Re: mksh workalike (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Vulnerability in Bash Shell widespread and serious on 2014-09-26 08:02 (#2SYH)

Editing a comment does the following:
  • Removes any positive moderation
  • Resets the edit time of the comment (shows up blue again)
It does not delete the comment or interfere with any of the replies.

Mellon (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Favorite Magic Phrase on 2014-09-25 18:31 (#2SXQ)

a.k.a. Friend

Re: How do we vote? (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in First computer system I used on 2014-09-24 20:37 (#2SWH)

Yes, sign in to vote.

Re: GUIs ruined school computer labs (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in First computer system I used on 2014-09-23 10:58 (#2STQ)

Now, a computer lab where kids get a blank command-line on a Unix system, and have free reign to do whatever they want in their home directory (explore, program, ..., etc), THAT would be incredibly useful educational tool, so, of course, schools would never consider doing something as awful as that...
That describes almost perfectly my high school programming department. We all sat at green screen serial terminals attached to the large "computer" in the back corner. I didn't know it back then, but I'm sure glad they had the insight to teach us the basics without the distraction of the GUI (which did exist; they chose to use the older classics.)

Plus, I'd never have ingrained all the vi commands1 into my brain if I hadn't taken that class.

1What's that joke about generating a pseudorandom character sequence by asking a user unfamiliar with vi to exit the program?

Re: Nice! (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in TV antennas - OTA HDTV reception on 2014-09-23 07:40 (#2STF)

Make sure your antenna is grounded. My vent pipes (sewer) are all PVC.

Re: How much water / house? (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Largest Desalination Plant in the Hemisphere to Supply 7% of San Diego's Water on 2014-09-23 07:20 (#2STE)

On my monthly water bill, the local utility lists the following:
  • Your water use was 748 gallons.1
  • Your neighborhood average water use was 7,998 gallons.
  • SAWS residential average water use was 10,085 gallons.
I have no idea how some people use so much water.

1One digit on my water meter equals 748 gallons. For some months of the year, my usage is low enough to make the meter read the same as the previous month (meaning my usage is actually a bit less than 748 gallons/month)

Young'ins (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in First computer system I used on 2014-09-23 03:21 (#2ST2)

In the not-too-distant future (or maybe already) the younger crowd will list "smart phone" or "tablet" as their first computer.

IBM (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in First computer system I used on 2014-09-23 03:13 (#2SSD)

IBM PC Jr
  • Wireless Chiclet Keyboard
  • Color "TV" Monitor
  • Two ROM cartridge slots
  • 360 KB 5.25 inch floppy disk drive

Re: Some glaring security holes? (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Debian Security Advisory - DSA-3025-1 apt - security update on 2014-09-22 10:48 (#2SR0)

You can always set up a port knocker. The sshd program normally listens on a port 22, but you can set iptables to drop all packets going to that port until it receives a special "knock" that opens the door to your IP.

Example from DO.

Re: Will Pipedot be upgrading to PHP 7? (Score: 2, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org in PHP6 abandoned, going straight to PHP7 on 2014-09-21 19:06 (#2SQ4)

Unless it has a really useful feature or two, I'll probably keep the site on Ubuntu Trusty (a LTS release.)

Re: Some glaring security holes? (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Debian Security Advisory - DSA-3025-1 apt - security update on 2014-09-21 11:55 (#2SPS)

I disable password authentication entirely in favor of SSH keys. I believe that this is now the default in Ubuntu (since Trusty.) From the Ubuntu wiki:
To be as hard to guess as a normal SSH key, a password would have to contain 634 random letters and numbers.

I dare you to do better (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in uselessd - a fork of systemd on 2014-09-20 22:15 (#2SP1)

Seems the best way to promote new development is to release something that fails or that everyone despises.

OpenSSL fails -> LibreSSL released; upstream cleanup and fixes pushed out.
TrueCrypt closes -> DoxBox released.
Gnome sucks -> XFCE, LXDE, and other alternative desktops benefit.
Upstart falls short -> systemd developed.
systemd despised -> a number of new init development projects emerge.

