Thursday, December 28, 2017

MacRumors: Source Code for Apple's Lisa Operating System to be Released for Free in 2018

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Source Code for Apple's Lisa Operating System to be Released for Free in 2018
Wednesday December 27, 2017 5:57 pm PST by Juli Clover

The Apple Lisa, released in 1983, was one of the first personal computers to come equipped with a graphical user interface, and soon the operating system that ran on the Lisa will available for free, courtesy of the Computer History Museum and Apple.

As noted by Gizmodo, Al Kossow, a software curator at the Computer History Museum, recently announced that both the source code for the Lisa operating system and the Lisa apps have been recovered. Apple is reviewing the source code, and once that's done, the museum will be releasing the code publicly.

This is really awesome news. Hopefully it will spur some people in the emulation community to make a Lisa emulator we can run on our modern computers under macOS, Windows and Linux. I, for one, would love to be able to try out this historic computer and compare the experience with what I remember from the early Macs, with the design ideas Jef Raskin developed, and other contemporary computer systems.

Monday, December 11, 2017

The Michelangelo of Microsoft Excel

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h/t Daring Fireball

It had never previously occurred to me that Excel's drawing tools could be used for actual art and not just business graphics. I'm impressed.

Friday, December 08, 2017

Naked Security: Google AI teaches itself ‘superhuman’ chess skills in four hours

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Google AI teaches itself ‘superhuman’ chess skills in four hours
by Lisa Vaas,

Human chess grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen tells the BBC that he’s “always wondered how it would be if a superior species landed on earth and showed us how they played chess.”

Well, move aside, ugly, giant bags of mostly water: now we know, because Google’s “superhuman” AlphaZero artificial intelligence (AI) taught itself chess from scratch in four hours. Then, it wiped the floor with the former world-leading chess software, Stockfish 8.
...
From the paper, whose authors include DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis: a child chess prodigy who reached the rank of chess master at the age of 13:

Starting from random play, and given no domain knowledge except the game rules, AlphaZero achieved within 24 hours a superhuman level of play in the games of chess and shogi [a similar Japanese board game] as well as Go, and convincingly defeated a world-champion program in each case.

A very impressive achievement. A huge leap forward in the field of machine learning.

Is it actually intelligent? I suppose that's going to depend greatly on how you define the word.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Business Insider: Scott Adams explains Trump's persuasion style

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The creator of Dilbert explains Trump's persuasion style and reminds us why people stopped caring about facts
Scott Adams. Nov. 1, 2017, 12:19 PM

  • In this excerpt from "Win Bigly," Dilbert creator Scott Adams says both he and Trump use the same method of persuasion.
  • The method involves making claims that contain exaggerations or factual errors.
  • Adams credits the method with raising his own profile ahead of the 2016 US presidential election — and with Trump's election win.
  • Adams says he doesn't prefer to ignore facts.
  • It's just that a "Master Persuader" can do it and still come out on top.

A great article by Scott Adams explaining an interesting technique in the art of persuasion that Trump appears to use to great success. After reading this, you may still hate what he has to say, but you will also be fascinated to discover what he's really doing and how well he's doing it even after you know the trick.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Firefox 57 is out, and you need new add-ons

1 comment:
Yesterday, the Mozilla people released Firefox version 57. And with it, they have removed the old "XUL" based add-on system. So all add-ons must now use the new WebExtension API. Unfortunately, many add-ons (including a lot that I use) have not been updated yet, despite Firefox issuing warnings for the last several revisions. In many cases, the authors have abandoned the code, and in others, I don't think they care enough to want to re-implement it for the new API.

The result is that I've had to remove and replace many of my favorite add-ons. Here's a list of what I had to change and what I think of the results.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Facebook knows all and sees all

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Well, maybe not all, but it sometimes seems pretty darn close. I haven't been a fan of Facebook for a long time, mostly because I don't like how their policies capriciously do things to aggravate users without warning or explanation. But the more I read the more I congratulate myself for suspending my account back in 2010. The thing that really annoys me these days is their censorship of content it finds objectionable, which includes content that is pro-Christian, pro-Israel, or otherwise politically conservative.

