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Of course it doesn't tell you... in reply to

Of course it doesn't tell you who wrote Flame. The NYT article tells you that. But how is that relevant? The cryptography aspect of it is part and parcel of the whole program. Without it, the operation could not have succeeded. Tell me, what rogue hacker has the capacity to develop his own collision attack cryptography--never before seen anywhere else--to conduct this operation. Mind you one that has specific interests in Iran. No matter how you twist it, you're still being delusional dude.

Given the number of classified patents the US publishes, especially in the field of cryptography, the most likely culprit is the NSA, the largest employer of mathematicians in the world.

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I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article...

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.

In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].

Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[2]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html
[3]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
[4]: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia
[5]: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214757/RSA_warns_SecurID_customers_after_company_is_hacked
[6]: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/rsa-hack-targeted-flash-vulnerability-10022143/
[7]: https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/Di6RwCNKCrf
[8]: http://zackarymorris.tumblr.com/post/10973087527/the-state-of-the-art-is-terrible

Attachments

» Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet

A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America's Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots' every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over

8 Replies

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I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article...

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.

In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].

Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[2]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html
[3]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
[4]: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia
[5]: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214757/RSA_warns_SecurID_customers_after_company_is_hacked
[6]: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/rsa-hack-targeted-flash-vulnerability-10022143/
[7]: https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/Di6RwCNKCrf
[8]: http://zackarymorris.tumblr.com/post/10973087527/the-state-of-the-art-is-terrible

Attachments

» Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet

A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America's Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots' every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over

1 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article...

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.

In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].

Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[2]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html
[3]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
[4]: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia
[5]: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214757/RSA_warns_SecurID_customers_after_company_is_hacked
[6]: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/rsa-hack-targeted-flash-vulnerability-10022143/
[7]: https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/Di6RwCNKCrf
[8]: http://zackarymorris.tumblr.com/post/10973087527/the-state-of-the-art-is-terrible

Attachments

» Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet

A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America's Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots' every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over

8 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article...

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.

In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].

Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[2]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html
[3]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
[4]: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia
[5]: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214757/RSA_warns_SecurID_customers_after_company_is_hacked
[6]: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/rsa-hack-targeted-flash-vulnerability-10022143/
[7]: https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/Di6RwCNKCrf
[8]: http://zackarymorris.tumblr.com/post/10973087527/the-state-of-the-art-is-terrible

Attachments

» Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet

A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America's Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots' every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over

1 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.… The latest round of evidence of ongoing...

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.…
The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
                                                    — Kevin Mandia

The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4].  Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5]. 

These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins.  You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9].  These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable.  The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.

The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12].  These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.

“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
                                                    — +The New York Times

Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16].  The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.

While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale.  I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].  

Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms?  Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html
[2]: http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain
[4]: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098371,00.html
[5]: http://www.zdnet.com/news/security-experts-lift-lid-on-chinese-hack-attacks/145763
[6]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
[7]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
[9]: http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2007/05/28/3004
[10]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[11]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
[12]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
[13]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[14]: http://endthelie.com/2012/11/15/obama-reportedly-signs-classified-cyberwarfare-policy-directive-with-troubling-implications/#axzz2LMPlf8iA
[15]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf
[16]: http://endthelie.com/2011/12/17/approval-of-covert-offensive-cyberwar-sneakily-inserted-into-ndaa/
[17]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/
[18]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
[19]: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/new_face_of_war.html
[20]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP223.pdf
[21]: https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472/posts/MVQXyw9EJDE
[22]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57569503-1/obama-endorses-required-high-school-coding-classes/

Attachments

China’s Army Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.

An overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American companies and government agencies start in a building on the edge of Shanghai, say cybersecurity experts and American intelligence officials.

5 Replies

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On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.… The latest round of evidence of ongoing...

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.…
The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
                                                    — Kevin Mandia

The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4].  Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5]. 

These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins.  You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9].  These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable.  The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.

The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12].  These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.

“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
                                                    — +The New York Times

Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16].  The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.

While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale.  I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].  

Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms?  Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html
[2]: http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain
[4]: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098371,00.html
[5]: http://www.zdnet.com/news/security-experts-lift-lid-on-chinese-hack-attacks/145763
[6]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
[7]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
[9]: http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2007/05/28/3004
[10]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[11]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
[12]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
[13]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[14]: http://endthelie.com/2012/11/15/obama-reportedly-signs-classified-cyberwarfare-policy-directive-with-troubling-implications/#axzz2LMPlf8iA
[15]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf
[16]: http://endthelie.com/2011/12/17/approval-of-covert-offensive-cyberwar-sneakily-inserted-into-ndaa/
[17]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/
[18]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
[19]: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/new_face_of_war.html
[20]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP223.pdf
[21]: https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472/posts/MVQXyw9EJDE
[22]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57569503-1/obama-endorses-required-high-school-coding-classes/

Attachments

China’s Army Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.

An overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American companies and government agencies start in a building on the edge of Shanghai, say cybersecurity experts and American intelligence officials.

1 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.… The latest round of evidence of ongoing...

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.…
The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
                                                    — Kevin Mandia

The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4].  Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5]. 

These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins.  You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9].  These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable.  The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.

The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12].  These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.

“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
                                                    — +The New York Times

Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16].  The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.

While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale.  I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].  

Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms?  Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html
[2]: http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain
[4]: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098371,00.html
[5]: http://www.zdnet.com/news/security-experts-lift-lid-on-chinese-hack-attacks/145763
[6]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
[7]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
[9]: http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2007/05/28/3004
[10]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[11]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
[12]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
[13]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[14]: http://endthelie.com/2012/11/15/obama-reportedly-signs-classified-cyberwarfare-policy-directive-with-troubling-implications/#axzz2LMPlf8iA
[15]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf
[16]: http://endthelie.com/2011/12/17/approval-of-covert-offensive-cyberwar-sneakily-inserted-into-ndaa/
[17]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/
[18]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
[19]: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/new_face_of_war.html
[20]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP223.pdf
[21]: https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472/posts/MVQXyw9EJDE
[22]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57569503-1/obama-endorses-required-high-school-coding-classes/

Attachments

China’s Army Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.

An overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American companies and government agencies start in a building on the edge of Shanghai, say cybersecurity experts and American intelligence officials.

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On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.… The latest round of evidence of ongoing...

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.…
The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
                                                    — Kevin Mandia

The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4].  Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5]. 

These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins.  You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9].  These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable.  The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.

The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12].  These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.

“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
                                                    — +The New York Times

Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16].  The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.

While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale.  I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].  

Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms?  Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html
[2]: http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain
[4]: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098371,00.html
[5]: http://www.zdnet.com/news/security-experts-lift-lid-on-chinese-hack-attacks/145763
[6]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
[7]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
[9]: http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2007/05/28/3004
[10]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[11]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
[12]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
[13]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[14]: http://endthelie.com/2012/11/15/obama-reportedly-signs-classified-cyberwarfare-policy-directive-with-troubling-implications/#axzz2LMPlf8iA
[15]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf
[16]: http://endthelie.com/2011/12/17/approval-of-covert-offensive-cyberwar-sneakily-inserted-into-ndaa/
[17]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/
[18]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
[19]: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/new_face_of_war.html
[20]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP223.pdf
[21]: https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472/posts/MVQXyw9EJDE
[22]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57569503-1/obama-endorses-required-high-school-coding-classes/

Attachments

China’s Army Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.

An overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American companies and government agencies start in a building on the edge of Shanghai, say cybersecurity experts and American intelligence officials.

5 Replies

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Does this work with mobile operator... in reply to

Does this work with mobile operator billing? It would be great if it could

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Didn't like the features or the... in reply to

Didn't like the features or the way it looked, the way it operated. :)

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Linux Mobile Phone

Oh, yes. I think I will.

FIC has announced an on-sale date for its Neo1973, expected to be the first low-cost, high-volume phone with a user-modifiable Linux-based operating system. Additionally, the OpenMoko project building open-source software for the phone has published a wealth of technical resources.


See the link for more information. This is a huge step towards my dream phone.

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Since you cannot reshare a share, I linked to the article by +Carmelyne Thompson instead. Nice read ...

Since you cannot reshare a share, I linked to the article by +Carmelyne Thompson instead. Nice read regarding how we operate in Hangout Academy!
http://hangoutacademy.com

Whoever is curious what we use:
- Gerrit for Code Review
- We use Debian for Staging Server / Production Server
- We have automated builds that it deploys the web app to Staging server
- We follow agile development, we do modified SCRUM every other day.
- We document enough so that if a new member joins, they wont get lost.
- We design, we architect, we develop and iterate!
- We use hangouts for our main communication tool.
- We use Google Apps with Sites / Mail / Calendar integration

The team is beyond awesome, read her post to know the full picture! We love to tinker, we love development, and we love design!

via +Carmelyne Thompson

Attachments

Carmelyne Thompson - Google+ - Wonder what we have been working on for the last month? …

Wonder what we have been working on for the last month? Coming soon, Hangout Academy will make educational and public hangouts fun and effective. Right…

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Since you cannot reshare a share, I linked to the article by +Carmelyne Thompson instead. Nice read ...

Since you cannot reshare a share, I linked to the article by +Carmelyne Thompson instead. Nice read regarding how we operate in Hangout Academy!
http://hangoutacademy.com

Whoever is curious what we use:
- Gerrit for Code Review
- We use Debian for Staging Server / Production Server
- We have automated builds that it deploys the web app to Staging server
- We follow agile development, we do modified SCRUM every other day.
- We document enough so that if a new member joins, they wont get lost.
- We design, we architect, we develop and iterate!
- We use hangouts for our main communication tool.
- We use Google Apps with Sites / Mail / Calendar integration

The team is beyond awesome, read her post to know the full picture! We love to tinker, we love development, and we love design!

via +Carmelyne Thompson

Attachments

Carmelyne Thompson - Google+ - Wonder what we have been working on for the last month? …

Wonder what we have been working on for the last month? Coming soon, Hangout Academy will make educational and public hangouts fun and effective. Right…

0 Replies

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New Laptop :)

So, I bought a new laptop from System76. About damn time, I say.

The specs:

  • 15.6" HD+ LED Display @ 1600x900
  • ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 Graphics with 512MB GDDR2 Memory
  • Core i5-520M Processor ( 32nm, 3MB L3 Cache, 2.40GHz )
  • 2 GB - DDR3 1066 MHz (DDR3: zoom zoom. ;])
  • 250 GB 5400 RPM SATA II (I considered a bigger hard drive, but I have a NAS at the house and honestly plan on taking advantages of synchronized OSes like ChromeOS in the very near future, so I decided against it)

So far, I'm absolutely lovin' it. The hardware is very clean and Apple-like, with no disgusting third-party stickers plastered all over the thing. There's a System76 logo sticker on the back, which I could easily remove with some isopropyl if I so chose. Part of System76's sales pitch is pre-built Ubuntu boxes (which is what sold me, to be honest), so it came with Ubuntu 10.04, my day-to-day operating system of choice (especially since Backtrack makes things oh-so-awesome.)

I do have some minor complaints:

  1. I had a dead pixel on my LCD. They won't replace it unless "there are more than 6 dead pixels. :(
  2. As a result of the hinge design, the screen won't fold back more than ~35°. A bit of a pain in specific use scenarios.
  3. A lack of one-button volume controls. The volume controls are only available through function keys, sadly. Some buttons on the top right for volume up, down, and mute would make this already awesome laptop perfect.

I don't know how much control System76 has over these hardware-design issues, but fixing them would seal the deal on any of my future purchases. ;)

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Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality +CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful...

Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality
+CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful project, the single-server, fully persistent world of +EVE Online.  Having launched +DUST 514 as an extension that exists within the same game world, CCP has raised the bar of innovation already, and continues to carve out territory with the announcement of +EVE: Valkyrie.

Valkyrie is a virtual reality game originally designed for +Oculus VR [1].  If you're not familiar with Oculus, they're the makers of the Oculus Rift. The Rift is a 3D display device that you wear like a pair of glasses, and literally move your head to look around the space.  This interaction makes it feel like you are actually in the virtual space, and represents a huge step forward in immersion.

What interests me most about EVE is the fact that it's a truly alternative reality; a simulated universe, of which only one exists, and to which there will never be a sequel or a "version 2".  CCP has committed to simply improve the game over time rather than ever introduce an "EVE 2", building the universe iteratively over the past 10 years.   This means that the time you invest in the alternative reality has a degree of permanence and importance, rather than the transience and fragmentation of other sharded universes.

Let's hope this integrates directly into the EVE Universe, in the capacity of participating in actual fights, and not just "conquer this asteroid field to make it available to EVE players".  Anything less would be a grave disappointment and moreover, a potentially critical business mistake as the two games, EVE Online and Valkyrie, operate in the same space.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

[1]: EVE-VR: Fanfest Trailer

Attachments

EVE: Valkyrie Announcement Trailer

EVE: Valkyrie (formerly EVE-VR) is a multiplayer dogfighting shooter set in the EVE universe that uses virtual reality to give players the sense of being a r...