Re: Economics Still Not Quite There? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by bryan@pipedot.org in California Basking in Record Amount of Electricity from Solar on 2014-09-20 21:45 (#2SNT)

A little surprised your payback is that long even though the investment was under $10K.
Ya, I live in an area with very cheap electricity. With my bill previously only being $85 a month, it takes a while to pay off $9000.
What about that reliance on the remote Internet service for all monitoring and reporting? What happens if they go out of business? I'd much rather see a local option.
I would too. That's why I slurp the data off their servers into my own database every day. If they go out of business, I'll at least still have my current data set. Of course, their own webpage is set up to display the statistic data too - I'm sure a lot of their customers wouldn't have the ability/desire to code up their own database and host a web interface like I did.
Your Leaf comparison is a bit slanted. That's a $30,000 car versus my well equipped 35mpg gas econobox that cost less than half that.
I totally agree that the Leaf is more expensive than similar sized ICE cars. Sure, I'd rather have only spent $15-20k on it, but I really wanted an electric plug in vehicle. When I bought my VW Jetta new in 2002, I swore that it would be my last gas-powered vehicle. For many years, while all the major car manufacturers totally ignored EVs, I dreaded having to go the home-made route and build everything myself if my Jetta ever died. But then Tesla happened. The Prius became popular. Nissan bet big on the Leaf, and even Chevy came out with the Volt.

So, I was already looking to replace my 12 year old car with something... Here are the models that I test-drove/researched:
  • Plug in Prius (nearly no range on EV alone due to small 4.4 kWh battery)
  • Chevy Volt (over $50k and little more than a hybrid with a small battery)
  • Tesla Model S (nice, but too expensive for my blood, sorry)
  • Nissan Leaf (correct range, zero emissions, heck of a lot cheaper than a Tesla)
Obviously, I picked the Leaf. The U.S. has a nice $7,500 federal rebate on the first "X" number of EV cars produced for each model. I was expecting to keep driving my ageing Jetta for a few more years, but the "X" number was just about to be reached for the Leaf. So I bought the bullet a little early so that I could get the full federal rebate.

Re: Economics Still Not Quite There? (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in California Basking in Record Amount of Electricity from Solar on 2014-09-20 10:34 (#2SN8)

I've added some info on my solar installation to my journal:

Solar Power - Part 1
Solar Power - Part 2
Solar Power - Part 3

Also, you can view my hourly production stats since August 2013 in a neat graphical form or the raw table form.

I'd miss too many shows (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in TV antennas - OTA HDTV reception on 2014-09-20 02:57 (#2SN1)

Very informative and cost effective if you can live with just the basic channels. Unfortunately, because a lot of the shows that I enjoy are aired only on cable channels, I'm afraid I'd miss out on too much.

Game of Thrones (HBO), Dexter (Showtime), Defiance (SyFy), etc...

I would still forgo the cable subscription (I've never had one) and instead get a Netflix DVD plan. This way you get both TV and movies at the full Bluray 1080p quality with no censorship (cursewords, altered scenes, etc) and no commercials.

Re: Outdated Android / iOS Poll (Score: 2, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Mobile Devices I own/use on 2014-09-18 18:54 (#2SK1)

Very easily. Unlike Android, Apple has always allowed older iPhones1 to update to the newer iOS versions using the built-in app store update process. When I turned on my phone this morning, it had a notification dialog saying something like "iOS 8 is available. Do you want to update now?"

1 Older models up to a point (3-4 versions back). The original iPhone, for example, doesn't get iOS 8 today like the 4's, 5's, and 6's.

Re: Lithium (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Mining Lithium from sea water... on 2014-09-16 17:53 (#2SFM)

Barring any revolutionary advances in the field, lithium batteries are our current best energy storage technology for mobile applications (i.e. phones, laptops, electric cars) and will be our best bet for the foreseeable future. If we are ever to wain ourselves off of fossil fuels, we must implement, in large scale, renewable energy storage.

Simply put, if everyone in the U.S. decided to junk their gas guzzler and buy an electric vehicle, there simply wouldn't be enough known lithium deposits on this planet to handle the demand. In fact, according to the popular Do the Math blog, not even known lead deposits (for the older lead-acid batteries) would be enough.

Re: Story Missing? (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in ZFS on Linux on 2014-09-13 12:04 (#2SCC)

Small bug when I added "-" to the list of allowed characters in a URL for a title. Should be fixed now.

Re: This Thread Has Gone Underground (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Stanford Engineer Aims to Connect the World with Ant-Sized Radios on 2014-09-13 07:20 (#2SC6)

Fixed.

Re: Lost Messiah (Score: 2, Insightful)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Lots of folks are having a laugh at Apple on 2014-09-12 18:41 (#2SBN)

Jobs would never have allowed a protruding camera bezel that makes the entire phone wobble when placed flat on a desk.