But, although very relevant news these days, that is not what I'm writing about today. Today's article is just to share a few links describing how far Facebook's data mining goes in order to build profiles on people for the purpose of targeting ads.

It is known that they maintain a "shadow profile" (a term they don't use and don't like to hear) on all their users. They track not only the contacts you've uploaded and the content you post/view/like, but they also tie it to the profile (contacts, content, etc.) of all your friends. And also people they think might be your friends - any other user who uploaded a contacts list with you in it is fair game here as well. Then they tie it to "web beacons" on sites all over the Internet to track what sites you visit, what you're searching/shopping for and what you purchase, including the browsing/shopping habits of everybody associated with you (including your friends and people they think might want to be friends). And then they tie it in with GPS location monitoring if you have granted access to the FB app/web site in order to discover where you shop, when you're traveling, and what events you are attending. And of course, the content of any text, photos and video you (or your contacts, friends or possible-friends) share via Facebook Messenger, What's App or Instagram also contributes to this profile.

There have even been accusations of them going so far as to listen in via your phone's microphone in order to target ads based on things you say, but Facebook explicitly denies this charge (everything above has pretty much been confirmed - Facebook doesn't deny any of it, they just don't like to talk about it a lot).

None of it should come as much of a surprise, but it looks pretty shocking when it's all piled together in one paragraph.

Sources:

h/t to the Michael Tsai blog for the link that caught my attention this morning.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Business Insider: We put the iPhone X's Face ID to the ultimate test with identical twins — and the results surprised us

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We put the iPhone X's Face ID to the ultimate test with identical twins — and the results surprised us
Emmanuel Ocbazghi, October 31, 2017

Business Insider got an exclusive look at the iPhone X, and, naturally, we tried to beat its facial-recognition feature by having one twin register his face and the other try to break in.

A very impressive test. The phone was able to tell the registered owner from his identical twin. And, as promised, a hat, scarf and sunglasses did not change a thing.

Click through to watch the video.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

The Daily WTF: News Roundup: EquiTF

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News Roundup: EquiTF
by Remy Porter in News Roundup on 2017-09-28

We generally don’t do news roundups when yet another major company gets hacked and leaks personally compromising data about the public. We know that “big company hacked” isn’t news, it’s a Tuesday. So the Equifax hack didn’t seem like something worth spending any time to write an article about.

But then new things kept coming out. It got worse. And worse. And worse. It’s like if a dumpster caught on fire, but then the fire itself also caught on fire.

Wow! What a total mess! Getting hacked to death is bad enough, but not installing patches for known security vulnerabilities (even after having been hacked once before), hiding the hack from the press, and then dumping stock just before it becomes public borders on being criminally insane.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Dry Bones: Left and Right

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Left and Right
Yaakov Kirschen. Thursday, August 24, 2017

A really close friend from America was visiting us and saw this cartoon. He's politically savvy, sharp, and intelligent, but his reaction to the cartoon shocked me. He was unaware of the antisemitism of the left. He'd never heard of the violent antifa movement, and he was ignorant of the antisemitism of the Black Lives Matter organization. Most of his information comes from Main Stream Media and he's been guided by the politically correct stance of American Jewish groups.

I took the opportunity to sell him a copy of my brand-new Dry Bones anthology "Dry Bones Cartoons Fight Back." That led me to think that maybe I should be selling YOU a copy(either for you or for you to pass on to a similarly uninformed friend).

The book is on sale at Amazon http://amazon.com/author/kirschen where, in addition to the (over sized) anthology there's a Kindle copy (and a bookshelf of other Dry Bones books). And if you buy a copy PLEASE leave a review. It would be really helpful.

I normally don't like to repost someone's entire blog post, since I don't want to take traffic away from their site, but I think Mr. Kirschen's text makes an extremely important point. I'm including his plug for his new book in the hope that those people who don't click through to the original article will at least have an opportunity to support the author by buying one or more of his books.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

ZDNet: AccuWeather caught sending user location data, even when location sharing is off

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AccuWeather caught sending user location data, even when location sharing is off
By Zack Whittaker for Zero Day.

Popular weather app AccuWeather has been caught sending geolocation data to a third-party data monetization firm, even when the user has switched off location sharing.

AccuWeather is one of the most popular weather apps in Apple's app store, with a near perfect four-star rating and millions of downloads to its name. But what the app doesn't say is that it sends sensitive data to a firm designed to monetize user locations without users' explicit permission.

Security researcher Will Strafach intercepted the traffic from an iPhone running the latest version of AccuWeather and its servers and found that even when the app didn't have permission to access the device's precise location, the app would send the Wi-Fi router name and its unique MAC address to the servers of data monetization firm Reveal Mobile every few hours. That data can be correlated with public data to reveal an approximate location of a user's device.

We independently verified the findings, and were able to geolocate an AccuWeather-running iPhone in our New York office within just a few meters, using nothing more than the Wi-Fi router's MAC address and public data.

Shameful. I really like the AccuWeather app, but after reading this, it's gone. I'll be looking for some other app to get my weather reports now.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Giving an old Mac a new lease on life

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Update: August 24, 2017: Added section about enabling TRIM

This weekend, I upgraded my daughter's 2011 MacBook Air with a new SSD and battery and gave it a new lease on life. Although this computer is six years old, it still has no problem handling all the tasks she uses it for: web surfing, photos, Microsoft Office, music, YouTube and other related tasks. But after all this time, the 120G SSD is getting full and the battery only lasts about an hour on a full charge. The computer was also running a pretty old version of macOS - 10.7 ("Lion") was released in 2011 and hasn't seen an update since 2012. Because of this, several other key applications, including Firefox and Chrome were also old and out of date, and were in need of upgrades.

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Washington Free Beacon: U.S. Navy Tests World’s First Laser Weapons System

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U.S. Navy Tests World’s First Laser Weapons System
By: Jack Heretik,

The U.S. Navy recently tested the world's first-ever active laser weapons system, which is now deployed and ready for war.

The Laser Weapons System, or LaWS, is now deployed aboard the USS Ponce amphibious transport ship, where CNN was able to witness the system destroy a drone in flight and moving targets on the Persian Gulf.
...
Its cost per use is also quite impressive for such a revolutionary new weapon: approximately $1 per shot. The $40 million system requires electrical power and a three-man team.

The LaWS is also extremely accurate. The system can target a single component of an enemy target, such as a boat's engine, and make it catch fire so that the entire vessel does not have to be destroyed and the Navy can avoid collateral damage.

Wow. This is a game-changer weapon.

Sci-fi stories have been describing beam weapons for over 50 years and now we have a real one deployed and in use by the US Navy.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Windows 10 disables ATA Secure Erase

1 comment:
h/t MacInTouch

For those who aren't seriously into computer technology, there are technological issues with erasing an SSD.

With a hard drive, you can use all kinds of standard disk-erase utilities to write zeros to every block. If you're paranoid about leaving magnetic after-images, there are various algorithms for writing various patterns designed to obscure any magnetic residue of old files. They take a long time, but are generally considered secure enough for all but the most sensitive data (which should only be "erased" via physical destruction of the drive.)

With an SSD, however, erasure by overwriting new data is not effective. Tehnologies like wear leveling, garbage collection and TRIM make it difficult or impossible to know if data has truly been erased. Writing zeros to a logical block of data does not necessarily overwrite the flash memory containing the old data - it is more likely that the flash memory will be marked as "garbage" for collection (which will truly erase it) at some non-deterministic time in the future. That time might be quickly, or it might not be for days or even months, depending on the SSD controller's algorithm and the drive's usage pattern.

Mind you, this "garbage" data is not accessible using any software-accessible interface (SATA, SCSI, USB, etc.) The only way to read garbage data is to install special firmware into the SSD controller or to physically remove the chips. But both options are possible for someone willing to pay a data recovery company or some other similarly capable forensics lab.