3 Replies

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Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality +CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful...

Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality
+CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful project, the single-server, fully persistent world of +EVE Online.  Having launched +DUST 514 as an extension that exists within the same game world, CCP has raised the bar of innovation already, and continues to carve out territory with the announcement of +EVE: Valkyrie.

Valkyrie is a virtual reality game originally designed for +Oculus VR [1].  If you're not familiar with Oculus, they're the makers of the Oculus Rift. The Rift is a 3D display device that you wear like a pair of glasses, and literally move your head to look around the space.  This interaction makes it feel like you are actually in the virtual space, and represents a huge step forward in immersion.

What interests me most about EVE is the fact that it's a truly alternative reality; a simulated universe, of which only one exists, and to which there will never be a sequel or a "version 2".  CCP has committed to simply improve the game over time rather than ever introduce an "EVE 2", building the universe iteratively over the past 10 years.   This means that the time you invest in the alternative reality has a degree of permanence and importance, rather than the transience and fragmentation of other sharded universes.

Let's hope this integrates directly into the EVE Universe, in the capacity of participating in actual fights, and not just "conquer this asteroid field to make it available to EVE players".  Anything less would be a grave disappointment and moreover, a potentially critical business mistake as the two games, EVE Online and Valkyrie, operate in the same space.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

[1]: EVE-VR: Fanfest Trailer

Attachments

EVE: Valkyrie Announcement Trailer

EVE: Valkyrie (formerly EVE-VR) is a multiplayer dogfighting shooter set in the EVE universe that uses virtual reality to give players the sense of being a r...

11 Replies

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Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality +CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful...

Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality
+CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful project, the single-server, fully persistent world of +EVE Online.  Having launched +DUST 514 as an extension that exists within the same game world, CCP has raised the bar of innovation already, and continues to carve out territory with the announcement of +EVE: Valkyrie.

Valkyrie is a virtual reality game originally designed for +Oculus VR [1].  If you're not familiar with Oculus, they're the makers of the Oculus Rift. The Rift is a 3D display device that you wear like a pair of glasses, and literally move your head to look around the space.  This interaction makes it feel like you are actually in the virtual space, and represents a huge step forward in immersion.

What interests me most about EVE is the fact that it's a truly alternative reality; a simulated universe, of which only one exists, and to which there will never be a sequel or a "version 2".  CCP has committed to simply improve the game over time rather than ever introduce an "EVE 2", building the universe iteratively over the past 10 years.   This means that the time you invest in the alternative reality has a degree of permanence and importance, rather than the transience and fragmentation of other sharded universes.

Let's hope this integrates directly into the EVE Universe, in the capacity of participating in actual fights, and not just "conquer this asteroid field to make it available to EVE players".  Anything less would be a grave disappointment and moreover, a potentially critical business mistake as the two games, EVE Online and Valkyrie, operate in the same space.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

[1]: EVE-VR: Fanfest Trailer

Attachments

EVE: Valkyrie Announcement Trailer

EVE: Valkyrie (formerly EVE-VR) is a multiplayer dogfighting shooter set in the EVE universe that uses virtual reality to give players the sense of being a r...

3 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality +CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful...

Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality
+CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful project, the single-server, fully persistent world of +EVE Online.  Having launched +DUST 514 as an extension that exists within the same game world, CCP has raised the bar of innovation already, and continues to carve out territory with the announcement of +EVE: Valkyrie.

Valkyrie is a virtual reality game originally designed for +Oculus VR [1].  If you're not familiar with Oculus, they're the makers of the Oculus Rift. The Rift is a 3D display device that you wear like a pair of glasses, and literally move your head to look around the space.  This interaction makes it feel like you are actually in the virtual space, and represents a huge step forward in immersion.

What interests me most about EVE is the fact that it's a truly alternative reality; a simulated universe, of which only one exists, and to which there will never be a sequel or a "version 2".  CCP has committed to simply improve the game over time rather than ever introduce an "EVE 2", building the universe iteratively over the past 10 years.   This means that the time you invest in the alternative reality has a degree of permanence and importance, rather than the transience and fragmentation of other sharded universes.

Let's hope this integrates directly into the EVE Universe, in the capacity of participating in actual fights, and not just "conquer this asteroid field to make it available to EVE players".  Anything less would be a grave disappointment and moreover, a potentially critical business mistake as the two games, EVE Online and Valkyrie, operate in the same space.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

[1]: EVE-VR: Fanfest Trailer

Attachments

EVE: Valkyrie Announcement Trailer

EVE: Valkyrie (formerly EVE-VR) is a multiplayer dogfighting shooter set in the EVE universe that uses virtual reality to give players the sense of being a r...

3 Replies

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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented...

My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]

If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.

While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.

One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.

I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.

[1]: Amazing Screen Technology : Samsung Flexible AMOLED
[2]: http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-reality-in-a-contact-lens/
[3]: http://www.oled-info.com/tdk-starts-mass-production-transparent-24-qvga-pmoleds
[4]: http://www.laster.fr/produits/promobiledisplay/
[5]: http://www.layar.com/
[6]: http://www.wikitude.com/
[7]: http://www.junaio.com/
[8]: http://questvisual.com/

Attachments

Amazing Screen Technology : Samsung Flexible AMOLED

This is CF of Samsung Mobile Display & AMOLED. I'ts amazing and wonderful technology!!! In korea, netizen says "Samsung kidnaps aliens(or hijacks UFO) again!" :)

8 Replies

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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented...

My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]

If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.

While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.

One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.

I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.

[1]: Amazing Screen Technology : Samsung Flexible AMOLED
[2]: http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-reality-in-a-contact-lens/
[3]: http://www.oled-info.com/tdk-starts-mass-production-transparent-24-qvga-pmoleds
[4]: http://www.laster.fr/produits/promobiledisplay/
[5]: http://www.layar.com/
[6]: http://www.wikitude.com/
[7]: http://www.junaio.com/
[8]: http://questvisual.com/

Attachments

Amazing Screen Technology : Samsung Flexible AMOLED

This is CF of Samsung Mobile Display & AMOLED. I'ts amazing and wonderful technology!!! In korea, netizen says "Samsung kidnaps aliens(or hijacks UFO) again!" :)

1 Replies

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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented...

My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]

If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.

While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.

One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.

I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.

[1]: Amazing Screen Technology : Samsung Flexible AMOLED
[2]: http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-reality-in-a-contact-lens/
[3]: http://www.oled-info.com/tdk-starts-mass-production-transparent-24-qvga-pmoleds
[4]: http://www.laster.fr/produits/promobiledisplay/
[5]: http://www.layar.com/
[6]: http://www.wikitude.com/
[7]: http://www.junaio.com/
[8]: http://questvisual.com/

Attachments

Amazing Screen Technology : Samsung Flexible AMOLED

This is CF of Samsung Mobile Display & AMOLED. I'ts amazing and wonderful technology!!! In korea, netizen says "Samsung kidnaps aliens(or hijacks UFO) again!" :)

8 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented...

My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]

If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.

While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.

One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.

I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.

[1]: Amazing Screen Technology : Samsung Flexible AMOLED
[2]: http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-reality-in-a-contact-lens/
[3]: http://www.oled-info.com/tdk-starts-mass-production-transparent-24-qvga-pmoleds
[4]: http://www.laster.fr/produits/promobiledisplay/
[5]: http://www.layar.com/
[6]: http://www.wikitude.com/
[7]: http://www.junaio.com/
[8]: http://questvisual.com/

Attachments

Amazing Screen Technology : Samsung Flexible AMOLED

This is CF of Samsung Mobile Display & AMOLED. I'ts amazing and wonderful technology!!! In korea, netizen says "Samsung kidnaps aliens(or hijacks UFO) again!" :)

1 Replies

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Onward, and Ever Upward

2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth.  This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.

Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.

Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4].  As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].

Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment.  It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.

After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks.  Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry.  My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!

Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways.  Now let's go make the world a better place.

[1]: One of which, DigaForce, was just acquired: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2014/01/02/apex-tech-firm-strategic-link-partners.html?page=all — congratulations to +Anthony Pompliano and +Matthew Cotter!
[2]: Jeff is one of the core developers of Bitcoin and a former +Red Hat team member from Raleigh.  How's that for the Triangle Company Family tree, +Derrick Minor?!
[3]: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/29/which-currency-is-up-over-9000-this-year-and-sells-for-almost-as-much-as-an-ounce-of-gold/
[4]: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-can-be-the-new-western-union-2013-12
[5]: You might recall that in March of 2013, the Cypriot government restricted withdrawals and then utilized citizens' bank accounts directly to bail out their banking system, resulting in a surge in Bitcoin prices as individuals fled the fiat currency: http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/28/investing/bitcoin-cyprus/
[6]: Here's an interview I did while CTO of Coursefork with +Jason Hibbets from +Opensource.com that explains the vision: http://opensource.com/education/13/9/coursefork-education-tool
[7]: As a cofounder and CTO at WebAssign for 13 years, Brian took the education company from zero to over $30M in yearly revenue before becoming my co-founder at Coursefork.

Attachments

Stephen Pair: BitCoin Economy

Stephen Pair, Cofounder and CTO, BitPay on doing business in the BitCoin economy.

17 Replies

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Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io...

Onward, and Ever Upward
2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth.  This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.

Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.

Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4].  As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].

Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment.  It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.

After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks.  Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry.  My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!

Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways.  Now let's go make the world a better place.

[1]: One of which, DigaForce, was just acquired: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2014/01/02/apex-tech-firm-strategic-link-partners.html?page=all — congratulations to +Anthony Pompliano and +Matthew Cotter!
[2]: Jeff is one of the core developers of Bitcoin and a former +Red Hat team member from Raleigh.  How's that for the Triangle Company Family tree, +Derrick Minor?!
[3]: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/29/which-currency-is-up-over-9000-this-year-and-sells-for-almost-as-much-as-an-ounce-of-gold/
[4]: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-can-be-the-new-western-union-2013-12
[5]: You might recall that in March of 2013, the Cypriot government restricted withdrawals and then utilized citizens' bank accounts directly to bail out their banking system, resulting in a surge in Bitcoin prices as individuals fled the fiat currency: http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/28/investing/bitcoin-cyprus/
[6]: Here's an interview I did while CTO of Coursefork with +Jason Hibbets from +Opensource.com that explains the vision: http://opensource.com/education/13/9/coursefork-education-tool
[7]: As a cofounder and CTO at WebAssign for 13 years, Brian took the education company from zero to over $30M in yearly revenue before becoming my co-founder at Coursefork.

Attachments

Stephen Pair: BitCoin Economy

Stephen Pair, Cofounder and CTO, BitPay on doing business in the BitCoin economy.

1 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io...

Onward, and Ever Upward
2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth.  This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.

Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.

Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4].  As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].

Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment.  It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.

After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks.  Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry.  My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!

Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways.  Now let's go make the world a better place.

[1]: One of which, DigaForce, was just acquired: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2014/01/02/apex-tech-firm-strategic-link-partners.html?page=all — congratulations to +Anthony Pompliano and +Matthew Cotter!
[2]: Jeff is one of the core developers of Bitcoin and a former +Red Hat team member from Raleigh.  How's that for the Triangle Company Family tree, +Derrick Minor?!
[3]: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/29/which-currency-is-up-over-9000-this-year-and-sells-for-almost-as-much-as-an-ounce-of-gold/
[4]: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-can-be-the-new-western-union-2013-12
[5]: You might recall that in March of 2013, the Cypriot government restricted withdrawals and then utilized citizens' bank accounts directly to bail out their banking system, resulting in a surge in Bitcoin prices as individuals fled the fiat currency: http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/28/investing/bitcoin-cyprus/
[6]: Here's an interview I did while CTO of Coursefork with +Jason Hibbets from +Opensource.com that explains the vision: http://opensource.com/education/13/9/coursefork-education-tool
[7]: As a cofounder and CTO at WebAssign for 13 years, Brian took the education company from zero to over $30M in yearly revenue before becoming my co-founder at Coursefork.

Attachments

Stephen Pair: BitCoin Economy

Stephen Pair, Cofounder and CTO, BitPay on doing business in the BitCoin economy.

1 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io...

Onward, and Ever Upward
2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth.  This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.

Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.

Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4].  As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].

Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment.  It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.

After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks.  Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry.  My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!

Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways.  Now let's go make the world a better place.

