ickwabe

"Can" is the operative word there. I have had experiences similar to your own and for me, the death of my father was much more devastating. But I can imagine less socially connected folks or folks with poor family relationships being utterly devastated by the loss of a pet that is providing unconditional acceptance and companionship.

Apparently Google plans to focus Hangouts on enterprise/business customers.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/16/google-planning-focu...

Agreed. There is often a lack of imagination on the part of folks as regards the potential future abuse of privacy invading tech. There will come a day when thoughts can be decoded with ease.

Also... https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...

The "database computer code" they are talking about is not the actual database software (e.g. oracle, postgres, or whatever). It's the proprietary code used to keep the data in the database accurate, up to date, distributed, etc. And the code used for communicating with the service providers, co-ops, LSMSs, etc.

This may seem a small thing and may be somewhat conceptually similar to DNS. But in reality it is an entire ecosystem of it's own with complexities that are not readily apparent. The incumbent (Neustar) has no obligation to share it's IP with Telcordia.

"The database is significant because it tracks nearly every phone number in North America, making it a key tool for law enforcement agencies seeking to monitor criminal or espionage targets."

This statement is potentially very misleading. The NPAC does not "live" route telephone calls. The NPAC is the database of ported phone number and various characteristics about them. The database is replicated to LSMS databases at the service providers. When you make a call it does not route through the NPAC. It routes through the service providers, period.

While the NPAC could be helpful to law enforcement for knowing which SP manages a particular number and various other characteristics about that number, it would not be helpful as some sort of one-stop shop for wire tapping.

From the NPAC site: "LSMS (Local Service Management System): The system owned by a service provider and which receives data broadcast from the NPAC/SMS. The LSMS provisions the service provider's downstream systems, such as its LNP call routing database. The LSMS is a mechanized system used (primarily) to receive data broadcasts from the NPAC/SMS."

Yes of course and I appreciate that. Just my opinion but in that case I would not have used images with such artistic weight. There certainly plenty black and white images to choose from.

This is very impressive but I'll be that person.

I shudder when I see someone/something colorize the works of masters of black-and-white like Ansel Adams or Henri Cartier-Bresson. Just a horrible mangling of their work.

Adams for example could have used color, and did take many hundreds of color photos[1]. But in his work for display he deliberately and consciously chose black-and-white and put in much effort in the lab to get the final images just they way he wanted them.

So while I truly appreciate the technological achievement here, I still cringe at the what I see as distorting the artists' work.

[1]http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/ansel-adams-in-co...

These folks have a ted talk video on their front page where they show the view from inside their headset. Seems reasonably expansive.

https://www.metavision.com/

What are we to make of these sorts of comments from Obama and Feinstein? It seems like there is strong backing by certain political interests to make it impossible for the average phone user to encrypt their own devices in such a way that the providers cannot access certain data. This dove-tails nicely with what some consider a war on general computing...

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption-obama-idU...

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/262658-feinstein-vow...

Joe Rogan interviewed Lance Armstrong in depth and Armstrong talks in detail about how he got to the point of justifying "juicing" to himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEfSdPz1WtA

At least for something like Signal you can compile it yourself. They even provide instructions. So you could avoid gapps for that one with a bit of work.

https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/wiki/How-to...

Not sure about BIME, Chartio. But Tableau certainly connects to Google BigQuery.

It wold appear you must use the Login link at the top-right of https://thimble.mozilla.org/. That sends you to a login page with a bunch of extra parameters after the https://id.webmaker.org/login?.

e.g. https://id.webmaker.org/login?client_id=wm_id_wMvw9BSwq2A480...

If you try to login just from https://id.webmaker.org/login you will get the error you saw.

If you log into your netflix account and then go here: https://www.netflix.com/TastePreferences you can boost the algo accuracy.

I see the lack of titles complaint all the time but personally I just don't find this to be true. There are tons of titles of all quality levels and genres coming and going all the time on netflix. I've made great discoveries there for new content, foreign films and tv shows, independent titles, etc. It just takes a little digging. And there are a great many sites on the internet that will tell you what is coming and leaving netflix in any given month along with making recommendations.

The main thing that affects the titles you are shown by default are your ratings. You don't even have to watch a movie to rate it. But the rating will still be used to determine what they list by default. If you watch and never rate, the algo will make worse choices. I pretty quickly eliminated straight to tv shlock by giving 1 star ratings to that type of content.

It does? Depends on what weight you give to the opinion of the folks buried. I doubt they would agree that curiosity by itself is sufficient benefit.

The archeologist in this NPR story (http://www.npr.org/2015/07/28/425700788/bones-in-church-ruin...) reported that the box was too fragile to open. Likely opening the box would destroy all or part of it or its contents. Using MRI (or other scanning methods) as opposed to opening/disassembling is fairly common now in archeology when dealing with fragile objects.

But I agree with your skepticism regarding graves vs sites. I seriously doubt the folks who were buried or did the burying expected or wanted the remains exhumed for any purpose whatsoever.

Native Americans clearly considered this kind of thing grave robbing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Graves_Protect...). I can't see a substantial difference here.

I'm not sure where the line is. It seems like there should be a substantial benefit beyond just satisfying curiosity.

This addon does as you suggest but with a simple click as opposed to having to go into about:config. Better if you think you might use webrtc from time to time.

And firefox users here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/happy-bonobo-...

As indicated at the bottom of the article, this is only the first chapter of a book in which he does offer solutions and strategies. http://www.raymundtamayo.com/p/simplify-life-and-make-it-cou...

Regarding use of "we". Clearly (at least to me) he is referring to societal trends that are fairly common. Not a specific groups of "we"s. So clearly there are plenty of folks who are not effected by these challenges. It's fairly pendantic to get hung up on this word.

Yes, true. Working in tech, I'm probably seeing the end of the spectrum that updates their devices more frequently.

I have nothing against the apple watch per se other than price. Just a personal thing. But I can't see paying that much for a device with a) a rechargeable battery that may or may not be easily replaceable and b) has tech that will age out quickly (compared to for example just a digital watch of some sort). Just seems like extreme planned obsolescence. But I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

It may be the utility of such devices outstrips any such concerns.

My concern on this (connected watches generally) is the upgrade treadmill this might create. So a person would buy a ~$600 iphone + a $400 watch. How often would they upgrade the watch? Lots of folks upgrade phones every year or every other year. Will they do this with a watch? Will they need to? I have a Casio watch that I still wear that's 15 years old. And an old wind up that's 30 years old. I can't imagine that being the case for a smart watch. Apple and android watch makers are gonna want folks to upgrade as frequently as possible. Just seems both wasteful and needlessly expensive at the $400 price point. Consumerism gone a muck as twer.

A few arguments:

http://www.humanfactors.com/newsletters/optimal_line_length....

http://www.ninjapost.com/blog/on-the-importance-of-narrow-co...

http://socialtriggers.com/perfect-content-width/