Which is where the ATA secure erase command comes into play. The ATA specification (at the heart of all ATA and SATA devices) includes a command for explicitly and securely erasing a device. When supported on an SSD, it performs a flash-level erase on every single block, ensuring that no data will be available to recover.

And now, with this background material in mind, the linked MacInTouch posting now make sense. It would appear that the act of installing Windows 8 or 10 on an SSD involves writing some data to the drive that disables the secure erase command. Why they do this may be an interesting topic for discussion, but doesn't really matter if you've got a retired drive that you want to erase.

To get around this problem, you need to get a copy of the SSD manufacturer's drive utility. You can use this utility to reset the SSD's firmware, which will re-enable the secure erase command. Unfortunately, in order for this to work, you need the drive's PSID code - this is a secure ID designed to prevent malware from bypassing security features. Fortunately, most SSDs print the PSID on the drive's label. Unfortunately, if your label is removed or damaged, you may not be able to read it and there is usually no other way to get this number.

I suppose the important lesson here is that when you install a new SSD into a computer, photograph the cover to make a record of the PSID number. If you are concerned that a hacker might get this image, print a few copies and store them in a secure location (like a file cabinet) and then erase the image file.

If all this seems like too much, there's another alternative - use whole-drive disk encryption before you copy any data to the SSD. Later on, when it's time to retire the SSD, blow away the decryption key. A simple drive-erase (without decrypting it) will do it just fine. Or if you want to make it even simpler, change the drive's password to a long string of gibberish characters (30-50 characters should do nicely) and promptly forget what they are. Anybody who gets the drive in the future will not be able to access the data without this string, and it is highly unlikely that they will ever be able to provide it. Of course, you can also delete all the files and empty-trash before changing the string, to provide an additional level of protection.

Finally, you might want to encrypt the drive anyway. This way you will be protected in case the drive controller fails, since you won't be able to perform any kind of secure erase operation at that point, but your encrypted data will not be recoverable through forensic analysis without the decryption key.

Monday, July 17, 2017

MIT: Tinfoil hats make it easier for the government to scan your brain

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Study on the effect of tinfoil hats on blocking mind control satellites

In February 2005, some CSAIL graduate students "Published" a paper on the effect of tinfoil hats on blocking mind control satellites. They measured the attenuation of radio signals as a function of frequency and determined that certain frequencies which are reserved for government use are actually amplified by the tinfoil hats. Clearly the government must have started the tinfoil hat craze so it could more effectively spy on its citizens.

A full account of this experiment can be found here

Yes, this is a joke.

The interesting (and not necessarily funny) part is that one of the bands that are amplified (2.6GHz) is used by cell phones. If you are worried about cell phone radiation causing brain tumors, then you should probably avoid wearing any aluminum foil headgear.

Friday, July 14, 2017

War on "Medicad"?

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h/t Washington Free Beacon.

Apparently one of the "cost-effective ways for us to continue access to health care" is to slash by 50% spending on use of the letter "i" in promotional materials.

Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Washington Free Beacon: New York Times Falls for Parody North Korea Twitter Account

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New York Times Falls for Parody North Korea Twitter Account
BY: Alex Griswold.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that a statement from a parody North Korea Twitter account was an actual statement from the North Korean government.

The Times story on a joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea noted that "the North Korean government belittled the joint exercise as ‘demonstrating near total ignorance of ballistic science.'"

But that statement came from the parody @DPRK_News account, in what was evidently a satirical tweet.

I know this isn't the first time, and it won't be the last, but it seems significant to me. If the Times can't be bothered to fact-check something as trivial as this (to make sure a tweet claiming to be from the North Korean government actually is from them) then how can they be trusted with any other "facts" they report?

Tuesday, July 04, 2017

$70 hackintosh outperforms new laptop

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Snazzy Labs builds a $70 hackintosh—or, as he calls it, crapintosh—computer for those who want a super tight budget PC build. Can a $70 hackintosh be any good? Can a cheap hackintosh outbench a MacBook Pro? Do Apple's iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro blow this 5-year-old computer into outer space or does the hackintosh give it a run for its money?