[1]: One of which, DigaForce, was just acquired: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2014/01/02/apex-tech-firm-strategic-link-partners.html?page=all — congratulations to +Anthony Pompliano and +Matthew Cotter!
[2]: Jeff is one of the core developers of Bitcoin and a former +Red Hat team member from Raleigh.  How's that for the Triangle Company Family tree, +Derrick Minor?!
[3]: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/29/which-currency-is-up-over-9000-this-year-and-sells-for-almost-as-much-as-an-ounce-of-gold/
[4]: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-can-be-the-new-western-union-2013-12
[5]: You might recall that in March of 2013, the Cypriot government restricted withdrawals and then utilized citizens' bank accounts directly to bail out their banking system, resulting in a surge in Bitcoin prices as individuals fled the fiat currency: http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/28/investing/bitcoin-cyprus/
[6]: Here's an interview I did while CTO of Coursefork with +Jason Hibbets from +Opensource.com that explains the vision: http://opensource.com/education/13/9/coursefork-education-tool
[7]: As a cofounder and CTO at WebAssign for 13 years, Brian took the education company from zero to over $30M in yearly revenue before becoming my co-founder at Coursefork.

Attachments

Stephen Pair: BitCoin Economy

Stephen Pair, Cofounder and CTO, BitPay on doing business in the BitCoin economy.

1 Replies

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Bitcoin is a trust anchor. It...

Bitcoin is a trust anchor. It is the system that provides the most reasonable degree of certainty for systems requiring shared perspectives.

0 Replies

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Wait, what? Why the hell was...

Wait, what? Why the hell was the in-flight entertainment system connected, in any way, to the actual flight control systems? Fire that team.

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I have a problem with focusing... in reply to

I have a problem with focusing on delivery systems instead of content. Coursera is a delivery system. A proprietary one and not even a particularly good one. Was Robert Panoff in the audience?

0 Replies

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin is a trust...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin is a trust anchor. It is the system that provides the most reasonable degree of certainty for systems requiring sha…

0 Replies

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin is a trust...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin is a trust anchor. It is the system that provides the most reasonable degree of certainty for systems requiring sha…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin is a trust...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin is a trust anchor. It is the system that provides the most reasonable degree of certainty for systems requiring sha…

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I'd add that our monetary system... in reply to

I'd add that our monetary system is utterly corrupt by design. You work for money, but you do not own what you traded your labor for. There is no capitalism because money printers can dismiss the price system at will from the inside. Price signals are created at the will of the planners and not by the needs of the people.

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The assumption that a technical infrastructure... in reply to

The assumption that a technical infrastructure like this is directly connected to the internet for control, and is vulnerable to cyber attacks is not quite robust. Totally isolated local networks and control systems can not be hacked by cyber warfare. I find it difficult to believe critical systems will be controlled through the net.

Distributed wars fought on very large number of fronts weaken the defences of a stronger player and give an advantage to a weaker attacker. Col Blotto's game!

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Coding Contest: Shortest Full-featured CMS, BB, or Blog

There's a large number of Content Management System, Bulletin Board, and Blog solutions available, all with amazing functionality that simply can't be missed on today's rapidly advancing internet(s).

Examples CMS: Joomla, with around 280,000 lines of code. BB: phpBB, with around 150,000 lines of code. Blogs: WordPress, with around 170,000 lines of code.

My challenge is this: What is the smallest full-featured CMS, BB, or Blog that you can create?

Contest submissions must include the following features:

  • User Accounts
  • Article Posts (or "Topics" in BB-land)
  • Comment System

Submissions will be accepted in any language, so long as the content can be served up over HTTP. To submit, comment on this post with a link to your project!

Good luck and happy coding!

0 Replies

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Why isn't education open-source in the first place? I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle...

Why isn't education open-source in the first place?
I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle Park about education and open source, and how the freedoms that are necessary for a healthy education system were systematically removed over time.  While the slides aren't available in the video, I've uploaded them to +Coursefork [1].

It's incredibly powerful to lay out the data and show how increased spending and manpower has impacted the quality of education over time: aptitude measurements have stayed flat (or negative!) while test scores and grades continue to inflate.  It seems as if we've built a system of education that is extremely good at—wait for it—_getting people to pass standardized tests_.

Companies like +Khan Academy and +Coursera are really chipping away at the problem of making the resources available, both content and services (i.e., actual teaching), but making the content interchangeable and hackable is of critical importance to building the healthy open source ecosystem that we've seen emerge in the software community (a la +GitHub) within the world of education.

One day, we'll see the equivalent of the pull request in education.  I'm hoping to build it with +Coursefork.

[1]:  http://coursefork.org/martindale/open-freedom-and-education

Attachments

RTP 180: "Open, Freedom, and Education" with Eric Martindale

Eric Martindale of Coursefork talks about the potential power of applying open source principles to education at The Research Triangle Park's RTP 180: "Open ...

1 Replies

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Why isn't education open-source in the first place? I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle...

Why isn't education open-source in the first place?
I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle Park about education and open source, and how the freedoms that are necessary for a healthy education system were systematically removed over time.  While the slides aren't available in the video, I've uploaded them to +Coursefork [1].

It's incredibly powerful to lay out the data and show how increased spending and manpower has impacted the quality of education over time: aptitude measurements have stayed flat (or negative!) while test scores and grades continue to inflate.  It seems as if we've built a system of education that is extremely good at—wait for it—_getting people to pass standardized tests_.

Companies like +Khan Academy and +Coursera are really chipping away at the problem of making the resources available, both content and services (i.e., actual teaching), but making the content interchangeable and hackable is of critical importance to building the healthy open source ecosystem that we've seen emerge in the software community (a la +GitHub) within the world of education.

One day, we'll see the equivalent of the pull request in education.  I'm hoping to build it with +Coursefork.

[1]:  http://coursefork.org/martindale/open-freedom-and-education

Attachments

RTP 180: "Open, Freedom, and Education" with Eric Martindale

Eric Martindale of Coursefork talks about the potential power of applying open source principles to education at The Research Triangle Park's RTP 180: "Open ...

1 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

Why isn't education open-source in the first place? I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle...

Why isn't education open-source in the first place?
I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle Park about education and open source, and how the freedoms that are necessary for a healthy education system were systematically removed over time.  While the slides aren't available in the video, I've uploaded them to +Coursefork [1].

It's incredibly powerful to lay out the data and show how increased spending and manpower has impacted the quality of education over time: aptitude measurements have stayed flat (or negative!) while test scores and grades continue to inflate.  It seems as if we've built a system of education that is extremely good at—wait for it—_getting people to pass standardized tests_.

Companies like +Khan Academy and +Coursera are really chipping away at the problem of making the resources available, both content and services (i.e., actual teaching), but making the content interchangeable and hackable is of critical importance to building the healthy open source ecosystem that we've seen emerge in the software community (a la +GitHub) within the world of education.

One day, we'll see the equivalent of the pull request in education.  I'm hoping to build it with +Coursefork.

[1]:  http://coursefork.org/martindale/open-freedom-and-education

Attachments

RTP 180: "Open, Freedom, and Education" with Eric Martindale

Eric Martindale of Coursefork talks about the potential power of applying open source principles to education at The Research Triangle Park's RTP 180: "Open ...

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Why isn't education open-source in the first place? I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle...

Why isn't education open-source in the first place?
I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle Park about education and open source, and how the freedoms that are necessary for a healthy education system were systematically removed over time.  While the slides aren't available in the video, I've uploaded them to +Coursefork [1].

It's incredibly powerful to lay out the data and show how increased spending and manpower has impacted the quality of education over time: aptitude measurements have stayed flat (or negative!) while test scores and grades continue to inflate.  It seems as if we've built a system of education that is extremely good at—wait for it—_getting people to pass standardized tests_.

Companies like +Khan Academy and +Coursera are really chipping away at the problem of making the resources available, both content and services (i.e., actual teaching), but making the content interchangeable and hackable is of critical importance to building the healthy open source ecosystem that we've seen emerge in the software community (a la +GitHub) within the world of education.

One day, we'll see the equivalent of the pull request in education.  I'm hoping to build it with +Coursefork.

[1]:  http://coursefork.org/martindale/open-freedom-and-education

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RTP 180: "Open, Freedom, and Education" with Eric Martindale

Eric Martindale of Coursefork talks about the potential power of applying open source principles to education at The Research Triangle Park's RTP 180: "Open ...

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A Brief History of Freeform Roleplay

Warning: Strong nerdery follows. Please be cautious of your fragile mind.

Since late 1997, in all of my pre-teen glory, I have been involved with something my friends and I simply called roleplay in our own little vernacular. Of course I've since learned that roleplay doesn't only refer to the peer-driven world of online roleplay, it refers to all sorts of real-world tabletop games, live acting, and various amounts of storytelling, but this particular post is written with the word roleplay referring to the freeform online roleplaying that I have always been so close to.

Freeform roleplay, or the idea that there is no GM (game master) or storyteller (as in Vampire: The Masquerade), and is instead driven solely by the players, with no concrete rules for battle, statistics, or progression of the story. Rules and guidelines were driven by common expectation, which developed as a sort of social justice system that remains effective, even today.

The very roots of this sort of roleplay stem from early chat systems, where one could adopt a simple moniker and create a personality around the idea of an "avatar", which in most cases consisted only of this name. Players, without defining themselves as such, would interact in an imaginative world that coalesced out of their collaborative imagination. Each would react to the other characters' actions and dialogue in a fashion that suited their own character's theoretical personality, and this would create a constantly evolving story arc.

As the web (and the young teen's perception of the web) evolved and grew, so did the concept of roleplay. Online forums became an entirely new beast, allowing users to write more and more into their in character posts, instead of being limited to the single lines that chat provided (of course, some chats had enough space for people to post a full paragraph, or even two - but this was limited at the time), they were able to expound upon their writing and even proofread their copy before sending it across the web for the other players to view.

Freeform roleplay had also grown to be very competitive at this point, with groups of players forming groups known as clans, guilds, or otherwise, and expanded their IC competitions from chat to the forums and message boards now provided by a few enterprising organizations (or individuals). It was this competitive banter and challenge that defined what many now call the golden age of roleplay, which is what really drove the forefront of this gaming medium.

There were plenty of players who had entered their late teens (and some even were adults at this point, gasp!) who moved away from chat, and who moved away from the conflict-driven world of this type of roleplay. They went on to create storyline-oriented games, with a small and select number of players in more of a collaborative fiction setting. These players often went on to become writers and editors, being driven more by the literary aspect of relaying a fiction onto the internet, and often have their own private niche where they can continue to do this with their long-standing playergroup.

And... that's where we are today. The freeform roleplay community is growing and changing, barely 15 years old at this point. We have the chance to nurture it, just as we have the chance to neglect it. Those of us who've been involved since the beginning have the greatest opportunity to influence the course of growth, and that's exactly what I'm hoping to do.

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As a corporate business insider I... in reply to

As a corporate business insider I can offer a perspective from the "enemy's" den. Many people agree that this movement has gained momentum and has the potential to become as big or bigger than the Tea Party Movement. I grew up in the same generation as many of those protesting today and I understand the innuendo behind Anonymous, I understand point being made by the zombies, and I understand what general sense of anger is meant for. However, keep in mind that you are generally a younger generation trying to speak to an industry dominated mostly by an older generation of people. To these people this movement appears random, chaotic, and annoying simply because they don't even know what this movement's demands or goals are. Indeed for almost all of September I don't think Wall Street even understood exactly what they were protesting, and just recently have they gotten some kind of vague idea as to what these people want done. Most people relate these types of sit-in's to hippies from their generation and view them as more of an unorganized annoyance. To my friends who I work with in NYC, comments I hear from them are to this effect (I am summarizing several people's opinions as one): "It's just stupid, they block traffic and cause trouble nearby. We have to exit buildings from completely the opposite side now just to avoid them if we're wearing a suit regardless of our purpose. No one is there during the day but all of a sudden they pop up during rush hour. They wreck local businesses and drive customers away. The corporations they protest are unaffected but the small businesses nearby are the ones they are actually hurting. We don't even know what they want."

My bosses have gone to meetings with Bernanke and Geithner it is unclear still whether these protests will actually have any influence over policy. At an executive level they still appear confused as to how to handle situation, mostly because they do not understand it. But understand this, from their perspective they have changed the following: In terms of big banks, their balance sheets have been improved light years beyond where they were in 2008 with more liquidity and more capital on hand to prevent these types of shocks to the system. They have repaid any tax dollars received and are often significantly more efficient at implementing change than the government is in making up it's mind on what to do. The majority of issues occurs because of the indecisiveness in Washington. Think about these issues: 12 people are tasked with cutting $1.7 Trillion in the next 5 weeks -- The only way that is going to happen is if they cut large dollar programs. That means Healthcare, medicare, social security, and of course military but that is even less politically viable than the other three. There is also gridlock on what will happen with the tax system in the future. Those main issues where indecisiveness has been are also some of the largest possible expenses a corporation could have. How do plan for variable expenses that could go up or down by 50% in EITHER direction? Corporations have no idea how to plan for healthcare, medicare, or social security plans for their employees because there is no decisiveness on what will occur in the future. They do not want to hire people that they cannot afford to keep a year later because of law changes. So even if they have the money for it now (which they do), they are unable to hire because of the risk of causing liquidity issues later and the massive negative PR associated with hiring and then firing. These banks also receive criticism for not lending money out, but this is not their fault. They ARE lending money out, but there is no demand. It is not supply side issues, there is plenty of money out there to be had. You can get a loan today no problem, don't believe me? Go try it at any bank you want. There is just no one who wants to take a loan. So all that free capital that we spent 3 years trying to push into banks is now stuck there.

