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publicSensitivity - anyone can see this
I'm sure most of you have heard the news by now about Wikipedia blacking out their homepage in opposition to SOPA, or have at least noticed Google's blacked out logo. If you really want to understand why this matters to you personally, there's a very well articulated lecture by lawyer Lawrence Leesig in an easily watched video. That man is a genius. This is from 2002, but you'll understand SOPA and the Protect IP Act better than most of the news reporters who are currently talking about Wikipedia if you watch it: --> http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/free.html <--
The money trail's not surprising considering that SOPA/Protect-IP suddenly have bipartisan support with 27 Republicans sponsors. This immediately follows virtually unanimous Republicans opposition to Net Neutrality because (the punchline): they don't want to regulate the Net. Do the math. A new lip-reading app for the iPhone will help deaf people communicate. The app, "iSee uTalk" will allow deaf people who are able to lip read see the mouth and lips of a caller as they speak. A development version of iSee uTalk, expected to be released later this year, will also include mouth-to-text technology to render text for deaf people who are unable to lip-read on their own. The new lip-to-text technology is intended to replace aging TTY technology on cell phones, which gives the deaf and hard of hearing a text-based system for communicating over phone lines among themselves or with hearing individuals. "The problem is that TTY systems are expensive and bulky. Our App aims to solve both problems," said Derrick Crawford, head developer for iSee uTalk. Currently, the TTY unit resembles a laptop computer with a keyboard, a display screen and a modem. The user types his message, and the letters are converted into electrical signals that travel over the phone line. The new lip-reading technology utilizes the touch screen itself, eliminating the bulk that TTY systems currently require. The caller merely needs to mash their iPhone against their face while speaking, and the touch sensitive screen will interpret the movements and render an image or text for the deaf person to see. The entire system will be available as an app available for download from the Apple app store. -- I have upgraded the core of this site to Drupal 6.x. The previous version 5.x was old and quickly nearing the end of its support. Most functionality has been restored and even a few minor issues corrected. Here's a couple pictures of the newborn kittens a friend and I rescued after its stray mother abandoned them (click "Read More" to see more). Of the five original kittens, only the black has survived (the white one below really was trying but still had to be put down because of necrotic tissue). Baby kittens are born blind and deaf and are entirely dependent on their mother for all aspects of survival - they can not even urinate on their own. That means it has needed to be fed and stimulated every 2-3 hours, a process that feels like has taken months. Fortunately, now that it's in its third week, it's at least able to be left alone for 6 hours at night. It is now twice its original weight and continuing to grow. I'll post more pictures later. UPDATE 3/23/2011: "Ninja", the black kitten, is still alive and doing very well. She will play with everything that moves (or that she makes move, if she can not find anything).. and is anything from a purring tribble-like ball of cuteness who crawls on my bed next to me for a nap to a hissing monster rebellious demon-possessed.. well.. you can probably imagine. She's definitely worth the trouble though. :)
I recently heard a comment from someone that said what's the worst that could happen if their computer got infected. After all, so what? While I won't explain the context further, here's the reality. You can't even pretend to have a secure computer when a criminal has control of it. You might as well leave for work with your front door unlocked or store your keys on the hood of your car. What's the worst that could happen? It costs you and others money. It can even put people in danger. Someone who would see nothing wrong with leaving their keys on their car could reasonably be said to have no concept of physical security. Sadly, with computers it seems most people assume their anti-virus software will protect them. When's the last time you updated Adobe Flash/Reader/Java? Did you know that's all you have to do to protect yourself from a lot of attacks? Is Windows Update even turned on? I've helped enough friends with their computers to know that a lot of people haven't installed a single update the entire time they've had their computer. It's fun watching 80 download all at once. Take some simple steps to protect yourself and it might spare you a lot of frustration later. My URL Sniffer now has the ability to download an encrypted zip file of a target URL instead of just displaying the html source (the target URL can be anything including actual executables - encrypted zip files are necessary for submitting malware samples to some antivirus vendors and other legitimate parties, and also to prevent accidental infection of your own computer). Additionally, very simple html syntax highlighting has also been added for the source view. Check it out: The PHP/Javascript implementation for this page has been independently developed by David Martin and has nothing in common with web-sniffer other than some superficial design elements. This script should be considered a beta. It works well for some sites and completely times out for others. I do not yet know why. Please use this for backup / testing. Updates: 9/9/2010 - Added two additional request types. 8/26/2010 - Minor fix to default referrer string (use IE8 instead of IE6). Warning - if a download is larger than 3MB then the rest will be truncated without any warning. This will be fixed in the future by adding a warning to the downloaded filename. 8/24/2010 - Added ability to download an encrypted zip instead (eg if grabbing malicious code). The default file names will be based off the content being downloaded. Raised limits to 3MB if downloading and 150 KB if viewing source. Changed the referrer field to match the style used on the rest of form. Custom user agents/referrers now default to the previously used values if the form was previously submitted with custom values. Other minor fixes. 8/14/2010 - added basic html syntax highligting. It has trouble displaying javascript content-types, so it automatically reverts to php's highlight_string() like before as needed to display the results. 8/13/2010 - fixed IE8 user agent 2/20/2010 - added an appropriate IE8 user agent, max download increased to 100 KB, URL field updated, entering a blank user agent now selects 'none' instead of 'custom user agent' 8/13/2009 - updated the IE6 user agent to something more.. appropriate 8/1/2009 - now using php's highlight_string() to parse code. It only highlights PHP not HTML, but it still produces cleaner output. 8/1/2009 - launched *edit* 
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Date: 10/30/2008 Automatic ChecksCyrix server: offline dwmsyron (AIM): offline GPS age: 2+ weeks Click each item for more information. |
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