Things you don't need to know...

Ripper said:
A VPN will do you no good against an OS that's snooping on you - the OS knows your real IP, can connect it to your VPN IP, and also identifies you by a unique token that MS assigns to you.
Click to expand...
True, but thanks to Switzerland (and I suspect China) concerns:
http://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-avoids-swiss-showdown-by-making-privacy-changes-to-windows-10/

Ripper said:
The VPN can help to protect you from advertising, Google and Facebook trackers, etc, but you also need to configure your browser securely. If a tracker can run javascript in your browser, it is trivial to discover your real IP address. On top of all that, we have to contend with browser fingerprinting. I'm afraid many people have a false sense of security in this regard.
Click to expand...
All true but I don't care much about browser advertising schemes (ublock origin for Firefox) and I don't use social networks. My problem with browsers are security holes that allow cryptolockers to pass through. All of that can be solved by two means (or their alternatives):
- vmware
- sandboxie

I'm lazy however and still playing a risky game by running browsers without putting them into virtual space, not using Flash any more though.

I have to add here that my provider rotates IP addresses so any user gets a different one often. This means any database that analyzes what was happening on a certain IP address I had just for a few hours will draw wrong conclusions. Sure, with a court order the provider would have to give out data what IP addresses I had at certain time intervals, but if that happened I wouldn't mind as that's a legit thing and not some Facebook spying con job.

Not sure why in some countries providers assign just one IP address on a user which cannot be changed till the user dies - this can be abused in so many ways by different Facebooks.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
I would still consider Windows untrusted.

Ublock Origin will protect you from some, but not all tracking. There are many techniques, including fingerprinting, that can get past it. Look into uMatrix, and how to configure it properly.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Not just you, Windows, in fact Microsoft is not to be trusted at all.
They constantly seem forgetting what PC is and are trying to "downgrade" it to phones/consoles level. Only thanks to competition we get nice things, for example if Vulkan wasn't "threatening", dx12 would most probably never happen. Another example if 3rd party browsers weren't superior to IE we'd never see superfast Edge which lacks only one thing (extensions). If Microsoft continues with "close it for end user and hush about spying" phone idiocy it's just a matter of time a new PC OS will appear. Without dx most probably, but then it's where Vulkan comes into play.

uBlock Origin kills automatic malware link attempts and is not supposed to be considered as telemetry killer.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Well, if you have an OS that is delivering unknown telemetry, there's nothing much you can do - if you don't start with a trusted OS, worrying about privacy is a bit moot. You could never really trust anything that attempts to be a telemetry blocker.

Ublock doesn't really block malware attempts - it just blocks known domains that use malware and tracking. The problem is that any malicious malware attempt is probably going to use an unknown domain, so you'll be protected from the outdated ones, but not the latest attempts.

To really have security and privacy, you have to work the other way round, and block the intrusive capabilities of every website, and whitelist the ones on which you trust the extra functionality. It's a tradeoff between convenience and security. Umatrix is the way to do it, IMO.

Try the test at the EFF. https://panopticlick.eff.org/

If you have ublock, it will tell you that you have strong protection against tracking, but, if you look at the fingerprinting results, you will see that your browser is likely highly identifiable.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
But the thing is I want to get rid of malware first, then deal with the rest. Does that EFF work within Sandboxie?
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
The EFF thing is just a test, to give you an idea of your exposure. The extension I suggest is uMatrix, which will happily work in Firefox, inside Sandboxie. It's for more techie users, but is the best option, IMO.

If we forget about tracking, and just worry about malware, the same fundamental problem applies - if you rely upon something that blacklists known problems, rather then whitelisting what is trusted, you leave a serious hole. The virtualization option is a good one, though Sandboxie is weaker than a proper VM. If you run a browser in a VM, you can use a snapshot so that any changes or malware are discarded every time you shutdown, and cryptolockers are pretty useless. What I would recommend is that you run a separate browser only for the sites you trust and log into. The reason being, that even if you run a disposable browser in a VM, a malware infection could still steal your data if you login somewhere during the same session in which you're infected.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-is-killing-dvd-sales-research-finds-170117/

Netflix has rapidly become the go-to destination for many movie and TV fans. The service is bringing in billions for copyright holders, but it also has a downside. New research shows that the availability of content on Netflix can severely hurt physical disc sales, which traditionally have been the industry's largest revenue source.
Click to expand...
The world is massively switching to digital it seems.