Fascinating. Scrounge used parts (government surplus, Craigslist, etc.) to assemble a PC for $70, hack macOS 10.12 "Sierra" onto it and find that it outperforms Apple's low-end laptops and is surprisingly good at just about everything other than high-end gaming.

Now, clearly, the pricing is not realistic. Used and surplus equipment is cheap because the seller's goal is to get rid of it, not to make a profit. And it is sold as-is with no warranty, support or anything else. A company like Apple selling new equipment with the same specs would have to charge a lot more, but it is still a fascinating experiment nonetheless.

Actually, it sounds like a fun hobby project for me if I can clear out some space in my office :-)

Friday, June 30, 2017

JapanSauce: Japan’s Cute Barricades

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Japan’s Cute Barricades
May 24, 2016

Japan is known for having many cute and cool things, but I was still surprised to learn that Japanese construction sites are now being guarded by Hello Kitty.

Click through to the main article to see lots of other cute Japanese safety barriers.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Circa: Did the FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn by launching Russia probe?

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Did the FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn by launching Russia probe?
by John Solomon and Sara Carter

...
The FBI launched a criminal probe against former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn two years after the retired Army general roiled the bureau’s leadership by intervening on behalf of a decorated counterterrorism agent who accused now-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other top officials of sexual discrimination, according to documents and interviews.

Flynn’s intervention on behalf of Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz was highly unusual, and included a letter in 2014 on his official Pentagon stationary, a public interview in 2015 supporting Gritz’s case and an offer to testify on her behalf. His offer put him as a hostile witness in a case against McCabe, who was soaring through the bureau’s leadership ranks.

The FBI sought to block Flynn’s support for the agent, asking a federal administrative law judge in May 2014 to keep Flynn and others from becoming a witness in her Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) case, memos obtained by Circa show. Two years later, the FBI opened its inquiry of Flynn.

The EEOC case, which is still pending, was serious enough to require McCabe to submit to a sworn statement to investigators, the documents show.

The deputy director’s testimony provided some of the strongest evidence in the case of possible retaliation, because he admitted the FBI opened an internal investigation into Gritz’s personal conduct after learning the agent “had filed or intended to file” a sex discrimination complaint against her supervisors.

McCabe eventually became the bureau’s No. 2 executive and emerged as a central player in the FBI’s Russia election tampering investigation, putting him in a position to impact the criminal inquiry against Flynn.

Three FBI employees told Circa they personally witnessed McCabe make disparaging remarks about Flynn before and during the time the retired Army general emerged as a figure in the Russia case.
...

So now the truth starts to come out. The FBI director (formerly deputy director) was accused of sexual discrimination. Flynn wrote a memo supporting the accusation. The FBI retaliated by initiating investigations against both and by filing bogus criminal charges against Flynn.

And that's about it. Everything else we've been told for the past six months is just political grandstanding. Read the rest of the article here.

Friday, June 23, 2017

Washington Free Beacon: Joy Behar Doesn’t Want Trump to Be Impeached Until Her Book Comes Out

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Joy Behar Doesn’t Want Trump to Be Impeached Until Her Book Comes Out
BY: Jack Heretik

...
Behar, who criticizes Trump and Republicans daily, has been vocally opposed to Trump and has wanted him to be impeached since he entered office.

"I don't want him to get impeached until after my book comes out," Behar said...

Always good to know that the TV personalities that shape American political thought have their priorities straight. Right, wrong, good, evil are all less important than cashing in on a book deal.

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Washington Free Beacon: Canadian Sniper Takes Out ISIS Terrorist From Over 2 Miles Away

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Canadian Sniper Takes Out ISIS Terrorist From Over 2 Miles Away
BY: Stephen Gutowski

Sets new world record for longest confirmed kill

A Canadian sniper in Iraq took out an ISIS terrorist from more than 2 miles away, Canadian Armed Forces confirmed on Thursday.

