charts print the dots and dashes next to the waypoint. And there might still be runway aids that say a few letters, also at 5 WPM, but it's always the same letters for left and right and the outer, middle, and inner marker. Pilots learn the sounds for each.

Until you try to read them in the dark. I printed out a cheat sheet of nearby navaids with the dots and dashes enlarged, because a red lamp has the ability to fade them out.

In fact, pilots are not expected to know Morse code - they are expected to use the dots and dashes. So much so you can actually get in trouble with a CFI if you DO happen to know Morse. Then you have to explain, slowly, to them that yes, you did identify the station - you didn't look at the chart because you know what it was supposed to be. But yeah, it's a good way to fail a checkride

And I expect Morse to be continually used as it's more user-friendly - if you're tuning up a navaid, the beeps will go into the background if you're interrupted by ATC. If they used voice then it's highly annoying trying to separate the two without hitting buttons on your comm panel.

It's rumored that a big part of the reason Apple has stuck with one-button mice is that, if you're not relying on context menus, multiple buttons are largely unnecessary for normal productivity uses, and not having multiple buttons deters developers from putting important functions in context menus.

That's actually a big part of it.

By having a single button, UI designers are forced to expose features somewhere somehow, which allows for exploration. You can have a context menu, but everything in it must be accessible elsewhere.

Because on Windows, some poor UI designs are such that you get a blank window, and that's it. If you want to do anything, it's right-click this, right-click that.

Heck, Microsoft even has shift-right-click and alt-right-click exposing new options. (Shift-Right-Click, "Open Command Window Here" is so useful...). Now just how is a user supposed to realize that modifier-clicking does stuff too?!

They wanted to drop water but couldn't because of the drones. Why, they were afraid they'd damage the drones in putting out a fire? Solution, drop water on the drones.

I'm sure helicopters have to deal with birds sometimes. These drones don't appear to be that durable or heavy, are you telling me that the propeller blades can't handle these little things without causing a disaster?

I am not a drone owner or user... but I just can't believe these things are that hazardous to an aircraft the size of a helicopter. Am I very very wrong here?

It's not the hazard, it's the potential hazard.

Let me set up the firefighting environment.

You're in an aircraft. Could be a helicopter. Could be an airplane (single engine agplanes are commonly used). You're flying low to the ground, because if you go too high, the effectiveness of your water/retardant/foam drop diminishes significantly. So you're having to fly in a narrow band of altitude above ground. You can't go up - lowers the effectiveness, you can't go down - reduces your spread, and again, lowers the effectiveness because you're not covering as wide an area.

OK, now we're near the fire. As everyone knows, heat rises, and fires generate a lot of it. This makes for wicked turbulence as you fly - it's extremely difficult maintaining attitude ("blue side up"). You've got to fly this path to lay your water/retardant/foam in the planned area, with air upsetting your aircraft and making it hard to keep a straight line (i.e., straight and level flight).

You're concentrating making your location, dropping your load (which alters the CG of your aircraft - in some, they will pitch up as they get lighter, in others, pitch down, and you must correct for this as you're dropping. If you don't, your chances of crashing are basically certain).

In other words, it's already a hard job, and now you want to add avoidance to the mix? I mean, if you're dropping, and a drone comes up, that could distract the pilot long enough to do the wrong thing. Or it could hit the aircraft and damage a prop, at a time when the workload is high.

I did mention you were already low to the ground, right? So if you have a problem, you can't fix it - and if you can't fix it, you're going down. If you're lucky, there's a crew nearby who will come to your aid in your crashed aircraft. If not, and you land in flames, well, hero down.

But I'm sure it was all worth it to be on YouTube, right?

And that's the real danger - it's really turbulent, so drones are no match for the wicked air currents. There's a chance that "harmless drone" far away could be gusted right into you, perhaps damaging a control surface (and it doesn't take much - the aluminum bends really easily).

Plus, it's high workload - you're already busy enough flying, you really shouldn't have to worry about other aircraft in the area. (And you don't - there's an aircraft flying overhead that manages the airspace so you will not encounter another firefighter accidentally. That control aircraft schedules every helicopter, agplane, waterbomber, etc., in sequence so as to allow the pilot to just concentrate on their job - dropping their load at the right place and right time).

Since this is /., how about a work analogy - say you have a deadline coming up and you need to finish your module by that time. In a normal environment, you're given the alone time you need to concentrate because it's tricky, and it's due end of the day. Drones are more like those coworkers and your boss asking you to come into a meeting, or bugging you every 10 minutes with a question. That's why drones are so dangerous - they're distracting and their potential for harm is heightened because of the urgency of the task at hand.

And in the end, really - it's all just so some idiot can have something cool to post on your YouTube channel.

And FYI - the airspace around a wildfire is restricted airspace - no aircraft allowed, including RC hobby aircraft, drones, etc., that are not authorized to be there. The FAA advisory circular is just that - advisory. It is not law, and anyone violating restricted airspace can be subject to criminal prosecution.

