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I wish more people took a sane approach like this. I can't tell you how many times I've had to turn down - politely at first - sales from seemingly reputable companies. I find it hard to believe they would approach anything else in the organisation with that level of clumsiness.

I'd rather buy from someone who is actually willing to listen to me.

I imagine there are a number of authors who don't want to be bothered by the extraneous bells and whistles on a new system. It reminds me of this clip of George R.R. Martin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg

I didn't downvote you, but I imagine it has less to do with what you said and more with how you said it. NSLs as a "boogeyman" is a poor substitute for lacking evidence. So far, we know that these things are sent to US companies which are in the business of collecting and bartering data. While Apple has a corner of that market, it isn't its entirety.

So here they have snippets of our information Ex: email, credit card, home address for app purchases. However, it's just as possible to use the phone normally without downloading a single app. That leaves the SIM provider holding the bag for your information ready to be collected by the authorities. Effectively, Apple washes its hands of your data on phone calls, but there is no reason to presume lies regarding backdoors on iMessage.

Also, I'm not an "Apple fan boy". I'm just unconvinced of widespread eavesdropping at Apple and that they're willing to risk destroying such a massive advantage over Google's Hangouts platform.

I'm unclear as to what you mean by that last sentence. If someone is running a message system that is distributed and keys to encrypt and decrypt are store locally, not on the server, then why wouldn't it be secure? The message system may be anything as simple as an addressing system

Ex: Email, which is run by any number of providers, however if an email client is configured to use PGP and access is via POP/IMAP and not webmail, it's still secure as far as we know. A message system that may not be email, but still doesn't store keys on the server, still provides no way for cops to read it. Except perhaps to see some message was sent, not what the message was.

If the jurors in that area of the country have a special incentive to keep these trials going, then that should be grounds to move them elsewhere. Local businesses may be benefitting by having the increase in outside revenue due to the influx of legal teams and such.

It's worth noting that the ubiquity of these "on a computer" type patents and similarly questionable other software patents is directly a result of the poor handling of the entire patenting process as well as general incompetence Ex: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/02/uspto-issues-patent-f...

Fair point. I'll add that carriers also selectively drop speeds for certain mobile users based on arbitrary data caps and, in some circumstances, type of phone. Ex: My Blackberry inexplicably loses speed after the first week of the billing cycle.

I think widespread 3G is making the range less of an issue now. I can see providers - third party or not - using existing cellular networks offering data-only plans that make this far more feasible.

That's a rather bleak outlook, but I don't blame you. Obviously you can't name which specific company you work in, but may I ask which sector in finance you do?

"messaging" Implies that these notices travel from A to B likely in your own network, but you added "secure". This suggests the network itself is only password protected and is a compromise - or two? - away from revealing what is being sent. The purpose of encryption is to limit the damage should eavesdropping of the network occurs.

Ex: Your routers, switches, RAID storage etc. are not immune to rootkits. However, if your message from A to B is encrypted and only decrypted locally by B, you've limited the exposure of this information.

This comment should be higher. CommonMarkup gets rid of the naming hiccup by having no direct ties to the original spec except syntax, which is arguably a dialect anyway. Atwood gets to have One Syntax to Rule Them All - I sincerely doubt Atwood wanted Yet Another Markdown as he said - and the community benefits from having the syntax ambiguity resolved by comprehensive reform.

I understand that hackers tend to be irascible often, especially online, but parting shots like these are in very poor form. Consideration and goodwill tend be diminished when you can't be graceful no matter what the other party said. Especially considering that other party was originally the impetus for this in the first place.

They've been a provider for other providers so their presence has been masked a bit. Many smaller, regional, ISPs frequently resell through them.

I appreciate what you're saying, but that just goes to show how large the barrier is to entry in governance. I fear you may be right that it may need to get worse before that resistance gains momentum. Which saddens me even more as I don't want to see any more lives destroyed.

Because resistance is futile. The machinery of government explicitly favours authority and that very authority was given to them willingly by the voting - or non voting - masses. It is the authority that everyone, including the plundered, believe they must have in order to keep them safe. Resistance takes courage and a willingness to lose everything you care about, such as your prideful opinion, free time or an hour of your attention.

The sacrifice is too great for the overwhelming majority of the populace comfortable with what they have and a chronic aversion to all things unpleasant. I've lost count of how many people I've seen change the channel when news of war or police brutality come on.

When the effort needed to change government matches that of a retweet, we will see change.

  I don't get why he is more...

"Posted yesterday by Natasha Lomas"

If firstlook.org isn't the only place they intend to publish their stories, it makes perfect sense. After all, why present a single target to those who wish to censor you? I think FL wants to reach out to other journalistic entities to use their platform. In that vein, The Intercept is one channel in a network.

Since I've never been to Russia, I have to base my information on those who presumably do know what they're talking about.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-russian-drivers-have-dash...