"The Canadian Special Operations Command can confirm that a member of Joint Task Force 2 successfully hit a target at 3,540 metres," the forces told the Globe and Mail.
...
War stories are notoriously unreliable, but the Globe and Mail said its sources confirmed there is video evidence of the shot confirming it was made at 3,540 meters or about 2.1 miles.

All I can say is "Wow!".

Monday, June 05, 2017

Happy Apple ][ Day!

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Apple II Day

Today in 1977, the Apple II was released, joining the ranks of the TRS-80 and the Commodore PET in home computing power. Best known as the adorable lovechild of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the Apple II came in two forms: fully functional, with all the bells and whistles of a color monitor, power supply, keyboard and case, or just the brain in circuitboard form so you could have all the fun of building it yourself. The computer operated on BASIC programming, so you could go totally off the reservation and even build your own applications.

The Apple II became hugely popular, especially since it had a spreadsheet program people could use instead of lugging around ledgers. Within ten years, the computer would evolve into the Apple IIe and end up in schools across the country because of some brilliant and crafty marketing. Whether you were one of those geeks building it in your own garage or a later generation learning the joys of dot-matrix graphics and programming, Apple II still has a place in your solder-covered heart.

I'll be celebrating tonight with a game of Spare Change or maybe Hard Hat Mack on my (still working beautifully) Apple IIGS.

Friday, May 19, 2017

Washington Free Beacon: Prominent Democratic Feminist Camille Paglia Says Hillary Clinton 'Exploits Feminism'

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Prominent Democratic Feminist Camille Paglia Says Hillary Clinton 'Exploits Feminism'
Sam Dorman. May 15, 2017 10:00 pm

Camille Paglia is a woman of seeming contradictions. She’s a lesbian who thinks homosexuality is not normal, a Democrat who often criticizes the party’s 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, a self-described "transgender being" who calls sex changes for children "abuse," and a feminist who says abortion is "murder."

Decades after she burst onto the scene with her best-selling book Sexual Personae, Paglia is back with a timely commentary on sex and gender. Her recent book Free Women, Free Men argues, among other things, that feminism is "stunting the maturation of both girls and boys" and that "if women seek freedom, they must let men too be free."

Paglia talked to the Washington Free Beacon about a variety of topics including Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D., Mass.) alleged populism, Megyn Kelly's performance as a moderator during the first Republican presidential primary debate, and whether misogyny played a role in Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 presidential bid.

Paglia is a liberal Democrat, make no mistake, but she's one of the few that I respect. She does not blindly accept the dogma of the activists in the Democrat party but forms her own, often controversial, opinions based on facts and careful reasoning without regard to what the rest of the world may think of her as a result.

Read the entire interview for very interesting and not-commonly-discussed opinions on many of the issues in today's political scene. Whether or not you agree, it is a very good read.

Thursday, May 04, 2017

May The Fourth Be With You

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Yeah, it's May 4th again. I'm not doing anything special, but GoComic put together a page full of comics related to Star Wars.

Enjoy

Thursday, April 13, 2017

The FCC's (lack of) a new rule and government overreach

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In the news today, the FCC chairman nixed plans to allow in-flight cell phone usage. That's not worth commenting on. But his reasoning is. He wrote:
I stand with airline pilots, flight attendants, and America's flying public against the FCC's ill-conceived 2013 plan to allow people to make cellphone calls on planes. I do not believe that moving forward with this plan is in the public interest. Taking it off the table permanently will be a victory for Americans across the country who, like me, value a moment of quiet at 30,000 feet.
Please note his rationale. This has nothing to do with airline safety. Nothing to do with overburdening the cell phone infrastructure. Not even to do with airlines keeping their monopoly on in-flight communication. It's because he doesn't want someone next to himself talking on the phone.

What a complete BS answer. I guess he's unaware that people have been yapping on (expensive) AirPhones for over a decade and that anybody today can have data access to the Internet if they want to pay the airline for on-board Wi-Fi. And I guess he's never sat next to a couple having a loud conversation or a crying baby. Or for that matter, the plane's own engines. There is no such thing as a "moment of quiet at 30,000 feet" and never has been.

