Comment Re:OSNAP is an excellent name... (Score 1) 73
You're right, things could get a LOT worse than predicted, a lot faster than predicted.
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Comment Re:People are too stupid (Score 0) 148
Vote Conservative Christian! We don't murder as many gays as Conservative Muslims do!
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Fake 'Inbound Missile' Alert Sent To Every Cellphone in Hawaii (chicagotribune.com) 227
"Somebody sent out a false emergency alert to all cell phones in Hawaii saying, 'BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL'," writes Slashdot reader flopwich, adding "Somebody's had better days at work." The Associated Press reports:
In a conciliatory news conference later in the day, Hawaii officials apologized for the mistake and vowed to ensure it will never happen again. Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi said the error happened when someone hit the wrong button. "We made a mistake," said Miyagi. For nearly 40 minutes, it seemed like the world was about to end in Hawaii, an island paradise already jittery over the threat of nuclear-tipped missiles from North Korea...
On the H-3, a major highway north of Honolulu, vehicles sat empty after drivers left them to run to a nearby tunnel after the alert showed up, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. Workers at a golf club huddled in a kitchen fearing the worst... The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted there was no threat about 10 minutes after the initial alert, but that didn't reach people who aren't on the social media platform. A revised alert informing of the "false alarm" didn't reach cellphones until 38 minutes later, according to the time stamp on images people shared on social media.
On the H-3, a major highway north of Honolulu, vehicles sat empty after drivers left them to run to a nearby tunnel after the alert showed up, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. Workers at a golf club huddled in a kitchen fearing the worst... The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted there was no threat about 10 minutes after the initial alert, but that didn't reach people who aren't on the social media platform. A revised alert informing of the "false alarm" didn't reach cellphones until 38 minutes later, according to the time stamp on images people shared on social media.
Comment Re:Score yet another for MS quality control. (Score 1) 299
Microsoft really seems to be de-emphasizing quality assurance
Hmmm. I haven't noticed any change.
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Comment How do they not see the obvious answer? (Score 1) 151
Raze some buildings and install more/bigger roads.
Yes, it's expensive. But it's a tiny price compared to having everyone waste millions of person-hours sitting on inadequate roads. Just multiply those person-hours by any plausible dollars-per-person-hour, and you have a figure for how much it's appropriate to spend fixing this problem.
Seriously, how is this a difficult question?
Comment NASA did this 45 years ago! (Score 2) 83
In 1972 or 1973, my family vacationed for a week in the summer on Chincoteague Island off the coast of Maryland. NASA launched sub-orbital rockets that did this exact same thing -- created colored clouds in the night sky.
Why do it again, 45 years later?
Comment Re:Google is for search and gmail. (Score 1) 99
>as long as they don't mess with gmail, frankly I don't care.
5... 4... 3... 2... 1... FUUUUUUUCK!
Comment Re:That's pretty smart (Score 1) 249
Why do all of the tanning beds have vodka racks?
Comment Re:That's pretty smart (Score 1) 249
Citizen: This is a public service announcement to inform you that your electric meter may be off by between -32% to +582%.
Legally required reminder:
You are required to pay for the electricity you use, promptly and accurately. Tampering with an electric meter is a serious criminal offence.
GlobalSign Supports Billions of Device Identities In an Effort To Secure the IoT (globalsign.com) 28
Reader broknstrngz writes: GlobalSign, a WebTrust certified CA and identity services provider, has released its high volume managed PKI platform, taking a stab at the current authentication and security weaknesses in the IoT. The new service aims to commodify large scale rapid enrollment and identity management for large federated swarms of devices such as IP cameras, smart home appliances and consumer electronics, core and customer premises network equipment in an attempt to reduce the attack surface exploitable by IoT DDoS botnets such as Mirai.
Strong device identity models are developed in partnership with TPM and hardware cryptographic providers such as Infineon and Intrinsic ID, as well as other Trusted Computing Group members.
Strong device identity models are developed in partnership with TPM and hardware cryptographic providers such as Infineon and Intrinsic ID, as well as other Trusted Computing Group members.
Comment Re:Neal Stephenson continues to amaze (Score 1) 338
SevenEves would have been better if it was half as long. Stephenson is a great writer, though, and I understand if he can't help himself on that!
I agree than Anathem was incredibly good. A long book that you should really read twice to get everything.
Comment Re:How many bits? (Score 2) 103
I work for Dolby Laboratories, and am deeply involved with high-dynamic-range content creation and hardware.
We created the SMPTE 2084 standard HDR EOTF (electro-optical transfer function.) It turns out that human perception is such that by choosing the luminance for code values to be just barely indistinguishable from the adjacent ones, you can get 0 to 10,000 nits (10x as bright as this Panasonic display) with only 12 bits. SMPTE 2084 is what all HDR TVs are using today.
Comment Re:Easy win so load show up with friends (Score 1) 191
The reason they have been searching for months for a diverse female lead is that they are looking for some real diversity. Hollywood has tons of tons of actors of every ethic or ethnic-mix persuasion, hoards of actors of every sexual persuasion and gender-identity, abundant of actors of every of religion you can imagine. But they wanted to push the envelope and find some real diversity.
They put out a lead casting call across all of Hollywood, seeking Actress who was Republican. Two weeks into the search they thought they finally had someone for the part, but it turned out to be Clint Eastwood in a dress.
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Comment I saw a rig like this in 2005 (Score 1) 25
When I was shooting Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift in Tokyo, in winter of 2005, I saw a rig a lot like this. I was walking down a street, and saw a van with four cameras, four LIDARs, and two GPS sensors on the top. I asked a man working on it what it was, and he said "Oh! Are you engineer?" and I confessed that I was just a movie-maker. But, nevertheless, they showed me everything in the van, and said that the point was developing 3D models of all the streets in Tokyo. At the time, it wasn't for self-driving cars though -- they wanted to build 3D in-car maps for navigation. The team of engineers was from a university in Tokyo; although I don't recall which one.
Comment Government? Is that really the issue? (Score 2) 55
While in the past, I agree that people were correct to hold the government accountable for this kind of surveillance, it isn't the biggest issue today. Huge amounts of information are gathered by companies about everybody on the 'net, and shared between them without any limitations. You don't want the government to see your email? Ok, fine -- but Google's incredibly powerful AI team doesn't just see your email -- it *understands* your email. Google can, and does, use that knowledge in any number of ways; and ways that will get more diverse (and perverse?) in the future.
In the not too distant future, I believe that companies like Google and Facebook will become more politically powerful than 99% of the governments in the world. Facebook was going to launch a satellite today to allow everybody in Africa to use Facebook; although somehow the rocket that was going to launch that satellite blew up. My belief is that Facebook wants to get information about everybody on the planet, and will do whatever it takes to do that.
Governments? Come on, that's not the threat.