Re: Spoken language (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in New Sailor Moon Dub is online on 2014-09-11 04:14 (#2S9H)

Young kids shouldn't have a problem reading the predicable dialog in Sailor Moon. Honestly, they wouldn't even have to read for long as they would learn many of the words and start to become fluent in the language.

Watch an episode of Sailor Moon, or better yet a better series like Card Captor Sakura with the orginal Japanese dialog and with the subtitles turned off. Even with no previous experience, even adults should be able to pick up a few words and begin the process of learning the foreign language.

Re: so this means (Score: 3, Interesting)

by bryan@pipedot.org in New Sailor Moon Dub is online on 2014-09-11 02:52 (#2S9B)

Other recommended examples:
  • Denno Coil - Augmented reality (think future Google glass)
  • Stratos 4 - Shooting down a group of comets before they impact Earth
  • Twin Spica - Astronaut training school
  • Chobits - Kawaii robot companions
  • Cowboy Bebop - Bounty hunters in space (think Firefly)

Re: so this means (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in New Sailor Moon Dub is online on 2014-09-11 02:39 (#2S9A)

Slashdot has had an "anime" topic since forever. Many anime series include hard sci-fi topics, such as space-junk, Internet, cybernetics, and the obligatory giant robots!

Surely at least some geeks are interested in these things, ne?

Re: What's a fella like me supposed to do?!?!?! (Score: 2, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Skylake graphics do not have VGA connector support on 2014-09-11 01:50 (#2S98)

Both Broadwell and Skylake will use the same 14 nm process node. Because process node shrinks benefit power usage (important for mobile) the most, a Broadwell model is a reasonable choice. Similarly, ultrabooks like the Macbook use ultra low power DDR3 ram already. The voltage drop is the main difference between DDR3 and DDR4 for laptop usage.

The one thing you would want to wait on Skylake for is HDMI 2.0. If you plan on connecting a 4K HDMI external monitor to your laptop, Broadwell will not be able to run it at 60Hz. Broadwell can push 4K at 30Hz over HDMI (the older version), which is fine for movies but will feel sub-optimal for general desktop use. Or you could use Display Port to get 4K@60Hz by using the fancy chaining feature of Display Port (your screen is actually split into 2 lower resolution virtual panels, but the signal is still routed through the same cable.) Also note that Apple screens use a Thunderbolt cable, which means Display Port will be used. HDMI is far more common in the non-apple world.

Here is an example of a new native HDMI 2.0 4K screen.

Re: "Everyone's"? (Score: 2, Funny)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Celebrity Nude Selfies hack: not a technical problem, everyone's problem on 2014-09-10 23:36 (#2S90)

Nobody understands the cloud!
Probably the best quote from that movie. :)

Re: Spoken language (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in New Sailor Moon Dub is online on 2014-09-10 23:31 (#2S8Z)

I own a few region 2 anime discs that wouldn't play in my standalone region 1 player or my computer drive. I eventually broke down and bought an expensive "region free" DVD player that the manufacturer had to specially modify - just so that I could watch my discs.

The whole region locking thing really is a pain.

Spoken language (Score: 3, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org in New Sailor Moon Dub is online on 2014-09-10 22:17 (#2S8V)

I'm a big fan of watching media in its original native language. Japanese animation should always be watched with the original Japanese audio. Subtitles are nearly always available, and preferable to dubbing, if you don't understand the native language.

Anime fan-subbing is perhaps the world's largest subtitling community. With high quality releases of popular titles mere days after airing, the fan-subbed versions often far surpass the quality of the eventual commercial release.

But what about the legality of fan-subs? Well... the content industry shot itself in the foot on that front. When digital video came out (LaserDisk, DVD, Bluray, etc) the industry divided the world into different "regions." U.S. and Canada are region 1, Japan and Europe are region 2, and Australia and South America are stuck in region 4. The idea being, they can charge different prices for the same content to different areas of the world. Charging higher prices to wealthier countries is, of course, illegal under free trade agreements - but something being illegal never stopped the content industry! However, this also brings up a small window of time, where a work is released in region 2, but not available for purchase in region 1. During this window, animation companies normally turn a blind eye to fan-subbing groups - as long as they promise to cease distribution once the official commercial license is finalized.

Two for one (Score: 2, Insightful)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Take vitamins or no? Controversy supercedes the studies on 2014-09-09 07:19 (#2S6D)

Instead of taking a vitamin pill, eat a bowl of cold cereal. Most of the major brands have all evolved into being essentially a multivitamin served with milk.