This issue is not business related anymore. It is purely political. My above statements are not to absolve corporations of responsibility in 2008, but they are more to explain the current situation here and now. Europe is a whole other book to write about another time.

In a world where politicians and talking heads can call the greatest capitalist of our time Warren Buffett a socialist, and get away with it as "news" is the real issue at hand.

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Great article with several common use cases on how to augment a system with Redis. #scalability

Great article with several common use cases on how to augment a system with Redis. #scalability

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How to take advantage of Redis just adding it to your stack

How to take advantage of Redis just adding it to your stack. Tuesday, 28 June 11. Redis is different than other database solutions in many ways: it uses memory as main storage support and disk only fo...

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Great article with several common use cases on how to augment a system with Redis. #scalability

Great article with several common use cases on how to augment a system with Redis. #scalability

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How to take advantage of Redis just adding it to your stack

How to take advantage of Redis just adding it to your stack. Tuesday, 28 June 11. Redis is different than other database solutions in many ways: it uses memory as main storage support and disk only fo...

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At what point does a system...

At what point does a system become so complicated that it cannot be adequately, or accurately, explained in a single session of explanation?

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Character map in system tools find... in reply to

Character map in system tools find it in their or just right click on to black area an copy then just paste

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Bitcoin remains as strong as ever....

Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than just the technology!

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"You need fungibility for bitcoin to...

"You need fungibility for bitcoin to function. If you receive coins and can't spend them, you start to doubt the system." #FungibilityFirst

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I'm afraid that today's #NetNeutrality ruling...

I'm afraid that today's #NetNeutrality ruling will further entrench a broken system – my thoughts on the FCC Ruling:

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"pushing the boundaries of the modern... in reply to

"pushing the boundaries of the modern legal system"

Obama and company haven't worried about the law or Constitution yet. Why start now

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Great insight from @AudreyWatters on the...

Great insight from @AudreyWatters on the causes of our outmoded education system; I do think we need to decentralize.

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hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

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RT @martindale: At what point does...

RT @martindale: At what point does a system become so complicated that it cannot be adequately, or accurately, explained in a single sessio…

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RT @martindale: "You need fungibility for...

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RT @martindale: "You need fungibility for...

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RT @martindale: "You need fungibility for...

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RT @martindale: "You need fungibility for...

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RT @martindale: "You need fungibility for...

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RT @martindale: "You need fungibility for...

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RT @martindale: "You need fungibility for...

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RT @martindale: "You need fungibility for...

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RT @martindale: Wait, what? Why the...

RT @martindale: Wait, what? Why the hell was the in-flight entertainment system connected, in any way, to the actual flight control systems…

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RT @martindale: Wait, what? Why the...

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong...

RT @martindale: Bitcoin remains as strong as ever. There remain many complex issues ahead of us, but the system is scaling. More than jus…

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I live near to the island,... in reply to

I live near to the island, I find intriguing what the roppongi means (they written system), because it hasn't been understood yet. My dream is to study and help to find the meaning of that writing. Interesting news about the bodies, of course there are a lot of new questions that it raises

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<span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflinkPrefix">+</span><a class="proflink" href="https://plus.google.com/116259215409813815493" oid="116259215409813815493">Andrew... in reply to

+Andrew Blechinger and probably much more reliable than relying on the messed up gov't system!

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RT @martindale: I'm afraid that today's...

RT @martindale: I'm afraid that today's #NetNeutrality ruling will further entrench a broken system – my thoughts on the FCC Ruling: https:

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medium.com/@martindale/re…

medium.com/@martindale/re…

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RT @martindale: I'm afraid that today's...

RT @martindale: I'm afraid that today's #NetNeutrality ruling will further entrench a broken system – my thoughts on the FCC Ruling: https:

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medium.com/@martindale/re…

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RT @martindale: I'm afraid that today's...

RT @martindale: I'm afraid that today's #NetNeutrality ruling will further entrench a broken system – my thoughts on the FCC Ruling: https:

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medium.com/@martindale/re…

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RT @martindale: I'm afraid that today's...

RT @martindale: I'm afraid that today's #NetNeutrality ruling will further entrench a broken system – my thoughts on the FCC Ruling: https:

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BitPay in Time Magazine

Awesome quote about BitPay from Walter Isaacson in Time Magazine. “Companies such as ChangeTip, BitWall, BitPay, and Coinbase […] will empower creators and consumers of content and wrest some power from the Amazons, Alibabas, and Apples. This will upend our current kludgy financial system and ignite an explosion of disruptive innovation.”

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Big Idea 2015: The Coming Micropayment Disruption

A flourishing digital economy based on easy payments could help save journalism and encourage the invention of new forms of media

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To improve access to coding, though,... in reply to

To improve access to coding, though, we should create more human-like coding languages. I remember as a kid really loving this system that was a a drag-and-drop coding for videogames, where you can drag the operands into place: When [picture of evil guy] [touches] [picture of good guy], then [decrease] [health bar] of [good guy].

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RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters...

RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters on the causes of our outmoded education system; I do think we need to decentralize. http:

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hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

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RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters...

RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters on the causes of our outmoded education system; I do think we need to decentralize. http:

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hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

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RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters...

RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters on the causes of our outmoded education system; I do think we need to decentralize. http:

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hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

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RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters...

RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters on the causes of our outmoded education system; I do think we need to decentralize. http:

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hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

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RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters...

RT @martindale: Great insight from @AudreyWatters on the causes of our outmoded education system; I do think we need to decentralize. http:

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hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/fac…

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<span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflinkPrefix">+</span><a class="proflink" href="https://plus.google.com/100704823063108177924" oid="100704823063108177924">Robert... in reply to

+Robert Martin With SOPA your message would have been:
"Character map in system tools ████ it in their or just right click on to black area an ████ then just █████"

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<span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflinkPrefix">+</span><a class="proflink" href="https://plus.google.com/117902010433389562273" oid="117902010433389562273">Sowmyan... in reply to

+Sowmyan Tirumurti, the Stuxnet virus infected "totally isolated networks/control systems that weren't connected to the internet", so there's already a precedent for that.

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Can we get @TeslaMotors, @Google, and...

Can we get @TeslaMotors, @Google, and @Uber into a room together to write a proposal for a nationwide, electric, on-demand transport system?

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<span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflinkPrefix">+</span><a class="proflink" href="https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472" oid="112353210404102902472">Eric... in reply to

+Eric Martindale I primarily use it for some hobby AI projects at this point. Since it was designed as the catch-all language for high-reliability systems in the military including thermonuclear devices and airplanes, it seemed like the reasonable choice here :)

There's sadly not much commercial interest in Ada :(

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Education is Curiosity, Enabled

I'm of the opinion that we could teach our young children subjects like calculus, if only we had mechanisms through which to empower those with curiosity to play with them.  Then, the application of the effort to teach becomes one of rewarding knowledge, rather than repetitive structures of memorization and batteries of tests.

Take, for example, these visualizations of various concepts in mathematics.  How enlightening would it be if we could play with these as we work through the process of learning the equations that describe them, letting our brain form the map between the system's description, its properties, and its behavior?

Attachments

Intuitive Concepts

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In addition to the expansion of... in reply to

In addition to the expansion of the FLIBE salts when they are heated, the system is at low pressure, so a loss of 'containment' results in a liquid leak at low pressure (2-3x atm pressure), instead of flashing water to steam at high pressures (100x atm pressure).

In this liquid leak, it is spilled into a catch pan that channels it into holding tanks (this is the walkaway safe design). Simply turn it off, walk away, and it is safe. Stab a hole in it and it leaks down and is safe. Remove power, safe.

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I generally stray from politics, but...

I generally stray from politics, but this warrants attention. The United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) is far more capable than they have [until recently] been letting on. Bush ordered these unprecedentedly sophisticated attacks on Iran, and Obama has accelerated them. Stuxnet was a complete and utter masterpiece, and Flame follows closely in its footsteps. The implications of these actions are worrying at best -- escalating a soft war to these measures is pushing the boundaries of the modern legal system and I'm surprised there hasn't been a more formal declaration in light of the official news that the USA and Israel were responsible for the direct attacks on Iran's infrastructure.

Attachments

Obama Ordered Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

Even after the Stuxnet computer worm became public, President Obama accelerated cyberattacks against Iran that had begun in the Bush administration, temporarily disabling 1,000 centrifuges.

Obama Ordered Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

Even after the Stuxnet computer worm became public, President Obama accelerated cyberattacks against Iran that had begun in the Bush administration, temporarily disabling 1,000 centrifuges.

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I bet blackhats in Russia and... in reply to

I bet blackhats in Russia and China are pissed off that someone else revealed a useful exploit and security is about to be tightened.

More details would be nice. Like what OS are we talking about and why are they "wiping it off the system" and it keeps coming back? Are they not fixing the code that allows it in in the first place? Are they using some OS where one has to be careful what one clicks on lest one get infected with something? If so, how is something that insecure used in the war-fighting infrastructure? Did the NSA get overruled by some powerful senator that needed to repay a campaign favor?

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Education is Curiosity, Enabled I'm of the opinion that we could teach our young children subjects like...

Education is Curiosity, Enabled
I'm of the opinion that we could teach our young children subjects like calculus, if only we had mechanisms through which to empower those with curiosity to play with them.  Then, the application of the effort to teach becomes one of rewarding knowledge, rather than repetitive structures of memorization and batteries of tests.

Take, for example, these visualizations of various concepts in mathematics.  How enlightening would it be if we could play with these as we work through the process of learning the equations that describe them, letting our brain form the map between the system's description, its properties, and its behavior?

Attachments

Intuitive Concepts

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Education is Curiosity, Enabled I'm of the opinion that we could teach our young children subjects like...

Education is Curiosity, Enabled
I'm of the opinion that we could teach our young children subjects like calculus, if only we had mechanisms through which to empower those with curiosity to play with them.  Then, the application of the effort to teach becomes one of rewarding knowledge, rather than repetitive structures of memorization and batteries of tests.

Take, for example, these visualizations of various concepts in mathematics.  How enlightening would it be if we could play with these as we work through the process of learning the equations that describe them, letting our brain form the map between the system's description, its properties, and its behavior?

Attachments

Intuitive Concepts

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Education is Curiosity, Enabled I'm of the opinion that we could teach our young children subjects like...

Education is Curiosity, Enabled
I'm of the opinion that we could teach our young children subjects like calculus, if only we had mechanisms through which to empower those with curiosity to play with them.  Then, the application of the effort to teach becomes one of rewarding knowledge, rather than repetitive structures of memorization and batteries of tests.

Take, for example, these visualizations of various concepts in mathematics.  How enlightening would it be if we could play with these as we work through the process of learning the equations that describe them, letting our brain form the map between the system's description, its properties, and its behavior?

Attachments

Intuitive Concepts

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Dell Tech Chatbot Tries His Best

April's Dell said it couldn't find "systems 32 config" and after going through a series of troubleshooting steps with a Dell tech in chat, he said it was due to a bad sector on the hard drive and it would need to be replaced. While that very well may have been the case, we were amused by how the conversation wrapped up...

read more | digg story

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<span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflinkPrefix">+</span><a class="proflink" href="https://plus.google.com/104973761519912571719" oid="104973761519912571719">Christa... in reply to

+Christa Laser there's been a lot of attempts at visual programming over the years. none really took off in any major way. while such languages/systems might be effective to entice someone to start writing simple programs, they won't make them an effective engineer/developer.. The basic constructs in any language are really simple and easy for non-techies to grasp, however, its the algorithmic and data structures aspect that need study.

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I generally stray from #politics , but this warrants attention. The United States Cyber Command ( #USCYBERCOM...

I generally stray from #politics , but this warrants attention. The United States Cyber Command ( #USCYBERCOM ) is far more capable than they have [until recently] been letting on. Bush ordered these unprecedentedly sophisticated attacks on #Iran , and Obama has accelerated them. #Stuxnet  was a complete and utter masterpiece, and #Flame  follows closely in its footsteps.

The implications of these actions are worrying at best -- escalating a soft war to these measures is pushing the boundaries of the modern legal system and I'm surprised there hasn't been a more formal declaration in light of the official news that the USA and Israel were responsible for the direct attacks on Iran's infrastructure.

Attachments

Obama Ordered Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

Even after the Stuxnet computer worm became public, President Obama accelerated cyberattacks against Iran that had begun in the Bush administration, temporarily disabling 1,000 centrifuges.

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I generally stray from #politics , but this warrants attention. The United States Cyber Command ( #USCYBERCOM...

I generally stray from #politics , but this warrants attention. The United States Cyber Command ( #USCYBERCOM ) is far more capable than they have [until recently] been letting on. Bush ordered these unprecedentedly sophisticated attacks on #Iran , and Obama has accelerated them. #Stuxnet  was a complete and utter masterpiece, and #Flame  follows closely in its footsteps.