You don't need to know that M.D.N.A needs to make a new song, this one is what we'd say about graphics - outdated:

 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
The end of football as we know it?

http://www.sport-english.com/en/new...asten-proposes-revolutionise-football-5750966

1. Scrap offsides

"I think it can be very interesting watching a game without offside. Football now is already looking a lot like handball with nine or ten defenders in front of the goal. It's difficult for the opposition to score a goal as it's very difficult to create something in the small pieces of space they give you. So if you play without offside you get more possibilities to score a goal."

2. Sinbins

"The idea would be an orange card could be shown that sees a player go out of the game for 10 minutes for incidents that are not heavy enough for a red card."

3. Penalties not extra-time

"I think everybody is pretty tired after 120 minutes. Maybe the player should start 25 meters from goal and then you can dribble the goalkeeper or shoot early. But you have to make a goal within eight seconds. It's more skill and less luck. It's maybe a bit more spectacular. It's more football but it's still nervous for the player."

4. Last 10 minutes with a stopped clock

The match clock stops everytime the ball goes out of play or there is a foul, as in other sport. It's one way to stop time wasting.

5. Captain only speaks

Using rugby as an example, Van Basten proposes that only the captain can speak to the referee. This would avoid ugly group protests.

6. Maximum number of fouls

Limit the number of fouls per player, as in basketball. It would avoid, the former Dutch international says, players spending 90 minutes giving away little fouls.

7. Less games

Van Basten feels the current calendar is too busy: "We have to promote quality instead of quantity. We are playing too much football now. We have to defend players because they have to play so much and are not fresh or fit anymore.

"That's bad for the quality of the game. Even in June when the big tournaments are played players cannot perform to their maximum because now if players are really successful they can play up to 75 official games in the year. I think that's a bit too much and maybe they should stop at 55 or 60."

8. 8 vs. 8

"In professional football is should be 11 vs. 11. However, for kids or those over 45, 8 vs. 8 would be perfect because it's a smaller space."
Click to expand...

These are changes proposed by Van Basten who is FIFA director which is not really CEO but all this smells to me as EA's CEO idiocies.

You don't need to know if Van basten will be remembered as a genius or yet another lunatic, also soon in a shop around you a chessboard for kids without 1/3 of figures.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Australia. Speed skating. One, an island 3 km away from the sun, the other a sport best performed at low temperatures. Surely these two concepts have nothing to do with each other. Right?

Wrong.

Australia does have a speed skating team, and apparently a good one as well. They won the 5000 m relay world championship in '91 and an Olympic bronze medal at Lillehammer in '94. Admittedly we're talking about the atrocity called "short track speed skating", but let's give them some slack. For now.

They even have an indivivual Olympic gold medalist from '02. Men's 1000 m. Salt Lake City. His name is Steve Bradbury, and here's why:

  1. Qualifying heat. Mr Bradbury won.
  2. Quarter-finals. Mr. Badbury ended as number 3, behind speed skating heavyweights Apolo Anton Ohno and Marc Gagnon, and wouldn't have qualified if not for mr Gagnon beeing disqualified for obstructing another, at the moment unspecified racer (It is a bit weird. If you've seen short track speed skating (I have (regrettably)), you would suspect that obstruction would be a mandatory part of the entertainment. Apparently not).
  3. Semi-finals. Bradbury was last place for most of the race, but ended as number 1, because the obvious gold medalist candidates (Li, Turcotte and Kim) somehow managed to obstruct each other, mercilessly crashing and even more mercilessly obstructing any intentions of moving forward. Mr Bradbury carefully managed to avoid the chaotic heap of human flesh and voila, we're qualified. Yay!
  4. The final. The final clue: The same thing happened. All his competitors (there were 4 of them) piled up at the last corner and, not being part of said pile-up, the ozzy comfortably passed the finishing line on his own, raising his arms aloft (according to Wikipedia) "in complete disbelief and amazement at the unlikely circumstances of his victory".
International reactions, accordig to Wikipedia: According to USA Today: "The first winter gold medal in the history of Australia fell out of the sky like a bagged goose. He looked like the tortoise behind four hares". The Boston Globe: "multiple crashes that allow the wrong person to win are part of the deal". Even Norwegian (otherwise known for real speed skating) Wikipedia mentions the event: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Bradbury.

More from Wikipedia: "The unlikely win turned Bradbury into something of a folk hero" and the use of the "phrase "pulling a Bradbury" … meaning an unexpected or unusual success. In 2005 Bradbury was a contestant in the second series of the Australian dancing show "Dancing with the Stars".

pibbur who, like his left ankle, prefers sports where contestants don't pile up.

1460
 
Last edited:
Killer app: the paper itself.
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170120-why-paper-is-the-real-killer-app

Research by Princeton University and the University of California at Los Angeles, published in 2014, show that creativity, organization, brainstorming, etc evolves better if we get our hands "dirty" by making mess with pen on a paper instead of filling tablet/laptop spreadsheets.
So next time you watch Death in Paradise case solving on whiteboard, don't snicker and don't think it's silly.

Today it's obvious that people used to be more literate before Facebook appeared. Were they also smarter back then, well, that's something you don't need to know.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
I certainly agree with that. Everything I write, everything I plan, I do on paper. Computers are for the final draft, and for storage/indexing. Even better, I have a large whiteboard, and I find it often very helpful to write up notes and diagrams on the big board. I think there's a reason physicists tend to favour having their calculations writ large.

I find there is something mesmerizing and stifling about the glowing computer screen. I also use an E-Ink tablet when needed, and I prefer reading real newspapers and periodicals. I like to absolutely minimize screen time.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Seen this somewhere recently?

lead_960.jpg


No, it's not a screenshot from Mass Effect 5, it's not from The Witcher 5 and certainly not from Vaughn's Saga volume 55. This creature is Tullimonstrum gregarium finally reconstructed last year from fossils.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullimonstrum
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/solving-the-mystery-of-the-tully-monster/473823/

As it's (was) a real living being, this creature is just a proof how idiotic today's grinders are designed. Unlike propaganda from that garbage where everything cannot stop appearing, this creature got extinct. But that's some of you don't need to know.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Ancient, scary and alien-looking specimen forms a rarity in the insect world—a new order.
Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered a 100-million-year-old insect preserved in amber with a triangular head, almost-alien and "E.T.-like" appearance and features so unusual that it has been placed in its own scientific "order" - an incredibly rare event.
Click to expand...

ancientscary.jpg

================

It looks like an ant to me. :)

================
A quote from the abstract of the published article today that made it to the Dutch news today:
While insects with triangular-shaped heads are common today, the hypotenuse of the triangle is always located at the base of the head and attached to the neck, with the vertex at the apex of the head. Other features of the fossil are the long narrow, flat body, long slender legs, especially the hind pair that are twice the length of the abdomen, lack of wings, protruding eyes, paired ocelli, secretory glands located on the dorsum of the neck and swollen abdomen bearing paired segmented cerci.
Click to expand...
 
Ten Meter Tower.

Would you jump? Or climb down again?

Fascinating short documentary (16 minutes) from Swedish hand: Maximilien van Aertryck en Axel Danielson.

Each person was promised 30 dollars to climb up to the platform. To do that at least.

The documenary was shown 6 months ago at several film festivals and is now online thanks to The New York Times.

The film was a psychological experiment: to record people in a difficult situation, to make a portrait of people in doubt.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom