This is an important point. Their use case is to call and make reservations or purchase services: basically do the stuff somebody might do online but with an analog interface.

I'll bet the companies in question won't really mind selling to somebody might not contact them via other means. Basically this lets them delay on building a web page or buying into some reservation service they don't care about/don't want and yet they can still interact with the digital world.

As long as the technology is *good enough* to approximate or improve on the average stoned, drunk, spaced out, partially literate, callers they might get today then it improves their lives. And if they learn to recognize the voice they can even accelerate the interaction by getting right to the point (like they would if they were talking to a person that calls them a lot).

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en...

"Encrypted Traffic Analytics extracts four main data elements: the sequence of packet lengths and times, the byte distribution, TLS-specific features and the initial data packet."

The recent US election has shown us that forcing people to be civil does not also force them to "not hate" each other.

What it appears to have done is driven much of that hate out of sight -- and thus out of discussion. One of the things we're struggling with right now is understanding the distinctions between
* who really hates who
* who doesn't care about "hate speech" being used so long as other political goals are met
* who doesn't really believe it is hate speech
* who doesn't hate other people

Yes, the differences between these choices is totally vague. Thats because we've been lumping it all under one "not politically correct" label and burying it.

People have feelings all around this spectrum. Perhaps its better to allow hate speech with the understanding that the proper response is more language, more communication, and less silence and brooding?

Correct, letting people talk doesn't solve the problem of hate. Neither does forcing their silence.

Perhaps open communication is the only way to address, or at least explore how to address, the underlying problem?

And frankly, I was a little surprised at where some of my acquaintances were in various places on this spectrum. A very religious man turned out to not care about hate, hateful feelings, hateful laws, etc so long as his particular religious goals were met. I'd have never known this about him without the open communication forced by the election rhetoric. It might have been a more productive years of friendship if I'd known where he stood earlier on.

Planet Money has had some good discussions about this:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...

If I recall the tl;dr version it goes something like this:
Automakers screwed dealers during the great depression so the dealers ran for legislative cover. Dealers now make lots of money and pay lots of taxes so they have maintained that cover ever since. And now are the ones screwing everybody else.

These guns look amazingly like toys. Complete with bright red plastic in an odd shape.
More folks with toy guns (squirt guns for example) are gonna get shot by scared people who don't know if they are faced with a real threat or not.

Yup, there are lots of morally bankrupt and toxic corporations. Limiting your critique to the high tech industry could cause you to think this is about technology vs human interactions or some made up arbitrary distinction. Clear your mind, feel the force, and examine your feelings: this issue is much broader than you suppose.

People can be morally bankrupt and toxic. They can be greedy little shits. Usually they're either taught by society, or reigned in by societies laws, to be more ethical and bubbly and interested in the social justice and all that -- but only usually. And we all know that if you add a few layers of indirection, like maybe they're just doing their job and trying to get a bonus or grow their team or implement a cool feature and see their stock go up or find a business model that feeds and diapers the kids... well, ethics about some shmuck on the internet is a pretty easy thing to let slip. Heck, give them a big enough bonus and they'll close a plant and ship all the jobs to China. And run for office based on how much money they made when they increased the value of the stock.

If you're concerned then you need to engage with people. Work to built the society you want to see exist; work to encode that society into our enforced laws, and _vote_ for people that reflect your opinions.

Come on folks, of course I know who Linus is. Sheesh. Do I gotta put a smiley every time? (Apparently some people got it).

Sipper went ahead and clarified the underlying point anyway. Sometimes its fair to ask folks to contribute; but also it can be fair to "just" provide feedback without devoting yourself to fixing that specific problem. Linus certainly has the chops to address major design flaws -- but I don't expect him to do so everywhere he runs into them.

(Mostly I was just enjoying writing such a response about Linus' post. We don't need another discussion of open software strengths and weaknesses.)

I don't know who this "Linus" guy think he is. Just because his name looks kinda similar to "Linux" doesn't mean he has the right to be jerk. The community should flame him off the forums because he apparently doesn't understand the open source ethos.

If he was a real programmer he'd just dig into the code and fix these problems. This is why linux desktop hasn't taken off -- all these moochers who just want their computer to work without putting any effort into understanding the underlying system and not being willing to chip in and help the effort.

...before anything is seriously done about this.

Until then it will be business as usual. And unfortunately when some script kiddie kills somebody it won't make the news. I worry that this sort of thing won't get fixed until a major "breaking news story" about hundreds of cars running off the road plays out. Only then will it matter.

An optimistic alternative option is that the 'fear mongering' media run with this sufficiently to make it a big issue. This one of the times when the media's bias towards scary news stories can help society.

When folks want to learn to program, or in fact do pretty much anything, I usually suggest they pick an arbitrary project idea in the general field and simply start working on it. *What* exactly they're working on matters less than that they are working on something and learning from the process. (The scope of the project ideally grows naturally on their existing knowledge base).

In this case anybody working on this is developing (hopefully better) technology for finding stuff. That technology will go into our lexicon and when the aliens arrive we'll be all set to "quick, see if you can find them on the deep space scanners".

Its just an onboard battery. You can probably even replace it with replaceable batteries if you want to put the work in. Or use an external power pack that runs off of store bought batteries to recharge it.

http://www.ladyada.net/make/mintyboost/

Microsoft has been letting "backwards compatibility" restrict their innovations for too long. Sounds like they learned a lesson with the Vista fiasco and are finally willing to move forward without continuously coddling all those customers that won't upgrade anyway. You all are scoffing but this is their turn around in action.

Either that or internally they can't convince any developers to install Vista for compatibility testing & development.

This guy looks like a young accomplished pilot (and scientist?) of experimental rockets that he straps onto himself and then flies around with. He may not be widely known to 8yr olds but they'll dig the youtube videos. There are other crazy birdsuit base jumpers out there you could point to. Start here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HMdioj6kng

In a similar vein there are people like Dean Potter or any of the extremel rock climber slacklining nutters out there.

What these have in common is that they involve physical prowess in addition to mental abilities. Frankly I just don't see an 8yr getting excited about a boring hero that is really good at doing homework. But there is no reason the sport has to be a boring one.

You might find it interesting to read Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Cory_Doctorow_novel)

"[The protagonist] helps develop a clandestine wireless network, X-Net [so named because it is built on Xboxes], that avoids DHS monitoring using anonymity and encryption. Using the X-Net as a secure communications medium, he organizes teenagers and twenty-somethings who are upset with the police state tactics imposed after the [plot elements]. They develop innovative uses of existing technologies to foil DHS monitoring and cause mass confusion and embarrassment to law enforcement."

I'm positive Homeland Security has read this book. They're probably just cracking down now before things get out of hand.

From TFA: "Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they choose their candidate."

It is interesting how the options work out; but the real issue here is a lousy hardware/software implementation. I wonder if any individual can control the layout well enough to purposefully take advantage of this. (Obviously the original submission implies such: but I doubt they were thinking about it vs just being a troll).