At this point, hitting a TSA security line, rather than trying to pass through it, or just skipping that entirely and turning a good, honest, domestically available, AR-15 on a little-league crowd somewhere in Iowa would be at least as scary and way easier...

I concur. Everyone is upset about the imagery from the boston marathon, and it was downright scary. Now imagine if those two people had AR-15s and a backpack full of ammo instead, especially if they started at opposite ends of a block and worked their way in.

The imagery wouldn't be as scary as limbs blown off, but far, far more people would've died.

Here's a news article on a blog by someone who worked there, which pretty much verifies what you're saying.

Apple's iphone doesn't have a removable battery because (they say) it would take extra packaging, and that would reduce the size of the actual battery. Having taken one of those things apart, I don't think they're being sneaky... it looks true and makes for a far more solid, self-contained product without worries of battery doors falling off.

Does your first paragraph apply to your second paragraph?
Non-removable batteries in phones is not necessarily sneaky or tricky, especially if they provide a painless battery replacement service. ifixit does a breakdown, and says the battery is extremely difficult to replace by the end user, which could imply planned obsolescence. But phones generally go obsolete after 2-5 years anyway as the tech increases, especially with smartphones, and the battery will last that long (although it doesn't have terrific battery life as it is).

If you have actual data to add, e.g. their justification (right or wrong), then post it. Otherwise, add some value with your whiny emotional objection, or else piss off. Coward.

I ran into this issue when my iPhone was downloading email and roaming.

ATT billed me $500 and I wouldn't pay it. They tried to blame Apple and I informed them that the iPhone was their issue, too, as they were the only carrier for it. As it turns out, customer service is really collections, and we had a fine yelling match. Finally the lady agreed to send it up the line, and I had her read me exactly what she was going to send, since she did not have my interests at heart.

They did reverse the charges, and apple added the disable roaming option.

That's a good link, and shows that their grammar wasn't perfect. It is, however, a "style" book and discusses how to read n write good like and common misused words; it isn't strictly a grammar book.

One of the biggest complaints I normally see is that S&W is too pedantic, and the claim that English is a living language and changes, and that White screwed up the language when it was published and adopted by so many universities. But, that very claim that it's living and morphable is the same thing they're annoyed with (or rather, "with which they are annoyed"). S&W codified things, to make the language a little more understandable and less willy-nilly for proper writing. They changed it (by deprecating many poor or ambiguous uses) and to most detractors, this is the problem... changing a living language.

I don't see it as a problem.

I'm gazing across my bookshelf full of O Reilly books, Knuth's series, TCP/IP Illustrated, and others... but the most important books are more mundane:

Godel Escher Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, and Alice in Wonderland

Both of these books encompass the thinking and mindset which will make you a better programmer by planting the seed of logic, states, and recursion, and nourishing the hell out of it. It will massage the pathways to make someone actually want to be a programmer.

you are conflating existing general rules with specific-to-drone rules

I'm extrapolating existing RC rules and overregulation of commercial UAS (i.e., the complete denying of any certificate for commercial use, whether LOS or not).

I've read the FAA rules, several times, over the past 5 years (and the hobbyist rule once for when I was flying RC planes decades ago), specifically how they apply to commercial use. I've spoken with multiple hobbyists and cam operators for movies. I am close friends with the founder of the first affordable heli autopilot.

That is to say, I know exactly what I'm talking about when I say drone rules are overregulated because it even includes aircraft that maintain line of sight and follow all hobbyist rules.

we've had at least TWO OTHER topics about this in the past month, and i keep covering the same ground cause people dont bother to read the actual regulations.

I posted in march, in Feb 2012 where I link to the rules, and in Aug 2011 talking about commercial flight certificates.

You however, are spouting. Every single one of your posts on the first page of your history is a whiny crybaby post completely void of information. It's like you learned a new word, "conflate", and are trying to use that in all your posts to sound intelligent.

The smart gun tech has less to do with being disarmed and having the weapon turned against you (although it might be more useful for police), but making the weapon a brick when your kids are playing with it. It also makes the weapon less attractive to thieves.

A primary concern is securing it against your kids and your kids' friends. It's tough. This adds another hurdle for them to screw up and hurt themselves.

"Jim Williams, head of the FAA's drone office, said the incident highlights the risk of ubiquitous, unregulated drone use."

Flying that close to an airport is already against FAA rules. Regulations, which already exist on that, won't change the fact that it might occasionally happen that (as another poster said) some fucktard will fly in restricted airspace.

As it stands now, we have overregulated drone rules.

How about this way?

Dude, the first step to good security is to assume you've been compromised and then construct your defenses based on that assumption.