Hell, I'd enjoy if the insurance companies of those with burned up cars went after the drone pilots to recoup some of the damages.

HELL, while you idiots were sleeping the entire rest of the world (minus Apple) warmed up to the idea of remote desktop technology. If you are bound and determined to gut that, then you are giving Linux a competitive disadvantage and setting it back 20 years.

Sure, remote desktop rocks. But they also are superior to X. For example, if your network connection burps, you don't lose your f'in work. Because the app runs locally and is displayed remotely and is completely independent on the network.

Sure remote X is great, I use it all the time. But I'm also aware that if I start a long-running process, I need to use screen to keep it alive, because now I'm depending on three things - the Linux machine hosting the app, the network, and my desktop PC showing me the app. That's a recipe for fragility in the whole thing.

Perhaps you don't use remote X for things that take hours to run, or don't mind losing all your work because you forgot to save and now the network connection reset. That's fine and great. But some people do, and really, X is pretty deficient compared to the rest of the remote desktop protocols out there. Even VNC.

Remote X is great, but it's time to modernize it and put features that every other remote desktop system has.

I'd still rather have them do THIS when the systems aren't too popular than have some random swatter roll a minivan with 5 kids because he mistyped the IP address of the guy who just beat his speedrun. (Where "THIS" is a controlled test.)

And what if the random swatter T-boned you in your car?

Sorry, public roads are not for "testing". There's a reason why car ads all say "Professional drivers on a closed road" - because you can seriously injure someone else.

Hell, these security researchers not only put themselves at risk, their entire occupation, DEFCON and anyone else a decent lawyer can say was the cause of it (including GM).

Is it a problem? Yes, a serious one.
But you don't have to put the general public at risk to demonstrate it.

You can demonstrate the problem just fine in a closed controlled environment, like say a parking lot. In fact, it may even be more impressive, without scaring the crap out of the driver OR the drivers around him.

In fact, you can even demonstrate it without a driver - override the brakes so you keep the car stopped, have the driver get out, then drive around. A nice, safe, controlled manner that turns it from "security researchers who put everyone's lives at risk" to "security researchers demonstrate they can take over any GM vehicle...".

How you tell the story is just as much as important as what you tell. Do it the wrong way and the how can easily overpower the what.

They're just lucky nothing bad happened, because the message would be quite a bit different if someone got in an accident, and DEFCON would go from "security researchers meeting" to "hackers like Anonymous set to destroy the world" in the mind of the public.

You could think up many possibilities as to why this is, and I'm sure that a lot of it is waste due to medical businesses (e.g. insurers) being run for-profit. But I think it's pretty clear to all sane people that you don't just cut funding and hope everything works out.

Actually, a lot of it IS dealing with insurers.

In a single-payer system like in Canada, you bill the government for every patient. In out, easy. It's estimated the paper handling costs for this are around $20K or so per year for doctor's office - be it a single doctor, a partnership, or whatever. Just a standard doctor's office.

But in the US, where you have to deal with non-payers, and dozens of insurance companies each with their own idiosyncrasies in billing and what is actually covered, it takes roughly $60-80K to deal with all that paperwork.

So yes, there's a lot of waste in the system, and it's not just because insurance companies are making a profit (guess what - in Canada, you can by extended health insurance that covers above and beyond what is "free" - e.g., vision and dental care, private or semi-private wards at the hospital, etc).

While those lights on keyboards are technically outputs, they're only indicators and you won't be outputting actual data with them. Not with standard hardware anyway.

Incorrect. The state of the lights on a keyboard are independent of the actual keyboard state.

When you hit caps lock, num lock, or scroll lock, 2 key codes are sent from the keyboard to the computer - one for key down, one for key up. The computer processes it and updates its internal keyboard state tables. The processor then writes to the keyboard to tell it turn the LED on.

The keyboard controller does not, nor does the keyboard, update the LED without the main CPU being involved. It's a great way to test if your OS is actually working (because if the LEDs don't update, it means the main OS crashed or is too busy to handle keyboard input).

Linux uses them to indicate it's panicked as well - if all the LEDs blink, it means the kernel has halted.

But they are fully software controllable and you can use them as an input and an output mechanism. Perhaps use it to show status of something, for example.

Companies won't adopt 10 in large groups for quite awhile. That coupled with zero day vuln's which are bound to happen, it'll be patch Tuesday every day! Don't forget a brand new browser too.. After all today MS15-078 another zero day, critical was released out of band. Let chaos reign.

Corporate PCs don't use Patch Tuesday. They get all the patches and the PCs update themselves from WSUS or other software update mechanism.

Only home PCs update themselves willy-nilly. Corporate PCs have had the ability to schedule and approve updates.

You can blame Google for this one by having their inflexible 90-day bug disclosure thing release details on a bug that was being patched in a few days. Yes, Microsoft had fixed it, scheduled it for Patch Tuesday, and boom, Google tells all a few days prior.

So yeah, thank you Google for now getting Microsoft to host our PCs every day, instead of just the second Tuesday of the month.