But that's not even my point. My point is that this is none of the government's business. The FAA is responsible for making sure that our planes safely get where they're going. The FCC is responsible for making sure our communication system works properly. It is not the responsibility of either (nor anybody else) to decide whether or not someone is allowed to talk while in the air.

Only the airlines should be making rules like this. Let them, and let the market decide what policies should be. If United wants to allow cell phones and American wants to prohibit them, both should be allowed to make their respective decisions. If I want to use my phone in the air, then I'll book my ticket on an airline that allows it. And if I don't want to be on a plane with phone usage, then I'll book my ticket on the airline that prohibits it. But under no circumstance do I want a bunch of government bureaucrats to be making that decision if it doesn't affect the safety of air travel or the stability of the mobile phone network.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Center for Consumer Freedom: Former PETA Employee: PETA Killed Adoptable Puppies and Kittens

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Former PETA Employee: PETA Killed Adoptable Puppies and Kittens
March 28, 2017

A new document filed in the ongoing dognapping lawsuit against the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demonstrates the long-term, systemic pattern of trespassing, pet theft, and killing that occurs as part of PETA’s pet slaughterhouse operation at its Norfolk headquarters.

Lest anybody still think that PETA is telling the truth in their press releases, this is a sworn affidavit from a former PETA employee. They routinely steal pets from people's property and immediately kill them.

This isn't the animal welfare group they claim to be. This isn't even the animal rights group some accuse them of being. This is the act of a bunch of bloodthirsty sociopaths who get off on slaughtering cute animals.

They should be completely shut down and their employees should go to prison for a very long time. There's a special place in Hell for monsters like this.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Mental Floss: Don't "Chai" and "Tea" Both Mean the Same Thing?

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Don't "Chai" and "Tea" Both Mean the Same Thing?
by Haley Sweetland Edwards

Almost 5,000 years ago, when folks in China started sipping a yummy, steeped beverage made from dried leaves and buds, different regions had different names for it. Most Chinese languages, including Mandarin and Cantonese, referred to the stuff by a word that is pronounced like “chá.” But other dialects, including Min Nan Chinese, which was spoken around Fujian, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan, referred to it by a word that sounds more like "te."

Fascinating article about the origin of the word "tea". And the fact that "chai" technically has nothing to do with "flavored with milk and Indian spices".

h/t The Devil's Panties:

Thursday, March 16, 2017

I'm too nerdy for my survey

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I get small surveys all the time from a variety of apps that I run. Today I got one that read:
What's your favorite bird of prey?
  • Buzzard
  • Caracara
  • Eagle
  • Falcon
  • Hawk
  • Kite
  • Osprey
  • Owl
  • Vulture

I took one look at the question, and before I saw any of the choices, my first thought was "Klingon".

Monday, February 20, 2017

Pamela Geller: JDL Facebook page pulled for 'raised fist' logo: Only 'hate speech' when Jews use it?

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JDL Facebook page pulled for 'raised fist' logo: Only 'hate speech' when Jews use it?
By Pamela Geller - on February 20, 2014

For the second time in a month, Facebook took down the page of the Jewish Defence League of Canada, citing its “community standards” policy on “dangerous organizations.”The social media giant removed the JDL’s Facebook page earlier this month.

The JDL believed it was because of its well-known logo, a raised fist silhouetted on a yellow Star of David.

Within days, the JDL put up a new page, with a new logo.

But on Feb. 15, Facebook took down that page, too.

Also taken down on Feb. 15 was the public group page “Jewish Defence League of Canada."

Both JDL pages "are not allowed to be on Facebook, so they were correctly removed," Facebook spokesperson Meg Sinclair told The CJN via email.

She sent a link to Facebook’s "community standards" and its section on "dangerous organizations," which states that it does not allow "any organizations that are engaged in the following to have a presence on Facebook: terrorist activity, or organized criminal activity."