The implications of these actions are worrying at best -- escalating a soft war to these measures is pushing the boundaries of the modern legal system and I'm surprised there hasn't been a more formal declaration in light of the official news that the USA and Israel were responsible for the direct attacks on Iran's infrastructure.

Attachments

Obama Ordered Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

Even after the Stuxnet computer worm became public, President Obama accelerated cyberattacks against Iran that had begun in the Bush administration, temporarily disabling 1,000 centrifuges.

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I generally stray from #politics , but this warrants attention. The United States Cyber Command ( #USCYBERCOM...

I generally stray from #politics , but this warrants attention. The United States Cyber Command ( #USCYBERCOM ) is far more capable than they have [until recently] been letting on. Bush ordered these unprecedentedly sophisticated attacks on #Iran , and Obama has accelerated them. #Stuxnet  was a complete and utter masterpiece, and #Flame  follows closely in its footsteps.

The implications of these actions are worrying at best -- escalating a soft war to these measures is pushing the boundaries of the modern legal system and I'm surprised there hasn't been a more formal declaration in light of the official news that the USA and Israel were responsible for the direct attacks on Iran's infrastructure.

Attachments

Obama Ordered Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

Even after the Stuxnet computer worm became public, President Obama accelerated cyberattacks against Iran that had begun in the Bush administration, temporarily disabling 1,000 centrifuges.

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If done properly, it seems like... in reply to

If done properly, it seems like an obvious choice. Scientists are supposed to seek knowledge, not put up barriers to access. The free exchange of ideas is incredibly important for science, and making that exchange easier should be one of the goals. It's ironic that this, of all fields, should suffer from a sluggish move away from old fashioned models.
I think it's inevitable. The only question is how and when. I can understand why the current system is upheld because of its apparent benefits of filtering unwanted papers and comments, and backing up what's published with weighty names from established editors and scientists... but I'm quite sure it's inferior to more open networking models.

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&quot;What you still hear today from... in reply to

"What you still hear today from all kinds of people is how a Stuxnet-type attack requires so much insider knowledge."

Lazy programmers and administrators have said similar things for ages. First it was stack overflow bugs where the claim was it was much too hard to take advantage of them. Now it is a science with automatic intrusion tools that characterize certain types of overflows and develop attacks.

The best thing that can happen right now is benign bored teenagers breaking into systems until the owners can't pretend it isn't a real problem. Hopefully that happens long before organized crime and adversarial nations get into the act.

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Top 20 Linux Apps

An awesome list of applications for Linux that is mainly for my use (when I get home tonight), but you might get some use out of it, too.

Some of the better ones are mumble and murmer, some Teamspeak and Ventrilo replacements that I've never heard of. And the list is forcing me to finally get around to using Deluge (woot).

I think I might end up doing a full reinstall of Ubuntu tonight, just because I've mucked with the system so damn much it isn't even funny. Maybe this time around, I'll get my Motorola Q, in all of its new screen goodness (I recently replaced the LCD screen), to actually charge while connected via USB to my Linux box. And, if I really wish to aim high, maybe I can get sync working!

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<span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflinkPrefix">+</span><a class="proflink" href="https://plus.google.com/116038350716337582317" oid="116038350716337582317">Peter... in reply to

+Peter A. Saldaña III 's statement pretty much support the current of the myth behind Rapa Nui's (Easter Islands) deforestation and demographic mass change of centuries ago. There are other mysteries about the culture such as its writing system as raised by +hizoka andou I ve heard that the first missionaries (back in the 17-18 centuries) were able to record some informations about that if you're talking about the "Rongo Rongo" (kinna of blurring ones but its only lead we have so far I believe!). Don't quote me on this but best of luck on your studies...

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“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.” -- +Randall Degges...

“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.”
-- +Randall Degges

You should learn to write code. It is the new language of this information age, in which our systems of commerce become increasingly focused on trading information, buying and selling it with ease thanks to our burgeoning ability to transmit and receive this information.

As with all increases in the available bandwidth of communication throughout human history, it is a time for change and innovation. Just as with the telegraph and Gutenberg's printing press before it, we are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we love. You have two options; become literate and help shape the world, or stand by and be content with letting others define it for you.

Attachments

How I Learned to Program - Randall Degges

Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done. Programming taught me that life should be fun, filled with creativity, and lived to the fullest. Programming taug...

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“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.” -- +Randall Degges...

“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.”
-- +Randall Degges

You should learn to write code. It is the new language of this information age, in which our systems of commerce become increasingly focused on trading information, buying and selling it with ease thanks to our burgeoning ability to transmit and receive this information.

As with all increases in the available bandwidth of communication throughout human history, it is a time for change and innovation. Just as with the telegraph and Gutenberg's printing press before it, we are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we love. You have two options; become literate and help shape the world, or stand by and be content with letting others define it for you.

Attachments

How I Learned to Program - Randall Degges

Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done. Programming taught me that life should be fun, filled with creativity, and lived to the fullest. Programming taug...

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“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.” -- +Randall Degges...

“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.”
-- +Randall Degges

You should learn to write code. It is the new language of this information age, in which our systems of commerce become increasingly focused on trading information, buying and selling it with ease thanks to our burgeoning ability to transmit and receive this information.

As with all increases in the available bandwidth of communication throughout human history, it is a time for change and innovation. Just as with the telegraph and Gutenberg's printing press before it, we are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we love. You have two options; become literate and help shape the world, or stand by and be content with letting others define it for you.

Attachments

How I Learned to Program - Randall Degges

Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done. Programming taught me that life should be fun, filled with creativity, and lived to the fullest. Programming taug...

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“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.” -- +Randall Degges...

“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.”
-- +Randall Degges

You should learn to write code. It is the new language of this information age, in which our systems of commerce become increasingly focused on trading information, buying and selling it with ease thanks to our burgeoning ability to transmit and receive this information.

As with all increases in the available bandwidth of communication throughout human history, it is a time for change and innovation. Just as with the telegraph and Gutenberg's printing press before it, we are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we love. You have two options; become literate and help shape the world, or stand by and be content with letting others define it for you.

Attachments

How I Learned to Program - Randall Degges

Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done. Programming taught me that life should be fun, filled with creativity, and lived to the fullest. Programming taug...

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<span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflinkPrefix">+</span><a class="proflink" href="https://plus.google.com/101988430320304538796" oid="101988430320304538796">robby... in reply to

+robby Woodliff I agree 100%. The biggest problem now is that the movement is too diffuse in its goals. That doesn't work in a media-driven movement. You have to have a platform with well-defined points and achievable goals: small ones first, bigger ones for the more advanced stage of the movement.

E.g. Is this a protest against unemployment? Big banks? Political gridlock? Corporate greed? It can't be all of those things or else it's kind of like throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks.

My prediction is that in the next week or two we will all find out whether this has legs or not. I think if it does have legs, it will largely be because of the feeling of a majority of Americans that the System is broken. But that "having legs" part can only happen if we get down to defining a platform.

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I&#39;ve been working for an industrial... in reply to

I've been working for an industrial company that's still struggling with the very idea of open-source, so unfortunately there's nothing on github I can point a potential employer at. I guess in theory I ought to be doing something on the side just for that reason, but after writing code all week long, it's not exactly high on the list of priorities in my free time. :-)

100% agree with the sentiment though -- résumés are almost worthless for Software Engineers. Once in a while I can tell that someone's not completely inept, based on the specific way they describe their current/past work on a CV. But even then, it's hardly worth the time it takes to sift through the pile, vs. just bringing people in to talk for a bit.

A few lines of code are worth a thousand words. HR at large companies tends to get bogged down with the specifics of which languages/technologies they know, but that's missing the point entirely. If you can just have someone design a small system in pseudocode that solves some simple problem, the orders-of-magnitude difference in talent between individual programmers becomes obvious.

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Eric,<br />Have we had the conversation... in reply to

Eric,
Have we had the conversation about the predatory nature of evolutionary psychology inspiring Darwinian interactions within our own species? Play should not only be for children, we should teach humans to play together throughout their lives.
I believe we've spoken about the necessity of philosophy in elementary school curriculum? Any chance you'd be interested in working with the state to make this happen? Are you searching for the complete solution through institution or solely seeking answers through decentralized systems?

Toni Lane Casserly, TLC
Sent from my mobile. Pardon any error of the thumb.

Co-Founder
Human Nodes

Email: ****@**
Twitter: @tonilanec
Instagram: @tonilanec

Cell: (+1) 281-513-1621

Confidentiality notice:
The information transmitted in this email and/or any attached document(s) is confidential and intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer.

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I've been building a lot using Node.js lately. My experience with it has been good, from the ease and...

I've been building a lot using Node.js lately. My experience with it has been good, from the ease and simplicity of setting up a realtime die-roller [1] to building an entire education platform [2]. It's a little strange getting your head around the constant callback mentality, but it's otherwise intuitive.

It's good reading some legitimate criticisms of Node.js, though. The author of this post has a point about how using it creates a tightly coupled system, contrary to existing UNIX patterns and presumably creating a maintenance nightmare in the future. I think time will tell, however--especially as parts of the toolchain and deploying solutions mature (I'm looking at you, Joyent!).

Thanks to +James Williams for sharing!

[1] https://github.com/RolePlayGateway/rpg-table
[2] http://www.hangoutacademy.com/

Attachments

Node.js is Cancer

Node.js is Cancer. by Ted Dziuba on Saturday, October 01, 2011. If there's one thing web developers love, it's knowing better than conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom is conventional ...

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I've been building a lot using Node.js lately. My experience with it has been good, from the ease and...

I've been building a lot using Node.js lately. My experience with it has been good, from the ease and simplicity of setting up a realtime die-roller [1] to building an entire education platform [2]. It's a little strange getting your head around the constant callback mentality, but it's otherwise intuitive.

It's good reading some legitimate criticisms of Node.js, though. The author of this post has a point about how using it creates a tightly coupled system, contrary to existing UNIX patterns and presumably creating a maintenance nightmare in the future. I think time will tell, however--especially as parts of the toolchain and deploying solutions mature (I'm looking at you, Joyent!).

Thanks to +James Williams for sharing!

[1] https://github.com/RolePlayGateway/rpg-table
[2] http://www.hangoutacademy.com/

Attachments

Node.js is Cancer

Node.js is Cancer. by Ted Dziuba on Saturday, October 01, 2011. If there's one thing web developers love, it's knowing better than conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom is conventional ...

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I've been building a lot using Node.js lately. My experience with it has been good, from the ease and...

I've been building a lot using Node.js lately. My experience with it has been good, from the ease and simplicity of setting up a realtime die-roller [1] to building an entire education platform [2]. It's a little strange getting your head around the constant callback mentality, but it's otherwise intuitive.

It's good reading some legitimate criticisms of Node.js, though. The author of this post has a point about how using it creates a tightly coupled system, contrary to existing UNIX patterns and presumably creating a maintenance nightmare in the future. I think time will tell, however--especially as parts of the toolchain and deploying solutions mature (I'm looking at you, Joyent!).

Thanks to +James Williams for sharing!

[1] https://github.com/RolePlayGateway/rpg-table
[2] http://www.hangoutacademy.com/

Attachments

Node.js is Cancer

Node.js is Cancer. by Ted Dziuba on Saturday, October 01, 2011. If there's one thing web developers love, it's knowing better than conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom is conventional ...

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I've been building a lot using Node.js lately. My experience with it has been good, from the ease and...

I've been building a lot using Node.js lately. My experience with it has been good, from the ease and simplicity of setting up a realtime die-roller [1] to building an entire education platform [2]. It's a little strange getting your head around the constant callback mentality, but it's otherwise intuitive.

It's good reading some legitimate criticisms of Node.js, though. The author of this post has a point about how using it creates a tightly coupled system, contrary to existing UNIX patterns and presumably creating a maintenance nightmare in the future. I think time will tell, however--especially as parts of the toolchain and deploying solutions mature (I'm looking at you, Joyent!).

Thanks to +James Williams for sharing!

[1] https://github.com/RolePlayGateway/rpg-table
[2] http://www.hangoutacademy.com/

Attachments

Node.js is Cancer

Node.js is Cancer. by Ted Dziuba on Saturday, October 01, 2011. If there's one thing web developers love, it's knowing better than conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom is conventional ...

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I agree somewhat with the basic... in reply to

I agree somewhat with the basic idea that there is no UNIFIED message to the Occupy movement. Most people see this as its downfall. For me I see this differently.