Re: I'm still okay with taking them (Score: 2, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Take vitamins or no? Controversy supercedes the studies on 2014-09-09 07:14 (#2S6C)

My optometrist (that I visited mainly because they where allied with the LASIK operation that I undertook) not only advocated vitamins, but a vitamin monthly subscription called "Juice Plus." On my last appointment, they made this sales pitch so obvious that I thought they would also ask me if I wanted a vacuum cleaner, or maybe some Cutco knives. I'm convinced that this doctor's office doesn't really care about the vitamins, but cares more about getting a monthly monetary "cut" from the pill manufacturer for the referral.

I don't visit that doctor anymore.

Re: Hope it doesn't catch on (Score: 2, Insightful)

by bryan@pipedot.org in First Android TVs are out on 2014-09-08 23:20 (#2S64)

I've seen some people get extremely confused when given more than one box under their TV. Try to explain the following1 to a technophobe without pulling out your hair:
  1. First turn on the receiver with the power button on the receiver remote.
  2. Select the "Bluray" input button on the receiver remote.
  3. Next turn on the TV with the power button on the TV remote.
  4. Make sure the TV input source is set to "HDMI 1"
  5. Now turn on the Bluray player.
  6. Insert your Bluray disc that you want to play.
  7. Navigate the Bluray menu using the Bluray remote and find the "Play Movie" button.
1 In my case, the HT setup was much more complex with 2 projectors (one for inside zone, one for outside zone), 2 receivers (one for inside zone, one for outside zone), 1 HDTV flat screen, 1 computer monitor (mirrored with the TV and inside projector), 2 cable boxes (!), 1 Bluray player, 1 iPhone dock, 1 HTPC (xubuntu), 1 NAS (thankfully headless now)

After such a setup, I'm sure having a single "Android TV" with a single remote that does nearly all of the same functions, but all in one device, would be a welcome change indeed.

Points (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in The King of Scrabble on 2014-09-08 01:17 (#2S4T)

From the Scrabble Rules:
1 Point - A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T and U.
4 Points - F, H, V, W and Y.
8 Points - J and X.
Blank tiles have no point value.
So he got 1 extra point for the extra vowel. Sucks that he didn't have a real Y, as the blank as a Y is still worth no points.

One of the things I don't like about scrabble is that it doesn't reward fancy words (like "CHLORODYNE") but instead rewards placement of rare letters on special tiles. So you can place 10 character fancy words all night and still get beat by someone placing "OX", where the X is on a tripple letter score square.

First Post (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Hello Journal! on 2014-09-07 10:22 (#2S4B)

First journal comment, y'know, to see if it works and doesn't blow up or anything.

Stick to the basics (Score: 3, Insightful)

by bryan@pipedot.org in You may call me a .... thank you very much on 2014-09-05 00:25 (#2S2S)

Nothing wrong with "nerd" or "geek"

Longtime reader (Score: 2, Interesting)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Anand Lal Shimpi makes the move from tech journalism to Apple on 2014-09-02 07:28 (#2RZN)

As a longtime reader of Anandtech, I hope that Anand leaving doesn't spell the end of such a nice tech news site.

I've always considered Anandtech to be the best site for computer hardware and in-depth reviews. The difference between Anandtech and, for example, Tom's Hardware, is just uncompareable.

Oblig. (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in If we're going to post more science stories here, hope they're in the field of: on 2014-09-01 22:41 (#2RZA)

Don't forget homeopathy!

Web Browsing (Score: 3, Interesting)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Tablet sales are down; PC sales are up. What the heck? on 2014-09-01 22:36 (#2RZ9)

Some say that the web is the killer app for tablets. Unfortunately, I find modern websites very hard to use on my own tablet. Even though I have a newer 4 core tablet with a couple gigs of RAM, the device still struggles with the JavaScript laden sites so common on today's web. Also, some JavaScript navigation widgets, such as the venerable drop-down menu, are just impossible to use on a touchscreen without a mouse.

Long story short, I'd much rather browse the web on a desktop than try to suffer through the slower tablet experience.

Re: YubiKey (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in When will the era of passwords come to an end? on 2014-09-01 22:22 (#2RZ8)

YubiKey link.

YubiKey (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in When will the era of passwords come to an end? on 2014-09-01 22:22 (#2RZ7)

I've been contemplating adding YubiKey support to Pipedot. A YubiKey is a physical device, about the size of a USB thumb drive, that has one button on the top and acts like a USB keyboard. Unlike other "authenticators", when you want to sign in somewhere, instead of manually relaying a random code from a keyfob or smartphone, you simply press the button and the YubiKey generates and types a secure one-time code for you.