So now it's official. Facebook believes that Jews have no right to defend themselves against antisemitism, and organizations that disagree are to be branded "terrorist" or "organized crime" and are to be banned from Facebook.

I am so so so glad I deleted my Facebook account years ago. Every time I read something new about them, it makes me even more disgusted.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Jerusalem Post: How a pro-Palestinian American reporter changed his views on Israel and the conflict

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How a pro-Palestinian American reporter changed his views on Israel and the conflict
By Hunter Stuart - February 15, 2017 12:17

A year working as a journalist in Israel and the Palestinian territories made Hunter Stuart rethink his positions on the conflict.

IN THE summer of 2015, just three days after I moved to Israel for a year-and-a-half stint freelance reporting in the region, I wrote down my feelings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A friend of mine in New York had mentioned that it would be interesting to see if living in Israel would change the way I felt. My friend probably suspected that things would look differently from the front-row seat, so to speak.

Boy was he right.

A great article. Every liberal in America should read this and realize that their opinions on Israel are the product of propaganda, not reality.

Tuesday, February 07, 2017

Sean Carroll: Entropy and Complexity, Cause and Effect, Life and Time

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Entropy and Complexity, Cause and Effect, Life and Time
Posted on November 3, 2016 by Sean Carroll

... I had a very fun collaboration with Henry Reich, the wizard behind the Minute Physics videos. Henry and I have known each other for a while, and I previously joined forces with him to talk about dark energy and the arrow of time.

This time, we made a series of five videos (sponsored by Google and Audible.com) based on sections of The Big Picture. In particular, we focused on the thread connecting the arrow of time and entropy to such everyday notions of cause and effect and the appearance of complex structures, ending with the origin of life and how low-entropy energy from the Sun powers the biosphere here on Earth. Henry and I wrote the scripts together, based on the book; I read the narration, and of course he did the art.

Enjoy!

Please click through to the original article and watch the videos. Each one is about 3 minutes long and is easy to understand even without any scientific background.

Monday, January 16, 2017

NIH: Hard water is good for you

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3775162/
Pallav Sengupta, 2013 Aug; 4

In the past five decades or so evidence has been accumulating about an environmental factor, which appears to be influencing mortality, in particular, cardiovascular mortality, and this is the hardness of the drinking water. ...

Hard water has no known adverse health effect, WHO says at its Geneva Conference. In addition, hard water, particularly very hard water, could provide an important supplementary contribution to total calcium and magnesium intake. ...

In most large-scale studies, an inverse relationship between the hardness of drinking-water and cardiovascular disease has been reported. ...

Important findings in this field were provided recently by Taiwanese scientists. In most of their studies, the authors indicated a negative statistical association of various types of cancer morbidity/mortality with the hardness of water and calcium. ...

For years, I've been (jokingly) telling people that I drink tap water because "calcium and iron are good for you". Apparently, there are studies that back this up.

Read the full article for all the details. The upshot of it is that although additional study is needed, it seems that hard water is either beneficial to health or has no impact, depending the health aspect in question.

Friday, January 06, 2017

Light Reading: AT&T, Ericsson & Qualcomm Get Ready to Test 5G Radio in 2017

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AT&T, Ericsson & Qualcomm Get Ready to Test 5G Radio in 2017
Dan Jones, Mobile Editor. 1/4/2017

AT&T, Ericsson, and Qualcomm say that they are getting ready to test the initial 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) specification in the second half of 2017.

The trio are preparing to test high-band frequencies for next-generation 5G technology, which should deliver "multi-gigabit Internet service" over the air. For the average Jane or Joe Blow on the street, this would mean an HD film downloaded wirelessly to their phone. Mobile 5G services are expected to arrive around 2020. AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), however, are trying to push out fixed 5G wireless before that, with friendly trials expected this year. (See 5G in US: Will Spectrum Be the Speed Bump?)

Although 5G consumer services are still several years away, I'm glad to read that the big players in the business are far enough along that they will be conducting trials later this year.