I kind of like the non linear message that Occupy movement is doing as a social experiment that can go anywhere. To me this rivals virtue ethics which I believe to be the best form of ethics as it is based on an individual with a basic system of organization and some loose guidelines. It is based on some general guidelines "peaceful demonstrations, 99%, end corporate greed, bring humanity back to business, ect" , but each Occupy movement is unique. It seems to me that the movement is based on the context of the individual cities and bases of folks. For instance SLC, UT has not had any issues with the police or the media. Everyone has been nice and we have been well received around the city. Tis not like that everywhere. there are so many sociological issues and political issues for each location. I feel this has not been tried before. It is adaptable and changable so it bends before it breaks unlike the tea party which is super rigid. The Occupy movement does not have to alienate anyone, and it is based in cooperation. If any movement wants to get a rigid simple voice all they need to do is vote on it. For me this is suddle and genious. It forces everyone who is interested to think for themselves plus it works as a collective conscious snowball . For me this is the greatest part of the movemnet. What could be more free than "free thought". For me this Occupy movement is "free thought association in action". For me this is a liberating liberty one mind at a time. What do you think about this?

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The idea that we&#39;re somehow disadvantaged... in reply to

The idea that we're somehow disadvantaged should the entire system crash, compared to our parents or grandparents, is silly and myopic. Living off the land flat out wouldn't/couldn't happen. There's simply to many people for everyone to hunt. If everyone started hunting/fishing to get food a) we'd run out of space in the forest/river shores and be killing one another for a spot b) even if we remained civilized we'd kill off everything so fast it wouldn't matter. Do you seriously think we get all those burgers by people taking care of cows... we don't... we have a whole technological industry built up around shoving as many into a small area and keeping them alive long enough that we can eat them. Chickens? Ya same thing. If it REALLY got so bad that "the grid" collapsed you're no better off than anyone else.

I have no idea how this turned into an end of the world/I can survive without a computer thread. This article isn't stating that everyone has to be in tech; only that going into tech/training/educating yourself for a world that is fully tech enabled is something you should do. He states in the second paragraph, "....and all the college kids wondering if a CS or engineering degree will pay off. To those readers: we might be in a bubble, but for you it doesn’t matter." Then in the fourth paragraph, "The truth is that the technology sector as a whole over any length of time is a positive-sum game even if the economy doesn’t grow at all..." In short, if you're looking to go into tech field you should still do it. Thanks for sharing this +Eric Martindale, good stuff!

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Silver and Gold

Christmas time is here! The incessant Christmas music on the radio, the lights around this quiet little town, the music played over the speakers on main street, and the greenery and otherwise unusual happiness of the general populous. The best time of the year, many say - I can see why. I just hope the radio music doesn't wear thin on me too soon...

I'm getting over my sinus infection, with only a minor headache right now. Church went extraordinary, and life (as of right now) is good. Earlier this afternoon, Amber and I put together a French Meringue for her class at school, which looks absolutely gorgeous. We used an old lace napkin to pattern the surface with a delectable pattern of powdered sugar, and it came out well.

I just cleaned off her computer desk, just on one of those random cleaning spree (read: obsessive compulsive) things. I sorted her father's CDs, to much satisfaction. We also raked the yard... and now we're decorating her house. Well, they are - I'm cleaning up her father's computer now, too. What a day!

Spats lost!? I feel that he deserved the win, but that's not what the judge determined. I'm glad that Kouketsu took care of those flames in the "who do you think will win" topic, because I don't think I can last much longer dealing with such complete and total disgraces to the ideals of quality text fighting.

GWing seems to be picking up some more, there is a lot of progress being made in the Growth area. Several new moderators (critics...), namely Circ and Dovey, are preparing an awesome system for reviewing authors' submissions. I think I'm going to try and influence Amber to provide SOME input, as it is her forum, and it'd help her to get back into writing.

Dinner time. Ja ne!

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Definitely an interesting read. <br />Whenever... in reply to

Definitely an interesting read.
Whenever i work at a Diabetes camp, one of the questions i have received from parents is "How do you make sure the remote is controlling the right pump? Currently, Medtronic/Minimed uses a device ID to pair the meter, CGM, or remote to the pump. I believe Johnson & Johnson/Animas One Touch Ping uses a similar method - i would have to ask my brother.
The Insulet Omnipod uses a proximity registration method, which i don't fully understand (I haven't played with it much), but I have a feeling that this pairing method might be vulnerable to an attack, possibly of a man-in-the-middle design.

I also do not see how interfering with the CGM signal could cause any issue - the only integrated CGM/pump combo that is FDA approved for sale in the USA (Minimed 522/722 or 523/723 ("Revel")) does nothing with the CGM information beyond display it on the pump and alert you to changes. Let me reiterate: the US CGM/pump combo does not use CGM data to alter insulin patterns - at this point in time, the FDA simply will not allow it.
Now, assuming the insulin pump is Medtronic's European model, I have been told (by a Medtronic Diabetes sales representative) that the european model features an "auto-off" switch - if the wearer's blood glucose level drops below a certain threshold, the insulin pump will immediately suspend insulin delivery. I do not know the specifics of how this works, if it is all insulin or just the basal levels, but it is a potential vulnerability, but leads to the risk of a high blood sugar (which leads to long-term complications if uncontrolled).

Now the flipside of the auto off, would be an automatic insulin increase. Theoretically, if we wanted a closed-loop insulin delivery system that mimics the natural function of the pancreas, we need to automatically reduce insulin delivery when blood glucose levels are dropping, as well as increase insulin delivery when BG levels are rising. The current technology has its known issues, so I am not sure if the FDA (or any similar agencies worldwide) will even allow this functionality with the available technology, but it is still a valid concern for biomedical programmers.

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Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air ...

Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Strategist +Gareth Kay; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live!

The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH

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TSBW #28: Technology, Learning, Toys, Live Music and More! (On Air Hangout)

Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live! The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH

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Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air ...

Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Strategist +Gareth Kay; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live!

The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH

Attachments

TSBW #28: Technology, Learning, Toys, Live Music and More! (On Air Hangout)

Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live! The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH

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Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air ...

Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Strategist +Gareth Kay; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live!

The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH

Attachments

TSBW #28: Technology, Learning, Toys, Live Music and More! (On Air Hangout)

Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live! The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH

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Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air ...

Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Strategist +Gareth Kay; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live!

The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH

Attachments

TSBW #28: Technology, Learning, Toys, Live Music and More! (On Air Hangout)

Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live! The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH

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You&#39;re right, <span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflinkPrefix">+</span><a class="proflink"... in reply to

You're right, +Debbie Coultis.  The problem is that more often than not, any customizations made to the existing open resources (+MIT OpenCourseWare, for example) never make their way back "upstream", or otherwise made available to future educators or students who might have use of them.  I talked a bit about how +Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), specifically with software, was involved in the open-source community very early on, but perhaps I should've gone into more depth here.

There are many free (and some open) educational resources emerging, but we need deeper interchangeability between them if their innovations are to be capitalized on.

+Bob Calder I don't know if Robert Panoff was in the audience or not, but you're right.  +Coursera isn't the answer, but it is at least a step forward in increasing the availability of the delivery system.  Once we're able to edit that content and the processes (e.g., make everything hackable), we'll close the loop on collaboration in education.

Thanks, +Nathan Greenling!  Once +Coursefork ships more robust composition features, I'll attach the slides into the YouTube video at their corresponding points and perhaps include some further speaker notes.

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Prediction: Global Riots One Year Away? In 2011, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute (CSI)...

Prediction: Global Riots One Year Away?

In 2011, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute (CSI) released a paper [1] presenting a model for understanding (and ultimately predicting) the social unrest that rocked countries such as Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt [2].  Of the data analyzed, the principal factor influencing said unrest was determined to be the food price index.

That's a pretty simple concept.  If one of your most basic needs was threatened, what would you do?  To quote the MIT Technology Review's explanation of the paper [3], “This isn't rocket science. It stands to reason that people become desperate when food is unobtainable. It's often said that any society is three square meals from anarchy.”

These models have other complex implications around the world, such as in the financial markets.  Another paper from 2010, titled “Predicting economic market crises using measures of collective panic” [4], shows that the economic crisis (and other singe-day panics in the market) in the United States were predictable events that relied on the relatively volatile sociological phenomenon of uncertainty and nervousness -- which makes some of the original paper's assertions even more interesting.  Most notably:

“Both factors in food prices can be linked directly to recent US governmental actions. Speculator activity has been enhanced by deregulation of the commodities markets that exempted dealers from trading limits, and subsidies and other policies have been central to the growth of ethanol conversion.”

Food for thought.

[1]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf
[2]: http://www.globalissues.org/article/792/mideast-north-africa-unrest
[3]: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425019/the-cause-of-riots-and-the-price-of-food/
[4]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.2620v1.pdf

Attachments

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say | Motherboard

What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible and justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any...

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Prediction: Global Riots One Year Away? In 2011, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute (CSI)...

Prediction: Global Riots One Year Away?

In 2011, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute (CSI) released a paper [1] presenting a model for understanding (and ultimately predicting) the social unrest that rocked countries such as Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt [2].  Of the data analyzed, the principal factor influencing said unrest was determined to be the food price index.

That's a pretty simple concept.  If one of your most basic needs was threatened, what would you do?  To quote the MIT Technology Review's explanation of the paper [3], “This isn't rocket science. It stands to reason that people become desperate when food is unobtainable. It's often said that any society is three square meals from anarchy.”

These models have other complex implications around the world, such as in the financial markets.  Another paper from 2010, titled “Predicting economic market crises using measures of collective panic” [4], shows that the economic crisis (and other singe-day panics in the market) in the United States were predictable events that relied on the relatively volatile sociological phenomenon of uncertainty and nervousness -- which makes some of the original paper's assertions even more interesting.  Most notably:

“Both factors in food prices can be linked directly to recent US governmental actions. Speculator activity has been enhanced by deregulation of the commodities markets that exempted dealers from trading limits, and subsidies and other policies have been central to the growth of ethanol conversion.”

Food for thought.

[1]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf
[2]: http://www.globalissues.org/article/792/mideast-north-africa-unrest
[3]: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425019/the-cause-of-riots-and-the-price-of-food/
[4]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.2620v1.pdf

Attachments

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say | Motherboard

What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible and justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any...

1 Replies

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Prediction: Global Riots One Year Away? In 2011, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute (CSI)...

Prediction: Global Riots One Year Away?

In 2011, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute (CSI) released a paper [1] presenting a model for understanding (and ultimately predicting) the social unrest that rocked countries such as Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt [2].  Of the data analyzed, the principal factor influencing said unrest was determined to be the food price index.

That's a pretty simple concept.  If one of your most basic needs was threatened, what would you do?  To quote the MIT Technology Review's explanation of the paper [3], “This isn't rocket science. It stands to reason that people become desperate when food is unobtainable. It's often said that any society is three square meals from anarchy.”

These models have other complex implications around the world, such as in the financial markets.  Another paper from 2010, titled “Predicting economic market crises using measures of collective panic” [4], shows that the economic crisis (and other singe-day panics in the market) in the United States were predictable events that relied on the relatively volatile sociological phenomenon of uncertainty and nervousness -- which makes some of the original paper's assertions even more interesting.  Most notably:

“Both factors in food prices can be linked directly to recent US governmental actions. Speculator activity has been enhanced by deregulation of the commodities markets that exempted dealers from trading limits, and subsidies and other policies have been central to the growth of ethanol conversion.”

Food for thought.

[1]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf
[2]: http://www.globalissues.org/article/792/mideast-north-africa-unrest
[3]: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425019/the-cause-of-riots-and-the-price-of-food/
[4]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.2620v1.pdf

Attachments

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say | Motherboard

What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible and justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any...

8 Replies

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Prediction: Global Riots One Year Away? In 2011, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute (CSI)...

Prediction: Global Riots One Year Away?

In 2011, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute (CSI) released a paper [1] presenting a model for understanding (and ultimately predicting) the social unrest that rocked countries such as Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt [2].  Of the data analyzed, the principal factor influencing said unrest was determined to be the food price index.

That's a pretty simple concept.  If one of your most basic needs was threatened, what would you do?  To quote the MIT Technology Review's explanation of the paper [3], “This isn't rocket science. It stands to reason that people become desperate when food is unobtainable. It's often said that any society is three square meals from anarchy.”

These models have other complex implications around the world, such as in the financial markets.  Another paper from 2010, titled “Predicting economic market crises using measures of collective panic” [4], shows that the economic crisis (and other singe-day panics in the market) in the United States were predictable events that relied on the relatively volatile sociological phenomenon of uncertainty and nervousness -- which makes some of the original paper's assertions even more interesting.  Most notably:

“Both factors in food prices can be linked directly to recent US governmental actions. Speculator activity has been enhanced by deregulation of the commodities markets that exempted dealers from trading limits, and subsidies and other policies have been central to the growth of ethanol conversion.”

Food for thought.

[1]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf
[2]: http://www.globalissues.org/article/792/mideast-north-africa-unrest
[3]: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425019/the-cause-of-riots-and-the-price-of-food/
[4]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.2620v1.pdf

Attachments

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say | Motherboard

What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible and justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any...

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Progeny of Monotony

A big subject of contention in my life is my job. I work 60 hours a week, for less than minimum wage. I deal with clueless customers who are often surprised by my perfect greeting, as I am often complimented, sometimes chastised, on my well-rehearsed voice. Sometimes I think we lose call volume because I sound like an answering machine. Hah! It shall be no more, tonight was a successful night of Trixbox PBX goodness, our entire system is on the first run using the IVR answering. I digress.

