alister

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391.
by alister 14y ago
"we will never ask for your personal information" It's a nice first step, but then they break the security model by sending emails with a link to click on. Every single service provider, bank, credit card, airline, or utility that sends m
392.
by alister 14y ago
"Just give the caller ridiculous answers in response to their first few queries and see if they balk." Except that you know what happens when you give ridiculous answers to (secondary) security questions when signing into a bank account o
393.
by alister 14y ago
That's wonderful, thank you. I recommend Chapter 11 (starting at page 141 in the PDF file) for a detailed personal account of how he developed the 555 timer chip. I'm also finding that the first 30 pages of the book is a very readable intro
394.
by alister 14y ago
> did I tell you about the time that: the mat cat sat upon? I'm not getting it. What was the bad English speaker trying to say?
395.
by alister 14y ago
Looking at the advances in machine translation and speech recognition in the last 10 years, how long before fluency in English becomes irrelevant? If any English that you hear, see, or read is instantly and perfectly translated to your nati
396.
by alister 14y ago
If you've wondered what topology was about and wanted to get a better feel for it than just a dictionary definition, then see the 20-minute video in the article. A blurb about the video: The computer animation "Outside In" explains the ama
397.
by alister 14y ago
> When I used to travel with checked baggage, it almost always got stolen or lost. Your experiences seem to be exceptionally bad. I'd be interested to hear what airline and routes you traveled. And did you have connections? Also, do you
398.
by alister 14y ago
"A good part of the baggage process is in a part of the airport that is physically quite complex and, in many areas, dark." He adds: "Your bag may be traveling for several miles" in this maze, and watching it at every step along the way ju
399.
by alister 14y ago
A nice play by play of the landing culled from the YouTube comments (attributed to "flyhighj65"): 0:15 - Obviously heat shield separation ~0:25 to 0:30 - Back shell separation and powered flight 0:31 to 0:38 - The rover banks to m
400.
by alister 14y ago
When they used to say that 35 Kbps was the maximum for a analog modem, it was purportedly due to a fundamental principle of information theory. When they used to say that ADSL had a maximum of 8 Mbps, it might be just because the spec for
401.
by alister 14y ago
Since we're talking about the Shannon limit, why does a 56 Kbps modem not violate it? The common wisdom in the early '90s was that the fastest possible modem for a dial-up connection would be ~35 Kbps. I even remember reading this "fact" in
402.
by alister 14y ago
You should take a look at https://deniablevideo.com/ for any video you record. but for a fixed location like a home or office, since it's not a mobile device.
403.
by alister 14y ago
I can see how a "life recorder" sounds appealing, and even genuinely useful. But shouldn't we also think about how much mischief and damage could be done to your life if someone decided to comb through your "life record"? Real-life cases of
404.
Apple should buy Disney if it's to beat Samsung's commoditization of iPhone/iPad(cringely.com)
3 points by alister 14y ago|0 comments
405.
by alister 14y ago
A tiny bit of research on the net will tell you what to expect And he's contributing to that body of knowledge on the net so others who research the subject in the future know what to expect. Someone has to make their complaints in public
406.
by alister 14y ago
If he did it in a 2-day sprint, that makes it even more amazing -- which was my point. It seems unlikely to me that I could find someone to do the same quality of work as a contracting gig (whether it took 2 days or 2 months) and charge les
407.
by alister 14y ago
I am awe-struck with what people with a passion manage to get done "in a couple weeks" just for fun. I can't imagine that I could have hired someone to do the same analysis, research, programming, scripting, graphics creation, and web sit
408.
Darpa Funds Hack Machine You’d Never Notice(wired.com)
55 points by alister 14y ago|8 comments
409.
by alister 14y ago
You should obviously try this test with headphones, not the low-quality speakers built into most laptops.
410.
Your auditory range: cool if you're under 25, probably upsetting if over 25(noiseaddicts.com)
2 points by alister 14y ago|2 comments
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Seattle men busted at the border with illegal candy(komonews.com)
7 points by alister 14y ago|0 comments
412.
by alister 14y ago
He says that he tried to call, and his statement looks clear to me: > I also tried calling the main number, at mcdonands.com: 1-800-244-6227, but got a voice recording that was totally unintelligible (very loud and distorted), and it a
413.
by alister 14y ago
Yes, and under OS X Lion, FileVault2 is apparently a complete rewrite of the earlier FileVault, and it appears to be solid. TrueCrypt is also an excellent (and multi-platform) alternative. But using whole-disk encryption doesn't invalidate
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by alister 14y ago
I do know how to turn off Spotlight, but thank you. My broader point is that it is becoming impossible to truly delete a file or maintain separation between different parts of your data unless you are very technical and meticulous . How ma
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Ask HN: How do you watch for follow-ups to a HN comment without hitting refresh?
4 points by alister 14y ago|3 comments
416.
by alister 14y ago
irrelevant for the vast majority of people In real life people do think of pieces of paper as having different levels of security or privacy. Some pieces of paper you can leave out on the coffee table, others get locked in a desk, and sti
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by alister 14y ago
I am very fond of the Mac, but the developers of Spotlight and the recent Versions feature of OS X Lion have not given proper thought to users' security and privacy. Spotlight peeks inside files to create an index, and Version-supported app
418.
by alister 14y ago
For roughly the same cost you can get a used laptop off ebay I'm going to assume that we're talking about building an embedded device, controller, standalone appliance that interacts with the real world -- this is the intended market for
419.
by alister 14y ago
> the absolute minimum is a volume of 20 cubic meters Well, this is fiction, but I'm imagining just how much worse it could get: In "Futurama" set in the year 3000, Fry and Bender are living together in Bender's closet-sized apartment,
420.
by alister 14y ago
> license plate that was too small in the original image to see the letters of I did mention that better quality photos are available. And I did show that there are at least 2 photos of the same license plate -- there are probably more.

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