Would anyone else be interested in such a device? They would cost about $25 each and could be used on other sites that support them as well.

This just in! (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in This is what electric car owners are doing while you sleep on 2014-09-01 21:52 (#2RZ6)

Larger footprint homes can consume more electricity than smaller homes!

Who'd 'a thunk it?

test (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Spam on 2014-09-01 03:53 (#2RYF)

test

Re: Written form is in decline? (Score: 2, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Usenet and the origins of social exchange on the Internet on 2014-08-31 20:47 (#2RY7)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law

Fixed.

Re: profile settings (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in The experiment with feeding Soylent articles: your comments! on 2014-08-27 18:36 (#2QTT)

the comments seem to alternate (randomly?) between blue and green bar backgrounds--what's the logic behind this?
For more information on the "history" colors: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-05-13/read-it

Re: Fixed link (Score: 2, Interesting)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Truecrypt is dead. Long Live DoxBox. on 2014-08-27 12:37 (#2QKP)

Fixed. And keep up the good work ^^; I'm pretty sure a lot of ex-TrueCrypt users will love being able to flock to using this project.

Re: Haha... but seriously (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Pipedot Caught Plagiarizing Copyrighted Content on 2014-08-27 08:52 (#2QHM)

One of the goals of this site was the self-hosting ability of the software. Ideally, anyone should be able to fire up a copy of Pipecode on their own web server and immediately have access to the existing collection of stories and comments submitted by the community. Similar to the venerable Usenet of that long lost September, the canonical website (Pipedot.org, SoylentNews.org, etc..) is simply a "viewer" of the underlying network. If all the users in the community have access to the entire database, problems such as the recent "beta" debacle simply cannot occur. If any one site becomes obnoxious towards its users, the users can simply switch to a different portal of the network.

Re: Windows? (Score: 4, Interesting)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Truecrypt is dead. Long Live DoxBox. on 2014-08-25 09:40 (#1QAY)

A non-free OS can never be secure. This isn't trolling or fanboyism, it's just plain obvious.

Backdoor? Phone-home routine? There is just no easy way to tell without the source. Plus, there is no way to fix it without being able to legally modify and run your own fixes.

Re: Don't you know? (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in I'm reading Pipedot from: on 2014-08-24 02:04 (#412)

Although I tested both IPv4 and IPv6 geolocation lookups, my own IPv6 addresses merely report back "United States" and lack the normal City-level precision of the IPv4 records. Because I'm using MaxMind's GeoLite Free database, I believe that the IPv6 portion isn't nearly as complete as the IPv4 portion.

Re: Don't you know? (Score: 4, Insightful)

by bryan@pipedot.org in I'm reading Pipedot from: on 2014-08-21 00:42 (#406)

Third party trackers, like Google Analytics, go against the Privacy Statement of this site and will never be seen here.

Of course, that applies more to the third party part than the analyze part. Some parts of pipecode, such as the recently added short code links, do record some statistics and are, in fact, using IP geolocation to plot where people are browsing from. For example, the short code for this poll is: http://pipedot.org/3ZH and it's statistic page is: http://pipedot.org/3ZH+

Re: Ambiguity (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org in I'm reading Pipedot from: on 2014-08-21 00:30 (#405)

I prefer the "select a nearby city" method of selecting your timezone. The "GMT minus X" method is off by 1 hour for half the year. But if I select "America/Chicago", I know that I'll always get Central Time as defined by the current political tweaking. Those politicians seem to like to change when Daylight Saving Time starts a lot.
  • Eastern: America/New_York
  • Central: America/Chicago
  • Mountain: America/Denver
  • Pacific: America/Los_Angeles
  • British Time: Europe/London
  • Central Europe Time: Europe/Paris
  • Eastern Europe Time: Europe/Athens

Re: Poll broken in Konqueror? (Score: 2, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Smartest Corporate Acquisition on 2014-08-19 03:01 (#3Z7)

When you see the poll on the side bar of the front page, the poll box will automatically toggle between the vote page and the results/comment page depending on if you've voted already.
Unfortunately, the Monday Poll article had the link set to go directly to the results/comment page.

I changed the link in the article to point to the vote page instead.

No Dice (Score: 2)

by bryan@pipedot.org in Smartest Corporate Acquisition on 2014-08-18 23:04 (#3Z4)

You forgot Dice buying Slashdot, SourceForge, and FreeCode/FreshMeat for only $20M.

Seems almost insignificant with all the recent acquisitions being in the Billions.
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