My job sucks. I earn $5/hr, working what is supposed to be 60 hours a week, but is slowly dwindling downward. The stress of paying rent, utilities, and heaven forbid taxes on such a budget is indomitable: I can't imagine adding insurance and gas to this, when I get a car up and running. The love of my life chastises me for it, and I can't tell her enough how much I really do hate it. I do not have a working car, and I do not yet have insurance to provide the DMV with proof that I do have insurance, so I don't have a license. There are fast food places within walking distance, surely. Ideally, if I had a car, I could be an on-call Engineer and earn maybe an extra hundred bucks a week. Sure, I earn $33/hr as a consultant, but when business is the equivalent of dysentery on a hot summer day, I earn jack for nothing. Of course, in this scenario, it is difficult to find the finances to afford a car to begin with.

It's hard in these circumstances to even consider such things as school, a degree, or better living conditions. It's devastating to me, my life, my relationships, and everything that cascades on from such. It doesn't help when the doors in my house are left open, dissipating what little heat I've trapped in the kitchen into the other frozen rooms of my apartment. Piles of dirty dishes plague the sink, and I'm never home to wash them. Wait, remind me again why I'm washing someone else's dirty dishes? Oh, that's right - my apartment would be even dirtier if it weren't for the thirty minutes a night I spend after getting home from spending the remainder of my free time with Amber. Of course, directly after, shower and bed. Only to wake in the morning for work at 0800. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday.

If only people were patient, if only I could let them into my world. Unfortunately, I'm expecting a box to be placed on my doorstep any day now, with all of the various items I've gifted out over the past year and a half. There's nothing I can do to stop it, as far as I can tell, except to go work at Subway. I wish I could tell her that it'd be by the grace of God if I got out of that position, once I went there. No, it's not understood. It can't be understood. How long can one love without being loved in return? The sad thing is, it is in both ways. How sick and maniacally twisted is that?

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The Best Play-by-Post Roleplaying Sites

As many of you know, a lot of my best friends came from an online hobby called "online roleplaying". One of the more popular forms is a type of collaborative fiction called "play by post", in which the participants alternate writing sections of the story. More succinctly; I started a roleplaying site of my own in 2005 called RolePlayGateway to give people the same opportunity I had when I was younger.

I wanted to take a moment and go over some of my favorites, for those who are reading.

RolePlayGateway: an obvious favorite. It takes a little while to find your place (if you're a more 'advanced' roleplayer), but our strength is the wide range of people that play here. Oh, and we have an awesome chat built specifically for roleplaying!

Roleplayer Guild: Run by Dan Neumann, Roleplayer Guild is as close to a sister site of RolePlayGateway as it gets. They've got a slightly different format from RolePlayGateway, letting you browse roleplays based on their "quality" level (e.g., Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). A great place to go if you're looking to start a nice tight-knit group!

Althanas: Althanas is one of the only other large sites dedicated completely to play-by-post roleplay. I've roleplayed here for a couple years (as an anonymous account!) and they're a great group. The "Guides" sections is irreplaceable, so if you're looking to learn, this is the place to be.

Up and coming!

These sites are new or are just getting off the ground, so they're not as established as the above listings.

Roleplaygetaway: launched as a refuge from the insanity that RolePlayGateway provides, RolePlayGetaway (albeit, a confusing name) is showing a lot of promise. With a brand new roleplaying system built to track your roleplays, it is taking the same route that RolePlayGateway's fabled roleplay tab is taking. It's being run by several of my staff members and close friends, and I can attest that they know what they are doing. I hope to see more sites like this!

Fallen off my list...

These sites used to show some promise, but for some reason or another have fallen by the wayside. As such, I'm rel="nofollow"'ing their links.

AnimeLeague: AnimeLeague appears to have gone the way of AnimeMetro; that is, it has begun to focus more on Anime and conventions instead of roleplay. Sadface! Gaia Online: Gaia Online used to be a fairly decent place for play-by-post roleplay, but then it got uber popular. It too is now expanding beyond play-by-post, and the focus has been lost.

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“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace...

“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.” -- Murphy, The Boondock Saints

We should not be deluded into thinking that #OccupyWallStreet is a protest against capitalism. It is a protest against the blatant theft perpetrated by the financial and banking systems that has plagued our great nation and its government for at least the past 98 years.

On Capitalism versus Statism:
“[...] If we are to keep the term "capitalism" at all, then, we must distinguish between "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence [...]” -- Murray N. Rothbard, 1972 [1]

While the protests continue to grow in cities around the country [2], Anonymous is warning the NYPD against continued police brutality [3] and even previously trusted news outlets begin to censor [4] if not blatantly ignore [5].

Look through the actual photos [6]. These faces are not those of hippies, bums, or of radicals. These are the faces of your friends and family, of your neighbors and coworkers [7]. It is the majority, the 99% of affected Americans, that are on the streets protesting. It is We the People.

Thanks to +Jeremy Dahl for providing the link and video, +Michael Mozart for livestreaming the protests earlier today, and +Breana Van Den Heuvel for providing a constant stream of photos and news as this evolves.

[1]: http://mises.org/daily/3735
[2]: http://www.occupytogether.org/
[3]: Anonymous WARNING to NYPD on Behalf of Occupy Wall Street.! will not be forgotten or Forgiven.
[4]: http://ampedstatus.org/twittercensorship-blocks-occupywallstreet-from-top-trending-topic-twice/
[5]: Keith Olbermann calls out Media Blackout on 'Occupy Wall Street' Protest
[6]: https://plus.google.com/photos/112353210404102902472/albums/5658628267519370497
[7]: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

Attachments

What is Capitalism?

Tom Woods explains. What do you think? Full video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiIbSEjEw3w Young Americans for Liberty at IU brought Dr. Tom Woods to speak at IU. You can keep in touch on facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/YALatIU I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

4 Replies

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“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace...

“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.” -- Murphy, The Boondock Saints

We should not be deluded into thinking that #OccupyWallStreet is a protest against capitalism. It is a protest against the blatant theft perpetrated by the financial and banking systems that has plagued our great nation and its government for at least the past 98 years.

On Capitalism versus Statism:
“[...] If we are to keep the term "capitalism" at all, then, we must distinguish between "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence [...]” -- Murray N. Rothbard, 1972 [1]

While the protests continue to grow in cities around the country [2], Anonymous is warning the NYPD against continued police brutality [3] and even previously trusted news outlets begin to censor [4] if not blatantly ignore [5].

Look through the actual photos [6]. These faces are not those of hippies, bums, or of radicals. These are the faces of your friends and family, of your neighbors and coworkers [7]. It is the majority, the 99% of affected Americans, that are on the streets protesting. It is We the People.

Thanks to +Jeremy Dahl for providing the link and video, +Michael Mozart for livestreaming the protests earlier today, and +Breana Van Den Heuvel for providing a constant stream of photos and news as this evolves.

[1]: http://mises.org/daily/3735
[2]: http://www.occupytogether.org/
[3]: Anonymous WARNING to NYPD on Behalf of Occupy Wall Street.! will not be forgotten or Forgiven.
[4]: http://ampedstatus.org/twittercensorship-blocks-occupywallstreet-from-top-trending-topic-twice/
[5]: Keith Olbermann calls out Media Blackout on 'Occupy Wall Street' Protest
[6]: https://plus.google.com/photos/112353210404102902472/albums/5658628267519370497
[7]: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

Attachments

What is Capitalism?

Tom Woods explains. What do you think? Full video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiIbSEjEw3w Young Americans for Liberty at IU brought Dr. Tom Woods to speak at IU. You can keep in touch on facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/YALatIU I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

13 Replies

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“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace...

“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.” -- Murphy, The Boondock Saints

We should not be deluded into thinking that #OccupyWallStreet is a protest against capitalism. It is a protest against the blatant theft perpetrated by the financial and banking systems that has plagued our great nation and its government for at least the past 98 years.

On Capitalism versus Statism:
“[...] If we are to keep the term "capitalism" at all, then, we must distinguish between "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence [...]” -- Murray N. Rothbard, 1972 [1]

While the protests continue to grow in cities around the country [2], Anonymous is warning the NYPD against continued police brutality [3] and even previously trusted news outlets begin to censor [4] if not blatantly ignore [5].

Look through the actual photos [6]. These faces are not those of hippies, bums, or of radicals. These are the faces of your friends and family, of your neighbors and coworkers [7]. It is the majority, the 99% of affected Americans, that are on the streets protesting. It is We the People.

Thanks to +Jeremy Dahl for providing the link and video, +Michael Mozart for livestreaming the protests earlier today, and +Breana Van Den Heuvel for providing a constant stream of photos and news as this evolves.

[1]: http://mises.org/daily/3735
[2]: http://www.occupytogether.org/
[3]: Anonymous WARNING to NYPD on Behalf of Occupy Wall Street.! will not be forgotten or Forgiven.
[4]: http://ampedstatus.org/twittercensorship-blocks-occupywallstreet-from-top-trending-topic-twice/
[5]: Keith Olbermann calls out Media Blackout on 'Occupy Wall Street' Protest
[6]: https://plus.google.com/photos/112353210404102902472/albums/5658628267519370497
[7]: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

Attachments

What is Capitalism?

Tom Woods explains. What do you think? Full video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiIbSEjEw3w Young Americans for Liberty at IU brought Dr. Tom Woods to speak at IU. You can keep in touch on facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/YALatIU I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

4 Replies

Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.

“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace...

“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.” -- Murphy, The Boondock Saints

We should not be deluded into thinking that #OccupyWallStreet is a protest against capitalism. It is a protest against the blatant theft perpetrated by the financial and banking systems that has plagued our great nation and its government for at least the past 98 years.

On Capitalism versus Statism:
“[...] If we are to keep the term "capitalism" at all, then, we must distinguish between "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence [...]” -- Murray N. Rothbard, 1972 [1]

While the protests continue to grow in cities around the country [2], Anonymous is warning the NYPD against continued police brutality [3] and even previously trusted news outlets begin to censor [4] if not blatantly ignore [5].

Look through the actual photos [6]. These faces are not those of hippies, bums, or of radicals. These are the faces of your friends and family, of your neighbors and coworkers [7]. It is the majority, the 99% of affected Americans, that are on the streets protesting. It is We the People.

Thanks to +Jeremy Dahl for providing the link and video, +Michael Mozart for livestreaming the protests earlier today, and +Breana Van Den Heuvel for providing a constant stream of photos and news as this evolves.

[1]: http://mises.org/daily/3735
[2]: http://www.occupytogether.org/
[3]: Anonymous WARNING to NYPD on Behalf of Occupy Wall Street.! will not be forgotten or Forgiven.
[4]: http://ampedstatus.org/twittercensorship-blocks-occupywallstreet-from-top-trending-topic-twice/
[5]: Keith Olbermann calls out Media Blackout on 'Occupy Wall Street' Protest
[6]: https://plus.google.com/photos/112353210404102902472/albums/5658628267519370497
[7]: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

Attachments

What is Capitalism?

Tom Woods explains. What do you think? Full video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiIbSEjEw3w Young Americans for Liberty at IU brought Dr. Tom Woods to speak at IU. You can keep in touch on facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/YALatIU I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

4 Replies

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Tuning Large phpBB3 Forums

One of the sites I own and run (RolePlayGateway) has a pretty large forum, with several customizations and features that I've added on to the base install of phpBB3. As time went on, we continued upgrading the servers (moving from GoDaddy shared hosting to GoDaddy virtual dedicated servers, then onward to MediaTemple's (gs), and now we're on the second tier of MediaTemple's (dv) hosting) in an effort to keep the hardware moving as fast as possible.

As I'm sure you know, hardware can be pretty expensive! One month, while on MediaTemple's Grid Server, we racked up $600 in CPU time overage charges. (Ow.) Now that we've moved onward to bigger and better packages, we're shelling out just about $100 per month for a rock-solid server solution that can be upgraded seamlessly in the future. But since upgrades can only go so far without being prohibitively expensive, I thought it was time to take a look at some of our coding approaches.

Enter memcache, the distributed database caching solution originally designed by LiveJournal to help them deal with massive databases and large volumes of users. DavidMJ has written some shiny ACM modules to help phpBB3 make use of some caching systems, and a memcache module was among them.

That didn't work so well. It gave about a 50% boost to phpBB3's performance (which was great!), but we were still choking the server, and ended up upgrading to a bigger and more robust package with MediaTemple. So I started looking into more options, and DavidMJ suggested xcache. So I go grab xcache and compile it, then enabled it in php. Bingo! There's a 500% boost in our page compile times, and across most of our pages we're now well under 0.1 second compile times. (With the exception of viewtopic.php, which frequently approaches 2 seconds due to bad coding on my part... this will be fixed soon.)

