Certainly the ads have no idea if there is a device listening for them and will broadcast anyway. I suppose ultrasound detectors could detect the activity. Maybe you could spam with some conventional source of ultrasound to drown these devices with indecipherable noise. Or just the network approach, whatever.

"half the 'verse are middlemen and don't take kindly to being cut out" -- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds

They didn't pay their protection monies. Besides the Aircraft Mechanics Association Union needs work to do.

Yip yip yip.. Blinky box. Yip.

I used to joke about giving points to my friends whenever they made me laugh or something. Now there's a slightly more tangible +1. In a commerce sense, my imagination can only see companies using this as a sort of loyalty point program (like exchangable frequent flyer miles).

+ Mod this, so right on.

WEKA is Open Source, has an adequate GUI, many different kinds of algorithms available, and a "knowledge flow" visual designer for you to chain it all together. I've used it in a few personal and professional projects to find things like which variables most strongly influence an outcome, decision trees, derived formulas and expressions that accurately predict outputs from inputs, and various kinds of data visualizations for clustering data samples. Code is in Java so I presume you could embed it within a system to automatically perform analysis and swap algorithms on the fly. Best of all, since this is software under your control, and not a Corporate-offered service, your valuable data never leaves your control.

I think WEKA already did a lot to make these kinds of data analysis accessible as Microsoft is aiming to do. No matter who provides it to you, there is something totally awesome about being able to click a few buttons and get some interesting results to munch on.

"Gee Officer, I don't know why this thing is speeding"

Having worked with and managed a number of programmers over the years I've had the privilege of working alongside a number of truly gifted people. But for every rock star there are far more mediocre and inept persons for the role. On the lower-end of the quality I've seen work so shoddy that it was insulting - those people don't last long in the role but might be suitable for other positions. We try our hardest to retain the top talent but sometimes they just like to wander from project to project for their own interests. Thankfully they seem to like us enough that they always consider coming back after they've had their walkabout.

Not starting a religious war here, but the only pattern I can offer is that those lacking any formal education (self-taught/hobbyist) and those whose primary skill and experience is PHP have had the most disappointing performance. Those among the best performers stay current and attend technical conferences & seminars on topics that interest them. One particular symposium that yields great results for our team and projects has been No Fluff Just Stuff YMMV.

... would further inflate Java's domination of the stats. Java as the core is very strong. I'm seeing increasing adoption of (and job offerings for) the JVM-based languages though. If you don't already know about it, ThroughtWorks has a wonderful semi-annual Technology Radar comprising their consultancy's experience and evaluations of various tech.

So now just make a fake Xfinity access point and harvest credentials of passing visitors. Then use those credentials across the country to pin your unsavory traffic on someone else. Free bandwidth for life!

I've known gamers to frequent cheat sites just to see what the cheaters are using and what is possible to exploit When a legitimate player suddenly faces inexplicable challenges sometimes they go find where people are downloading their skills/advantages from in order to explain their new struggles. Often times it starts with the feeling "that HAS to be a cheat" then digging around finding if there is a cheat the enables that behavior.