Zaephyr

Well done! Both for the app and seeing the fight through. All of us would be lucky to have people as dedicated as you and your team in our cities.

Airships, particularly rigid airships (Zeppelins), are massive and it's the mass that becomes a problem. The airship is inflated to a state of neutral buoyancy so it floats and can hang in the sky (cool!) but the mass has to be dealt with when you want to start, stop, or change direction. I believe that the Hindenburg required a ground crew of ~200 to control the airship during landing and mooring. It's also a problem in flying in the vicinity of strong storms.

You also have to maintain the neutral buoyancy as you burn fuel. Zeppelins could use diesel but the preference was for 'blau gas' which had a density close to air, and didn't cause the airship to lighten as it was burned. Maintaining buoyancy also complicates using an airship as a freighter; an offsetting load is needed when making a delivery, otherwise you end up venting your lifting gas.

All that said, if I had the money I'd totally blow it building a Zeppelin-style (and size) airship.

FB's security people likely track and have copies of account/password dumps from site breeches. Sort of like Troy Hunt does with haveibeenpwned.com but for their own internal security measures.

Well, he is the author of both.

Your link is a more in depth version of his position. Thx!

Also, business used to have have counter checks available for customers (if they took checks). Basically a standard blank form, sort of like what banks have for withdrawals but were less formal. Sometimes mentioned in 70's TV shows/movies like Columbo.

Given that recent reporting has shown that ads and tracking are the biggest culprits in page load times, AMP appears to be solving an ad/tracking problem more than a web page problem.

He does work in corp sec trying to stop spearphishers who target food processors. I think the point is to educate other IT staff while trying convince MS to provide more security controls for OLE. Glad to see doc on the ShowOLEPackageObj reg key which I was unaware. EMET also helpful.

The author is obviously smart and dedicated - and I’d probably be forced to terminate him. He is an non-supervisory employee, who has not been given administrative access to these computers. He created and deployed a program to other computers without permission that actively thwarted attempts to be shutdown, and modified it get around a GPO that was more than likely pushed out because of what he was doing. This is malware - for a good purpose but still an undesirable application being run without permission.

If the company has decided that computers need to be locked when away from keyboard there will be a policy and procedure for reporting and dealing infractions. This won’t be it. While in this case the program might have been mostly harmless, one never knows when a programming error might spin things out of control. It’s clever, funny to some, but if it accidentally resulted in downtime the stuff the flows downhill would come fast and be unpleasant in some organizations. Plus, annoying your teammates isn’t the best idea long term. I know this may seem harsh, but from my experience organizations with the most need for this security would be the least likely to approve of this method.

The purchase page says that it for non-commercial use; no link to a commercial version. Looks like it is still free in the App Store FWIW.

So... Ad researchers have rebranded Gen Y?? That's kind of funny.

(Also shows how much attention I was paying. I thought there were Boomers, X's, Y's, and Millenials)

The other important points influencing the decision were the amount of time spent examining the hard drive and extensive detail of the search.

"...that wherever the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals eventually draws the precise boundary of a routine border search, or however either Court ultimately defines a forensic – as opposed to a conventional – computer search, this search was qualitatively and quantitatively different from a routine border examination, and therefore, it was unreasonable given the paucity of grounds to suspect that criminal activity was in progress."

No downvote from me however...

If you want email and privacy, you need to encrypt.

Email is as secure like a postcard; at least that is what we use tell the people that wanted to append long email disclaimers.

I think it is hard to say how this will play out. Maybe the author is right and people will care less about their domain name, or it could be become one of several presence items that companies use to reach customers.

For instance, the US toll-free numbers continue to increase (now 6 exchanges) despite the decline of metered toll service and payphones.

An interesting article for both the application of tools ans people to solve a problem and the pictures. I had to go through the article twice because the first time I stopped reading and just enjoyed the photos.

Following Schneier's link to Gigaom it's pretty hard to get the choice to opt out - even if one already knows it exists.

Also of note for those new to Pope Hat, Ken White is a former Federal Prosecutor. His perspective from both sides of federal law makes for some interesting posts.

That makes a lot sense and is pretty cool. Thanks!

The Internet is a necessity. That doesn't make actions like these less creepy.

Having no background in plants or genetics -

In my experience most systems are a series of tradeoffs. Even though C4 has evolved over 70 times, are there advantages conveyed by C3 or is C3 just easier to evolve?

From her tweets and other posts it sounds like she was broke with no place live. A difficult situation even before getting into legal trouble.

So is the breakthrough just the pre-cooler, or the pre-cooler together with the scimitar engine?

It sounds like the innovation is the helium pre-cooler, but even at that it's hard for me to understand whether their advancements are in working with liquid helium for a coolant or in the airflow cooling (both)?

I don't do anything remotely like this in my day job.

A very interesting article. For me two key statements come toward the end.

"Did you know that at high altitude, the brain goes through metabolic changes, and some people can adapt while others can't, based on their DNA?"[Renshaw]

"Renshaw, too, is confident his findings are beyond the realm of a fluke, but he isn't willing to dismiss other explanations for the suicide-altitude connection, including studies on gun access. Multiple overlapping factors, he says, are likely in play."

Cool idea. If each PGP character is mapped to one (or more each) noun, verb, adjective, and adverb one could construct a message that looked like boring text but was actually encrypted.

Fascinating article. I was only aware of the 4 major blood types plus Rh±, it's also inspiring the efforts people will make to help others.

Great video on the bio-mechanics of round shield fighting. At 33m I wasn't sure I was going to watch it all; turned out it was fascinating.

I really enjoy Hexiled. Glad you were able to take down the copycat. Wish you continued success with your apps.

United States v. Causby 328 U.S. 256 (1946)

It is possible depending on the area. Overflight is permitted in Navigable Airspace. In rural areas flight below 500 feet above ground level is prohibited in general. Note drones are still a grey area as the FAA has not issued rules covering them.

The Supreme Court has found flight below 90' trespass, but did not rule on where navigable airspace begins. (In this specific case somewhere above 83').

Also note that while you can build to significant heights in the airspace above your property; if the FAA finds your structure to be a hazard to air navigation you will find it near impossible to get liability insurance. Often cell towers are built just short of 200' AGL so a determination doesn't have to be made under FAR77.

Again, it's a complex issue and I'm speaking generally about (FAA defined) rural areas. Urban areas have different rules and standards.

Too late, the telemarketers already (effectively) doing this.

VoIP# -> unpublished home line (+ Mobile)

Home line 'protected' from autodialers by old fax machine, 4 rings then silence. Only political calls seem undeterred.

I thought the Tolkien family was famously aggressive about enforcing JRR's copyrights.

I am surprised that Palantir Technologies hasn't received a C&D from the Estate; though perhaps the copyrights don't extend that far? Is that a risk for this project?

Regardless, this sounds like software that could be very useful for some of the work I'm involved in. Exciting to see the positive review here. Will have to check it out.