So now that I've got the thirst for speed, let's take a look at how we're performing. To do this, use the apache benchmarking tool:ab -n 100000 http://www.mydomain.com/my_page This will test the URL you specify 100,000 times, and give you some feedback about how the page performs. You'll end up with something looking like this:

Server Software: Apache/2.2.3 Server Hostname: www.mydomain.com Server Port: 80 Document Path: /my_page Document Length: 0 bytes Concurrency Level: 1 Time taken for tests: 15.30100 seconds Complete requests: 1 Failed requests: 0 Write errors: 0 Non-2xx responses: 1 Total transferred: 715 bytes HTML transferred: 0 bytes Requests per second: 0.07 [#/sec] (mean) Time per request: 15030.100 [ms] (mean) Time per request: 15030.100 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests) Transfer rate: 0.00 [Kbytes/sec] received Connection Times (ms) min mean[+/-sd] median max Connect: 0 0 0.0 0 0 Processing: 15030 15030 0.0 15030 15030 Waiting: 30 30 0.0 30 30 Total: 15030 15030 0.0 15030 15030

Some tweaks to the default xcache config that I recommend:

Set the number of caches to one per processor on your server! ; set to cpu count (cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep -c processor) xcache.count = 4

This post will be updated as I explore phpBB3 and more server side options. (I wrote part of this post, then stopped writing... and figure I'd publish it a couple days later anyway!)

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Medical Beat: Dr. Benjamin's proposed guidelines for safer weight-cutting

Being a fighter, I've been through this weight-cutting business plenty of times. Personally, yeah it's a pain in the ass, but we're athletes and in more cases than not - our bodies should be able to handle this. It should be at our own or our managers' discretion on whether or not we are healthy enough to cut weight.

From MMA Junkie:

Cutting weight continues to be a significant part of weight-restricted sports such as MMA, wrestling and boxing. It has gone on for so long that as the old aphorism goes, "Familiarity breeds contempt."

All those athletes, coaches, promoters, sanctioning bodies and fans associated with these sports have learned to accept it, consider it part of the culture, and turn a blind eye.

They all know – even if they won't admit it – that rapid, significant weight-cutting is unhealthy and potentially deadly. Most serious wrestlers have a personal story about the perils of such weight-cutting either through first hand knowledge or vicariously via a close friend or teammate. But the desire to win continues this potentially dangerous ritual.

What for decades has consisted self-reporting and self-monitoring of weight has not worked. And "documentation" of weight by a friendly doctor has been ineffective at best.

Therefore the primary issue of weight should be removed from the combatant. Simple, clear and easily enforceable rules and guidelines should be initiated to better protect the athletes.

My suggestions are as follow:

  • All standard fight agreements must be signed at least 45 days prior to the scheduled event.

  • No fighter may enter into a fight agreement weighing greater than 10 percent over the agreed upon weight limit. For example, the agreed-upon weight is 171 pounds. Therefore, each fighter can weigh no more than 171 pounds + 10 percent (188 pounds total) to sign the fight agreement.

  • At 30 days prior to fight, neither fighter can weigh more than 5 percent over the agreed-upon weight limit. For example, the agreed-upon weight is 171 pounds. Therefore each fighter can weigh no more than 180 pounds.

  • On the official day of weigh-in, if a fighter is more than 1 percent overweight, the fight cannot take place. Since the promoter is the employer, the promoter will be fined by the sanctioning body.

  • On the official day of weigh-in, if a fighter is less than 1 percent overweight, he or she can be given additional time to make weight. If on the second weigh-in, the fighter remains overweight, a financial penalty can be levied and paid to the on-weight fighter, at his or her discretion.

  • If during a championship fight the champion is overweight greater than 1 percent at the official weigh-in, the fight will not take place and the challenger is given the belt as interim champion.

  • If during a championship fight the champion is overweight by less than 1 percent and after an opportunity cannot make weight, the fight may still go on. If the champion wins, the title will be considered vacant. If the challenger wins, he will assume the title.

  • All weigh-in dates (bout agreement day and 30-day check) will be video monitored by live computer webcam and recorded. Each camp will watch the other camp calibrate the scale and weigh in over live video webcam stream (Skype). The sanctioning body will monitor the weigh-in in a similar fashion.
Understandably, this is not a system that could be implemented quickly or easily when considering the restraints of some state commissions and some of the inconsistencies from one regulatory body to the next.

However, my goal is for this ideal guideline to serve as a basis for substantive discussion and a potential framework to better protect the safety of the athletes that participate in MMA.

So, let the name-calling begin.

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Mac versus Linux

I had a pleasant conversation with a Mac fanboi, this morning.

(08:51:01 AM) Linux User: Do Macs come with an SSH server by default?
(08:51:12 AM) Mac User: bluh...huh?
(08:51:19 AM) Mac User: just woke up
(08:51:22 AM) Linux User: Oh, lol.
(08:51:26 AM) Linux User: Good morning, sunshine.
(08:51:30 AM) Mac User: lol
(08:51:40 AM) Linux User: I've been at work for an hour. ;P
(08:51:57 AM) Linux User: Anyways - does the default Mac have an SSH server?
(08:51:57 AM) Mac User: now...what are you babbling about?
(08:53:25 AM) Mac User: no, but ssh is supported for X11 apps
(08:54:22 AM) Mac User: ....x11 being the x window environment in the Mac OS
(08:54:47 AM) Linux User: Right.
(08:55:22 AM) Linux User: So - X11 applications can SSH to other locations?
(08:55:58 AM) Linux User: And - what's the Mac equivalent of a repository, and/or aptitude/apt-get/yum?
(08:56:01 AM) Mac User: I really don't know, I haven't messed with it
(08:56:12 AM) Mac User: what the fuck are those?
(08:56:46 AM) Linux User: I can go to the command line here, and say... "apt-get install " and it'll download and install that program from the repository.
(08:57:53 AM) Mac User: ...99% of Mac users don't go "Command-Line Commando" on their system....
(08:57:59 AM) Linux User: Also, if the program has any dependencies - it'll get those, too.
(08:58:00 AM) Mac User: so...enjoy that....
(08:58:11 AM) Linux User: Oh, it has a GUI, too.
(08:58:22 AM) Mac User: website?
(08:59:02 AM) Linux User: It's a core component, it doesn't particularly have its own site.
(08:59:22 AM) Linux User: Mac doesn't have an application finder and installer type thing?
(08:59:24 AM) Mac User: of what?
(08:59:27 AM) Mac User: no
(08:59:30 AM) Linux User: Weird.
(08:59:38 AM) Mac User: OMFG!!!! NO!!!! WHAT WILL I DO!???!?!?
(08:59:51 AM) Linux User: I was trying to install openssh-server on a friend's mac...
(08:59:57 AM) Mac User: y'all pc ppl always find the weirdest off-beat shit to pick at
(09:00:05 AM) Linux User: Mac's are PCs to, ho.
(09:00:16 AM) Linux User: Understand the word Personal Computer?
(09:00:21 AM) Mac User: uh, by the definition "personal computer" only
(09:00:38 AM) Linux User: PCs also don't have to run Microshaft.
(09:00:43 AM) Mac User: but be it known that a pc is a pc and a Mac is a Mac
(09:01:01 AM) Linux User: Considering Macs aren't "Macs" so much anymore, without the kooky PPC crap.
(09:01:10 AM) Mac User: ?
(09:01:42 AM) Linux User: They're regular PCs, now. I can install Windows on a Mac, I can install Plan9, MacOS, Linux.
(09:01:52 AM) Linux User: They don't use PPC anymore, right?
(09:02:05 AM) Mac User: you can't remove the Mac OS, though
(09:02:10 AM) Linux User: ...want to bet?
(09:02:13 AM) Mac User: yup
(09:02:16 AM) Mac User: go ahead
(09:02:20 AM) Linux User: LOL.
(09:02:31 AM) Mac User: remove the Mac OS, and then lemme know what you plan to do
(09:02:35 AM) Linux User: Anyways - MacBook pro - does it have more than one button?
(09:02:45 AM) Mac User: FUCK NO!!!!
(09:02:49 AM) Linux User: Alright, nevermind then.
(09:02:58 AM) Mac User: now, shoo
(09:02:59 AM) Linux User: I was going to buy one, because they're sexy.
(09:03:01 AM) Mac User: go buy a dell
(09:03:22 AM) Linux User: Dell is increasing their Linux support.
(09:03:23 AM) Linux User: :)
(09:05:19 AM) Mac User: that is to say that they now have some kind of linux support?
(09:05:52 AM) Linux User: They've always had Linux support, but it's been somewhat hidden.
(09:06:00 AM) Mac User: pphhhht
(09:06:12 AM) Linux User: They're increasing client awareness of the option, now.
(09:06:29 AM) Mac User: ya know, it really doesn't mean anything to me
(09:07:11 AM) Linux User: I was considering purchasing a Macbook and installing Ubuntu on it, for my laptop.
(09:07:25 AM) Mac User: I can run any other OS I want, should I happen to have a sudden drop in IQ, and my machine is pretty awesome.....so....
(09:07:55 AM) Mac User: why would you buy a Mac to run something you can run on a dell?
(09:08:01 AM) Mac User: why?
(09:08:04 AM) Linux User: Because Macs are sexier?
(09:08:08 AM) Linux User: I don't want an ugly dell.
(09:08:23 AM) Mac User: uh, yeah, and at least half the "sexier" is in the GUI
(09:08:28 AM) Linux User: Not at all.
(09:08:35 AM) Linux User: My GUI is 100% more teh sex.
(09:08:45 AM) Mac User: ......wow
(09:08:47 AM) Mac User: um
(09:08:48 AM) Linux User: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzb3MSp82Vs
(09:08:49 AM) Mac User: no
(09:08:51 AM) Linux User: :)
(09:09:05 AM) Linux User: You can't install Beryl or even Compiz in MacOS, can you?
(09:09:46 AM) Mac User: ooh....pretty....gimmicks.....
(09:10:08 AM) Linux User: Oh, is there an equivalent of workspaces in MacOS?
(09:10:17 AM) Mac User: in Leopard, yeah
(09:10:24 AM) Linux User: That's this next version, right?
(09:10:30 AM) Mac User: yizzur
(09:10:34 AM) Linux User: Awesome.
(09:10:43 AM) Mac User: "Spaces"
(09:10:49 AM) Linux User: Lol.
(09:10:59 AM) Linux User: We Linux folk have had that for years.
(09:11:00 AM) Mac User: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/spaces.html
(09:11:01 AM) Linux User: But anyways.
(09:11:15 AM) Mac User: again....I don't care, and you're the only one who noticed
(09:11:34 AM) Linux User: LOL. Awesome argument. :x
(09:11:43 AM) Mac User: I don't argue anymore
(09:12:03 AM) Mac User: If you've bigoted yourself into using PC
(09:12:10 AM) Mac User: s, thats ur own fault
(09:12:44 AM) Linux User: Well, if I can't "uninstall MacOS" - or heaven forbid, order it without MacOS, like I can order most PCs without any OS, for a significant price reduction...
(09:12:49 AM) Linux User: It's not worth getting a Dell.
(09:12:52 AM) Linux User: Or any "PC".
(09:13:02 AM) Linux User: Or an Apple, for that matter.
(09:13:08 AM) Linux User: Dell, I can do that with, though.
(09:13:17 AM) Linux User: I share your Microsuck hatred.
(09:13:18 AM) Linux User: I really do.
(09:13:23 AM) Mac User: you make that sound like a feature
(09:13:24 AM) Linux User: But I also hate MacOS with a passion.
(09:13:32 AM) Mac User: for no reason
(09:13:37 AM) Linux User: No, for full reason.
(09:13:42 AM) Mac User: there's 2 sides of the fight, dude
(09:13:46 AM) Linux User: It's a *nix OS, without all the good stuff.
(09:13:48 AM) Mac User: Apple, and mico$ith
(09:13:57 AM) Linux User: Then there's Linux. ;D
(09:14:05 AM) Linux User: We're not part of the fight, we've already won.
(09:14:06 AM) Mac User: you're out in the woods trying to be a nonconformist
(09:14:22 AM) Linux User: Not at all, actually, I started using Linux because most of my friends were.
(09:14:23 AM) Linux User: :/
(09:14:28 AM) Mac User: yeah, 2% market share. WOO HOO!!!!
(09:14:36 AM) Linux User: 55% of the server share. :/
(09:14:48 AM) Linux User: I think it's above 60, actually?
(09:14:58 AM) Mac User: http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/
(09:15:01 AM) Mac User: > you
(09:15:16 AM) Linux User: Why, exactly, would I run MacOS as a server? When I have Linux?
(09:15:23 AM) Linux User: You don't have a package manager (apt)
(09:15:40 AM) Linux User: apt-get install apache2 php mysql
(09:15:42 AM) Linux User: Done.
(09:15:48 AM) Mac User: you wouldn't
(09:15:58 AM) Mac User: and that's your business
(09:16:04 AM) Mac User: why are you talking to me again?
(09:16:20 AM) Mac User has signed off.

And that was him blocking me. Mac people really do think differently.

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