  In a post on Animal, Russian ex-pat and journalist Marina Galperina offers 
  a few reasons, which boil down to dangerous driving conditions and the 
  unreliability of Russian traffic police.

http://www.wired.com/2013/02/russian-dash-cams/

  The sheer size of the country, combined with lax — and often corrupt — 
  law enforcement, and a legal system that rarely favors first-hand accounts 
  of traffic collisions has made dash cams all but a requirement for motorists.

http://mashable.com/2013/02/15/why-russians-have-dash-cams-c...

  The Russian Highway Patrol is known throughout their land for brutality, corruption, 
  extortion and making an income on bribes. Dash-cams won’t protect you from being 
  extorted for cash, because your ass shouldn’t have been speeding. It will however 
  keep you safer from drunks in uniform, false accusations and unreasonable bribe 
  hikes

http://www.rferl.org/content/dash-cams-russia-fighting-corru...

  Motorists use these dash cams as a tool to help fight their corner 
  against Russia's notoriously corrupt traffic police as well as 
  against scammers trying to extort money out of drivers.

And.

  Dozorov recounts one incident involving an inspector, which occurred 
  months ago when police officers stopped his car. "He'd accused me of
  going through a red light," Dozorov says. "It was enough for me to say: 'I'm 
  not going to argue. Let's have a look at the dash cam.' At that point the 
  inspector said he’d probably made a mistake. He didn't even bother looking. 
  He said sorry and left."

It's common practice to have dash cameras in many "police abuse" and fraud prone areas Ex: Russia. It may be time for us all to invest in similar technology.

"Standard" carries with it a significant heft in meaning, especially authority, that "Something" else is unlikely to carry. Authority that is illegitimate without the original author's involvement.

Community density and population migration is a large factor in vaccine effectiveness. What most vaccines provide is really herd immunity. That is a disease, if it spreads, will be limited to a select few who aren't able to vaccinate or have compromised immune systems, preventing an outbreak of wide proportions among an otherwise healthy population.

It's a bit more complex than the widespread and largely unnecessary antibiotic abuse happening in livestock farms. Unnecessary because more sanitary and efficient methods exist for raising them that obviate their need. Disease can be contained by quarantine and preventative measures which isn't possible among a migratory population like humans.

Vinyl was physical. As were cassettes, envelopes, postcards etc.

Email has one thing going for it that other platforms similarly didn't offer : It's the first personalised, and therefore recognisable, addressing system for an intangible communications platform that's still largely open (Ex: Unlike twitter et al. which has severely limited means of communication and, more importantly, what I can communicate).

I submit that we don't have an equivalent that's evenly matched and so no basis yet to compare it to. That's not to say there won't be one in the future, but I don't see anything close to matching it today or on the horizon.

I've seen those Linux powered rifles lately and I wonder if recent drone developments may lead to more accurate tracking and targeting mechanisms.

I recently saw this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTSWjkXBHOs While it's very primitive and inspired by a video game, future developments may lead to water canons and so on that may do the same. A DIY anti-drone turret if you will.

Delivery, monitoring, search and rescue, emergency radio relay etc... the possibilities are many and expanding.

RE Shoot downs : Retrieval becomes difficult if the product is fragile as well. I imagine these devices will contain some sort of distress beacon and/or continuous transmission of its coordinates to a base station.

400 Feet (approx. 122 meters) is the current altitude limit in the US, I think. Birdshot is inaccurate at that distance and it's quite a height to try and shoot at relatively fast drone with a rifle. This is in addition to the fact firing recklessly into the air carries hefty penalties alone.

I've done this while at work - I don't anymore as my code responsibilities are fewer. It forces you to consider cleaner code arrangements and also gives an unexpectedly better overall picture of what you're doing.

Functions become clear from one to the next, especially if they're closely related. It also gives a "non-hard-coded" limit to function length. Instead of X-lines, I now see if the function is getting long enough to cover most of the screen. This also helps weed out my own failures in logic and draws attention to other aspects like clarity.

Ideally, I'd use two screens. One for code in portrait mode and one landscape for other work. Maybe a third monitor for YouTube ;-)

That's awful! It certainly does seem like the Gentrification of the desert as I don't see how any of the hippies I know could afford to go - it's a bit outside my range as well. Where I live right now that's more than a month's rent.

I can't imagine a hippie building a house just to be comfortable for an event considering there are quite a few that have lived for years in little more than outhouses on wheels.

That doesn't reveal any subsequent answers as I still got: "You must be signed in to read this answer."

But the answers above solved that problem. Thanks.

I don't have a Facebook page and I'd rather not use my Google account. Is there a way for me to read that answer without creating one?

I've never been to Burning Man. Is it still the same event, or at least similar to, what it was years ago or has it been overrun by "The Man" as I've heard so often? It would be disheartening if that is the case.

I found the uptick in prices interesting, from free to quite a bit above not free[1] I don't know if this is also due to "legitimising" the event with permits and such.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man#Timeline_of_the_ev...

That article seems to be sparse on details although it bring it to wider attention. Their Facebook page is similarly a bit light[1] and their own site is practically bare[2]

[1] https://www.facebook.com/undercovercolors/info?ref=page_inte...

[2] http://www.undercovercolors.com/