Not so much. The first step is figuring out what you're protecting.
The next step is figuring out what the fallout is if you're compromised.
The 3rd step is figuring out the likelihood of being compromised, and potential avenues of attack.
Only at that point do you construct your defenses.

Contingency plans are based on assuming the worst has happened. Security plans are not. And a good security plan prevents having to implement a contingency plan, with a high degree of success.

TFA was stating that one should force password changes based on average time to crack. I'm saying this is an artificial burden on the users if they don't figure in probability of getting cracked (or rather, the time to figure out someone stole the file), and force changes 2 stddev earlier, not just the "average" time to crack minus the window of how often one logs in.

To demonstrate TFA was just spouting and not doing themselves or users any favors, if they knew they had been compromised yesterday and lost the hashed file, do you think they'd say "Ok, you guys with the shorter passwords need to change them a day sooner"? No, they'd force a global password change, even on those people with passwords that'd average a year to crack. So this is inconsistent with what the article is even saying, and is basically passing the annoyance on to the users based on fuzzy math.

I think TFA's oversight is intentional, however, although not really presented as that. The idea is to punish those with short passwords, and reward those that are more secure from brute force attacks. This has less to do with security as it has to do with artificially coaxing better passwords.

The three-day limit is based on calculations showing it would take about 4.5 days to find the password using offline cracking techniques.

If you're assuming your hashed password file is public or you allow unlimited login attempts without shuttering the connections, then this makes some sense. But if your pw file is public you need to force a change far before the average crack time (like 2 stddev), which probably means hours on an average of 3 days to crack.

But if your pw file isn't supposed to be public, then you're setting a policy assuming your system has been cracked and are passing bad math onto the users as annoyance. And then blaming them. If you fail to factor in the likelihood of the password file being taken, then all the "average time to crack" might not matter.

why would I use a DSLR to shoot video?

You wouldn't, because by asking this question you betray that you undoubtedly have never shot a video before.

DSLRs have some great features, and potential features if you need them.
0. high quality and cheaper cost than a broadcast quality 2k camera.
1. interchangeable lenses.
2. easy to mount nearly anywhere.
3. large sensor can give a shallow DOF when needed, and decent low-light ability.
4. some can shoot raw footage, when needed.
5. can use comparatively inexpensive vintage lenses.
6. easily maintained and replaced.
7. high enough quality for movies, and getting better.
8. well-supported by 3rd parties.
9. often have very usable ISOs, esp with a little bit of noise reduction (of which there's exactly one good program).
10. have spawned camera offshoots based on DSLR video which is closer to a movie camera/dslr cross.
11. can be operated remotely over usb or wifi. This includes focus pulling.
12. firmware can be hacked on some, unlocking even more features.
13. can be used as a crash camera for larger budgets.
14. can be housed for underwater shooting.

Some of the problems with DSLRs for filming. Not all will apply on any particular shoot.
-1. large sensor can be a big hindrance when you need a large DOF, and requires a lot more light than a small sensor.
-2. most movie modes are afterthoughts. Very few decent still cameras also have decent movie modes.
-3. very few have any sort of usable auto-focus, although some can lock on and track. Autofocus pulling usually sucks.
-4. very few have genlock, SDI, or aux i/o or undecorated uncompressed output
-5. most outputs are in 8 bit 4:0:0 which loses a lot of color information. Some have 10 bit 4:2:2 and this is changing as memory speeds increase.
-6. many don't have a very good codec and bit speed, but this is also changing.
-7. most limit recording to 30 min due to EU taxes. Not usually a problem except for conferences and long interviews.
-8. no global shutter. This is usually a very expensive feature, although at least one offshoot has it for under $10k. Maybe $5k.
-9. limited fps speed adjustment. Some small cameras can shoot up to 1000fps for a short time, but dslrs can't do even a short slo-mo section. Some will do half-speed.
-10. Not as ergonomic as a dedicated movie camera. As a DoP, this can affect things.

All of the above can be found pretty easily if you know what to look for, and that should give you plenty of reasons why it is in many studio's interests to explore what DSLR shooting can bring them. I've shot several shorts, movie videos, and a TV show. Most were with a DSLR.

Periodic copying, on a copier/xerox, of the contents of your wallet works well. Make sure you copy both sides of credit cards and such, as they have numbers to call for cancellation or replacement. You could even simply scan the contents, then encrypt and store it somewhere.

For contacts, calendar, cellphones: Google works well for contacts, but you can use any caldav application. This handles your "physical" rolodex. And if your phone is destroyed, you can restore the contacts to a new phone.

You don't need backups of your physical stuff, you need to be able to quickly replace it.